During a desert battle, Hitchcock is badly wounded. Troy decides to risk taking him to a nearby German field hospital as their own hospital is too far away. Upon arriving at the hospital he and Moffitt nearly pull off the masquerade, except for a paranoid patient -- Captain Friedrich -- who tells everyone they are American spies. No one believes him but during the delay the doctor notices a tattoo on Hitch's arm from Ft. Benning, Ga. Troy forces him, at gunpoint, to finish the operation. They escape in a hail of gunfire after the surgery.

Dietrich is presented with an old scrap of parchment which shows an ancient water source deep in the desert. Allied intelligence sends Moffitt to find the map before it can be translated; he must get it by masquerading as a German and Troy has orders to shoot him should he find the information (and destroy it) but then not be able to escape. Which is, of course, exactly what then happens. Troy must face the decision of killing his comrade -- and friend -- or finding someway to disobey the orders and rescue the mission.

During a skirmish with the Germans, Troy suffers a concussion from an explosion. He ends up alone and lost in the desert. By the time he is found he has a terrible case of sunblindness. Unknown to Troy, though, his ""rescue"" has been by a German unit that is pretending to be Americans so they can coax Troy to tell him where the rest of the Rat Patrol is. Dietrich is the engineer behind this ploy.In the end, recovering from the sunblindness in the nick of time, Troy escapes.

A very prized Germany radar station must be destroyed before a flight of bombers comes over. To do it, the Rat Patrol is given a new, special kind of explosives. Troy is apprehensive about carrying this dangerous cargo, which can explode with the slightest of bumps. Dietrich learns of the mission and tries to beat the Patrol to the area by utilizing an old Arabic legend of an unknown ""trigh"" (road) through the jebels (mountains). The Patrol is also in search of this trigh. But Moffitt gets them lost and Dietrich beats them there. Troy then manages to plant some explosives -- and bluffs Dietrich out of the radar station by telling him that he's willing to die himself rather than let the station do its work.

Moffitt and Tully allow themselves to be captured so that they can get information from Craig -- an American POW -- about Rommel's new battle plans. However, Marston, another POW, tells them that Craig died. Dr. Phillips -- the camp medic -- supposedly has some information about the plan, though. When the medic treats Moffitt's arm he puts the code name of the mission on the underside of the bandage : Operation Nachtigall. However, it soon becomes obvious that either Phillips or Marston is a traitor and it is up to the Patrol to figure out which, as they are both now giving the Patrol conflicting information.

An Arab convoy, disguised as Americans, traps and captures the Rat Patrol. The convoy's leader is Ned Cunningham, an ex-Yank hero turned gunrunner. He sells now to the highest bidder, no matter which side. He feels that the Rat Patrol is costing him too much business and so is going to eliminate them. But he then decides he likes the Patrol and will take them into the deal if they will cooperate. In the end, though, his duplicitious behavior causes his own death.

The Patrol's radio is wrecked and Troy is unable to warn HQ of a large Nazi anti-tank outfit waiting in ambush. Troy knows that El Jebel has a huge radio broadcast unit and heads there. Troy, Moffitt and the others make their way into the radio room and prepare to broadcast their warning to the British. However, Captain Deitrich walks in on them and takes them prisoner. Troy and Moffitt manage to escape. They free Hitch and Pettigrew and get their message back to London. This prevents the Allies from losing a lot of tanks.