The Rat Patrol 2: Desert Danger (22 page)

Troy looked back. The three in the second car had their goggles on, Wilson with Jerry glasses he had had the good sense to grab for the trip. In their pot helmets and with black faces below the white which showed through the glasses, they looked like weird owl-men from another planet. Troy grinned. Moffitt shook a fist at him but he cracked his face in a white-toothed smile. Now there was something Troy never had considered. Those damned white teeth in a blackened face could give you away at night. He would have to warn them all, no matter how funny things got, to keep their lips buttoned next time they went prowling after dark. The patrol cars, he noticed as he turned back, had canvas tops, folded on top of the storage bin now. They would put them up when they pulled in. Although the glass was gone, the frames for the windscreens would support them. Should be more comfortable with the nets away from their heads and the nets would drape better, more naturally.

The desert streamed by. Gray sand. Gray sky. Were his glasses more grimed than usual or was the sky dropping in a thickening pall? He shook his fist at the sky. Hold off, rainmaker, he shouted in his mind, don't sink us just outside home port, even if rain would drive away the Stukas.

He looked at his watch—1315 hours. He began to search for wadis. This was going to be tricky. A line of tracks, even a single line of tracks leading off the beaten path into a wadi and not coming out would look mighty peculiar from above, the kind of thing that would bear investigation.

He put his chin on Tully's shoulder and shouted in his ear. "Take off where the dunes are rolling."

"Figured it was about that time, Sarge," Tully said, half turning and lifting one hand to point ahead. "Looks as if a man could get lost up there."

The desert where he pointed was convoluted, one dune upon another, rolled and humped together.

"In we go," Troy said. "Find a snug, tight hole, room enough for two patrol cars, but don't go in. Pull around to the side of it and stop."

"Got you, Sarge, I think," Tully said and smiled. "Like the old days with them revenooers back in Kentucky." Tully wound between the dunes until he found a good deep pocket, steep-sided at one end, shallow at the other. It was not too wide. The cars could sit side by side with maybe a couple feet between. He drove almost to it, turned to drive around and stopped. Hitch braked, heading straight in. Troy looked back. A single line of tracks, very neat, not overlapping, snaked through the valleys.

"You go on down," Troy told Hitch. "Pull to one side and leave room for us. Get your top up and start spreading your net. We're going on around and back to the thoroughfare. It'll look as if one car came in and went out again, I hope." He grinned. "We'll come back in on the tracks and then brush the marks away where we went into the wadi."

"Right, Sarge," Hitch said.

Moffitt lifted an earphone from his head. "The Jerries don't have a music station," he complained.

"What you want, a radio compass like the flyboys use to zero in on BBC?" Troy asked.

"It might be handy," Moffitt conceded as Hitch started down the ten-foot slope.

Tully made the circuit. When Troy looked at the tread trail as he swept away the set of prints leading into the wadi, he was satisfied that once the nets were up, there would be nothing in this part of the desert to arouse curiosity.

Just the same, he made preparations for assault. Not at the hole. The position was not defensible. Nor did he consider using the patrol cars. They were neither fast nor maneuverable. And they mounted no weapons. He gathered a couple of dozen potato mashers—the German stick grenades—and leaving the wadi by the shallow end and not crossing the trail left by the tire tracks, buried twelve grenades on a dune two hundred yards to the west and another dozen on a dune two hundred yards to the east. The path they had left lay below the dunes. From the second dune he could see the netting in place. He could see it because he knew it was there. He did not think it would show from the sky and it would be almost impossible to detect from the ground until you stepped on it. He was satisfied and swept away his footprints with the bush hat he again was wearing. It was funny. He had felt compressed in the helmet, regimented. It had been like stepping back in character when he had slapped the bush hat on. He felt free and could think again. To hell with conformity.

Back in the wadi, comfortable, roomy enough, the way out clear, and plenty of headspace in the cars with the tops up, he took pity on Dietrich. He untied his hands and feet, let him work his shoulders and rub his wrists, chafe his ankles. He had a thought, removed Dietrich's boots and put them in the trunk. Dietrich glared at him.

"You say a word," Troy told him and grinned, "and I'll lock up your britches too."

He tied Dietrich's ankles in a locked loop and knot to the steering column and his hands in the same fashion to the steering wheel, far enough apart so the fingers of one hand could reach neither knot nor wrist of the other.

Then he broke out the Jerry rations. Tinned corned beef. Not too bad. Probably from the Argentine, same as the stuff the supermarkets sold at home. Home? He shrugged. The word had little meaning. Home was where the body lay. There were some dry biscuits. They had plenty of water. It was not a bad meal, considering the fix they were in. Troy contemplated cigarettes, decided they had better not risk it. There was no wind. Maybe the smoke would dissipate, but maybe with them puffing away the wadi would look like a hot spring.

They waited. It was 1400 hours. Four more to go at the least. Troy sent Hitch up under the net to watch the ground and Tully to the back seat of the car to keep an eye on Dietrich. Then he climbed next to Moffitt in the second car. Moffitt was fiddling with the Jerry radio set. Wilson already was asleep in the back seat.

The desert had been silent, prickly, unnerving, empty, quiet, but now the faint sound Troy had been awaiting came, the hum of airplane motors that buzzed louder until they throbbed in his ears.

"Here they are," Hitch called down and Troy could almost feel the sands chum as the Stukas passed. "They're practically hedgehopping," he added.

Troy lifted a phone from Moffitt's ear. "Any static yet about them not finding us?"

"Tight silence, old boy." Moffitt said and chuckled. "'They're not admitting a thing." He bent his head forward, clapped the earphone in place and held his hand over it while he adjusted the volume. He listened a moment and smiled. "It's coming now," he told Troy, still holding his hand to the earphone. "Jerry HQ wants our position. They've been trying to raise Dietrich, think his set is out."

"Maybe we should let him say a little something, just to reassure them," Troy suggested gravely.

Moffitt held up his hand. Troy waited. A minute. Two minutes. Perhaps five minutes. Moffitt listened intently. Finally he took off the earphones, draped them around his neck but did not turn off the set. His face was working into something but it had not decided yet whether it was going to be a smile or a scowl.

"Perplexing, old boy," he said. "The Stukas report they've spotted us."

"What!" Troy started to climb out of the car. "I'd call that annoying, not perplexing. Don't just sit there."

"Don't pop off half-cocked," Moffitt said, a smile tugging at his lips. "We aren't where they say we are."

"I don't get it, Doctor," Troy said sharply. "Will you put it in simple statements I can understand?"

"Yes." Moffitt's smile was broad. "Now bear with me. I'm going to explain something first that will explain something later. Right?"

"Carry on," Troy groaned.

"These little outfits the Jerries carry can receive on any frequency but transmit only on a fixed frequency to their HQ. That frequency is set by a crystal which they simply plug in. Enables them to change from day to day, saves bother of tuning. You follow?"

"I think so," Troy said impatiently, "but get on." 

"Well, matters were boiling. The birdmen admitted they misplaced us. They had diligently scoured the area from Faisan to Sidi Abd. We had disappeared. To quote HQ, 'You can see the entire
Gottverdamtig
desert from the air. How could they disappear?' It was then they conveniently found us and went streaking off to the west. We were some ten miles from where we are."

"I'm sorry, Doctor," Troy said patiently. "It doesn't make sense."

"That's why I told you about the fixed transmitting frequency. I think the Stukas saw a Jerry patrol out there somewhere. The patrol would be unable to communicate with the aircraft because they operate on another frequency."

"Ah, I begin to see, Doctor," Troy said with a grin. 

"Yes, interesting, isn't it?" Moffitt said and laughed. "HQ had previously informed the birdmen that additional patrols were being dispatched from Sidi Abd to look for us and that if ground parties discovered their precious Dietrich first, the birdmen would have their wings clipped." 

"Could they do that?" Troy asked, amused. "I mean, what would the Air Force general do if the Infantry captain said, 'I want three of your hotshot pilots grounded'?" 

"Can't say, old chap, except that this is Rommel's Africa and apparently our friend Hauptmann Dietrich is his fair-haired boy."

"My, oh my!" Troy drew back in mock horror. "What have we done?"

"Stirred up a hornet's nest, I wot," Moffitt said and laughed heartily.

"Patrol," Hitch called quietly. "I don't think they're coming in."

"From which direction?" Troy asked quickly.

"From the west," Hitch said and Moffitt nodded his head and smiled. "They slowed," Hitch said, "gave the track a quick once over and went on. Two cars."

"You used your noggin," Moffitt told Troy, "making that track go in and out."

"That's the kind of devious thinking I pick up from Tully," Troy said.

There was an abrupt whine that screeched so close to the ground it sounded as if the Stukas were going to crash right into the camouflage netting. Troy gritted his teeth and winced. They were gone and back again in a few minutes, engines roaring close.

"Oh-oh," Hitch exclaimed and started to laugh. "They're on top of those patrol cars. Right above them. Not ten feet over them. They're turning and coming back. The Jerries have stopped. They're piling out of the cars. They're shaking their fists at the Stukas."

Moffitt clapped on the headset. Troy clawed up the slope and lay beside Hitch. One of the Jerries was climbing back into a car. The Stukas were now circling the two patrol cars.

"The patrol is calling HQ," Moffitt reported. "If I'm adroit enough, I'll be able to catch both conversations. Here we go. The patrol wants to know what kind of bloody idiots are flying the Stukas. The patrol has identified itself to HQ. Now hold on. There. Here's the aircraft. The pilot wants to know what the bloody hell the patrol has done with Dietrich. Now HQ wants to know what the bloody hell kind of idiots are flying the Stukas. Let's see what HQ tells the patrol." He was silent a moment. "Well, that's that," he said, removing the earphones. "The patrol has been ordered to investigate anything that looks suspicious and the Stukas are to continue searching the area between Faisan and Sidi Abd."

The Stukas swept off to the west, climbing steeply. They leveled and peeled off, diving in great power plunges that blasted the patrol cars in washes of sand. It was a howling gesture of defiance.

"That's thumbing their noses at them, Sarge," Hitch said, working busily at his gum.

"Uh," Troy said, carefully watching the knot of eight men between the patrol cars. One of the soldiers was pointing to the single tracks that led into the dunes. Another was pointing to the circle it made with a broad fling of his arm and indicating where the same track came out.

"Man your battle stations," Troy called. "I think we're going to have visitors." He looked at Dietrich. The Jerry appeared both secure and comfortable at the steering wheel. And probably able to start the patrol car and take off. Troy shook Wilson. "Watch Dietrich. The rest of us are going out for a minute."

"Oh, yes, yes," Wilson said sleepily, picking up a Schmeisser and climbing into the back of the other machine.

"Wilson," Troy said sharply. "Are you fully awake?" 

"Yes, Sergeant," Wilson said, smiling. "I am aware of the penalty for sleeping on my post."

Tully and Troy ran behind sandhills that hid them from the track and bellied up to the dune west of the wadi. Hitch and Moffitt took their stations on the eastern dune. Lying in the sand atop his dune, Troy could see the two patrol cars and the men still arguing. Finally all of the soldiers climbed into the cars. One car backed away, turned and followed the tracks into the dunes from the east. The other car remained parked.

"Tully," Troy said quickly. "We've got to get that second car. If we don't, they'll radio Jerry HQ when the first grenade pops and we'll have the Stukas back."

He snatched three grenades in each hand and slid down the sandpile with Tully tumbling after. They ran in and out of the valleys of sliding sand toward the second car. It was getting unnaturally dark, he thought, glancing at his watch as he raced. Not quite 1500 hours. The sky seemed very close to the ground with the gray turning to a purplish-black. He expected at any moment to feel the slap of rain on his face. There was a deluge coming, and then won't we have fun, he thought and grinned. It was crazy, the things that amused him when he was on a caper. Maybe they didn't really amuse him. Maybe thinking about other things kept him driving ahead. You didn't know fear as long as you didn't think about it. Simple, wasn't it? He heard the other car growling in gear somewhere back of him and pumped air in his bursting lungs for a final spurt, up to the top of the next sand hill. That should bring them within throwing distance of the car.

They crouched, panting and sweating, just below the cheek of the hill. He slid his chin through the sand and looked. The car was below, about a hundred feet away.

"How's your pitching arm?" he asked Tully, taking one grenade by the stick and arranging the other five in front of him.

"Tolerable, Sarge, just tolerable," Tully said, creeping to the top and looking down. He slid back. "Looks like a far piece."