The Rat Patrol 2: Desert Danger (5 page)

"Yes," he said, pulling her down beside him on the bed. He kissed her lightly before she could protest. "Discouraging, isn't it? When we've only just found each other." 

"You must not joke." She gripped his hand and her eyes seemed genuinely terrified. "What do you want of me?"

"A few more moments," he said easily.

"Oh, please," she said in a small tight voice. "I am afraid. What it is?"

"All right," he said, quickly serious. "I'm sorry. Is there another way out of here, a back way? There's a German officer standing at the front entrance."

"Oh, no," she said with a little moan.

"He doesn't know I'm American," Troy said. "Not yet." 

"There is a way through the kitchen, into a small passage," Colette said. She turned her face to him and her eyes seemed to grow larger as she looked into his for a long moment. She whispered, "There are many persons eating there now. If I let you stay here with me until it is safe to leave, you will be kind to me?"

"Very kind," he said and this time when he kissed her, she clung to him. When he pulled away, he said, "I must ask a few questions. Is that where they keep the prisoners, in the building across the street?"

"When they have a prisoner, they take him there," she said, clasping his hand against her heart. He could feel it fluttering erratically. "It is not often they have a prisoner important enough to bring back with them. There is a room on the second floor at the side where the window is boarded up. If they have a prisoner, I think they take him to that room, at first."

"And then?" he asked.

"Who knows?" she said and lifted her shoulders helplessly. "They go away."

Troy reached for the glass and swallowed another mouthful of the vinegary wine. For a moment he was thoughtless, staring into the glass. As if the answer were there, he thought angrily. Colette went to the table, lighted two cigarettes and gave one to him. It was a Players, he noticed, and wondered whether the cigarettes had come from the black market or been taken from some poor devil of an Englishman, like Moffitt, who had been brought to the boarded up room for interrogation. And then been shot or shipped to the Gestapo at Bizerta for their amusement.

The beaded curtains fluttered silently and Troy leapt from the bed and sprang to the wall, hand reaching for his kris. Tully slipped into the room.

"He left," he said, sheathing his Bowie knife. An impudent smile danced in his eyes as they flicked over Colette. "Want I should wait outside, Sarge?"

Colette's eyes darted from Tully to Troy and he saw the stark terror in them. "Is this a commando raid?" she whispered tightly. "How many more of you are there?" 

"There are only the two of us," Troy said softly. He waved toward the location of the German headquarters. "They have a friend of ours over there. We've come for him."

"You are fools," she said in a hoarse whisper.

"I have no doubt of that," Troy said and smiled. "Is there a curfew on Arabs as well as soldiers?"

"No," she said. "This is still their town."

"In that case," Tully said, "I think it might be a good idea to take off, Sarge. Out the front way like we came in."

"They'll be watching," Troy said shortly. "They'd follow. We'll stay here until we can go out the back." 

Tully indifferently lifted his shoulders, strolled over to the bed and stretched out full length. He folded the burnoose away from his face, pulled the robes about his body and closed his eyes. A smile played about his lips.

"Did you have to bring him?" Colette whispered to Troy, as angry now as she had been fearful. "You I could hide, under my bed if necessary. But two I cannot. You can feel the presence of two persons who do not belong. If they find you, they will kill me because you are here." She seemed about to sob and took a deep but shaky breath. "You cannot stay here but I will do what I can. There is one place I think you will be safe until you can leave. I will take you to the room next door."

"But there's a weird old witch in there," Troy protested.

"She is deaf and blind," Colette said. "Everyone thinks she is evil and will not go near her. Only I enter the room to take her food and care for her. I will take the two of you to her room and you will remain seated quietly with your backs to the wall. I will come for you when the others have left the kitchen."

Troy studied her eyes. The anger that had flared up quickly had dissolved again in panic.

"Come on, Tully," he said sharply.

Tully rolled to his side and sat on the edge of the bed. "Sorry if I got in the way of things, Sarge," he said and grinned.

"We got what we came here for," Troy said.

"Did we?" Tully asked.

Colette led them stealthily down the hall and whisked them into the next room. The odor in this room was gagging, worse than in the hall. Colette pointed to the wall and motioned them to sit, facing the old woman. She placed a hand on the old lady's shoulder and handed her a glass of wine. The old one stared sightlessly at Troy and Tully as if she were aware of them. Troy shivered a little. He was sure she was. She did not take her blind eyes from him as she drank the wine, dribbling a stream down her chin in a dark line from the comer of her mouth.

Colette removed the empty glass from the old woman's fingers and squeezed her shoulder again. When her eyes found Troy's, she smiled unsteadily at him and slipped out of the room.

Tully looked silently and accusingly at Troy. Tully was frowning and his face was dark. He motioned at the curtains with his head and shook it in sharp negation. His hand crept under his robe and he bared his Bowie knife.

Troy smiled briefly and sat relaxed but wary, listening to the dying noises of the night. Looking at the old woman gave
him
a prickly sensation but every time he looked away from her, he felt his eyes drawn back hypnotically to her unseeing scrutiny. He closed his eyes, wondering whether he could trust Colette. He thought he could. She feared the Germans, it was true, but he thought she hated them as well. He was certain he could have trusted her if Tully had not come in.

Beside him, Tully's head dropped to his chest. His mouth opened and the gurgle of a snore started in his throat. Troy clasped his hand over Tully's mouth and the lanky Kentuckian awakened, shaking his head. When Troy pulled his hand away, Tully blinked and pulled back his robe to point to his wristwatch. It was almost 2300 hours.

Troy shrugged and looked at the old woman. He wondered whether she was asleep. Did blind people close their eyes when they slept? Blind and deaf, it would be like sleeping all the time, he thought, feeling a twinge of pity for the old one. Something made him turn his head. He had heard nothing but he sensed the movement of someone in the hall. The curtains were swaying, as if a breeze had brushed them. He jerked Tully by the wrist and slipped the kris from its sheath. Tully was at his side with the Bowie knife ready. They slid from the room. No one was in the hall but the curtain at the doorway that led into the tavern was fluttering.

Troy considered the curtain for a grim second.

"Maybe we should have brought Moffitt and Hitch in with us," he said. "I've an idea we could use a couple more strong pairs of hands in a few minutes."

"Aw, Sarge," Tully said lightly. "You know them boys need their sack time."

Hugging the wall, they moved swiftly to the doorway and Troy pulled the beads aside. Through the open doorway at the front, Troy could see Colette running across the street to the acetylene lighted German headquarters.

4

The lanterns
in the rows of tents had been extinguished and outside the walls the only light came from the lamp hanging in the vaulted entrance where a burly Jerry guard with a machine pistol dangling toward the ground slumped against the masonry. He wore a low-riding pot-helmet and his face was shadowed but he seemed to be dozing. The village and the camp areas seemed to be asleep and the only sound that came to Moffitt's ears were the soft shushings of the sentries' feet on their patrols. Hitch and he squeezed between the halftracks and the tanks, working their cautious way through the somber night toward the last halftrack in the line. The one nearest to the wall and to the guard.

Moffitt heard shambling sand and gripped Hitch's arm. They became rigid and motionless as the tanks. A sentry trod past on the outside, between the tanks and tents. Just past the next tank from them, Moffitt heard the sands stop scrambling. There was a motionless moment of silence and then Moffitt heard the sentry's stealthy approach, the sound of his feet and his clothing as he passed between two tanks and into the space that separated the tanks and halftracks. He crouched, pulling Hitch down with
him
and felt the tension and creeping movement of Hitch's arm as it reached within his robe for the noose. Moffitt tightened his grip on Hitch and they waited breathlessly.

A tank's distance from them, a match flared and Moffitt saw the worried, thinly stubbled face of a man scarcely more than a boy in the yellow flame as he lighted a cigarette. The end of the cigarette glowed three times in quick succession illuminating the end of a narrow nose and throwing pinkish highlights on sharp cheek bones as the sentry risked three drags. The smell of tobacco drifted back and then Moffitt saw the ember of the cigarette drop into the sand as the Jerry snubbed his butt. He moved hastily out between the tanks and Moffitt heard him trotting to regain his scheduled position.

"I could use a butt myself, Doc," Hitch whispered tightly.

"Or a spot of something stronger." Moffitt chuckled. "At least now we know where the weak link is. We'll make our break into the halftrack when this chap is due at the wall on the tanks and the sentry on the opposite side on the halftracks. Meanwhile we'll hold tight here for a moment."

"We ought to be sabotaging the equipment as we go along," Hitch complained.

"Can't risk the time," Moffitt whispered. "We must be in the vehicle and ready to shove off in a twinkle."

"I could pour sand in the gun barrels when we stop like now," Hitch said hopefully.

"We cannot do it," Moffitt said patiently. "The Jerries have maintenance crews and inspections, yon know. If Troy and Tully do not succeed tonight, we shall have to return tomorrow evening. They may suspect there are more of us out here but we don't want to leave positive evidence of it."

"What about the body, Doc?" Hitch said.

"If we have to leave, we'll take it and the clothing with us."

"They'll find the marks in the sand where we dragged the corpse."

"We'll carry it," Moffitt said and smiled to himself.

"That's what I was afraid of, Doc," Hitch grumbled.

Moffitt gave Hitch's arm a tug and they edged on, walking Indian fashion on the balls of their feet. He could see glimmerings of the lamp in the entrance between the halftracks as they neared the end of the row. When he heard the sentry on the tank side returning, Hitch and he squatted and when the man had passed, he pressed Hitch to a sitting position and wriggled on his belly out between the halftracks until his head was on the ground in the corridor.

He turned his face to the guard under the lamp and before his ear was on the ground he heard the approaching sentry's feet almost upon him. The sand slushed as the shambling feet came closer, five feet, three feet. Any movement, Moffitt knew, would attract attention and he closed his eyes and tried to feel he was a part of the desert. But would the fellow step over this small part of the desert or on it, he wondered. Even in his position, the thought amused him and he couldn't help smiling.

The sentry's booted food stomped the sand inches from Moffitt's nose, Moffitt opened his eyes and watched the feet and legs, then rump and back, and finally helmeted head come into view. He looked beyond him at the guard who leaned his brutish shoulders against the clay wall and seemed half asleep. At the approach of the sentry, however, the guard's head swiveled to the side, his wrist turned as he checked his watch and his head lifted a little to look for the appearance of the sentry on the outside line of tanks on the other side.

As the sentry on the halftracks was turning about face on heel and toe, Moffitt pulled his head out of the corridor and dug his way backward with his elbows. The man strode by and one foot squashed into the sand where Moffitt's head had rested. Moffitt slithered into the space where Hitch sat.

"The guard's alert," he whispered to Hitch, "We'll have to take him out of action when they come through with Wilson."

"The noose?" Hitch asked.

"You'll be in the driver's seat, laddie," Moffitt reminded him. "I'll be the hangman this time."

"Right-o, myte," Hitch mocked and suppressed a chuckle.

"Now, up there on your belly," Moffitt said. "Over the side and into the front of the halftrack like a snake. Get on the floor and familiarize yourself with the apparatus. Keep touching things until you know where they are as well as you do in your own jeep. I don't know what the systematic German mind has devised as an ignition switch for a halftrack but if it's a key type get the wires crossed for contact. Once you're established securely in the front, I'll hop into the back and there we'll stay until it's time to leave. One way or the other."

Hitch pulled the noose from his robe and handed it to Moffitt.

"I entrust you with my dearest possession," he said.

"It's in good hands, you know," Moffitt assured him, adding, as Hitch started to crawl away, "Luck, lad. I can't cover you, you know."

Hitch dragged his body away toward the last halftrack. Moffitt rose on one knee, ready to fade away silently if there was an outcry. It was one of the rules of the game they played when the stakes were as high as the Rat Patrol's objective this night. Each of them was aware that while they operated as a team, on this mission they were, in a sense, loners. As long as one of them remained alive and uncaptured, it was his duty to carry on.

Moffitt saw a dark and almost shapeless form reach from the ground and scale the side of the halftrack like a lizzard. Silently it disappeared. He waited a tense moment and when no alarm pierced the night, expelled his breath in a heavy sigh.