Winter Sniper: A World War II Novel

Chapter 2

The gloom of a London evening was settling over headquarters but there was no sign of the workday ending anytime soon. Captain Ty Walker sometimes wondered if there was a war being fought at all because he had yet to hear a gun fired in combat. At SHAEF — an acronym for the far more ponderous Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force — there was a flurry of paperwork and ringing telephones under bright lights that seemed at odds with the damp gray English night descending beyond the rain-streaked windows. But the rooms at 20 Grosvenor Square never grew dark until long after midnight. The staff was busy planning Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Europe, which was shaping up to be the greatest amphibious attack of all time. That invasion would decide the fate of Europe and the outcome of the war.

Ty was startled from his thoughts when the general asked, “Is there any more coffee?”

A flustered young WAC hurried up. “I’ll make some right away, sir.”

Ty had to smile. Lieutenant General Dwight D. Eisenhower was one of the most important men in Europe, if not the world, but he would never think to shout at someone because the coffee pot was empty. That just wasn’t Ike’s style, never mind that he had just been appointed Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.

Not that he wasn’t demanding in his own way. Six-feet-tall, bald, broad-shouldered and still fit at fifty-four, Ike worked brutal hours — he depended on coffee and up to four packs of cigarettes a day to keep him going — and he expected the same dedication from his staff. His rural Texas upbringing had instilled in him a belief that the greatest sinner was a lazy man. He preferred eating a hot dog at his desk to dinner at one of London’s remaining restaurants. And yet here was a man who had dined with Winston Churchill and FDR. He never forgot that his purpose was to win the war against the Nazis. Nor did he ever forget that soldiers were sleeping tonight in the rain while the SHAEF staff worked where it was warm and dry.

Watching the general light up yet another cigarette, Ty decided that he loved Ike more than his own father. His old man had fought against the Germans in the Great War and had scars from a machine gun bullet to prove it. Ty's father was not only impossible to please — the old man held on to praise like it was gold — but he also made it clear he didn't think much of a man who hid at headquarters while others "did a man's duty" with a rifle and a bayonet.

The general must have caught Ty watching. It was as if he had a sixth sense for inactivity. “Ty, why don’t you check on our driver situation.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ty felt mildly rebuked that the general had felt the need to remind him to do his job and he hurried from the huge room. That room was like the sun, the center of all activity, and the farther Ty got from Ike the fewer scurrying people he saw. The rainy night beyond the windows seemed to grope and clutch into the headquarters building wherever it could. England was a gloomy country, not at all what he had expected when he arrived six months ago. Back then, his idea of England was thick green woods like Sherwood Forest, castles, maybe even an occasional glimpse of the king. He thought the English would be more like Eva Von Stahl, the aristocratic German actress with whom he’d had a fling before heading overseas. Eva had tried to warn him. “The English are not an adventurous people,” she had said. “They thrive on routine. It makes me wonder how they ever won an empire.”

Thinking about Eva now brought a smile to his face. She had been right. This was a land of tepid tea slurped from cracked teacups, damp wool clothes that emitted a stale smell from not having been washed in years, and pale children who could have benefitted from a few days in the sun. But yet, they were not a defeated people. They had stood up to Hitler when other nations failed. The English had resolve. Ike was always reminding his staff of that fact.

Ty made his way downstairs. He passed an attractive WAC and the girl gave him a smile, meeting his gaze and holding it for a long, frank moment. Then she hurried on with the bundle of paperwork she carried. Ty blushed in spite of himself. He was young to be a captain, and some of Ike’s shine had rubbed off on him. Women noticed his rank and the fact that he was never far from the general. The truth was that he had no regular duties but was more of a general factotum and aide de camp. Which was why he was checking on the motor pool while others were busy seeing to the movement of armies.

At twenty-six, Ty was still relatively inexperienced with women. He had made it through the University of Virginia and then going on three years in the Army with few female complications. Since Eva, he had not been in a steady relationship. He had been out many times to the London nightclubs, which the Luftwaffe and V-2 rockets had never quite managed to shut down. There was plenty of drinking and dancing, and three times now Ty had experienced what was called a “wall job” in the alley behind a nightclub. Other couples were busy doing the same in the semi-darkness so they found their own space a few feet away. Music spilled out into the alley and they could spell the booze and cigarettes on each other. The English girl pulled down what she called her “knickers” and then tugged at Ty’s belt and the buttons of his fly. A few quick thrusts with the girl pressed against the damp bricks and it was over.

Buying her drinks all night was one thing, but for a wall job a girl expected more — a bit of money, a carton of cigarettes, nylon stockings. The girls weren’t whores. Not exactly. In wartime, Ty understood that a girl did what she must to get by. He was ashamed when he thought about those wall jobs and he wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been more than half drunk. He knew very well that he was taking advantage of the girls in a way. And yet he wasn’t so sure that he wouldn’t do it again. Eva would have found his moral dilemma amusing. “A man might think with his head and act with his heart,” she once told him. “But take him by the balls and you can lead him wherever you want.”

A steady girl in England would be better. He supposed he might ask that WAC out for a drink sometime.

Ty stepped outside into the English night. Rain spattered on the paving stones, turning to diamonds as it slanted down in the lamplight. The drivers huddled miserably in the rain, trying to smoke, or else sheltered in their cars. Ike didn’t like them loitering in the doorway. He heard light steps behind him, someone almost skipping, and Kay Summersby bounded up and took him by the arm. Playful as always. Turned up to the rain and lamplight, her longish face was striking rather than pretty. She had plucked eyebrows and carefully red lips. Nonetheless, Ty was reminded of a ripe peach in the rain. There were rumors that she and Ike were lovers; seeing her now, Ty wouldn’t be surprised if the rumors were true. The rumors also made Kay off limits, almost like one of the boys — nobody dared to hit on the general’s girl.

“Have you seen the new driver?” she asked cheerfully.

“No, but if she’s half as good-looking as you, I’ll be volunteering for a lot of trips.”

Kay laughed and punched him lightly on the arm. “Her name is Crandall. She’s down there now with the other drivers.”

It was just like Kay to be one step ahead of him. She had even more energy than Ike, if that was possible. Kay passed herself off as an Englishwoman, but the truth was that she had grown up in Ireland, which added something mischievous to her personality.

Kay skipped back to the relative dryness of the doorway and Ty went out to find the new driver. Almost half the drivers for SHAEF were women. Several drivers huddled at the edge of a tall hedge out of the wind and rain, their cigarettes glowing in cupped hands. It was hard to make out faces in the lamplight and the damp uniforms and overcoats made the figures shapeless, but Ty glanced from driver to driver, looking for a young Women’s Army Corps driver. His eyes settled on a taller figure a few steps away. The balding head and broad shoulders definitely did not belong to a woman. But there was something familiar about the man, right down to the jug ears. For a confused moment, Ty thought Ike had somehow gotten down here before him.

Then the driver turned around. He had the same expressive face as the general, the same dark eyes. Ty stared. It was hard to tell the man’s age. He could have been anywhere from thirty to fifty. In the semi-darkness, he could have passed for the general.

“Can I help you, buddy?” the man asked in a thick Long Island accent.

“I … I’m looking for a woman named Crandall,” Ty stammered.

The other drivers snickered. The man in front of Ty made a scowl that furrowed his tall forehead. Just like Ike. “I’m Crandall. But in case you hadn’t noticed, I ain’t a woman. You want I should put on a wig?”

“Then you’re the new driver?”

“I been drivin’ a long time, buddy. What the hell do you want, anyway?”

One of the other drivers recognized Ty and made an exaggerated show of clearing of his throat, then said, “Does the general need his car now, Captain?”

Crandall blinked at Ty a couple of times and came to some semblance of attention. “Sorry, sir. It’s hard to tell your rank out here in the dark.” He looked Ty up and down with an expression close to disgust. Clearly, he didn’t have much use for bumbling officers.

Ty had learned that in the army, an officer had to demand respect if he was going to be effective. He made his voice hard and snapped, “Crandall, what’s your rank?”

“Sergeant, sir.” He stood a little straighter.

“How long have you been in the army?”

“Ten years. How long you been in… sir?”

“Long enough, Crandall, to know I can have your ass shipped to China if I want. Make sure the general’s car is out front in ten minutes, warmed up and ready to go. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.” Crandall saluted. If he still thought Ty was a fool, he had been in the army long enough to hide it behind an impassive face.

Ty left the drivers and headed toward the doorway. The truth was that Ike might not be leaving for hours, but that was all right. It might do Sergeant Crandall some good to sit there and wait with the car. He stepped back into the headquarters building and stood in the entrance hallway, swiping at the rain on his arms and shoulders. Kay had her hand to her face, trying not very successfully to keep from laughing.

“You got me,” Ty said. “I fell for it. If Crandall is a WAC, I’ll bet he hasn’t shaved his legs in years.”

“And a bald WAC to boot.” Kay giggled. “My God, doesn’t he look like Ike?”

“It’s a little unsettling,” Ty admitted. He suddenly felt tired and drained, annoyed at himself for getting off on the wrong foot with the general’s new driver. He wondered if maybe he should arrange for someone to replace Crandall. But that seemed petty on his part. Not for the first time, he wondered what Ike would do in his place. The answer was that Ike would give the man a chance to do his job.

“Come on, let’s have a cup of tea and warm up.”

“Ugh. You English think tea is the answer to everything,” Ty said. “What I really want is a shot of bourbon.”

Kay smiled. “Oh, I believe that can be arranged.”

Hess kept his rifle trained on the bullet-scarred buildings three hundred feet away. He knew that Russian snipers preferred working from high places. They would be crouched in a blown-out window frame, still as a cat outside a mouse hole, waiting for Hess to show his nose. In turn, he hoped one of the Russian cats might twitch its tail, or that he might get lucky and see the dull winter sun reflect off the lens of a telescopic sight. Then he could kill the Russian. On the battleground between them, machine guns chirped, grenades exploded, but the snipers played a deadly game of cat and mouse that ignored the other fighting like so much background noise.

Hess knew that the Russians wanted him badly. For months now he had shot them down and taken his prizes. There was even a reward for the Russian sniper who killed him — a week in Moscow, a case of vodka, a new rifle. Last summer, some Russian had come close to taking the prize with a lucky shot that left a bloody furrow across Hess’s ribs. Since he had worked this same section yesterday, they would be looking for him here.

The Russians often used their own soldiers as bait to catch snipers. Hess wasn’t sure if that was a sign of desperation or stupidity, or only that the Russians valued their own lives even less than the Germans might have expected. All morning, he had watched their soldiers, usually unarmed and fully exposed, scramble between buildings. He knew they were taunting him when one soldier finally stood up like a winter hare on its hind legs

After hours of doing nothing, his body nearly frozen into position, it was true that he wanted nothing more than to pull the trigger. Still, Hess resisted the urge to shoot. It was Russian snipers he was after, not some fool they were using for bait. To kill a sniper required patience. He just hoped he wouldn’t freeze to death first. It was true that the sun was out and the sky was a crystalline blue, but the bright air held no warmth. Breath evaporated, chimney smoke shot straight up to the heavens, the water in a dead man’s eye froze into a crust of ice within minutes. Hess’s bladder ached and he had long since lost contact with his feet, but he did not move. If he so much as let out too much breath at once, Hess knew he would give himself away and a Russian sniper would put a bullet between his eyes.

Hess had crawled out across no-man’s land and set his trap long before dawn. He was hiding now in a shallow scoop of frozen dirt and snow beside the burned hulk of a car.

He had scouted this area carefully the day before and knew that this car was missing its back seat — either blown out or pulled out to haul cargo before German artillery had left it charred wreckage. Machine gun fire had poked holes in the trunk. Slithering across the killing zone on his elbows and belly before dawn, Hess had finally reached the car and crawled inside. He wedged himself into the trunk, then took a length of pipe from his pocket. He slid the pipe through a bullet hole, then tied a string around the other end. He ran the string back out and hooked it through the steering wheel, then crawled out of the car, trailing the string behind him. Hess kept crawling until he reached a shallow scoop several feet away that was partially covered by the hood of the car. He crept into the hole. Working quietly as he could, Hess pulled the hood completely over him and settled down to wait.

That had been hours ago. He was certain that a Russian sniper was waiting for him, just as he was sure that the sun was sinking in the sky behind him as the short winter’s day came to an end. The passage of time would weigh on the Russian too, fraying the enemy sniper’s nerves.

Hess put his eye closer to the rim of the sight. His finger tightened slightly on the trigger. With his other hand, he took up the last of the tension on the string he had set up hours ago in the darkness, the strand that stretched into the ruined car. At the other end, the pipe stuck through the hole in the trunk disappeared into the car. It was such a slight flicker of movement that only a hunter who had been watching painstakingly could have seen it.

Instantly, a shot struck the trunk, then another. If he had been hiding inside the car, he would be dead.

Hess saw the muzzle flash in the building across from him and settled the crosshairs on the space. He was shooting at a shadow but Hess relied on instinct to know just where the sniper was hiding a few feet back from the window. He was so intent on the shadows that when the Mosin-Nagant kicked his shoulder he was almost surprised. He braced himself for return fire but no shot came.

Foolishly, the other Russians did not seem to realize that they were no longer needed as bait. He shot five before darkness fell, then one more at twilight, a soldier whose face was illuminated for a moment as he lit a cigarette.

Stiff with cold, Hess strapped his rifle across his back and made his way back to the German lines. He always made sure to come and go from the same point, like a ship might use a port of call. It was not the best strategy for a sniper, he knew, but at night he was more worried about being shot by his own men than he was of being shot by the Russians. The sentries at that place knew he was out there and were expecting his return.

But tonight, it was not a sentry who greeted him. This man was better dressed, wearing a full black SS overcoat with a silk scarf, leather gloves and the rank of colonel. Quite a target, Hess couldn’t help thinking. Despite the fine winter clothes, the colonel was shivering. Hess’s own body had long since passed that point and given up the futility of shivering. His blood felt thick as slush.

“You are Hess?” the colonel asked.

“Yes, Herr Obersturmbahnfuhrer.” His stiff arm managed some semblance of a salute. Hess was in no mood for officers, but even he was not cavalier enough to slight a full SS colonel.

“Get yourself together, Hess. We are flying to Berlin tonight.”

Hess hadn’t thought it was possible for his blood to run colder. “What is this about?”

“Everything will be explained. I will be waiting for you at General Paulus’ headquarters. Be there in an hour.” The colonel turned to go. He took a few steps, then stopped. Hess noticed that the man’s boots were very shiny. “Oh. Make sure that you bring your rifle, Hess. You will be needing it.”