by David King
"Yes, sir," Merriam said bitterly.
"You are very kind, effendi," the Arab repeated and Wilson thought he actually looked grateful.
12
An insufferable racket like the rasping of a thousand files against loose tin awakened Troy and he scrambled to his knees on the white blanket. His first glimpse of the three wild-haired strangers with bristling mustaches lying beside him shocked him and he dived for his submachine gun, but he was laughing softly as he came up with it at his hip. These men were his brothers. The Enna brothers. And the big old Hispano-Suiza touring car with them in the ravine was their car.
The screeching had awakened the others and they all were sitting up. Their coats, trousers, shirts and ties, which they had carefully shaken and brushed, were neatly folded on the seats of the car and they had slept in their weirdly assorted shorts. Troy's were uncomfortable slithery silk, but at least they were white. Moffitt's shorts were the best of the lot, a very fine Egyptian cotton, but even concealed by trousers the color was enough to abash any self-respecting GI. They were cerise. Moffitt himself had named the color. Troy had called it cherry red. Hitch's shorts were a polka dot affair and Tully's were nylon and not pink, as Troy had predicted, but mauve, again according to Moffitt, although they looked light purple to Troy. For a moment they disregarded the shrieking in their ears and sat staring at each other, then all burst out laughing.
"We'll have to ditch the shorts before we go back to camp," Troy said.
"Party pooper," Hitch accused.
"What's the buzz saw cutting?" Tully asked.
"It's a sandstorm, I think," Troy said, glancing at the camouflage net. It was rippling but they weren't getting the full force of the wind in the ravine. "We'd better have a look."
Carrying tommy-guns, they trotted around the bend in the deep ravine to the dry bed. It was hot but the sky was hazed. Troy scrambled up the eroded claybank on the other side with the howling of a storm ringing in his ears and the fine reddish yellow sand flung out from its fringes stinging his face. The others stood beside him watching an enormous wall of burning, swirling sand more than two hundred feet high boiling through the desert on the other side of the road more than five miles away. It was sweeping westward away from them and it was not a mere sandstorm, it was a Ghibli. This was the desert wind that blew the year around, erratic, wild, unconquerable. The sand it churned so savagely blinded and suffocated. The Ghibli was a killer.
Troy searched the grade more than a mile away, saw nothing moving on it, and glanced at his watch. It was fifteen-thirty. He skidded down the embankment to the dry bed and looked at Moffitt, Tully and Hitch critically as they tumbled down and joined him. Hitch's face was stubbled with reddish whiskers. Tully's chin was a palish contrast to his black hair and Troy supposed his own contrasted too. Moffitt's beard was bluish-black. He was the only one of them who could escape detection if he didn't shave.
"Another hour, by the time we move out, we should be able to see the sun again. I think we'd better shave, get something to eat and be ready to shake it."
"Right-o," Moffitt agreed. "Nothing appeared to be traveling on the road. Do you suppose we'll have to drive to the perimeter unescorted? We don't have the password, you know."
"We'll be picked up," Troy promised, a little grimly. "Just hope the cover holds."
Back under the camouflage net, Tully unstrapped the trunk, dropped the front and lighted the Sterno stove on it. He pawed through the hamper that contained the picnic set, cutlery and pans.
"All right," he said at last. "It ain't here. Them G2 guys ain't so smart; they slipped up. They forgot a tin basin to wash and shave and soap and towels."
"Use one of the pots for shaving water," Troy said. "Put on a pan to heat. We can manage washing from a water can. We don't need towels but soap we do. I don't think they forgot."
He unzipped his handbag and opened the toilet kit. There was soap and shaving cream as well as toothpaste, toothbrush and a razor. The soap and toothpaste had been used. But he could find no towel in his handbag. It didn't make any difference personally. He could use a shirt tail or let the wind and sun dry his skin, but he did not think G2 would forget a towel for each of them. The basin? No oversight. The Enna brothers were city-bred. They wouldn't have thought to bring one along. But towels they would have carried. Troy grinned. He opened the outside flap to the compartment containing the flask, removed it and reached to the bottom. He brought out a rolled linen towel. "We're set," he said over his shoulder. "Jack, you first. Then Sol, myself and last, Mark. Shave it close."
Hitch looked balefully at Troy.
"Now, Red," Troy chided.
"Nuts," Hitch said.
"This is going to blooix up the coffee," Tully said, placing a pan with an inch of water in it over the flame.
"Can't be helped," Troy said. "We'll drink a bottle of wine. We'll be more in character if we go in smelling boozy. Who wants what for lunch? We haven't made an impression on the ham and cheese."
"Do we have to have ham and cheese?" Tully asked. "Can we have anything we want? Maybe this is the last we get to eat this stuff. Maybe Dietrich will grab it."
"That is possible," Troy admitted. "Go ahead, look over the assortment, take your pick. There's enough to feed an Army anyway."
Tully, already at the trunk, preempted first choice. He examined the stacks of exotic delicacies for a long time, finally turned to Troy and shrugged. "I'll stick with ham and cheese, toast and butter," he said. "There's none of this other stuff that's fit to eat. That fish egg jam last night was spoiled."
Hitch was scowling. "This is cockeyed," he said. "Who's to eat lamb's tongue and nasturtium pods? The other cheeses and the sausages are okay but what's the point? I'll go along with Sol."
"You know, old boy," Moffitt said, tugging the J. Enna mustache thoughtfully, "our brothers have something there. I wouldn't mind a bit of chutney but nothing else tempts me."
"Cheese on ham, chutney side, coming up," Troy chanted. "I'm with you but I'd like my coffee. Sol, let me have the pot."
"You can't build a fire, Sam," Tully said. "There'd be smoke and anyway, there's no wood."
"Just let me have the pot and the can of coffee," Troy said patiently.
Moffitt chuckled. "Don't know why they couldn't have remembered tea," he said, "but I'll help with the coffee. You'll want stones."
Troy took the coffee can and pot, searching along the edge of the ravine until he found a crevice that was heaped with drifted sand. He scooped the sand in a high mound and placed the stones Moffitt brought on either side. Then he took a can of gasoline from the car, saturated the sand with it, filled the pot with water and eight heaping tablespoons of coffee and touched a match to the sand. There was a whoof as the sand burst into flame. When the gasoline-impregnated sand was burning with a blue fire, he placed the pot on the stones and grinned over his shoulder at Tully.
After they'd washed in tepid water, they shaved, using the mirror on the back of the car's searchlight. By the time Troy had added gasoline twice to the sand-fire and the coffee had come to a boil they all were ready to eat.
"I've been thinking," Troy said slowly as he piled a buttered round of toast with ham, cheese and chutney.
"Did it hurt?" Hitch asked innocently.
"For that corn, I'm glad I've been thinking what I've been thinking," Troy said, unruffled. "We don't know how much cover we've got left, but Dietrich's going to be suspicious of everybody who comes along. If we'd come in here clean and easy, it would have been one thing. The way things stand, he's going to suspect us because there are four of us."
"What are you thinking, Sam?" Hitch asked warily.
"Three of us go in, one stays here. If the rest of us aren't back in twenty-four hours, he tries to get through to take the word to Wilson."
"Who stays here?" Hitch asked bluntly.
"You," Troy said. "Moffitt, Tully and I will go in."
"Why me?" Hitch asked angrily.
"Tully can't s
wim," Troy said. "You may have to go back along the coast and swim around Dietrich's ridge. He'll have the beach patrolled."
"All right," Hitch barked. "Tully goes in. But why Moffitt and you? Why can't one of you stay here?"
"Because we outrank you, Sonny," Troy said with a fast smile.
"That's no reason on a job like this," Hitch ranted. "There isn't one of you can handle a garrote the way I can. It isn't fair. I made the biggest sacrifice."
"Sacrifice?" Troy questioned.
"My hair," he said. "I'm shaved bald."
"We're all shaved bald," Troy said.
"But my hair was red," Hitch wailed.
"Do you think it's going to grow back green?" Troy asked, holding back a smile.
"They even dyed my eyebrows black," Hitch moaned. "They're going to look pretty fancy when they start growing out red at the roots."
"Eyebrows don't grow," Tully commented. He was having difficulty hiding the grin under his mustache. "Not one hundredth of an inch a year."
"So I got to go around with a bald head and black eyebrows until the dye wears off," Hitch said despairingly.
"The dye is more or less permanent, I understand," Moffitt said. The lenses concealed the twinkle Troy knew was in his eyes. "It's some new aniline compounded with a vegetable extract, I believe. Very popular with middle-aged ladies."
"See what I mean, Sam?" Hitch cried. "I'm ruined. You got to give me this last chance for the supreme sacrifice I made."
"You look all right to me," Troy said heartlessly. "You can just go on being an Enna."
"Why not just you and I on this mission?" Moffitt slyly asked Troy. "The two of us can handle it."
Troy nodded. "Okay, Sol stays behind to sympathize with Mark."
"I can't drag him if I've got to swim for it," Hitch said.
"Rattos! I give you the pernàcchia!" Tully stuck out his tongue and loosed a resounding Bronx cheer. "Among you, I am the only pezzinorante. You would go in with the lupara and every tedesco would have your number. My knife is silent.
"Huh?" Hitch said. "What'd he say?"
"Quite literally, I believe it ran something like this," Moffitt said, laughing aloud. "'Rats, I give you the raspberry. I am the only executioner among you. You would go in with a shotgun blasting and all the Jerries would be on your necks.'"
Troy glanced at his watch. It was nearing sixteen-thirty. "Pack up, get dressed, let's roll." He stood without looking at Hitch.
"All of us?" Hitch asked, plaintively hopeful.
"All of us," Troy growled. "Maybe, if Dietrich is suspicious, he'll figure we couldn't be the Rat Patrol because we'd never do such a stupid thing as all four of us coming in." He looked up. "Give me a hand with the net, Jack."
When they'd folded the net, Troy removed half a dozen cans of herring, crabmeat and shrimp, an Edam cheese, a tin of crackers, one of the Italian sausages and a bottle of wine from the trunk. He wrapped the net around them, found a nook near the end of the ravine and buried the cache under a cairn.
"There's a survival kit for someone," he said. "I hope none of us has to use it."
It was a somber note on which to end the horseplay, but from now on business was deadly serious. After the series of attacks and encounters which had beset the mission from the start, he was filled with misgivings which neither Moffitt's reasoning nor his own rationalization could brush aside. When they all were dressed, he gave each a rapid, visual inspection. He had vetoed the suggestion of clean shirts and the suits were sufficiently rumpled to support the story of a long trip from Tunis. Their freshly shaved faces would be grimed with dust and streaked with sweat after a few miles. The disguises were intact. They looked like a murderous gang from a Grade-B movie. If the cover hadn't been blown, Troy believed they had a fifty-fifty chance.
"You pass," he said, facing Moffitt, Hitch and Tully. "How about me?"
"Sam Troy would shoot you on sight," Moffitt said, "and ask who you had been after a bit."
They checked their tommy-guns, placed them in the violin cases and laid them on the seats. Troy ejected the clip from the Browning automatic pistol, ran his thumb over the cartridges, snapped them back into the butt and shoved the gun into his belt. Tully took the knife, a thin-bladed, needle-pointed stiletto, from his handbag and slipped it through the loops of his pants behind his belt. Hitch sulked because he had no garrote.
When the radiator had been filled with water and the tank with gasoline, Tully slid into the driver's seat and the Hispano-Suiza crept in second gear out of the airless ravine, along the baked dry bed, up the incline and over the hot smelling stone to the winding trail. No Jerry patrols roved the road and when Tully had turned the car onto it, he fed it gas until it was soaring over the scorched land.
The Ghibli had blown out of sight and the haze had dissipated. The lowering sun burned at their backs and soon Troy was sweating in his suit coat.
Abruptly Tully called back, "Halftrack and scout car about a mile ahead. Do we pass or stop?"
Troy saw the dust trailing over the grade in the distance. He tried to think like Sam Enna. The American gangster and Sicilian black marketeer would be arrogant. His business was with the head man, Captain Dietrich. He would disdain anyone else. The Jerries would have to stop him.
"Barrel on," he called to Tully. "Let them do the stopping."
The car plummeted ahead and shot by the clumping halftrack and rackety Volkswagen showering them with dust and pebbles. Troy waited for a shell from the halftrack to sing over their heads but there wasn't even a burst of machine gun fire. He looked back. The Jerry vehicles were hidden by the dust.
"They aren't going to make it easy for us," he shouted, smiling wryly. "Okay, Sol. Pull over to the shoulder and stop. We'll wait for them."
13
Doeppler kicked his legs straight out, parade-style goosestep, when he marched into Dietrich's tent. He 'heiled' to Dietrich's apathetic acknowledgment and stood at attention. His face was laminated with layers of sweat and dust but despite his grubby appearance, his little eyes that were set too close to the bridge of his nose managed to convey an impression of suppressed excitement.
Dietrich looked at him with jaded eyes and shuddered. On the table before him was a cheese soufflé. It was fluffy and golden brown. The airy masterpiece towered a good two inches above the rim of the casserole. A plate of toast was beside the soufflé. Melting butter, ersatz but satisfactory on hot bread or toast, was dredging the slices. Coffee steamed in a porcelain cup. He had not eaten all day and he was hungry.
"Won't it keep, Doeppler?" Dietrich asked limply.
"I regret to interrupt your meal, Herr Hauptmann," Doeppler cackled as if his throat were clogged with dust. "The matter I wish to report is of supreme urgency."
"Only your report that the Rat Patrol had been captured would justify this intrusion," Dietrich said, but there wasn't much starch in his voice. The day had been trying. "Did you take the Rat Patrol prisoners, Doeppler?"
"I captured four Americans, Herr Hauptmann," Doeppler said stiffly.
"The Rat Patrol?" Dietrich said sharply. "Don't play games, Doeppler, don't try to be cute." He leaned forward but fell back again at once. "Of course they are not the Rat Patrol or you would have said so. Who are these Americans you have captured?"
"They are civilians," Doeppler said. "I think they are musicians. At least, each has a violin."
"So what are you doing, bringing me a stringed quartet to play for my supper?" The magnificent omelette was sagging sadly in the middle. "How did you capture them? Where did you capture them? What are they doing here in our territory?"
Doeppler frowned slightly, cracking the paste on his forehead. Dietrich thought that all of a sudden the lieutenant looked queasy. "They came flying up behind us like the Ghibli which nearly trapped us in the desert. They were driving a large touring car. It was on the coastal road. I stopped them and took them prisoner."
"Very astute of you to take them prisoner," Dietrich commented dryly. "And w
hat were these four American civilians doing, flying like the wind on the coastal road?"
"As you know, I do not speak much English," Doeppler said. "They kept repeating 'Herr Hauptmann Hans Dietrich, Herr Hauptmann Hans Dietrich.' I gathered they wished to see you."
"Astute and perceptive of you, Doeppler," Dietrich murmured.
"Thank you, Herr Hauptmann," Doeppler said, gratified. "Do you wish to interrogate them now?"
The omelette had collapsed. It lay dejected and defeated below the rim of the casserole. A yellowish, waxy film covered the sodden toast. "By all means, Doeppler," Dietrich said. "Bring in your captives. We must not keep them waiting."
"Ja, Herr Hauptmann." Doeppler saluted, about-faced and goose-stepped importantly from the tent.
Dietrich was only mildly interested in the four American musicians. When Doeppler had mentioned 'four Americans,' he had been alert immediately thinking the Rat Patrol had attempted some new deception. He had dismissed the thought at once. The Rat Patrol and he were too well acquainted for them to attempt tricking him even in disguise. He could not imagine what four American musicians could be doing within his lines. They probably were from a camp show unit and had somehow wandered through the lines. It was strange they should ask for him by name and he wondered how they knew it, but this evening he honestly did not care. His stomach protested mightily at the indignities it had suffered and all he wanted was to be left alone to eat.
Four men sauntered casually into the tent although Doeppler was guarding them closely from the rear with a Schmeisser machine pistol. Each of the men carried a violin case. They all had the same unruly black hair, dark eyebrows and hard brown eyes and fierce mustaches. They were dressed expensively and atrociously. One, a broad shouldered brute, smiled whitely to show a flashy gold tooth.