Stephen Hunter - The Master Sniper

He paused, allowing the information its impact.

“Translate it literally,” he advised some seconds later when he saw the befuddlement on Leets’s face.

Leets worked it out into English.

“‘Under the Oaks,’” he said.

“Yes.”

“Goddamn it!,” Leets said.

“Yes. And this Jewish chap presumably heard reference to a man from ‘Under the Oaks,’ as one would say ‘A Man from Washington,’ or ‘A Man from London,’ meaning a man of authority. But his knowledge of the language was imperfect, since his Yiddish only allowed him access to the most basic German. He garbled it, perhaps inflated it somewhat for rhetorical effect. Thus, Man of Oak, as Shmuel overheard him say.”

“Goddamn it,” Leets said again. “It must have been some officer, some supervisor. But it tells us nothing.”

“No, nothing: Another disappointment. It tells us only what we know.”

It was true. During the hot week with Shmuel, information had seemed to surge in on them. There had been so much to do . A powerful illusion of progress made itself felt. But in the very act of mounting, it had peaked. Leets saw this rather sooner than the others; now Tony had caught on: that, though all kinds of context and background were being assembled, the real nut of the problem had not yet been cracked. They knew Repp, and of his rifle, rudimentary facts, but compelling nonetheless. But they had no idea of more crucial matters. Who would the German shoot? When? Why?

“Your idea that somewhere in his testimony was a clue has gone up in smoke,” Tony said.

“We’ve got to find Anlage Elf, that’s all. Could we increase air recon of that area? Aren’t there French armored units closing in? Could they be directed to penetrate the forest, in hopes of—”

“No. Of course not. It’s huge, over and over we’ve remarked on how huge it is.”

“Goddamn it. We need something. A break.”

It arrived the next morning.

IN REF JAATIC REQUEST 11 MAR 45 THIS HQ ADVISES 3D SQD 2ND BN 45 INF DIV TOOK HEAVY CASUALTIES ON RECON PATROL 15 APRIL APPX 2200 HRS VICINITY ALFELD INTELL SUGGEST 11 ROUNDS 11 HITS IN DARK AND SILENCE ARMY GRP G-2 CONFIRMS WAFFEN SS UNIT HITLER-JUGEND THIS AREA PLS ADVISE

RYAN

MAJ INF

2ND BN G-2

“Well,” said Leets, ending the silence, “the fucking thing’s operational. They’ve worked out the bugs.”

“Rather,” said Tony.

“They can go anytime they want.”

Leets and Outhwaithe flew into the 45th Division’s sector early the next morning, landing in a Piper Cub not far from Alfeld, the divisional headquarters. Ryan’s shop, though, was farther toward the front. And here there was a front, in the classical sense: two armies facing each other warily across a bleak, crater-scaped gulf of no-man’s land, after the configuration of the last war. The Americans had gone across this raw gap many times, and each time, bitterly, they were driven back by the Panzergrenadiers of “Hitler-jugend.” So when Leets and Outhwaithe, in strange new combat gear they’d picked up for their trip to the line, approached the blown-out farmhouse in which Ryan’s G-2 outfit hung out, they were not surprised by the sullenness with which they were greeted. Outsiders, fresh, strange officers, one a foreigner, an exotic Brit, rear-echelon types: they expected to be hated, in the way locals always hate tourists; and they were.

“I never saw anything like it,” Major Ryan, a sandy-haired freckled man whose nose ran constantly, told them. “Center chest, one shot each. No blood. Patrol that found them thought they were sleeping.”

“And at night? Definitely at night?” Leets pushed.

“I said at night, didn’t I, Captain?”

“Yes, sir, it’s just that—”

“Goddamn it, if I say at night, I mean at night.”

“Yes, sir. Can we get up there?”

“This is a combat zone, Captain. I don’t have time to take people on trips.”

“Just point us in the right direction. We’ll find it.”

“Jesus, you guys are eager. All right, but goddamn it, get yourselves a helmet. It’s right smack in Kraut country.”

The Jeep could only get them so close; after that it was a walk in the sun. A sign in a shattered tree announced the sudden change in climate tersely and without fanfare: “YOU ARE UNDER OBSERVED ARTILLERY FIRE THE NEXT 500 YARDS” in standard GI stenciling, all the letters split neatly in two; but a wit had edited an improvement into the copy, replacing the word “artillery” with “sniper” in bold child’s scrawl. The war was everywhere up here, in the wary quick stares of the men who were fighting it, the hulks of burnt-out armor that littered the landscape, in the haze of smoke, heavy and lazy, that adhered to everything, and beneath it another odor that infiltrated the nostrils.

Leets sniffed.

“Ever been in a combat zone, Captain?” asked Ryan.

“Nothing stable like this. I did some running around behind the lines last summer.”

“I recognize the odor,” said Tony. “Bodies out there. Beyond the wire.”

“Yeah,” confirmed Major Ryan. “Theirs. Just let ’em try and come out and bury ’em.”

“My father,” said Outhwaithe, “mentioned it in his letters. The Somme, all that, ’14 to ’18. I read them later.”

They began to encounter the infantrymen here, just behind the line, relaxing around cooking fires, or simply dozing in the shadows of half-tracks and Jeeps. The still landscape actually teemed with men, though if there was a principle of organization behind all this casual cluster, Leets missed it. Who was in charge? Nobody. Who knew what they were doing? Everybody. But Leets did not feel himself the object of curiosity as he scurried along, self-consciously clean and unaccustomed to the crack of bullets aimed his way. Nobody cared. He was not German; he was not an officer who could send anybody out on patrol or launch an attack; therefore he was not significant. A couple of tired-looking teen-agers with BAR’s twice their size looked at him stupidly. It did not occur to them to salute, or to him to require it. Farther on, some wise man cautioned, “Keep your asses low.”

A final hundred yards had to be covered belly-down, without dignity, across a bare ridge, through a farmyard, to a low stone wall.

Here, settled in cozy domesticity, had gathered still more GI’s. Weapons poked through holes punched in the wall or rested on sandbags in the gaps of the wall, and a scroll of barbed wire, jagged and surreal, unreeled across the stones; yet for all these symbols of the soldier’s trade, Leets still felt more as if he’d crashed a hobo’s convention. Unshaven men, grousing and farting, clothes fetid, toes popping hugely out of blackish OD socks, lay sprawled about in assorted poses of languor. A few peered intently out through gaps in the wall or Y-shaped periscopes at what lay beyond; but most just loafed, cheerful and uncomplicated, enjoying the bright moment for what it was.

The platoon leader, a young lieutenant who looked tireder than Ryan, crawled over, and a meeting convened in the lee of the wall.

“Tom,” said Ryan, “these fine gents flew in special from London; they’re after a big story.” Newspaper lingo seemed to be Ryan’s stock in trade. “Not their usual beat at all, but here they are. And the story, in time for the late editions, is Third Squad.”

“Never knew who turned the lights out on ’em,” said Tom.

More precisely, thought Leets, who turned the lights on .

A sergeant was soon summoned who’d been at the wall the night of the patrol, evidently pulled from sleep, for the flecks of crud still clotted in his eyes. He affected the winter-issue wool-helmet cap, called a beanie and useless except for decoration in this warm weather, and he yanked hard on a dead cigar. All these men who lived in the very smile of extinction insisted on being characters, vivid and astonishing, rather than mere soldiers. They looked alike only for the second it took to categorize their eccentricities.