Iron Sniper

by David Healey

  Hidden in the hayloft of the barn, lying prone on the dusty wooden floorboards, Rohde was immobile as a snake. He had been there since before dawn, keeping watch over the field as the shadows gave way to day under gray skies. So far, there had been no movement of American troops through the summer grass.

  For a moment, his mind drifted. He thought of his dead brother, Carl. Sometimes, he carried on a conversation with Carl as a way to pass the time on these lonely sniper hunts.

  You would like it here in France, Carl, Rohde thought. In the early morning quiet, up under the rafters of the barn, it almost seemed as if he had spoken his thoughts out loud. The countryside is so peaceful. It reminds me of when we used to hunt rabbits when we were boys. You always thought that you were the better shot, but look at me now. Those rabbits would not stand a chance, Carl!

  The report of a rifle snapped him back to the present. That would be Scheider. The other sniper had placed himself in a copse of trees just to the west of the barn, in order to hold up the movement of American troops on the road that lay just beyond the hedgerow bordering Rohde's field.

  Rodhe had talked with Scheider just that morning before sunrise. Their unit had been there for a few weeks now, and the cooks had settled in, preparing hearty breakfasts from sausages and eggs. It seemed hard to believe that was possible, with the Allies closing in, but here was the delicious-smelling evidence on his plate.

  Now that the American advance had reached this deep into France, the makeshift kitchen would soon be closed, along with the regular offerings of fresh-baked bread and fresh eggs from the surrounding countryside. There was even the occasional offering of ham or bacon.

  French patriotism only went so far, it seemed. Local farmers were eager for a bit of cash or to trade for coffee or other supplies, although there would be hell to pay for trading with the enemy once the Germans cleared out and the vengeful Machi forces took over. They were all Communists—no better than the Russians. But for now, the field kitchen was still in operation, and Rohde stuffed himself in preparation for a long day of action.

  "Hunting again, eh, Rohde? Where are you off to today?" Scheider had asked him around 4 a.m., when they had both run into one another, getting a cup of coffee at the field kitchen set up in a barn.

  "Here and there," Rohde said, not wanting to reveal too much. If he had any rival as a sniper and Jäger, it was Scheider. Short and sturdy, Scheider had once told him that he had grown up in the farm country around Munich, hunting and shooting. He was an excellent shot. Fortunately for Rohde, Hauptmann Fischer evidently found it hard to relate to the earthy farm boy. Scheider himself seemed oblivious to any sense of rivalry. He cut two thick slices of bread and handed one to Rohde.

  Unbidden, a plan came to mind for how he might use Scheider.

  "Have you thought about trying your luck on the road to Saint Dennis de Mere?" Rohde asked.

  A light seemed to go on behind Scheider's eyes. "That is a good plan. Easy pickings. I spotted a copse of trees at a bend in the road yesterday. Perhaps I will set up shop there, unless you were thinking of it.”

  “No, no, you go ahead. You would give the Amis quite a surprise," Rohde said as nonchalantly as possible.

  "How many did you get yesterday?"

  "Six," Rohde said.

  Scheider gave a low whistle as he layered butter on his slice of bread. "If I set up on the road maybe I will get that many today. Or more."

  "Maybe so."

  "Are you sure you don't mind?" Scheider laughed good-naturedly. “You had better watch out, or I will beat your record!"

  "Good luck with that," Rohde said as genially as possible, although Scheider's words made him nervous. He moved off to fill his plate.

  He tended to eat by himself. No one but a fellow Jäger like Scheider was much interested in conversation at four o'clock in the morning. Rohde had found that he liked the time alone, to focus his thoughts for the day. Anyhow, nobody was all that eager to break bread with a man they saw as a lone wolf.

  After breakfast, he walked out to the latrine to evacuate his bowels. He had trained himself to make that basic bodily function part of his morning routine. He did not want to be caught in the field needing to relieve himself.

  He thought about what Scheider had said about breaking his record. Though spoken in jest, perhaps Scheider planned to knock Rohde off his pedestal as a sniper. The very idea that anyone might be pulling ahead of Rohde was worrisome.

  All that Rohde could think about was that Iron Cross. He wanted that medal. He needed that medal. Nobody was going to stop him, least of all a farm boy like Scheider.

  That medal is for us, Carl, he thought.

  With any luck, that farm boy was going to help him shoot a few Amis today, whether Scheider knew it or not.

  Rohde knew that copse of trees well enough, along with the surrounding countryside. In his mind's eye, he could picture the Americans stacking up on the road, bottlenecked by the sniper. What would they do? If they had a Sherman tank, they would reduce the copse to splinters, along with Scheider. The trick was to fire into the treetops and shatter the branches, amplifying a single shell burst into a thousand deadly oak splinters.

  Without support from a tank, the Americans would move off the road into the field in an effort to flank the sniper. They would probably move into the field to the north, which would give them a better approach to the wood where Scheider would be positioned.

  Rohde thought about a squad moving into the field. He could pick them off at random. There was an old barn that, if memory served, would be an ideal location from which to shoot. The barn would offer protection and height.

  At first light, Rohde was there, waiting.

  He had ascended the ladder into the loft. He had found some old sleigh bells and draped them over the ladder leading up to the loft. He would be alerted instantly if anyone tried the ladder.

  Again, his mind wandered to his brother. A good sniper hide, Carl. Though I would not mind something warm to drink. Isn't it supposed to be summer? The mornings are still cold.

  Then Rohde settled down to wait for someone to enter his killing field.

  Chapter Nine

  Having just come from headquarters, Lieutenant Mulholland approached with purpose in his stride.

  "Hey, Cole,” he shouted, still on the move. "Get your hillbilly ass over here."

  The lieutenant had directed his shout toward a handful of GIs sprawled in the grass, limp as rag dolls with exhaustion. Lack of sleep, the heat and humidity, and constant exertion had left them worn out. Their uniforms had white salt stains from constant sweating. Their grimy appearance and ragged uniforms underscored the fact that they had all become battle-hardened warriors since coming ashore two months before. The war now seemed like all that they had ever known.

  Unlike the other men prostrate in the grass, Cole rested on his haunches as if ready to spring into action at any moment. The others had put down their weapons, but a rifle with a telescopic sight was balanced across his knees. Cole's grayish eyes flicked toward the lieutenant, simultaneously alert and disinterested, like the glance of a predator that was sizing you up as prey.

  Mulholland’s forward momentum stopped at the sight of those eyes.

  Cole said, "Yeah?"

  "I just heard from headquarters. They've got a job for you."

  Cole got to his feet, not so much standing, as uncoiling. He didn't ask what the job involved. Cole was a sniper. Nobody was going to ask him to change a tire or type a report.

  "The 118th is running up against a sniper," the lieutenant explained. "A goddamn good one. He shot three guys yesterday."

  "Three, huh? Maybe he got lucky."

  "That's three in one day, Cole. Just as many the day before. And the day before that."

  Cole exhaled through his teeth, making a thin whistle. "I reckon that's a lot of marks on the stock of his Mauser."

  "That's where you come in. You need to take that Mauser and shove it up his ass."

 
; Cole's grin left a chill along the lieutenant's spine, even in the heat of the French summer. Not for the first time, he was glad that Cole was on his side.

  “I reckon I can do that." He turned to look at Vaccaro, who usually teamed up with Cole as his spotter. Vaccaro also carried a rifle with a telescopic sight, but at the moment, both the rifle and its owner lay stretched out in the grass. "You up for this, City Boy?"

  Vaccaro opened one eye and shook his head. "Goddammit, Cole. Why do you always have to volunteer me for this shit?"

  "Suit yourself." Cole turned away.

  Vaccaro rolled to a sitting position and reached for his rifle. "C'mon, Cole. Don't get a stick up your ass. All I'm saying is that some of us want a break now and then."

  Cole was already walking away, so Vaccaro hurried to catch up.

  "I thought you weren't comin'?"

  "I don't even know why you want me along, Hillbilly. I’d almost think you were lonely, if you weren’t the most solitary individual I’ve run across. Next time, let me sleep unless you need help with the rough stuff. You know this is just some German kid who got lucky with a rifle."

  "You sure about that?" Cole didn't believe that the German sniper he was being sent to dispatch was simply lucky. Luck ran out; anyone who had lasted several days as a sniper with any success had skill, and skill was far more worrisome. Skill got you killed. ”Anybody gets lucky once in a while, City Boy, but not three days in a row. This German knows his business."

  Having gotten his orders, Cole set off toward where the lieutenant had told him the German sniper was operating. Vaccaro trailed along, grumbling under his breath. Cole had heard it all before, so he ignored him.

  Cole had no doubt that somebody was needed to settle this German's hash, but the truth was that he did not trust Lieutenant Mullholland's motives one hundred percent. Mulholland could have sent another sniper—hell, he could have sent Vaccaro—but he had singled out Cole. From a young age, Cole had been schooled to expect the worst from people.

  Few people acted out of goodness. The Army hadn't taught him any different.

  While Mulholland was mostly trustworthy, it was also true that he and the lieutenant had some baggage. It was the kind of thing that went unsaid, but it was there all the same. Just a few weeks before, they had both fallen for a certain member of the French Resistance named Jolie Molyneaux.

  She had been assigned as their scout through the bocage countryside around Normandy. From her role in the Resistance, Jolie knew the paths and trails through that maze of hedgerows and fields.

  She had been more than capable, but they had run into some trouble along the way. Cole had found himself in a duel with a German sniper, one of the best there was, and had barely come out of it alive.

  Jolie hadn't gotten off so easy. She was still recuperating in a field hospital after being shot by the German. Mulholland was not only jealous that Jolie had preferred Cole, but he blamed Cole for Jolie being shot.

  The way Cole saw things, it was the German's fault that Jolie had been shot. He was the one who had been doing the shooting. But that wasn't how Mulholland saw it. He blamed Cole for putting her in harm’s way. He had this chivalrous idea that women didn't belong in a combat zone. Never mind the fact that Jolie was a damn good fighter.

  Cole hated to think that the lieutenant had some ulterior motive, hoping that Mulholland might be the exception to the rule, but it seemed to him that missions like this were payback. Mulholland had volunteered him. While it was true that Cole was more likely than others to solve the sniper problem, it was a good bet that in Mulholland's book it would be a bonus if Cole got his ass shot off in the process.

  He doubted that anyone at headquarters would have asked for him by name. Or had they? None other than the well-known journalist Ernie Pyle had written a story about him a couple of weeks before. Everyone had seemed impressed by the famous reporter and the story that he had written.

  Because Cole couldn't read, he had to take everybody’s word that it was a good story. So far, he had managed to keep his illiteracy a secret. He didn’t mind if everybody thought he was a hillbilly, which he was, but he didn’t like being seen as ignorant. One of these days, he promised himself that he would get some book learning. Until then, he had developed a few tricks to hide the fact that he couldn’t read, although Vaccaro was starting to suspect the truth.

  Cole loped along a country road that overflowed with soldiers. Vaccaro’s gait was lumbering, but he didn't have any trouble keeping up. A city boy was used to walking fast. But while Vaccaro put his whole body into moving fast, swinging his arms for momentum with his rifle slung over one shoulder, Cole's legs seemed to glide over the landscape while his upper body held itself still, rifle always ready in his arms.

  Most of the troops they passed were on the move toward some destination defended by German soldiers. Many more men lounged in the shade, smoking cigarettes and sipping warm water from aluminum canteens. Some just stared into the distance, so dazed by the endless threat of combat and by the rough conditions that they were not much better off than walking scarecrows. Here and there a man was busy scribbling a letter home, knowing full well that it might be his last.

  Their rifles drew a few stares, not all of them friendly. Snipers were not exactly beloved—no soldier liked the idea of death being delivered from a distance, and snipers had a reputation for picking men off in their more vulnerable moments: having a smoke, taking a leak, trying to catch a glimpse above a wall or around a corner.

  Death that came in the form of a mortar shell or a burst of machine-gun fire was awful and frightening, but it was also anonymous. Death from a sniper, someone who had picked out and targeted a single man, was far more personal, not to mention sly and sneaky.

  The sniper from your own side was tolerated; a sniper from the other side seldom made it to the rear if captured.

  Cole ignored the looks he was getting, and took stock of the situation.

  The 118th occupied what could loosely be called the left flank, which in this case was to the northeast. Wouldn't be hard to find. If he missed the unit somehow, he'd know, because he would run smack dab into the Germans instead. The countryside was crawling with Kraut troops—Wehrmacht, Waffen SS, even Panzers.

  Cole wasn't in a hurry to see a Panzer again anytime soon. There was nothing quite like the sight of a Panzer to turn your guts to water.

  Vaccaro spoke up. "You know what? We could always go back and say that we couldn't find the 118th. We can just sit in the shade for a while and then head back. The lieutenant won't be any the wiser."

  "Mulholland won't believe us," Cole said. "All we got to do is follow the sound of shooting."

  Cole was right—to a point.

  The lines changed daily because control of the surrounding countryside was in flux. While the Germans were steadily being pushed back by the overwhelming numbers of Allied forces, they sold each inch of ground dearly.

  It didn't help the situation that other Allied forces were part of the mix: Brits, Canadians, the vicious and undisciplined French Resistance, even elements of the free Polish Army. There was enough confusion among American troops, let alone troops with soldiers who spoke their own brand of English, or none at all. Officers of different nationalities were eager to have their troops drive the farthest each day, for their personal and national glory. The sense of competition outweighed cooperation.

  The situation was ripe for what GIs called a SNAFU—Situation Normal, All Fouled Up. Friendly fire incidents were becoming more common.

  Cole didn't much like the idea of getting shot by his own side. The Germans were enough to worry about.

  Chapter Ten

  Fortunately, Cole and Vaccaro found the 118th before they found any trouble of the Kraut variety. Like every American GI in France, these guys looked haggard and worn out. Like Cole, they wore the same M41 Style Field Jackets they had come ashore with weeks before. Though durable, the densely woven cotton fabric was now stained, ripped, and filthy
. Nobody had showered or shaved in days.

  They barely looked up as Cole and Vaccaro appeared with their sniper rifles. Again, Cole was reminded that soldiers on both sides had mixed emotions about snipers. At best, there was a mystique about snipers. They were held apart from an ordinary rifleman because of their skill and special equipment. At worst, they were seen as sneaky sons of bitches, and disliked accordingly.

  "Who's in charge of this here goat fuck?" Cole asked, and followed the pointed fingers until he found a young captain crouched over a map.

  The captain flicked his eyes over Cole's face, and then at the rifle.

  "I understand that you're here to solve our sniper problem," the captain said. "Fight fire with fire, right?"

  Cole was immediately taken aback by the officer's Boston accent, so different from his own that it was difficult to fathom that they both came from the same country.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Here's the situation, Cole. We need to get up this road toward Saint Dennis de Mere. Only there's a German sniper who has set up shop in those trees up ahead. We could go around him, but it’s not exactly convenient." He waved a hand in the vague direction of the fields beyond. The road was hemmed in by hedges and fences. "For all we know, the Krauts may have planted mines. This road is the most direct route, and we've got a schedule to keep."

  Cole looked to where the officer was pointing. Sure enough, there was a bend in the road ahead, where the road passed around a copse of trees. The sniper had hidden in those trees, and from that vantage point now commanded the road. It was a textbook example of how a single sniper could delay an infantry unit as effectively as a tank.

  Cole considered his options. Continuing down the road would be suicide. Anyone who left cover would instantly be in the sniper's sights.

  He would be another dead man among many.

  He thought about the sniper in the trees. Having grown up hunting and trapping in the mountains he had learned to think like the game he was stalking. It might seem silly, the idea that he could get inside the head of a deer, or a bear, and predict what that animal would do, or where he would go. But Cole could. It was what made him a good hunter—that, and being a damn good shot.