She gave Capetti a kindly smile. “We never really had a leader, Sandro. Every situation was different. Whoever had the best idea, or wasn’t afraid to make a move. We all mucked in. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. It’ll all happen naturally.”
“Like Arco Philaeni,” Dore quipped.
“Oh, fuck off!
“Just kidding, Lass. You’re the best mascot we ever had.”
“Mascot!” she exclaimed. “You can kiss my shiny white mascot! I’m going to bed.”
It was a long time before she slept. The sleeping bag was smelly and itchy, she could still hear everyone talking, and somewhere nearby, she heard munching noises, no doubt one of Dore’s wandering mouflons. Which made her think about scorpions, and then snakes, and then camel spiders.
CHAPTER 16
The sun was already up when Kat crawled out of the tent, shafts of golden light casting long shadows across the extraordinary terrain. As usual, Dore was already up, dragging a camouflage net over the Jeep. Maybe they should break camp and find an overhang to hide everything.
She looked around. Capetti and Stewart were making coffee on a small primus stove. Atkins was shaving, although she couldn’t imagine why he bothered, nobody cared. She looked around for Kelly, but there was no sign of him. Maybe he’d gone for a walk to check out the nearby terrain or dig a latrine. It would be dangerous to camp any nearer the airfield. If it was only five miles away, they could do daily excursions to scout it out. They could move the camp nearer when they’d completed their daytime reconnaissance.
“Morning, Jock. Anyone know where Sam went?”
“Morning, Wolfy. He went off in that direction,” he said, pointing to a large rock crevice at the far end of the dune. “He wasn’t carrying a shovel, so I think he’s just looking around. We’re pretty high up here. He probably wants to check the lay of the land.”
About to ask where all the rations were put, when she heard a strange rumbling sound. Deep and thunderous, as if a storm was brewing in the distance. She looked up at the sky, a clear, eggshell blue and not a cloud in sight. An earthquake? Did Algeria have earthquakes? The sound grew louder, soon becoming deep, sepulchral roaring that almost crackled with power and seemed to emanate from the ground.
She looked across at Dore. He stared at her, wide-eyed.
“What the hell is that?”
The roar grew louder. Stewart and Capetti on their feet now, looking around as if they didn’t know what to do. The roar became more thunderous, more volcanic, vibrating the air around them as if the mountain was about to explode. Out of the blue, thundering towards them only feet above their heads came the most monstrous aircraft she’d ever seen, the thrust of its jets gouging swirls of sand from the dune and sending tents flying across the hillside.
Then it was gone, the noise of its jets gradually diminishing to distant thunder again. For long seconds, they stood there, teeth clenched, muscles in spasm, their feet rooted to the ground. Kelly ran towards them.
“Holy shit!” he screamed. “Did you see that? I thought my head was going to come off!”
“We’re stealing that!” Stewart shrieked. “I’d rather scratch a wild dingo’s arse!”
Brushing the sand from his clothes, Dore grinned at him. “Not your cup of tea, Captain?”
“That wasn’t a plane, it was a flying volcano. How’re you supposed to control the thing?”
Kelly’s eyes were wild with excitement. “That was amazing. Bloody amazing. Did you see the size of it? Must have been eighty meters long. The wingspan must have been seventy. And did you see the engines? They were huge.”
“The thought of flying it doesn’t scare you?” Kat asked.
“Why would it scare me? I’m more scared of stealing it than flying it.” Letting out one of his infectious laughs, he clapped her on the shoulder, pushing her off balance a little. “So, shall we get moving? We might see it land.”
“Oh, we’ll see it land,” Dore said. “We’re studying that thing. We have to find a way of stealing it, and I’m sure it won’t be easy.”
“You think the pilot saw us?” Kat asked. “He was flying very low.”
“I very much doubt it,” Kelly said. “We didn’t see the plane until it was almost on top of us. We’d have been a blip on the landscape. In fact, we shouldn’t break camp. We’re quite well concealed here. I went for a walk this morning. Once you get past those rocks over there, you can see quite a distance. You can see where the riverbed comes out again. These mountains are full of underground caves.”
Recovering the tents and stowing their supplies in a nearby gully, they climbed into the Jeep. Free of all the equipment, and with Atkins sitting on the spare wheel, Kat had the front seat to herself, but they were still packed in like sardines. When they reached the dry riverbed, and the ride became less tortuous, Kat sat on Kelly’s lap again.
They’d left the river behind and drove through a forest of sculpted monoliths when the airfield suddenly appeared a hundred feet below them and laid out on a wide ravine overlooking the desert. Parking the Jeep beneath a rocky overhang, they studied the airfield through field glasses. Judging from the rows of wooden billets, the enormous hangar and the clutter of outbuildings, the airfield had been here for some time and possibly housed 200 men. To Kat’s relief, except for two Guard towers, there was no obvious sign of fencing or security. Why would they need it? Hundreds of miles from civilization, the airfield surrounded on three sides by high peaks, and the far end of the runway looked like a sheer thousand-foot drop into the desert.
“What we think?” Capetti asked, lowering his field glasses. “Stay here, or climb lower down?”
“Better off here for the time being,” Kelly said. “We’re out of sight and have a good view of the Adler taking off. We might also be able to judge how many people are here. They’ve got two Junkers 52s, a Messerschmitt 20 and two helicopters. On a single trip, they’d only carry about 45 people, so I’d be surprised if there are more than 200 people here, and many of those would be scientists, engineers, cooks and maintenance staff. I’m sure they’ve got Guards, but apart from the secrecy issue, how many Guards would you need? No one’s going to attack this place. Not all the way out here.”
Picking up a pair of field glasses, Kat panned slowly across the barracks and studied the outbuildings. They weren’t small, and one of them looked like a laboratory, but it was the Guards patrolling the compound that drew her attention. She glanced at Kelly. “Those Guards aren’t just any Guards, they’re Waffen-SS, and if Pernass is here, they’re a crack team. My guess is there are possibly twenty-five of them.”
“Who the hell’s going to attack them?” Dore argued. “We’re a million miles from nowhere.”
“People like us?” she suggested. “Who would believe that Stipa’s Guards just deserted? Certainly not dear uncle Rudolph. He’s the most suspicious man you’ve ever met.”
“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.” Kelly said.
“Sam, don’t be naïve. Pernass’s men are highly trained. Fifteen of them could wipe us out. We’ll have to be extremely careful.”
“Which actually raises quite a big question,” Kelly said. “Are there any women at this airfield? Because if there aren’t, you’ll stand out like Hitler at a Jewish wedding. Well, perhaps not Hitler.”
“Doesn’t matter, it will be dark. And no one will notice unless they are very close.”
Kat heard a high whining sound, and moments later, the Adler passed low overhead, its swept-back wings and monstrous engines glinting in the midday sun. She watched in fascination as it banked around with remarkable agility and came in to land. With its delta wings, six massive under-slung engines and drooping nose-cone, it looked lik
e a huge predator. No wonder the Germans named it, Adler. One thing was immediately clear, the pilot had no choice but to takeoff and land over the desert. She watched it as it reached the end of the runway, slowly turned and taxied around the perimeter towards the hangar where it finally stopped and the engines died.
The plane was enormous, a behemoth of planes, dwarfing the Junkers 52 and the helicopters. People scuttled like ants beneath its wings, chocking the wheels, opening cargo doors and plugging hoses in to re-fuel the beast. A tractor arrived, making a wide arc beneath the wings, pulling a long trailer, stacked with rounded silvery objects that were carefully loaded onto the plane using hydraulic equipment.
“Are those bombs?” Atkins asked, picking up a pair of field glasses and peering through them. “Bloody hell, they are bombs. Who the hell are they going to bomb?”
“There’s nothing out here,” Dore said. “Maybe they’re dropping them in the desert. That’ll scare the Bedouins.”
“What sort of bombs are they?” Kat asked.
Atkins nervously responded, “damn bloody big ones.”
She rolled onto her side and gazed at Kelly. They needed to make a decision, and soon. She wasn’t going to ask Capetti, he was already out of his depth, and there was no point asking Dore, he’d just ask her what she thought. The others were just taking orders.
“So what are we doing?” she asked him. “Shall we move our camp closer? There are lots of caves here. If we’re studying the airfield, we don’t want to be driving back and forth. And when we break into the place, it’ll be dark. We can’t drive in the dark. Not in this terrain.”
He gazed at her for a moment, then he smiled. “You pretty much said it all. If Jock and Atkins got back with everything, they should be back before dark. We can camp in one of the caves.”
“I’d prefer it if Jock stays here. Atkins and Harry could go.” She turned to Atkins. “You think you and Harry could find our camp again, then find your way back here?”
“With my eyes closed,” Atkins said. “Well, perhaps not with my eyes closed.”
“You okay with that, Sandro?”
He nodded. “Don’t forget the coffee.”
Kat stood. “Wonderful. Then we’re all set. Shall we all go and find a cave… while the Germans are all busy with Goliath?”
“Someone must watch airfield,” Capetti said. “You go with Sam?”
She looked at Dore. “We’re looking for a cave, Jock. Why don’t you come?”
“You and the Lieutenant go. I’ll stay with the Major.”
Sam looked at Kat wryly, “I’m not sure if I’m safe looking for caves with Kat. You know what she’s like.”
“Aye, I do. I’d be careful if I were you. She’s a wee troglodyte.”
“What’s a troglodyte?”
“Just another insult,” Kat quipped. “Shall we go?”
Making their way through the forest of monoliths, they crossed a narrow gully and followed what looked like a sheep trail, skirted by giant boulders that were warm to touch. In the distance they saw a saddle between rocky peaks, before that they noticed a narrow ledge leading into shadow.
“You want to try that?” she asked, aware that Sam lagged behind.
“Sure. Looks promising.”
Clambering over a large boulder, pitted with lichen, she scrambled onto the ledge, surprised to find it worn smooth with use. “This is a pathway,” she said, looking back. “A very old pathway.”
“They’re not uncommon in these mountains. People used to live in the caves. They still do in some parts, although not around here. There’s no water.”
Sure enough, as they rounded the next corner, they came to an arched gap in the rock, and when Kat poked her head inside, it opened up into a high cavern. “Did you bring a flashlight?”
“Why, what have you found?”
“An enormous bloody cave,” she replied, her voice echoing off the walls. “You couldn’t drive a Jeep into it, but there’s masses of room for us.”
He stepped in beside her and shone the flashlight around. The cave was deep and undulating, the walls curving at different angles. There was no ceiling as such. The sandstone walls narrowed to a high apex, the color of the rock, varying between yellow and dark brown.
“This was someone’s home… thousands of years ago. Take a look at this.”
On one of the many walls, just above head-height, animals and birds had been painted. Curly-horned sheep, gazelles, dogs and giraffes. There were birds that hadn’t lived in these mountains for thousands of years, partridge, ducks and cranes, birds that needed water.
“You really think these paintings are ten thousand years old?”
“Sure. These birds and animals lived here when there was water. This part of Africa wasn’t always a desert. In the days of Carthage, it was cultivated. Then something happened, and it became a desert.”
“How sad,” she mused. “Tragic, really.”
CHAPTER 17
It was getting dark when they joined Dore and Capetti again. Stewart and Atkins still hadn’t returned, and they were getting worried, driving in the mountains at night presented many dangers.
“I’m also worried about headlights. If the Germans see them, they’ll almost certainly investigate.”
“Jock, they’re not stupid,” Kat said. “They know how risky it is.” Picking up a pair of binoculars, she peered at the airfield. “I see they’ve put the Adler in the hangar, or did it takeoff again?”
“It’s in the hangar. Believe me, you’d have heard if it took off.”
“Not necessarily,” she said, handing the binoculars to Kelly. “We found caves, and they’re really big. They’re probably soundproof.”
Capetti looked up at the sky. “How far away these caves?”
“A fifteen-minute walk.”
“Stupendo,” he said, sarcastically. “We sleep here tonight.”
“Jesus!” Kelly said, suddenly, squinting through binoculars. “The Krauts aren’t afraid of being seen. They’ve switched on the lights. It’s like bloody Christmas down there.”
Kat peered over the edge. The airfield was now a maze of lights. Even the hangar glowed in the gathering darkness. The Germans rigged streetlights between the billets and what was clearly an Officers’ Mess and a canteen for the non-commissioned ranks. She wondered if Stipa was down there somewhere, perhaps in the hangar, examining the Adler’s huge jet engines.
“I don’t suppose they’re in any danger,” she said. “Who flies over this part of Algeria? And even if they did, it would look like a small village from the air. We’re also nowhere near a war zone.”
“Huh!” Dore grunted. “Until we arrived. If the things they loaded into the Adler are bombs, it soon will be.”
“We’re bombing the airfield?” Kelly exclaimed. “What on earth for?”
Dore squinted at him. “You do realize why they built the Adler.”
“Well… yes. They’re going to… bomb people.”
“Not just people, English people. And it might not be the only one. For all we know there could be twenty more Adlers, all waiting for the testing to be approved. Not to mention that the Guards down there are Waffen-SS.”
“Jock!” Kat said, in mock horror. “My stepfather could be down there!”
“Oh yes, Oberführer Pernass, Hitler’s homie. We couldn’t possibly kill him. That really would be a crime.”
“Maybe we lucky,” Capetti added, opening the coffee flask and passing a cup to Dore. “Stipa say they have high-level meetings at airfield. He saw Rommel when he last here.”
“Rommel was here?�
� Kelly gasped. “The Desert Fox?”
“That’s why the airfield has an Officers’ Mess. It was used for high-level meetings long before the Adler.”
“Then why didn’t we know about it? Why didn’t we know how to find it?”
“Because it was a secret, dummkopf, and miles from anywhere. In all likelihood, it was once Rommel’s Lair.” Kat exclaimed. “No wonder they need all the water bowsers we saw.”
“Of course. Clean drinking water,” Kelly said. “Although they’re bound to have dug a well. It actually rains in these mountains.”
The sound of an engine stopped them talking. The Jeep was back, and they all breathed a sigh of relief. They almost cheered when Stewart and Atkins appeared.
“Where the hell have you been?” Dore asked. “You should have been back hours ago.”
“We would have Sarge,” Atkins said in his Cockney accent, “but a couple of helicopters were buzzing the area. We hid the Jeep beneath an overhang. All we could do for two hours was wait and play cards... By the way Captain, you owe me ten bob.”
Stewart looked at Atkins suspiciously, “I noticed you have very fast hands. You wouldn’t be trying to cash in on a superior officer?”
“Absolutely not mate… I mean sir… To suggest I would take advantage of such a refined gentleman such as yourself has cut me to the quick. I’ll not be able to sleep the night knowing that someone I have great respect for has questioned my integrity…”
Kelly turned to Dore, “Sergeant Major, your man here appears to be away with the fairies. I believe, at your convenience, counseling may be in order.”
Dore looked scornfully at Atkins who just smiled awkwardly back at Dore.
Kat payed no attention to the goings on behind her, she just peered at the airfield with her field glasses. People moved around down there. Something was going on. “You don’t suppose they’re actually having a high-level meeting?” she ventured, looking at Dore. “Like a big brass event to celebrate the Adler.”
Kat and the Desert Eagle Page 12