Righteous Sniper

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Returning to the second-floor hallway from the attic, they got things organized and headed down to what Bauer called the drawing room, which had become their headquarters. This time, Cole brought up the rear so that he could shoot anyone who tried to make a run for it — Bauer in particular.

He wasn’t all that worried about the two women. They still needed to figure out what was going on with them, but Cole didn’t see them as a real danger or threat.

In a few minutes, he would find out that he might have been wrong about that.

Downstairs, the warmth of the fireplace was welcome after prowling through the cold rooms above, not to mention the light from the flames themselves. There had been something unnerving about the search through the empty upstairs rooms and then coming across the two women in the attic. It was one thing to face the enemy, quite another to confront the possibility of ghosts and spooks, and something altogether different to find flesh-and-blood occupants.

The warm glow of the fireplace cast a welcoming light in the otherwise dark and cold room. The flickering flames danced on the walls, providing a sense of comfort and safety. The burning logs crackled and popped, sounding vaguely to Cole’s ears like distant gunfire in the otherwise quiet room.

The quiet did not last for long — there was a storm brewing in the form of the indignant lady of the house, who did not seem to like the feeling that she was now a prisoner in her own home, even if she was theoretically on the same side as the soldiers.

She had held her tongue in the attic, but within moments of arriving downstairs, the scowling woman lit into them with a torrent of words that Cole couldn’t understand, but considering that her eyes blazed with anger, the woman’s meaning was clear enough.

Cole and Vaccaro had a limited understanding of French. Like most GIs, they could pick out a word here and there after having been in France since D-Day. They had already discovered that Rupert spoke French and were surprised that Bauer was also able to communicate in that language. Adding to the mix, the girl spoke English with a heavy accent that made her even more endearing.

Based on his own experience with the French Resistance fighter Jolie Molyneaux, Cole knew that a girl could make the weather forecast sound like a love poem if she said it in a French accent.

Under different circumstances — perhaps an R & R dance arranged with some local girls in attendance — the three younger men would have been vying for her attention. But they now watched one another warily.

The daughter translated for everyone’s benefit. “My mother wishes to know, what is the meaning of this?” she said politely. Meanwhile, her mother was gesturing angrily at Cole and the others. “She says, ‘How dare you come into our home like this!’”

Because he was ostensibly in charge, Lieutenant Rupert turned to face her, doing his best to look official. “Madame,” he began calmly. “We apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused.”

“Inconvenience?” Through her daughter the woman made it plain that she scoffed at the lieutenant’s words. “This is an outrage! You have no right to invade our home!”

“We are just passing through,” Rupert explained. “We’ll be out of your house soon enough. Until then, I fear that we must ask you to remain in this room with us.”

Upon hearing what the lieutenant had to say, the woman’s face flushed red with indignation. Another stream of angry words followed.

“My mother says that she will not be held prisoner in her own home by a group of—” The daughter bit back the final word.

“Yes?” Lieutenant Rupert asked, a slight smile playing over his lips.

“Ruffians!” the girl finally exclaimed, reddening.

Cole reckoned that they had been called worse.

“Please assure your mother that we mean you no harm,” Rupert said to her. “We are simply trying to do our duty and protect your country.”

Again, the daughter translated, but it was plain to see that she was not satisfied.

“Mother says that she does not care about your duty!” the girl said. “She says that you have no right to treat us like this.”

“Miss, please inform your mother that we shall leave as soon as we can tomorrow morning. In fact, you might remind her that you’re better off having us here rather than the Germans.”

Once her daughter had translated these last words, all the fight drained out of the woman. Her indignation faded as the truth of Rupert’s statement sank in. She seemed to take in the tired and weary soldiers as if seeing them for the first time.

More words followed, but the matriarch’s tone had changed. She took command of the drawing room. Through her daughter, she began issuing orders like a general — there was no other way to describe it. She made it clear that this was her house and that the soldiers were interlopers or possibly guests (albeit socially inferior ones) who had wandered in out of the night, which indeed they had. Consequently, she had no qualms about putting them to work.

She pointed at the pile of wood, and then at the fire, indicating that it needed more logs piled upon it. Rupert was quick to do her bidding, and fresh logs sent crackling sparks up the chimney, and the warming flames rose higher. She oversaw the shifting of furniture to accommodate everyone in a rough half circle around the warm fire. Although French rushed from her lips, most of the commanding was accomplished by waving her hands at everyone in a manner that needed no translation.

Bauer seemed amused by the communication gap between the two Americans and their put-upon hostess.

“I have always found it curious that most of you Americans speak only English,” Bauer noted. “I don’t know if that is arrogance or your famous Yankee practicality.”

“Don’t go callin’ me a Yankee,” Cole warned. “That’s a downright insult where I’m from. Anyhow, there ain’t much need to speak French or German back home in Gashey’s Creek.”

Bauer cocked his head. “From what I hear, you barely speak English.”

Cole bristled at that remark. “Keep it up, Herr Barnstormer. The only one you’ll be talkin’ to shortly is Saint Peter at the pearly gates.”

Bauer shook his head, the familiar amused smile flashing. “I mean only that at times you are barely understandable to my ears because you have such a strong accent. Is that why your friend here calls you a hillbilly?”

“I’m a hillbilly and proud of it.”

Cole felt himself getting angry again at Bauer, but the heat faded when he saw that the German was giving him that wry grin of his — not a superior smile, but an impish one. Cole relaxed, realizing that the German was needling him. Busting his chops — and he had walked right into it like a blind mule into the side of a barn.

Cole shook his head. Reluctantly, he had to admit that Bauer had a sense of humor that matched his own. German or not, Bauer seemed to appreciate sarcasm and shared the same dark sense of humor as your typical GI. Maybe that style of humor was universal to soldiers everywhere, regardless of which side they were on.

The lady of the manor couldn’t seem to sit still, rushing around to light more candles. The daughter disappeared into the kitchen and returned with some cheese, a loaf of bread that had somehow escaped their search, a small knife, and a carving board. She also had a dampened cloth that she used to clean the dark smudges from her face.

It was later explained that the dirty marks came from the mother rubbing the daughter’s face with the burned end of a wine cork. It was a strategy to make her less attractive to the male soldiers who had invaded their home.

This tactic had been around as long as there had been pretty daughters and invading armies. The girl didn’t have a mirror, so the mother took the cloth and dabbed at a few spots that her daughter had missed.

Although she had been pretty enough to start with, the girl’s freshly scrubbed face now looked radiant in the firelight and candlelight, bringing a flush to her cheeks. One person who noticed the transformation was definitely Lieutenant Rupert, who stared as if transfixed. The girl saw him staring and blushed.

The mother then produced a bottle of brandy from a cleverly disguised cupboard to one side of the fireplace and poured them all a drink — even the German officer, although she supplied his brandy in a mismatched glass with an extra measure of frosty attitude. It was clear that she was no fan of the German, but having gotten over her initial dismay at having their hiding place discovered, she appeared delighted to have encountered two American soldiers and a British officer. In her view, they were the good guys.

Cole picked up on one word that she kept repeating, “Libérateurs! Libérateurs!”

Cole hoped she wasn’t just being polite on account of them being the ones with the guns.

Finally, she settled into a massive upholstered armchair, looked around like a queen holding court, and began to tell their story. Around the fire, the story of Château Jouret and the family who lived there began to unfold. Lieutenant Rupert and the girl took turns translating whenever she paused.

“We have been waiting a long time for the Americans to arrive,” she said through her daughter. “It is so exciting to see what you look like! We have tried to keep the house looking empty to avoid attracting attention. If there is a fire in the chimney, there is someone home, and where there is someone home, there is food, and where there is food, you will have foragers. When I glanced out the window, we saw the German officer’s uniform and feared the worst and fled with my daughter to the attic.”

She explained that they had taken a chance and come downstairs for blankets and a jug of water they had left in one of the bedrooms. That foray had turned out to be a mistake because the creaky floor had given them away.

Her name was Madame Jouret. She had been a widow since before the war. The house had been in her husband’s family for many years. She had a son who had gone off to join the fighting back in 1941, opposing the flow of the Nazi tide that had seemed unstoppable then, and had not been heard from again. After so many years, it was assumed that he was dead, one of the legions of young men who had stood up to the Germans and whose fate might never really be known, other than that he had been swallowed up by the war.

Rupert turned to the girl. “Your mother says that you are Carolina. It is very nice to meet you, Miss Carolina.”

“Lena,” the girl announced.

He took her hand in greeting, Lena took his, and to the onlookers, it was as if Lieutenant Rupert and Lena had wrapped themselves in a bubble to become the only two people in the room, or possibly the universe. Cole didn’t believe in love at first sight, or love in general, but the lieutenant and the girl sure seemed to.

Seeing what was going on, Cole and Vaccaro exchanged a look. “The girls always go for the officers,” Vaccaro muttered. “That’s the way of the world. But at least there’s brandy.”

“Amen to that,” Cole said, raising his glass in a toast to Vaccaro. He’d had a sufficient amount of the strong brandy so that he could feel its warmth down to his toes, which he hadn’t been sure would ever feel warm again.

He felt relaxed enough that he took off his boots and set them by the fire to dry, just like he’d done as a boy back home — but not so close to the heat that the leather would crack. Gratefully, he wiggled his toes and warmed them in the heat cast by the fireplace.

Cole glanced at Bauer, who, from his expression, also had not failed to notice the chemistry between Rupert and the girl. Cole might have expected another one of Bauer’s cynical smirks but was surprised to see that the German’s expression was wistful, as if remembering someone or something — perhaps even a German girl he had once looked at in much the same way. Or perhaps he was thinking of the many young German men who were now in the dirt, or frozen corpses buried face down in the snow, never to know love again.

Madame Jouret continued to hold court, but it was getting hard for the men to keep their eyes open. It had been a long day in the cold, compounded by several preceding days in bitter temperatures, plus biting wind and snow. He felt the sleepy tug of the brandy. Cole didn’t do much to stifle a yawn.

The fire began to die down, and they had burned through much of the wood from the small pile stacked near the hearth. Lena offered to fetch more wood, and Lieutenant Rupert jumped up and volunteered to go with her. Cole recalled that there was a woodshed not far from the kitchen door.

The two disappeared and the minutes stretched on.

“I’ll bet she found some wood, all right,” Vaccaro said, smiling knowingly. “The lieutenant is probably giving her all the wood she wants right about now.”

The mother began to look anxious and stood up as if to go after them.

Bauer said something gently to her in French and she sat back down, poured herself more brandy, and seemed to wrap herself in dignity as if putting on a shawl.

“What was that all about?” Cole wondered.

“I reminded her that love is life,” the German explained. “I have seen so many young men dead before their time in this war. Young women as well. Why not let the lieutenant and the girl have a few minutes to themselves?”

Another five minutes went by before the couple returned, carrying armloads of wood. Both looked rather flushed, Cole thought.

“I reckon someone’s been dancin’ the blanket hornpipe,” Cole said quietly to Vaccaro.

“You and your hillbilly sayings. Back home we call it playing hide the sausage.”

“Whatever you call it, they were doing it, though they really weren’t gone that long. Lieutenant Rupert must be quick as a jackrabbit.”

“Rupert is a lucky bastard,” Vaccaro said.

“No argument from me.”

More logs were put on the fire, and Rupert expertly banked the coals for the night. Not long after that, the women left to go upstairs to bed. First, Madame Jouret took a few of the coals and put them into an old-fashioned bed warmer to help heat the cold bed upstairs. Not even Cole had seen anything like that in years.

Finally, Madame Jouret asked for her shotgun back. Cole thought it over and then agreed. He supposed that the lady of the house had a right to feel as if she could defend herself.

Once the women had gone, Cole told Bauer to hold out his hands.

The German sighed. “Are you really going to tie me up again?”

“I don’t want you to steal my rifle and shoot me during the night,” Cole said. “Or hit me over the head with a chunk of firewood.”

“Do you really think I would shoot you?”

“I would sure as hell shoot you if I had to. Now put out your hands,” Cole ordered. “Or I can hog-tie you if you prefer.”

Bauer did as he was told, and Cole once again tied him up. If the German thought this business of being tied up was getting old, then so did Cole. He was tired of feeling like a nursemaid to their prisoner. He hoped that they would be able to drop Herr Barnstormer at HQ tomorrow and be done with him. The German would be someone else’s problem.

Once Bauer was secured again, Cole felt like that was one less threat to worry about and had a change of heart about keeping watch. After the women had been discovered hiding upstairs, it seemed unlikely that the château itself would hold any additional surprises. After barring the kitchen door — which she hadn’t had time to do earlier before fleeing to the attic — Madame Jouret had assured him that the house was locked up tight.

Cole had no reason to doubt her. After all, the heavy shutters over the downstairs windows transformed the place into a fortress. They would awaken in plenty of time if someone tried to get in, because there was no way to do that quietly.

Cole gave a final glance around the room. Vaccaro was already snoring, thanks to the brandy. He’d had a lot more to drink than Cole.

The German had stretched out on a sofa, his boots hanging off one end, put his bound hands under him for a pillow, and now appeared to be asleep.

Only Lieutenant Rupert still seemed to be awake, tossing and turning on the floor — most likely thinking about that girl upstairs.

The fire crackled gently in the hearth, red embers glowing. He mused that if this was as bad as the war got, it wouldn’t be half-bad.

Cole wrapped himself in his blanket and closed his eyes.

Cole slept deeply, unfettered by dreams. He awoke to gray morning light filtering between the cracks in the shutters and through the gaps in the thick drapes. It wasn’t anything close to sunshine, but instead the gloom of another dreary winter day. That was all there seemed to be in Europe, one gray day after another.

He was just starting to wonder whether they would ever see the sunshine again. The winter was beginning to seem endless, and summer felt like some dim memory. He longed for a crisp winter day with the sun bright on the new-fallen snow and not a breath of wind.

Like most country people, Cole tended to be an early riser, up before dawn, but he had slept late in the relative luxury of the château drawing room. He was just as exhausted as anyone.

He sensed that something had awakened him, so he looked around the room. In the dim light, he saw that Bauer and Lieutenant Rupert were still slumbering, but not Vaccaro, which was something of a surprise.

The city boy was already up, grasping his rifle as he peered anxiously through a gap in the shutters.

“What the hell are you doing up?” Cole muttered.

Seeing that Cole was awake, Vaccaro whispered, “Country boy, we’ve got a problem.”

“Just one? That ain’t hardly worth mentioning.”

“Yeah, but it’s a big one.”

“What’s that?”

“We’ve got company.”

“The way you’re sayin’ that makes me think it ain’t the Rockettes.”

“It’s sure as hell not. Better take a look.”

Cole roused himself, crawling out from under the warm blankets. The fire had died out during the night, leaving the room cold. The morning air also held a lingering mustiness from the house, like an old book that has spent too long on a dusty shelf. That slight whiff of dampness added to the overall feeling of being surrounded by gloom.

He joined Vaccaro at the window.

“I got up to take a leak and decided to peek outside to see how the day was shaping up before I grabbed a few more winks,” Vaccaro explained. “That’s when I saw them.”

Cole looked. He spotted a group of men huddled at the edge of the forest, watching the house. It was still somewhat dark under the trees, so he retrieved his rifle to get a better look at them through the scope. He studied the soldiers, confirming what he already suspected.

Germans. A trio of them.

Something about them made it seem as if the Krauts had been out there awhile, maybe all night. They looked cold, stamping their feet, their breath making clouds in the morning air. Then he realized that the Kübelwagen was dusted in snow. He couldn’t see any tracks in the snowy ground either. Dammit, how long have they been out there?

Cole and Vaccaro exchanged worried glances. “We should wake the others,” Vaccaro whispered, his fingers tightening around his rifle. “Maybe we can all still get out of here without attracting attention.”

Cole shook his head, his gaze still on the Germans. “It’s too late for that. They’re close enough that they’ll see us if we leave.”

“So what do we do?” Vaccaro demanded, his voice low as he scanned the room, as if searching for any weapons they could use against the Krauts. But they had no mortars, no machine guns, just their rifles.

“We wait and see,” Cole replied, no hint of doubt in his voice. “We’ve been lucky so far. Maybe we’ll be lucky again.”

Cole watched the Germans through the crack, reassured that they couldn’t see him. The Krauts were watching the house as if determining what to do next. Maybe they were trying to decide whether the house was occupied by friend or foe.

He was glad to see that they hadn’t approached the house yet, and with any luck it was just a small patrol passing through and they would move on. The fact that they hadn’t done so yet made him a little nervous.

Move on now, he wanted to tell them. Ain’t nothin’ to see here.

“Those Krauts are gonna be disappointed if they think I’m about to invite them in for breakfast,” Cole said. “We’d best wake up the others.”