D-Notice by Bill Walker (books to read for self improvement txt) 📕

forth. He listened for a moment, then said. “That’s radio traffic from Italian Headquarters in Benghazi,” Brady said. “Heard enough?”

He switched off the radio and zipped it back into its carry pack. Fitzhugh still looked unconvinced. “Obviously you found that quite by accident. We can’t afford lucky accidents out here.”

“Excuse me, Lieutenant,” Thorley cut in, “but there won’t be any lucky accidents, as you put it. I know the frequency we’ll be monitoring. We’ve come this far, let us have a crack at it. And as Corwin said, it’s better than turning tail.”

Fitzhugh caved in, throwing up his hands. “All right,” he said. “Let’s just hope we don’t get caught with our pants down again.”

The next morning, they all voted to forego breakfast so they could make Hatiet el Etla by midmorning. Their last intelligence put the bulk of the Afrika Korps about five miles north of the town. They decided to skirt the tiny settlement on the off chance that any Germans might be in the town. By noon, they were as close as they dared to get. Now, it was up to Thorley and Brady to hike the rest of the way on foot.

They waited until after lunch when the sun began to wane, then they set off. Brady carried the radio, and Thorley carried the compass and the spare battery, as well as the food and water for the both of them. By Fitzhugh’s estimation, Rommel’s tanks lay in a shallow depression due north from where the patrol had set up camp. The hike, though only two miles, felt like two hundred. The weight of the stores they’d taken, enough for two days if needed, began to take its toll on Thorley’s body within the first half mile. Part of the problem was the terrain. Extremely rocky, it took longer to go a given distance because one had to step carefully over and around the countless obstacles strewn in their path. And then there was the relentless heat. They could only take so much water, because of weight and rationing. Already, Thorley could feel his throat crying out for it, knowing that if he gave in too soon, they would run out.

For his part, Brady appeared to be in his element. He moved over the rocks like a mountain goat, his pace never flagging, a continual grin on his face. They reached their destination at three o’clock and found the tanks just where intelligence said they would be. Putting down their supplies, both men crept to the top of the rise and looked over. Down in the depression they counted over three hundred tanks parked in even rows across from an equally large area filled with tents. They could see hundreds of German troops going about their business.

“Go get the radio,” Thorley said.

“There won’t be anything now, Mikey, they’re all parked.”

“Let’s try it, anyway.”

Brady shrugged and slid down the rise. He returned a moment later with the radio in hand. Unzipping the front of the carry pack, he erected the special antenna with its neatly coiled length of copper wire, turned the radio on and the two of them huddled around the speaker as Brady tuned the radio to 27 megacycles. There was nothing but static.

“I told you, Mikey,” he said, flipping off the radio. “Sure as God’s in his Heaven, they’ll be firing up those tanks come morning. That’s when we’ll hear something, if there’s anything to hear.”

They spent the night huddled next to each other for warmth, proximity to the enemy making a fire impossible.

The sun was creeping over the horizon, casting its crimson light across the steamy desert, when both men awakened to the sound of hundreds of tank engines revving. Grabbing the radio, Thorley and Brady scrambled up the small rise. The German camp was breaking up, tents folded and thrown into the backs of trucks, men running every which way shouting orders. From their position high overhead, it resembled a busy anthill. The tanks began pulling out of their neat rows and into formation for traveling.

“Blast this infernal thing!”

Thorley turned at the sound of Brady’s curse and saw him tinkering with the radio. A stab of fear pierced his heart.

“What’s wrong?”

Brady looked up from the radio, a sneer curling his lip. “This bloody contraption has decided not to work, that’s what’s wrong!”

Thorley decided to leave well enough alone and turned his attention back to the tanks. From his vantage point, it looked as if Rommel was sending the tanks north, toward Tobruk, but that was a guess, and not a very educated one. Still, unless they got the radio working, they would have very little else to report.

“Got you, you little bastard!” Brady said triumphantly. “Radio’s up, Mikey.”

Brady tossed him the headphones, which he plugged into the jack and then placed onto his head. He nodded and waited as Brady tuned the dial to 27 megacycles. From what little he knew of radio, there could be a thousand working frequencies between 27 and 28 megacycles, all with separate conversations going on. It would take a steady hand on the dial to tune into them all. What worried Thorley were the odds involved in actually hearing what he came to hear, odds that someone would actually talk about it over the air, unlikely at best. If they did, Thorley might miss it simply because he wouldn’t be listening on the correct frequency at the precise moment it was spoken. It was obvious the Panzer units were moving out of the area. That meant they would have perhaps half an hour, forty-five minutes at most before the last tanks were out of range. And that would be that, for there was no way