Only forgiveness could slap a bandage on that wound so it could heal. Clay had to take that hard step and write his brothers. Since he didn’t have their addresses, he’d send the letters home for his parents to forward.

The shore drew near. A naval shell slammed into the cliff, spewing out a geyser of dust and rock.

“All right, sailor boys,” Clay muttered. “Time to let up.”

They must have heard him, because the noise fell away.

Beside Clay, Lt. Bill Taylor leaned his elbow over the left front corner of the LCA. “Let’s hope the Rangers’ bad luck doesn’t follow us today.”

“Bad luck?” Clay frowned at the platoon commander.

“Didn’t you hear?” Ernie McKillop nudged Clay from behind. “Fellow in the 5th Rangers told me. Right after we left Braunton, they found another dead girl.”

“What?” Clay stared into McKillop’s wide-set eyes.

“Stabbed and naked and dumped at sea.”

Stabbed. Most likely raped. A weight crushed Clay’s chest, like when he’d wrestled Leah’s attacker.

His gaze swept the Rangers, found Frank Lyons behind McKillop, and locked on him.

Lyons stared back, then his face went flat and still. He blinked and glanced away.

Clay’s breath rushed out. He turned to Gene on his right, who looked as alarmed as he felt, then to Taylor. “Is Colonel Rudder looking into this, sir?” he asked in a low voice.

“Why?” Taylor’s square chin drew back. “It wasn’t a Ranger. The girl’s boyfriend was the town drunk, always fighting with her and everyone else. Sure enough, he skipped town when she disappeared. Last I heard, they were still looking for him.”

“All right.” Clay drummed his fingers on the bow ramp in time to his racing heartbeat. It wasn’t a Ranger, wasn’t Frank Lyons. But the man still made the hairs on his arms stand at attention under his field jacket.

A scraping sound on the bottom of the LCA.

“Here we go, men!” Taylor yelled.

The ramp of the LCA creaked open and thumped onto the beach, splashing Clay with cold water.

Clay roared and charged forward, pounding down the steel ramp and across the beach, pebbles giving way beneath him.

Nothing to shoot, but he held his M1 Garand rifle ready. Teams of men set up equipment and fired rockets. With sharp booms, grapnels shot into the air, trailing rope.

Clay eyed the grapnels as he ran. They disappeared over the edge of the cliff, and the ropes flopped against the cliff face. Some were plain rope and some had toggles.

He slung his rifle over his shoulder, grabbed a plain rope, and shimmied up, bracing his feet against the cliff as he went.

“This is nothing,” Gene said from a toggled rope beside him.

“No fooling.” Maybe fifty feet tall and not too steep, a cliff the Rangers could scale with bare hands.