Gods & Snipers: A World War II Thriller

Chapter Seven

Trap, Frenchie thought, as soon as the first tracer rounds from an MG-42 arced across the sodden ground, cutting the Americans to pieces.

Frenchie threw himself flat and stayed there, too terrified to move a muscle as the sound of “Hitler’s Buzzsaw” filled the air.

He saw immediately what had happened. The Germans had not abandoned the fort in the face of the attack, as the Americans had thought. Instead, the Germans had slipped out unseen to flank the attackers — and even to hit them from the rear. The men had been so intent on going forward that no thought had been given to the fact that the fort might have been a ruse.

It was all a trick, a devious trap set by the SS troops, and the Americans had fallen for it.

They were now caught in a crossfire of tracer rounds coming at them from three directions.

Men fell all around him. He looked around for Marty and saw his own fear and confusion mirrored on his buddy's face. Just behind Marty, a man in a panic ran back into the concertina wire and was trapped like a fly in a spiderweb. He seemed to dance on imaginary strings as bullets riddled his body.

Frenchie froze. He couldn't even see the enemy to shoot back or pick a direction to shoot toward. German fire seemed to be coming at them from everywhere at once.

The lieutenant was trying to organize the retreat from the fort. He started to yell something, but the side of his face exploded. He staggered, then fell over sideways.

"Fall back!" the sergeant bellowed, then waved for the men to follow. Frenchie felt like he was pinned to the ground. Get up, his mind shouted. But his muscles refused to move. He felt Marty grab his shoulder and start to drag him away. That snapped Frenchie out of it.

He ran with the others for the river, recrossing the open field and heading toward the copse of trees that provided the only cover along the way. They ran like rabbits, gear flapping, helmets askew, boots slipping in the mud. One or two men dropped their rifles. Tracers darted from those trees ahead, which meant that Germans had slipped in behind them to occupy the horseshoe-shaped grove halfway back to the river, which they had thought of as their fallback position. The Americans had nowhere else to go. If they stayed out in the open, they would all be cut down.

Led by the sergeant, they stormed right among the trees and overran the nest of German machine gunners. They were so close that Frenchie had a glimpse of the twin lightning bolts on their uniforms. So, the bastards were SS. Would they surrender or put up a fight?

Frenchie was no more than a few feet away and he got a good look at their faces. They looked even younger than him, just a bunch of kids, but they sure as hell didn't look scared. They greeted the Americans with outraged shouts. The Germans gave no thought to surrendering. Instead, they grabbed their Schmeisser submachine guns and opened fire.

Frenchie fell to one knee and jerked the trigger of his M-1 as fast as he could without even aiming. There were bullets flying everything, but when he saw one of the SS soldiers double over, he was pretty sure that it was his bullet that had done it. He had to admit that it felt good to get even.

One of the SS soldiers was a tough bastard who refused to go down. He tossed away his empty Schmeisser, then raised a pistol and shot one of the GIs. Seconds later, a burst from a grease gun killed him. With the SS soldiers dead, the grove of trees, at least, was back in American hands — never mind the fact that they were flanked on both sides. They could see the boats pulled up on the riverbank a few hundred feet away, but the safety of the other shore was as far out of reach as the stars or the moon.

If they left the cover of the woods, the Germans would turn them into hamburger.

But retreat was not an option. First and foremost, they had orders to secure and hold the bridgehead. That meant holding this grove of trees and the riverbank beyond at all costs.

The sergeant gave orders to dig in, using the clump of woods to anchor their position. These men had some experience digging foxholes. A hole in the ground had saved their asses more than once. They broke out their folding shovels and quickly got to work. Their line was in a rough horseshoe that approximated the shape of the grove. There weren't enough men left to dig a line of foxholes longer than 100 yards wide and roughly as deep on both sides. All the time that they were digging, they were also under fire.

Marty slid into a foxhole alongside Frenchie, who was still making the hole deeper. "I just hope the Jerries don't get behind us," he said, nodding at the terrain sloping gently to the river. "It's all over if they do."

Fortunately, there were some troops on the far shore to provide covering fire to their rear — if they didn't end up shooting their own guys in the process. All in all, it was a precarious situation for Frenchie and the others to be in. It wasn't even much of a bridgehead. But orders were orders, so they would defend that ground like they were at the Alamo.

Momentarily, the firing stopped. Frenchie kept digging. He heard orders shouted in German — the Jerries were that close — and then the firing started up all over again, heavier and more intense this time. He dropped the shovel and grabbed his M-1 just in time.

The Germans came at them from three points of the compass — north, east, and west, laying down heavy rifle fire. Once they were close enough, they threw a few stick grenades.

Though outnumbered, the Americans had some advantage in firepower. Their M-1 rifles were semiautomatic, while the Germans were mostly equipped with the bolt-action Mauser K98. That was a good rifle but had a slower rate of fire. Frenchie squeezed off five quick rounds, aiming at a German he spotted running at them in a crouch. He reloaded without bothering to see if he had hit the soldier.

Frenchie was no killer, but he sure as hell didn't want to be killed, either, and the Germans seemed intent on doing just that. It was kill or be killed. He picked out another target and felt the rifle jolt against his shoulder. All the shooting had left him beyond deaf — all that he could hear was the ringing in his ears. The recoil was the only way he knew that the rifle had fired.

The German attack melted away. His heart pounded and his head rang, but he felt elated to be alive. Maybe these SS bastards weren't as tough as everybody said.

He turned to say as much to Marty.

His friend lay slumped in the bottom of the foxhole, his eyes open but sightless. A fat hole was visible at the top of his helmet. Through the ringing in his head, Frenchie heard a muffled sob, and thought at first that it was Marty. Was he still alive? He shook his friend’s shoulder, but there was no change in those blank eyes. Frenchie heard the sob again and realized that the sound had come involuntarily from his own throat.

He slumped back down in the foxhole. He didn’t have time to mourn. A crescendo of fire announced that the SS troops were attacking again. Those bastards were far from done.

Frenchie shouldered his rifle and began firing, not even bothering to aim, shouting in anger each time that he pulled the trigger. The empty brass cartridges spun away, and he slapped in another stripper clip.

The sergeant was going from man to man. He touched Frenchie's shoulder and shouted into his ear, "Pick your targets! Kill these motherfuckers." Then the sergeant moved on.

Again and again, the Germans came at them. Frenchie did what the sergeant had told him and aimed carefully. Once or twice, the enemy soldier he was shooting at seemed to go down, but he couldn't be absolutely sure. If he killed any Krauts, Frenchie didn’t feel bad about it.

Without heavy weapons, and relying on rifle fire alone, neither side was able to definitively overwhelm the other. The battle for the bridgehead at Dornot had become a brutal war of attrition — rifle against rifle and soldier against soldier.

Finally, as the September daylight faded, the Germans pulled back to lick their wounds. So far, they had not been able to dislodge the stubborn American force from their foxholes. The Jerries did not retreat, however, but kept up a steady harassing fire.

In the relative lull that followed, Frenchie reached down and closed Marty's eyes. He couldn't believe that Marty was dead. Sure, they had been in some tight spots before, and they had seen plenty of other guys buy it, one way or another. But that had always been something that happened to the other guy. They'd felt like they had a charmed existence. Until now.

As the twilight deepened, Frenchie went away in his head for a while. He wasn't even sure where his mind went, but it wasn't in this muddy foxhole, that was for sure.

When he came back, he was close enough to the sergeant to overhear him on the radio. "Permission to withdraw, sir. We can't hold this position if the Krauts hit us again." The sergeant waited a beat, as if listening to a response. He had the phone pressed to his right ear and a finger stuck in his left ear. "Negative? But sir—" Another pause. "I understand, sir."

The sergeant hung up, caught Frenchie's eye, and shook his head.

Once again, the sergeant went from foxhole to foxhole, passing the word. "We're to hold this position no matter what," he said, echoing what his commanding officer, safe on the other side of the river, had ordered him.

“Easy for them to say,” somebody muttered in disgust. “Hard for us to do.”

“Shut it,” the sergeant snapped.

Frenchie slid deeper into the muddy foxhole. He had been in the fighting since June. He knew that the sergeant was telling him that they might die here. He thought of Marty's sightless eyes and the lieutenant's exploding face. He started shaking, partly from being cold and wet, and partly from fear. The order to hold this position was akin to a death sentence. His belly clenched, and he thought that he was going to be sick, although he hadn't eaten anything since morning. Sick with fear, he thought. Malade de peur.

It promised to be a long night.