CHAPTER 10

The next field was held by German machine gunners that had dug themselves in like ticks, eager for blood and just as hard to remove. The squad that the snipers had met up with went in first and got halfway across the field when the German gunner opened up, chewing several GIs into raw meat. The rest found themselves pinned down, unable to move as bullets whipped overhead.

"It's a goddamn slaughter," Mulholland announced, watching in horror through a gap in the hedge as one soldier tried to rush the Germans and was nearly cut in half by a burst. "If we don't do something, the next squad through here is going to walk into the same trap."

Cole had the solution. He crawled back into the hedgerow to where the German sniper had been and followed his tracks down into the killing field. From there, it was hard to tell where the sniper had gone, but he could see the German machine gunners at work from his concealed position.

He heard a noise behind him and spun, crouching low and pulling his .45 at the same time, but it was only the French girl following him.

"What are you doing?" he snapped, annoyed.

"Same as you," she said. "Killing Germans."

She carried a battered old rifle that looked as likely to blow up in her face as shoot straight, but Cole supposed that was the best that the French Resistance could get. It reminded him a lot of some old mountain rifle from back home. He looked the rifle over doubtfully, but liked the determined expression on her face. It was her country, after all, so as far as he was concerned she could have at it if she wanted to snipe at the Jerries with that antique. He nodded, and they crept out of the hedge together.

The machine gunners were busy shooting up the squad and they didn't notice Cole hunkered at the edge of the field. He got the German gunner's helmet in his sights and punched a bullet through the steel. Another man grabbed for the machine gun, and Cole shot him as well. He was about to shoot the third man reaching for the handles on the machine gun when something went bang off to his right. He'd damn near forgotten the French girl.

Her bullet only kicked up dirt at the edge of the German foxhole, which got the machine gunner's attention. He swiveled the weapon in their direction and the black hole of the machine gun's muzzle looked as big as the moon through Cole's rifle sight. He let his breath out, fired, and nailed the German before he could depress the trigger on the machine gun.

"That was my target," he muttered.

"You shoot too slow," she said.

"At least I hit what I shoot at."

What was left of the American squad out in the middle of the field got up and dusted themselves off. Several torn, bloody bodies lay scattered in the grass where the German machine gunners had caught them.

"So far we've captured two fields and lost maybe ten men," Cole said. "This war ain't goin' so well, if you ask me."

"Americans have no stomach for a fight," Jolie said. "Where is your anger at the enemy? You do not know how to hold a grudge."

For the first time since leaving the English coast, Cole laughed. "Darlin', you don't know the half of it. My people back home invented that there word. We got grudges against other families, we got grudges against Yankees, we got grudges against the government. And right about now, I got a serious grudge against Germans."

"Then let us go shoot some more," Jolie said.

"Keep talkin' like that and you're goin' to get me all hot and bothered, missy."

Jolie snorted like a horse, which Cole thought wasn't very French lady like, but he followed along as they headed back to join up with the other snipers. They hadn't been able to do much good in the last firefight, but at least Meacham had recovered somewhat and didn't look so pale.

They crossed the field and went through a gap in the hedge that opened onto a narrow dirt road. A large American squad was moving along it in the distance, and at the head of the unit Cole could see a Sherman tank. It was the first one he had seen in action away from the beach, but he wasn't sure how much good it could do out here. The hedges were so dense and the openings between fields were so tight that tanks were confined to the country roads, which were heavily mined. In addition, German squads armed with anti-tank rockets lay in wait.

To make matters worse for the tanks, somewhere out there were heavily armored German Tiger tanks, which would be more than a match for the Sherman tanks. Above the distant rumble of the tank engine, Cole could hear the rattle of small arms fire and the heavier thump of artillery. Somebody was catching hell somewhere.

"Miss Molyneux, where does this road go?" Lieutenant Mulholland wanted to know.

"We are moving toward St. Lo," Jolie said. "But this road does not go there directly."

"Well, it's a start," Mulholland said. "We're going to stay on this road until called upon to deploy against German snipers."

"Lieutenant, we should let that tank up there deploy against snipers," Vaccaro said. “Looks to me like it’s bulletproof.”

"Wouldn't do much good," the lieutenant said. "It would be like using a sledgehammer to drive a nail, when what you need is a hammer. And we're the hammer."

"Last time I got hammered, I managed to nail a sweet little English girl," Vaccaro said. "That's the kind of hammering and nailing I like to do."

They all laughed at that, harder than they should have, and Chief cracked a joke about the girl costing Vaccaro not one but two cartons of cigarettes, which got them laughing harder.

They started to feel the tense mood that had come over them lift. It was funny, in a war, how you could go from being scared to death to being giddy about the simple fact of being alive, all in the space of a morning.

Their laughter was cut short, however, when they came around a bend in the narrow road and saw a handful of American troops at the side of the road, gathered around a German on his knees, with his hands raised in surrender. An American sergeant had a pistol out and it was pointed at the German's head. He lowered the .45 when he caught sight of the approaching sniper squad.

The German was youthful and blond-haired, but he was clearly in pain. His coat was off, revealing a gray undershirt crisscrossed with suspenders, and there was a deep red stain on his side where he had been wounded. It was obvious as well from the fresh bruises and cuts on his face that he had been roughed up. Next to the soldier's coat and helmet was a Mauser with a telescopic sight.

"What's going on here?" Mulholland asked.

"Best just move along, sir," the sergeant said. "We have this under control."

"I demand to know what's going on, Sergeant. That's an order!"

The sergeant seemed to think it over. He was an older man, not some kid, with heavy stubble not quite obscuring the lines of exhaustion etched on his face. In civilian life he might have been a shop foreman, the kind of man used to some authority. There didn't seem to be any officers around.

"He's a sniper," the sergeant said. "He shot three of our guys trying to cross a field before we winged him."

"You know the rules, Sergeant. Captured Germans get sent to the rear."

"Not this one. Not a sniper. They're killers and murderers, sir, not regular soldiers." For the first time, the sergeant seemed to notice that the lieutenant’s squad was armed with rifles that had telescopic sights. "I'm not saying that about our own men, mind you. But these are the goddamn Krauts we're talking about."

"I'm not so sure the Germans wouldn’t feel the same way about us," Mulholland said.

"That's a chance we all take, ain’t it, sir? Now, let me say it one more time. It's best if you just move along."

Almost imperceptibly, there seemed to be a change in the air. The squad of Americans gripped their weapons more tightly. There were at least twenty of them — and only six in their own sniper squad. Cole shifted his own weight and put a hand on his automatic. Beside him, Jolie glanced at him nervously. She had felt the tension, too. Cole looked around at the faces — exhausted, bloody, dirty — and it was clear to him that if it came down to it, these men would start shooting before they gave up their prisoner.

"Lieutenant, I reckon we ought to move out," Cole said.

"Sir, they're going to shoot him," Meacham said. "That's against all the Geneva Convention rules."

"Shut up, Farm Boy," Cole said. "You ain't helping any. Last time I heard we were at war with the Germans, and I reckon that means we're going to kill a few of them along the way. Sir?"

Mulholland didn't move or speak, so Cole got a good grip on the handle of the .45. Here he was about to get in a shootout with their own boys, but he reckoned there were stranger things that happened in a war. He was familiar with what happened when emotions ran high and everybody had guns.

"Let's move out," Mulholland finally said, his voice strained.

They continued down the road, leaving the squad surrounding the German. They hadn't gone far when there was a single pistol shot. Cole looked back and saw the German's body at the side of the road.

"That was messed up," Vaccaro said.

"It was wrong, just plain wrong," said Meacham.

"Sometimes it ain't about right or wrong," Cole said. "It's about gettin’ even."

"Do you think the Germans would do that to us if we got captured?" Vaccaro asked.

"Probably," Cole said. "But the upside of that is your chances of gettin’ killed first are pretty good."

"You know how to cheer a guy up, Reb. Lieutenant, what do you think?"

"I think you should shut the hell up, Vaccaro. You talk too much."

After that, the lieutenant quickened his pace and walked several steps in front of them.

"Ya’ll spread out," Cole said.

"Who made you boss, Reb?" Vaccaro demanded.

"You want to get shot, come up here and put your arm around my shoulders so we make a better target."

"Aw, go fuck your sister," Vaccaro said, but he took the hint and dropped back several paces.

The rest of the squad did the same. Lieutenant Mulholland was at the front, followed by Chief, then Cole and the others, all strung out now along the road like prayer beads. Jolie walked a few paces behind Cole.

The road passed between the hedges, which created a thick wall on either side. It reminded Cole a bit too much of a cattle chute. He felt exposed and would be glad to get back into the fields, but the lieutenant seemed intent on following this road.

The squad led by the Sherman tank was just visible in the distance, moving toward a gentle hill presided over by a stone church steeple. One of the things Cole had noticed about France was all the old buildings seemed to be built of stone or brick, while back home even the oldest churches and houses were mostly clapboard. The farms here had been built to last — hell, some of the stone barns in Normandy must be centuries old. The whole countryside dripped with history.

Coming across the execution of the German sniper had cast a pall over them. It was one thing to kill the enemy when he was shooting back, but quite another to shoot a man who had his hands up in the air. Who had surrendered to you. It didn't sit right with them. Cole had known there wasn't a thing they could do to stop it, but the execution still nagged at him. He realized that he himself had gone down a similar road since landing on the beach yesterday morning. He had shot those prisoners in the distance out of spite — mostly to show off. And also because he'd gone a little crazy, a little off the rails. He could understand that now.

Killing someone up close was different — harder and colder, somehow. What he had done wasn't right, but it hadn't felt wrong, either. Well, it was something to think about, which way a man wanted to be in a war. Would you be like a wild dog and kill just to kill, or more like a wolf — a predator that only hunted when it needed to, but that was feared nonetheless.

* * *

Von Stenger was amazed by the view from the church steeple. He could literally see for miles — the long stretch of fields reaching toward the sea to the east, and more countryside dotted with farms and villages all the way to St. Lo. The signs of war were everywhere by now as columns of Allied troops encountered stubborn knots of German resistance. Smoke. Churned earth. Bodies. If only he could have stayed up in the tower, there was no telling how much good he could have done. Targets presented themselves endlessly.

He had been watching for one group in particular, the snipers he had tangled with back in the field. A lucky shot by the Americans had done for Private Schultz, ending his brief career as a sniper, but Von Stenger and Wulf had slipped away with Fritz.

Wulf was stationed at a window in the stairway landing about halfway up. The next-to-useless boy Fritz was downstairs, guarding the entrance to the tower. The thought did not give Von Stenger much confidence, but at least the boy would be able to see the enemy approaching. With any luck, he might fire a few shots that would serve as a warning to Von Stenger and Wulf.

On the road that led toward the sea, Von Stenger caught sight of the group of American snipers who had given him so much trouble. Hallo, alte Freunde. Hello, old friends. He let the crosshairs sweep over them. He picked out the lieutenant leading them as well as the sniper with the flag on his helmet.

Von Stenger was a sufficient student of military history to recognize the flag as a symbol of the Confederate States of America. This sniper would be an American Southerner. He would be tough and resourceful, maybe even a bit of an outlaw. He remembered that the Confederates were called Rebels. Von Stenger was sure this was the man who had outsmarted him back in that field. That was all right. He liked a challenge.

So far, none of the American snipers had bothered with camouflage. More babes in the woods, he thought. There appeared to be a woman with them, which took Von Stenger by surprise. She wore civilian clothes. French Resistance? Well, well. Perhaps the local Gestapo had been too lenient in eliminating the Reich's enemies. They should have shot a few more Frenchmen — and women — to get the message across.

The tank coming up the road was worrisome. He could tell at a glance that it was no Tiger tank, being much smaller, but it was a threat nonetheless if the Americans opted to open fire on the tower. Behind the tank came what appeared to be a company of infantry, plodding along in the clanking wake of their armored companion.

So many targets, he thought. Where to begin? Von Stenger let the crosshairs float back to the French woman, and then to the sniper with the flag on his helmet. Not yet. His thoughts drifted to Goethe: “It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.”

He settled the crosshairs on the sniper behind them and squeezed off a shot.

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