Chapter 8 This must be hell The Rat Patrol is here

Dietrich awoke when he heard men moving in the room around him. Thinking it was the Russians he remained still.

It was actually the Americans unloaded into the barracks. One reason the German POWs were so hastily evicted.

Kirby, always ready to make the best of a bad situation rifled the blankets and coats left behind hoping to find a cigarette or anything useful.

Dietrich was trying not to cough. He thought the voices were talking English but he hadn't really heard or spoken it in at least two years.

He felt his covers pulled away, the cold further revived him.

"Hey Sarge, There's a Kraut back here"

"Is he alive?"

"I don't know."

"Well, let me have a look."

A warm hand gently patted the unbruised side of his face.

"Hey Kraut, hey buddy wake up."

Dietrich wondered, did he just call me a Kraut?

Only an American would do that.

"Kirby get Sergeant Moffitt, he speaks German."

Dietrich's mind flashed back to when The Rat Patrol blew up his command car with a cowardly roadside bomb.

He'd been thrown from the vehicle and left behind by the convoy.

He became so distracted capturing Sergeant Troy that bandits surrounded and disarmed them.

They chained him to Sergeant Troy, subsequently they were being drug across the desert to an unknown fate.

It was during that time he learned how complicated Americans really were.

Germans had been told that they were undisciplined dreamers with no stomach for war.

And so it seemed at first with Sergeant Troy.

It greatly annoyed Dietrich that Troy made jokes in the grimmest of circumstances.

Surely he was doomed being chained to such an imbecile.

A few hours later his regard for Troy changed when he witnessed the cunning and ingenuity of Troy"s escape plan.

He also showed great tenacity in desert survival.

Dietrich was badly bruised when thrown from his vehicle.

It left him at a distinct disadvantage in the struggle through the desert.

Troy made sure they'd both survived. Despite Dietrich's half hearted attempt to kill him.

It wasn't a matter of being chained together.

He didn't doubt had he expired Troy would've no trouble freeing himself from his corpse.

He knew that he owed Troy his life.

Afterward they'd shot all manner of munitions at each other from a distance.

But he couldn't bring himself to kill the American sergeant when face to face despite having numerous opportunities.

When the ordeal was over the wily American and his team even carried out their mission to destroy the base at the oasis.

Dietrich surmised that it was just that kind of determination which enabled Americans to conquer a vast wilderness.

The leaders of Germany had greatly underestimated them.

Dietrich rolled over to cough. When he was done the American urged him to sit up.

"Take it easy," he said. "Here have a drink."

He looked at the man who held a canteen to his lips.

A very tired looking blond American sergeant, his blue eyes not without kindness.

He couldn't understand what Americans were doing here, but after all weren't they Allies of the Russians?

This must be a trick.

Still determined to resist, he recited in a hoarse cracked voice:

"Dietrich, Hans, Lieutenant" then his four digit personnel number.

Troy and Moffitt arrived just in time to hear him identify himself.

They rushed to look down at the man on the bunk.

Surely the name Hans Dietrich wasn't uncommon in Germany.

In the dim light from the dirty barracks windows he looked nothing like the proud captain they'd fought in Africa.

How many times had they studied that face through binoculars?

Moffitt would even try reading Dietrich's lips to ascertain what orders he was giving his troops.

The Dietrich they knew kept a neat appearance and was athletically slim.

This man had said he was a lieutenant but wore an ill fitting corporal uniform.

The sleeves so short they exposed rope burns on his wrists.

The Dietrich they knew wasn't a lieutenant and certainly wasn't a corporal.

This man wore a couple weeks beard growth. He'd been starved and beaten.

"Where are my men?" He implored.

Dietrich opened his eyes again to see Troy and Moffitt staring down at him.

This must be hell he thought, The Rat Patrol is here to mock me in my defeat.

He glared at them each in turn "Where are my men!" he demanded more forcefully, anger edging into his voice.

"What have you done with them!"

Troy and Moffitt had heard that tone before. They looked up at each other shocked.

"Bloody hell, it is him!" declared Moffitt.

They checked his identity tags, sure enough they said: Dietrich, Hans, Captain.

He'd never had new ones issued.

"Why the hell did they do this to him, the war has to be almost over?" Troy said angrily

About that time he heard Kirby make an offhand remark.

"Lousy Kraut's, we ought to just throw'em out there with the Russians."

Troy whirled around eyes blazing and snarled. "Nobody's doing nothing to him!"

Kirby, taken aback by Troy's voracity stuttered "Well I was only fooling."

Saunders stepped foreword in case the need arose for him to defend the loose lipped BAR man.

Kirby had not a mean bone in his body but was young and excitable.

He often got into trouble his sergeant had to get him out of.

Troy turned back to the man on the bunk and Saunders wondered why he so vehemently defended an enemy soldier.

Was he an Allied agent? Old collage buddy? Long lost family member?

He watched the strange scene unfold.

Moffitt leaned close to Dietrich and spoke in German so he was certain to understand.

"Captain, we don't know where your men are, we are also involuntary guests here."

Dietrich looked confused. Was Russia at war with America and Great Britain now?

Yes, the Rat Patrol had been ruinous to his command in Africa yet they maintained an odd respect for each other.

They were honorable adversary's in their own way.

They wouldn't have anything to do with him being beaten or sending his men into slave labor.

Troy spoke next. "Captain, can you tell us where we are or what's going on here?"

Dietrich looked at Troy through one squinted eye and said with gritted teeth.

"You disgust me Sergeant Troy. Ridiculing a man's loss of rank, its Lieutenant Dietrich now."

"I'm sorry Troy stammered we didn't know, what happ..? "

Troy stopped himself from asking. This was Dietrich he was talking to.

A man who would take the moral initiative if he thought necessary.

He could have run afoul of the Nazi's a thousand ways.

Moffitt hearing this all this shook his head.

The man was at death's door and still trading barbs with Troy.

Troy asked Dietrich if he would let their medic check him out.

"Were going to get you out of here." He assured him.

Troy didn't know who he was kidding. He wasn't sure if any of them were getting out.

The three sergeants stepped away to let Doc work.

He had treated many Germans and drew no distinction when it came to suffering.

"Well, what are we gonna do with him?" Troy asked the others.

Moffitt, looking thoughtful spoke up.

"It seems to me that his men tried to disguise and conceal him.

It's my bet that the Russians don't know he's here. First we must get him into an American uniform.

That will make up some for the difference if they counted before Tully and Hitch's escape."

Doc came to report from Dietrich's bunkside.

"It seems he had a chest injury and the Russians tried to drown him.

I don't think he has any internal bleeding or broken bones.

But he's taken a bad beating and is probably picking up pneumonia.

He's already running a low grade fever.

He needs antibiotics, some rest and decent food like we all do.

The lieutenant is right mentally agitated, keeps asking if I've seen any German soldiers."

Troy and Moffitt were able to persuade Dietrich to switch clothes.

It wasn't unusual for a soldier to have a piece of enemy clothing or equipment.

They switched around items until Dietrich was outfitted as an American.

Dietrich thought it bizarre.

Other times he had worn American uniforms was to infiltrate and sabotage their bases.

Now it was to save his own life.

Kirby donated the shirt off his back.

Dietrich removed his own with great difficulty.

They all winced at the bruises left on him by Russian's boots.

He groped for a handkerchief in one of the pockets and when he removed it there was a metallic rustling.

It was the broken off sections of his dead soldiers personnel tags.

Made with dual sets of information they were meant to be broken in two, one left with the body one kept for records.

Dietrich lost count of how many he'd collected but the handkerchief

was heavy enough to be a constant reminder of the responsibility he carried.

He had the same information in his personnel records but they were taken when he was searched.

The guard had seen the identity tags and knowing they represented his dead soldiers laughed and shoved them back in his face.

Troy asked, "Cap…?"

Dietrich bridled, but it for the Rat Patrol who knew him as a captain to hard to address him otherwise.

"Excuse me lieutenant, can I hold those for you? It might cause suspicion if they are found on you."

Troy knew there were ghouls that collected such things. It wouldn't do for one of them to have a German accent.

Reluctantly Dietrich handed over the handkerchief. It was the last one left that his girlfriend monogramed.

He would have to trust Sergeant Troy with it.

Saunders came up with some U.S. dog tags from his own grim pocketful to complete Dietrich's disguise.

The Russians gave their "Guests" some wood for the stove and a more substantial soup.

The guards were cooly polite but would answer no questions

Only that they were being detained for their own "safety" and would soon be released.

None of the Americans could speak Russian, even Moffitt knew only a few words.

All they could do was wait.

Kirby continued to rummage thru the personal belongings the Germans left behind.

He found a gasoline soaked field jacket and nearby inside an overcoat he found Corporal Muhlenburg's tiny diary.

Muhlenburg had no time to retrieve it.

It was forbidden to keep journals anyway to prevent information falling into enemy hands.

Corporal Muhlenburg was not one to closely follow the rules.

He'd kept a diary since he was fourteen and wasn't going to let the war stop him from continuing it.

His last entry just the previous evening

That night Sergeant Moffitt read it by the light of the stove to their close knit group.

They put Dietrich's bunk nearby and gave him soup. He slept soundly being warmer than he had in months.

The corporal's diary chronicled everything that happened after they boarded the train for the Eastern Front.

Among many other details Mulenburg described:

How delighted he was to have his cousin's captain, now lieutenant as his officer.

Discovering the massacre in the village.

The collapse of their line and being trapped in the basement.

Their surrender and Dietrich's condemnation for war crimes.

That they were to be sent to mines for reparation.

A mumble went through the Americans. It was the first they heard of the war's end.

"This is outrageous!" said Moffitt after he finished reading.

"The Russians don't seem to be abiding by any of the usual rules." Said Troy.

"And none of it explains why they brought us here," Saunders added.

With the corporal's diary and Troy and Moffitt's accounts of Dietrich's exploits

his reputation grew amongst the Americans as he slept.

They told them he stopped a raging battle to save a child that fell down a well.

How Dietrich cleared Moffitt of charges, risking capture in the contaminated plasma incident.

That they suspected, hell knew he shot an insane SS captain who kidnapped Red Cross workers and stole typhus serum.

How they joined forces to against attacking tribesmen that had them surrounded.

Yes, Dietrich always seemed a man intent on accomplishing his mission, not racking up casualties.

One time he had Troy captured, as usual he was being uncooperative.

In exasperation Dietrich shouted "I'll have you shot!"

Troy practically laughed in his face and coolly fired back "That's just not your style."

Still, sometimes they wondered how far they could push the German captain.

The Gestapo and SS were playing hardball to motivate the regular army officers.

"Damn it Moffitt, we should have just captured him when we had a chance!"

No one expected the war to last so long or to be one of such attrition.

The Rat Patrol avoided the subject of Dietrich after that day almost two years ago.

It was during the escape with captured General Koenig.

Troy had run up and jumped into the jeep.

Panting, he'd informed the rest of the Patrol "I just had to shoot Dietrich!"

After a stunned pause Moffitt asked "Is he dead?"

" I..I.. think so. He was driving straight at me and I shot him square in the chest."

General Koenig, tied up in the back seat grumbled. "The man was an incompetent fool."

Almost before he could finish Troy whipped around and delivered a vicious backhand slap, effectively silencing him.

He glared murderously at Koneig for a moment, controlling his urge to kill the worthless son of a bitch.

Dietrich had outwitted the Rat Patrol many times and was no fool.

In Troy's opinion this war criminal wasn't good enough to shine the captain's boots.

And he'd shot Dietrich over the likes of him.

No one spoke until they reached the base and gave their report.

The tempo of the war sped up after that for The Rat Patrol.

There were no more long waits in the desert for enemy convoys but lightning fast raids in Italy, France, and Germany.

After the failed attempt on Hitler's life and the price the officers involved in it payed.

The Rat Patrol understood even more the risks Dietrich took for his decisions.

Troy was sure he'd killed Dietrich that day and felt guilt as if he'd extinguished something rare.

They never again met an enemy officer that wouldn't have simply shot them without a thought.

Troy figured men Like Dietrich were killed early in the war leaving those who had lost their humanity.

Out of curiosity Moffitt even checked the roll's of those Germans that surrendered in North Africa in May 1943.

Not seeing Dietrich's name convinced them he was dead.

They hadn't accounted for records that were lost or destroyed.

Now they were together again facing a common enemy.

In the morning Dietrich felt somewhat better having eaten and rested.

He sat up coughed and looked around the room.

Some of the Americans were still sleeping. Others sat in groups.

He thought they looked at him strangely.

They smiled and one even waved in a friendly fashion.

Troy and Moffitt saw Dietrich awake with a puzzled look on his face.

They walked over to his bunk with a breakfast ration for him.

Now that he was alert they wanted to know where they were or if he knew what was going on.

Dietrich had little information accept his original location and estimated direction of their travel to the camp.

He thought it important for them to know that the Russians accused his unit of crimes they were innocent of.

"Don't worry lieutenant." Sergeant Moffitt assured him. "We know you to be incapable of such things."

"We found your Corporal Mulenburg's journal. It details everything that happened.

If need be we will attest to your character."

Later that day the Russian Commandant appeared with an interpreter.

Kirby and Troy crowded in front of Dietrich's bunk to conceal him.

The Commandant wanted a look at the American capitalists. He'd been ordered to give them preferential treatment.

He was slightly disappointed. The Americans looked like any other soldiers, tired, dirty and hungry.

The interpreter informed them that in three days they would be taken to a nearby port and picked up by an American ship.

Moffitt approached the Russians saluting respectfully.

He pointed to Saunders old bandages and Doc's red cross armband.

With what few Russian words he knew he made it understood they needed some medical supplies.

They agreed to bring fresh bandages and left.

"Did you see the way that commandant guy looked?" Kirby noticed.

"Yea, he seemed like a real sweetheart" Saunders agreed."

"He's probably the one that tortured Dietrich" Guessed Troy.

They'd all seen the type who would just shoot you for fun.

The Americans were glad to hear they were going home but weren't ready to celebrate yet.

Why would the Russians truck them so far from their own lines to put them on a boat?

During the three days they were locked up waiting in the barracks the Americans were grew restless.

Moffitt and Troy asked around and came up with some paper and a pencil nub.

They took it upon themselves to write down the information the Germans had left on the walls.

They'd seen the German graveyards left behind in North Africa.

Usually surrounded by white rocks, amongst the German's graves were those of Allied soldiers buried with equal regard.

Their dog tag information just as carefully recorded on the grave markers.

Moffitt and Troy thought they might return the favor to those considerate Germans.

It was a different war where some soldiers from opposing army's had respect for their fallen enemies.

They found Corporal Muhlenburg's addition to the wall. "Falsely accused of crimes, sent to mines."

Followed by a list of the missing men's name's.

Because the Americans were angry at the Russians for abducting them.

They were to a man on board with the plan to smuggle the German lieutenant out of Russian hands.

Troy spoke to them and made himself clear.

"The lieutenants been thru enough, we don't want him to be interrogated."

"You can see he's not going to tell anyone a damned thing he doesn't want to. Let's just get him out of here."

Dietrich agreed to join them, knowing there was no advantage in staying.

It still didn't sit well with him, leaving his men behind …. somewhere.

Regardless, Troy and Moffitt were taking him along no matter what he decided.

The day came when the trucks arrived to transport them to the docks.

Dietrich was strong enough to walk better but still had a hacking cough.

To save him from close scrutiny Kirby came up with a plan that some of them would cough too as if the flu was going around.

It worked perfectly when they filed past the Russian guards. They stood well away from the "Sick Americans."

But then suddenly there was a holdup. The Russians noticed a discrepancy in the numbers.

Apparently they had been counted on the way into the barracks.

It seems there was an extra man.