David Healey: Ghost Sniper

“We’ll see,” Mulholland said. “Just keep your eyes open and pay attention.”

“It’s spooky quiet here,” Chief said.

“Yeah,” Mulholland agreed. “Listen, I want everyone to spread out. Keep twenty paces between you and the man in front of you. If a machine gun opens up on us, we don’t want Jerry to take us all out in one burst.”

“Does that apply to me as well, mon lieutenant ?” asked Jolie, who was walking nearby.

“You bet,” he said. “But you know this country. Don’t you want to be first and lead the way?”

“ Non , I do not,” Jolie said. “The first person is more likely to step on a land mine.”

“These roads are mined?” Mulholland asked, looking at the muddy road beneath his feet with fresh concern.

“It is hard to know for certain. The Germans did bury thousands of mines. Who knows where? Better not to go first.” She nodded at Vaccaro. “Send that one first. He is useless but for a big mouth.”

“Hey, sweetheart, I love you too.”

“Shut up and pay attention, Vaccaro,” Mulholland said. He remained at the head of the squad.

Cole was bringing up the rear, which was fine with him. One by one, he sized up the members of their patrol. Meacham was twenty paces ahead of him, scanning the woods and fields with the eye of a country boy. He seemed all right.

Then came the Chief and Vaccaro. The Chief paid attention and seemed like a quick learner. Cole thought he would be a decent sniper—if he lived long enough.

Vaccaro might get them all killed on account of his loud mouth alone.

The lieutenant was a decent officer—he sure as hell had been brave enough on the beach yesterday, taking chances that Cole himself wouldn’t have, if the lieutenant hadn’t been leading the way. Mulholland was all right for an officer.

The French girl trailed a few paces behind the lieutenant. Cole was puzzled by the fact that she didn’t seem particularly excited or grateful that they had come to liberate her country. She had a hardness to her, like a soup bone with all the meat boiled off. No nonsense. She also didn’t talk too much, which was a quality Cole admired in a woman.

He pushed thoughts about his companions aside and kept his eyes moving, looking as far ahead as possible. The hedgerow country was unlike anything he had seen before. These hedgerows were ancient, going back to Roman times. They had begun as simple berms of earth to separate fields in order to corral livestock and define ownership. Over the centuries, brush and trees had grown on top of the earthen berms to form thick, almost impenetrable walls of greenery.

The hedgerows covered most of the Cotentin Peninsula as completely as a quilt across an old double bed. Unpaved lanes and roads passed through the bocage, some of these so thickly overhung with greenery that going down the road was like passing through a tunnel. After dark, the bocage would have been the perfect setting for a werewolf story.

But in this nightmare world, there were no werewolves or vampires. Snipers were far more real and deadly. This living maze was perfect for defensive action such as that now being undertaken by the Germans as they worked to thwart the Allied advance. Worse yet for the Americans was the fact that the few points of high ground scattered around the bocage offered an excellent vantage point. A German sniper on one of these hill tops could look down into the fields and lanes—and pick off anything that moved. In the hours after D-Day, nearly all this high ground had been occupied by German troops moving into defensive positions.

Their squad had orders to engage the enemy. But first, they had to find them. Cole suspected that the French countryside would not be quiet for long.

After the French woman’s remark about the Germans mining the roads, most of the others kept looking down at the dirt and grass, expecting to see some hint of a mine, but Cole reminded himself that he needed to look up for the real danger, which happened to be German troops, snipers, and Panzers.

“This is where we leave the road,” Jolie said. “The road here will just take us in a circle. It is necessary to have to use a map and compass from this point on.”

Lieutenant Mulholland followed Jolie’s suggestion and led them toward a gap in a hedgerow into an expanse of field, newly green with spring. They entered the field only after Lieutenant Mulholland and Meacham had advanced some distance into it. The field encompassed perhaps twenty acres and was ringed by the green-walled hedgerow, which managed to give the field the feel of a sprawling football field surrounded by bleachers.

On the opposite side of the field was a similar gap that Cole figured led to the next field over. A squad of American soldiers was crouched on either side of the gap. He could see two bodies sprawled in the grass just inside the neighboring field.

They moved around to the edge of the field, keeping out of any line of fire offered by the gap, then approached the other squad. Mulholland got together with the squad leader. Though their voices were low, Cole was close enough to hear the two officers talking.

“We’ve got orders to clear this field, but German snipers have got the gap covered,” the captain said. “They’ve already shot two of my men. I just wish we had a goddamn Sherman tank with us—we could follow along behind it. But we don’t have one, so thank God you all came along.”

“Us?”

“You’re counter snipers, right? You’ve all got telescope sights on your rifles. Fight fire with fire, I always say. This is your operation now, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir,” Mulholland said uncertainly. “How many Germans are there?”

“We’re pretty sure there are three because the shots are coming from different directions.”

“Where are they located?”

“Damned if I know. Walk into that field and you’ll find out, Lieutenant.” The captain slumped back against a large stone and lit a cigarette. “Hell, if this is what we have facing us between here and Paris, it’s going to make the beach landing yesterday look like a kindergarten birthday party. Where did you all come ashore?”

“Omaha.”

The captain dragged on his cigarette. “We were at Utah, thank God. I heard what you went through. Sounds like a goddamn nightmare.”

The captain spoke loud enough for them all to hear, and Cole’s thoughts went back to poor Jimmy, shot on the beach. It sure was a long way to go from home just to get killed by the Germans. Cole didn’t really understand what Hitler or the Germans wanted, but he understood the empty stare in Jimmy’s dead eyes.

“So what’s your plan here?” the captain asked.

The lieutenant was taking a while to answer, so Cole spoke up. “I reckon I might have an idea, sir,” he said.

“All right, Cole. It’s got to be better than the plan I’ve got right now, which is nothing.”

“Let me bring two men through that gap to draw the snipers’ fire, and you can locate their position and take them out.”

“Sounds like a good way to get three men killed.”

“We’ll split up and run in different directions. The way I figure it, the Germans will probably miss. It’s hard to hit a running target. Three running targets is confusing. But when they fire, they’ll reveal their positions. We’ll have our boys at the edges of the gap to take them out.”

“Hell, Cole, the only one here who’s good enough to do that is you.”

“Meacham is a good shot. Chief can at least make them keep their heads down.”

The lieutenant thought it over. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was better than nothing. “Take Vaccaro with you,” he said quietly. “With any luck, he can run as fast as he can run his mouth. The captain here will have to volunteer one of his men to come with me.”