David Healey - Ghost Sniper

“I will take your clothes back to the road,” Jolie said. She looked him over, noticing how lean and pale he was, but well-muscled with tough, corded muscles across his shoulders and a flat belly. “Good luck.”

They waited under cover without saying anything more. Cole started to shiver more intensely, and after a while Jolie spread his jacket across his shoulders to keep off the chill while he waited. Where the hell were Meacham and Vaccaro? They ought to be in position by now. He needed them to start shooting in order to distract the Germans.

Finally, some shots came from the hill at Cole’s back. He doubted that Meacham or Vaccaro had much of a target, but what mattered was that they had the attention of the German snipers. One shot, then another, came from the woods that hid the Germans. Two snipers, then.

Cole slipped out from behind cover and slid down the river bank. He had pictured himself easing into the river without so much as a splash, but the bank was so steep that at the last minute he slipped on the mud and went under.

The shock of the cold water forced the air out of his lungs, but he stayed under, fighting the urge to come up for breath. This close to the German snipers, if they had spotted him, he was a dead man if his head popped above the surface of the river.

He struck out for the middle of the river, trailing the string behind him. His eyes were open but he couldn’t see a thing in the brown, churning water. Finally, his lungs burning and feeling himself close to panic, he came up for air, bobbing gratefully above the river’s surface. He grabbed a lungful of air and forced himself to go under again and swim for the far shore.

The weight of his utility belt combined with the current kept threatening to tug him down, but he kicked upwards. It was too murky to see much but at least he knew that the bubbles would lead him to the surface. He broke through again, gulped more air, and ducked under. Swim , he told himself. Just fix your mind on it and swim .

His hands struck mud, and he realized he had reached the opposite bank. He let himself come up for air, still praying the enemy snipers would not see him. He was just above the abandoned mill, so that was something. The muddy bank was slick and Cole couldn’t seem to get a grip. To his horror, he realized he was being carried directly toward the old waterwheel, which spun fast and furious in the current.

He kicked for all he was worth and flayed his arms, struggling against the pull of the water, but it was like a leaf trying to fly against a hurricane. The force of the water was overwhelming. In another instant, the heavy wooden buckets of the waterwheel would come down on his head.

He reached out, desperately, as the stone foundation of the mill flashed by and caught a length of chain fastened to the stone, perhaps for an old mooring. The rush of the river nearly ripped his arm from its socket, but he didn’t let go. He managed to slide the rifle onto the stone landing. Struggling, he got the fingertips of his other hand, and then his fingers, around the chain.

He was able to raise himself out of the water a little at a time, and then he got his toes wedged into the slimy sides of the stone foundation. He dug in his knees next, cutting and scraping them against the stone, until he got enough leverage against the water to pull himself up.

With a final effort, he dragged himself onto the stone landing where boats would have once tied up to load and unload sacks of grain. Bleeding and gasping, shivering uncontrollably and his bare flesh covered in goosebumps, Cole just lay there for a minute, gasping like a fish, glad he was on the far side of the mill, out of sight of the Germans. He glanced toward the far bank, looking for some sign of Jolie, but she had melted back into the fields. The little raft was there, though, and he pulled it across with the string.

Gathering his strength, he lifted himself off the flat stone pier and crept into the dark interior of the abandoned mill, keeping the rifle at the ready. The interior smelled of mice and dust. Someone had stripped most of the machinery, but the largest of the cogs and turnstiles remained. The wood was dark and worn with age, resembling iron more than the oak from which it was made. The stone walls were reassuringly thick, though patches of sky showed through holes in the thatch roof.

He found a window overlooking the field and the woods beyond where the German snipers were hidden. The window had no glass or frame—it was just a slit in the stone wall to let in fresh air and light. He reckoned it was a couple of hundred feet across the field, where the grass had been grazed. Looking around, he spotted three or four dairy cows, clearly dead, bloated and stiff where they lay on their sides. He had seen dead livestock all over Normandy, a result of stray bombs and bullets.

Studying the trees, Cole thought that what they could really use was for a P-51 Mustang to come along and pound the hell out of the Germans in the woods. That didn’t seem likely, and so it came down to him and his rifle.

His rifle. He glanced down at the Springfield, which had come through without getting dunked in the river, if not exactly high and dry. He slid open the bolt, removed the magazine, and tilted the barrel to drain out any water. Later on, the mechanism would get rusty as hell if he didn’t get some oil on it, but that couldn’t be helped. What mattered was that he could fire a few shots now and take out the German snipers.

He put his eye to the scope. By some small miracle, no water had gotten into the optics.

The natural thing to do would be to poke his rifle through the window slit. But that would be too obvious if anyone looked at the mill. The Germans might not be expecting anyone in the mill—the bridge was covered and the swift current did not make the river inviting to swim—so their attention would be elsewhere. That would change as soon as Cole took his first shot at them.

Through the thick stone walls, he could still hear firing in the distance. That must be Meacham and Vaccaro giving the Germans something to think about.

Still shivering, Cole found a wooden barrel and turned it upright several feet from the window, then put a stack of old burlap grain sacks on top of the barrel. He considered for a moment, then took out his knife and cut three holes in one of the sacks—one for his head and two for his arms—and slipped it on over his head. He used a length of string to belt the sack around his waist. Not exactly a regulation uniform. The fabric was itchy and dusty, and he probably looked silly as a preacher at a sack race, but his shaking soon stopped.

He used a box as a makeshift seat, and then rested the rifle on top of the barrel, cushioned by the grain sacks. His view of the woods was far more limited, but in the gloom inside the mill he would be invisible to the snipers beyond. They could fire through the slit, of course, but they would be shooting blind.

Cole worked the bolt and fed a round into the chamber, then began to scan the woods for the flash of a German rifle that would give him a target.

In Russia, they had called him The Ghost . He came and went unseen—or so it seemed to the enemy. What appeared otherworldly to the Russians had, in fact, been simple preparation. Von Stenger and Wulf were in position long before dawn, having hiked the short distance toward the bridge near Caponnet over a tributary of the Merderet River.

Von Stenger knew it was a likely crossing point for American forces frustrated by the stalemate at the La Fiere bridge. When they tried to cross, he and Wulf would be waiting to pick them off. The two snipers would be able to hold off a fair-sized Allied force, freeing up German forces desperately needed elsewhere.