Ghost Sniper

All of a sudden, the bridge filled with men as the Airborne troops swarmed across, peppering the woods with fire. Someone lobbed a rifle grenade into the trees, and it detonated with a wood-splitting crack as a small tree or branch splintered. No return fire came from the woods.

Then soldiers ran past the mill, charging toward the woods. Jolie tagged along at their rear. One of the soldiers swung toward the mill and leveled his weapon at the German. The fact that the boy was pointing his rifle at the ground kept the soldier from shooting him instantly.

“Drop it, Jerry! Goddamnit, I said drop it! Dropenzie!”

The German did not drop the rifle, but he was shaking his head wildly and saying, “Nein! Nein!”

“Dropenzie!”

Cole came out of the mill and stepped between the soldier and the German. “He can’t dropenzie. His goddamn hands are taped to the rifle.”

“What the hell?”

The soldier went up and grabbed for the rifle, but only managed to pull the boy off his feet. He went down on his knees. Cole took out a knife. The German kid gasped and shut his eyes. Cole cut the rifle free. “I bet the damn thing ain’t even loaded.”

“Of course it’s frickin’ loaded!” the paratrooper said. “He’s a goddamn German sniper! There’s only one way to deal with a sniper. No prisoners.”

The soldier aimed his rifle at the boy’s head. The young soldier looked up, his voice choked with fear, and said, “No, please!”

“Christ, he speaks English! Sneaky bastard.”

“Don’t shoot him,” Cole said.

“What do you mean, don’t shoot him? You saw what he did to our boys on the bridge. Shot them and left them to die!”

“He ain’t the sniper that done it.”

“How do you know?”

“Look at him,” Cole said. “Does he look like much of a stone-cold Nazi killer to you?”

The soldier looked like he might still shoot the boy. Jolie stepped forward and said, “Cole is right. There are many real soldiers to kill, but this boy is not one of them.”

Jolie’s presence seemed to cool the soldier off. “Aw, hell, he’s your problem now,” he said, and ran off to join the men who were searching the woods. Someone yelled something about there being a dead sniper in a tree.

Jolie said something to the boy in German.

“What are you jabbering on about?” Cole demanded. “I didn’t know you spoke Kraut.”

“It is a useful skill to speak the enemy’s language,” she said. “I told him to stay down on his knees with his hands on his head, and that if he tried to run you would shoot him.”

“Huh. Is that right? You got yourself a rifle. You can shoot him.”

“You are the soldier.”

“Yeah, but I ain’t an executioner.”

“You shot those prisoners on the beach.”

“My blood was up,” Cole said. “Those sons of bitches killed a lot of good men on the beach. This kid didn’t have nothin’ to do with that.”

Jolie spoke to the boy again in German, then turned to Cole. “There.”

“What?”

“I told him you want to shoot him, but I talked you out of it. What do you Americans call it? Good cop, bad cop?”

“You’re pretty clever for a French girl,” Cole said. “But why do I have to be the bad one?”

“That is simple,” Jolie said. “You look mean and crazy, especially because you are wearing a grain sack.”

“Huh. I don’t suppose you brought my clothes along?”

Jolie smiled and handed him a haversack. “Right here.”

He shucked off the grain sack and stood there in his wet boxer shorts, tugging his uniform back on. Being in the Army a few months made you the opposite of shy.

“Come on,” he said once he was dressed. “I want to have a look at this dead sniper. Tell this kid here to come along and to keep his hands up. If he runs, I really will shoot him.”

CHAPTER 17

They moved across the field and into the woods, joining the soldiers who were already there. In the wake of the attack across the bridge, there was maybe a quart of adrenalin still pumping through their veins, making the soldiers hyper and jumpy.

Most of the men were gathered around a tree, staring up at the dead German sniper. It appeared he had roped himself into the tree to prevent himself from falling if he was merely wounded. The dead German’s mouth hung open and his eyes stared wide like some grotesque Cheshire cat.

Now that the tension of the attack was over, some of the airborne troops lowered their weapons and lit cigarettes, studying the corpse in the tree with professional interest.

“I guess Nazi snipers really do grow on trees,” one paratrooper said.

“You wouldn’t be going out on a limb if you said he was dead,” quipped another.

The jokes were bad and tasteless, but it was a way for the men to blow off steam.

“Who wants to climb up there and cut him down?” Lieutenant Mulholland asked.

Cole liked the lieutenant, but he had noticed that the officer had a bad habit or phrasing an order as a question when he wasn’t sure of himself. And sometimes he just plain had some bad ideas.

“To hell with that, Lieutenant,” Cole said.

“It’s the decent thing to do, Cole. We’re soldiers, not barbarians.”