The Tiger appeared to be taking its time. The gun raised a bit with an audible whirring of gears, and then the tank fired, sending out a shockwave of flame. The shell hit the Sherman dead on and the tank shuddered. After a few seconds, the hatch opened and a man started to climb out, black smoke pouring from the interior of the tank like smoke from a chimney. A shot rang out from the church steeple, and the tank crewman slumped in the hatchway. The smoke thickened and was soon followed by a lick of flame. Seconds later came a whump and a fireball as the gasoline exploded. The Sherman had lived up to its German nickname.
At an almost leisurely pace, the Tiger tank advanced toward the American troops. Without their short-lived protector, they were helpless as the Tiger opened up with its machine gun. The men who had been advancing toward the church steeple had no choice but to fall back.
"Lieutenant, what should we do?" Meacham wanted to know.
"Run!"
There was nowhere to go but back down the road the way they had come. The Tiger was able to push past the burning hulk of the Sherman tank and get onto the road, causing panic among the American forces. The thick hedges on either side of the road kept them hemmed in and there was no time to force their way through — not with a Tiger tank hot on their trail. All the while the machine gun continued to chatter, spewing death as the tank rolled down the road.
The Tiger’s hatch flipped open and a German wearing goggles appeared. But there was no time to take a shot at him. Cole and the other snipers had no choice but to run like hell, hoping that they would come to a gap in the hedge before the Tiger tank got in range. Though not as fast as the Sherman, the Tiger was quickly gaining on them. Before long, the whir of the gears and clank of the treads was as loud as the machine gun, and Cole could smell diesel fumes. He was about to be mowed down with the .50 caliber — or become a permanent part of the French road thanks to the tank's brutal treads.
From the corner of his eye, he saw that Jolie had stumbled, and he reached out to take her by the elbow. "Come on!"
Bullets whistled past his ear. Damn! How far was it to the next gap in the hedge? It was their only hope.
Then a blast from behind threw them both to the road, their momentum leaving Cole and Jolie in a tangle of arms and legs.
He thought the tank had fired and was surprised to see that it was now a smoking ruin behind them — a little too close behind them.
"Mon dieu!" Jolie said in awe. "How is this possible?"
They looked up at the sound of someone cackling. To Cole, it sounded like insane laughter. There were a few larger trees making their way up through the hedges, and in one of these sat a British paratrooper straddling a limb with his feet dangling down, like he was riding a rail. He was holding the smoking, empty tube of an M1A1 bazooka.
"Got 'em, by God!" he yelled. "Sent ‘em a present right down the rabbit hole, ha, ha!”
The soldier climbed down and kneeled with the bazooka over one shoulder, then nodded at a bazooka rocket propped up nearby. “I found this thing by the side of the road and thought I’d put it to good use. Lend a hand, mate, and load me up. It's the least you can do, considering I just saved your Yankee arse."
Cole fed the shell into the rear of the tube, hooked the fuse wire to the launcher, and tapped the Brit on the shoulder.
"You best look out," Cole told him. "There's a sniper in the church steeple."
"Not anymore," the Brit said, and fired at the church. The top of the steeple exploded, spewing stone and smoke, and through it all came the sharp gong of the church bell. "Now that's how to make short work of a Jerry sniper."
Having tossed down the empty bazooka tube, the British soldier got to his feet. By now, the scattered sniper squad had regrouped. Meacham had been nicked in the leg by a machine gun bullet, and came up limping, but Lieutenant Mulholland and Vaccaro had made it through unscathed.
"Private James Neville, British Sixth Airborne Division," he said, shaking hands all the way around, as if they were at a pub, rather than in the middle of a road in war-torn Normandy. "What you'll find with your Tiger tanks is that they are tough as a nut to crack, except from above, which is where the Nazis made the armor plating thinner to save on weight. Hit ‘em there and it’s like a good, swift kick in the bollocks. Of course, it’s even better if the Jerries have the top open, ha, ha!"
They gazed in wonder at the burning wreck of the Tiger. No one had come climbing out right after the tank was hit, and judging from the spreading flames, they wouldn't be getting out now.
"We were goners," Lieutenant Mulholland said. "We can't thank you enough."
"I think he got the sniper as well," Meacham said. "I haven't heard any more shots from the steeple."
"We'd better investigate," Lieutenant Mulholland said. "It's our job to eliminate snipers, and if he's not dead, we can't leave him in place to shoot the hell out of the next unit to come down this road."
"Mind if I tag along?" the Brit said.
"Suit yourself," the lieutenant said. "Where's your unit?"
"Scattered between the coast and Paris, I'd wager," Neville said. "The drop yesterday morning was something of a TARFU."
"What's that?" the lieutenant asked.
"Totally and Royally Fucked Up," Neville explained. "It's like your SNAFU but in our own special British way."
"Good to know," Mulholland said. "Now let's go see if you fixed that Nazi's wagon."
CHAPTER 12
The snipers edged their way past the burning hulk of the German tank, which popped now with exploding rounds like a Fourth of July celebration and smelled disconcertingly like a barbecue, then headed toward the steeple. The road was like the floor of a slaughterhouse with bodies scattered about. The tank tracks had squashed some of the remains into jelly, oozing now into the thick French mud.
The farm boy, Meacham, stopped, put his hands on his knees, and began to vomit.
"That poor chap has got it right," the Brit said. "It's bloody awful, is what it is."
The next landmark they passed was the still-burning wreckage of the Sherman tank. From there, they moved cautiously, just in case the German sniper was still in residence. But the tower had been quiet since the Brit had fired the bazooka at it.
"I think you cooked that Kraut," Vaccaro said.
"We'll see."
They moved on toward the church, spreading out and running one by one from shrubs or whatever cover presented itself. Still, there was no sign of life in the steeple. The bazooka blast, and before that the glancing shot from the Sherman, had done little visible damage to the church tower aside from stripping off the plaster veneer. The stone walls beneath still appeared sound. Built to last centuries, the steeple was indeed largely unscathed.
They crept cautiously toward the church itself, but there was still no sign of Germans.
“Cole and Vaccaro, go check it out,” the lieutenant said.
The two men approached the doorway, but paused just outside. “I wonder if there’s anybody still in there,” Cole said.
“We’ll just have to put the tip in and see how it feels,” Vaccaro suggested. “I know it always worked with my girlfriend.”
“Well, I ain’t your girlfriend, and thank God for that. You want to flip a coin?”
“Nah, I got this one.” With that, Vaccaro took a quick peek inside. “Nobody.”
Both men entered, soon followed by Mulholland and Meacham. The lieutenant started toward the stairs that led up into the tower, his .45 out and the sniper rifle slung over his shoulder. "Cole, you come with me. We'll go take a look up top. The rest of you stay here. If there's a German up there still, we don't need him tossing down a grenade and wiping out the whole squad. He could do that even if he's wounded."