The Rat Patrol 4 - Two-Faced Enemy (3 page)

The thin smile lingered as he stepped briskly to the rear of the communications van parked next to the headquarters tent. The radio operator, a slack-jawed young man with straw-colored hair and watery eyes, hunched over the command set. He pushed the rubber pads of his earphones forward to his temples and looked questioningly at Dietrich.

"Well?" Dietrich said impatiently. The boy knew what he wanted. "Can you raise them yet at Latsus Pass?"

"I am sorry, Herr Hauptmann," the radio operator said apologetically. "There has been no signal or response." 

"Keep trying," Dietrich said, stepping back to the limestone ledge and lifting his glasses once more.

The sky over the edge of the plateau was hung with dirty tatters. He imagined he could hear the sound of battle, the castanet-like beat of machine gun fire and the hollow of mortars, although he doubted the reports would carry seven miles even in the still air. Near the CP, one of the trucks already had been emptied of its drums and now it lumbered away to the southwest, away from the road, toward a small oasis twenty-five miles distant where supply dump had been concealed and where there was water. This was a particularly gratifying cache to Dietrich. All of the gasoline and oil hidden so conveniently nearby had been stolen from the Allied Forces at Sidi Beda by Ali Abu, an Arab informer who was a merchant and owned a warehouse in the port town. Ali Abu's willingness to cooperate, for a price of course, had reduced Dietrich's logistical problems. The Arab had even provided the transportation and a guard for the supplies. Dietrich's glasses came back to the main route. Two miles southeast, the Allied patrol car which his commando unit had surprised still smoldered and smudged the sky. It was the fourth patrol car Lungershausen's men had left twisted and charred on the road in the dash for the pass. The wrecks had been brushed to the side by the following tanks. Dietrich did not think any of the patrols had been able to report the advance, although admittedly the plane had observed the two forces that morning. But then it had been too late.

"Herr Hauptmann! Herr Hauptmann! The Americans attempted to come through the pass but have been forced to retreat," the radio operator jabbered.

"I will talk with Lieutenant Lungershausen," Dietrich said coldly. "I merely told you to get me through, not to explain the conduct of the battle."

"Ja, Herr Hauptmann," the radio operator said, still excited, apparently ignorant that he had been rebuked. He pulled the earphones from his head and handed them with the microphone to Dietrich. "He is right there at the wireless. You just push the button when you talk." 

Dietrich glowered as he fitted the wet, clinging rubber pads over his ears. "You push the button like this?" he asked caustically, depressing it, and when the boy assured him the procedure was correct, Dietrich spoke into the microphone. "Dietrich here, Fritz. Tell me quickly, how did it go?"

The elements crackled and spat in Dietrich's ears and then Lungershausen's voice was loud and clear. "... and we destroyed three of the armored cars. The enemy now has withdrawn out of range beyond the bottom of the pass. The track is very narrow through the defile with room for only one tank at a time. The enemy cannot get out through our position, but neither can we reach him with our mortars and it will be difficult for us to get into the port."

"Yes, of course, Fritz," Dietrich said brusquely. "We expected that. Can you hold your position?"

"Without a doubt, Herr Hauptmann," Lungershausen said. "We could hold even if the road was not blocked by the three cars we destroyed."

"I shall have the machines removed at once," Dietrich said sharply. "As long as you can hold, I want the road kept clear. Did you see the Rat Patrol?"

"No, Hauptmann Dietrich," Lungershausen said. "Armored cars and halftracks only. There were no jeeps." 

"Listen carefully, Fritz; this is important," Dietrich said. "Did you observe carefully as I instructed? Was there anywhere behind the armor sign of the Rat Patrol?" 

"No, Herr Hauptmann," Lungershausen said positively. "From the moment the armor came into view several miles away below us, I observed. The Rat Patrol was at no time with the column."

"Good!" Dietrich exclaimed. "Everything then is as we planned. You know what to do when the time arrives." 

"Ja, mein Hauptmann, everything shall be done precisely as you ordered," Lungershausen assured.

"Very well, Fritz," Dietrich said
_;
pleasantly filled with satisfaction. "If you should sight the Rat Patrol anywhere, let me know at once. That is all."

Dietrich removed the sticky earphones, regarded the radio operator with silent disapproval for a moment, then stepped quickly into the headquarters tent next to the communications van. The canvas afforded some protection from the sun but made the heat feel heavier. It smelled sour and sweaty like a gymnasium locker room, and Dietrich looked with quick resentment at Herr Oberst Matthe Funke, who was sitting on a folding stool in his shorts, fumbling with maps and papers on a table and drinking a bottle of beer.

Oberst Funke was commanding officer of the division that included Dietrich's battle group. His head was big and his features small. His gray hair was cropped close and his chin seemed to rest squarely on his chest. Whatever neck he had was hidden by his dewlaps. His tiny eyes were bright blue. Dietrich thought the colonel's mind was very old and somewhat less than agile. When Dietrich had submitted his plan for re-taking Sidi Beda and asked for reinforcements, he had not anticipated getting Colonel Funke in the bargain.

"Don't look so disapproving, Hans," the colonel said mildly. He swallowed another mouthful of beer and wiped Iris hands and then his face on a towel. "I know you say beer only makes the heat more unbearable, but without it I do not think I could survive the desert. Ach, could hell be worse? Now then, how do matters progress?"

"Exactly as we planned, Herr Oberst," Dietrich said, smiling faintly in spite of himself. "The American colonel attempted to fortify his positions at the pass so he could entrap us. He was totally unprepared for what awaited him. We have destroyed three of his armored cars and he has withdrawn. We have him contained."

Colonel Funke lifted his head, dabbing under his chin with the towel. "We shall never be able to enter the port through that narrow pass, Hans," he said heavily. "We control the pass from above. He controls it from below. It is a stalemate."

"Herr Oberst, shall we review the strategy so you may correct the flaws in the plan before the battle commences?" Dietrich asked wearily. He had already convinced the colonel a dozen times of the soundness of the campaign. "Now, the purpose in taking the pass was to bottle the enemy within the port while our main force attacked the town's defenses, yes? These consist of medium tanks mounting seventy-five-millimeter guns. He has placed twenty-five of these weapons in permanent positions above and around the port and has emplaced them as artillery pieces. He has undoubtedly mined the field commanded by these guns. We must cross the minefield and destroy the enemy's tanks with our own above the town, we shall train our guns upon the port and call upon the enemy to surrender. If we had attempted to enter through the pass without first defeating the enemy at his tank positions, we should have been at his mercy. With our guns pointed at him from the bluffs, the American colonel will have no choice but to surrender."

"Ja, Hans, that is what you say," Colonel Funke said with considered deliberateness and then seemed to come to an abrupt decision. "What time did we agree upon for H-hour?" he asked Dietrich.

"Sometime after dark," Dietrich said, smiling to himself. The battle plan had never been discussed with Oberst Funke in such specifics as time, although Dietrich had charted every movement to the second. "We shall use the remainder of the day in preparation. On such a day the heat would be our enemy against fixed defensive positions. We have each of the Allied tanks pinpointed and when it is dark and cool, we shall move against them. We shall have to use the halftracks as minesweepers to get within range, but the minute we are, we shall simply open up with our vastly superior firepower. It is not likely but it is possible that by morning you may be able to take over the port." 

The colonel considered this for a moment. "Yes, of course, Hans," he said slowly, "but that is only if everything goes according to the plan. You must never underestimate the capabilities of your enemy. What happens if he possesses weapons or strength within the port of which we are not aware?"

"I have considered this, Herr Oberst," Dietrich said. "Although I have confidence in our Arabian friends, I realize their information is sometimes unreliable and often insufficient because they are neither skilled nor trained observers. To compensate for this, I have a new weapon I propose to use against Colonel Wilson. I brought it along from Sidi Abd, concealed by the dust in the middle of my column."

"You have a new weapon, concerning which I have not been told?" Colonel Funke said in quick offense. He inflated his lungs until they lifted him quite erect. "How could this be? If you were sent something new to test, surely I would have been informed of it."

"It is something I devised myself, Herr Oberst," Dietrich said soothingly.

"You should have told me what you were up to," Colonel Funke said reproachfully.

"It has not been tested in combat," Dietrich said, "although I have no doubt that it will work. If you will come with me, you shall see it now."

"I wish you had not waited until the final moment," Crlonel Funke said but he heaved himself from the canvas stool that was wet with the marks of his cheeks. He pulled on trousers and a shirt with colonel's epaulets. He left the shirt unbuttoned, clapped a pith helmet on his head and sat beside Dietrich in the open patrol car, puffing and wheezing at the dust. They drove across a mile of desert toward the column that was pointed west in the direction of the enemy tank emplacements. As they approached the armor, Dietrich could see the heat lifting in thick, visible layers from the twenty-eight-ton PzKw III and IV tanks with their long-barreled seventy-five millimeter guns, and the halftracks with their howitzers and short-barreled ones. The one eighty-eight millimeter antiaircraft gun with the force was with Funke's column. This was too bad because it had exceptional range.

As Dietrich drove slowly beside the armored column, Colonel Funke suddenly gripped his arm.

"Great God, Hans!" he cried, pointing between the halftracks. "What have you done? Why did you not tell me you had captured them?"

Dietrich slowed, smiling as he turned his head in the direction the colonel was pointing. Between the halftracks were two jeeps, windshields down against the hoods. Each jeep mounted a heavy machine gun in the rear. Four men were dragging camouflage nets over the jeeps. They wore faded sun-tans and peculiar headpieces. One man sported an Australian bush hat, another a dark beret. A man in steel-rimmed glasses was wearing the red-topped cap of a French Foreign Legionnaire, while the fourth bore a steel helmet on his head and was chewing a matchstick.

"The Rat Patrol!" Colonel Funke exclaimed in hoarse disbelief. "How? When?"

"Oh, yes," Dietrich said absently. "Well, perhaps we had better return to the CP at once so I can explain." 

"I should rather think so," the colonel said testily. "It seems you have a great deal to explain, Hans." He glanced about quickly at the crews who had sought shade behind and between the vehicles. "You have them under adequate guard?"

"Most assuredly, Herr Oberst," Dietrich said and drove the rest of the way to the tent without speaking.

"Well now, Hans, what is this about the Rat Patrol?" Colonel Funke demanded when they both were seated on canvas stools inside the CP. "Have you interrogated them?" 

"Not only interrogated, instructed them, Herr Oberst," Dietrich said with a small smile. "You see, this is
my
Rat Patrol. It only looks like theirs. It is my secret weapon."

No alert had been sounded in Sidi Beda and the native quarter still sweltered and stunk, but it slumbered as the Rat Patrol in two jeeps plunged up the zigzagging lane that led past the Fat Frenchman's wine shop. Wilson would have warned the captains of the ships at the docks and the Navy, Troy thought, and the cargo vessels would be pulling out under escort of the two destroyers. It was too bad the destroyers couldn't have remained. They would have bolstered the town's defenses which now were left in the hands of a small armored battalion that included a few truck drivers, mechanics and some MPs. If Jerry knocked out the Sherman tanks above the town, Sidi Beda was lost. Troy pulled his bush hat from his dripping head and jammed it back low on his forehead.

"Slow down, Tully," he growled. "Each of these jeeps is carrying enough explosives to blow up the place. Anyway, there's no hurry."

Tully shot a lightning look at him as he eased his foot on the accelerator. "Sarge," he drawled, "I sort of got the idea there was one hell of a hurry."

"Do you know how to climb that bluff?" Troy asked, examining the almost perpendicular thrust of the limestone and clay that rose in sheer ledges above the roofs at the end of the alley.

"Wilson said we was to find a trail or goat path," Tully said.

"If we try to do it by ourselves, we'll spend all afternoon searching and probably wind up on a dead-end ledge where we can't turn around," Troy said. "It's one thing to give an order and another to carry it out. Since he left it to us, we're going to do it our way. We'll find a guide who will direct us right the first time."

"You know how Wilson feels about Ay-rabs, Sarge," Tully said. "They'd sell us out to the Jerries the first chance they got."

"Who said anything about an Arab?" Troy demanded. "Stop when you come to the wine shop."

Tully whistled softly. "You think the Fat Frenchman will guide us?"

"No," Troy said shortly. "I don't think he knows. But if there is a way, I think Ray can point it out."

"Sarge, you nuts?" Tully protested. "You know she's half——"