1

The noonday sun, a blazing ball, seemed to be motionless, suspended in a sky of burned-out blue above the North African port of Sidi Beda on the Libyan coast. The flat-roofed, white-walled buildings that crouched shoulder to shoulder along the twisting alleys of the native quarter, and the taller structures that stood erect and separate from one another on the broad, paved avenue that bordered the blue-gray beach of mussel shells, all seemed like mausoleums. The bayfront was new and modern, a military installation that belonged to the Allied Forces who were waging war with Rommel's Afrika Korps. The rest of the town was very old and belonged to the Arabs and the French. On the piers that jutted into the brilliant turquoise of the Mediterranean, the usually clanking cranes and winches had fallen silent and the sizzling steel decks of the cargo ships were deserted. Even the two destroyers appeared to be empty. The temperatures boiled at a hundred and nine degrees and military personnel had followed the native population into dark recesses behind thick mud and wattle walls.

The grilled doors of a two-story, creamy-faced waterfront building that housed Allied Forces headquarters flew open and two GIs burst from the entrance. They ran across the asphalted boulevard and burst into one of the narrow alleyways that squeezed between the baking, silent buildings. Both wore U. S. Army sun-tans, worn thin by the desert sand and sun, but there the similarity ended. One was tall and lanky with a high-cheeked, square-jawed, stoic face. He bore a steel helmet on his head and under this pot the sweat was stewing and spilling out. The other, sturdily put together, looked solemn and scholarly in steel-rimmed glasses, yet there were, at the comers of his eyes, telltale crinkles that had been etched long before he squinted at the glinting desert. He wore the red-topped cap of a French Foreign Legionnaire with the black bill pushed up from his forehead. The two men were Privates Tully Pettigrew and Mark Hitchcock, half of the redoubtable commando team known as the Rat Patrol, and their mission was urgent.

"Find Sergeant Troy and bring him in!" Colonel Dan Wilson had shouted a moment before in cold fury. Colonel Wilson was commanding officer of the armored unit to which the Rat Patrol was attached. He was lean and hard and had disciplined his mind, as he did his body, with military precision, but this morning both had blown apart at the seams he had so carefully welded. His voice had trembled and his tight, burned face had paled. "At a time like this, being absent from his post is tantamount to desertion!"

Sergeant Jack Moffitt, detached from the British Army's Scots Greys for special desert duty with the Rat Patrol, had swung about a most un-English-like to face Colonel Wilson squarely. Usually the suggestion of an amused smile lurked in his quick eyes, but this morning they had been frozen and fixed on the colonel like icicles.

"Sergeant Troy has free time today, sir," Moffitt said frigidly. "He is no more to blame for being absent than you yourself. It was your own suggestion that while the armored unit was stationed on guard duty at this supply port the Rat Patrol rotate, each taking a day in turn for rest and relaxation."

"There is no such thing as a day off for a soldier in a combat zone!" Colonel Wilson raged and his hands began to shake. "He must be available for duty twenty-four hours a day!"

"You placed no restrictions on any of us," Moffitt said remotely. "We were not confined to area nor even to the town. If it had been my free time today, I expect I should have been somewhere in the desert, digging about for shards or bones."

"One thing you can be certain about, Dr. Moffitt," Colonel Wilson said bitingly, "Sergeant Troy is not digging for shards and if there are any bones involved, they are suitably covered with feminine flesh. He should have told one of you where he was bound, but even if he didn't, the number of places offering female enticement in Sidi Beda must be limited. At least one of you must be normal enough to be aware of them. I want Sergeant Troy found and brought in immediately! At once! Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," Moffitt said as Hitch, Tully and he saluted and wheeled in unison.

"Not you, Sergeant Moffitt," Colonel Wilson snapped. "I want to have a talk with you. If Sergeant Troy is not brought in within thirty minutes, you'll take charge of the Rat Patrol and I'll assign a new man to the team to replace Troy."

"Yes, sir," Moffitt said with a sarcastic deference that seemed lost on Wilson, who sent Tully and Hitch packing.

Now they glanced over their shoulders as they trotted down the hot dirt-floored alley, and discovering that they were out of view from HQ, dropped their pace to a stroll.

"Troy ain't going to like this no better than a bee likes a bear stealing honey," Tully panted. "He won't gripe about the duty, but Wilson's attitude is going to light his fuse."

"You sure you know where to find him?" Hitch asked. "We don't have time to guess wrong."

"With free time at high noon on a day that's blistering the paint on the jeeps, there's just one place he could be," Tully panted. His throat was parched. "It's behind those thick walls in that half-cellar wine shop of the Fat Frenchman."

"With the little Arab belly dancer," Hitch said, smiling faintly.

"You better not let Troy hear you call her that," Tully warned quickly. "He claims she's half French and that her father was a Ay-rab chief. And she ain't no belly dancer. Before the Jerries came, she was a private teacher for the daughters of the rich Frenchman who owned the ships."

"Well, why did she stay behind?" Hitch demanded. "She could have left like the other Frenchies. I don't trust a French girl who stayed behind after the Jerries occupied the port any more than I do an Arab. She's trouble, I tell you. big trouble and we've already got as much of that as we can handle."

Tully shook his head and looked up at the five-hundred-foot escarpment that towered at the back of town. At the top of the bluff, which marked the beginning of a plateau stretching for thirty miles through rock and sand into the desert, he knew Sherman tanks were dug in as the port's main fortification. The tanks, with the minefields which had been sown in front of them, formed a ring of steel around Sidi Beda, and Tully knew Wilson had orders to hold the port at all costs. It had been a shambles when the Allied Forces had taken it from Jerry after a long and bloody battle. Now the port facilities had been rebuilt and supplies flowed through Sidi Beda.

Tully squinted, still studying the escarpment that formed the battlements of Sidi Beda. The tank positions behind the minefields were permanent. Only one route led into the town from the desert, a track through rock and clay from the southeast down Latsus Pass, eight miles away. It was the Allies' main route and was well patrolled. Wilson had a highly mobile striking force of halftracks and armored cars poised within the town, ready to race for the pass to entrap any attacking force from the route or to flank the enemy if he launched a frontal action on the escarpment. Wilson's defensive strategy appeared to make the port impregnable from the armored units that the Jerry captain, Hauptmann Hans Dietrich, was known to have in his command at Sidi Abd, more than a hundred miles away.

"It's hard to believe we could be in trouble," Tully said slowly.

"That's what's got Wilson bugged," Hitch said and pointed ahead to an arched opening in an unmarked, blank white wall. Steps descended within the opening. "Isn't that the Frenchie's place?"

"It's got to be," Tully said. "He's got the only cellar I know of in Sidi Beda. I sure hope Troy comes peaceably. It's too hot to argue."

"We got our orders," Hitch muttered. "I don't like the idea of tangling with him, but we'll drag him back between us if we have to."

Tully shook his head impatiently and plunged down the three stone steps with Hitch at his heels. For a few moments they stood just within the semi-basement, blinded from the glaring white walls outside. The stone-floored room was mustily cool and Tully could smell the sour odor of wine and liquor, but he was unable to see even the shapes of the tables he knew were scattered haphazardly between the entrance and the small service bar at the back. He heard someone moving and heavy footsteps approached.

"You appear flushed and agitated, gentlemen, and in need of some cool refreshment," a voice said in a nasal French accent. "What will be your pleasure?"

Now Tully could dimly make out the Fat Frenchman waddling toward him on short legs. He was a dumpy man with a ponderous, curly-haired head and pendulous jowls.

"Troy!" Tully called sharply, looking beyond the keeper of the wine shop at the tables that were beginning to take shape. "Troy!"

"Troy!" Hitch echoed. "Where are you?"

Uneasily Tully glanced from table to table. All seemed to be unoccupied.

"N'est pas ici," the Fat Frenchman said, shrugging and lifting both palms above his enormous stomach. "As you see, we are alone. The shop, alas, is deserted."

Sergeant Sam Troy yawned, rolled from his stomach to his back and sat up. He was wearing khaki swimming trunks, and his usually tight-lipped, set face was relaxed. He had been lying beneath a broad-leafed palm in the courtyard garden behind the Frenchman's wine shop. It was a walled and private place reached only by outside stairs from the apartment above the shop. Beside him, still lying on her stomach, was a girl in a brief two-piece white bathing suit.

She shook her ebon hair back over her shoulders and sat up, turning to him and smiling. Her name was Rhee, which Moffitt had told him translated into Rhea, but Troy preferred to call her Ray.

"Ray," he said quietly, looking for a moment into the depths of her eyes, feeling as he always did that he was plunging into them. He sat back, smiling. "It's too hot even to kiss you. Do you think we can go to the beach for a swim now?"

"They say it is only mad dogs and Englishmen who go out in the noonday sun," she said, laughing. "You are not English and I do not think you are a mad dog. I think today we go and sit with Laurentz in the coolness of the wine shop until the sun sinks. Then, if you wish, we go for the swim and afterward I prepare a salad of fresh fish for you in my apartment. Yes?"

Troy glanced up the open steps that led to the half-story-high balcony and the row of tall windows across the back of the building. In the two weeks he had known Ray, he had spent many evenings with her in the cool, high-ceilinged apartment with its tiled floors. Like the courtyard garden, it was a private place, reached only by a hall and stairs from the wine shop through a heavy door that was always locked. Laurentz, the Fat Frenchman, had a small bedroom off the hall at ground level. The apartment was strictly Ray's. It was a strange relationship between Ray and Laurentz. At first Troy had suspected something between them, but he was happy he had never questioned her. When he had come to know the two of them better, he had sensed in Laurentz an almost paternal attitude toward Ray.

It was curious, he thought, that in this unlikely place he should have found a girl who suited him so well. It was also curious that she would have tolerated him at all. He had wandered into the Frenchman's wine shop alone on one of his first nights at Sidi Beda and stepped into a brawling fight between Frenchies and GIs. A lean, dark man, a Frenchie who probably was a dock worker, had been mean drunk and had pulled a knife on a GI. Troy simply had broken the Frenchie's wrist and the small shop had erupted. The GIs and Frenchies were at each other with chairs, bottles and knives when the MPs' whistles sounded. Unaccountably Troy found himself being hustled by Laurentz up the stairs to Ray's apartment. When Ray learned that he'd started the fight by breaking the dark Frenchman's wrist, she made him welcome.

Suddenly Troy stood up, listening intently.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I thought I heard my name called," he said, not certain. He strained. Again the call came, barely audible but unmistakable. "Someone is calling for me."

"No one will find you, here or in the apartment," she said, clinging to him.

"They wouldn't call unless they needed me," he said, starting for the steps at a run.

"But this day is your own," she cried.

"I've got to see what they want," he called, starting up the steps without looking back. He heard Ray's bare feet racing after him.

Without turning to look, he ran into the living room, sweeping his boots and clothing from the low, damask divan as he crossed the room.

"Don't bother to come back," she flung at him as he started down the steps.

When he reached the downstairs hall, he heard her feet pattering after him. As he pushed the door and stumbled into the dark, cool cellar, he saw two GIs in familiar headgear starting up the front entrance steps. He held his breath uncertainly for a moment as he felt Ray standing tensely behind him, then he called, "Tully! Hitch!"

They swung about and he walked to meet them, already getting his arms into his shirt. Ray followed. She was breathing fast. Tully and Hitch stopped a few feet from him, stood looking from him back to Ray for a few moments. Troy had not seen Laurentz, but he could feel him hovering somewhere in the background.

"Troy, you've got to come with us to HQ right away," Hitch said urgently. He pressed his lips together and frowned, looking back again to Ray. "The colonel wants you and is raising hell."

"He knows this is my day off," Troy said irritably, but he started pulling on his pants. "What's up?"

"We've got to go out," Tully answered. "On a patrol."

"Shut up," Hitch hissed at Tully, eyes darting back in Ray's direction.

"Knock that off, Hitch," Troy snapped and turned back to Tully. "Why do we have to go out on a patrol? Right now? On a day like this? When it gets this hot, nothing moves." He sat on the edge of a table and started pulling on his boots. "Your radiator will boil before you've gone ten miles and it won't cool off when you stop. What in hell is going on?"

"We'll tell you on the way to HQ," Hitch mumbled, eyes moving meaningfully in Ray's direction.

"Hitch," Troy shouted, angry now. "I told you to cut out that stuff. I'm not budging until I know what's so urgent."

"It's the Jerries," Tully blurted. "There's a passel of them coming at Sidi Beda, a couple armored divisions maybe, and they're not very far away. The colonel wants the Rat Patrol out behind them before they box us in."

Colonel Dan Wilson fumed. He was standing in the middle of his map-hung office directly under the creaking, four-bladed wooden ceiling fan, but his khakis were soaked. He could feel the perspiration bursting from the roots of his close-cropped hair. His eyes kept blurring with moisture from his eyelids and his lungs withered at each breath he took. He was waiting. For an hour and a half, he'd been waiting. The Jerries were advancing, but at Sidi Beda, nothing moved. He'd ordered out his mobile unit of halftracks and armored cars at eleven-hundred hours, but they still hadn't arrived. He'd ordered Privates Pettigrew and Hitchcock to bring in Sergeant Troy, but they had not returned—with or without him. He'd ordered Sergeant Moffitt to personally supervise the outfitting of the Rat Patrol's jeeps for their crucial mission and to see that the vehicles were delivered to HQ without delay, but like the others, Moffitt was dawdling. It was too hot to smoke, it was too hot to pace the floor, so Colonel Wilson just stood under his big ceiling fan and suffered.

He heard the sound of gasoline engines and started for his window that overlooked the military boulevard. There were two motors, jeep motors, he thought, but they didn't sound right. They seemed to be clacking and sputtering. When he finally reached the window, the two Rat Patrol jeeps, windshields flat down on the hoods, long snouts of fifty-caliber Browning machine guns fixed forward, were parked and the motors shut off. Sergeant Moffitt in his dark beret, goggles dangling loosely about his neck, seemingly with all the time in the world, waved lackadaisically to someone concealed within one of the native alleys, said something to a man in fatigues who'd driven the second jeep, then sauntered toward the entrance to HQ. The enlisted man in fatigues strolled away as if the war would keep. Sergeant Troy, flanked by Privates Pettigrew and Hitchcock, walked casually onto the avenue from the native quarter and ambled over to HQ. Colonel Wilson returned to his position under the fan and stood straddle-legged, arms behind his back, waiting for the Rat Patrol. His rage was monumental.

They straggled in, first Moffitt, then the others, and stood limp and slumping, looking at him without a spark of interest in their faces.

"Attention!" Wilson barked. When the four were aligned in a semblance of military order, he stared furiously at Sergeant Sam Troy. The man returned the look indifferently. Wilson addressed his remarks directly to Troy. "Sergeant, time is critical so I shall not waste it now. We shall deal with your dereliction upon your return from this assignment. If you exhibit any of the impaired judgment on this mission that you have already displayed this morning I have ordered Sergeant Moffitt to take command of the patrol and place you in restraint."

Sergeant Troy glared resentfully but remained tight-lipped.

"Briefly the situation is this," Wilson went on, still seething but keeping his voice even. "Somehow under cover of darkness the enemy had managed to approach our position with an unexpectedly large armored force. It is, in fact, a force of overwhelmingly superior strength. An observation plane picked up the enemy about thirty miles southeast from Sidi Beda at ten-hundred hours. His radio went out or was jammed, so it was eleven-hundred hours before his report managed to creep into HQ." He paused to get an accusing tone into his voice. "Since that time, we have been looking for you, Sergeant Troy."

Troy was breathing heavily now and his jaw was jutting stubbornly, but he remained silent.

"It appears the enemy has two forces which are approaching a rendezvous or command position about fifteen miles south and east on the track," Wilson said tightly. "Each force consists of approximately fifty units—tanks, halftracks and armored cars. That is an estimate only, because our observation plane was driven from close surveillance by Jerry's eighty-eights and we know Dietrich employs dust-makers to conceal the real strength of his columns. One thing is obvious. The armored unit he had at Sidi Abd has been reinforced by a strong strike force. We have twenty-five Sherman tanks dug in behind minefields above the town and our mobile force of twenty-five units with which to oppose the enemy. The enemy's strategy appears to be a two-pronged attack, one force directed at the port through Latsus Pass, the other an encircling movement aimed at our tank positions on the escarpment. Although we are well fortified both at the pass and above the town, against the numerical superiority of the enemy our situation is difficult. Have I made myself clear on this point?"

The four sweat-streaked faces were rigid and emotionless as he examined each in turn.

"Very well," he said tersely. "Our mobile unit has been ordered to Latsus Pass to effect an entrapment. When the enemy has been destroyed or compelled to withdraw at this point, it should be possible to flank the prong attacking the Shermans. I want the Rat Patrol out of Sidi Beda and behind the enemy lines. You will leave the back way over the escarpment. It is up to you to find a trail or goat path. There must be some way to the top. You cannot use the Latsus Pass route because of the action we plan there and because I want you behind the enemy lines undetected. The jeeps have been equipped with demolition bombs, plastic charges and anti-personnel mines, in addition to your usual arms. Each tank tread you can blow, each ammunition or gasoline dump you can destroy, whatever harassment and havoc you can create, will contribute to the defense of Sidi Beda. I have called for bomber support, but this will not be immediately available. Are there any questions?"

Sergeants Troy and Moffitt and Privates Pettigrew and Hitchcock remained wooden-faced and silent, but their eyes were burning. They were fighting mad, Wilson told himself with satisfaction. Now let them take it out on the Jerries.

"When you run out of ammunition and supplies, commandeer them," he said curtly. "I don't want to see you back in Sidi Beda until the enemy has been defeated. Dismissed."

Four grim men, they saluted, heeled and marched from the office. Wilson went to the window, heard the engines cough several times before they caught, then one behind the other, the jeeps spun and darted without slackening speed into an alley that left scant inches on either side of the little bugs with the scorpion stings. He heard other racing and roaring motors, the grinding whine of gears, the slap of metal treads. Picking up his white varnished helmet with the gold eagle on it, he strapped on his twin pearl-handled pistols and went to the street. When the armored column approached, he ran onto the avenue and leaped into the front seat of the lead armored car before it had braked.

"On, on!" he shouted to the driver, half standing to fling an imperative hand signal to the column.

"Can't put on much speed today," his driver grunted. He was a greasy-faced, unshaven sergeant in a steel helmet and he was chewing the unlighted stub of a cigar. "Got to baby them along or the radiators spout geysers."

"Jerry has the same problem and he's moving," Wilson snapped.

"He ain't moving very fast," the sergeant said complacently.

The column moved at an agonizingly slow pace along the graded road that ran away from the tranquil Mediterranean through barren, rock-studded, gray land toward the long pass that slashed up through stone to the plateau. Wilson wiped the sweat from his eyes and wiped it off his forehead. When he looked ahead, the road shimmered and seemed to swim. But the column pushed its tortuous way on. At Mile Seven, Wilson directed his driver off the route and climbed into the back of the car. He dispersed his force with a dozen halftracks mounting thirty-seven-millimeter weapons stationed near the bottom of the gorge-like defile on either side of the route. He signaled the dozen armored cars to move up through the pass to the top, where machine gun emplacements along the sides controlled the road down through the rock. He planned to deploy his armored cars back on the plateau away from the road and use them to bottle up the enemy when Jerry had his units in the pass. Far to the southeast, miles away, he could see a tenuous curtain of dust hanging in the still air. Let Jerry come on, Wilson thought. The enemy would find he'd walked into a bear trap.

The dozen armored cars ground up the incline and the first three vehicles pulled into the passage itself. The fourth car spluttered and stalled before it entered the defile. Behind, eight armored cars halted.

"Go on, go on," Wilson shouted to his driver. "We've got to get that fool off the track so the others can go ahead."

His car jerked forward. An explosion rocked the ground and broke the dead air into crackling pieces. A black cloud billowed into the sky above Latsus Fass.

"Stop!" Wilson shouted, stunned and shocked. He stood to peer into the enfolding smoke. He could not understand what had happened. Somehow, one of his armored units had exploded.

Now machine guns crackled and there was the whoosh and boom of mortars. Wilson could not see into the pass, but the armored cars at the bottom were churning the baked earth in confused flight. Within the pass, flames crackled as two more explosions sent bursts of smoke smashing into the sky. The mortars and machine guns continued to fire. All of the fire seemed to be coming from the sides of the defile, from Wilson's own emplacements. The halftracks were moving uncertainly forward into the path of the withdrawing armored cars from the mouth of the pass, and the crew of the car that had stalled abandoned it and raced back toward the halftracks on foot.

Wilson was standing now with his walkie-talkie in his hand, shouting into it and waving the other hand to beckon his mobile unit to withdraw. He did not think anyone either heard or saw him. Gradually the vehicles were pulling back in confused, unordered retreat. The mortar and machine gun fire had stopped as the armor fell out of range. Wilson slumped in his seat and watched his crippled mobile striking force limp back on the route. He'd lost three armored cars and he couldn't count his casualties. Jerry had slipped across the desert unnoticed, destroying or capturing whatever patrols had been on the route, and taken Wilson's emplacements. Jerry commanded the one strategic entrance to Sidi Beda and Wilson was bottled up. Wilson's defensive position was very nearly hopeless.

2

Herr Hauptmann Hans Dietrich of the Afrika Korps permitted a tight smile to lift his lips as a black cloud of smoke edged with flame boiled into the sky over the plateau from the neighborhood of Latsus Pass. The faint thud of a distant explosion followed the billowing mass and Captain Dietrich pulled the field glasses from his inscrutable pale eyes. Slim and erect, he was standing on a ledge of limestone at the command post seven miles southeast of the pass. Under cover of darkness, the two Allied machine gun emplacements at Latsus had been seized without a shot being fired by a patrol he had sent forward in Volkswagens. Unhampered by overheating radiators and equipped with mortars, machine guns and mines, the commando patrol under Lieutenant Fritz Lungershausen had sped ahead of his armored column, taken the position and dug in. The patrol now held the gateway to the port.

It was a shame, Dietrich thought without much regret, focusing his glasses on the dozen tanks and twenty-four halftracks parked on the route a mile beyond the CP, that the armor had not been at Lungershausen's heels to follow the quick and silent night victory at the Allied emplacements. He dismissed his mild disappointment. He had never expected to come so far without being detected nor to capture control of Latsus Pass so easily. He turned his glasses to the west where the main unit of the task force, thirty-six tanks and fourteen halftracks, awaited the signal to attack the Allied defensive positions above the town. Streamers of dust trailed after the supply trucks with gas, oil and water that already were shuttling between the dumps and the two columns.

At the command post, a dozen pyramid-topped tents had been thrown up and squads of men, stripped to their shorts, were sweating under the scorching sun as they unloaded and stockpiled ammunition, fuel, water and rations. Although Captain Dietrich's sharp and handsome face was beaded with perspiration and his short-sleeved tan shirt was damp, he was unmindful of the heat. His pleasure at the way this campaign had started precluded physical discomfort, for he had been among the tank commanders who had retreated into the desert when a powerful Allied force had seized Sidi Beda.

The thin smile lingered as he stepped briskly to the rear of the communications van parked next to the headquarters tent. The radio operator, a slack-jawed young man with straw-colored hair and watery eyes, hunched over the command set. He pushed the rubber pads of his earphones forward to his temples and looked questioningly at Dietrich.

"Well?" Dietrich said impatiently. The boy knew what he wanted. "Can you raise them yet at Latsus Pass?"

"I am sorry, Herr Hauptmann," the radio operator said apologetically. "There has been no signal or response."

"Keep trying," Dietrich said, stepping back to the limestone ledge and lifting his glasses once more.

The sky over the edge of the plateau was hung with dirty tatters. He imagined he could hear the sound of battle, the castanet-like beat of machine gun fire and the hollow of mortars, although he doubted the reports would carry seven miles even in the still air. Near the CP, one of the trucks already had been emptied of its drums and now it lumbered away to the southwest, away from the road, toward a small oasis twenty-five miles distant where supply dump had been concealed and where there was water. This was a particularly gratifying cache to Dietrich. All of the gasoline and oil hidden so conveniently nearby had been stolen from the Allied Forces at Sidi Beda by Ali Abu, an Arab informer who was a merchant and owned a warehouse in the port town. Ali Abu's willingness to cooperate, for a price of course, had reduced Dietrich's logistical problems. The Arab had even provided the transportation and a guard for the supplies. Dietrich's glasses came back to the main route. Two miles southeast, the Allied patrol car which his commando unit had surprised still smoldered and smudged the sky. It was the fourth patrol car Lungershausen's men had left twisted and charred on the road in the dash for the pass. The wrecks had been brushed to the side by the following tanks. Dietrich did not think any of the patrols had been able to report the advance, although admittedly the plane had observed the two forces that morning. But then it had been too late.

"Herr Hauptmann! Herr Hauptmann! The Americans attempted to come through the pass but have been forced to retreat," the radio operator jabbered.

"I will talk with Lieutenant Lungershausen," Dietrich said coldly. "I merely told you to get me through, not to explain the conduct of the battle."

"Ja, Herr Hauptmann," the radio operator said, still excited, apparently ignorant that he had been rebuked. He pulled the earphones from his head and handed them with the microphone to Dietrich. "He is right there at the wireless. You just push the button when you talk."

Dietrich glowered as he fitted the wet, clinging rubber pads over his ears. "You push the button like this?" he asked caustically, depressing it, and when the boy assured him the procedure was correct, Dietrich spoke into the microphone. "Dietrich here, Fritz. Tell me quickly, how did it go?"

The elements crackled and spat in Dietrich's ears and then Lungershausen's voice was loud and clear. "... and we destroyed three of the armored cars. The enemy now has withdrawn out of range beyond the bottom of the pass. The track is very narrow through the defile with room for only one tank at a time. The enemy cannot get out through our position, but neither can we reach him with our mortars and it will be difficult for us to get into the port."

"Yes, of course, Fritz," Dietrich said brusquely. "We expected that. Can you hold your position?"

"Without a doubt, Herr Hauptmann," Lungershausen said. "We could hold even if the road was not blocked by the three cars we destroyed."

"I shall have the machines removed at once," Dietrich said sharply. "As long as you can hold, I want the road kept clear. Did you see the Rat Patrol?"

"No, Hauptmann Dietrich," Lungershausen said. "Armored cars and halftracks only. There were no jeeps."

"Listen carefully, Fritz; this is important," Dietrich said. "Did you observe carefully as I instructed? Was there anywhere behind the armor sign of the Rat Patrol?"

"No, Herr Hauptmann," Lungershausen said positively. "From the moment the armor came into view several miles away below us, I observed. The Rat Patrol was at no time with the column."

"Good!" Dietrich exclaimed. "Everything then is as we planned. You know what to do when the time arrives."

"Ja, mein Hauptmann, everything shall be done precisely as you ordered," Lungershausen assured.

"Very well, Fritz," Dietrich said; pleasantly filled with satisfaction. "If you should sight the Rat Patrol anywhere, let me know at once. That is all."

Dietrich removed the sticky earphones, regarded the radio operator with silent disapproval for a moment, then stepped quickly into the headquarters tent next to the communications van. The canvas afforded some protection from the sun but made the heat feel heavier. It smelled sour and sweaty like a gymnasium locker room, and Dietrich looked with quick resentment at Herr Oberst Matthe Funke, who was sitting on a folding stool in his shorts, fumbling with maps and papers on a table and drinking a bottle of beer.

Oberst Funke was commanding officer of the division that included Dietrich's battle group. His head was big and his features small. His gray hair was cropped close and his chin seemed to rest squarely on his chest. Whatever neck he had was hidden by his dewlaps. His tiny eyes were bright blue. Dietrich thought the colonel's mind was very old and somewhat less than agile. When Dietrich had submitted his plan for re-taking Sidi Beda and asked for reinforcements, he had not anticipated getting Colonel Funke in the bargain.

"Don't look so disapproving, Hans," the colonel said mildly. He swallowed another mouthful of beer and wiped Iris hands and then his face on a towel. "I know you say beer only makes the heat more unbearable, but without it I do not think I could survive the desert. Ach, could hell be worse? Now then, how do matters progress?"

"Exactly as we planned, Herr Oberst," Dietrich said, smiling faintly in spite of himself. "The American colonel attempted to fortify his positions at the pass so he could entrap us. He was totally unprepared for what awaited him. We have destroyed three of his armored cars and he has withdrawn. We have him contained."

Colonel Funke lifted his head, dabbing under his chin with the towel. "We shall never be able to enter the port through that narrow pass, Hans," he said heavily. "We control the pass from above. He controls it from below. It is a stalemate."

"Herr Oberst, shall we review the strategy so you may correct the flaws in the plan before the battle commences?" Dietrich asked wearily. He had already convinced the colonel a dozen times of the soundness of the campaign. "Now, the purpose in taking the pass was to bottle the enemy within the port while our main force attacked the town's defenses, yes? These consist of medium tanks mounting seventy-five-millimeter guns. He has placed twenty-five of these weapons in permanent positions above and around the port and has emplaced them as artillery pieces. He has undoubtedly mined the field commanded by these guns. We must cross the minefield and destroy the enemy's tanks with our own above the town, we shall train our guns upon the port and call upon the enemy to surrender. If we had attempted to enter through the pass without first defeating the enemy at his tank positions, we should have been at his mercy. With our guns pointed at him from the bluffs, the American colonel will have no choice but to surrender."

"Ja, Hans, that is what you say," Colonel Funke said with considered deliberateness and then seemed to come to an abrupt decision. "What time did we agree upon for H-hour?" he asked Dietrich.

"Sometime after dark," Dietrich said, smiling to himself. The battle plan had never been discussed with Oberst Funke in such specifics as time, although Dietrich had charted every movement to the second. "We shall use the remainder of the day in preparation. On such a day the heat would be our enemy against fixed defensive positions. We have each of the Allied tanks pinpointed and when it is dark and cool, we shall move against them. We shall have to use the halftracks as minesweepers to get within range, but the minute we are, we shall simply open up with our vastly superior firepower. It is not likely but it is possible that by morning you may be able to take over the port."

The colonel considered this for a moment. "Yes, of course, Hans," he said slowly, "but that is only if everything goes according to the plan. You must never underestimate the capabilities of your enemy. What happens if he possesses weapons or strength within the port of which we are not aware?"

"I have considered this, Herr Oberst," Dietrich said. "Although I have confidence in our Arabian friends, I realize their information is sometimes unreliable and often insufficient because they are neither skilled nor trained observers. To compensate for this, I have a new weapon I propose to use against Colonel Wilson. I brought it along from Sidi Abd, concealed by the dust in the middle of my column."

"You have a new weapon, concerning which I have not been told?" Colonel Funke said in quick offense. He inflated his lungs until they lifted him quite erect. "How could this be? If you were sent something new to test, surely I would have been informed of it."

"It is something I devised myself, Herr Oberst," Dietrich said soothingly.

"You should have told me what you were up to," Colonel Funke said reproachfully.

"It has not been tested in combat," Dietrich said, "although I have no doubt that it will work. If you will come with me, you shall see it now."

"I wish you had not waited until the final moment," Crlonel Funke said but he heaved himself from the canvas stool that was wet with the marks of his cheeks. He pulled on trousers and a shirt with colonel's epaulets. He left the shirt unbuttoned, clapped a pith helmet on his head and sat beside Dietrich in the open patrol car, puffing and wheezing at the dust. They drove across a mile of desert toward the column that was pointed west in the direction of the enemy tank emplacements. As they approached the armor, Dietrich could see the heat lifting in thick, visible layers from the twenty-eight-ton PzKw III and IV tanks with their long-barreled seventy-five millimeter guns, and the halftracks with their howitzers and short-barreled ones. The one eighty-eight millimeter antiaircraft gun with the force was with Funke's column. This was too bad because it had exceptional range.

As Dietrich drove slowly beside the armored column, Colonel Funke suddenly gripped his arm.

"Great God, Hans!" he cried, pointing between the halftracks. "What have you done? Why did you not tell me you had captured them?"

Dietrich slowed, smiling as he turned his head in the direction the colonel was pointing. Between the halftracks were two jeeps, windshields down against the hoods. Each jeep mounted a heavy machine gun in the rear. Four men were dragging camouflage nets over the jeeps. They wore faded sun-tans and peculiar headpieces. One man sported an Australian bush hat, another a dark beret. A man in steel-rimmed glasses was wearing the red-topped cap of a French Foreign Legionnaire, while the fourth bore a steel helmet on his head and was chewing a matchstick.

"The Rat Patrol!" Colonel Funke exclaimed in hoarse disbelief. "How? When?"

"Oh, yes," Dietrich said absently. "Well, perhaps we had better return to the CP at once so I can explain."

"I should rather think so," the colonel said testily. "It seems you have a great deal to explain, Hans." He glanced about quickly at the crews who had sought shade behind and between the vehicles. "You have them under adequate guard?"

"Most assuredly, Herr Oberst," Dietrich said and drove the rest of the way to the tent without speaking.

"Well now, Hans, what is this about the Rat Patrol?" Colonel Funke demanded when they both were seated on canvas stools inside the CP. "Have you interrogated them?"

"Not only interrogated, instructed them, Herr Oberst," Dietrich said with a small smile. "You see, this is my Rat Patrol. It only looks like theirs. It is my secret weapon."

No alert had been sounded in Sidi Beda and the native quarter still sweltered and stunk, but it slumbered as the Rat Patrol in two jeeps plunged up the zigzagging lane that led past the Fat Frenchman's wine shop. Wilson would have warned the captains of the ships at the docks and the Navy, Troy thought, and the cargo vessels would be pulling out under escort of the two destroyers. It was too bad the destroyers couldn't have remained. They would have bolstered the town's defenses which now were left in the hands of a small armored battalion that included a few truck drivers, mechanics and some MPs. If Jerry knocked out the Sherman tanks above the town, Sidi Beda was lost. Troy pulled his bush hat from his dripping head and jammed it back low on his forehead.

"Slow down, Tully," he growled. "Each of these jeeps is carrying enough explosives to blow up the place. Anyway, there's no hurry."

Tully shot a lightning look at him as he eased his foot on the accelerator. "Sarge," he drawled, "I sort of got the idea there was one hell of a hurry."

"Do you know how to climb that bluff?" Troy asked, examining the almost perpendicular thrust of the limestone and clay that rose in sheer ledges above the roofs at the end of the alley.

"Wilson said we was to find a trail or goat path," Tully said.

"If we try to do it by ourselves, we'll spend all afternoon searching and probably wind up on a dead-end ledge where we can't turn around," Troy said. "It's one thing to give an order and another to carry it out. Since he left it to us, we're going to do it our way. We'll find a guide who will direct us right the first time."

"You know how Wilson feels about Ay-rabs, Sarge," Tully said. "They'd sell us out to the Jerries the first chance they got."

"Who said anything about an Arab?" Troy demanded. "Stop when you come to the wine shop."

Tully whistled softly. "You think the Fat Frenchman will guide us?"

"No," Troy said shortly. "I don't think he knows. But if there is a way, I think Ray can point it out."

"Sarge, you nuts?" Tully protested. "You know she's half——"

"Half Arabian," Troy finished and grinned. "All right, I understand how Hitch and you feel, only I wish Hitch would come right out with it the way you did instead of wigwagging his eyebrows. I trust Ray and right now we all ought to thank our boots she's part native. When she was a kid, she was all over this country with her father, the sheik. She'll help us if she can."

Tully wrinkled his forehead under his helmet and shrugged. He came to a stop in front of the blank-walled cellar. Troy swung around. Hitch was half standing over his steering wheel.

"What's wrong?" he called. The sun flashed across his goggles.

Troy pointed to the entrance to the wine shop and climbed from the hot little vehicle onto the first step down. Without looking back, he walked into the cool, dark tavern. He heard Moffitt and Hitch climbing over the hood of their jeep and following Tully onto the steps. There was no room at the sides to squeeze by the vehicles.

"It is good that you return so soon," Troy heard Laurentz saying, although he could not see him. Moffitt, Tully and Hitch were standing beside Troy at the entrance before his vision adjusted and he made out the figure of the Frenchman coming across the tiles.

"You have some cool beer?" Troy asked, continuing without waiting for an answer. "Bring some to my friends. I have to see Ray."

"Oui, she is in her apartment weeping for you, I think," Laurentz said, walking ahead to unlock the door. "She will undoubtedly scratch your eyes, but she will be happy you returned." Under his voice as he turned the key, he asked, "Is it true what they said about the Germans?"

"It is true," Troy said, looking into Laurentz' face, certain he could read fear in the fat-enfolded eyes. "There will be a battle on the plateau. When the shooting starts, it might be well to lock and bar your shop. There are Arabs and Frenchmen in the town I trust even less than I do the Jerries."

"I shall close my shop the moment you have left," Laurentz said.

Ray had heard Troy's boots and was waiting for him in the small foyer entrance to her apartment.

"I have to take the patrol into the desert and I can't use the road through Latsus Pass. Is there a trail to the top of the bluff that we could drive in the jeeps?" Troy asked her.

She made a little choking sound in her throat as she covered her mouth with the back of her hand. "They are coming back then, the Germans?" she asked.

"They will attack, but they will not come back into the town if we can help it," he said.

"You are going out to fight their tanks, just the four of you in your little cars?"

He laughed. "We stand a better chance of fighting them in our little cars than with a rifle from a window in town. We won't stand toe to toe and slug it out with a tank. But we will hit them and run. Now, is there a way to the top that you know, Ray?"

"Yes, there is such a way," she said quickly. "Just a moment while I dress and I shall take you up."

He grasped her wrist as she started to dart away and walked into the living room with her. "Just tell me," he said quietly. "You can't come with us. I don't want you to leave your apartment until I return." Almost savagely, he added, "Understand?"

When she looked up at him, her eyes were very soft. "Yes," she whispered and drew him with her to the green and white striped damask divan. He kissed her swiftly but tenderly and drew away. She frowned as she seemed to try to visualize the way. "You go to the end of this street until you can go no further," she said. "At the very foot of the bluff, take the trail that will go to your right. You follow this for perhaps ten kilometers, beyond the last houses and into a wasteland, always keeping against the wall of this cliff. When you come to two pieces of stone that seem to bar your way, turn directly to your left and you will see that at this place, the bluff turns its back to the town and goes for a way into the plateau. My father has told me, these stones are the fingers that point the way. It is the old trade route that was used by the caravans for many hundreds, or perhaps even a thousand, years. I have not seen it in some time and it may be rough and filled with stones, but it is the only way to reach the top from this direction." She paused. "I would take you if you wish."

"No, Ray," he said firmly, standing and holding her close for a moment.

"Come back soon, Troy," she whispered.

"I will," he said, turning and striding toward the foyer. "Troy," she called, running to him. "When you reach the top, drive in a straight line due south for about twenty kilometers and you will arrive at a very small oasis. It does not amount to much, but there are a few palms for shade and protection and a small waterhole."

His teeth flashed in a smile and he kissed her. "Au revoir," he said self-consciously and ran down the steps.

It was very quiet when he stepped into the wine cellar. No one was talking, not even a bottle thumped a table, and he looked quickly across the room where Moffitt, Tully and Hitch were sitting. Two MPs were standing against the wall behind the table. Glaring at them, Troy stomped across the room.

"What's this?" he asked roughly.

"We're rounding up all military personnel," one of the MPs said. He was heavy-jawed and he lifted his upper lip to one side when he spoke. "These men refused to leave until you returned."

"We're under orders, Sergeant," Troy said evenly, but he was beginning to boil inside. He'd had about as much authority this day as he cared to take.

"Are these men under orders to sit here and drink beer?" the second MP, a corporal with a wart on the side of his nose, sneered. "Are you under orders to go upstairs with some chippie? Are you under orders to block this street with armed military vehicles? We're taking all of you in. Now get moving."

Troy gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. He waited a moment until he was sure of his voice before he spoke.

"Sergeant!" he barked, turning his back to the waitnosed corporal. "We are under direct orders from the commanding officer. Why we are here or what we are doing is none of your business. If you interfere or delay us, I promise that you will not only lose your stripes but will face a court-martial. When you have left and we know this property is safe and has been secured, we'll go. Meanwhile, I'll have a bottle of beer." He turned to the back of the room. "Four bottles of beer, please, Laurentz."

The two MPs stood dumbly and uncertainly, as if in shock, for a solid sixty seconds.

"You'll have to move your jeeps so we can get out," the corporal finally growled.

"Crawl over them, the same way you came in," Troy said, calmly. "And you'd better watch your steps. The back ends are loaded with mines and demolition charges."

The MPs walked slowly toward the entrance. They turned and went up the steps. Troy heard them clambering over the hood of the lead jeep and starting up the street. Beyond the Fat Frenchman's there was nothing on this street except some poor native huts where GIs were not welcome.

"Fatheads," he muttered, but he grinned and swallowed half his bottle of beer without taking it from his lips.

"Can't say I blame you for it, Sam," Moffitt said mildly, "but it was a bit indiscreet to stop for your farewell, much as I did enjoy the beer. Wilson is certain to look on it with disfavor. The Military Police are sure to report it, you know."

"Didn't Tully tell you why we stopped?" Troy asked, surprised and glancing at Tully.

Tully lifted his shoulders. "Long as you're in charge, Sarge, I don't figure anybody ought to explain what you're doing." He smiled slowly. "Anyway, them MPs was on us before I got the chance and I wasn't going to tell them nothing."

"I stopped to ask Ray if there was a back trail to the bluff," Troy said tersely. "There is."

"She told you?" Hitch asked, surprised, and added suspiciously, "How can you be sure it isn't a trap?"

Troy half stood angrily, then sat back in his chair. "There wasn't any other way, Hitch," he said calmly and smiled slowly. "If we get up the trail to the top in one piece, will you knock this off?"

"It's a deal, Sarge," Hitch said, embarrassed now. "I guess I've been shooting off my mouth without reason." He grinned. "Anybody that can tell off the MPs the way you did has to know what he's doing."

"I say, Sam," Moffitt said with an amused smile. "Don't you think we ought to get started up the slope?"

"Let's go," Troy said.

"Let's take some beer," Tully said, walking to Laurentz at the service bar. "It'll help save our water."

"It's on the house, as your people say," Laurentz said, sacking a dozen bottles for each jeep and walking up the steps with them. To Troy privately he said, "I'll lock and bar the door now and shall admit no one until you have returned."

At the end of the alley, there was a rough dirt path along the base of the bluff. Following Troy's directions, Tully turned to the right and Hitch followed. Here they were sometimes in the shadow of the towering rock and it was more comfortable. They passed clusters of small white houses on alleys like the one they just had left and then they were at the edge of Sidi Beda. Unpainted mud hovels stood in small yards of hard-baked clay enclosed with fences of thorn bush. Where the ground became rockier, man gave up the struggle and there were no more huts. Nothing but the hard bare earth and stone, and far away and below them now, the deceptively peaceful, blue Mediterranean. Ahead, twin fingers of rock seemed to bar the way.

"Straight left when you reach those stones," Troy said, admitting to himself that he couldn't see any way to turn except into the bluff.

"Sure, if you say so, Sarge," Tully said cheerfully.

He followed directions, but he looked doubtful until he'd reached the stones and made a sharp turn to the left. Here the bluff shot back into the plateau and there was a well-defined trail that slanted up the side of the gray escarpment on a series of setbacks, each about fifty yards long with a reasonable slope and a platform at its terminus broad enough for the jeeps to negotiate without difficulty. Tully drove halfway up the first six-foot-wide ledge that looked as if it had been hacked by hand from the face of the bluff and stopped.

"What is it?" Troy asked, stiffening, searching the empty land below and the sheer rock above.

"We ought to water the beasts before we start the climb," Tully said, leaving the motor running and climbing out. "It ain't so far and it ain't so steep, but it sure is hot." He lifted the five-gallon water can from the rack. "And another thing, Sarge. I figure maybe you and Doc would like to climb in back with the weapons. From the way this trail's been kept clean, someone's been using it, and recent."

Troy's eyes slitted and he lifted his glasses, inspecting the path. The angled route was remarkably free of rubble for an old and little-used trail. The Arabs must still be using this way in and out of Sidi Beda, he thought, although nothing was moving on it now in the burning sun. He searched the top of the escarpment but could see no motion nor indication that anyone was watching from the edge.

"We'd better ride shotgun, Doctor," he called to Moffitt. Nodding to Tully, who was upending the water can into the bubbling radiator, Troy jumped into the rear of the jeep, and avoiding the cases of explosives, ammunition and supplies, he gripped the searing handles of the gun.

Hitch's eyes were steely when they glanced and met Troy's but he didn't say a word, only banged down the hood of his jeep and jumped behind the steering wheel. In the back, Moffitt leaned away from his gun as his eyes searched the setbacks to the top.

Tully shifted into four-wheel drive, let out the clutch as the engine roared, and the jeep leaped up the first incline, turning without slackening at the platform onto the second setback. Halfway up he began to lose power and on the third setback, the radiator began to boil, throwing hot smelling steamy vapor back. Both jeeps panted up the final setback and chugged onto the plateau. Tully braked near the edge with the radiator hissing but leaving the motor idling.

Swinging his machine gun with him in tense hands, Troy swept the rocky terrain with searching eyes as Hitch parked his jeep alongside. In the immediate area, there seemed to be nothing but crusted gray earth and large rocks. Beyond, perhaps half a mile, were the first sands of the desert plateau. The dun-colored sand was hazed with heat. Troy inspected the nearby rocks. Some were large slabs of gray limestone, big enough to conceal a party of men. The trail wound between two particularly formidable stones about five hundred yards ahead. Troy studied them closely through his field glasses but there was no telltale movement, no sign of man nor beast. From this point, at least, the plateau appeared to be empty. Troy turned, grinning tightly at Hitch. Lifting one hand with thumb and forefinger together indicating approval, Hitch smiled back. With his other hand, Hitch put a piece of bubble gum in his mouth.

Now Troy turned his glasses back north and east along the bluff that overlooked Sidi Beda until he found the first of the Sherman tanks about a mile off. A man stood in the turret observing him through glasses. Four other members of the crew were sprawled in the scant shade under the nose of the tank. Troy waved his hat and the observer in the turret lifted his arm in greeting. Swinging his glasses from the tank, Troy searched the desert to the east and south. He saw no dust trail in the sky.

"Peaceful enough so far," he called to Moffitt, who was focusing his glasses. "No sign of Jerry. We'll go ahead, follow the trail until we're out of the rocks and then strike south through the desert."

"How about a bottle of beer?" Tully asked.

"When we're in the clear," Troy said, "and then you drink it while you drive. No breaks until we know we're behind the Jerry lines."

"That's okay for me, Sarge," Tully said and pushed his helmet back on his sweaty forehead, "but we got to give the jeeps a break. How about a bottle of beer while we water the horsepower?"

"Tully's right," Hitch said. "We can drink our beer while we cool the motors down."

Troy looked at Moffitt whose smile had reached his eyes. Moffitt nodded.

Troy yielded. "All right, the doctor and I will take ours at our weapons. You can serve them up to us."

The beer already was tepid and soon would be disagreeable, Troy thought as Tully and Hitch lifted the hoods, uncapped the radiators and let them blow their heads of steam before starting slowly to refill them from the GI cans. Troy looked toward Moffitt and smiled as he saw him with a beer bottle in one hand and his glasses in the other turned back in the direction of the Sherman tank. Lifting his own glasses, Troy focused them on the observer in the first tank. The man, waving casually, suddenly motioned frantically toward the rocks beyond the jeeps.

Dropping his beer bottle and glasses, Troy swung with his machine gun glimpsing the same movement from Moffitt as he did.

"Tully! Hitch! Down under the jeeps!" he shouted before he had fully turned.

A hail of automatic fire was droning angrily at the jeeps from a dozen men in Arab robes, who were racing down the trail from the two large slabs of stone five hundred yards away. The heavy Browning machine gun began to spit in Troy's hand. The thought flashed across Troy's mind that Tully had had the good sense to bang down the hood giving him unrestricted field of fire. He raked the first of the robed men with a burst, then a second thought flashed across his mind: he was standing on enough explosives to blow up the town of Sidi Beda.

The orange sun was sinking into the calm Mediterranean, dusk was descending quickly over Sidi Beda when Colonel Dan Wilson dropped into the chair behind his olive-colored metal desk at HQ. He sat for a moment, staring without awareness at the whirring ceiling fan, numbed by events beyond discomfort at the lingering heat. He shook his head abruptly and lighted a cigarette that had an unfamiliar hot and bitter taste. All that could be done had been accomplished, and at least for the moment he believed the port was secured. The cargo vessels with their destroyer escort had withdrawn and the port seemed oddly, ominously deserted without the clanking chains and grinding winches on the piers. He had clamped the lid on the town and sealed off the native quarter. The MPs and men from the transportation company were patrolling the docks and two armored cars guarded the main military boulevard along the bay front. At Latsus Pass, half a dozen halftracks were strategically placed near the bottom, ready to blast any Jerry armor that attempted to break out and another half dozen armored vehicles backed them up. The rest of his armor was at the edge of the port, ready for action wherever they were needed.

It was a state of siege, Wilson wearily admitted, but if the tanks could hold above the town forty-eight hours, he had a fighting chance. The bomber support he'd requested could not be immediately diverted, but he'd have it within two days. His observation plane had been in the air during the afternoon and reported the massing of Jerry armor for the two-pronged attack he had anticipated. Well, he thought grimly, let the enemy come on. Jerry would sacrifice a good deal of his numerical superiority in the minefields before he reached the Sherman tanks.

He walked to the window, staring into the dusk of the partially blacked out town. A patrol in an armored car moved slowly down the military avenue, searchlight poking into the mouths of the alleys that made a maze of the native quarter. He wondered whether the Rat Patrol had found a back trail and had penetrated the enemy lines. He had no illusions that the Rat Patrol could win a battle single-handed, but neither did he underestimate their importance. They struck swiftly, not only inflicting severe damage, but upsetting the enemy's morale. He was concerned with a report of small arms fire on the plateau west of the town during the afternoon. Desperately he wanted to know what it meant, but he had imposed radio silence on the tanks until the enemy attacked and could not risk breaking it.

Returning to his desk, he switched on a lamp and picked up a fistful of routine reports, ready to stuff them in a drawer until morning when his eyes caught the name of Sergeant Sam Troy on a sheet from the Military Police. He scanned the report and sat back, shaking with rage. The Rat Patrol had frittered away most of the afternoon drinking beer in a native bistro while Sergeant Troy had dallied upstairs with one of the cheap women who frequented such places.

His fist crashed on the desk and he felt his blood boiling until it enflamed his already hot and flushed face. It was unthinkable, it was inexcusable, it was mutinous, it was treasonable, that at such a time of peril the Rat Patrol should fail in its duty. Troy, Moffitt, Hitchcock, Pettigrew —each of them was aware of the urgency of the situation. Troy's actions had been suspect since his display of irresponsibility during the morning, but Wilson had ordered Moffitt to take over if Troy seemed to falter. He'd break both of them right now, he snarled to hims elf and reached for the phone to call in his first sergeant.

First Sergeant Dewey Peilowski broke into the office before Wilson had lifted the receiver. His fair but sunburned face was sweaty and his big lips were moving without saying any words.

"What is it, Peilowski?" Wilson said in quick apprehension, half rising from his chair. "What's wrong?"

"The Rat Patrol," Peilowski gasped.

"I've just seen the MP report," Wilson said angrily, yet relieved that nothing new had gone amiss. He sat back in his chair and jabbed at the paper with a pencil. "I was just going to call you. I want Troy and Moffitt reduced in rank to private."

"Yes, sir," Peilowski said, mopping his face. "But it's not just that MP report. The Rat Patrol just busted out of Latsus Pass and come tearing into town. I thought they was supposed to stay out on this mission."

"What!" Wilson roared. His fury was terrible and he shook uncontrollably as the impact of this action hammered at his temples. "They had a direct order from me not to return until the enemy had been defeated," he yelled in mounting rage. "Why did they come back? How did they get through that pass? Where are they? Why haven't they reported?" He fell back in his chair, weak with his wrath. "Tell me what happened."

"A patrol just brought in the report," Peilowski said breathlessly. "It was just at sunset. Everything had been quiet at the pass when there was this outbreak of fire from the Jerries. Machine guns and mortars. Then the two jeeps come racing out of the pass hell-bent for town. They didn't stop for nothing, just tore through the two lines of halftracks and kept straight on the road to town."

"How do you know it was the Rat Patrol?" Wilson said quickly. "There are other jeeps. It could be a Jerry trick."

"No, sir," Peilowski said positively. "It was the Rat Patrol, all right. Everybody knows those jeeps. And they recognized Troy and Moffitt in their crazy hats in the backs at the machine guns and Hitchcock in his steel-rimmed glasses and French Legion cap and Tully chewing a match-stick. It was them, all right."

"Well, where are they?" Wilson demanded, angry blood surging in his veins again. He slammed from his chair and walked quickly to the window. No jeeps were parked in the gloom outside HQ. He wheeled to Peilowski and shouted, "Where are they?"

"They—they disappeared," Peilowski stammered.

"Disappeared!" Wilson bellowed. "That's impossible. Bring them to me."

"The way it was," Peilowski said miserably, "the way they was speeding and stopping for nothing, everybody figured they was onto something hot and headed for HQ. Nobody stops the Rat Patrol anyway. Those jeeps shot into town and they disappeared. There's no sign of them anywhere."

"How could two jeeps and four men disappear in a patrolled town under curfew?" Wilson asked numbly.

"They've done it in Jerry camps," Peilowski mumbled. "I guess they could do it in a place they know like this." Wilson paced the floor under the slapping fan. He was shocked. He was stunned. The Rat Patrol had spent the afternoon drinking beer. Or worse. The Rat Patrol had disobeyed a direct order to remain behind enemy lines. The Rat Patrol had returned and not reported. Wilson whirled. He was in a towering rage.

"Peilowski," he said in a voice that trembled with his anger. "Take a patrol and go to the French wine shop in the native quarter. I think you'll find the Rat Patrol there." He went back to his desk, stood glaring a moment at Peilowski. "No, send someone else with an MP patrol to bring them in, in irons if necessary. I want you here. I want you to immediately draw up court-martial proceedings against each man in the Rat Patrol."

3

When the sun was a blinding flame on the western horizon of the desert, Troy crawled from the oven under the camouflage net. The two jeeps were concealed in a rocky pocket in the desert about ten miles south and five miles west of Sidi Beda. Although he was certain he could not be seen against the flaring rays, he dug his way on his belly to the top of the gully and removed his bush hat before he poked his head over the mound of burning sand and trained his glasses on a patch of ragged palms about one mile to the east. A canvas-topped, six-wheeled Jerry truck was pulling away to the east and another was approaching. The oasis where Ray had told him he would find water was a Jerry supply dump.

Drums of gasoline and oil, apparently dug from the sand by two dozen or more Arabs who loaded the trucks, were lined up in the meager shade. Troy had glimpsed a man in German uniform who seemed to be in charge. A halftrack with a seventy-five millimeter gun roved the area surrounding the dump. Troy had watched, helpless and frustrated during the afternoon as five Jerry trucks had driven away with their loads of gas and oil. The desert surrounding the oasis was too open and the big gun had too great a range to attempt destroying the dump in daylight, but now with the approach of dusk, Troy was prepared to move.

The afternoon had not been entirely wasted, he thought, smiling tightly as he recalled the surprise attack by the Arabs near the edge of the escarpment. He had been firing the M2 heavy machine gun even as the Arabs poured from the rocks and pelted the jeeps with the rapid fire from their old MG-34 German light machine guns. Moffitt had opened fire almost simultaneously and Tully and Hitch, instead of diving for cover under the jeeps, had banged down the hoods and jumped behind the steering wheels. Although hot and sluggish, the jeeps had performed. Without an order, Tully and Hitch had moved in opposite converging arcs on the flanks of the onrushing robed men. The Arabs had raked the spluttering vehicles, but their fire was inaccurate and ineffectual. Troy and Moffitt marched their bursts into the group as the Arabs scattered and fled back toward the rocks for protection. Although the jeeps jerked along without power or speed, the steady fire from the two heavy machine guns caught them all but one whom Troy glimpsed tumbling over the edge of the bluff on the old trade route. When the two jeeps reached the stones, eleven Arabs lay on the trail behind.

"That was the worst I've been through," Troy said, pulling off his hat and wiping his forehead on his sleeve. He looked down at the crates and boxes of bombs, mines and charges, grenades and shells that were crammed into the back of the jeep. "One lucky shot and these powder kegs would have blown."

"It was a trap," Hitch snarled. "That Arab girl I've been suspicious of all along sent us into a trap. They knew we were coming and were waiting."

Troy jumped from the back of the jeep and ran to Hitch.

"Look, Hitch!" he shouted, hot and angry. "I thought we had this settled. Ray offered to take us up here herself. If she'd been with us, they'd still have opened fire. She doesn't have anything to do with them, hasn't been over this trail for years and didn't know it was being used. We found out something valuable we might never have discovered. The Arabs have been using this route, that's apparent, probably smuggling stolen goods out by night. She told me about an oasis ten miles south. My guess is that the Arabs use that oasis as a hiding place for whatever the stuff is until they can get it to a market. Whatever it is, we're going in and take it or destroy it before the Arabs can sell it to Jerry. That's part of our job out here, to destroy the enemy and his supplies. So whether you think we've been tricked or not, that Arab girl, as you call her, put us on the right track. Now how about going along with things and let's see what we find at the oasis."

Hitch studied Troy for a moment with thoughtful eyes and then suddenly he smiled. "I may not be convinced, but I'll knock it off," he said.

"We'll make a wide swing around to that oasis," Troy told them all, climbing back into the first jeep. "We'll come in from the west and keep hidden until we see what's going on."

They'd left the trail, making a wide circuit, picking their way cautiously through the rocks, and when they reached the sand, they kept to depressions and wadis. Stopping frequently to let the motors cool and replenish the water in the radiators, it had been sixteen-hundred hours when they'd finally pulled into the pocket about a mile west of the oasis and dragged the camouflage nets over the jeeps. It was now eighteen-hundred and soon the soft dusk would fall gently on the desert. Troy slid down the slope and crawled between the jeeps under the netting. Tully was lying on his back under his jeep and snoring. Moffitt and Hitch sat in the sand, leaning listlessly against their vehicle. They watched dully, then blinked and shook themselves awake as Troy haif dragged Tully from his jeep by the leg.

"We'll leave the jeeps here," he told them when Tully crawled out rubbing his eyes. "But we'll pull off the nets so we can take off fast if we have to. Jack," he said, turning to Moffitt, "you and Hitch take care of the halftrack that's patrolling the dump. One of you get the crew and the other blow the treads. Tully and I will hit the drums. We'll load ourselves with grenades and just carry sidearms. Okay, let's move."

When the nets were folded, the sun had set and the shadow of night had crept over the desert. The moon had not risen, and although there was a transluscency to the dusk, it was darker now than it would be later. Troy led the way, snaking through the still hot sand where there was no cover, rising to a crouch and darting forward whenever rocks or a valley in the desert offered protection. At the end of an hour, they had advanced three quarters of the way. Troy propped himself on his elbows and examined the oasis. A truck, its headlights blurred and yellowish glares, was standing at the edge of the palms and Arabs stripped to their baggy cotton drawers were struggling with the heavy, awkward drums. The slapping treads of the halftrack clanked and the armored vehicle crawled slow around the far edge of the dump.

"Let's take them before that truck gets away with its load," Troy whispered to Moffitt.

Moffitt nodded and Hitch and he darted off at an angle, bending low as they ran to intercept the halftrack on its next circuit. Troy and Tully plunged straight ahead about a hundred yards toward the stockpiled drums and the truck and dived into the sand to look and listen. Troy turned his head. At first he could see neither Moffitt nor Hitch, but as he watched, two shadowy forms lifted from the desert and sprinted ahead. Troy and Tully dug in their toes and ran another hundred yards. Off to Troy's right, Moffitt and Hitch were running again when Tully and he went to the sand once more. He could hear the sound of voices plainly now, the granting singsong of the Arabs and the guttural noises of the truck driver and the Jerry officer, neither of whom he could see. The sands ran with the churning sound of the halftrack treads and he could hear the heavy breathing of the truck motor.

"This is it," he whispered to Tully as he saw Moffitt and Flitch separating and running toward the halftrack.

A burst of machine gun fire rattled in the night as Tully and he dashed for the drums. Troy did not turn his head as the Arabs stood hesitantly, looking toward the sound of the firing. Another burst followed by a third and fourth rattled in quick succession. Jerry had spotted Moffitt or Hitch or both of them, Troy thought, loosening a grenade from his belt, pulling the pin and clamping the lever in his hand. Fifty yards from the piled drums, he stopped, threw his arm back and hurled the grenade. Tully's grenade landed as Troy fell to his face. There was a shattering blast and a mass of flame shot into the sky. Another explosion, billows of flame and smoke. The whole oasis was lighted as the truck and drums burned fiercely. A single shell from the seventy-five millimeter gun cracked over the roaring gas and oil and then there were two nearly simultaneous explosions. The halftrack was burning now, a separate fire at the edge of the oasis, Troy rolled to his feet and turned to see Tully starting toward him. Crouching, they zigzagged away from the fiery oasis. Now he looked and saw racing from the flaming halftrack two forms he knew were Moffitt and Hitch. All four of them ran without halting until they finally were beyond the range of light from the fires. When Troy stopped with Tully and turned to look, the bright flames from the gasoline were edged with black from the oil. It was an angry, churning, seething cauldron at the north edge of the oasis.

"We just blew our water supply," Troy told Tully and grinned.

"Guess we'll have to draw our water from Dietrich," Tully drawled as they started trotting back toward the pocket where they'd left the jeeps.

Moffitt and Hitch had reached the depression before them and Hitch had started both motors.

"Straight ahead to the oasis," Troy shouted, leaping into the back and bracing himself at the machine gun. "We'll rake the ashes to make sure no one gets away."

The jeeps hurtled from the pocket in single file and spun through the rocky sand, swerving and skidding. They drove toward the fires without lights. At the edge of the oasis, Troy could see a handful of figures withdrawn from the flames, standing helpless and motionless. As the jeeps neared the dump, Tully swung to the left toward the burning truck and drums. Hitch drove to the right toward the flaming halftrack. Troy loosened his gun and blasted a running group of bare-chested Arabs. When he'd cut them down, he waited until the jeep was beyond the fire and then he fired burst after burst into the oasis. On the other side, he heard the stutter of Moffitt's gun. Tully pulled up beside Hitch near the waterhole.

"We need water," Troy called. "Cover me. I'm going in to see if we wrecked it or it's contaminated."

He jumped to the ground and ran toward the middle of the oasis. A light machine gun or machine pistol rattled off to his right and he dropped to the ground, rolling to his left. The heavy sound of the Browning chopped away near the ground at one thick-stemmed palm. When the light machine gun did not open fire again, Troy jumped to his feet and went to the waterhole. It was an open seepage hole, but it had been walled with stone. He dipped his finger into the water and tasted it. It was warm and brackish but not contaminated. He trotted back to the jeeps.

"Tully, Hitch," he called. "Drive in, fill the radiators and the cans. Doctor, let's check the Jerries."

The four-man crew of the halftrack were dead and their uniforms were badly burned. Troy and Moffitt went looking for the truck driver and officer who'd been in charge of the Arabs. They found them near the palm tree at which Moffitt had fired. The truck driver was wearing the sloppy, oversized work pants typical of the Afrika Korps enlisted issue and a shirt. Both were badly splashed with blood. The officer, a lieutenant, was dressed in a light tan tunic and Afrika Korps fatigue cap. One of Moffitt's slugs had caught the lieutenant in the head and his tunic did not appear to be soiled. Troy pulled off the tunic and cap and carried them back to the jeeps.

The flames from the dump still roared and shot into the night sky and the heavy stench of the burning oil fell upon him. Except for the booming of the flames, there was no other sound. He glanced at Hitch and Tully, both pulling GI cans filled with water from the hole.

"Let's go," he' said briefly. "Someone's going to be mighty curious about these fires."

The night air cooled the engines, and with fresh water in the radiators, the jeeps sped from the ravaged Jerry dump. It was a good strike at the oasis, Troy thought, but it would not go long undetected. The next truck driver probably would turn back as soon as he noticed the fires, still miles away, to report. Even before a patrol came out to investigate, Dietrich would have a reasonably accurate idea of what had happened. He'd place the credit—or blame, Troy smilingly corrected himself—on the Rat Patrol and try to anticipate their next move.

Beyond the illuminated area that surrounded the oasis, Tully slowed.

"Anything wrong?" Troy asked quickly.

"Yes and no, Sarge," Tully said slowly. "First, I can't see and the sand is full of stones. You don't want to risk lights, do you?"

"No," Troy said shortly. "All right, go ahead without lights as fast as you safely can. What's second?"

"Long as I'm going to be driving slow, I figured I might have a bottle of that warm beer," Tully said. "I got a thirst and I don't want to waste the water. Where we going?"

"Straight east," Troy said, laughing and opening bottles of beer for Tully and himself. "When we hit the route, we'll turn back toward Sidi Beda on it."

"Hey, won't that take us straight into Dietrich's command post?" Tully asked.

"That's exactly what I hope," Troy said comfortably. "That's where I figure the trucks have been running the fuel and I don't think Dietrich will expect us to come calling on him tonight. We'll see what we can do to the rest of his supplies."

At his command post, Captain Hans Dietrich waited at the communications van with impatiently contained calm as the sun turned red and dipped close to the horizon. He wanted to speak out, to tell the radio operator to do something, to physically shake the boy from his lethargy, but Dietrich admitted there was nothing to be done. He himself had issued the order. No call was to be sent out. He was just to wait for the signals. It was the boy's strange attitude, or moods, Dietrich told himself. In the afternoon the boy had annoyed Dietrich with his eagerness. Now when the boy should be attuned to the excitement of the moment, he sagged on his stool and looked half asleep. And then, this matter tonight really was a personal thing with Dietrich. It probably would have little effect upon the battle, but he desperately wanted his plan to succeed. It would be a moral victory.

"Ungeziefer, Herr Hauptmann," the boy said tonelessly.

The first signal, "vermin"; that was good, Dietrich thought excitedly. He nodded curtly to the operator. "Be alert for the next signal," he said sharply.

"Ja, Herr Hauptmann," the boy said indifferently and seemed to go back to sleep.

Dietrich looked westward at the long line of tanks and halftracks that stood fueled, equipped with ammunition, ready to mount the attack against the Allied line of defense. Ahead, facing Latsus Pass, was the column Oberst Funke would lead into the port. He glanced at his watch in the rapidly failing light. It was nearly eighteen-hundred hours. The tanks would roll in two hours and the attack should be started within that hour. It could be over quickly, Sidi Beda could be in their hands within twenty-four hours; but if the Allies were well prepared, it would take a little longer. Dietrich was equipped to deal with the unexpected too. He smiled thinly. This was a victory he would not be denied. He glanced at his watch again, irritated by the dragging minutes and annoyed with himself at his own impatience.

"Herr Hauptmann," the radio operator mumbled. "Überlisten."

"Excellent," he said crisply and turned on his heel, striding to the HQ tent. "Fox" meant that his private plan was operational.

Oberst Funke looked at him with vague eyes and uncorked a fresh bottle of beer. "Ja, Hans," he said thickly. "I heard firing in the pass. Did they get through?"

"Everything is working to perfection, Oberst Funke," Dietrich said with a fine glow of pride. "First the signal, 'ungeziefer' from the pass, which meant there had been sufficient firing and commotion to allay suspicion when our own substitute Rat Patrol approached the line of armor the Allies have thrown up at the bottom. Then the signal, 'überlisten' from the Patrol itself, which meant they had entered the warehouse of the Arab, Ali Abu, safely and that the jeeps were concealed."

"So you have succeeded in entering the port with four men in disguise," Colonel Funke said ponderously. "Now what is it that you hope to accomplish with them?"

"The obvious, mein Oberst," Dietrich said a little curtly. "I shall do to the enemy exactly what he has most enjoyed doing to me. I shall harass him within his camp, disrupt and destroy. My Rat Patrol will send me what information they can obtain."

"But, Hans," Colonel Funke protested, "do you not think that these disguises will soon be penetrated? Are your men so fluent in the American type of English that they can deceive the Americans? Are they such counterparts of the members of the real Rat Patrol that they will not be recognized as frauds?"

"Whenever they appear as the Rat Patrol, it will be at a distance where there will be no way of knowing they are a substitute Rat Patrol," Dietrich said, suddenly weary of his endless explanations to Funke. "As you know, they were not challenged when they entered the port. Already the harassment has begun. I believe the American colonel, Wilson, will be considerably disturbed to learn that his Rat Patrol has returned from whatever mission they were on and had not reported, nor indeed, can be located. At the moment, the members of my Rat Patrol are abandoning their disguise and assuming the robes of Arabs. They will mingle with the natives. They are equipped with time charges which they will deposit at targets of convenience. T his will disrupt the morale of the Allied Forces. They will feel the natives are sabotaging them. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, they will appear briefly as the Rat Patrol. The American colonel will feel certain he has been betrayed by his most dependable weapon. Is it not an admirable plan?"

"But Great God, Hans," Colonel Funke exclaimed. "How will you get them out?"

"They will not come out until we go in," Dietrich said harshly.

"And suppose the real Rat Patrol is still within the port?" Funke asked.

"We have information they left Sidi Beda at noon," Dietrich said a little shortly. He wished the Arab who had brought the information could have been more specific. All Dietrich really knew was that the Rat Patrol had left the Allied headquarters at noon in fully equipped jeeps.

"And should the real Rat Patrol return?"

"Then, mein Oberst, they will find themselves deep in trouble," Dietrich said firmly. "We have our informers. Our Rat Patrol will no longer show themselves. The real Rat Patrol will have some trouble explaining their activities."

"It is fantastic," Colonel Funke said heavily. "It will never work."

There were three lieutenants and a captain lingering over their tin cups of coffee and Dietrich pointedly examined his watch as he nodded and sat apart from them at the single long table. They should be with their men, he thought. Before a battle officers should encourage their men by a display of diligence and devotion to duty. The officers had left the tent before an orderly served Dietrich with a plate of boiled beef, a hard biscuit and a cup of coffee.

Dietrich ate slowly and methodically, eating this food in the field for nutrition and not enjoyment. His thoughts were far away and he scarcely tasted the unappetizing fare.

Dietrich had lighted a cigarette to smoke with his second cup of coffee when his executive officer, Captain Hermann Nolde, marched purposefully into the tent. His dark eyes were flashing and his face was tight.

"Sit down, Hermann," Dietrich said calmly. "Have a cup of coffee and a cigarette to relax. Whatever it is, it cannot be so bad as you look. Save your anger for the enemy."

"It is the enemy who angers me, Hans," Nolde said bitterly. "He has blown our fuel supply at the oasis."

"What!" Dietrich thundered, stiffening with anger. "Was it not guarded as I ordered?"

"Hans," Nolde said furiously, "there was a halftrack with a seventy-five millimeter gun and a crew of four, armed with machine guns on constant patrol. Also, Leutnant Kleine was there in charge of the Arabs. I do not know what could have happened."

"I can tell you precisely what has happened," Dietrich said in cold rage. "It is the Rat Patrol. Now, as well as you can recite them, give me the facts only."

"The facts are these, as well as I can tell you," Nolde said, sitting across from Dietrich and motioning to the orderly for coffee. "One of the truck drivers saw the fires from a distance. He drove without lights to within a mile, where he observed there to be two fires, one very large, which was a truck and the supplies of gas and oil, the other smaller, which was the halftrack. There appeared to be no survivors. Two jeeps came speeding out of the desert, circled the oasis, firing into it, and then stopped and four men went into the oasis itself, or what was left of it. The truck driver turned about and returned at top speed. I have sent a patrol of two cars to investigate."

"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.

Even at a distance of a mile and a half, it seemed some sounds should carry from a command post with a column advancing to attack. Too few lights were showing, only three lanterns at the front of the tents facing the area with the oil and gas drums. Troy slipped back from the crest of the dune and motioned the others to come up.

Again they trotted through the shadowed valley and when they reached its end, Troy took Moffitt with him to the top. They were now less than a thousand yards from the post and Troy was able to clearly identify the arrangement and the shapes. He and Moffitt were observing the CP from the back of three rows of four pyramid tents each, laid out in a perfect rectangle. The tents faced a dump or stockpile of perhaps two hundred drums. Four guards were walking their posts at the dump, one at each side. The tent area was similarly patrolled by four guards. No sound came from the camp and there was no other activity than the methodical patrols of the guards. No one was between them and the tent area other than the guard at the rear. Troy and Moffitt slid back to Tully and Hitch.

"It would be no trick to take those guards at the dump," Troy whispered, "but I don't like it. After Dietrich lost his dump at the oasis, there should be a heavy guard here. It looks like another invitation from Dietrich. I smell a trap. I want to know what's in those tents."

"Right-o," Moffitt said softly. "I'll just slip up and have a look about."

"If it's a trap, they'll nab you right away because you don't belong in the pattern," Troy said. "Hitch, go in and take that guard in back of the tents. You'll have to do it fast enough so you can meet the guard at the side, wearing a uniform and carrying a rifle. The four guards meet at alternate comers each turn of their post. When you've replaced him, we'll come in."

"I'm on my way," Hitch whispered and went up the slope and over the top.

Moffitt and Tully lay with Troy on the dune and watched Hitch's stealthy approach down the moonlit slope. Each time the guard behind the tents walked away from him, Hitch slithered through the sand like a frightened lizard. Just before the guard at the side and the guard at the rear turned to march toward him, Hitch disappeared, a motionless contour of the slope. Hitch crept closer. The guard reached the near corner of his post and started to walk away. Troy saw Hitch spring. The guard dropped his rifle, stretched backward and fell. There had been no sound. Hitch had caught the rifle with his knee as he'd tightened the garrote and even as the man was falling, was removing his jacket and cap. Hitch was at the far corner of the tents precisely at the moment the guard at the far side post arrived and Hitch clicked his heels and about-faced in precisely the same manner.

"All right," Troy told Tully. "Relieve Hitch so he can take care of the guard on this side."

Having only the side guard to concern him, Tully advanced more rapidly and within minutes Hitch was walking the post at the near side and Tully the post at the rear.

"Time for us, Doctor," Troy said and grinned at Moffitt. "I'll lug the bag and relieve Hitch so he can take care of the guard on the far side. We won't bother with the one at the front. You make the rounds of the tents and see what's in them and who's in them and what they're saying."

"Will do, old chap," Moffitt said with a smile and was off down the slope.

When Troy reached the near side of the tents, a grinning Hitch met him. He was bareheaded with his cap in his hand and his jacket unbuttoned. With scarcely a break in a footstep, Troy was wearing Hitch's Jerry uniform and walking his post. Hitch was making his way silently with Tully to the far side of the tents. On Troy's second turn at the rear of the tents, Tully nodded briefly. Nothing had disturbed the calm of the night.

Troy had completed seven turns on his post when Moffitt met him at the rear. Without a word, Moffitt handed him two grenades, indicated the two front tents motioned Troy to throw them and run at his next turn. Troy shrugged. He assumed Moffitt had given similar instructions to Tully and Hitch after tuning the operation to a fraction of a second, but he couldn't help wondering what Moffitt had discovered in the tents. Troy met the Jerry guard, unhurriedly clicked his heels, about-faced, pulled the pins on both grenades, hurled them at his target and ran away from the tents at a tangent.

A quick succession of grenade blasts rent the air as Troy dived into the sand, rolled to his feet and resumed running full speed, slanting back now toward the dune from which they had entered the post. He heard screams and shouts from the tents and several small explosions. The tents were flaming. Ahead near the top of the hill, Moffitt signaled them to hit the sand. Troy burrowed and a tremendous blast exploded, flinging shock and heat waves over his body. He sprang to his feet and reached the top of the dune with Tully and Hitch. Another explosion made the sky tremble and the whole area flamed with light. He turned and a mighty fire, larger even than the flames at the oasis, was rolling skyward in masses like a hellish tidal wave.

"The fuel?" he asked Moffitt, whose eyes were dancing in a ruddy face.

Moffitt nodded. "It was a trap. The rear tents were filled with the legitimate drums. The front row of tents where you tossed the grenades had a contingent of guardsmen whose duty it was to exterminate the Rat Patrol when we went after the tempting bait of the empty drums. I planted the plastic time charges amidst the fuel drums."

"Quite a caper," Troy said. They'd not only destroyed the enemy's fuel supply but his command post as well. He took his eyes from the roaring furnace. "Let's go. It's early and we've work to do. Wonder if Dietrich was at the CP when the grenades hit the fan."

At twenty-hundred hours, Captain Hans Dietrich had almost reluctantly taken his place in an armored car at the head of his column of tanks and halftracks and given the order to start the advance on the Allied positions. Nolde had acted swiftly on his suggestions, or orders, Dietrich smilingly reminded himself, and with the fuel drums safely stored, the empty drums had been so temptingly placed he knew the Rat Patrol would find them irresistible. The final defeat of the Rat Patrol would give him almost as great pleasure as the capture of Sidi Beda.

"Take them alive if possible," he had told Nolde, "but under no circumstances permit them to escape."

"You may be certain, Hans, the Rat Patrol is finished," Nolde had assured him and remained to personally direct the operation.

Funke had grumbled at first at being ousted from the tent where he had established himself comfortably with a supply of beer, but when Dietrich had explained that the entire CP was being transferred to Funke's column where it rightly belonged, Herr Oberst had been mollified. The hospital unit, communications van, all the essential sections of the CP had been moved the mile to Funke's column, where a new tent, complete with beer, was erected for him. Dietrich chuckled quietly. It was, he told himself, the first time in warfare that a field fuel dump had been established in the tents of a command post.

Now the armored car was shifted into gear and as it started, Dietrich half stood, turning to look down the long barrel of a seventy-five millimeter gun mounted in the shallow closed turret of the lead PzKw IV tank.

Slowly the column moved forward after Dietrich's armored car and the night trembled with the clank of treads as they ground through the sand. In a few moments the moonlit sky was draped with dust as tanks and halftracks began the advance. It was approximately eighteen miles to the first Allied tank position, almost thirty miles to the last. Although the armor was capable of speeds up to twenty-five miles an hour, Dietrich set the pace at a moderate ten to twelve miles an hour. It would conserve both fuel and machines. There was no need to hurry, Dietrich told himself comfortably. In a way, this was a peculiar tank battle. The enemy could not run away nor could he maneuver. This time it was Dietrich who called every shot.

He was immensely pleased with everything, even destruction of his fuel dump, because this was the last strike the Rat Patrol would make. He had bottled up the enemy, he had penetrated his lines with his own Rat Patrol, and he was in the field alone with Herr Oberst Funke, that befuddled old sot, safely tucked away where he could do no harm.

When the entire column of fifty vehicles was moving, rending the night air with sounds that might have come from one of Krupp's shops, Dietrich gave the order to his tank commanders by radio to proceed to positions and report on arrival. He told his driver, a corporal named Willi Wunder, who reminded him of the stupid lout in the communications van, for God's sake to stop idling and push on to his command position.

He had selected a sand hill near the center of the perimeter he soon would establish within a thousand yards of the nearest tank position and from which he would direct the battle. When the car was parked at the top and the corporal was yawning at the wheel, Dietrich stood to watch the dust that marked the approach of his armor. Far to the northeast, he knew the first halftracks and tanks already had taken their positions on the perimeter that would encircle the Allied fine of defense although none of the commanders yet had reported. He reconsidered his plan and was pleased.

His column consisted of thirty-six PzKw Mark III and Mark IV medium tanks, all mounting seventy-five millimeter long barrel guns and fourteen halftracks mounting short barrel seventy-five millimeters and howitzers. He could have wished for better distribution of his armor as far as tanks and halftracks were concerned, but no matter. The halftracks and tanks would take positions two thousand yards from their assigned Allied tank emplacements. Dietrich fully expected that there would be a minefield protecting the enemy guns. The halftracks would clear the paths through the field with their short barreled guns and howitzers, covered by fire from the following tanks. He had assigned one tank to each Allied position. The halftracks at either end of the perimeter would have to do double duty, but even if their advance was slowed, it mattered little as long as the progress was steady at the center of his line. Eleven of the tanks were to be held in reserve near Dietrich's own position.

Actually, the minefield would present little problem after the first fifty or hundred yards had uncovered the pattern in which the American colonel, Wilson, had laid his mines, and with luck, Dietrich's probing halftracks might discover the safe path through the field early. In this event, Dietrich meant to throw in his reserve over the safe path to quickly overwhelm the enemy.

The fixed-frequency radio in his armored car began to spit and cough as his commanders reported their units in place and soon the reports were pouring in with an almost predictable regularity with the progress of the cloud of dust advancing from the east. At exactly twenty-two-oh-nine hours the commander of the unit to the far west reported ready for action. With eleven reserve tanks ranged below him, Dietrich stood in his command car and proudly gave the order to attack.

The glorious din of battle rang in his ears as the halftracks moved forward in perfect coordination with guns blasting the earth before them and obscuring the moon.

They moved forward relentlessly, those glorious monsters of his. Abruptly an explosion rocked the advance perhaps two thousand yards away and a flash illuminated the dust. Dietrich frowned. The Afrika Korps had entered the minefield and he feared a halftrack had been lost. But the advance continued. One did not win battles without losses. He grew rigid and cold as a second, third and fourth brilliant eruption marked the pathways where the halftrack crews had been careless and the tanks could not advance. When the fifth blasted halftrack smashed in his ears, he hesitated, ordered his armor to withdraw to original position.

Where were his crews miscalculating, he pondered, why had they not established the pattern of the minefield. Even with his numerical superiority, he could not afford to sacrifice his armor if it accomplished no purpose. Now he would wait until morning when the crews in the halftracks and tanks, if necessary, could establish the pattern of the minefield by visual sighting.

"Herr Hauptmann, Herr Hauptmann," Corporal Willi Wunder intruded. "CP is calling, the colonel is calling."

Grimly, Dietrich clamped on the earphones. The colonel would want to know how the battle was going.

"It is awful, Hans, unbelievable, disastrous," said the voice of the colonel.

"Not disastrous, Herr Oberst, merely an annoying delay," Dietrich said. How had the colonel known so soon?

"How can you say that, Hans?" the colonel said sounding shocked. "Do you know what has happened?"

"Of course—" Dietrich started and choked back his words, prepared himself for some new setback. "What has happened, Herr Oberst?"

"The entire fuel dump has exploded, everything is in flames." It sounded as if Colonel Funke were sobbing. "All is lost, Hans."

"Tell me what happened," Dietrich said sharply, although his insides were collapsing.

"There is no one who knows," Colonel Funke said. "At the dump, everything was calm, the men were in their positions. No one survived except one of the four guards at the empty drums and he saw nothing except the terrible explosions. I think the enemy must have bombed us from an aircraft."

"Herr Oberst," Dietrich said coldly, like the military machine he now was. "Dispatch all of the trucks at your command immediately to the supply dump we left at El Alghur." It was more than seventy miles off the route through the desert, but it was their nearest storage. "We shall need more fuel. Send a convoy of halftracks with the trucks. It will slow their speed, but we cannot risk it without them. If they leave at once, they should be back tomorrow morning."

"Ja, Hans," Herr Oberst Funke said sadly and signed off. Dietrich looked at the dust trails that marked his perimeter and swore bitterly. He had been forced to withdraw here on the plateau, his supply dump and stockpile of fuel had been destroyed and he'd lost a guard platoon and his executive officer. He did not know how it had been accomplished, but he was certain he knew who had done it.

From the entrance of HQ, Colonel Dan Wilson watched with active concern as teams of MPs pushed the Arabs they'd rounded up from the waterfront and military areas into the dark alleys of the native quarters. There were too many of them to hold for sabotage. At least a hundred men and boys in rags and tatters had been discovered lurking or sleeping near the docks and warehouses. The small warehouse still burned. It had held naval stores and was isolated, near the end of the piers, which was probably the reason the saboteurs had selected it. The loss was slight. The worst result of the explosion was that hordes of natives, both Arabs and Frenchies, had gushed onto the military avenue. Now things seemed under control with the teams of MPs on foot backed up by six armored cars Wilson had ordered in from the edge of town.

Wilson had made no attempt to go into the murky bazaar where hundreds of Arabs, and likely a dark-faced Frenchie or two, were reported congregating. Except for the explosions, there had been no real violence yet, but there was a nasty feeling of tension settling over Sidi Beda. Although weary in body and mind, Wilson himself was taut. All evening he'd been listening for the hollow sound of shells and a report from his commander on the plateau, Lieutenant Leon Farb, that the battle had been joined. Wilson had imposed a radio silence on the defensive perimeter until the intention of the enemy was clear. He didn't want the Jerries misinterpreting any signals. Two Jerry communications had been intercepted. They'd been in the clear and were meaningless. Translated, they were "Vermin" and "Fox." They did indicate some operation was underway.

Although he hadn't been able to carry out any intensive search for the Rat Patrol, he'd instructed all of his units to be on the alert for the men. His initial rage had subsided and now he felt bewildered and sick at the betrayal. He tried hard to believe they were pursuing some crucial lead on their own as they often had in the past, but he couldn't overlook the fact that they had disobeyed his order.

Most of the native quarter was falling into a sullen silence, but from the bazaar, half a dozen alleys to the west and enclosured within the quarter, an angry rumble continued. He'd sent Corporal Peter Christianson, a dark Norwegian who looked Portuguese and spoke Arabic, into the bazaar to get the feeling and pick up what information he could. For some reason the Arabs seemed to get along with the Jerries, and Wilson had no doubt that those who'd dealt with the Germans during the occupation informed for them now.

His tired mind snapped alert as he heard the drumming boom of firing on the plateau. It was distant, not from the Sherman tanks, and came in steadily increasing crescendo. Jerry would be working his way through the minefield, Wilson thought. Taking a tip from Rommel and Dietrich, he'd devised his own "Devil's Garden" which extended to a depth of two thousand yards in front of the tanks. He had not followed the checkerboard pattern so methodically employed by the Germans. The field in front of the tanks was a complex design with no safe path. It was laid with tens of thousands of M1A1 antitank mines in concentric circles so that any pattern was impossible to detect.

The battering slammed away on the plateau and the sky was illuminated with flashes that looked like distant heat lightning. Wilson gave a last helpless look at the bluff and went into the radio room next to his office. He nodded at Corporal Locke who was leaning over the command set, his hands on the tuning dials for the transmitter. Wilson noticed he'd brought the output up to maximum.

Locke stiffened, listened intently, then spoke into the microphone. "Wildcat receives you loud and clear. Go ahead, Tiger. Over."

He looked straight at Wilson as he listened, then said to him, "Lieutenant Farb reports the enemy withdrawing, sir. Would you like to speak with him?"

Wilson nodded.

Locke spoke into the microphone. "I have Tomcat by the tail. Hold on." He handed the earphones and microphone to Wilson.

"Tomcat here," Wilson said. "Go ahead, Tiger. Over."

"Hello, Tomcat," Farb said, and although there were background noises, Wilson was sure he chuckled. "Circle four squared. Over."

"Roger," Wilson said, smiling for the first time all day. "Anything more? Over."

"Not tonight," Farb said. "Over."

"Roger," Wilson said. "Over and out."

"Good news," he said to Locke as he handed him the earphones and microphone. The code was simple. The simplest codes were the most effective. "Circle four squared" sounded complicated. It meant the minefield had claimed four of the enemy's units and the enemy had withdrawn. "Not tonight" in response to "Anything more?" meant that no further action was anticipated tonight.

"Are you on duty all night?" he asked Locke.

"Until six," Locke said.

"Good," Wilson said. "I'll be in my quarters. If anything at all comes in, send for me."

"Right, sir," Locke said, bobbing his head. "Have a good night's sleep."

Suddenly Wilson was unbearably tired. His eyes were heavy and his limbs were leaden. He yawned. "In spite of it all," he said, smiling again, "I think I shall."

He walked past his dark office, automatically went back and stepped in to jerk the string that turned off his ceiling fan. As he stepped into the street, an Arab, a dirty-faced, tattered-robed, barefooted Arab beggar, trotted up to him. The natives all were supposed to be in the quarter. Angrily Wilson looked around for an MP.

"Pardon me, sir," the Arab said. "It's Christianson. I'm afraid there's trouble."

"What!" Wilson said, scarcely recognizing the Norwegian boy in his disguise. "What trouble?"

"It's the Rat Patrol, sir," Christianson said. "They're in the bazaar, in uniform too, getting drunk with the Arabs."

5

Troy could hear the sound of battle like far-off rolling thunder as he led Moffitt, Tully and Hitch at a trot back to the wadi where the jeeps were concealed. He had seen a column of armor about a mile to the north when he surveyed Dietrich's CP from the dune with Moffitt. With the drums stored in the tents, the command post must have been moved to this second column when Dietrich's force struck out for the Sherman tanks. The armor he'd seen just north would be the second prong pointed at Latsus Pass. Whoever was in charge would be done in a hurry to investigate the explosions.

"Hey, Sarge," Tully jawed. "Ain't nobody coming after us. Take it easy."

"You're logy with beer," Troy said mercilessly. "We've got to sweat it out of you."

"Well, I'm not sodden," Hitch panted. "I'm plain pooped. What's the rush? Even the Infantry takes ten."

"I'm afraid Troy's right, there's a bit of a hurry," Moffitt said with a chuckle. "Didn't either of you chaps notice the column to the north?"

"Let's make tracks," Tully said, breathing hard but passing Troy at a lope.

It wasn't pursuit that concerned Troy. Patrols might be sent out on the road, but even in the moonlight it would be impossible to cover the thousands of wadis in a twenty-five mile area. And Troy was certain the commander of the second column would not draw from the crews of his halftracks and tanks to organize search parties. He'd redouble his own guards. What Troy wanted to know was where he would send trucks for a new supply of fuel.

Confident that all immediate attention would be centered on the fire, if anyone was there to see it, he made no attempt to hide their movements. They covered the two miles through sand and over dunes in fifteen minutes. Tully and Hitch apparently were prodded by the idea that troops were on their tails and Troy let it ride like that. They peeled the netting from the jeeps without grumbling and shot out of the wadi. All of them still were wearing Jerry uniforms.

"Where, Sarge?" Tully asked.

"Backtrack," Troy said. "Exactly the way we came." When they reached the dune about a mile from the road at the point they'd turned off, Troy called a halt. The dune, he noted with satisfaction, continued south, paralleling the route.

"All right," he said when they'd all piled out. "Drink beer. Smoke, as long as you're out of sight of the road. I'll take the first watch."

"If you think they're after us, why stop?" Tully asked. "What are we watching for?" Hitch wanted to know.

"The trucks?" Moffitt suggested with a smile.

"Right-o, old chap," Troy said with an accent that made Moffitt laugh.

"Hey, what gives?" Tully sounded annoyed.

"Sorry," Troy said, quickly serious. "I didn't mean to be mysterious. I think we've blown all their gas and oil. They're bound to have another dump and I'm guessing it's in the direction Dietrich came. So we wait here to see if they send out trucks from that second column and then we try to get where they're going before they arrive."

"We going to swipe all their marbles, Sarge?" Tully drawled.

"It's fifty-fifty, isn't it, Sam?" Moffitt asked.

"I don't think so," Troy said. "The column from the east converged with Dietrich's somewhere south from here. They'll head for the nearest dump, whichever way it is. It won't be by the road because up until today that was our property. So we wait for them, follow them until they leave the route. Once they do, they'll make a beeline for the dump. We'll chart their course, get ahead of them and keep going until we hit the jackpot."

"Simple as all that?" Moffitt asked quietly.

"I hope so," Troy said fervently. "I sure hope so. Now, while you're drinking your beers, how about getting the jeeps ready for a long trip?"

Troy crawled to the top of the dune overlooking the road and lay prone like a ridge on the hill. He was certain there would be no traffic for half an hour or more, but he was taking no chances. There had been a time or two when seemingly unnecessary caution had kept him alive. He inspected the desert that was sheen in the moonlight over the path that they'd come and saw the bright torch that they'd lighted still burning at Dietrich's old CP. From it, his eyes roved back until they picked up the road. A mile down from where he lay was the slug-ridden Volkswagen with its Styx-crossing crew, but nothing moved on the road.

He thought about Ray. It was strange that he should think about her. Love-'em-and-Leave-'em Sam Troy never thought about girls except when they were in sight. He supposed it was scarcely a compliment a female would tolerate, but damnit, the girl had guts. She'd have gone with them to the top of the bluff and taken her own chances on getting back home in one piece. He enjoyed being with her, not just once in a while but most of the time. Hell! he thought disgustedly; Sam Troy was getting soft in the head. A fighting man had no business having a girl on his mind. Maybe Hitch was right. Maybe Ray had set them up for the ambush. She was part Arab. Women were no damn good. There wasn't one of them you could trust. Damn Ray anyway; he'd trusted her and she'd played him for a John.

He was coldly outraged and fighting mad when Moffitt came up on the dune to relieve him.

"Keep your damned eyes open," he snarled.

"Thinking does bugger a chap," Moffitt said with a smile.

It was only a few moments later when Moffitt called down to him softly, "Sam, you'd better come up here. I think a convoy is coming."

At first Troy could see nothing on the road in the half darkness of the moonlight; then his eyes caught movement and he gradually made out a mile or more than a mile away the high-sided, rear-dragging outline of a halftrack and behind it the covered wagon-like shape of the first of the trucks. There seemed to be a lot of them strung out behind it.

"So they brought out the artillery," he said with a laugh in his throat. "That's good. That's downright thoughtful of them. Those treads will hold down the speed of the trucks to a creep. We'll be halfway back before they find the cupboard is bare."

"You're making it sound too easy, old boy," Moffitt said doubtfully. "That isn't like you at all."

The convoy moved on toward their position with the clackety-clack of the halftrack treads rattling the night. There were two halftracks, one at the front, the other at the rear, and sandwiched between were a dozen six-wheeled trucks. They were traveling between fifteen and twenty miles an hour. It seemed to Troy the convoy slowed as it went by the Volkswagen. They probably all looked but no one got out. Gave them something to think about, he'd bet. On the convoy plodded, past the dune where Moffitt and he lay and then straight down the route. They watched for long minutes until it was almost out of sight and then walked leisurely down to the jeeps.

"Fire them up," Troy told Tully and Hitch. "But drive with light feet. This is a buggy ride. We just want to keep them in sight."

"Okay if I finish my beer, Sarge?" Tully asked.

"Sure," Troy said with a laugh and lighted a cigarette. "I'll have one myself."

It was half an hour later when they cranked up the motors and took off down the valley hidden from the road by the protecting dune. Troy felt good. He didn't know when he'd felt so good. He knew why. First the encounter with the Arabs at the bluff. Then the blow-up at the oasis dump. And the fine foray on Dietrich's CP. Now, to top it all off, the convoy was giving them directions to the next gasoline station.

"Hey!" he said a little too loudly and clapped Tully on the shoulder. "You want something done, you call in the Rat Patrol. How about that, boy?"

"Sure, Sarge, whyn't you take a snooze?" Tully said agreeably but also solicitously.

"I needed that, Tully," Troy said, sitting up straight. "That one beer didn't hit me. I was drunk with success. Kick it up to fifty if you can see well enough in this moonlight. Let's pick up the convoy and tail them for a while." Ten minutes later they stopped and Troy climbed to the top of a dune. There was no convoy moving on the road. Not anywhere back as far as he could see and nowhere ahead.

"That's funny," he told Moffitt, coming back puzzled. "They haven't turned off to the east or we'd have cut their trail. They should have been right about here at this time at the speed they were going. I'm going down to the road and see if they've passed."

There were neither tire nor tread marks on the road.

"Maybe they cut off to the west," Hitch suggested.

"That must have been it," Troy said. "We'll cross over and work back until we pick up the trail."

They drove back on the west side of the road until they were opposite the dune where they'd lingered. They had seen no marks in the sand.

"You'd better take over," Troy said bitterly to Moffitt. "You can easily see that my judgment is impaired. Now we'll have to follow their tracks out in plain sight on the road."

"Carry on," Moffitt said quietly. "We all were in it with you."

On the road, the cleat marks of the halftracks were plain. Tully followed them easily without lights, although the moon was beginning to wane. Troy and Moffitt both had climbed in the backs of their jeeps and were alert at the machine guns.

They'd traveled only a few minutes when Tully suddenly slammed on his brakes. Hitch ran alongside to avoid crashing and stopped.

"What is it?" Troy shouted, swinging his gun in every direction.

"Damnedest thing I ever saw, Sarge," Tully called, hopping from the jeep and running ahead. "The tracks end right here. They just disappear."

Troy looked right and left and then up at the dark sky. "So a convoy of a dozen six-wheeled trucks and two ground-chewing halftracks just disappear in thin air!" he yelled in frustration and jumped to the road.

Tully and Hitch were creeping forward on their hands and their knees.

"Aw, Sarge," Tully drawled. "You know better than that. They used our old trick and put down some rakes."

"And covered up the halftrack marks?" Troy demanded. "Those cleats bite deep."

"This road surface isn't much more than sand, Sarge," Hitch said with a pop of his gun. "The cleats bite but this stuff doesn't hold the marks. Look, you can see the furrow marks made by the rakes."

"Sure," Tully said soothingly. "We ain't lost them. All we got to do is follow the furrows to where they turned off."

"Can you see them in this light?" Troy asked. "From behind the steering wheel?"

Tully got into the jeep and admitted he could not. "Let's not waste any more time," Troy shouted in anger. "I got us into this. I'll bird dog."

He trotted ahead on the road, bent over the trail like an Indian scout. The jeeps tried to keep behind him. He followed the trail half blind, hoping only that the rakes meant that the convoy was turning off soon. Surely they wouldn't drive very far with the rakes holding them back.

He was right. He'd trotted bent over like a potato picker for scarcely a mile when the furrows made an east turn into the desert. His feet dug into the sand and he pushed doggedly on, sweating and cursing as he plowed ahead.

Moffitt trotted alongside him. "I'll spell you, old boy," he said.

"Damnit, Jack," Troy growled, punishing himself. "Why aren't you back with your weapon giving me cover?"

He came to the place where the jeep tires had crossed over the furrows almost an hour before. Any advantage they'd had was slipping away fast.

He was still tottering on with his nose to the trail when Tully let out a yell. "You can get back in the carriage, Sarge. There's plenty of trail on ahead."

Stiffly he straightened and lifted his head. The tracks pointed like an arrow more to the east than the south. He didn't walk back to the jeep. He waited until Tully was beside him, then pulled himself into the front seat.

When Troy had rinsed his mouth out with water and let a little of it trickle down his parched throat, he called to Moffitt, "Cover, will you, Jack? For a few minutes. Until I get my wind back."

"Surely, Sam," Moffitt answered, and if he chuckled he covered it with a cough.

Side by side, the jeeps leaped away like hound dogs hot on a scent, although there was no moon and it was quite dark now. Troy sometimes thought Tully drove by his nose.

Troy jerked his head up with a start. The jeep was stopped and Tully was shaking him. Moffitt and Hitch were pulled alongside. It wasn't morning, but it was no longer night. In the strange light he could see details and features quite clearly, but everything looked either black or blue.

"Why did you let me sleep?" he demanded unreasonably, "Forget that. Thanks. Have we caught up with the convoy." Tully pointed straight ahead. Dust hung like a black feather against a blue drape.

"We think we might circle now and run on ahead of them, Sam," Moffitt said.

"How long have I slept?" Troy asked, looking at his watch. It was oh-three-thirty-five hours.

"Almost an hour," Tully said. "We picked up on them in the sand."

Troy swore. "We don't know how much farther the dump might be. We don't know how much time we have. Move. Move, damnit. Get a compass reading on their course and take off."

"Already got it, Sarge," Tully said mildly and let out the clutch.

They circled wide to the south since the course was ESE and in an hour they were back on the bearing. The sun wasn't up yet but it was light. The sky was blue and pink. It was going to be another scorcher. Troy and Moffitt were back on the guns, searching the limitless desert for some indication of a dump. Troy was betting on a small oasis. The trucks that hauled the drums would have needed water and Jerry would not have wasted precious room to carry it. He estimated they had half an hour on the convoy, perhaps forty-five minutes, at the most an hour. But to be safe, thirty minutes. The Jerries would have picked up their tracks now and be after them. The halftracks had a speed of about twenty-five miles an hour, the trucks not much more than that in the sand. It was a toss-up. Maybe both a halftrack and a truckload of men with machine pistols were on the trail right now.

"Pour it on, Tully," he urged.

Tully just shrugged helplessly.

Twenty minutes later, Moffitt sang out, "Land ho, hard to the lee!"

Troy looked to the south and then to the north and back to the south, uncertain just what the leeboard might be in this sea of sand. A dark patch, a blob showed to the south.

"Easy does it," he called back. He doubted there'd be a guard of any sort at this isolated dump and hoped the drums weren't too hard to find. But he remembered the earlier conversation he'd had with himself before he'd blown all reason to the wind and lost the convoy.

In standard procedure, the jeeps parted before they reached the oasis to make a slow circle of it from opposite sides. It was an inviting place that covered perhaps an acre and nourished a few dozen palm trees that looked well fed along with some other greenery. There would be a waterhole at the middle, Troy thought, and just then he noticed a squatty, boxlike concrete structure with slits that probably were for machine guns. He was swinging his Browning on it when two men in shorts with shirts with hacked-off sleeves sprang from behind it and ran toward the jeep waving their hands and shouting in German at the tops of their voices. Just before Troy almost cut them down with a burst, he remembered Moffitt, Hitch, Tully and he still were wearing the Jerry uniforms they'd put on the night before and he relaxed his hold on the grips. The poor devils probably had been stuck out here alone for months and didn't even question the jeep.

"Stop," he told Tully, handing him a coil of nylon rope. "Walk up to them grinning. I'll keep you covered. Tie their hands behind their backs and secure them together."

The Jerries looked so happy when they saw Tully coming toward them, Troy almost felt sorry for them. He trained the Browning right at their guts. The Jerries got the idea. They saw their mistake fast and started to run. Troy put a burst in the sand at their feet. That stopped them. They cried all the time Tully was tying them together.

"Hey, Tully," Troy called. "Leave them a little play, give them three feet or so. Let them walk side by side, at least."

When Moffitt and Hitch drove up, Troy turned the two Jerries over to Moffitt, asked him to explain they weren't being sent out to die in the desert but that the convoy would be along soon, probably before sunrise. Then Troy gave each one of the canteens he and Moffitt had taken from the Volkswagen.

"How are they going to drink with their hands tied behind them, Sam?" Moffitt asked with an amused glint in his eyes.

"Oh hell, cut them loose," Troy said gruffly. "Just tell them to get going and not to come back."

Armed with submachine guns, Troy and Tully ran to the slitted concrete box. It was open at the back. Machine guns were in position at each of the slits.

"You suppose there's a third?" Tully asked, flattening against the wall and pointing his gun down a flight of concrete steps.

"There was," Troy said tersely and jerked his thumb at a cross under a palm tree a dozen yards away.

Down the steps was a bunker with cots and living facilities. A heavy metal door at the rear led to an underground concrete storehouse. There must have been two hundred hundred-gallon drums of gasoline in the place.

"All right," Troy said, starting up the steps. "You and Hitch fill the jeeps and the cans with gas and water. The doctor and I will plant the packages."

Back at the jeep, he took four plastic time charges from a crate in the back, glancing as he did at the Jerries he'd turned loose. They were half trotting into the desert and they weren't looking back.

Tully and Hitch worked at the double and when they'd taken all the gas and water they could carry, Troy and Moffitt put the four plastic time charges in the middle of the drums, closed the metal door and raced to the jeeps that were waiting with motors idling. As they jumped in their seats and sped off, Troy saw the two Jerries now a good mile away, and not more than a mile or two beyond them the convoy approaching. The Jerries were running. The convoy stopped when it came to the Jerries and the sun was just rising when an entire oasis blew into the sky.

6

Hauptmann Hans Dietrich had a problem. It was the minefield. He was standing in his armored car, radio earphones clamped over his cap and glasses about his neck, a field map beside him on the seat, when the first rays of the sun turned the pink on the horizon to gold. He had spent most of the night studying the locations of the five halftracks that had been lost to the mines and comparing them with the penetration that had been made by the other nine vehicles. He was puzzled and had come to the conclusion that some of his crews had been careless, although he was not prepared to say just how.

Throwing his eleven reserve tanks into the line to supplement the remaining halftracks as minesweepers, he gave the order to advance. The mighty armored force churned into the battlefield. The backup line of tanks had been ordered to hold fire until within effective range. Once more the deafening blast of seventy-five millimeter shells slamming the earth and the clapping explosions of detonated mines rang in Dietrich's ears, but this morning he did not stand quite so straight and his eyes were clouded. He had come to the conclusion that the American colonel, Wilson, had sown the minefield in a casual, haphazard fashion. It offended Dietrich's military sense of precision and it confused his approach to the minesweeping problem.

It was both physically and logistically impossible to clear every square yard of the field. Dietrich had considered this solution and had come up with a figure of some seventy-five thousand shells, which was of course completely out of the question. He was hopeful that his force could advance to effective firing range without sustaining serious losses and he also was hoping, though not being hopeful, that some pattern still might be read into the design.

The field before Dietrich was a pounding haze of blinding, golden dust when the sun burst full upon it and one of Dietrich's tank commanders reported the first loss. A mine had blown the treads from the right side of a tank. There were no casualties.

It was at this moment that Herr Oberst Funke chose to call. The old man was babbling so brokenly and incoherently that Dietrich decided he was drunk and was about to sign off in disgust when he caught one word that curdled his blood. It was El Alghur.

"Herr Oberst, Herr Oberst," he said crisply, though he was shaking inside. "Please speak more slowly and clearly. There is a battle underway and it is very difficult to hear and understand. What did you say of El Alghur? Have the trucks returned?"

"No, Hans. Oh! It is terrible." The colonel was sobbing. "It is unbearably inconceivable, this fresh disaster at El Alghur."

"Come, pull yourself together, Oberst! What happened at El Alghur?" Dietrich asked with sure knowledge of what he would be told.

"It was just as they arrived. The convoy, Hans." The colonel was speaking haltingly. "I sent two halftracks to protect it. The convoy arrived safely. They were within sight of the oasis, perhaps no more than a mile away. The two of the guards who remained, they were running to meet the convoy in the desert. They warned of what was to happen, and as they spoke it happened. The entire dump simply exploded. Everything gone, Hans. What shall we do?"

"What were the guards doing in the desert?" Dietrich asked needlessly and purposefully from the unthinking part of his brain. His mind was racing ahead furiously, questing for petrol and oil.

"They had been taken unaware by this Gottverdamtig Rat Patrol." In his anger now Oberst Funke was more intelligible. "Do you suppose, Hans, the guards were in this treachery with the Rat Patrol? Else why were they permitted to run out to warn the convoy?"

"They were allowed to leave and warn the others simply because there was no need to kill them," Dietrich stated incontrovertibly. His mind was functioning as a single-purposed unit again. "Where is the convoy?"

"At El Alghur, or what is left of El Alghur," the colonel said piteously. "They radioed the information and asked for instructions. What shall we do, Hans? I think I should order a withdrawal at once while we still have fuel enough to return."

"We do not have fuel enough to return, Herr Oberst," Dietrich said disdainfully. "That is why we must take the port. There is no choice for us now but victory. You must signal the convoy at once. At El Alghur, they are more than halfway to Sidi Abd. They must continue to Sidi Abd where there is a store of petrol. I do not think the Rat Patrol will attempt to blow that dump, but the convoy must be alert every minute when the return trip is started. I want them back here tomorrow afternoon. Will you relay that message at once, Herr Oberst?"

"Ja, Hans, I am glad you agree that is the thing to do," the old man said and signed off.

Loss of the fuel stored at El Alghur was more of a disaster than he'd admitted to Oberst Funke, Dietrich thought bitterly as he absently marked his map with the position of the halftrack that had been lost. Even with the fuel he hoped the convoy would bring from Sidi Abd, his conduct of the battle would be curtailed if he did not achieve a reasonably quick victory. His need was not immediate, not today nor tomorrow. But three days from now, if the battle stalled and the convoy did not return from Sidi Abd, he would be stranded here on the plateau. His command would consist of a column of dry tanks.

Signals had been crackling in his eardrums and now they claimed his attention. In quick succession, three commanders reported losses: two more halftracks and one tank. It was becoming increasingly difficult to remain calm and his fingers trembled a little as he marked the map. There was no pattern anywhere, nor explanation for the varied progress of the advance. Some units seemed to lag while others spurted ahead. Two tanks acting as minesweepers near the middle of the line had pushed through to the fifteen-hundred yard point. The two tanks behind them moved up and four seventy-fives now opened fire on the two tank positions at the center of the Allied fine of defense. Until now the enemy had held his fire, but scarcely had the PzKws opened than not two but four of the defensive positions swept the Afrika Korps armor. Dietrich shook his head and bit his lip. One of the advantages on which he had counted was the maneuverability of his force against the permanent installations of the enemy. In the minefield, his armor was in as fixed position as it was possible to be.

Dietrich lifted his field glasses and focused into the mantle of pulverized dirt directly in front of his station where the duel was taking place. He could not see his tanks fifteen hundred yards away. He could not see any of his units. Everywhere shells were crashing, mines were blasting in a hellish nightmare of confusion. Now three more tanks moved into range and they with their minesweeper escorts opened fire. Half a dozen additional enemy positions promptly joined. It was completely impossible to judge what was happening on the dust-enshrouded field. Dietrich's tanks were within visual sighting range but were forced to fire by calculation. They had the advantage of being hidden from the enemy, whose positions were established, but they could not see the result of their fire.

Although the day was still in its early hours, the temperature already had passed ninety. Dietrich himself, with a handkerchief covering his nose and mouth, was choked by the hot dust. Although he wore goggles, he was half blinded. The reports that reached him were garbled and confused. He did not know whether his force had knocked out a single enemy position nor did he know what losses he had sustained.

At oh-eight-hundred -hours, he ordered a general withdrawal. The enemy would not run away. He would be able to return again at will at least as far as his armor had already advanced and it was essential that he appraise the results of the first engagement. Each enemy emplacement that had been knocked out would not only be a weak point to be exploited but also would be a position on which no more shells need be wasted.

The Afrika Korps armored vehicles rumbled back, and when they had reached their original positions. Dietrich called for a rotation roll from his commanders. Some responded, some did not. The result was inconclusive. He did not know whether those who failed to answer were still in the field or whether there had been communications breakdowns. The slow-settling dust pall still concealed what had happened. Dietrich chafed and waited. It was one hell of a way to wage a battle.

As the dust gradually dissipated, Dietrich's field glasses roamed restlessly over the battlefield. He did not like the shrouded shapes they found and when he was able to distinguish and count them his spirit withered. Three more halftracks had been disabled or wrecked, and more appalling, five of his tanks had been left on the field. The crews of some of the vehicles of war were returning warily afoot, now that they could see where they were going. No life at all showed around others.

The toll had been heavy and Dietrich turned his glasses to the enemy positions they would reach, seeking the crippled, the disabled, wondering whether the price he had paid was too high. He could not see all of the emplacements, and as if sensing his question and realizing this, the Allied tanks, starting from the west, each fired a salute in succession. He counted, and when they were through all twenty-five positions had spoken.

A bomber; send just one B-25, Wilson had pleaded with Divisional Headquarters when the observer in the Cub had reported the armored column parked by the side of the road about six miles southeast of Latsus Pass. They were sitting ducks. Yes, they had an eighty-eight millimeter antiaircraft gun, but there was nothing new about that. In addition to the column at Latsus Pass, there were times when the armor on the plateau was pretty well bunched and there was no indication they had an eighty-eight or they would have been using it on the emplacements. Divisional Headquarters had told him what they'd said the day before, but now it was twenty-four hours instead of forty-eight hours and tomorrow he would have a squadron, but today the bombers were committed and could not be diverted. With the wheeling and dealing Wilson had done with his tanks, pushing them this way and that wherever and whenever they were needed, it seemed to him the Air Force was being a little hidebound and stuffy.

Lieutenant Farb, in charge of the defenses on the plateau, had reported the minefield and tanks not only holding but inflicting significant losses on the enemy. The enemy still held an awesome superiority in numbers on the plateau and could call upon the column beyond Latsus Pass for reinforcements. Wilson was not sanguine about his situation.

Farb had reported an item of interest. When the enemy had withdrawn for a breathing spell, he had sent out not only for his casualties but also had drained the gas from his disabled units. It may have been merely that Dietrich was a frugal man or it may have indicated something a great deal more important, although the aerial observer reported what appeared to be a vast store of fuel drums still at the old site of the CP which had been moved.

The morning was blistering and the town was panting and sweating, but there had been no further outward signs of unrest. Life in the native quarter and trade at the bazaar seemed to be normal. Wilson was keeping the Arabs and Frenchies sealed up between the military boulevard and the bluff and Christianson was circulating among the natives again. The Rat Patrol was in there somewhere fomenting Lord knew what kind of dissension. He hadn't risked going into the bazaar where Christianson had seen them. He'd been afraid of bloodshed and he didn't have the force to quell a native uprising.

The defection of the Rat Patrol was the most crushing blow Wilson had suffered in his entire military career. It wasn't the first time men had cracked up under the continuing strain of battle, and perhaps he had contributed to it by his sometimes harsh words, but he'd thought each member of the Rat Patrol was man enough to take it. He had looked upon the Rat Patrol as a superior military machine, a very personal extension of himself. The situation made Wilson physically ill. It could no longer be an ordinary court-martial with the Rat Patrol. When they were caught, they'd be tried for treason and shot.

Peilowski stepped into the office and Wilson looked at him with quick apprehension. It seemed the only times his first sergeant came into his office these days was to bring a fresh parcel of bad news. It was something disagreeable again, Wilson could see. The man's thick lips were blubbering and he shifted uneasily from foot to foot as he stood in front of Wilson's metal desk.

"Yes," Wilson said sharply. "Well, what is it this time?"

"The Rat Patrol," Peilowski said unhappily. "They've been broadcasting to Dietrich's headquarters."

"What!" Wilson came out of his chair raging.

"In the clear," Peilowski said. "It's funny, we can't pick up anything that goes between the column and the CP and we know there must be transmissions, but we can pick up the communications between here and the CP. This was on the same frequency we picked up the code words last night."

"Never mind the explanations," Wilson roared, striding to the window and back. "How do you know it was the Rat Patrol? What was said?"

"It must of been Moffitt because he was talking German," Peilowski said. "Anyway, he identified himself as the Rat Patrol and went on to tell that the Arabs were making trouble and the warehouse had been blown."

Wilson staggered to his chair and collapsed in it. He was suddenly a hundred years old and without any strength. He breathed deeply and could not seem to get any oxygen into his lungs. His mind was spinning crazily. Disobeying orders, even fraternizing with the Arabs was reprehensible, but to go out and go over to the enemy was unthinkable. Why? he asked himself despairingly. Why would the Rat Patrol go over to Dietrich? He knew they'd all respected the man. They had made no secret of that. But he had not thought they admired him. Wilson had been stern with them, certainly, and they probably hated his guts, but that was a personal matter. What they were now doing affected not individuals but a nation. This was the most despicable act of treason since Benedict Arnold tried to sell out West Point to the British.

"Have they been seen this morning?" Wilson asked brokenly.

"Yes, sir," Peilowski said nervously. "Christianson just reported they're back in the bazaar with the Arabs."

"We're going in and try to take them regardless of what it costs us," Wilson said grimly. "I'll take in a platoon. They'll probably run, but I have to see them myself to believe this is true. I want two armored cars and a platoon of twenty-four MPs armed with tommy-guns."

Wilson knew the ugly mood of the town, knew that bloodshed would bring the Arab mob howling into the streets. He also knew he could not permit the Rat Patrol to remain free.

By the time Wilson was ready, two armored cars were at the grilled double-doors of HQ and two dozen MPs armed with submachine guns were aligned smartly in a column of twos behind. Wilson sat in the first car beside his cigar-chewing sergeant and the detail drove slowly down the boulevard. It was so hot the asphalt had blistered and the bubbles cracked and popped under the tires. When the car reached the one street into the native quarter that was more than an alley, the driver turned into it. For the two blocks to the bazaar, the street was lined with small shops and cafes. Metal shutters were down at all of them. The shopkeepers feared violence. The street was ominously deserted.

The bazaar, however, was thronged with robed men. It was the trading center and here shops on four sides faced a bare square where Arabs spread their rugs and laid out their wares, spices and fruits, coffee and vegetables, tin pots and brass pans, even goat milk and eggs. The merchants were there and two or three hundred others. As the armored cars and the MP platoon pushed into the market place, the merchants began hastily taking down their awnings and bundling up their goods. A sullen silence fell over the crowd that watched with resentful eyes as the intruders moved slowly down one side of the bazaar and started back the other.

Wilson stood in his car, hands on the butts of his pistols, searching the mute, hostile crowd for the headpieces of Troy, Moffitt, Pettigrew and Hitchcock.

A shrill yell rent the tense air and a familiar figure in Australian bush hat and goggles leapt from a group of several dozen Arabs in white robes and burnooses. It was Troy, Wilson recognized at once. Troy shook his fist at Wilson, shrieked a blasphemous stream of epithets and ducked back into the crowd. A moment later Troy, followed by a man in a dark beret, whom Wilson recognized as Moffitt, Hitch in his red-topped French Foreign Legionnaire cap and Tully, chewing a matchstick and wearing his steel helmet, darted off down an alley. There was no doubt that it was the Rat Patrol. Wilson had hoped against hope that there might be some mistake but now he had seen them.

"After them, after them," he shouted to the platoon of MPs. "Take them if you can, but shoot if you must."

The Arabs in white robes surged forward. Their faces were darkly ferocious. They clogged the entrance to the alley. They pushed against the MPs and forced them back, got their hands on Wilson's car and began to overturn it. The sergeant shoved the car into reverse and backed away from the Arabs. The MPs struggled against the Arabs, swinging the butts and barrels of their guns but holding their fire. The crowd followed the armored cars and the MPs down the alley to the military avenue. Here the MPs on foot took a firm stand five or six deep and the Arabs halted at the very edge of the quarter, on the threshold of their property. Wilson left one of the cars stationed with the MPs and went back to his headquarters.

"It was them all right," he heavily told Peilowski. "I saw them. Troy threatened me. They're working with the Arabs for the Jerries against us. It may even have been them who blew up the warehouse. Damnit, Peilowski, we've got to find those jeeps before there's more sabotage. They're carrying enough stuff with them to defeat us even if we beat off the Jerries."

The Rat Patrol had been about three miles from the oasis when El Alghur disappeared from the desert in a mighty explosion that pelted them with a blinding shock wave of sand. Flames from the dump licked the sky savagely and even a little ram seemed to fall. The waterhole had been blown into the air with the dump.

Tully and Hitch parked the jeeps behind a dune and crawled to the top with Troy and Moffitt to watch the convoy and wait.

"First rate show," Moffitt said with a chuckle. "And no blood spilled. That's something of an oddity for this group of pirates. What do you deduce their next move to be?"

"If there's more gas around, they'll go after it," Troy said.

"You think we can get there ahead of them again, Sarge?" Tully asked, rolling the matchstick in his mouth.

"Not likely," Troy said. "Not in the daylight."

"What is our next move, then?" Hitch asked and popped a piece of bubble gum in his mouth.

"We ought to have something to eat and get some sleep," Troy said, "but I want to know where they're going."

"You believe it's possible to smash them at some place when they return?" Moffitt asked, wrinkling his forehead. "They will be watching for us, you know."

"There will be a place where we can hit them," Troy said confidently. "There always is."

The air gradually cleared until they could see the ravaged oasis, although the flames roared and spit into the desert. The convoy approached to within half a mile of the destruction and the halftracks made a slow circuit of the devastated area, stopping again by the trucks. The convoy remained halted for about fifteen minutes and then moved out to the south.

"Must be another dump," Troy said with a grin. "We'll wait until they're almost out of sight and then tag along. Meanwhile, we might as well break out the chow."

After warm lemonade made with powder from the rations, some biscuits, hot jam and gooey fruit bars, Troy searched for the convoy with his field glasses. He plotted their location and apparent direction when he found them and the jeeps sped south behind the dunes. They drove ten miles before they stopped again. A thin streamer of dust hung in the air marking their course.

"They'll see that and know we're on their tail, Sarge," Tully drawled.

"Whether they see it or not, they're all on the alert," Troy said. "All we really have to do is keep them in sight and keep out of range. They know we're here."

"But how we going to get at the gas if they're watching for us?" Tully asked.

"I haven't figured that out yet," Troy admitted with a grin.

The convoy was about a mile away, still traveling in a due south direction. Troy consulted his map.

"They're going to Sidi Abd," he said. "We'll show ourselves on top of the dunes and start back toward Sidi Beda."

"Think that will fool them?" Tully asked.

"I doubt it," Troy said and laughed. "But they won't know which direction we may come in from."

The jeeps climbed to the top of the dune and tamed northwest. They traveled about five miles and then went into the valleys between the dunes to go south.

"I think we can hold down the speed," Troy said. "I don't want a repeat of last night, but I don't think we'll lose them today and we may as well avoid leaving more of a trail in the air than is necessary."

The two jeeps drove south at about twice the speed of the convoy but slowly enough so no great clouds of dust rose after them. The convoy now was miles away and Troy did not think the Jerries would be able to follow their course. Neither did he expect his ruse had fooled them. They would be expecting an attack somewhere on the return trip with full loads. While the jeeps could outrun the halftracks, their bigger guns could keep the Rat patrol far enough away from the convoy to prevent them from doing any damage. The Rat Patrol would have to ambush the convoy, strike swiftly and ran. To do this, Troy had to know the route the convoy would take and he was reasonably certain they would attempt to make an evasive journey. He was determined to hang on tenaciously. Gasoline was vital to Dietrich and he must be desperate to send for it all the way to Sidi Abd.

It was not yet oh-nine-hundred when Troy estimated they were nearing Sidi Abd and told Tully to run into a wadi. He crawled to the top, smiling a little as he did. It seemed to him he had spent his entire life crawling through hot sand to the tops of dunes. Sidi Abd, the walled desert stronghold where Dietrich made his headquarters, lay some three miles to the east. He observed it with his field glasses through shimmers of heat waves. The German camp just outside the walls looked deserted with most of the armor gone. The tents still stood in neat rows on either side of the entrance in the wall and guards patrolled the area. He studied the camp area carefully, the empty wire-enclosed prison compound, the motor pool where several Volkswagen patrol cars, four or five motorcycles and a decrepit sedan staff car were parked. Beyond was the machine and repair shop housed in a large, open-sided, canvas-topped structure. The gas dump probably was somewhere near the motor pool, he reasoned, and here at headquarters it was not necessarily underground. A tank with broken treads caught his eyes. It was parked in front of a bulking pile covered with canvas. As he watched, a halftrack came from behind the pile making a slow circuit.

That would be the fuel dump, Troy decided, and the tank, although disabled, probably had a crew manning its seventy-five millimeter gun. It would be next to impossible to blast the dump and bolt. He slid down into the wadi and helped Moffitt, Tully and Hitch pull the camouflage nets over the rear ends of the jeeps.

"Get them ready to run—gas, oil and water," he said, "then sleep if you can. I'll watch now and wake Tully in an hour to relieve me."

He pulled off his Jerry uniform as the others had done but left on the cap. It afforded some protection to his head and eyes and would not be so conspicuous as his bush hat on top of the dune. Swallowing a mouthful of warm water, he went back to the crest and lay in the hot sand, breathing heavily and sweating under the burning sun. When he looked through his glasses to the north for the convoy or back at the town, it was difficult to see clearly through the dancing waves that shimmered over the sand.

When he had determined a route for the convoy on its return trip, Troy thought they would run on ahead, find some place where the terrain was difficult and left no alternate path. They'd lay mines to catch the first halftrack and fall on the trucks with grenades. The halftrack at the rear would prevent their blowing all of the trucks on the first strike, but they should be able to take half of them and catch the remaining half dozen at some other place.

The hour sizzled by and it was time to awaken Tully for the second watch when a speck that moved far to the north appeared in his glasses. He lay watching its tedious approach over the distant miles. It was still too far off to distinguish more than a faint crawling line but he sensed rather than saw something odd in its appearance. Uneasily he tried to bring it closer in his glasses to discover what had changed. It was not until the convoy was within two miles that he knew what disturbed him. The halftrack at the end of the convoy was missing.

"Doc, Tully, Hitch!" he shouted as he turned his glasses in a sweeping probe about him. "Tear off the nets and get the jeeps started."

He discovered the missing halftrack less than a mile away, bearing straight at the wadi and coming into range fast. He scrambled down the slope cursing and shouting and helped Tully yank the net from the jeep. As he leapt into the back and grasped the machine gun, a shell slammed into the dune where he had been lying and threw up a geyser of sand.

7

Dietrich's farthest advance into the minefield had been at the middle of the line in front of his station where four tanks had managed to reach a point within fifteen hundred yards of the enemy positions. Two tanks had been wrecked there, but Dietrich decided to exploit this penetration and push through and beyond it if he could. He sent two halftracks into the field. Firing from protected positions behind the tanks, they blasted the earth on either side to provide a path for armor to advance. When the areas at the sides of the tanks were cleared, the halftracks pushed on, obscured by the fine, flying dry earth, and began working ahead.

The two enemy positions opposite the tanks, apparently already zeroed in, opened fire and both halftracks shuddered and died. Dietrich ordered his entire force forward to the positions they'd held. He commanded them to move up within range and to maintain steady fire.

The Afrika Korps crack unit ground back into the dust-curtained minefield and soon the plateau was shuddering with the blows of the battle. The terrible throat-parching pall fell like a shower and coated Dietrich's face, arms and hands. He had the handkerchief back over his nose and mouth, but even through it he could scarcely breathe.

He stood stiffly, unmoving, face rigid, listening for the crash of shell into steel, for the clanging detonation of mine against tank treads, for some cessation in enemy fire that would indicate an emplacement had been destroyed. This was no tank battle. It was an artillery engagement and the odds were not with him. Unless he breached the defensive line soon, his losses would be greater than he could sustain. It was folly to leave his units fighting blindly for long at a time and the heat and dust were more than his crews could bear. He permitted his armor to slug it out, some reporting advances, for half an hour and then he withdrew them again. The advances and withdrawals were consuming fuel and he wondered whether there had been a report from the convoy. He disliked doing it but he called Colonel Funke.

"Ja, Hans," Herr Oberst Funke said thickly. "They are there safely and should start to return in one hour. One of the halftracks found the Rat Patrol hiding."

"They took the Rat Patrol?" Dietrich said swiftly and sucked in his breath.

"Ja, I think that is what they said, Hans," the old man said uncertainly.

"Look, Herr Oberst, you must know what they said," Dietrich almost shouted in frustration. "Tell me exactly what was reported. Think carefully. I want to know the words that were used."

"Hans, it is so hot to think clearly," Oberst Funke said complainingly. "I will try. They said the halftrack found the Rat Patrol hiding and put a dozen shells into them."

"Did they take them?" Dietrich yelled. "Did they capture them or destroy them?"

"Oh, they killed them," Oberst Funke said with authority. "Ja, that is what was reported. They killed all the Rat Patrol with twelve shells from the seventy-five." Funke's voice assumed a condescending tone. "You should know, Hans, it is difficult for a man to withstand the effects of seventy-five millimeter shells at close range."

"It is certain then that the Rat Patrol has been removed," Dietrich said, not even minding Funke's air of superiority.

"They are kaput, Hans," the colonel said. "Now tell me, my boy, how goes the battle. Again you have stopped firing."

"I've just called another withdrawal so I can see how far we have advanced," Dietrich said airily. "It is very difficult to know what one is doing here."

"You know where the enemy is emplaced," Oberst Funke said, sternly now. "Why cannot you simply fire until you have removed him?"

"The men are firing blind," Dietrich said. "It is not entirely to our disadvantage. Our armor is concealed by the dust from the enemy."

"Then how is it, Hans, that the losses all are borne by us, eh? Tell me that, will you?" Funke said querulously.

"I have told you, Herr Oberst," Dietrich said patiently, refusing to be nettled, "we are operating from a minefield. Most of the losses have been from the mines."

"Tell me how many reinforcements you need and I will get them to you," Funke said imperiously.

"As I have explained, they are not yet needed," Dietrich said sharply. "Has there been signal from der Ungeziefer?" he asked.

"Oh, ja, Hans," the colonel said and the earphones vibrated with the boom of his laughter. "Explosions are happening and your friend, Ali Abu, takes them everywhere and they talk with the Arabs. Soon I think there will be some riots."

"Good, everything seems to be working out for the best," Dietrich said with a tight smile. "Call me when you have word the trucks are on the way."

"I will do that, Hans," Oberst Funke said.

When the miserable layers of dust had settled once more, Dietrich discovered that he had lost two more tanks. There was no evidence that any of the enemy tanks had been silenced. Although Dietrich would not yet admit it to Oberst Funke, he was becoming increasingly alarmed at his losses. His force was rapidly dwindling and he was losing his superiority. He now had only twenty-nine tanks and six halftracks. He did not know how much armor he had lost to enemy fire, but he did know that mines alone were not responsible for all the wrecks that littered the field.

"We must have a place where we can break through," he told his commanders on the radio. "I want four tanks at the middle of the line concentrating their fire on the two enemy tanks at the center. I want those positions eliminated. It is inconceivable that the enemy should be entirely impervious to our fire. Now then, two units from either side of my station will advance to the disabled tanks in the middle of the field. The other units will remain here in place. Advance and continue firing until the enemy positions have been silenced."

The tanks rumbled into the field and took their stands on either side of the smashed armor. The enemy immediately opened fire. Before Dietrich's tanks had hurled the first shell, one of his units had taken a direct hit that blew its hatch. Within seconds, the dirt was flying and clouds puffed out to envelope the field. Only the crashing guns on both sides told of the battle. Suddenly Dietrich thought he detected a break in the rhythm of the firing. Only one gun was firing from the Allied emplacements, he was certain. Exultantly he ordered his three remaining tanks to concentrate on the second Allied tank. It continued to match salvos with his tanks in the field. It still was firing when Dietrich ordered his tanks to withdraw. Only two returned. Another two tanks lost, he thought bitterly, but at least he had succeeded in removing the first enemy gun.

When the air had cleared enough so Dietrich could focus his glasses on the enemy emplacements, he saw a crew of men working about the gun that had been silenced. They were carrying shells to the turret. As he watched, the gun crew disappeared inside the tank, and although there was no target, its gun spoke defiantly once more. It was incredible, but the weapon had not been knocked out. It had only been out of ammunition.

The minefield would defeat him, he thought, anguished. He could not afford to continue flinging his armor into a field where the enemy apparently had charted every salient and was able to call his shots whenever Dietrich's units came within effective range. He did not doubt that some, perhaps many, of the shells from his tanks had struck home, but the medium tanks the enemy had emplaced apparently carried sufficient armor so that shells were ineffective at fifteen hundred yards.

He decided to try once more for a breakthrough at the middle of the field, going in with tanks to clear a path for at least two hundred yards further. He sent in two tanks to sweep the field on either side of the pile-up. The tanks roared out and before they reached the disastrous middle, their guns were working the field. There seemed to be an astonishingly large number of mines concentrated beyond the disabled tanks and the advance by the minesweepers was agonizingly slow. The Allied positions opened fire but the dust concealed Dietrich's tanks, which were also moving targets. They advanced beyond the fifteen-hundred-yard point for a hundred yards before one of them was struck.

Dietrich ordered the second tank to fire on the enemy position by calculation. The tank loosed a dozen shells and silenced the emplacement.

Dietrich commanded the tank to continue working its way ahead in the field. A second enemy position now opened fire on it. Dietrich's tank had advanced another hundred yards before it was hit. He did not order additional units into the field but waited again for the air to clear.

He was paying a terrible price for clearing the minefield. Now he was certain he had destroyed one emplacement, but he was left with only twenty-five tanks against the enemy's twenty-four and with the full rotating turrets on the Allied tanks, the units on either side of the one his tanks had knocked out could bring converging fire on armor he tried to push through on the path that had been cleared.

The sun was climbing rapidly and the temperature had soared over a hundred degrees. The tank crews undoubtedly were exhausted to the point of incompetence. When the dust had settled, Dietrich ordered his medics into the field in Volkswagens to pick up the casualties, and he sent mechanics out to drain the gas from the disabled tanks. The enemy held his fire.

Intermittently all morning the battle had raged on the plateau and a haze of grit had descended on the port. Now Farb reported another lull in the battle and the loss of one position to Wilson. It had been a direct hit that had penetrated the three-inch armor of the turret, killing the gunner and wounding two of the crew. The remaining two members of the crew were treating the wounded and would attempt to bring them down the foot path from the number twenty position at the east edge of town. Farb was drawing one man from the number twenty position and one man from the number twenty-one emplacement to help carry the litters. He reported he felt certain he could hold until the next day when the squadron of B-25s was promised.

Wilson called for two armored cars to pick up the wounded and went himself along with his greasy-faced sergeant, taking the opportunity to make a visual inspection of the halftracks at the foot of Latsus Pass. It was unbearably hot again this noon and there was not a breath of air.

The ocean lay smooth as a piece of blue glass and the mussel shells glowed as if they were afire. The native quarter seemed to sleep in silence as he rode along the military boulevard, but it was an uneasy rest and Wilson had nightmarish forebodings. The MPs and even the cars that patrolled seemed jittery. No one lurked in the alleys, but the MPs took one look and jerked away from them in a hurry.

At the edge of town, the second armored car turned onto a dirt trail that led to the edge of the bluff where a narrow path zigzagged to the top. It was not a good means of communication with the plateau, but it had been the most satisfactory Wilson had been able to find except through Latsus Pass. He remembered that the Arab who'd escaped the massacre had mentioned an old route, undoubtedly the one the Rat Patrol had used to climb to the escarpment, and he wondered whether it was feasible to use it, passing through the native quarter as it must. It was strange the Arabs should now be friendly with the Rat Patrol after they'd killed a dozen tribesmen, but the Arabs were clannish and fought among themselves as much as they did with unbelievers. It must have been men from some distant tribe the Rat Patrol had murdered or the local Arabs never would have welcomed them.

He rode past the backup line of six halftracks on to the units stationed near the beginning of the pass, beyond the range of the mortars and machine guns upstairs. His officer in charge, Captain Loring Drake, reported everything was quiet.

"Yesterday afternoon, it sounded as if they were clearing the pass, dragging out the halftracks that they'd hit," Drake said thoughtfully.

"Obviously," Wilson observed dryly, "otherwise how would the Rat Patrol have come through? Are you certain there was firing in the pass when the Rat Patrol broke out?"

"Absolutely," Drake declared. "Machine gun fire and mortars. It's a miracle those jeeps made it."

"I think that fire was a smoke screen," Wilson said. "I think the Rat Patrol came straight from Dietrich's CP where they'd sold us out. We monitored a report from Moffitt to the Jerries this morning. They've defected."

"The Rat Patrol defected!" Drake exclaimed, horrified, and his eyes got larger behind horn-rimmed glasses. "That's impossible. This must all be a Jerry trick."

"I wish I could think that," Wilson said bitterly. "Unfortunately I saw the four of them myself this morning. They were in the bazaar inciting a band of Arabs. Troy threatened me and the Arabs attempted to overturn my car. It's a hideous piece of treachery that makes me want to vomit."

"Then you haven't picked them up yet?" Drake asked.

"They're hiding and protected in the native quarter," Wilson said. "When we've finished with Dietrich, I'll ferret them out if I have to tear down every house and damn the consequences. They'll be tried and sentenced to death."

"It is a terrible thing," Drake said unhappily.

"It is a terrible thing," Wilson agreed. "Well, don't let Jerry come through the way you did the Rat Patrol."

"How was I to know?" Drake asked in an injured tone of voice. "They've always enjoyed the run of any place we've been and we've never challenged them."

"If you should see them again, if they should try to break out, don't challenge them now," Wilson said, "Shoot them on sight."

"I'll do it," Drake said, shaking his head. "I'll hate it, but I'll do it."

Wilson's sergeant drove silently half the way back to the edge of Sidi Beda. He chewed his cigar butt as if he were preoccupied and several times acted as if he wanted to say something. Finally he turned to Wilson and blurted, "Is it true, sir, what they're saying about the Rat Patrol?"

"I don't know what they're saying," Wilson said crisply.

"They say Troy got himself messed up with an Arab girl and she talked him into going over to the other side," the sergeant said. "They say the others went with him like they always do."

"I don't know," Wilson said. "They'll be tried when they're picked up."

There probably was a good deal of truth in what the sergeant said, Wilson thought. There had to be some explanation for the Rat Patrol's behavior. As soon as things were under control, he'd go into the quarter and pick up the girl at the Fat Frenchman's. She was the one Troy had spent the afternoon with before going out on the patrol. She undoubtedly knew where he was hiding if he wasn't with her at this moment.

The sergeant turned onto the trail to the bluff. Wilson heard the chatter of machine gun fire and two jeeps, windshields down against the hoods, bounded down the trail and swerved into one of the alleys that led into the native quarter. Troy was at the machine gun in the back of one of the jeeps, Moffitt at the gun in the other.

"After them," Wilson shouted to his driver. "It's the Rat Patrol."

The sergeant rammed the car into the alley and slammed on his brakes.

"Can't make it," he said, pointing ahead to a sharp turn. "I'd pile up on that corner."

"Then let's get up to the other car in a hurry," Wilson said. "They were shooting at something."

The men were just coming down the last slope with two litters. At the bottom, the driver of the second armored car was looking at his windshield and cursing. It was shattered and his radiator was spouting water.

"If I hadn't of fallen to the floor they'd of got me," he said angrily. "They caught me alone out here. It was Troy did it. I seen him coming and got on the floor. He was laughing like a hyena before he cut loose with that burst."

Tully and Hitch opened their smokescreen exhausts as they slammed the jeeps out of the wadi. The seventy-five on the halftrack laid a dozen shells on their tails as they plunged away to the south and the west. The halftrack did not attempt to pursue the fleet little bugs.

"Whew!" Troy shouted to Tully. "They almost had us that time."

"How'd they find us, you think, Sarge?" Tully asked.

"We didn't fool them," Troy said. "They figured we'd be waiting for them somewhere and when they got near enough to Sidi Abd to feel safe, they sent the halftrack out to look for us and they found our tracks. Either that or we were spotted from the camp and reported."

"Now what?" Tully asked. "We'll never be able to ambush them. They'll have guns sticking out on all sides of every truck."

"Can you ride a horse?" Troy asked abruptly.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Tully demanded.

"Pull into a wadi—no, pull up on a dune where you can watch for the halftrack," Troy said, ignoring the question. "I want to talk with Moffitt."

When they were parked and sweating in the scorching sun, their eyes on the halftrack far in the distance, Troy called to Moffitt, "Aren't those pals of yours—the sheik and his men who helped you and Hitch when we busted Wilson out of Sidi Abd—someplace around here?"

"The men of Abu-el-bab?" Moffitt asked. "Their city is far from here but they are a restless lot and often wander and raid even farther afield. What do you have in mind?"

"That place where they camped before, is it the kind of place where they might return if they were in the neighborhood?" Troy persisted.

"It was a reasonably safe place near a small waterhole," Moffitt said. "Yes, if they were in this area I expect they would lift their pavilions at the same place. But why are you asking, Sam?"

"You ride a horse, Doctor?" Troy asked.

"I've never played polo worth a chukker," Moffitt said, "but I sit a steed reasonably well."

"The Jerries are too thoroughly alerted," Troy said. "We'll never be able to blow that gas now unless we come up with something cute. If we can find your friends and if they'll lend you some robes, a horse and two or three tribesmen who are circus performers, I think we can blow up this Jerry dump."

"It won't do a bit of harm to look," Moffitt said, an amused smile beginning to tug at his lips. "I believe I can locate that wadi again."

With Moffitt directing, Hitch shot into the lead. The jeeps circled to the west and north, coming up along the bramble of wire that marked the back boundary of the Devil's Garden of mines Dietrich had planted to protect his headquarters town. From the Garden, Moffitt plotted a course to the east and south over the rippled and rolling dunes. It was a chance in a thousand, Troy knew, but one they had to take because nothing else would work now. Moffitt was standing as they rolled from the tops of the sand hills into the valleys and up again. He directed them into one large wadi, shook his head at Troy and moved to the top of another dime. He told Hitch to stop and leaped down to study the sand.

"They've been here," he said excitedly, turning to Troy. "These hoof marks are fresh. We'll go in the direction they take."

The jeeps spurted on again plunging into a valley and over a hill. A half dozen riders in dark robes and burnooses and brandishing Mausers galloped up on fawn-colored horses. The jeeps stopped and Moffitt spoke in Arabic to a hawk-nosed man whose burnoose was embroidered with threads of gold and whom he called Al Ombo Beni. After a few moments the man touched his forehead, bowing slightly to Moffitt. The tribesmen trotted off.

"Follow them," Moffitt called and chuckled. "They remember me. I am Hamam Gameel, the good pigeon, to them and they will take me to their sheik, Ben-el-bab."

Ben-el-bab, the sheik of the men of Abu-el-bab, bade them welcome to his pavilion with its rich Turkish rugs and damask pillows. The sharp-eyed, cruel-faced Arab seemed genuinely pleased to see Moffitt and served the four of them very sweet pastries and thick coffee. Moffitt spoke briefly with him in Arabic and Ben-el-bab's eyes seemed to glitter with pleasure. He spoke rapidly to A1 Ombo Beni, who bowed and hastened from the tent.

Moffitt turned to Troy. "The sheik will provide robes and a horse for me and half a dozen superlative riders," Moffitt said. He looked extremely pleased. "They will put on a display of horsemanship that will have every Jerry at Sidi Abd grasping the edge of his tailgate and I shall appear to be a part of it."

"You explained that the Jerries will probably try to take revenge on the tribe?" Troy asked.

"I explained, Sam," Moffitt said with an amused smile, "and the idea fascinates the sheik. Now give him a bow and thank him in English. I explained that we do not have the time that protocol demands for a social call and he graciously understands."

Troy and Tully in one jeep and Hitch by himself in the other watched the seven robed figures on horseback disappear over the dunes at a trot and start for Sidi Abd some five miles away. Moffitt sat his high-cantled, silver-chased saddle with the same ease and grace as the Arabs. The jeeps followed at a distance and when they were yet a mile or more from the town, Tully and Hitch parked in a wadi and crawled with Troy to a dune to watch.

As the horsemen neared the walled city, the horses began to prance. The seven riders circled and then moved in a single file toward the entrance with the horses lifting their forefeet daintily and dancing. Suddenly all seven horses reared with forefeet pawing the air and charged full speed at the wall, wheeled and raced toward the desert. The Jerries who had been assembled at the fuel dump where the canvas had been pulled from the fuel drums stopped work to watch the Arabs.

Now each Arab on horseback drew a curved blade from its scabbard, galloped toward the city and hurled the blade into the sand where it quivered. The horses reared, turning on their hind legs and stretching out at a gallop. Each man, including Moffitt, leaned from his saddle and wrested his blade from the sand as he raced by.

Now the riders galloped around the entire walled city, fanning out and converging until as a unit they looked like a bird flying. Troy saw that as they changed places in the design, Moffitt was working his way to the edge. All the Jerries at the dump had stopped working and now they joined the Arabs who had flocked out the entrance to watch the display. The riders circled their dancing steeds at the entrance and then once more started around the walls at full tilt. Moffitt was last in the line and as they came around the wall fanning out, Troy saw that he was at the edge near the fuel dump.

"Get the jeeps started," Troy shouted to Tully and Hitch and they tumbled down the hill.

As Moffitt charged past the drums, his arm drew over his head and flashed out and the riders raced into the open desert. An explosion blasted metal drums and desert sand and parts of trucks into the air and flames shot into the sky. Troy ran to his jeep and leaped to his gun as the seven riders came into the wadi in a swirl of sand.

Moffitt was out of his saddle before his horse stopped. He flung the reins to A1 Ombo Beni and hopped behind the Browning in his jeep. The six Arabs circled the jeeps and loosed a great cry. Hamam Gameel, the good pigeon, still in his robes and burnoose, touched his forehead and raised his hand to the riders. Troy thought he detected a wistful look in Moffitt's eyes before the Arabs galloped off and the jeeps raced the other way.

8

Herr Hauptmann Hans Dietrich could feel the curious eyes of Corporal Willi Wunder on him and he willed his hand not to shake, his voice not to quaver, but he knew that even under its mask of grime his face paled.

"Oberst Funke," he said with an effort, "will you kindly repeat."

"All of the fuel at Sidi Abd has been blown," the old man blubbered.

"I thought you said the Rat Patrol had been killed," Dietrich said and gnashed his teeth.

"It was not the Rat Patrol, I told you," the colonel insisted. "It was Arabs who rode in on horseback and exploded the fuel."

"Arabs would not have known to blow the fuel," Dietrich shouted. "What was it exactly that was reported concerning the halftrack firing on the Rat Patrol?"

"It was as I told you, Hans," Oberst Funke said plaintively. "Exactly, the very words, the halftrack fired twelve shots from the seventy-five millimeter gun after the Rat Patrol."

"That does not say they were killed," Dietrich yelled.

"What else could it mean, Hans?" the colonel demanded, defensive and belligerent now. "What man could withstand a dozen rounds from a cannon?"

"It means the Rat Patrol got away and destroyed our last supply of fuel within two hundred miles," Dietrich raged. "It means that like good Arabs, we can fold our tents and silently steal away from Sidi Beda. It means that we are finished. Kaput. We cannot wage a battle on empty fuel tanks."

"I could send my column out to help," the colonel repeated like a parrot.

"I could tell you where to put your column and there would be gas in plenty for it," Dietrich roared. "More machines here would mean simply more losses and more empty tanks. I am coming in to talk with you. Something must be done at once or we face defeat." Then he signed off.

Willi was looking at him with large, frightened eyes. Wrath bubbled in Dietrich. He opened his mouth and abruptly he started to laugh. He laughed uncontrollably. He laughed at the absurdity of it. He was furious with his commanding officer because he used a gallon of gasoline to throw on the scorching sand over buried bottles of beer to chill them by the rapid evaporation. Laughing even harder, he thought that he would place a man in confinement for filling a cigarette lighter with a few drops of the precious fluid. It was hysteria, he knew and he grappled with his reflexes, forced himself to return to normal and accepted military behavior.

"Call Captain Prittwitz," he said to Willi, still not entirely trusting his voice. "Have him report to me at once."

There was a chance he still could pull this chestnut from the fire, Dietrich thought glumly, but it was a slim one and it involved persons a captain dared not invoke. The colonel would have to make the request with the full weight of his division behind him and even that was no guarantee the appeal would be granted. Even if the demand were favored and resulted in the capture of Sidi Beda, it would be humiliating. It would not be tanks that had defeated the enemy.

When Hauptmann Rudolf Prittwitz stood beside the car, Dietrich examined the tank commander objectively. Dietrich did not want to feel that he alone was cracking at the reversals. Prittwitz looked haggard. His hollow cheeks were caked and his lips were pale and thin, but his gray eyes were steady. Pull yourself together, Dietrich told himself. Prittwitz had spent the morning out there in that hellish field and he still was sound.

"Rudolf," Dietrich said in a firm voice, "run a halftrack up here and take command. I don't want you to do anything. Just hold the armor where it now is. Tell the men to get out of those cans and get some air. I am going in to the command post and I shall have food and coffee sent back. I do not want a machine to move or a gun to fire. Versteh?"

"It is understood, Herr Hauptmann," Prittwitz said, saluting smartly, about-facing with a click of his heels and marching away.

"All right, Willi," Dietrich said with a weary laxness that was completely out of character. "Drive me in to the old man."

As Dietrich had expected, Herr Oberst Funke was sitting on a canvas stool in his shorts within his tent where the air was dead and laden with heat. He offered Dietrich a bottle of beer and Dietrich accepted.

"Let's sit outdoors," Dietrich said, nostrils offended at the sour odor. "It actually is cooler in the sun than under the canvas."

"My skin is sensitive to the sun," Oberst Funke said and dabbed with a towel between the dewlaps. He looked helplessly at Dietrich. "What is there to do, Hans? We are going nowhere and have not the means to arrive." Dietrich sat on a canvas stool and felt protesting juices rising in his throat. He hurriedly sipped the beer. It was tepid and tasted of petrol.

"There is one thing only to be done, Herr Oberst," Dietrich swallowed and said. "We cannot continue without fuel and there is none within a reasonable distance. We cannot retreat with our superior forces and admit defeat. We must shell the port itself until this American colonel, Wilson, begs us to allow him to surrender."

"Ja, Hans, that is good, but how are we to shell the port?" the colonel asked.

"With Nebelwerfers," Dietrich said.

"Nebelwerfers!" the tank colonel gasped. "That is an artillery piece, or worse, it once belonged to Chemical Warfare. And where are we to get the rocket launchers and the rockets, Hans?"

"From Rommel," Dietrich said calmly now. "You must call the field marshal on the wireless and tell him to send us Nebelwerfers at once."

"I?" the colonel said in horror. "To call the field marshal? To tell the field marshal? Never could I do such a thing."

"If you do not call the field marshal and tell him we must have Nebelwerfers, you will be the division commander who twice has lost Sidi Beda," Dietrich said mercilessly. "There are worse things than calling the field marshal on the wireless."

"Ach, Hans," the old man said miserably. "I should die if they put me at a desk." He stood and walked uncertainly around the table. He was barefooted. "When must you have these Nebelwerfers? Tell me how you will use them so I may know what to say."

"I must have them at once, by the first thing in the morning at the latest," Dietrich said. "I shall place them where my tanks now are on the bluffs and fire directly into the town. I should have at least two dozen Nebelwerfers with an ample supply of rockets and crews to man the launchers."

"All right, Hans," Oberst Matthe Funke said heavily and reached for his shirt and pith helmet. He looked very much an old man now. "I will do this for you."

Dietrich stood to accompany the colonel to the communications van.

Colonel Funke held up his hand. "No, Hans, do not come to listen over my shoulder. It is possible the field marshal will say things I would rather you did not hear." Still barefooted and in his undershorts but wearing his unbuttoned shirt and pith helmet, Oberst Funke started toward the communications van.

After Dietrich had requested, then commanded the sergeant at the officers' mess to prepare canned sausages, cheese, biscuits and coffee for the men in the field, he sat at the long table alone in the open-sided tent and sipped coffee himself from a tin cup. He did not like the idea of using the Nebelwerfers. The Nebelwerfer Forty-One was a six-barreled, one-hundred-fifty millimeter rocket launcher that used H.E. and incendiary shell loadings. It was wheel-mounted, weighed eleven hundred and ninety-five pounds, and its fifty-one-inch-long barrels were fired electronically by remote control at a rate of six rounds every ninety seconds. It had a maximum range of seventy-seven-hundred yards at forty-five degrees elevation, a minimum range of twenty-seven-hundred yards at six-point-five degrees. Its cluster of rockets made a low-pitched shrieking sound in flight that jangled the nerves. It was a terrifying weapon and the civilian casualties were bound to be heavy.

Dietrich lighted a cigarette, prepared to return to the pigsty of a headquarters tent, when Colonel Funke stepped into the mess and sat across the table from him. There was a twinkle in his eyes and he actually was smiling after his talk with the field marshal. He called for a cup of coffee and slapped the table.

"The field marshal himself talked and he commended me, Hans. What do you think of that?" The colonel shook his head from side to side and sent his dewlaps swinging in his delight. "He will send the Nebelwerfers with the rockets and the crews by an Me-323 that just has brought in a hundred and twenty replacement troops. Imagine such a plane. But the field marshal was pleased that I called him for help. He said if there were more field commanders who had the good sense to seek solutions rather than make excuses, we should have fewer defeats. He said that under the circumstances, the Nebelwerfers should be an ideal weapon and that it was right to ask for them. Is that not, by God, something, Hans?"

Although Dietrich did not like the idea of using the rockets, he was pleased that the request had been acted on so swiftly and favorably by Rommel and he was amused at Colonel Funke's reaction.

"When will the aircraft arrive?" he asked.

"Early in the morning by the first light," the colonel said. "It will leave in the dark and arrive here shortly after sunrise so that it can see to its landing. The road is straight, south from the first command post, and we can have it smoothed out some for a landing strip. Remember this as a lesson, Hans. When you are faced with an impossible situation, don't make excuses but seek the solution." He stood suddenly, pushing aside the cup of coffee that just had been brought to him. "Well, I am happy I could help you find your solution, Hans." Then he strode off to his tent.

Back at his station in front of the minefield, Dietrich pulled back all of his armor two thousand yards into the desert. He called for shovels and consulted his map of Sidi Beda. It was another two thousand yards from the beginning of the minefield to the Allied positions, another fifty yards to the edge of the bluff. The military installations, the warehouses and piers were about one mile from the base of the bluff. He plotted the military targets as well as he could from the information he had and prepared positions behind his armor for the Nebelwerfers so the fire could be concentrated along the waterfront at an estimated range of seventy-two hundred yards. Then he went down to the road with a shovel crew to fill in the pot holes.

Colonel Dan Wilson stood at the window in his office looking at the bluff. He was perspiring freely and he was frowning, but he was not scowling at the heat. Farb had just reported that after a lull which had lasted for almost two hours after the attack, Dietrich had pulled his armor back into the desert and that all was quiet except for labor parties that appeared to be preparing positions for small stationary pieces.

Mortars? Wilson wondered and shuddered at the thought. It was possible. The range was approximately right for Jerry mortars. They would reach the tanks. They would reach somewhat beyond the tanks and that was what worried him. Any shells that overshot would fall in the native quarter. The thought dismayed him. He did not approve of senseless civilian carnage. He called in his first sergeant.

"Peilowski," he barked and the sergeant came to attention. Wilson almost smiled. He wondered whether he frightened all of his men. "At ease. We have reason to believe the Jerries are planning to shell the tank positions with mortars. There's a good chance some of the shells will fall in the native quarter. It's going to be a howling mess, I know, but I want the quarter evacuated. The natives can go to the beaches, the piers or the country if they like, but we'll have to provide shelter for those who want it. The cargo ships left without unloading. There are two large and one small empty warehouses. Pack the Arabs in one of the large warehouses and the Frenchies in the other. Have mess set up a soup kitchen in the third. Take an armored car into the bazaar and start there. Send MPs in jeeps to the last street at the foot of the bluff and start working toward the avenue. Clear out every house. Get Christianson and take him along to explain. Any questions?"

"No, sir," Peilowski said miserably and turned to leave.

"Oh, Peilowski," Wilson called and the sergeant wheeled. "This will be a good opportunity to dig out the Rat Patrol. Pass the word."

He was still appalled at the wanton attack by the Rat Patrol on the armored car that had gone to pick up the wounded. Whatever pity he'd felt at first for the quartet had been replaced by hotly burning hatred. He would not rest until they were brought to justice.

Wilson considered the orders he'd given Peilowski and he shook his head. He did not like to think of the consequences. Jamming a thousand Arabs together in one building was an invitation to riot. It would be pandemonium. Well, they didn't have to go to the warehouse, he told himself, and if there were troublemakers, and there would be, they'd be booted out. He wasn't too concerned about the Frenchies, but they didn't have to go to the warehouse either, and they'd be treated the same as the Arabs, no better, no worse. He laughed shortly and mirthlessly. He had no choice in this matter. He could not ignore the civilian population when the enemy's intentions were clear.

Wilson was agreeably surprised when the first groups of the Arabs began streaming onto the military avenue. They were frightened, fleeing people, yes, but there was neither anger nor resentment in their faces. They had heard the shelling, they understood the city was besieged, and Christianson must have done a good job explaining that the only concern of the Allied Forces was their safety. They carried precious few possessions, a pillow, a rug, a water jar, packages perhaps of food. The women clutched children too young to toddle. The older ones ran along whooping. They thought it was a lark. The men in their robes were more dignified but made haste.

It was the shopkeepers who offered resistance, Christianson explained when he came in. They'd take their chances with the shells, they said. What they most feared were the looters.

Wilson assigned teams of MPs to patrol the alleys and had Christianson announce from a roving car with an amplifier that looters would be shot on sight. Still the shop-keepers remained behind their corrugated iron shutters.

The MPs reported the door to the Fat Frenchman's wine shop was barred and despite repeated attempts, they had been unable to get any kind of response. They did not know whether the girl and the Fat Frenchman even were in the building. Should they break down the door?

"No," Wilson said slowly. "We won't break in."

There had been no sign of the Arabs in the white robes from the bazaar nor of the Rat Patrol. They and their Arab friends may have fled Sidi Beda by the back route. Or the Rat Patrol might be hiding at the Fat Frenchman's. If they were and a shell fell on the building, it would be the most satisfactory solution to the whole sorry affair.

Some of the natives went to the beaches, the piers, the wasteland at the edge of town, but most seemed to prefer being within the shelter that was provided, perhaps sensing that they had been conveyed to a place of safety. The Arabs were badly frightened and silent. The Frenchies were inclined to be scornful or gay. Many brought along bottles of wine and there were several concertinas.

It was almost sunset. Farb reported that after the positions had been prepared on the plateau, the enemy had retired and there was no indication of further action. At the small warehouse, mess hall equipment had been lugged in and soup was simmering. The coffee urns were set up and at the kitchen in the regular military mess hall, racks of bread had been taken from the ovens. Wilson prepared to serve supper and tuck his town in. He looked doubtfully at the warehouse where the Frenchies were cavorting and hoped it would be a quiet night.

It was almost sunset when Tully sent the jeep spinning down a sand hill toward a small, unnamed oasis about fifty miles north of Bir-el-Alam, the desert city that once had been the base for Wilson's armored unit. It had been the long way around to return through Bir-el-Alam, but Troy had thought it prudent to get out of Jerryland with as much haste as possible. Now the Rat Patrol was in familiar and friendly territory, but Troy stood at the machine gun in the back of the jeep. He darted a glance at the other jeep and smiled. Moffitt, still in the robes of the men of Abu-el-bab, was alert at his weapon. Tully and Hitch slowly circled the cluster of palms that grew by the waterhole in the valley. Satisfied they were alone and there had been no recent visitors, Troy called a halt.

"We'll eat and rest here until the moon is up," he announced, "and then we'll get back to work."

"Is it okay to build a fire, Sarge?" Tully asked, getting from behind the steering wheel and going to the back of the jeep.

"I'd forgotten about that so-called young goat you picked up at Bir-el-Alam," Troy said, laughing. "If you're sure it's a kid, go ahead and make a fire. Someone ought to stand guard anyway. Hitch, how about taking the first turn?"

"Okay, Sarge," Hitch said and popped his gum to show that he was feeling good.

They all were feeling good, Troy thought, carrying the bundle of sticks they'd bought with the goat over to Tully. Troy still burned at Wilson's attitude when he'd handed them this assignment, but it did give him a good, satisfying glow to realize he was doing the job he'd set out to do. What the hell, Troy thought, smiling suddenly; he shouldn't be annoyed with Wilson. With Dietrich hammering at his door, Wilson had other things on his mind besides a sergeant who couldn't be found on his day off.

With coffee and biscuits from their rations, they dined well and the kid they roasted was surprisingly juicy and tender. It was a good fire, Troy thought contentedly as he lighted a cigarette after relieving Hitch on guard. He turned slowly round, looking first at the vast, unconfining, empty desert that surrounded him and then at the warm glow of the embers down in the oasis where his friends and companions were stretching out in the sand. He looked up at the deep purple vault of the sky, pin-pricked by stars, and listened to the music of the universe. Here it was calm and it seemed that peace was eternal. He grinned a little crookedly. And in an hour or two, they'd be in the thick of it again.

The fire had died and Moffitt, Tully and Hitch all were asleep when Troy shuffled down to the oasis at twenty-hundred hours. The moon had risen, a magnificent full moon that was a great luminescent globe illuminating the desert with faintly greenish-white light.

"Grab your socks," he barked harshly in his best drill instructor's voice and grinned as the three of them rolled and came up with their tommy-guns.

"You shouldn't ought to do that, Sarge," Tully complained. "I was dreaming a Jerry was chasing me and I was just diving for my weapon."

"Never let a Jerry chase you," Troy said. "You get the drop on him first."

"What's the program?" Hitch asked, jaw moving on the gum he always had.

"We have deprived Jerry of his petrol," Moffitt said with a smile. "He still has his ammunition. Is that what you have in mind, Sam?"

"Something like that, Jack," Troy said. "Why don't we just mosey up to the plateau and see how our defenses are holding. We might blow a tank tread or two."

They drove straight north for almost an hour and then turned east toward the Mediterranean. Although the jeeps ran without lights, the moon was so bright their shadows ran with them. It was a warm evening, not uncomfortable but warm for the desert, and Troy thought the air felt moist. It was strange, he thought, that the humidity from the ocean should be so noticeable after just one day in the interior.

It was nearing twenty-two-hundred hours when they approached the oasis where they'd destroyed the first Jerry dump. Tully and Hitch parked on a dune a thousand yards away and Troy and Moffitt observed it carefully through glasses for several minutes before they circled it wide in opposite directions. The smell of gasoline and burned oil still clung to it, and the sand was littered with blown drums and the black wreckage of the halftrack and truck. The area was clear and Troy went in to the waterhole. The brackish water had a faintly oilish taste. After filling the tanks with gasoline, they used the water only to fill the radiators. From the oasis, they drove straight north toward the western end of the defense line, keeping within the shadowed valleys until the ground began to get rocky.

"We'd better leave the jeeps and go on foot," Troy told Tully.

Carrying tommy-guns and grenades, the four crawled ahead to reconnoiter. It was uncommonly quiet on the plateau, Troy thought, as if all the world were sleeping, but the air tasted of recent battle. They slunk over the hard earth for almost half a mile before Troy, cresting a stony dime, saw the squatty outlines of two medium Jerry tanks about a thousand yards ahead. They were facing the last Allied position across the minefield, but they were about four thousand yards from it, well out of range. The ravaged earth bore evidence of exploded mines. Troy wondered why the guns were silent. The night was ideal for warfare. He considered planting a grenade with the pin pulled under the treads of a tank and dismissed the idea. There would be other targets and he wanted a further look at the situation before alerting the Jerries.

"I don't like it," he said quietly when he was in the valley with the others. "It's peculiar. It doesn't feel right. Dietrich ought to have all his armor pounding away at our positions."

"Maybe he's out of gas, Sarge," Tully drawled and fished a matchstick from his pocket.

"Not so soon," Troy said. "He must have started with full tanks. He's got enough gas for another day or two."

"What do you think, Sam?" Moffitt asked.

"I don't," Troy said, puzzled. "I just feel something in the air. Let's take the jeeps, swing south and come up near the middle of his line."

This time he had Tully park in a depression about a mile from his estimated position for the Jerry armor. Again the four of them advanced warily through shadowed valleys or from rock to rock when they found them. Troy left the others wrapped in shadows and crawled up a hard-packed slope on his belly. When he reached the top he flattened instinctively. He was closer to the Jerry armor than he'd realized. On both sides of the hill, tanks were parked and men were sleeping on the ground.

Bareheaded, he rested his chin on the ground and looked straight ahead. The minefield was pocked with a thousand craters. At the edge of the field he saw a small area that recently had been leveled. Shifting his eyes on down the line, he saw several more such positions at regular intervals. He slipped down the slope and came back to the top facing the opposite direction. Again he found several of the small, level sites. They were platforms for something, but what?

Moffitt was as puzzled as Troy when he returned and described them.

"They sound almost like artillery positions," Moffitt said, "but what would Dietrich be doing with artillery?"

"Let's slip around the back way to the other column and see if anything new has come in," Troy suggested.

They returned to the jeeps and drove straight east, coming to the route south of the command post they'd destroyed. Tully drove across it slowly, too slowly for Troy in the moonlight. Tully stopped behind the dune on the other side.

"What is it?" Troy asked.

"They been working on that road, Sarge," Tully said. "They been smoothing it out and filling it in."

"So there's a regulation against that?" Troy asked.

Hitch and Moffitt parked and walked over.

"What is it, Sam?" Moffitt asked.

"Ask Tully," he said.

"They been fixing up that road for a plane to land," Tully said. "They don't give a hoot or a holler how rough a road is for trucks and tanks. The only reason they been smoothing that road out is a plane is coming in here carrying something they don't want jarred no more than can be helped."

Troy looked narrowly at Moffitt. "High explosives," he said.

"You know, Sam," Moffitt said slowly, "I believe you are correct. And those positions you described might well be rocket-launching pads."

Troy whistled soundlessly. "They could tear the town apart. We've our night's work cut out for us."

"Such as?" Hitch asked.

"We're going to mine that road for the whole distance it's been worked," Troy said. "Every place they've filled in a pot hole, we're going to plant an impact charge." He laughed quietly. "I hope it takes all we've got. I'll be glad to get rid of them."

They remained behind the dune until the moon went out and then they worked in teams. Troy and Tully started at the end of the repaired road near the former command post. The drums still were there, stacked three and four high and lined in rows, but no guards patrolled them now. Where the tents had been, there was only a blacker patch in the darkness. Moffitt and Hitch worked toward them from two miles away. Although they worked rapidly, scratching out the packed earth with their knives, laying their charges at a depth of one or two inches and packing the dirt carefully back, it was almost oh-three-hundred in the morning before the four of them met. Not a patrol car or guard had appeared all during the night.

Wearily Troy trudged with the others over the dune to the jeeps. "Funny they didn't have any guards," he mumbled.

"Why should they, Sam?" Moffitt asked and chuckled. "They undoubtedly have had contact with Sidi Abd and the Arab bit won't deceive Dietrich. He thinks now that we've destroyed all his patrol, our mission is accomplished and we're out of his hair."

"Maybe you're right," Troy said sleepily. "Let's get the nets over the jeeps."

"Are we going to stay here, Sarge?" Tully asked.

"Yes," Troy said. "I want to see what happens."

"We'd best find another place, Sam," Moffitt said. "Depending on the time they come in and the position of the sun, it's possible they might pick us up from the air even though we are under nets."

"I guess you're right, Doctor, and I thank you," Troy said, yawning again. "I'm too sleepy to think straight. Where shall we go?"

"Into the deep wadi where we parked last night when we hit the command post," Moffitt said. "We can watch the events from the dune."

"Sorry, gents," Tully drawled, "but aren't you forgetting something?"

"Oh?" Moffitt said, smiling. "What have we forgotten?"

"Tracks," Tully said. "From the air, they'd lead right into the wadi, and like you said, the nets might not hide us."

"All right, Tully," Troy said edgily. "I'd like to be within a couple miles. Where do we go?"

"There's just one safe place," Tully said rolling his matchstick. "We dig us a cave by pulling out some of them empty drums they got piled up. Nobody's paying attention to them now. Nobody's going to notice a extra row we make from those we take out for our hole. We'll have a ringside seat for the show and they're going to be too busy with that busted up plane to pay us any attention when we bust out."

9

It was Herr Oberst Funke's snoring that had awakened him, Dietrich was certain, as he opened his eyes in the gray half-light inside the HQ tent. The air was fetid and Dietrich rose swiftly from his cot and pulled back the flap at the entrance. He stepped outside in his undershorts, glancing at his watch and looking to the east where the sky was light but hazed. It was a few minutes past oh-five-hundred and any moment the rising sun would burn away the pallid gauze that draped the horizon. The camp was awake and the smell of coffee drifted from the mess tent. He listened a second or two for the drone of aircraft motors, but there was no sound from the sky. In fact it seemed unnaturally quiet. There seemed to be some pressure in the air and breathing was a little difficult.

He turned back into the tent, washed in a basin on an upended ammunition box and shaved hurriedly, dressing and leaving without disturbing the old man. He would have preferred remaining in the field the night before to sharing a tent with the beer-sour colonel, but he'd wanted to be sure he was on hand when the Me-323 arrived with its uncommon cargo. Nebelwerfers had been used a time or two in North Africa, but they were enough of a rarity to excite him and he wanted a private word with the officer in charge of the rocket launchers. He wanted it clearly understood that they were to be elevated for the range of the military targets only, the warehouses, piers and installations on the waterfront. He was afraid Herr Oberst Funke might want to try them out on the tanks and there was too much danger of overshooting the bluff with the terrible rockets.

Except for the physical disturbances created by the sodden colonel, it had been a quiet night, a peaceful night, and Dietrich had slept well. Now if the rockets could be brought in on the targets he'd charted, Sidi Beda should soon be in their hands. One round of six shells from each of the twenty-four pieces should do it and Herr Oberst Funke could ride in his glory to accept the surrender. The port facilities would have to be rebuilt after the barrage but that could not be helped.

At the mess tent, Dietrich nodded to three officers from Funke's column who were breakfasting but sat apart from them at the far end of the long table. The breakfast was satisfactory, relatively tasteless but passable. Without waiting for a second cup of coffee, he lighted a cigarette and stepped outside, sighting down the route as he did. The aircraft would land a good two miles away, he thought, at least a mile south of the old CP.

Oberst Funke trotted out in his shorts and unbuttoned shirt. "Hans, why did you not awaken me?" he asked, sounding offended.

"I was just coming in to do so," Dietrich said evenly and looked at his watch. "I think it is time we were started."

"One moment only," the colonel said, turning and starting back for the tent. "A car for me get."

"Are you coming with me to meet the aircraft?" Dietrich asked.

"No, Hans," Oberst Funke said. "You know what you wish to do with the Nebelwerfers. I am going to ready my column and proceed to the pass. There can be no doubt of the outcome. I shall take with me the communications van. Call me after you have fired your first rounds and I shall demand the surrender."

No doubt of the outcome, Dietrich thought a little bitterly. The colonel was right. It was not the way Dietrich liked to wage warfare, but with the threat to the civilian population, the result of the first wave of rockets was predictable. The American colonel, Wilson, would surrender rather than subject the native civilian population to annihilation. In a sense, it was amusing. Dietrich would not knowingly shell the civilians.

The colonel ducked into his tent and Dietrich ordered the staff car, a Mercedes sedan, brought around. With the abrupt appearance of Colonel Funke, the entire camp seemed to have awakened and now the mess tent was filled and the enlisted men were busy with small, individual fires preparing their rations at the sides of their units. While the colonel shaved and dressed, Dietrich kept looking to the sky and listening for the Me-323. The sun had not yet shown itself and the day was definitely overcast. Dietrich was not particularly concerned. It was odd to have this sort of weather after the weeks of hot, clear days that had followed the rainy season in December and January, but clouds would absorb some of the heat and even if rain should fall, which was unlikely, it would scarcely hamper the operation with the rockets.

"What was it you said the American colonel called himself?" Oberst Funke asked as he climbed into the Mercedes. He was dressed smartly in a fresh tunic and wore a pointed-crowned Afrika Korps cap.

"Wilson," Dietrich said absently, scanning the sky for the aircraft.

"So we shall meet in the town, Hans," the colonel said and chuckled. "Do you remember the place of the Frenchman? He knows how to keep his beer cool in the cellar. Shall we meet there? Hans? I shall allow you two hours to bring your armor into the town after the surrender."

"I shall meet you there, Herr Oberst," Dietrich said and smiled thinly. "Remember, the Frenchman's young lady knows how to keep Wehrmacht officers at a distance."

"Ach, Hans, I would not touch that one with a ten-foot pole if I possessed it," the colonel said and his face reddened. The French girl had rejected his attentions with a stinging blow to his chin in front of Dietrich and half a dozen staff officers.

The colonel's car, followed by the communication van, drove up the route to the head of the column, and Dietrich went looking for Corporal Willi Wunder to take him down the road.

The sky was graying rapidly along the horizon and Dietrich examined it curiously as the first elements of Colonel Funke's column turned over their motors. Even if it did rain, he did not see how it could interfere with the Nebelwerfers. Rain in the desert could mire the halftracks and tanks and he might have difficulty getting the armor off the battlefield, but the roadbed seemed substantial enough and Funke should have no trouble driving into the town. If there were a heavy rainfall and the half tracks and tanks bogged down, it would be the Nebelwerfers that saved the day.

Willi was waiting in the armored car just beyond the end of the column, sitting behind the steering wheel, smoking a cigarette. He started to get out but Dietrich waved him back. He thought at last he had heard the distant mutter of aircraft engines. He looked quickly at the gray sky but could see nothing.

"Drive right down the road," he told Corporal Wunder. "We'll wait for them where the empty drums are piled."

The Rat Patrol had been more bothersome than usual during this campaign, he thought but he smiled. Destruction of his fuel supplies had very nearly wrecked his plans for taking Sidi Beda, but out of necessity had come the call for the Nebelwerfers and if it did rain enough to muck down the armor, it would be the Rat Patrol he could thank for forcing him to bring in the rockets. With the last report of the Rat Patrol activity from Sidi Abd, they should not be annoying him again for a time. He had not heard from his own facsimile Rat Patrol again from Sidi Beda, but he was satisfied they already had served their purpose.

A fat drop of rain splashed on Dietrich's cheek as Willi neared the fuel drums. At almost the same moment, the enormous six-engined Me-323 emerged from the overcast. It circled the roadway and Dietrich told Willi to stop and put up the top. Willi braked in front of the rows of empty drums piled three high as the big plane began its approach to the road. Dietrich jumped from the car to give Willi a hand. He found himself facing Sergeant Sam Troy who stepped from the petrol drums with a submachine gun leveled at Dietrich's belt.

It had been a fitful morning, and several times Troy had awakened doubting the wisdom of Tully's suggestion that they conceal themselves within the drums. It had not been too much of a trick to remove a dozen barrels and make a new row, run in the jeeps and pile drums over them, but sitting on the ground with Tully in front of their jeep, Troy had felt confined and restrained. The odor of the gasoline had choked him and the fumes made his eyes smart. He dozed and awakened worrying that trucks or armor would pass over the mined road before the plane made its landing.

It was morning and gray light showed through the two-foot intervals they'd left between the drums, when the clack of tappets jerked Troy's head up. Tully was leaning forward, gun cradled in his arms. Troy restrained him, got to his knees as an armored car pulled up in front of the drums and stopped. Dietrich stepped out and Troy confronted him with his machine gun.

"Good morning, Captain," he said with a grin. "Tully," he called, "give the corporal a hand with the top and ask Moffitt and Hitch to come out. We may as well watch this landing in comfort."

Dietrich's face turned a shade grayer as Troy prodded him back in the front seat and sat behind him with the barrel of the submachine gun pushed into his neck. Tully helped the corporal with the top on the car as Moffitt and Hitch crawled from the drums and climbed into the back with Troy. The rain was plopping heavily on the top when Tully and the corporal got in. The day was suddenly darker and mossy clouds with dangling tendrils scudded close to the ground.

The aircraft seemed to be loafing as it lazed toward the road. It was the largest plane Troy had ever seen. A fat-nosed, underhung fuselage sprouted wings almost two-hundred feet wide and the six three-bladed propellers whipped the rain laden air with a growling fury.

"What have you done now, Sergeant Troy?" Dietrich asked tightly without turning his head.

"Depends on how you look at it, Captain," Troy said, smiling. "Is that rockets you're bringing in here?"

Almost two miles away, the Me-323 touched down on the roadway. Almost immediately an impact charge exploded and the huge plane shuddered and swung to one side. The swerving tail detonated another charge and the section burst into flames. A wing dipped, scraping the road for a few feet and another explosion blasted the aircraft.

"Great God!" Dietrich gasped as the aircraft erupted in a series of mighty explosions that tore it apart and threw sections of the plane and its cargo far out in the desert.

"Time for us to blow," Troy said, leaping from the car, lifting Dietrich's pistol from its holster and kicking aside the front row of drums. The rain was falling steadily and hard now. "Sorry we can't stay for the next act," he shouted at Dietrich, "but you'd better stick with tanks."

Tully and Hitch had rolled the barrels from the jeeps and now they started the vehicles and banged out. Moffitt already was at the machine gun in the rear of the jeep Hitch was driving and Troy leaped to the weapon in his jeep. He already was soaked to the skin by the drenching rain. Dietrich's driver had started his car.

"Better stay off the road," Troy shouted. "It's mined for two miles."

The great aircraft was burning and exploding. Troy did not think there would be anything salvageable left.

The jeeps headed straight west into the desert. From the north, an armored car and a sedan were racing towards Dietrich's car. The rain had not yet turned the baked earth of the plateau near the bluff into goo, but Troy knew that it would be only a matter of half an hour or so before the land was nearly impassable if the downpour continued. Until the sun dried out the land again, Dietrich's armor was going to be useless. Even the jeeps were skidding as they plunged behind Dietrich's line.

Troy's thoughts were tumbling one over the other as he tried to think of a safe place to conceal the jeeps where they would still be quickly available for use. The driving rain curtained their movements if there was any pursuit, and when the jeeps were a mile from the route, Troy called a halt. Hitch drove close alongside and parked, sitting with his arms clasping his wet shirt over his ribs.

"What do you know!" he shouted to Tully and opened his mouth in a wide grin, "A real midwestern downpour. In the desert yet. It sure beats the sun."

"If it keeps up," Tully drawled, relatively dry in his helmet, "we're going to need oars. Where we going, Sarge?"

"I don't like to get too far from the road and that column they've run up near the pass," Troy said. "As long as the rain comes down like this, they can't see us from very far off. Dietrich must have taken the gun emplacements we had commanding the pass. Let's see if we can get them back."

"Don't you think we should take along an anchor to hold them, old boy," Moffitt observed.

The rain pounded them as Tully drove north by compass, feeling his way carefully over the surface that was becoming greasy with mud. It was about seven miles from the old CP to the pass and they'd detoured off the route. Troy kept calling to Tully for the mileage. Hitch was following close behind. It took half an hour to cover slightly more than seven miles and they drove the distance without seeing a person or vehicle, although they might have been within fifty yards of a tank and not seen it. Nor did they hear a sound except the rain thumping the hoods. The ground was becoming rocky and the jeeps were jolting.

"I'm going to walk you in the last half mile or so," Troy called and jumped to the ground. He stood beside Tully. "We'll try to take the gun position on the west side of the pass first and then cut across the road and see if we can surprise them. Don't fire unless necessary. If we grab the positions, you can run down for Wilson."

"Whyn't we just take the armored column while we're at it and let Dietrich surrender?" Tully asked mildly.

With compass in hand, Troy trotted in front of the jeep Tully was driving, looking for large stones that might hang up the vehicles and for the edge of the bluff with the emplacements the Jerries had taken. As long as the rain continued, he thought they had a good chance of recapturing the positions. The road should still be passable and Troy thought Wilson could charge up the pass, overwhelm the column by surprise and flank Dietrich's armor in the field.

After ten minutes, Troy slowed to a walk and changed his course slightly to the east. He thought he must be nearing the edge of the plateau overlooking the pass and he slogged along wearily with the jeep chugging in gear at his heels. Visibility was not good but he thought he could see far enough around to ward off any sudden encounter. Abruptly out of the gray rain a figure lunged at him from the side and rammed a machine pistol into his ribs.

When it started to rain, the Arab natives who'd been on the piers, beaches and in the wasteland at the edge of the town crowded into the warehouse and soon the large building was a babbling coliseum of men, women and children, confused and terrified. They overflowed into the small warehouse that contained the soup kitchen and crowded the line until a coffee urn was overturned. Shrieking at the scalding liquid, they jostled and roughed the MPs until Wilson finally ordered the food and equipment removed.

This infuriated the Arabs. Shouting angrily as they were pushed from the soup kitchen, they did not return to the large warehouse that had been provided for their shelter and protection but flowed back into the native quarter, seeking their homes. Wilson ordered his men not to restrain them. There had been no shelling during the night and the throng was becoming unmanageable. If the mortars fired this morning, the Arabs would crowd back.

At HQ, Wilson paced and waited for the explosions that would signal the beginning of the mortar attack. While the heavy rainfall would bog down the tanks on the plateau, it would not seriously interfere with the mortar barrage. The rain would, in fact, intensify the terror of the shelling. Jerry would not be able to see his tank targets. Shells likely would be dropping all over the quarter. Wilson damned the unruly natives for not staying put in the warehouse. The Frenchies, at least, were relatively quiet this morning, probably sleeping off the effects of their concertinas and wine.

The rain couldn't last long, Wilson kept assuring himself. It was unnatural, irrelevant and completely out of season. But it didn't seem to slacken. He had never seen anything like it. At times it seemed as if solid sheets of water were pouring steadily, as if a tap had been turned on full force. It had been raining for half an hour now and he knew he could no longer delay the decision he must make. Reluctantly he stepped into the radio room and told Corporal Locke to call Divisional Headquarters.

"Visibility zero," he reported crisply. "You'll have to hold the squadron off the run until the weather clears."

"Hey, that's funny," some wiseacre at the other end cracked. "You're lucky. The sun is burning us up down here."

Wilson signed off and snorted. He hadn't even been able to send his observation Cub aloft. He did not know whether the column that had been bunched beyond the pass had moved.

"Hasn't anything come in from Captain Drake at the foot of Latsus?" he asked Locke.

"I haven't been able to raise him, sir," Locke said, looking genuinely regretful. "It's possible that in this weather his transmitter has gone out."

Wilson told First Sergeant Peilowski to get him a car. He had to know whether Drake's halftracks still were in position and operational, and whether the enemy had attempted to break out through the pass under cover of the rain. On second thought, he also told Peilowski to get him a canteen of hot coffee. This would be a cold, soggy morning for Drake.

The cigar-chewing sergeant had a top on the car. It was damp but not actually wet in the front seat and Wilson relaxed a little, looking around. As the sergeant poked down the avenue, splashing through the water, Wilson noted that the Frenchies had finally awakened and were running from the warehouse into the quarter with the last groups of Arabs. The evacuation had been a fine idea and a colossal flop. At least the night had been relatively uneventful. There had been a few fights in the warehouse occupied by the Frenchies, but Wilson had let them settle things among themselves. The Rat Patrol had not showed.

The car moved into the barren countryside where the water was running over the hard earth down the slope to the mussel-shell beach. The roadbed was draining and holding quite well. Wilson noted the backup line of halftracks beyond the edge of town, crews hunched in ponchos. Someone had had the good sense to send in for rain gear. Just beyond Mile Six, the sergeant took his foot from the accelerator and braked suddenly. A sentry stood in the middle of the road with his tommy-gun leveled at them. Wilson nodded approvingly. Drake was taking precautions.

"Where is Captain Drake?" Wilson called to the sentry.

"Park just ahead, sir," the sentry shouted back. "You'll find him about fifty yards off the road."

Drake had requisitioned, dug up or stolen a large chunk of canvas which he'd propped up with poles as a lean-to at the side of his halftrack. He was sitting under it on a crate, eating a sodden biscuit and washing it down with water.

"Water you don't need, here's some hot coffee," Wilson said, handing him the canteen. "We haven't been able to contact you. Is your radio out?"

"Thanks," Drake said heartily, grasping the canteen. He stood, motioning Wilson to the crate. Wilson shook his head. Drake remained standing, drinking from the neck of the canteen as he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the halftrack. A man was in the front seat. "My man is working on it now. Maybe the rain got into the condensers or coils. Incidentally, we had some excitement last night."

"Did the Jerries try to come through?" Wilson asked quickly.

"Not that I know of," Drake said. "It must be pretty slushy in the pass. I don't think they'll attempt it, but if they do, we've put a cork in the bottle. I moved a halftrack right into the pass on the road. I don't think they can see us from above in the rain. At least they haven't dropped a shell. When it begins to clear, I'll pull the halftrack back, but I didn't want the Jerries trying to sneak by."

"Good!" Wilson exclaimed, wishing he had more men like Drake, and Farb with the tanks. "What was the excitement, then?"

"The Rat Patrol was prowling," Drake said. "I don't know whether they thought they could make a run through the pass or had sabotage in mind. We spotted them in the moonlight and for a while I thought we had them trapped between the two lines of halftracks. I took after them, but they managed to stay out of range. They cut across the open ground off the road toward the bluff and disappeared in the native quarter."

"I think they were trying to break out," Wilson said. "Things were getting too hot for them. I evacuated the quarter and had patrols searching the buildings. They've a hide-out somewhere, but we haven't uncovered it. They'll undoubtedly try to come through again. Next time, take them."

Machine guns chattered and interrupted Wilson. Two jeeps, windshields now up against the rain, raced by spraying water off the road almost as far as the lean-to. Wilson followed by Drake ran to his car.

"It was the Rat Patrol," the sergeant said, getting up from the floor. "I ducked."

"The halftrack will get them in the pass," Drake shouted. "They can't get by. They're blocked."

"Come on," Wilson roared, getting into the front seat. "Let's get up there."

Drake hopped in behind Wilson and the sergeant started the motor. Machine gun fire sounded from not far off.

"Now they've nailed the Rat Patrol," Wilson said exultantly. "Dead or alive, we've taken them."

The sergeant had not yet pulled onto the road when the two jeeps dived at the car. Wilson heard an explosion from not far off as Troy in his bush hat and goggles squeezed a scornful burst from the machine gun when the jeeps ran by.

10

The Me-323 with its crew and its cargo appeared to be totally lost. Dietrich ordered Corporal Willi Wunder to stay away from the burning ship which although twisted and torn still shuddered with ripping blasts. There could not have been any survivors, Dietrich thought grimly as he radioed for two cars with medics. No one could possibly have lived through the crash and the fire.

An armored car and Colonel Funke's Mercedes rounded the pile of drums and started down the road toward the ship. Dietrich ran toward the route from the sloshy desert where Willi had parked, waving them off. The driver of Funke's staff car saw Dietrich and drove toward him, but apparently the driver of the armored car thought Dietrich only wanted the attention of the colonel and moved on down the road toward the shattered aircraft. Beyond the drums about a hundred yards, the car detonated a charge that must have blown its gas tank because the vehicle exploded and burst into flames.

"What is it that has happened?" Oberst Funke cried as he rolled from the car.

"The Rat Patrol once more," Dietrich said through clenched teeth. "Did you not see them driving into the desert when you approached?"

"I saw something but could not tell what it was from such a distance," the colonel said. "Why did you not take them, Hans, when you had the opportunity?"

"Because they held me prisoner," Dietrich shouted, enraged, "with a gun to my head."

"They have managed to destroy the Nebelwerfers," the colonel said woefully, looking toward the flaming wreckage.

"They have destroyed our supplies of fuel, they have destroyed the rocket launchers and gun crews along with the largest cargo plane the Luftwaffe possesses," Dietrich said fiercely. "If the rain long continues our armor will be mired and they will yet find the means to destroy what remains ours at a time when we are unable to withdraw."

"It is terrible," Herr Oberst Funke commented somewhat remotely. "The field marshall will be enraged when he learns that you have sacrificed the Nebelwerfers together with the aircraft and personnel for no logical reason."

"It is terrible," Dietrich agreed, "that we have suffered such grievous losses. The only thing that possibly could save us now is the capture of the port, and at the moment I am unable to suggest a means to accomplish such an impossible task."

"What of this new weapon of yours, Hans," the colonel suggested unexpectedly. "This duplicate Rat Patrol which you have placed within the town. Cannot you call upon them for some action against the enemy that will constrain him as seriously as we have been restricted?"

"We have had only the initial communication from them and they seemed well started," Dietrich said, brightening. "I shall at once attend to contacting them. Your thought is a good one, Herr Oberst, and I shall order them to make every new effort."

Cars with medics and rescue squads arrived before Colonel Funke and Dietrich started back. Dietrich warned of the mines. He was certain the crew in the armored car and the men in the plane were long beyond help. Back at the command post, Funke went into his tent while Dietrich rode up the road. The armor had been parked off the roadbed at one side.

"Call Ungeziefer," he ordered the radio operator in the communications van.

Either the boy was inept or sleepy again this morning. Several minutes dragged by and Dietrich had almost concluded the men had left the warehouse where the receiver and transmitter were concealed when his signal was acknowledged.

"Listen carefully, it is important," he said. "I must have decisive action. Destroy the weapons at the foot of the pass. Blow up ammunition and fuel. Strike wherever you can. A native uprising would help. Move now under cover of rain."

"It is understood," his Rat Patrol assured him.

Dietrich stepped into the damp, clinging, choking air of the tent and pulled off his wet tunic and cap. "Herr Oberst," he said, "your armor is parked off the road near the mouth of the pass."

"Ja, Hans," the colonel said glancing up from his beer with a worried look in his eyes. "Is there something wrong about that?"

"No, Herr Oberst," Dietrich said, a smile trifling his lips. "It is good the armor is in position. I have been thinking that we may be able to break into the port with a part of your column. I have ordered the Rat Patrol of ours to attack the weapons which the enemy has drawn up at the bottom of the pass. Now, if we were to organize a platoon and march down the pass on foot under the cover of the rain, it is possible we could seize the other weapons of the enemy and clear the way for the armor."

"You propose to capture the enemy's armor with foot soldiers?" the colonel cried in astonishment.

"The rain is coming down harder," Dietrich said. "It is seriously limiting visibility. The enemy would not be expecting such an attack. He will be diverted by the actions of our Rat Patrol. While the enemy is otherwise occupied and the rain is pouring uncomfortably, we may be able to slip our men close to the armor with grenades and machine pistols. I think foot soldiers will come as a devastating surprise."

"But where will be get the foot soldiers, Hans?" the colonel asked. "Will you bring those idle men of yours in from the field?"

"I doubt they could get in over the many miles of wet ground even if it were desirable to take men out of the armor in the battlefield," Dietrich said quietly. "We shall take a hundred of your men from your idle machines and pour them through the pass. That will leave you with full crews for more than half of your column to accompany you into the town when the way has been cleared."

"Hans, I do not like to do this," the colonel said stubbornly. "Each of your plans for this battle has resulted in disaster. I am unwilling to sacrifice the crews from almost one half of my armor."

"If we do not take the town, you may no longer have crews of any kind to command," Dietrich said in a punishing body blow. "Our situation, as you well know, is intolerable. If we do not serve up a victory to the field marshal, we may well find ourselves recalled to Berlin."

"You never leave a choice to me, Hans," the colonel complained with a frown. "Who is there to command this untrained company of foot soldiers recruited from my skilled armored technicians?"

"I myself will lead them," Dietrich said disdainfully. "Shall we proceed?"

The gamble was desperate, Dietrich admitted, but it appeared now that only a bold bet could win the stakes. He'd entered the game confidently, but the Rat Patrol had not dealt the cards from the top of the deck. That was not entirely true, he reminded himself. The Rat Patrol had been daring, but they had also been fair. While they could not well have burdened themselves with him as a prisoner when they'd surprised him at the empty drums, they need not have warned him that the road had been mined.

He rode with Colonel Funke through the downpour to the column and the colonel ordered the five man crews from his last twenty tanks to assemble on the road. An armored car with grenades and weapons and steel helmets parked behind the Mercedes.

"You are going through the pass on foot," the colonel bellowed at the drenched men. "You will seize or destroy the armor which the enemy has guarding the bottom of the pass. Captain Dietrich will command you. You will be issued machine pistols, grenades and helmets. When the way out of the pass has been opened, I shall bring the rest of the armor down and we shall drink beer in the town before evening."

Dietrich sourly examined his command. The men were a sorry-looking, bedraggled lot. None of them, including Dietrich, had a raincoat and their soaked trousers and shirts clung to their skin. They strapped helmets under their chins, hung their grenades and took the machine pistols in sullen silence. Dietrich ordered them into a column of twos and stepped off at the head of the patrol. The rain was coming down in sheets. It was gray and seemed almost solid. Water now covered the road. As he neared the beginning of the slope through the rock, he seemed to be walking under a waterfall and he sloshed with the water over the ankles of his boots.

The entire battle from the beginning had been a tank commander's nightmare, Dietrich thought. Unable to clear the minefield or to maneuver, he first had been forced to call for artillery and now he was slushing at the head of infantry. The rain beat down on him harder, if that were possible. It was becoming an unbelievable deluge that threatened to drown him as he breathed. The road would be running like a river through the pass, Dietrich thought, and he wondered whether it would be possible to push the armor through it.

The column of twos marched past the communications van. Although within sight now of the pass, visibility was limited to yards and Dietrich plodded on in a gray haze of water. The roadbed fell away steeply and Dietrich was alarmed that the water rushed up to his calves. The rocks closed in on either side and the water climbed almost to his knees. It was a torrent that smashed at him and forced him stumbling and staggering ahead. He fell against the rock wall of the defile, bracing himself and turning.

"Back, back," he shouted to the first men in his column.

They plunged ahead and pushed against him threatening to tumble him down the gorge. He pressed his back against the wall, clutching for a handhold, gasping as he lowered his head against the driving rain. It could not be worse, he thought hopelessly and just then the machine gun position above opened fire on his trapped company of men.

Wilson had found the halftrack's gun blown apart by the blast from the Rat Patrol's charge or grenade. Two of the crew were dead and one was wounded. Only the three had been stationed with the weapon at the pass. With the aid of Drake and the sergeant, he assisted the wounded man into his car.

"I'll send another car for the dead and a halftrack to replace this one," Wilson told Drake. He had difficulty thinking or speaking. He was shocked almost to numbness by the murder of his men by the Rat Patrol.

"We may have trouble with the water," Drake said in a mechanical sort of response.

Wilson nodded, aware that the water was rising on the road. It was spouting from the pass and spilling over the plain. "You'd better move your halftracks onto the roadbed," he told Drake. "If the road starts to go, leave one vehicle to command the pass and pull the others back. Nobody's coming down in that river."

He thought he heard the rattle of machine gun fire as the sergeant backed the car and maneuvered it about, but he wasn't certain. He couldn't be certain of any sound except the roar of the rushing water. He no longer felt sure of anything except his bitter hatred for the Rat Patrol. They had come prepared to blast their way through the pass, he thought, and when they found the halftrack barring the entrance had wantonly murdered two men. Troy had tried to gun him down as he had shot at the man awaiting the wounded at the foot of the bluff. The four men of the Rat Patrol were mad killers and would stop at nothing. He warned Drake again before dropping him off and told him to place another sentry on the road.

The sergeant risked driving half blind and speeded the wounded man to the aid station. It seemed there was a foot of water on the road. It was a flood, Wilson thought, a raging flood. Dietrich's armor would be immobilized if the rain continued. There'd be no fighting anywhere until Dietrich could get his armor out of the mud. It still might be possible to bring in the planes to bomb the Jerry tanks.

When the wounded man had been left with the medics, and the car and halftrack sent out to Drake, Wilson returned to his office. There was nothing to do now but wait for the rain to stop.

Peilowski stepped into the room with a sheet of paper in his hand. "Locke monitored another transmission," he said. "We pick Jerry up on this one frequency that seems to be constant. They keep changing the others."

"What is it?" Wilson snapped, reaching for the paper. "It was from Dietrich to Moffitt," Peilowski said, handing Wilson the paper.

He scanned it rapidly. Dietrich was calling for sabotage, riots and an attack on the weapons stationed at the pass. The Rat Patrol hadn't been trying to break out. They were commanded to strike in a new series of terrifying raids.

"We can't wait any longer," Wilson shouted and slammed the desk with his fist. "We've got to take the Rat Patrol now. Get me cars and a patrol."

Wrapped in ponchos and wearing steel helmets, the MP patrol of twelve men left three armored cars and drivers with tommy-guns blocking the three alleys that led into the quarter at the edge of town. Wilson sent four men into the alleys on either side of the one the Rat Patrol had been seen entering. He took four men and sloshed ahead in that alley to the comer where the Rat Patrol had turned.

All of the buildings they at first passed were one-story mud houses that afforded no place to hide the jeeps, yet Wilson and his men pushed through each open entrance and pounded on doors. Most of the hovels were one-room affairs and were crowded with the natives who'd streamed back from the warehouse. Women drew scarfs over their faces as the patrol entered. Children, bare-bottomed or draped in rags huddled in corners. Men glared in silence as the MPs inspected each possible hiding place with flashlights.

Wilson's patrol moved slowly down the tedious alley and as they neared the military avenue the houses gave way to stables, grain bins, storehouses and shops. Many of the warehouses had high double-doors.

"Watch your step," Wilson cautioned his patrol. "Any one of these places would hide the jeeps."

The doors of the first warehouse were barred and no one answered when Wilson pounded on it.

"Break them down," he barked.

The five men crashed their shoulders against the doors and when they burst open, fanned out inside with flashlights darting into the dark recesses. There was an airless but grassy smell within the building. It was empty except for a few dozen burlap bags containing grain. The patrol moved on to the next storehouse where a wizened Arab with a face like a monkey answered their blows at the door. The building contained a clutter of lumber salvaged from crates that had been unloaded at the piers. The old man seemed fearful they would take it away. He was still bobbing his head in gratitude that they didn't as the patrol waded through water across to the next blankfaced, double-doored building.

As Wilson was hammering at the doors, the doors of a building fifty yards away flew open and two jeeps darted out, turning sharply. Troy and Moffitt, wearing goggles and their characteristic headpieces, swung their machine guns and opened fire on the patrol. Wilson and his men, flattened inside the recessed entrance, threw their weapons to their shoulders and machine gun fire rattled down the alley. The jeeps raced toward the military avenue in the rain.

Wilson called to his men and ran to the warehouse from which the jeeps had burst. The doors were standing open and the patrol ran inside with flashlights playing over the space that was dimly lighted from grimed windows at the rear. Some blankets and rations were piled along a wall and Wilson examined them. They were Jerry issue. The Rat Patrol had not only made contact in person with Dietrich; they even had drawn supplies from the enemy.

"Colonel Wilson," one of the MPs called. "Here's the radio set."

Against the wall in a far comer was a powerful, battery-powered, high-frequency German receiver and transmitter.

"Shall we destroy it?" the MP asked Wilson.

"Of course not," Wilson said sharply. "We'll take it in."

The doors of the warehouse slammed shut with a bang and the five flashlights tossed beams toward the front of the building. An explosion boomed hollowly in the big empty room and flung Wilson smashing into the transmitter-receiver.

When the Jerry had plunged out of the rain and jabbed the pistol into Troy's ribs, Troy had instinctively slashed down with the barrel of his tommy-gun and jarred the gun out of the man's grasp. The man had cried sharply with pain and Troy had cut him down with a burst.

Cries broke out in German ahead of Troy and he swung himself into the jeep behind the machine gun as Tully drove for the voices. Moffitt and Troy both were raking the area ahead with bursts from their guns before their targets emerged from the rain. Troy caught two men at a machine gun as they were turning the weapon at the jeeps, and Moffitt caught three who opened fire with light machine guns.

When the firing ceased, Troy jumped to the ground and carrying a tommy-gun, turned the bodies over with the toe of his boot. The five men and the one who had jumped him all were dead. One of them was a lieutenant. The machine gun was the heavy Browning which Wilson had placed at this position, and Troy wondered what had happened to the crew. Six mortars were directed at the foot of the bluff. Shells were stacked behind them. The mortars were German and the tubes were full of water. Tully and Hitch carried the mortars to the edge of the bluff and heaved them over.

"Jack," Troy said, "you and Hitch hold this position if you have any visitors. Tully, we'll walk back to where the road enters the defile, cross over and see whether we can take that emplacement."

The rain was slapping the plateau with such blinding fury that Troy did not think anyone could have distinguished the sound of firing from ten yards away. There even seemed to be a roar in the air. He bent his head against the slanting sheets of water and he and Tully edged along the cut, working back to where the road could be crossed. Abruptly Troy stopped.

"Hold it," he whispered, grasping Tully's arm. He thought he had seen moving figures just ahead. He pulled Tully down into the mud.

A column of men walked out of the rain and moved into the pass. Dietrich was at the head of the column. Troy and Tully backed away from the edge of the pass and scrambled back to the emplacement. Moffitt and Hitch had them covered with their submachine guns when they ran into the position.

"Dietrich's trying to get through the pass on foot," Troy called. He ran to the Browning, in place on a tripod. "Hitch, you and Tully back up the jeeps. Work over the pass with guns. I'll use this weapon."

Troy opened fire down into the pass, working it blindly but stepping his bursts up toward the top. Tully and Hitch parked the jeeps near the edge and Moffitt and Tully opened fire with the two guns in the jeeps. Troy heard yells and curses in the pass. Machine gun fire chattered on the opposite side of the pass and Troy swept the other position as the two heavy guns of the jeeps pounded away into the pass. Troy sent a final burst at the other emplacement.

"They know our position and we don't know theirs," he shouted. "Those men will be coming out of the pass. Let's move."

He jumped in the back of the jeep as Tully moved to the front, and he fired two bursts into the gun on the tripod as Tully shot away from the position. Tully took the lead with Hitch following and drove west and then south the way they had come. The plateau now was slippery and even at low speed in four-wheel-drive the jeeps slithered along. Visibility was now limited to about ten yards. Troy was not sure where they were bound. He thought they had inflicted casualties on the men who had been moving down through the pass. He hoped the sound of guns firing from both positions had carried to the bottom and alerted whatever armor had been placed there. He wished Moffitt and Hitch could have held the emplacement while Tully and he had taken the other, but his plans had been disrupted by the abrupt appearance of Dietrich and his column.

The jeep slipped from the slimy surface of the soaked hardpan into the sand and Tully's wheels spun. Hitch managed to back away and Moffitt and Hitch joined Troy at the front of Tully's jeep. With the three of them pushing, they managed to lift the jeep out of the sand.

"We can't just sit this one out where Jerry will see us when the rain stops," Troy said. "I'm betting we're beyond the armored column. Let's go straight east to the road. I'll feel better when we have something substantial under the tires."

"Like the stretch of road we mined?" Tully asked.

"If we have to, we'll get the jeeps back in the drums until the desert dries out," Troy said. "I don't think they'll expect us to be there again."

Troy walked ahead of the jeep once again. He wanted to be sure there was something firmer than sand under the water. The insides of his boots were puddled and his hat was soaked through. He slipped and stumbled for a good half hour before he scuffed the firm subgrade of the road. While the jeeps waited, Moffitt walked north and Troy searched south to discover just where they were. After five or ten minutes of plodding in the thick, wet grayness, Troy turned about and walked back. He had seen nothing to tell him where they were. Moffitt was waiting at the jeeps.

"We're practically within their command," Moffitt said and smiled as the rain streamed down his face. "It is very nearly deserted. What would you say to commandeering the HQ tent?"

"Is there anyone in it?" Troy asked with a laugh.

"A colonel," Moffitt said. "He looks like a stuffed sausage."

"A colonel?" Troy said in surprise. "That means Dietrich isn't running the show. A colonel might be worth the trouble."

"It is possible Dietrich will return," Moffitt said smiling broadly now.

"Then we'll bop him," said Troy. "All right, we must be less than a mile from the drums. Let's hide the jeeps again and take possession of Jerry's HQ."

11

The ground beneath Dietrich's feet was giving away and he was losing the purchase his back had on the rock wall of the pass when machine gun fire coughed and spit overhead. It seemed to be coming from both the emplacements. He heard men cry out and plop in the rushing stream. The swirling water was threatening to wrest him from his precarious perch and tumble him down its steep course. The guns continued hacking at the men. It was the Rat Patrol on the bluff, he was certain.

Dietrich staggered against the pressure of the water and a hand grasped his forearm and held him steady.

"Try to keep your footing and remain still, Herr Hauptmann," a voice said and he turned his head to one of the officers from Funke's column. He was a lieutenant, Dietrich knew, although he did not recall the man's name. "Brace yourself as well as you can against the rock. The men behind us are trying to climb out of the pass. Some even are seeking to scale the wall. Others have been swept off their feet. If we remain quiet here a few moments, we should be able to work our way back."

The machine guns blasted again and fell silent.

"Thank you," Dietrich said tightly, hating himself for the position he was in. "I know you are attached to Colonel Funke's column, but I do not know your name."

"Gleicher," the man said with an admirable calmness. "Lieutenant Gleicher. Nasty mess."

"I do not know how it is possible, but it seems to grow constantly worse," Dietrich said frankly.

"The firing at least has stopped," Gleicher said. "I thought we held the emplacements above the pass."

"We did," Dietrich said. "I called Lieutenant Lungershausen who was in charge and advised him we were coming through. A patrol of the enemy must have surprised him. We shall hold the position again, as soon as this infernal rain stops and we are able to operate once more."

"It is odd the enemy seems to move freely about in such weather," Gleicher said. "He managed to blow up that aircraft, did he not?"

"The patrol of the enemy responsible is emphatically extraordinary," Dietrich said and felt a downward tug at his lips.

There did not seem to be so much pressure at their backs and with Gleicher still grasping Dietrich's arm, the two of them began to work their way up the pass with their backs to the wall. A man shot by them in the water, rolling over and over and shouting for help. Dietrich leaned forward with his hand outstretched but the man hurtled by. Another who had clawed his way halfway up the wall lost his grip and fell shrieking. The torrent swept him away. As Dietrich and Gleicher neared the top, they saw weaponless men on their hands and knees straggling against a snarling stream of mucky water that reached almost to their chins. A group of men huddled mutely on the middle of the road at the top of the pass. Others had started walking down the road toward the armor.

Dietrich glanced quickly at Gleicher. The lieutenant still clung to his machine pistol.

"Come with me, Gleicher," Dietrich said, stepping from the road and starting back along the bluff. The worst of the storm seemed to have passed. "We'll not find the Rat Patrol here now, but I want to see what their latest raid has cost."

At the wrecked gun position, Dietrich found five bodies and on the plateau a good distance away, the sixth. The last was Lieutenant Lungershausen. The mortars were missing. Dietrich cursed. He was thwarted, defeated by a phantom handful of men he could neither capture nor kill.

"We'll send for the dead," he grimly told Gleicher. "And I'll send out another crew with a machine gun again, although I am afraid we possess no more mortars for this side."

"I am afraid it may be a while before anything moves through that pass," Gleicher said. "Either up or down."

"Not if the rain doesn't stop," Dietrich agreed.

They walked slowly back the road toward the command post. The water still was ankle deep, although it was running off rapidly through the pass. At the side of the road, the armor seemed to have sunk in its tracks. Although no longer a deluge, the rain was still falling.

When they reached the command area, Gleicher turned in at the tent he shared with seven other officers and Dietrich, drenched, muddy and disgusted, splashed toward the HQ tent that seemed now to stand alone with the communications van moved. He lifted the flap and stepped inside.

"Why can't you leave the flap up for ventilation, Herr Oberst?" he asked irritably. "It's stifling in here."

Oberst Funke glared balefully and sat silent in a dry uniform on his camp stool. A gun barrel nudged the small of Dietrich's back and the flap dropped. The barrel pushed Dietrich ahead and as he neared the middle of the tent, Sergeant Sam Troy of the Rat Patrol came out of a corner with a tommy-gun aimed at his stomach.

"You would not deny us your hospitality on such a day, would you, Captain?" Sergeant Troy said with a pleasant smile. "I am afraid I must trouble you again for your gun."

Dietrich dropped the machine pistol to which he'd clung during the ordeal in the pass and his eyes jumped from the sergeant to the colonel.

"I was changing from my wet clothing," the colonel said helplessly in answer to Dietrich's unspoken question. "In a flash, the four of them were within the tent and all their weapons were pointing at me."

The gun barrel was removed from Dietrich's back and he turned to see the Englishman, Sergeant Moffitt, backing away with a submachine gun still pointed at him. The privates, Hitchcock with the glasses and Pettigrew chewing a matchstick, came from the corners and each sat on a cot.

"What is it you now want, Sergeant Troy?" Dietrich asked coldly although he was burning with rage.

"To win the war, of course," Troy said and laughed heartily. "But more immediately, a place that is safe out of the rain. If anyone comes to your tent, you will send him away. It would be unpleasant if we were forced to shoot our way out because first we should be compelled to dispose of the colonel and you."

"Don't make a fuss, Hans," the colonel pleaded. "Men desperate enough to invade our headquarters itself are not predictable in their actions."

Dietrich looked angrily at Troy. "Surely you are not insane enough to think you can possibly leave this camp alive," he said.

"That is our intention," Troy said calmly, "and we are considering taking you or the colonel with us. Wouldn't you like to change into dry clothes? I am sure you would be more comfortable."

"That is thoughtful of you. Sergeant," Dietrich said, stepping toward the locker at the foot of his cot where he remembered there was a Colt Forty-five he'd picked up as a souvenir. "If you will excuse me, I believe I shall change."

"One moment," Troy said politely, backing ahead of Dietrich to the locker. He threw back the lid, rummaged briefly and stood with the pistol in his hand. "It would not be wise to attempt anything, Captain. The colonel is right. We are sometimes impulsive."

Dietrich stood uncertainly a moment listening to the rain drumming on the canvas. The private with the red-topped French Legionnaire cap, Hitchcock, stood, motioning Dietrich to the cot. Dietrich pulled off his soggy boots. Troy threw him a towel from the crate with the basin and Dietrich turned his back to the four members of the Rat Patrol and pulled off his breeches.

A blast shook the air followed by a second and third explosion. They were not within the command area, but they were close enough to disturb Dietrich. He swung about, eyes darting to Troy.

"More of your destruction?" he asked savagely. "What is it this time, the armor?"

A smile flitted over Troy's face. "I had not expected it so soon," he said. "Your forces are being attacked from the rear."

"Impossible!" Dietrich cried, but he felt his face blanch. Another charge rent the air.

"Unfortunate they did not hold off until the rain stopped," Troy murmured. "It is comfortably dry here inside, but we shall have to leave now. Please lift the tent flap and call for a staff car, Captain. Do not forget that we are desperate. Lift the flap, stay within the tent so I can face you from the side, call for the car to be brought to the tent. No tricks. Moffitt is fluent in German, you know."

When Dietrich lifted the flap, he saw Gleicher still in his wet clothes running toward the tent. Dietrich's eyes shifted to Troy and saw the man was determined.

"Gleicher," Dietrich called. "Have the colonel's driver run the staff car to the tent at once."

"At once," Gleicher said, stopping. "I was coming to ask, what were the explosions?"

"That is what we shall discover when the car has been delivered," Dietrich said and dropped the flap. Hs saw Troy glance at Moffitt.

The Englishman smiled and nodded his head. "You cooperate very nicely indeed, Captain," he said.

"Now if you will step to your cot, Captain," Troy said. "Much as we would enjoy your company, I am afraid there will be room for only one and the colonel outranks you."

Sergeant Troy ran swiftly through Dietrich's locker, found two handkerchiefs. He wadded one. "Your mouth," Troy said. "Please open." He stuffed the wadded handkerchief in Dietrich's mouth and bound the second over the gag. "Now please he on your cot, face down," Troy said and as Dietrich lay in his undershorts and socks, the sergeant called to one of the privates, "Hitch, will you please tie the captain's hands and legs securely together with your rope? Captain, we are taking the colonel as hostage and shall not hesitate to shoot him if we are pursued."

Again several explosions boomed. They were nearby, Dietrich thought, lying gagged and trussed like a pig ready for the market. It was impossible that the enemy should be shelling so close at hand on the plateau. He heard the Mercedes stop at the tent.

"Colonel," Moffitt said crisply in German. "Call to your driver and tell him to step inside, leaving the motor running."

The colonel did as he was ordered and as the driver came through the entrance, Moffitt dropped the flap and Troy struck him smartly with a chop at the back of his neck. The man sagged limply and started to fall. Troy dragged him to the second cot and removed his jacket and cap which he threw to the private Pettigrew. He slipped into the clothing and dangled his own helmet in his hand.

Again explosions jarred Dietrich. What could the enemy be shelling, he wondered. Where was he firing from? It could not be bombs from aircraft. Although the rain seemed to have slackened, the air still would be too thick for planes.

Pettigrew, still dangling his helmet, went to the entrance and lifted the flap. He looked from side to side, stepped out and Dietrich heard the car door open and close. The car started forward and backed close and flush to the tent opening.

"Quickly now," Moffitt told the colonel whose dewlaps seemed to be quivering. "Into the front seat."

Pettigrew had both front and back doors of the car open and Hitchcock and Troy crawled from the tent onto the car's back floor. Troy handed Dietrich's forty-five to Pettigrew. Moffitt slipped to the back seat floor and Tully closed the back door and then the front door as the colonel sank into his seat. Pettigrew glanced into the tent, loosed the flap and in a moment Dietrich heard the other car door slam and the car splashed away through the mud.

Dietrich struggled with his bonds. He was tightly bound. He rolled off the cot and thumped to the ground with a bump that shook him. Clumsily, arms and legs hurting, he rolled to the entrance. As he pushed through the flap in his undershorts and socks into the cold, wet sludge, the area was smashed with another series of blasts.

"All clear," Tully said only a few moments after the car had started off.

Troy, Moffitt and Hitch pushed from the floor in the back seat of the Mercedes and sat back into the soft cushions. Troy looked out the back window and saw they had cleared the tent area and were driving south on the road that still ran with water. Tully was driving with Dietrich's pistol in his left hand resting on his chest and pointing at the colonel. The fat German officer was sitting rigidly, staring straight ahead. The back of his neck was red.

"What were those explosions, Sarge?" Hitch asked.

"You were quite calm and collected, Sam," Moffitt said with an amused smile. "Congratulations. Did you realize what they were at once?"

"The first two or three had me stumped," Troy said. "Then it came in a flash. It had to be the charges we planted."

"How could they go off by themselves?" Hitch asked.

"The pressure of the water and the shifting surface of the road was enough to do it," Troy said.

"They had Dietrich fooled," Hitch said, laughing.

"Well, old boy," Moffitt said. "What now?"

"We run," Troy said with a grin. "We get the jeeps out and we run."

"How?" Tully asked. "We couldn't get a mile in the desert before we'd be stuck."

"We're going straight south on the road," Troy said. "Hey, Sarge," Tully flung over his shoulder. "The road's going to be full of holes where the mines have gone off and you don't know that all the charges we planted have exploded."

"Tully," Troy said, "you're going ahead in this staff car with the colonel. We didn't plant the charges all the way out to the edges of the road. You're going to keep two wheels on the roadbed. I'll drive your jeep and Moffitt and Hitch can follow. We'll be in four-wheel-drive. If you get stuck, we'll push."

"Whyn't we dump the colonel and this car?" Tully asked. "He'll just be in our way, and with you and me both driving, you've cut our firepower in half."

"If we're caught in the jeeps, Tully," Troy said, "you take off like a big bird for Bir-el-Alam with the colonel. He's our trading goods. If we're not caught, that's fine. A colonel is a pretty good prize."

"He's the division commander," Moffitt said. "Colonel Matthe Funke. It was on some of the papers on his table."

"Well," Troy said, pleased, "it's been a fair day's work so far."

"Providing we get over that chunk of road," Tully drawled.

It was not going to be as easy getting over the road with its craters and charges as he'd passed it off, Troy admitted to himself as he helped Moffitt and Hitch roll the drums off the jeeps once more. The floors and seats of the jeeps were wet, but Troy was so thoroughly soaked he didn't feel any additional discomfort. The motor coughed protestingly twice, but then it fired into life and he drove away from the dimness, looking over his shoulder toward the CP. No pursuit was yet on the road.

Hitch followed Troy out of the drums and Tully in the sedan raised his hand. The Mercedes started down the edge of the road. The route had been badly damaged by the charges and ragged deep holes had filled with water although the roadbed itself built up from the desert was draining rapidly. Tully had planted his two left wheels solidly on the road. He pulled ahead in second gear with the right wheels sinking quite deeply in the soft, slanted shoulders. He drove steadily for almost a mile and then slowed to a stop. Looking around the side, Troy saw that the burned and wrecked aircraft littered the road with debris. The ship had lurched to the side and a crumpled wing frame blocked the way.

Leaving his motor idling, Troy jumped from the jeep and ran around the sedan toward the plane. The fuselage and wing members were twisted and bent and the engine nacelles dangled, shapeless masses of metal. Troy walked into the spongy desert and around the tip of the wing. His boots sank into the wet sand. He ran back to the second jeep.

"We'll never make it around the wreck, the way things are," he told Moffitt and Hitch. "Give me a hand with the camouflage nets. We'll spread them in a path over the sand. Maybe they'll give us a firm enough surface."

They dragged the first net out to the end of the wing and spread the second back on the other side to the road. By the time the nets were laid, they'd been away from the CP for fifteen minutes. That was time enough for Dietrich to be discovered or the driver of the colonel's car to recover consciousness. Troy kept looking up the road, expecting every minute to see an armored car.

"All right, Tully," he shouted as he raced back to the ieep. "Get going. We'll both push you."

Tully drove onto the net in low gear and with the two Jeeps pushing in tandem moved slowly to the end of the wing. Something went wrong at the turn and the wheels of the sedan spun off the net. Tully took the car out of gear at once.

"Can you back away?" Tully called with his head out the window.

Troy turned to see Hitch moving slowly back in reverse and glimpsed an armored car coming down the road from the drums. He snatched a coil of rope from the back of the jeep.

"I'll try to get in front and pull," he shouted to Hitch. "Push when I start. Company's coming."

Troy reversed, slammed ahead on the net around the sedan, braked and hopped out fastening a double line in a short tow rope from the back of the jeep to the bumper of the Mercedes. The armored car had covered half of the distance from the drums to the plane when Troy put the jeep in gear. The line tightened, the sedan lurched ahead so abruptly it banged the back of the jeep and Troy wondered what explosives he still carried that the rain hadn't ruined. With the second jeep pushing, the sedan moved back onto the road. Troy jumped out, slashed the rope free. The armored car was no more than a hundred yards away, hesitating on the other side of the plane. No shots had been fired and Troy did not think the Jerries in the car would risk firing with the colonel in the middle car.

Now in the lead, Troy moved cautiously on. Once he glanced back and saw the armored car moving around the wing on the nets. He stepped up the speed as much as he dared, drove by the wreck of the Volkswagen still at the side of the road and half a mile farther, moved over to the crown of the road, shifted into conventional gear and stepped the speed up to thirty-five miles an hour. Another half mile and he pulled to the side to let Tully pass him.

They were clear of the charges. The armored car was around the plane and still tagging after them.

Although wet and slippery in places, the road seemed to have withstood the torrential rain. Tully drove at fifty miles an hour and the jeeps hung onto his tail. They were rapidly pulling away from the armored car. Troy began charting the route they'd take to Bir-el-Alam. The route they were on ran southeast for thirty-seven miles before connecting with an east-west trace that ran through the desert some miles north of El Alghur. To the east were strong Allied positions in Egypt, to the west the Allied base at Bir-el-Alam that boasted a new airfield. Troy normally preferred to operate over the most direct route through the desert, but he was uncertain whether the Mercedes could get through the wet sand. He decided they would continue on the route and then take the trace.

It would be at least another day, he believed, before Dietrich could resume any kind of operations on the plateau. He wondered how far the armored car would follow and glanced up at the sky. It still was overcast and threatening. The storm had been a real soaker and might not yet be over. It had been a calamity for Dietrich and probably had hampered Wilson at Sidi Beda although there at least the military avenue was surfaced. It must have been disagreeable in the Sherman tanks, but they didn't have to worry about moving. That was Dietrich's headache. With Dietrich's rocket launchers and rockets destroyed, Troy did not think a shot would be fired for at least twenty-four hours.

The Rat Patrol had taken the divisional commander prisoner and should be back on the battlefield before evening unless another rainstorm swamped them. Wilson should be pleased with the results the Rat Patrol had achieved on this mission, Troy thought and a smile flashed across his face. Wilson never admitted he was pleased and right now he probably wasn't even aware that all of the fuel dumps had been blown. He certainly didn't know about the rockets. Troy believed Wilson thought the Rat Patrol had a picnic every time they went out on a caper, and in a way, Wilson was right.

Troy shot a glance over his shoulder. Hitch waved lazily and Troy saw Moffitt was riding in front with him. Troy turned once more and discovered the armored car was no longer behind them. Ahead, Tully was driving easily down the middle of the road and the colonel seemed to be behaving himself. Two hours at the most, Troy thought, and they'd be at Bir-el-Alam. Maybe they could even grab a beer and a sandwich on the run.

Despite his clammily clinging clothes, Troy himself relaxed and he smiled. Suddenly Tully slammed on his brakes, skidding the sedan, and Troy jerked over beside him before he stopped. He searched the road ahead before he looked at Tully. Two halftracks were rolling down a hill toward them and although still more than a half mile away, one of the seventy-fives reached out for the jeeps and staff car with three rapidly fired shells.

Wilson picked himself from the paved floor of the warehouse and looked around for his men. Two of them were getting groggily to their feet while the other two still sprawled, stunned. He had smashed the radio when the force of the explosion had blown him into it and his hip was sore.

"The Rat Patrol came back and tried to get us with a grenade," Wilson said sharply. He looked around the warehouse. The floor had a hole in it near the doors which were hanging crookedly and a section of the front wall had been gouged. "You two," he said to the MPs who were on their feet. "Guard the doors from outside. I'll see how badly these men are injured."

They were coming slowly to their senses. They'd only been stunned by the concussion, Wilson thought as he walked first one, then the other, out of the warehouse into the air. The rain had stopped and the water was gushing through the alley. The air in the quarter was muggy and carried a swamp odor stench.

"Bring the car around on the avenue," he told one of the MPs at the door. "We'll help these two men down and meet you. It's no use bothering with the transmitter. I crashed into it. I don't expect the Rat Patrol will return to this place, but check it out regularly. At least there will be no more transmissions to Dietrich from them."

Wilson's hatred for the Rat Patrol had become a steady, constant hot flame that was so unremitting he feared he was neglecting his defenses. Although, he told himself, running down the treacherous defectors was a very important part of his defense. Visibility still was too restricted to call in the planes, he decided, scanning the sky. He half supported one of the men who'd been stunned as they splashed toward the avenue. Wilson wondered whether the water had damaged the road at the bottom of the pass. He'd have to return and check with Drake. It might take some doing to shore up the defenses in the mud.

The MP straightened and walked unaided and the other two MPs were walking apart. When the armored car halted at the end of the alley, Wilson got in with the driver and insisted that the men who'd been injured be taken to the aid station for examinations. Then he set out with the driver and the other two MPs for the pass. The barren ground beyond the edge of town was under several inches of water and in spots the road still was covered. The five remaining backup halftracks were parked in a line on the side of the road and appeared to be operational. Halfway to the pass, he encountered another five halftracks from Drake's command.

"Strange happenings," Drake reported, coming to the side of Wilson's car. "When the water poured down the road out of the pass, it washed several bodies to the bottom. Seven of them. All Jerries. All of them were pretty battered and bruised. Two had drowned but the other five had been shot."

"They must have been on foot in the pass," Wilson said, puzzled, "or were they trapped in vehicles?"

"What gets me is how were those five shot and who shot them," Drake said.

"It's possible some of the men we had at those machine gun positions managed to escape when the emplacements were taken," Wilson said.

"That isn't all," Drake said. "The halftrack we moved up to replace the one the Rat Patrol hit discovered several enemy mortars that had either been washed or thrown from the top."

"Well, this is the first piece of good news I've had for quite a spell," Wilson said, smiling. "That makes it certain some of our men got away. We can use a few friends behind the enemy lines. They must have used the rain to cover their movements." Wilson glanced at the halftracks. "Can you move off the road at all?"

"Haven't tried it and I don't want to," Drake said with a grimace. "I've walked through the muck. It's impossible stuff."

"Right," Wilson said. "Today the war is called because of rain."

"The Rat Patrol show itself again?" Drake asked.

"We found their hiding place in a warehouse," Wilson said. "They tried to hit us as we searched. Fortunately this time no one was seriously injured."

"I hope you find them before tonight," Drake said. "I don't like the idea of those lunatics running around loose after dark."

When Wilson had returned to HQ, Peilowski reported Arab mobs had driven all of the MP patrols out of the native quarter.

"There wasn't a thing the MPs could do short of shooting them down and that'd of only made things worse," Peilowski declared.

"Troy is back of this, Troy and Moffitt," Wilson bellowed and his face grew livid. "And those two privates, Pettigrew and Hitchcock."

Christianson stumbled through the doorway, face bruised and bleeding and robe shredded almost from his back.

"The Arabs are going to riot," he said thickly through lips that were puffed.

"What happened to you?" Wilson asked in quick concern. "Where are they rioting? Is the Rat Patrol with them?"

"No, sir," Christianson said. "At least, I didn't see the Rat Patrol. It was those same dozen Arabs in the white robes. They seemed to be the leaders. They picked me out of the mob in the bazaar and started after me. I ran but they hit me with stones and knocked me down. There's a bunch of them gathered now in the bazaar. They're going to come down the avenue and storm HQ. Some of them are armed with Mausers and pistols. Others have knives."

"Troy must have pointed you out," Wilson said. "Your disguise was perfect. It fooled me completely." He turned to Peilowski. "Call in every available armored car and the five halftracks from the edge of the town. Issue tommy-guns to every man in uniform, including yourself. I've tried to avoid bloodshed, but this time if we're fired on, we'll shoot back."

12

Dietrich had rolled over into the gooey muck outside his tent. He half propped himself by twisting his arms to the side. His stockings and undershorts were soaked with mud. The gag was choking him and his face was contorted with rage. The first man who saw him was the sergeant from the officers' mess who had resented preparing coffee and food for the men in the field. The sergeant came out of the mess tent with a cup of coffee to look at the sky. When the man saw Dietrich, he stared for a moment and then his face reddened as he struggled with himself. Coffee sprayed from his mouth and he turned around quickly, but his shoulders were shaking. It was several seconds before he dropped his cup and ran to Dietrich.

Without saying a word, the sergeant plucked at the knots in the handkerchief that bound Dietrich's gag. Dietrich spit the wad from his mouth and the sergeant pulled a clasp knife from the pocket of his white jacket and sawed at the strands that bound the Herr Hauptmann's hands and his feet. He helped Dietrich stand. Dietrich glared at him and the sergeant turned his head.

"Get me Gleicher at once," Dietrich growled, mouth still feeling as if it were crammed with wadding. He went back into the tent to wipe the mud from his body and once more get into dry clothes.

It was that bungler Funke who was responsible for this new outrage, Dietrich fumed to himself. The old fool had permitted the Rat Patrol to surprise him in his own headquarters, and now the Rat Patrol held the divisional commander prisoner. Dietrich was tempted to make no effort to aid Herr Oberst Matthe Funke.

"What is it?" Gleicher panted as he burst into the tent.

"The Rat Patrol again," Dietrich said, suddenly weary. "They've captured Colonel Funke and driven off with him in his staff car. Take an armored car and follow them until you can tell where they're headed. Be careful of the road where the plane crashed. They mined it. You won't be able to catch them and you won't be able to fire even if you do get within range because of the colonel. I just want to know the direction they take."

"The staff car drove to the south," Gleicher said, "but only the colonel and the driver were in it. It was his driver, in uniform."

"Are you contradicting me?" Dietrich exploded, blood rushing to his face. "There is the colonel's driver." He pointed to the unconscious man on the cot. "It was Pettigrew of the Rat Patrol driving the car. He was wearing the uniform of this man. The others were on the floor of the back seat. Do you comprehend now?"

"Ja, Herr Hauptmann," Gleicher said, spinning about and running from the tent.

"Willi, Willi Wunder," Dietrich stood in the entrance of the tent and shouted at the top of his voice.

Immediately, before Dietrich could turn, the corporal shot around the comer of the officers' mess tent at a dead run splattering mud in every direction. Dietrich backed into the tent. Willi skidded through the entrance and saluted. His eyes were round and frightened again.

"Take the car and drive to the communications van," Dietrich commanded, getting into a clean shirt and pulling on his breeches. "Have the driver bring it right here, to the command post, where it was before, immediately."

Willi turned and dashed from the tent without uttering a word. Dietrich walked to the cot where Funke's driver had began to moan. He felt the back of the man's head and neck gently. The driver had a swelling near the base of his head. Dietrich poured a cup full of water and emptied it on the man's neck. He sat up shaking his head, recognized Dietrich and staggered to his feet.

"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.

He quickly examined the sand to the right and left of the road. It had not rained quite so hard here and while the sand was wet, he believed the jeeps could navigate. He wasn't sure about the Mercedes, but running seemed the only way they had out of this trap. He nudged against the bumper of the staff car and bumped it twice. He saw Tully glance in the rearview mirror. Troy jerked his thumb at the desert to his right and Tully nodded. He turned his head swiftly to Hitch and repeated the motion, cutting open his smokescreen exhaust. Hitch nodded his head.

Tully jerked the Mercedes off the road and gunned it into the desert. Troy nuzzled against the left fender with smoke streaming behind and Hitch crept up on the right side with the foggy vapor trailing. Troy was sure the clouds concealed the three vehicles and he did not think the Jerries would endanger their commander by firing blindly into the smoke.

The Mercedes lost speed in the sand, but Tully did manage to plow steadily ahead. A shell, then three more, crashed behind them and Troy broke out in a sweat. Had the halftracks been instructed to rescue the colonel or bring down the Rat Patrol? Two more shells crashed out at the sides and Tully swerved the staff car to the right. Hitch apparently had anticipated the turn and swung with the sedan, but Troy ran wide for a moment and another shell sang over his head. He closed back in on the others and saw that Tully was racing for the shelter of a dune.

The staff car plunged over the crest of the sand hill and skidded to a stop. Troy pulled away, braking and watching. The door on the colonel's side of the car flew open and the colonel tottered out with Tully's pistol jammed in his back. Troy drove the jeep in front of the Mercedes and Tully booted the officer into the front and vaulted into the rear behind the machine gun. Troy cut his smoke exhaust and Hitch turned off the cloud machine on his jeep. Leaving the staff car with its motor still running, the jeeps sped south on the side of the hill behind the dune.

The halftracks had stopped firing when the jeeps had taken shelter behind the sand hill. Without the smoke trails to guide them, the halftracks crawled up the dune, hesitated and stopped before starting out in pursuit to the south. The jeeps were flying over the desert now, making a wide circle back toward the road. The halftracks did not fire again. They gave up the chase and lumbered away.

When the jeeps reached the road again, the halftracks no longer were in sight. Troy stopped and exchanged places with Tully. The colonel had pressed his lips together so tightly they were white.

"You reckon we're going to have to put up with any more nonsense today, Sarge?" Tully drawled as they started off again. He'd removed his Jerry tunic and cap and was wearing his helmet again.

"Not until we start back," Troy said, glancing all around. It scarcely had drizzled here and the road was dry. Tully had settled for a comfortable fifty miles per hour. Troy could see nothing else moving in the open surrounding gray desert except the jeeps.

"When you figure on starting back," Tully asked, fishing a matchstick from his pocket and rolling it in his mouth.

"Just as soon as we deliver the carcass beside you," Troy said, sitting on a crate of fifty-caliber ammunition and bending his head as he cupped a match to light a cigarette that was damply limp.

"Aw, Sarge," Tully protested, "don't we ever get any shut-eye?"

"Haven't you heard, son?" Troy said with mock severity. "There's a war going on. We're supposed to be fighting it. What do you suppose Wilson would do if he thought the Rat Patrol was goofing off?"

"The old man knows the Rat Patrol wouldn't do that," Tully said.

Although the day remained gloomy and sunless, no rain at all had fallen in the country they entered after turning west on the trace to Bir-el-Alam. The rest of the trip was fast and uneventful and Troy found himself nodding and jerking awake half a dozen times to quickly check the seat beside Tully. The colonel remained as uncommunicative as a bag of potatoes, which he resembled, although Troy doubted the Jerry knew any English and if he did, what was there to talk about anyway? He probably couldn't tell them much that they didn't already know.

The armored unit now stationed at Bir-el-Alam was commanded by Colonel Randolph Randolph III. He was pudgy and pink-faced and his hair was white. He looked like a banker or broker. His command was a very small force assigned to defend the new airfield which had not yet been put into service. It was a green force that, like the colonel, had seen little combat in North Africa.

"Would you forward him to division headquarters with our compliments?" Troy said to the colonel, jerking his thumb at the Jerry who stood bristling but still silent between Tully and Hitch. "We can't do it ourselves because we can't go home just yet."

Colonel Randolph had recovered from the shock he'd obviously suffered when the Rat Patrol had introduced themselves and now his eyes were lively and interested as they inspected the prisoner. "A colonel, no less," he said appreciatively. "I'll be happy to accommodate you boys. Just who is he, do you know?"

"His name is Matthe Funke," Moffitt spoke up. "He is, or was, their division commander for the area all the way to the Egyptian border."

"Well, well, indeed!" exclaimed Randolph, much impressed. "Headquarters will be grateful for this. Is there anything I can do for you men?"

The jeeps were serviced, supplies and ammunition replenished and a coil of heavy rope added to the equipment while Troy, Moffitt, Tully and Hitch took quick showers and changed into clean, dry clothes at the colonel's insistence. He also provided a dozen beef sandwiches and a dozen bottles of beer which they consumed on the run back to the battle. The capture of Funke and the side trip to Bir-el-Alam had been a pleasant diversion, but Troy was anxious to strike another blow at the enemy while his tanks were unable to move.

They could get into the armor at the top of the pass after it was dark, Troy thought, and plant some of the packages of explosives which Randolph had provided. It was a little after fifteen hundred hours, he noted, checking his watch as they turned onto the route to Sidi Beda. They were now thirty-seven miles south of the German CP and entering the country that had been drenched by the downpour. The sky was again heavy with layers of black clouds to the north and the east. Even if it did not rain again, it would be dark early. If the sands would hold the jeeps, if they could strike from the north and the east, Troy thought, they could reach Dietrich's floundered column. He did not doubt that the CP was guarded and that Dietrich would have patrols on the road. When they had driven fifteen miles on the route, he told Tully to stop.

"Hitch," he said as the second jeep came alongside, "drive off the road a ways into the sand and then drive parallel with us. If you get into trouble, we'll get you out. I want to see whether it looks as if we can take to the desert."

Troy watched closely as Hitch threw the jeep into four-wheel-drive and crawled off the road. The tires dug furrows in the sloppy sand but the jeep kept going ahead. About fifty yards off, Hitch turned to parallel the road and Tully started up. Hitch maintained a steady speed of fifteen miles an hour for five minutes. Troy had decided the sand was substantial enough to carry them when the road went over a hilltop and down a short decline. Hitch drove into a valley and bogged down.

Troy ran through the sloshing sand to see how bad it was.

"My dumb fault," Hitch said, exasperated. "I should have come back to the road or gone around. The desert is okay to drive as long as you keep to the high ground." The wheels of the jeep were sunk almost to the hubs in a watery mixture that looked like thick barley soup. Troy glanced up the incline. About twenty-five feet away, Hitch's wheels had started to dig deep.

"I'll have Tully come out here as close as he can," Troy said, starting back. "We'll throw you the rope and see if we can tow you out."

"Do that, old chap," Moffitt said, still sitting in the jeep. "I'd dislike getting me feet wet, you know."

Troy looked at his own legs. His boots were filled with sandy water again and his pants were soaked halfway to his knees.

"I'll throw you the rope, Jack," Troy retorted. "You can get out and attach it to the frame."

Tully turned about on the road, drove back to the top of the hill and into the desert in four-wheel-drive. "It's slushy in the sand but we shouldn't have trouble if we don't make Hitch's mistake," he assured Troy.

He eased down the slope toward Hitch and Moffitt in reverse. Troy in the rear called a stop about twenty-five feet away from the other jeep and attached one end of the rope to the back of his vehicle. He cast the line toward the other jeep. Moffitt splashed up to retrieve it with a mocking smile on his face. He'd removed his boots and socks and rolled his pants to his knees.

Troy, Moffitt and Hitch put their shoulders to the back of the stuck jeep and Tully started up slowly. The line tightened. They pushed and Tully's wheels started to spin. The jeep resisted their efforts and refused to budge. They tried again, rocking the vehicle, and moved it forward a foot.

"Hell!" Troy said, breathing hard and sweating. "We ought to be able to lift it and carry it out of here easier than this. Let's give it another try."

This time they covered a yard before they gave up to catch their breath.

"Troy!" Tully called sharply as the three of them leaned on the jeep, gasping.

Troy lifted his head as a shot sang angrily nearby and then a volley of rifle fire rang in his ears. A band of eight or ten white-robed Arabs on horses charged down from the hill, firing as they came.

13

Two MPs in white helmets escorted the Fat Frenchman to Wilson's office. The military policemen were almost as wide as the Frenchman but stood several heads taller than he. They closed the door and stood on either side of it after they'd pushed the prisoner toward the middle of the room.

Behind his desk, Wilson felt his blood pumping angrily to his head and he clamped his teeth together hard. He would be just, he told himself, and he would not lose his temper. He stared at the proprietor of the wine shop without speaking for a moment. The Frenchman was visibly shaken. His big face was ashen and he was trembling but his eyes were not frightened. They were mournful.

"Your name?" Wilson asked abruptly.

"Laurentz de la Croix," the Frenchman said softly.

"You are proprietor of a wine cellar that is patronized by military personnel as well as the native Frenchmen and Arabs," Wilson stated.

"No Arabs except rarely," de la Croix said, shaking his head. "Mostly they do not drink."

"You were in business at the time the Germans occupied Sidi Beda," Wilson continued, not asking a question but stating a fact.

"I have been in business for many years," de la Croix said. "I was in business before the Germans came. I expect to be in business after you have left."

The Frenchman was humble, he was not being bold, but something about the statement nettled Wilson. "While the Germans were here, your shop was patronized exclusively by them," he snapped.

"Mostly. The French did not fraternize," de la Croix said.

"But you are a Frenchman and you served them to the exclusion of your own people," Wilson accused.

"I was in business," de la Croix said lifting his hands helplessly. "I did not say who should come to the cellar and who should stay away. When the Germans came and demanded to be served, I could not refuse them."

"You served them then," Wilson said sternly, "and since we drove them from the port, you have collaborated with them."

"That is not true," de la Croix cried agitatedly. "How can you say such a thing? I am not one of the Vichy turnabouts. I am loyal. My only wish is to see the Germans defeated and the homeland restored."

"You are acquainted with the four men, formerly of my command, known as the Rat Patrol," Wilson declared.

"I know of them," de la Croix admitted.

"Do you deny that you have served the Rat Patrol in your cellar?" Wilson asked, voice rising.

"I have served them," de la Croix said softly.

"You are acquainted with the former sergeant, Sam Troy?" Wilson said feeling his temper flare at mention of the name.

De la Croix only nodded his head.

"How well acquainted?" Wilson demanded.

"He is my friend," de la Croix said firmly.

"He has been a frequent visitor to the cellar," Wilson stated sternly.

Again the Frenchman only nodded his head.

"He also is a friend, a very close friend, of that woman who lives with you," Wilson said pointedly.

The Frenchman shrugged and lifted his hands.

"That woman was living with you at the time of the German occupation," Wilson said.

"What is it you suggest?" de la Croix cried. "The young lady you speak of distastefully is my niece. She has made her home with me for many years, since the death of my sister."

"She is part Arab," Wilson said.

"Her mother was legally married to an Arabian gentleman of some refinement and education," de la Croix said with dignity. "They lived a good life in the town. When my sister died, her husband returned to his tribe. He is sheik of the tribe of el Siwa Kebir."

"The sheik is friendly with the enemy," Wilson said. He had never heard of the sheik or his tribe.

"That I could not possibly know," de la Croix said. "I have not seen him since many years before the beginning of the war."

"That is not true," Wilson said. The man was being evasive and Wilson was certain he was lying. It was not reasonable that a father would not occasionally visit his daughter. "The sheik is a friend of the Germans. Your niece is in sympathy with them. She fraternized with them when they were here. You are a collaborator. You and the girl have influenced the Rat Patrol through Troy to work with the enemy. Now that your lies have been spread before you and you know that we are aware of your activities, tell me in what new place is the Rat Patrol hiding?"

"I do not collaborate with the Germans," de la Croix declared firmly. "My niece does not sympathize with them. We despise them. I do not know the place your Rat Patrol is. I know only that you sent them into the desert. I have not seen a one of them, including Sergeant Troy, since the day when they left."

"You refuse to tell me?" Wilson said angrily.

"I cannot tell you," de la Croix said.

"Take him away, lock him up," Wilson shouted, enraged.

"On what charge?" de la Croix cried. "Why do I stand accused? You have not produced a shred of evidence against me. You occupy a town that does not belong to you and enforce the rules that you lay down with military policemen who patrol it like the German SS troops. Confront me with the witness who accuses me. I demand it on my rights as a citizen."

"Take him away," Wilson ordered. "Bring in that girl."

Of course the Frenchman was lying, Wilson thought. He admitted knowing the Rat Patrol and being friendly with Troy. He admitted cooperating with the Germans during the occupation. The defection of the Rat Patrol and the admitted friendship of the Frenchman with Troy couldn't possibly mean but one thing: the Frenchman was in some way working with the Rat Patrol.

When the MPs brought in the girl, she stood before him defiantly. Her eyes were scornful and filled with fire.

"Your name?" he asked curtly.

She pressed her lips together and for a moment he thought she was going to remain stubbornly silent.

"Rhee de la Croix," she suddenly spat at him.

"De la Croix?" he repeated doubtfully. "But your father is the sheik of Siwa Kebir."

"I have borne the name of my mother since I came to live with my uncle," she said. "I wish to be known as French, not Arabian."

"Where is the former sergeant, Sam Troy?" he demanded.

"How do you expect me to know that?" she asked angrily. "I expect he is where you sent him. Perhaps he is even dead by now."

"Do not defy me, young woman," Wilson said severely. "You know the Rat Patrol never went away. You are quite aware they have been in town all of the time. I have seen them myself several times and Troy with them in his silly hat. It is no use to he. Where is Troy now?"

"It is you who lie," the girl screamed. "I know Sergeant Troy is not in the town. If he had returned, he would have been to see me. That I know because he said he would."

"Take her away," Wilson snapped to the MPs.

It was a sorry kettle of fish, Wilson thought irritably. He was certain there was connivance between the Rat Patrol, or Troy, and his two prisoners. They'd as good as admitted that. Yet he knew that at this moment he had nothing more tangible than his convictions on which to hold the two civilian citizens, no evidence nor witness. He himself would be judged harshly for bombing their building, searching it, arresting them. Yet they were his only clue to the Rat Patrol.

Peilowski stepped into Wilson's office. "There's a Frenchie to see you," he said.

"Send him away," Wilson said wearily. "I've seen enough Frenchmen for one day."

"He says he has information," Peilowski said. "Information concerning what?" Wilson asked.

"He says he'll only talk to you," Peilowski said.

"Oh, all right, send him in," Wilson said in resignation. It would amount to nothing, he knew.

The Frenchie was dark-skinned, sharp-faced and sinister. His black eyes kept darting around the room. His right wrist was tightly bound in a dirty bandage.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Wilson asked impatiently. He did not like the looks of this disagreeable fellow.

"I am called Nicodeme," the man said in good but accented English.

"I was told you have information," Wilson said.

"You will pay for it?" Nicodeme asked.

"If it is useful," Wilson said disgustedly. He did not like informers of any kind and he particularly disliked jackals who'd sell out for a price.

"I have heard you have arrested the one who is called the Fat Frenchman and that woman of his," Nicodeme said.

"Yes? Well, what of it," Wilson said. "That is scarcely information."

"How do you charge them?" Nicodeme asked.

Here was another one of them, Wilson thought angrily. The man had come looking for information, not peddling it.

"That is no business of yours," he said sharply.

"I thought it might be on the charge that they work for the Boche," Nicodeme said, shrugging. "I thought you might be interested to know that is something I would be happy to swear as a fact."

On a magnificent dun-colored horse and in mud-splattered white robe and burnoose bound with gold-threaded purple, Ali Abu had ridden out of the desert with eight of his men and dismounted in front of Dietrich's tent. Dietrich stepped out at once, looking at the Arab merchant and informer in surprise. He scarcely recognized him. Before, he had seen him only in shoddy, ill-fitting western clothing. The eight men were dressed in robes like Ali, but their burnooses were not adorned. They all held Mauser rifles and remained seated in their saddles.

"You are welcome, Ali," Dietrich said, not quite sure that he welcomed this visit at all. It probably meant the Arab had come to press some demand. "Will you and your men come with me to the mess tent to take coffee?"

"I will talk with you," Ali said. His beady eyes that were set too close to his sharply curved nose were hard. "My men will remain mounted."

"Very well," Dietrich said. "Come into my tent."

Grosse still was in the tent. Dietrich had not yet assigned the man a new task. He rather liked the idea of a batman and now he sent him for coffee. Ah and he sat on the stools across the table from one another.

"What brings you here, Ali?" Dietrich asked.

"Twelve of my men were killed at the oasis where the fuel was buried," Ali said. "Another eleven died in your service when they were attacked on the old trail. More are fighting your battle now in the town. I want money."

"You were paid for the fuel and I never received it," Dietrich said sternly. "Your men permitted it to be destroyed."

"You must pay me for the loss of my men," AH demanded.

"You said your men would guard it," Dietrich said severely. "I should demand you return the money I already have given you."

"What of my men who fight in the town?" Ali asked sharply.

"Is that not your battle as well as mine?" Dietrich fenced. The information was gratifying.

"It is the four men you sent who order them," Ali said. "I have provided them the warehouse you requested. I have placed twelve of my best men at their orders."

"What exactly have your men done to earn pay?" Dietrich asked.

Grosse brought two tin cups of coffee to the table and withdrew from the tent,

"They have enflamed the population and caused rioting," Ali said, eyes gleaming cunningly. "They have killed many soldiers and destroyed many weapons."

"How many were killed, what weapons destroyed?" Dietrich asked quickly, excited now.

"Fifty and more at least have been killed," Ali declared. "At least half of the armored pieces with the guns, I should say fifteen of them, have been blown up with bombs."

"Are they now fighting in the streets?" Dietrich asked. Perhaps only half of what the Arab reported was true, but the news was still pleasing.

"It has continued for two days without any rest," the Arab assured him. "The American colonel is fully occupied and unable to contain the uprising."

"What of my four men?" Dietrich asked. "Have they remained free?"

"They are free," the Arab said. "As long as I am paid, I shall protect them."

Dietrich sipped his coffee in silence. He had ordered his duplicate Rat Patrol to incite such riots and to destroy the enemy's weapons. There must be some measure of truth in Ali's statements. Dietrich would settle for a great deal less than half of the losses the Arab reported. As long as there was a mob that was unruly, the American colonel, Wilson, would have to commit men and weapons to control them. It should be possible to break out of the pass and yet defeat the enemy.

"Ah," Dietrich said decisively, "I cannot pay you for the men you have lost any more than you can deliver the fuel that was destroyed. Those matters are in the fortunes of war. I shall pay you twenty-five thousand Swiss francs for the men who fight in Sidi Beda. This I shall give you now, and another twenty-five thousand Swiss francs when the town is taken."

"Your offer insults me," Ah said scornfully and stood. "I am certain the American colonel would pay me a hundred thousand francs to turn my men against you."

"I doubt this is so," Dietrich said. He knew the Arab was perfectly capable of bargaining for the best price and he thought the American colonel, Wilson, would willingly pay under the circumstances. "I shall, however, pay you a hundred thousand francs Swiss in addition to the fifty thousand francs if you and your men will undertake another task for me."

"What is it you wish done?" Ali asked greedily but suspiciously.

"Somewhere in the desert south from here are four men, dressed like the four men I sent to you in the town and driving similar vehicles," Dietrich said with pleasurable anticipation.

"That would be the Rat Patrol that your men imitated," Ah said. "I know of them."

"Good," Dietrich said. "If you will capture them or kill them, I stall pay you the hundred thousand francs."

"You would pay more for the four men than the capture of the town?" Ali asked incredulously.

"Their destruction is worth more than one town," Dietrich said bitterly.

"The desert is large " Ali began.

"One hundred thousand francs, not one centime more," Dietrich interrupted him, feeling no inclination to haggle. "I shall tell you where to lock. Sometime—this afternoon, I think—they will be driving on the route toward my post. They will come from the trace that leads to Bir-el-Alam and will leave the road some miles away if the sand is firm enough for their vehicles. It should not be difficult for you and your men to conceal yourselves and surprise them."

"It is as good as done," Ali said and smiled. It was a grotesque smile, more a cruel sneer. "I shall bring you their heads to exchange for the money. Now if you will give me the twenty-five thousand francs on which we agreed, I shall ride with my men to the south."

Ali Abu had galloped off with his eight tribesmen waving their Mausers aloft, and Dietrich had spent a pleasantly busy afternoon, although he hoped Ali did not literally mean to deliver the grisly talismans. Reluctantly dispensing with Grosse's services, he had sent the man to scout the condition of the road through the pass and the defenses at the bottom. He had asked Gleicher to examine Funke's column of armor and to move it onto the road if possible. He had placed guards on the column and a patrol on the road.

It now was late afternoon, seventeen-hundred-eighteen hours, he noted, checking his watch, and neither Grosse nor Gleicher had reported. Having nothing more urgent to do, he decided to see for himself what success the lieutenant was having in getting the halftracks and tanks out of the mud. He had Corporal Willi Wunder bring around his car. Although there should be another hour and a half of light at the least, it was growing dark. The sky was a gunmetal gray and the taste of rain tainted the air. Such a deluge as had flooded the pass in the morning was unnatural, but Dietrich remembered that in November of 1941 the Jebal area of Halfaya Pass bad been flooded by just such a catastrophic downpour. Trucks had been swept away and men drowned in the middle of the desert. If it rained again with such violence, he would be lost, he thought apprehensively.

Willi drove slowly and cautiously, keeping to the middle of the road, although the grade seemed firm enough to hold tanks. Dietrich glimpsed the armor in the distance. It was a massive fine of destructive power and Dietrich's pulse quickened at the thought of his halftracks and tanks pounding into Sidi Beda. The column did not appear to have moved onto the road. He stood in the moving car to examine it through his field glasses, but movement to the east demanded his attention.

He turned his glasses to the motion and the sight he focused on made his spine tingle. Four men in white robes, four of Ali Abu's men, he recognized, and one of them undoubtedly Ali himself, were racing their horses toward him and each bore a bundle before him on his saddle.

When the Arabs had appeared on the top of the hill discharging their rifles, Moffitt had leaped to the fifty-caliber Browning in the stranded jeep while Troy and Hitch dived to the rear for tommy-guns. Ahead, Tully, who had shouted the warning, already was manning the heavy machine gun. His weapon pounded with hammering bursts and two of the horsemen tumbled from their saddles as the other seven swept past and bore down on the other jeep.

Moffitt braced himself, arcing his fire into the group. Troy and Hitch crouched in the sand pudding almost under the jeep and squeezed off burst after burst in rattling tattoos. Three of the Arabs splashed in the muck. The remaining four pulled their horses about and separated, riding back to fire at Tully from both sides. Moffitt, Troy and Hitch continued firing at them as they galloped up the hill. Even in the heat of battle, Troy could not help admiring their horsemanship. They rode with their rifles to their shoulders, reins wrapped to the saddles.

Tully's machine gun slammed two of them into the sand and then he fell from his weapon backward to the door of the jeep. The two remaining Arabs fired one last round from the top of the hill at Moffitt, Troy and Hitch and then rode into the desert. Troy gritted his teeth and splashed from the slough of sand toward Tully's jeep. He hoped Tully was wounded, only wounded, not dead.

Tully sat up grinning. "Take it easy, Sarge," he drawled. "I had to play possum when they came at me Indian-like."

"You no good hillbilly!" Troy roared and jerked his knife from its sheath. He laughed and slashed the rope from the rear of the jeep.

"Get going," he shouted and leaped into the seat.

"They got a pretty good start and their horses are fast," Tully said. He let out the clutch and the jeep shot ahead.

"Forget the Arabs, they're long gone," Troy yelled. "Let's round up the horses with empty saddles."

Two of the horses had wandered to the side of the sand hill when their riders were shot and Moffitt and Hitch merely walked to them and led them to their jeep. Tully circled around three horses on top of the hill and charged at them. They ran toward the valley. One shied and trotted toward the road. The other two ran into the slush and waded to the horses tethered at the jeep. Moffitt secured them.

"Won't it require some type of yoke to hitch them to the jeep?" Moffitt inquired with a frown. "Even if we could fashion one, it seems a shame to make drafthorses of such fine specimens."

"We're not going to use them to drag out the jeep," Troy said with a laugh. "Let's get the robes off four of these Arabs."

"Just what do you have in mind now, Sam?" Moffitt asked with a gleam in his eyes.

"Dietrich sent those men," Troy stated flatly. "I'd lay my bottom dollar on it. I'd been wondering just how we were going to get next to the armor. When we get close, we'll hide the jeeps, wrap the robes around ourselves and ride up to our targets. Dietrich won't be suspicious until it's too late." Moffitt untied the horses and led them up the hill. Troy and Hitch grunted and shoved while Tully pulled, and they moved the jeep onto firm sand a yard at a time. Moffitt tied two horses behind each jeep. They each selected a robe and burnoose from an unprotesting dead Arab, spread them in the backs of the jeeps to air and dry and drove east along high ground away from the route.

Some of the valleys in the rolling desert still held water, but the high ground had drained quickly and the sand was only moist. Because they had to stay on top of the dunes, Troy kept their course from two to three miles away from the road. It was growing late in the day and darkening when Troy estimated they were within three or four miles of the pass. Tully and Hitch drove off the high ground but they did not attempt to run the jeeps into a wadi.

Troy decided grenades would be the most effective weapons to use in a lightning strike at the armor. Each slashed off a yard or two of material from the bottom of his robe and made a bundle of a dozen grenades which he draped on his saddle.

Tully inspected the four horses, stroking the neck of each and looking doubtfully into its eyes. The ran behind the jeeps had wearied the horses and all of them seemed gentle enough. Tully selected a mare he called Gertrude because he said she reminded him of a horsefaced girl of that name and Moffitt boosted him into the saddle. Gertrude immediately reared.

"Don't jerk back on the bit!" Moffitt shouted. "Ease up on the reins."

Gertrude pranced nervously about in a circle and Tully jounced up and down in the saddle. Moffitt mounted and rode by her side. The mare quieted. Troy and Hitch joined them and they set out for Dietrich's armored column at a trot. Troy, Tully and Hitch jogged clumsily.

"Hang on to that steed whatever," Moffitt said to Troy with an amused smile. "You'll be in no condition to walk back from this ride."

They viewed the armor from the top of a sand hill. It appeared to stretch for a good half mile along the side of the road. Troy studied it a moment.

"Jack," he said to Moffitt, "go in at the head of the column and take as many as you can. Pitch for the treads. I'll go in at the rear. Tully, Hitch, strike at the middle and ride away from each other. We ought to be able to hit them from fifty yards. If they start shooting at you, don't hang around to argue. We'll do considerable damage no matter what. If we're separated, keep going and don't worry. We'll rendezvous back at the jeeps."

After the loafing trot, the horses lengthened their gait with little urging and the Rat Patrol galloped, three of them slapping leather, down the long hill toward the armor. Troy had a glimpse of someone standing and watching in a car on the road through glasses. He wondered whether it was Dietrich as the car sped toward the column.

Moffitt had given his horse her head and reached the front of the column before the others were within reach of their targets. Troy heard one explosion and then a second as he hurled his first grenade. His horse reared at the blast and raced across thick, slithery mud toward the sand hill. There were three more banging detonations before he had his stallion under control. He brought the horse back within reach of a tank and threw another grenade as machine gun fire rattled close at hand. He heard the sound of light arms fire and another machine gun barked. His horse staggered as if struck a blow with an axe handle between the eyes. He jerked the horse's head toward the desert. The stallion stumbled once and then picked up its feet and trotted. Troy kicked his heels into its ribs. Behind he heard two more explosions and the continuing chatter of machine gun fire. He kicked the horse again and the stallion galloped for fifty yards, plunged forward on its knees and Troy went flying over the animal's head.

14

Dietrich watched in horror as the four men in white robes on Arabian horses drew apart as they neared and galloped toward the armored column. One of them might have been an Arab from the way he rode, but Dietrich, who was somewhat of a horseman himself, would have sworn the other three had never mounted anything more unmanageable than a bicycle. He shouted at Willi to speed and reached into the back of the car for a dual purpose MG-42 light machine gun which he threw to his shoulder. He heard clanging explosions from the head of the column, then center and rear.

The car was within range now and he fired at the horse that had reared and run into the desert. The man on the animal fought the horse back toward a tank and hurled another grenade. The blast shook Dietrich to his toes.

"Drive off the road, after him," Dietrich yelled in fury to Willi. "They're blowing the treads off our armor."

"But the mud," Willi objected.

"Damn the mud," Dietrich roared. "We'll go after them on foot if we must."

Willi turned the car off the road, slewing through muck before it lurched ahead. Dietrich fired again and again as the dark day filled with the smoke and smell of the explosions. He lost the man he was pursuing, then found him again trotting away from the column. He fired another burst and told Willi to drive straight ahead at the three men who still were throwing grenades. There were several more explosions and then the only sound was light arms and machine gun fire. As the smoke slowly lifted in the heavy air, Dietrich saw two horses galloping away at some distance. He examined the field and discovered two horses that had fallen. A robed man was running from one. Dietrich thought a man was lying on the ground in front of the other.

"After him," Dietrich called, pointing to the figure on foot. "We'll take him and come back for the other."

The car skidded half around and the wheels spun like tops that were going nowhere.

"Ease up, Willi," Dietrich shouted in frustration. "Throw in the clutch. Let it out with only a gentle touch of the petrol."

Willi did as he was told. The wheels only spun in the sludge.

Dietrich jumped from the car, sliding and stumbling as he set out at a run for the man on foot. It was like running on a greased treadmill. He slipped and fell flat on his face. He pushed himself up, scraping the mud from his chin and cheeks. The man he was after had reached the sand and was racing off.

Dietrich spat muck from his mouth and walked toward the figure lying beyond the horse. Both appeared to be dead. At least, Dietrich thought with some satisfaction, he'd got one of them. He had no doubt who the four were who had attacked his column, but he wondered which of the Rat Patrol he had killed.

Where had everyone been? he wondered angrily. Why had he been the only one able to shoot down the enemy? What was the matter with Funke's men? Everything they did was wrong. Each in his way reflected Funke himself, who by now undoubtedly was sitting across the table from some interrogator and was talking his head off.

Dietrich was alone in the field, he noticed, glancing back. Not a one of the noodleheads had had the sense to give chase to the enemy. They probably were still sitting in their tanks wondering what had happened. Not even Willi the Wonder had come to his assistance. He'd replace Willi with Grosse, he decided; the moment the man reported back from his mission.

The horse was dead, he saw, noting the red holes in his sides and the blood by the mouth. He must have caught the horse in the lungs. It was a shame, he thought regretfully, such a beautiful animal it had been.

The man was sprawled on his face. Dietrich turned him over with his boot, holding his gun on him. He saw the face and gasped at his unbelievable luck. It was Sergeant Sam Troy. At first he thought the sergeant was dead, but then he noted movement and saw Troy was breathing. There had been no bullet holes in the back of the robe and there was no blood on the front. Sergeant Troy had been stunned when the horse went down and threw him. He had captured the sergeant alive.

Troy stirred, groaned, sat up slowly, breathing heavily as he looked dully at Dietrich with glazed eyes. Dietrich backed off, squatting on his haunches five yards away with his gun trained on Troy's stomach.

"Take your time, Sergeant Troy," he gloated. "I have no intention of carrying you in, so recover your breath and your senses. Do not try any of your monkey business because you know I will not hesitate to shoot."

Troy looked around, shaking his head. His eyes seemed to clear but he did not say a word.

"Perhaps it would be as well if I did just shoot you," Dietrich said speculatively. "I would be certain then, at least, that you did not get away."

"You'd miss me," Troy said, suddenly talkative and grinning. "Who would there be to make your life interesting?"

"Interesting!" Dietrich exclaimed furiously. "Do not push me, I warn you. I do not find devastation of my men and machines interesting. Now get up and walk to my car."

"A moment more, Herr Hauptmann," Troy said, letting his head hang between his knees and gulping for air. "I feel weak. I don't think I could stand just now. Have you ever been thrown from a horse?"

"From the time I was a child, I never from a horse have been thrown," Dietrich said disdainfully. He softened a little as Troy continued to gasp for air. "It was not entirely that you were inexperienced, however. That brave animal died at a gallop."

"Yes," Troy said throatily. "The Arabians are fine horses. It was you who set the Arabs after us, wasn't it?"

"It may interest you to know that you have saved me a great deal of money, Sergeant Troy," Dietrich said drily. "I placed a value of a hundred thousand Swiss francs on your heads."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Troy asked, lifting his head and smiling. "I might have turned myself in for such a reward."

"If I had thought you could have been tempted to merely go away to some place in South America and simply retire, I would have offered you several times such an amount," Dietrich said. He was exasperated. "We will have no more of this foolish conversation. You will get now to your feet and walk to my car."

Sergeant Troy stood slowly and tottered. Something in his crooked half grin should have warned Dietrich, but he was completely without suspicions until he heard a noise like a swish in the air and then it was too late. A blow crashed the back of his neck and a great light seemed to flash in his brain before everything went black.

For a tense, silent moment the air in Wilson's office was as electric as a dark afternoon in Iowa just before the thunder crashes and lightning streaks the sky. He had confronted his prisoners with Nicodeme. Then the scream of the French girl pierced his ears.

"What lies has he told you?" she cried. "This man is evil. It is he who works with the Germans while we have helped whenever possible with the underground."

"Why should you so quickly fear what he has said?" Wilson asked tartly, but he felt the beginning of a pleasant glow of confidence. Nicodeme had shaken them.

"You must not take the word of this one," de la Croix pleaded. "He holds nothing but hatred for my niece and myself."

"Perhaps he has the distaste of a loyal Frenchman for a collaborator," Wilson observed.

"No," the girl said shrilly. "When the Germans were here, it was he who ran errands for them. Some pig of a colonel desired a woman and this man came to me. When I refused to listen to him, when I ordered him from the wine shop, he returned with German soldiers and they tried to force me to go with them."

"This is true," de la Croix declared firmly. "It was only when I struck this Nicodeme on the head with a bottle that Rhee broke away from his grip and ran into the hallway, barring the door."

"And the Germans were understanding and gentle and overlooked such an act on your part," Wilson said sarcastically.

"No, they were not," de la Croix retorted. "I was taken before this colonel, but there was a captain who inquired into the trouble. When he consulted with the colonel, I was released and there was no more trouble."

"Ask this man why he wears a bandage on his wist," the girl demanded.

Wilson looked inquiringly at Nicodeme.

"I strained it working on the docks," Nicodeme said sullenly.

"That is untrue," the girl shrilled. "Sergeant Troy broke his wrist when this man tried to place a knife into one of your men. Do you not see why he hates us and the sergeant as well?"

"Is what the girl says a fact?" Wilson asked Nicodeme doubtfully.

"Of course it is not so," the man asserted with a sneer. "What would you expect from such a trollop? You can easily see what she is. The truth of the matter is that she was frequently with the colonel. Since that time, she and the Fat Frenchman have steadily collaborated with the enemy."

"Ask the man he tried to knife," de la Croix said. "Surely you can find him among your men and he will come forward and speak the truth."

"I am unable at this time to assemble all of my men to either affirm or deny the story and I think you are aware of this fact," Wilson said sternly. He turned to Nicodeme. "What testimony can you give other than that the girl fraternized with the enemy?"

"Beth of them have reported to the enemy," Nicodeme said. "There is an Arab merchant named Ali Abu who also is an informer. I worked occasionally for him in his warehouse. It was filled with supplies, mostly gasoline, that he had stolen. He had a small transmitting set concealed in this warehouse, I discovered it and hid and watched. I saw and heard this Frenchman report to the Germans on the set. I stand ready to testify they worked with the Arab and collaborated with the Germans."

Nicodeme was a disreputable character and probably no better than the prisoners, but Wilson knew he spoke the truth. He was not aware of the Arab merchant, but he himself had found the warehouse and the receiver-transmitter.

"Never have I had a thing to do with the Arab named Ali Abu," de la Croix cried. "It is all a pack of dirty lies."

"What happened to the stores that were in the warehouse?" Wilson asked Nicodeme. "Particularly the gasoline.

I have been in the warehouse and it was empty."

The Frenchman's eyes were crafty as they darted from Wilson to de la Croix. "Ask him," he suggested.

"What happened to the stolen gasoline?" Wilson suddenly roared at de la Croix.

"I cannot tell you what I do not know," de la Croix said helplessly.

"I shall tell you, Colonel," Nicodeme hissed. "With de la Croix showing the way, it was transported at night in two jeeps over an old and little-used trail into the desert."

The Rat Patrol again, Wilson thought bitterly. They had been actively working with the enemy for some time. What Nicodeme had told him enabled him to fit all of the pieces together—Laurentz de la Croix, Rhee, the Arab, the Rat Patrol. With Nicodeme's testimony, Wilson was ready to take his case before a court, military or civil or even a tribunal.

"Return the prisoners to confinement," he ordered the two MPs stationed at the door. As an afterthought he added, "And hold Nicodeme as a material witness."

Troy trotted with Tully through the wet sand up the dune and turned to look back. Dietrich was still lying near the dead horse. A man was running toward him, but no one was pursuing Troy and Tully. Half a hundred men were swarming about the damaged armor.

"The hardest part of it was keeping from laughing when I saw you creeping up on Dietrich," Troy said. "How did you happen to be there?"

"Gertrude threw me," Tully said sourly. "I was lucky. I landed on my head, and no cracks, please. My helmet saved me. I was wearing it under the burnoose. I was running away and Dietrich was after me. The next thing I knew he was down in the mud. When he lit out for you, I peeled off my robes and took a dive. I seen you was okay and I figured you'd know enough to keep his attention while I sneaked up."

"Thanks for your confidence in my intelligence," Troy said, shedding his robe. He laughed. "And thanks for the hand. We'd better get started. We've a long hike."

Troy looked back once more. The man was helping Dietrich to his feet.

"How come they're not after us?" Tully asked as they trotted down a slope.

"Except for Dietrich, I think they're a beat bunch," Troy said.

When they'd topped the next dune and still saw no pursuit, they dropped to a walk, following the marks of the hooves in the sand. The armor was stuck and they'd blown the tracks from at least a dozen halftracks and tanks. It amused Troy that they'd attacked the armor with horses. Dietrich's men must be dispirited if not demoralized. The machine gun emplacement they'd captured at the pass had probably been replaced with another, but they'd thrown the mortars over the bluff. It was questionable whether Dietrich had additional mortars. If they could take those two positions, Troy thought the time had come for Wilson to bring his halftracks up through the pass.

Moffitt and Hitch met them on horseback a mile from the jeeps.

"We were becoming a bit agitated, chappies," Moffitt said, smiling. "Where did you lose your transportation?"

"Right next to the armor where Dietrich could pick us up," Troy growled. "Where were your eyes?"

"Straight ahead on the eastern horizon," Hitch said and blew a bubble. He took the gum from his mouth, looked at it and threw it away. "I must of been chewing on that for more than a day."

"We can remove the saddles and ride double," Moffitt suggested.

"Oh no, we won't," Tully declined. "Pappy always said, if it ain't good the first time, don't go back for seconds."

Troy looked at the sky and his watch. It was after eighteen-hundred hours. "Be dark fast," he said to Moffitt. "You and Hitch ride back, shred up some stuff from the ration boxes and heat some water for coffee. We'll eat the sandwiches that are left and get on with the war."

"Aw, Sarge," Tully groaned. "I'm a casualty. Can't we leave something undone to keep us busy tomorrow?"

"Sure," Troy said cheerfully. "Tomorrow we'll pitch in and give Wilson a lift."

It was black, foreboding pitch blackness, by the time they'd drunk their coffee and eaten. Gertrude hadn't returned, but Moffitt's and Hitch's horses were tied to the jeep and they whinnied.

"They'd make nice pets but they'd give us away." Hitch said.

"In addition to which they are probably hungry and thirsty," Moffitt said. "We don't actually have further need of them, do we?"

"I hope not," Troy said grinning. "Take their saddles for souvenirs if you want and turn them loose. They ought to have sense enough to head for home."

"And what about us?" Tully asked dolefully.

"That's where we're going too," Troy said. "Home. As soon as we've taken care of the machine guns and any mortars that are left."

"Aw, Sarge," Tully and Hitch chimed in a chorus.

Troy alternated with Moffitt walking the jeeps back near the route south of Dietrich's CP. Lanterns burned at several of the tents. If it didn't rain again, Dietrich would be able to move what was left of the armor in the morning, Troy thought.

"We have to take these positions without any outcry," he said when the jeeps were behind the dunes about a mile from the route. "When they're no longer in working condition, we'll cut behind Dietrich's armor in the field and slip back into town down the old trade route."

"Why do we always have to do it the hard way?" Tully moaned. "When we take the positions, whyn't we just drive down the pass?"

"Wilson must have weapons down there," Troy said. "They'd fire at anything that moved."

Carrying only knives, garrotes and forty-fives, they slunk across the route into the desert and slipped through the darkness toward the emplacement on the west side of the pass. There seemed to be an unusual amount of activity at the tents when they crept by at a distance of no more than two hundred yards. Tomorrow, Troy thought again; Dietrich was mapping some plan for tomorrow.

The four of them crawled on their bellies over the wet ground up to the emplacement. Five men were huddled about a small fire they'd built in a hole in the ground, warming rations in tin cups they held by the handles with knives.

"Take them," Troy whispered.

They were four fleeting shadows that struck silently from the black. Hitch had his garrote on the throat of his second victim before Troy, Moffitt and Tully felt the men they'd seized stop struggling. There had been no outcry. They found no mortars, and they plugged the barrel of the machine gun with mud.

A subtle change in the atmosphere had taken place during the struggle and while Troy was aware of it, at first he didn't know what it was. He tensed, listening and looking for it. Look! That was it. He could see the outlines of Moffitt, Tully and Hitch. They no longer were shadows that merged with the gloom. Glancing up, he felt rather than saw that the clouds had started to dissipate.

"We're losing our cover," he said quietly.

Moffitt looked at the sky and nodded. "Not only that," he said. "If the sun comes out in the morning, it will bake the ground dry enough for Dietrich to move."

In single file, they crawled back to the road on their hands and knees and slid across it on their stomachs. A yard at a time, they slithered into the second emplacement. Again, it was a five-man crew manning the position during the night. Four of the men were sprawled near the machine gun but the fifth was standing guard ten or twelve yards from them. While the others slipped ahead, Tully took the sentry's neck in the crook of his arm and silenced him with his Bowie knife. Troy, Moffitt and Hitch dived for the others. No one called out but there was a struggle and one of the Jerries scrambled off. Troy saw the man running as he scuffled and started to shout but then Tully had the man by the legs. They rolled on the ground and then Tully stood, sheathing his Bowie knife.

Six mortars were emplaced at this position. They required crews of at least two men to a weapon. That meant another ten or twelve men would report here for duty in the morning. Whatever Wilson did would have to be accomplished before then. Troy wouldn't risk the clatter the mortars might make if they were pushed off the bluff and he couldn't leave them.

"We'll have to carry them far enough down the pass so Dietrich won't be able to find them," he said.

He rammed the barrel and breach of the machine gun with mud and sand, and with two of them to each mortar, they sweated and grunted three long trips down the steep, curved road through the pass. The mortars were left piled against the rocky side of the last curve, within range of the halftrack stationed at the bottom. Troy even considered trying to reach the halftrack, but there was no cover and he was certain the crew would shoot at anything that came out of the pass.

By the time the four men of the Rat Patrol dragged their feet to the top of the pass after the third trip, the sky had shed all of its cloud drapery and the stars were pricking through the deep purple. There still was no moon. The men crouched as they sprinted and skidded across the field of mud to the east of the armored column and found the firmer grip of the sand hill. Once over the dune, they alternately trotted and walked the three or four miles to the jeeps.

Troy scouted the road. It was deserted. Nothing moved in the night. The jeeps crossed it slowly, purring gently, and clawed into the desert. Troy directed an arcing route that would take them well behind Dietrich's tanks and halftracks and bring them in safe on the old trade route. The moon uncovered its face. It was full and it spilled milky white light over the moistly dark sand. All the water was gone and the moist sand made a firm track. The jeeps raced, running well south of the battle line, through a cold, silent world where everyone slumbered. It took about an hour to work about Dietrich's menacing armor and it was nearly twenty-two hundred hours when the jeeps reached the trail that ran between Sidi Beda and the oasis the Arabs had used as a dump for the stolen gasoline. The landmarks were familiar and friendly as they always are on the road home and it seemed strange to Troy that only a few days before this had been an alien area he never had seen. They approached the two huge rocks where the Arabs had waited to ambush them. Troy thought he heard the throb of laboring engines.

"Stop," he told Tully. "Run the jeep behind one of the rocks." He motioned Hitch to the other.

Tully and Hitch parked the jeeps and shut off the motors. The four of them jumped down and shagged up the craggy rocks. The sound was louder and it was a thrumming Troy recognized, the straining of motors with transmissions engaged in gear. Vehicles were working up the setbacks on the old trade route.

"Get your tommy-guns but hold your fire," he told the others. "Maybe it's Arabs, but it might be some of our men who've found this route."

Back with his gun and ready for action, Troy watched as two jeeps with windshields down fiat against the hoods and machine guns mounted in the rears dragged into the plateau for a few yards and stopped. Four familiar figures with individually characteristic headpieces were in the jeeps. For a stunned second, Troy, Moffitt, Tully and Hitch stared speechlessly.

"Hey, what do you know, Sarge," Tully finally drawled. "It's us."

15

Head hammering so savagely he could hardly see, Dietrich had staggered back toward his car with Corporal Willi Wunder half carrying him. He was filthy with greasy mud and seething with fury and outraged pride. The Rat Patrol had struck and escaped again. He'd had Sergeant Troy in his grasp and the man had slipped through his lingers. His own men—no! Colonel Funke's men—had sat on their tails and not given chase. When he reached his car, he called for Gleicher.

"Lieutenant!" he roared and immediately lowered his voice. Shouting made his head pound worse. "We were attacked by horsemen. Why were those men permitted to reach the armor? Why didn't you go after them and capture them or kill them?"

"It was thought they were the Arabs of whom you had told us," Gleicher said. His face was stiff and pale. "There was nothing to indicate they were hostile until the first grenade exploded. You know the antics of the Arabs. We drove them off with our fire but did not pursue them because no vehicles were available."

"Vehicles," Dietrich croaked wrathfully. "You are a vehicle. I am a vehicle. Alone, I went after them on foot."

"Ja, Herr Hauptmann," Gleicher said weakly.

"Have you assessed the damage?" Dietrich snapped impatiently.

"There was one casualty only," Gleicher reported promptly. "Ten of the weapons were injured. Treads were blown from four of the halftracks and six of the tanks. Also the communications van was destroyed. The radio operator was killed."

"We are without communications?" Dietrich yelled and caught his breath, holding his head. He continued in a small, tight voice. "One casualty only and it is the radio operator. We are stranded without gasoline and now we have no communications. You, Herr Gleicher, who cannot run unless you have a vehicle, had best learn to use your feet. Why have you moved none of the armor back on the road?"

"The mud is very deep, Herr Hauptmann, and it is half in a ditch off the road where the armor sits," Gleicher said. His face was flushed and he was standing at rigid attention. "It was a deluge and we are in a muddy river to some depth. There is nothing solid in which the cleats can get their teeth."

"How long, Herr Gleicher, do you estimate it will be before we may resume the war?" Dietrich asked icily.

"Oh, if the rain does not fall again and the sun is shining, perhaps we should be able to move some of the halftracks back on the road by tomorrow afternoon or later," Gleicher said.

"I want all of the armor on the road by tomorrow morning," Dietrich said furiously. "Put crews on them tonight. There are men. There are shovels. Put them together."

"But mein Hauptmann, we tried that," Gleicher said in faint protest. "The mud where the armor is standing is like soup. You throw out one shovel of it and the same quantity or more pours back. It will do no good to shovel until the sun takes up some of the wetness and the mud is dried to a substance that can be handled."

"There is something that must be done here," Dietrich barked. "Bring in Funke's tank commanders. I will see them in the mess tent at nineteen-hundred hours. Awaken them and bring them in, do you understand?"

"Ja, Herr Hauptmann," Gleicher assured him. He saluted, about-faced and marched along the line of useless armor.

Dietrich turned to Willi. The corporal's hands were on the steering wheel and his knuckles were white. "Do you think you can get us out of here?" Dietrich asked.

"I will try," Willi said. He started the motor, touched the accelerator gently as he let the clutch out slowly with the car in reverse. The car backed away from the armor and climbed onto the road.

"That was very well done, Willi," Dietrich said. "It is a pity you did not learn sooner."

Back in his tent, Dietrich again washed off the slime and changed into fresh clothing. He rubbed his neck. The clout he had taken had left a tender lump. He was sitting at the table with his neck stretched forward like an inquisitive goose when Grosse reported. Dietrich looked at him sympathetically.

"I was able to observe from behind a curve in the pass," Grosse said. "The enemy has only one halftrack guarding the pass. Five other halftracks at some distance away sit on the road in a line. On either side of the road is a puddle of mud."

But one halftrack guarding the road, Dietrich considered, and only five others stationed in a column on the road. Ali Abu must have told him the truth. The enemy's defenses were down and he was occupied in the town with the riots.

"What of the road through the pass?" he asked Grosse.

"There is silt and it is rough," Grosse said, "but the bed of the road is solid and resting on rock. It will bear weight. Also, the road toward the town appears passable, although the land on either side is all under water."

"Very well, Grosse," Dietrich said. He was impressed with the man's observations. He smiled wryly. "How is your head?"

"The lump is tender," Grosse said, reaching back and touching it.

"Yes, I know," Dietrich said, repeating the gesture.

They looked at each other a moment and then both broke into laughter.

"So you have heard," Dietrich said. "Well, I shall want you in the morning, Grosse. You will be my driver after this time. How will you like that? Together perhaps we can avoid a repetition of our folly." He paused, then said, mockingly stern, "You must never turn your back to your enemy, do you understand?"

"Ja, Herr Hauptmann," Grosse said, smiling. "And thank you."

As soon as Grosse had left, Dietrich walked over to the mess tent. Lamps were burning against the dark and Dietrich shook his head, looking at the black sky. It must not rain, he thought pleadingly, it must not. With the knowledge Grosse had delivered, he had a chance if it did not rain.

Two dozen officers were gathered around the long table under greenish white glaring acetylene lanterns drinking coffee, chattering and laughing. They casually looked at him as he came into the tent. Was this the way Funke ran the division? Dietrich thought, enraged.

"Gentlemen!" he commanded.

The officers stood at attention as he sat on a stool at the head of the table.

"Tomorrow we attack the town of Sidi Beda," he said sternly without preliminaries and saw everyone stare at him in astonishment. Good. They needed to be shocked to their senses, he thought. "Lieutenant Gleicher informs me it is impossible to move anything from the mud onto the road. One halftrack only with five others at some distance lined up in a row stands between us and victory. One tank, gentlemen, is all we require. I want one tank removed from the mud and placed on the road tonight if you are compelled to collectively lift it and carry it. Tomorrow, we shall see about shoveling out the rest of our armor."

"Ja, Herr Hauptmann," Gleicher said, standing. He looked timidly determined. "We shall do what must be done to give you the tank. When, however, the tank destroys the halftrack and even pushes it from the road, the way still will be barred by the column of five halftracks."

"Lieutenant Gleicher," Dietrich said in the tone of a professor addressing a dolt, "our first objective is to gain control of the exit from the pass. Formerly we were confronted with the firepower of six or twelve weapons ringed and concentrated on each individual piece of our armor as it emerged from the pass. Thanks to the rain which not only did damage to us but also descended on the enemy, we now need face one weapon only. We match halftrack against our tank. Would you not say the odds favor us? When the first halftrack is removed, remember the others are aligned on the road and cannot maneuver, so again it is one halftrack against our tank. We shall advance our tank as far as is possible, but the main objective is to remain in control of the exit from the pass until the remainder of our armor has been released from the mud and the fields below have dried to the degree we can move over them. This is our plan. Is it agreed?"

"Ja, Herr Hauptmann," Gleicher said and sat down. He looked a little white about the mouth, Dietrich thought.

"Lieutenant Gleicher," Dietrich said, leaning forward and slitting his eyes. "Was your tank damaged in the attack this afternoon?"

"No, Herr Hauptmann," Gleicher said like a puppet.

"Then see that it is your tank that is lifted from the mud," Dietrich said. "You may have the honor of being the first to descend through the pass."

A tour of the defense positions and the town at twenty-hundred hours had convinced Wilson that all was secure for the night and no further trouble with the natives was brewing. At the pass, Drake had reported no enemy action. Water was draining from the ground on both sides of the road but the sludge still was too loose to support the halftracks. The remaining five halftracks were on firm ground near the edge of the city. Three armored cars were patrolling the military avenue and piers and the other five with their crews were on alert. MPs with tommy-guns were stationed in jeeps at five of the alleys leading into the native quarter and at the street that led to the bazaar. In the dark, Wilson did not like to send them into the quarter, where danger lurked on every rooftop, but they would go in if trouble developed and he had strengthened the guard at the wine shop with four additional men. The six men in the cellar were inside behind the broken wall and should be able to withstand any raiding party the street would contain.

De la Croix and the girl, together with Nicodeme, were locked in their detention quarters at HQ. Guards were concealed outside commanding the windows to the cells and each entrance to the building and Wilson hoped the Rat Patrol would attempt to reach the prisoners.

The air had cleared and the night was moonlighted and cool. Tomorrow, much as Wilson disliked admitting he could not hold the town, he would call in the bombers. Jerry with his two columns simply was too much for Wilson to handle.

Wilson told his driver, the cigar-chomping sergeant, to make one last tour of the MPs in the jeeps. At Wilson's request, the driver at each station probed the alley with a long reaching searchlight. Everyone seemed to have gone early to bed. No robed figures slunk through the alleys, and when the searchlights were off, no lights showed in the windows.

Wilson stepped from his car at the street leading into the bazaar. He was a commanding figure in the moonlight in his white varnished helmet. As he stood straddled legged beside the MP at the wheel of the jeep, he rested his hands on the pearl butts of his twin pistols. He told the MP to throw his light up the street to the bazaar.

The long bright finger of light reached down the alley and touched the jeeps of the Rat Patrol parked side by side in the bazaar facing the military avenue. Wilson jerked his pistols from the holsters and fired. Troy and Moffitt at the machine guns each squeezed off a burst that rattled like hail and the jeeps spun into the bazaar.

"Call all the jeeps to follow us," he shouted to his driver and jumped into the back of the jeep at this station. "After them!" he called to the driver and pointed ahead. The vehicle reared off. Wilson wished it were equipped with a machine gun. "Look for them, turn on your searchlight," he yelled at the driver. The light picked up the Rat Patrol straight ahead driving toward the bluff. They had circled the bazaar. As the light picked up Moffitt, he fired a burst at it and the driver hastily turned it off.

"Going to be hard keeping them in sight," the driver called back. "Can't get too close. That machine gun of theirs will shoot a country mile."

"We'll be all right if you don't turn on your searchlight again," Wilson said. He saw now that the occasional patches of moonlight revealed the fleeing Rat Patrol. "Don't lose them, whatever the cost. Dead or alive, we must take the Rat Patrol tonight."

Wilson heard the protesting shriek of rubber and turned to see one and then two more jeeps swing pell mell into the street and race after them. Another rattle from Moffitt's gun brought him around. The Rat Patrol had reached the end of the street and turned to the right.

Wilson's jeep sped to the corner and skidded around it. Shots pounded into the edge of the building and dust from the dried clay wall spurted into the air. The Rat Patrol was about half a mile away and Moffitt, in the second jeep, kept banging away at them with bursts that sounded like a pounding jackhammer. Wilson's driver swerved evasively but the rough trail was narrow and Wilson was surprised that none of the slugs from the fifty-caliber Browning had torn into them. They were within range and Moffitt was an expert with his weapon.

Behind, three other jeeploads of MPs were bounding along the trail at the bottom of the bluff. Eventually, Wilson thought with grim satisfaction, some of them would survive to overtake the Rat Patrol and put an end to them. His jeep was beyond the last mud huts that squatted behind thorn bush fences on the barren ground that now was slush. Wilson wondered just where the Rat Patrol could be headed and suddenly remembered that Nicodeme had mentioned an old trade route over which they had transported the stolen gasoline.

Moffitt no longer was firing.

"Maybe he's out of ammunition or his gun is jammed," the driver called. "I'll pour on some gas until we can reach them with tommy-guns."

"No, you watch out for him," Wilson shouted. "He's cagey. It's a trick. He wants us to close in then he'll blast us off the road. Keep them in sight but don't get any closer."

Below, the Mediterranean lay dark and calm. The ground between was wet and at the side, the wall of stone soared. The sun would dry out the battlefield and the tank positions would be pounded again tomorrow, but the bombers should relieve the pressure. Wilson shook his head. He wished he dared to pull the Shermans out of the pits. They could get out of the minefields. But if he lost them, the town would be left without any defenses. He would call for the bombers as soon as he returned to HQ.

He looked ahead again and his heart jumped. Somehow, the Rat Patrol had miscalculated, had taken the wrong trail. Wilson could see two tall stones that barred the way. It was a dead end, the dead end for the Rat Patrol, he thought, fingering the butts of his pistols.

"They'll fight, now their backs are to the wall," he shouted. "Slow down until the other jeeps catch up. We'll see whether we can circle through the mud and surround them."

The driver stopped and Wilson looked back.

"Hey!" the driver yelled.

Wilson jerked forward. The trail was empty. The Rat Patrol had disappeared.

"There must be a trail by those stones we can't see," the driver said and the jeep shot forward without Wilson's order.

The other three jeeps were close behind now. The four vehicles ran fall speed toward the stones almost a mile away.

"It may be an ambush," Wilson said. "Those men are desperate, they're killers. We'd better stop and scout."

Fifty yards from the stones, the driver stopped, leaped out and ran up the trail in a crouch. He reached the stones, turned in toward the bluff and disappeared. A moment later he ran back to the jeep.

"There's a road goes up the bluff," he panted, shooting ahead again. "The bluff drops away. Those jeeps are halfway to the top."

He swung the car left at the stones and Wilson saw the setbacks that had been hewn from the face of the receding wall. The Rat Patrol was on the last setback and nearing the top.

"It isn't any use," Wilson said with a deep sigh. He was whipped. "They've too much of a lead. They know the trail and the country. Once they get in the desert, we haven't a chance."

The driver stopped. Above, the two jeeps disappeared over the edge of the bluff.

"You want to turn around and go back, then?" the driver asked.

"No," Wilson said wearily. "As long as we've found this trail, we'd better go on to the top and have a look. It's a gap in our defenses that will have to be closed."

The four jeeps started slowly up the setbacks. His last hope of ever bringing the Rat Patrol to justice was gone. Now he'd never be able to give them their due for abusing his confidence.

Troy and Tully crouched behind the rock on one side of the trail south from the bluff. Moffitt and Hitch clung to the rock on the other side. The two jeeps had stopped as if for breath.

"Wilson must be sending out a patrol dressed like us to confuse Jerry," Hitch whispered.

"Wilson doesn't know about this trail," Troy said softly. "Just the Arabs."

"The weapons on those jeeps are not Brownings," Moffitt said quietly. "Those are Jerry machine guns."

"This is some trick of Dietrich's," Troy said. "He's put a patrol in town masquerading as us."

"The skunk, after all we done for him," Tully said dryly.

"How we going to take them, Sarge?" Hitch asked.

"Alive," Troy said. "I want to find out what they've been up to. Jump them when they come through the rocks." He grinned. "The way we'll do it, we'll each take our other self and give him the beating we've always wanted to."

The alien jeeps started in single file down the trail toward the rocks. The duplicate Troy and Tully were in the first jeep. It gave Troy—the original one—a crazy feeling of unreality to see himself approaching with a very credible Tully at his side. He motioned Tully—the "real" Tully, he found himself thinking—back and they crept away so Moffitt and Hitch would have time to spring at the second jeep.

The Jerry Troy and Moffitt at their machine guns were looking back toward the bluff when the jeeps passed between the rocks. The vehicles were traveling in low gear at about ten miles an hour. Troy and Tully sprang from the ground as Moffitt and Hitch dropped into the second jeep from the rock. Troy grabbed his counterpart around the knees and jerked him out of the jeep. Tully got his arm crooked around the neck of his duplicate and wrested him from the seat. Troy slammed a right to the jaw of the Jerry and Tully stunned his man with a left between the eyes. The jeep turned and ran into the rock and stopped.

With his man out cold, Troy looked toward the second jeep. Moffitt and Hitch must have knocked out their men without a struggle because the jeep was stopped with its motor shut off.

He heard the sound of several motors on the setbacks. "I think the Rat Patrol was on the run," he said, swinging his Browning on the prisoners in the jeep ahead. "We'll just wait here and find out what we've done."

A jeep ran over the top, braked abruptly and an MP leaped out firing a tommy-gun.

"Wait," Wilson shouted, jumping from the back. "Don't shoot."

He stood taking in the situation as another and then two more jeeps topped the bluff and MPs with tommy-guns surrounded the four jeeps all pointing their weapons and looking astonished. Wilson, still appearing to be somewhat bewildered, walked first to Troy, stared hard, then to Moffitt. Then he went to the Jerries and studied them. He took the bush hat from the Jerry Troy, looked hard into his face and slammed the hat back on his head.

"They always wore goggles," he said as if to himself, then said to Troy, "I think I know the answer and I'm sure I owe you an apology, but just for the record, where have you been for the last three days?"

"Fuel dumps, the Jerry CP a few times, Sidi Abd, Bir-el-Alam," Troy said. "From the way you said that, I guess we're in trouble."

"You're not in trouble," Wilson said softly. "This Jerry version of the Rat Patrol is in it up to their ears. They're going to be shot for what they had me thinking you had done."

Troy whistled. "That bad? And you believed us capable?"

"We'll go over that later," Wilson said. "You made your point and identified the criminals quite convincingly. We'll send the prisoners back in the custody of the MPs. I wouldn't trust the Jerries to drive. Knowing what's in store for them, they'd probably take a dive off the edge of the trail. I presume you have a purpose in returning or you wouldn't be here. Fortunate, I must say, that you arrived at such an opportune time. I don't know that you'd have had a chance to speak your piece if the Jerries had escaped and you'd returned later."

"We always try to be at the right place at the right time," Troy said gravely, but he smiled.

The MPs took the prisoners, one man to a jeep. Tully and Hitch got into the Jerry vehicles. Moffitt drove one of the Rat Patrol jeeps and Wilson rode with Troy.

"Drive at a reasonable speed," Wilson said. "I've a lot to ask and a few things I fear I must confess. But what brought you back tonight?"

"Jerry's armor is stuck in the mud at the top of the pass. We've disabled the mortar and machine gun emplacements there. If you will take your halftracks and armored cars up through Latsus before morning, you can destroy his armored column there, capture his command post, and flank the weapons he has in the field."

"Good Lord, man!" Wilson shouted. "Step on the gas. The explanations can wait until the battle is won."

16

Flanked by Troy and Moffitt, Colonel Dan Wilson sat at his desk at HQ issuing orders. He had tried to push all other than military matters from his mind. He tried, but did not entirely succeed, to forget for the moment the heinous deeds of the German impersonators and the shameful injustice he had done his own loyal men, the explanations and amends he probably would have to make. Laurentz and Rhee de la Croix and Nicodeme still were imprisoned and he could not take the time to get at the bottom of that business. There was the possibility that the Frenchman and his niece had collaborated with the Jerries. He concentrated on functioning precisely on the eve of the battle for which he would not need the bombers.

Spread before him on his metal desk was a large-scale map of the entire area showing Sidi Beda, the road through Latsus Pass, and the plateau. The positions of his Sherman tanks that had been destroyed on the bluff were designated with a red X through the emplacement. The pattern of the minefield concerned him because although there was no safe path through the field, he had left a way out. Troy and Moffitt had indicated the locations of the Jerry armor both at the pass and as well as they could which units confronted the defense positions. The enemy weapons, they had said, had been brought back two thousand yards from the minefield when the pads had been prepared for the rocket launchers. He still chilled at the thought of the Nebelwerfers. Those terrifying rockets that shrieked like roaring lions in agony could have reduced the town to rubble and destroyed the entire population, massed as it was in the warehouse. It made Wilson shudder to think what would have occurred if the Rat Patrol hadn't destroyed the plane with its devilish cargo. He marked off a section of the road south of the German command post

"This is the mined area?" he asked Troy.

"You can't miss it," Troy said. "The wreck of the plane is still there."

"Right. Now coming back to the armored column at the pass," Wilson said, moving his pencil to the halftracks and tanks that he'd indicated at the side of the road. "You said you had damaged some of them with grenades. Can you point them out?"

"I think the doctor can tell you better than I," Troy said with a sheepish grin. "I was knocked out part of the time. My horse was shot and threw me."

"Your horse!" Wilson exclaimed in astonishment. "You did say horse, didn't you."

Troy nodded his head.

"I know it's perfectly obvious and it's silly of me to ask," Wilson said dryly, "but what were you doing on a horse?"

"Well, sir, you see, that's how we were able to get next to the armor without arousing suspicion," Troy said. "Dietrich sent a band of Arabs out to kill us and when we'd taken care of them, we stripped off their robes and rounded up the horses. When we rode into the armor, Dietrich's men thought we were the Arabs."

"It's preposterous!" Wilson said, chuckling heartily. "Don't breathe a word of it. If that story ever got back to Washington, the Pentagon would revive the cavalary. Now, Moffitt, just what did you four horsemen do to the armor?"

"I think I can indicate reasonably accurately," Moffitt said with amusement gleaming in his eyes. He picked up a red pencil and marked as he spoke. "The communications van here at the head of the column, destroyed. Treads blown on the next three tanks. Now, toward the center of the column, probably treads blown on six tanks. At the rear, treads wrecked on two halftracks."

"Amazing," Wilson murmured. "Although all of these weapons are either disabled or stuck, they may have crews manning their guns."

"I think that's unlikely," Troy said. "They won't be expecting you to attack." He took the pencil from Moffitt. "But here," he indicated the area immediately west of the road at the top of the pass, "you have ground that is firm where you can maneuver."

"Can we cross the ground immediately opposite the column?" Wilson asked, "providing, of course, we are fortunate enough to take the Jerries completely by surprise."

"Going to give them a broadside?" Troy asked and his teeth flashed in a smile. "Yes, you can make it."

"Hmmm," Wilson said thoughtfully. There might be a way to assure that Jerry was taken unaware. "We'll come back to that later. Where is the fuel dump?"

"I can show you where it was," Troy said. "There isn't any fuel dump any more. We blew it. All that is left is a pile of empty drums where we hid the jeeps. Dietrich is running out of gas. We destroyed all of his dumps, even the one at Sidi Abd."

"I wondered about your reason for going to Sidi Abd," Wilson said, laughing. "I was hoping there would be a good explanation for it. And I imagine you returned through Bir-el-Alam. Well, that's certainly satisfactory."

"Yes," Troy said, "but we visited Bir-el-Alam a second time."

"Yes? Why?" He was curious and a little amused. He knew Troy wanted to be asked.

"To get Colonel Matthe Funke off our hands," Troy said.

"And who is Colonel Matthe Funke," Wilson said, leaning back, ready for anything.

"Division commander," Troy said, obviously enjoying himself. "Dietrich's unit belonged to Funke. Not any more. We've got Funke. He was up there with Dietrich. We captured him."

"Oh, good Lord!" Wilson groaned. "How did it happen you didn't capture Dietrich as well?"

"We did," Troy said, "but there wasn't room in the car for him. We left him tied up in his underwear."

Wilson gave up. He put his head in his hands and roared with laughter. When he had recovered, he said, "And he's running out of fuel?"

"I'd rather think so," Moffitt spoke up. "He hasn't had a drop to put in the petrol tanks since he sent his armor into the field."

"That I am very pleased to know," Wilson said. He remembered now that Farb had reported gasoline was being drained from units disabled in the field. He glanced at the big white-faced clock on the wall. It was just midnight. "My officers will be here any minute. Please remain." He spoke to eight of his officers briefly, explaining first that the Rat Patrol had been impersonated, then indicating the situation on the map and the strategy he would employ. He noticed Troy glance at him approvingly a time or two and it pleased him even more than the enthusiasm of his officers.

"H-hour is oh-three-hundred," he said, checking his watch against the clock. "Will you coordinate your timepieces?"

When he had dismissed his officers, he looked first at Moffitt, who as usual seemed to be amused at something, and then at Troy, who looked tired.

"Going over that old trade route, how long does it take you to reach Dietrich's CP?" he asked.

Troy frowned. He probably knew what was coming. "No more than two hours."

"I know you're tired. I know you have earned a long rest," Wilson sadi. "I also know our chances of success will be enhanced if we can take the armored column and the command post completely by surprise. I want a diversion starting at oh-three-hundred when the halftracks start up the pass. Is there some target away from the pass that would draw Dietrich's attention?"

"There isn't much left except the armor itself," Troy said slowly. "There must be an ammunition dump somewhere. We haven't hit that yet."

"I don't know how we overlooked such an item," Moffitt said. "Yes, by George, I do know. It isn't where we would expect it to be. I'll wager that Jerry blighter has his ammunition stored in an innocent-appearing personnel tent at his command post, exactly as he had done with his drums of petrol."

"Doctor, you may have something," Troy said, slapping his hat against his leg and laughing. "We'll set the command post afire at oh-three-hundred. Even if the ammunition isn't there, it ought to provide the diversion the colonel wants."

Each jeep carried a dozen five-minute plastic time charges on the return trip to Dietrich's CP. In addition, each jeep carried a one-gallon thermos jug of hot coffee and a bundle of sandwiches, courtesy of Colonel Dan Wilson.

"He's buying us cheap, Sarge," Tully growled as they drove south in the desert away from the bluff. Tully had been grousing from the moment Troy had returned from the CP and awakened him. "I ain't settling for a sandwich and a cup of java. I got overtime coming."

It was cold and the moon was down. Troy huddled in the jacket he'd picked up when he changed into dry clothes. Tomorrow, sometime tomorrow, he'd be back in Sidi Beda.

The jeeps had turned due east now and were running behind the German lines. Although there was no moon, the sky was light enough so large rocks and valleys were visible. The sand had settled and packed with the moisture and the surface was reasonably smooth. Tully and Hitch made good time. The jeeps slipped quietly over the road near the empty drums, dashed across the dune a mile away and made a sheltered run to a position behind the command post.

The four of them crawled to the top of the dune and lay in the cold sand, studying the dark blobs of the tents. No lights were showing and Troy could see no one moving. There must be sentries, he thought, but they probably were huddled in sheltered places against the cold. They wouldn't be wary and shouldn't be hard to take if it was necessary. About a dozen tents, he thought. He knew which one was Dietrich's and he'd noticed the mess tent. He decided those were two they wouldn't bother.

He began to worry about the machine gun emplacements, wondering whether anyone had checked and discovered that the crews were dead. Machine guns firing into the halftracks would turn the surprise attack into a disaster. He glanced at his watch and saw it was only oh-two-hundred.

"Doc," he said quietly, "I'm going to check the machine gun positions."

"Right, Sam," Moffitt said. "I'd had the same thought. Do you want me to run up?"

"No," Troy said. "Stay here with the job."

"If you're not back when it's time, we'll move in," Moffitt said.

"I'll take a couple charges with me in case I need to use them," Troy said. "You've plenty left."

He ran behind the dune at an easy lope, strangely not feeling tired. If the gun crews had been replaced, he would plant the charges to coincide with the ones at the CP as well as he could. When he'd run for ten minutes, he crawled to the top of the dune and saw he was at the middle of the column. He lay studying the line for a moment. It must be guarded, he thought although again he could see no one. Or was Dietrich entirely depending on the emplacements? Perhaps the crews of the tanks and halftracks were sleeping in them.

Pushing himself off the dune, he ran another five minutes, crawled over the top and came down the hill on his belly. He got into the mud ahead of the column. It was a gooey, sloppy slough and he pulled himself through it, wriggling like a snake. He watched the tanks and saw nothing. When he dragged himself out of the mud, feeling loathsome and slimy, he looked back at the shattered communications van and the blocky outlines of the first tanks. They canted. Perhaps Moffitt had done more damage than he'd known. Dietrich must have raged at the attack on the tanks. He chuckled softly, thinking of Dietrich trussed up on his cot and Dietrich knocked out cold by Tully in the mud. It had not been Dietrich's day.

Now he edged out on the bluff bordering the pass. He pulled his knife from his belt and moved warily. He stopped abruptly and tried to merge with the ground. A man was lying just ahead of him. He waited and watched, then moved ahead with his knife ready. The man was not sleeping. He was one of the victims of the earlier attack. Troy crawled quickly over the area, found everything as they'd left it.

He crept to the edge of the pass and crawled along it until he could drop to the road. He ran to the other side and walked to the top with his back against the rock wall. Again he studied the column and noted how Wilson could turn immediately west on the plateau, avoiding much of the fire if crews were in the stalled tanks at oh-three-hundred in the morning. About two hundred yards away, something caught his eye. A tank was out of line, on the road. Jerry had managed to move one tank out of the mud. It might explain why the camp was so quiet. Everyone was worn out and asleep. But the tank could come as a nasty surprise for Wilson's halftracks if it were manned.

Troy was certain no one had visited the position on this side of the bluff since the other position had not been remanned, but he crept out to make certain. The plugged gun and stilled crew were as they'd been left. His watch showed oh-two-forty-five. He crawled along the road toward the tank. When he was opposite it, he lay examining the tank, the ground and the armor parked near it. The hatch of the tank was open. That could mean someone was in it or it could mean someone planned to use it soon. Troy checked the time again. It was oh-two-fifty-five. At the command post, Moffitt, Tully and Hitch would be planting their packages in or near the tents so they would explode as Wilson started coming up the pass.

Troy dragged himself on his stomach onto the road and stood with his back pressed against the tank. He put his ear to the cold steel and listened. He heard nothing. At exactly oh-three-hundred, he stepped onto the tracks and dropped his two five-minute charges through the hatch. He jumped to the ground and ran around the tank, stumbling through the mud in the ditch, staggering and sliding in the mud field. A blast slammed the air and flames leapt into the dark sky. They quickly dwindled and Troy heard shouts. A tent was afire. Troy had crossed the mud field standing and now he was in the sand. Another explosion rocketed fire. Troy was running, but he watched the fire, listening to confused shouting. Another tent was burning. When he reached the top of the dune, he stopped and watched, standing. In the light of the fires, he saw men running in every direction away from the camp. Three more charges exploded and then a detonation mightier than all of the others combined grabbed and shook the earth and the sky in a continuing series of blasts that slapped each other. Flames shot into the air like rockets and the entire camp blazed. They'd blown the ammo dump, Troy thought, lying on the dune that seemed warmed as it was lighted by the fire. He watched for Wilson and the explosion in the tank where he'd dropped the charges. He wondered whether anyone had been in the tank.

The halftracks crawled out of the pass like prehistoric armored lizards from subterranean caves. The first turned sharply west, hesitated as if appraising the situation and then turned south directly opposite the Jerry armor. A second and a third followed confidently, then a blast boomed hollowly in the tank and flames shot from the opened hatch. The halftracks scurried away, stopped, considered, and came back to the column with their guns blasting. They drove straight down the line of halftracks and tanks, Wilson's force of ten halftracks and five armored cars. Some of the Jerry armor exploded or blew at the seams as they took direct hits in their fuel tanks or ammunition. All was confusion at the CP when Troy stood, and so many fires were burning it looked like one enormous bonfire.

Although he did not think anyone would observe him, Troy went to the sheltered side of the dune and trotted back in flickering light. The whine and blast of exploding shells continued. Torn and flying metal crashed and jangled. The fires lighted up dark bellied clouds from burning oil. The air was heavy with lung-filling odors of fusil and cordite, and the tart taste of the battlefield dripped like juice.

Troy listened carefully for a new tone, a different pitch in the whine of the shells, but none of the Jerry' weapons was returning the fire. They were taking a plastering, being blasted to hell in small pieces and apparently none of them was manned with a crew to ram shells in the seventy-fives, unless there had been a crew in the tank on the road. That tank had looked as if it had been ready to go somewhere.

Troy saw the jeeps ahead and climbed to the top of the dune. He plunged to the sand beside Moffitt with a good flying bellyflop. The doctor, with Tully and Hitch, was watching the fireworks that extended from the pass to the flame-roaring camp. Moffitt rolled on his side and examined Troy from hair to toes with eyes that sparkled with amusement.

"Nightfighter camouflage?" he inquired casually.

Troy ran a mud-smeared hand over a mud-caked face and glanced at his shirt and trousers. They looked as if they had been soaked in India ink.

"Uniform of the day," he observed. "You blew the dump."

Moffitt nodded. "It's a good show. Did you run into something unexpected? I thought I heard an explosion down your way before Colonel Wilson started firing."

"They'd managed to get a tank on the road," Troy said, searching the area around the camp and the road. "Where has everyone gone?"

"A few, not more than half a dozen, vehicles drove out toward the Jerry line," Moffitt said. "The men on foot who escaped ran south, mostly. I expect they'll realize by morning that they never will make Sidi Abd and wait for us to pick them up."

The halftracks were grinding past the burning camp and not wasting a shell on it.

"Let's get on to the second act," Troy said.

"Right-o, old chap," Moffitt said. "I understand this has a smashing climax."

Troy slid down the hill and vaulted in the back to his gun. He gripped the spade handles and whirled it around. Moffitt was at his gun, Troy noticed. There would be Jerries in the sand hills who would like nothing better than a pot shot at the Rat Patrol. Tully jumped the jeep off in the lead. They crested the dune and plunged toward the road. The column of halftracks and armored cars still was moving south. Wilson soon would circle and try to get a few nips at the enemy's rear before Dietrich realized, too late, what the strategy was.

"Dietrich get away, did you notice?" Troy called to Tully.

"He got away but not very soon," Tully said. "Nobody got away very fast. They didn't know what was happening, things was going like that. They just sort of swarmed aimless like ants when their hill's been dug up. It wasn't until Wilson started pouring it on the Jerry armor that Dietrich came to. He lit out in his armored car like there was hornets in his pants."

"Into the field?" Troy asked.

"Yeah," Tully said. "If I was him, I would of headed for home."

Even with Dietrich in command, there would be confusion in the field, Troy thought. His armor was spread over a front twelve miles long. Dietrich had an apparent distinct superiority over Wilson with twenty-five or more tanks remaining against Wilson's halftracks and armored cars, but Wilson's force was a unit ready to strike, and Dietrich did not have more than two tanks to a mile plus a few halftracks. And Wilson had a plan. His strategy would work, Troy was certain.

The jeeps speeded along the column. The fires were bright enough for Troy to recognize the features of individuals. Wilson was in the lead halftrack, wearing his white varnished helmet and standing very erect and proud, a noble figure of a military leader and a prime target for a slug in the chest. When he saw the jeeps, he waved them back. Troy laughed and pointing with one hand at Wilson, waved with a pushing, downward sweep with the other to indicate he should sit. Now Wilson laughed. He actually looked happy.

"Let's go," Troy shouted to Tully.

"Where?" Tully asked.

"In front of Wilson's halftrack," Troy said, roaring with laughter. "We'll lead the armored column a ways. That ought to give Wilson fits."

The jeeps bounded ahead of Wilson's vehicle and side by side led the parade. Troy and Moffitt each took stances leaning out into the desert with their guns swiveled to the sides as if they were guards for the party. A pistol shot and another cracked and when Troy looked around, Wilson had fired into the air. He wasn't angry or annoyed at their antics. He was laughing and joining the fun. Troy took off his hat, waved it at Wilson and shouted, "Hurrah!"

"Shove off," he called to Tully. "Maybe we can find something to do."

It was light now, the curious blue early light that made everything visible without any seeming illumination. The jeeps drove south, then west fast, leaping crazily over the dunes. It was just abandon. Troy realized there wasn't much more they could do. Not in the light of day. This was a battle for the heavies and the Rat Patrol would serve best by staying out of the way. He looked back and saw Wilson was taking the almost identical path as the jeeps.

"About twelve miles straight west, pick out a dune with a view," Troy told Tully. "We'll have breakfast. We can always move if we don't like our seats."

"Hey, Sarge," Tully said, turning his head, dropping his jaw and feigning amazement. "You don't mean our work for the day is all done so early?"

"This is yesterday's work we're finishing up, son," Troy sternly informed him.

Tully found a good high dune where they could watch for miles around. Wilson's column looked like a toy train back in the distance. To the north and east in his glasses, Troy saw three slow-moving specks, two tanks and a halftrack. Dietrich apparently was calling his armor away from the positions they had held to assemble them somewhere near the center of the line for a stand. Wilson had counted on that. It was part of his strategy. Troy looked back and saw that Wilson's column had veered to the north and was going to take a first nip. This small engagement should take place just about sunrise, he thought, getting into the front seat and settling comfortably beside Tully. Hitch and Moffitt parked alongside. They broke out their coffee jugs and sandwiches, ate leisurely and when they had finished, had second cups of coffee with their cigarettes.

"The show is about to start," Moffitt announced. He was standing and watching through his glasses.

Troy focused on the play. Wilson's column had outdistanced the tanks, cutting them off. Now the halftracks drove straight toward them, but before they were within effective range of the tank's big seventy-five, the halftracks and cars split, circling and coming in hard from the rear. Troy saw smoke and flashes and a moment later heard the dull distant thudding reports of the shelling. The battle was brief and scarcely interesting. Wilson had clear numerical superiority here. Troy couldn't tell whether Wilson had shot off the treads of the armor or whether shells had pierced them, but they were disabled. Crews of five men each climbed from the two tanks. No one left the halftrack. It must have taken a direct hit. One of the armored cars dropped from Wilson's force and stayed with the ten men as they started trudging back toward the road. Wilson's column drove straight west.

"Let's move," Troy said lazily, "I think Wilson will take one more nip at this end."

"Is that his strategy, Sarge?" Tully asked, starting the motor. "Take them two or three at a time?"

"Only the ones he can take without any trouble," Troy said. "Dietrich has probably called most of his armor to his station so he'll have a striking force."

"And Wilson's going against all them tanks with his handful of halftracks?" Tully exclaimed.

"I wouldn't want to tell you and spoil the surprise," Troy said, laughing.

The jeeps spurted across a flat stretch after leaving the dune. The sun blazed brightly and the sand already was turning lighter as the last of the moisture evaporated. The day would be hot, Troy thought. About five miles from the dune where they'd breakfasted, Troy pointed to a good sand hill half a mile to the north.

"About there," he said, "ought to be a ringside seat."

"Whatever you say, Sarge," Tully drawled and put the jeep on the top.

Hitch and Moffitt drove beside them and Troy found Wilson's column without using his glasses. About three quarters of a mile away, he had closed with two tanks using the same tactics he'd used with the first. He was shelling them at close range and had both of them in trouble. The tanks and the reports of the guns stopped abruptly. No one opened the hatch of either tank. The desert was silent. Wilson drove north. He was not far from Dietrich's position, Troy thought. The jeeps followed the halftracks and two armored cars at a distance.

Tully climbed another high dune and Troy told him to stop. He turned his glasses to the northeast and then the northwest but found nothing. He looked north and about two miles off saw moving black spots where Dietrich's armor was converging. The tanks looked like flies crawling on sugar. Wilson's force was headed straight for the Jerries.

"Hey, Sarge, is Wilson nuts!" Tully cried. "Now he's starting to circle around them. What's he going to do, make them chase him until they run out of gas?"

"That isn't a bad idea," Troy said, looking again to the northeast. This time he found what he wanted—three, four, five tiny black spots crawling over the desert. He handed the glasses to Tully and pointed. "Keep looking until you find something, then tell me what you see."

Tully searched for several minutes before he said, "I see some dots moving out there. Is that what you mean?"

"Try northwest, there should be some there by now," Troy said.

This time Tully said quickly: "Yeah. Half a dozen. Hey, they're tanks!"

"Sherman tanks," Troy said. "Ours."

"How'd they get out of the minefield?" Tully asked excitedly.

"They came out around it," Troy said, smiling at the surprise that awaited Dietrich when he became aware that he was caught in the jaws of a nutcracker. "Wilson didn't leave a safe path in that minefield, but it was laid out in concentric circles so the tanks could come out around the edge of the last circle. Last night he ordered the Shermans to pull out of the pits after the Jerry tanks left their positions opposite. He'll keep circling Dietrich just out of range until the Shermans close in or Dietrich gets wise and beats it."

"Why that's cuter than a bow on a hound dog's tail!" Tully exclaimed admiringly. "I never gave Wilson credit for that kind of brains."

"Neither did Dietrich," Troy said, laughing.

Not a shot was being fired by either Dietrich's or Wilson's forces in the field. Wilson continued his slow circle and Dietrich, with his gas low, held his formation in position, although by now, Troy thought, Dietrich must be getting a little uneasy and wondering just what was up. He retrieved his glasses from Tully and looked east and west again. The first of the Shermans were coming into focus, those beautiful, ground-hugging hulks with their low silhouettes and seventy-five millimeter guns in fully rotating turrets of three-point-two-inch armor. The tanks looked as if they were tearing up the desert at their top speed of twenty-five miles an hour but the sand hadn't dried out completely and they were leaving no telltale trails hanging in the air.

Another five minutes, ten at the most, and they'd be within range. All of them apparently were coming to do battle because their lines stretched in diagonals at both sides as far as the glasses would reach. Now Dietrich must have seen them because his armor suddenly moved out to the south, forming into a line. Dietrich didn't like the idea of the squeeze play at all. Wilson withdrew farther to the west. He wasn't going to risk being caught in the range of Dietrich's seventy-fives. Dietrich struck south at the head of the column. The Shermans came on.

"Well, chaps, that is the end of the assault on Sidi Beda," Moffitt said pleasantly.

"Dietrich will be back," Tully drawled and rolled a matchstick. "He always is."

"Not for a while," Troy said. "He won't have anything to come back in."

"Sarge," Tully pointed out. "He's getting away with about twenty tanks and some halftracks."

"You're forgetting, Tully," Troy said. "The Shermans are after him and he's plumb out of gasoline."

17

One of the better things about being in the Rat Patrol, Troy thought, was that with your irregular hours of duty, the commanding officer didn't give a hoot what you did with your time when you weren't on an assignment. Unless he happened to want you on your day off. Troy was taking a tepid shower and he was humming.

It was the afternoon of the day Dietrich's forces had been defeated, thoroughly whipped, crushed to nothingness on the plateau above Sidi Beda. It had been a clean sweep. The Shermans had continued after Dietrich's tanks until they had run out of gas. Twenty tanks in good running condition except they had no more gasoline. The five-man crews had surrendered them without a shot being fired. Dietrich, with a handful of halftracks and armored cars, had scampered toward Sidi Abd. Maybe they'd make it.

Troy wrapped his towel around his waist after he'd shaved and walked from the shower room into the barracks where no other military personnel was present except the other three members of the Rat Patrol, who were pounding their ears. They were wasting an afternoon that was theirs to do with as they pleased when all other men were on duty. He stepped into freshly pressed khakis washed thin enough to be cool, pulled on newly shined boots and clapped on his bush hat. The duty, beat up, thoroughly disreputable bush hat that had ridden through a hundred, or was it a thousand, missions. He wore the hat jauntily and he swaggered out of the barracks down the military avenue where the asphalt was bubbling and MPs patrolled in armored cars. It was a hot day, a very hot day, but not too hot to take Ray to the beach. They'd have a swim in the blue Mediterranean or perhaps get a native boy to take them out for a sail in one of those dinghy-like boats, then go back to the apartment at sunset for a cold bottle of beer, the fresh fish salad she'd promised three days before, and the whole evening alone with her.

He swung into the narrow alley across from HQ that led to the Fat Frenchman's, but caught himself up short when he got there. A jagged, broken-edged hole gaped where the door had been and the steps leading down had disappeared. Two MPs with tommy-guns stood inside the cellar.

"What happened? Where is Ray? Is she safe?" Troy shouted, chilled to the bone. He ran and leapt into the hole.

The MPs barred his way.

One, a cherub-cheeked sergeant with a rosebud mouth and a bass voice that seemed to rumble from the cavern of his guts, said, "Take it easy, Troy. We can't let you in. We can't let no one in. That's orders."

"But Ray," Troy yelled, "Is she safe?"

"You mean the girl?" the sergeant asked and smiled a tiny smile. "She your babe or something? Yeah, she's safe. Couldn't be safer. She ain't here, though."

"Where is she?" Troy demanded in agony.

"You'll have to ask at HQ where she is. They'll have to tell you," the sergeant said. "But don't worry none. I can tell you she ain't hurt and she's safe."

"What is all this?" Troy yelled. "What about Laurentz?"

"You mean the Fat Frenchman?" the sergeant said innocently. "Yeah, he's safe. He's with her."

"All right," Troy said, relieved that at least Laurentz and Ray were together. "Now tell me what happened. How did the wall get blown in like that?"

"Look, Troy, you're all right, you're an okay fellow," the sergeant said soothingly. "We all heard about what you done and how it was. You're personally great. I'd tell you if I could but we got orders that we ain't to say nothing to nobody. You got to go to HQ for the dope."

"Hell!" Troy said disgustedly. "But you're sure Ray and Laurentz are okay?"

"Look, I tell you, I give you my word," the sergeant said. "They ain't got a scratch on them. Now go on to HQ, will you? We got our orders."

"Yeah, I know," Troy said, turning, half running down the alley to HQ.

He'd been afraid of something like this when he'd left.

He'd told Laurentz to bar the door. Some crazy Arab terrorist who hated the infidels had done this. Or maybe some crackpot French collaborator who thought the Jerries really were coming and wanted to show how he felt about the loyal French who thought the Allies were great. He knew he should have told Wilson to keep an eye on the cellar. Now Wilson had to have two of them on duty all the time.

He slammed into the first sergeant's office. Peilowski looked up and sucked in his breath as if he were unpleasantly surprised.

"Peilowski," Troy said in a growl. "Where are the Frenchman and Ray, that's his niece?"

"Troy, now listen," Peilowski said and chewed his fat lips nervously. "You'll have to see the colonel."

"Why do I have to see the colonel?" Troy demanded, threatening now. "What's he got to do with this? Why all the runaround? What happened up there?"

"Now look, fellow," Peilowski said, coming around his desk and putting his hand on Troy's shoulder. "There's nothing to worry about. Everything is okay. It's just that the colonel said anything about this would have to come from him."

"Why?" Troy shouted, jerking away from Peilowski's hand. "What's going on? Why should any information about the whereabouts of the Frenchman and Ray have to come from him? What's he got to do with it?"

"Troy," Peilowski pleaded, "don't ask me. Ask him. I just got my orders."

"That's right, Troy," a familiar voice said and Troy whirled to see Wilson in his tailored battle fatigues and white helmet with his pistols strapped at his hips. "Come to my office, Troy, and I'll explain it to you."

Half angry, half apprehensive, Troy stepped across the hall into Wilson's office. The colonel closed the door and turned on the fan. The four wooden blades started rotating slowly with a sound like an egg beater.

"Sit down," Wilson said, pushing a chair from the wall to the side of his desk. He removed his helmet and pistols and hung them on a hook on the wall, dropped into his chair and shook a cigarette at Troy.

"What is it?" Troy asked, lighting his cigarette with hands that trembled a little. "The front of the Frenchman's shop is blown out and nobody will tell me where Ray and Laurentz are. Is anything wrong?"

"They're all right, Troy," the colonel said. "They haven't been harmed. There is just a matter or two that must be cleared up. How well do you know them?"

"As well as I know anybody, I guess, her better than most," Troy said and bristled. "Why?"

"Do you know anything really personal about them, their loyalties and sympathies?" Wilson asked.

"Good loyal French, a hundred percent for the Allies," Troy said, beginning to get angry. "Why are you asking?"

"Just that it appeared someone in town was collaborating with the Germans, helping that fake Rat Patrol," Wilson said.

"With due respect to your eagles and begging your pardon," Troy shouted, jumping to his feet and shoving his chair back so violently it crashed, "you got the muddle-minded idea when you thought the fake Rat Patrol was us that because I'd been friendly with Ray she was in on whatever they were doing!"

"Troy!" Wilson said sharply. "Restrain yourself."

Troy righted the chair and sat, silent and tight-lipped. His eyes were fierce.

"Now, if you'll remain calm, we probably can settle this matter quickly," Wilson said aloofly to let Troy know he had been offended by his behavior. "I'll admit I was deceived by the imitation Rat Patrol. I thought you had defected. I was hurt bitterly as an individual as well as shocked as an officer. Realize my position. A warehouse was bombed, weapons destroyed. Men were murdered by this band of men who impersonated you. They incited the natives to riot. I saw them several times at a distance. They were, to all appearances, you. There even was a matchstick in the fake Tully's mouth. I was desperate. Someone in town was helping them. Thinking they really were you, it was logical to think the Frenchman and his niece were giving you assistance and shelter."

"So you had them picked up." Troy said with icy scorn. "If it hadn't been for Ray, we never would have got out of Sidi Beda that noon you casually told us to find a goat path and get behind the Jerry lines. I went straight to her from HQ because I knew her father was an Arab and if anyone knew some way out, she would. It was she who told us about the old trade route, even offered to take us out over it. If it hadn't been for Ray getting us out, we'd never have hit the dumps, blown the Nebelwerfers, got into the armor. When it comes right down to it, if it hadn't been for Ray in the first place, you'd never have had your victory this morning. Both she and Laurentz hate the Jerries worse than we do. And you reward them by picking them up."

Wilson had listened with patient restraint. When he spoke now, he was not stern. "Troy, I am sincerely sorry and I shall make what amends I can if they are the people you say. But the matter is not resolved by your emotional defense of your friends. There is a Frenchman who accuses them of collaborating with the Germans, the girl of fraternizing. Do you know a Frenchman named Nicodeme?"

"No," Troy said curtly. His rage was burning.

Wilson observed him narrowly with eyes that suddenly seemed cold. He called Peilowski and told him to have the MPs bring in Nicodeme. When the swarthy, shifty-eyed Frenchman came into the room, Troy recognized him at once.

"I broke his wrist," Troy said. "I didn't know his name. He tried to knife a GI in the vane cellar. Ray told me this man hates her and her uncle."

"Nicodeme," Wilson said furiously, "that is exactly the story the girl told me and you denied it. You said that it was a lie, that you sprained your wrist working on the docks. I do not believe a word you have spoken. Now I want the truth."

"All that I said was true, I swear it," Nicodeme said, eyes jumping from one corner of the room to another.

"How can you say that?" Wilson said. He was becoming enraged. "The man who broke your wrist stands here and identifies you."

"Perhaps about that, I was a little drunk and did not remember," Nicodeme said.

"And about the other things?" Wilson said savagely. "The story about the Rat Patrol transporting the stolen gasoline into the desert? The story about the Frenchman reporting on the transmitter to the Germans? The story of the girl fraternizing with them? How was it you knew of the ancient trade route? I think, Nicodeme, it was you who worked with the Arab, Ali Abu, and gave aid to the enemy."

"No, it is not so, I swear it," the Frenchman cried. "I did not work with the enemy."

"I want the truth from you or I shall have you tried for the attempted murder of military personnel," Wilson said with frigid calm.

"No," Nicodeme said pleadingly. "No, I did not try to murder the soldier. It was only a friendly argument. Do not throw me in jail. Do not take me to court. I will tell you the truth, only let me go."

"I make no bargains," Wilson said firmly. "Speak."

"It was the Arab, Ali Abu, who worked for the Germans," Nicodeme wailed. "The girl and the Fat Frenchman told you the truth. When I heard you had arrested them, I did not think what I said would matter and I thought you would be willing to pay me some money. Ali Abu had stolen gasoline in his warehouse, this I swear. I worked for the Arab now and then. He had a concealed transmitter. I saw it. Ali Abu's men carried the drums into the desert by the trade route. I know this because I followed a distance one night. I know nothing at all concerning the Fat Frenchman and the girl."

"Cochon!" Wilson spat at Nicodeme. "Troy, did you find any of this fuel?"

"It was the first dump we destroyed, at an oasis about twenty-five miles south," Troy said coldly. Maybe the colonel had been provoked into his actions, but Troy could not forget that he had been willing to believe the Rat Patrol had defected, nor could he forgive him for arresting Ray and Laurentz. He should have suspected deception. "We also killed about two dozen Arabs, eleven of a party that attacked us on the route and about a dozen who were working at the oasis loading the fuel on Jerry trucks."

"Take this pig away," Wilson told the MP, pointing at Nicodeme. "Lock him in a solitary cell."

"But colonel," Nicodeme wheedled, "I told you the truth. You promised to let me go."

"I made no bargain," Wilson said scornfully. He turned to Troy when Nicodeme had been led away. "You may as well know the rest. It was I who bombed the wine cellar when no one would release the barred door."

"It was I who told them to bar it and open it to no one," Troy said and jutted his jaw. "Are you ready to release your prisoners?"

"Troy," the colonel said pleadingly.

Troy stared out the window. Wilson picked up the phone and told Peilowski to bring in de la Croix and his niece. When the door opened, Troy stood, saw Ray hesitate, then she flew across the room into his arms.

"Troy, Troy," she said with a catch in her voice and he held her tight.

Laurentz waddled across the room and Troy released one arm to shake his hand. Wilson cleared his throat. Troy put both arms around Ray again and she clung to him.

"Sergeant," Wilson said to one of the MPs who were standing at the door. "If you two will leave the room, please, and close the door?" When the door was shut, he cleared his throat again. "I have made a grievous error. Many grievous errors, I fear. It is difficult for me to say this because no one could feel worse about it than I. Mademoiselle, Monsieur, I apologize humbly. The damage I caused to your establishment I can repair and shall do so personally. The damage I have done to you is not so easy to repair. With your permission, I shall try to show you I am your friend. I have acted hastily in many matters. I confess the Germans in the jeeps, dressed as the Rat Patrol, led me to believe you had defected, Troy. I apologize to you for ever doubting your loyalty and I shall do so individually to each member of the Rat Patrol." He swallowed. "That is all I can say."

Laurentz blinked his melancholy eyes twice and walked to the desk with his hand outstretched. Wilson stood and grasped it.

"Colonel," Laurentz said shaking his hand vigorously, "you are a gentleman. The incident is forgotten. I shall be proud to call you friend."

"I, too, Colonel Wilson," Ray said, stepping from Troy's arms and going to the desk. She gave Wilson her hand. "Perhaps if my temper had not been so quick, I might have been able to tell you that Troy could not possibly be in town. He never would have permitted your military policemen to carry me away as they did."

It was Troy's turn. Abruptly, he grinned. "I wonder what I would have done if I had been in your place," he said.

Wilson smiled and held out his hand. Troy stepped to the desk and shook it.

Troy walked to the door with one arm around Ray and the other over Laurentz' shoulder.

"Oh, Troy," Wilson called as he took his arm from Laurentz and opened the door.

Troy turned.

"I believe you have a free day that was interrupted," Wilson said.

"I'd meant to take this afternoon," Troy said.

"I meant tomorrow," Wilson said with a pleasant smile.

18

It was a pleasant evening, neither hot nor cold but balmy, the kind of evening when most people leave windows and doors open, but the door to the Fat Frenchman's was closed and barred from the inside. The window was not shuttered and light showed from fat white candles that were burning in hanging wrought iron fixtures, which also were new. It was, in fact, the evening of the grand re-opening. The wine cellar was back in business.

Several tables had been pushed together in the middle of the room to make a long board that was covered with a red and white checkered cloth. Six men were seated at the table, one a civilian, the others military personnel, although none wore insignia of rank on collar or sleeve. Laurentz de la Croix in a short-sleeved white sport shirt sat at the head of the table and Colonel Dan Wilson at the foot. Troy and Tully occupied one side and Moffitt and Hitch the other. Ray had insisted on serving the dinner she now was preparing and the men were enjoying cocktails, American style. Martinis. The glass in front of each man had just been filled to within a quarter inch of the brim and a pitcher of martinis sat on a tray at the middle of the table. The tray also contained several dozen additional cocktail glasses.

"Colonel Dan Wilson," Laurentz said, standing and slightly inclining his glass. "Good soldier, good man, good friend."

The Rat Patrol stood as a man, toasted their commanding officer and then all crashed their glasses against the side wall from which the tables had been removed.

Hitch poured drinks in new glasses.

"Laurentz de la Croix," Wilson said, rising and smiling. "Good citizen, good man, good friend."

Again the glasses shattered against the wall and Hitch provided cocktails in new glasses.

"Success," Troy said, standing and presenting his glass first to Wilson and then to Laurentz.

Once more, broken glass rattled to the paved floor.

Laurentz and Wilson stood at the same time, looked at each other and both laughed.

"You start it," Wilson said.

"The Rat Patrol," Laurentz said.

"Loyal soldiers, exceptional men, great friends," Wilson finished.

When the glasses were broken and they all were seated, Hitch poured another round and looked at the six cocktail glasses remaining on the tray.

"Let's settle down to some serious drinking," he said.

Troy leaned back and sipped his cocktail. He was contented. He was with men he liked and he felt at home. Nothing was urgent. Being contented was a strange emotion for him. Action always had been a tonic but now he was happy and fat. Except for a routine patrol now and then, the Rat Patrol was enjoying a life of ease in a land of milk and honey. They'd never had it so good.

"The Germans who impersonated your Rat Patrol," Laurentz said, "the ones who created all the trouble at the time of the seige. Did you execute them, Colonel?"

"No," Wilson said reflectively. "I'll admit I was irrationally upset at the time. It was because I thought it was my own Rat Patrol who were committing atrocities. When I re-examined the events unemotionally, I realized the Germans had been doing exactly what I require of my men behind the enemy lines. The carbon copy Rat Patrol are in a POW camp. To have executed them would have been to invite similar treatment for Troy, Moffitt, Hitch and Tully." He glanced at each with a faint smile as he spoke his name. "If they ever get back to work."

"Wasn't there a rather nasty French chap involved in all of this?" Moffitt asked, closing one eye and squinting at the fishy eye of the olive in his glass.

"Nicodeme?" Wilson said. "Despicable character. He is in custody but hasn't been brought to trial. The Arab, Ali Abu, was the Jerry contact in Sidi Beda. He has not been apprehended and we want to use Nicodeme's testimony against him. As long as Nicodeme isn't sentenced and thinks we'll bargain, he is willing to appear as a witness against the Arab. I can promise you, it will be a long war for Nicodeme."

"And the German leader?" Laurentz inquired. "Was he captured?"

"Dietrich?" Wilson said with a short laugh. "He succeeded in reaching his base at Sidi Abd with a few of his men, but I think you can eliminate him from the rest of the campaign. Can you imagine the reaction of the field marshal, Rommel, to the battle of Sidi Beda? It cost the enemy a hundred pieces of armor, not to mention such items as Nebelwerfers and prisoners. No, you can cross that one off."

The meal, like the cocktails, was American style and amazing. A tossed salad, steaks and fried potatoes with onions. That was it. No dessert, just coffee with brandy, which only went to show what a smart gal Ray was. A man wanted food, not fluffy trimmings. Troy hadn't known much of a home for a long while but the meal was nostalgic. It tasted of Main Street, Home Town, the joint with the sign behind the counter: Pies Like Mother Used to Make. How could a French-Arab girl in Sidi Beda, Libya, North Africa, have known exactly what would hit the spot?

"The grand re-opening," Wilson said, suitably and sensibly standing after the conversation had gone drowsy, "was an unmitigated success. And now, if you young people will excuse me, I must return to headquarters and see about this business of a war."

Moffitt spoke for Tully and Hitch. "There's a game at the barracks to which we are committed. We hold most of the chits."

Laurentz remembered the widow of a former French official who recently had returned to the town.

"I'll help with the dishes," Troy said to Ray.

It was crazy, mixed-up, unnatural, he thought after he'd swept the mountain of broken glass from the floor and carried up a tray of dishes, that looking at the back of a woman in an apron standing at a sink washing dishes should make a man feel warmly happy. He kissed the back of her neck.

"Thank you, Troy," she said, turning and smiling devotedly, patting the back of his hand with her soapy fingers.

Suddenly he was uncomfortable. The kitchen, the apartment, was too small. This girl, this wonderful girl was too close to him. She was making a domesticated animal of him. He finished the plate he was wiping and walked out on the balcony. Above, the purple sky was filled with stars, but it was vast and uncluttered. He wanted to be out on the desert under this sky, surrounded by empty nothingness. He wanted to start suddenly at a faint noise, roll to his feet with his tommy-gun at his hip. He wanted to feel the racing jeep bounding under his feet, while his shoulders shivered from the Browning jerking in his hands.

Ray came out to the balcony and stood by his side. "Ray," he began.

Feet pounded up the stairs, ran through the foyer and across the tiled floor of the living room. Tully flung onto the balcony.

"Sarge," he said excitedly. "Wilson wants you at HQ right away and he's hopping mad."

"He knows I'm not on duty and this time he knows where I am," Troy said irritably. "What's it all about?"

"He wants us to take out a patrol right away," Tully said. "Dietrich's on the prowl again."

Troy turned to Ray and kissed her tenderly. "Be careful, take care of yourself, I'll be back when I can," he said softly and happily. Everything was in place again.

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