The Rat Patrol 6 - Desert Masqueraade

by David King

  "Uh huh," Hitch said.

  The terrain became rough and crimped, eroded hardpan and rock as they neared the edge of the desert plateau before it fell off into the sea. The car crawled out of a barreo wash onto the grade. In the gray light just before dawn, it was deserted in both directions. The Hispano-Suiza rolled onto it in second gear. Troy shifted into high and pressed the accelerator.

  "Keep your eyes peeled," Troy called. "I'm going to give it everything it's got."

  The speedometer needle crept past seventy-five, touched eighty miles an hour. Troy suddenly realized that an Italian car normally would be gauged for kilometers instead of miles and wondered whether G2 had added yet another touch to authenticate their U.S. gangster backgrounds.

  "Ahead," Hitch shouted. "About a mile. It looks like a track."

  Troy slowed, touching the brake lightly. His speed permitted an easy turn onto the hardpacked clay and stone roadway that curled lazily in the direction of the Mediterranean. It probably led to a coastal village, he thought, driving fast until a ridge hid them from the grade. He slowed then, drove on another mile until he came to a stretch of flat dun-colored rock. He drove across it until he came to a gully with a hard clay bed, braked and looked back. No tread marks on the windswept stone showed that an automobile had come this way. He nosed the car onto the hardpan and followed the bed until he came to a steep-sided ravine that twisted out of sight. He backed into the declivity, around a bend and they were hidden except from the air.

  "If only we had a camouflage net," he said wearily, turning off the motor. "I'd feel reasonably secure."

  "One in back," Tully said laconically. He stepped from the car, stretching, grinned and drawled: "It's under all the groceries. You didn't think G2 would forget a simple little old thing like a camouflage net, now, did you?"

  10

  Nothing annoyed Herr Hauptmann Hans Dietrich quite so much as to be interrupted at breakfast and his staff, including also Lieutenant Doeppler, was aware of his fondness for tranquility with his sausages. Doeppler actually was not on the staff but performed line duties as the need arose for expendable personnel. Doeppler was a quartermaster temporarily at a loose end since all of Dietrich's stores had been abandoned at Sidi Abd and there was a completely efficient Sergeant Kauderwelsch permanently stationed on the ridge, who provided not only clothing, fuel and transportation, but an occasional dozen fresh eggs or case of brandy. Doeppler had been exposed to a smattering of training in infantry, artillery and engineering before he'd been shunted into a supply post. The varied experience, far from recommending Doeppler to Dietrich, explained why he bungled every task he undertook.

  "What is this matter that cannot wait until the Frühstück is completed?" Dietrich harshly asked Doeppler. The lieutenant stood in front of Dietrich's long solid table in his tent. His small, close-set eyes stared straight ahead, not at Dietrich but above his head. This was a habit of his that never failed to infuriate Dietrich. He pushed aside his plate of fried eggs and Wurst, not yet touched by his knife.

  Doeppler wet his lips with the tip of his tongue and began to speak, chewing his words without moving his heavy jaw. "I am sorry to report that all of the two dozen mines you sent me to test last night have regrettably been destroyed," he said mechanically.

  "What!" Dietrich gasped and his stomach turned sour. "That cannot be."

  "Ja, Herr Hauptmann, it is a thing that cannot happen," Doeppler said without expression, eyes still fixed on the wall of the tent behind Dietrich. "All the same, they blew themselves up."

  Dietrich was physically ill. From the moment the Arabs had revealed that there was a British twenty-five-pounder in the Allied camp, he had wrestled with the near insurmountable problem of dealing with the long-range weapon. In an inspired moment, he had remembered the robot mines he had discovered stockpiled in the arsenal on the ridge. He had sent Doeppler with a patrol far from the position to run them through a series of operational tests. It had been his intention to slip Doeppler and a squad out the safe passage to destroy the gun in the pit with the remotely controlled mines.

  "The entire two dozen of them?" Dietrich asked faintly.

  "Ja, Herr Hauptmann," Doeppler confirmed.

  "It is a great misfortune," Dietrich said despondently, "but it is well we discovered in advance that they were not dependably operational."

  "The robot mines were themselves completely operative," Doeppler said stoically.

  "What is that you are saying?" Dietrich demanded, eyes going cold as his stomach grew warm with wrath.

  "The robot mines functioned with an exactitude that was a pleasure to observe," Doeppler reported. "It was not until they encountered unexpected obstacles that they destroyed themselves, and that of course is the way they were designed to perform."

  "What obstacles?" Dietrich asked furiously. "How did it happen? Commence with the beginning and finish it to the end. Tell me exactly what occurred."

  "As you wish," Doeppler said. "It was in this fashion. Twelve of the mines I placed under the supervision of Sergeant Schmitt and sent him across the ridge to the foot on the other side of the clear area. I remained on the north side at the bottom with twelve of the others. At a prearranged time, we started the robots up the slope, removing ourselves at a distance in the event there was a malfunction."

  "Go on," Dietrich said tersely. Of course Doeppler would remove himself to a distance. Once the mines had been set in motion, he undoubtedly had leaped into one of the trucks and driven off a mile.

  "The robots performed well on the slope. When they reached the top of the ridge and were all lined up, twelve on each side, they stopped as we had arranged."

  "Yes?" Dietrich said sharply. "And then?"

  "I observed the beam of a powerful light traveling on top of the ridge."

  "A searchlight on your testing area!" Dietrich exclaimed. "Who was it? What did you do?"

  "Immediately, I called Sergeant Schmitt and informed him of the intrusion," Doeppler said, not without pride. "Together we returned to the bottom of the ridge, each on his own slope, and executed an explicit maneuver. We despatched the robot mines in a column of twos after the intruder who had stopped upon the ridge. The intruder was the Rat Patrol."

  "The Rat Patrol," Dietrich said weakly, feeling as if he were crumpling in his canvas camp chair. "Are you certain?"

  "Of this I am certain," Doeppler said firmly. "With my own eyes I saw them, first from a distance and then from closer up. When first I noticed, one jeep was leading the other with a powerful light. The second jeep followed close behind. Next I saw them from the top of the ridge where I hastened when the robot bombs exploded. They had driven away in the same formation with the leading jeep directing its searchlight along the ridge."

  "What was the Rat Patrol doing more than fifty miles south on the ridge?" Dietrich pondered aloud. "Only a few hours earlier the Arabs saw them in the camp."

  "That is what I asked myself," Doeppler said, "but they had as much time as I to reach the ridge. It is possible they were suspicious and followed the Arabs."

  "The Rat Patrol within our lines?" Dietrich shuddered at the thought. He said without conviction, "That is impossible."

  "Of course, Herr Hauptmann," Doeppler said, "but there they were on the ridge. They were aware of what we were testing and set a trap. The searchlight was to call our attention to them. They wanted us to set the robot mines after them so they could rob us of their usefulness. The Rat Patrol stopped long enough on the ridge only to plant mines of their own or to erect a barrier into which the robots would crash and detonate themselves. It was impossible to determine which after the explosions."

  "Why did you not call the robots back when you saw what the Rat Patrol was doing?" Dietrich raged.

  "It was not known they were aware of the approaching robots," Doeppler said. "Until the last moment, they waited, then they leaped into their jeeps and sped away. Not until it was too late and the robots were piling one upon the other in terrible destruction
was it apparent what they had done."

  "Doeppler, I am certain that in some way you are at fault," Dietrich declared sternly. "In which direction was the Rat Patrol traveling?"

  "The Rat Patrol fled to the west," Doeppler said.

  "The Rat Patrol did not flee," Dietrich said, exasperated. "If they drove west on the ridge they are behind our lines engaged in another mission against us. Already they have destroyed the only two dozen robot mines we possessed. Who was on patrol duty in the far western sector last night?"

  "Leutnant Stengle," Doeppler answered promptly. "He has not seen them, I am certain. I have questioned the radio operator and there has been no report from him. Of course, he would have called in a message if the Rat Patrol had passed within his sight."

  "No report!" Dietrich thundered. He pushed the table away from him, upsetting his coffee cup, and ran from his tent bareheaded. "Kloake!" he shouted as he rushed toward the communications truck.

  A fair-haired, cherub-cheeked boy poked his head from the back of a canvas-topped truck parked just beyond the tent. Rosebud lips smiled innocently at Dietrich.

  "What was the hour and nature of the last report from Stengle?" Dietrich asked tensely.

  "At midnight, mein Hauptmann," Kloake said cheerfully. "It was a routine position report. There has been nothing since that hour."

  "He should have returned at oh-six-hundred," Dietrich said tightly, rage now turning to icy calm. "Why was I not advised?"

  "First you were asleep and then you were at your breakfast," Kloake shyly observed.

  Dietrich groaned. "All right," he said feeling completely frustrated. "First, call me up Stengle on the wireless. Second, raise Mueller. He is on a reconnaissance patrol within the enemy lines but I must talk with him. Versteh?"

  "Ja, mein Hauptmann," Kloake said with a hasty bob of his blond head. "It shall be done."

  Dietrich lit a cigarette and paced outside the truck, ten steps forward, about face, nine steps back. Doeppler stood stolid and motionless. Was zum Teufel Hölle, what mischief was the Rat Patrol up to now? Already they had tricked Doeppler into destroying the one weapon capable of penetrating the enemy position and knocking out the British twenty-five-pounder.

  After five minutes, Kloake poked his head from the back of the truck. "It is regrettable but I am unable to receive an answer," he said. "There is no signal from either of them."

  "What was Stengle's position at his last report?" Dietrich asked.

  "The bearing or in plain language?" Kloake asked.

  "Plain language," Dietrich snapped. "It's for Doeppler."

  "A moment, mein Hauptmann," Kloake said. His head disappeared and thrust back out almost at once. "Lieutenant Stengle reported from seventy-eight kilometers to the west and sixty-nine kilometers to the south."

  Dietrich swung on his heel and confronted Doeppler. "Did you register the position?"

  "Ja, seventy-eight kilometers to the west and sixty-nine kilometers to the south," he parroted.

  "Very good, Doeppler," Dietrich said with heavy sarcasm. "Now, take a halftrack with a full crew and a patrol car with a driver and two men in addition to yourself. Go directly to this position of Stengle's last report. If you do not find him, or what is left of his patrol, there, search until you discover what has happened to him. Maintain contact by wireless on each hour. When you have found Stengle, and I fear for the worst, check each wadi and place of concealment between him and the road. The Rat Patrol is somewhere in concealment waiting for the dark."

  "But, Herr Hauptmann,'" Doeppler started to protest.

  "Yes, yes, you have been on duty all night with no rest," Dietrich acknowledged. "I do not need to remind you that a soldier is never off duty, and unfortunately there is no one else I can spare."

  Doeppler drew himself up stiffly, saluted and silently turned on his heel.

  "Keep trying to raise Stengle and Mueller," Dietrich told Kloake and strode to his tent. He snatched his peaked Afrika Korps cap from his locker, swept the binoculars from the table and walked rapidly to the flat rock next the halftrack. Ignoring the Allied armor, he focused directly on the camouflage net stretched over the pit which the Arabs had reported contained the heavy artillery piece. Although Doeppler had been positive enough in his identification of the Rat Patrol, it was always possible that the bumbling lieutenant had met with some misadventure which he blamed upon the Rat Patrol. The net was stretched tight and there was no one in the area. Now Dietrich inspected the camp meticulously, starting with the V of Sherman tanks. The crews were out of the slit trenches and were swarming over the tanks. Dietrich frowned. It could be only normal maintenance or it could be preparation for action.

  The crews for the halftracks seemed more than normally busy with their weapons. Dietrich caught a fleeting glimpse of the American Colonel Wilson entering his headquarters tent and lifted the glasses through the supply trucks to the airstrip. A large work detail moved in a line slowly down the runway compacting it with tampers. There had been men on the runway before and after the landing and departure of the B-25 bomber the day before but he had paid scant attention to them. He worried now at the large work force obviously engaged in more than routine upkeep of the strip. Could it mean that B-25s were going to bomb the ridge from only a few miles away, refueling and stocking their arsenal there?

  Once more, he inspected the Allied camp yard by yard. Nowhere was there visible sign of the Rat Patrol. Doeppler actually had seen them, Dietrich admitted reluctantly. Sergeants Troy and Moffitt and Privates Hitchcock and Pettigrew were somewhere within his lines. As he turned slowly to return to his tent, he thought he glimpsed a white object moving and raised the glasses once more. The American Colonel Wilson in his flamboyant white varnished helmet had left his quarters and was walking toward the supply trucks. At the camouflage net that covered the pit, he paused for a moment, stepped to the end, flapped back a small section of the netting and crawled into the position.

  Dietrich felt the perspiration burst from his scalp at his hair roots. If he'd needed confirmation of the Arab's report, Wilson was providing it. He was checking the twenty-five-pounder, gloating over his weapon, chuckling at the way he would sit back out of range and pound the slope and ridge until he'd cleared a pathway for his armor. When Wilson crawled from the pit and walked on toward the runway, Dietrich returned at once to his tent. He wrote several urgent messages. First he requested not two ineffectual Messerschmitts but a flight Heinkel He 111s to bomb the enemy camp. Then he requested long-range 88 mm. FLAK 18s to reach the pit with the British twenty-five-pounder. Third, he requested a case of brandy. Something very definitely was in the air.

  He imagined he actually could feel the weight of the messages when he carried them to the communications truck. Somewhere between the coastal road and the ridge that ran between the marshes, the Rat Patrol had crawled under a camouflage net in a wadi and were waiting for darkness to creep out, ready to pounce on an unsuspecting patrol or slip into his depots and dumps and blow them up. They would discover the reinforcements that had come in, including the four tanks that had arrived the night before. They would observe the emplacement of his artillery.

  When he returned to the tent to wait for the answers to his messages, he was drenched with perspiration, although it really still was cool so early in the morning. He sat at his table clenching his fists. He could not wait for Doeppler to reach Stengle's last position and confirm what Dietrich already was sure had happened. Dietrich had to find and kill or capture the Rat Patrol now. He called in Kraemer and ordered him to take three halftracks and search every wadi and building from the coastal road to the ridge on a vector five miles wide on either side of Stengle's last known position.

  Wilson had just returned from his morning tour of inspection when Corporal Locke had burst into the tent with a message form folded in his fist. His face was expressionless but his eyes were shining with excitement. He thrust the message at Wilson who took it silently and frowned. It was another Eyes Only communication
which Locke had decoded. He remained in the tent while Wilson read the message, waiting to see that the form was properly destroyed. Damn it, Wilson thought irritably, why does the man have to assume that I'll be careless?

  The message read: Special ordnance arriving your position ten-hundred tomorrow. Essential that testing be completed within twenty-four hours. Repeat, utmost security must be enforced.

  He dutifully burned the form and Locke left the tent. When Wilson turned his head, he saw that Peilowski was watching him with a look of concern in his eyes. Locke, Peilowski, even the Rat Patrol treated him as if he didn't know enough to come in out of the rain. His gray eyes glinted and he had opened his mouth to chew out Peilowski, but his self-discipline took over. The truth was, he admitted, he was worried about the Rat Patrol. And now this message made it appear he had sent them on a useless mission. By the time they returned with the information, if they did obtain it and managed to return, the ordnance man and his missile-launcher would have come and gone.

  "Has the detail completed work on the runway?" he quietly asked Peilowski.

  "It could be used by a C-47 right now," Peilowski assured him with the air of a man who has completed a difficult task ahead of schedule. "There's still a crew out there tamping. They'll be done today."

  "Good," Wilson said, and then suddenly and inexplicably sorry for his first sergeant, he tossed Peilowski a harmless bone. "It will be in use tomorrow. Full security measures starting at oh-six-hundred."

  "Yes sir!" Peilowski said smartly. Wilson was certain that if Peilowski hadn't been seated he would have saluted.

  Picking up his white varnished helmet, Wilson slipped the strap under his chin and stepped from the tent. He walked briskly around the tent and started toward the strip. When he came to the camouflage net, he stopped, glancing at the OFF LIMITS signs and smiling. Each man of the Rat Patrol in his own way was brash, undisciplined as far as authority was concerned, decidedly an individual who refused to be recast in a military mold. Not the type to make an officer's life easy. Yet he had no better soldiers in his command.