I Am Canada: Sniper Fire

by Jonathan Webb

  * * *

  Captain Trehan is here. He met with the lieutenant first and then stopped by each section. He’s less formal than usual, and looks and sounds worn out.

  “I could not be more proud of you,” he says at last. “You’re a credit to the regiment. Canada’s proud of you. Well done.”

  No one says anything.

  “Of course,” he adds, “it’s not over yet.”

  “We’re in touch with the Seaforths,” says the lieutenant after the captain has left. They’re pushing along the outside edge of town. We’ll move beside them, but on the inside, closer to the centre. Their main axis is Via Monte Maiella.” He points to the map that’s tacked to the schoolroom wall. “It leads to another square, Piazza Plebiscito …”

  “Another darn square,” says Loon.

  “It’s not much of a square,” says the lieutenant. “More like an intersection where a number of streets meet. But it won’t be easy to take. It’s at the base of the hill where the cathedral is situated. The enemy has the high ground.”

  “Like always,” says Loon.

  I nudge him. “You’re getting awfully mouthy there, pal.”

  “Uh huh,” he says.

  “But this time we won’t go in alone,” the lieutenant continues. “When we reach the square, we’ll be in position to bring up a troop of Three Rivers Tanks. The mortar platoon is available too, to tackle the high ground. We’ll make use of our firepower now that we have more room to move.

  “I’m not saying it’s going to be easy,” he adds, “but it should be easier than it has been. Any questions?”

  “What about the hospital?” I ask him. “There are still Jerries there?”

  “The Seaforths have it staked out,” says the lieutenant.

  “Are we bypassing it, sir?”

  “That’s correct. They’ll have to give themselves up eventually.”

  There are no other questions.

  Doug looks at me curiously. “What about the hospital?” he asks.

  I say, “Claudia’s there.”

  * * *

  At dusk we move out of the school and work with the other two sections to secure a base in one of the streets, Via Ciampoli, behind it. Our objective is a corner café. In our hearts we know better, but we can’t help hoping there’s something left on the shelves. Doug started it. He said, “What if there’s a nice piece of meat in the icebox? A veal cutlet maybe?” That’s all it took to get us all dreaming. We’ve been eating Compo rations for so long, it’s hard to remember what real food tastes like.

  We turf out the Germans after a brief struggle. In fact, they pull back so fast that it makes us suspicious. The Gaffer is especially careful when he goes looking for booby traps. He’s got the right idea. He finds a German pistol on a stool behind the counter. Just about everyone wants a German Luger. You can sell them for a fortune behind the lines. I guess the Germans know this: the Luger on the stool has a fishing line attached to it. The line leads to an explosive under the seat.

  “That would have been the last souvenir some sap picked up,” says the Gaffer.

  He finds another charge planted in the toilet, set to explode as soon as someone sat on the throne. “And that would cure your constipation,” he observes. “Permanently.”

  There’s yet another charge set to explode when someone sets foot on the bottom step of the staircase that leads from the back of the café to the rooms upstairs.

  “Bloody Hell!” says the Gaffer when he uncovers it. “There’s enough high explosive here to bring the whole building down.”

  As for food, there are dirty plates and bowls piled neatly on a table. A carefully lettered note, written in English, has been left on the counter: VERY DELICIOUS SOUP. SORRY, CANADA. ALL GONE.

  When, at last, the Gaffer is satisfied that he has found every last one of the enemy’s nasty surprises, and the rest of us are convinced that the enemy has really taken every morsel of food, we post sentries and settle down for the night. It’s not quiet. For sure there are Germans farther up the street. Shots ring out as snipers sneak around the neighbourhood, watching for the flutter of a curtain or the glow of a cigarette. Occasionally a machine gun barks in the darkness. They’re meant to keep us awake and scared.

  “What happened last night?” Doug asks me.

  “Last night?”

  “When you went off with Teresa.”

  “Oh, that.” It seems like such a long time ago.

  “Yes, that.”

  “There are so many people in this town,” I tell him. “It’s as if the town we’re fighting in sits on top of another, underground town.”

  “You mean the civilians?”

  “Yeah. Lots of them left, but just as many seem to have stayed behind. They have nowhere to go now. And no way to travel. Hardly any mules or carts. Vehicles are out of the question. The Jerries requisitioned everything. The trains …”

  “Not like it was before the war,” says Doug.

  He’s right. Mussolini was famous for making the trains run on time. It was regarded as Fascism’s greatest achievement. The trains were the glory of the Fascist state.

  “It’s mostly old people who’ve been left behind,” I say. “The ones who can’t walk far. But also women with children. And children who’ve lost their parents. The orphans. They’re in cellars, back rooms and attics. Everywhere.”

  Doug is no longer listening. There’s something else on his mind. “Teresa is really something,” he says.

  “I don’t know how she manages it, but she’s all over the town,” I tell him. “Bringing people together, searching for food. People are starving. She showed me things, where the Jerries are. She wants us to know she’s on our side.”

  We’re lying on the floor in one of the upstairs rooms. A cold, damp draft curls around the baseboards and flows across the floor. I try to remember when I last took my boots off. It’s been days. I wonder if I still have a clean pair of socks. I doze for a while and then wake up to see a Verey shell explode in the sky outside the window. I glance at Doug and see that he too is awake.

  “Is she nice?” he asks.

  “Teresa?”

  “Who else?”

  “Yeah.”

  I wake again later to the sound of explosions in the streets nearby. I don’t care. I roll over, close my eyes and go back to sleep.

  Chapter 10

  Christmas in Ortona

  Saturday, December 25, 1943

  “Get up! Get up now!”

  The noise and shouting are sudden, loud and all around me. We’re up before thinking, falling over one another, scrambling for our weapons.

  “What the hell?”

  Strong John is at the window with the Bren, Loon standing bleary-eyed beside him. Derrick, Doug and Specs are tumbling down the stairs. I tumble after them.

  “The Jerries are breaking out!”

  The Gaffer is leaning out of the doorway. I slip in beside him, prop my rifle against the door jamb and tighten my helmet strap under my chin.

  “How the blazes …?” says Doug. Like there should have been a warning.

  A potato masher bounces against the outside wall and explodes.

  Across the street, Turnbull’s section is doing what we’re doing, leaning into the street, shooting and yelling. I lean out too, past the Gaffer, in time to see half a dozen Paras running away. One stumbles and falls, gets up and falls down again, probably picked off by Strong John’s Bren.

  The enemy’s hand-grenade sortie is over almost as soon as we wake up to it, but the sounds of battle are rising, not falling. Other weapons are being brought into action from windows up the street. Germans are returning fire from our end. The lieutenant jogs over from across the street with word that the Seaforths are fighting back against a major German counteroffensive launched from the cemetery.

  He says, “Our visitors were part of that break-out. Only thing is, they advanced farther than they meant to. We almost cut them off.”

  But they attacked fr
om the west side of town. “They came up behind us, from Dead Horse Square,” I say.

  “We’re holding the square,” says the Gaffer. “They can’t have.”

  “You think they came all the way from the cemetery?”

  He nods.

  Lieutenant Gold is in touch with the company command post and the Gaffer is keeping close to the lieutenant. The two of them talk quietly in the kitchen. Meanwhile we sort ourselves out, check our weapons and supplies.

  “Merry flippin’ Christmas!” says Derrick suddenly.

  Strong John grunts and Loon laughs bitterly.

  “Hey, look!” says Derrick. “There’s snow!”

  It’s not much of a snowfall. In fact, it looks a lot like freezing rain. But it throws a veil in the air, puts a shine on the street and a sheen on the rooftops.

  The Gaffer emerges from his conference with the lieutenant. “Turnbull sent out a fighting patrol last night,” he says. He tells us the next two houses between us and the corner are empty. “The Germans demolished the corner house, probably to give them a clear field of fire across the intersection. Same thing across the street. We’re pretty sure there’s a machine-gun nest around that corner, maybe one on each side. The fallen-down buildings are another barrier. When we get to it we’ll come under a crossfire.” He pauses and then adds, “Cheer up, boys! This will be a fun-packed day.”

  “What are the chances they’ll come up behind us again?” I ask. “Like they did just now?”

  “The Seaforths have our flank sealed but, just to be sure, the lieutenant is holding back Chudleigh’s section. They’ve got our backsides covered.”

  “Can we bring up a couple of tanks?”

  “No,” says the Gaffer.

  “Aw,” says Loon.

  “Not to worry. We’re bringing up a gun. The arty chaps have been trying out different tactics. And we’ve still got the sappers.”

  We move out of the café at 0800 hours. With Turnbull’s section on the other side of the street, we slip into the first house we come to. The Gaffer inspects the premises for hidden surprises. He finds one: it’s just a trip wire tied across a doorway.

  “Huh,” says the Gaffer. “Amateurs!”

  Sometimes the Germans set an obvious trap as a kind of decoy so we won’t go looking for another bigger trap that’s better concealed. Not this time.

  We bring in the sappers to blow a hole in the wall leading into the next house. “There’s a chance the Jerries have weapons trained on the street,” says the lieutenant. “If we go through the wall, we’re less likely to take casualties. I’d rather use up explosives than men.”

  Steve and Billy are looking weary. Billy is bent over by the weight of his backpack. I wonder if it’s going without sleep that makes him look so tired, or knowing what he’s carrying. Whatever Billy’s feelings, the two of them go about their work efficiently. They blow open a hole and we pile through.

  The Gaffer’s tour of the building yields another clumsy booby trap. He can scarcely hide his disdain.

  “One day, we’ll have to set our own traps,” I say. “Show them how it’s done.”

  The Gaffer says nothing but looks interested.

  “Give them back some of their own medicine,” says Loon.

  At about 0900 hours the 6-pounder is set up behind us and starts blasting away at a pile of rubble that is all that’s left of the corner houses. Shots are fired in our direction from a rooftop. The lieutenant orders the sappers to punch a hole in the next outside wall, the one that connects us to the demolished corner house. His idea is to give Strong John a window for the Bren. If our calculations are accurate, the window will place him across from the German machine gun. The plan, as Strong John says, has its downside.

  “I’m not complaining,” he says. “But a German Mauser 42, against a Bren …”

  The lieutenant nods his head sympathetically. “We’ll give them something else to worry about,” he says. “Let me see what we can come up with.”

  That one gun on our narrow street makes a heck of a noise as it bangs away at the rubble. Shrapnel and stone chips ricochet in all directions. To judge by the sound, the battle in the streets north of us is just as intense. The pop-and-bang of mortars, the rattle of machine guns and the more distant rumble of heavy artillery continue without let-up through the morning.

  The sappers blow a hole where the lieutenant asked them to. It’s about 3 feet above floor level, big enough to give a shooter a 90-degree view of the street, and yet narrow enough to make a difficult target. Or so we think.

  “It’s good,” says Strong John. “A good job.”

  Even as he speaks, heavy-calibre bullets crack and splinters the edges of the hole.

  “I guess the Jerries think it can be improved,” says Loon.

  * * *

  The Gaffer’s sitting on the top step of the staircase, looking thoughtfully at the hole on the other side of the room and the patch of grey sky beyond it. He’s thinking out loud, weighing the options.

  “We can’t move the 6-pounder within range of the Jerries’ machine gun,” he says. The gun is quiet now, having blown away the rubble and whatever weapons or men the Germans had hidden behind it. The Gaffer keeps talking. “The street’s too narrow for tanks to manoeuvre in. And if Strong John tries to set up in that hole, he’s a goner.

  “The lieutenant wants us to move ahead cautiously — avoid actions that put our lives at risk. Which is all very well, but at the moment we’re stuck.”

  I say nothing.

  “What we need,” says the Gaffer after a pause, “is a PIAT and a 2-inch mortar.”

  “What?” says Loon.

  But the Gaffer has pulled his beanpole frame upright and is starting down the stairs. I have no idea what he means to do with a dodgy anti-tank weapon like a PIAT. The American bazooka is so much more reliable. We watch as he trots downstairs and then disappears.

  “What’s he up to?” asks Derrick.

  I have no clue.

  We wait. The house is damaged, but there are pictures on the wall, formal portraits of men with moustaches and hats, and black-haired women in long black dresses. There’s a crucifix by the front door. It’s weird that some things aren’t damaged when others are completely destroyed.

  The Gaffer returns after half an hour with a PIAT in his hands, and two men with a mortar. They looked cheerful.

  “We need smoke,” says the Gaffer.

  “We’re sending someone out there?”

  “We’re sending me,” he says.

  Our time of standing around comes to an end. Strong John and Loon haul the Bren upstairs with instructions to start shooting at the Germans when the Germans starts shooting at the Gaffer. We roll out smoke and the Gaffer steps into it. He has the PIAT in his hands and a couple of armour-piercing shells in a bag slung over his shoulder. He’s headed to the wrecked house next door, where he reckons there’s enough of a wall still standing to give him somewhere to hide. The mortar crew hangs back.

  The machine gun across the way starts shooting into the smoke and the Bren guns on our side promptly answer. A minute later we hear the peculiar SHEBANG! of the PIAT being fired, and the explosion when it finds its target. We throw out more smoke for the mortar crew as they dash out to join the Gaffer.

  “By gosh, he’s killed the Mauser!” says Derrick.

  It’s true that the German machine gun has gone quiet — for a moment — but then it starts up again. The Gaffer launches another missile. The Mauser keeps trying to find him while the Brens continue to seek out the gun.

  We hear the bang of the mortar once, twice and then a third time.

  Doug has been leaning out the door, peering around the corner, trying to see what’s happening. Now he slips outside, sticking to the wall, Sten gun at the ready. Derrick and I are close behind him. The smoke is thinning out. The German machine gun is silent.

  I glance across the street. Turnbull’s section is strung out like we are. They start jogging towards their corne
r.

  “Now!” yells Doug.

  We make a dash for it, round the corner on our side, in front of the Gaffer, and make a beeline for the building the Germans have been shooting from. A hole has been blasted in the outside wall by the PIAT. Black smoke streams out of the window that framed the Mauser nest. A Para, potato masher in hand, appears in the downstairs doorway. Doug opens fire as the German swings back his arm. He falls before he can throw the bomb and it explodes behind him, the force of the blast lifting and tossing him forward. I dodge him as he collapses. Doug, in front of me, disappears inside the building.

  The front room is scarred, battered and empty. A voice beckons us from the back, shouting, “Kamerad! Kamerad!” and a single Para emerges with his hands above his head. I motion him outside and follow Doug and Derrick deeper into the building and up the stairs. We pile into the upstairs front room.

  “Jeez,” says Doug.

  The room is a ruin, scarred and covered in soot. I prod the machine gun, now bent and broken, and it topples over. The bodies of the two men who had operated it are torn, twisted and disfigured.

  The Gaffer comes upstairs behind us. “Their own mothers wouldn’t know them,” he says.

  “What the heck, sergeant,” I say. “Was that your idea, the PIAT and the mortar?”

  “Well, son,” he answers, “strictly speaking, it wasn’t.”

  “Then what?”

  “They were talking about it at company CP,” he says. “Using the PIAT to pierce the wall and then using the mortar to frag the inside.”

  “Worked good,” says Doug.

  The Gaffer nods. He looks content.

  * * *

  We have a German cornered in an alley. He has a pile of sandbags in front of him, a dead comrade at his side, and the exit is sealed to his rear. Doug and I watch from across the street. He’s an awkward target, helmeted and sitting low. He’s using his own rifle methodically, picking his targets, taking his time. I hit him once, in the shoulder. He flicks at the wound contemptuously as if brushing off lint. Then, after propping up his weapon on a sandbag, he keeps on shooting with one hand. Another bullet grazes his cheek and blood floods down his chin. He barely pauses in his work.