by David King
Dropping his beer bottle and glasses, Troy swung with his machine gun glimpsing the same movement from Moffitt as he did.
"Tully! Hitch! Down under the jeeps!" he shouted before he had fully turned.
A hail of automatic fire was droning angrily at the jeeps from a dozen men in Arab robes, who were racing down the trail from the two large slabs of stone five hundred yards away. The heavy Browning machine gun began to spit in Troy's hand. The thought flashed across Troy's mind that Tully had had the good sense to bang down the hood giving him unrestricted field of fire. He raked the first of the robed men with a burst, then a second thought flashed across his mind: he was standing on enough explosives to blow up the town of Sidi Beda.
The orange sun was sinking into the calm Mediterranean, dusk was descending quickly over Sidi Beda when Colonel Dan Wilson dropped into the chair behind his olive-colored metal desk at HQ. He sat for a moment, staring without awareness at the whirring ceiling fan, numbed by events beyond discomfort at the lingering heat. He shook his head abruptly and lighted a cigarette that had an unfamiliar hot and bitter taste. All that could be done had been accomplished, and at least for the moment he believed the port was secured. The cargo vessels with their destroyer escort had withdrawn and the port seemed oddly, ominously deserted without the clanking chains and grinding winches on the piers. He had clamped the lid on the town and sealed off the native quarter. The MPs and men from the transportation company were patrolling the docks and two armored cars guarded the main military boulevard along the bay front. At Latsus Pass, half a dozen halftracks were strategically placed near the bottom, ready to blast any Jerry armor that attempted to break out and another half dozen armored vehicles backed them up. The rest of his armor was at the edge of the port, ready for action wherever they were needed.
It was a state of siege, Wilson wearily admitted, but if the tanks could hold above the town forty-eight hours, he had a fighting chance. The bomber support he'd requested could not be immediately diverted, but he'd have it within two days. His observation plane had been in the air during the afternoon and reported the massing of Jerry armor for the two-pronged attack he had anticipated. Well, he thought grimly, let the enemy come on. Jerry would sacrifice a good deal of his numerical superiority in the minefields before he reached the Sherman tanks.
He walked to the window, staring into the dusk of the partially blacked out town. A patrol in an armored car moved slowly down the military avenue, searchlight poking into the mouths of the alleys that made a maze of the native quarter. He wondered whether the Rat Patrol had found a back trail and had penetrated the enemy lines. He had no illusions that the Rat Patrol could win a battle single-handed, but neither did he underestimate their importance. They struck swiftly, not only inflicting severe damage, but upsetting the enemy's morale. He was concerned with a report of small arms fire on the plateau west of the town during the afternoon. Desperately he wanted to know what it meant, but he had imposed radio silence on the tanks until the enemy attacked and could not risk breaking it.
Returning to his desk, he switched on a lamp and picked up a fistful of routine reports, ready to stuff them in a drawer until morning when his eyes caught the name of Sergeant Sam Troy on a sheet from the Military Police. He scanned the report and sat back, shaking with rage. The Rat Patrol had frittered away most of the afternoon drinking beer in a native bistro while Sergeant Troy had dallied upstairs with one of the cheap women who frequented such places.
His fist crashed on the desk and he felt his blood boiling until it enflamed his already hot and flushed face. It was unthinkable, it was inexcusable, it was mutinous, it was treasonable, that at such a time of peril the Rat Patrol should fail in its duty. Troy, Moffitt, Hitchcock, Pettigrew —each of them was aware of the urgency of the situation. Troy's actions had been suspect since his display of irresponsibility during the morning, but Wilson had ordered Moffitt to take over if Troy seemed to falter. He'd break both of them right now, he snarled to hims elf and reached for the phone to call in his first sergeant.
First Sergeant Dewey Peilowski broke into the office before Wilson had lifted the receiver. His fair but sunburned face was sweaty and his big lips were moving without saying any words.
"What is it, Peilowski?" Wilson said in quick apprehension, half rising from his chair. "What's wrong?"
"The Rat Patrol," Peilowski gasped.
"I've just seen the MP report," Wilson said angrily, yet relieved that nothing new had gone amiss. He sat back in his chair and jabbed at the paper with a pencil. "I was just going to call you. I want Troy and Moffitt reduced in rank to private."
"Yes, sir," Peilowski said, mopping his face. "But it's not just that MP report. The Rat Patrol just busted out of Latsus Pass and come tearing into town. I thought they was supposed to stay out on this mission."
"What!" Wilson roared. His fury was terrible and he shook uncontrollably as the impact of this action hammered at his temples. "They had a direct order from me not to return until the enemy had been defeated," he yelled in mounting rage. "Why did they come back? How did they get through that pass? Where are they? Why haven't they reported?" He fell back in his chair, weak with his wrath. "Tell me what happened."
"A patrol just brought in the report," Peilowski said breathlessly. "It was just at sunset. Everything had been quiet at the pass when there was this outbreak of fire from the Jerries. Machine guns and mortars. Then the two jeeps come racing out of the pass hell-bent for town. They didn't stop for nothing, just tore through the two lines of halftracks and kept straight on the road to town."
"How do you know it was the Rat Patrol?" Wilson said quickly. "There are other jeeps. It could be a Jerry trick."
"No, sir," Peilowski said positively. "It was the Rat Patrol, all right. Everybody knows those jeeps. And they recognized Troy and Moffitt in their crazy hats in the backs at the machine guns and Hitchcock in his steel-rimmed glasses and French Legion cap and Tully chewing a match-stick. It was them, all right."
"Well, where are they?" Wilson demanded, angry blood surging in his veins again. He slammed from his chair and walked quickly to the window. No jeeps were parked in the gloom outside HQ. He wheeled to Peilowski and shouted, "Where are they?"
"They—they disappeared," Peilowski stammered.
"Disappeared!" Wilson bellowed. "That's impossible. Bring them to me."
"The way it was," Peilowski said miserably, "the way they was speeding and stopping for nothing, everybody figured they was onto something hot and headed for HQ. Nobody stops the Rat Patrol anyway. Those jeeps shot into town and they disappeared. There's no sign of them anywhere."
"How could two jeeps and four men disappear in a patrolled town under curfew?" Wilson asked numbly.
"They've done it in Jerry camps," Peilowski mumbled. "I guess they could do it in a place they know like this." Wilson paced the floor under the slapping fan. He was shocked. He was stunned. The Rat Patrol had spent the afternoon drinking beer. Or worse. The Rat Patrol had disobeyed a direct order to remain behind enemy lines. The Rat Patrol had returned and not reported. Wilson whirled. He was in a towering rage.
"Peilowski," he said in a voice that trembled with his anger. "Take a patrol and go to the French wine shop in the native quarter. I think you'll find the Rat Patrol there." He went back to his desk, stood glaring a moment at Peilowski. "No, send someone else with an MP patrol to bring them in, in irons if necessary. I want you here. I want you to immediately draw up court-martial proceedings against each man in the Rat Patrol."
3
When the sun was a blinding flame on the western horizon of the desert, Troy crawled from the oven under the camouflage net. The two jeeps were concealed in a rocky pocket in the desert about ten miles south and five miles west of Sidi Beda. Although he was certain he could not be seen against the flaring rays, he dug his way on his belly to the top of the gully and removed his bush hat before he poked his head over the mound of burning sand and trained his glasses on a patch of ra
gged palms about one mile to the east. A canvas-topped, six-wheeled Jerry truck was pulling away to the east and another was approaching. The oasis where Ray had told him he would find water was a Jerry supply dump.
Drums of gasoline and oil, apparently dug from the sand by two dozen or more Arabs who loaded the trucks, were lined up in the meager shade. Troy had glimpsed a man in German uniform who seemed to be in charge. A halftrack with a seventy-five millimeter gun roved the area surrounding the dump. Troy had watched, helpless and frustrated during the afternoon as five Jerry trucks had driven away with their loads of gas and oil. The desert surrounding the oasis was too open and the big gun had too great a range to attempt destroying the dump in daylight, but now with the approach of dusk, Troy was prepared to move.
The afternoon had not been entirely wasted, he thought, smiling tightly as he recalled the surprise attack by the Arabs near the edge of the escarpment. He had been firing the M2 heavy machine gun even as the Arabs poured from the rocks and pelted the jeeps with the rapid fire from their old MG-34 German light machine guns. Moffitt had opened fire almost simultaneously and Tully and Hitch, instead of diving for cover under the jeeps, had banged down the hoods and jumped behind the steering wheels. Although hot and sluggish, the jeeps had performed. Without an order, Tully and Hitch had moved in opposite converging arcs on the flanks of the onrushing robed men. The Arabs had raked the spluttering vehicles, but their fire was inaccurate and ineffectual. Troy and Moffitt marched their bursts into the group as the Arabs scattered and fled back toward the rocks for protection. Although the jeeps jerked along without power or speed, the steady fire from the two heavy machine guns caught them all but one whom Troy glimpsed tumbling over the edge of the bluff on the old trade route. When the two jeeps reached the stones, eleven Arabs lay on the trail behind.
"That was the worst I've been through," Troy said, pulling off his hat and wiping his forehead on his sleeve. He looked down at the crates and boxes of bombs, mines and charges, grenades and shells that were crammed into the back of the jeep. "One lucky shot and these powder kegs would have blown."
"It was a trap," Hitch snarled. "That Arab girl I've been suspicious of all along sent us into a trap. They knew we were coming and were waiting."
Troy jumped from the back of the jeep and ran to Hitch.
"Look, Hitch!" he shouted, hot and angry. "I thought we had this settled. Ray offered to take us up here herself. If she'd been with us, they'd still have opened fire. She doesn't have anything to do with them, hasn't been over this trail for years and didn't know it was being used. We found out something valuable we might never have discovered. The Arabs have been using this route, that's apparent, probably smuggling stolen goods out by night. She told me about an oasis ten miles south. My guess is that the Arabs use that oasis as a hiding place for whatever the stuff is until they can get it to a market. Whatever it is, we're going in and take it or destroy it before the Arabs can sell it to Jerry. That's part of our job out here, to destroy the enemy and his supplies. So whether you think we've been tricked or not, that Arab girl, as you call her, put us on the right track. Now how about going along with things and let's see what we find at the oasis."
Hitch studied Troy for a moment with thoughtful eyes and then suddenly he smiled. "I may not be convinced, but I'll knock it off," he said.
"We'll make a wide swing around to that oasis," Troy told them all, climbing back into the first jeep. "We'll come in from the west and keep hidden until we see what's going on."
They'd left the trail, making a wide circuit, picking their way cautiously through the rocks, and when they reached the sand, they kept to depressions and wadis. Stopping frequently to let the motors cool and replenish the water in the radiators, it had been sixteen-hundred hours when they'd finally pulled into the pocket about a mile west of the oasis and dragged the camouflage nets over the jeeps. It was now eighteen-hundred and soon the soft dusk would fall gently on the desert. Troy slid down the slope and crawled between the jeeps under the netting. Tully was lying on his back under his jeep and snoring. Moffitt and Hitch sat in the sand, leaning listlessly against their vehicle. They watched dully, then blinked and shook themselves awake as Troy haif dragged Tully from his jeep by the leg.
"We'll leave the jeeps here," he told them when Tully crawled out rubbing his eyes. "But we'll pull off the nets so we can take off fast if we have to. Jack," he said, turning to Moffitt, "you and Hitch take care of the halftrack that's patrolling the dump. One of you get the crew and the other blow the treads. Tully and I will hit the drums. We'll load ourselves with grenades and just carry sidearms. Okay, let's move."
When the nets were folded, the sun had set and the shadow of night had crept over the desert. The moon had not risen, and although there was a transluscency to the dusk, it was darker now than it would be later. Troy led the way, snaking through the still hot sand where there was no cover, rising to a crouch and darting forward whenever rocks or a valley in the desert offered protection. At the end of an hour, they had advanced three quarters of the way. Troy propped himself on his elbows and examined the oasis. A truck, its headlights blurred and yellowish glares, was standing at the edge of the palms and Arabs stripped to their baggy cotton drawers were struggling with the heavy, awkward drums. The slapping treads of the halftrack clanked and the armored vehicle crawled slow around the far edge of the dump.
"Let's take them before that truck gets away with its load," Troy whispered to Moffitt.
Moffitt nodded and Hitch and he darted off at an angle, bending low as they ran to intercept the halftrack on its next circuit. Troy and Tully plunged straight ahead about a hundred yards toward the stockpiled drums and the truck and dived into the sand to look and listen. Troy turned his head. At first he could see neither Moffitt nor Hitch, but as he watched, two shadowy forms lifted from the desert and sprinted ahead. Troy and Tully dug in their toes and ran another hundred yards. Off to Troy's right, Moffitt and Hitch were running again when Tully and he went to the sand once more. He could hear the sound of voices plainly now, the granting singsong of the Arabs and the guttural noises of the truck driver and the Jerry officer, neither of whom he could see. The sands ran with the churning sound of the halftrack treads and he could hear the heavy breathing of the truck motor.
"This is it," he whispered to Tully as he saw Moffitt and Flitch separating and running toward the halftrack.
A burst of machine gun fire rattled in the night as Tully and he dashed for the drums. Troy did not turn his head as the Arabs stood hesitantly, looking toward the sound of the firing. Another burst followed by a third and fourth rattled in quick succession. Jerry had spotted Moffitt or Hitch or both of them, Troy thought, loosening a grenade from his belt, pulling the pin and clamping the lever in his hand. Fifty yards from the piled drums, he stopped, threw his arm back and hurled the grenade. Tully's grenade landed as Troy fell to his face. There was a shattering blast and a mass of flame shot into the sky. Another explosion, billows of flame and smoke. The whole oasis was lighted as the truck and drums burned fiercely. A single shell from the seventy-five millimeter gun cracked over the roaring gas and oil and then there were two nearly simultaneous explosions. The halftrack was burning now, a separate fire at the edge of the oasis, Troy rolled to his feet and turned to see Tully starting toward him. Crouching, they zigzagged away from the fiery oasis. Now he looked and saw racing from the flaming halftrack two forms he knew were Moffitt and Hitch. All four of them ran without halting until they finally were beyond the range of light from the fires. When Troy stopped with Tully and turned to look, the bright flames from the gasoline were edged with black from the oil. It was an angry, churning, seething cauldron at the north edge of the oasis.
"We just blew our water supply," Troy told Tully and grinned.
"Guess we'll have to draw our water from Dietrich," Tully drawled as they started trotting back toward the pocket where they'd left the jeeps.
Moffitt and Hitch had reached the depression
before them and Hitch had started both motors.
"Straight ahead to the oasis," Troy shouted, leaping into the back and bracing himself at the machine gun. "We'll rake the ashes to make sure no one gets away."
The jeeps hurtled from the pocket in single file and spun through the rocky sand, swerving and skidding. They drove toward the fires without lights. At the edge of the oasis, Troy could see a handful of figures withdrawn from the flames, standing helpless and motionless. As the jeeps neared the dump, Tully swung to the left toward the burning truck and drums. Hitch drove to the right toward the flaming halftrack. Troy loosened his gun and blasted a running group of bare-chested Arabs. When he'd cut them down, he waited until the jeep was beyond the fire and then he fired burst after burst into the oasis. On the other side, he heard the stutter of Moffitt's gun. Tully pulled up beside Hitch near the waterhole.
"We need water," Troy called. "Cover me. I'm going in to see if we wrecked it or it's contaminated."
He jumped to the ground and ran toward the middle of the oasis. A light machine gun or machine pistol rattled off to his right and he dropped to the ground, rolling to his left. The heavy sound of the Browning chopped away near the ground at one thick-stemmed palm. When the light machine gun did not open fire again, Troy jumped to his feet and went to the waterhole. It was an open seepage hole, but it had been walled with stone. He dipped his finger into the water and tasted it. It was warm and brackish but not contaminated. He trotted back to the jeeps.
"Tully, Hitch," he called. "Drive in, fill the radiators and the cans. Doctor, let's check the Jerries."
The four-man crew of the halftrack were dead and their uniforms were badly burned. Troy and Moffitt went looking for the truck driver and officer who'd been in charge of the Arabs. They found them near the palm tree at which Moffitt had fired. The truck driver was wearing the sloppy, oversized work pants typical of the Afrika Korps enlisted issue and a shirt. Both were badly splashed with blood. The officer, a lieutenant, was dressed in a light tan tunic and Afrika Korps fatigue cap. One of Moffitt's slugs had caught the lieutenant in the head and his tunic did not appear to be soiled. Troy pulled off the tunic and cap and carried them back to the jeeps.