The Rat Patrol 4 - Two-Faced Enemy (7 page)

"How much of the oil and petrol had we removed from the dump?" Dietrich asked.

"About half of it," Nolde said.

"It is a disaster but not the complete destruction it might have been," Dietrich said and smiled craftily but humorlessly. "Now that the Rat Patrol has struck, we know where they are and how they are operating. We shall think as they think and we shall outwit them. Now where would you say this Rat Patrol would strike next, Hermann?"

Nolde answered promptly. "If they are aware of the disposition of our forces and anticipate our attack, they will try to disrupt and delay us by getting into our armor and blowing as many tracks as they can."

"Yes, that is logical," Dietrich said. "And because it is logical, they will not do it. Where is the least likely place for them to strike."

"With Funke's armor drawn up all about, I would say the command post," Nolde said. He looked puzzled.

"Exactly," Dietrich said. "Hermann, where are the empty drums from which we fueled the machines?"

"Cast about, off to the side from the armor," Nolde said. "There was no point in saving them at this time. They will be there if we wish to gather them at some future time and bring them into Sidi Beda."

"Hermann, quickly now, gather all the empty drums, arrange them neatly together, just outside the post, and place a guard on them," Dietrich said and smiled gloatingly. "Place the full drums within the tents at the CP. Funke will have a fit, but we'll move him and the other personnel out to a new CP at his column. Leave the regular guard at the tents and do not guard the empty drums too diligently. Leave some means of access to them. Have a strong, well armed force concealed in one row of tents." Dietrich slapped his thigh and chuckled. "The Rat Patrol will strike the CP next and their target will be the remainder of the fuel. We have them, Hermann. Tonight the Rat Patrol, tomorrow the port of Sidi Beda."

Colonel Dan Wilson fixed Sergeant Peilowski with an icy stare and fought back his surging anger. Peilowski stood under the fan in the middle of the room, and the air through the opened window was comfortably cool, but the perspiration was popping on Peilowski's forehead. His lips worked soundlessly and his eyes were downcast.

"What do you mean, Sergeant?" Wilson asked tonelessly. "They haven't found the Rat Patrol?"

"That's exactly the way it is, sir," Peilowski said faintly. 

"What's exactly the way it is?" Wilson said loudly. "Speak up. Did they search the wine shop as I ordered?" 

"Sir," Peilowski said, still in a weak voice. "The MPs went to the Fat Frenchman's. The door was barred. He wouldn't let them in. They pounded at the door with their sticks and threatened to break into the place. At last he opened the door. They searched the place thoroughly—the shop, his room, the apartment above where there was a girl, the courtyard at the rear and even the roof. No one was in the entire place but the Fat Frenchman and this girl."

"What about the rest of the port?" Wilson asked a little uneasily. The orders were quite explicit about the natives, both their persons and their property.

"It has been thoroughly searched," Peilowski said. 

"Damnit," Wilson said furiously. "I want the Rat Patrol brought in. We aren't molesting the natives and their property. We're trying to protect them. There's a war. Maybe we can't break into their houses but we can patrol their alleys. Get the MPs into the native quarter."

"The Arabs and the Frenchies are restless, sir," Peilowski said. "We haven't enough patrols now to keep them penned in like you said. The patrols push them back at one alley and they pour out of another. They're roaming the bazaar and waterfront and there are more of them than we can handle. If we try to push them around too much, we'll have an uprising in town on our hands."

"Keep them off the piers, keep them away from military property," Wilson raged. "What's wrong with them? Why should they be restless?"

"There were about a dozen Arabs massacred up on the bluff this afternoon," Peilowski said. "Some Arab came in with the story, said he'd escaped, that they were a peaceful party coming in to town to trade, using the old trail they always used, when these men in two jeeps opened fire and mowed them down. They're restless, all right. Won't take much to set them off."

"A dozen Arabs massacred?" Wilson shouted, pushing his chair back and coming around to Peilowski. "So the Rat Patrol did get out and the first Arabs they run into, they cut loose. I've told Troy we have to respect our agreements with these people in return for their cooperation. I've told him the Arabs have to be treated with kid gloves. So when those lunatics finished drinking beer all afternoon, half drunk, they ran into a band of friendly Arabs and cut them down. I can understand why they risked breaking through Latsus Pass and ran back to town. They probably had a dozen tribes chasing them. Of course the Rat Patrol is hiding. There's not one of them that would dare face either the Arabs or me. Have the patrols keep an eye out for them, but the first thing now is to keep the natives in town under control. Get me two armored cars with full crews. I'm going into the bazaar myself and talk with the natives." 

"That's dangerous," Peilowski said.

"When isn't war dangerous!" Wilson blazed. "Have those cars in front of HQ in five minutes."

Peilowski started to leave.

"Sergeant," Wilson called. "Did you draw up the courts-martial?"

"They're ready, sir," Peilowski said.

"Good," Wilson said. "Battle or no battle, victory or defeat. I'm going to have the satisfaction of seeing each of those men imprisoned the moment he is picked up."

A blast shattered the quiet of the night and Wilson thought he felt the building shake.

"That sounded close," he said, more calm than he'd been all evening. "Jerry must have started his attack on the Sherman tanks."

Peilowski ran out the door to the street entrance and Wilson followed. Another explosion roared. It came from the waterfront. A warehouse building shot up in flames.

"It's sabotage," Wilson shouted fiercely. "Call out every unit we have, round up every native, drive them back and seal them up in the native quarter. I can't fight a battle on two fronts."

4

As the two jeeps lurched from the unsubstantial sand of the desert onto the built-up roadbed of the main route southeast from Sidi Beda, a searchlight plucked them from the night and light machine gun fire hacked at the Rat Patrol. Scarcely had the light touched them and before the firing started, Tully and Hitch veered, Tully striking to the right of the light and Hitch driving to the left. Troy and Moffitt slammed bursts of fifty-caliber slugs in smashing blows about the searchlight. By the time the jeeps were twenty yards apart and parallel, the searchlight was extinguished and the firing had ceased. The moonlight showed a Jerry Volkswagen patrol car with its ugly slanted snout torn and ripped and its crew of four slumped and still. The car was in a slight depression on the east side of the trace and had been further hidden by the roadbed which lifted several feet above the desert. The car had not caught fire and Moffitt leaped to the ground with Troy. Tommy-guns at the ready, they approached the patrol car from opposite sides. The crew of four was dead.

Troy's eyes traveled swiftly up and down the road and found nothing that moved. He examined the car's position and grimly faced Moffitt.

"We ought to have our heads examined, Doctor," he said and smiled wryly. "We walked into this one. They were waiting for us. It poses a problem. Was this a routine patrol that just happened to see us coming across the desert or has a report come back from a party sent to the oasis and did Dietrich send them out to ambush us? In either case, did this patrol report us to Dietrich as they waited? What do you think. Jack?"

"I'd say it calls for a change of tactics, Sam," Moffitt said lightly. "What was your original approach?"

"Dietrich's CP is about four or five miles north, I'd estimated," Troy said. "I'd hoped we'd be able to use the track for a couple miles to pick up time, then turn east across the desert and come in that way. I thought Jerry wouldn't expect us from that direction, if he anticipated us at all."

"Perhaps we'd best retrace our path and go in from the direction of the oasis," Moffitt suggested. "It's so obvious I don't guess Dietrich would expect that either."

"No," Troy said thoughtfully. "Sorry to disagree, Doctor, but the original plan still is best. If the patrol reported us, Jerry would expect us to change directions after this encounter. If the patrol did not report us, we still have time to surprise Dietrich."

"Surprise Dietrich, Sam?" Moffitt exclaimed. "You don't expect to pop through his command post tossing out grenades as if they were crullers!"

"Not exactly, Jack," Troy said and laughed. "I thought that coming in from the east we'd run less chance of being spotted. I figured we'd find a place to hide the jeeps and then go in on our bellies again."

Moffitt was silent a moment. In the moonlight Troy could see a smile creeping into his eyes.

"I concur," Moffitt said. "Shall we see if there are any usable uniforms?"

They took a sergeant's jacket with three inverted stripes and a desert fatigue cap.

Tully walked over with a bottle of beer in one hand and a grenade in the other. "We going to blow the wreck?" he asked.

"No need to light a beacon," Troy said, rummaging in the car. "We'll take their canteens and cans of water, put a couple of holes in the fuel tank and be on our way." The wreck would be discovered sooner or later, Troy knew, and there was no need to leave a plain trail. They drove southeast on the route two miles before turning into the desert. Troy maintained constant observation of the road as the jeeps jumped into the squishing sand and pulled straight east. He saw no vehicles moving on it. The road disappeared from sight when they crested a dune after about a mile. Protected by it, the Rat Patrol turned to the north.

The supply dump would be located somewhere near the command post, Troy reasoned. The trucks had been hauling the drums in that direction and he wanted to blow the rest of the fuel supply. Dietrich undoubtedly had gas and oil stored in other dumps, but Troy believed he had been depending on the oasis dump as his main source. After the initial attack, Dietrich's conduct of the battle might well depend on how far he had to haul his fuel. The columns of armor demanded vast quantities of fuel and a long haul could stall him. One thing was certain after the destruction of the supply at the oasis, Jerry would have his stockpile at the CP well guarded.

After driving for twenty minutes behind the northeast slanting dune, Troy estimated they should be about a mile and a half east and half a mile north of the CP. He began to search the dark patches in the desert contours for a place to hide the jeeps. Tully pulled into a small wadi which had escaped Troy. It was barely long enough to park the jeeps one behind the other but it was deep enough to afford protection under the camouflage nets. Hitch nosed after Tully and Troy crawled to the top of the dune to survey their position.

Bareheaded, he lay at the top of the dune with his glasses trained on distant lights. It must be the CP, although at that distance in the moonlight, it was difficult to identify the shapes that bulked darkly. He thought he discerned a group of tents and beyond them to the south a regularly shaped dark mass that could be the gas and oil drums. Once or twice he thought he detected motion about the mass which could indicate guards. As he studied Dietrich's command post, he was aware of a dry gritty taste in the air which he thought must come from a heavy dust cloud curtain. That would mean an armored column was on the move.

He scrambled back to the wadi where Moffitt, Tully and Hitch were ready to stretch the nets over the jeeps. They were squatting on their haunches, so plainly visible in the moonlight he could see the whites of Moffitt's eyes and the matchstick Tully was rolling from one side of his mouth to the other.

"We waited, Sam," Moffitt explained. "Weren't quite certain what equipment was in order."

"Neither am I," Troy admitted, sitting in the sand with them. "From the way it looks, the oil and gas is stored south of the tents. Grenades should set it off. I want a closer look. I'll put on a Jerry cap and jacket and reconnoiter." 

"A moment, Sam," Moffitt said with a smile. "I've already tried on the lieutenant's tunic and it fits. I outrank you. I'll go in."

"Tully and I volunteer," Hitch spoke up. "We're privates. We're expendable."

"Nuts," Troy tried to say disgustedly but he couldn't help laughing. "We'll all go, at least part of the way. It'll save time. When we get as far as we can, we'll see who does what. Dietrich is bound to have guards posted, so take off your canteens and side arms. We don't want anything that jangles. We'll make a sling from a piece of a net and drag a dozen grenades and a couple of plastic time charges." 

"Don't you think one of us ought to carry some sort of weapon, old boy?" Moffitt asked, already exchanging his beret for the Jerry lieutenant's cap.

"My Bowie knife?" Tully suggested.

"What about my garrote?" Hitch said hopefully. 

"Hitch's nylon choke rope it is," Troy said. "Hitch, take off your glasses and go bareheaded. Tully, leave your helmet behind. I'll wear a Jerry cap like the doctor's and the Jerry sergeant's jacket. Let's knock off the conversation and move in. From what I could see and smell, a tank column already has moved out."

When the jeeps were under the nets, they clawed up the slope and went over the top of the dune on their bellies. Although they were a good two miles from the CP, Troy was taking no chance of any moving form silhouetted against the moonlit sky. Troy was in the lead, closely followed by Moffitt, with Tully and Hitch dragging the sling between them. Over the first dune, they slipped into a shadow-filled depression that snaked in the right direction and advanced at a trot for half a mile. The night was comfortably mild and they ran easily, although Troy disliked the powdery taste of dust that seemed to grow more pronounced as they advanced. When the depression ended in a slope, Troy went to the top. Another valley ran to within half a mile of the CP and Troy stared at it until his eyes were accustomed to its shadows and he was certain there was no motion in it. The night seemed unnaturally quiet.