The Rat Patrol 2: Desert Danger (28 page)

Ziegler leaned pudgy hands on Dietrich's desk, eyes darting from Dietrich's freshly shaved face to well shined boots. "You appear remarkably fresh for a man who has just come in from the field," he rumbled in a voice as big as he. The little features quivered with suspicion.

"I took the opportunity to change before presenting myself," Dietrich said evenly, damning Schmitt for not making this clear. "I regret I was not here in person to welcome you." He glanced at the brandy bottle and glasses on a silver tray. The bottle had not been opened. "Let me offer you a drink, Colonel Ziegler," Dietrich said graciously. "It really is quite excellent."

"Thank you, I do not drink," Ziegler said stiffly. His beady eyes fixed Dietrich's with a penetrating stare. "But please do not let me interrupt your habits."

"No, no thank you," Dietrich said uncomfortably. "I really keep it on hand for special occasions, honored guests." He found the cigarette box and humidor where Schmitt had placed them at the other end of the table. He offered both, opened to Ziegler. The brands were American. "A cigarette? Cigar?"

Ziegler inspected both and shook his head, observing, "You are a man of expensive tastes. I neither drink nor smoke."

A rap sounded at the door. It swung open to admit Schmitt. He had donned a chef's hat and wore a white coat and apron. He bore an ornate oriental platter laden with canapés and relishes. Dietrich could have shot him.

Schmitt placed the platter on the table before Ziegler, bowed to him and then to Dietrich.

"Cafes, messieurs?"
he inquired in atrociously accented French.

Ziegler shook his head violently.

"That will be all," Dietrich told Schmitt. He indicated the platter to Ziegler. "A bite, perhaps?"

"Wasn't that your sergeant?" Ziegler's throat demanded while his mouth looked shocked.

Dietrich nodded his head miserably.

"I find this"—Ziegler waved to indicate the lavish display of liquor, tobacco and tidbits—"fantastic. Utterly fantastic. Perhaps it is in keeping with some of the other things I have heard and learned since yesterday. Perhaps I now shall learn something more. You have been in the field, you say?"

"Yes, yes, that is correct," Dietrich said.

"Not entirely correct," Ziegler corrected. "Not entirely in the military sense. You were out chasing prisoners?" 

Dietrich nodded his head grimly.

"Why?" Ziegler roared. "Why is it necessary for the commanding officer of an Afrika Korps unit to leave his command in pursuit of prisoners?"

"I had reason to believe they possessed knowledge that would be valuable," Dietrich said, beginning to seethe.

"You did not catch them," Ziegler said icily. "In fact, they captured you. Is this not so?"

"It is difficult to explain," Dietrich said, keeping a tight rein on his anger. "I captured them. They escaped. They captured me. I escaped."

"Oh, so you play games with the enemy and this was played to a draw," Ziegler said quietly and looked questioningly at Dietrich. "Is that the way you see it?"

"You might interpret it that way," Dietrich said and clenched his teeth.

"Very well," Ziegler said with deadly calm. "Now I shall explain a few matters to you. The first is this. The information which you should have obtained from the American colonel while he was your prisoner concerned a strategic movement of Allied forces into defensive winter positions. Had you squeezed this knowledge from him while you had the opportunity and then disposed of him, you could have struck with the armor you then had at your disposal and prevented the enemy from taking positions where you will not be able to dislodge him. We learned this from our pilots who were wasting their time searching for you. They were able to drop a few small bombs but no serious damage was inflicted. The second point I wish to make is this. Your losses in striking power have been severe in this foolish cat and mouse game in which you engaged five men and two jeeps. You have lost—destroyed or captured—fourteen patrol cars, eight halftracks and two tanks. Plus"—and Ziegler started to shout and shake his finger—"plus seventy-six men killed! I scarcely call this a game with the enemy that was played to a draw!"

"Yes, Colonel Ziegler," Dietrich said stonily, eyes front, shoulders back.

"I think it might be well," Ziegler said, glancing at the brandy, tobacco and canapés, "if you arranged to take a leave while this entire situation is investigated."

Hitch slammed the Jerry patrol car out of range of the cannon poking their long, lethal noses from the turrets of the Sherman tanks and out of sight in a wadi on the other side of the desert. He patted his forehead.

"That sweat isn't from the sun," he said.

They all were perspiring and who knew how much came from the sun that soaked through the canvas top of the car and how much from the shells they had just faced?

"We stick our nose out there again and wham, they're going to slam us," Tully said and gulped. "It's a darned funny thing when your own folks won't let you come home."

Troy put down the glasses. He had been watching the tanks and halftracks in the forefront of the column, and apparently other vehicles lost in the dust clouds behind them, crawl relentlessly toward them.

"Is there anything we could use for a mirror?" he asked Moffitt. "We might try signalling."

"I'd thought of that," Moffitt said. "We could get a reflection off the glasses but they know Jerry's over here and they'd fob it off as a trick."

"Are they coming much closer?" Troy asked Wilson who was sitting quietly and thoughtfully in the comer of the back seat.

"Right into the dunes above the route the Jerries have been using and digging in," Wilson said. "When the heavy rains hit, the Jerries won't be able to come over the hills and we'll control the flat trail and the land in front of Bir-el-Alam."

"Why don't we hide?" Hitch asked. "When they are dug in, we'll come out and give ourselves up to our own people. Maybe they'll bring along some gum."

"They'd dig you out and shoot first," Troy said.

"Don't someone know we're here?" Tully asked disconsolately.

"Sure," Troy said and laughed shortly. "But in jeeps, not a Jerry car."

The only sensible thing to do, Troy had decided, was to go out on foot in plain sight and hope the armor would hold off wasting shells on five tattered men.

"What've we got that's real GI?" Troy asked, seeking something that would identify them.

"Us," Tully said promptly.

"Okay, we'll send Tully out alone to tell them who we are," Troy said, laughing.

"I've never walked up and shook hands with a seventy-five millimeter cannon before," Tully said, "let alone maybe a dozen of them."

"Well, like Tully said, we're GI and I'm counting on us," Troy said with a smile. "Everything that isn't GI, we leave behind. The MG42s, Lugers, anything else you may have picked up. We're all going to walk across the desert to meet them, just a bunch of broken-down GIs."

"What about the headpieces?" Hitch asked. "Mine's French Foreign Legion, Moffitt wears a beret, you got an Aussie hat, Wilson is bareheaded. Tully's tin pot is the only one that's GI."

"I think they'll know us when they spot our bonnets," Moffitt said with a smile. "We've achieved a certain amount of notoriety, you know." He raised the binoculars to his face and after a moment, said, "About three miles away now. I think we ought to start walking."

"Pass around the water can," Tully said cheerfully. "This may be the last drink we have."

When they had emptied the can, they climbed out and sauntered hopefully into the open desert. They really were a ragtag outfit, Troy thought, glancing at each of them, bedraggled desert rats. They did not bunch as they started for the lines of gray dust creeping toward them but they did not spread out wide either. Some eager Joe without too many brains might figure they were an infantry line advancing against the armor.

They shuffled along, the colonel and his boys, now that they were getting back to the line of command. It had not been that way back in Jerry land. There it had depended on who could cut the mustard. Wilson had been pretty quiet, Troy was thinking. The CO was probably worried about being in the frying pan for letting himself get captured. It would be too bad if there were trouble over that. The CO was a good armored regiment commander, maybe inclined to be a little daring but that won battles and there were others just as brash who were heroes and even generals. Look at Patton. When it came right down to it, who actually did know for sure that Wilson had been captured? He was missing but that did not mean he was dead or had been taken prisoner. Wilson was a little stuffy and he had done some stupid things like letting Dietrich get away, but then the CO had not had the advantages the Rat Patrol enjoyed. He could not be expected to do their kind of job any more than they could do his. There ought to be some way to keep this affair from being a stinker.

They continued toward the muzzles that kept getting larger of the long guns on the Sherman tanks and it seemed as if all of them were pointing at each man in the Rat Patrol. Troy did not think anyone would open fire on a tiny band of ragged men who carried no firepower, just side arms. But you never knew who was due a Section Eight. The halftracks and tanks kept crawling closer, just half a mile off now. Suddenly a jeep shot out from somewhere toward the dust-shrouded end of the line and raced toward them. It was a good homey feeling to see a jeep again after all the Jerry vehicles, although this one mounted no machine gun. Three or four hundred yards away, the jeep stopped and someone—they could not tell who at that distance—stood on the seat and held an amplifying speaker to his face.

"Who are you," the voice squawked. "Identify yourselves. One of you, step forward and identify yourself."

Troy drifted over to Wilson. "Go ahead," he said. "You identify but don't say anything about where we've been or what's happened. Let me take care of that."

Wilson glanced at Troy, a puzzled frown between his eyes, and marched straight and soldierly to within shouting distance of the jeep. Troy could hear him calling out his name, rank and serial number. There was a moment's hesitation and then the jeep shot forward and Troy moved up toward Wilson too. The officer who had shouted through the horn leaped out of the jeep, ran to Wilson and threw his arms around him. Troy recognized him. It was Major Frank Lippin, Wilson's adjutant. Wilson turned and motioned the Rat Patrol to come in. Troy was already there.

"Where've you been?" Major Lippin was asking Wilson while he thumped him on the back. "Did you get lost? You were reported missing."

"A rear action diversion the colonel dreamed up," Troy said quickly.

"A rear action diversion?" Major Lippin puzzled that one.

Wilson looked at Troy strangely.

"Yes, sir," Troy said emphatically. "To keep Dietrich from launching another attack just when you were moving into the defensive positions. I know Colonel Wilson won't talk much about it but he ought to get a lot of credit for disrupting and demoralizing Dietrich's unit. He got us to take him in and out when his own driver was killed." Troy paused and then he laughed. "We had to swipe a Jerry patrol car to make it out. About the closest call we had was when you opened up on us."

"What is this all about?" Major Lippin asked, an admiring tone in his voice. "Were you able to inflict much damage?"

"Well, rather considerable, Frank, to tell the truth," Wilson said, "but I'm afraid Sergeant Troy overestimates the role I played. There will be figures in the reports."

"You fox," Major Lippin said to Wilson, "now don't be modest." He looked over his shoulder. The tanks and halftracks were bearing down. "I suppose you'd like a personnel carrier for your men, a chance to get back to Bir-el-Alam, clean up, rest up, feed up?"

"Yes, Frank," Wilson said. "I should report in. And I feel the men deserve a little something for pulling things off the way they did."

"I'll get a vehicle out of the line," Major Lippin said. "Come along with me."

Moffitt edged over to Troy as Wilson climbed in the jeep. "What was this about a rear action diversion?" 

"Got a better name for it?" Troy asked and grinned.

In a few minutes a six-by-six with a floppy brown canvas top ground to a stop and Troy piled in the back after Moffitt, Hitch and Tully. As the truck was starting up, someone halted it. Wilson came back and climbed in. "Got room for me, men?" he asked, smiling. 

Bir-el-Alam is scarcely paradise on earth but  it was an Arabian oasis town and of somewhat larger proportions than Sidi Abd. The Allies had clashed with the Jerries near Bir-el-Alam but the fighting had been in the desert and the town was undamaged. Some semi-permanent installations had been thrown up at the edges of the town and there were adequate tent quarters and facilities. In the town, some of the native places offered food and drink that was acceptable. In a way it was a pretty place with a little grass, flowers and palm trees. It looked good to the Rat Patrol when the truck rolled through, but best of all was the GI shower rigged up by their tents. Wilson went on to his quarters and Troy, Moffitt, Hitch and Tully plunged in the showers. No one argued with them very much about spending too much time under the water after a look at their crazy desert eyes and ground-in grime. They shaved and dressed in clean, fresh khakis and clapped their old, dirty desert gear back over their just washed hair. Troy managed time to have sulpha and a bandage slapped on his wound and then they plunged into Bir-el-Alam the way they had plunged into the showers. A few hours before, they had been beat to the sox. Now they were all charged up and ready to emit sparks.

The CO was taking them out on the town and one might have thought that would have put a damper on the party but it wasn't that way at all. He had left his eagles at his quarters and it was just as it had been back in Jerry land. He was wearing plain khakis, no decorations, except for one funny thing. He had picked up a hat. It looked like a sultan's turban with a flashy red stone in front and the cockeyed thing about it was, the CO wanted to know if that hat made him a member of the Rat Patrol.