by David Healey
"Do you? I wonder." Fisher sighed. "Meet me here tomorrow morning with that sniper rifle, and we will do our duty without concerning ourselves about glory and medals. You are dismissed, Rohde."
Ten minutes later, Rohde was back at the armory to retrieve his old Mauser K98 for the Hauptmann's use. His conversation with Hauptmann Fischer had left him both angry and nervous. The thought that Fischer was denying him the Iron Cross left him stunned. If it had not been for the Hauptmann, his medal might already be on its way from Berlin.
As if that wasn't bad enough, Fischer seemed to suspect that he'd had something to do with old Hohenfeldt's death. If there had been anything more than mere suspicions, Rohde was sure that he would already be under arrest. Still, Fischer's doubts weren't going to help Rohde get his medal any sooner.
His one chance at redemption seemed to be bagging that American sniper tomorrow. Rohde hated to put all of his eggs in that basket. Anything might happen.
No one seemed to have been put in charge of the armory yet, but a young Soldat was on duty, loading bullets into clips. Rohde recognized him from that morning.
He looked up as Rohde came in, a frisson of fear showing in his eyes. Rohde glared at him, and the soldier looked away.
Rohde found his old rifle just where he had left it in the Staber's office. The darkened armory smelled reassuringly of gun oil and cool metal. No wonder old Hohenfeldt had liked being armorer so much.
With one item of business taken care of, Rohde moved on to take care of the next. He walked over to where the Soldat was working and picked up one of the clips as if to inspect it, and then loaded the K98 he had just retrieved. He put the muzzle against the boy's forehead. The soldier’s eyes grew big as Hundermarken discs. One twitch of Rohde's finger and his brains would be scattered across the armory.
"Next time, mind your own business and keep your mouth shut, if you know what's good for you," Rohde said. "Understand?"
The frightened Soldat managed to nod, even with Rohde grinding the muzzle into his skull. When he lowered the rifle, there remained an indentation in the young soldier's forehead.
"Good," Rohde said. "Now, tell me where old Hohenfeldt kept his supply of explosive bullets."
Strictly speaking, explosive bullets were not used by snipers working to halt the Allied advance. But on the Eastern Front, where the fighting between Germans and Russians took on a hateful aspect, the explosive B-Patrone 7.92×57mm Mauser ammunition was used by snipers. Technically, explosive rounds were banned by the Geneva Convention, which specified the use of jacketed, non-explosive bullets. In any case, regular bullets were effective enough. Just ask any of the hundreds of thousands slain by them. When it came to the war in the East, however, there were no rules. German and Russian snipers alike used explosive ammunition when they could get their hands on it.
The hollow bullets were filled with an explosive mixture and designed to detonate on impact. For maximum effect, snipers on the Eastern Front often aimed at bony areas to ensure that detonation. Like a compact bomb, the explosion within the body was enough to shatter bone or hollow out a chest cavity. There was no walking away from a hit by an explosive round. But more than anything else, the exploding bullets created fear in the enemy.
Such ammo made snipers even more terrifying and deadly.
The explosive bullets were hard to come by. But even here in France, Rohde didn't doubt that the Staber had gotten his hands on at least a few rounds.
Sure enough, the Soldat went to a shelf and took down a box.
Rohde shoved the box into his haversack and nodded at the Soldat, who seemed to relax. That's when Rohde smashed the butt of the rifle into the young soldier's belly.
He grabbed a few handfuls of regular 7.92 mm rounds, and then stalked out of the armory, leaving the Soldat gasping on the floor, doubled up in pain.
Rohde had ammo, and he had a rifle for Hauptmann Fischer. Before dawn, the two of them would set an ambush for the American sniper at Lisette's farmhouse.
Chapter Thirty-One
Lieutenant Mulholland must not have gotten anywhere with the mademoiselle, because just after first light, it was Cole and Harper who escorted her back to her farmhouse near Argentan. Vaccaro was to stay behind with the rest of the squad.
"Why does Cole get all the gravy jobs?" Vaccaro groused.
"You heard what the captain said, Vaccaro. All hell is about to break loose around here," Mulholland said. "Cole might actually have a chance of getting that girl home, and getting back here again. Until he does, we need someone to scout the territory and shoot back at any snipers."
Leaving the command post behind, Cole and Harper made their way through a countryside that echoed with the chatter of machine-gun fire and the pop, pop, pop of rifles. Every now and then, the country air was shattered by the whump of field artillery or tank fire. The whole battle seemed to be heating up, and here they were, walking right into it.
"I don't like this one bit," Harper said. He was jumpy and nervous, his finger not far from the trigger of his rifle. He was armed with a Springfield rifle with iron sights, in respect of the fact that he was by de facto a scout, rather than a sniper. Cole nodded, his eyes busy scanning the landscape, his sniper's senses on high alert. "I sure do feel like we dragged this girl and the kid out of the frying pan, and now we are tossing them into the fire. This whole damn countryside is about to go to hell. But she's got to get back to her niece."
"Once she's got the kids, she ought to get out of Dodge," Harper agreed.
"Yeah, but where would she go? In any direction, she could run into German troops or smack dab into a firefight. She can't stay with the squad because God only knows what we're in for. Maybe what she ought to do is hunker down and wait it out down in the root cellar. I wish I knew enough French to tell her that."
There really wasn't an ideal solution. From the sounds they kept hearing around them, the entire countryside seemed to be engulfed in fierce running battles. Back at the temporary HQ, the lieutenant had made it clear that Allied forces were converging on the Falaise area, where the Wehrmacht was making a last stand. It seemed as if Lisette's farmhouse would be close to the action.
"You two need to escort her back to the safety of her farmhouse, and then get the hell out of there," Mulholland had said. "If you don't, there's a good chance you might find yourselves on the wrong side of enemy lines. Everything is really fluid right now.”
Listening to the sounds of fighting, and seeing the smoke filling the skies, Cole had to agree.
He insisted on going first, although Lisette still managed to guide them down the narrow dirt roads, keeping a firm grip on her nephew's hand. They rounded a bend in the road, and there was the farmhouse. White-washed and neatly thatched, Cole thought it looked like something out of a postcard.
Lisette let go of the boy's hand, and he raced toward the house. An old woman came to the front door that faced the road, with a little girl tangled in the woman's voluminous skirts.
Lisette gestured for them to come inside. The two soldiers did so, removing their helmets out of politeness as they went in. The kitchen they found themselves in was small and cramped. Cole was surprised, on closer inspection, that the floor was of hard-packed dirt; even his family's rough cabin in Gashey's Creek had a floor of rough-sawn boards.
The old lady looked at the two GIs with alarm, clutching her old sweater tighter against her ample body. Cole realized it was probably the first time she had seen an American up close. For the last few years, the only soldiers in these parts had worn German uniforms.
If Mulholland's French back at HQ had been rudimentary, the language skills of the two GIs was nonexistent. Lisette smiled and gestured as if she wanted to give them coffee, but mostly she seemed relieved to be back with both children. The old lady began gathering up her things as if to go, but Lisette seemed to be encouraging her to stay. He caught the French word, dangereux.
Cole felt that they had done their duty. It was time to get back to the war.
They managed to decline the coffee with smiles and by saying, "No, no."
Cole wondered if they could go out the kitchen door, out into the farmyard. He pointed at it, and Lisette nodded.
They stepped out into the farmyard and had walked a few yards from the house. Cole thought he heard something, or felt something, like he was being watched. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and he turned to look over his shoulder.
From across the farmyard, someone shot at them.
Harper went down.
"Got him, got him, got him!" Fischer shouted in excitement.
Rohde was impressed, in spite of himself. He and the Hauptmann had set up before dawn and lain there for hours in hopes of a shot at the Americans.
When he had seen the hillbilly sniper with the flag on his helmet escorting Lisette and the boy, he could not believe his good luck at how things had worked out. Finally, here was the chance to cement Rohde’s reputation as a sniper.
Fischer had insisted on waiting until the Americans came back out of the farmhouse—alone. He did not want the woman or the boy to be in the line of fire. Rohde had no such compunctions, but he did not argue.
They had agreed that Rohde would shoot the American hillbilly sniper. Fischer would shoot the other one.
At the last instant before Rohde's own rifle had fired, the American had shifted position, turning to look in Rohde's direction—almost as if he had eyes in the back of his head.
Rohde missed.
He fired again, but the hillbilly was already behind cover.
Fischer had more luck. The other American was dead.
And now they had the hillbilly sniper pinned down.
Rohde had an entire clip loaded with the explosive bullets he had stolen from the armory. He had been reluctant to use the forbidden ammunition with Fischer present, but there was no way that he was going to miss out on the opportunity to use it now. Quickly, he swapped out the clip of standard ammunition in the Gewehr 43 for the explosive rounds.
One hit, even on an extremity, would shatter a limb with deadly effect.
Cole dove for cover and kept his head down as bullets struck the water trough. Once the firing stopped, he risked a peek at Harper's body, lying still in the tall grass nearby.
He had liked Harper. He had known him for a short time, but a flood of emotions washed over him: fear, anger, sadness at another life wasted. He forced himself to stay focused. The important thing now was to stay alive himself.
Cole couldn’t have asked for better cover than the stone water trough. He got down low near the base, glad that the thing looked heavy enough to stop a Panzerfaust round. Back home, the cows had to settle for drinking out of a rusty bathtub or tin trough. French farmers did it right. He took a gander around the side of the stone trough and saw not one, but two, German snipers. One was using the top of the wall on the opposite side of the farmyard to rest his rifle upon. The other sniper was much better hidden. Cole could barely see the other man's rifle, jutting from the bottom edge of the wall.
One of them had to be Rohde. This was clearly an ambush. What sniper other than Rohde would have any reason to visit this farm? It was too much of a coincidence, and Cole didn't believe in coincidences. You couldn't, not if you wanted to stay alive out here.
Rohde. This was the sniper who had staked the boy in the field. This was the sniper who had almost killed him, firing from that barn outside St. Dennis de Mere. Some of Cole's calm demeanor began to slip. His heart rate sped up from a mixture of anticipation and fear. One of them would not be leaving this place alive.
Cole pushed any doubts aside. He replaced those emotions with a calm resolve, or maybe call it a dead certainty. He was going to kill whoever had shot Harper.
On the other side of the farmyard, the Germans couldn't wait to get a shot at Cole.
"Sir, can you see him?" Rohde whispered. "It is the American sniper. You saw his helmet. Just think what it will mean if we can bag him. Do you see him?
"No. Maybe. I am not sure."
"I think he is wounded. I almost have him in my sights. Can you tell me if he is moving at all?"
Fischer had proven that he was not a bad shot, but he was far from being an experienced sniper. In his excitement, the Hauptmann raised his head to get a better look. Looking on, Rohde started to warn the Hauptmann to keep his head down, but then bit back the words. Rohde was not about to forget that it was Fischer who had withheld his Iron Cross.
As Cole watched, one of the Germans raised his head above the wall they were hiding behind, as if to get a better view of Harper's body. It was the kind of dumb move a greenhorn made.
Cole thought at first that it must be a trick, maybe a helmet on a stick, trying to get him to reveal himself. They must have thought Cole was a dumb Jasper, if ever there was one.
He looked more closely, surprised to see that it was an actual head, on an actual German. The distance across the farmyard was not very great, and through the scope, Cole could see the man's face. Cole put his crosshairs on the German's medulla oblongata and pulled the trigger.
The bullet smashed through the bridge of the German's nose. His body slumped across the wall.
Instantly, two shots in rapid succession struck the water trough, one bullet striking just an inch from Cole's face, sending stone chips into his eye. The bullet had not just struck, he realized, it had detonated. There had been a small but unmistakable explosion, like a powerful firecracker going off. What the hell was the German shooting at him with?
He rolled away from the base of the trough, blinking furiously, temporarily blinded.
He had two thoughts. First, he hoped to hell that he would be able to see again. A blind sniper wasn't worth a damn. Next, he knew for damn sure that it wasn't Rohde that he'd shot. Hadn't looked like him, for one thing. Hadn't acted like him, for another. Killing Rohde would have been too damn lucky, anyhow.
No, Rohde had used the other sniper as bait. Cole was a little shocked at that. Could Rohde really be that ruthless, letting one of his own get shot just for a chance at Cole? The thought was chilling. Then again, this was the same sniper who had staked a boy out in the middle of a battlefield, giving it no more thought than if he'd put out a jar of honey to trap flies.
Now, the German seemed to be using explosive bullets. Cole had heard rumors about such bullets, but thought that they were banned.
As Cole turned it over in his mind, he didn't feel fear. He felt the slow burn of anger. He'd nail that son of a bitch's hide to the barn door yet.
"Cole!"
Lisette? At the sound of the French girl calling his name, any sense of calm evaporated. His heart hammered in his chest. She shouted his name again.
She must have heard the sound of shooting in her farmyard and come out to investigate. Cole couldn't decide if that was brave, or dumb. Right now, he was leaning toward dumb.
With a sinking feeling, he realized that the whole damn situation had gone si-goggly. The water trough was positioned in such a way that he could see Lisette, but that she could not see him. The French girl could not see Harper's dead body or the German's either, for that matter.
She was walking right into Rohde's line of fire.
There was no way for Cole to signal Lisette without getting picked off, and his command of French did not go much beyond non or oui. Once she came around the corner of the cottage, Rohde was going to shoot her for the hell of it, and there wasn't a goddamn thing that Cole could do about it.
Unless. He peered around the base of the water trough through blurry eyes. His left eye stung like hell; there was a piece of stone in there that felt as big around and sharp as an arrowhead, but Cole did his best to ignore it. Wasn't his shooting eye, at least. The rest of his body tensed up as he got ready to make a move.
"You're a dang fool, Micajah Cole," he muttered to himself.
Then Cole leaped up and ran.
He dodged left and right, jackrabbiting across the field, away from the farmhouse.
A bullet plucked at his sleeve, but he kept going. If being a sniper had taught him anything, it was how to make himself hard to hit. There was a time to walk proud, and a time to run like a rabbit.
Another shot, and another. That goddamn Kraut had hisself a semiautomatic rifle.
It was one thing to dodge a sniper with a bolt action rifle, and quite another to get shot at by a sniper with a weapon that dispensed a bullet with each pull of the trigger. An explosive bullet, at that.
Got to keep moving. He headed for the laundry hanging on the line, saw a bullet shred a sheet, and kept sprinting. Some low bushes grew at the edge of the yard and he crouched down as he ran. The next three bullets ripped the air overhead.
Then Cole was in among the woods beyond the barn. A bullet exploded against a tree, scattering bark and splinters. The shooting stopped. He wondered if Rohde had followed him, but didn't slow down long enough to look over his shoulder. More shots answered his question. Rohde was coming after him.
So far, the bullets had gone wild, which meant that Rohde didn't have a clear shot. Cole juked left and right, bobbing and weaving as he ran, doing his best impression of a cottontail rabbit. He knew from experience that hitting a running target meant that the shooter had to anticipate the space that the target was going to occupy next. He didn't plan on giving Rohde that opportunity. Still, that hardly meant Cole didn't feel a tingling between his shoulder blades, as if he had a paper target pinned there.
Another bullet hit a tree and exploded, too close for comfort. At the edge of the woods, he hit a tangle of briers that clawed at his clothes and bare skin. He managed to push on through, but not without shredding his uniform in a couple of places.
He emerged into a field. Not much cover here, but if he could just get into some tall grass, he could take a prone position and ambush Rohde as he—