The Rat Patrol 4 - Two-Faced Enemy

by David King

  He came to the place where the jeep tires had crossed over the furrows almost an hour before. Any advantage they'd had was slipping away fast.

  He was still tottering on with his nose to the trail when Tully let out a yell. "You can get back in the carriage, Sarge. There's plenty of trail on ahead."

  Stiffly he straightened and lifted his head. The tracks pointed like an arrow more to the east than the south. He didn't walk back to the jeep. He waited until Tully was beside him, then pulled himself into the front seat.

  When Troy had rinsed his mouth out with water and let a little of it trickle down his parched throat, he called to Moffitt, "Cover, will you, Jack? For a few minutes. Until I get my wind back."

  "Surely, Sam," Moffitt answered, and if he chuckled he covered it with a cough.

  Side by side, the jeeps leaped away like hound dogs hot on a scent, although there was no moon and it was quite dark now. Troy sometimes thought Tully drove by his nose.

  Troy jerked his head up with a start. The jeep was stopped and Tully was shaking him. Moffitt and Hitch were pulled alongside. It wasn't morning, but it was no longer night. In the strange light he could see details and features quite clearly, but everything looked either black or blue.

  "Why did you let me sleep?" he demanded unreasonably, "Forget that. Thanks. Have we caught up with the convoy." Tully pointed straight ahead. Dust hung like a black feather against a blue drape.

  "We think we might circle now and run on ahead of them, Sam," Moffitt said.

  "How long have I slept?" Troy asked, looking at his watch. It was oh-three-thirty-five hours.

  "Almost an hour," Tully said. "We picked up on them in the sand."

  Troy swore. "We don't know how much farther the dump might be. We don't know how much time we have. Move. Move, damnit. Get a compass reading on their course and take off."

  "Already got it, Sarge," Tully said mildly and let out the clutch.

  They circled wide to the south since the course was ESE and in an hour they were back on the bearing. The sun wasn't up yet but it was light. The sky was blue and pink. It was going to be another scorcher. Troy and Moffitt were back on the guns, searching the limitless desert for some indication of a dump. Troy was betting on a small oasis. The trucks that hauled the drums would have needed water and Jerry would not have wasted precious room to carry it. He estimated they had half an hour on the convoy, perhaps forty-five minutes, at the most an hour. But to be safe, thirty minutes. The Jerries would have picked up their tracks now and be after them. The halftracks had a speed of about twenty-five miles an hour, the trucks not much more than that in the sand. It was a toss-up. Maybe both a halftrack and a truckload of men with machine pistols were on the trail right now.

  "Pour it on, Tully," he urged.

  Tully just shrugged helplessly.

  Twenty minutes later, Moffitt sang out, "Land ho, hard to the lee!"

  Troy looked to the south and then to the north and back to the south, uncertain just what the leeboard might be in this sea of sand. A dark patch, a blob showed to the south.

  "Easy does it," he called back. He doubted there'd be a guard of any sort at this isolated dump and hoped the drums weren't too hard to find. But he remembered the earlier conversation he'd had with himself before he'd blown all reason to the wind and lost the convoy.

  In standard procedure, the jeeps parted before they reached the oasis to make a slow circle of it from opposite sides. It was an inviting place that covered perhaps an acre and nourished a few dozen palm trees that looked well fed along with some other greenery. There would be a waterhole at the middle, Troy thought, and just then he noticed a squatty, boxlike concrete structure with slits that probably were for machine guns. He was swinging his Browning on it when two men in shorts with shirts with hacked-off sleeves sprang from behind it and ran toward the jeep waving their hands and shouting in German at the tops of their voices. Just before Troy almost cut them down with a burst, he remembered Moffitt, Hitch, Tully and he still were wearing the Jerry uniforms they'd put on the night before and he relaxed his hold on the grips. The poor devils probably had been stuck out here alone for months and didn't even question the jeep.

  "Stop," he told Tully, handing him a coil of nylon rope. "Walk up to them grinning. I'll keep you covered. Tie their hands behind their backs and secure them together."

  The Jerries looked so happy when they saw Tully coming toward them, Troy almost felt sorry for them. He trained the Browning right at their guts. The Jerries got the idea. They saw their mistake fast and started to run. Troy put a burst in the sand at their feet. That stopped them. They cried all the time Tully was tying them together.

  "Hey, Tully," Troy called. "Leave them a little play, give them three feet or so. Let them walk side by side, at least."

  When Moffitt and Hitch drove up, Troy turned the two Jerries over to Moffitt, asked him to explain they weren't being sent out to die in the desert but that the convoy would be along soon, probably before sunrise. Then Troy gave each one of the canteens he and Moffitt had taken from the Volkswagen.

  "How are they going to drink with their hands tied behind them, Sam?" Moffitt asked with an amused glint in his eyes.

  "Oh hell, cut them loose," Troy said gruffly. "Just tell them to get going and not to come back."

  Armed with submachine guns, Troy and Tully ran to the slitted concrete box. It was open at the back. Machine guns were in position at each of the slits.

  "You suppose there's a third?" Tully asked, flattening against the wall and pointing his gun down a flight of concrete steps.

  "There was," Troy said tersely and jerked his thumb at a cross under a palm tree a dozen yards away.

  Down the steps was a bunker with cots and living facilities. A heavy metal door at the rear led to an underground concrete storehouse. There must have been two hundred hundred-gallon drums of gasoline in the place.

  "All right," Troy said, starting up the steps. "You and Hitch fill the jeeps and the cans with gas and water. The doctor and I will plant the packages."

  Back at the jeep, he took four plastic time charges from a crate in the back, glancing as he did at the Jerries he'd turned loose. They were half trotting into the desert and they weren't looking back.

  Tully and Hitch worked at the double and when they'd taken all the gas and water they could carry, Troy and Moffitt put the four plastic time charges in the middle of the drums, closed the metal door and raced to the jeeps that were waiting with motors idling. As they jumped in their seats and sped off, Troy saw the two Jerries now a good mile away, and not more than a mile or two beyond them the convoy approaching. The Jerries were running. The convoy stopped when it came to the Jerries and the sun was just rising when an entire oasis blew into the sky.

  6

  Hauptmann Hans Dietrich had a problem. It was the minefield. He was standing in his armored car, radio earphones clamped over his cap and glasses about his neck, a field map beside him on the seat, when the first rays of the sun turned the pink on the horizon to gold. He had spent most of the night studying the locations of the five halftracks that had been lost to the mines and comparing them with the penetration that had been made by the other nine vehicles. He was puzzled and had come to the conclusion that some of his crews had been careless, although he was not prepared to say just how.

  Throwing his eleven reserve tanks into the line to supplement the remaining halftracks as minesweepers, he gave the order to advance. The mighty armored force churned into the battlefield. The backup line of tanks had been ordered to hold fire until within effective range. Once more the deafening blast of seventy-five millimeter shells slamming the earth and the clapping explosions of detonated mines rang in Dietrich's ears, but this morning he did not stand quite so straight and his eyes were clouded. He had come to the conclusion that the American colonel, Wilson, had sown the minefield in a casual, haphazard fashion. It offended Dietrich's military sense of precision and it confused his approach to the minesweeping pr
oblem.

  It was both physically and logistically impossible to clear every square yard of the field. Dietrich had considered this solution and had come up with a figure of some seventy-five thousand shells, which was of course completely out of the question. He was hopeful that his force could advance to effective firing range without sustaining serious losses and he also was hoping, though not being hopeful, that some pattern still might be read into the design.

  The field before Dietrich was a pounding haze of blinding, golden dust when the sun burst full upon it and one of Dietrich's tank commanders reported the first loss. A mine had blown the treads from the right side of a tank. There were no casualties.

  It was at this moment that Herr Oberst Funke chose to call. The old man was babbling so brokenly and incoherently that Dietrich decided he was drunk and was about to sign off in disgust when he caught one word that curdled his blood. It was El Alghur.

  "Herr Oberst, Herr Oberst," he said crisply, though he was shaking inside. "Please speak more slowly and clearly. There is a battle underway and it is very difficult to hear and understand. What did you say of El Alghur? Have the trucks returned?"

  "No, Hans. Oh! It is terrible." The colonel was sobbing. "It is unbearably inconceivable, this fresh disaster at El Alghur."

  "Come, pull yourself together, Oberst! What happened at El Alghur?" Dietrich asked with sure knowledge of what he would be told.

  "It was just as they arrived. The convoy, Hans." The colonel was speaking haltingly. "I sent two halftracks to protect it. The convoy arrived safely. They were within sight of the oasis, perhaps no more than a mile away. The two of the guards who remained, they were running to meet the convoy in the desert. They warned of what was to happen, and as they spoke it happened. The entire dump simply exploded. Everything gone, Hans. What shall we do?"

  "What were the guards doing in the desert?" Dietrich asked needlessly and purposefully from the unthinking part of his brain. His mind was racing ahead furiously, questing for petrol and oil.

  "They had been taken unaware by this Gottverdamtig Rat Patrol." In his anger now Oberst Funke was more intelligible. "Do you suppose, Hans, the guards were in this treachery with the Rat Patrol? Else why were they permitted to run out to warn the convoy?"

  "They were allowed to leave and warn the others simply because there was no need to kill them," Dietrich stated incontrovertibly. His mind was functioning as a single-purposed unit again. "Where is the convoy?"

  "At El Alghur, or what is left of El Alghur," the colonel said piteously. "They radioed the information and asked for instructions. What shall we do, Hans? I think I should order a withdrawal at once while we still have fuel enough to return."

  "We do not have fuel enough to return, Herr Oberst," Dietrich said disdainfully. "That is why we must take the port. There is no choice for us now but victory. You must signal the convoy at once. At El Alghur, they are more than halfway to Sidi Abd. They must continue to Sidi Abd where there is a store of petrol. I do not think the Rat Patrol will attempt to blow that dump, but the convoy must be alert every minute when the return trip is started. I want them back here tomorrow afternoon. Will you relay that message at once, Herr Oberst?"

  "Ja, Hans, I am glad you agree that is the thing to do," the old man said and signed off.

  Loss of the fuel stored at El Alghur was more of a disaster than he'd admitted to Oberst Funke, Dietrich thought bitterly as he absently marked his map with the position of the halftrack that had been lost. Even with the fuel he hoped the convoy would bring from Sidi Abd, his conduct of the battle would be curtailed if he did not achieve a reasonably quick victory. His need was not immediate, not today nor tomorrow. But three days from now, if the battle stalled and the convoy did not return from Sidi Abd, he would be stranded here on the plateau. His command would consist of a column of dry tanks.

  Signals had been crackling in his eardrums and now they claimed his attention. In quick succession, three commanders reported losses: two more halftracks and one tank. It was becoming increasingly difficult to remain calm and his fingers trembled a little as he marked the map. There was no pattern anywhere, nor explanation for the varied progress of the advance. Some units seemed to lag while others spurted ahead. Two tanks acting as minesweepers near the middle of the line had pushed through to the fifteen-hundred yard point. The two tanks behind them moved up and four seventy-fives now opened fire on the two tank positions at the center of the Allied fine of defense. Until now the enemy had held his fire, but scarcely had the PzKws opened than not two but four of the defensive positions swept the Afrika Korps armor. Dietrich shook his head and bit his lip. One of the advantages on which he had counted was the maneuverability of his force against the permanent installations of the enemy. In the minefield, his armor was in as fixed position as it was possible to be.

  Dietrich lifted his field glasses and focused into the mantle of pulverized dirt directly in front of his station where the duel was taking place. He could not see his tanks fifteen hundred yards away. He could not see any of his units. Everywhere shells were crashing, mines were blasting in a hellish nightmare of confusion. Now three more tanks moved into range and they with their minesweeper escorts opened fire. Half a dozen additional enemy positions promptly joined. It was completely impossible to judge what was happening on the dust-enshrouded field. Dietrich's tanks were within visual sighting range but were forced to fire by calculation. They had the advantage of being hidden from the enemy, whose positions were established, but they could not see the result of their fire.

  Although the day was still in its early hours, the temperature already had passed ninety. Dietrich himself, with a handkerchief covering his nose and mouth, was choked by the hot dust. Although he wore goggles, he was half blinded. The reports that reached him were garbled and confused. He did not know whether his force had knocked out a single enemy position nor did he know what losses he had sustained.

  At oh-eight-hundred -hours, he ordered a general withdrawal. The enemy would not run away. He would be able to return again at will at least as far as his armor had already advanced and it was essential that he appraise the results of the first engagement. Each enemy emplacement that had been knocked out would not only be a weak point to be exploited but also would be a position on which no more shells need be wasted.

  The Afrika Korps armored vehicles rumbled back, and when they had reached their original positions. Dietrich called for a rotation roll from his commanders. Some responded, some did not. The result was inconclusive. He did not know whether those who failed to answer were still in the field or whether there had been communications breakdowns. The slow-settling dust pall still concealed what had happened. Dietrich chafed and waited. It was one hell of a way to wage a battle.

  As the dust gradually dissipated, Dietrich's field glasses roamed restlessly over the battlefield. He did not like the shrouded shapes they found and when he was able to distinguish and count them his spirit withered. Three more halftracks had been disabled or wrecked, and more appalling, five of his tanks had been left on the field. The crews of some of the vehicles of war were returning warily afoot, now that they could see where they were going. No life at all showed around others.

  The toll had been heavy and Dietrich turned his glasses to the enemy positions they would reach, seeking the crippled, the disabled, wondering whether the price he had paid was too high. He could not see all of the emplacements, and as if sensing his question and realizing this, the Allied tanks, starting from the west, each fired a salute in succession. He counted, and when they were through all twenty-five positions had spoken.

  A bomber; send just one B-25, Wilson had pleaded with Divisional Headquarters when the observer in the Cub had reported the armored column parked by the side of the road about six miles southeast of Latsus Pass. They were sitting ducks. Yes, they had an eighty-eight millimeter antiaircraft gun, but there was nothing new about that. In addition to the column at Latsus Pass, there were times when the armor on
the plateau was pretty well bunched and there was no indication they had an eighty-eight or they would have been using it on the emplacements. Divisional Headquarters had told him what they'd said the day before, but now it was twenty-four hours instead of forty-eight hours and tomorrow he would have a squadron, but today the bombers were committed and could not be diverted. With the wheeling and dealing Wilson had done with his tanks, pushing them this way and that wherever and whenever they were needed, it seemed to him the Air Force was being a little hidebound and stuffy.

  Lieutenant Farb, in charge of the defenses on the plateau, had reported the minefield and tanks not only holding but inflicting significant losses on the enemy. The enemy still held an awesome superiority in numbers on the plateau and could call upon the column beyond Latsus Pass for reinforcements. Wilson was not sanguine about his situation.

  Farb had reported an item of interest. When the enemy had withdrawn for a breathing spell, he had sent out not only for his casualties but also had drained the gas from his disabled units. It may have been merely that Dietrich was a frugal man or it may have indicated something a great deal more important, although the aerial observer reported what appeared to be a vast store of fuel drums still at the old site of the CP which had been moved.

  The morning was blistering and the town was panting and sweating, but there had been no further outward signs of unrest. Life in the native quarter and trade at the bazaar seemed to be normal. Wilson was keeping the Arabs and Frenchies sealed up between the military boulevard and the bluff and Christianson was circulating among the natives again. The Rat Patrol was in there somewhere fomenting Lord knew what kind of dissension. He hadn't risked going into the bazaar where Christianson had seen them. He'd been afraid of bloodshed and he didn't have the force to quell a native uprising.

  The defection of the Rat Patrol was the most crushing blow Wilson had suffered in his entire military career. It wasn't the first time men had cracked up under the continuing strain of battle, and perhaps he had contributed to it by his sometimes harsh words, but he'd thought each member of the Rat Patrol was man enough to take it. He had looked upon the Rat Patrol as a superior military machine, a very personal extension of himself. The situation made Wilson physically ill. It could no longer be an ordinary court-martial with the Rat Patrol. When they were caught, they'd be tried for treason and shot.