Sniper's Justice (Caje Cole Book 9) by David Healey (best classic books txt) 📗

sight slung across his back. Across his front, he carried a submachine gun on a leather sling, just in case they ran across any unexpected enemy troops. But from the clear road they had experienced so far, it seemed that the Americans suspected nothing.

As the shadows lengthened and nightfall approached, there was new urgency to the movement of the troops. Soon, the officers would have to call a halt.

These hills were challenging enough to navigate by daylight for advancing troops because it was difficult to maintain communication. The peaks and valleys limited radio signals. Maintaining any kind of sight contact remained impossible, meaning that individual units like the one to which Hauer was attached moved at their own pace through the hills.

While the terrain was not ideal, it also meant that the Americans did not expect an attack from this direction. All of their attention was to the north, where what the Allies called the Battle of the Bulge still raged in the Ardennes Forest. The second prong of the German advance was now coming at the southern end of the American position. Not so much as a single enemy plane had appeared in the winter sky, thanks to the dismal weather. Their luck was holding.

More than anything else, the Germans feared the planes that could appear out of nowhere to strafe and bomb their ground forces. Even a Tiger Tank didn’t stand a chance against the American planes. As far as the Germans were concerned, bad weather was their friend because it kept the enemy planes grounded or, at the very least, helped to screen their movements from the air.

It was January 3, 1945. Winter fog had moved in, but the new year had begun with clear, crystalline skies and bitter cold, although those had not lasted. Celebrations of the new year had been few and far between because no one wanted to dwell too much on what this seventh year of the war might bring. Circumstances had changed a great deal since those exciting, heady days when the war began in September 1939 with the crushing invasion of Poland, when the war machine of Hitler’s Third Reich had seemed invincible.

Hauer recalled those early days of the war fondly. He had been working as a butcher when the war began. He had resisted becoming a soldier at first, but the demand for troops made keeping out of the war impossible before long. Any able-bodied young man was expected to fight. He had soon found that he had many talents and a natural ability as a soldier.

Hauer heard footsteps behind him, crunching with too much noise across the snowy forest floor, and a moment later, Krauss was walking beside him.

“The Leader has thought of everything!” Krauss announced, panting heavily from the effort of catching up to Hauer. “We will take the Americans by surprise and smash them!”

Hauer glanced at the young Soldat’s ruddy cheeks and saw that he was serious. “Keep your voice down, or you will let the Americans know that we are coming,” Hauer said. “You could lose the war for us. Wouldn’t that disappoint The Leader?”

Looking mortified, Krauss fell silent, much to Hauer’s relief. At first, when Krauss had begun following him around like a puppy, Hauer had been annoyed. Krauss had seemed to be awed by Hauer’s reputation as a sniper, and couldn’t take his eyes off Hauer’s rifle. But then, Hauer had found it useful to have someone willing to fetch things for him or carry messages. Krauss might think that he was currying favor, but there was only one man that Hauer looked out for. Himself.

Hauer shook his head at the Soldat’s praise of Hitler’s strategy. Soldiers did what they were told, of course, but even a private in the ranks had his own ideas about military strategy. Some thought that it would have been better to man a defense at the fortifications that made up the Siegfried line, which had been built at enormous expense, while others believed that the war was already hopeless. But if they were smart, they didn’t say so.

“What do you think?” Krauss asked.

“About what?”

“The war, of course! Do you think that we can finally win it now?”

“What do I think?” Hauer shook his head. “I think that we are soldiers, Krauss. Let the generals determine the strategy. For us, we need to survive one day at a time.”

He quickened his pace to leave Krauss behind. He was done talking for now.

Surely, the Americans knew about the massive Operation Nordwind counter-attack by now, but with their forces spread thin and hampered by the intense cold, they had been slow to send reinforcements or to bolster the defenses of the small towns that they currently held and occupied in Alsace-Lorraine.

As darkness fell, the officers called a halt. There was no point continuing along the treacherous road in the dark. For the troops spread out through the trees, moving through the forest at night was equally as pointless due to the logs, boulders, and other natural obstacles. Some slumped against trees and fell asleep instantly. They had been on the move constantly since first light, with little or no sleep the night before.

Each soldier received half a loaf of bread, and jars of jam were passed around. The jam began to freeze as soon as it was spread across the bread, but no man complained.

Hauer would have like some coffee, but no fires were allowed because that might cost them the element of surprise, or worse yet, make the entire battalion a target for an artillery barrage.

“This is it,” the Oberleutnant announced. “This is the last food you will receive. If you want to eat tomorrow, you must capture enemy supplies.”

Hauer picked a few pieces of sawdust from his ration of bread, wondering if this was truly all of the food, or if this was simply another tactic to get them to fight even harder. Then again, it was no secret that food was in short supply, even in the Fatherland