The Rat Patrol 4 - Two-Faced Enemy (21 page)

"Can you move your head?" Dietrich asked, not unkindly. "How does it feel?"

"It hurts, Herr Hauptmann," the man said, turning his head from side to side, screwing up his face. "I feel somewhat dizzy."

"Go tell the sergeant at the officers' mess to give you two cups of black coffee," Dietrich said. "I do not think any damage was done, but it may help to sit here quietly a moment and drink some coffee."

"Thank you, Herr Hauptmann," the man said and walked hesitantly from the tent.

The entire campaign was a fiasco, Dietrich thought angrily. After the capture of the machine gun positions at the pass, not one item of interest had turned out to be right. Now with Colonel Funke a prisoner, the responsibility was entirely Dietrich's for a badly damaged war machine. He pulled on dry boots and strode to the officers' mess where he told the first officer he saw to take a crew with machine guns and ammunition and occupy the position that Lungershausen had commanded. The mess sergeant, he noted, gave Funke's driver the coffee without any question.

"Sit down," Dietrich said when he returned to his tent and found the man standing beside the table. The coffee was steaming in tin cups.

The man pulled over Funke's stool and Dietrich studied his face. It was a good, straightforward face with intelligent eyes. Dietrich asked him his name.

"Grosse," the man said, lifting the cup with both hands. They were trembling slightly. "Sergeant Heinz Grosse."

"Very well, Grosse," Dietrich said. "Do not let this annoying episode upset you. We both walked blindly into the ambush. The colonel should have warned me. How much petrol was in the colonel's car?"

"It was full," Grosse said.

"I suspected as much," Dietrich said. "And the mechanical condition of the machine?"

"Perfect," Grosse answered.

Dietrich nodded. The most he could hope was that he might manage to intercept the Rat Patrol and the colonel if he had some indication of where they were going.

Corporal Willi Wunder piled into the tent and stood at attention.

"Well?" Dietrich asked.

"The communications van is stuck in the mud at the side of the road and the driver, is unable to move it," Willi reported breathlessly.

"Dummkopf!" Dietrich shouted. He wasn't sure whether he meant Funke or the driver of the van or both of them.

"We shall have to go to the van, Willi. Grosse, remain here until Lieutenant Gleicher returns. Have him report to me immediately at the communications van."

The land on either side of the road was a miserable pudding of mud and Funke's armor was undoubtedly mired as well as the van. One immobile force in the field, Dietrich thought, the other stuck at the side of the road. It was a genuinely inspiring tank unit he commanded! Funke should have had better sense than to run his column off the road.

Dietrich roused his radio operator from his normal lethargy.

"I want you to contact the halftracks that accompanied the trucks to Sidi Abd," he said. "There is a Lieutenant Erich Maas with one of the halftracks, I want to talk with him."

"Ja, Herr Hauptmann Dietrich," the boy said and addressed himself dully to tuning the transmitter.

Here he was, Dietrich thought irritably, wasting precious time trying to apprehend the Rat Patrol and rescue the colonel when he should be occupied with strategy. He should be devoting himself, dedicating himself, to finding the means to a victory. The minutes dragged by and Dietrich fretted them away with cigarettes that burned harshly in his throat. The radio operator didn't raise Maas, and Gleicher did not return. It was such trivia that must crowd all else from his mind.

Half an hour had passed at the communications van when Gleicher rumbled up in the car and the radio operator spoke.

"Herr Hauptmann," he said, "the signal is weak, but I have Lieutenant Maas."

Dietrich grabbed the microphone and earphones. "Maas, this is Dietrich," he said sternly for no reason except that nothing was functioning as it should. "Where are you?"

"We are proceeding with the four empty trucks that were not damaged when the Arabs fired the petrol," Maas answered faintly.

"I asked where you were, not what you were doing," Dietrich yelled into the microphone. "Only four trucks undamaged? And the halftracks?"

"We are approaching the route from the oasis of El Alghur," Maas said. "We are only a few miles from the route. Both of the halftracks escaped without much destruction."

"How much destruction?" Dietrich demanded.

"The gun mounting in one of them was loosened by a drum that was blown into the halftrack," Maas answered.

"What are you doing in the desert?" Dietrich interrupted. "Good Lord! Didn't you have rain?"

"No," Maas answered, "not one drop of it fell. What is the weather like where you are?"

"Oh, never mind," Dietrich said, weakly now. "Hold on a moment. Do not lose contact. I will speak with you again in a minute." He turned to Gleicher. "Well?"

"They removed two jeeps from among the oil drums and drove south on the road beyond the crashed aircraft," Gleicher said hastily. "We followed for some miles and the two jeeps behind the staff car all were traveling due south on the route."

"Good," Dietrich said with decisive satisfaction and pushed the headpieces back to his ears from his temples. He spoke again into the microphone. "Maas, a staff car of ours with Colonel Funke a prisoner in it, followed by two jeeps, is driving now south on the route. Leave the trucks at once. They can drive the rest of the way by themselves. There is no interest in empty trucks. Drive the halftracks due west to the route with all haste and get on the route. I want you to intercept those jeeps and the staff car and take them at all costs." He paused only briefly. "Disable the staff car if necessary but try not to harm the colonel."

The howling Arab mob broke out of the street that led to the bazaar behind a dozen white-robed men waving Mausers. Wilson had drawn his armored cars in two lines, one facing the street to the bazaar and the other at right angle blocking the way on the avenue to HQ. He ordered a burst of machine gun fire directed above the heads of the natives. The Arabs shouted wildly at the fire and tried to turn back toward the bazaar except for the white-robed men who knelt like a squad that had been well trained.

They fired rapidly at the armored cars. Wilson directed machine gun fire at their feet.

The throng clogging the street surged against those who were trying to run away and dozens of Arabs spilled into the avenue. Some sprawled on the asphalt, some ran toward the cars firing pistols and rifles, many brandishing knives. A stone clanged against Wilson's white varnished helmet with the gold eagle and he drew his twin pearl-handled pistols. Rocks crashed against windshields and the sides of the cars.

Wilson signaled for another volley of fire over the heads and at the feet of the crowd. The first wave of the Arabs behind the men in the white robes faltered and he ordered the cars to advance on them firing as they moved. Two of the white-robed Arabs pitched forward and lay where they had fallen. Wilson did not think they had been struck by bullets that had ricocheted and he did not much care that some of his men were taking deliberate aim.

The cars crept relentlessly forward and the Arabs in the front lines turned in panic and fought against the pressure that came from the street. Another volley from the cars brought down four more natives, two of them wearing white robes. Now the rear ranks of the mob broke, men scattering and fleeing back toward the bazaar. They left their dead or wounded lying on the avenue.

Wilson ordered a car to pick up the casualties and stationed another at the mouth of the street. He instructed the patrol to fire at any natives who approached with weapons of any kind. The sound of machine gun fire from behind brought Wilson whirling about and he saw the Rat Patrol's jeeps careen from the alley across from HQ that led to the Fat Frenchman's. Although several hundred yards away, Wilson recognized Troy in his bush hat and Moffitt in his beret. They both were wearing goggles again. Tully and Hitch drove them straight toward the cars lined across the avenue and Troy and Moffitt kept the machine guns spitting. Wilson saw one of his men in an armored car crumple over as he was bringing his weapon around on the jeeps.

The jeeps spun about and Troy and Moffitt turned their machine guns to the rear as the vehicles shot down the avenue in the direction of Latsus Pass. Wilson ordered the cars after them. They drove off spraying water from puddles in splaying sheets to each side. Wilson followed in his car but saw that the jeeps already were at the edge of town as he rode past HQ. The Rat Patrol vanished around the corner of the building on the road that led to the footpath to the bluff.

"They won't go to the warehouse this time," Wilson shouted to his driver. "They came out of the Fat Frenchman's street. Drive to the motor pool. We'll pick up jeeps and a patrol."

The sergeant chewed his cigar butt and splashed along the avenue to the motor pool by the piers. Wilson loaded two jeeps with MPs armed with tommy-guns and grenades. Followed by an MP patrol on foot, the jeeps stormed into the native quarter. The jeeps parked beyond the entrance to the Fat Frenchman's and Wilson piled over the backs with his men. He hammered at the barred door to the wine cellar. There was no response, not a voice raised to protest, not a sound from the place.

Wilson glanced angrily at the blank face of the story-and-a-half structure. He ordered four MPs ahead of the jeeps and four back to block off the area and then waved the others away. He pulled the pin from a grenade, tossed it down the steps against the barred door and ran away from the recessed entry.

He was hugging a wall when the explosion crashed and rang in his ears. He felt the wall shake. When the gray powdered plaster and smoke had cleared from the air, he ran toward the steps with his tommy-gun at his hip. The grenade had shattered the door and some of the masonry wall as well as the steps. He jumped through the gaping hole followed by a dozen MPs and flattened against the wall of the gloomy but day-lighted cellar. The room was dust-filled from a hole the grenade had blasted in the wall. Broken chairs and tables, smashed bottles and debris from the ceiling littered the place. No one was in the room.

Wilson saw the door at the side. "Where does that lead?" he asked an MP who'd raided the shop before.

"To the Frenchie's quarters," the MP said, "and steps to the apartment where that girl lives."

Wilson banged against the door with the broken leg from a table. There was the grating sound of a bar being drawn and the door swung slowly open. A round-bodied man with a large curly-haired head and soft eyes that looked infinitely sad stepped into the cellar and closed the door behind him.

"What is it you want with me?" he asked and his eyes pleaded with Wilson. "I closed and barred my shop to avoid trouble from the moment I learned the Germans were coming to attack the city. I have not opened it except at the insistence of your police force who threatened to break in. Now you have demolished the front of my building with your bomb and intruded on my private property where you have no business. You have agonized me. What is it you want?"

"Where are they?" Wilson asked coldly. "Where is the Rat Patrol hiding?"

"Hiding?" the Frenchman cried. "Did you not yourself send them into the desert?"

"How could you know the Germans were coming?" Wilson asked harshly. "How could you know where I sent them? You have talked with them or you would not have known such things. Where is Sergeant Troy concealing himself?"

The Frenchman lifted his hands helplessly and shuddered.

"Seize him," Wilson commanded the MPs. "Confine him."

The MPs were only too willing to comply with his order.

Wilson grasped the handle on the door and yanked it open. Flanked by two MPs, he stomped up the steps to a foyer where a slight, dark-haired girl stood in a simple green cotton dress, pointing a pistol at his chest. Her eyes were burning and her nose seemed to quiver. She challenged him silently.

"Where is Sergeant Troy?" he asked brusquely and dived to the side as he saw her face tighten. The report of the shot crashed in the stairwell and he gripped her wrist and took the pistol away as she kicked, clawed and shrieked. The MPs gripped her arms and feet and carried her bodily down the steps.

With four men, he searched the apartment, every nook and cranny of the building, the sodden garden, the roof, even peering into the reservoir. There was no evidence that the Rat Patrol or Troy alone had recently been on the premises. He left two MPs stationed at the shattered entrance when he left. He had ordered the girl and the Frenchman confined in separate rooms with chain fence meshed windows at HQ. He'd question them himself.

The measures he was taking were severe and subject to criticism, he realized, but he could no longer permit the Rat Patrol to roam the town, enflaming the natives, bombing the installations, destroying his weapons, murdering his men. Even if the girl and the Frenchman refused to talk, and he would not subject them to treatment that was cruel or inhuman, he thought that at least Troy would make an attempt to set the girl free. He would be ready for Troy.

It was crazy, this entire sickening business. The Rat Patrol must suddenly have gone stark, raving mad. They singlehandedly, or as a tiny, integrated unit, were engaging the force and might of the Allies within Wilson's own base. The Rat Patrol must be eliminated.

The two halftracks rattled down the grade from half a mile away at the staff car and two jeeps. Troy motioned Hitch back.

"They must know we have the colonel," Troy called to Tully. "That shot was a warning. They won't fire into his car. Drive slowly straight toward them."

He put the jeep in reverse and drove directly into Tully's rear end, which he bumped as Tully started up again. They were safe until they reached the halftracks, he thought, then the enemy armor would pull to opposite edges of the road and turn their guns on the jeeps. Tully had a slim chance of speeding off with the colonel, but Troy did not see how Moffitt, Hitch and he could possibly escape. He considered the weapons they had. He could not even man his machine gun. There were grenades and demolition charges, the tommy-guns, pistols. If the jeeps tried to race past the halftracks, their seventy-five would blow them out of the desert. It seemed that the Rat Patrol's string of luck had run out.