Miracle at St. Anna (Movie Tie-in) by James McBride Read Free Book Online

past the sleeping man’s brow lest it awaken him and be smacked clean into space.
    The myth goes that he was a young shepherd who had fallen in love with a shepherdess long ago, but she was in love with a young sailor who was at sea. Despite his constant pleas and beautiful gifts, the maiden refused the shepherd’s entreaties and offer of marriage, so he vowed to wait until she changed her mind. He waited for years and years, but the young maiden never relented. She sat high in the mountains staring at the sea—so he lay on his back and stared at the sky, vowing to block her view of the sea until she changed her mind, angry that she would not acknowledge the love he so freely demonstrated. And there he lies to this day, sleeping, waiting, his huge chest blocking out the sun, his massive forehead nearly touching the moon, his thick hair crusted with snow, and most of all, those furious eyes which, from a distance, appear to be two eyes, but up close are only one eye and a true geological miracle: a huge oval encirclement of rock that rises up to the height of a five-story building. If he has the courage, a man can stand inside the sleeping giant’s eye, at the dead center of the circle, and gaze at the roofs of every village in the Serchio Valley below. And if he has the courage and listens closely, he can also hear the thunderous pounding of the giant’s angry broken heart.
    It was within the sleeping giant’s eye that the German forces of Albert Kesselring’s 168th Panzer SS Division, among the most dreaded and fearsome warriors that ever walked the face of Europe, placed four regiments—fourteen thousand men in total—to plan a surprise attack on the exhausted and thinning ranks of American Negroes of the 92nd Buffalo Division, so named by the Native Americans who saw the first black cavalry as having hair akin to that of their beloved buffalo. And it was Kesselring’s forces that Colonel Jack Driscoll of the 92nd Division saw in a fuzzy aerial photograph in his intelligence report nine hours after the failed Cinquale Canal attack that separated Sam Train from reality and diced four companies of the 92nd into bits.
    Driscoll sat outside his pup tent glaring at the photo and reading the intelligence report as roaring jeeps, growling tanks, and harried colored soldiers rushed all around him. Tall, slender, thirty, Boston-born, with a lean face and blue eyes that always held steady, Driscoll, his thin frame folded onto a crate, reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette, ignoring the bustle around him. What’s the point in hurrying now? he thought bitterly as he glanced at the soldiers and tanks hurrying past. All the fun’s over.
    The Cinquale was a disaster, as he knew it would be. It was par for the course with the 92nd Division, where nothing ever went right. Someone had the bright idea that an end run could be made around the Ligurian Sea to avoid mines the Germans had placed from the coastal plains all the way up through the Apuane Alps and into the Serchio Valley. To try to take the canal without securing the high ground on the other side seemed such a stupid idea that Driscoll was surprised anyone would want to take credit for it, but he was there when General Parks, his superior by two ranks, had outlined the plan. Driscoll had no respect for Parks. The man had run a successful undertaker’s business before the war, and as far as Driscoll could tell, he was just ringing up future business. Now here they were, nine hours into the Cinquale Canal, and the jig was up. Fourteen tanks from the 597th and 598th field artillery units were all shot up. The beachhead was extended all of a thousand yards inland, thirty-three men were dead, 187 wounded, and the fuzzy aerial photograph in his lap showed at least a division-sized group of regiments sitting in place four miles away. It wasn’t possible. He didn’t believe the photo.
    He lit the cigarette and