Hedgehog is a forward-deployed SOE team with experience fighting Germans behind Axis lines in North Africa, arranged as a combat support element for H-Cell's assault on the Oasis of Whispers. Pendleton co-ordinates the rendezvous four days south of the Kata Depression, briefing them only that they are supporting an operation against a German archaeological site. The team consists of Captain Aldridge, Lance Corporal Singh, demolitions specialist Taffy, and Privates Harris and Webb — a unit that was already a man down after their sniper was killed two weeks before the operation.
Hedgehog provides the combat weight H-Cell cannot supply on its own: Taffy's explosives expertise, an AA gun recovered from the Germans, and the tactical professionalism of seasoned desert fighters. The assault on the Oasis devastated the unit: Harris was killed by Das Ungerhauer, Webb was seriously wounded, and the surviving members — including Aldridge, Singh, and Taffy — were driven to varying degrees of temporary insanity by the battle's horrors.