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

water. A corner of the cellar was turned into a makeshift latrine. Meanwhile, it wasn’t getting any warmer in the cellar.

Through the window gratings, they kept watching the German soldiers, who looked bulky in their winter gear and square helmets, carrying their deadly submachine guns. As the hours went by, the Germans seemed to grow even more ominous in their imaginations.

Not far from anyone’s thoughts was what had happened last month, at the crossroads town of Malmedy. German troops had captured nearly one hundred soldiers when their convoy had been cut off and surprised by Panzers. The Americans had taken cover in a roadside ditch as the Panzers made short work of their vehicles. In the end, they’d had no choice but to surrender. They had come out with their hands up and found themselves to be POWs.

No one was exactly sure what had taken place next, whether the shooting was a direct order or a terrible mistake, but the Germans had opened fire on the unarmed prisoners. When the shooting stopped, more than eighty Americans lay dead. Only a handful managed to escape.

“Think about what happened to those poor bastards at Malmedy,” Serra said, as if reading Joey’s thoughts. “We shouldn’t be too quick to give ourselves up.”

“That’s for sure,” Joey agreed.

At first, there had been bursts of gunfire throughout the village as pockets of defenders tried to turn the tables on the Germans. The gunfire had been sporadic at best. Eventually, the shooting stopped entirely, except for single shots here and there. It was all too clear that the village had fallen.

“That’s the Germans mopping up,” Serra said.

The only opposition that remained was the soldier up in the church steeple. At this point, the best that he could hope for was to be a thorn in their side, picking off any enemy soldiers careless enough to show themselves on the street directly in front of the church. From time to time, the Germans would unleash a burst of machine-gun fire at the steeple, but minutes later, the lone rifleman would be back at work. So far, the Germans hadn’t brought up any heavy weapons to deal with the sniper—or maybe they didn’t feel like he was worth the effort.

Finally, it appeared that the Germans had had enough. An officer appeared on the street, shouting up at the steeple from behind the shelter of a ruined car.

“Hey you, come on down from there!” the German officer called out in English. “The town is ours, so why keep fighting? You will be treated OK.”

The drama playing out on the street held the rapt attention of the soldiers in the cellar.

“Do it, buddy,” the sergeant muttered. “Give it up. You’re dead meat, otherwise.”

“No way,” Serra said. “I wouldn’t trust those Krauts as far as I could throw them.”

As far as Joey could tell, the sniper in the church steeple seemed to agree with Serra, because seconds later the sniper fired a shot that hit the vehicle giving cover to the German officer.

“Last chance!” the officer shouted.

Again, another shot made the officer duck.

Now, another man ran to join the officer. He looked even sturdier than the other Germans. A big guy. He carried a rifle with a telescopic sight.

“Uh oh,” Serra said. “That guy’s a sniper!”

Soon, the sniper had set up beside the officer, aiming his rifle at the church steeple, waiting for his chance.

Joey looked down at his rusty weapon. It was loaded and ready to fire—at least, he thought it was. If he had an ounce of courage, he’d stick that thing right out the window and shoot that sniper in the back. What was he, less than a hundred feet away?

He might have done it, if he’d thought that he could hit the German sniper from here. During training, he hadn’t been the best shot. Then again, Joey knew that if he opened fire, whether he took out the sniper or not, he’d be signing the death warrant of every man in that cellar.

How had he gotten into this mess?

For the answer to that, he thought, he’d have to go all the way back to December 7, 1941, when the Japanese had launched their sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Every boy in Joey’s school—and more than a few girls—had been eager to get into uniform and do what they could to get back at the Japs and Germans.

However, Joey had been too young to join up. He’d have to wait until he finished high school. Back then, the main concern that he and his schoolmates had was that the war would be over before they were old enough to fight.

How wrong they’d been. Now it was 1945 and the war was still going strong.

Joey had enlisted the day after graduating from high school. Basic training had been fine, but one thing was soon clear—Joey was not destined to be a front-line soldier.

Studious and gentle, solidly in the middle of his group of recruits, and with the rare skill among men of being able to type thanks to a high school business class, he had found himself assigned to be a clerk.

It didn’t much matter to Joey whether he was armed with a rifle or a typewriter, and no one else seemed to mind, either. He was on the front lines with everybody else, doing his part, which was all that mattered.

He had dreamed about fighting the Germans, yet when the time came, here he was, hiding in a cellar.

The soldiers of the service company had mostly been issued M-1 carbines, which looked puny compared to the full-sized rifles. No matter—they never had any use for them.

But now, he did regret that he hadn’t made some effort to keep his carbine cleaned and oiled. He should have at least fired it once in a while. Truth be told, combat readiness was lacking in the service company.

But now he held the carbine in his hands. The question was, what was he going to do with it?

A moment passed, and Joey didn’t