Chapter Twenty-Five
February 4, Night
The German and Arab force started following the tracks from where they had discovered the camp at the overhang. Two Arabs went on front on foot, but even though it was a moonless night the desert-wise trackers were able to follow the trail of the truck at a trot. The kubelwagons and four Arabs, one of them wounded, on camelback followed them. They came to the place where the truck had turned east to the bridge. They traveled down the draw towards the bridge and followed the tracks over the ridge to the next draw, missing the Americans as they drove past on the way to the cases, which everyone had unknowingly passed by earlier. The two Arabs in front stopped and searched the ground for tracks in the next draw. With great excitement they called out and pointed to the ground. Abu got out of the kubelwagon and hurried over to them.
“What is it?” demanded Lindisl who had followed Abu. “Effendi, the truck turned and went northeast, but a halftrack came from the northeast and went west up this draw just a few minutes ago. Listen!” He held up his hand. Just faintly they could hear the sound of the halftrack. Suddenly the sound stopped. All of them looked at each other in surprise, “They stopped,” Ali said and Abu translated.
“Let’s go!” ordered Lindisl, and they hurried back to their vehicles and started following them again. After a few minutes one of the lead Arabs stopped and waited for the major’s kubelwagon to catch up to him. He said something to Abu, who turned to Lindisl, “Effendi, stop the vehicles and turn off the engines.” Linidsl gave the order and quiet descended over the desert once more. “Effendi, they are still stopped and they are close, they could hear the engines if we continue. If we hurry on foot we could surprise them.” Lindisl considered the advice and then started issuing orders. Two German soldiers were to remain with the kubelwagons, and the wounded Arab with the camels, while the rest hurried on foot in the draw. When they heard firing they were to come. Lindisl waved the remainder on and they started moving rapidly on up the draw. Lindisl’s heart was beating faster, “The halftrack, it must have the loot on it. At last I have my property back!” Ali was thinking about the fox and soon he would be face to face with the man that killed three of his men. Abu’s mind was full of the treasure and how they could take it from that cursed Major Lindisl.
Meanwhile, Dane had been following the North Star and walking northward. There was no moon tonight, and it was hard to make out the details of the terrain ahead of him. As he slogged his way up and down the ridges, he kept praying for the safety of Angelique and Drew, and most of all that God would direct him to the right place at the right time. After almost three hours of walking, Dane heard the faint, but approaching sound of an engine. “It must be them,” he thought to himself, and started running. It sounded like it could be a rise or two away.
As he ran, suddenly the ground disappeared in front of him. What he thought was dark colored ground turned out to be a deeply cut ravine. He was going too fast to stop, and ran down the side of the ravine, his feet nimble as a mountain goat, seeming to barely touch the ground before springing for the next step, his heart in his mouth, for he knew that one misstep would send him tumbling head over heels. Under the present circumstances, a broken neck or leg, either one, would mean his death, a long, lingering one. He reached the bottom safely on his feet, but the momentum almost drove him to his knees. He sprang up the other side, hands and feet clawing for holds. Once both feet slipped and he caught himself with his right hand, the pain in his shoulder tearing at him, but he forced himself on. He reached the top and heaved himself over, the blood drumming in his ears and gasping for breath and shocked that he had made it out without injury. As he breathed a prayer of thankfulness, his ears stopped drumming and he heard silence, or almost. He sat up, “They’ve stopped! They must be at the cache,” he told himself. But were his ears still drumming? Then he realized that he was hearing more vehicles. He got up and started running again towards the next rise, but being more careful this time.
As he started to climb the ridge, the motor sounds stopped. Moving carefully now, he made his way to the top of the ridge and looked down. Below and to his left was the bulk of the halftrack. Two men were carrying a case towards the vehicle. As Dane tried to make out who was doing the carrying, movement caught the corner of his eye. He froze and tried to see what had moved to his right. Then he saw a gleam of metal. By straining his eyes he could barely make out a figure of someone. It was an Arab pointing a rifle towards the two men with the case! Before he could move, the Arab shot and one of the two men stumbled and fell. Suddenly gunfire erupted as the group of Germans opened up from where they were hiding at the bottom of the draw. The other figure with the case fell to the ground.
Lindisl felt the elation sweep over him, he had them! “Attack,” he screamed and led his men in a charge around the shoulder of the draw towards the halftrack.
Dane yanked out a grenade, armed it, and threw it. It exploded just in front of the Germans, knocking one of them to the ground. Guns started firing from the back of the halftrack and more Germans went down. Dane snatched up his submachine gun and nailed the Arab who had fired first.
Suddenly a bullet struck next to his head, peppering him with rock fragments. He ducked and rolled, spotting where the bullet came from and showered bullets in that direction. He heard the roar of approaching vehicles, and leaving the fight, moved back down the ridge and to his right to intercept them. He popped his head over the top of the ridge, and waited for the vehicles. When the two kubelwagons came into range, he heaved his last grenade and the first kubelwagon exploded and blocked the path. He sprayed the second kubelwagon with bullets, and the driver bailed out. Dane melted away into the darkness, hurrying now to get back to the halftrack.
Lindisl couldn’t believe what just happened. One minute his men were sweeping their way to victory, the enemy was falling, and then came the explosion knocking him down, and his men were dying. He saw an Arab fall, and then he got to his feet and ran back towards the advancing kubelwagons, just in time to see one explode. He just stood there in stunned surprise as Abu and Ali ran by him. He met them by the second kubelwagon as his driver crawled out of hiding and joined them. They heard a few more shots from the battle behind them and then the sound of the retreating halftrack. Eventually two more Arabs appeared.
Ali was beside himself with fury, and fear. “That cursed infidel American fox! He trapped us again! More of my men gone, and for what, my brother? An empty purse and now empty camels. I must have revenge and I must have the treasure to rebuild with!”
Abu soothed him, “We will, my brother, we will.” They spoke in their native Derja, which Major Lindisl did not understand, nor any of his men.
Lindisl was shaken up. “What happened, what went wrong?” he asked Abu in amazement. “We had them, they were being destroyed.”
“My brother says it was the American fox, he has defeated and outwitted Ali several times already. We must get him!”
“We will, we will,” Lindisl grunted back, his mind in turmoil over the unbelievable turn of events in the last few minutes. He shook himself and regained his composure. “I need reinforcements, I can call for more men and a halftrack to rendezvous with us and in the morning I can have planes combing the desert for them,” he said out loud to himself. He looked at his watch, it was incredible, but it was only midnight. Where would those Americans go? Surely not northward, that led only to Von Arnim’s army. West was the Faid Pass, securely under German control. To the south was Rommel’s army. Southwest! That had to be it, between the gap between the two German armies who had not quite linked up there yet. He got on the radio that was on the surviving kubelwagon and ordered a squad of soldiers in a halftrack to meet him to the southwest, ordered planes to search the desert at first light for a German halftrack, but not to attack unless they were positive that it was not driven by Germans. He explained to Captain Heidelstrauss that he was on the trail of an American that the Arabs called The Fox. He also alerted the l
ocal commander at Faid Pass about the possibility of a German halftrack being driven by Americans and a French woman trying to sneak through. “That should cover all the possibilities,” he said to himself.
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