"Why does Cole get all the gravy jobs?" Vaccaro groused.
"You heard what the captain said, Vaccaro. All hell is about to break loose around here," Mulholland said. "Cole might actually have a chance of getting that girl home, and getting back here again. Until he does, we need someone to scout the territory and shoot back at any snipers."
Leaving the command post behind, Cole and Harper made their way through a countryside that echoed with the chatter of machine-gun fire and the pop, pop, pop of rifles. Every now and then, the country air was shattered by the whump of field artillery or tank fire. The whole battle seemed to be heating up, and here they were, walking right into it.
"I don't like this one bit," Harper said. He was jumpy and nervous, his finger not far from the trigger of his rifle. He was armed with a Springfield rifle with iron sights, in respect of the fact that he was by de facto a scout, rather than a sniper. Cole nodded, his eyes busy scanning the landscape, his sniper's senses on high alert. "I sure do feel like we dragged this girl and the kid out of the frying pan, and now we are tossing them into the fire. This whole damn countryside is about to go to hell. But she's got to get back to her niece."
"Once she's got the kids, she ought to get out of Dodge," Harper agreed.
"Yeah, but where would she go? In any direction, she could run into German troops or smack dab into a firefight. She can't stay with the squad because God only knows what we're in for. Maybe what she ought to do is hunker down and wait it out down in the root cellar. I wish I knew enough French to tell her that."
There really wasn't an ideal solution. From the sounds they kept hearing around them, the entire countryside seemed to be engulfed in fierce running battles. Back at the temporary HQ, the lieutenant had made it clear that Allied forces were converging on the Falaise area, where the Wehrmacht was making a last stand. It seemed as if Lisette's farmhouse would be close to the action.
"You two need to escort her back to the safety of her farmhouse, and then get the hell out of there," Mulholland had said. "If you don't, there's a good chance you might find yourselves on the wrong side of enemy lines. Everything is really fluid right now.”
Listening to the sounds of fighting, and seeing the smoke filling the skies, Cole had to agree.
He insisted on going first, although Lisette still managed to guide them down the narrow dirt roads, keeping a firm grip on her nephew's hand. They rounded a bend in the road, and there was the farmhouse. White-washed and neatly thatched, Cole thought it looked like something out of a postcard.
Lisette let go of the boy's hand, and he raced toward the house. An old woman came to the front door that faced the road, with a little girl tangled in the woman's voluminous skirts.
Lisette gestured for them to come inside. The two soldiers did so, removing their helmets out of politeness as they went in. The kitchen they found themselves in was small and cramped. Cole was surprised, on closer inspection, that the floor was of hard-packed dirt; even his family's rough cabin in Gashey's Creek had a floor of rough-sawn boards.
The old lady looked at the two GIs with alarm, clutching her old sweater tighter against her ample body. Cole realized it was probably the first time she had seen an American up close. For the last few years, the only soldiers in these parts had worn German uniforms.
If Mulholland's French back at HQ had been rudimentary, the language skills of the two GIs was nonexistent. Lisette smiled and gestured as if she wanted to give them coffee, but mostly she seemed relieved to be back with both children. The old lady began gathering up her things as if to go, but Lisette seemed to be encouraging her to stay. He caught the French word, dangereux.
Cole felt that they had done their duty. It was time to get back to the war.
They managed to decline the coffee with smiles and by saying, "No, no."
Cole wondered if they could go out the kitchen door, out into the farmyard. He pointed at it, and Lisette nodded.
They stepped out into the farmyard and had walked a few yards from the house. Cole thought he heard something, or felt something, like he was being watched. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and he turned to look over his shoulder.
From across the farmyard, someone shot at them.
Harper went down.
"Got him, got him, got him!" Fischer shouted in excitement.
Rohde was impressed, in spite of himself. He and the Hauptmann had set up before dawn and lain there for hours in hopes of a shot at the Americans.
When he had seen the hillbilly sniper with the flag on his helmet escorting Lisette and the boy, he could not believe his good luck at how things had worked out. Finally, here was the chance to cement Rohde’s reputation as a sniper.
Fischer had insisted on waiting until the Americans came back out of the farmhouse — alone. He did not want the woman or the boy to be in the line of fire. Rohde had no such compunctions, but he did not argue.
They had agreed that Rohde would shoot the American hillbilly sniper. Fischer would shoot the other one.
At the last instant before Rohde's own rifle had fired, the American had shifted position, turning to look in Rohde's direction — almost as if he had eyes in the back of his head.
Rohde missed.
He fired again, but the hillbilly was already behind cover.
Fischer had more luck. The other American was dead.
And now they had the hillbilly sniper pinned down.
Rohde had an entire clip loaded with the explosive bullets he had stolen from the armory. He had been reluctant to use the forbidden ammunition with Fischer present, but there was no way that he was going to miss out on the opportunity to use it now. Quickly, he swapped out the clip of standard ammunition in the Gewehr 43 for the explosive rounds.
One hit, even on an extremity, would shatter a limb with deadly effect.
Cole dove for cover and kept his head down as bullets struck the water trough. Once the firing stopped, he risked a peek at Harper's body, lying still in the tall grass nearby.
He had liked Harper. He had known him for a short time, but a flood of emotions washed over him: fear, anger, sadness at another life wasted. He forced himself to stay focused. The important thing now was to stay alive himself.
Cole couldn’t have asked for better cover than the stone water trough. He got down low near the base, glad that the thing looked heavy enough to stop a Panzerfaust round. Back home, the cows had to settle for drinking out of a rusty bathtub or tin trough. French farmers did it right. He took a gander around the side of the stone trough and saw not one, but two, German snipers. One was using the top of the wall on the opposite side of the farmyard to rest his rifle upon. The other sniper was much better hidden. Cole could barely see the other man's rifle, jutting from the bottom edge of the wall.
One of them had to be Rohde. This was clearly an ambush. What sniper other than Rohde would have any reason to visit this farm? It was too much of a coincidence, and Cole didn't believe in coincidences. You couldn't, not if you wanted to stay alive out here.
Rohde. This was the sniper who had staked the boy in the field. This was the sniper who had almost killed him, firing from that barn outside St. Dennis de Mere. Some of Cole's calm demeanor began to slip. His heart rate sped up from a mixture of anticipation and fear. One of them would not be leaving this place alive.
Cole pushed any doubts aside. He replaced those emotions with a calm resolve, or maybe call it a dead certainty. He was going to kill whoever had shot Harper.