David Healey: Ghost Sniper

Von Stenger muttered a curse as he stumbled for the third time. The mud sucked at his boots and water seeped in, getting his feet wet. “Idiot! Where is this tunnel?”

“It is nearby, sir! I know it is!”

“The sooner you find it, the sooner you can get back to your schnapps.”

But it soon became clear that the soldier was doing little more than stumbling around in the dark. They nearly tripped over an old wooden skiff pulled up on the bank. Von Stenger was worried; all that one of them needed to do was fall and make a splash, and that would alert the Americans. They were within machine gun range of the village now and if the Americans heard a noise, their guns would cut Von Stenger and his guide to pieces.

“I do not understand,” the soldier muttered. “I know it was nearby. It was—”

“Right here,” Von Stenger said. They had come to a place where the land sloped abruptly and the flooded expanse lapped at their feet. Cut into the side of the bank was a hole lined with stone, almost like a well shaft turned on its side.

“We have found it,” the soldier said, greatly relieved.

“Get out of here and try to do it quietly,” Von Stenger warned. “The Americans will be listening for any sound.”

“Aren’t you coming back?” the soldier sounded surprised.

“No, why would I do that? You have shown me the tunnel into the village. Now I am going to pay the Americans a visit.”

Von Stenger had not brought his pack, but only the rifle, spare ammunition, a few stick grenades, the food and coffee, canteen, and a flashlight. He had removed any insignia that might catch the sunlight or starlight.

The opening of the tunnel was no more than one meter high. Even as he waited to see if the soldier would make it back to the road without bringing attention to himself, the water of the marsh had risen so that it now flowed into the mouth of the tunnel. He realized that the dammed-up rivers were tidal, and the tide was coming in quickly.

When he judged that enough time had passed for the soldier to have reached the road undetected, Von Stenger moved deeper into the tunnel. It was like moving into the pit of night itself. He switched on the flashlight—it wouldn’t be noticed now that he was deeper in the tunnel—and saw that the walls were very wet. Perhaps high tide covered the tunnel entrance? Well, that would make things interesting if that was the case.

It was hard to say who had built the tunnel, or for what purpose. He had heard that some churches in Germany had similar tunnels—they had been used only recently in some cases to hide Jews or smuggle them to safety. Churches had a history that involved centuries of intrigue. The tunnel could have been built by a scheming priest, a smuggler, or a nobleman who needed a quick escape in times of political trouble. No matter—it surely had served someone well in times past. Von Stenger would now use it for his own ends.

The tunnel was roughly built, with the flashlight beam revealing where several loose stones were missing so that the earth spilled in. In more than a few places, roots had burst through and formed a tangle that he narrowly squeezed past.

It was a wonder that the whole thing had not collapsed at some point. Von Stenger was careful to avoid bumping the sides and sending the whole thing crashing down around his ears. The old bricks were slick with moss or slime, but the tunnel itself was curiously free of vermin, though he detected the odor of mice.

From the tunnel entrance to the church he judged it was not more than one hundred meters—not terribly far, unless one happened to be crawling on your hands and knees, encumbered with a rifle, and trying to navigate by the feeble light of a battery-powered torch. In other words, it felt like kilometers to Von Stenger. It seemed to take forever.

But it was Von Stenger’s plan, and he stuck with it. As Goethe had said: “Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.” He mused that Goethe would not have imagined this maxim being applied to the action of crawling through a tunnel toward a sniper’s nest.

Finally, he sensed a draft and the air smelled fresher. The dull beam of the battery-powered torch revealed a wooden ladder coming down from above. The ladder looked rickety with dry rot. A couple of the rungs showed signs of being freshly broken—that would have been from the soldiers coming down.

Von Stenger reached up, took hold of a rung—and promptly felt it snap in his grip. He tried again, reaching higher, and this time the wood held. Gingerly, he put his foot on a rung, keeping his weight toward the edge of the ladder rather than the center.

One rung at a time, he climbed until he reached the underside of a trap door. Keeping one hand on the ladder, he pushed against the trap door. Nothing happened.

He fought a momentary sense of panic—what if the trap door was hidden beneath something heavy, like a chest? He reach up again, using two hands, and felt the trap door lift a few inches.

Struggling mightily—the damn thing was heavy and he felt as if he were lifting the gravity of the earth itself—the trap door budged enough for him to open it a few inches. He realized it was not hinged, but only a loose panel set into the floor. He shifted it, heaving against the weight, until he had moved the panel enough for him to crawl through.

He pulled himself out of the tunnel and lay on the floor, panting with the effort. He found himself in a kind of hallway with a staircase and realized he was at the base of the church tower. Double doors opened up into the church itself, which he saw had been converted into a hospital. He was surprised to see both American and German uniforms among the medics as well as the wounded scattered on the church pews.

No one had noticed him yet. They were all far too caught up in the hubbub of treating the wounded. As nonchalantly as possible, Von Stenger got to his feet, walked over to the double doors, and swung them shut. He dropped an old-fashioned cross bar into iron slots to bolt the door shut. There was so much thick oak in the doors that he was sure it would take a battering ram—or perhaps a Panzer—to break through. Those doors were the only way into the tower.

He started up the stairs. The ancient stone steps were worn smooth and he climbed them silently, keeping the rifle ready in case there was already a sniper in position up there. But the tower proved to be empty. Through the narrow window slits, he had a commanding view of the town below, and by moving from one window to another, he could cover all approaches to the church. The stone walls were so thick that it was like being inside a fortress.

Von Stenger drank some coffee and smoked a cigarette, relaxing, waiting for it to get light. The spring night was cool and damp, and despite the thousands of troops scattered across the countryside, the night was strangely quiet. In the distance, he heard the hoot of a hunting owl, then the bark of a fox. Night sounds. It was such lovely countryside here, and so close to the sea.

Gradually the light began to come up in the East, and with it came the swell of birdsong. The birds were soon drowned out by the whir of approaching diesel engines. Those would be the Panzers coming down the road toward town. Below him, in the fading night, he began to pick out shapes moving along the streets. Now it begins, he thought.

He was the ghost. Das Gespenst . He had haunted the forests of Spain and the ruins of Stalingrad, bringing death one bullet at a time. And now he had come to this little French town.

He sighted through the scope, which gathered the faint light, and settled the crosshairs on a soldier hurrying to occupy one of the makeshift defenses at the edge of town. His finger took up the last of the tension in the trigger and the soldier crumpled into a heap.