The Rat Patrol 2: Desert Danger (27 page)

They crabbed back and flattened on the ground. The air shook and the Stuka blasted past, taking to the air and climbing sharply. It turned south. They're going to have a look at the wadi, Troy thought. Dietrich will point out the wadi and the plane will rake it. He gritted his teeth waiting for the machine guns. When the chattering did not come, Troy rolled over, questioning Moffitt with his eyes.

"I imagine the pilot has his hands full, just flying the ship," Moffitt said and laughed. "Well, now we know, old boy. Dietrich used the radio and called for air taxi service."

The sound of the plane was receding quickly and Troy and Moffitt came out of the ditch erect. Troy looked at the sky and found the Stuka shooting off to the southeast.

"Think that's the end of it?" Troy asked.

"Hard to say," Moffitt said. "Let's see whether the car is serviceable."

Troy walked more easily and slowly now. He was bone weary and his wounded leg had begun to throb again. He felt as if he had not eaten or bathed or slept or drank for months. Beside him, Moffitt seemed stooped, as tired as Troy. They dragged up the sliding hill and stood for a moment looking silently at the car. It seemed intact. Troy walked to the side and tossed his machine gun in the back seat, glancing in the front. The water can was on the floor.

"Dietrich left the water," Troy exclaimed, reaching for it.

"Don't," Moffitt said sharply, coming over fast.

"What do you mean, don't!" Troy said irritably. "He probably emptied it, but if there's any water, I'm going to have a swallow."

"Yes, but just a moment," Moffitt said, leaning over the side, inspecting the door carefully before opening it. "Could be booby trapped, you know."

"Nuts," Troy said. "Why would he booby trap his own car? He couldn't know he wouldn't catch his own men. He didn't know we had gasoline or that we'd come after this car. He'll have a patrol out to pick it up."

Moffitt pulled his head from the floor of the front seat and lifted out the water can.

"Almost full," he said happily.

"And it wasn't booby trapped," Troy said, unscrewing the top, sniffing the water and handing the can to Moffitt.

When Moffitt had swallowed two mouthfuls and returned the can to Troy, he said, "I'm suspicious, Sam. This isn't like Dietrich. Why would he leave the car so conveniently here for us? Why didn't he blow it up? There are grenades, ammunition and weapons in the trunk."

"Doctor, I told you," Troy said patiently. "He didn't have any idea we'd come after it. I'm going to dump in the gasoline and then let's be off."

"Not until we've gone over the vehicle," Moffitt said firmly.

"All right, Doctor," Troy said, resigned. "Who starts where?"

"I'll take the engine and the outside," Moffitt said. "You search the inside."

"Right," Troy said with a tired smile.

Moffitt opened the slant-nosed hood and began a careful check of the engine. Troy climbed into the front seat and began a systematic check for trip wires or charges. He found nothing that looked suspicious.

"It looks okay, Doctor," he called, starting to get off the floor where he was lying on his stomach when he saw a twist of wire around the brake pedal. "Hold it!" he called loudly.

He traced the wire, cleverly concealed with dust and sand, to a stick grenade securely lodged under the seat. Carefully he removed the wire and dislodged the grenade.

"Ingenious," Moffitt said softly. "He wanted to be sure we were in the car and started. The first time the brake was depressed, we'd have been memories."

They plumbed the car to its depths for other traps but could find nothing. Troy turned on the ignition switch and looked at the gas gauge. It registered empty. He laughed and poured the five gallons of gasoline into the tank. Moffitt climbed in behind the wheel, switched the ignition on once more, looked at Troy and shrugged. He engaged the starter. The motor turned over, then ground away as Moffitt held the accelerator to the floor. The motor caught, chattered, wheezed, caught again and ran evenly.

"Now we have transportation," Moffitt set, listening to the engine.

"And water," Troy said.

"And a clear road home perhaps," Moffitt said, smiling.

He backed and turned around, following Dietrich's trail over the dunes to the wadi. Tully and Hitch crawled from the camouflage hut they had rigged and they whooped. Still serious but not so shamefaced, Wilson started pulling down the netting. He folded it, carried it to the back of the car and laid it over the weapons in the storage compartment.

"That's been a handy item," he commented.

"Anyone want a drink?" Troy asked. He passed around the water can.

"Let's move," Tully said. "We been long gone."

Hitch drove out of the wadi and found a solid ridge that reached toward the German trace. The air was smudgy and acrid over this part of the valley where the six patrol cars still smoldered.

"Follow Jerry's route?" he asked, half turning.

"Why not?" Troy said. "I think we're the only ones left to use it."

On the flat desert, the car picked up speed. The hot sand whirred by and the wind rushed at them from the front and sides. In the front beside Hitch, Moffitt's head nodded. Wilson was sprawled at one side in the back, chin resting on his chest. Tully was in the middle. The matchstick drooped from his slack lips. Troy hunched on his side, idly playing with the MG42, blinking his smarting eyes occasionally at the land about them and to the west ahead. Unless the Stukas came streaking and shrieking back, he did not think they would encounter any more enemy opposition. They all were silent, exhausted, bone tired, but it had been quite a caper, Troy was thinking, although he wasn't sorry it all was behind them.

"Sarge!" Hitch called, leaning forward as if peering.

"Yeah," Troy said absently.

"There, ahead," Hitch said. "A long ways off but you can see it, a line of dust, like a column moving. Can you get your glasses on it?"

Beside Hitch, Moffitt stirred, lifting his glasses to his face as Troy swept the horizon with his binoculars. Troy straightened quickly. Vehicles were moving on the desert.

"I think they're halftracks and tanks," he called. "And I think they're ours."

"By George, I think you're right," Moffitt exclaimed.

"They are ours," Wilson said quietly. "This is one of our actions Dietrich hoped to learn about in advance. We're setting up the defensive positions we'll maintain during the winter rainy season."

"Home," Tully said, yawning.

"Fresh bubble gum," Hitch added and pressed down harder on the accelerator.

They all were wide awake now. They were practically hanging onto the sides and cheering as the patrol car raced to meet the oncoming Allied armor. After the time they had spent in Jerry land, the squat, husky Sherman tanks with their long barreled seventy-five millimeter guns were a welcome sight.

Well, Troy thought happily and relaxing, they had done it again.

He was blasted from his pleasant reflections by the impact of a shell that exploded in a blinding, showering burst of sand in front but well short of the car. Another detonation rocked the desert to one side.

"They're shelling us, our own men are shelling us," Hitch shouted.

"They're not shelling us," Tully said, sitting straight. "They're shelling a Jerry patrol car."

The clouds of dust and sand still hung dense about them.

"Turn around and run away," Troy bellowed. "Quick. I'd rather take my chances against the whole Afrika Korps."

18

Hauptmann Hans Dietrich unbent himself from the impossible, pinched-together, bent-over, crouched-down, humped-up position he had tolerated for the last three quarters of an hour. He had felt like a porpoise stuffed in a goldfish bowl under the glass canopy of the Stuka. When the pilot, who seemed amused by the disgraceful treatment of an Afrika Korps unit commander, slid back the glass, Dietrich burst from the enclosure in a seething rage. Ears still clanging from the awesome shrieks and growls of the engine, he somehow managed to skid down the fuselage to the comfortable sand beyond the corridor of armor at Sidi Abd. He would see that this smirking young Luftwaffe lieutenant suffered unspeakable indignities for his three-quarter hour entertainment.

"I shall look forward to acquainting you with the interior of a tank, Lieutenant," Dietrich called to the toothy youth at the controls of the Stuka. "I shall personally request your commanding officer to grant me the pleasure of your visit."

"Well, thank you, sir," the lieutenant said, flushing a little. "It wasn't really much, all in the line of duty." He laughed—boisterously, Dietrich thought. "Wait till the squadron hears about how I carried you today. They'll laugh themselves sick."

He waved, pushed the canopy forward, twisted the ship about and took off with the sound of all the Furies, leaving Dietrich bathed in a shower of stinging, lashing sand.

Dietrich swung furiously on his heel to be greeted by the uninspiring sight of Feldwebel Max Schmitt in his dress uniform standing at sucked-in-chin and thumbs-along-the-seams-stiff attention. Schmitt's cheeks were round and pinkly healthy, looking freshly scrubbed, and his blue eyes looked rested and untroubled. This sausage skin has been filling himself with my chicken and brandy, sleeping at least upon a cot if not one of my beds, Dietrich thought, fuming, while I have been trussed like a prize stag and bounced about and over the desert in every insufferable contraption man has conceived. Eating swill like swine. He rubbed his bearded, greasy jaw, looked at the grime on his palms, glanced distastefully at his crumpled tunic and soiled breeches. He strode toward the corridor that led to the town's entrance.

"I shall find the most decrepit PzKw III in all of North Africa, one whose treads are loose and clattering and turrets locks securely in place," he muttered aloud. "When the temperature has burst the thermometer and the interior of the tank is a stinking steel crucible, I shall load the tank with Arab prisoners and jam this Luftwaffe pilot in with this fat pig of a sergeant and send them all to Bizerta." He glared at Schmitt. "You would like that, would you not, Sergeant, to take that Luftwaffe lieutenant for a trip similar in pleasure to the one I have just enjoyed?"

"Ja, mein herr Hauptmann,"
Schmitt said, puffing as he trotted at Dietrich's heels.

Dietrich halted as he came between the twin lines of armor and his eyes coursed down them. The armored columns looked puny, weak and sick. Dietrich was ill at heart. He had not yet assessed the losses his unit had suffered at the rampaging hands of the Rat Patrol and Arabs and it frightened him to think of it.

"Schmitt," he barked. "I want a complete report within the hour on the losses, material and men, which have been inflicted on us during the past four days, you understand?"

"Yes, my captain, but " Schmitt stammered.

"I will tolerate no excuses," Dietrich thundered.

"But, Captain Dietrich," Schmitt pleaded. "I am not making excuses. I only wanted to tell you there is a visitor waiting for you at your headquarters."

"A visitor? Who is it? Have him thrown out. What has that to do with this report I want?"

"It is Colonel Ziegler," Schmitt said unhappily.

Ziegler? It caught Dietrich up short. Colonel Ziegler was operations chief to the General for this entire area. Only a matter of utmost urgency would bring him to Sidi Abd in person. Dietrich himself had never met him and knew only his ferocious reputation.

"How long has Colonel Ziegler been here?" Dietrich flared. "What does he want?"

"Since yesterday, herr Hauptmann," Schmitt said and gulped. "I do not know, of course, what it is he wants. But the reports on the losses you have just requested, they were turned over to Colonel Ziegler on his order this morning."

The news shocked Dietrich profoundly. It agitated him. It was tragic, he thought, groaning. Ziegler had come down to discuss operations in person, plan and map campaigns, ask his advice perhaps, and had arrived to find Dietrich enmeshed in disaster. What an impossible misfortune. The word would go straight back to Rommel himself.

Dietrich was unaware of the guard in the vaulted entrance or the soldiers who turned to stare after him in the twisting streets. He was unpleasantly aware of the heavy Arabian smells, of cooking and dirt that pressed on him physically and oppressed him. He looked again at the filth of his own uniform. He could not present himself to Ziegler until he had bathed, shaved and changed into a fresh uniform.

"Schmitt," Dietrich said as they turned into the narrow street that led to HQ. "Trot on ahead. Present my compliments to Colonel Ziegler. Explain that I have been in the field and ask his indulgence for a few moments. Put out a bottle of Courvoisier, cigars and cigarettes, perhaps make up a tray of sandwiches or canapés. Make him feel at home and welcome. Oh, and be sure the door to the office is closed so he is not offended, at the sight of me when I go back to my rooms."

Schmitt rolled away—like the tub of lard he is, Dietrich thought, and he wondered how his sergeant would manage to botch things up with Ziegler. No, Dietrich admitted, he could not blame anything that happened with Ziegler on Schmitt. He could not really blame anyone for anything, not even himself. It was just that, well, there was this Rat Patrol.

Nodding curtly to the guard at the entrance to HQ, Dietrich went immediately to his rooms. He bathed and shaved rapidly and presented himself, in his own office, within half an hour. The uniform he wore was freshly pressed and he thought he looked reasonably well.

Colonel Ziegler was standing at the tall, narrow windows overlooking the squalid street with his back to the room. He turned ponderously, a man of massive proportions. His enormous, white-maned head was set solidly on stout shoulders and his chest was shaped like a barrel. In contrast, his facial features were dwarfed by the skin and bone they occupied. His eyes were bright, tiny and beady, bird-like. His nose was short, straight and pinched and his mouth only a little opening in a big jaw.

Dietrich involuntarily came to attention.