The Courier
by tallsunshine12
Whumptober #31, 2024: "I'm alive, just not well."
A/N: Thanks to texaslass2000 for her 'eye-rattling' phrase.
Chapter 1 Switching up!
Troy knew he had caught what was going around the base, a kind of flu, with lots of eye-rattling sneezes. The Arabs had it, a good many of the base personnel had it, and now he had it. It made his legs weak and his vision spotty and unreliable. He weaved from side to side as he walked and his head felt three times its usual size. Leave it to Moffitt to notice how awkwardly he was acting.
"You can sit this one out, Troy," his fellow sergeant said. "It's only a convoy, not heavily armed."
"Then it shouldn't take long to destroy it," was Troy's short response. He had an obligation to protect his men and he knew he couldn't do that from the base hospital. And as far as infecting them, if he hadn't already, he never would. At least that's how Troy reasoned.
"Will you turn yourself in to the hospital when we get back?"
In Moffitt's mind, he could see Troy fainting on the sands of the desert, in full view of the Germans and their guns. He himself had had a bout like that before, when he was only a boy, and knew that before he had shaken it, his fever spiked and his mind began to wander. But Troy was their leader, and he had made up his mind to go.
"Alright, I will. Let's shake it. We've got a convoy to blow up."
Tully and Hitch turned to their wheels and revved up the engines as Moffitt got in alongside Tully and Troy took the passenger seat in the jeep he shared with Hitch.
It wasn't long before the vast and golden sands of the desert swallowed up the two Willys MB's and the four men riding in them. They were on their way to al-Jura, an oasis where it was likely the convoy would stop to refuel and take on water from the oasis well.
An hour later …
The sun bit into his brain through his burning eyes, and Troy rubbed them frequently. Hitch glanced over and said, "You're not really well, are you, Sarge?"
"I'll keep until we're done," said Troy, dully, likening himself to an overripe pomegranate. He sneezed.
With that, conversation, always difficult over the jeep's engine, was now at a standstill. Hitch glanced over at him on occasion, but he had the all-too-important job of watching for rocks in the sand road.
Moffitt, casting his eyes about lazily, spotted the courier before the others. He pointed out a motorcycle, a Zundapp, to Tully, who sped up and brought his jeep alongside Hitch and Troy's.
About a quarter-mile away, the courier was cutting their path at a ninety-degree angle. Hearing the faint roar of the motorbike, Troy raised his binoculars, adjusted for distance, and could see that the bike had shed its usual sidecar in favor of speed.
He signaled an all-out pursuit and the jeeps raced off after the courier, whose worst nightmare had just come true. He had been sighted and zeroed in on by the Rat Patrol, the desert's most dreaded commando unit.
It didn't take long for the young gefreiter, or private, to trip himself up and crash into a group of rocks with his bike. He was just disentangling himself from the wreck when the jeeps thundered to a halt on either side of him. Moffitt climbed over the seat to slip behind the Browning M2 and from then on the .50 cal. machine gun covered the courier's every move.
In a kind of expectant silence, the patrol waited until he had stood up, then Troy, dismounting from the jeep, walked over, his .45 drawn.
"Get the saddlebag untied," he said, in his most "I'm not fooling" tone, and Moffitt, who spoke German, translated from behind the Ma Deuce.
The fumbling gefreiter pulled the bike up onto its wheels again, kicked the stand down, and untied his 'saddlebag,' as Troy, the Western-bred rancher, had instructed him, then handed it over the seat of the bike. Troy backed away with it, rejoining Hitch at the jeep.
The gefreiter breathed out. He had just survived an encounter with the Rat Patrol. Or had he? He kept his hands up and didn't make a move to remount his motorbike. He knew when he was licked.
Moffitt kept the fifty trained on the courier while Troy pawed through the file folders in the bag. Seeing they were in German, he said, "Tully, take the fifty. Watch Jerry while Moffitt has a look at these."
Tully climbed back to the Browning in the rear of the jeep and Moffitt took his own seat again.
"Just a little side job, heh, Troy?" Moffitt asked as Troy handed the satchel to Hitch who passed it along to Moffitt. Moffitt peered through the documents until he found one that occupied him for a considerable time.
"Well?" asked Troy. The blazing sun was beginning to make him feel like sneezing again.
"One of these files contains an attack plan for next week, detailing where and when certain German divisions and regiments will be."
"Where's it going down?" asked Tully at the fifty.
"Near Benghazi. There's been some fierce fighting there of late," said Moffitt, still deeply absorbed in his reading. "Not all of it is going just as the Allies hoped."
"How do you know it's not a fake, to throw us off?" asked Hitch.
"I don't," said Moffitt. "Only G-2 can tell the difference between real and fake. It seems we have a hot potato on our hands."
"I'd rather it was a hot nurse," murmured Tully, sinking his head into the fifty with a cackle.
"Wouldn't we all?" asked Moffitt, whose ears never missed a thing.
Troy, leaning forward to see past Hitch, said, "That means one of us has to go back. The other three will go on to al-Jura and blow up the convoy."
"You should, Troy, since you're not well," offered Moffitt.
"It ought to be you, Moffitt. You can help translate the documents back at the base. We don't have a lot of time before those plans go into effect, if they're real, that is."
"Once again, Troy, your reasoning is sound. I'll need transportation. Might I have a jeep?"
"No," said Troy with a growl.
"No?" everyone echoed together, except the courier, who was getting tired of standing in the sun by then with his arms up. He tried to scratch his nose—it was very nearly a deadly gesture, as the man at the machine gun took an offensive posture with the gun and glared at him.
"Take the bike," Troy said. "He won't need it for a while."
"You want me to ride up to Tal Yata on a Jerry bike and expect that they don't shoot me?" Tal Yata was the Allied base.
"You'll think of something, Moffitt. Meantime, we've got a convoy to catch. Tie him up, loosely."
Hitch and Tully swapped glances at Troy's cold assertiveness and then Hitch got out. Pulling some cord from behind his belt—he always kept some there—he proceeded to tie up the courier. He left the binding just loose enough for the private to struggle free—say, in an hour. Hitch also left the canteen from the bike beside him. Moffitt had his own and didn't need the German's.
Moffitt stuffed the document folders inside his jacket and, waving back once, took off on his solo journey with an uneasiness in his heart, a foreboding of the events to come.
: : :
Halfway back to Tal Yata—about twenty-five miles—Moffitt slid off the bike to refuel it from a jerrycan strapped to its side. In the midst of this operation, he happened to look up and saw a slow-moving dinosaur crossing the desert ahead of him. Only it wasn't a dinosaur. It was a column, all the multi-sized vehicles painted the pale yellow—really a drab color, he thought—of the Afrika Korps.
He had become the center of attention. A Zundapp on the desert was likely, as couriers zipped to and fro all over the area with orders, memos, and other mundane correspondence, but the fact that he wore a British uniform and a black beret had turned him into a mystery.
The commander of the column lowered his binoculars and gave an order over his mic to two of his half-tracks to pursue. The rest of the column, three supply trucks, an armored car, and the commander's own Kubelwagen, would stay back and await the outcome.
As soon as Moffitt noted the half-tracks making for him, he threw the jerrycan aside, mounted, and kick-started the bike. Patting the files in his jacket for assurance that they were still there, he was soon putting the Zundapp through its paces at nearly 50 mph.
He headed for a rocky area where he could lose the half-tracks, but since it would be hard on the bike's tires, he had to get back on the hardpan as soon as he lost the Germans. He was almost out of target range when an 81 mm mortar shell shot out from a 1,000 yards away, splitting the air above Moffitt's head, but landing short. Even so, the sand it threw up caught him unawares, and he spun sideways under its onslaught. He lost control of the bike and toppled with it, hitting the ground hard on his right side.
At first, he was unable to right himself, one of his legs under the bike. In what seemed like an eternity, he soon felt hands dragging the bike off him and forcing him to his feet. Unable to put weight on his leg, he collapsed into the arms of his captors. His vision swam, and with a stitch in his side, it was a nightmare to breathe.
He was abruptly pulled over to one of the two half-tracks and put inside, his knees banging against the sides of the armored vehicle. Once he was in, the half-tracks headed back to the column. From his recumbent position on the steel floor, Moffitt couldn't see anything but dull, sand-colored uniforms and jackboots.
When the half-tracks stopped, he was dragged out again and taken over to a Kubelwagen. Just as he'd expected, the commander of the column was none other than Hans Dietrich, the Rats' chief nemesis, who was waiting beside the car. Hilfer, his driver, a plump boy who looked as if he had had too much strudel growing up, was still at the wheel.
"Sgt. Moffitt," said Dietrich, Hauptmann Dietrich, an incredulous sound to his voice. "Have you taken to delivering mail for the Germans?" He reached into Moffitt's jacket and took the files out of it. "What are these?"
"You don't know?" Moffitt eked out, holding his side and wincing. His leg felt just about as bad, but he didn't think it was broken, just bruised.
"If I did, I wouldn't have asked."
"Took them off a courier. He's alright. Left him tied up, but he can get free."
"And just where is the rest of the patrol?"
"Mediterranean's warm this time of year. Swimming, I guess."
And other German would have struck Moffitt across the mouth for his wit, but not Hans Dietrich. Instead, he laughed at Moffitt's attempt at humor.
"They plan to attack this column, don't they?"
"Do they? They didn't tell me."
"Sgt. Moffitt, I have caught you with stolen documents on one of our motorcycles. You could be shot here and now. Is that all you want to say?"
"It is for now, Herr Hauptmann."
"Put him inside," said Dietrich, gesturing to the car. While Moffitt waited in the back of the Kubelwagen, Dietrich scanned the documents. He found next week's attack plan.
"This is why you were rushing back to Tal Yata, sergeant?" he asked in his measured tones, holding up one of the files.
Moffitt remained mum. Dietrich knew it was, even before he asked.
"Who else has seen these documents, the attack plan?"
Again, crickets from Moffitt.
Sliding into the front seat Dietrich addressed his driver in German, Hilfer's only language. "Private, let's turn around, head back to camp."
Dietrich didn't need to say it, but Moffitt knew that he was returning to camp to contact his superiors. Next week's attack plan might have been compromised, depending on how many—and who—had actually seen the documents. The Allies, if they knew of the Germans', could arrange their own 'plan' of attack.