Ghost Sniper

No stranger to conflict, the village had grown up around the church founded in the eleventh century. Other troops had marched through; other battles had been fought nearby. Though this was a French village, the combatants were now Germans and Americans, and the weapons were rifles and machine guns rather than spears and broadswords, longbows and crossbows.

The old stone walls were pockmarked by bullets. In the narrow streets between the buildings, the smell of cordite mingled with the scent of fresh-baked bread.

The American defenders had set up a machine gun nest overlooking the main road into town, which the snipers approached cautiously.

“Hold your fire!” Mulholland shouted, then waved. Somebody waved back, and they approached the town.

“Don’t tell me you’re the freakin’ cavalry,” one of the machine gunners said. “We’re gonna need a few more guns to hold off the Germans if they send Panzers at us.”

“Hey, buddy, we can turn around and leave if you don’t want us,” Vaccaro said.

“Don’t get sore,” the machine gunner said. “We’ll take what we can get. We’ve only got about eighty men to defend this place. How many do you think the Germans are going to send at us in the morning?”

“More than eighty,” Vaccaro said.

“Yeah, it’s like Custer’s Last Stand all over again,” the machine gunner said. “Lucky for us the Jerries don’t take scalps.”

The snipers moved into the village itself. Everywhere they looked, the American troops were scrambling to set up defensive positions, using wooden carts, even mattresses and tables to create firing positions at the street corners. Some were busy rigging so-called “sticky bombs” to use against the Panzers that would surely be there by morning. A few soldiers occupied second or third floor windows, getting ready with grenade launchers. The thick stone walls made each house a fortress in its own right.

Mulholland reported to the captain in charge, who agreed that the snipers should be placed wherever Mulholland thought best.

“All right, listen up, here’s our plan,” Lieutenant Mulholland said. “Neville, I want you to position yourself and your Tommy gun in one of the upstairs windows near the edge of the town. That will add some firepower to what’s already covering the road into the village. The Germans will likely be coming out of the south, so Vaccaro, you get yourself up on one of the rooftops. The higher up, the better, because you’ll have a longer field of fire. You start trying to pick off Germans as soon as they come into sight. Cole and I will go up into the church tower, which is the highest point in the village.”

“What about me?” Jolie asked.

“There’s a hospital set up in the church,” he said. “Maybe you and Fritz can help.”

They made their way over to the church, which was by far the largest structure in the village. The massive stonework and squat architecture gave the church a brooding appearance, and the square gray tower at one end of the church resembled a castle keep more than a steeple.

The church doors were open, and they started inside, but were stopped by a young man wearing a red and white medic armband. His uniform was spattered with blood. “No guns in the church,” he said. “This is neutral territory, sir.”

“All right,” Mulholland said. “I can’t argue with that. It is a church, after all.”

“Thank you, sir.”

They left their weapons behind and the young medic led them inside. After the bright light of the French countryside, it took a while for their eyes to adjust to the dark interior, lit only by the sunlight through the tall, narrow windows that were little more than slits in the deep stone walls. The air was cool, and smelled of rubbing alcohol and unwashed bodies. The pews were being used as hospital beds, and in many places blood had soaked into the ancient wood. It soon became apparent that Germans and Americans were among the wounded. Mulholland looked around, and saw that several of the other medics—marked by their white arm bands with medical crosses—were Germans.

“You’ve got Jerries in here?”

“Yes, sir. Our own boys and Jerries, along with a couple of French civilians who got caught in the crossfire. I guess technically the Germans are prisoners of war, but we’ve called a truce to help the wounded. You know, I was their prisoner at first because my parachute came down almost in the middle of the town, when the Germans still had control of it. They treated me all right. One of these Germans is a doctor, and he really knows what he’s doing. There would be a lot more dead without him.”

“Word has it that the Germans might try to take back this town in the morning,” Mulholland said. He nodded at the massive double doors that opened toward the steps leading into the church tower. “Defensive positions are being set up outside. I want to set up a sniping post in the church steeple.”