So far, none of the American snipers had bothered with camouflage. More babes in the woods, he thought. There appeared to be a woman with them, which took Von Stenger by surprise. She wore civilian clothes. French Resistance? Well, well. Perhaps the local Gestapo had been too lenient in eliminating the Reich's enemies. They should have shot a few more Frenchmen — and women — to get the message across.
The tank coming up the road was worrisome. He could tell at a glance that it was no Tiger tank, being much smaller, but it was a threat nonetheless if the Americans opted to open fire on the tower. Behind the tank came what appeared to be a company of infantry, plodding along in the clanking wake of their armored companion.
So many targets, he thought. Where to begin? Von Stenger let the crosshairs float back to the French woman, and then to the sniper with the flag on his helmet. Not yet. His thoughts drifted to Goethe: “It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.”
He settled the crosshairs on the sniper behind them and squeezed off a shot.
CHAPTER 11
Cole looked back to ask Jolie a question and at that moment something zipped past his ear. A split second later he heard the distant crack of a rifle shot.
"Take cover!" the lieutenant shouted, but there wasn't anywhere to go. Cole felt a little like he had when Norma Jean Elwood caught him skinny dipping in Hog Creek and stole his clothes off the bank. The difference was that Norma Jean was trying to embarrass him, not kill him. He got in close to the hedge and hoped the brush would break up the line of fire. Jolie was right beside him.
Chief wasn't fast enough getting off the road. The next bullet hit him square in the chest. He had a look of surprise on his face. Chief staggered. Then he sank to his knees in the middle of the dirt road.
"Chief!" Cole ran to him, stooped down, and got one of Chief's arms across his shoulders. He half dragged, half carried him toward the hedge, but Chief was heavy as hell weighted down with all his gear. Chief's own legs weren't moving. Dead weight, thought Cole. Jolie ran out and grabbed Chief's other arm, and they managed to get him to the hedge, out of sight of the sniper.
Cole shook him. "Chief? Chief?"
But there was no answer. The eyes stared blankly ahead. Looking more closely, Cole could see why — the bullet had struck him in the heart. A 7.62 mm rifle round traveling at thousands of feet per second built up an awful lot of what the Army trainers called kinetic energy. Cole would have described it as being kicked by a mule. Chief never had a chance.
"Mon dieu," Jolie said gently, then reached over and closed Chief's eyelids. "He is gone."
There was only one vantage point from which the sniper could have fired. The church steeple. Even so, the steeple was nearly half a mile away. To hit someone in the chest from that distance was goddamn impressive, to say the least. Cole wondered if he could have done that.
Surely, just for a moment, he had been in the sniper's sights. The thought made his skin crawl.
Lieutenant Mulholland crept along the hedge, out of view of the church steeple, until he reached Cole. "Chief?"
Cole shook his head. "Shot through the heart."
"That goddamn sniper is in the tower."
"I know."
"We're going to get him," Mulholland said. "If we don't, he can shoot up all the woods and fields around here for as far as he can see."
"All right then," Cole said. His eyes, which looked like they could have been made of cut glass, were so devoid of emotion that they startled the lieutenant. "Let's go kill us a sniper."
There was nothing they could do with Chief's body but leave it, so they moved it as far off the road as they could so that it wouldn’t get run over by tanks or Jeeps. Lieutenant Mulholland bowed his head and said a prayer, and then in the shelter of the hedgerow, the five of them continued along the road. But now the sniper was busy picking off soldiers in the squad ahead of them. Those soldiers were packed more tightly in the road and had nowhere to go to get out of the line of fire. The sniper was having a field day with them, firing steadily at the crowded troops.
"Like shooting possums in a barrel," Cole muttered.
"I think you mean fish in a barrel," Vaccaro said.
"I've shot possums, whereas what kind of jackass shoots fish?" Cole said. "Back home, the best way to go fishin' is with dynamite."
"That ain't normal, Reb. Is that what you do for entertainment back there in the hills? The rest of the world just goes to see a movie or maybe a baseball game."
"Will you both shut up please," Jolie said in her heavily accented English. "We must stop this German."
But the Sherman tank was already doing a good job of that. Located at the head of the column, the tank was taking aim at the top of the church steeple. The shells hadn't been all that accurate, but the scream of the passing rounds must have scared the hell out of the sniper up there taking aim at the soldiers. So far, he hadn't abandoned his post. His shots, fired at steady intervals, continued to chip away at the American ranks like so many hatchet blows.
Then the Sherman fired again, blowing a chunk out of the church steeple. A tremendous cheer went up from the troops. However, the old stone steeple seemed to dust itself off and remained standing tall. Then the sniper up there fired again, killing a man standing not far from the tank. Undeterred and impervious to the rifle rounds, the swift-moving Sherman roared up the road, closer to the steeple. Five or six soldiers clung to the outside, hanging on for dear life to whatever handles and footholds they could find. Once the tank carried them close enough, they could rush the base of the steeple and put an end to the sniper.
The Sherman tank had been chosen personally by General Patton for its speed and agility. The tank also had advantages in that it could be transported by rail car. Shermans were small and light enough that it was possible to land them on the beaches of Normandy. But it soon became clear that in almost every way that mattered in combat, the Sherman had revealed itself as an inferior adversary.
The Sherman had three major drawbacks that became apparent as soon as they began to engage enemy tanks in combat. The first issue was that the turret-mounted cannon was too small. Rounds from the Sherman literally bounced off the German tanks. Second, the armor plating was much too light and enemy anti-tank rounds went through them like a hot knife through butter. Finally, the Sherman relied on a gasoline engine for propulsion, whereas the German tanks used less flammable diesel. A single hit turned the Sherman tanks into fireballs, quickly earning them the nickname "Tommy Cookers" among Panzer units.
But at the moment, the Sherman was doing a good job of thwarting the sniper in the church steeple.
"Looks like that tank is going to do our job for us," said Lieutenant Mulholland as they double timed it up the road.
Just as quickly, the tables turned. From a patch of woods beside the church appeared a beast of a tank painted in blue-gray hues. It was one of the dreaded Tiger tanks. Bigger, heavily armored, and with a more powerful 88 mm cannon, it was more than a match for the American Sherman tank.
“Holy shit!” cried Vaccaro. “Look at that goddamn monster!”
Still, the Sherman moved gamely ahead, stopping to let off the men who had hitched a ride. They ran for cover as the Sherman quickly adjusted its range and fired, hitting the Tiger dead on. But when the burst cleared, there was no more damage to the Tiger tank than a scorch mark. The Sherman fired again, and this time the troops could hear the karoom of the shell ricocheting off the German tank.