Sniper's Honor(44)

But the next part was a little dicey. The fourteen parachutists—Schenker still missing—couldn’t fall straight back along the road on foot, as they’d be intercepted by infantry closing from the flanks. Even as stupid as the Russians were, they’d figure the way out would be to exfiltrate along the riverbank, but they could also run an intercept on that plan and bring fire from the opposite side of the river. The only feasible escape method was to commandeer one of the trucks, disable the others, drive like hell in the aftermath of the blast, ditch it somewhere unseen, and slip back by night across German lines. Some plan. Von Drehle knew it stank, but there wasn’t much he could do except refuse to do it, which would get him shot. Even Von Bink would have to shoot him.

Hmmm, too much sun already, though it was still unseen at the rim of the wheat fields in the distance, announcing its presence only by its penumbra.

He nodded. He and his three co-killers slipped off their rifles and put their helmets on the ground. Each removed a gravity knife from a pocket, and with the push of a lever and a flick of the wrist, each popped four inches of the best Sollingen steel—Rostfrei, it said on the blade—into the cool air of morning.

Each, as a matter of fact, hated knifework. It was awful. It was always intimate and messy and left regret and depression and self-loathing. It wasn’t worth going through for any nutcase paperhanger from Austria, that was for sure, but only out of duty to some other thing, variously defined as the Fatherland or Greater Germany but really just the other guys in the unit, whom you didn’t want to let down.

Karl gave a last-second nod to each man, then turned to the two headed under the bridge. He held up two hands, six fingers, made an O with one, meaning sixty seconds, and then nodded a final time, and off they scooted.

One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, and on and on he went, just waiting in the cool morning air, in the soft breeze, in the gray light, licking his lips a little. It was always like this before the flag dropped, a dry swallow, a feeling of dread and excitement, too and then—

—fifty-nine-one-thousand, sixty-one-thousand, and he was pulling himself up the slope, his limbs filling with energy and purpose, around the bridge wall, and into the sandbag construction, where his noise and energy alerted a man at least enough to turn to face the death approaching him. An older fellow with a pipe and an innocent farmer’s look, even if he had a rifle; he wore a bandolier and a khaki side cap with black infantry piping and a red star and the pullover khaki shirt. His mouth came open as this wild apparition, blond of hair but black of face, with a knife gleaming in the light, closed down on him, his pipe bobbled, and Karl stabbed him in the throat.

It was horrible. Karl heard the gurgle as the blood filled the larynx, drowning any outcry, and then was on him totally, forcing him into the sandbags, stabbing him again and again in the throat and neck while at the same time having jammed his other hand into the mouth, just in case. In and out, in and out, in a killing frenzy, shutting him down, die! die! die! damn you!, feeling the blade sink in, occasionally glance off fibrous internal structures, occasionally slice something gelid and viscous, until the struggle beneath became tremors and the tremors became shivers and the shivers became nothing. Too close, close enough to see the poor bastard’s face, feeling the hot blood pour out, sometimes a sundered artery forcing a little bit of squirt. You couldn’t do it without Russian blood getting everywhere. And the poor bastard always squealed, wept, pissed, and shat as he died. Karl pulled back, let the man fall, and turned exactly as his partner in the pit finished sentry number one, having made exactly the same kind of mess, having besmeared himself with blood across arms and wrist and hands. There was a Degtyaryov light machine gun resting on the sandbag wall and a few Russian pineapple grenades, mostly, Karl guessed, for show. The gun might come in useful.

By this time the other fellows were up next to him, and someone handed him his FG-42 and helmet. No words were spoken, and he made some sort of follow-me gesture, nothing dramatic, and began to sprint across the bridge, feeling his three companions behind him.

It was utterly still. From the top of the bridge’s arch he could see fog still clinging to the river and some reeds in the river ruffling, and down the way some crude Ivan river craft were moored—they looked prehistoric, hewn from logs by stone tools—drifting on their tethers. He felt his Fallschirmjäger helmet slop around on its straps, his grenades and rucksack jostle, his shoulder harness of magazine pouches vibrate, his Belgian Browning 9mm pistol jiggle in the holster, his heavy boots dig into the softness of the roadway. Then he reached the bridge end, slid behind a nest of sandbags buttressing the stone wall, found a shooting position, and hoisted the FG to his shoulder.