The Rat Patrol 4 - Two-Faced Enemy by David King Read Free Book Online

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