by David King
"No, sir," the dark-haired medic with the scissors said without looking up. "We're prepared for field dressing only prior to evacuation."
"What will you do with these men?" Wilson demanded. "They're wounded seriously and they're obviously suffering from shock."
"Best we can do is leave them on stretchers, elevate them off the ground with a couple cartridge cases," the light-haired medic with the hypo said.
"Peilowski," Wilson ordered. "Go to the truck and get your cot and blankets. These men will sleep here tonight."
"Yes, sir," the first sergeant said quickly and turned to leave the tent, but not before Wilson noted that his face was flushing.
"How badly are they wounded?" Wilson asked as the light-haired medic swabbed Albright's temple and cheek and the other probed Kierzek's leg.
"This fellow caught a good chunk of scrap against his shin," the dark-haired one said. "There's a fracture. He's been walking on it and we've got some bone fragments punching through the skin. I'll clean it, shake some sulpha powder on it, bandage it lightly and splint it, but he needs treatment fast. Can you evacuate him by air?"
"I'll arrange it at once," Wilson said crisply. "How about the other?"
"Lacerations, superficial wounds on his temple. Possible fracture of the cheekbone. Possibly shrapnel imbedded in the skull. I can't tell. He needs out."
"All right, do what you can to make them comfortable," Wilson said. "I'll have an aircraft in to take them out as soon as it's light enough to land."
He ran to the communications van. Kalmuk was on duty and the Eskimo got the message off to Bir el Alam without delay. Wilson's request was confirmed immediately.
Peilowski was setting up his cot on the opposite side of the tent from Wilson's when he stepped back into the tent. The medics had cut Kierzek's fatigues away and wiped him with alcohol. They wrapped him in a blanket, lifted him to Wilson's cot and covered him with a second blanket. When they had stripped and bathed Albright, they wrapped him and placed him on Peilowski's cot. The dark-haired medic picked up the stretcher and they stepped toward the opening.
"Oh, Doc," Wilson said absently. "Leave that stretcher behind. Peilowski can scrounge some cases and I'll sleep on it tonight."
The dark-haired medic's hesitancy was scarcely enough to notice and Wilson thought nothing of it. He put the stretcher back on the ground and the two medics walked off without another word.
Peilowski's face was growing red when Wilson glanced at him and he was trying to contain his laughter.
"What is it, Peilowski?" Wilson asked curtly. "I don't see much humor in this ward."
"Sorry, sir," Peilowski said, trying hard to be serious but bursting out in a belly laugh. "It's just that the medics only got two stretchers and they been using them themselves to sleep on. I was wondering whose bed you took away tonight."
Peilowski found two empty wooden cases and set the stretcher up on them outside the tent for Wilson. The CO took his .45 and a flashlight, placed them inside the box at his head, rolled a GI blanket from his locker around his fatigues, and lay down. He looked once at the starry sky and was asleep.
Violent oaths, a string of epithets, shrill and ear-splitting, awakened him. He struggled with the blanket that bound him like a mummy cloth, threw it off, reached for his pistol and flashlight and sat up, beaming the light at the babble. Two wild-eyed, tousle-haired men with barbaric mustaches were struggling with two guards. The foreigners were dressed in civilian clothing. Each time the guards jabbed them with their tommy-guns the men went into a frenzy.
"Good lord, now what!" Wilson shouted, sounding angry. "First the Arabs and now the Ey-tees. Don't tell me. You caught them spying for the Jerries."
"Babbuino!" the man in the purple suit spat him. He'd never heard a word uttered with such defiance.
"If I knew what he said, I don't think I'd like it," Wilson said patiently. He examined the prisoners. They were as disreputable a pair as he'd encountered. He could almost find it in his heart to wish the guard would shoot such villains instead of bringing them to him, he thought, remembering Albright and Kierzek in the tent and Merriam and Heath scattered over the trail. Harshly he asked, "Do either of you men know who in camp speaks Italian? I suppose I'll have to interrogate these monsters."
"Waddaya mean, monster?" the ruffian in the purple suit and pink shut screeched.
"Waddaya mean, spik Italiano?" the cutthroat in the brown gabardine suit and brown shirt screamed.
"We spikka da Inglis," purple suit sneered, lifting his wicked mustache. "Fantoccio! Waddaya wanta know, ya beega babbo?"
"Now, see here!" Wilson said, enraged. He started to stand. The stretcher slipped off the box at his head and he sprawled in the sand.
"Geeva look, Sol!" purple suit cried delightedly. "He's-a no babbo, he's-a bimbo. He wanta crawl, the creep!"
Wilson jumped to his feet, quivering with wrath. "Now you men be quiet!" he hollered. "I will not tolerate your ridicule. What are you men doing here?"
"Watsa wrong, thees place?" brown suit asked. "Oh ho, you not got room, all full-a up tonight. Hokay, we go see Meestair Dietrich. Maybe he geev us room weeth bath."
"What do you know about Dietrich?" Wilson yelled in blind rage at these insufferable idiots who baited him so mercilessly.
"He send-a us," purple suit said with a shrug. "He say, 'You keel that Heetch and Tooley, by dam' I pay for that.'"
"What! Why you—!" Wilson felt his eyes widening and his jaw going slack. I must not lose my dignity, he thought, but he knew it was no use as he bent over, convulsed with silent laughter.
Then it rolled out. He roared. He howled. He wept. He laughed until he hurt and sat weakly on the stretcher. Except the stretcher wasn't there any more and that was funny too. To hell with the dignity for once, he thought, sitting on the sand holding his sides and thinking of the two guards standing there watching their CO who, they must be certain, had lost his marbles. That set him off in fresh peals.
Finally exhausted, Wilson shakily got to his feet. "Heetch, Tooley, is this what G2 decided to do? What have they done to you? Who is which?"
Purple suit said, "Private Mark Hitchcock, reporting for duty as ordered, sir."
And brown suit said, "Private Tully Pettigrew, reporting for duty as commanded, babbo."
"Um, yes," Wilson said, trying to make his face and voice stern. "I must make a note of those terms. Perhaps I could ran through a summary court-martial. By the way, what do they mean? What does babbo mean?"
"I didn't call you that, Hitch did," Tully said. "It means pop, dad, pa."
"I've been called worse," Wilson said with a smile. He glanced at the dumbfounded guards. "It's all right, men. You may go back to your posts. It's just half the Rat Patrol reporting back." And to Hitch and Tully, "Come along. We'll go to your quarters and you can fill me in. There are two hospital cases in the tent."
He told them briefly of the Arab's treachery and the tragic fate of the men who had worn the Rat Patrol's headpieces.
"We suspected something like that from what we heard," Hitch said. "There was an Arab squatting outside Dietrich's tent when we left tonight. I'll bet it was the same one. Come to collect."
"I only hope we encounter him once more," Wilson said vengefully.
He had taken along the gas lantern, maps, paper and pencils. In the cavern under the camouflage net with the lantern glaring on the sand between the jeeps, Hitch called the weapons and their positions while Wilson charted them and Tully heated water over a cardboard fire for coffee. The day had been difficult, men had lost their lives, the test firing of the missiles in the morning would mark a crucial phase of the battle, yet Wilson could not help chuckling now and then as he looked at his thoroughly disreputable Tully and Hitch.
"The safe passage is the grade," Hitch concluded. "Apparently they had just the one mine planted on it. We walked down it tonight."
They would saturate the ridge and slope with fire from the new weapon, Wilson thought. They would conc
entrate the fire on either side of the grade and he would send the column straight on up before the Jerries had recovered from their shock.
"What about Troy and Moffitt?" he asked absently when the last detail down to the position of Dietrich's armored column had been noted. They both were perfectly all right, of course, or Hitch and Tully would have told him at once. "Where are they?"
He saw Hitch look up sharply at Tully as the coffee was handed out. Despite their disguises, he recognized the quick look of concern that passed between them.
"Dietrich held Moffitt hostage against our return," Hitch said. "Troy went back to try and rescue him."
"Oh," Wilson said. He didn't feel like laughing any more. He felt very old and tired.
19
Grosse was no soldier, and he never would be. You don't stand within reach of even an unarmed man and point the barrel of a gun at his stomach. It is too easy to grasp and thrust away. When a man is armed, as Troy was armed with a machine pistol and a knife, you must stand well away or the odds are not at all in your favor. Troy reacted to the confrontation behind Dietrich's tent like lightning. He smashed the barrel of his machine pistol against Grosse's wrist and before the Jerry could yelp with pain, rammed it into Grosse's gut. Grosse dropped his weapon and doubled over, gasping. Another blow with the machine pistol, this time at the base of Grosse's skull and the persistent and brave but foolish orderly was out cold.
Troy had no way of knowing whether the sound of the brief but violent action had reached inside the tent. The knife still was clenched in his left hand and he rent the canvas with a swift slash. As he thrust his way through the slit, he saw that Moffitt had done his part and kept Dietrich's glass well filled. Dietrich staggered to his feet and started to smile when he recognized Sam Enna. Moffitt chopped him down with a judo blow behind his ear. Dietrich collapsed limply on the sand.
"Get the car, Jack," Troy said calmly. "Bring it around to the tent, facing west. Stroll, don't run. Only Doeppler and Grosse know our status here and they're both taken care of."
"T'anks fer de timely entry," Moffitt said. "I'd just said 'Right-o' but Captain Dietrich was a bit poshed and thought I was being funny." He left the tent in a leisurely fashion.
Troy removed Dietrich's pistol from the holster and thrust it in his waist band before he grasped the floppy form under the armpits and hiked it into the camp chair. Dietrich's eyes were open and glazed. His head lolled on his chest and he looked very drunk. Troy adjusted the chair in front of the table so it was facing the entrance and tilted a glass of brandy between Dietrich's fingers so some of the liquor slopped out. He stepped to the side of the entrance and inspected his handiwork critically. Very drunk, indeed, he appraised with satisfaction. Let Herr Hauptmann Hans Dietrich explain that tomorrow.
The car idled quietly close to the opening. Troy knelt to slip through the front door that Moffitt opened. He turned for a final look at Dietrich. He was a masterpiece.
"Hold it, Jack," Troy said. "I've got an idea."
He ran to Dietrich, seized him under the armpits again, pulled him off the chair and hauled him to the running board. He straddled the inert body and hoisted it onto the front seat, bracing the feet against the floorboard and propping the back against the seat.
"Got to get his cap," he said, breathing heavily with his effort. "Your violin case still in there?"
"Under the table," Moffitt said.
Troy found Dietrich's cap on his locker, grabbed the violin case and snatched the half empty bottle of bourbon from the table. Moffitt had swung open the back door and Troy dived onto the floor with the machine pistol, violin case, bottle and Dietrich's cap. He tossed the cap over the seat.
"Make him look natural, Jack," he said, watching the back of Dietrich's head as the high-peaked cap was fitted.
Troy closed the door, the front door slammed and the car glided smoothly away in second gear. He could hear the sand trickling from the tread of the big tires and then the steel walls of the tanks closed on either side. Troy felt himself squeezing his arms against his ribs to help provide more space and smiled quickly. He was feeling good. Then the tanks were behind them and there was open space all around and the vast blue night sky above pricked with a million tiny stars.
"Stillstand!" a voice commanded harshly from ahead and Troy saw reflected illumination as Moffitt switched on his lights.
The car slowed. Troy pushed to his knees and flipped the machine pistol off safety. From the corners of his eyes, he saw Dietrich turn his head. "Rechnung bezahlen!" Dietrich barked.
"Herr Hauptmann!" the voice said, close at hand and respectful.
The car spurted down the back slope of the ridge. Troy sat on the floor with his spine against the seat and leveled the Browning automatic at the back of Dietrich's head.
"I've got a gun on you, Dietrich," he said tightly. "Just keep on cooperating and it won't go off." He drew in his breath, still puzzled "Jack, when did he come to? What have you got, a pistol or a knife in his side?"
Moffitt chuckled and Dietrich's head flopped forward. "Neither," he said. "I just turned on the headlamps and manipulated with my elbow while the guard was half blind. The voice you heard was mine. Poor old Dietrich is colder than last night's mackerel."
"Good work, Jack," Troy said, laughing and putting the Browning in his coat pocket. "That evens the score."
"What do you propose to do with the blighter?" Moffitt asked.
"I don't know," Troy called. The car was bouncing on rough ground. "It was a last minute idea."
"For not knowing, it was an inspiration," Moffitt said. "We'll not be bothered for a bit. If anyone asks, that guard will report that Dietrich went out to take the air with his civilian friend."
"Are we clear?" Troy asked. He was being jostled and tossed on the floor. "Is it okay to get onto the seat?"
"Why not wait until we get to the road," Moffitt suggested. "There's no reason why anyone should watch us through binoculars, but you never know."
"I ought to grab Dietrich's cap and change places with him," Troy growled.
He started to push aside the cans and handbags, the violin case and machine pistol to make himself more comfortable. As he piled the handbags, he remembered someone had found a sweater in his handbag. Hitch. A woolen sweater with a turtleneck. He inspected the tags in the flame of his lighter, found M. Enna's and unzipped it. The sweater was on top and felt soft but thick and warm. He yanked it out and threw it on the seat. After he'd emptied his coat pockets, he wadded it and threw it over the gasoline cans. The necktie and silk shirt followed. He dug the toilet kit from the handbag, took the bar of soap and sloshed a little water from a can into one palm. Gripping the can between his knees, he washed his hands and face as thoroughly as he could, using a palmful of water at a time. He found the towel, dried, and pulled the sweater over his head. There was a comb in the kit and he ran it through his hair, digging at his scalp to relieve the itch. When he'd tucked the sweater into his waistband, he shoved the two pistols into his belt which already supported his sheathed knife. He felt almost human but distinctly foreign.
The car rolled onto a smoother surface and picked up speed. Wind whistled coldly about his ears.
"Sit up if you like," Moffitt called. "We're on the road." Troy sat with his back against the side and his legs stretched out. He looked back. No one was following. He lighted a cigarette and settled comfortably. He had been filled with apprehensions about this mission and it had been a breeze. They'd even captured Dietrich. It was odd but that didn't make him particularly happy.
"You know, old boy," Moffitt called. "It's going to be a bit sticky, managing a prisoner. We've quite a trip ahead and the only way we shall carry on is for one to sleep while the other drives."
Troy laughed heartily. "We'll have to tie him up."
"It's either that or sit with a gun pointed at the blighter," Moffitt said gloomily.
"Why don't you come right out and say it, Jack?" Troy said. "Who will there be to make life
interesting if Dietrich is in a POW camp?"
"Such a thought would horrify Wilson," Moffitt said. "We can't simply chuck him nor permit him to escape."
"No," Troy agreed. "But there is one thing that would make Dietrich suffer more than being taken prisoner," Troy said.
"Yes?" Moffitt said, sounding amused. "Expound, please. You interest me."
"It demoralizes him when people laugh at him," Troy said. "It pains him physically."
"Go on, Troy," Moffitt said. "It's your show."
"When you come to the trail that leads by that ravine where we holed up yesterday, turn onto it," Troy said. "Yes?" Moffitt said.
"We left the camouflage net cached there with some food. We'd better pick up the net. I think we can leave Dietrich there. It's about fifty miles from the ridge. We'll stretch him out and stack the food and wine beside him. He won't starve, but he'll have a long hike. Depending on what Wilson has in mind, maybe by the time Dietrich starts up the road, what's left of his column will pick him up on its way to Tunisia."
"Umm, interesting, Troy," Moffitt said, laughing quietly. "I'd like to be around when he awakens, wonders where he is and how he arrived."
Moffitt turned off his headlights and drove at a steady fifty miles an hour. Troy glanced at Dietrich from time to time. The Jerry's head joggled with the motion of the car. Moffitt's blow, combined with the whiskey Dietrich had drunk, seemed to have been too much for him.
It was about one hour after Moffitt and Troy had left the Jerry camp when Moffitt swung the Hispano-Suiza onto the hardpacked trail, drove a mile toward the sea, and turned onto the stone. He went into second gear for the descent to the dry bed and crawled along it to the ravine. It was deeply shadowed and he used the searchlight as he backed into it.
"Leave it on," Troy called, jumping out and running back toward the pile of stones he'd left over the net. Everything was intact and he lugged the cumbersome bundle toward the searchlight, looking down at his pointed shoes so it wouldn't blind him. "Give me a hand, Jack," he called as he neared the car. "I'll unroll the net and you can pick out the food. Then we'll carry Dietrich out and leave him." He looked up as the door slammed and Moffitt walked into the beam. He thought Jack was moving a little stiffly and laughed. "Tightening up already?" Troy asked. The remark apparently piqued Moffitt because he didn't answer.