Iron Sniper

by David Healey

  "What?" he asked, exhaling smoke through teeth stained yellow by nicotine and coffee. He sat down on a box and his whole body sagged. Hohenfeldt was not a model specimen of a German soldier. "Hurry up. I have things to do."

  "I want that rifle," Rohde said.

  "And I want a box of chocolates and a feather bed." He laughed. "I want a French girl to fondle my balls."

  "There, you see? We all want something. What if I could get you something that you want, Hohenfeldt?"

  Hohenfeldt's eyes narrowed. "This is tricky territory, Rohde. Are you trying to bribe me? That is not how I run my armory."

  "Of course not, Herr Stabsfeldwebel. That would be against regulations. No, what I am offering you is a favor between friends."

  Hohenfeldt inhaled deeply, held the smoke, then exhaled. "What did you have in mind?"

  "I thought you might enjoy a visit with my French girl. That is, unless you would rather stand around watching these two sweaty boys."

  "A visit?"

  "A roll in the hay."

  "And what does this girl think of that?"

  "Don't worry about what she thinks. She will do what I tell her."

  Hohenfeldt was thinking about it, trying to find the downside of the bargain. Rohde could almost imagine the gear's turning behind his rheumy eyes. In Hohenfeldt’s case, it was more like the cycling of a well-oiled weapon. “When?” he asked.

  "Tonight. I will meet you here and we can walk over to her farm."

  The armorer finally nodded. Then he actually licked his lips as if in anticipation of what was to come that night. "I hope that you are not planning to make a fool of me, or you will be sorry, Rohde."

  Rohde turned to go, then stopped and said, "I will hold up my end of the bargain, Staber. You just be sure to have that rifle for me, or you will be the one who is sorry."

  At midnight he met Hohenfeldt as agreed and brought him around to Lisette's farmhouse. He would have liked to walk, silent in the velvety night, but Hohenfeldt was having none of that. The armorer complained that his knees ached too much to walk the entire distance. They took a motorcycle instead, with Hohenfeldt stuffed into the sidecar. Never mind the fact that the countryside might be crawling with Machi fighters and possibly with Allied scouts. Any of them would be happy to cut their throats, and the loud engine made them a target.

  They drove down the country roads with the headlight off, just in case there were any Allied aircraft lurking above. Between their slow progress and the loud motor, Rohde was sure that they would be ambushed at every curve and copse. By some miracle, they made it to the farmhouse.

  Lisette emerged to greet them, her old dog hanging around her knees, barking.

  "Who's this?" she asked, puzzled.

  "An old friend of mine," Rohde said. "He wanted to meet you."

  The Stabsfeldwebel hardly did more than take off his hat and nod. Rohde steered him toward a chair and announced, "I will be right back."

  He left them in the kitchen, staring awkwardly at one another. Hohenfeldt, like Rohde himself, spoke almost no French and Lisette knew only a smattering of German.

  Rohde knew that what he was doing was monstrous and that Lisette would never forgive him. But tonight, he was thinking only in practical terms. Allied troops would soon reach this sector, and that would put an end to their affair. At most, they had another night or two together and would likely never see one another again. Rohde was willing to trade those remaining nights for the rifle that old Hohenfeldt had refused to give him until now.

  But how would he ever get Lisette to go along with him?

  The cottage was very small, and in two steps he had entered the twins' bedroom. They were only half asleep, the commotion of Rohde and Hohenfeldt's arrival on the motorcycle having awakened them. He scooped them up, balancing one sleepy child on each hip, and returned to the kitchen. Hohenfeldt hadn't budged from the chair, grinning at Lisette.

  Lisette watched with uncertainty, and then growing alarm, as Rohde entered the kitchen. Perhaps she had read his intentions in his face. The twins were oblivious and slumped against him sleepily. He never really interacted with them, but by now, they were used to his presence.

  "Suce sa bite," he said, nodding at Hohenfeldt.

  Rohde knew the French phrase was crude and harsh. All at once, the enormity of what he was asking seemed to dawn on Lisette. She stood up, her face angry, and it was hard to say what she planned to do next. Then her gaze fell upon the children that Rohde was holding.

  He jerked his chin from Hohenfeldt to the bedroom. Then he gave the little girl a peck on the head. His meaning was all too clear. Some small part of Rohde hated himself for what he was doing, but it seemed like the best way to control Lisette.

  By now, Lisette was shaking with fear and anger. He could see emotion racing across her face. Her eyes struck at him like daggers. But what choice did she have?

  She hissed a single word at him, "Monstre." Monster.

  If he felt anything at that moment, he pushed it aside.

  She shot a hateful look at Rohde, then turned and made her way down the short hallway to her bedroom. Hohenfeldt followed, crowding close behind. He was a tall man, and fairly wide, so there was no way Lisette was getting past him. They went into the bedroom and shut the door.

  Rohde doubted that Hohenfeldt would take long. The children seemed unconcerned about anything that was happening. He returned the little girl to her bed and tucked her in, giving her a piece of chocolate in the process. He had other plans for Leo.

  "Would you like to go on an adventure?" he asked the boy in broken French.

  The girl spoke up. "Je voudrais partir à l'aventure!"

  "Les garçons seulement. This is for boys only. Leo?"

  When Leo nodded, wide-eyed, Rohde carried him out and put him into the motorcycle sidecar. Then he gave the boy a piece of chocolate to keep him occupied.

  When Hohenfeldt came out a few minutes later, he was surprised that he had to share the sidecar with the boy. Somehow, they both managed to squeeze in. The boy had to sit in his lap. Given the fact that Hohenfeldt was whistling, he was in too good of a mood to complain.

  "Don't worry, Rohde. I showed your girl a trick or two."

  "Go to hell, Staber." Rohde hated him for making him trade Lisette for the rifle.

  Hohenfeldt chuckled. The Staber seemed to find the night's events amusing. He sat in the sidecar, licking his lips like the cat that had eaten the canary.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Their last stop of the night was the armory. With Rohde having fulfilled his end of the bargain, it was time for the Staber to do the same. He left the boy in the sidebar, pointing at him sternly and stating, "Ici."

  "I can't imagine what you want with that boy," the Staber said. "You ought to have left him at home."

  "This is coming from the man who just screwed the boy’s aunt. What wonderful concern you have shown."

  "I do feel bad for the aunt, you know. I feel bad for her when she has to make do with you."

  "You are an asshole, Hohenfeldt."

  The Staber just laughed. "That's asshole, sir, to you. Do you want that rifle or not? If you do, then come inside."

  Seething now, Rohde followed him in. The Staber went to his makeshift but neat office area. He watched as Hohenfeldt retrieved a bundle that he had tucked between the desk and the wall. With deft hands used to working with guns, the Staber unwrapped the oily cloth to reveal the Gewehr 43. Much to Rohde's chagrin, he realized that the Staber had hidden the rifle rather than storing it with the other small arms, most likely to keep Rohde from stealing it. The Staber was nothing if not wily. He certainly had not trusted Rohde.

  Rohde examined the rifle. This particular weapon was equipped with a Zielfernrohr 43 (ZF 4) telescopic sight with 4x magnification. The Staber slapped a 10-round magazine on the desk. The weapon used the same 7.92 mm ammunition as the Mauser K98. The wood was stained lighter than the standard issue Mausers.

  Even at first glanc
e, it was a much different weapon from the Mauser K98 in that it was not nearly so finely made. The Mauser had benefitted from years of design evolution. The new rifle was at least 5 cm shorter. There was none of the Mauser's silky smooth metal. The metal parts still had rough edges and stamp parts on them, as if the weapon had been hastily made, thrown together in some factory between air raids.

  The stock had a chunky look about it, as if it had been carved from a rectangle of wood with the least effort possible, and encased all but the last 10 centimeters of the barrel. In this regard, the rudimentary stock resembled some of the Russian rifles that Rohde had seen. The butt plate appeared to be made from a thick chunk of iron. The overall impression was of a very sturdy weapon that could double as a club.

  What the rifle lacked in form, it made up for in function. And there was no denying that the Gewehr 43 functioned very well. Its simple gas piston operation had been copied from captured Russian rifles and then improved upon by German gunsmiths. The result was a highly accurate rifle with an impressive rate of fire.

  "This one was made in Lübeck. It is zeroed in for 200 meters. With the scope, that gets one to an effective range of around 800 meters," Hohenfeldt said. He gave Rohde a doubtful look. "Maybe less in your case."

  "Go to hell."

  "With the 10-round magazines, you can fire maybe forty rounds a minute if you aren't so worried about what you are hitting."

  Rohde was impressed. Compared to his bolt-action Mauser, the rate of fire was maybe 3 to 1.

  Hohenfeldt held out his hands, as if to take the rifle back.

  "What? It's mine now."

  "I cannot issue you a new rifle until you return your old one."

  Rohde held the rifle closer, and grabbed the spare magazines off the desk. If they'd had any bullets in them, he might have tried out the rifle on Hohenfeldt.

  "I am taking this with me tonight."

  "Suit yourself, but you had better turn in your Mauser first thing in the morning. If you do not, I will report you to Hauptmann Fischer."

  Rohde ground his teeth. "I will have that back in the morning. Good night, Staber."

  "And good night to you, Rohde. You can be sure I will have some pleasant dreams about your French girl, ha, ha!"

  Rohde slept fitfully, thinking about the trap he would set in the morning. He glanced over at Lisette's nephew, Leo, wrapped in a thin blanket on the floor beside Rohde's cot. The boy still thought that he was having a grand adventure.

  He was well aware that Leo might never be returning home. He was equally aware that while Lisette would never forgive him for whoring her out to old Hohenfeldt, she would hate him with all her being for kidnapping her nephew. He pushed any thoughts of guilt or remorse from his mind. This was war. One did what one must.

  All that mattered now was that he had the new rifle. And he had the bait.

  Now, he needed the quarry.

  To trap a lion, one needed a goat.

  Rohde's fitful sleep was not helped by the fact that he could hear artillery that was getting too close for comfort as the Allies closed in on Perle des Champs. The whole world as he had known it these last few months was about to end.

  He just needed a day or two to enact his plan. Once the American hillbilly sniper was dead, he could escape with the other German forces across the Rhine, to make their last stand in the Fatherland.

  Rohde did finally nod off, but it seemed like only a few minutes later that he awoke in the pre-dawn darkness. Time to get up and get going. It was going to be a busy day.

  He glanced down at Leo and saw that the boy was still sleeping deeply. Rohde debated for a moment, and then decided to leave him there for now. Chances were that the boy would not wake until Rohde roused him.

  Rohde dressed quickly, then picked up his old sniper rifle, the Mauser K98. He had debated whether to bother returning it to the armory, but decided that it was better if that fat bastard Hohenfeldt had no reason to make trouble for him.

  With the rifle in hand, he made his way to the armory.

  To his surprise, the Stabsfeldwebel was not there. Instead, he found a sleepy-eyed Soldat on duty, one of the same ones who had been shifting boxes yesterday. Rohde considered himself to be young, but he felt positively geriatric compared to this skinny Soldat. Lately, young boys of no more than fifteen or sixteen years old were being sent to fill the ranks.

  "Where is the Staber?" Rohde asked.

  "He is not here," the Soldat explained. When Rohde's glare told him that he had stated the obvious, the boy added, "Gone to take a shit, most likely."

  That was no surprise. Hohenfeldt liked to brag about the regularity of his bowels in the morning. He seemed to feel that it was a good quality in a soldier.

  Rohde hefted the Mauser. "He told me to leave him this. I will just put it on his desk."

  The Soldat shrugged. Rohde made his way over to Hohenfeldt's desk. He did not have a separate office, but had partially screened his desk area by arranging stacks of crates around it.

  Rohde propped the rifle against the desk, looking up to note that the Soldat on duty could not see him. He took the opportunity to snoop, taking some small measure of satisfaction from invading the Hohenfedlt’s workspace.

  Not that there was much to see. The desk was orderly, with neat stacks of requisition forms, a black Bakelite phone connected to the Wehrmacht telephone grid, and three neatly sharpened pencils set out side by side.

  Also on the desk was a locket that he had seen Lisette wear. Surely, she would not have given it to Hohenfeldt. The Staber must have taken it as a kind of prize. For some reason, the sight of the stolen locket made Rohde see red. It was nothing more than a cheap drugstore locket, but must have been one of the few pieces of jewelry that the girl owned. Hadn't the Staber already taken enough, just so that Rohde could get his hands on that damn rifle? To Rohde, taking the locket just seemed greedy. He left the locket where it lay.

  There was still no sign of Hohenfeldt or of the Soldat, so Rohde opened the desk drawers. The large side drawers contained nothing more than blank forms. A bottle of schnapps shared space with the forms in the bottom drawer.

  The top desk drawer proved more interesting. He found a mostly full pack of fancy gold-tipped French cigarettes and pocketed that. That would annoy Hohenfeldt later, no doubt. But what caught his attention was a small double-barreled derringer.

  Rohde picked it up and examined the derringer. The entire pistol fit neatly into his hand. Finely made with a polished wooden stock and filigreed scrollwork, it was just the sort of weapon that a gentleman might keep in a drawer of his study or in a bedside table, as protection against nighttime burglars. Who knew where the Staber had come across it. Though useless as a military weapon, Rohde could understand why the Staber had kept it in his desk as a kind of novelty piece. It was a beautiful little weapon from another era.

  He slid the catch and opened the action. Two fresh shell casings winked back at him, like brass eyes. The derringer was novel, but deadly.

  Rohde slipped the derringer into his pocket.

  The Soldat barely noticed him go out.

  Rohde had intended to head back to the barrack to collect the boy and head out into the field, but he found that his feet carried him towards the latrine area. He wasn't even sure what he had in mind, other than the fact that his right hand was thrust into his trouser pocket, wrapped around the derringer.

  It was early, and the latrine area was still dark, but easily identifiable by its smell. A bench seat had been constructed over the ditch for some level of comfort. The figure squatting on it had to be Hohenfeldt.

  Rohde walked over to him, and the Staber looked up at him in surprise.

  "Rohde? What are you doing here? Don't tell me that you tracked me down to complain about the Gewehr. If you want more bullets, you'll have to arrange another visit for me with your girlfriend."

  "That's not going to happen, you fat piece of shit. I should have done this a long time ago."

  Rohde too
k the derringer out of his pocket and leveled it at Hohenfeldt's face. Even in the dim light, he could see the Staber's eyes get very big. The gun went off with a pop, sending a few grams of lead crashing into the Staber's forehead and turning his brain to sausage. The big man made an "Oh" sound like all the air going out of a tire, and slumped over on the bench. Rohde felt such a wave of hatred for Hohenfeldt that it was only with an effort that he refrained from shooting him with the second barrel. Instead, he wrapped the Staber's right hand around the derringer.

  With any luck, the Staber's death would be seen as a suicide. More than one depressed soldier had chosen a bullet as a form of escape, but ending one's life in the company latrine had to be a first. The question was, would anyone believe it?

  One thing Rohde did know for certain was that the fat old bastard would not be missed.

  The pop of the derringer had not gone unnoticed. Rohde heard a shout and the sound of running footsteps. But he was long gone before anyone arrived.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Once the fat sergeant had finished with her, Lisette scrubbed herself in the basin of water in the corner of the bedroom. The cottage had no running water, so this was the age-old method of cleaning up. Wherever the German had touched her, she rubbed until her skin was raw. The pain of it felt good, almost as if she was punishing herself, although she had done nothing wrong.

  Out in the yard, she heard a motorcycle start up, and then motor off. That would be that bastard, Dieter, driving off with that sack of meat he had brought along tonight. The sound of the motorcycle faded, but the noise of artillery seemed to have grown louder and had not abated much by nightfall.

  Dieter. The name tasted sour in her mouth. She had not been fond of him, well aware that he was a German, but they'd had an agreeable business arrangement. He was a young man far from home, and she was a young woman with mouths to feed. It was one thing to trade her body for food. Whoring her out to another man had gone too far. If she ever saw him again, she would take the ancient shotgun in the kitchen and shoot him. She did not care if he was a sniper.