The Rat Patrol 3 - The Trojan Tank Affair (9 page)

The convoy moved by starts and stops for the next half hour across glinting dunes and wadis half hidden by haze. They were taking an alternate path but not chancing any haphazardly scattered mines. The mines were the most hideous and treacherous part of desert warfare. They lay hidden by the sand at unsuspected places, some light antipersonnel charges, others twelve-pound Tellermines or even fifty- and two-hundred-and-fifty-pound Luftwaffe bombs wired to go off at the slightest touch and blow you and your vehicle sky high. The fighters continued to make their passes over the convoy. They could protect the trucks against ground and air attack, but there was nothing the planes could do about the mines. Only the slow, methodical work of the sappers could point the safe way to go.

It was after sixteen hundred hours when the trucks began to pick up speed. Apparently satisfied that only the El Abd crossing had been sown, the convoy accelerated rapidly, kicking up a trail of gritty, chalky tasting dust that hung over the desert behind them. The planes still gave them cover and once or twice Troy thought he heard the faint sound of fifty-caliber machine guns somewhere in the distance. He might have been mistaken or the planes might have been firing to change the direction a band of Arab tribesmen were riding. A good speed of between twenty and twenty-five miles an hour was maintained for about an hour and a half and then suddenly it was dark. On the desert there is no twilight transition. One moment it is daylight and the next, dusk. A few minutes later, the column of trucks halted. Troy quickly closed the flap. He was fastening the last button when he heard the voice of Major Grogan speaking softly just outside.

"Do you hear me, Troy?"

"Right," Troy whispered. He started to ask Major Grogan to check the other trucks for Tully and decided against it. Suddenly he was angry with Tully. There was no other place for Tully to be except in one of the other tracks. Tully had complained about being caged up in the van and must have leaped at the opportunity to ride out in the open. He'd handle Tully himself without any assistance from the major.

"We're at a small oasis, just a little waterhole and some scraggly palms," Major Gorgan said. "We'll halt here until the moon comes up. Don't light your lantern until we move. If you'll stay behind the van, you can get out one at a time and stretch your legs."

"Thanks," Troy said. "We'll keep out of sight." He listened a moment until he was sure the major had gone away, then said quickly, "Hitch, move up along one side of the trucks. Jack, take the other side. Find that damned Kentucky ridgerunner and drag him back. He's probably got a crap game started. I'll stay here in case the major wanders around again."

Troy sat on the tailgate by the opened flap when the others had slipped away in the darkness. From along the line of trucks, he could hear the men laughing and talking as they filled the radiators with water and smoked their cigarettes. His anger began to fade away again. Tully was undisciplined and brash, but he was loyal to the Rat Patrol and would not willingly jeopardize their mission. But what could have happened to Tully in the midst of the whole convoy? Troy was not surprised when first Hitch and then Moffitt returned without him.

"I don't know what to think," Troy said irritably because he felt helpless. "If he doesn't turn up at this stop, we'll have to tell the major. That will blow our cover again because it will mean a search party. I want to get out a minute and decide what is best to do. One of you keep circulating on the chance you might have missed him."

Moffitt climbed into the van and Hitch went back up the line of trucks. Troy walked away from the convoy into the desert following the tire tracks that had left a black path in the sand. The moon had not come up, but the blue night sky was translucent enough to show him shapes and shadows. The dunes were clearly outlined and between them, the wadis were dark splotches. Behind, the trucks were strung out like blocks beside the ragged palm tree silhouettes.

Tully would not have strolled aimlessly into the desert, Troy told himself. If he had concealed himself from Major Grogan or someone else he thought might recognize him, the convoy had traveled so slowly behind the minesweepers that he could easily have caught up with them again. On the other hand, a person or persons had laid that mine. If Tully had stumbled across a track, he might have been foolhardy enough to have followed it. And he might have walked into a trap. Troy remembered he'd thought he'd heard heavy machine gun fire once or twice during the afternoon. He wondered whether that could have anything to do with Tully's disappearance.

The air had grown chilly but he did not notice it as he plodded on, preoccupied with his concern for Tully. Usually alert to the slightest movement or sound that was not normal, tonight he could not say how long he had heard the muffled throbbing before he became aware of it. He stopped short and listened for several seconds before he identified it as the soft breathing of a silenced motorcycle exhaust. It was coming from one of the light cycles used by the Jerry dispatch riders in North Africa. The panting of the motor became more distinct, though not much louder, and then stopped suddenly.

Troy fell to the ground and listened to the sand. A minute or two went by and then he heard the whisper of footsteps coming toward him. He laid his tommy-gun to one side and unsheathed the long, narrow-bladed commando knife he'd taken from one of the supply cartons. He wanted to capture this Jerry and bring him in for questioning.

A shadowy figure, crouched and moving stealthily, moved by silently. Troy leaped, catching the man's neck in the crook of his arm as he jabbed the point of his knife into his kidney and brought his knee against his spine. The man went limp, then Troy felt the wrist of his knife-hand gripped. A leg hooked behind his knee, teeth bit into the wrist of his arm encircling the man's neck and he hurtled backwards. Even as he sprawled on his back, the man was on him, pinning him to the ground.

"Take it easy, Sarge, it's only me," he heard Tully whisper.

Troy sat up, spluttering and holding the wrist Tully had bitten.

"Where have you been?" he asked angrily, spitting sand from his mouth. "What are you doing, riding in on a Jerry motorbike?"

"Listen, Sarge, we got to hurry," Tully said, sitting beside Troy. "When I went ahead to see what was happening, I swung out wide to get a look without them seeing me. I came to a wadi and there was this Jerry with his motor bike. I figure he was the one that planted that mine. He was watching the trucks and I jumped him. I followed his tracks back out of the wadi. I left the bike there and crept along off to the side, just close enough so I could see the trail. About half a mile, there's this bunch of Arabs in a deep wadi under a camouflage net. They got horses and grenades and Mauser rifles. I figure they was set to hit the convoy except for them P-40s. I pushed this damned bike halfway here. I was afraid either you or them would hear it. As it was, them P-40s spotted me and let off a couple bursts. I had to take cover in another wadi until it got dark and then I had the devil's own time following your tracks. Them Arabs moved out in the open along the El Abd track after the convoy went into the desert. I think they did that to throw the planes off and figured on circling ahead and catching the trucks after dark." 

"They'd know about the oasis where we stopped," Troy said, pushing himself to his feet. "They'd be pretty certain we'd pull in there for water. That's where they'll hit us. Come on, let's run."

The Arabs would walk their horses through the wadis as close to the oasis as they could, Troy thought. Then, before the moon came up, they'd gallop down the fine of trucks throwing grenades and fade back into the night to pick off the survivors, lighted by the burning wrecks, with their Mausers.

"How many Arabs were there?" Troy asked as Tully trotted toward the trucks with him.

"About a dozen, I guess," Tully said. "How we going to clobber them this time?"

"I guess we'll have to let them surprise the trucks," Troy said, grinning. He'd just remembered a carton of flares and Very pistols he'd opened in the van, wondering at the time why they'd been sent along. "You know what Major Grogan said. We've got to keep under cover." 

"Whatever it is you're planning," Tully said dryly, "I'll bet it's good."

Troy considered warning Major Grogan about the Arabs and the raid he felt sure would be made on the convoy before the moon was up. He decided against it for two reasons. First, he'd have to admit that Tully had been away from the convoy all afternoon; and second, he knew Major Grogan would tell the Rat Patrol to keep under cover and out of action if the Arabs hit the trucks. Troy realized he was assuming responsibility that did not belong to him, but he felt the four men of the Rat Patrol were better qualified to handle a dozen Arabs than the twenty-odd men in the convoy, whether they were supply troops or infantry.

Moffitt and he each took a Very pistol and flares. With Hitch, Moffitt went northwest behind the trucks. They took individual positions on dunes some five hundred yards away from the oasis and a hundred yards apart. Troy and Tully stole ahead of the trucks to the southeast, moving out five hundred yards from the lead vehicle and establishing themselves about a hundred and fifty yards apart on sand hills that overlooked a valley leading to the oasis.

Troy flattened just beyond the top of the rise. Although the night had grown cold quickly, the sand still retained its daytime warmth and he snuggled comfortably into it. He put his ear to the sand, listening as Moffitt had taught him for the trickling sands that revealed movement on the desert from afar. His tommy-gun was gripped in his right hand; in his left, the Very pistol was loaded and pointed above the depression between the dunes.

It had seemed to grow darker although it was almost time for the rim of the moon to show over the horizon.

He edged forward over the crest of the sand hill and peered into the valley but could see no shadowy outlines in the pit of darkness. The sands were silent. He slid his watch from his cuff and the illuminated figures showed eighteen-hundred-thirty hours.

The minutes crept by, and except for the jumble of sounds and movements from the oasis, the desert was dark and quiet. Perhaps the trucks had outdistanced the Arab riders in the last hour and a half, he thought, and felt a keen sense of disappointment. Another few minutes and they would have to return to the van.

He was starting to push himself to his knees when the sands began to talk, murmuring at first and then speaking distinctly. He heard the heavy trod of hooves approaching the depression in the sand. For long moments while the sand spoke loudly in his ear, there were no movements in the valley and then he dimly distinguished the faint outlines of mounted men. They were nearly silent, man merged with beast, grouping together below him. He waited with his Very pistol pointed above them, looking to the northwest for Moffitt's flare to hang suddenly white in the dark sky. He did not think there were a dozen Arabs in the group below him. They must be planning to attack the trucks from both sides.

A globe of fire suddenly appeared above the desert beyond the oasis and before Troy heard the dull sound of the report, his pistol had rocketed its flare over the valley below his position and he was on his feet with his tommy-gun at his hip. For a brief, stunned moment, the Arabs on their horses were frozen in a glaringly lighted tableau. Troy's gun vibrated in his hand as it chattered at them. From the opposite dune Tully was squeezing off burst after burst. Troy was only half aware of the sound of firing from the northwest. Some of the Arabs toppled to the ground. Others crumpled in their saddles. The horses cried shrilly, breaking and running.

All at once the night was silent. Troy jumped backward and rolled behind the dune, coming to his feet and running wide, then plunging toward the middle of the line of trucks. Now, scarcely two minutes after Moffitt had hung his first globe in the sky, the convoy troops were shouting and running confusedly in both directions toward the flares that still burned fiercely. Troy merged with a group of men who were running toward the back of the line of trucks. They were carrying rifles and tommy-guns and yelling all at once.

Troy stopped at the side of the van and edged around to the tailgate. He climbed in unnoticed and before he pulled the flap together saw that Tully already was there. Only a moment later, Hitch clambered in and then Moffitt. Troy started buttoning the flaps together, shutting out the light that reached the trucks.

"Good show," Moffitt said, chuckling. "Now what do we tell the major?"

"Nothing," Troy said.

Troy replaced the Very pistols in the box and the four of them crouched by the tailgate with their tommy-guns in their hands. It was not many moments before Major Grogan's voice, hushed but sharp, came through the curtain.

"Troy, are you there?"

"Right," Troy said with some urgency. "What's going on?"

"Moffitt?" Grogan paused as someone ran by. "Hitchcock? Pettigrew?"

They answered in quick succession.

"Here."

"Here."

"Here."

"What happened?" Troy repeated. He was smiling in the dark.

"The Arabs attempted a raid," Major Grogan said. "Our guards were alert and trapped them. I'm glad you obeyed your orders for a change. You're not the only heroes in the Army, you know. Really quite a show. Sorry you had to miss it. You can rest easy now. We're only a few hours from Bir-el-Alam and you can see you're in safe hands. See you there. If you light your lantern, be sure your blackout curtain is down."

Troy heard Major Grogan walk away and the excited voices of other men returning to the convoy.

"Who the hell thinks he's a hero?" he asked irritably. He dropped the blackout curtain over the flap and struck one of Tully's matches to light his way to the lantern. "We try to do our job, that's all."

"What difference does it make, Sam?" Moffitt asked. 

"None, except we don't expect to be rewarded for being competent," Troy said

"Maybe we do our job, Sarge," Tully said with a slow grin, "and maybe that's what makes us different."