by David King
Troy went to the back of the car. Tully turned the beam at the bottom of first one hamper and then the other. Both were well off the floor of the trunk. Tully lifted one of the hampers. Folded beneath it were two white wool blankets. Two more blankets were under the second hamper.
"We didn't lift out the hampers," Tully said. "We didn't notice they were riding high."
Tully and Troy each wrapped a blanket around himself and Troy carried the other two to Moffitt and Hitch.
"Things seem to be picking up a bit," Moffitt said with a J. Enna smile that lifted his mustache.
"Why didn't Tully find them before?" Hitch complained, throwing the blanket over his shoulders.
"Why didn't you find them?" Troy mocked. "Your hands were as deep in that trunk as Tully's."
"Why didn't you?" Hitch demanded truculently. "You got into the trunk for the ham and wine when we were hung up."
"Because I was hanging onto a skyhook," Troy said and laughed. He looked around. The high land at the area where they had stopped was at least a mile across the hump before it sloped away to the sand that lay between the ridge and the salt marshes. It was level and unobstructed ahead and to the sides. They had taken the sensible course, he thought, and the only safe way.
"Sam. . . ." There was absolute horror in Tully's voice and it trailed off in a moan.
Troy, with Moffitt and Hitch at his heels, ran to the back of the car. Tully stood motionless as if he were paralyzed. The greenish cast of the moonlight made the terror in his face ghastly. He lifted his arm slowly, as if he were in a trance, and pointed. Troy heard a noise like the rattling of chains as he turned to look. He gasped and shuddered, and for a moment, like Tully, he was transfixed.
Converging from either side near the middle of the ridge were two columns of twelve tanks each. They were miniature tanks, about four feet long and two feet high, certainly not large enough to contain humans, yet they maneuvered with precision as they approached each other to within a distance of about three yards and turned sharply in a column two abreast. They crawled like lines of soldier ants and their continuous caterpillar treads ground relentlessly with a steady drone.
They were awesome little monsters, more dreadful than two columns of Mark IVs. The thought flashed across Troy's mind that these machines that could not possibly have human operators yet which performed with such military exactness were straight from H. G. Wells. The beastly little vehicles were driving for the car and the attack was terrifying.
9
A blast shattered the night and the flash from the explosion glared over the ridge. Another detonation followed immediately and then there was a nerve-jangling series of them, as if sticks of dynamite had been fused together like firecrackers in a string. The sky was stabbed with blinding lightning and buffeted with violent thunder. The rock trembled, the sky shuddered and all was quiet, although a fire raged where the Hispano-Suiza had been parked for the coffee break.
"You can slow down now," Troy said to Hitch. His voice rasped and there was a quaver in it.
The car had been at least a mile away when the first explosion crashed against the ridge and the shock waves slammed their eardrums. They had recovered from the near panic that had seized each of them at first sight of the unearthly weapons, banged the trunk shut and sped away in a headlong dash from disaster.
"Okay to stop?" Hitch asked shakily. "I got the jitters."
"Stop, shut off the motor, set the brake," Troy said. "We'll pass around the flasks."
He glanced ahead as the car stopped, saw the path was clear ahead before Hitch switched off the spotlight. Turning, he studied the blaze and saw no figures moving about it nor in the moonlight beyond.
"What were they, Sam?" Tully asked as Troy slumped back in the corner of the seat. Tully's voice was hoarse and his face seemed bilious. "What kind of things was after us?"
"Just doodlebugs, Sol," Troy said, but there wasn't much reassurance in his voice. "Nasty little remote-controlled, self-propelled mines Jerry has devised. They ran into something or got out of control, piled into each other and blew up."
"Oh," Tully said. He didn't sound relieved. "I heard about them. I've never seen one before." He shook his head. "Don't want to see one again."
"Coming out of the night at you like that, unexpected, they jam you for a minute," Hitch said.
"I'm still shook," Tully admitted.
Moffitt handed each his silver flask from the handbags. "Jerry doesn't often use them," he said. "Actually, they're not a bit effective."
"Effective enough to have blown the car and us right off the ridge," Troy muttered. He was morosely silent for several moments. He gulped a swallow from his flask and said, "I think we'd better go back."
He stared sightlessly at the flask in his hand. He could feel three pairs of eyes on him but no one said a word.
"I've tried to explain away the other three attacks as unrelated events that just happened that way," he went on. "This doodlebug deal is too much. Dietrich knows our cover, he knows our route, when he doesn't get us one place, he's waiting for us down the road a piece."
"How could Jerry know precisely where we were going to halt for a break?" Moffitt asked quietly. "We hadn't even planned it ourselves."
"Whether or not he knew where we were going to stop," Troy said angrily, "he was there with those damned doodlebugs when we did stop."
"We happened to stop in a clear area where he was experimenting with the mines," Moffitt suggested.
"Rationalize! Call it coincidence! Say we were a target of opportunity," Troy said furiously. "The point is, Jerry saw us. He sent those doodlebugs after us. He had to be here on the ridge to do it. If Jerry didn't know about us before, he does now."
"Jerry may have seen the searchlight from below," Moffitt countered. "It doesn't follow that he saw us. He was below and knew simply that anyone up here in the testing area didn't belong to him."
"He was up here; is up here," Troy declared in a coldly toneless voice. "He had to be up here to control and observe his mines."
"What do you imagine he saw from a distance?" Moffitt asked with an irritating J. Enna smile. "A searchlight."
"And the outline of this car," Troy said curtly.
"Things look very different at a distance in the dark," Moffitt argued. Troy was beginning to be annoyed at his persistence. "If he did see the car from a mile away, he could not identify it in daylight."
"He could be damned suspicious," Troy snapped. "Look, we've been attacked four times since yesterday morning. Only a maniac would go on and bust into Dietrich's camp throwing grenades and shooting."
"How would you return, Sam?" Moffitt asked. "Past the Jerries with the doodlebugs? Past the patrol car and Arabs we shot up?"
"How would you go on, Jack?" Troy said bitingly. "Continue on the route where Jerry has us pegged? Walk into the next trap and let Jerry slam it shut? It isn't just myself. I've got the three of you to think about."
"Oh, come now, Sam," Moffitt said. He sounded disgusted and impatient. "You aren't going to start thinking about us at this late date."
"Knock it off, Jack!" Troy exploded. "It's idiotic to go on with this cover. Everything indicates it's been blown. I don't mind taking chances if there's one small percentage that the risk will succeed. Only a fool delivers himself as a sacrifice. We're not doing Wilson any good by getting captured and being shot."
"There is more than a small percentage in our favor," Moffitt insisted. "Jerry is going to have to explain that fiasco with the doodlebugs. He does not know who we are and I very much doubt that he will mention an enemy patrol that got away. We don't even know that he was attached to Dietrich's unit."
"It's all too iffy, Jack," Troy said. Moffitt was doing exactly the kind of thing he'd done himself earlier, finding innocent excuses for the damning facts.
"A small percentage in our favor," Moffitt repeated softly.
"Jack, you know I don't want to turn back," Troy said irritably. He looked at Tully and Hitch,
scrounged around on the front seat. "What do you say, Sol? Mark?"
"Crawl back into that hole in the desert and twiddle our thumbs when we can wear civilian clothes, ride around in a Hispano-Suiza and gorge on truffles and caviar?" Hitch asked derisively. "You nuts or something?"
"You'll never stick a pig sitting in your kitchen," Tully said.
"It looks as if it's settled, Sam," Moffitt said. The only thing that pleased Troy was that Moffitt didn't smile.
Tully and Hitch handed back their flasks. Hitch stepped on the starter and the Enna brothers once more were on their way. Troy wished he could put some faith in all the spurious reasoning he and Moffitt had done. They were committed to their cover and their mission now. Once off the ridge they could not turn back. He voted the assignment the most unlikely to succeed of any caper they'd ever undertaken.
Hitch was not using the searchlight. Looking back, Troy saw that the fires from the explosions were dwindling. There still were no figures moving anywhere on the ridge. It was strange that no one had approached the blown doodlebugs to investigate. He tugged the blanket closer over his chest and settled comfortably back. The night air was sharp and clean in his lungs. Despite his apprehension, Troy dozed.
He awakened with a start to find the car had stopped. It was only Tully and Hitch changing places at the wheel. The next time he awakened, his stomach felt hollow. The touring car was poised nose down on a very steep decline. Moments later they were off the ridge and threading through a boulder-strewn slope toward the cactus-studded desert. Troy thrust his hand into his pocket for his lighter, flipped it against his wristwatch and saw by the hands of his synthetic diamond encrusted wristwatch that it was oh-four-hundred. The moon was down and the sky was opaque blue-black. Tully was using the searchlight.
"Hold on a minute," he said quietly to Tully. Beside Troy, Moffitt stirred in his sleep and settled back.
The car came to a stop and Tully turned, leaning his arm on the back of the seat. Hitch hadn't awakened during the descent and was snoring gently.
Troy stepped onto the running board next to Tully. "Put the flash on the map and give me the compass bearing," Troy said. He looked over Tully's shoulder at the chart spread over the big steering wheel. Tully held the flash close to the map so the illumination was a small bright circle.
"We're here," Tully said, pointing. "Off the ridge, at the end and west of Dietrich's salt marsh, between his position and Sirte except about fifty miles or maybe sixty miles south of him. And about fifty miles west of him. The going may be a little rough, but it's mostly desert until we get near the coast. Then we're going to run into some more hills and ridges. Our course is due north with allowances for anything we have to go around."
"You've made good time," Troy said. "Get in the back and curl up. I'll drive until dawn."
"I can hang on a couple more hours," Tully said.
"Sure you can hang on," he said. He grinned but his face felt tight and he could feel the strain. "But if there's one thing I can't stand it's a sleepy cook and lousy coffee for breakfast. Now git."
"Gotcha, boss," Tully said briskly and flatly.
Troy stepped off the running board and Tully slipped out of the car. "There are times I suspect all the 'shine you ran wasn't in Kentucky," Troy observed dryly.
"Thet drawl is jest a lazy way a-talkin'," Tully said, and in the light from the flash, Sol Enna winked a dark eye.
Troy emptied three of the five-gallon cans of gasoline into the tank, filled the radiator with water, laid a stick grenade beside him on the seat and put the car in gear. Experimentally, he turned off the searchlight before he started. Even after his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he could not make out the shapes of the boulders and cacti ahead. He did not like the idea of driving behind the Jerry lines with the searchlight on but the alternative was worse. Headlights would be a dead giveaway that some kind of motor vehicle was behind them. The single spotlight could be mounted on anything from a motorcycle to self-propelled gun. A Jerry patrol wasn't likely to fire without investigating.
The Hispano-Suiza was a surprising automobile. Big and clumsy as it appeared, it responded immediately and magnificently to the steering wheel and accelerator. The engine hummed softly as Troy guided the car through the rocks and around the cactus. He was able to maintain a speed of between thirty and forty miles per hour with the spot beamed about fifty feet ahead of the car. Now and then when he entered a clear stretch of desert, he checked the compass and pushed the speed up to fifty. In two hours, they could be on the coastal highway driving east toward Dietrich's position. They'd be picked up as soon as it was light, if not before. They could be facing Dietrich across a breakfast table, sharing their sumptuous larder with him. It would give them extra time, providing their cover still held, but it also would give Dietrich an entire day to observe them in the full light of the blazing sun. Between eight in the morning and eighteen-hundred at night, whiskers would sprout. A look, an unconscious gesture that caught Dietrich's wary eye. It would be better if they arrived at dusk as he'd planned, Troy thought. They'd share a buffet supper with him and be in and out of his lines during the hours of darkness. If they were lucky.
They were well behind the Jerry lines in this desert area that was not a battlefield and there was no reason Jerry should be patrolling so deep within his own territory, but Troy was not surprised when a light glared into his eyes and a voice harshly commanded, "Stillstand!"
Troy turned the wheels away from the spotlight as he let the car come to a gently rolling stop. He depressed the clutch and slipped the car into second gear. The stick grenade was in his right hand when he turned toward the voice. No choice, he thought bitterly. They were too far from the coastal highway to be discovered and taken in to Dietrich and their disguises had been ravaged by the night. The spotlight on the patrol car which was idling noisily was very close. Troy heard the footsteps in the sand on his side. He worked the steering wheel a little more to the right. He knew he could not handle the maneuver alone but there had been no movement in the car, nothing to indicate that any of the others was awake or aware of what was happening.
Suddenly he stepped on the accelerator, let out the clutch, hurled the grenade at the searchlight and turned the spot on it all in a swift, continuing motion. The car spurted away, three machine guns rattled, two bursts of enemy fire raked them, the grenade exploded in the sand, two more grenades blasted and the patrol car flamed and exploded. The Hispano-Suiza had leaped away but was rocked with the blast and was showered with sand. Troy spun the car around and the searchlight found a Jerry enlisted man with a light machine gun running away from the wreck. Before taking after him, Troy inspected the area around the blazing car. The others in the patrol apparently had been caught in the car. When Troy beamed the searchlight back, the running Jerry had disappeared. Gone to ground, Troy thought. They had to get him.
The light jumped from one clump of cactus to another as the car prowled the desert beyond the circle of light that spread from the fire. A volley spattered at them as the light struck a rock. Troy swerved and put the car behind the stone, keeping the spotlight on it. The Jerry scuttled around, firing burst after burst. Troy was relieved the man was firing. They could not have shot him if he hadn't and they could not afford a prisoner. The Jerry still was firing as Tully's machine gun cut him down.
"Now, Sam," Moffitt began as Troy sped away from the burning car.
"I won't say a word, Jack," Troy said. "We're in their territory. We've got to expect to run into them." Still, he wondered why the patrol should have been in this particular area at this time of the morning.
No one slept after the encounter with the patrol car. There was no indication that there was a second patrol, and after five or ten minutes the tension drained away. Troy lighted a cigarette.
"Anyone for ham and cheese?" Tully asked; hopefully, Troy thought.
"Wait until we stop," Troy suggested. "With what we have in the trunk, we might as well have a VIP breakfast."
"I only meant to ask, what is the plan, Sam?" Moffitt said with mild surprise in his voice. "Are we going straight on?"
"No," Troy said. "I'd considered it and rejected the idea even before we ran into the last patrol. We'll hole up all day and go in late this afternoon. It's not just that I don't want Dietrich inspecting us in the daylight. Starting with the Arabs, we've left a pretty plainly marked trail. The longer the time lapse, the less chance of Dietrich connecting us with the two patrols and the doodlebugs. We'll ditch the grenades before we visit Dietrich."
"The pineapples have been handy little gadgets," Moffitt observed.
"Potato mashers," Troy corrected. "If you're going to use gangster jargon, you'd better be sure it's right. A GI grenade is a pineapple. The stick grenades have been handy, but they would be embarrassing when Dietrich goes through our stuff. He'll know about the patrols by then. We're going in clean."
They drove on wrapped in blankets and silence until the blue-black of the sky began to turn to gray and the landscape sprang into darkly silhouetted view. Troy switched off the light and pressed down on the accelerator. They flew past a native village, a dozen mud and wattle huts with goats and a few chickens contained in thornbush corrals. On a cactus prickling hill in the distance, Troy saw the high walls and flat buildings of an old French fort.
"Looks deserted," Hitch beside him commented. "That's a good place to hide out."
"It would be the first place the Jerries would look when they discover what happened to their patrol," Troy said.
"Not much other place to hide," Hitch said.
"It's rocky and there are ridges between the road and the ocean if I read the map right," Troy said. "We're going to hit the road, drive a few miles east until we come to a trail going toward the ocean that won't show our tire marks. We're going to find a gully or ravine and sweat it out. If we're discovered, I want to be on the other side of the road."