Gods & Snipers: A World War II Thriller

Chapter Eighteen

Back outside, glad of the fresh air away from the hospital smells, General Tolliver made his way down the main village street, mentally going over the preparations for the defense of the town. Fortunately, the German sniper seemed to be done for the moment, which made him wonder what the Jerries were up to next. It was the quiet before the storm. When the Germans returned, the defenders had damn well be ready.

Think, he urged himself. What am I forgetting?

He reviewed a mental checklist: ammo, medical supplies, barricades, posting sentries. He hadn’t gotten to be a general, even one who commanded a desk, without sweating the details.

Tolliver came upon the kid who had been the driver for his Jeep. Private Smith was now a sentry, his rifle pointed toward the road that the Germans would come down.

He felt like he owed it to this kid to keep him alive. Hell, he owed it to all of them.

"Keep your eyes open, son," he said to the soldier. He noticed how the young man's shoulders were hunched down into the collar of his jacket. The day was damp and chill here in this hollow by the river. He chided himself for not remembering that the men would be cold and hungry. There was so much to think about. He would see if the village women would make coffee and maybe sandwiches.

"I'll have someone come by later with some food and maybe some coffee," he said.

"Yes, sir," the young soldier said.

Tolliver moved on. He decided that when you took away the life or death consequences, the defense of the town was simply another logistical problem to be solved. It wasn't all that different from his usual problems with supply and demand. He reviewed his mental checklist until it was like a broken record in his mind. Was there enough ammunition? Were the defenses adequate? Did he have enough men?

Nonetheless, Tolliver realized that he was a long way from signing requisition forms and reviewing inventories. The defense of the village wasn't a problem to be solved with a dull pencil, but with a sharp stick.

He hadn't asked for this situation and he had no illusions about his abilities or experience. Tolliver knew he was out of his element. Until today, he had only heard fighting from a distance. But he was in command now, the only officer and a general at that, so there was no question of anyone else taking over. He couldn’t ask whether or not he was up to the task because the task had landed in his lap. He could not pass the buck. People would live and die according to what he did here today.

The thought made him nauseous. Why in hell had he ever thought it was a good idea to take that Jeep ride?

Not for the first time since arriving at this village, Tolliver wondered about his Civil War ancestor. Is this how he had felt on the eve of battle? And then, tamping down his uncertainties, the Confederate Tolliver had led his men into Union guns at Gettysburg and finally in that cornfield outside Richmond, with fatal results. With all due respect to his ancestor, he hoped to do better than that.

He had placed men as sentries and lookouts so that they could give warning of the German approach. Also, he'd had the townspeople help to build that barricade across the road at the edge of town. Basically, they had piled together carts and sections of wooden fencing and even furniture. The result was hardly formidable — it looked more like the makings of an estate auction of cast-off possessions than a defensive line. But anything to slow down the German assault was a good start.

Tolliver had ordered a second, smaller line of defense to be created a couple of hundred feet deeper into the town. Truth be told, if the defenders were forced to this second barricade, then they would be in serious trouble.

Ammunition would be a problem. The defenders had already fought off two German attacks and there was no hope of resupply. How were the men set?

He tracked down Sergeant Woodbine, who was smoking a cigarette near the dry fountain in the center of the village square. Nearby stood the sniper, Cole, the one with the pale eyes. He was watching the road, alert as a wolf. In Tolliver's experience, most enlisted men were in the Army because they had to be. They were maybe drafted, or doing their part for the war because everybody else was. They were soldiers by necessity.

But Cole was different. All you had to do was look in those eyes to know that the man was more like a gunfighter than a soldier. The pale eyes glanced at Tolliver as he walked up, seeming to go right through him, then flicked back to the road.

Tolliver nodded at him, deciding that Cole needed no words of encouragement. He approached Sergeant Woodbine.

"Sergeant, any change in our ammunition situation?" Tolliver asked.

Woodbine exhaled a stream of smoke before he answered, thinking it over. "There's maybe enough for one last fight. Most of the men have thirty or forty rounds each, and the villagers that have a shotgun or an old hunting rifle only have a handful of shells apiece — if those old guns don't blow up in their faces, that is."

"Doesn't sound like much," Tolliver said.

"Like I said, sir, there's enough ammo for maybe one good fight. After that, we'll be down to bayonets and rocks."

Tolliver realized that he had spent most of the war signing off on requisition forms for things like cases of ammunition, without really thinking about what a single bullet could mean. It had all seemed so mundane and routine in his bean counter's mode. Hypothetical. Not anymore.

"Spread the word that they need to make every shot count," Tolliver said.

Woodbine took another drag on his cigarette. The expression on his face seemed to indicate that the men already knew that, but all he said was, "Yes, sir."

Cole spoke up. "We got company," he drawled, shifting his rifle to his shoulder.

Tolliver looked toward the road. To his surprise, there seemed to be a delegation of Germans approaching in a Kübelwagen. He counted three men — a driver, an officer riding next to him, and a soldier in the back. They displayed a white flag prominently. Was it a flag of truce or a flag of surrender? Worse yet, was it a trick?

"What the hell do they want?" the general wondered out loud. Based on the intensity of their attack on the town, these were hardened German veterans. They hadn't come to give up.

"They ain't coming to surrender, sir," Cole said quietly, as if reading Tolliver’s mind, his rifle aimed at the Germans. "They're sniffing around to see what we got planned for them."

"Sounds about right." Tolliver agreed that getting a glimpse of the town's defenses was the clever thing to do, although it rankled that the Germans might be thinking that they were pulling a fast one.

Cole said, "You want, I can shoot them."

"Hell no, don't do that," Tolliver said quickly. Cole’s matter of fact tone was a little disturbing. It wouldn't be right to shoot the enemy waving a white flag, even if he suspected that was a ruse. "Woodbine, Cole, with me. Let's go see what these bastards want."

They walked down to the edge of the village, passing the two barricades. The Germans had stopped there, waiting for them, engine running. The Kübelwagen's motor made a puttering sound with a wheezy whine mixed in, so very different from the bobcat growl of a Jeep's motor. Tolliver wondered what the protocol was here, and realized that he didn't have a white flag of his own, so he dug into his pocket and took out a handkerchief, waving it over his head a couple of times so that there would be no confusion about their intent. In response, the Germans waggled their white flag, which he saw was a rag tied to a stick, and switched off the Kübelwagen.

The driver stayed behind the wheel, but the other two Germans got out. One was an officer, tall and spare, with piercing blue eyes in a face tan from the summertime battles across Normandy. The eyes seemed very bright in the gloom, taking Tolliver's measure at a glance. Tolliver squared his shoulders in response. Clearly, this officer was a combat veteran, which made Tolliver wary. Was it possible that the German officer might sense that Tolliver himself had never commanded more than a desk?

The other German was about six feet tall and solidly built. He carried a rifle with a telescopic sight and had a look about him, Tolliver realized, that was much like Cole's. Another killer. This German radiated a threatening aura. He had no doubt that this was the sniper who had been shooting up the village just a short time ago. Tolliver felt the urge to draw his Browning and settle the enemy sniper’s hash, but they were operating under a flag of truce.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noted how Cole had moved away from him and Sergeant Woodbine, keeping his rifle to his shoulder with the muzzle pointed slightly down, but ready to aim and fire at a moment's notice.

The general approached the German officer and nodded.

"Thank you for meeting us," the German said in heavily accented English. He spoke slowly, but his meaning was clear enough. "I am Generalmajor Unterbrink."

"General Tolliver."

"Two generals? Fighting over a tiny village? Whatever is the war coming to." Unterbrink gave him a small smile as if he knew something amusing that Tolliver did not. Tolliver disliked him instantly. Unterbrink acted like one of those stuck-up bastards who didn't think you were good enough to join his country club.

"Are you here to surrender?" Tolliver asked.

Unterbrink seemed surprised. "Surrender? Actually, I hoped to ask you to surrender, General."

"That's not an option."

Unterbrink absorbed the news without emotion. "I understand. In fact, I did not expect that you would surrender. Perhaps we can come to a reasonable accommodation. You are outnumbered. Your men don't need to die. My men don't need to die. They would like very much simply to return home. All that we seek is to cross the river. Stand aside and let us pass."

"You know I can't do that," Tolliver finally said, although he was sorely tempted. The German general made it all sound so reasonable, like a gentlemen’s agreement. But Tolliver wasn’t falling for it. He could not simply stand aside and let the Germans cross that bridge. ”Did you really think we'd let you march through here, or did you just want to get a good look at our defenses?"

Unterbrink gave that small smile again. "Your defenses? Such a thought never crossed my mind.” The German looked around. “Surely, by defenses you don’t mean that pile of furniture in the street?”

For a moment, no one spoke. The two snipers had locked eyes and seemed to be sizing each other up, as if daring the other man to make a move. Tolliver had no doubt that at a signal from him or Unterbrink, that the two snipers would start shooting. Despite the temperature, he felt a trickle of sweat run down between his shoulder blades. This was like a standoff at the OK Corral.

"Are we done here?" Tolliver asked.

Unterbrink nodded. "Good luck to you, General."

He turned and climbed into the Kübelwagen, not giving the Americans so much as a second look. The German sniper backed toward the vehicle and slid onto the seat, keeping his eye on Cole the whole time, his weapon at the ready. The engine cranked over, prompting more high-pitched chattering from the German motor, and then the driver backed up and drove away.

The three Americans watched them go, waiting until they were out of sight, and then Cole and Woodbine turned to look at Tolliver.

"Goddamn Krauts," he said. The encounter had literally left a sour taste in his mouth, and he patted his pockets for a pack of cigarettes. Unterbrink had gotten an eyeful, all right, taking in the makeshift barricade and the fact that the defense consisted of a handful of soldiers and geriatric villagers. "I want everything buttoned up all over again, Sergeant. Those Krauts will be back, and next time they won't be waving a white flag."

"Should’ve let Cole shoot them, sir."

The general thought that maybe Woodbine was right, but there was no helping that now. "When they come back, Cole can do all the shooting he wants."

Both Cole and Woodbine grinned at that. "Yes, sir."