The Rat Patrol 2: Desert Danger by David King

Author:David King
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2013-05-07T04:00:00+00:00

10

An explosion that rent the night, followed almost immediately by a second mighty blast that shook the desert floor, brought Captain Hans Dietrich tumbling from his bed. He ran down the hall from his rooms to his office at the front of the German HQ. The usually stolid guard at the door looked dazed. Dietrich burst into the room and looked out his windows. The dark sky reflected a rosy hue from the direction of the camp. Dietrich was agitated and his mind churned with the fearsome possible meanings of the violent detonations. Had the Americans somehow escaped their prison and sabotaged his gas supply or ammunition dump? He grasped the field telephone on his desk and rang for his security officer, Kummel. There was no response and he called the guard at the entrance gate. The line went dead.

He ran back to his bedroom, threw on his clothes and strapped on his Luger. With a flashlight in his fist, he ran into the dark, deserted lane and angled toward the entrance. Arabs were in the shadows and the darkness behind the windows of the buildings, he knew, but his searching beam discovered no one. Several smaller explosions made the night tremble once more and he ran faster. It was the Americans. The thought pounded and inflamed his brain. He did not dare assess the damage they had done.

When the alley cornered, he could see licking tongues of flames through the entrance and black smoke that puffed and billowed. Figures showed darkly outlined against the blaze, moving in confused groups. The sound of Panzer and Panzerwagon motors and tracks rose above the roar of the fires and hoarse shouts of men. Through the entrance and on the other side of the wall, Dietrich's heart stopped for a moment as he saw and then comprehended the awesome destruction that had been wrought. Near the end of the lines of vehicles, charges had been exploded in two of his Panzer tanks and the blasts had ignited gasoline and oil and spread to adjoining armor. The treads of the other halftracks and tanks that had been in battle readiness in neat formation were chewing away from the holocaust in panicked flight. The blaze raged from the areas of the two destroyed tanks, hot and fierce.

"Kummel!" Dietrich shouted, pushing into the men massed uncertainly in the jammed corridor. "Men!" he shouted hoarsely. "Back to your tents! Clear way for the crews and the machines!"

The soldiers regarded him and the fires numbly. "Back!" he yelled savagely. "Back!" And then again and again. "Kummel, Kummel!"

From somewhere in the crowding horror, the smudged figure of his security officer erupted. Kummel's tunic and breeches were blackened and his face enraged and flushed beneath the coat of grime it wore.

"For God's sake, Kummel," Dietrich shrieked. "Command a squad to get these men away. Get some order into the evacuation of the machines. I'm going to the prison compound. Meet me there as soon as you have things moving."

With the

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