Gods & Snipers: A World War II Thriller

Chapter Fifteen

Cole was sure that the Germans wouldn’t take long to reorganize and attack. One thing about the Germans was that they were relentless once they set their minds to something. When they did attack, he wanted to be in position.

They had reached the top of the stairs and he checked one bedroom, and then the other. Both had good views of the village square, and if they leaned out far enough, they could see the road leading into town. Cole opened the window and eased his rifle out. Vaccaro took up position in the room's other window and peered out with his binoculars, which gave him a much wider field of view than Cole had through the telescopic sight.

Cole swept his scope over the village to get the lay of the land. Under Tolliver's directions, Sergeant Woodbine had placed men at the edge of the village to serve as skirmishers and set up a defensive line at the village square. Vaccaro could see the men arrayed below, using whatever they could for cover. Here and there lay the bodies of Germans killed in the previous fight. General Tolliver had not wanted to bother moving the dead Jerries, but the sight of the gory, bullet-riddled bodies was not reassuring to the living. Cole wasn't a general, but the problem was clear — there just weren't enough men to properly defend the village from a concerted attack.

"I got movement," Vaccaro announced.

Cole screwed his eye against the telescopic sight. "Where they at?"

"Watch the street," Vaccaro said. "Here they come."

Cole saw a German soldier running at a crouch, heading toward the outskirts of the village. He got the rifle moving, leading him a little. It wasn't much different from targeting a running deer.

He squeezed the trigger. Down went the enemy soldier.

Cole worked the bolt of the Springfield, ejecting the spent shell and inserting another round of .30/06 into the chamber. He looked around for another target, but the Germans must have seen their comrade fall. No one came running in behind him. Were the Jerries probing rather than making a full-fledged attack?

"Talk to me, City Boy."

"There's nothin' to see. They're all spread out now. Sneaky Kraut bastards."

In the village below, the American defenders had also spotted the Germans and started to fire. The Browning let loose with a five-second burst. Whether or not he hit anything, Cole couldn't tell because of his limited field of view, but it was certainly giving the Germans pause. Last time, the Jerries had stumbled into the village. This time around, they were being far more cautious. The problem was that the Browning only had enough ammo for a handful of bursts like that.

Cole spotted a German creeping forward, again on the right side. Definitely probing the American defenses. Aiming his rifle, Cole put a stop to that. He could see a couple more Germans trying to edge their way along the left-hand side of the village street. Again, the Browning cut loose and sent them retreating.

This was shaping up to be a classic German attack. Advance on one flank, advance on the other, and then straight up the middle.

The defending Americans only had one machine gun, and no heavy weapons, but Cole was proving to be their ace in the hole. The Germans would be better off skipping the flanking movements and storming the town in a rush. He wouldn’t be able to get them all if they switched tactics. At this rate, Cole was going to pick them off one by one.

Vaccaro started to say, "There's another one—"

He didn't get to finish. A bullet punched through the window. Glass shattered, followed by the sound of Vaccaro hitting the floor.

Cole ducked below his own window, glad of the thick stone walls. He was sure that had not been some stray shot. Someone must have glimpsed Vaccaro in the window because he was more exposed. Considering that the Germans were still a good distance away, hitting the target had taken some skill. The shot hadn’t come from any of the troops that Cole could see below.

Sniper, he thought.

He would worry about the sniper later. He had more immediate concerns, such as whether or not Vaccaro was still alive.

Cole belly-crawled to where Vaccaro rolled around in the broken glass from the window. "I'm OK, I'm OK," he said. "At least, I think I'm OK."

Cole checked him for blood but could see no wounds.

"Yep, I reckon you're in one piece. That was a close one, though."

Keeping low, Cole looked up at the broken pane. It was just about where Vaccaro had been positioned, glassing the road into town. By all rights, he should have been dead. The window glass deflected the bullet's trajectory just enough that it must have struck Vaccaro's helmet with a glancing blow.

"We got us a sniper," he said.

"More like, a sniper got us."

"Stay put. I got me an idea."

Keeping below the window, Cole crawled over to a side table, where the girl had left a hand-held mirror. He had seen it when he first entered the room. It was an inexpensive mirror with a wooden handle and frame, but it would do just fine. He grabbed it and crawled back to Vaccaro's side, then pressed the mirror into his hand.

“You want me to comb my hair?” Vaccaro wondered.

“Use that mirror to see if you can spot that sniper. Keep your head down while you're at it."

"Thanks for the advice, Hillbilly."

Cole crawled back to his original position but did not yet put the rifle out the window. He did not want to make himself a target just yet, but lay crouched beneath the window. He nodded at Vaccaro.

Staying on the floor, Vaccaro raised the mirror above the window sill, angling it so that he could see out. The odds of seeing the sniper, who must be some distance away, were not good. But Vaccaro might catch a glimpse of something.

They were not disappointed. Seconds after Vaccaro raised the mirror, another bullet ripped the mirror from his grip. The mirror exploded into silvery shards.

“Holy shit!”

"Did you see him?" Cole asked quietly.

“I saw him, all right. Just beyond the town, in that cluster of buildings along the road. The white house. Window on the right."

"Yeah?" Cole had a good memory for landscapes. He had studied the view from the window earlier. He set a picture of the house Vaccaro had described in his mind's eye.

"Pretty sure I saw a muzzle flash."

"You sure or are you just pretty sure?" If Vaccaro was wrong, and the sniper was in another location altogether, Cole had an even chance of getting his head blown off as soon as he raised it above the window sill.

"Goddammit, Cole. Pretty sure. In case you didn't notice, that son of a bitch shot the mirror out of my hand before I could get a good look.”

"Take your helmet off and stick it up there to see if he takes the bait, why don't you."

Muttering, Vaccaro took off his helmet. "Ready?"

"Mmm."

"Now!"

Vaccaro lifted his helmet, inviting a bullet. At the same time, Cole rolled to his knees and balanced the rifle across the window sill. The view sprang closer through the rifle scope. He saw the distant white house, just where he had pictured it. The distance was greater than he had thought. He had to admit that the German was a good shot to hit anything from so far away.

If the German sniper was good, Cole felt confident that he was an even better shot. He took just a second to acquire the second-floor window, then fired. Then he ducked back down. Nobody had tried to shoot Vaccaro's helmet. He reckoned that it was a fifty-fifty chance that he had shot the sniper or that the man had been too wily to take the bait in the first place.

"Get him?" Vaccaro asked.

"Maybe, maybe not. If he was there, I got him. But it's time to move."

"You got that right."

One of the basic tenets of sniper craft was that you didn't stay in one place for too long. Not if you wanted to live to fight another day. For a sniper, survival depended upon being stealthy. It meant staying hidden. Part of what made a sniper so terrifying and effective — not to mention hated — was the ability to strike seemingly out of nowhere. A sniper's chances of being discovered increased exponentially each time that he took a shot.

Cole didn't know if he'd hit the German sniper or not. But for now, after a close call, being able to walk out of the room alive seemed like enough of a victory. He took one glance back into the room. The room was no longer neat and tidy. Empty brass casings from the Springfield lay on the floor, along with the shattered remnants of the window glass and mirror. One of the glass panes of the window was entirely shot out. That was war for you — it always made a mess.

They descended the stairs to find the house empty. Wisely, the French girl had indeed fled along with the boy. Hopefully, they were down in the cellar. Bullets didn't care who was a civilian, and who was not.

“I got a bad feelin’ about this, City Boy. That German sniper was a little too good. What are we up against?”

“Best we can hope to do it get him next time.”

But there was no time to set up a second sniper hide. Instead, he and Vaccaro joined in the fight taking place for Ville sur Moselle. Now that the Germans had probed their defenses, things were about to get hot. They took up positions behind the fountain in the town square. It was clear from the dirt and debris in the fountain basin that it had not flowed in years, but the stone fountain provided good cover from enemy fire. Also, from the fountain they had a clear view right down the street.

“Here they come!”

The second attack was concerted and savage, but the Germans were driven back again by the small American force. The Germans kept attacking by twos and threes, and the defenders picked them off easily or pinned them down before they could advance deeper into town. If the Germans had rushed them all at once, the outcome might have been different.

"Pick your targets," General Tolliver shouted, moving from group to group. "Aim and fire. Make each shot count."

Cole shook his head, watching the general run for the next knot of defenders. It was a wonder the damn fool hadn't been killed. He had to admit that General Tolliver knew how to place his limited forces to effectively defend the town. Also, he had managed to inspire even the greenest troops with both his words and his actions. The man didn’t seem to be afraid of anything.

Cole thought that maybe, just maybe, they still had a chance to hold the town and that bridge.

The Jerries were stubborn, but they weren't stupid. Once it became clear that they weren't going to be able to take the town, the attack ground to a halt. The Germans laid down a final fusillade of covering fire so that their comrades pinned down in the village could make their escape. Cole and the others were only too happy to let them go. A few more bodies lay in the street, but they wore German uniforms.

"There they go," Vaccaro said. "I got to admit that I love to see the Germans run off like that with their tails between their legs."

Cole said nothing, watching through the scope for any sign of the sniper they had encountered earlier. Given the layout of the village and the high ground surrounding it, a sniper was worrisome. From relative safety, he could pick off the defenders one by one. The only thing that would be worse was if the Germans called up a panzer. They wouldn’t have a prayer against a tank unless someone got really lucky with the captured Panzerfaust.

From the village square, Cole could still see the house in the distance where the sniper had set up shop. Upstairs, he could see the window that he had fired into earlier, and it still appeared empty as the eye socket of a skull. Had he gotten lucky and taken out the German?

Like the mountain folk back home liked to say, boil up a pot of beans and a pot of luck, and see which one fills your belly. In other words, wishful thinking wouldn’t do him any good.

His mouth tasted like gunpowder and dust. He spat. Beyond the scattered houses, somewhere in the cover of the woods, the Germans had withdrawn to lick their wounds for now. But the Germans needed to get through this town and take that bridge — and soon — before the weather cleared and the Allied planes returned and picked off the Germans.

As for the bridge, the Germans would cross it and then destroy it in order to slow the Allied advance. The Americans needed to keep that from happening so that another route remained open for their own forces to cross the Moselle.

"This ain't over yet," Cole said.