The Rat Patrol 3 - The Trojan Tank Affair (22 page)

"Can you see me?" he asked Tully, standing by the left front fender.

"I can make you out," Tully said. "Go ahead, walk me in."

Again, Troy counted ten paces, turned up the spit of sand and brought Tully into the ravine. Taking one of the lengths of white nylon rope from the back of the car, he laid it across the opening.

"That will help me find you," he said. "I'm going to pace this off from the trail."

It was fifty paces from the trail to their hiding place. He lined the ravine with the top of the pavilion, turned his penlight on his compass inside his tunic and took a reading. Satisfied they could find the car, he picked up the rope, wound it around his waist under his tunic and went back to the car.

"Do you have your Bowie knife?" he asked Tully.

"On a belt inside my shirt," Tully said.

"We'll take only the recorder," Troy said and paused. "They didn't give us the Scotch. Well, no harm. It won't get us into trouble. Whoever finds it will take it and keep his mouth shut. But it might have been useful. So, the recorder and the rope for Hitch. I've got a pistol but that's only dressing. In an emergency, it's bare hands or the knife and hide the body."

They pulled the camouflage net over the car and stood looking down on the camp. Troy forced himself to relax and be calm, hanging his head and letting his muscles sag until all tension had left his body and mind. Then he lifted his head, observing and listening to this great German camp. He could not see the lines of tanks now, but they were poised and ready to move in right behind the horrendous monster. The rest of the staging area, however, was clearly indicated by the myriad lights. The tent city was large enough to accommodate three or four thousand men. The pavilion particularly drew his attention. It was well lighted and open-sided, although he could not see into it from above. It seemed to be the center of activity and a continuous, high-pitched whine or a screech sounded from it. It was some kind of mechanical noise and vaguely familiar but he could not identify it. One very large tent must be a mess hall, he thought, focusing his binoculars on the double line of men waiting outside it. Between the pavilion and the building he was sure was HQ, a spotlighted area seemed to be the motor pool. Troy was surprised to find only half a dozen patrol cars, a few motorcycles and banged-up sedans that must be staff cars parked. Had Dietrich sent most of his patrols to some area away from Agarawa along the route he would take when he launched his attack?

He turned the glasses to the HQ building. It was about two miles away and lights showed in the windows across its front. The planes patrolled overhead with such regularity that he scarcely noticed them any longer.

"Let's go," he said to Tully more easily than he'd spoken all day. They started along the pocked side of the incline making a wide sweep of the camp.

They were inside. Not only were they unchallenged, but Troy was beginning to think they were unexpected. Dietrich did not underestimate the Rat Patrol, Troy knew from past experience. They had escaped from him on many occasions and Troy did not think Dietrich would have permitted them even a glimpse of his staggering array of armor if he were aware of them. He thought briefly and guiltily that he must have misjudged Moffitt's friend. His suspicions, he thought with a glimmer of hope, had been unfounded. Somehow some of them were going to get out of this with the information they'd come after.

Now, in addition to the campaign plan, they would have to get into the armor, make a physical count and examine the monster. Troy wondered how Dietrich could possibly have assembled this tremendous tank striking force without any reports ever reaching Allied Intelligence. It was a staggering build-up. Even if the Allies diverted everything in the entire Cyrenaica peninsula to meet it, Troy did not see how they could hold against such overwhelmingly superior force. He shuddered to think of what the monster tank would do. If its armor matched its size, shells would bounce off it like hail.

Again and again, the piercing shriek from the pavilion sliced through the night, overriding all other sounds. It was an eerie, spine-chilling scream like the screech of a banshee. It unsettled Troy. He wondered whether Dietrich's devious mind had devised an awesome new weapon to complement the monster.

High on the side hill, they circled in the black of the early evening until they were back of HQ, and then silently started down through the sand. It was nineteen-hundred hours and they were fifteen minutes overdue for their meeting with Moffitt and Hitch. Moffitt would have precious little time to get into HQ and bug the room before Dietrich's staff meeting started.

Eyes well adjusted to the dark, Troy saw the sentry walking his post at the bottom of the slope more than a hundred yards behind HQ. He looked quickly ahead to the side of the building and saw two figures hugging the wall. The sentry about-faced and started walking back toward the side of the building where Moffitt and Hitch lurked. Troy grasped Tully's shoulder, pointed at the guard. Tully gave him the box with the recording equipment and slunk down the slope.

Troy waited tensely, eyes jumping from the guard to Moffitt and Hitch. The sentry paused, bringing his rifle from his shoulder and looking down at HQ. A figure sprang from the shadows. The guard struggled briefly and disappeared in the night. Troy ran swiftly to the spot where Tully had struck. Tully was pulling the man up toward a trench the wind had scooped.

"Take his helmet, jacket and rifle," Troy said tersely. "Walk his post. We'll come out this way when we leave." He crouched and ran toward the back of HQ. A light showed from a window at one end but otherwise the rear of the building was dark. It was substantial, built of mud bricks painted white, and the roof was flat. The windows, he noted, were fitted with glassed sash to keep out the wind and the sand.

Moffitt took the box from him, kneeled and rummaged in it. Troy unbuttoned his tunic and unwound Hitch's rope. Moffitt removed a button-sized microphone attached to a cord and handed the box to Hitch.

"Get the recording unit on the roof," he told Hitch. "Then come down and around to the other side of the building. I'll toss the cord out the window when I've the bug planted. Run the cord to the recorder. I'll join you if it's possible."

"Tully has replaced the sentry back of HQ," Troy said. "Go out that way."

"You were right about the motor pool," Moffitt said, sniffing the mike and cord in his pocket. "I dropped Hitch off near HQ and was directed to run the car in."

"We forgot to transfer the Scotch," Troy said. "That's lost to us now."

"Oh, I didn't forget," Moffitt said and chuckled. "I had it in my pocket. I've large plans for that bottle."

"Good," Troy said. "Any questions?"

"I'm sure they're not aware we're here," Moffitt said. "Where will you be?"

"I don't like to split forces," Troy said, "but if you and Hitch, with Tully to back you up, can handle it here, I'm going to make a physical count on those tanks and see what I can find out about the monster. I'll come back here and check out through Tully if all goes well. We'd better set a time limit."

"This should be over by midnight," Moffitt said. "At least we'll have all we need by then."

"Ample time," Troy said. "If I'm not here by then, you know what to do. Get back to Bir-el-Alam with what you have."

"Likewise," Moffitt said. "Good luck, Sam."

"Oh, Jack," Troy said, fumbling for words and blurting, "Your girl is okay."

"Thanks, Sam," Moffitt said. "I'm really delighted you feel that way. There may be a day when I want you to stand up with me."

Troy gulped, for a moment speechless, then said, "Then you'd better take care."

He started toward the front of HQ.

"Sam," Moffitt called softly. "The same goes for you. You'd better take the long way round. There's a nasty sergeant stationed in front. Not much respect for rank. He ordered Hitch away from the building. Might be suspicious, your popping out from the back."

Troy nodded. Moffitt and Hitch flattened against the wall as Troy broke, running up the hill and through Tully's post.

"We check in with you at midnight," he told Tully. "Not one minute later. Take off then with whoever is here, or by yourself if necessary. Don't attempt any rescues if some of us are picked up. Just get back to Bir-el-Alam and report what you've seen."

"I'll be right here until then," Tully said. "Even if I'm relieved, I'll still be right here, walking this post."

Troy nodded and went up the slope. He knew what Tully meant. He went on until he was above the pavilion where he heard the screeching again and stopped. He wanted to slip down, find out what was going on in that large canvas-covered place, but the tanks were more important. He'd check them first and then, if there was time, he'd try to get back and discover what it was that was making the piercing, nerve-shattering cries.

The bowl was like an amphitheater and the slope like the bleachers on a rehearsal night. There was a lot of activity down there on the stage, even to the rehearsal, Troy thought, but the stands were deserted. A good half-mile from the nearest tent, he walked on, slowing, thinking as he neared the place where the car should be. He stopped, took a bearing on the top of the pavilion, turned uphill and walked straight to the car. It was well camouflaged and he did not think even the moon would reveal it when light spilled into the bowl.

The valley, however, would be drenched with luminescent light and he'd have to be well hidden then or walk openly. He hurried under the netting. He could not risk walking where anyone could see him with the packages he would be carrying. He took four plastic charges from the box he'd placed between his feet in the front. They were small packages but they contained highly explosive cellulose nitrate demolition charges, fused to detonate under pressure. Each was powerful enough to blow up a bridge. He thought he'd find a place to use them.

Looking again with concern at the pavilion where the shrilling continued unremitted, Troy angled gradually down the slope. The slit eyes of a car peered from the darkness and he fell gently, cushioning the charges he held in his hands. The Volkswagen clattered past, then a second, probably with poor brakes because it came down in gear, and a third and a fourth. Troy lay in the sand waiting, wondering. Were these returning patrols? Had these cars been scouting a route for Dietrich's armor? Were the six men they'd buried in the desert due back at the camp at this hour? He hoped he'd never know the answers to any of his questions. He rose to his knees, inspected the rim of the desert, ran crouching across the track and continued working his way around the side of the bowl rather than going directly to the phalanx of tanks. He would, he had decided, first examine the monster tank and then make his count of the mediums.

The moon had shot up, well above the opposite rim of the hollow. He had not noticed it because its light was still feeble, but it was enough to outline below him, row on row of stubby tanks. He recognized and respected the PzKw IVs. In 1941, an armada of them had demonstrated their superiority in Jerry's first desert battle with the British, driving the English forces from El Agheila past Tobruk to Salum. They were highly maneuverable, carried good armor plate and were well-armed. They packed a powerful blow from short seventy-five millimeter howitzers mounted in shallow, closed turrets on the center of low, wide chassis. This was a formidable array of power, a striking force the Allies had not anticipated. Led by the monster, it was a killer pack.

The monster stood well ahead, at the center of nine tank columns. Troy slipped down the slope between the front line of medium tanks and the mighty machine. He crawled toward it on his belly, dragging himself along with his elbows and holding two charges carefully in the palm of each hand. He could not take his eyes from the tremendous tank that dwarfed everything in the valley, even the broad bowl itself. He thought he detected movement in the sand and lay rigid, listening. He did not hear the streaming run of trickling sands he expected and moved ahead again, but he was watchful and wary. Even in the middle of the fenced and guarded area, he was certain there would be a guard or sentry somewhere near the giant tank, if for no other purpose than to keep curious enlisted men from chalking initials and messages on its massive sides. He smiled thinly at the thought. He wondered whether Jerry ever unbent far enough to be fanciful or humorous. It seemed that whenever he wrote on walls, it was to splash a political message or smear the side of a building with a swastika.

The moon was climbing and he crawled more rapidly on the flat. The tank was aptly called the monster. He thought its great turret must stand at least twenty feet above the ground and the long-barreled gun it mounted must be at least eighty-eight millimeters. Undoubtedly the tank carried a variety of smaller weapons, perhaps even deadly new rocket launchers.

Again he heard a warning sound and this time the sands trickled. He heard footsteps approaching and froze, moving only his eyes from side to side. He saw legs and shoes coming toward him and his muscles coiled tightly. The guard halted abruptly. Troy's hands left the packages and he sprang, instinctively and surely striking for the throat. His fingers closed on flesh and his thumbs dug into the base of the neck near the windpipe. He did not see but only felt the butt of the rifle smashing his jaw at the same moment he fastened on the man and toppled with him, eyes going foggy, mind getting gray, insides falling away. He still was clinging to neck flesh when his body hit the ground and awareness shut off.

16

Hitch wrapped the rope crosswise and lengthwise around the box with the recording equipment and took the end of the line in his teeth. Moffitt stooped with his hands cupped to boost Hitch to the sill of the window at the dark side of the HQ building. Moffitt watched Hitch stand on his toes stretching his arms toward the edge of the roof. His reach was at least a foot short.

Moffitt pushed Hitch's boots over on the sill, placed his own palms flat on the soft bricks and lifted his body straight up and then forward until his shoulders were high over the ledge. He leaned his left shoulder hard against the brick in the window well, grasped Hitch's boot with his right hand as he braced with his left and pulled himself agonizingly and slowly upright in the recess. He squeezed to the side, and steadying himself with one hand, he reached into his pocket. He shoved the microphone and cord into the saddle bag pocket of Hitch's tunic.