Chapter 3 Dar el-Tanri
As the Arab horses approached the village, enclosed by old, pockmarked mud-brick walls, one of the Arabs pulled out a horn shaped like a half-moon and blew into it, long and low. Its mournful sound carried far out over the dunes of the desert, like a disembodied spirit, giving Tully a shudder.
Once in the town itself, he slipped off the horse under his own power, but expected to find himself tied up again any minute. However, the Arabs had other things in mind to do, like stabling, feeding, and watering their horses with buckets of well water and nosebags strapped on.
Since he was in their territory now, and no longer on an Allied base, he was quite free to move around. Slapping his jacket arms against the penetrating cold of the desert night, he strolled over to the nearest wall and, leaning against it, merely watched the Arabs at their various tasks. He wouldn't make any trouble—not just yet.
Sarge had taught him, if he was a prisoner, to 'count' the enemy. Twenty-four outside, six times the number of men who had brought him there, and who knew how many inside. Doc would have known by the appearance of their weapons and robes where the Arabs hailed from.
Thinking of Sgt. Jack Moffitt, his long-legged jeep mate, Tully felt all alone suddenly. He looked around himself a bit nervously now, wondering what his part in all of this would be from then on. Was he a captive, POW, kidnap victim, or what?
Dusting off a nearby bench with his hand, he sat down, sleepy, thirsty, too. Just waiting for instructions, he wouldn't have minded a feedbag of his own and a bucket of water.
Hamdi clapped eyes on him and gestured for him to come over to one of the more intact buildings of this ruined town. Wondering what was holding up the porch roof, Tully ducked under its crooked arch and entered, then sat where Hamdi pointed, a spot on the floor.
Cross-legged, he gazed up at the rafters of the ceiling, then let his eyes follow them to the walls and then down to the furniture in the big room. It was large and made of highly-carved wood. Tall, iron candlesticks, on three-legged bases, sited in various parts of the hall gave off a twinkling light.
Drawing his legs up to his chest, he rested his forehead on his knees, but looked up from that position as Hamdi came by again in a swish of Arab robes. He brought some more bread and with it this time a small plate of meat. Tully nodded thanks and took it gratefully. Hamdi also dropped a skin of water beside his leg.
Tully, realizing he'd not spoken for hours, said, "Thanks, I appreciate it." His voice was harsh from desert wind and blowing sand.
Hamdi nodded, too, then went back to his friends gathered at an elaborately-set table. The men's loud chatter and raucous laughter as they ate and drank were strangely comforting to Tully—if they were having such a good time, he reasoned, then they weren't in a killing mood. He sat back in a niche against the wall and closed his eyes. Soon he was fast asleep, his supper only half-eaten.
After what felt like only a short spate of minutes, a noisy dispute in the hall awoke him. Cracking an eye open, his heart caught in his throat as he saw who it was arguing with Hamdi. Slowly, he inched up the wall until he was standing again. He moved his eyes to the darker end of the room off to his right, and then back to the men at the lighted table.
Keeping to the shadows of the wall, he started to move away from his niche, but he was pulled up short by an Arab guard. The Arab's big knife deterred Tully from wrangling with him. Rubbing the heels of his hands together, Tully stepped out into the light.
A man in a peaked cap, with two pips on his shoulder boards, signifying a captain, turned, saw him, and broke off from the throng. Strolling over, hands grasped characteristically behind his back, he stood in front of Tully, observing him.
A hard lump forming in his throat, Tully eked out, "Captain Dietrich, you arranged all of this?"
"I did, Private Pettigrew, but as you might guess, I was after bigger fish. Oh, it's good of you to 'drop in,' but my Arab friend there, Hamdi, was supposed to catch one of the two sergeants in his net. Sgt. Troy, specifically."
"But he fouled up and nabbed me?"
Dietrich laughed at the phrase 'fouled up' and nodded. "He went for the low-hanging fruit, it seems." He turned slightly and gestured behind him. "Come over to the table. You haven't got anything to be afraid of … at this moment," he added.
Tully smirked and walked over to the table with him, nodding at the Arab men gathered around it. Hamdi, who had treated him kindly up till then, watched him closely. Would he make trouble? He had been a quiet young man so far, so Hamdi's fears were, at least for now, groundless.
One of the Arabs pulled out a chair and Tully sat down. Not used to 'conferences,' especially when he might be the subject of the discussion, he glanced around uneasily. An older man, even older than Hamdi, and deeply wrinkled, sat at the head of the table, his white hair peeking out of his headdress. Wrapped up in scads of cloth, warm and comfy, he looked to Tully to be asleep.
Dietrich sat across the table from Tully, facing him. Leaning forward over his clasped hands, he asked, "Are you okay, private? They didn't hurt you?"
Tully too kept his hands on the table, in plain sight. No need to give the Arabs cause to tie him up. "No, roughed up a bit, but nothin' too bad."
"Well, that's good."
"About the price, Herr Hauptmann," began Hamdi, in Arabic, a language which Dietrich understood perfectly, though Tully didn't. "RM125."
"For your information, Private Pettigrew," he said, "Hamdi has just asked for 125 Reichsmarks for you."
"What's that in U.S. money?"
"Fifty dollars."
"He went to all this trouble for that?" asked a stupefied Tully. "What I earn in a month? Pay the man, Captain, and let's get out of here! I'll be in your debt."
"There's something I want which makes the price even better." Dietrich didn't hesitate, but said, "Sgt. Troy."
"How do you figure you'll get him?"
"Simple, he'll come after you, won't he? I'll be waiting for him."
"He's too busy right now. Our CO's injured. Troy won't leave the base himself. You'll just have to give up on your grand designs, Herr Hauptmann."
"Is that so?"
At the other end of the table, Hamdi coughed. He'd like to get on with the negotiations, but Dietrich was in no rush to conclude them just yet. By hook or crook, Troy would find out where Tully Pettigrew was, and he and his gang would be on their way to Dar el-Tanri. Until they got there, Dietrich was content to continue haggling with Hamdi.
He was prepared to meet Troy. Up in the dunes, he had hidden his column, two half-tracks each with MG 42's, and one of them carrying a mounted mortar. In addition, a canvas-topped truck hid within its bowels half a dozen sharpshooters. If, no, make that when Sgt. Troy showed up, he would have a 'grand' reception awaiting him.
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Lying flat on the top of a dune, peering through binoculars, Sgt. Sam Troy tallied up the problems he was facing. First, 'out of sight' behind a dune was a column of half-tracks and a truck load of troops. Whose were they? Who was in cahoots with the Arabs? Dietrich? It was his sector, after all, and he was always 'gunning' for the Rats.
Second, in the town below, a sizeable number of Arabs, lit by torches, milled about, some with knives, others with Schmeissers, Germany's answer to the Thompson submachine gun, and some even sporting tommy guns of their own.
Third, and finally, he didn't know where or even if Tully was in that town, though he could guess that the big, most-lighted building must be where the Arabs' HQ was. Perhaps that was where they were holding him.
Troy passed his glasses to his second-in-command, Sgt. Jack Moffitt, a granddaddy longlegs of a Britisher in a black beret. Moffitt took them, adjusted the focus, and silently, in his head, began to count up the difficulties, too.
"We could just slip in and overtake a few of their guards, Troy," he said, passing the glasses back to Troy.
"Every Arab has eyes in the back of his head, Moffitt, you know that."
"Do you think Dietrich's down there?"
"Most likely." Troy raised the glasses to his eyes and adjusted the focus back the way he had had it. "What's his column waiting for? For us?"
Moffitt smirked slightly. "Dietrich, if it is he, wants to 'bag' us all, Troy. I say we don't let him."
"I'm with you. Let's go rejoin Hitch before he thinks we've abandoned him."
"Mustn't let him think he's an 'only' Rat," said Moffitt, his smile widening.
Troy laughed and both men rolled off the dune, coming to their feet in the slippery sand, loping down, and making a full stop at the jeeps again. The moon had set, but the golden yellow sand was awash in starlight, brightening up the scene.
"Here's the plan—" began Troy, whispering in the still desert air.
He had to stop because, quite out of the blue, a man's clear-cut, dynamic voice bellowed a message into the night. He had no need of a bullhorn.
"It's coming from the town," Moffitt breathed.
"Sgt. Troy! This is Hauptmann Dietrich," said the booming voice, piercing the nocturnal gloom. "We have your driver, Private Pettigrew, as our prisoner. We're willing to make a trade."
In a hushed voice in Moffitt's ear, and suddenly catching on to Dietrich's plan, Troy said, "Yeah, he wants to trade Tully for me."
Hitch and Moffitt looked at him and realized that he couldn't be far off the mark. Somehow, Dietrich had figured out that the Rats were in the vicinity of Dar el-Tanri, even though their jeeps had come in on the blind side of his column's dune. How had he or his men spotted them?
Or had Dietrich just figured out that where there was one Rat, there'd be all of them?
"At least we know it's Dietrich we're dealing with," Moffitt said. "He's a fairer man than most. But why he should join forces with a gang of Arab thugs, I can't fathom."
"He wants me to answer him," said Troy, "so he can figure out where we are. Pinpoint our position, maybe with a mortar shell."
"I'll give you fifteen minutes, Sgt. Troy," yelled the same German voice from somewhere on the other side of the protective dune in front of them. "Then we attack."
While listening to Dietrich's message, Troy got up on the back of Hitch's jeep, with his arm propped up on the fifty he knew so well how to use. How he wished he could take it, ride to the top of the dune, and blow a hole in the German-Arab defense of the town!
"Couple that with Dietrich's determination," said Moffitt, looking up at him, "and you have a veritable witch's brew."
"I don't like it much, Troy said. "I wish I had a way of talking to him first. To see if he'd really let Tully go. I don't want Tully to go through what I just went through in Tobruk."
Everyone grew silent, recalling the terrible time just a month ago when Troy was captured by this very same Captain Dietrich—Herr Hauptmann Dietrich—and sent off to a transit camp in Tobruk as a POW. It took all of their resources to get him back again into the Western Campaign.
"What're you goin' to do, Sarge?" asked Hitch.
"Hitch, I can't leave him to the Arabs—or the Germans. You don't know what they could do to him to make him talk."
Even though he couldn't see them clearly, Troy knew there was deep misgiving in Moffitt's eyes. And in Hitch's.
"He'd never betray us," said the English sergeant. "But I see your point, Troy. It wouldn't be pleasant for him, to say the least."
"Just like it wasn't pleasant for me. Three days in a sweatbox. No, I've got to give myself up."
"Surely, you're not going down there?" Moffitt voice had grave concern in it, worry in every fiber of his being, that that was exactly what Troy was going to do.
"Tully would understand if you don't go," said Hitch, trying to use his most persuasive voice. "We've broken each other out before, and we can do it again without giving up."
"Hitch, I counted at least twenty Arabs manning the walls. They want us to see them—you can see the torches. With those half-tracks up in the dunes, we'd never get close enough to the gates with the jeeps, and if we went in on foot, they'd cut us down in a shot. No place is safe from Arab eyes."
"There's no other way?" asked Troy's doubtful second-in-command, Moffitt.
Troy looked at Moffitt, the ever hopeful Moffitt, and he could clearly see that he was unsure of what Troy planned to do. He saw only apprehension in Moffitt's rugged face. "Not this time, friend."
Next Chapter 4 Betrayal