After The Raid
By: AliasCWN
Chapter 7
Dietrich eyed the plumes of smoke and gave his driver the direction he wanted to go. The other column had reported first one attack and then the second. He supposed that he should be angry at the column's commander for being foolish enough to follow the Rat Patrol, especially after reporting that they had wounded one of the team. If Dietrich had gotten the message in time, he would have advised the commander to head for his base at all possible speed. Having one of their own wounded always resulted in the others turning fiercely protective. With the column already shot up, the rest of the column hadn't had much of a chance against Troy's outraged marauders.
At least the column commander had learned his lesson and hadn't continued to press on after the lone jeep. It wouldn't have surprised Dietrich to find that the single jeep was attempting to lead the final part of the column into another ambush.
Once they arrived at the second ambush site, the Captain jumped to the ground to study the signs. The late afternoon breeze had not yet erased the tracks, making it easy to reconstruct the battle in his mind. It was easy to see how the more agile jeep had run circles around the heavier vehicles, a move they had honed to perfection through hard won experience.
Dietrich was pleased to know that the commander had taken the time to collect his dead rather than leave them to the buzzards. The Captain never felt right exposing his dead to the indignity of the scavengers. The halftracks were a loss he could ill afford, but the loss of life pained him more. Staring at the wreckage he realized that the smoke from the burning vehicles was still rising into the sky, acting as a beacon for who knew who. Calling to his men, he ordered them to extinguish the fires. As his men shoveled sand on the fires Dietrich strolled over to the single patrol car abandoned a short distance from the halftracks.
As he walked around the car, noting the large caliber bullet holes, and wondering if the car could be salvaged, he almost stumbled over the body. With a start he stepped back, eyeing the legs sticking out from under the car. It only took one look to realize that the legs belonged to an Arab. The flowing robe had pulled up as the body was stuffed under the car. Dietrich leaned down until he could see the knife wound that had killed the man. Puzzled, he began to study the tracks around the vehicle.
He found the tracks of someone approaching the car on foot, and the horse tracks both coming and going. There was no way to tell who had walked to the scene since the wind had already started to erase the tracks. They were still visible but they were no longer distinct. Following the horse tracks with his eyes, Dietrich stared off toward the hills in the distance. It looked like the horse had come from there and returned there. Seeing no sign of movement, the Captain still ordered his men to stay alert.
Dietrich kept his eye on the distant hill even as he loosened the gun in his holster. The feeling of being watched made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Raising his hand, Dietrich waved the column into motion. The Captain wanted to reach their night camp before it was dark. The desert was unforgiving when it came to night travel. He still did not know the identity of the one who had killed the Arab and if it was a German soldier who had been accidently left behind, he needed to know it. Giving the order to approach the hill, he tried to see around the curve to watch for an ambush.
The tracks circled around the hill that he had been watching. Glancing back to make sure that his men were alert, he waited expectantly to see what was on the other side.
A yell from one of his men drew his attention. The soldier shouted again but Dietrich couldn't make out the words. The soldier shouted and pointed for the third time. Dietrich looked where he pointed and spotted three horses disappearing over another hill. One of the horses was rider less but he noticed the flowing robes on the other two as they leaned over the necks of the animals. He was still pondering the significance of what he had just seen when his halftrack cleared the hill. The abandoned jeep sitting at the bottom of the slope caught him by surprise. The hood was up, possibly signaling mechanical problems. This was confirmed by the tools scattered on the ground beneath the jeeps engine. Dietrich couldn't help himself; he spun in a circle looking for any sign of the second jeep. The desert around him looked empty except for his own men. Disgusted with himself for his reaction, especially in front of his men, the Captain climbed out of his halftrack and approached the jeep.
The first thing he noticed was that everything of value that could be easily carried was gone. The fleeing Arabs came to mind immediately.
The next thing he noticed was the large pool of dried blood near the front of the vehicle. This seemed to confirm the column commander's report of hitting one of the 'rats'.
Dietrich now walked around the jeep searching for tracks. The wind had erased a lot of the evidence but he thought he detected a second set of jeep tracks leaving the wadi. It made sense that they might abandon a damaged jeep but they would never leave a teammate behind. The faint tracks seemed to suggest that the four of them had escaped in the other jeep after the column had turned back to their base.
The feeling of being watched persisted so he scanned the hill around him for any watchers. He wasn't particularly worried about Troy and his men but he didn't want his man to fall victim to the bandits either.
His men were standing around the trucks with their rifles, looking nervous. Apparently the sight of the familiar jeep had them on edge too. The Captain smiled, how ironic that they should owe their heightened state of awareness to their most irritating enemies. That awareness had kept them alive in more than one instance where the Rat Patrol was not involved. He wondered what Troy would have to say about the unintended benefits of his raids. He had received more than one commendation for the readiness of his men and it was most certainly due at least in part to the Rat Patrol.
Glancing at the sun again, he motioned for his men to move out. If the Arabs were waiting around to finish their looting, he would leave them to it. He still had a ways to go before he could find a suitable camp for the night. Looking at the jeep, he thought there was a chance that he would get a good night's sleep since it looked like the Rat Patrol had problems of their own. He stood in the front of the halftrack next to his driver and kept his eyes open for the Arabs. The feeling of being watched didn't diminish until they were well clear of the jeep.
He made sure his camp was well guarded once everyone was settled. He had only seen two Arabs but he knew that that number could change in moments. The Arabs usually stayed in family groups but the bandits followed a different set of rules. They had been known to join with other bands if the rewards were large enough. Dietrich knew that he carried nothing of real value but he also knew that the Arabs probably didn't have any way of knowing that.
Despite his earlier confidence that he would be getting a full night's sleep, Dietrich spent a restless night.