Chapter 2 The North Star
Tully, bareheaded, was forced out of the car at gunpoint. He had left his combat helmet in his room on the base, not figuring on needing it for a night on the town. Only now was his bayonet knife, sheathed in his belt, taken away. Keeping a sharp watch on the German Luger in the Arab's hand, he backed up a couple of steps from the car.
He spread his arms out a short ways from his sides. "I don't know why you're doin' this," he said, in English, "but you've got the wrong man."
At a wave of the pistol, he was herded over to a horse, one of several pawing and neighing on the sand, brought by two other Arabs he'd never seen before. The Arab with the Luger climbed on a horse and lowered his hand to pull Tully up behind him. A moonlit ride on the desert—it was something he might have dreamed of, until now.
As Tully watched, the driver, another well-tanned man of desert stock, turned the Mercedes around on the sand road and headed it back to the Allied base at Tal Yata, while the other Arabs mounted their horses. The desert wind was up tonight, and the Arabs' robes billowed out over the horses' flanks as they sped across the nearest dunes. Tully held onto his rider's waist with both hands. He wasn't sure he liked this mode of travel. Speeding jeeps were more to his liking.
A number of miles were covered before the Arabs came to a small waterhole buffered by three scraggly palms. Tully practically fell off the horse when it came to a halt at the water. He backed away from it and then did the only thing he could think of. He turned tail and ran. He knew the route back to base and he was taking it. He also knew that the Arabs, all four of them, wouldn't be far behind.
He ran and ran, his tortured lungs heaving. He was glad now that it was dark, and getting colder. With the sun a-blazing, he couldn't have run so hard.
Hearing the galloping of hooves, he took a chance and looked around. When he did, he stumbled to his side over a sand hill and fell to his side. Now at the mercy of the giant Berber horses, whose masters stomped over him, trying to panic him, he twisted this way and that, rolling aside, and then back again, until finally they backed off from their sport and he came to his knees.
Spent, covered with sand, feeling gritty all over, he spit some of it out and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. Shakily rising to his feet, his found his hands tied behind him with a stout cord. Then he was marched back to the oasis and forced to sit down at one of the palms. His hands were untied, then tied again around the rough bark of the tree. He laid his head on it and blew out, watching the Arabs prepare a fire for a short rest break.
"Water?" he called, wriggling in his ropes.
An Arab, the one he had been riding with, got up from the fire and went over to his horse, unstrapped a skin of water from the saddle, and then brought it over to Tully. Uncapping the horn end, he tilted it up for Tully to drink. He drank long and hard. It might be the last water he'd see in a while.
He nodded thanks. Sgt. Troy—Sarge—had said to him and Hitch, "Be as polite as you can with your captors"—a piece of advice he didn't always follow. "Never know when it might pay off."
The Arab said nothing, but registered Tully's ever-so-slight smile. He went back to the warm fire, sat down cross-legged, and turned to his right to talk to one of his men. Tully didn't know if they were talking about him or not. Doc—Moffitt—had taught a bit of German, but Arabic was still beyond him. If he ever got back to base, though, he'd have to start lessons in Arabic, too. Moffitt was a good teacher, so it wouldn't take long to master the basics of it.
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The jeeps were ready for the morning's recon with medi-kit, gas, and water, plus ammo for the fifties. Lt. Perkins had been notified to stay in bed, so it was a cinch to just take off and leave the base. Troy didn't feel any pangs of conscience at leaving rack and ruin, or desolation, in his wake. He was used to it.
While the hooded headlights made the road a waxy, white hue, Troy asked Hitch, for the third time, "They didn't say anything? No hint of where they were taking Tully."
Hitch shook his head, topped by a red kepi. Over the engine's roar, he yelled, "No, Sarge, nothing. Just the fight. Then they took Tully with them."
Troy looked ahead again. He pointed to something in the road, coming towards them. "What's that?"
It was a large, black Mercedes. "It's the car that took Tully," Hitch cried, almost veering off the road in his excitement. "I'd recognize that old jalopy anywhere. Why's it comin' back?"
"I don't know," said Troy. "Let's stop it and see. Give it all she's got."
Troy signaled Moffitt following in his jeep, the jeep he usually shared with Tully. They were going to intercept the unknown vehicle up ahead. Moffitt nodded and sped up as Hitch floored the accelerator pedal.
The lone Arab in the Mercedes knew these jeeps—and the men who were driving them. He had no wish to die tonight, so he veered off the road—into the soft sand.
"Like taking candy from a baby," murmured Troy. "After him, Hitch!"
Hitch was already turning off the road onto the sand and with the Willys jeep, he was soon outstripping the older make car, its round black fenders soon covered in dust.
Once they had the car pinned between the two jeeps, Troy and Hitch circled back and Troy had a gun on the driver as soon as Hitch came to a stop. The by-now worried Arab raised his hands in the air and in no time Troy got out and stuck his tommy gun in his face through the open window.
"Get out, slowly," Troy said, opening the car door with his left hand and quickly gesturing to the ground with the gun in his right.
Moffitt had climbed into the rear of his jeep to mount a defense with the fifty, or .50 caliber machine gun, in case there were other Arabs out and about on this cold night.
The driver, knowing these three Allied commandos had to be angry over the capture of their friend, came out slowly, hands high.
"Where's the man you took tonight from town?" Troy asked. No response. "Moffitt!"
Moffitt repeated Troy's question in Arabic, and the driver of the Mercedes nodded his head towards the dunes in the east. He never said a word. Too frightened to. Was he frightened more of the commandos, the Arabs—or the Germans who had to be mixed up in this somehow?
"He's showing us which way they went, Troy."
"I get the gesture. Thanks, Moffitt." Troy pointed his gun to the east. "They went that away? Just nod your head."
For effect, he put the gun up under the Arab's chin. Turbaned, robed, and sandaled, the man nodded, but then Hitch, standing by the jeep, noted a ring as the Arab waved his hand in the jeep's headlights.
"Look, Sarge. He's wearing a death's head ring. The SS!"
Troy grabbed up the Arab by his robe and pushed him against the car. "Where'd you get that ring?"
One more slam against the car and Troy had the driver ready to talk. "I'm not SS. Bad men. I buy ring in market. I'm only Arab runner. I drive for Hamdi. He took your man."
"Why! Why did he take him?" Troy, seething, had changed his position and now his forearm rested against the man's neck, pressing on his voice box. He let up slightly so he could talk.
"Bounty."
Hitch grabbed a tommy gun out of its holster next to his seat. Coming to stand directly beside the Arab, peering down into his face, he asked, "You took Tully for money?"
"Back off, Hitch," said Troy. "I'll take care of this." Addressing the driver again, he asked, "Where were they talking him?"
"To meet Germans."
"You don't think—" began Hitch. "You don't think it's Dietrich who's paying the bounty, maybe hoping to get us all?"
"What's the German's name? Come on!" Troy urged, pressing his hand deeper into the man's throat. "Spill it!"
"That, praise Allah, I do not know. He is German, that is all I know. The Arab looked from one of the other of his assailants, rather more afraid of them, one with his arm in his throat, than even the tall man at the machine gun.
"You say they went up over there?" Troy pointed to the dunes again. The Arab nodded. "Where? Any name?"
Hoarse from dry fear, the Arab said, "Dar el-Tanri." When Troy let him go, the perturbed man felt of his throat. Still all there.
"What can we do with him?" called Moffitt from the jeep.
"I know what I'd like to do—" said Hitch, raising his own Thompson.
"You do that, Hitch," said Troy, "and we'll never get another word out of him."
Hitch acknowledged the wisdom of Troy's statement with a nod, but still kept his gun up.
Troy, still clenching the man's robe in his fist, asked, "How much of a head start do they have?"
"About three hours, Efendi. They ride fast horses."
"Where are they stopping for a break? Horses can't run forever."
The Arab smiled, beatifically. At last, he could say something to please the desert commando, who might take his fist out of his robe and let him breathe again.
"A small place. Three palms. Very little water."
"In the same direction as Dar el-Tanri?" The Arab nodded and Troy began to unfurl his hand from the man's vestments. "It's almost twenty miles back to base. You have water?"
Dubious, the Arab nodded again. Looking into Troy's chiseled face, his night-dark eyes, he said, "I have water, Efendi."
Troy stepped back, but still didn't release the man all the way. "Then I suggest you get it and start walkin'. When you get there, turn yourself in to the MPs. If you don't," he raised the gun in the man's face with his other hand still clasping the wrinkled robes, "I'll find you and blow your head off—with this!" He put the gun up to the man's very nose.
The Arab, a wise man in his way, and well-paid by Hamdi, his desert Master who had engineered the young commando's kidnapping, had no doubt he would. "I get my water," he said. Troy let him go and watched him reach into the window of the car, but then knocked him aside, fearing he was pulling out a gun.
"Hitch, check in there and see if there's any water. We've got to get a move on."
Hitch thrust the Arab aside without saying sorry and pulled a waterskin out of the car. He shoved it into the man's hands, grabbed the car keys from his fingers, and then pushed him off. The Arab spun away, turned once to say something, but then just shook his head and started walking. It would be well past sunup before he saw the streets of the Arab quarter again.
After fouling up so badly, he thought he might try to get an honest job selling clay pots. It would be a better way to make a living.
"I'll gas the jeeps up," said Hitch, turning and throwing the Mercedes' keys as far as he could into the sand. "And give 'em a drink, too."
"Be quick about it, Hitch," said Troy. As soon as the waddling Arab was out of earshot, he looked up at Moffitt on the back of the jeep. "Moffitt, do you know where this oasis is?"
"I'm familiar with it. About five miles to the east. It's nearly dried up at this time."
Troy unstrapped a jerrycan of water from the back of Moffitt's jeep and went to lift the hood. "Keep watch, Moffitt. Our fearful friend might get ideas."
Finishing their tasks, Troy and Hitch threw themselves in their jeep and Moffitt descended from the fifty to the driver's seat of his, then both jeeps, once started, sped off across the sands, leaving the road behind. Troy hoped to cut a diagonal line across the desert to the place where the oasis lay.
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The Arab leader stood up from the fire and stretched, then reached into a bag on his hip and drew out a piece of flatbread. Breaking it in two, he walked over to the prisoner, untied him, and handed him the bread. Tully, famished after his adventurous night, made short work of it. The Arab handed him a skin of water and he drank to wash it down.
"Thanks," he murmured, coughing a little on the water.
"Most welcome," said the Arab. "You are a guest here."
Tully smiled, looking up at him. So maybe they were making headway at being friends?
"I am Hamdi. You are?"
"I am—" Tully began, finishing with, "Rumpelstiltskin." So much for friendship.
"Ah, you are Tully Pettigrew, no?" asked the Arab, Hamdi, meeting with a strange look from Tully. How did he know who he was? The Arab walked away, leaving him baffled.
After certain needs had been attended to by all parties, the break at the oasis was over. The Arabs and their 'guest,' now untied, mounted the horses again and rode out. Tully's legs and backside weren't used to the unaccustomed position of horseback riding. He usually spent the day in the jeep, with only short breaks for food and radiator checks.
The sky was very dark now, so the stars were very bright. He gazed up at them and tried to reckon the direction the Arabs were heading. The two stars at the base of the Big Dipper's square-shaped cup pointed to the North Star. To the left of the Star was west; to the right, east. If he was facing the Star, south was behind him. Since the Star was over his left shoulder, he reckoned the horses were traveling east.
He faced back the way they were going, confident now that even without the morning sun the Arabs were going east. Tal Yata then, the Allied base, lay on his right, to the south.
What lay to the east? Sector G, as the Allies called it, Dietrich's stomping ground, lay over that way, but Tully drew a blank on the name of any particular Arab settlement. He laughed bitterly. If only he had read a map before he was kidnapped!
He only hoped that if and when his rescuers came, they could read the horses' tracks and know in which direction he had been taken, that is before the wind blew them away.
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By flashlight, Moffitt located the oasis on his map, and marked it for future reference. By headlights, Troy and Hitch checked out the disturbed sand where the Arabs had broken their flight for a short meal, leaving a burned-out campfire and a few food remains.
Hitch had a notion and took his own flashlight over to each one of the date palms. At the base of one of them, he discovered scratch marks, as if someone had been tied there and was trying to wriggle out of his ropes.
He called a grim-faced Troy over. "Look, Sarge, this may have been where they tied Tully up."
"Looks that way. Moffitt, which way to Dar el-Tanri?
Checking his map, Moffitt found that the village was a good fifteen miles, due east, from the three-palm oasis. "Give or take, fifteen miles, Troy."
"Got it. Hitch, check the radiators and I'll refill the water cans at the spring."
Due to cool night temperatures, the petrol was holding up pretty well and less of it was needed to fill the tanks of the two jeeps. Troy stowed the last of the water cans in the jeep, then climbed in and looked over at Hitch behind the wheel.
"East, Hitch."
The tiny oasis where they had just been had been a devil to find, especially in the dark, and they had had to drive slow not to miss it, but the town of Dar el-Tanri presented no such problem. Since it was on Moffitt's map, they could now put on speed and head for the old village without delay.
Next: Chapter 3 Dar el-Tanri