Gods & Snipers: A World War II Thriller

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Cole tracked down Tolliver and informed him of the situation at the bridge.

"Goddammit," the general muttered. He chewed his lower lip. "We can't fight in two directions at once. We're spread too thin as it is. How many Germans, do you figure?"

"Nobody said, sir."

"I don't suppose it matters if it's a squad or an entire brigade," the general said. "Hell, half a dozen Germans is too many."

"They saw black uniforms, sir," Cole added after a moment's hesitation.

"SS." The general shook his head. "Don't it just figure."

The soldiers they were fighting now were regular Wehrmacht, and they were tough enough. SS troops would be even worse because they were fanatics. Another thought hung in the air. SS troops meant there wouldn't be any possibility of surrender for the American GIs, nor much hope for any of the townspeople getting out of this alive. At this juncture of the war, everyone knew that the SS did not take prisoners — nor did they expect to be taken prisoner. No, the fight at the bridge would be a fight to the bitter end. A fight to the death.

Tolliver glanced toward the flaming barricade, which had been completely abandoned to the Germans. The remaining defenders were doing what they could to stop the attackers at the fallback position.

Then Tolliver looked up the main street in the direction of the river, just as Cole had done earlier. The bridge was beyond their line of sight, but that was hardly reassuring. The Jerries might be pouring across it even now, to hit the defenders from behind.

"We could use that game trail I found and slip into the woods," Cole suggested.

Tolliver shook his head. "If those are SS troops coming at us from the bridge, these townspeople won't stand a chance. They'll murder everyone here."

Cole thought about the bodies of the villagers that he had found in the woods. Those men had been summarily executed. The general was right. If the SS captured the town, there would be more of the same. They couldn’t leave the villagers to that fate. Not if they could help it.

"Sir, why don't I take Vaccaro and Frenchie down toward the bridge to see what good we can do."

Tolliver stared at him. "Three men?"

"Maybe we can hold them off long enough for this attack to fall apart," he said. "Give us some kind of fighting chance."

The general chewed his lower lip again. "Hold that bridge, Cole," he finally said. "And if you can, keep those SS bastards from blowing it up. We want that bridge across the river, but those Jerries sure as hell don't want us to cross so they'll do what they can to destroy that bridge."

"Yes, sir."

Gathering Vaccaro and Frenchie, the three of them loaded up on grenades, shoving half a dozen each into their pockets. Cole would have liked more ammo for their Springfields, but he and Vaccaro were already carrying every spare clip that was available. They had maybe fifty rounds each. Frenchie carried an M-1 with every spare clip they could find — maybe eighty rounds. Cole hoped to hell it would be enough. Their isolated unit wasn't getting any resupply.

The trio headed for the river and bridge at the opposite end of the village. It seemed strange to be headed away from the fighting. But if there were SS troops down here, they wouldn't be out of the fight for long.

When they had arrived in the village earlier, he and Vaccaro had scouted out the bridge. Built of stone and timber, it seemed solid and impregnable as any medieval fortress. Frenchie had encountered the bridge when he had first dragged himself out of the river after the debacle upstream at Dornot.

The sight of the bridge seemed to bring back those memories. "If these are SS troops, I wonder if it's the same guys who chewed us up when we tried to cross at Dornot? I'm not eager to run into those guys again, I can tell you that."

"Let's see what we're up against before you start worrying about that," Cole said.

The three of them spread out across the road, rifles at the ready, straining to see toward the bridge. The village road sloped slightly down toward the river. The stone structure soon came into sight, looming above the muddy brown water.

They saw the Germans, who spotted them at almost exactly the same time. The Krauts had been swarming over and under bridge, running wires and planting satchel charges. Although the bridge was stone, it seemed to be held up in part by a web of crisscrossed timbers. Cole was no engineer, but it looked to him as if wrecking just one of those timbers would send the whole affair down into the muddy water below. That appeared to be what the Germans had planned.

At the sight of the Americans, several Germans dropped whatever equipment they had been using and started firing with their Mauser rifles. They were too far away to shoot accurately, but the bullets were too close for comfort, raising clots of mud as they hit the road or cracked through the air. Cole and the others scurried for the side of the road, where a low stone wall offered some cover.

The Germans on the bridge were more exposed. Four or five set about laying down suppressing fire while the rest of their squad moved to finish setting the charges.

Cole and Vaccaro got their rifles across the stone wall and fired, picking off three Germans with as many shots. The Germans had, in fact, been wearing black uniforms, so the rumors about them being SS were true. Frenchie was banging away with the M-1, quickly burning through a stripper clip, but he didn't seem able to hit anything. All three of them ducked their heads down behind the stone wall when one of the Germans opened up with a Schmeisser pistol and peppered the wall.

"That's some shooting," he said to Cole. "I didn't hit a damn thing."

"Aim low when you’re shooting downhill, Frenchie," Cole said. "In case you ain't noticed, we ain't got a limitless supply of ammo. We want to get out of this mess, then you need to pick your targets."

He raised the rifle and dropped the German with the Schmeisser.

Studying the remaining Germans, looking for a target, that was when he noticed a familiar figure. Even at this distance, through the scope, he thought that he recognized the face.

Cole stared, incredulous. He was looking at the same German sniper that he had tangled with in the forest. The sniper’s arm was patched up — one of Cole's bullets must have found him, after all — but he was still in action. The Jerry still had his sniper rifle, a Mauser K-98 equipped with a telescopic sight. Hell, this German had more lives than an alley cat. He must have let the stream carry him into the Moselle, and then reached the far shore to team up with the SS unit. A strong swimmer wouldn’t have too much trouble with that, and the German looked strong as a bull.

Cole watched him through the scope as if taking in a movie, seemingly unable to do a thing about it. The German aimed the rifle in their direction, seeming to take his time about it.

Cole reached out and dragged Frenchie down just as a bullet struck the rim of the low wall — a space that had been occupied by Frenchie's head an instant before. The German sniper was still a deadly shot. Cole himself had never used a telescopic sight until joining the Army, and it had never stopped him from hitting targets. Then again, he had the eyes of an eagle.

"Keep your fool head down," Cole snapped at Frenchie.

Looking pale, all that Frenchie could do was nod in agreement. As Cole spoke, another bullet cracked overhead.

Vaccaro had joined them in crouching behind the stone wall, his hand on top of his helmet as if to hold it in place against the passing windstorm of bullets. He gave Cole a look. "That’s some shooting. If I didn't know better, Hillbilly, I'd say that's the same Kraut sniper or maybe even his twin. I thought you took care of him."

"Weren't for lack of trying," Cole said bitterly.

"Now what?"

The rate of fire from the Germans on the bridge had increased, effectively pinning Cole, Vaccaro, and Frenchie behind the wall. But it was a long wall, running along the road down to the river. The road itself wasn't paved, but neither was it entirely dirt, being an amalgam of stove pavers, cobblestones, and dirt packed hard by centuries of use. Low clouds draped the hills beyond, and Cole could smell the dampness in the air and wafting up from the river. One thing for sure, they were not going to get any help from the Army Air Corps. Those planes remained grounded. The defenders of Ville sur Moselle were still on their own.

The one bright spot was that so far, the SS troops had not made any effort to advance and hit the American defenders from the rear. Instead, the Germans seemed intent on setting charges to destroy the bridge. Cole wondered if they would hold off to see if their comrades fought their way through. He doubted it. The SS didn't seem to care much for anyone, including the Wehrmacht.

Cole risked a quick sight check over the lip of the stone wall. More SS troops had come up, right to the edge of the bridge, while others were busy setting charges and running detonator wires back to the western shore of the Moselle. He guessed there were maybe twenty troops on the bridge now. Once they were done wiring the bridge, would they advance into the village to hit the Americans from behind? That was a distinct possibility. Cole wasn't sure how long the three of them could hold off twenty Germans — and who knew how many more might be waiting on the opposite river bank?

General Tolliver had issued orders to hold the bridge, or to try and prevent the Germans from blowing it up. It looked like that wasn't going to happen.

Slowly, a plan began to take shape in Cole’s mind. The plan wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.