Two more soldiers worked to reposition the gun. He shot one, worked the bolt action of the Mosin-Nagant, and then shot the second man, who slumped forward over the gun itself. Eins, zwei, drei… there were now half a dozen bodies around the machine gun emplacement, but who was counting?
A few shots peppered the walls of the tower, but Von Stenger had been careful not to present himself as a target by staying well back from the slit windows. He was positioned very nearly in the center of the tower.
One bullet did pass through the slit and bounced around inside the bell chamber like a fat, very angry bumblebee trapped in a jar. The noise made his blood run cold. The bullet finally spent itself and Von Stenger breathed again. He always had been lucky, but knew better than to push that luck.
It would only be a matter of time before the Americans found someone who could shoot well enough to put shot after shot through the slit window… and one of those zipping bullets would give him a fatal sting. He planned to be long gone before that happened.
He emptied his next-to-last clip at the soldiers scurrying below. He thought he had brought enough ammunition, but was quickly running low. It was all a little too much like being at a pheasant shoot, where the helpless birds were released before the so-called hunters, where they were quickly gunned down.
Von Stenger knew he could not stay up in the tower forever. The massive doors that closed off the entrance to the steeple steps from the main nave of the church itself were made of ancient oak, more like iron than wood. The doors were heavily barred — all a hold-over from the violent medieval era when most buildings were constructed with defense from attack in mind. The French priests had not been fools.
Of course, a few explosives or a heavy machine gun would turn the oak doors to splinters. But the interior of the church was now a hospital, filled with badly wounded men who were not easily moved. The Americans would think twice before trying to blast through the doors. The only alternative was to chop through them by hand.
Targets were getting harder to find, so he took a break from shooting to light a cigarette. He would let the Americans think that the pause in his shooting meant that he had been killed by some lucky stray shot. That would draw them out.
Lieutenant Mulholland gathered a group of men to make a run at the church where the sniper was hidden in the tower. From his earlier visit to the church, he knew that oak doors led toward the stairs into the tower. Breaking them down would not be easy, but he and his men had rounded up a few axes, a pry bar, and even a couple of garden mattocks. Basically, they had collected anything that they could use to chop at the doors.
"Vaccaro, you and Cole cover us," he said.
"Don't worry, Lieutenant, we'll give that Nazi some lead to chew on," Vaccaro said.
Jolie came running up and took a position next to Cole, armed with an M1. Mulholland knew that he had ordered her to stay in the church to help the wounded, not fight.
"What are you doing here?"
"I am fighting."
"Like hell you are!"
"I may be a woman, Lieutenant, but I am not much of a nurse," she said. "I am much more useful with a rifle."
Mulholland would have argued, but there wasn't time. "Have it your way," he said. He nodded at Vaccaro and Cole, and the two snipers aimed their rifles at the slit windows in the church tower. "The rest of you, let's go!"
They ran straight for the church. Mulholland could see that it would be impossible for the sniper to shoot almost straight down at them, so the faster they got to the church, the better their chances would be.
Behind him, Vaccaro and Cole fired a few quick shots at the tower to make sure the sniper kept his head down.
Mulholland sprinted for the church. We're gonna make it, we're gonna make it—
He hadn't counted on the grenades.
Up in the tower, Von Stenger spotted the group of soldiers running toward the church with axes and crowbars. He had to smile. The sight of these men armed like peasants reminded him of the movie Frankenstein that he had seen in Berlin. Von Stenger did not care much for movies, but that one had been amusing.
He did not smile for long. The men were quick as rats, and they darted through the streets toward the church before Von Stenger could get a good shot at them. They charged toward the entrance to the church.
The narrow slits of the church tower made it awkward to shoot straight down, but Von Stenger had anticipated this situation by bringing along four stick grenades. He unscrewed the "bottle-cap" base and tugged the ceramic bead that ignited the five and a half second fuse, then dropped it out the window above the doorway below. He quickly followed it with a second grenade.
Even up in the tower, he felt the shock wave of the double blast. The screams below told him that the grenades had been effective.
CHAPTER 25
The blasts came in rapid succession, knocking Mulholland down and literally filling his mouth with dirt as he skidded belly first across the ground. He heard men screaming and wondered how badly he was hurt.
He rolled over, his ears ringing from the concussion. To his surprise, he seemed to be in one piece. He'd heard before that the German stick grenades were mostly about the flash and bang — not nearly so deadly as the American "pineapple" grenades. However, it was clear to Mulholland that the German grenades were more than effective. Two men were on the ground now, writhing in pain. One of them had an ugly leg wound, the torn flesh looking like raw steak. Mulholland crawled the last few feet into the stone doorway of the church, and the other survivors followed.
Fritz, who was now one of several surrendered Germans working in the makeshift hospital, rushed forward to help Mulholland to his feet.
"I'm OK, I'm OK," he said, shoving Fritz toward the door. "Do something for those poor bastards out there."
The medic and the German doctor who had appointed themselves in charge of the church hospital confronted him. "No weapons in the church, Lieutenant!" the medic said. "The Jerry doc and I agreed that this is neutral ground."
"In case you haven't noticed, there's a Jerry sniper up in the steeple. Now get the hell out of my way, unless you want me to shove this ax up your ass sideways."
They rushed up the aisle past the pews filled with wounded Germans, Americans and French civilians toward the oak doors at the back of the church, to one side of the altar. He gave one a shove with his shoulder, but it didn't budge.
"Barred shut from the inside, goddamnit! All right, boys, get chopping!"
Von Stenger heard the gunfire increasing in town and thought that his ploy with the stick grenades had drawn the Americans' ire. But no additional shots seemed to be striking the tower.
Keeping well back from the windows, he looked down the road leading toward town. The view from the church tower was really quite spectacular, and now that the sun was properly up he could see for miles. The sunlight sparkled across the flooded fields and revealed the miles of rich green bocage country beyond that. It was shaping up to be a lovely June day. Coming up the road was a Tiger tank flanked by a unit of advancing infantry. To a German soldier, that was a sight even more lovely than the French countryside. Out in the open, however, the Wehrmacht infantry was exposed and the American fire even at that extreme range was having a telling effect. There would be some empty rooms at the old chateau tonight.
Then the infantry fell back and the Tiger rolled forward alone. Its massive turret gun fired, sending a shell screaming toward town. The shell whistled past the church tower and landed among the houses at the far end of town. The high explosive round detonated, flattening several dwellings into rubble.