Free The Caprices by Sabina Murray

little-fisted leaves and the ground was spongy with thaw—had been stalled and then expanded; the brief spring second here was repeated over and over, multiplied within itself and then replicated in a riot of leaves, steam, and fungus. The trees stretched against the very dome of sky. The air was compressed until it dripped down your face. Francino pushed his glasses back up his nose and the column drew to a halt. Sergeant Cole was nervous. He drank some water and squinted around at the men, even though the sunlight wasn’t strong.
    “I need a couple of scouts,” he said.
    Burns had volunteered and somehow it had been decided that Francino would join him. Francino couldn’t figure out if Burns didn’t like his hesitant manner or the fact that he was Italianor both. Burns wasn’t too bright. At first Francino ignored him, but week after week in close quarters had worn down Francino’s indifference. Their animosity had become undeniable.
    Francino and Burns pushed through the undergrowth and circled around some kind of knoll. Francino looked to the edge of the trees. He and Burns had trampled a wide path. If there were Japanese hiding in the dense vines at the edge of the trees, Burns and he would see them, or evidence of them, from where they stood.
    “What do you think?” asked Francino.
    Burns cocked his head and looked off to the right. “I got a feeling.”
    Francino crouched deeper.
    “But I can’t hear nothing.”
    “Still . . .” Francino looked down to where the trees rimmed the vines. Cole had the other men moving carefully into the open. Francino could feel their unease. Cole, Frankel, Smith, Lescault, and Dove. The sun was beginning to burn through the mist.
    Frankel was the first to fall. At first Francino thought Frankel must have hit some wire from the way his head jerked back and his stomach swung out. Francino was still trying to figure out what had happened when he felt Burns’s hand hard on his arm pulling him down. Only then did Francino realize that he had stood up and was standing in clear view of whoever had felled Frankel. Then he was lying on his stomach. His rifle was ready although he wasn’t. Burns was shooting at something saying, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” The target seemed to be moving. Francino tried to clear his mind.
    A flying insect brushed his ear with her wings and Francino thought of the Angel of Death.
    A purple, fist-shaped cloud hovered above him.
    “Where are they?” yelled Burns.
    Where were who?
    There was sputtering fire below them. Someone (Lescault?) was screaming; he was hurt. But Burns and Francino were climbing. They were moving fast, like animals, on all fours. Burns moved ahead. Neither man spoke but Francino could hear each pull of Burns’s breath, although his ears were filled with silence. They moved through the vines. The brush clattered and snapped. Small animals took to the trees, rattling branches high above them. Birds screamed in alarm. Francino scrambled under the trunk of a tree. The soles of Burns’s boots were more worn on the inner edges and Francino tried to think if Burns was knock-kneed, but he could not remember. They moved upward still.
    Burns, sweat pouring off his forehead, turned to Francino and said, “They let us go. They let us go because they knew we were scouts and that the rest of the squad would be moving behind us.”
    Francino’s and Burns’s safe passage had lured the other men into the open. Francino had never considered that, despite his confusion, he had been part of a plan. He was still dazed, under the impression that the two men had encountered a pocket of chaos, all of it accidental and beyond reason.
    “We’ll wait here,” said Burns.
    “Before we circle back and join the others?”
    “The others? They’re all dead.”
    Francino pondered this. “Then what will we wait for?”
    Burns thought they should pick a direction and start walking, which was logical and dangerous for the same reason. The area had no