Stephen Hunter - The Master Sniper

“Damnedest thing,” he said aloud.

The Jew still stood there. “I happen to know about these coats,” he said. “A little. Not a lot.”

“What?” Leets asked.

“One of the other prisoners told me he’d worked on them. In the factory as a laborer. He’d been a tailor and the SS sent him to work in their factory. In the plant. It’s a place where there’d be a lot of them. Not so far from here. No rail travel would be involved.”

“What place?” asked Leets.

“The SS Konzentrationlager Dachau,” said Shmuel.

In an otherwise quite pleasant ash tree, the deserter swayed heavily at the end of the rope, face blue, neck grotesquely twisted. He’d been stripped of gear and boots but boasted a sign: I’M A PIG WHO LEFT MY COMRADES!

“Poor devil,” said the man next to Repp. “Those SS bastards must have caught him.”

Repp grunted noncommittally. He’d picked up this platoon of drifting engineers a few miles back and with them he was making his way across the Bavarian plateau in the southern lee of the Swabian Jura.

“They get you and your papers are wrong and it’s—” Lenz made a comical imitation of a man choking in a noose.

Occasionally a vehicle would roll down the dusty road, a half-track once, a couple of Opel trucks, finally a staff car with two colonels in the back.

“They ride, we walk,” said Lenz. “As usual. They’ll get away, we’ll go to a PW camp. Or Siberia. That’s always the way it is. The little fellow catches—”

“Lenz, shut up,” called back Gerngoss, the fat Austrian platoon sergeant.

The platoon continued to move down the road, through an empty landscape. Ostensibly, they were headed for the town of Tuttlingen, several kilometers ahead, to blow up a bridge before the Americans arrived. But Repp knew this was a pretext; actually they were just moping around enough to pass the time until the Amis showed and they could surrender. They were not Totenkopfdivision boys, that was for sure.

Repp tuned out the chatter and plowed on. It was farming country, smoother here west of the River Lech, near the Lake of Konstanz. The Alps could be seen, especially the 9,000 feet of the Zugspitze, far to the south, unusual since it was not September or October. To the west, the Black Forest massif, off of which Repp had come, glowered smudgily against the horizon.

“Perfect hunting weather for Jabos. You’d think they’d be thick as flies, the bastards,” said Lenz.

“Oh, Christ,” said somebody.

Repp looked up.

It was too late to turn back, or fade off into the fields. They’d just rounded a bend in the road and there in the trees was a self-propelled antitank gun, huge thing, dragon on treads, riveted body, dun-colored. SS men in their camouflage tunics lounged about it, their STG’s slung. Repp could tell from the flashes they were from the Field Police regiment of SS “Das Reich.”

“Watch yourselves,” muttered Gerngoss, just ahead. “Don’t do anything stupid. These pricks mean business.”

The young officer in the open pulpit of the gun mount leaned forward and with an exaggerated smile said, “You fellows going to Switzerland?” He wore a metal plaque with an embossed eagle on a chain around his neck; it hung down on his chest like a medieval breastplate.

“A joker,” muttered Lenz.

“No, sir,” replied Gerngoss, trying to sound casual but speaking over dry breaths through a dry mouth, “just going on down the road to a job.”

“Oh, I see,” said the young officer affably, though his eyes were metallic. “And which one might that be?” As he spoke one of the other SS men climbed down off the hull, unslinging his rifle.

“We’re engineers, Lieutenant,” explained Gerngoss, his voice rising suddenly. “Headed toward Tuttlingen. A bridge there to be blown before the Americans get to it. Then we’ll rejoin our unit, Third Brigade of the Eighteenth Motorized Engineer Battalion, south of Munich. Here, I have the orders here.” He held them out. Repp could see his hand tremble.

“Bring them here, Sergeant Fatty,” the young officer said.

Gerngoss waddled over fretfully. In the shadow of the armored vehicle, he handed them up to the young officer.

“These orders are dated May first. Two days ago. It says you’re traveling by truck.”

“I know, sir,” said Gerngoss, a weak smile bobbing on his lips. “We were hit by Jabos yesterday. A bad day. The truck was crippled, some people hurt, had to find a field hospital—”

“I think you’re stalling.” He smiled. “Dawdling. Waiting for the war to end.” The SS lieutenant laid an arm across the MG-42 mounted before him. In his peripheral vision, Repp saw the SS man flanking off to the right, STG loose and ready.

“Oh, shit,” Lenz muttered tensely next to him.

“S-sir,” insisted Gerngoss, “w-we’re doing our jobs. Our duty.” His voice was small, coming from such a big man.

“I think,” said the lieutenant, “you’re a Jew-pig. A deserter. It’s because of swine like you that we lost the war. Fat anushole Austrian, can’t wait to get home and fuck Jew-cunts and eat pastries in the Vienna cafés with Bolsheviks.”

“Please. Please,” whimpered Gerngoss.

“Go on. Get out of here, you and your Army scum. I ought to hang you all.” He spoke with angry contempt. “Drag your fat asses out of here.”

“Yes, sir,” mumbled Gerngoss, and shambled away.

“Thank Christ,” muttered Lenz. “Sweet Jesus, thank Christ,” and the squad began to shuffle forward humbly under the sullen gaze of the SS men.

“Ah, one second, please,” the smiling lieutenant in the turret called out. “You, third from the end. Thin fellow.”

Repp realized the man was talking to him.

“Lieutenant?” he inquired meekly.

“Say, friend, I just noticed that the piping on your collar is white,” the smiler announced. He seemed quite joyful. “White—infantry. The others have black—engineers.”

“He’s not with us,” announced Lenz, stepping away quickly. “He straggled in yesterday.”

“He said he was trying to find his unit,” Gerngoss called. “Second Battalion of Eleventh Infantry. It sounded fishy to me.”

“I have papers,” Repp said. He realized he was standing alone on the road.

“Here. Quickly.”

Repp scurried over, holding the documents up. The young officer took them. As he read, his eyebrows rose. He was freckled and fair, about twenty years old. A lick of blond hair hung down from under his helmet.

“I was separated from my unit,” Repp said, “in a big attack, sir. The Americans came and bombed us. It was worse than Russia.”

The young lieutenant smiled.

“I’m rather afraid these papers aren’t any good. Waffen SS field regulations supersede OKW forms. As of May first, on the order of the Reichsführer SS. For the discipline of the troops. You don’t have LA/fifty-three-oh-four, or its current stamp. A field ID. It has to be stamped every three days. To keep”—the smile broadened—“deserters from mingling with loyal troops.”

“Most of them just stayed. Waiting for the Americans. I went on. To find the rest of my unit. I was wounded in Russia. I have the Knight’s Cross.”

“A piece of shit,” the officer said.

“I have a note from my captain. It’s here, somewhere.”

“You’re a deserter. A swine. We’ve run into others like you. You’re going where they are now. To a dance in midair. Take the pig.”

Repp felt the muzzle of the STG pressing hard into his back and at the same moment his own rifle was yanked off his back. Someone shoved him and he fell oafishly to the ground.

“You stinking fucker,” a teen-aged voice behind him cursed. “We’ll hang you till your tongue’s blue.” He hit Repp in the lower spine with his rifle butt. The pain almost crippled Repp. He yelped, lurching forward, and lay in agony, rubbing the bruise through his greatcoat.