The Rat Patrol 4 - Two-Faced Enemy (25 page)

Nicodeme was a disreputable character and probably no better than the prisoners, but Wilson knew he spoke the truth. He was not aware of the Arab merchant, but he himself had found the warehouse and the receiver-transmitter.

"Never have I had a thing to do with the Arab named Ali Abu," de la Croix cried. "It is all a pack of dirty lies."

"What happened to the stores that were in the warehouse?" Wilson asked Nicodeme. "Particularly the gasoline.

I have been in the warehouse and it was empty."

The Frenchman's eyes were crafty as they darted from Wilson to de la Croix. "Ask him," he suggested.

"What happened to the stolen gasoline?" Wilson suddenly roared at de la Croix.

"I cannot tell you what I do not know," de la Croix said helplessly.

"I shall tell you, Colonel," Nicodeme hissed. "With de la Croix showing the way, it was transported at night in two jeeps over an old and little-used trail into the desert."

The Rat Patrol again, Wilson thought bitterly. They had been actively working with the enemy for some time. What Nicodeme had told him enabled him to fit all of the pieces together—Laurentz de la Croix, Rhee, the Arab, the Rat Patrol. With Nicodeme's testimony, Wilson was ready to take his case before a court, military or civil or even a tribunal.

"Return the prisoners to confinement," he ordered the two MPs stationed at the door. As an afterthought he added, "And hold Nicodeme as a material witness."

Troy trotted with Tully through the wet sand up the dune and turned to look back. Dietrich was still lying near the dead horse. A man was running toward him, but no one was pursuing Troy and Tully. Half a hundred men were swarming about the damaged armor.

"The hardest part of it was keeping from laughing when I saw you creeping up on Dietrich," Troy said. "How did you happen to be there?"

"Gertrude threw me," Tully said sourly. "I was lucky. I landed on my head, and no cracks, please. My helmet saved me. I was wearing it under the burnoose. I was running away and Dietrich was after me. The next thing I knew he was down in the mud. When he lit out for you, I peeled off my robes and took a dive. I seen you was okay and I figured you'd know enough to keep his attention while I sneaked up."

"Thanks for your confidence in my intelligence," Troy said, shedding his robe. He laughed. "And thanks for the hand. We'd better get started. We've a long hike."

Troy looked back once more. The man was helping Dietrich to his feet.

"How come they're not after us?" Tully asked as they trotted down a slope.

"Except for Dietrich, I think they're a beat bunch," Troy said.

When they'd topped the next dune and still saw no pursuit, they dropped to a walk, following the marks of the hooves in the sand. The armor was stuck and they'd blown the tracks from at least a dozen halftracks and tanks. It amused Troy that they'd attacked the armor with horses. Dietrich's men must be dispirited if not demoralized. The machine gun emplacement they'd captured at the pass had probably been replaced with another, but they'd thrown the mortars over the bluff. It was questionable whether Dietrich had additional mortars. If they could take those two positions, Troy thought the time had come for Wilson to bring his halftracks up through the pass.

Moffitt and Hitch met them on horseback a mile from the jeeps.

"We were becoming a bit agitated, chappies," Moffitt said, smiling. "Where did you lose your transportation?" 

"Right next to the armor where Dietrich could pick us up," Troy growled. "Where were your eyes?"

"Straight ahead on the eastern horizon," Hitch said and blew a bubble. He took the gum from his mouth, looked at it and threw it away. "I must of been chewing on that for more than a day."

"We can remove the saddles and ride double," Moffitt suggested.

"Oh no, we won't," Tully declined. "Pappy always said, if it ain't good the first time, don't go back for seconds."

Troy looked at the sky and his watch. It was after eighteen-hundred hours. "Be dark fast," he said to Moffitt. "You and Hitch ride back, shred up some stuff from the ration boxes and heat some water for coffee. We'll eat the sandwiches that are left and get on with the war."

"Aw, Sarge," Tully groaned. "I'm a casualty. Can't we leave something undone to keep us busy tomorrow?" 

"Sure," Troy said cheerfully. "Tomorrow we'll pitch in and give Wilson a lift."

It was black, foreboding pitch blackness, by the time they'd drunk their coffee and eaten. Gertrude hadn't returned, but Moffitt's and Hitch's horses were tied to the jeep and they whinnied.

"They'd make nice pets but they'd give us away." Hitch said.

"In addition to which they are probably hungry and thirsty," Moffitt said. "We don't actually have further need of them, do we?"

"I hope not," Troy said grinning. "Take their saddles for souvenirs if you want and turn them loose. They ought to have sense enough to head for home."

"And what about us?" Tully asked dolefully.

"That's where we're going too," Troy said. "Home. As soon as we've taken care of the machine guns and any mortars that are left."

"Aw, Sarge," Tully and Hitch chimed in a chorus.

Troy alternated with Moffitt walking the jeeps back near the route south of Dietrich's CP. Lanterns burned at several of the tents. If it didn't rain again, Dietrich would be able to move what was left of the armor in the morning, Troy thought.

"We have to take these positions without any outcry," he said when the jeeps were behind the dunes about a mile from the route. "When they're no longer in working condition, we'll cut behind Dietrich's armor in the field and slip back into town down the old trade route."

"Why do we always have to do it the hard way?" Tully moaned. "When we take the positions, whyn't we just drive down the pass?"

"Wilson must have weapons down there," Troy said. "They'd fire at anything that moved."

Carrying only knives, garrotes and forty-fives, they slunk across the route into the desert and slipped through the darkness toward the emplacement on the west side of the pass. There seemed to be an unusual amount of activity at the tents when they crept by at a distance of no more than two hundred yards. Tomorrow, Troy thought again; Dietrich was mapping some plan for tomorrow.

The four of them crawled on their bellies over the wet ground up to the emplacement. Five men were huddled about a small fire they'd built in a hole in the ground, warming rations in tin cups they held by the handles with knives.

"Take them," Troy whispered.

They were four fleeting shadows that struck silently from the black. Hitch had his garrote on the throat of his second victim before Troy, Moffitt and Tully felt the men they'd seized stop struggling. There had been no outcry. They found no mortars, and they plugged the barrel of the machine gun with mud.

A subtle change in the atmosphere had taken place during the struggle and while Troy was aware of it, at first he didn't know what it was. He tensed, listening and looking for it. Look! That was it. He could see the outlines of Moffitt, Tully and Hitch. They no longer were shadows that merged with the gloom. Glancing up, he felt rather than saw that the clouds had started to dissipate.

"We're losing our cover," he said quietly.

Moffitt looked at the sky and nodded. "Not only that," he said. "If the sun comes out in the morning, it will bake the ground dry enough for Dietrich to move."

In single file, they crawled back to the road on their hands and knees and slid across it on their stomachs. A yard at a time, they slithered into the second emplacement. Again, it was a five-man crew manning the position during the night. Four of the men were sprawled near the machine gun but the fifth was standing guard ten or twelve yards from them. While the others slipped ahead, Tully took the sentry's neck in the crook of his arm and silenced him with his Bowie knife. Troy, Moffitt and Hitch dived for the others. No one called out but there was a struggle and one of the Jerries scrambled off. Troy saw the man running as he scuffled and started to shout but then Tully had the man by the legs. They rolled on the ground and then Tully stood, sheathing his Bowie knife.

Six mortars were emplaced at this position. They required crews of at least two men to a weapon. That meant another ten or twelve men would report here for duty in the morning. Whatever Wilson did would have to be accomplished before then. Troy wouldn't risk the clatter the mortars might make if they were pushed off the bluff and he couldn't leave them.

"We'll have to carry them far enough down the pass so Dietrich won't be able to find them," he said.

He rammed the barrel and breach of the machine gun with mud and sand, and with two of them to each mortar, they sweated and grunted three long trips down the steep, curved road through the pass. The mortars were left piled against the rocky side of the last curve, within range of the halftrack stationed at the bottom. Troy even considered trying to reach the halftrack, but there was no cover and he was certain the crew would shoot at anything that came out of the pass.

By the time the four men of the Rat Patrol dragged their feet to the top of the pass after the third trip, the sky had shed all of its cloud drapery and the stars were pricking through the deep purple. There still was no moon. The men crouched as they sprinted and skidded across the field of mud to the east of the armored column and found the firmer grip of the sand hill. Once over the dune, they alternately trotted and walked the three or four miles to the jeeps.

Troy scouted the road. It was deserted. Nothing moved in the night. The jeeps crossed it slowly, purring gently, and clawed into the desert. Troy directed an arcing route that would take them well behind Dietrich's tanks and halftracks and bring them in safe on the old trade route. The moon uncovered its face. It was full and it spilled milky white light over the moistly dark sand. All the water was gone and the moist sand made a firm track. The jeeps raced, running well south of the battle line, through a cold, silent world where everyone slumbered. It took about an hour to work about Dietrich's menacing armor and it was nearly twenty-two hundred hours when the jeeps reached the trail that ran between Sidi Beda and the oasis the Arabs had used as a dump for the stolen gasoline. The landmarks were familiar and friendly as they always are on the road home and it seemed strange to Troy that only a few days before this had been an alien area he never had seen. They approached the two huge rocks where the Arabs had waited to ambush them. Troy thought he heard the throb of laboring engines.

"Stop," he told Tully. "Run the jeep behind one of the rocks." He motioned Hitch to the other.

Tully and Hitch parked the jeeps and shut off the motors. The four of them jumped down and shagged up the craggy rocks. The sound was louder and it was a thrumming Troy recognized, the straining of motors with transmissions engaged in gear. Vehicles were working up the setbacks on the old trade route.

"Get your tommy-guns but hold your fire," he told the others. "Maybe it's Arabs, but it might be some of our men who've found this route."

Back with his gun and ready for action, Troy watched as two jeeps with windshields down fiat against the hoods and machine guns mounted in the rears dragged into the plateau for a few yards and stopped. Four familiar figures with individually characteristic headpieces were in the jeeps. For a stunned second, Troy, Moffitt, Tully and Hitch stared speechlessly.

"Hey, what do you know, Sarge," Tully finally drawled. "It's us."

15

Head hammering so savagely he could hardly see, Dietrich had staggered back toward his car with Corporal Willi Wunder half carrying him. He was filthy with greasy mud and seething with fury and outraged pride. The Rat Patrol had struck and escaped again. He'd had Sergeant Troy in his grasp and the man had slipped through his lingers. His own men—no! Colonel Funke's men—had sat on their tails and not given chase. When he reached his car, he called for Gleicher.

"Lieutenant!" he roared and immediately lowered his voice. Shouting made his head pound worse. "We were attacked by horsemen. Why were those men permitted to reach the armor? Why didn't you go after them and capture them or kill them?"

"It was thought they were the Arabs of whom you had told us," Gleicher said. His face was stiff and pale. "There was nothing to indicate they were hostile until the first grenade exploded. You know the antics of the Arabs. We drove them off with our fire but did not pursue them because no vehicles were available."

"Vehicles," Dietrich croaked wrathfully. "You are a vehicle. I am a vehicle. Alone, I went after them on foot."

"Ja, Herr Hauptmann," Gleicher said weakly.

"Have you assessed the damage?" Dietrich snapped impatiently.

"There was one casualty only," Gleicher reported promptly. "Ten of the weapons were injured. Treads were blown from four of the halftracks and six of the tanks. Also the communications van was destroyed. The radio operator was killed."

"We are without communications?" Dietrich yelled and caught his breath, holding his head. He continued in a small, tight voice. "One casualty only and it is the radio operator. We are stranded without gasoline and now we have no communications. You, Herr Gleicher, who cannot run unless you have a vehicle, had best learn to use your feet. Why have you moved none of the armor back on the road?"

"The mud is very deep, Herr Hauptmann, and it is half in a ditch off the road where the armor sits," Gleicher said. His face was flushed and he was standing at rigid attention. "It was a deluge and we are in a muddy river to some depth. There is nothing solid in which the cleats can get their teeth."

"How long, Herr Gleicher, do you estimate it will be before we may resume the war?" Dietrich asked icily.

"Oh, if the rain does not fall again and the sun is shining, perhaps we should be able to move some of the halftracks back on the road by tomorrow afternoon or later," Gleicher said.

"I want all of the armor on the road by tomorrow morning," Dietrich said furiously. "Put crews on them tonight. There are men. There are shovels. Put them together."