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

was open to the cold air, telephone lines snaking through it to a pair of field telephones on what had been the mayor’s desk.

Colonel Lang turned out to be a tall man of no more than forty years of age. His thinning blond hair was slicked back against his scalp. His boots were covered in slush and like his men, he wore several days of stubble on his face. He looked cranky and exhausted.

He shouted one last order into a telephone as she entered and then turned his attention to her.

Sister Anne Marie noticed the other men in the room. There was a young officer holding some papers who might be an adjutant of some kind, along with a clerk. With a tiny gasp of recognition, she saw that the sniper was also present. The man seemed to be everywhere, like the Devil himself. He looked at her with an expressionless face.

“What is it, Sister?” the officer demanded. “I only have a few minutes. I have to admit, I would not see you at all except that you represent the church.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” she said. “I have come with concerns about the prisoners.”

“The Americans?” His eyebrows raised in surprise.

“You are holding two hundred and fifty-two men in the church.”

“That’s a very exact number. How do you know?”

“I counted them.”

“Ah. What about them?”

“Many are wounded and need medical care. They need medicine and bandages that I do not have. They need food and water. They need blankets. I am asking you to provide for their care.”

“Why trouble yourself about them?”

“They are in my church!”

“Where is the priest? Perhaps he could talk some sense into you.”

“The priest ran away.”

“He did, eh? He’s a smarter man than many.”

“Sir, I am doing what I can to help them, but the prisoners are your responsibility.”

The colonel glanced at the sniper, who stood near the fireplace, warming his hands. “Do you hear that, Hauer? This nun is telling me my job. Apparently, I am to care for prisoners. I thought my job was to fight the war.”

So the Devil had a name, she thought. Hauer.

Hauer flexed his broad shoulders. “Do you want me to throw her out, sir?”

The colonel stared at her and seemed to think over Hauer’s offer. “Not yet. Sister, I would like nothing better than to shoot these prisoners and be done with them.”

“You cannot!”

“Who says? You? God?” He shook his head. “Don’t worry, Sister. We are not monsters. Besides, the Americans are very sensitive after what happened at the Malmedy Crossroads. As ridiculous as it seems when we are in the middle of killing one another, there are rules in war. The lives of German POWs hang in the balance. So you see, no harm will come to the prisoners because of the repercussions to our own men being held by the Allies.”

He moved to the open window and gestured for her to join him.

“Sir?”

“Look out the window, Sister. Do you see that warehouse across the street? It is filled with wounded. My men. Good men. They need bandages and medicine and food that I do not have to give them. If I cannot help my own men, how can I possibly help the prisoners?”

Sister Anne Marie was surprised. She had assumed that the Germans were well-supplied. “I did not know.”

“Find what supplies you can in the village,” he said. “I can’t help you, but I won’t stop you. That is all.”

He reached for a ringing telephone, dismissing her with the gesture as he turned his attention elsewhere.

As she left the room, she felt Hauer’s eyes on her, following her out.

Sister Anne Marie left the German commanding officer’s headquarters and made her way back up the street in the direction of the church. Suddenly, she felt so very tired. Each footstep in the snow and cold took an effort. It was no wonder. She had been working almost around the clock to do what she could for the POWs. When was the last time that she had eaten or slept? She could not remember when that had been. All of her efforts had been so focused upon helping the prisoners in the church.

The thought of a hot bowl of soup and a nap was suddenly quite appealing, but she forced herself to keep putting one foot in front of the other under the watchful eyes of the soldiers she passed. Tired and discouraged as she was, she kept going. Perhaps it was blasphemous, but she thought of all that Jesus had suffered. Her hardships were nothing in comparison.

She felt that she had not accomplished much in meeting with the commanding officer, but she had at least tried. That was something, wasn’t it? Anyhow, where one door closed, another opened.

Sister Anne Marie busied her mind with all of the things still left to do. She would go door to door again, asking for blankets and food. In the houses that people had fled, she might look into the empty rooms in hopes of finding some forgotten scrap of food to feed the prisoners. The German soldiers had already gone through the houses, but perhaps they had overlooked a blanket or jar of jam.

Something penetrated her fog of exhaustion, some primitive warning sense, and she looked over her shoulder.

Trailing her like an ominous shadow was the German sniper.

Hauer watched the nun leave. The colonel was busy on the telephone, so Hauer had slipped out to follow her up the street. Her nun’s dark habit fluttered around her in the winter wind. Where are you going, little crow?

Hauer did not care for nuns. Of course, outside of an overall sense of warmth toward the Reich itself, he did not care for much other than himself, but nuns were still toward the bottom of his list.

Why? He found them sanctimonious and cruel. As a boy, he had attended a Catholic school. Hauer had excelled at sports and schoolyard bullying, but he never had been keen on his lessons. Consequently, the nuns had