by David King
When they reached the command area, Gleicher turned in at the tent he shared with seven other officers and Dietrich, drenched, muddy and disgusted, splashed toward the HQ tent that seemed now to stand alone with the communications van moved. He lifted the flap and stepped inside.
"Why can't you leave the flap up for ventilation, Herr Oberst?" he asked irritably. "It's stifling in here."
Oberst Funke glared balefully and sat silent in a dry uniform on his camp stool. A gun barrel nudged the small of Dietrich's back and the flap dropped. The barrel pushed Dietrich ahead and as he neared the middle of the tent, Sergeant Sam Troy of the Rat Patrol came out of a corner with a tommy-gun aimed at his stomach.
"You would not deny us your hospitality on such a day, would you, Captain?" Sergeant Troy said with a pleasant smile. "I am afraid I must trouble you again for your gun."
Dietrich dropped the machine pistol to which he'd clung during the ordeal in the pass and his eyes jumped from the sergeant to the colonel.
"I was changing from my wet clothing," the colonel said helplessly in answer to Dietrich's unspoken question. "In a flash, the four of them were within the tent and all their weapons were pointing at me."
The gun barrel was removed from Dietrich's back and he turned to see the Englishman, Sergeant Moffitt, backing away with a submachine gun still pointed at him. The privates, Hitchcock with the glasses and Pettigrew chewing a matchstick, came from the corners and each sat on a cot.
"What is it you now want, Sergeant Troy?" Dietrich asked coldly although he was burning with rage.
"To win the war, of course," Troy said and laughed heartily. "But more immediately, a place that is safe out of the rain. If anyone comes to your tent, you will send him away. It would be unpleasant if we were forced to shoot our way out because first we should be compelled to dispose of the colonel and you."
"Don't make a fuss, Hans," the colonel pleaded. "Men desperate enough to invade our headquarters itself are not predictable in their actions."
Dietrich looked angrily at Troy. "Surely you are not insane enough to think you can possibly leave this camp alive," he said.
"That is our intention," Troy said calmly, "and we are considering taking you or the colonel with us. Wouldn't you like to change into dry clothes? I am sure you would be more comfortable."
"That is thoughtful of you. Sergeant," Dietrich said, stepping toward the locker at the foot of his cot where he remembered there was a Colt Forty-five he'd picked up as a souvenir. "If you will excuse me, I believe I shall change."
"One moment," Troy said politely, backing ahead of Dietrich to the locker. He threw back the lid, rummaged briefly and stood with the pistol in his hand. "It would not be wise to attempt anything, Captain. The colonel is right. We are sometimes impulsive."
Dietrich stood uncertainly a moment listening to the rain drumming on the canvas. The private with the red-topped French Legionnaire cap, Hitchcock, stood, motioning Dietrich to the cot. Dietrich pulled off his soggy boots. Troy threw him a towel from the crate with the basin and Dietrich turned his back to the four members of the Rat Patrol and pulled off his breeches.
A blast shook the air followed by a second and third explosion. They were not within the command area, but they were close enough to disturb Dietrich. He swung about, eyes darting to Troy.
"More of your destruction?" he asked savagely. "What is it this time, the armor?"
A smile flitted over Troy's face. "I had not expected it so soon," he said. "Your forces are being attacked from the rear."
"Impossible!" Dietrich cried, but he felt his face blanch. Another charge rent the air.
"Unfortunate they did not hold off until the rain stopped," Troy murmured. "It is comfortably dry here inside, but we shall have to leave now. Please lift the tent flap and call for a staff car, Captain. Do not forget that we are desperate. Lift the flap, stay within the tent so I can face you from the side, call for the car to be brought to the tent. No tricks. Moffitt is fluent in German, you know."
When Dietrich lifted the flap, he saw Gleicher still in his wet clothes running toward the tent. Dietrich's eyes shifted to Troy and saw the man was determined.
"Gleicher," Dietrich called. "Have the colonel's driver run the staff car to the tent at once."
"At once," Gleicher said, stopping. "I was coming to ask, what were the explosions?"
"That is what we shall discover when the car has been delivered," Dietrich said and dropped the flap. Hs saw Troy glance at Moffitt.
The Englishman smiled and nodded his head. "You cooperate very nicely indeed, Captain," he said.
"Now if you will step to your cot, Captain," Troy said. "Much as we would enjoy your company, I am afraid there will be room for only one and the colonel outranks you."
Sergeant Troy ran swiftly through Dietrich's locker, found two handkerchiefs. He wadded one. "Your mouth," Troy said. "Please open." He stuffed the wadded handkerchief in Dietrich's mouth and bound the second over the gag. "Now please he on your cot, face down," Troy said and as Dietrich lay in his undershorts and socks, the sergeant called to one of the privates, "Hitch, will you please tie the captain's hands and legs securely together with your rope? Captain, we are taking the colonel as hostage and shall not hesitate to shoot him if we are pursued."
Again several explosions boomed. They were nearby, Dietrich thought, lying gagged and trussed like a pig ready for the market. It was impossible that the enemy should be shelling so close at hand on the plateau. He heard the Mercedes stop at the tent.
"Colonel," Moffitt said crisply in German. "Call to your driver and tell him to step inside, leaving the motor running."
The colonel did as he was ordered and as the driver came through the entrance, Moffitt dropped the flap and Troy struck him smartly with a chop at the back of his neck. The man sagged limply and started to fall. Troy dragged him to the second cot and removed his jacket and cap which he threw to the private Pettigrew. He slipped into the clothing and dangled his own helmet in his hand.
Again explosions jarred Dietrich. What could the enemy be shelling, he wondered. Where was he firing from? It could not be bombs from aircraft. Although the rain seemed to have slackened, the air still would be too thick for planes.
Pettigrew, still dangling his helmet, went to the entrance and lifted the flap. He looked from side to side, stepped out and Dietrich heard the car door open and close. The car started forward and backed close and flush to the tent opening.
"Quickly now," Moffitt told the colonel whose dewlaps seemed to be quivering. "Into the front seat."
Pettigrew had both front and back doors of the car open and Hitchcock and Troy crawled from the tent onto the car's back floor. Troy handed Dietrich's forty-five to Pettigrew. Moffitt slipped to the back seat floor and Tully closed the back door and then the front door as the colonel sank into his seat. Pettigrew glanced into the tent, loosed the flap and in a moment Dietrich heard the other car door slam and the car splashed away through the mud.
Dietrich struggled with his bonds. He was tightly bound. He rolled off the cot and thumped to the ground with a bump that shook him. Clumsily, arms and legs hurting, he rolled to the entrance. As he pushed through the flap in his undershorts and socks into the cold, wet sludge, the area was smashed with another series of blasts.
"All clear," Tully said only a few moments after the car had started off.
Troy, Moffitt and Hitch pushed from the floor in the back seat of the Mercedes and sat back into the soft cushions. Troy looked out the back window and saw they had cleared the tent area and were driving south on the road that still ran with water. Tully was driving with Dietrich's pistol in his left hand resting on his chest and pointing at the colonel. The fat German officer was sitting rigidly, staring straight ahead. The back of his neck was red.
"What were those explosions, Sarge?" Hitch asked.
"You were quite calm and collected, Sam," Moffitt said with an amused smile. "Congratulations. Did you realize what they were at
once?"
"The first two or three had me stumped," Troy said. "Then it came in a flash. It had to be the charges we planted."
"How could they go off by themselves?" Hitch asked.
"The pressure of the water and the shifting surface of the road was enough to do it," Troy said.
"They had Dietrich fooled," Hitch said, laughing.
"Well, old boy," Moffitt said. "What now?"
"We run," Troy said with a grin. "We get the jeeps out and we run."
"How?" Tully asked. "We couldn't get a mile in the desert before we'd be stuck."
"We're going straight south on the road," Troy said. "Hey, Sarge," Tully flung over his shoulder. "The road's going to be full of holes where the mines have gone off and you don't know that all the charges we planted have exploded."
"Tully," Troy said, "you're going ahead in this staff car with the colonel. We didn't plant the charges all the way out to the edges of the road. You're going to keep two wheels on the roadbed. I'll drive your jeep and Moffitt and Hitch can follow. We'll be in four-wheel-drive. If you get stuck, we'll push."
"Whyn't we dump the colonel and this car?" Tully asked. "He'll just be in our way, and with you and me both driving, you've cut our firepower in half."
"If we're caught in the jeeps, Tully," Troy said, "you take off like a big bird for Bir-el-Alam with the colonel. He's our trading goods. If we're not caught, that's fine. A colonel is a pretty good prize."
"He's the division commander," Moffitt said. "Colonel Matthe Funke. It was on some of the papers on his table."
"Well," Troy said, pleased, "it's been a fair day's work so far."
"Providing we get over that chunk of road," Tully drawled.
It was not going to be as easy getting over the road with its craters and charges as he'd passed it off, Troy admitted to himself as he helped Moffitt and Hitch roll the drums off the jeeps once more. The floors and seats of the jeeps were wet, but Troy was so thoroughly soaked he didn't feel any additional discomfort. The motor coughed protestingly twice, but then it fired into life and he drove away from the dimness, looking over his shoulder toward the CP. No pursuit was yet on the road.
Hitch followed Troy out of the drums and Tully in the sedan raised his hand. The Mercedes started down the edge of the road. The route had been badly damaged by the charges and ragged deep holes had filled with water although the roadbed itself built up from the desert was draining rapidly. Tully had planted his two left wheels solidly on the road. He pulled ahead in second gear with the right wheels sinking quite deeply in the soft, slanted shoulders. He drove steadily for almost a mile and then slowed to a stop. Looking around the side, Troy saw that the burned and wrecked aircraft littered the road with debris. The ship had lurched to the side and a crumpled wing frame blocked the way.
Leaving his motor idling, Troy jumped from the jeep and ran around the sedan toward the plane. The fuselage and wing members were twisted and bent and the engine nacelles dangled, shapeless masses of metal. Troy walked into the spongy desert and around the tip of the wing. His boots sank into the wet sand. He ran back to the second jeep.
"We'll never make it around the wreck, the way things are," he told Moffitt and Hitch. "Give me a hand with the camouflage nets. We'll spread them in a path over the sand. Maybe they'll give us a firm enough surface."
They dragged the first net out to the end of the wing and spread the second back on the other side to the road. By the time the nets were laid, they'd been away from the CP for fifteen minutes. That was time enough for Dietrich to be discovered or the driver of the colonel's car to recover consciousness. Troy kept looking up the road, expecting every minute to see an armored car.
"All right, Tully," he shouted as he raced back to the ieep. "Get going. We'll both push you."
Tully drove onto the net in low gear and with the two Jeeps pushing in tandem moved slowly to the end of the wing. Something went wrong at the turn and the wheels of the sedan spun off the net. Tully took the car out of gear at once.
"Can you back away?" Tully called with his head out the window.
Troy turned to see Hitch moving slowly back in reverse and glimpsed an armored car coming down the road from the drums. He snatched a coil of rope from the back of the jeep.
"I'll try to get in front and pull," he shouted to Hitch. "Push when I start. Company's coming."
Troy reversed, slammed ahead on the net around the sedan, braked and hopped out fastening a double line in a short tow rope from the back of the jeep to the bumper of the Mercedes. The armored car had covered half of the distance from the drums to the plane when Troy put the jeep in gear. The line tightened, the sedan lurched ahead so abruptly it banged the back of the jeep and Troy wondered what explosives he still carried that the rain hadn't ruined. With the second jeep pushing, the sedan moved back onto the road. Troy jumped out, slashed the rope free. The armored car was no more than a hundred yards away, hesitating on the other side of the plane. No shots had been fired and Troy did not think the Jerries in the car would risk firing with the colonel in the middle car.
Now in the lead, Troy moved cautiously on. Once he glanced back and saw the armored car moving around the wing on the nets. He stepped up the speed as much as he dared, drove by the wreck of the Volkswagen still at the side of the road and half a mile farther, moved over to the crown of the road, shifted into conventional gear and stepped the speed up to thirty-five miles an hour. Another half mile and he pulled to the side to let Tully pass him.
They were clear of the charges. The armored car was around the plane and still tagging after them.
Although wet and slippery in places, the road seemed to have withstood the torrential rain. Tully drove at fifty miles an hour and the jeeps hung onto his tail. They were rapidly pulling away from the armored car. Troy began charting the route they'd take to Bir-el-Alam. The route they were on ran southeast for thirty-seven miles before connecting with an east-west trace that ran through the desert some miles north of El Alghur. To the east were strong Allied positions in Egypt, to the west the Allied base at Bir-el-Alam that boasted a new airfield. Troy normally preferred to operate over the most direct route through the desert, but he was uncertain whether the Mercedes could get through the wet sand. He decided they would continue on the route and then take the trace.
It would be at least another day, he believed, before Dietrich could resume any kind of operations on the plateau. He wondered how far the armored car would follow and glanced up at the sky. It still was overcast and threatening. The storm had been a real soaker and might not yet be over. It had been a calamity for Dietrich and probably had hampered Wilson at Sidi Beda although there at least the military avenue was surfaced. It must have been disagreeable in the Sherman tanks, but they didn't have to worry about moving. That was Dietrich's headache. With Dietrich's rocket launchers and rockets destroyed, Troy did not think a shot would be fired for at least twenty-four hours.
The Rat Patrol had taken the divisional commander prisoner and should be back on the battlefield before evening unless another rainstorm swamped them. Wilson should be pleased with the results the Rat Patrol had achieved on this mission, Troy thought and a smile flashed across his face. Wilson never admitted he was pleased and right now he probably wasn't even aware that all of the fuel dumps had been blown. He certainly didn't know about the rockets. Troy believed Wilson thought the Rat Patrol had a picnic every time they went out on a caper, and in a way, Wilson was right.
Troy shot a glance over his shoulder. Hitch waved lazily and Troy saw Moffitt was riding in front with him. Troy turned once more and discovered the armored car was no longer behind them. Ahead, Tully was driving easily down the middle of the road and the colonel seemed to be behaving himself. Two hours at the most, Troy thought, and they'd be at Bir-el-Alam. Maybe they could even grab a beer and a sandwich on the run.
Despite his clammily clinging clothes, Troy himself relaxed and he smiled. Suddenly Tully slammed on his brakes, skidding the sedan,
and Troy jerked over beside him before he stopped. He searched the road ahead before he looked at Tully. Two halftracks were rolling down a hill toward them and although still more than a half mile away, one of the seventy-fives reached out for the jeeps and staff car with three rapidly fired shells.
Wilson picked himself from the paved floor of the warehouse and looked around for his men. Two of them were getting groggily to their feet while the other two still sprawled, stunned. He had smashed the radio when the force of the explosion had blown him into it and his hip was sore.
"The Rat Patrol came back and tried to get us with a grenade," Wilson said sharply. He looked around the warehouse. The floor had a hole in it near the doors which were hanging crookedly and a section of the front wall had been gouged. "You two," he said to the MPs who were on their feet. "Guard the doors from outside. I'll see how badly these men are injured."
They were coming slowly to their senses. They'd only been stunned by the concussion, Wilson thought as he walked first one, then the other, out of the warehouse into the air. The rain had stopped and the water was gushing through the alley. The air in the quarter was muggy and carried a swamp odor stench.
"Bring the car around on the avenue," he told one of the MPs at the door. "We'll help these two men down and meet you. It's no use bothering with the transmitter. I crashed into it. I don't expect the Rat Patrol will return to this place, but check it out regularly. At least there will be no more transmissions to Dietrich from them."
Wilson's hatred for the Rat Patrol had become a steady, constant hot flame that was so unremitting he feared he was neglecting his defenses. Although, he told himself, running down the treacherous defectors was a very important part of his defense. Visibility still was too restricted to call in the planes, he decided, scanning the sky. He half supported one of the men who'd been stunned as they splashed toward the avenue. Wilson wondered whether the water had damaged the road at the bottom of the pass. He'd have to return and check with Drake. It might take some doing to shore up the defenses in the mud.