David Healey: Ghost Sniper

“It must come out in the marsh,” she said. “The priests would have wanted a way to reach the river without being seen.”

“I wish we had known about this goddamn tunnel before now,” Cole said.

Jolie shrugged. “France is full of secrets.”

“Cole, you are one crazy mountain man,” Vaccaro said, peering down from above.

Lieutenant Mulholland spoke up. “I won’t order you to go after that German,” the lieutenant said. “But I won’t tell you not to.”

“In that case I reckon I’m going to nail that son of a bitch’s hide to a barn door,” Cole replied.

He had to get down on his hands and knees to enter the tunnel. He flicked the Zippo to get his bearings. The roof and sides of the tunnel were shored up with damp bricks and ancient boards that looked punky with rot. It smelled like an old root cellar. He peered into the darkness that pressed up against the dim light from the flame. The tunnel seemed to go on and on. How long was it and where did it lead? The flickering lighter flame did not reveal much beyond a few feet ahead.

It was awkward trying to crawl forward on his hands and knees while juggling the rifle and a burning lighter. He snapped the lighter shut and was immediately enveloped in darkness. He kept one hand wrapped around the rifle, keeping it more or less pointed ahead of him and ready to fire. He pushed on into the tunnel, less worried about where he was going than by the thought that the Ghost Sniper might be somewhere just ahead, waiting to ambush him.

Cole was totally helpless in the tunnel—there was no way that the German could miss if he suddenly opened fire. Briefly, Cole considered firing a few shots into the darkness ahead in case the German was up there, but decided against it. If the German didn’t know he was being followed, Cole would only be tipping his own hand.

Don’t give nothin’ away. Whoever had the element of surprise held all the cards.

He crept deeper into the tunnel. The dim light from the trap door faded until it was like crawling through a blacksnake’s belly.

While the floor of the tunnel felt damp to the touch, the crumbling ceiling was powder dry, so that when his head accidentally brushed the bricks overhead, bits of dirt and mortar rained down. Judging by the debris in his path, someone had recently been this way. He moved ahead blindly, feeling the tunnel seem to press in around him.

Then came a rumbling sound and Cole was enveloped in choking dust. He crawled faster, knowing without seeing it that part of the roof was coming down. Faster, faster. Bricks bounced off his shoulders, but he managed to outpace the crumbling ceiling. The sound he heard was much like a shovelful of dirt hitting the bottom of a hole—that whump sound—only a whole lot louder.

He stopped panting, and half turned in the cramped tunnel to light the Zippo.

“Christ on a cross,” he muttered.

It didn’t look good. The lighter flame was tiny, but in the depths of the tunnel the flickering light was bright as an explosion, revealing the fact that a good portion of the tunnel had collapsed behind him.

No turning back now. There was only one way out, and that was forward. He felt that his chances of running into the German were slim now, so he took his knife and cut a strip of cloth from the tail of his uniform shirt and wrapped it around the Mauser’s muzzle to keep the mud out. Then Cole kept going.

His hand touched water, and soon he was making his way across a wet, slippery floor. The water grew deeper as he moved ahead, rising around his wrists, his knees, his shoulders. He slung his rifle across his back.

For the first time since entering the tunnel, he stopped.

Water. Why did it have to be water?

His thoughts went back to the day he had almost drowned in Gashey’s Creek while trapping beaver. He had been under a long time, all tangled up in rope and the submerged branches of drowned trees. By all rights he should have died. Feeling the water all around him now and the same blackness, Cole fought back a momentary panic as the darkness seemed to take on weight and viscosity like some tangible thing—oil or a heavy wet blanket. He felt it close in around him and the cold water felt like it was squeezing his chest. He found it difficult to breathe and his heart raced. Even now, the water seemed to be rising. Every fiber of his being screamed get out, get out, get out.

The German sniper had come this way. Cole was sure of it, and he was going after him no matter what.

But where the hell had the German gone? There . Up ahead, barely visible in the distance, Cole could see that the tunnel brightened. He understood now that he was looking at the only way out.

The flooded river and marsh covered the tunnel entrance. He could see that the tunnel angled sharply up from the entrance and that the water covered the entrance much in the same way that water fills the bottom of a tilted glass.

If Cole held his breath and swam—hard—he might just make it out.

More chunks of the ceiling pattered down on his helmet like rain on a tin roof. Ping. Ping . Then bigger chunks of brick. Pang! The whole goddamn roof felt about ready to collapse and there was nowhere to go.

Swim or die .

Cole made sure the rifle sling was secure across his back, took a deep breath, and dove.

The water was cold, cold and black, and he imagined something like dead hands reaching for him to pull him under for good. He kicked wildly and flailed his arms, trying to propel himself forward but mainly managing to skin his knees and elbows in the process. Cole ignored the pain. He swam toward the light. His lungs burned. Just a few more feet. His rifle stock got hung up, catching on a loose brick. He paused long enough to wrench it free. The effort meant a few precious bubbles of air escaped his lungs.

Almost there . He shoved forward—and then he was outside the tunnel, about to come up for air.

Mixed with relief was a question—where was the German?

Cole hovered for a moment beneath the surface. The water was not all that deep—definitely not over his head. He got his feet under him. His lungs ached, every molecule in his body wanted air, but he would not let himself come up just yet. He unstrapped his helmet, then holding it by the bottom rim lifted it above the surface, while simultaneously pushing his face out of the water, just enough to get a breath.

Then Cole dove again.

He was just in time. He felt the helmet nearly plucked from his grasp with terrible force. With his eyes open under the water, he saw a bullet leave a contrail through the water.

He swam as long and as far as he could, his lungs burning again, but at least this time he wasn’t in that goddamn black tunnel.

Another bullet streaked down where his helmet had been. He was already several feet away.

He picked out a log floating above him and popped up behind it, keeping his head down. Peeking from behind the log, he could make out a small island a couple hundred feet distant. If he were the German sniper, and he’d had time to choose his position, that’s just where he would be, ready to pick off whoever came out of that tunnel.

Missed me, you son of a bitch. Now it’s my turn.

Von Stenger saw a helmet decorated with a Confederate flag clear the water. He fired. The helmet sank, a black hole in its center where the round had punched through. He fired again into the water just where the sinking body should be.

The natural inclination was to think that’s that and call it a day, but Von Stenger did not move except to work the bolt action. Then he settled down to wait.

He had a strong shooting position there on the island. While the river lay in the distance, the dammed waters had flooded the marshes and fields, forming a tremendous shallow lake that spread for hundreds of acres around Bienville and beyond. The water was filled with the flotsam and jetsam lifted by the flooding—logs, fenceposts, mats of straw.