The Rat Patrol 2: Desert Danger (16 page)

With searchlight poking across the sand, white in its glare, the halftrack turned back almost to the edge of the tents, then swung about to run a due west line until it intercepted the marks of the Panzerwagon that had carried the prisoners. The flames seemed to be dying a little and there had been no more explosions. Dietrich was sick at thought of the losses he had suffered this night. His three prize prisoners had fled, four of his armored vehicles had been destroyed and a fifth stolen. He had no doubt there had been casualties in the explosions to add to the two men who had disappeared.

Behind the lead halftrack, three others turned into position fifty feet back and spread fifty feet apart. Now the searchlights of the four machines played forth and back, seeking the telltale marks that would lead them to the quarry.

Relentless and vengeful, the machines bit their way beyond the city. Dietrich saw the marks, dark in their own shadows, and the lead Panzerwagon fastened to the trace.

"Speed," he shouted, "We must overtake them."

In the back, Kummel loaded the cannon and swung it on its three hundred and sixty degree pivot. The sound of the motor droned at a higher pitch and the tracks slapped into the sand, clanking on their geared wheels. The marks they were following were leading in the direction of the fence at the back of the Devil's Garden. Surely, Dietrich thought, the Americans would not attempt to break out through the minefield. Would they make a run along the fence until they reached its end? He sat back, frowning. How the devil had they come through? He stiffened. And what had happened to the patrol he had concealed behind the fence to take them?

"Herr captain," the driver said excitedly, fixing the searchlight straight ahead. "Something is up there."

Dietrich followed the beam and saw two dark figures sprawled a few yards apart in the sand.

"Kummel, ahead," he shouted and Kummel turned his gun on its mount.

The halftrack ground to a stop and the other three machines flanked it. The four searchlights flung their beams across the desert and Dietrich jumped to the ground. Kummel followed and they approached the figures with drawn pistols. The bodies were wearing German uniforms. Kummel turned one, and then the other, with the toe of his boot. The faces stared glassy-eyed and white in the light.

"Funke and Hecht," Kummel said and swore. "Two of the guards at the compound."

"Have one of the other Panzerwagons pick up the bodies," Dietrich said grimly and strode back to his machine. When Kummel was back at the gun, they started off again, tracks straining against the pull of the full-throttled motor. Dietrich sat without speaking, frozen now by wrath that had turned icy. He would not shoot Wilson, he decided, only Troy and Pettigrew and their confederates, the other members of the hated Rat Patrol. Wilson he would reserve for the Gestapo. Let them tear his flesh to shreds, flail whatever knowledge he possessed from a brain they would turn to jelly.

They ran up a dune and started toward a wadi. Dietrich could see where the halftrack had halted and the men climbed out. The searchlight showed five sets of tracks. Wilson with Troy and Pettigrew and the two who had posed as Germans. The marks of the halftrack led on through the wadi and up a dune beyond. The driver raced the motor of the Panzerwagon and they mounted the next dune.

"Stop!" Dietrich said suddenly. The halftrack they were following had halted again on top of the dune. Its marks went straight ahead again but two sets of footprints led off to the right and two to the left until they disappeared into the night at the end of the searchlights' beams. The prisoners had known they would be followed and were dividing their party to confuse the pursuers or to set up a trap. Dietrich snarled. He wanted Wilson. He did not think Wilson would have driven off alone in the Panzerwagon but which of the footprints did belong to him? The ones to the left, he decided, the ones that ran toward the fence and the minefield.

Dietrich divided his forces, taking one halftrack with him to follow the footprints that led toward the minefield. He dispatched one halftrack after the fleeing Panzerwagon and the other two following the footprints that led to the right. At least, he thought with savage satisfaction, they should soon overrun the men on foot. Dietrich's force ground off on the three separate trails.

They were near the fence at the back of the Devil's Garden, he was certain, although the searchlight had not plucked it from the blackness of the night yet. The light flared in a wide and sweeping arc, reaching for the men who were somewhere just beyond it. They crawled up the sharp side of another dune and the light shot off it into the black sky. Nearly at the top, two rifle shots sang. Glass shattered and both searchlights went out. Dietrich swung to Kummel.

"Fire, fire, you fool!" he raged.

"At what?" Kummel asked hopelessly.

"Ahead!" And to the driver he shouted, "Keep moving. We can't let them get near us."

From the back, the cannon spat blindly, stabbing the night with white-hot flames. The cannon in the other halftrack opened fire. The machines churned forward. From a distance, Dietrich thought he heard the sound of other firing. How could five men have set up a trap like this for four Panzerwagons equipped with thirty-seven millimeter cannon, he wondered painfully.

Guns blazing, the two Panzerwagons moved slowly on. There was no return fire from the blackness. They've shot out our eyes, Dietrich thought, and now they'll run off to a rendezvous. An explosion rocked the desert close by and shells smashed the night with their flashing charges. The other Panzerwagon was a black sharp outline in a sheet of flame.

Grenades, Dietrich thought, they've exploded the shells and gas tank of the other armored car.

"Stop shooting," he shouted to Kummel. "You give them a target." To the driver he said, "Full speed and circle."

The treads spun and the machine started its runabout. Blinding light and sound mingled in a flashing detonation and the halftrack shuddered.

"They've got the tracks," he heard the driver shouting as he felt himself being flung from the vehicle.

"I thought I told you what you could do with that gum, Hitch," Troy said, grinning, when Moffitt and Hitch had stopped laughing.

The five of them, the Rat Patrol with Colonel Wilson, their commanding officer, were standing at the front of the halftrack with its motor chugging hotly in the cold night.

"I'm about to," Hitch said. "It's about wore out. It just had that one poor bubble left to tell you who I was."

"Crazy jerks," Troy said, but he was amused, not angry. "You don't know how close you came to getting shot."

"What did you do with the guards, old chap?" Moffitt asked, smiling. He touched the Luger at his hip. "I was about to take care of them for you."

"Pitched them off," Tully drawled. "It was a mite crowded back there."

"Hadn't we better move?" Wilson asked, straightening and looking at his men. "They'll be looking for us when they discover that we've gone."

In the distance, an explosion and then another roared in the night and the dark sky near Sidi Abd showed a pinkish underbelly.

"I was waiting for that," Moffitt said with a slow smile. 

"What was it?" Wilson asked quickly.

"Plastic time charges," Moffitt said. "We planted them in two of the tanks before we came after you. One of the tanks contained some evidence we wanted to destroy." He hooked his thumb between the buttons of his tunic and then pointed at the greatcoat Hitch was wearing and laughed. "Those explosions ought to delay them long enough for us to make some plans."

"Let's get away," Wilson said. "That's the only plan that interests me."

"What do you have in mind?" Troy asked Moffitt.

"We met some friends," Moffitt said and told them about the two dozen men from the tribe of Abu-el-bab. "They're itching for a fight," he said, "but they find this Jerry armor a little out of their class. They do have some grenades they've appropriated. If we can break up the Jerry party they send after us, the Arabs will lend us a hand in picking them off."

"Good idea," Troy said, rubbing his handkerchief bound leg. "I've a personal score to settle."

"I don't think we should risk recapture," Wilson said doubtfully.

"We'll be preventing it, not risking it," Troy said crisply. He said to Moffitt, "Tell us how you've got this worked out."

After Moffitt had told them where the Arabs were waiting, they piled into the halftrack, driving to the top of the next dune where they separated. Wilson went with Moffitt off to the right. Tully and Troy with their captured Schmeisser machine pistols plodded away in the dark to the left. Hitch pulled off straight ahead in the Panzerwagon.

"Going to be tough on Hitch, ain't it, Sarge," Tully asked. "him out there alone with nobody to fire his weapon."

"He'll pick up some Arabs along the way," Troy said cheerfully.

The cold of the night enveloped them darkly and they walked away from the glow in the vicinity of Sidi Abd. As long as the reddened sky was in sight, Troy walked confidently but as the color dimmed and then disappeared, he slowed his pace and tried to correct for a natural instinct to wander in a blind and aimless circle. They were surrounded by black silence. For fifteen minutes they plowed ahead without a word and then Troy stopped.

"I thought I heard something," he said, listening for the sound of movement. He walked ahead, leg muscles telling him he was trudging up an incline. From the blackness ahead and up, he heard and whispered "S-s-s-st" and stopped again.

"I heard it, Sarge," Tully whispered.

"Might as well answer and hope for the best," Troy muttered and whistled through his teeth.

"S-s-st," came the whisper.

"All right, all right," Troy said, smiling tightly. "We're coming up."

Over the top of the dune, robed figures pressed about them and a match flared briefly close to Troy's face. He saw only the dark hand that held the light. A hand pressed his shoulder leading him behind and to the left, and he sat in the sand. Tully squatted beside him and then lay prone with his machine pistol propped in front. Troy rolled over on his stomach. They were hidden behind the top of the dune and the sand was comfortable and warmer than the air. It was impossible to see more than a few feet to either side, but Troy could hear the occasional movements of the Arabs as they shifted positions or lifted to look out over the crest of the dune. He thought there were six of them and wondered whether their desert eyes could penetrate the dark better than his own. They seemed men of infinite patience and lay without speaking in the silent night. The minutes dragged by, half an hour, forty-five minutes. An Arab lifted his head and whispered a warning. Troy raised slowly and far off in the desert saw two points of light searching the darkness in all directions.

"They're coming," he whispered to Tully. "Two of them. Following our tracks."

Tully moved his machine pistol and Troy brought his Schmeisser back with his hand on the grip and the metal extension against his shoulder. An Arab crawled up and pushed first Troy's and then Tully's weapons toward the ground.

"No," the Arab said. "No, no."

"Okay," Troy whispered. "Hold your fire, Tully, until we see what's up."

Troy raised his head again. The lights were creeping closer and he could hear the distant slapping of the tracks in the sand. A few minutes passed and the sounds of the motors and the treads were clearly audible. Lights poked up into the sky to the left of their position and an Arab squirmed forward pushing his rifle. He reached the top, aimed and fired, and almost simultaneously another shot cracked off to the side. The lights went out. Cannon fire rang out from the halftracks racking the air above their heads. Someone pushed Troy to the right.

"Come on, Tully, this way," he said, crouching and moving away from the thirty-seven millimeter shells. The Arabs were moving now, swinging around him to get at the machines from the side. He heard a roaring explosion and saw one of the halftracks engulfed in flame. The grenade must have hit the ammunition because the air shook with the repeated sounds of exploding shells. The gun in the second halftrack ceased fire and he heard the Panzerwagon grinding in a turn. A grenade burst near one of the track wheels and the machine stopped. The Arabs surged forward in the light of the flames, shouting, fiercely menacing in their flowing robes with rifles waving.

"Let's get down there," Troy shouted and sprang to his feet. "There may be someone we want to take."

He and Tully darted toward the crippled halftrack. The Arabs had dragged the driver from the seat and were pulling him off with them. A figure was slumped over the back of the armored vehicle. Tully ran to the other side, almost stumbled over someone lying face down in the sand. He rolled the figure over and whistled softly. It was Hauptmann Hans Dietrich.

"Tully," Troy shouted, jerking the Luger from Dietrich's holster. Dietrich was breathing and did not appear to be wounded, only knocked unconscious.

Tully came up panting.

"This one's ours," Troy said exultantly.

An Arab bent over Dietrich's body and lifted him by the collar.

"No!" Troy yelled, pushing the Arab off, shaking his head and repeating, "No!" He pointed to Dietrich and then himself. "Mine. Mine."

The Arab looked stonily at Troy.

"Here," Troy said, handing him Dietrich's pistol. "You take." He pointed again to Dietrich. "Mine."

The Arab obligingly pointed the pistol at Dietrich.

"No," Troy said, exasperated. He shoved the pistol aside. "You, pistol. Him, me."

The Arab shrugged and walked off.

Tully was chuckling. You Tarzan," he said pointing at Troy, and then at the robed figure of the Arab. "him Jane."

"Nuts," Troy said disgustedly. "Let's truss up our bird and get him away from here."

"What we going to tie him with and where we going to take him?" Tully asked.

"Grab a handful of wires from under the dashboard," Troy snapped. "We'll drag him to the top of the hill and sit on him."

"And then what?" Tully asked.