While Lieutenant Mulholland was talking with the squad leader, Cole took a good look at the countryside. The woods and fields of the bocage were green with spring, and yet the morning gloom managed to make the landscape appear dismal and foreboding. The road meandered toward the bridge, reminding him of one of the winding roads back home, which folks liked to say followed whichever way the cows had wandered back in the old days when livestock and deer made most of the trails.
On the far side of the river was an abandoned mill with a rotting, moss-covered mill wheel that still turned in the current. Beyond the river and mill was an open field that sloped up toward the woods that hid the snipers. Behind the Americans, and before the curve in the road that hid them from the snipers, was a similar hill.
He turned to Jolie. "Is there another bridge across that river?"
"Non," Jolie said. "Not for miles. This is the only way across."
"I was afraid you might say that."
“Bien sur it is the only bridge, which is why the Germans are guarding it.”
They were in the bottom of a kind of bowl, with the river running through like a crack. If someone could get up on the high ground, into a tree, they might have a good shot at the enemy snipers. But it was at least 600 feet from the German position — someone would have to be a damn good shot, assuming he even had a target. It was likely that the Germans would be camouflaged and hard to spot.
There were now six in the sniper team, including the Brit and Jolie. It was hard to know how many German snipers they were going up against, but from the sounds of it there were at least two, and the Jerries had the upper hand. They needed a plan. The wounded soldier on the bridge was sobbing in pain.
The sound brought Cole’s blood to a slow boil. The wounded man had been left out there as bait. These Jerry snipers were real sons of bitches.
Lieutenant Mulholland came back to them, looking worried. "These men need to cross this bridge to reach their objective. If we don't neutralize these snipers for them, a lot of them are going to die."
"We can't shoot the Jerries if we can't see 'em, sir," Vaccaro pointed out.
"I know that," Mulholland snapped.
"Sir, I have an idea," Cole said. "Put Meacham and Vaccaro up in those woods behind us. It's good high ground to shoot from and the trees will provide cover. That will give the Jerries something to think about."
"Yeah, and what are you going to do, Cole?" Vaccaro wanted to know. "I'll bet while Meacham and I are getting our asses shot at, you'll be down here playing Tiddlywinks with our French Girl Scout."
"You got nothin' to worry about, Vaccaro," Cole said. "That woods is so far away the Germans won't be able to hit anything — if you're lucky, that is. Of course, you won't be able to hit a damn thing either, but they won't know that."
"Like I said, easy for you to say and me to do."
"Well, once you're up in the trees givin' them Nazis something to think about, what I'm goin' to do is swim that river and get into that old mill on the other side. It's good cover and when you draw the Jerries' fire I'll see where they're hiding at."
"Swim that river?" They all looked at the roiling current. The water ran fast here and looked deep. Vaccaro sounded incredulous. "You're crazy, Reb."
"All right," Mulholland said. "Cole has a good plan. Let's do it."
Meacham and Vaccaro shed their gear, taking only their rifles, and moved off into the fields, following the hedges to keep out of sight of the German snipers until they worked their way into the trees. Vaccaro was still grumbling as he moved off.
"You're really going to swim that river, mate?" Neville asked.
"I reckon."
"Then you are bloody crazy." Neville smiled. "I like that in a man."
Cole worked his way across the field toward the water, keeping out of sight of the enemy snipers. Jolie came along with him. She was adept at moving silently through the fields, like a cat after a mouse. They moved upstream, to a point where Cole judged he would land near the mill once he factored in the current. The river wasn’t very wide — you could pitch a stone across. But the current was racing.
The truth was, Cole mistrusted water. He had been around cold, swift creeks a lot as a boy, trapping muskrats and even beaver, and he knew how dangerous water could be. More than one trapper had been drowned by the weight of his winter clothes and the shock of the cold water when he lost his footing and went under. It was Cole’s worst nightmare.
For Cole, the beach landing had been terrifying. He had feared the Nazi machine guns much less than the thought of being pulled under the surf and not coming back up, gasping for breath. As it turned out, it had been a near thing. He stared doubtfully at the swift brown water, and then began to take off his boots.
"I hope you ain't shy," he said to Jolie. He handed Jolie his rifle. "Hold this, will you?"
Boots and socks off, he stripped off his jacket and trousers. All he had on were the khaki military-issue boxer shorts. Thinking about the tug of the current in the river, he might have stripped off the underwear if Jolie hadn't been there. He strapped his utility belt with the ammunition and a sheath knife around his waist.
They had found a board to float the rifle across on. Cole would pull it over with a string. He wished he had plastic or something to wrap the rifle in, like they had done with their M1s during that beach landing, but that couldn't be helped. He shivered; he tried to tell himself it was just from the morning cold.
"I will take your clothes back to the road," Jolie said. She looked him over, noticing how lean and pale he was, but well-muscled with tough, corded muscles across his shoulders and a flat belly. "Good luck."
They waited under cover without saying anything more. Cole started to shiver more intensely, and after a while Jolie spread his jacket across his shoulders to keep off the chill while he waited. Where the hell were Meacham and Vaccaro? They ought to be in position by now. He needed them to start shooting in order to distract the Germans.
Finally, some shots came from the hill at Cole's back. He doubted that Meacham or Vaccaro had much of a target, but what mattered was that they had the attention of the German snipers. One shot, then another, came from the woods that hid the Germans. Two snipers, then.
Cole slipped out from behind cover and slid down the river bank. He had pictured himself easing into the river without so much as a splash, but the bank was so steep that at the last minute he slipped on the mud and went under.
The shock of the cold water forced the air out of his lungs, but he stayed under, fighting the urge to come up for breath. This close to the German snipers, if they had spotted him, he was a dead man if his head popped above the surface of the river.
He struck out for the middle of the river, trailing the string behind him. His eyes were open but he couldn't see a thing in the brown, churning water. Finally, his lungs burning and feeling himself close to panic, he came up for air, bobbing gratefully above the river's surface. He grabbed a lungful of air and forced himself to go under again and swim for the far shore.
The weight of his utility belt combined with the current kept threatening to tug him down, but he kicked upwards. It was too murky to see much but at least he knew that the bubbles would lead him to the surface. He broke through again, gulped more air, and ducked under. Swim, he told himself. Just fix your mind on it and swim.
His hands struck mud, and he realized he had reached the opposite bank. He let himself come up for air, still praying the enemy snipers would not see him. He was just above the abandoned mill, so that was something. The muddy bank was slick and Cole couldn't seem to get a grip. To his horror, he realized he was being carried directly toward the old waterwheel, which spun fast and furious in the current.
He kicked for all he was worth and flayed his arms, struggling against the pull of the water, but it was like a leaf trying to fly against a hurricane. The force of the water was overwhelming. In another instant, the heavy wooden buckets of the waterwheel would come down on his head.
He reached out, desperately, as the stone foundation of the mill flashed by and caught a length of chain fastened to the stone, perhaps for an old mooring. The rush of the river nearly ripped his arm from its socket, but he didn't let go. He managed to slide the rifle onto the stone landing. Struggling, he got the fingertips of his other hand, and then his fingers, around the chain.
He was able to raise himself out of the water a little at a time, and then he got his toes wedged into the slimy sides of the stone foundation. He dug in his knees next, cutting and scraping them against the stone, until he got enough leverage against the water to pull himself up.
With a final effort, he dragged himself onto the stone landing where boats would have once tied up to load and unload sacks of grain. Bleeding and gasping, shivering uncontrollably and his bare flesh covered in goosebumps, Cole just lay there for a minute, gasping like a fish, glad he was on the far side of the mill, out of sight of the Germans. He glanced toward the far bank, looking for some sign of Jolie, but she had melted back into the fields. The little raft was there, though, and he pulled it across with the string.
Gathering his strength, he lifted himself off the flat stone pier and crept into the dark interior of the abandoned mill, keeping the rifle at the ready. The interior smelled of mice and dust. Someone had stripped most of the machinery, but the largest of the cogs and turnstiles remained. The wood was dark and worn with age, resembling iron more than the oak from which it was made. The stone walls were reassuringly thick, though patches of sky showed through holes in the thatch roof.
He found a window overlooking the field and the woods beyond where the German snipers were hidden. The window had no glass or frame — it was just a slit in the stone wall to let in fresh air and light. He reckoned it was a couple of hundred feet across the field, where the grass had been grazed. Looking around, he spotted three or four dairy cows, clearly dead, bloated and stiff where they lay on their sides. He had seen dead livestock all over Normandy, a result of stray bombs and bullets.
Studying the trees, Cole thought that what they could really use was for a P-51 Mustang to come along and pound the hell out of the Germans in the woods. That didn't seem likely, and so it came down to him and his rifle.
His rifle. He glanced down at the Springfield, which had come through without getting dunked in the river, if not exactly high and dry. He slid open the bolt, removed the magazine, and tilted the barrel to drain out any water. Later on, the mechanism would get rusty as hell if he didn’t get some oil on it, but that couldn't be helped. What mattered was that he could fire a few shots now and take out the German snipers.
He put his eye to the scope. By some small miracle, no water had gotten into the optics.
The natural thing to do would be to poke his rifle through the window slit. But that would be too obvious if anyone looked at the mill. The Germans might not be expecting anyone in the mill — the bridge was covered and the swift current did not make the river inviting to swim — so their attention would be elsewhere. That would change as soon as Cole took his first shot at them.
Through the thick stone walls, he could still hear firing in the distance. That must be Meacham and Vaccaro giving the Germans something to think about.
Still shivering, Cole found a wooden barrel and turned it upright several feet from the window, then put a stack of old burlap grain sacks on top of the barrel. He considered for a moment, then took out his knife and cut three holes in one of the sacks — one for his head and two for his arms — and slipped it on over his head. He used a length of string to belt the sack around his waist. Not exactly a regulation uniform. The fabric was itchy and dusty, and he probably looked silly as a preacher at a sack race, but his shaking soon stopped.
He used a box as a makeshift seat, and then rested the rifle on top of the barrel, cushioned by the grain sacks. His view of the woods was far more limited, but in the gloom inside the mill he would be invisible to the snipers beyond. They could fire through the slit, of course, but they would be shooting blind.
Cole worked the bolt and fed a round into the chamber, then began to scan the woods for the flash of a German rifle that would give him a target.