Military Courtesy
by tallsunshine12
Chapter 1 Motor Pool
Brig. Gen. Benjamin Franklin 'Frank' Tapscott sat behind his newly varnished desk—the desert wind blew in sand and scoured all of the wooden furniture—and faced Sgts. Sam Troy and Jack Moffitt of the Rat Patrol. With gruff haste, this man of efficiency and proficiency, a war-decorated career soldier, and now acting CO of the base at Tal Yata, relayed what he had on his mind.
"There'll be some new assignments, gentlemen. Sgt. Troy, along with Pvt. Pettigrew, will be reassigned to the motor pool."
The sergeant in question and his second-in-command looked at one another. They were sitting about two feet apart and each was facing Tapscott across his shined-up desk.
"Did we hear you correctly, sir?" asked the British Moffitt, leaning forward deferentially towards Tapscott. "You're splitting us up?"
Tapscott bobbed his large double chin. "That's what I said, Sergeant."
"Is this a temporary reassignment?" asked Troy.
"No, Sgt. Troy, based on the interviews you recently gave me in this very office, I have no choice but to reassign both you and Pettigrew to a non-combat position."
"Non-combat, sir!"
Troy was beginning to get hot under the collar and Moffitt quickly noticed. He threw in, "Gen. Tapscott, sir, what could give you the impression that Troy and Pettigrew were not fit for combat duty?"
"I can only let you know this one thing, Sgt. Moffitt, because you're not directly involved—it's a permanent reassignment until more suitable work comes along. There is a war on, bear in mind. We all have to pitch in—even Sgt. Troy and Pvt. Pettigrew."
"How have I not been pitching in, General?" asked Troy, trying to keep his tone as humble and military-courteous as his raging mind would allow. "Haven't you seen my reports?"
"That's not the point, Sergeant. I will speak with each of you in the next hour. Please find Pettigrew and return here to the headquarters building by 1330. You're both dismissed."
Shuffling papers followed Troy and Moffitt out of the office. Troy was in a stunned, becalmed state, like a boat at sea with no wind. His sails were all slack. He hesitated while Moffitt closed the door as silently as he could, then Troy, with his shoulders squared, led the way out of the building. Their orders were to find Pettigrew and bring him there for a meeting with his own destiny in less than an hour!
"What's this all about, Troy?" asked Moffitt. "What did you tell him in your interview with him last week?"
Troy replayed the 'conversation'—actually it had been more like an interrogation—in his mind.
"I'm not going to lie about it, Moffitt. I was sitting there and he asked me pointblank had I any trouble with the law before, back in the States. At first I shook my head, then I remembered something. It was so long ago, but I was once sent to a reform school for three months, on my own father's wishes."
Moffitt stopped as they were walking in the street. He put a hand on Troy's arm. Arabs on their way to and from the marketplace, or souk, glanced at them.
"You never said anything about it. What for?"
"For switchin' hubcaps."
Had Moffitt heard right? "Stealing hubcaps?"
Troy saw a convenient bar and pulled Moffitt inside. The Britisher was looking a bit pale from all of this and Troy thought he needed a 'stiffener.' They got two beers and found a couple of chairs at a quietly located table. A curtain of wooden beads separated them from the rest of the rather rowdy barroom. Assignations of a more amorous kind among the service personnel and local women usually took place there, but Troy felt they needed the privacy just to talk.
"No, Doc," said Troy, remembering the question Moffitt had asked in the street. "Switchin' hubcaps. I was only fourteen and my older cousin Tom—Tommy—he and the crowd he ran with decided to play a trick on the folks in town to do their shopping. Well—" here, Troy drew breath.
"Go on, I'm on tenterhooks, Troy." Moffitt clasped his warm beer in both hands, as if to steady himself.
"Well, we began switchin' hubcaps. One car might end up with three or four different kinds of hubcaps. Naturally, we were caught. It was main street after all! My dad stood up with me in court. I was the youngest and would have got the lightest sentence, but he spoke up and said I wasn't to come home until I did some 'time,' as he put it." Troy pulled in another deep, long breath, raising his shoulders and dropping them as he finished, "The judge gave me three months in 'Vocation School,' as it was called. I was to learn a trade."
Moffitt was smiling when Troy looked over at him. "A trade? Which one?" Innocently enough, unprepared for any more shocks, he brought his beer to his lips to take a sip.
"Gunsmithing."
Moffitt gulped and laughed at the same time. It's a wonder he didn't spray the table.
"You, what would you, Troy, need to learn about guns for?"
"Well, I was only fourteen, though we did a lot of cougar hunting in the hills around home."
Troy had been born and raised on a West Colorado ranch, with running streams and tree-covered hills and deep skies above as he roped and rode and hunted and hiked and fished on his dad's ranch.
"Now, because of that time in the vocational school, Gen. Tapscott wants to remove you from the team," said Moffitt, deep in thought. "What about Tully?"
"What about Tully?" asked Troy. Looking directly at Moffitt across the table, he gave a slow, significant nod.
"The moonshining?"
Again Troy nodded. "I've never spoken with Tully much about the time he ran 'shine in the states, but it had to be that. We both had to tell the truth. The army teaches us that. By the way, did the general ask you about any run-ins with the law?"
"He did and I had to answer in the negative." Moffitt sipped his beer again. "I've never so much as had a parking ticket!"
"I won't say I'm not surprised," said Troy, teasing him. "I bet Hitch got out of there with his whole skin, too."
"It would seem so." Moffitt drew himself up to stand, finishing his beer. "Come, we've got to go find Tully and warn him of this."
Up to this point, Troy had only had one swallow of his own beer. Now he gulped it down in one fell swoop. Afterward, he put out a hand to restrain Moffitt.
"I don't think we should let Tully know what's about to happen. It might make the general even more put out with us if he can't 'spring the news,' himself."
"Rather a sadistic old boar, isn't he?" asked Moffitt, smiling and parting the beads as he turned to go.
Troy followed him out of the crowded bar and into the bright desert sun of midday. Once at the motor pool, they found the two privates in a friendly spat over how much tire pressure they'd need for a certain section of the desert. It was known as hamada, or rocky ground with very little sand on it. Wind-eroded. As they slipped behind German lines on their last mission, they had encountered it and at camp that night Moffitt had informed his fellow Rats of the name. It derived from the Arabic El Hamat, he said.
"It's also a man's name," he had told them. "It means leader, or if describing a leader, determined. Also, strong-willed, congenial, and independent. That would describe you, Troy."
Troy had almost blushed in his way and sipped his coffee to hide his smile.
Hitch said, "Wow, I didn't know a word could mean so much."
"He's making all that up." Troy was convinced a certain tall Englishman was pulling his leg on this one.
"No, seriously, Troy, I'm not. The Arab folks often name their boys Hamada for its positive qualities."
"Any negative, other than strong-willed?"
"You love to win an argument at any cost."
"See there, when was the last time I won any kind of argument with the three of you?"
Hitch piped up. "Just the other day, Sarge, when you saw that dog we were trying to adopt."
"A jeep is no place for a dog, especially not in combat. That's what I said then, and that's what I say now."
"Not even a watchdog?"
"Hitch, go relieve Tully on watch. Forget about the dog."
"I was just funnin' with you, Sarge. He's got a good home now with an Arab family."
Troy didn't say anything but the look he gave Hitch over the rim of his tin army cup said it all. Go. Relieve. Tully. Hitch.
Hitch grinned ear to ear and left the campfire to go join Tully on the dune where he was keeping watch. Even at night, marauders, Arab slave traders, or even the Germans bent on destruction might sneak up on the camp.
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"No, Sarge," said Tully for the third time in the course of changing a jeep's front axle, "you need to hit the knuckle. Be careful you don't hit the boot. You don't want to pinch the boot—"
Covered in axle grease and sweat in a pair of denim coveralls, Troy asked, "Pinch the boot?"
"Yeah, Sarge, you don't want to mess up your tie rod stud. Just hit the knuckle with the hammer."
Troy began to bash the 'knuckle' with a hammer and Tully advised him to not hit it so hard.
"I'm doing the best I can."
"I know, Sarge. You're doing the best you can."
"What happens now?"
"You put a lug stud on a lug nut to keep the rotor from moving. You want to keep the rotor attached to the hub."
"Do I do that by hand?"
"Of course, Sarge. How else?"
"Well, there's all these tools. Something must do a job like that." Troy glanced down at the metal toolbox and even gave it a slight kick.
"I can't believe that you never worked on a tractor at home, Sarge."
"Horses aren't tractors, Tully. When we farmed, we got an added bonus for the fields."
Tully laughed and shook his head. "Now, you've put on the lug stud. Right and tight?"
Troy tightened it manually. "It's tight enough."
Next, Tully showed him how to use a screwdriver—a simple screwdriver!—to gently 'push back' on the caliper by slipping it between the caliper and the brake pad. Troy didn't bother to ask what a caliper was. It was too late in the day to start another of Tully's informational lectures. He just knew he had to push back gently on it. Tully saved him from any more embarrassment by finishing the job himself. Troy continued to look on, gaining a few guffaws from some of the other motor pool crew as he watched.
This was a week into their working at the motor pool together and Troy was ready to tear out his hair. He had spoken with Capt. Boggs, the Rat Patrol's immediate commanding officer, about this switch-up in duties, and Boggs assured him it was only temporary. Once the brass at High Command heard about the shift of a highly-trained commando—make that two highly-trained commandos—to grease-monkeys, someone would say something to set things right again.
Troy missed being out on the desert. He missed making plans to upend the German offensives. He missed Dietrich and his clever traps and ambushes. He missed how Dietrich lauded it over them every time he captured one of them. He missed springing Dietrich's traps and leaving him holding the bag, with yet another report to write to his superiors about the loss of yet another convoy. He missed the noise and excitement of a good firefight.
Moffitt was nominally in charge, but while Hitch had been retained as his driver, a new driver and gunner had taken over Troy's jeep. Troy recalled that just yesterday the jeep had arrived all shot-up with a busted axle. In fact, that was the jeep which he and Tully were working on now. He wasn't sure, in his devilish mind, that he wanted to fix up his old jeep just for someone else to drive or shoot from.
It was annoying watching the new gunner, a sergeant like himself, sashay into the walled compound of the motor pool, where they worked on military vehicles and staff cars, and pick up tools just to drop them noisily again. He wanted attention, but Troy didn't give him any. He knew this man. Jud (short for Judge) Thomas, a big-headed lout with a knack for saying the wrong thing to the wrong people at the wrong time.
When he barked about how long his jeep was taking to get fixed, looking directly at one of its former users, Troy had hefted the wrench he was carrying, but that was all the menacing he did. Jud Thomas got the message and backed off. He himself wasn't a commando, but a mere squad sergeant. Troy had been trained to kill in stealth and secrecy, letting no one be the wiser. Jud didn't want to end up in back of the motor pool with a wrench-fractured skull!
During the second week of this reassignment charade, Capt. Boggs called Troy and Tully into his office for a confab, though first he put some newspapers down on the chairs.
Once they had all saluted, Troy picked up the newspaper from his chair and looked Boggs in the eye.
"Oh, did I drop that there?" asked their superior. "Careless of me. You might as well sit on it, Troy. That's an Italian leather seat."
"So, sir?"
Tully smirked and tried to cover it with his hand.
"Pettigrew, do you have something to say?" asked Boggs.
"I think I understand, sir. We're covered in oil and grease."
"Well, that's easily fixed," said Troy, feeling his temperature rising again. It did that about every hour on the hour nowadays, like a clock. He unzipped and shrugged out of his coveralls, dropping them to the floor. "Tully?"
Tully looked rather apprehensive for a second. "I'm not wearing a shirt, Sarge."
"Can we get this meeting started sometime today?" asked the red-headed Boggs.
Troy glared at Tully, then at Boggs. "Sir?" he asked.
"Take a seat, sergeant. On or off the paper now, I don't care!"
While Tully sat down—on the paper—Troy took the newspaper out of his chair and carefully folded it over and laid it on Boggs' desk. He was clean underneath and he had no intention of sitting on a newspaper.
"I have an assignment for both of you."
"I thought we were already assigned, Capt. Boggs." Tully's voice was earnest. "To the motor pool."
"Do you want to work in the motor pool all your life, Pettigrew. No higher ambition?"
Tully glanced over at Troy and smiled from ear to ear. "Wouldn't bother me, sir."
"No," said Boggs, "I hear you and Pvt. Hitch are whizzes at fixing cars and trucks."
"And jeeps," added Troy.
"Of course, Sergeant. That's why I'm assigning both of you—"
"Excuse me, sir, did you say both of us?" asked Tully, with a significant look at Troy in the chair beside him.
"Well, one of you at any rate. I suppose Sgt. Troy is better at planning and executing."
"He almost executed a few trucks this week," said Tully, in mock seriousness.
"Will you let the man get on with it?" Troy fired off.
Poor Capt. Boggs took a deep breath. It was so loud it could have been heard by a camel caravan a hundred miles away. Troy and Tully got the point. Boggs wanted to talk.
"Your nemesis, Capt. Dietrich, has been acting far more belligerent lately. He's taken to raiding our convoys. We can't get anything through, or anything out. He strikes with little warning and his half-tracks vanish before we can call in the artillery. Our tanks and M7 Priests are no matter for him in speed. What's more, he's brazen enough to cross into Allied territory and conduct his destructive raids within sixty miles of this base."
"That sounds like he's following our example, Captain," said Troy. "Can we blame him?"
"Troy, the man's a menace. General Tapscott wants to get to the airfield at Benina. It seems Dietrich's spy has heard about his trip and our spy at Dietrich's base reports overhearing talk of kidnapping him."
"Spies, sir?" Troy looked genuinely baffled. "Whatever happened to just using bullets and grenades to fight a war?"
"War is a game, Sergeant. It's to be played with a certain finesse."
"What if we just put the two spies together and let 'em battle it out?" asked Tully.
Boggs laughed. "Now I know where he gets it from."
"When do we leave?" asked Troy, all business now.
"Tomorrow, at 0500."
"Are we going to accompany him just by ourselves, Captain?"
"No, Sergeant, you'll be interested to know I'm sending another gunner and driver along with you."
"And they are?"
Boggs gave him a look that said, And who do you think?
Seeing that look, Tully grinned and looked over at Troy, both realizing they hadn't really seen much of Moffitt or Hitch since the week of the interviews. A few beers had passed between them once or twice, but just sitting down together and discussing 'things' hadn't occurred in a while. That was but one more thing that all four men missed about their time together. Being a team. Talking things out.
Needless to add, Troy and Tully were both looking forward to this.