by David King
"Grab your socks," he barked harshly in his best drill instructor's voice and grinned as the three of them rolled and came up with their tommy-guns.
"You shouldn't ought to do that, Sarge," Tully complained. "I was dreaming a Jerry was chasing me and I was just diving for my weapon."
"Never let a Jerry chase you," Troy said. "You get the drop on him first."
"What's the program?" Hitch asked, jaw moving on the gum he always had.
"We have deprived Jerry of his petrol," Moffitt said with a smile. "He still has his ammunition. Is that what you have in mind, Sam?"
"Something like that, Jack," Troy said. "Why don't we just mosey up to the plateau and see how our defenses are holding. We might blow a tank tread or two."
They drove straight north for almost an hour and then turned east toward the Mediterranean. Although the jeeps ran without lights, the moon was so bright their shadows ran with them. It was a warm evening, not uncomfortable but warm for the desert, and Troy thought the air felt moist. It was strange, he thought, that the humidity from the ocean should be so noticeable after just one day in the interior.
It was nearing twenty-two-hundred hours when they approached the oasis where they'd destroyed the first Jerry dump. Tully and Hitch parked on a dune a thousand yards away and Troy and Moffitt observed it carefully through glasses for several minutes before they circled it wide in opposite directions. The smell of gasoline and burned oil still clung to it, and the sand was littered with blown drums and the black wreckage of the halftrack and truck. The area was clear and Troy went in to the waterhole. The brackish water had a faintly oilish taste. After filling the tanks with gasoline, they used the water only to fill the radiators. From the oasis, they drove straight north toward the western end of the defense line, keeping within the shadowed valleys until the ground began to get rocky.
"We'd better leave the jeeps and go on foot," Troy told Tully.
Carrying tommy-guns and grenades, the four crawled ahead to reconnoiter. It was uncommonly quiet on the plateau, Troy thought, as if all the world were sleeping, but the air tasted of recent battle. They slunk over the hard earth for almost half a mile before Troy, cresting a stony dime, saw the squatty outlines of two medium Jerry tanks about a thousand yards ahead. They were facing the last Allied position across the minefield, but they were about four thousand yards from it, well out of range. The ravaged earth bore evidence of exploded mines. Troy wondered why the guns were silent. The night was ideal for warfare. He considered planting a grenade with the pin pulled under the treads of a tank and dismissed the idea. There would be other targets and he wanted a further look at the situation before alerting the Jerries.
"I don't like it," he said quietly when he was in the valley with the others. "It's peculiar. It doesn't feel right. Dietrich ought to have all his armor pounding away at our positions."
"Maybe he's out of gas, Sarge," Tully drawled and fished a matchstick from his pocket.
"Not so soon," Troy said. "He must have started with full tanks. He's got enough gas for another day or two."
"What do you think, Sam?" Moffitt asked.
"I don't," Troy said, puzzled. "I just feel something in the air. Let's take the jeeps, swing south and come up near the middle of his line."
This time he had Tully park in a depression about a mile from his estimated position for the Jerry armor. Again the four of them advanced warily through shadowed valleys or from rock to rock when they found them. Troy left the others wrapped in shadows and crawled up a hard-packed slope on his belly. When he reached the top he flattened instinctively. He was closer to the Jerry armor than he'd realized. On both sides of the hill, tanks were parked and men were sleeping on the ground.
Bareheaded, he rested his chin on the ground and looked straight ahead. The minefield was pocked with a thousand craters. At the edge of the field he saw a small area that recently had been leveled. Shifting his eyes on down the line, he saw several more such positions at regular intervals. He slipped down the slope and came back to the top facing the opposite direction. Again he found several of the small, level sites. They were platforms for something, but what?
Moffitt was as puzzled as Troy when he returned and described them.
"They sound almost like artillery positions," Moffitt said, "but what would Dietrich be doing with artillery?"
"Let's slip around the back way to the other column and see if anything new has come in," Troy suggested.
They returned to the jeeps and drove straight east, coming to the route south of the command post they'd destroyed. Tully drove across it slowly, too slowly for Troy in the moonlight. Tully stopped behind the dune on the other side.
"What is it?" Troy asked.
"They been working on that road, Sarge," Tully said. "They been smoothing it out and filling it in."
"So there's a regulation against that?" Troy asked.
Hitch and Moffitt parked and walked over.
"What is it, Sam?" Moffitt asked.
"Ask Tully," he said.
"They been fixing up that road for a plane to land," Tully said. "They don't give a hoot or a holler how rough a road is for trucks and tanks. The only reason they been smoothing that road out is a plane is coming in here carrying something they don't want jarred no more than can be helped."
Troy looked narrowly at Moffitt. "High explosives," he said.
"You know, Sam," Moffitt said slowly, "I believe you are correct. And those positions you described might well be rocket-launching pads."
Troy whistled soundlessly. "They could tear the town apart. We've our night's work cut out for us."
"Such as?" Hitch asked.
"We're going to mine that road for the whole distance it's been worked," Troy said. "Every place they've filled in a pot hole, we're going to plant an impact charge." He laughed quietly. "I hope it takes all we've got. I'll be glad to get rid of them."
They remained behind the dune until the moon went out and then they worked in teams. Troy and Tully started at the end of the repaired road near the former command post. The drums still were there, stacked three and four high and lined in rows, but no guards patrolled them now. Where the tents had been, there was only a blacker patch in the darkness. Moffitt and Hitch worked toward them from two miles away. Although they worked rapidly, scratching out the packed earth with their knives, laying their charges at a depth of one or two inches and packing the dirt carefully back, it was almost oh-three-hundred in the morning before the four of them met. Not a patrol car or guard had appeared all during the night.
Wearily Troy trudged with the others over the dune to the jeeps. "Funny they didn't have any guards," he mumbled.
"Why should they, Sam?" Moffitt asked and chuckled. "They undoubtedly have had contact with Sidi Abd and the Arab bit won't deceive Dietrich. He thinks now that we've destroyed all his patrol, our mission is accomplished and we're out of his hair."
"Maybe you're right," Troy said sleepily. "Let's get the nets over the jeeps."
"Are we going to stay here, Sarge?" Tully asked.
"Yes," Troy said. "I want to see what happens."
"We'd best find another place, Sam," Moffitt said. "Depending on the time they come in and the position of the sun, it's possible they might pick us up from the air even though we are under nets."
"I guess you're right, Doctor, and I thank you," Troy said, yawning again. "I'm too sleepy to think straight. Where shall we go?"
"Into the deep wadi where we parked last night when we hit the command post," Moffitt said. "We can watch the events from the dune."
"Sorry, gents," Tully drawled, "but aren't you forgetting something?"
"Oh?" Moffitt said, smiling. "What have we forgotten?"
"Tracks," Tully said. "From the air, they'd lead right into the wadi, and like you said, the nets might not hide us."
"All right, Tully," Troy said edgily. "I'd like to be within a couple miles. Where do we go?"
"There's just one safe place," Tully
said rolling his matchstick. "We dig us a cave by pulling out some of them empty drums they got piled up. Nobody's paying attention to them now. Nobody's going to notice a extra row we make from those we take out for our hole. We'll have a ringside seat for the show and they're going to be too busy with that busted up plane to pay us any attention when we bust out."
9
It was Herr Oberst Funke's snoring that had awakened him, Dietrich was certain, as he opened his eyes in the gray half-light inside the HQ tent. The air was fetid and Dietrich rose swiftly from his cot and pulled back the flap at the entrance. He stepped outside in his undershorts, glancing at his watch and looking to the east where the sky was light but hazed. It was a few minutes past oh-five-hundred and any moment the rising sun would burn away the pallid gauze that draped the horizon. The camp was awake and the smell of coffee drifted from the mess tent. He listened a second or two for the drone of aircraft motors, but there was no sound from the sky. In fact it seemed unnaturally quiet. There seemed to be some pressure in the air and breathing was a little difficult.
He turned back into the tent, washed in a basin on an upended ammunition box and shaved hurriedly, dressing and leaving without disturbing the old man. He would have preferred remaining in the field the night before to sharing a tent with the beer-sour colonel, but he'd wanted to be sure he was on hand when the Me-323 arrived with its uncommon cargo. Nebelwerfers had been used a time or two in North Africa, but they were enough of a rarity to excite him and he wanted a private word with the officer in charge of the rocket launchers. He wanted it clearly understood that they were to be elevated for the range of the military targets only, the warehouses, piers and installations on the waterfront. He was afraid Herr Oberst Funke might want to try them out on the tanks and there was too much danger of overshooting the bluff with the terrible rockets.
Except for the physical disturbances created by the sodden colonel, it had been a quiet night, a peaceful night, and Dietrich had slept well. Now if the rockets could be brought in on the targets he'd charted, Sidi Beda should soon be in their hands. One round of six shells from each of the twenty-four pieces should do it and Herr Oberst Funke could ride in his glory to accept the surrender. The port facilities would have to be rebuilt after the barrage but that could not be helped.
At the mess tent, Dietrich nodded to three officers from Funke's column who were breakfasting but sat apart from them at the far end of the long table. The breakfast was satisfactory, relatively tasteless but passable. Without waiting for a second cup of coffee, he lighted a cigarette and stepped outside, sighting down the route as he did. The aircraft would land a good two miles away, he thought, at least a mile south of the old CP.
Oberst Funke trotted out in his shorts and unbuttoned shirt. "Hans, why did you not awaken me?" he asked, sounding offended.
"I was just coming in to do so," Dietrich said evenly and looked at his watch. "I think it is time we were started."
"One moment only," the colonel said, turning and starting back for the tent. "A car for me get."
"Are you coming with me to meet the aircraft?" Dietrich asked.
"No, Hans," Oberst Funke said. "You know what you wish to do with the Nebelwerfers. I am going to ready my column and proceed to the pass. There can be no doubt of the outcome. I shall take with me the communications van. Call me after you have fired your first rounds and I shall demand the surrender."
No doubt of the outcome, Dietrich thought a little bitterly. The colonel was right. It was not the way Dietrich liked to wage warfare, but with the threat to the civilian population, the result of the first wave of rockets was predictable. The American colonel, Wilson, would surrender rather than subject the native civilian population to annihilation. In a sense, it was amusing. Dietrich would not knowingly shell the civilians.
The colonel ducked into his tent and Dietrich ordered the staff car, a Mercedes sedan, brought around. With the abrupt appearance of Colonel Funke, the entire camp seemed to have awakened and now the mess tent was filled and the enlisted men were busy with small, individual fires preparing their rations at the sides of their units. While the colonel shaved and dressed, Dietrich kept looking to the sky and listening for the Me-323. The sun had not yet shown itself and the day was definitely overcast. Dietrich was not particularly concerned. It was odd to have this sort of weather after the weeks of hot, clear days that had followed the rainy season in December and January, but clouds would absorb some of the heat and even if rain should fall, which was unlikely, it would scarcely hamper the operation with the rockets.
"What was it you said the American colonel called himself?" Oberst Funke asked as he climbed into the Mercedes. He was dressed smartly in a fresh tunic and wore a pointed-crowned Afrika Korps cap.
"Wilson," Dietrich said absently, scanning the sky for the aircraft.
"So we shall meet in the town, Hans," the colonel said and chuckled. "Do you remember the place of the Frenchman? He knows how to keep his beer cool in the cellar. Shall we meet there? Hans? I shall allow you two hours to bring your armor into the town after the surrender."
"I shall meet you there, Herr Oberst," Dietrich said and smiled thinly. "Remember, the Frenchman's young lady knows how to keep Wehrmacht officers at a distance."
"Ach, Hans, I would not touch that one with a ten-foot pole if I possessed it," the colonel said and his face reddened. The French girl had rejected his attentions with a stinging blow to his chin in front of Dietrich and half a dozen staff officers.
The colonel's car, followed by the communication van, drove up the route to the head of the column, and Dietrich went looking for Corporal Willi Wunder to take him down the road.
The sky was graying rapidly along the horizon and Dietrich examined it curiously as the first elements of Colonel Funke's column turned over their motors. Even if it did rain, he did not see how it could interfere with the Nebelwerfers. Rain in the desert could mire the halftracks and tanks and he might have difficulty getting the armor off the battlefield, but the roadbed seemed substantial enough and Funke should have no trouble driving into the town. If there were a heavy rainfall and the half tracks and tanks bogged down, it would be the Nebelwerfers that saved the day.
Willi was waiting in the armored car just beyond the end of the column, sitting behind the steering wheel, smoking a cigarette. He started to get out but Dietrich waved him back. He thought at last he had heard the distant mutter of aircraft engines. He looked quickly at the gray sky but could see nothing.
"Drive right down the road," he told Corporal Wunder. "We'll wait for them where the empty drums are piled."
The Rat Patrol had been more bothersome than usual during this campaign, he thought but he smiled. Destruction of his fuel supplies had very nearly wrecked his plans for taking Sidi Beda, but out of necessity had come the call for the Nebelwerfers and if it did rain enough to muck down the armor, it would be the Rat Patrol he could thank for forcing him to bring in the rockets. With the last report of the Rat Patrol activity from Sidi Abd, they should not be annoying him again for a time. He had not heard from his own facsimile Rat Patrol again from Sidi Beda, but he was satisfied they already had served their purpose.
A fat drop of rain splashed on Dietrich's cheek as Willi neared the fuel drums. At almost the same moment, the enormous six-engined Me-323 emerged from the overcast. It circled the roadway and Dietrich told Willi to stop and put up the top. Willi braked in front of the rows of empty drums piled three high as the big plane began its approach to the road. Dietrich jumped from the car to give Willi a hand. He found himself facing Sergeant Sam Troy who stepped from the petrol drums with a submachine gun leveled at Dietrich's belt.
It had been a fitful morning, and several times Troy had awakened doubting the wisdom of Tully's suggestion that they conceal themselves within the drums. It had not been too much of a trick to remove a dozen barrels and make a new row, run in the jeeps and pile drums over them, but sitting on the ground with Tully in front of their jeep, Troy
had felt confined and restrained. The odor of the gasoline had choked him and the fumes made his eyes smart. He dozed and awakened worrying that trucks or armor would pass over the mined road before the plane made its landing.
It was morning and gray light showed through the two-foot intervals they'd left between the drums, when the clack of tappets jerked Troy's head up. Tully was leaning forward, gun cradled in his arms. Troy restrained him, got to his knees as an armored car pulled up in front of the drums and stopped. Dietrich stepped out and Troy confronted him with his machine gun.
"Good morning, Captain," he said with a grin. "Tully," he called, "give the corporal a hand with the top and ask Moffitt and Hitch to come out. We may as well watch this landing in comfort."
Dietrich's face turned a shade grayer as Troy prodded him back in the front seat and sat behind him with the barrel of the submachine gun pushed into his neck. Tully helped the corporal with the top on the car as Moffitt and Hitch crawled from the drums and climbed into the back with Troy. The rain was plopping heavily on the top when Tully and the corporal got in. The day was suddenly darker and mossy clouds with dangling tendrils scudded close to the ground.
The aircraft seemed to be loafing as it lazed toward the road. It was the largest plane Troy had ever seen. A fat-nosed, underhung fuselage sprouted wings almost two-hundred feet wide and the six three-bladed propellers whipped the rain laden air with a growling fury.
"What have you done now, Sergeant Troy?" Dietrich asked tightly without turning his head.
"Depends on how you look at it, Captain," Troy said, smiling. "Is that rockets you're bringing in here?"
Almost two miles away, the Me-323 touched down on the roadway. Almost immediately an impact charge exploded and the huge plane shuddered and swung to one side. The swerving tail detonated another charge and the section burst into flames. A wing dipped, scraping the road for a few feet and another explosion blasted the aircraft.
