Miracle at St. Anna (Movie Tie-in) Read Online Free PDF

terrified, Train might have thought to laugh.
    The sound of machine-gun and artillery fire seemed to descend farther down the valley, but Train could still hear moaning nearby from those who’d been shot. Suddenly the enormity of his situation began to collapse on him—he realized he was cut off from everyone and trapped on the wrong side of the canal—and he turned his head away from the boy and started to vomit uncontrollably. The image of Huggs’s face floating in the water seized his mind and wouldn’t let go. Some of Huggs’s brain had splattered on Train’s ear when he was hit—it had looked like oatmeal—and Train rubbed his ear furiously as he vomited, unable to stop.
    After a while, the sun came up full in the sky, and it began to get warmer, and the firing died down. The vomit next to his face began to stink, so Train turned his head the other way and saw the boy lying on his back, eyes still closed, breathing in quick short breaths like something was caught in his throat. Train was afraid the boy would start moaning, but he did not.
    Instead, he tried to sit up.
    Train pulled him down firmly.
    â€œDon’t move no more,” he snapped.
    The boy’s dark eyes widened, and he slid back out of arm’s reach. Train realized his mistake and made a series of shaking motions with his hand to calm the boy. It had no effect. The kid began to whimper softly, and Train could feel panic rippling through his spine.
    He considered shooting the boy. No one would know. He wanted to reach out and cover the boy’s mouth, but he had slid too far away and Train was scared to move. He rubbed the magic statue head at his side quickly to no avail, then desperately searched through his pockets for something to make the kid shut up. His fingers came upon a hand grenade. He shoved that thought from his mind and settled on a wet, mushy chocolate D bar in his front pocket. It was sticky and nearly melted from the canal water and his body heat. He placed it on the ground and, with trembling hands, slid it across to the kid, who stared at it a moment, then grabbed it, sniffed it, and greedily stuffed the whole thing in his mouth, paper, chocolate, mud, everything.
    â€œMore,” the boy said in Italian, his mouth full, licking his fingers.
    Train covered his own lips with a finger to “shhh,” but the kid ignored it.
    â€œMore!” he cried.
    Train rose on his elbows to inch toward him and as he did, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the German soldier trotting nearby. The German wasn’t staggering forward in mad desperation like his fellow soldiers. He was jogging downhill slowly far behind them, as if they all were running to an event at the state fair and he was the last of the pack to get there and didn’t mind it a bit, a sort of not-too-fast, no-need-to-hurry, the-fat-bearded-lady-isn’t-going-anywhere kind of trot. He was ten feet off, his rifle held low, and he was almost past when he suddenly turned in Train’s direction.
    Train and the German saw each other at the same time, and even as Train clumsily swung his M-1 up with his left hand, his head dizzy, hastily propping the gun barrel on the wooden beam, hoping that the safety was off and nearly wetting his pants at the same time, he realized he wasn’t invisible anymore, and he cursed the boy and Bishop, too, for putting the mojo on him. He had found a way to survive the war, and they had ruined it.
    â€œI’m invisible,” he cried, and he shut his eyes and fired, shooting with his left hand and propping himself up with his right. The gun barrel danced wildly, bullets pinging through the wreckage and zinging everywhere.
    The German soldier hesitated for a moment, then dropped like a sack of potatoes. His boots flopped awkwardly in the air and plopped back down to earth again.
    Train sprang to his feet and ran.
    He was ten feet off before he realized the webbing at his side was empty.