(…)

  “Contact front, top floor, red-brick building, right fork!” Dockerby snapped. “First squad, pin that window! Second squad, we’re flanking left! Tex, Emmet, Hickman, with me!”

  Rifles barked, aimed at the dark squares above. Chips of brick flew from the lintel. Hickman ducked, eyes wide. “You sure he’s still there?” “He knows this ground better than we do,” Tex said. “He’ll take another shot if we give him one.”

  They doubled back and slipped into a narrow alley that smelled of garbage, then out into a small yard behind the building next to the sniper’s nest. It had once been a garden: two dead rosebushes, a crushed rain barrel, laundry lines hanging limp. Dockerby pointed to a back door hanging half open.

  “Walker, you first. Emmet, cover. Hickman, you stick like a tick to me.” Tex tried the door with the muzzle of his rifle, nudged it further open. The hinges creaked. Nothing moved inside. He stepped into a long, dim corridor with peeling wallpaper and broken tiles. Dust motes hung in the light from a high window. His boots made too much noise; every sound announced him like a signal flare.

  They worked their way up, room by room, stair by creaking stair. Two floors up, the hallway smelled of old smoke and stale food. A family’s life had been ripped out of the place; a child’s doll lay in a corner, missing an arm. Tex held up a fist and leaned close to Dockerby. “Sniper’ll be top floor, front rooms. Maybe with an escape route to the neighbors roofs.”

  Dockerby nodded once, tapped Hickman’s arm. “Get word back, we’ve gone in. If we don’t come out in ten, they pull the whole building down around his ears.” Hickman swallowed. “Yes, Sarge.” He slipped back down the stairs, light on his feet.

  Tex edged along the hall, Emmet just behind him, Dockerby bringing up the rear. The door to the front room was closed, with a thin strip of light at its base. Tex’s pulse drumbeat in his throat. He took a slow breath and tried to calm himself.

  He stepped quickly to one side of the door, lifted his boot, and kicked hard just above the latch. The door burst inward. Tex dropped to one knee, rifle up. The room was empty. Two windows looked out over the street. One had a sandbag on the sill, another a wooden crate. A German rifle rested against the wall by the sandbag, still warm when Tex grabbed it. “Where…” Emmet began. A shot cracked from above. Plaster rained down from the ceiling. Dockerby hissed and backed into the corridor. “Roof,” Tex said.

  They found the ladder in a tiny back room, a pull-down trap that groaned as Tex tugged it. He hated the idea of climbing into a hole with an enemy waiting, but there was no choice. He slung his rifle across his back, drew his pistol instead (he’d found a dead German officer with a Luger pistol and had kept it), as it was easier to use in tight places.

  He went up fast, shoulders tight, expecting a shot to come right down his throat. Instead, he emerged onto a flat tarred rooftop with low brick parapets on three sides and a view of the street below where their men hugged doorways and rubble. A figure moved at the far corner in a flash of gray-green, a helmet with the glint of scope glass.

  Tex threw himself sideways as the sniper fired. The bullet sang past his cheek, so close he felt the air punch. He hit the roof hard, rolled, and felt grit grind into his palms. Emmet’s head and shoulders popped up through the hatch. “Tex…” “Down!” Tex yelled. The next shot chewed a divot from the parapet where Emmet’s forehead had been an instant before. Emmet yelped and dropped back into the stairwell. Dockerby swore softly below. “We’re pinned.” Tex crawled on his belly toward the nearest parapet, staying as flat as he could. The German had him in a crossfire between the rooftop and the street. Smart. Tex could respect that and still want the bastard dead.

  He reached the low wall and risked a fast look. The sniper was on the next roof over, three meters away across a narrow gap, lying behind a chimney stack. He was older than Tex had expected, with a lined face and a hard jaw. His rifle had a long scope; his movements were slow, disciplined. He wasn’t panicking. He knew he had the advantage. Tex ducked down again as another bullet snapped overhead. “Any bright ideas?” Emmet called from the hatch. “Yeah,” Tex muttered. “Don’t poke your head up again.”

  He thought fast. If they sat here, the sniper would pick off anyone who tried to move in the street below. If they rushed him over the gap, he’d shoot them in midair like clay pigeons. They needed to break his concentration and split his attention.

  “Emmet,” Tex said quietly, “you still got those smoke grenades the Frogs gave us?” “Two left,” Emmet said. “Why?” “Because I’m fixing to make Jerry’s day cloudy.” He slid back to the hatch. Emmet passed up a squat French canister grenade with a cloth tail. Tex pulled the pin with his teeth, spat it aside, and lobbed the grenade in a lazy arc toward the chimney stack on the other roof. The sniper saw the movement, fired, but the shot went wide. The grenade clanged against bricks and started spewing thick white smoke.

  Tex immediately rolled to the other side, where the gap between roofs was narrowest. “Cover me,” he said, though he knew there wasn’t much anyone could do. The smoke blossomed, curling around the chimney, crawling low across the roof. The sniper’s silhouette blurred. Tex counted under his breath; one, two, three, and then he ran.

  Two strides, a leap, the void beneath him, the strange lightness of having no ground, then his boots slammed onto the far roof. He stumbled, nearly went to his knees, half expecting a bullet to punch through his chest.

  The sniper fired, but the smoke fouled his view. The round tore through Tex’s sleeve and burned his skin, but didn’t go deeper. Tex crashed into the chimney, swinging the butt of his pistol like a club. It caught the German on the side of the head. The man grunted and rolled, surprisingly strong for his age, his hand clawing for a knife at his belt.

  They grappled in the smoke, coughing, hands slipping on sweat and dust. The rifle skittered away. Tex felt knuckles hit his ribs, and an elbow slam his jaw. He tasted blood and fury. He drove his knee up into the German’s stomach, then hit him again with the pistol butt. This time, the man went limp.

  Tex sat there for a moment, chest heaving, the pistol dangling from bloody fingers. He looked down at the sniper’s face. He was just a man, really, with gray in his hair and a wedding ring on his finger. A marksman, maybe from some Jäger regiment, who’d stayed behind to make the Americans pay for every block.

  “Sorry, friend,” Tex muttered. “Wrong side.” He picked up the sniper rifle, slung it, and waved toward their own roof. Emmet’s grinning face appeared through the thinning smoke. “Show-off,” Emmet called. Tex managed a weak grin. “Come on over. Roof’s clear.”

  14th French Infantry Division

  Penhoët Shipyard Works, April 26th, 1915

  The Penhoët Shipyard (Chantiers de Penhoët in French) was a major French shipyard located in Saint-Nazaire (near the harbor). The place had been a key part of the French shipbuilding industry, known for constructing several famous warships, including the Lorraine, a Bretagne-class dreadnought completed in 1912. It was now, with the arrival of the Entente forces, yet another great battlefield of the Great War.

  Right on the Big Red One’s right flank advanced the French 14th Division, tasked, along with its American cousin, to clear out the northeastern suburbs of St-Nazaire. Most of the soldiers were in a happy, light mood, as victory helped lift their spirits. These men had been battered, defeated, and stalemated for months on end. Things had started to look up with the liberation of Nantes, and now, with the Entente troops in St-Nazaire and half of the German High Seas Fleet sunk, the mood was decidedly positive.

  But there remained men who didn’t feel it. Many were in a low mood for different reasons, and even more because they were plagued with terrible injuries to the head. Philippe Cren was one such man.

  The Penhoët Shipyard rose before the French line like the skeleton of some enormous, dead beast. For Philippe, it seemed as if he was going to be climbing the highest mountain in the world. He had yet another ear-splitting headache, which always returned the moment he experienced yet another shell blast near him. It was very difficult for him to remain on his feet and fight.

  The former French shipyard had been a proud monument of iron and industry, with vast halls where steel ribs for ocean liners were shaped under the thunder of presses, where cranes swung across open docks like metal giants at work. Now, in April 1916, it looked nothing like the proud workshops Cren had once seen pictured on postcards. The place had been shelled relentlessly for days, and every blast had carved away a piece of its former grandeur.

  He crouched behind a mound of shattered concrete and peered at the ruins, wondering if and when the Boche would start to fire at him and his comrades. The shipyard’s main assembly building loomed ahead, with its roof torn open by artillery, jagged beams sticking into the sky like broken fingers. Sunlight filtered through the holes in sharp, slanted rays, illuminating drifting sheets of dust. Entire walls had collapsed inward, revealing the twisted guts of cranes and gantries now frozen in unnatural contortions. Smoke curled in thin, lazy strands from somewhere deep inside, the last breath of fires set during the night’s bombardment.

  To the left, the old boiler-forging shop lay in ruins, its windows blown out, its massive doors hanging crookedly by a single hinge. Beyond it, the slipways leading to the Bassin de Penhoët were nothing but heaps of buckled steel, with the hull frames of half-built vessels lying toppled like the carcasses of whales stranded on a beach.

  Closer still, the ground was a field of jagged metal, broken rails, and shattered machinery. The air carried the stink of scorched oil, burnt timber, and powdered concrete. Every step would be treacherous. Cren could imagine German sharpshooters lying somewhere inside the darkness of the ruined workshops, rifles trained on every entry point, waiting for a silhouette to appear.

  Over everything hung an eerie silence, without any clangs of metal, no shouts of workers, but only the distant rumble of guns. The Americans were near and were fighting in the city proper, firing or being fired at. It was a silence that felt alive, watchful.

  Cren swallowed hard. The Penhoët Shipyard was no longer a factory. It was a labyrinth of shadows and shattered iron, an industrial graveyard turned battlefield, and every ruined gantry and twisted beam promised death for the men about to enter it. “You all right, Cren?” asked his friend Max Killerman right beside him. “It’s just that damned headache again,” answered Philippe absently.

  Max Killerman touched Philippe’s shoulder just once—firm, grounding. “Stay with me,” he murmured. Not as an order. As a reminder.

  The silence ahead deepened, thick as smoke. Lieutenant Daniel Moreau raised his whistle, hesitated, and then pointed forward instead, unwilling to betray their position. Sergeant Jean Roux signaled the squads to fan out to the left and right. Helmets dipped. Rifles came up, and then the 14th Division stepped into the ruins.

  The first steps were slow, almost reverent, boots crunching over broken bolts and glass. The stillness inside the shipyard magnified every sound: the rasp of a leather strap, the clink of a cartridge case underfoot, the hiss of wind through a torn sheet of metal. Cren’s ears buzzed. His headache pulsed behind his temples like a heart beating out of rhythm.

  They crossed a narrow track twisted by a derailed cargo wagon. The mangled frame of the wagon lay like a gutted animal, its wheels twisted sideways. Beyond it rose the dark mouth of the main hall. “A couvert,” (take cover), Roux whispered.

  The platoon dipped behind a line of shattered boilers. Sunlight streamed through the torn roof above, falling in shimmering beams across swirling dust. Shadows clung to the corners, thick enough to swallow a man.

  Then a short metallic clap reverberated across the structure’s walls. A faint clatter. “Machine-gun tripod,” whispered Killerman to Philippe. “They’re ahead.” Before Roux could signal again, the shipyard exploded with sound.

  RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!

  The German Maxim unleashed a blistering burst from somewhere deep inside the colossal hall. Muzzle flashes strobed between steel girders. Sparks rained down as rounds tore along the boilers. One French soldier cried out, clutching his leg before collapsing behind a tangled heap of cables. Another went down face-first without a sound.

  “À terre!” (Down!) Roux shouted. Cren flattened himself against the ground. The concussion of the rounds tearing over him vibrated into his chest, his skull. His breath locked. The familiar iron taste surged up the back of his throat.

  Max dragged him behind a smashed forging press. “Breathe, Philippe. Slow.” But the Maxim didn’t stop. A second burst hammered the hall, bouncing between the beams like thunder in a canyon. Somewhere above, a chain snapped loose and clattered down, almost taking a man’s head off. Roux’s voice cut through the chaos: “Two teams left, one right! Smoke!”

  White smoke bombs arced forward, bursting right at the entrance. The thick fog rolled outward, swallowing the broken floor. For a moment, the machine gun fell silent, perhaps because the gunner was adjusting, perhaps because he was conserving ammo. “Allez!” (Go!) Roux signaled.

  Big Red One Division

  St-Nazaire suburbs, April 26th, 1916

  By the time they got back down to street level, the rest of B Company had pushed past the fork. One man lay in the road where the sniper’s first bullet had taken him; medics covered the body and moved on. Dockerby clapped Tex on the shoulder. “Nice work, Walker. Captain says the whole flank was stalled until that bastard was quieted.” “Plenty more where he came from, I bet,” Tex said, rolling his sore shoulder. “This city’s got a lot of windows.”

  They pressed deeper into the suburb, in a lattice of narrow streets, small factories, and rows of workers’ houses. The Germans were still withdrawing, but they’d left stings behind: a machine gun in an upstairs room that barked twice and then vanished under a hail of rifle grenades; a lone rifleman in a belfry who managed to wound two men before a French 75 on the outskirts sent a shell straight through the tower.

  In one street, they found a barricade of overturned carts and furniture, abandoned in a hurry. Food still sat on tables in some houses, with wine bottles half-empty. A dog trotted nervously between shells of homes, sniffing at doorways. “Guess they didn’t plan to stay long,” Hickman said, eyes scanning the rooftops. “Or they planned to stay longer, and we messed that up,” Emmet replied. The next sniper nearly took Tex’s head off.

  They were crossing a small square dominated by a stone fountain, its basin full of rubble, when the shot came from somewhere high and oblique. The round sparked off the edge of the fountain, showering Tex’s face with stone chips. He hit the cobbles instinctively, cheek pressed into grit.

  “Top right, third floor!” someone yelled. “The yellow building!” Rifles cracked toward the windows. Tex risked a glance. All he saw was dark openings and chipped plaster. Dockerby’s voice rang out. “No mass targets! Pairs … one covers, one moves! We’re not feeding him a line of ducks!”

  They split along the edges of the square, hugging walls and doorways. Another shot: a man at the back of the squad cried out, clutching his thigh. A medic dragged him behind a doorframe. Tex flattened behind a doorway with Emmet and Hickman. “He’s good,” Tex said quietly. “Better than the last one. He’s taking his time.” “How do we dig him out?” Emmet asked. “We can’t go roof to roof on every street.” “We don’t,” Tex said. “We flush him.”

  He looked across the square. On the far side stood another line of houses and, beyond them, a street that sloped down toward what he guessed were the docks. If they could get around behind the sniper’s building … “Sergeant Dockerby!” Tex shouted between shots. “Permission to circle round! Take a team through the back alleys, come up behind that rat’s nest!” Dockerby glanced at him, judged the idea in an instant, then nodded. “Take Hickman and three more. Emmet, you stick with me and keep him busy.” Emmet’s face twisted. “Yes, Sarge.”

  Tex and Hickman slipped into a side lane with two other men, Reed and O’Malley. The alley wound between high walls, the sun only a pale strip overhead. They jogged, boots splashing through a puddle where a water main had burst. Every crack of the sniper’s rifle behind them felt like a clock tick.

  They reached the parallel street and saw the back of the yellow building: a plain plaster wall with a narrow wooden door and an external staircase leading to a balcony. A perfect rat-run. Tex put a finger to his lips. “Quiet now.”

  They went up the stairs one by one, every board’s creak sounding like a scream. The balcony door was ajar. Inside, they heard faint movement, the scrape of a boot, the metallic click of a bolt being worked.

  Tex motioned Reed and O’Malley to the sides. Hickman stayed low, his face pale but set. Tex counted with his fingers, three, two, one—then kicked the door open and swung in.

  The room was cramped and spare with bare floorboards, a mattress, and a table by the front window where a German sniper lay prone, rifle extended into the street, watching the square. He jerked his head around at the crash of the door.

  Tex shot him twice in the shoulder before the man could swing the rifle around. Reed’s bullet took the second figure of another Kraut – the sniper’s spotter, crouched with binoculars – just below the eye. He toppled backward without a sound.

  The wounded sniper cursed in German, clamping a hand over the gushing wound. Tex crossed the room fast, kicked the rifle away, and drove the butt of his Springfield into the man’s temple, merciful and hard. Silence dropped suddenly. Only the distant rumble of artillery and the nearer rattle of automatic fire from some other street seeped in. Tex exhaled sharply. “Clear!” he shouted.