by David King
It was midnight and Troy was sitting with Wilson and Tully on the cots, passing the butt of their last cigarette when he heard the sharp command outside the barbed wire.
"Achtung!" The order rang out sharply, followed by a rapid succession of commands.
Troy heard the guards running from the sides to the front of the compound. Several more orders were given and the six guards marched to the middle of the enclosed area. An officer, cap low on his forehead, muffler wrapped high around his throat, followed with his hand on his Luger.
"Prisoners," he shouted with a heavy German accent. "You will line up between the guards. Hands behind your heads. Follow me."
He turned on his heel. The guards nudged Troy, Tully and Wilson, each man between two guards, and they marched single file from the prison area. The guard behind Troy rammed his machine pistol into Troy's back as they left the brightly lighted area and walked toward the only other light that was showing, the lantern burning in the vaulted entrance to Sidi Abd. Moffitt and Hitch had delayed too long, Troy thought glumly. Dietrich was not waiting for the morning, but was starting them on their way to Bizerta by night.
A motor was running smoothly and as the single file neared the entrance to the town, a halftrack backed slowly out of the line of vehicles until it was abreast the opening in the wall.
"Over the back and into the machine," the Jerry officer ordered and stepped back.
The guard prodded Troy into the Panzerwagon and Wilson and Tully climbed in and stood beside him. The officer dismissed four of the guards. The other two mounted the back of the halftrack and covered the three Americans with their machine pistols. The officer seated himself beside the driver and the big machine crawled ahead into the night along the side of the wall.
"Where are we being taken?" Troy called above the growling motor and crunch of treads in the sand. The searchlight of the armored vehicle flared out on the open desert beyond the area of the camp and the machine turned slowly into the dark emptiness. A guard poked his weapon into Troy's back but the officer shouted an answer from the front.
"We are taking you into the desert to shoot you," he said tonelessly.
"That tears it," Tully muttered.
"Let's take our chances with these two," Troy whispered and swung, diving for one of the Jerries' legs. At the same moment Tully jabbed his elbow in the belly of the guard next to him and chopped at his neck with the side of his hand. Troy wrestled on the floor of the halftrack with his guard, got his hands around the man's throat and worked his thumbs into his windpipe until he felt the man go limp. He struggled to his feet, dragging the body with him, and heaved it over the back of the machine. When he turned, Wilson was helping Tully pitch the other Jerry into the desert.
"The machine pistols," Troy said quickly. "Let's grab them and take off."
"Shall we shoot the Kraut officer and the driver?" Tully asked. "Take the machine?"
"Too close to town," Troy said. "But we can use the machine. We'll ride it out and shoot them when we stop." He and Troy retrieved the Schmeissers and stood, one at each side. Wilson sat on the bed and chuckled.
"I'm feeling better," he said. "Just do one thing for me."
"Sure," Troy said, grinning. "What is it?"
"Let these two Krauts know what's happening before you shoot them. I want to see the expressions on their faces."
"It'll be a pleasure," Troy said.
The great machine picked up speed and the search-lighted area that marked the prison compound outside the walls of Sidi Abd was swallowed by the night. Over a dune, the halftrack halted with its light illuminating a wadi. The driver came out one side of the Panzerwagon and the officer the other. Troy and Tully leaped over the back and covered the two men.
"All right," Wilson called. "You two Krauts are covered. Walk in the light down into the wadi. We'll carry out the execution but we'll reverse the procedure."
Troy and Tully came forward with the machine pistols and the Jerries, hands above their heads, walked into the light. The driver, an enlisted man in a coat that reached his ankles, slouched insolently to the front of the car and turned, shoving his cap back on his head.
"Who is here, Sarge, you or me?" he said and popped a bubble.
The officer pulled off his cap. Hitch and Moffitt stood in the bright light of the halftrack holding their sides and laughing.
10
An explosion that rent the night, followed almost immediately by a second mighty blast that shook the desert floor, brought Captain Hans Dietrich tumbling from his bed. He ran down the hall from his rooms to his office at the front of the German HQ. The usually stolid guard at the door looked dazed. Dietrich burst into the room and looked out his windows. The dark sky reflected a rosy hue from the direction of the camp. Dietrich was agitated and his mind churned with the fearsome possible meanings of the violent detonations. Had the Americans somehow escaped their prison and sabotaged his gas supply or ammunition dump? He grasped the field telephone on his desk and rang for his security officer, Kummel. There was no response and he called the guard at the entrance gate. The line went dead.
He ran back to his bedroom, threw on his clothes and strapped on his Luger. With a flashlight in his fist, he ran into the dark, deserted lane and angled toward the entrance. Arabs were in the shadows and the darkness behind the windows of the buildings, he knew, but his searching beam discovered no one. Several smaller explosions made the night tremble once more and he ran faster. It was the Americans. The thought pounded and inflamed his brain. He did not dare assess the damage they had done.
When the alley cornered, he could see licking tongues of flames through the entrance and black smoke that puffed and billowed. Figures showed darkly outlined against the blaze, moving in confused groups. The sound of Panzer and Panzerwagon motors and tracks rose above the roar of the fires and hoarse shouts of men. Through the entrance and on the other side of the wall, Dietrich's heart stopped for a moment as he saw and then comprehended the awesome destruction that had been wrought. Near the end of the lines of vehicles, charges had been exploded in two of his Panzer tanks and the blasts had ignited gasoline and oil and spread to adjoining armor. The treads of the other halftracks and tanks that had been in battle readiness in neat formation were chewing away from the holocaust in panicked flight. The blaze raged from the areas of the two destroyed tanks, hot and fierce.
"Kummel!" Dietrich shouted, pushing into the men massed uncertainly in the jammed corridor. "Men!" he shouted hoarsely. "Back to your tents! Clear way for the crews and the machines!"
The soldiers regarded him and the fires numbly. "Back!" he yelled savagely. "Back!" And then again and again. "Kummel, Kummel!"
From somewhere in the crowding horror, the smudged figure of his security officer erupted. Kummel's tunic and breeches were blackened and his face enraged and flushed beneath the coat of grime it wore.
"For God's sake, Kummel," Dietrich shrieked. "Command a squad to get these men away. Get some order into the evacuation of the machines. I'm going to the prison compound. Meet me there as soon as you have things moving."
With the fires still raging at his back, Dietrich trotted toward the still searchlighted barbed wire enclosure. There were no guards and the compound was empty. It was the Americans, he thought, and the wrath burned from his head to the pit of his stomach. The guards had let the Americans escape. He would have the guards shot, every one of them, and Kummel too.
Gasping, almost sobbing, he whirled about and started back toward the devastation in the corridor. Kummel ran toward him.
"You let the Americans escape," Dietrich screeched.
"I?" Kummel stopped short and stared at Dietrich in the red burning light. "They did not escape. Who was the officer you sent with a driver to have them shot?"
"Shot?" Dietrich shouted furiously. "What is this madness? I gave no order to have them shot."
"An officer with two guards took the prisoners into the desert to shoot them," Kummel said.
"
Americans, more Americans," Dietrich raged. "They posed as Germans to free the prisoners. What is the matter with you, Kummel, that you do not exercise the intelligence of a child in matters of security? How were they taken? Which way did they go?"
"The guard at the gate reports they took a Panzerwagon and left north by west around the tents," Kummel said numbly.
"Again the guard at the gate. Why did he not stop them? The same guard, no doubt, who admitted the Americans to the town last night. Have him shot." Dietrich glared at Kummel for a moment. "Well, don't stand there. Organize a search party. Two, three, no, four Panzerwagons." He paused and added bitterly, "If we have that many left."
"We have the Panzerwagons," Kummel assured him. "Only two tanks and two armored cars were damaged by the charges that were planted."
"Only two tanks and two cars!" Dietrich cried wildly. "It is a disaster. Well, go, go! I will come with you. In the lead. When we overtake them, I want personally to see them destroyed."
Kummel turned from Dietrich and raced toward the entrance. Dietrich ran after him, past the unguarded gate and the tent area. The fires still burned in the blackened hulls of four machines but the rest of the column was moving out in some semblance of order and the armor was regrouping in the desert. Kummel flung orders left and right as he jogged toward the Panzerwagon in the lead position. Dietrich swung his beam and saw crews forming and following.
"Get a driver," he shouted to Kummel. "You and I will take the lead. Make sure the others remain behind until we find the track."
Kummel barked an order and a soldier left the crews and ran ahead to the lead halftrack. He had the motor running when Dietrich leapt to the seat beside him. Kummel manned the gun.
"Is there ammunition, dumbhead?" Dietrich called back.
"Yes, my captain," Kummel answered.
With searchlight poking across the sand, white in its glare, the halftrack turned back almost to the edge of the tents, then swung about to run a due west line until it intercepted the marks of the Panzerwagon that had carried the prisoners. The flames seemed to be dying a little and there had been no more explosions. Dietrich was sick at thought of the losses he had suffered this night. His three prize prisoners had fled, four of his armored vehicles had been destroyed and a fifth stolen. He had no doubt there had been casualties in the explosions to add to the two men who had disappeared.
Behind the lead halftrack, three others turned into position fifty feet back and spread fifty feet apart. Now the searchlights of the four machines played forth and back, seeking the telltale marks that would lead them to the quarry.
Relentless and vengeful, the machines bit their way beyond the city. Dietrich saw the marks, dark in their own shadows, and the lead Panzerwagon fastened to the trace.
"Speed," he shouted, "We must overtake them."
In the back, Kummel loaded the cannon and swung it on its three hundred and sixty degree pivot. The sound of the motor droned at a higher pitch and the tracks slapped into the sand, clanking on their geared wheels. The marks they were following were leading in the direction of the fence at the back of the Devil's Garden. Surely, Dietrich thought, the Americans would not attempt to break out through the minefield. Would they make a run along the fence until they reached its end? He sat back, frowning. How the devil had they come through? He stiffened. And what had happened to the patrol he had concealed behind the fence to take them?
"Herr captain," the driver said excitedly, fixing the searchlight straight ahead. "Something is up there."
Dietrich followed the beam and saw two dark figures sprawled a few yards apart in the sand.
"Kummel, ahead," he shouted and Kummel turned his gun on its mount.
The halftrack ground to a stop and the other three machines flanked it. The four searchlights flung their beams across the desert and Dietrich jumped to the ground. Kummel followed and they approached the figures with drawn pistols. The bodies were wearing German uniforms. Kummel turned one, and then the other, with the toe of his boot. The faces stared glassy-eyed and white in the light.
"Funke and Hecht," Kummel said and swore. "Two of the guards at the compound."
"Have one of the other Panzerwagons pick up the bodies," Dietrich said grimly and strode back to his machine. When Kummel was back at the gun, they started off again, tracks straining against the pull of the full-throttled motor. Dietrich sat without speaking, frozen now by wrath that had turned icy. He would not shoot Wilson, he decided, only Troy and Pettigrew and their confederates, the other members of the hated Rat Patrol. Wilson he would reserve for the Gestapo. Let them tear his flesh to shreds, flail whatever knowledge he possessed from a brain they would turn to jelly.
They ran up a dune and started toward a wadi. Dietrich could see where the halftrack had halted and the men climbed out. The searchlight showed five sets of tracks. Wilson with Troy and Pettigrew and the two who had posed as Germans. The marks of the halftrack led on through the wadi and up a dune beyond. The driver raced the motor of the Panzerwagon and they mounted the next dune.
"Stop!" Dietrich said suddenly. The halftrack they were following had halted again on top of the dune. Its marks went straight ahead again but two sets of footprints led off to the right and two to the left until they disappeared into the night at the end of the searchlights' beams. The prisoners had known they would be followed and were dividing their party to confuse the pursuers or to set up a trap. Dietrich snarled. He wanted Wilson. He did not think Wilson would have driven off alone in the Panzerwagon but which of the footprints did belong to him? The ones to the left, he decided, the ones that ran toward the fence and the minefield.
Dietrich divided his forces, taking one halftrack with him to follow the footprints that led toward the minefield. He dispatched one halftrack after the fleeing Panzerwagon and the other two following the footprints that led to the right. At least, he thought with savage satisfaction, they should soon overrun the men on foot. Dietrich's force ground off on the three separate trails.
They were near the fence at the back of the Devil's Garden, he was certain, although the searchlight had not plucked it from the blackness of the night yet. The light flared in a wide and sweeping arc, reaching for the men who were somewhere just beyond it. They crawled up the sharp side of another dune and the light shot off it into the black sky. Nearly at the top, two rifle shots sang. Glass shattered and both searchlights went out. Dietrich swung to Kummel.
"Fire, fire, you fool!" he raged.
"At what?" Kummel asked hopelessly.
"Ahead!" And to the driver he shouted, "Keep moving. We can't let them get near us."
From the back, the cannon spat blindly, stabbing the night with white-hot flames. The cannon in the other halftrack opened fire. The machines churned forward. From a distance, Dietrich thought he heard the sound of other firing. How could five men have set up a trap like this for four Panzerwagons equipped with thirty-seven millimeter cannon, he wondered painfully.
Guns blazing, the two Panzerwagons moved slowly on. There was no return fire from the blackness. They've shot out our eyes, Dietrich thought, and now they'll run off to a rendezvous. An explosion rocked the desert close by and shells smashed the night with their flashing charges. The other Panzerwagon was a black sharp outline in a sheet of flame.
Grenades, Dietrich thought, they've exploded the shells and gas tank of the other armored car.
"Stop shooting," he shouted to Kummel. "You give them a target." To the driver he said, "Full speed and circle."
The treads spun and the machine started its runabout. Blinding light and sound mingled in a flashing detonation and the halftrack shuddered.
"They've got the tracks," he heard the driver shouting as he felt himself being flung from the vehicle.
"I thought I told you what you could do with that gum, Hitch," Troy said, grinning, when Moffitt and Hitch had stopped laughing.
The five of them, the Rat Patrol with Colonel Wilson, their commanding officer, were standing at the front
of the halftrack with its motor chugging hotly in the cold night.
"I'm about to," Hitch said. "It's about wore out. It just had that one poor bubble left to tell you who I was."
"Crazy jerks," Troy said, but he was amused, not angry. "You don't know how close you came to getting shot."
"What did you do with the guards, old chap?" Moffitt asked, smiling. He touched the Luger at his hip. "I was about to take care of them for you."
"Pitched them off," Tully drawled. "It was a mite crowded back there."
"Hadn't we better move?" Wilson asked, straightening and looking at his men. "They'll be looking for us when they discover that we've gone."
In the distance, an explosion and then another roared in the night and the dark sky near Sidi Abd showed a pinkish underbelly.
"I was waiting for that," Moffitt said with a slow smile.
"What was it?" Wilson asked quickly.
"Plastic time charges," Moffitt said. "We planted them in two of the tanks before we came after you. One of the tanks contained some evidence we wanted to destroy." He hooked his thumb between the buttons of his tunic and then pointed at the greatcoat Hitch was wearing and laughed. "Those explosions ought to delay them long enough for us to make some plans."
"Let's get away," Wilson said. "That's the only plan that interests me."
"What do you have in mind?" Troy asked Moffitt.
"We met some friends," Moffitt said and told them about the two dozen men from the tribe of Abu-el-bab. "They're itching for a fight," he said, "but they find this Jerry armor a little out of their class. They do have some grenades they've appropriated. If we can break up the Jerry party they send after us, the Arabs will lend us a hand in picking them off."
"Good idea," Troy said, rubbing his handkerchief bound leg. "I've a personal score to settle."
"I don't think we should risk recapture," Wilson said doubtfully.
"We'll be preventing it, not risking it," Troy said crisply. He said to Moffitt, "Tell us how you've got this worked out."
