The Rat Patrol 3 - The Trojan Tank Affair (11 page)

"I'm Lieutenant Cobble," the man in the passenger seat said, leaning his arm on the back and turning. "Your driver is Sergeant Damon. In a few miles, when we see we're running clear, I'll come back for a talk. We're both G2, by the way."

"You know," Moffitt told him, "I think all of us are beginning to feel that if we weren't the Rat Patrol, we'd rather be G2 than anything in the Service."

"Oh, but you are," Lieutenant Cobble assured him. "Not on record, but actually you are G2. You very much are." 

"How about that?" Tully said happily. "After all the 'shine I've run, me a kind of policeman-detective."

Troy settled comfortably on the mattress and stretched his legs, leaning his bared head against the side and watching the vault of the night sky that was light at the dome and shadowed as it neared the earth. The breeze was fresh, cool and swift. They were driving very fast and almost silently. This was a special car, he thought, with a high speed rear axle and finely tuned motor. He breathed deeply and closed his eyes. It was good to be out of the van and under the desert sky again.

A hollow far-off boom brought him quickly to his feet, searching the the flat land that stretched all about, Beside him, Tully pointed back the way that they had come. He saw a small fire seeming no larger than the flame from a match glowing in the distance. He brought up binoculars he had found in the van and not left behind and adjusted them on the blaze. He thought he discerned a vehicle circling it, although it seemed smaller than a fly and he could not be certain. He half turned to Lieutenant Cobble. The G2 officer was kneeling on the seat with night glasses at his eyes.

"Can you tell what it is?" Troy asked. He thought he knew.

"Major Grogan's van, I'm afraid," Lieutenant Cobble said.

"Damn," Troy muttered, sliding his back down the side of the car and sitting on the mattress. He wondered if Jerry, observing the oasis from a distance, had glimpsed him as he went back into the van and concluded the truck was returning personnel to Bir-el-Alam rather than bringing someone to the perimeter.

Lieutenant Cobble climbed over the seat and dropped to the bed of the car.

"Would one of you go up with the driver and keep a sharp lookout?" he asked.

"Tully," Troy said, handing the glasses to him.

As Tully went forward, Lieutenant Cobble sat on the mattress beside Troy and lighted a cigarette. In the flame of the match cupped in his hands, his lips were tight and thin.

"Grogan was almost my father-in-law," he said. "I'm engaged to his daughter. Well. Let's get on with it. Outside of Major Blakely and perhaps a colonel or a general, Sergeant Damon and I are the only ones who know where you are going to be for whatever period is required. We know because the two of us built and equipped this place for you. We do not know the nature of your mission although I guess we could predict more or less accurately. So far as we know, your mission has been one of the best-kept secrets in Intelligence. To further safeguard you, Sergeant Damon and I are being flown to Washington immediately upon our return to Bir-el-Alam." He paused and said dryly in an aside, "For this we thank you. Now, there are several things that recommend the place we are taking you. Day or night, you can't miss it so it eliminates the danger of anyone getting lost. About fifteen miles northeast of Agarawa, a strange rock escarpment pokes out of the desert. It is about two miles long and rises to a height of about two hundred feet. The desert sand about this strange formation is strewn with jagged rocks."

"Why, I know the place!" Moffitt exclaimed.

"You do?" Lieutenant Cobble said with some surprise. 

"Of course," Moffitt said excitedly. "The tribes regard the area as a kind of Nature's Devil's Garden and shun it." 

"Exactly," Lieutenant Cobble said. "Then you must be familiar with the superstitions they attach to the rock. There is a legend that a monster dwelt in a grotto beneath the rock. Sergeant Damon and I investigated and discovered that, as often is the case with myths, there was some basis in fact. Not that we found trace of a monster, but we did locate a grotto. It was covered over and partially filled with sand. We excavated it and concealed the opening with a steel sheet to which sand has been cemented. The grotto has good ventilation through a fissure and when the steel sheet is in place, defies detection. This entrance is located at the exact center of the escarpment."

"Incredible," Moffitt said. "This will be ideal. We could operate for the rest of the war from a base like that"

"You will find it adequately stocked for a one-week period," Lieutenant Cobble said. "We were informed that was the maximum period for your mission."

"Are you familiar with Jerry's staging area?" Troy asked.

"Scarcely," Lieutenant Cobble said. "It's somewhere west. From the escarpment we observed intensive patrol activity. Air cover is concentrated from Agarawa west." The mission was not likely to succeed, Troy thought wryly, if undertaken in the light of the moon.

"Hey!" Tully shouted from the front of the car. "We got company.'

"Stay down," Lieutenant Cobble commanded as Troy started to stand. He ran to the machine gun at the rear and swung it to the side. "You in front. There are grenades. Throw them when we get close enough."

"What is it?" Troy asked, holding his tommy-gun across his knees and gritting his teeth. It was going to be hard to sit this one out.

"Two patrol cars, half a mile south of us," Lieutenant Cobble said, checking his belt of ammunition. "We could outrun them but they'd comb the area for us and we don't have time for games tonight. We'll have to destroy them and get out before Jerry can send any others to this area." 

"If you're going to blast them, we can help," Troy said, getting to one knee.

"I told you to stay down," Lieutenant Cobble said crisply. "I don't want them radioing in a report of an armored car with six men aboard."

The car swerved and accelerated. The driver was maneuvering to avoid being trapped between the two oncoming patrol cars, Troy thought. He'd try to flank one on the far side and then turn back on the other. With his speed, he could probably manage it. Troy glanced at Tully. He was crouched with his right arm drawn back.

"We're closing," Lieutenant Cobble said quietly. He was hunched over the machine gun, gripping it with both hands. "They've fallen in line. We'll meet the two of them broadside. Lie flat, men. Hug the sides."

Troy stretched out with his head on his folded arms.

"When the shooting started, who was there, Sarge?" Hitch quipped. "You or me?"

"Nuts," Troy said with feeling.

A burst of slugs slammed into the side of the armored car above Troy, hammering just above his body. They did not penetrate the plate. A few feet back, Lieutenant Cobble was blasting with the machine gun that jumped in his hands like a jackhammer. An explosion ripped the air and flames leaped. Troy thought Tully must have hit one of the cars with a grenade although he had not seen him throw. Abruptly the firing ceased. The armored car raced on, then skidded in a reverse spin. When Troy lifted his head, Lieutenant Cobble was slumped forward over his Browning. Troy jumped to him, threw an arm around him and lowered him to the floor.

"Jack, see what you can do," he shouted, gripping the machine gun, squeezing off a short burst to check it and shaking the ammunition belt.

Ahead, one of the patrol cars was on its side and ablaze with black smoke putting a crest on the red flames. The other pig-nosed car was running toward them. Troy angled the machine gun and started firing as they met almost head on. He swiveled the weapon raking the three men who were firing light machine guns chest high. A grenade burst behind the patrol car as Tully missed.

Again, the armored car spun about, this time chasing after the patrol car that was speeding away. Troy could see only the driver. The souped-up armored car quickly drew abreast of the patrol car.

"Drop a grenade in it," Troy called to Tully.

They flashed by and a few moments later Troy saw the enemy vehicle explode in a flaming blast. He dropped to his knees beside Lieutenant Cobble. Hitch was holding a pen-light for Moffitt. The lieutenant's face was set and his teeth were clenched. Moffitt had ripped the fatigues from his shoulder and was probing the flesh. He flipped out a slug with the tip of his knife.

"Is he okay?" Troy asked.

"Painful but not serious, I think," Moffitt said. He shook sulfa powder from the lieutenant's first aid pack into the wound and slapped a bandage pad over it. "He caught it in the shoulder and the bone stopped it. May be a little stiff but it shouldn't interfere with his leave."

"We're approaching our destination," Sergeant Damon called.

Troy stood and peered ahead. Grim and foreboding like a great black fortress, the rock escarpment rose out of the sand to a towering height. The car slowed and crept between sharp-edged stones into the shadow at the base of the rock. Here it was so dark Troy could not see where the escarpment began but their way by the side of it seemed smooth.

"There's a pathway of sand about ten feet wide where there are no stones," Lieutenant Cobble said, breathing heavily as he stood beside Troy. "You can use it for getting in and out."

"But the tracks," Troy exclaimed as the car continued toward the middle of the rock. "There will be a trail right to the entrance."

Lieutenant Cobble laughed although the sound was harsh, as if his shoulder throbbed.

"We have a rake attachment on the rear that Damon has dropped," he said. "It drags out all marks. There are rakes on the jeeps. We'll drive out the other side and no one will know a car has been through."

The car stopped and Sergeant Damon jumped out. Troy saw the beam of his flashlight playing back and forth in the sand near the base of the monstrous rock wall. He bent and lifted what looked like a piece of the desert. A sand-covered, hinged steel sheet opened to a ramp about six feet wide that slanted into the rock.

"Inside quickly," he said, handing the flashlight to Troy as he swung out of the car. "Just lower the sheet when you're inside. We'll be off."

"Luck, men," Lieutenant Cobble called, getting into the front seat.

As Troy turned the light into the dark bowels of the earth, lowering the camouflaged sheet behind and backing down the sharp incline, he was wondering whether the interception of the armored car by the Jerry patrol had been accidental. It almost seemed that Jerry had been waiting for the armored car near the escarpment.

8

After the sheet was in place, Troy stood hunched with his ear to the metal a few moments. He could hear the passage of the tires in the sand receding and then disappearing altogether and he nodded with some satisfaction. At least they had a listening post and need not be taken entirely unaware. Not that there was much chance of the hiding place being discovered, he told himself. Even Sergeant Damon who'd helped shovel it out and build it had had to look for the entrance.

He turned the beam of the flashlight down the short, steep ramp to Moffitt, Hitch and Tully, bunched and waiting at the bottom where there was the mouth of a cave in the rock. The sides of the ramp, he saw, had been shored and the top was braced under the hinged sheet. The sand floor was compacted. He turned the light into the cave and it showed a passage that appeared to widen.

"I don't know that I'm going to like this much better than the van," Troy grumbled.

"Cheer up, alley cat," Moffitt said lightly. "We'll let you out to prowl at night."

The black walls glistened in the beam of the flashlight. The passage angled back sharply for five feet, opening to a large circular chamber. Two jeeps, dappled yellow and gray, were lined one behind the other directly in front of the passage, but Troy paid scant attention to them. They were familiar items. He was curious about the dimensions of the grotto and the equipment that had been provided. He played the light on the black rock wall to his right and then flashed it quickly around. The chamber appeared to be about forty feet wide and fifty feet long, roughly circular but narrowing to what seemed to be another passage to the rear. He flashed the light up and saw that the ceiling was at least twenty-five feet above the stone floor at its dome although no more than ten feet high at the sides. At first glance it seemed clean, spacious and substantial, although it was damply cold inside the rock under the desert.

He brought the light back to more closely inspect the supplies and, he hoped, comforts that had been provided and found an acetylene lantern conveniently placed on the floor just inside the mouth of the cave. Tully lighted it and held it above his head. In the stark white light, the black-walled cavern almost seemed like a dungeon. Troy ran his flashlight along the wall to the right and about fifteen feet beyond the entrance against the curving wall found a wooden crate.

"Let's take it from that point and walk around the sides," he told Tully. Might as well find out what we've got and where things are. I'm going to douse the flash and save it."

It was funny, Troy thought, following behind the others, an acetylene lantern had always seemed to burn with a bluish white light in the open. Here in the black stone room, the white seemed tinged with green. The lantern's usually glaring light seemed pallid.

The wooden crate was large and probably had been used to bring in supplies. It had been turned bottom side up making a rough table four feet long and three feet wide. Folding camp chairs had been placed about it, one at each end and two along the side and there was a messkit and tin cup at each place. Another acetylene lantern stood in the middle of the table.

"Obviously our mess hall," Moffitt said and chuckled. He lighted the lantern and left it on the table. The chamber began to seem somewhat more cheerful in the augmented light.

About ten feet beyond the dining area, another wooden crate stood on its end with the open side facing the cave. It contained boxes of rations and on top of the crate stood a two-burner pressure stove similar to the one they'd had in the van. Seven five-gallon GI cans of water were lined against the wall on one side of the stove and on the other was a smaller crate with a lantern on it. Inside this crate were a case of canned beer, three bottles of bourbon, a bottle of Scotch, four cartons of cigarettes, half a dozen cans of condensed milk, a carton of loaf sugar, a good-sized coffee pot and a three-pound can of coffee. Not powdered or instant coffee, but vacuum-packed, honest-to-God ground coffee.