Climbing aboard the Kübelwagen, Messner turned the machine gun in the direction of the château and fired a short burst. Bullets hammered the heavy front door and tore chunks out of the château’s stone walls. He focused on the windows and fired another short burst, watching with satisfaction as bullets splintered the shutters. Bits of stone and wood rained down and scattered across the snow.
The Americans had made a mistake if they thought they were going to have an easy time of it.
Brock was still watching the house, figuring out what to do next, when he heard a machine gun open fire.
“Get down,” he hissed, although Boot and Vern were already pressed into the snow.
“Who’s doing the shooting?” Vern whispered.
“Got to be Krauts. Who the hell else would be out here?”
No bullets pierced the air over their heads, so they hadn’t been seen. “If they’re not shooting at us, then who the hell are they shooting at?”
“Let’s find out,” Brock said.
He and the others crept forward through the trees, toward the sound of the firing. Soon he spotted a German Kübelwagen. It was Krauts, all right. The Germans appeared to be firing at the château.
Maybe the smart thing to do would have been to crawl way, but that wasn’t in Brock’s nature. Instead, he opened fire. Taken by surprise, the Germans quickly recovered and turned their guns in the direction of the Americans. The Krauts knew their business, that was for sure. Their machine gun chewed up the trees, sending bits of bark flying.
“Take cover!” Brock cried, and he and the two others threw themselves to the snow-covered forest floor.
Brock got down as low as he could, willing himself to sink into the snow. A stray bullet whined inches from his ear, making his spine crawl. He was afraid to move a muscle for fear of making himself even more of a target. He was dimly aware of snow sifting through a gap between his coat and trousers, icy against his belly, as if the winter cold was gnawing at his bare skin.
Frozen in place, he wondered what to do next.
Brock had been trained to fight Krauts, however and wherever he saw them, but he realized that now wasn’t the time or the place for fighting. Besides, they were here to get one particular Kraut — who all signs indicated was in the nearby château.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he whispered to Vern and Boot, forcing himself to move. His coat had pulled up so that the snow worked its way against his skin, but the cold was better than a bullet.
They belly-crawled through the forest, away from the sound of the German guns.
Hunkered down in the château, Cole and the others heard gunfire coming from a different location from where they had last seen the Germans. Hidden in the trees, the Germans continued shooting, seeming to spray bullets in every direction as they defended themselves. For the moment, their fire was not directed at the château, but at wherever the gunfire in the woods was coming from.
“Uh-oh,” Cole said. “Sounds like the applecart done been upset.”
“Must be the cavalry,” Vaccaro said. “Hopefully it’s our guys out there.”
Vaccaro was half-right. There were Americans out there, but they sure as hell weren’t the cavalry.
The brief firefight in the forest ended and the Germans resumed firing at the château.
As Brock and his men retreated, putting more trees between themselves and the enemy, he saw that the Germans had returned their attention to the château, pouring fire at it. By now, there were a few answering shots from the château.
Not to be outdone, Brock opened fire briefly on the château, ordering his men to do the same. If the German prisoner was in that house, he wanted a piece of him.
Inside the château, Cole finally used the muzzle of his rifle to crack a pane of glass, enabling him to shoot through a gap in the heavy wooden shutters. The old glass had wavy distortions and was so brittle from the cold that it shattered readily into jagged shards that pattered to the drifted snow around the château’s foundation.
Behind him, Madame Jouret made a
Through the rifle scope, he scanned the woods, hoping for a German target to present itself. But the Krauts were staying out of sight.
With his focus on where he thought the Germans were taking cover, he was caught by surprise when several shots peppered the wooden shutter.
Clearly that rifle fire was coming from the direction of what he assumed was the American side of the firefight that had taken place in the woods.
Though the wooden shutters of the old château were heavy enough, they were really no match for .30–06 rounds. Bits and pieces of wood went flying.
Cole ducked.
“Hey, knock it off!” he shouted, hoping that his voice carried on the cold air. “Y’all are shootin’ at the wrong folks!”
