Disclaimer: I don't own 'em, though I'd like to. No compensation but the pleasure of their company.

The Great Saline Raid

by tallsunshine12

Chapter 1 Too Much Sun

Pale, and dry, with a deeply-etched frown, Troy's face caught the attention of Jack Moffitt, as he was stowing away some of the rations in the jeep they would need on their recon mission.

"Troy, are you feeling alright?" he asked, pausing in his work of placing the boxes of K-rations in the metal jeep containers where they belonged.

Hitch and Tully looked up from that jeep's engine and gazed at Troy, waiting for his answer. He hadn't looked well all day yesterday, and today his mind seemed to be in outer space most of the time, at least that was the way Hitch had put it to Tully after breakfast.

Troy shook himself awake. He'd been lost in thought again, almost in some kind of reverie. He wasn't feeling up to par. In fact, if truth be told, he didn't feel like going on this mission at all. He placed the back of his hand to his forehead and felt how warm it was. His heart was beating more rapidly than usual and he had a burning sensation behind his eyes. His sense of balance was off and he knew he'd needed an extra couple of hours of rest that morning. Usually he was the first one up and downing his second cup of coffee when the other three desert Rats were just struggling into the mess.

Today, he'd been hard to awaken. Moffitt, who shared quarters with him while they were on base, had called to him three times before his eyes cracked open. Then, it was like pulling teeth to get Troy to rise. He grumbled something about 'not feeling well' and rolled over on his back, with a hand over his eyes. No, something was not quite right with him this morning, and they all knew it.

"Troy? Troy!" Moffitt had to raise his voice. That got his attention.

"No need to shout, Moffitt. My ears are just fine." But his words were slurred and hard to understand.

"But what about the rest of you?" Moffitt asked. "You look like you've slept in a minefield."

"You look dapper yourself today, Jack. Anything else?" Troy looked around at the sundry items still on the ground by the jeeps. "No? Well, let's get this gear stowed and make tracks." He yawned, rubbing his forehead with the tips of his fingers. "God, I feel awful," he said.

"Then let's let Capt. Boggs know. He'll assign another unit."

"No, he won't. He knows we're the ones most familiar with this sector. We've got to go. I'll be fine."

Famous last words. About midday, with the sun broiling up in the sky and the sand baking below, Troy slipped into unconsciousness. His head flew back and he started to fall out of the moving jeep. If not for Hitch's quick action of braking and reaching over to grab him, he would have.

Moffitt and Tully stopped alongside. Moffitt got out of his seat on the passenger side and raced around to support Troy out of his jeep. Soon he had Tully's help. Hitch got a canteen of water.

"He looks really bad," said Tully. "He's passed out."

"We should have never come," said Moffitt. "He needs a doctor." He looked around at the sand hills all around them. "And where are we going to find one out here?"

Hitch handed Moffitt the canteen. He unscrewed the cap and placed it to a clean cloth he dug out of his shirt pocket. With this, he dabbed at Troy's lips, then placed it on his forehead. Moffitt remembered something he'd read. While kneeling beside him, he placed one of Troy's hands on his cheek—to keep the sand off his face—and then turned him on his side, towards himself, to keep his airway clear.

"We could use the radio," said Hitch. "Call for help."

"Brilliant idea, Hitch! Get started, will you? I want to see if I can revive him." He applied a few slaps to Troy's face, but the American sergeant's eyes still remained shut tight on the world.

Tully turned and went up the side of one of the hills, knowing without being told that he should keep watch. This was a dangerous sector, full of wild Arab slavers and marauders. Capt. Dietrich's camp, too, lay not too many miles away. A recon plane had recently seen some enemy build-up of supplies and personnel around it, so with a more surgical precision, the Rat Patrol had been instructed to observe the base for signs of an enemy push in the offing.

"He's positively burning up."

Troy was flushed, but very dry-skinned, almost as if he couldn't sweat. Moffitt poured a touch more water on the cloth and tried to squeeze a bit between Troy's lips, just to wet them, knowing he couldn't give water to an unconscious man.

Hitch, at the radio, found the frequency of the base at Tal Yata and soon had an operator alerted.

Five minutes into the call, he said, "Sgt. Troy is still not responding. Give this message to one of the doctors at the base hospital. Tell him we need instructions as to what to do. He's burning up with fever. Over."

"I've written it all down, Hitch," said the operator, who knew the young drivers, both Hitch and Tully, from frequent bar-hopping with them off-duty. "A doctor or nurse will be on the mic in a few minutes. Most are working with that epidemic in the Arab quarter. Hold tight. Over."

Hitch took off the headset and laid down the mic on the radio. He glanced across the other jeep, seeing just the top of Moffitt's head in its black beret and goggles as he still knelt beside Troy.

The radio crackled to life in about ten minutes. He found himself talking to Lt. Angie Mason, one of the nurses on the base. The last time Hitch had talked to her, he was in the hospital himself with a sprained elbow. For the last couple of weeks, she'd been in the Arab quarter working with the locals who were experiencing an epidemic of fever—the same kind of fever Troy may have been experiencing. A dry fever. Now that he remembered it, day before yesterday, he and the Sarge had escorted a truck load of supplies into the stricken Arab sector, while Tully repaired his and Moffitt's jeep and Moffitt himself had met with some Arab leaders. Topic of discussion? This very sector where the Germans were building up.

"Is it that same fever that's been going around the Arabs?" Hitch asked. "Over."

"No, it sounds much simpler than that—and a lot more deadly. Heat-stroke, Hitch. Possibly. Sgt. Troy's shivering?"

"Hey, Doc," he called over. "Has the Sarge got the shakes?"

"He has. Got them bad. I wish we knew his temperature."

Hitch relayed what Moffitt had said. "He's shaking a lot. We don't know his temperature, but we're out here in the sun with only the jeeps for shade. Over."

"Here's what you must do. Get him to a shady place and try to keep him cool. Use ice, if you can find it. Over."

Ice, out here? Moffitt, Tully and Hitch could all hear Angie's clear as a bell voice on the light desert wind, but they wondered if that was what she'd said.

Hitch decided to let the ice idea ride for a moment as he focused on the jeeps' distance from Tal Yata.

"We're too far from the base to get back tonight, Angie. I'll check with Doc to see if he knows of a place to camp. Can you hold? Over."

"I'm waiting for one of the doctors to come in. They've all been with the flu victims in the Arab quarter. Sure, I can wait. Over."

Hitch conferred with Sgt. Moffitt about the possibility of their finding any shade in this quadrant. He started as he heard the female voice break through.

"I believe it's hyperthermia. Heat-stroke," said Angie, transmitting again. "I'm still waiting for Doc Anders to show up. I've sent word to him. Over."

Moffitt heard. "Tell Angie I agree. He hasn't been well for days. But he wouldn't slow down."

"Doc says Sarge hasn't been feeling perky for a while," said Hitch. "But you know him, stubborn."

"Did I say that?" asked Moffitt, with a tight smile, trying to inject some humor in what was becoming a bit of a desert nightmare.

Without being able to find shade, cool shade, and to drink water, Troy's body would begin to shut down, his organs failing, his brain starving for hydration, if it wasn't doing that already.

"Hitch, bring me the map bag. I believe I know a place we can go."

Hitch put down the mic and headset and fished out the maps from Moffitt and Tully's jeep, walking them over and taking a look at the Sarge before going back to the radio. He found him unresponsive, shaking and red in the face. Even he knew the classic signs of heat-stroke. Back at basic commando training, there had been films and lectures on the subject. It was one of those things, like scorpions, they warned to be extra special careful about.

Tully suddenly came down from the top of the dune where he'd been lying flat and observing the sands for any motion with a pair of field glasses.

"Half-tracks," he said. "I spotted two of them and one supply truck. Looks like Dietrich's Kubelwagen, too. He's coming this way, but I don't think it's possible that he's seen us. We're behind the dune."

"I'm not surprised," said Moffitt, dabbing again at Troy's forehead. "He always picks the worst times to show up. We've got to get out of here. Help me get Troy in the jeep. I know one place we can go, and I hope," he added, "we won't be followed there. The ruins of an old caravanserai. It's the only shade in a dozen miles."

Limp and lifeless, Troy was put into Tully and Moffitt's passenger seat. Moffitt got in the back of the jeep and kept a hand on him to keep him from falling out. With his other hand, he tried to hold down a map against the breeze and search it for the spot he was looking for. As they drove along, he spotted on the map what he wanted to find and pointed out the route to Tully. Tully turned the wheel that way, Hitch following.

In about five miles, the ruins appeared, comprised of several mud-brick buildings behind a low wall. The caravanserai, a watering place for desert-crossing caravans, may have dated back to early Arab times, Moffitt thought. There was a spring still bubbling in one of the buildings, a bathhouse by the looks of the octagonal pool. But the pool was choked with weeds and sand, the spring minimal at best. With the drivers supporting Troy, the group of four entered the ruined bath by a hole in the town's outer wall, though it was just as open on the street-side inside the wall.

Surveying the pool with his hands on his hips and a most determined look on his angular features, Moffitt said, "Not enough water and too much debris."

"We'll have the pool unclogged in a jiffy," said Tully. "C'mon, Hitch. Let's get to work on it."

While Moffitt took a look outside with the binoculars to see if the German column had decided to come that way, the two privates set about with axes from the jeeps, chopping into the scrub that had long grown in the pool, clogging the spring. Standing on a slight crest in the otherwise flat plain, Moffitt panned the horizon, but the column was nowhere to be seen now. After the fourth or fifth time he swept the desert with his glasses, he went back inside and saw that Tully and Hitch had finished their work. They had the pool cleared for use, with the spring bubbling away and beginning to fill the pool with warm, but usable water.

"Not fit to drink," he said. "But it'll make a great bath."

After working so hard with their axes, now Tully and Hitch were at a loss how to proceed. One didn't just pick up one's leader and dump him in a pool of tepid spring water.

Moffitt caught their indecision. "Starkers or boxers?" he asked, to which question he received two bewildered looks.

Hitch still looked dumbfounded. "Starkers?"

Tully laughed. "Ah, Hitch, you know what that means. As in no clothes? Help me get the Sarge ready."

"Pull off his boots," said Moffitt. "But leave his pants on. In case we really do have company, I'm sure Troy wouldn't appreciate wearing only his army-issue boxers."

After pulling off his boots and socks, Tully bent down to unhook Troy's two belts—including his ammo belt. Hitch knelt, too, and began to work on his shirt buttons. Tully helped Hitch remove Troy's shirt, leaving him in his sleeveless, khaki t-shirt and tan pants. After carefully lifting him, all three men gently put him in the water. To keep the eight-sided pool from overflowing with the constant addition of spring water, Hitch stuck some mud and twigs in the opening of the spring, then, in the shady, half-ceilinged ruin, the Rats held silent vigil, talking to Troy at times, but receiving no response. He did seem to be breathing easier after a while, but he still hadn't broken out into a sweat to show his temperature had broken, nor did he seem the least bit ready to awaken.

Moffitt instructed Hitch to get Angie back on the radio. This would be their third call. Their last call to her had been about an hour ago, right there from the old caravanserai, in which Moffitt been able to speak with Dr. Anders for the first time. Dr. Anders confirmed Angie's diagnosis of heat-stroke, or hyperthermia. Troy had, in effect, been out in the sun too long.

"When he wakes up, try to get some herbal tea into him. Over," said Anders.

"He hates tea of any kind, Doctor. What about coffee?" asked Moffitt. "Over."

"No, it's dehydrating. The same goes for black tea. It must be herbal. Over."

"I'm afraid all I've got is black tea. What about water? Over."

"If that's all you've got, then it's fine. Just not coffee or black tea. Over."

"Thanks, Doctor. Moffitt out."

While Tully guarded the Sarge inside the ruins, in order to keep him from plunging all the way under the water, Moffitt was standing at the jeep with Hitch, who flipped a few switches on the radio to end the call. The English sergeant had to take a moment to think. Herbal tea.

"There're things I could brew up on the desert."

The blond private found that amusing. With a short laugh, he said, "Like what, Doc?"

"There ought to be one plant around here we could use, Hitch. Desert thyme. It's pink or purple, kind of scrubby. I'll look around for it, if you'll get a fire going. If I find it, we can brew some up!"

"Will do, Sarge!" With the look Moffitt turned and gave him, Hitch amended, "Doc."

Both had their work cut out for them. Hitch had to find enough brush to start a fire with the lighter Tully fished out of his pocket. Tully smoked, but Hitch didn't, finding gum enough to keep his jaws busy. Moffitt had the real quest ahead of him. A small bush with tiny pink flowers, whose leaves he could use to 'brew up' into a tea for Troy.

An hour and a half later, or thereabouts, the tea had been made and Troy, sitting against a wall, was resting up, taking small sips of it in a tin cup. The others were sharing K-rations. It would be dark in about four hours, so staying out of the sun in the shade of the old buildings was good for all of them, but especially for the man who felt as if he was at death's door. He was still feverish. In fact, his arms and face were still dry to the touch, but he complained of dizziness and a burning feeling behind his eyes.

"I'm still worried about you, Troy," said Moffitt. "It's been hours since you first fell ill. You're not much better, are you?"

Troy looked at him with bloodshot eyes and shook his head, not saying anything, not having the strength to. He raised the cup though to signify that he was grateful for all they'd done for him. All they had tried to do, but he wasn't getting any better. Awake, yes, but on the brink of collapse again.

"Our rations should hold up for another day or so, so we could stay here."

Troy shook his head. What did that mean, the others wondered. Did he want to continue on with the recon mission, go back to base? What?

"Troy, look at me," said Moffitt. Troy raised his eyes again. "What do you want to do?"

"Mission," he said, feebly at best.

"We can't do that, Sarge," said Hitch, "not the way you are now."

Swinging his head to look that way, Troy closed his eyes. They were closed for a few seconds. When he opened them again, he said, "Must know – Dietrich's camp. Build up."

"We could go, Doc," said Tully, forking some warmed-up hash into his mouth from a plate. "Find out what we need to know. All we have to do is observe."

"But we're down one jeep. We can't leave Troy here alone. Hitch would have to stay with him."

"I can do that, but I'm worried about you needing me."

"All we need are eyes and binoculars," Tully said. "We've got those, haven't we, Doc?"

Moffitt seemed to be thinking about it. "We could do it with one jeep and just ourselves." He turned to Troy again, who was sitting back against the wall between Moffitt and the two privates. "What do you say, Troy? Will that suit?"

Troy nodded, sitting up against the wall and taking another sip of the most god-awful beverage he'd ever drunk. Who ever heard of tea made of a desert shrub? Only Moffitt.

:::::::::: :::::::::: ::::::::::

The jeep was making good time across the desert as there was little or no wind blowing, none stirring up sand and decreasing engine efficiency. The two men, driver and sergeant, were mostly silent on the journey. They had about fifty miles to go, but it was so late in the day, they didn't expect any German patrols to be out, not that the war—or the enemy—operated on any kind of timetable! They had left Troy, still asleep, in the good hands of his own driver, Pvt. Mark Hitchcock, who had instructions about allowing him in the pool of water at regular intervals until they returned.

After a couple of hours' driving, with the sun a shadowy yellow on the horizon, the pair of desert commandos came into view of Dietrich's camp, a tent city built on the outskirts of an Arab town. Leaving the jeep in a ravine, and throwing over it the camouflage net and some extra brush Tully cut with his knife, the two men climbed the dune and, using field glasses, watched the activity below.

Corralled together just beyond the tents, hidden under scrim nets, were about six half-tracks, armed with machine guns and mortars, five Panzer tanks, equipped with 88 mm anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, and about two dozen other armored vehicles, including half-tracks armed with 20 mm or 30 mm anti-aircraft cannons, and several towed 105 mm howitzers, light field artillery also capable of destroying Allied tanks. Several of the armored vehicles, known in English as Wasps, were self-propelled guns equipped with mounted 105s. The tents numbered about one hundred, with six men bivouacked in each.

All in all, it looked like the Germans were readying themselves for a big push against Allied lines. An Allied airstrike should be called in without delay. Slipping back down the dune, Moffitt and Tully got back into the jeep and drove a few miles farther into the desert. Moffitt pulled out the map and found the coordinates of the base while Tully fired up the radio and tuned it again to the frequency of their own base at Tal Yata, about two hundred and fifty miles away.

Moffitt finished talking with headquarters while the sun dipped below the horizon and the most orange light radiated into the sky from where it had been. An airstrike was expected in about an hour. Moffitt's coordinates included only the tent city and corral of armored vehicles, not the town. There was time, he told Tully, to do one more thing. Find some saline bottles and some equipment for an IV drip for their dehydrated and still-feverish leader. They had emptied a utility bag for the purpose of hauling these items away.