David Healey - Ardennes Sniper

Cole crossed the street, being careful to put the taller buildings and a few trees between himself and the line of sight from the steeple. Just in case. The back of his neck crawled with each step. He could almost feel Von Stenger’s crosshairs on him.

He found Vaccaro just where he had left him, down by the wall that ran parallel to the hamlet’s central cross street. The church stood directly behind him. He felt better with a stone wall between him and the German.

“How many did you get so far?” he asked Cole.

“One, maybe. Hard to say for sure.”

“Are you kidding me? I’ll bet I’ve shot six of these Kraut bastards so far. They’re so worried about the tanks up on the hill and the planes hitting them again that they aren’t paying attention to me picking them off.” Vaccaro looked at him. “One? I can guess which one it was. He’s like your Moby Dick.”

“He’s the only one that matters right now.”

“Then you won’t mind if I go back to helping us win the war?”

“You go right ahead.” Cole slumped behind the wall next to Vaccaro, who went back to scanning La Gleize for targets. Despite what he had said, it wasn’t so easy to pick off the enemy. The SS troops did not readily expose themselves to sniper fire.

Vaccaro made a satisfied noise. “You’re like a lucky rabbit’s foot, Cole. I just saw a muzzle flash in the top floor of that big building in the square. There’s even a window open up there. That dumb Kraut sniper should have just hung up a sign. Come to papa.”

Cole thought about that. Was it just some fool up there with a rifle, or was it a trap?

He reached out to grab Vaccaro’s leg just as he fired.

Vaccaro bent toward him. “What?” He sounded annoyed. “You made me miss.”

Leaning over is probably what saved him. The incoming bullet struck the stone where Vaccaro’s head had been and grazed his neck instead.

He flopped down next to Cole. “Son of a bitch, I’m hit!”

“Let me see.”

“Goddamn, Cole. Is it bad? It hurts like it’s bad.” The two of them worked through the layers of clothing to get a look at the damage. Cole saw that the wound in Vaccaro’s neck was a bloody mess.

“We best get you to a medic.”

“I won’t argue.”

“That sniper hung out a sign all right. It said, ‘Vaccaro, you are a goddamn idiot.’”

“Thank you for your sympathy,” he said. “Don’t you worry about me. I’m just sitting here bleeding to death.”

“Let me help you over to the field hospital.”

For all his bravado, Vaccaro was losing some blood and was going into shock. Cole tugged Vaccaro’s arm across his own shoulders, and together they made their way to the old stone church.

Vaccaro sagged, his legs suddenly like stone. He was surprised that Cole didn’t seem to notice the extra weight. The guy was skinny, but he must have had oak where his muscles should have been.

The pretty local girl appeared at the door of the hospital, once again wearing her blood-spattered apron. She saw them approach, and reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair back under the cap she had donned.

“I have to say that I might not mind being wounded,” Vaccaro said through clenched teeth. “Did you see her fix her hair when she saw me coming?”

“Hell, she was just getting the hair out of her eyes to see if you really are that ugly.”

“Cole, you’re such a jealous peckerwood,” Vaccaro said. “What I’m worried about is that you’re not gonna be able to kick that German’s ass without me.”

“Oh, I reckon I’ll get me that German yet. He’s just wily, is all.”

“If you say so,” Vaccaro said. “You—”

Vaccaro’s word were drowned out by a burst of machine gun fire that raked overhead. The telltale sound of high-speed rounds came from a MG-42 machine gun — what the German’s called a “bone saw” for the fact that it could fire twelve hundred rounds per minute and hit targets half a mile away.

The bone saw’s target was the front of the makeshift hospital — never mind the sheet with the big red cross that hung from the church. The warning shout that Cole was about to yell froze in his throat. The burst from the bone saw struck the girl and she fell limp as a rag doll.

When the firing stopped, he and Vaccaro covered the rest of the distance to the hospital entrance, with him doing his best to support Vaccaro’s weight. The girl lay sprawled in the snow-flecked rubble. Her face was angelic and untouched, but two large, gory holes marked the front of her apron where the rounds from the MG-42 had shredded the girl’s abdomen. Blood pooled around her. The girl’s cornflower blue eyes stared up at the sky. Two middle-aged women came running out of the hospital, saw the girl, and started wailing.

Cole got Vaccaro inside. The dark interior of the church was filled with wounded and smelled of blood. He helped Vaccaro into a vacant pew, and waved over a medic. Jolie saw them and moved their way, her lips pursed in concern.

To Cole’s surprise, tears ran down Vaccaro’s face, carving rivulets in the grime. A sob escape him, and he swiped at the tears with the back of a bloody hand.

Cole was taken aback. He and Vaccaro had been through a lot. But he had never seen Vaccaro cry.

“Jesus Christ, they just gunned her down,” he explained, his voice husky. “A sweet girl like that. What is wrong with those people? Shit fucking Nazis!” He swiped angrily at his eyes again, then reached to grab Cole’s elbow and drag him in close. Vaccaro looked exhausted. His faced appeared to have aged ten years in the last ten minutes. “You get those bastards, Cole. You teach them a lesson. If anyone here can do that, it’s you.”

The medic came and gave Vaccaro a shot of morphine, and Cole left him. He knew Jolie would look out for him.

The older women had dragged the girl’s body out of the way and covered it with a blanket. Her feet stuck out from beneath, at odd angles. The feet of the dead. Cole had seen that often enough. He tried not to think about the dead girl’s eyes, which had been such a lovely shade of blue, like a field of bluebonnets in bloom.

He made his way back to where the remaining snipers were positioned.

“How is Vaccaro?” the lieutenant asked, looking worried.

“He’ll be all right,” Cole said.

The Kid came up to them, shaking. Cole thought at first the Kid was cold, but then realized that the young soldier was shaking with anger. He clutched a pair of binoculars. “I saw him,” he said. “That son of a bitch who shot that girl at the church with the machine gun. He’s got a scar on his face. It’s the same Kraut who was at the massacre. I wanted to shoot him, but I knew I couldn’t hit him from that distance. You’ve got to shoot him, Cole.”

“Keep our head down, Kid,” Cole said. “Gettin’ mad won’t keep you from gettin’ killed. We’ll get him when the time comes. Somebody give this kid a drink, and I’m not talkin’ about water.”

Someone passed the kid a bottle, and he choked down a couple of swallows. The lull in the fighting continued. They smoked cigarettes and waited. Mulholland left to check on Vaccaro. A courier came along, and they realized it was the same corporal who had given them a hard time on the road.

Cole searched for a name. Muckelroy.

“Go ahead and take it easy,” Corporal Muckelroy said. “The rest of us can fight the war.”

The Kid started to get up, propelled by anger, but Cole’s hand shot out and pulled him back down. He froze the Kid with a look, then turned back to Muckelroy. “You got a message for us?”

“Your lieutenant, if he’s around.”

“He went up to the hospital. You can find him there.”