Eleven Eleven

CHAPTER 11

9.30 a.m.

High in his evergreen perch, a sniper watches the patrol. Despite the cold morning fog, he is sticky with sweat. He calculates his chances. In the silence, there are too many to pick off in a quick brace of shots. At the first bullet they would scatter and hunt him down. He must wait for the shells to fall, and then he can strike. If there are no more shells, then he must come down from his eyrie and shoot from a position that allows him retreat. He has been doing this for six months now. Every day brings further peril. But he has convinced himself that if he is careful, he has a greater chance of surviving than an ordinary infantryman. Being a sniper lets him gauge his own risks and he alone is responsible for his actions. Unlike the infantry. If they are ordered to charge to almost certain death, then they have no option. He is a lone wolf. Picking off the stray sheep.

He waits another ten minutes. There are no more artillery barrages. He decides he must stalk the Tommies, rather than wait for them. Slowly, agonisingly slowly, he begins to descend from the treetop. There is a dip in the ground close to the eastern end of the forest – near his own lines. He will hide in there and kill as many of them as fate allows, then retreat.

He is fleet-footed and sure in his sense of direction. As the British soldiers comb through the northern side of the forest, he reaches the spot he remembers and quickly gathers together twigs, branches, brushwood, to hide his position and, most especially, the flash of his rifle.

He hears the patrol in the distance. They are good. They make barely a sound. But a group of men in a forest cannot help but give themselves away. The swish of feet in bracken. The crisp footfalls on dead leaves and brittle twigs. They are coming his way. The one in charge, the one with the great bristling moustache and the stripes on his tunic, he is at the front of the line. Perfect. Cut off the head and the body will cease to function. He studies them through the telescopic sight of his Mauser 98, waiting for them to come into range. Maybe he can get two shots off. The sergeant and the younger fellow behind him. They look similar enough to be related. Perhaps they are brothers. Is it right to deprive a mother of two sons in a single day? He thinks of his own mother, who lost her two youngest on the Marne, and his finger tightens on the trigger. On impulse he switches his target. The young one first, then as the older one turns he will kill him too. That way there will be less chance of detection. He studies his target. He is no more than a boy, but his two younger brothers were barely a year or so older. He breathes deeply, preparing for his shot, and shivers involuntarily as a cold wind blows over his position.

Something catches in his throat. He stifles the urge to cough. Too late he recognises the bitter taste. Gas, from an earlier bombardment. Most of it has dissipated, but a few pockets still linger in the hollows of the forest. The urge to cough is irresistible, and the more he coughs the more he breathes in – his lungs fill with chlorine. His eyes are streaming now, he is retching and bent double in breathless agony.

Sergeant Franklin hears the man and signals for Ogden and Weale to investigate. They run towards the sound and recognise their quarry in an instant. Blackened face, helmet and uniform covered in leaves and bracken. It is the sniper. He looks at them with desperate, pleading eyes, coughing blood and phlegm. Ogden levels his rifle to shoot, but Weale pulls on his arm and shakes his head. A shot might draw the attention of other snipers.

Poor dead Moorhouse has been his pal for the whole wretched war. Weale lunges forward, a livid rage coursing through his body, and clubs the choking man to death with the butt of his rifle.