I Am Canada: Sniper Fire

by Jonathan Webb

  “What now?” asks Jimmy.

  “I’m not sure,” I say. “Smoke alone isn’t enough. They know where he is.”

  I imagine Strong John scrunched up behind the bit of broken wall that borders the street. And the Germans taking shots at him, the lead flying inches from his helmet.

  I scramble back upstairs. Jimmy is beside me. Derrick has rejoined his brother and the two of them are huddled in a corner. Doug and Loon are at the windows. I gesture to Doug. He scrambles over and I explain what’s happening. Jimmy joins us, looking anxious.

  “I’ve seen the sniper,” says Doug.

  “Which sniper?”

  “The one in the house two doors up the way. Second-floor window, the one on the right. He’s got a line on Strong John, for sure.”

  “Let me see if I can get a shot at him,” I say.

  “The angle is tight,” he says, “and besides …”

  “Yeah?”

  “There’s another Jerry, on the roof. Whenever I show myself, even a little, he shoots right at me.”

  “Take Loon’s place,” I tell him. “I’ll get the sniper in the window, you take the guy on the roof.” Doug’s Sten gun is less accurate than my rifle, but a spray of automatic fire will force the German to keep his head down. If he doesn’t get Doug first.

  “Jimmy,” I say, “you and Loon go downstairs and roll out more smoke. Give Strong John covering fire when he makes a break for it.”

  Jimmy hesitates. I nod in a gesture that’s meant to be encouraging. Loon punches him on the shoulder — it’s funny to see how much more confident Loon has become — and Jimmy follows him down the stairs.

  I hug the wall and peer out cautiously. The window’s glass is long gone. The wood surround is frayed and broken. The stone walls have taken a beating too. But the enemy is picking his spots: his fire is not continuous. It’s almost as if he hopes to lull us into thinking he’s pulled back. For a minute or two, there is nothing, and then the fusillade begins again. I look cautiously up at the roofs opposite. They jostle and overlap one another. The shooter Doug says is up there could be wedged in the shelter of an overhang. Still, to get a clear shot at either me or Doug, he has to show himself for an instant.

  As for the sniper Doug says is behind the second-floor window, all I can see is a curtain.

  More shouting. Loon calls out to Strong John. Jimmy yells something too. Smoke billows up from the street.

  “There!” yells Doug. “Look!

  The curtain stirs. I pull the trigger. Doug lets loose a blast from the Sten gun. The curtain stirs again and the barrel of a rifle emerges from the shadows. I pull the trigger a second time.

  There’s more shouting from the street.

  “Strong John, wait!”

  “Jimmy, don’t!”

  The smoke in the street grows bigger, as if a gaseous, ghostly monster is rising up to fill it. Doug’s Sten gun burps fire. I glance at the roof and see no one. I look again at the sniper’s window and glimpse a face. It pulls back. I missed my chance.

  There’s a sudden movement in the street. It’s Jimmy. He’s running at the house occupied by the enemy. He goes straight at it. Then the deep staccato voice of the Bren sub-machine gun erupts from somewhere. That has to be Strong John, joining the fray to protect Jimmy.

  Jimmy’s in front of the enemy-occupied house. He rears back. One hand is in front of him, pointing at his target in the upstairs window. His other hand, stretched behind him, holds a grenade. He staggers briefly and then pulls himself together, as if making a final effort. The flash from the muzzle of a rifle catches my eye and I see the German shooter on the rooftop. He’s lying on the tiles, aiming his rifle at Jimmy. Doug’s Sten gun erupts once more.

  Jimmy hurls the hand grenade through the second-floor window. It explodes instantly.

  The shooter on the rooftop lets go his rifle. It skitters across the shingles.

  Jimmy collapses onto the cobblestones.

  Strong John appears in the street. He stands over Jimmy, firing the Bren.

  And then Loon and the Gaffer are out there too, grabbing Jimmy, each taking an arm, dragging him towards us.

  It all happens so fast. Doug and I run to the top of the stairs. Loon and the Gaffer somehow drag Jimmy through the door. The O’Connors are there to meet them. Strong John, still firing his gun, backs up with the others.

  “Move it!” yells the Gaffer.

  “Get in!” yells Loon.

  Strong John glances over his shoulder, sees the way is clear and leaps in after them. They make it inside, all of them. We’re together again as a unit. All of us but Jimmy.

  Jimmy is silent.

  I don’t know how he managed to throw that hand grenade. By the time he went down, he had been hit twice, maybe three times. More bullets struck him afterwards. We lug his body into the front room, fold his hands across his bloody torso and stand around him awkwardly.

  “Damn it,” says Derrick.

  “And you thought it would be you,” says Paddy.

  Strong John sets down his gun and kneels beside the body. He lays a big hand on Jimmy’s eyelids and closes them gently.

  “Jimmy didn’t have to do that,” says Derrick.

  Strong John says, “He did it for me.”

  The Gaffer finds a tablecloth and drapes it over the body.

  “Come on,” I say to Loon. “We’ve got stuff to do.” I slap him lightly on the shoulder.

  He hesitates and then says, “Yeah.”

  Doug is the last to leave Jimmy’s side. Doug’s eyes are closed and his lips are moving silently.

  “You praying?” I ask.

  He shrugs sheepishly. “He wasn’t easy to like, was he?” he says. “But he was brave at the end.”

  * * *

  Tank Docherty’s section takes the house next to them. Strong John, with Loon to carry the Bren gun’s ammunition, provides covering fire from our side, while the rest of us take potshots when we’re able. Then it’s our section’s turn to move out again.

  Some houses are occupied by snipers; others conceal a machine-gun nest. Some are easy to get into; others are blocked. We never know what we’re up against until we get to the door, and getting to the door is dangerous. Always there is the threat of a trip wire or a timed demolition charge set to blow us away.

  It gets worse. The farther we move down Via Cespa, the closer we get to the first pile of rubble that blocks the street. Behind it there’s a heavy machine gun and, somewhere behind that, the PAK-40 or 88 that welcomed us earlier. From time to time the enemy uses it to bring part of a building down on top of us, though he has to be careful not to take his own troops out instead.

  It gets harder, but we get better. We become accustomed to running, ducking and bumping against the walls of the houses — by the end of the day, my hips and shoulders are bruised from being banged against brick and stone. We study the way different houses are constructed. We become experts at assessing which drainpipes we can climb and which will collapse under our weight. We’re getting pretty good at knowing which doors can be broken open and which will withstand an assault. We go through scores of fragmentation grenades. We make good use of smoke.

  We’re about 45 feet — the width of three houses — from the first pile of rubble when I come up against the Flowerpot House and the Crazy German.

  There’s a large clay pot on either side of the door and more on the balcony. There are no flowers in them. It’s December, after all. I make note of their existence ahead of time so I can avoid tripping over them. It’s my turn to go first.

  We lay down smoke. We counter enemy fire with fire of our own. I take a deep breath, crouch down and step into the street. The smoke envelops me. I take one, two, three … half a dozen fast steps, hugging the wall, glancing up in case the smoke fails. My foot strikes the first flowerpot. It’s where I expected it to be. I step around it and discover that the door is slightly ajar. I’m about to kick it open when something stops me. Up to this point, all doors h
ave been either closed or destroyed. With hardly a pause, I pick up the flowerpot, take two steps back and throw it. I pivot away to one side as it hits the door.

  The door explodes. The shock wave knocks me down, but the force of the blast misses me. I look up and realize that our smoke is swirling away. There’s a window above me. Its glass has been scattered. I grab hold of the shutter and haul myself inside.

  Another front room. The door that connects it to the front hall has been destroyed by the explosion. I move cautiously towards it when I hear something — a thud and a floorboard’s squeak. There’s someone upstairs.

  Doug is in line to follow me. I yell, as loudly as I can, “Doug, stop! Don’t come in!”

  More noises. Another thud. I back up and turn away. There’s another explosion in the front hall.

  “What the …”

  Someone upstairs tosses down a hand grenade. In an instant I’m on the floor, on all fours, shaking my head, trying to think straight. Dammit! Why does this keep happening? I run through a mental checklist of body parts. Limbs and digits: check. Guts: all there. Brain: functioning. Or is it? From somewhere I hear what sounds like shouting, singing and laughter. I turn over and struggle to sit up. I try to comprehend what I’m hearing. This isn’t the nervous laughter of a soldier who’s been cornered. It isn’t the mocking laughter of the victor lording it over the loser in a fight. It isn’t even the bitter laughter of a soldier who’s tired of war but making the best of it. This is the belly laugh of a man in the company of friends. Someone who hasn’t a care in the world. From where I sit, with my rifle in my hands, I can see through the shattered doorway the blasted remains of the stairs and front hall. A soldier is plodding down the steps, and as he comes closer the shouting, singing and laughter get louder. He is belting out snatches of a song in German, using the sub-machine gun in his hands to conduct an invisible orchestra. He waves it, points it and occasionally fires a few rounds: RAT-A-TAT-TAT. He laughs. He’s having a heck of a good time.

  As he comes into view, I steady the rifle in my hands. And then I shoot him.

  He’s a big man, tall and sturdily built. He is turning towards me when I pull the trigger. Our eyes meet at the exact moment when he’s hit. He looks like a beardless Santa Claus. He has a round red face and is wearing a cheery expression. There’s a twinkle in his eyes. He’s still singing as he swings his weapon in my direction. I fire again.

  Doug steps inside as the German collapses at his feet.

  “What was that?”

  “He must have been into the vino.”

  “Either that,” says Doug, “or he’s been too long in the line. That was nuts.”

  * * *

  The captain comes up in the early afternoon to see how we’re doing. It turns out we’re doing about as well as everyone else, which is to say, the Germans are fighting back harder than we expected and our progress is slower than we hoped. A lot slower. Hoffmeister is deploying reinforcements to speed things up. According to yesterday’s version of The Plan, the Seaforths were told to hold down the corner of the town between the church, San Costantinopoli, and the seashore. According to today’s version, the Seaforths are going to swing around to the other side of the main axis. They will approach the cathedral and castle from the west while we move up from the south and the centre. The drive through the heart of Ortona is no longer just an Eddies show.

  There’s something else. They’re going to bring one of the battalion’s 6-pounders to the end of the street. Major Stone’s company is using the guns to blow away barricades and remove snipers from rooftops — mainly by removing the roofs. With the barricades gone, along with the mines that are hidden in the rubble, and with the guns behind them silenced, we can start thinking about bringing up tanks to support us.

  There’s a lull while officers confer. Some of us rest while others watch the street. Paddy wanders over and looks down at me.

  “Aw, Paul,” he says. “Not sleeping on the job now, are you?”

  “Never,” I say. I may have closed my eyes briefly.

  Paddy’s face is creased and greasy but his gaze is steady as he sits down beside me.

  “How’s Derrick doing?” I ask him.

  “Ah, Derrick,” says Paddy. “Scared himself silly with all that talk about crypts and such.”

  There’s a loud bang and then the sound of a shell casing hitting the floor. Specs is making himself useful, kneeling at the window a few feet from where we’re sitting, keeping an eye on the street.

  Paddy says, “He’ll be all right.”

  “Sometimes,” I say, half to myself, “a guy gets a feeling that his time is up and he turns out to be right.”

  “Yes,” says Paddy. “Sometimes a lad gets that feeling.”

  “Danny didn’t say anything the day he was shot. But he was awful quiet.”

  “Danny!” says Paddy. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard for a while.”

  “He had that look in his eyes. You know what I’m saying?”

  “I’ve seen that look,” says Paddy. “It doesn’t signify anything.”

  “No?”

  “It’s just fear getting the better of courage for a time. It happens to all of us.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “But this stuff about seeing the future? I don’t believe that,” says Paddy.

  My eyes are closed again. I might even have drifted off, but another bang from Specs’s rifle startles me. I glance at Paddy.

  “We’ll take care of Derrick, eh?” I say.

  “You betcha,” he answers.

  * * *

  They bring up the 6-pounder they promised us. Shell after shell pounds the rubble barricade and gradually it disappears. This removes a major obstacle and cover for a key German machine-gun position. Which is great. It also opens the way for an artillery duel, which is not so great. The PAK-40 at the bottom of the street, which was quiet when we engaged the enemy at close quarters, now takes on our solitary battery. The 6-pounder is no match for the enemy’s gun. It’s pulled out.

  And we go back to work, attacking the houses on either side of Via Cespa.

  So much happens, one thing after another.

  I push open a door of a house and come face-to-face with a German soldier. He’s young like me, smartly dressed and clean-shaven. We’re both surprised. We look at one another. He has pale blue eyes and a soft mouth. I lift up my rifle. He nods his head as if to say, “Yes, you have to do that,” and then he slips away in an instant. My heart is beating fast. It all happens so quickly that I wonder if it happened at all.

  An old woman dressed all in black walks up the street. She picks her way carefully over the treacherous debris. She is carrying something in her arms. As she passes the house we’re in, we see she’s holding a tiny baby, its face as white as paper. “The kid’s not moving,” says Doug. I’m not sure how we know. It might have been the bleak look in the old woman’s eyes, or the way she cradles the body, but we know for sure that the baby is dead.

  Derrick climbs onto Paddy’s shoulders to reach a second-storey balcony, while Strong John stands in the street like a fool, pouring fire into the houses opposite. Like a fool, too, I leap into the street to stand beside him. The Gaffer just shakes his head afterwards. He is either amazed by our recklessness or astonished that we’re still alive. Or both.

  When darkness falls, we take turns trying to sleep. It isn’t easy. The noise doesn’t stop and we soon figure out that the Germans aren’t sleeping either. When the Gaffer comes back from the company command post, he gets shot at from a house we took earlier.

  “The S-O-Bs are sneaking back behind us,” he says.

  It’s a terrifying thought. We could be surrounded.

  Chapter 8

  Mouse-holing

  Thursday, December 23, 1943

  The sky is a lighter shade of grey when Doug kicks my feet to wake me. There’s sleep in my eyes. I blink and glance up at him.

  “Morning,” he says.

  “
Breakfast in bed?” I say. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “I didn’t,” he answers.

  I haul myself up from the chair I’ve been sleeping in, amble to the front of the house and peer out the window. Fat raindrops are splashing off the windowsill and onto the floor. I’m shivering.

  “It’s cold enough for snow,” I say to Doug.

  “Might happen yet,” he answers.

  The Gaffer gestures for us to gather around him while we’re still drinking tea and gnawing on rations.

  “Gentlemen,” he says, “for those of you who dreamt last night that the war was over, I have bad news.” He doesn’t need to complete the thought. As if on cue, we hear the banging of guns opening up from somewhere to the east of us, and the thunder of explosions as shells find their targets.

  “I think they’re ours,” says Derrick. “Seventeen pounders.”

  “They’re ours,” says the Gaffer.

  “We can go home then, I guess,” says Derrick. “Leave them to it.”

  The Gaffer ignores him. “The captain’s on his way over,” he says. “Smarten up.”

  Captain Trehan looks careworn and as tired as everyone else. He takes the time to say a few words to each of us, though. He kids Loon about shaving, saying, “I think you missed a spot,” and then points to some dirt on his cheek. None of the men has shaved recently, except the Gaffer. Like Loon, I don’t need to.

  “Your sergeant says you’ve done good work with that rifle,” the captain tells me.

  “I try to, sir,” I say. I’m surprised. The Gaffer isn’t much for passing on compliments.

  “And by the way,” he says to all of us. “About Philpott. His body was picked up last night. I hope there’ll be a chance for you to pay your respects. But I want you to know the padre is taking care of him. He is being looked after.”

  The news makes me feel bad. I’ve hardly thought about Jimmy since he died. He said that he had no family, and I wonder if that’s true. And if he had no one, I think how sad that is, to be dead and no one cares.

  * * *