Combat! - The Counterattack

Sergeant Chip Saunders, the squad leader, slid his steel helmet back a little so it wouldn't rasp on the stone wall of the cellar, then pressed against damp masonry to try to see out of what was left of the window. You hear noises, you better look, not just listen. It was a rule Saunders had learned the hard way in the fighting this far into France. Just because they were getting close to Germany didn't mean the war was over, not by the range of an M1 rifle. Waving a grimy hand to Caje and Littlejohn to warn them not to move from where they were slumped in the corner behind him, Saunders bellied up to the window. Some trick of the light from the falling sun seeping through the shell-fractured beams roofing the cellar gave Saunders a momentary glimpse of himself reflected in the broken glass of the windowpane. His taut disciplined face looked smudged with fatigue.

The endless days and nights of battle action were marked on him, making him look older than this twenty-five years. Thin grooves that he'd never noticed before curved around his mouth. They gave him a grim expression, like he was going to spit any minute. Saunders dodged the reflection with a voiceless snarl, trying to get a good look out the window. Now where was Kirby?

That no-good fresh-faced kid was supposed to be squad security on this flank of the farmhouse, but you couldn't see him. There was that noise again. A faint click and rattle, like a rock rolling down a slope, sounded outside. Saunders caught up the rifle he carried now in preference to a tommy gun, the smooth wood of the balance reassuring him as he brought the piece up carefully to poke the muzzle through the window. One shot is all I want, he told himself. One shot. .