Gods & Snipers: A World War II Thriller

Chapter Five

Broken and bleeding, what was left of the German army was streaming toward the Fatherland. The squad that had ambushed Tolliver and his driver was just the remnant of a shattered unit. The entire German military had collapsed in the wake of the defeat at the Falaise Gap. The retreat was about as orderly as one could expect, considering that the fighting had decimated tens of thousands of soldiers. Huge numbers of German troops were either dead, wounded, or captured.

At Falaise, the Germans had been effectively trapped between British and Canadian forces to the north and American and Polish forces to the south, leaving just a narrow escape route. The image that it called to mind was that of troops pouring through a funnel — under fire all the way.

Devastating as the Falaise Gap had been for Wehrmacht forces, the Allies had also lost an opportunity to utterly crush the enemy. Logistics and communications had worked against the Allies, along with the reluctance to close the gap in such close quarters for fear of Allied troops from several nations accidentally firing on one another in what might be described as a circular firing squad situation. General Eisenhower had held back, determining that losses from friendly fire would undermine tenuous relations and the war effort far more than allowing the battered Germans to escape. For decades to come, historians would debate Ike’s fateful decision.

Having passed through that gauntlet, the Germans' best plan now was to retreat in hopes of regrouping later. Although the Allies nipped at their heels and Allied planes harassed them, the retreat was orderly, led by battle-hardened NCOs and officers.

Some troops rode on horses. A few lucky ones — mostly the officers — rode in motorized vehicles. Most men had to rely on their own two feet to carry them toward the Moselle River, and then the Rhine beyond. They knew that they were not walking toward salvation, but toward a final stand. One last chance to save the Fatherland. The Allies were closing in from the west, and from the east came the hated Russians, flooding toward the Fatherland like an inexorable red tide.

Retreating with the German forces was General Karl Unterbrink. The defeat at the Falaise Gap had left the military fragmented, flowing in motley units toward Germany in hopes of reorganizing. For now, these German troops counted themselves lucky to be alive.

The small unit that Unterbrink commanded was hardly large enough to be directed by someone of his rank. A general normally commanded a brigade or a division, not a collection of ragged Soldaten. There were remnants of units, and men in groups of two and three, all gathered together like metal filings to a magnet. As a general, it was Unterbrink who served as this magnet. Unterbrink was determined to be the commander that these hard-fighting men deserved.

This morning, he'd had sixty-three men. Yesterday, he'd had sixty-six. Sometime during the night, those three must have decided to take their chances in surrendering to the Allies rather than fighting it out to the last man.

Gefreiter Hauer had taken the head count. A sniper by training, Hauer had been with him since before the Allied invasion. Unterbrink had made Hauer his de facto aide de camp and scout, answering only to the general. He was loyal as a Rottweiler and twice as vicious.

"Three less than yesterday," Hauer said. “The deserters can’t have much of a start, sir. I can bring them back and shoot them in front of the others to set an example.”

Unterbrink wasn't happy about losing three men during the night to desertion, but he put a brave face on it. "We are better off without them if they do not want to fight," he said.

He wore an officer's double-breasted greatcoat that was a bit too warm for the weather, but he knew that the days would be turning colder soon enough. Unterbrink didn't mind that; he had always liked the winter.

Even spattered with mud, Unterbrink managed to look dashing. Normally, the lapels of a general's coat had red facing, but Unterbrink had opted for a plain junior officer's field coat that made him less of a target for enemy snipers. He knew about snipers because he had put them to good use himself. Hauer was a case in point.

He had left the coat open just enough to make the two gold oak leaves and single gold bar combination on the collar of his tunic visible so that his rank was clear. He did not yet have a Knight's Cross at this throat, which rankled him a bit. He held out hope that the defense of the Fatherland would offer new opportunities to win one.

The coat was belted around the middle. For a man of fifty-two he was very fit, thanks to daily calisthenics that he kept up even during the retreat. On the belt he wore a holster containing a Luger. He wore an officer's Jodhpur-style trousers tucked into black riding boots. On his head, instead of the familiar Stahlhelm, he wore an officer's cap with goggles pulled up over the brim, nearly disguising the ornate braided officer's insignia known as "the cabbage patch" for its close resemblance to that humble vegetable.

Although Unterbrink had downplayed most outward displays of his rank to avoid becoming a target, there was no questioning that he had an air of command that had nothing to do with insignia and gold braid. He exuded authority.

"This way," Unterbrink shouted, standing in a Kübelwagen, the sturdy vehicle that was essentially the German equivalent of a Jeep. They had just emerged from a forested area into open ground surrounded by farm fields. He glanced at the sky, worried that Allied planes would appear at any moment now that his men were out in the open. "Hurry! Hop, hop, hop!"

He waved toward the right-hand road at an unmarked crossroads. He did not know the name of this place and it did not matter. The goal was simply to move west. A few modest houses stood nearby to create something of a crossroads village. A couple of young boys had come out to watch the soldiers go by, but no adults were in sight. The road to the left was blocked by the smoking ruin of a Panther tank. Two bodies lay just beyond it, still steaming like roasts taken from an oven. The smell of charred flesh hung over the crossroads. The general's stomach rumbled hungrily in spite of himself because the smell resembled roast pork. He found that reaction more curious than revolting. Deep down, we are all beasts, he thought.

The crossroads carnage was a horrific sight, but they were inured to it, having seen too many of their comrades killed. But these men were not defeated or beaten. They were soldiers. They would fight until the end.

Unterbrink loved them.

He was doing the best that he could for them, leading an orderly retreat, trying to get these men back to Germany.

He saw one young soldier struggling to juggle his gear, which included a haversack and Mauser K98, with the ungainly weight of a Panzerfaust. Unterbrink jumped down and went to sort him out.

"Here, give me that a minute," the general said, reaching for the Panzerfaust. The rocket-propelled weapon would make short work of any Sherman tanks that they came across, but it was an unwieldy burden, being a wooden stick nearly two meters in length with the heavy charge at one end. Unterbrink grabbed a length of rope from the car and tied it to both ends of the Panzerfaust to create a makeshift sling. He held the weapon while the soldier slipped it over a shoulder.

"Give that a try," Unterbrink said. "Keep it over your left shoulder like that, and you can still fire your rifle when you need to."

"Much better, sir."

Unterbrink climbed back into the Kübelwagen.

"Probst!" shouted a soldier going past, raising a canteen that likely contained something stronger than water.

The general grinned. "That's the spirit."

One of the men broke into song and the singing spread. The song was called “Erika.” Popular since before the war, it was a rousing tune that stuck in one’s head. The lyrics themselves were sentimental rather than martial:

Unterbrink felt a lump in his throat.

Sixty-three men. Such good men. He would command them as proudly as a division.

He watched them going by, singing now, carrying Panzerfaust over their shoulders, two MG-42 machine guns, ammunition. They might be short of fuel and food, but weapons remained plentiful. The soldiers’ burdens were heavy, many were footsore or hungry, or they ached for their lost comrades. Energized by the patriotic song, they swung along the road with a new spring in their step.

The Allies had breached the Atlantic Wall and the Germans had lost the battle for France at the Falaise Gap. Their broken forces streamed toward Germany and what was called the West Wall — the Fatherland's last line of defense. There, what remained of the German military would make a last stand, trying to ignore the fact that the dreaded Russians were pressing toward Berlin on the Eastern Front. The Leader kept promising super weapons that would turn the tide. Unterbrink knew better. Victory or defeat would be in the hands of men such as these.

Battered and bleeding, the German nation was being forced to fight for its life on two fronts. Better than most, General Unterbrink understood that strategically, victory on two fronts was an impossible task. The best that they could hope for was to bring the enemy advance to a halt long enough to buy Germany time — or possibly a seat at the negotiating table.

Over the summer, a group of officers had tried to assassinate Hitler with a bomb. They had come close, but The Leader had survived to exact terrible revenge on the officers, along with their friends and families. Hundreds had been rounded up and shot. There were rumors of cruel punishments involving meat hooks and basement hangings carried out by the Gestapo, along with forced suicides.

Unterbrink thanked his lucky stars that he hadn't been part of that circle. Anyhow, if Hitler had been killed, there might have been a power struggle in the resulting vacuum just when Germany needed strength.

Hitler had consolidated power in the wake of the assassination attempt. The general thought that Hitler's command decisions were increasingly erratic and desperate, but Unterbrink kept such thoughts to himself. Besides, his war had come down to these sixty-three men and the need to get them across the Moselle River.

Off to one side of the crossroads, Hauer stood holding a sniper rifle. He was about average height but solidly built, like a heavyweight boxer. He was not singing but keeping watch over the neighboring woods and fields. Only when the last of the men had gone up the road did Hauer seem to relax.

The sniper's gaze fell upon the two young French boys who were still watching the last of the soldiers. One of the boys had started doing a goose step, marching back and forth along the road. The stiff-legged march had become familiar to French residents watching the German occupiers arrive. The retreating troops were not doing the goose step today. Clearly, the boy was mocking the Germans.

"What are you playing at?" Hauer demanded. “Do you think this is funny?”

Too late, the boys realized their mistake. The boys would have been better off running away, but they froze. Whether or not they spoke German didn't matter because they could understand the sniper's angry tone. Hauer walked over and cuffed the bigger boy violently in the head, knocking him to the ground. Hauer then kicked him savagely, causing the boy to cry out. Hauer would have kicked him again, but the boy was too quick and rolled away out of reach.

Coming to their senses, the boys ran off. The sniper started to raise his rifle to shoot them.

"Hauer, get in," the general said, fully aware that he had just spared the lives of the two French boys.

The sniper lowered his rifle and looked up. He had intense blue eyes. "Yes, sir."

Hauer walked over and got into the passenger seat. He set the rifle between his knees, within easy reach, the barrel pointing up. Unterbrink sat in the back seat, which was nearly overflowing with gear, from medical equipment to an iron curaiss from the Great War that Hauer had found in a barn. The Kübelwagen was one of only two vehicles available at the moment and had been pressed into service to carry whatever it could.

As he settled into the seat, Unterbrink could not resist a nervous glance at the skies.

"It looks like we have lost the Americans for now," the general said.

"They'll be right behind us. To be honest, sir, I'm more worried about their damn planes."

"Do you think that you can shoot down a plane with that rifle of yours?" the general asked.

"I can try." Hauer seemed to think it over, as if it was an actual possibility. "But I doubt it."

The general gave the sniper a sideways look, wondering if the man was serious. Shoot down a plane with a rifle? It would be just like the sniper to try. He liked Hauer's style, though; a few more like him, and the Wehrmacht might not be in retreat right now. Nonetheless, the general had to admit that there had been a few excesses along the road that had brought them here, and it was usually Hauer who was at the heart of them.

The young man had been a butcher before the war, and it showed in his occasional acts of brutality. He would have shot those two boys just now, for example. Unterbrink was usually willing to look the other way when the sniper went too far, so long as Hauer got results. As the situation became more desperate these last few weeks, the general had increasingly come to depend on Hauer when things became difficult. Hauer could be relied upon when there was hard, dirty work to be done. He could not but help to think of it as letting a dog off a leash. Hauer was his indeed his own personal Rottweiler.

Unterbrink lit a cigarette and sighed. He would have preferred a different war, and a different time. He often though of his ancestors, aristocratic Prussians who had served all the way back to the Napoleonic Wars. Their portraits had stared down from the walls of his ancestral home, proud men in immaculate uniforms shiny with gold braid and impressive medals. Those had been the days of swords and horses and black powder. Unterbrink was fighting in a war with tanks and planes and machine guns — and bloody butchers with telescopic sights on their high-powered rifles.

He pushed such thoughts aside. This was a time for action, not introspection. There would be plenty of time for that when the war was over — if they survived.

"We need to keep going. If we can just find a bridge across the Moselle, we'll be that much closer to the West Wall,” Unterbrink announced. He unfolded a map, tapped it with a gloved finger. He continued after a moment, as if thinking out loud. “This place looks promising. Ville sur Moselle. It’s just a few kilometers from here.”

“Yes, sir. The sooner that we get across that river, the better,” Hauer agreed.

“There will be antiaircraft guns and what's left of the Luftwaffe once we get closer to Germany, to give us some cover from these Allied planes,” Unterbrink said.

Hauer glanced at the sky. Grunted. "Looks like rain. That would be a good thing for us! It would keep their planes grounded."

“Let’s move out while we can.” The general leaned forward and touched the driver's shoulder, and the Kübelwagen leaped forward.