David Healey: Winter Sniper

Hess saved his bullet. He did not have to wait long. Other soldiers crashed through the brush, followed by the American sniper in winter camouflage. He wore a big grin and didn’t even bother to train his rifle on Hess, as if he wasn’t worth the effort.

“Looks like I bagged me a genuine German sniper,” the American said. “You speak English?”

Hess didn’t answer. He willed the American to come closer so that he could point the rifle at him. One shot left. His field of vision seemed to be shrinking.

“Hey, this goddamn Kraut just shot three people,” one of the soldiers said. “We ought to kill him right now.”

“Hold your horses,” the other sniper said, taking another two steps toward Hess and studying the blood-stained poncho with professional curiosity. “I was trying for a neck shot. Usually get the spine that way, or maybe nick the carotid so you bleed out. You had to go and move, though.”

Closer , Hess thought.

He never heard the soldier who reached from behind the log and snatched the rifle out of his grasp.

“Not so tough now, are you?” The other sniper laughed and crossed the remaining few feet between them. “Don’t you want to say anything?”

“Go to hell.”

“So you do speak English. That makes it easier. Because now I know you’ll understand when I tell you that you didn’t shoot General Eisenhower.”

Then the American sniper raised his rifle and smashed the butt against Hess’s temple, making the world go dark.

When Hess came to, he almost wished he hadn’t. His head throbbed and his shoulder felt like it was on fire. He touched his shoulder and felt bandages. A big wad of gauze was taped to his forehead as well and he could feel dried blood soaked into the cotton, hard now as tree bark. Someone had patched him up. When he moved, however, he realized that they hadn’t bothered with morphine. The last time he had been shot, in Stalingrad, the drug had provided a few blissful days of relief from the pain. Apparently, the Americans didn’t want to waste morphine on him.

He would have been happy enough if they hadn’t even wasted bandages. One quick bullet would have ended things to Hess’s satisfaction. Even the Russians would have had the decency just to shoot him outright. A soldier couldn’t ask for much more. These Americans thought they were better than that. They didn’t shoot prisoners. But now they would want to question him, parade him in front of various intelligence officers like a trophy. See what we’ve caught! A genuine German sniper!

Hess groaned at the thought. He propped himself up on his elbow to get his bearings. The Americans had left him a glass of water, which was something, when one thought about it. He had not counted how many had died on that field today. Gratefully, he took a drink.

He was lying on a cot in a Spartan room. There were windows, but they had been boarded over to create a makeshift cell. He didn’t seem to be inside the hotel or the hospital on the resort grounds. He guessed that he was in one of the cottages he had noticed. In all likelihood a guard was posted at the door.

Hess forced himself to sit up. His body protested as, inch by inch, he managed to get himself upright. He counted to three and lurched to his feet. The room spun. Hess had nothing to hold onto, but he managed not to fall over. After a minute the dizziness passed and he began to explore his makeshift cell with an eye toward escape. The boards over the windows were nailed tight. The floor was concrete. Quietly, he tried the doorknob. Locked. Disappointed, he made his way back to the cot, exhausted from his feeble effort.

He heard voices outside and the doorknob rattled. Hess considered trying to overpower the guards, but then almost laughed at himself for even considering it. It was all he could do to sit up again.

Two men came into the room. He recognized the young officer as being the same one who had flung himself at Eisenhower in Washington, thus saving the general from a bullet. This captain still wore a jaunty white scarf. The second man, a sergeant, was older; Hess could tell at once that he and the sergeant practiced the same trade. Whereas the officer marched into the room, all business, the older man glided in quietly as a dancer and slouched against the wall. He had brown eyes that seemed to take a long time to blink and a hungry look about him, like a farm dog that never got enough to eat. He watched Hess quietly, content to let the young officer do the talking.

He launched right in. “First, I have to tell you that you are being considered as a spy, not a military —

“You are the one who shot me,” Hess said to the sergeant, struggling to make his dry mouth form around the English words. “If you had aimed a little more to the left, you would have saved us all a lot of trouble.”

“I reckon I hit you right where I wanted to,” the American sniper said. He grinned as if he had just said something very wise.

The officer cleared his throat. “As I was saying, being out of uniform, technically that means a different set of rules —”

“Not easy shooting in those woods,” Hess said, addressing the sniper. He knew the man was lying. A sniper who did not go for the killing shot was a fool. “The glare off the snow, the tree limbs.”

“Took some doing,” the American sniper agreed too quickly. “Cold as a witch’s tit too, lying out in them woods since daybreak.”

Hess shrugged, then winced at the pain that caused. “The cold here is nothing.”

“Stalingrad,” the American said, nodding. “We got a file on you. Bruno Hess.” He waited for Hess to deny the name. When he didn’t, the American continued. “Says here you killed a lot of Russians. One of the best. And I got you . How many Russians have you shot?”

Hess was about to shrug again but thought better of it. “A man doesn’t keep count of something like that. Not after the first few.”

“Your file says two hundred and seventy. You really shot that many?”

Hess thought about it. “More. Before Russia there was Poland and then Spain before that. I have shot soldiers, old men, women, children, dogs. You start out with rules and then after a while it is all the same. How many for you?”

“Enough.” The American sniper looked away.

Hess smiled. “Maybe someday I will shoot you.”

The captain cleared his throat pointedly. “The purpose of us being here is to let you know you are being treated as a criminal, not as a soldier,” he said, trying to get back on track.

“May I have a cigarette?”

The officer hesitated, but then offered him a pack of Lucky Strikes and held the lighter for Hess. He sucked the smoke deep into his lungs and felt better.

“You didn’t shoot the general, you know,” said the American sergeant, a comment that earned him a sharp look from the officer. “But you sure as shit killed his driver.”

“That will be all, Sergeant Yancey,” the officer said. “In other words, you can get the hell out.”

The sniper pushed away from the wall, casting a final, knowing glance at Hess before he went out the door.

“Thank you,” Hess said once Yancey was gone. “He can — how do you Americans say it? Get on your nerves.”

The American did not reply but only shuffled some papers, which Hess understood as a sign of agreement. While the man was busy with the papers, Hess studied the officer’s face. The remains of a nasty bruise covered his cheekbone, turning an ugly yellow as it faded. Nonetheless, the captain had boyish good looks and a solid build through the shoulders that hinted at a past playing football or baseball. The girls would like this one. Older women would mother him. When the war was over, he would take off his uniform and put on a suit. And yet he had that look of American earnestness about him. Determined, but curiously innocent. The captain stared back, two adversaries sizing each other up.