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

The statue head was gone.
    He turned around just as two more Germans appeared from a clump of bushes about a quarter of a mile away up the ridge and began to run at him. He stood, frozen for a moment, looking back at the statue head, which had fallen out of the netting and had rolled back to the barn near the kid, who was now writhing around. Train was still out of range. He had time to go back and get it. But with the rifle in his left hand, his free hand could grab only one.
    Which?
    The boy.
    Or the statue head.
    The boy.
    Or the head.
    He stepped back and grabbed the statue head and ran toward the canal. He saw what appeared to be the back of a German soldier wading out of the canal and disappearing into the woods on the opposite side, so he turned around and ran the other way, past the barn, toward an olive grove that was downstream and behind it.
    The boy was still lying near the beam in the destroyed barn when Train sprinted by crazily the second time. Train ignored the boy, hearing rounds kicking up on all sides of him.
    The black Americans from F Company had made a fight of it farther up, where the canal was shallower, and had driven the Germans back across to Train’s side. They lay out of range, on their stomachs on the bank across the creek, and could see Train leaping and running through the high mountain grass, holding the head of the statue like a football as machine-gun fire, bullets, and artillery shells chewed up the earth all around him. From across the creek, some of them laughed.
    Train was all the way to the safety of the olive grove when he looked back and saw the kid, scrambling in wounded, terrified confusion, desperately trying to drag himself over the wooden beam and deeper into the safety of the barn rubble. The kid had somehow managed to maneuver the upper part of his body across the beam but could go no farther. Chocolate was smeared on his face. His tiny arms frantically clung to the beam, and his legs kicked to no avail. Machine-gun and artillery fire began to kick around the barn, and the Germans began to walk artillery shelling toward it.
    This action prompted a round of cursing and vicious fire from F Company on the American side, who could see the boy but could not reach him. The German gunners in their artillery positions high up on the opposite slope could not see the boy at all, and the desperate urgency of the American firing propelled them to direct their cannon blasts at the boy with an even greater fury.
    In that moment, Train realized he had to go back.
    He strapped his rifle to his back and, still holding the statue head, leaped out from the grove. As he sprinted across the field again, the Americans across the creek gave covering fire. But their attempt at protection didn’t matter. It came on him again. True and real. Invisibility. He could’ve walked over there with an ice cream cone like it was Sunday morning after church. Nothing would touch him. He could see better, hear better, smell better. There was no noise, no pain, no fear. He felt the rush of fresh Tuscan morning air on his face, heard every bush, every tree, every rock, which seemed to speak to him, shake his hand, saying, Hello, Sam Train. Good morning, Sam Train. We love you, Sam Train. What can we do to help you out today, Mr. Sam Train?
    This, he thought as he leaped over rocks and gullies, is what it must feel like to be white.
    He snatched the kid in one long arm and ran for the cover of the olive grove again. Every single tree, branch, bush, and rock was smoking with lead and cordite as he ran. Bullets and shells smacked against the plants and trees, which fell en masse, as if a giant lawn mower were sweeping the plains, and as he ran he heard them cry out. Since they had spoken kindly to him and he knew they could not speak to anyone but him, he howled for them, for he knew they depended on him to tell the world of their pain, since his invisibility made him privy to their feelings whereas the rest