by David Healey
“They look as cold as we are, poor bastards,” Vaccaro said, passing a group of prisoners being rounded up. “You still want to shoot them, Hillbilly?”
“Never mind about me. Anyhow, this fight ain’t over yet.”
Most of the shooting in the village had died down. Over by the railroad underpass carrying the road into the village, the tank still fired at its opponent up on the hilltop, where a German force remained dug in.
Another round from the tank shot toward the forest, bursting among the snow-covered trees. In response, a round struck the frozen ground near the Sherman, showering the tank with frozen clods of earth. The tank fired again. A tremendous explosion ripped through the trees this time, and the enemy gun finally fell silent.
“Got him,” Cole said with satisfaction.
“Maybe the Jerries will clear out now.”
Cole couldn’t help thinking that The Butcher was somewhere up there on that hill, maybe trying to put a few Americans in his crosshairs. Hauer had been wounded, but it was too much to hope that the wound was incapacitating. The Germans still held that high ground, which could only mean one thing for the troops who had just taken the village.
“We’re gonna have to go up there and take that hill,” Cole said.
“Not until I warm up first, we’re not.”
Dotted around the streets, near where the machine-gun positions had been, the Germans had built warming fires in barrels. Now, it was the Americans who warmed themselves around these fires. Cole and Vaccaro joined the others in their squad, took off their gloves and mittens, and held their stiff fingers closer to the flames.
More villagers emerged. Some of the old folks had died of exposure from days and nights spent cowering in the cold cellars, and their bodies were carried out and laid in the streets. The sight of the dead brought a wave of fresh weeping from the villagers, who thought that they had already cried themselves out.
The villagers eyed the Americans warily. Some looked just plain shaken and haunted. The village had been occupied before by the Americans, but then lost. Would that happen again? So close to the German border, there were even more than a few villagers who didn’t necessarily welcome the U.S. victory.
As always, the children seemed frightened but resilient. Cole gave a nearly frozen chocolate bar to a child, who smiled and said, “Merci.”
They counted more than forty enemy dead, with about as many enemy soldiers taken prisoner. The Germans looked worried, as if convinced Americans would shoot them like what had taken place at Malmedy. Some soldiers wanted to shoot the ones with American watches on, but Lieutenant Mulholland wouldn’t let them.
Before dark, an assault was organized on the hilltop, with the tank leading the way. Cole and Vaccaro found themselves following in the wake of the tank, sucking in exhaust fumes.
“How come we got to take part in this?”
“Just lucky, I reckon.”
The truth was that somebody wanted Cole and his rifle handy, and following the tank was the best way to make sure that he reached the hilltop in one piece—unless the Germans decided to ambush the tank with a Panzerfaust. Then all bets were off.
Cautiously, the assault team approached the forest, more exposed than they wanted to be, but without much choice given the bare, snowy slope leading up from the village. At any moment, they expected deadly fire to be unleashed against them.
But when they reached the tree line, all that they found were empty foxholes and the smoking wreckage of the German artillery.
The Germans had slipped away.
Finally, there remained one task for the survivors of the fight for Wingen sur Moder, and that was to bury the dead. The ground remained frozen hard beneath the snow and ice, so digging through the frost was backbreaking work. No one complained about this final chore. The soldiers mostly just had their trenching tools, but the able-bodied villagers arrived with picks and mattocks and soon joined the soldiers to work side by side with them.
Cole joined in and despite the bitter cold, soon found himself sweating. He hadn’t grown up as a farmer, but he was no stranger to hard work. Taking turns and trading off whenever one person grew tired, the soldiers and villagers dug down. Some of the former prisoners who had been held in the church, the ones who weren’t in bad shape, also turned out to help once they had gotten some food and something hot to drink.
It was easier to dig one large hole for a mass burial, rather than trying to cut several small graves through the frosted earth. This wasn’t how things were normally done, but there was something that felt right about burying the victims of the fighting together. A separate grave was dug for the dead Germans.
One of the soldiers who had been held in the church knelt by the body of the private who had been shot dead when he ran to help the nun.
“Serra, what are you doing?”
“Hold it,” he said to the soldiers who were about to finish wrapping the body in a blanket. He reached inside his shirt and produced a tiny crucifix on a thin chain, which he then slipped over his head. He laid it on his dead buddy’s chest, mumbled a prayer, then wiped at his eyes with the back of his hands. “Go on, then.”
The bodies of the dead young soldier and the nun were wrapped in blankets like the others, and then laid in the bottom of the hole. Soldiers and villagers gathered, hats and helmets off despite the snow. Some of the villagers sobbed. A few days ago, they had celebrated Christmas and all seemed right with their world as the end of the war seemed to be coming into sight. Now, not even a week into the new year, it seemed as if their whole world had shattered.
Prayers were said, and then began the slow work of refilling the grave. The fresh earth was one more scar in the village left by the fighting.
But not for long. More snow fell during the night, covering the landscape in a new blanket of white, as if giving the world a fresh start.
“All right, get ready to move out,” Lieutenant Mulholland shouted. Enough gasoline had been found to keep the trucks running, and two more tanks joined them as the unit prepared to head down the mountain roads.
“Sir, are we going after those Germans?”
“No such luck. Division is sending us somewhere else. Besides, those guys are probably halfway back to Berlin by now. Chances are that we’ll have to fight them again.”
Cole listened, disappointed. Some officer, somewhere, was probably sending them to clean up someone else’s mess. He had hoped that they would be going after the Germans who had escaped from Winger sur Moder. Then again, he agreed with Mulholland that too much time had elapsed. That unit could be anywhere in these mountains.
Truth be told, he wouldn’t have minded another shot at that German sniper. After all, Hauer wasn’t just another soldier. The way that Cole saw it, Hauer was a murderer. It also nagged at Cole that the enemy sniper had eluded him. Cole knew that he was the better shot. He just needed a chance to prove it.
As far as he was concerned, there was some unfinished business between them.
If not this time, he thought, then maybe another.
It seemed as if Vaccaro had more immediate concerns.
“Sir, can I ride up front? It’s cold in the back and I think I’m starting to get whatever Cole had. My throat feels all scratchy.”
“Shut up and get in the truck, Vaccaro. Nobody else can get sick. That’s an order.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If we run into more Germans, things will get hot plenty fast. You know what’s on the other side of these mountains, don’t you? Germany, that’s what.”
Cole thought that sounded good to him, and reached for his rifle.
Already miles away, what was left of the German forces retreating from Wingen sur Moder made their way along the snowy mountain roads.
Like a wave that had crashed against the shore in all its fury, only to have its foaming remains drawn back into the sea, the German advance of Operation Nordwind finally ebbed. Hitler had made a desperate gamble by gathering his remaining forces for one
last push against the Allies poised to invade across the Rhine. Thousands of troops, hundreds of tanks and trucks, even the last of the Luftwaffe’s aircraft, now lay shattered in the cold snow of the Ardennes Forest and Vosges Mountains.
In the end, the offensive had never been much more than a forlorn hope against well-supplied forces. The Allies had been delayed and thousands had died in what would come to be known as the biggest battle ever fought by the United States Army.
The Allies would now push on, with fewer and fewer enemy forces to stop them. From the East, the Red Army pushed ever-closer to Berlin. Caught in the middle, for the average German, all of this seemed impossible to grasp. The end of the Third Reich seemed all but certain. Now, it was only a matter of time. Their world was falling apart, but many weren’t prepared to give in quite yet.
“Hurry, hurry!” shouted a German officer, riding past in a Kübelwagen. The agile vehicle threaded its way along the slick road. “Hop, hop, hop! If the Allied planes catch us in the open, there will be hell to pay!”
With the other soldiers, Hauer glanced at the sky, but he was not particularly worried. “Let them come,” he said. “So what?”
“Maybe you will shoot them down for us with that fancy rifle of yours, eh, Hauer?” a nearby soldier asked.
“Maybe I will.”
“I hope you do!” the soldier said cheerfully.
Not all of the others were as friendly toward Hauer. Some viewed snipers with something like disdain, thinking that they were like thieves of souls, shooting from concealment. Even if they tolerated snipers, some of them just didn’t like Hauer. Others, like young Krauss, who had somehow survived the battle and was following along two steps behind him, seemed to regard him with something like awe.
What did he care, either way?
Hauer shook his head. He was cold; he could barely feel his feet. His left leg dragged, stiff from the wound he had suffered in the church steeple. In this case, he was glad of the temperature because it numbed the pain. He was sure that if he stopped moving, he would be captured, or simply die of the cold.
For many hours his stomach had rumbled, but then the sensation of hunger had gone away. Some of the younger soldiers ate snow to keep their bellies full, but he knew that only burned more energy than the temporary relief was worth. What he would give for a hot, sizzling sausage right now! The very idea of it made his mouth water. But for now, there was nothing to eat—no telling for how long.
He thought back to the fight in the village, satisfied that he had killed that meddling nun. He had been wounded while hidden in the church steeple, hit by an impossible shot that had come in through one of the small gaps in the brick wall that he had hidden behind. He was sure that it had been the American sniper whom he had encountered before. In fact, he had seen that sniper chasing him through the village.
Why hadn’t he made a last stand against him? Hauer shrugged to himself. Sometimes, even The Butcher had done enough. He would live to fight another day. He had to hand it to that American sniper, though. He was an excellent shot. If they ever crossed paths again, Hauer would be sure to return the favor.
The cheerful soldier beside him started singing in a low voice. All around him, other soldiers began to pick up the tune. The song was Panzierlied, the “Tank Song” so popular with all the troops:
Was gilt denn unser Leben
Für unsres Reiches Heer?
Für Deutschland zu sterben
Ist uns höchste Ehr.
What do our lives matter
In serving the nation?
To die for Germany
Is our highest honor.
The snowy forest rang with deep German voices, soldiers marching to make their final stand for the Fatherland.
Part III
Chapter Nineteen
Autumn 1991, Munich
Standing in the middle of the WWII museum, surrounded by the opening night crowd, Cole stared in disbelief at the German sniper that he had last seen that January day in 1945.
“I was hoping that I killed you,” Cole said.
The Butcher shook his head and smiled. “Apparently not. Why, are you not glad to see me, Hillbilly?”
“No. And where do you get off calling me Hillbilly?”
“That is your nickname, is it not? This is what the exhibit here says. The famed Hillbilly sniper.”
Cole was embarrassed about it, but he had to admit this was just what the exhibit stated. “I reckon it does say that, but it wasn’t my idea.”
“Come now, Hillbilly. After all these years, surely we can put our differences aside?”
“Sorry, but it’s hard to forget some things,” Cole said.
Hans was looking from man to man, a worried expression on his face. “You two know each other?” he asked.
The Butcher held out a hand and introduced himself to Hans. “I am Karl Hauer. You are German, but you speak English with hardly any accent.”
“Hans Neumann. As for my English, well, I was a POW during the war and was sent to America,” Hans explained. “After the war, I stayed.”
Hauer nodded, smiling as if pleased with his fellow German’s answer. For all the American exceptionalism being celebrated here tonight, this was a club that the Americans could never be part of—two Germans who had fought for their country, rightly or wrongly.
“I will leave it up to your friend here to explain how we know one another,” Hauer said.
“We ran into each other during the war,” Cole explained. “We set our sights on each other, you might say. Why don’t you go ahead and tell him, old buddy. Tell him all about how you got the nickname, Das Schlachter.”
“Of course,” the Butcher said. He seemed pleased by the use of his nickname. “We first encountered one another at Ville sur Moselle. Then again at the second half of what the Americans called The Battle of the Bulge.”
“You left out the part where you murdered those villagers at Ville sur Moselle,” Cole said.
“Murder is a strong word. They had armed themselves. I am sure that they would have done the same to me, given the chance.”
Cole snorted. “Villagers with some old shotguns and rusty hunting rifles? Not likely. What about those kids you killed? Had they armed themselves?”
The Butcher shook his head. “Sometimes, I cannot sleep at night thinking of what I have done. I remind myself that unfortunately, there is always needless killing in any war.”
Cole stared at him in disbelief. The words had been delivered almost by rote, as if Hauer had been practicing them. He sounded so damn phony.
“Hauer, I don’t believe you meant a word of what you just said about needless killing. Give me a damn break.”
Hauer shrugged. “In your Gulf War, it is what you Americans called collateral damage.”
If he’d had a gun in his hand, Cole would have taken The Butcher out then and there. “Collateral damage? That’s when bombs go off target. You shot those villagers and those kids, you son of a bitch. I had to go back and make up some lie for that dead boy’s sister.”
“I am sure you did her a great kindness. Sometimes, a lie is better than the truth. As for what I did during the war, I am sure that I did what was required of me.”
“There’s being a soldier, and then there’s being a murderer. Let’s not forget Wingen sur Moder, where you shot that nun.”
Hauer’s polite mask seemed to slip, and his face darkened. “Do not forget that you yourself killed many Germans.” The Butcher nodded at the exhibit displaying the old photograph of Cole in his sniper pose. “Because your side won, I can see how your actions are celebrated here. Did every soldier you killed deserve death? You and I are not so different in the end. We both have blood on our hands.”
Cole had heard enough. He gave the German sniper one last glare, then turned and walked away. After a moment, Hans followed.
“What was that all about?” Hans asked. “Were those things you said about him true?”
“True, and then some. I ne
ed a drink, old buddy.”
Cole approached the bar and ordered a bourbon. He was in luck that they had some on hand for their largely older, American crowd. He had been sticking with club soda, but running into Hauer again after so many years called for something stronger. He knocked it back in one gulp, welcoming the warm burn the liquor made going down.
Like Cole, Hans had been sipping a soft drink. He now ordered a schnapps. “Do you want another?” he asked Cole.
“No thanks. It might make me do something ornery.”
“I am sorry that he upset you,” Hans said.
“I guess it’s to be expected. You can’t open a museum like this without rubbing some salt in somebody’s old wounds. I just wasn’t expecting it to be my old wounds.”
But Hauer wasn’t ready to leave Cole alone just yet. He approached from the other side of the room, a contrite smile on his face, hands raised in a placating gesture.
“I must apologize,” he said. “I did not mean to upset you.”
Cole said nothing. He was glad that he had stopped at one drink, or there was no telling what might happen.
“You know, when the war ended, I found myself in East Germany,” Hauer said. “Behind what you call the Iron Curtain. It is only recently that we have been able to experience any real freedom and I am enjoying every minute of it, believe me. Being trapped in a Communist country for so many years was its own form of punishment.”
“The wall is down now,” Hans said. “Germany has been reunited.”
The Butcher brightened. “Yes, indeed. The wall is down and there is a new future, although it may be too late for me.” He looked around and nodded in Danny’s direction. “Hillbilly, I saw you come in with that young man. He looks like you.”
“That’s my grandson.”
“Ah! I thought so. Is that his girlfriend?”
“My niece,” Hans said.
