Gods & Snipers: A World War II Thriller

Chapter Twenty-Five

Things were starting to get too hot for Cole, with bullets chewing up the woods around him. Time to get the hell out of Dodge. But that was easier said than done, with lead flying all around him.

A bullet neatly severed a twig just inches from his head. Cole worried that he had overstayed his welcome, like when you drank up all a man's whiskey and he turned mean at the sight of the empty jug. These Jerries were plenty mean right now.

He had brought along a couple of grenades — next best thing to having Vaccaro with him. One grenade was now serving to booby trap the trail back to the village. He pulled the pin on his remaining grenade and threw it across the stream toward the Germans. He didn't know if he'd come close to anybody and he didn't much care. He needed a diversion.

As soon as the grenade went off, he was on his feet and running up the hillside. The blast created enough confusion for him to get out of what had been a tight spot. Thanks to the cover provided by the underbrush, the Germans hadn't seen him retreat.

Still, bullets snicked by close enough to set is hair on edge, some whining as they ricocheted off trees. That sound always made Cole's spine quiver. Cole kept going uphill until he reached the game trail. Then he turned west and ran along the trail as hard as he could.

Cole didn't know if the Germans would come after him or not, once they figured out that he had stopped shooting. He had seen how they were unloading ammunition and preparing for another go at the village and bridge. Once they had run him off, would they even bother to pursue him? Not if he was lucky, they wouldn't. The last thing Cole wanted or needed was a posse of SS soldiers hot on his trail. They'd be mad as hornets, that was for damn sure.

He would have felt better about the situation if he'd had more ammunition. But all that he had left was the clip in the rifle. Five shots? He had not expected a firefight and had shot up most of the ammo that he had carried with him. If the Germans did come after him, and if they had more than five men, then he'd be in serious trouble. In order to travel light, he didn't have a sidearm. He did have his Bowie knife, but he never put much stock in bringing a knife to a gun fight.

While one part of his mind puzzled out his current situation, another, more primitive part of his mind stayed on hyper alert. It was the hunter in him, something deep and primal that never switched off. Cole thought of that part of him as the critter. Sure, the critter was part of him, but also a separate entity hunkered down there in some cave of his mind, sniffing the air with a grizzled snout, ever watchful. So far, the critter had helped keep him alive.

Now, the critter dragged a claw along Cole's backbone to get his attention. What the critter noticed was that he couldn't hear any birds. His ears still rang from the firefight, but even as he moved deeper into the woods there was utter silence. When he had come through this way earlier, there had been a few forest sounds: bird songs, chattering squirrels, the machine gun staccato of a woodpecker. The quiet meant one thing.

He wasn't alone.

Cole stopped and listened. His hearing remained muffled, but he could hear well enough to know that he wasn't hearing anything. No sounds from the trail behind him, and no sounds ahead.

Just because he couldn't hear someone, didn't mean that they weren't there.

He decided to play it safe and get off the trail, at least for now. Surrounding him was dense woods. Whoever was out here was probably on the trail. The last thing he wanted to do was walk right into a German patrol coming from the direction of Ville sur Moselle.

Cole slipped easily among the trees and underbrush. Fall had thinned out the woods, offering less concealment, but it also made movement through the trees easier. He went up the hill, about a hundred feet into the woods, and moved roughly parallel to the trail. He soon lost visual contact with the trail, but he moved steadily east and used landmarks to navigate: an oak tree up ahead with a big knot on its trunk, and when he came even with that tree, he picked out another landmark far ahead, this time a recent windfall with a fresh, split trunk that created a bright spill of color in the drab forest.

He wasn't exactly Injun quiet — moving through fallen leaves and the litter on the forest floor wearing Army boots wasn't conducive to that — but he was sure that if someone waited on the trail below, they wouldn't hear him.

After ten minutes, he had passed the windfall and he hadn't seen anything other than trees or heard anything other than a few distant birds as the forest came back to life. Satisfied, he moved back toward the trail. The going would be a lot faster and he wanted to get back to Ville sur Moselle as soon as possible with a warning that the Germans were about to launch a fresh attack.

Cole stepped onto the trail. Looking east, he thought he recognized the section ahead. A little further on was the trap he had rigged. He would have to watch out for that. Getting blown up by his own trap would be a hell of a thing.

The critter snarled, behind you. Cole spun in time to see a man who had been crouched behind the windfall, looking in the opposite direction. The man spotted him and spun around, holding a rifle, and seeking a target. Maybe it hadn't been the critter at all, but just that motion catching his eye. He caught a glimpse of a German Stahlhelm and rifle with a scope. Without hesitating, he threw his own rifle to his shoulder, got the sights on the German sniper's torso as the man turned, and squeezed off a shot before the Jerry could fire his own rifle.

Cole had heard more than a few bullets hit bodies, both human and animal. They usually made a wet, raw meat sound when they hit. Nothing pretty about that sound. What he heard now was a metallic clang like a bolt tossed into a bucket. It was the oddest damn thing.

He had expected the German to go down. The man only staggered back, as if Cole had punched him instead of shot him.

Tough bastard, Cole thought. But something didn’t add up. He put the crosshairs on the German's torso again. By now, the man was moving and the shot wasn't as dead center, but still on target. No time to get fancy. He pulled the trigger.

Again, the German sniper staggered. But he didn't go down.

What the hell?

He had shot the man twice but had failed to take him down. Then he saw the German's rifle coming up.

Run, the critter inside him howled.

Cole turned and high-tailed it down the trail.

He felt like he had a big old X painted between his shoulder blades, but he dodged and weaved as best he could, juking left and right. He would’ve put a jackrabbit to shame. Behind him, the German fired and Cole actually felt the supersonic crack of the bullet go past his ear. The sound sent fresh shivers down his spine and made his legs feel slightly rubbery. Cole ran until his lungs burned.

The deer and pigs had made a winding trail that prevented a clear line of sight. He went around a bend and wasn't such a target anymore. Cole kept running, in part because he was just plain spooked. How in the hell had the German sniper gotten the drop on him like that?

If Cole had stayed on the trail initially, instead of slipping off into the woods as a precaution, he would have walked right into the Jerry's sights. The German would have drilled him.

More worrisome was the fact that he had put two shots on the German without apparent effect. What the hell was going on here?

He saw the log ahead where he had set his trap and leaped over it. With any luck, it would slow down or stop the German. He kept going and ran full tilt into the clearing where the massacre had taken place. He caught a glimpse of the bodies and hoped to hell that he wasn't about to join them anytime soon. The sight was also like salt in the wound. He had gone after the Germans intending to exact a pound of flesh, and now here he was running for his life. So much for being an avenging angel.

Behind him, he heard the blast of the grenade. The Jerry had run right through the tripwire. But had the grenade killed the German or merely wounded him? If the Jerry had been moving as fast as Cole, there was a chance that he had actually run through the kill zone by the time that the grenade detonated.

American grenades killed with shrapnel while the German version relied on a deadly shockwave. Close was usually good enough with any grenade, but how lucky was the German? Was he dead?

Cole wanted to make sure.

At the far end of the clearing, Cole fell to one knee and worked a fresh round into the chamber.

A split second later, the German sniper came rushing into the clearing. He was dragging one leg, so the booby trap had done some damage, but he was still on his feet.

With his hammering heart and unsteady stance, Cole didn't trust himself to try for a headshot at a running target. He aimed again at the torso. Cole fired.

The German grunted and spun halfway around from the impact of the bullet, but he didn't go down. His rifle was coming up, up—

Cole didn’t stick around to get shot. He plunged into the woods and ran downhill. The German fired and Cole could hear the bullet bouncing among the trees. He rushed pell-mell through the woods, roots trying to trip him, branches snapping at his face and briers snagging at his clothes, but he didn't slow down.

At the bottom of the ridge ran the same stream that had created a moat between him and the German camp. The stream was probably a tributary of the Moselle. The water was muddy from the recent rain and swift moving. Couldn't be more than a couple of feet deep and not more than ten feet wide, but too much to leap across. From the crashing sounds behind him, it was clear that the German was pursuing him — none too gracefully. In the distance, he heard the swell of small arms fire. The attack on the village had already begun. They would need every rifle to defend Ville sur Moselle. Right about now, General Tolliver was likely wondering where the hell Cole was.

Gettin' my ass kicked, Cole thought.

He could still hear the sniper running through the woods behind him. That leg wound, and maybe that last bullet, had slowed him down, but the son of a bitch was still coming.

Turn and fight, said the critter, feeling cornered, eager to bare its teeth.

But Cole wasn't just critter. Another, more calculating part of him existed. He did plan to fight, because there really wasn't any other option, but he had just two or three bullets left in the stripper clip. He had already put not one, not two, but three bullets on this guy, but hadn't managed to stop him yet. Cole knew that he'd hit him, but he hadn't put him down — not yet. He needed the German to stand still long enough for Cole to line up the crosshairs on him one more time.

He didn't have time for anything complicated. He pulled a dollar bill out of his pocket and dropped it on the bank of the creek. In the drab gray and brown of the natural world, the paper money stood out sharply.

Then Cole quickly moved back up the hill, in a slightly different direction from the one that he'd come down. By the time that the Jerry reached the creek, Cole was snuggled into the underbrush, a hundred feet away.

He slid the rifle through a fork in a small tree to hold it steady. Worked the bolt. He had one more bullet after this one. Otherwise, he'd be down to his knife. He knew that the German wasn’t going to take him prisoner — and Cole wasn’t about to let him.

He put his eye to the scope and looked back at the creek. His field of vision was crisscrossed by all sort of twigs and branches. The ones up close looked big and blurry. In fact, his field of view was such a mess that he could barely see the fine black reticule against that backdrop. This was going to be tricky.

Then the German appeared. He wore a poncho, which made it impossible to tell how or why the German was bulletproof. For the first time, Cole got a good look at his face. The heavy, brutal visage reminded him of a foreman on a coal mining crew back home. He had big shoulders and a thick neck. Cole wasn’t afraid of anybody, but he sure as hell wouldn't be eager to tangle with him one on one. The German was breathing heavily from the effort of running down through the woods.

Cole tried to get a clear shot, but all he could see was that web of branches. All it would take was one tiny twig to deflect the bullet. The man was looking this way and that. In another second, he'd be moving again and Cole would miss his chance.

The man disappeared from the sight picture. Cole realized that he must have bent over to pick up the money. Next to the helmet on a stick, using a lure of some sort was the oldest trick in the book, but he’d fallen for it. The sniper's head and face reappeared in the scope.

At this range, the bullet would be a little low from where Cole put the crosshairs. He thought about a headshot, and just as quickly, ruled it out. With two bullets left, he didn’t want to take that chance.

He aimed at the German's chest, but the target was obscured by the branches of the dense underbrush. He held his breath and waited. For an instant, Cole's crosshairs found the tiniest gap through the branches. He squeezed the trigger.

Cole worked the bolt, then heard a splash as the German went into the water.

One bullet left. He hoped to hell he wouldn't need it. So far, this bastard had been awfully tough to kill.

He couldn't see a goddamn thing through the scope because of the blur of intertwined branches, so he moved his head away from the scope, leaving the rifle pressed to his shoulder. Still nothing. He braced himself for any return fire from the German.

Cole crept forward, slowly untangling himself from the dense brush where he had hidden himself. He moved toward the stream. He hoped to find the German's body in the water. But Cole found no sign of him, except for his helmet where he had lost it among the brush on the river bank. Cole took that as a good omen. Maybe that last shot had finished him off, once and for all. The dollar bill that he'd used as bait was nowhere to be seen.

Keep the change.

He felt let down that there was no body. Cheated, somehow.

The German’s rifle must have fallen into the water. He had caught a glimpse earlier of the scoped weapon. Cole suspected that the rifle was a standard-issue Mauser K-98 sniper model. Cole had seen them before. The Germans issued a lot of them, as opposed to the U.S. Army, which had been slow to figure out the value of a sniper. The Germans seemed to have no shortage of good snipers.

The mystery was, how had Cole managed to shoot this son of a bitch, not once, but twice, without stopping him? The German had been big and solid, but he wasn’t Superman. Besides, a rifle that would drop a huge buck or a bear instantly was no match for any man.

Fortunately, Cole's final bullet must have done its job.

Stealthily, he began to move downstream, following the bank of the stream. The rushing water masked any nearby sounds, but in the distance he could hear shooting from the direction of the village. Things must be starting to heat up if the Germans had resupplied with all that ammo. He moved more quickly, expecting at any moment to see the German sniper's body hung up on a snag in the rain-swollen stream, but there was no sign of him.

He moved more slowly, sensing that something wasn't right. Had the German's body been swept completely away? Finally, he caught a glimpse of something caught on a branch in the current. Keeping his rifle raised to his shoulder, he approached cautiously. The silhouetted figure moved sluggishly, but Cole thought that maybe the current was causing the movement. As he drew closer, he became convinced that it was not the enemy sniper's body, but a sodden German poncho. Carefully, he leaned out over the water and reached for the poncho. Cole didn't much want to go for a swim. He caught the poncho and pulled.

Under the surface, something weighed down the poncho, but it seemed too light for a body. He tugged harder. The force of the current pulling back nearly dragged him in. With a final grunt of effort, he managed to get the poncho and whatever it held free of the creek and swung it up on the bank.

To his surprise, the poncho was tangled around a chunk of metal. It took him a moment to figure out what he was looking at. This was some sort of armored plating, like maybe a knight would wear. He had never seen such a thing before. All that Cole could do was stare at it.

"Don't that beat all," Cole said.

Then everything fell into place and caused him to chuckle. He felt relieved that the problem hadn't been his shooting, after all. The problem was that he'd been shooting at thick steel plating. The German had armored up.

He examined the armor more closely, truly amazed. He had never seen such a thing as body armor. There were dents, and one of the bullets appeared to have gone all the way through. Maybe he had gotten the son of a bitch, after all. He didn't see any blood, though. Had the German stopped to take off the armor to keep it from pulling him under, or had it simply separated from the body as it tumbled in the current?

He looked out toward the rain-swollen stream, which had enough of a current to sweep a body away. Had he actually killed the German? Cole might never know. He hated to think that the German had escaped with his rifle, but that remained a possibility.

Leaving the sodden poncho and armor on the stream bank, he straightened up and started walking downstream in the direction of the village. He had no doubt that this creek flowed directly into the Moselle and that the village would be nearby.

The firing was stronger and more rapid now from that direction. He reckoned that the Germans had launched another attack.

There had been a lot of Germans compared to the number of defenders. And the Jerries now had no shortage of ammo.

Cole hurried.