David Healey - Ardennes Sniper

“Gosh, Cole, now I’ve got something to live for. I sure as hell hope some German doesn’t shoot me before I can get all liquored up on some rotgut you cooked up in a radiator.”

The others rolled out of their blankets, looking stiff and creaky in the frigid air. It was so cold that their nose hairs felt brittle. The Kid had not slept far enough away from the opening in the roof so that the snow made him resemble a cruller dusted with sugar.

Cole climbed up to the loft and looked out the hay window at the south end that faced the road where they had encountered the Germans yesterday. Nothing moved on the wintry fields except a handful of crows. He could hear them cawing; for all Cole knew, the crows were bitching about the cold, too.

He moved to the window at the opposite end of the barn. Again, nothing was visible but empty fields, stone walls and hay stacks. Not even so much as a sheep or cow. He knew that the quiet was deceptive. The Germans were out there. Even now, Das Gespent might be in some tree on the other side of the snowy landscape, waiting for someone or something to move. They didn’t call him The Ghost for nothing. Maybe he’d known all along that the Americans were hiding in the barn and was waiting for daylight to pick them off.

Cole pushed the thought from his head. He had been fighting the enemy for months, one bullet at a time. He did not keep count as Vaccaro did of how many Germans he had shot. What was the point? Wasn’t a contest — not that Vaccaro would have won. Although he had dealt more than his share of death, he did not take his own survival lightly. Somewhere out there was a German soldier who might be faster, a better shot, or goddamnit, just luckier.

It was one thing to have a vague idea of an enemy sniper who was better. It was another thing altogether to know that Das Gespent was somewhere nearby. Flesh and blood, lead and powder. He was the real deal. Cole just hoped to get another crack at him — before the Ghost Sniper picked him off.

Vaccaro came up the ladder to the loft just as Cole began to unbutton his trousers to take a leak from the window. Vaccaro joined him and their twin streams arced down, steaming in the cold, and made patterns in the snow below.

“One thing I haven’t done yet is shoot a man taking a leak,” Vaccaro said. “What about you?”

“Hell, that’s the best time to shoot a Kraut,” Cole said. “Even better is if you can shoot one takin’ a shit. Or just havin’ hisself a smoke. It makes ’em feel like they ain’t safe no matter what. Besides, I’d rather shoot a man who had his pecker in his hands than his rifle. It makes it hard for him to shoot back.”

“Hell, Cole, once you’ve got a Kraut in your sights, he’s not gonna have a chance to shoot back, no matter what he’s doing.” Vaccaro looked down. “I don’t want to brag, but that snow sure is cold.”

“If I was braggin’, I’d tell you how that snow sure is deep.”

Vaccaro looked over at Cole and thought that they could almost be friends. Almost. Cole always managed to put a fence around himself to keep others out. There was also something about Cole that was off the rails and unpredictable. He was bat shit crazy and stone cold deliberate all at once. He was like one of those Old West gunfighters in a movie — the one wearing a black hat. The truth was that Cole scared him more than a little. Sure, he could take a joke now and then, but deep down, Cole was hard like some Brooklyn mobster. An enforcer. A hit man. Where his soul should be there was a black lump of mountain coal — or maybe even a copper-jacketed bullet.

He hadn’t been joking when he told the Kid that he was glad Cole was on their side.

Vaccaro was sometimes amazed that the war had lifted someone like Cole out of the woods and mountains of his boyhood and thrown him together with someone like himself. In another time and place, they never would have met. They were opposites, as different as chianti and moonshine, and yet they were alike in some ways. While Cole was a backwoods boy, Vaccaro was from the mean streets of a working class Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn. You had to be tough to survive. Was that so very different from the mountains?

They heard a noise behind them, and looked over their shoulders to see Jolie coming up the ladder.

“Well, this is embarrassing,” Vaccaro said.

“Do not worry, I will not look at your willy,” she said. “I have left my magnifying glass downstairs, anyway.”

“Ha, ha. These French girls are ruthless.”

“Hell, piss on ’em if they can’t take a joke.” Cole shook himself and buttoned up his trousers. “Let’s see if we can get the ghost to show hisself today.”

They climbed down to the first floor of the barn, where the others were preparing to head out. The morning was achingly cold, but it felt good to be up and moving. The movement brought warmth to their stiff limbs.

Cole scanned the scenery once more and saw only white, dull grays and browns. The sun was up, but hidden by the deep cloud cover, it barely did more than give the forest a dusky light.

“Listen up,” Lieutenant Mulholland said. Although the squad was hardly bigger than a Boy Scout patrol, he always managed to sound as if we were addressing a briefing of Division commanders. “We have one objective today, and that’s to go after the Krauts.”

“Objective?” Vaccaro spoke up. “Isn’t that something they say in the courtroom, sir?”

“That’s objection,” Mulholland said, realizing a second too late that Vaccaro was yanking his chain. “All right, wise guy, you can take point.”

“Aw, and here I thought it wasn’t my turn to get shot today.”

“Shut up, Vaccaro.” The lieutenant turned to Jolie. “You don’t have to come with us, you know. I don’t know what we’re walking into but there’s a good chance you’ll be safe if you stay here.”

“I am coming with you,” Jolie said. “Give me a gun.”

Lieutenant Mulholland opened his mouth to argue, but then thought better of it. Instead, he gave her his sidearm, a Browning 1911 .45 that would definitely put a fat hole in a German.

“Good?”

“C’est bon.”

McNulty spoke up. He had been unusually quiet this morning, which was understandable. He and Rowe had been close, considering that they had both been newcomers to the squad. “Sir? The Kid and I was just thinking that nobody knows we’re here. Out here, I mean. Nobody at HQ, that’s for sure. We could lay low and sit this one out. There’s enough wood—”

The lieutenant cut him off with a shake of his head. He looked at the Kid. “Is that how you feel, son?”

“Sir, it was just talk, is all.”

Mulholland looked at the faces around him. “Listen up, everyone. We are a sniper squad. Which means we operate independently. You all ought to know that by now. We are going to do what snipers do. We are going after the enemy, with or without reinforcements. Any questions, McNulty?”

“No, sir.”

“Then let’s move out,” Mulholland said.

Still reeling from the news of the massive German attack, General Eisenhower had called a gathering of his top generals in Verdun on December 19. With Christmas a few days ahead, planning a defensive battle was not what anyone had in mind as a way to celebrate the holiday. But Hitler had ruined their plans.

In fact, he seemed intent on stealing victory from the Allies. His massive surge of men and tanks had taken the Americans completely by surprise.

“We are getting reports of tanks and even Luftwaffe planes. What I want to know is, where did all this stuff come from?” Eisenhower asked his staff.

“Out of Hitler’s asshole, most likely,” said General George S. Patton.