He put down the rifle and trained the binoculars on the church.
Built of squat blocks of stone, the ivy-covered walls made it appear as if the old church had grown out of the countryside itself. The steeple was far from grand, crowning the church more like a squat bowler hat than a top hat.
He did not know what he expected to see, but it was not this. What sprang to his eye was a small flag like those that children waved along parade routes. It fluttered from one window of the steeple. This flag clearly displayed the Stars and Bars that Major Dorfmann had described. The rebel flag of the Confederacy.
It was clear that the flag was displayed as a calling card. It was as good as a sign announcing that the American hillbilly sniper had set up shop there.
Rohde fired at the church, although he didn’t have any real target. All discipline was gone. He was shooting out of anger and frustration. Breaking every rule in his sniper’s textbook. But damn it all, it felt good.
A bullet slapped at the stone walls of the church and whipsawed away, the noise of the ricochet sending a twang down Cole's spine.
Another bullet struck the church, another smacked the steeple. So, the German had spotted the flag. Just as Cole had hoped, he was charging like a bull, shooting in a hurry, not aiming at any definite target except the church itself.
"Not a lot of cover up here,” Vaccaro said nervously.
"He ain't gonna hit shit.”
At this range, Cole was damn near shooting blind. He took his best guess at where the German sniper lay hidden, and squeezed off another round.
Several bullets clipped the brush near Rohde's hiding place, but he managed to ignore them. The sniper was only estimating his location. One shot came very close, the bullet striking the old twisted tree limb overhead. Rohde kept his eyes pressed to the rifle scope. Finally, it was the sound of machine-gun fire that caused him to wrest his attention away. On the other side of the field, the squad of Americans was advancing. They kept up a steady fire.
Time to go.
"He's running! I saw something move through the bushes."
"Watch him, now. Where's he at?"
"Back in the hedgerow. Two o'clock from your goddamn rose bush."
Short of putting himself in Vaccaro's head, Cole had to rely on his spotter's description. He fired. Worked the bolt. Fired again. Now he was just guessing, shooting in the German's general direction. Making the German keep his head down.
The firing at the church stopped.
"Did you get him?" Vaccaro's voice was pitched high with excitement.
Cole didn't know. Had he got the German? There was no way to tell for sure, short of working their way over there. But something hadn't felt right. He couldn’t have explained it to anyone else, not even to Vaccaro, but he knew when he hit a target. Cole was fairly certain that the sniper had simply melted away.
“Didn’t get him yet.” Cole spat on the stone floor and lowered the rifle. “That would just be too damn easy, wouldn’t it?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cole and Vaccaro sat up in the steeple, both of them smoking cigarettes and letting the adrenaline ebb out of their systems. From this high up, they had a good view of the surrounding countryside. Still, they kept their heads down. Cole stuffed the Confederate flag back into his pocket. He had sent his message to the sniper; no point in attracting additional attention.
With the German sniper gone, the American GIs were no longer pinned down in the field and had moved on. Across the countryside, Allied troops were moving toward Argentan and Falaise as if part of a huge incoming flood tide. The squad was one small eddy in that flood.
Some soldiers from the squad would not be going anywhere, however. Their bodies lay under the gray sky, victims of the German sniper. A few days from now, thousands of miles away, telegrams would be delivered to the doors of the dead soldiers' parents or wives.
Cole decided that maybe it was the German whose bullets had traveled the farthest today.
"Hell of a shot, Hillbilly," Vaccaro said, as if reading his thoughts. "You saved that kid and sent that Kraut sniper running for cover."
"Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then."
"And a stopped clock is right twice a day, too." Vaccaro shook his head and grinned. "See? Your hillbilly sayings are rubbing off on me. Now, let's get the hell out of here."
The German sniper had melted away into the landscape. They had seen the boy running for the American lines. With any luck, he was back at the command post right about now, eating a chocolate bar.
They went back down the ladder into the stillness of the old chapel. Cole liked to hear a good preacher thump a Bible now and then, but back home that had mostly been at clapboard-sided country churches and camp meetings, out in the open. This stone church felt too dark and brooding. The God who dwelt here wasn't like the one back home.
Harper looked shook up. He had been transferred from the typing pool just a few days before, after all. "Did you hear those bullets hit the church? God, what a sound a ricochet makes."
"I guess it's a little louder than that bell on the typewriter when you get to the end of a line," Vaccaro said with a smirk.
Cole touched his shoulder. "You did good, Harper. I been gettin' shot at for months now, and I still ain't used to it."
The forward command post consisted of a barnyard where a Jeep was parked, a map spread across its still-ticking hood. The air smelled unpleasantly of fresh manure churned up by the Jeep's tires. Three officers huddled over the map, one of them being Lieutenant Mulholland. He looked up eagerly as Cole, Vaccaro, and Harper walked in.
"Did you get that son of a bitch?" Mulholland asked.
Cole shook his head. "No, but he run off with his tail between his legs."
"I guess that's something. These goddamn Kraut snipers are wreaking havoc with the advance, and that sniper Rohde is the worst of them," Mulholland said. He turned to the map and thumped it with the flat of his hand for emphasis. "We've got an opportunity here to bag the whole German army, or what's left of it, anyway. There's a Polish division to the northeast, moving in to help us out."
"Polish?" They had seen their share of Brits and Canadians in Normandy, but Polish troops were something new.
"Yeah, so try not to shoot any of them by accident, and let's hope to hell they don't shoot us."
One of the other officers took his eyes off the map and looked at Cole. It was a captain whom Cole did not recognize.
"You must be Cole," he said. "I could tell by that 'Stars and Bars' on your helmet. I read about you in that newspaper article by Ernie Pyle."
Nearby, Vaccaro muttered, "Jesus, did anyone not read that story? Other than the hillbilly, I mean."
The captain went on, "That was a helluva good story. I did want to know though, what kind of name Micajah was? Never heard that one before."
"Micajah was a prophet in the Bible, sir."
"Is that so? The lieutenant here says you can shoot the buttons off a German at four hundred yards."
Cole was more than a little surprised that Mulholland would brag about him. Whatever animosity remained toward Cole over Jolie Molyneux must be wearing off.
Cole drawled, "If I get a German in my sights, sir, I'll be sure to shoot off more than his buttons."
The captain laughed. "I'll bet you will. Give 'em hell, soldier."
"Yes, sir."
"And get some rest, boys. All of you. This whole damn countryside is about to become a battlefield. What's left of the German army is over there." The captain waved vaguely to the east. "We've got the Brits closing in from the north, the Polish coming at them from the south, and none other than General Patton himself going straight into their teeth. With any luck, we'll finish the war right here and be home for Christmas. It's up to us, boys."