Very efficiently, the Germans had placed machine-gun positions at the street corners, giving each machine-gun nest a clear line of fire in several directions. All that the attackers could do was scurry from house to house, trying to stay under cover until those machine guns could be knocked out.
“Every last one of these houses has been turned into a damned bunker,” Vaccaro said. “They can hit us from any direction. What the hell are we supposed to do?”
“We take this village one house at a time, that’s what,” Cole replied. “Now, cover me.”
Without waiting for a response, Cole dashed toward the nearest house. It was tall and narrow, offering a good vantage point up and down the street.
His movement was met with muzzle flashes from the windows, then bullets plucking at the snow around his feet, but he managed to reach the back corner of the house and hugged the wall. He stayed there for a moment, gasping for breath and realizing that he still felt pretty weak from the flu. Suddenly, he found himself having a terrible coughing fit. Hell, maybe he ought to still be in bed instead of being out here, fighting the war.
Inside the house, the Germans could hear him. He could definitely hear them inside, shouting excitedly to one another. The angle was all wrong for the Germans in the house to get a shot at him. However, he couldn’t just hide out here all day. Vaccaro was right about every house being a bunker. At any moment, somebody might spot him and pick him off.
One of the Germans leaned out of an upstairs window, trying to get a glimpse of where the American had gone. Cole raised his rifle and fired, sending the enemy soldier tumbling to the snowy ground.
There was another open window on the ground floor, but none of the Krauts was dumb enough to stick his head out. Cole got down low and crawled under the window. Across the way, he spotted Vaccaro, giving him covering fire. Bullets smacked into the house. Cole just hoped to hell that Vaccaro didn’t shoot him by accident.
From his position under the window, Cole pulled the pin on a grenade and lobbed it inside. The ear-splitting blast was almost instantaneous. He heard screams and curses despite his ringing ears. Leaping to his feet, he fired through the window at anything moving in the smoke.
There were still Germans upstairs, though, and they weren’t too happy. He could hear them shouting angrily and rushing down the stairs. The interior of the house echoed with automatic fire. Cole ducked back down; his single-shot Springfield wasn’t any match for that. Now what?
He needn’t have worried. In the confusion, Vaccaro had scrambled across to the house. He emptied a clip from his semi-automatic M-1 into the interior of the house, and then for good measure, tossed in another grenade.
“Fire in the hole!”
Another blast tore through the downstairs, followed by more screams. The grenade had silenced the enemy within. This was going to be an ugly business, repeating the same process from house to house. Not all of the attacks on the houses were one-sided victories, like this one had been. The growing number of American bodies in the streets was evidence of that.
“You all right?” he shouted at Vaccaro, even though the City Boy was just a few yards away. Neither of them could hear a damn thing, thanks to the gunfire and grenades.
“I don’t have any holes in me, if that’s what you mean.”
“All right, then. I’m going in.”
Cole slung the rifle, put both hands on the windowsill, and levered himself inside. His boots came down on something soft. A dead Kraut. In the light from the window, he got a good look at the face. The dead German was young — maybe just a teenager — and quite handsome, blond, his blue eyes now staring. Cole felt a twinge of regret, and just as quickly snapped it off like a light switch. Start thinking that way and it will get you killed, he thought. A few minutes ago, this German lad had been trying to shoot him. Hell, not so long before that, Cole had been more than ready to shoot those German prisoners. What the hell had gotten into him? It seemed like sometimes he got in a killing mood and it was hard to shake.
Vaccaro came in through the other window. Cole unslung his rifle. Together, they made their way from room to room, making sure that there weren’t any surprises. The air smelled heavily of cordite and fresh butchering. They found a handful of dead Krauts, killed either by the grenades or their rifle fire. One of the Germans was still moving, but he was badly wounded, barely even conscious. Cole finished him off with a mercy shot, then started upstairs.
Unlike the downstairs, the second floor was thankfully free of any dead Germans. The furniture was a jumble, everything having been dragged toward the windows and piled up — mattresses, bed frames, dressers, linen chests. Basically, anything that had a chance of stopping a bullet.
Cole peeked out one of the windows. Below, spread-eagled in the snow, he could see the body of the German he had shot. Beyond, the house offered a commanding view up the street toward the Catholic church, which wasn’t more than two hundred feet distant.
“Hey, isn’t that where the prisoners are being held?” Vaccaro asked, joining him at the window.
“That’s what the lieutenant said,” Cole replied.
“Do you think the two of us have a prayer of getting to that church?”
Cole thought about the machine-gun nests lining the streets, and the other well-defended houses between here and there. “Hell, no.”
“Then what’s our next move?”
Cole thought about that. “We’re gonna stay right here and do what we do best.”
“Yeah? What is that, by the way?”
Cole put a pillow across the windowsill to create a pad, then set his rifle across it. The window offered a perfect vista not only of the church, but of anything that moved on the street leading to it.
“Shoot Germans, that’s what,” Cole said, pulling the rifle tight against his shoulder. “You call out any targets you see. And keep an eye out for any Germans making a move on us. This is our house now.”
Chapter Seventeen
Like an incoming tide, the U.S. troops worked their way deeper into the village. From the second-floor window of the house that they had captured from the enemy, Cole and Vaccaro watched the soldiers move up the street. It wasn’t an easy task. Other houses were still held by the Germans, who peppered the attackers with fire. The Germans also held the street corner nearest the church, where a machine gun kept up a steady and withering fire. There were few sounds as sure to send a shiver up the spine of a GI as that.
However, it wasn’t just the machine gun that the attackers had to worry about. Occasional rifle shots rang out with deadly accuracy, dropping Americans in their tracks. Cole had wondered what had become of The Butcher, and now he knew. He also had a good idea of where the sniper was located. Like Cole, he had chosen a high place with a good view of the streets below.
“That Kraut sniper is in the church steeple,” Cole said.
“Can you see him?”
“Not yet.”
“He picked a good spot,” Vaccaro said, scanning the church. “He knows we can’t take him out with a tank or a grenade launcher, not with that church full of our guys.”
“He’s also got himself a bird’s eye view up there. He’s higher than we are, anyhow.”
Cole pressed his eye tight against the telescopic sight, focusing every bit of his concentration on the church steeple. He was hoping for a glimpse of movement that would provide him with a target.
It wasn’t the first time that Cole had encountered a sniper in a church. A question occurred to him that he hadn’t asked before.