Ardennes Sniper: A World War II Thriller

CHAPTER 30

As the long winter’s night faded, the Kid kept his eyes glued on the German lines. He was out here alone with a Springfield rifle equipped with a telescopic sight. It was bitterly cold; the temperature had dropped a great deal during the night, turning the mud and slush rock hard.

Anyone with sense would be asleep if he wasn’t on watch, but Cole had told him to be out here early.

"That German is going to get in position while it's still dark." Cole smiled that cold grin of his. He did not know Cole all that well, having known him just a few days, but he knew enough that he would prefer to stay on the hillbilly’s good side. "Don't worry — you'll hear him before you see him."

He hadn't been sure of what Cole meant by that until he heard the snap of the trap, audible in the cold, clear dawn. He heard something clanking, then cursing. That would be the German tugging at the chain.

The SS sergeant was trapped.

He heard footsteps approaching behind him, and was surprised when Lieutenant Mulholland appeared, holding two steaming mugs of coffee. He handed one of the mugs to the Kid and settled down next to him.

"Thank you, sir."

"I thought you might want some company. Besides, another pair of eyes helps. You spend enough time staring out into the snow and you start seeing things."

They didn't have to wait long. The Kid had just finished the coffee, feeling the warmth go all the way down to his toes, when the gloom dissipated enough for him to make out a figure standing on the other side of the field. He had heard the jaws snap shut. Sure enough, there was the German. But was it his German?

The lieutenant had his binoculars out. "You said this German sergeant had scars on his face?"

"Yeah."

"That must be him, all right."

The Kid peered at him through the scope. It was not quite as powerful as the binoculars. The light increased rapidly — he wondered if the sun might even come out this morning. If it did show itself, it would be the first time in days.

Even in the gray light, the man’s features were unmistakeable. It was the same SS sergeant who had cut down so many Americans at Malmedy.

The Kid settled the crosshairs on the German’s chest.

His finger took up tension on the trigger, but too fast. The first shot went wild, kicking up snow at the German's feet. The man tugged at the chain, his face grimacing with pain, but the German wasn't going anywhere.

Just as Breger had feared, the Americans were shooting at him now that it was light enough to see.

A bullet zipped past his head. If it hadn’t been the dead of winter, he might have thought it was a fat, angry bumblebee.

Frantically, he tugged at the chain with new urgency. The effort seemed to set his foot on fire. What had been a dull throbbing now roared with agony each time he moved.

Zip.

Another bullet flicked past.

Sweat dripped from Breger’s brow, even though the temperature was well below freezing.

He had not brought a rifle, but he did have a pistol in a holster. He unsnapped the holster and drew the pistol, then pointed it toward the American lines and squeezed off a shot. At this distance, it was impossible to hit anything, but it was better than nothing.

He raised the pistol and fired another shot. Again and again.

Then he tugged again at the chain in frustration, crying out at the pain that the struggle with the leg trap cost him.

When no one shot back, he thought that maybe he had gotten lucky and by some miracle had struck the sniper. But then he began to itch all over. He could almost feel the American’s crosshairs upon him.

Shoot the chain, he thought. He blasted at the chain but the links held firm. No wonder. They were almost as thick as his little finger.

The pistol clicked on an empty chamber. Angrily, he threw it as far as he could into the snow.

Then he faced the American lines, hands at his sides.

Hurry up and get this over with, he thought.

He stood there, waiting for a bullet.

The Kid wasn't a very good shot, not like the actual snipers, but this was like target practice. He worked the bolt action and slid another brass-jacketed round into the chamber.

The lieutenant watched through the binoculars. "The crosshairs should be sighted dead on at this range," he said. "Take a breath, let it out, squeeze the trigger. Easy peasy."

Some part of the Kid's mind registered that this was revenge, pure and simple. Could he really shoot someone in cold blood?

Then he thought about Ralph Moore, gunned down in that field. With a twinge of guilt, he reflected that he had been so busy trying to stay warm and stay alive that he had barely thought of Ralph in the last couple of days. He had been a good guy, and he was never going home again. Then he thought about himself, cowering in that field, waiting to die.

Could he pull that trigger?

The rifle kicking into his shoulder answered that question.

The bullet went wild, no telling where. Its supersonic crack carried across the open field. The German tugged even more desperately at the trap. He pulled a pistol and fired blindly, but the shots came nowhere close.

"Almost," Mulholland said casually. "Take another shot. Hold it steady."

The German was just standing there. The Kid pinned the crosshairs to the German's chest.

The rifle kicked again.

This time, he did not miss.

Friel did nothing without a plan — even his marriage had been arranged by the SS, after all — and the retreat from La Gleize was no exception. He gathered his officers for a briefing at two a.m. Von Stenger was included as an officer, although he commanded no one but himself.

No one wanted to call it a retreat, so Friel used the term "tactical withdrawal." Orders were reviewed. All of their equipment would be left behind. The men would take rations and their small arms — it was likely they would have to fight their way back into Germany, but using the panzers was out of the question. There was no petrol and their ammunition was mostly spent. The remaining petrol would be used to douse the trucks and panzers, then a small team would move from tank to tank, setting them ablaze. By then, the bulk of Friel's men would have slipped out of town and into the safety of the forest.

"We move out at five a.m. under cover of darkness," he said. "Soon after that, we should have enough light to find our way through the woods. Is everything understood."

"Yes, Herr Obersturmbannführer!" Not everyone agreed with the retreat, but now that there were clear orders, they would be followed. They were SS; they were good at that.

"Kurt, come with me," Friel said.

Von Stenger fell into step with Friel as they left the makeshift headquarters. He waited for Friel to speak.

"I see that you brought your rifle. In fact, I have noticed that you rarely go anywhere without it. One of the men told me that you shot your nemesis in the fighting yesterday. What did you call him? The hillbilly sniper? If you shot him, why are you still carrying that rifle everywhere?"

It was true that Von Stenger had seen the American sniper fall. His bullet had hit hard. Nonetheless, he would keep his rifle close.

"One must always be prepared," Von Stenger said. He did not admit it to Friel, but the truth was that he felt like a part of him was missing when he did not have the rifle with him. There was something reassuring about the feel of cold iron and solid wood, as well as the smell of gun oil and gunpowder. "It is how one stays alive on a battlefield."

"You are a hunter at heart, Kurt, which is why I want you in the vanguard, in case we run into any American scouts. They are not to make it back to the enemy lines to give us away. We need all the time we can get. If we have enough of a head start, the Americans may not bother to come after us. They will be satisfied with capturing La Gleize."

"Very well," Von Stenger said. "I will shoot any Americans I see."

They made their way toward the town hall, where the wounded were receiving care. It was on the top floor of this building that Von Stenger had made his sniper's nest yesterday. There were many more wounded now — the day-long battle with the American forces had taken its toll.

Just inside the doorway, Friel paused and took a deep breath. The air inside the claustrophobic space smelled of blood, antiseptic, and unwashed bodies. "This is very hard for me," Friel said quietly. "So many brave men."

He went from man to man, shaking hands, offering a word of encouragement, or even a cigarette. Some lay unmoving, swathed in bandages, and Friel knelt beside them on the floor for a few moments, simply touching a shoulder or a knee and uttering a few quiet words. If Friel's God had not been the party and Adolf Hitler, Von Stenger would have thought he was praying. He spent more than an hour there. Von Stenger did what he could, handing around a few mugs of coffee and lighting a cigarette for a teen-aged Schütze whose hands were bandaged, but he did not like hospitals.

He had suffered through one in Stalingrad after getting unlucky with a Russian sniper. That hospital stay had been the exception to the rule for snipers. Usually, when a bullet came for a sniper, death was swift and final.

Among the wounded, those who could would make the retreat with the rest of Kampfgruppe Friel. But the rest would be left behind. Friel had no choice. He wished them goodbye and good luck.

When they left the hospital, Friel had tears in his eyes.

Cole spent most of the evening drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and thinking. The battle for La Gleize was still going on, but the few bullets he might contribute seemed paltry compared to the artillery that the American forces rained down on the heads of the Nazis.

With their tanks, the Germans gave as good as they got. But for how long could they keep it up? It was only a matter of time before they ran out of ammunition.

Just before dusk, a handful of Luftwaffe planes had attempted to drop supplies to their beleaguered ground forces, but most of the parachutes had missed the town. The failure to resupply the kampfgruppe had not taken the fight out of the Germans.

The soldiers getting killed on both sides were anonymous to Cole, but there was one German he wanted in his sights.

Das Gespenst.

So, he sat this fight out. He wanted to keep a low profile. After all, some fights you had to plan if you wanted to win them, and being dead — at least, he hoped Das Gespenst would think he was dead — gave him time to consider his next move.

Cole knew there were two ways to hunt. The first method was what some back home in the mountains called long walking. The hunter moved through the woods quietly, rifle or shotgun at the ready, in hopes of flushing out game. If a hunter was lucky and very quiet, he might come across a deer, spook a rabbit, or startle a covey of quail.

A hunter covering ground felt like he was doing something, but there were days when no game showed itself and mostly he just tired himself out.

The second form of hunting required that the hunter himself become the trap. It took some knowledge of the quarry. A man had to know the habits of what he was hunting, which trails his quarry would follow, where it would stop to drink.

Unseen, he could hide himself in some vantage point overlooking the path — and wait.

This second approach required tremendous patience. A man might sit for hours before his quarry appeared. It helped to have some bait to draw the game in, like a salt block, shelled corn, or fresh meat.

It was this second method that Cole planned on using against Von Stenger. In place of a game trail, he planned to use the old road where it came out of the woods into the clearing he had found.

He planned to use some bait. But he would need some help to do that. He needed someone he could trust to keep his mouth shut.

Vaccaro.

At nightfall he made his way to the hospital. Earlier, he had liberated a bottle of rough red wine and a pencil and paper from the ruins. He brought these along with him to the hospital.

Inside, he nodded at Jolie, who was busy helping the wounded. After the death of the local girl who had been helping the wounded, there was no one else to do the work. Jolie moved around the interior of the church, carrying bowls of soup or new bandages. She gave Cole a weary smile.

Vaccaro was going to be all right. The bullet had only grazed him, but he didn't seem to be in any hurry to get back to the fighting.

"How long you fixin' to be in here?" Cole asked. "Looks to me like you’re patched up."

"It's all about the exit wound," Vaccaro said. "This is my exit from having to put my ass back out there in that freezing weather. Did you get the bastard who shot me? I'll bet you a hundred bucks it was Das Gespenst."

"I'm workin' on it."

"How about this — you get him and then I'll come out of the hospital."

"Vaccaro, I never pegged you for a coward."

Vaccaro smirked. "It ain't that, Cole, and you know it. Look around you. This sure as hell ain’t the Taj Mahal but it's warm and dry. I got plenty to eat. Nobody is shooting at me. Hell, I plan on staying in here until they kick me out or we get sent home."

"Then I reckon your hospital stay just got better," Cole said, producing the bottle of wine and a corkscrew, which he considered a fiddly thing. In his opinion, a bottle of liquor ought to have a cork you could pull with your teeth. He opened the bottle and filled tin mugs for them both.

"You're all right, Cole. I don't care what Jolie says about you."

"What does she say about me?"

"Jee-suz, Hillbilly. Relax, will you? It's a joke that people from civilization use."

Cole gulped down a cup of wine, which was another surprise. He never was much of a drinker. "Listen, I got a favor to ask."

"Sure — as long as I can do it without getting out of bed."

Cole handed him the pencil and paper. "I need you to write me a note."

"What the hell are you talking about, Cole? Do I look like Ernest Hemingway?"

"Who's that?"

"Never mind. What I mean is, I'm not much of a writer. The nuns in school always smacked my knuckles because my handwriting was so bad."

"But you can read and write?"

"Do I look like an idiot? Sure I can read and write." Then it dawned on Vaccaro. He stared at Cole. "You mean you can't?"

"Why the hell do you think I’m here."

Vaccaro nodded, any thoughts of gloating having vanished at the edge in Cole’s voice. "Don't get sore. I'll do it. Listen, where I grew up there's book smarts and street smarts. One can be as good as the other, depending on the situation. You got plenty of street smarts. Or maybe woods smarts in your case."

Cole handed him the pencil and paper, then told him what to put in the note. "Make the letters big enough so the son of a bitch can see it."

"Cole, he shot me from three hundred yards. I don't think there's anything wrong with his eyes." He handed the paper back to Cole. "That's it? I don't get the twelve o'clock part. How you know what position you'll be in?"

"It don't matter where I am. It matters where I put this here note. With any luck, it will be the last thing ol’ Das Gespenst reads."