War Clouds Gather

by Peter Watt

  They had hardly settled down when the sandstorm rolled over them with its howling wind and choking fine dust. The members of the team had already wrapped cloth around their faces to keep the dust from their lungs.

  Matthew sat against a stone wall and was joined by Diane.

  ‘How long do you think the storm will last?’ she asked.

  ‘With any luck, just a few hours,’ Matthew answered. But he was wrong; the storm raged into the evening without any let-up in the howling winds.

  Around 6 pm Diane and Matthew began organising a meal on a little primus stove. Tinned sauerkraut and meat made a stew; afterwards coffee was boiled to wash it down.

  Matthew looked around the stone walls and wondered what this ancient place had been, who had lived and died here. As if reading his thoughts, Erika came and sat down beside him.

  ‘We were told of this dig last year when another team discovered it,’ she said. ‘We are not sure what this place was used for as we do not have enough evidence to make any conclusions but we think it was a trading centre built around 2000 BC. When it was built it would have been above ground level but the desert has tried to reclaim it.’

  ‘Well, at least we can count our blessings that it’s here,’ Matthew said. ‘It has given us good shelter.’

  ‘I have read of sandstorms but this is the first time I have experienced such an event,’ Erika said, tucking her knees up and grasping them with her arms. ‘It is truly frightening.’

  ‘They pass,’ Matthew said. ‘And I have a feeling this one is just about spent.’

  Matthew stood up and stretched his legs. The wind sounded like an animal in its death throes. He walked to the entrance where a canvas sheet had been improvised to keep the sand out, and when he pushed it aside only a few puffs of wind remained. Above his head the crystal clarity of the stars shone with a brilliance only seen in such isolated places on earth.

  Matthew stepped outside with the terrible apprehension of how his aircraft had weathered the storm, but when he made his way in the dark to the Ford, silhouetted against the starlit sky, it appeared to be intact, although its undercarriage was buried in about two feet of sand. Diane’s aircraft also appeared undamaged and similarly buried. There was no doubt that he would be forced to wait for first light before the plane could be dug out of the sand and prepared for a takeoff.

  He was joined by Diane, who had also slipped out to inspect her aircraft with a torch.

  ‘Looks like we were lucky,’ Matthew said when Diane ran the beam of the flashlight over both aircraft. ‘But I will need your boys to dig me out tomorrow.’

  ‘You will have them,’ Diane said, turning off the light to save the torch batteries. ‘You know, I have missed these nights in the desert,’ she said, staring up at myriad stars. ‘It was not the same in the States – except when I had the opportunity to fly over the wilderness there. Out here it is all wilderness.’

  ‘You seem to be getting on with our clients,’ Matthew said, his hands in his pockets against the biting cold of the night. ‘Especially Dr Albrecht.’

  Even in the dark Matthew sensed that the expression on Diane’s face had changed.

  ‘I am not sure what you are implying,’ she said with a tone as cold as the night around them.

  Matthew said nothing, only turning to walk back to the ancient structure where he could see the glow of the lanterns inside the doorway. He regretted making the veiled reference to Diane and Albrecht, but he had to admit he was hurting.

  When the sun rose the camp came alive. Breakfast was served, but Diane was nowhere to be seen. Matthew wondered whether she was avoiding him. However, Erika was friendly enough and chatted with him beside the small fire of camel dung as the labourers went about shovelling sand away from the undercarriage of both aircraft.

  ‘It is a shame that you could not remain today and observe how we carry out our work,’ Erika said, sipping her sweetened coffee. ‘I am sure that you would find it interesting.’

  ‘I’m sure I would,’ Matthew replied, gazing at Albrecht and Kramer carrying a small but what appeared to be extremely heavy wooden crate between them from Diane’s aeroplane. So heavy that Kramer dropped his end, causing the box to hit the corner of some stonework and split. In the early morning sunrise a flash of fire glinted through the splintered box.

  Gold! Matthew thought. Small ingots of gold! Erika noticed the change in Matthew, and her attention was drawn to her two colleagues quickly attempting to pull the splintered timbers together to conceal the contents of the crate.

  ‘It is payment for our labourers,’ Erika said quickly but unconvincingly. ‘We have decided to hide it from them lest they get ideas to steal their pay in advance of any work.’

  Matthew could see that the Iraqi labourers were preoccupied with their work and had not paid any attention to the two Germans unloading a few crates from the Junkers.

  ‘You’re very generous with your workers,’ Matthew said with a cynical smile. ‘I am no expert, but the little I just saw was a small fortune.’

  ‘We have a little in reserve for supplies,’ Erika said lamely, rising from beside the fire. ‘I must go and assist Derik and Lamar.’

  Matthew shrugged, downing the last of his coffee. He watched Erika walk over to her two colleagues and start speaking with them. When Albrecht turned to stare at Matthew he guessed that he was the topic of conversation. It made him feel uneasy but he acted as if nothing had happened when Erika returned to him by the fire.

  ‘You will be leaving us this morning,’ she said with a strained smile. ‘I hope that you will be returning soon.’

  Matthew thanked her for her courtesy, then ambled over to his aircraft now free of the sand that had covered its undercarriage. He began carrying out a full pre-flight examination of the external components of the aeroplane. He was checking the pressure in the tyres when Diane joined him.

  ‘We have a good supply of aviation fuel here,’ she said to him. ‘I guess you might like a top-up before you go.’

  Matthew stood up and faced her. ‘Not a bad idea. I used up a bit finding your airfield yesterday.’

  Diane smiled. ‘I will arrange for the men to refuel, and if you like I’ll give you a conducted tour of what our team have excavated so far.’

  Matthew accepted the invitation and followed Diane to the old stone walls of what appeared to be a small settlement. Diane passed on the refuelling instructions through Dr Kramer, who then ordered a couple of Iraqis to attend to the Ford with a forty-four gallon drum of fuel.

  ‘The team have been fortunate in finding a few small cuneiform clay tablets which will help them date this site,’ Diane said, leading Matthew down into a trench that had possibly once been a small alleyway. ‘Don’t ask me why that got them excited,’ she continued, ‘but we can have a look at their find.’

  There were questions that Matthew wanted to ask, but something held him back. He hated himself for doubting Diane’s allegiances as she had saved him at the Berlin airport, but he also knew she was close to the German archaeological team and Major Guy Wilkes’s warning echoed in his mind.

  The tour over, Matthew could see that his aircraft had been manhandled around for the takeoff. He said goodbye to Diane, went to his aeroplane and clambered in through the side door. His cargo was intact, covered by canvas sheeting, and when he sat down at the flight controls he brushed off the fine dust that had penetrated the aircraft during the storm. There were marks in the dust and Matthew shrugged off the observation with the thought that maybe someone had checked the cabin for damage. Satisfied that all appeared to be working, Matthew kicked the engines into life. They spluttered and then were roaring smoothly. When Matthew glanced out of his cockpit he saw Diane standing alone watching him. He waved and she waved back.

  Matthew taxied a short distance and opened up the throttles. The airstrip was soft under the wheels but Matthew had decreased the air pressure to compensate. The desert sped past and, with a slight jolt, the plane was in the air. Matthe
w had a hundred and fifty miles to fly and the weather was good.

  The dig below faded out of sight and Matthew was once again over the almost featureless plains where little else but scorpions and nomadic Bedouin eked out an existence. He had only been flying for ten minutes when his portside engine suddenly spluttered into silence, quickly followed by the starboard engine. Even his centre engine in the nose was coughing and wheezing as if the aircraft had a bad cold, and Matthew realised with alarm that he had only seconds to carry out emergency landing procedures. He immediately looked around for a suitable piece of ground for landing. It was not the first time in his flying career he had carried out such a procedure.

  Matthew was thankful that he had not reached his flying ceiling and calculated that he was about eight hundred feet from the ground as the aircraft commenced to drop. The ground was coming up fast and Matthew could see a relatively flat stretch scattered with small stones. The engine in the nose had now cut out and the aircraft was virtually gliding. He fought the sluggish controls and the earth was suddenly under his undercarriage, the aircraft bouncing along at breakneck speed. Matthew did not know if he was praying or cursing as the Ford slowly lost speed and then came to a sudden and violent stop as it slammed into a small sand ridge. For a second the nose of the plane tipped down but the tail fell back.

  Matthew blinked in his disbelief. He had not crashed but expected structural damage due to the violent landing. He could hear the crack of metal contracting in the chill of the morning, but other than that, only the silence of the desert.

  Unstrapping himself from his safety harness, he left his seat, his legs suddenly wobbly from the adrenaline draining from his body. It had been a very close call.

  Matthew jumped out of the cargo hold onto the desert floor and looked up and down his aeroplane. On first inspection it appeared intact. If he could get Cyril flown out to this spot to fix the engines, they could construct a temporary airstrip for a takeoff.

  Thank goodness for the radio, Matthew said to himself, and returned to the cockpit. He lifted the handset and noticed with alarm that the frequency and power knobs were jammed. The radio was out of use, and it appeared that it had been sabotaged.

  ‘God almighty,’ he swore softly, still holding the useless handpiece. It seemed the failure of his engines was no accident. The disturbed dust in the cockpit now made sinister sense. Someone had sabotaged his aeroplane with the intent of killing him. Was it because he had seen the crate of gold? Diane had made sure he was away from the Ford when it was being refuelled, providing someone with the opportunity to sabotage his fuel and the radio, ensuring that if he survived the crash he would not be able to call for help.

  Matthew knew now that he was in a fight for survival. He went through a mental checklist of what he had aboard the aeroplane. He had a Lee Enfield .303 bolt action rifle, and his old Webley ” Scott service revolver, with a good supply of ammunition for both. He also had a drum of water along with a couple of crates of tinned meat and tinned fruit. At least thirst and starvation would not kill him immediately.

  Matthew’s hope was dampened by the fact that he was about the only aircraft to fly the skies to the oil field, and if Diane had been involved in the sabotage it was not likely she would raise the alarm before word got to Basra that he had not reached his destination.

  Matthew peered through the window of his cockpit; all around him was a sea of stone-scattered sand broken only by the occasional rocky gully. His situation was grim and he knew it.

  *

  David Macintosh had visited Paris before, but for his companion, Horace, it was his first time outside London. The two young men had formed a strong bond since they had left for France. Ikey had given Horace the names and addresses of those involved in recruiting soldiers for the newly formed International Brigades to fight Franco’s fascist rebels in Spain.

  Their first contact was in a rather grimy Paris suburb.

  ‘Well, here goes,’ Horace said cheerfully as they stood on the cobblestoned street, gazing at the run-down tenement.

  David followed Horace up the stone steps to knock on the door. Eventually it opened to reveal a short and very attractive dark-haired young woman with equally dark eyes. She looked upon the two men with an expression of suspicion.

  Horace removed his cap. ‘Are you Natasha?’ he asked.

  ‘Oui, yes,’ she replied. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am Horace Howard and my friend is David Macintosh. Ikey gave us your name.’

  The trace of a smile broke through the young woman’s suspicion. ‘Ikey sent a telegram saying you were coming,’ she replied, opening the door for them to enter. ‘He has informed me that Comrade David was a former prisoner of the fascists in Germany. I have great hopes that he will help us recruit with his story of enslavement at the hands of the Nazi government.’

  Her English was fluent but she spoke with a heavy accent.

  ‘You’re not French,’ David said, admiring her dark beauty.

  ‘I am Russian,’ she replied, leading them down a narrow hallway that smelled unpleasantly of overripe vegetables. They passed dingy rooms with rotting mattresses on the floor and finally came to a larger room that appeared to be an old library. Posters written in Russian and French adorned the walls, with pictures of worker soldiers holding rifles above their heads and words exhorting men and women to arms.

  ‘Make yourselves at home,’ she said, going to a gas stove that looked out of place in the room that must once have held books along its crumbling shelves. ‘I will prepare coffee for us.’

  Both men sat side by side on a couch that sagged in the middle, casting each other looks of puzzlement. They had expected something grand and noble for their recruitment but this all spoke of poverty. It did not bode well for the future if they were to go to war against Franco’s professional troops.

  Natasha wore a long skirt that clung to her curves with some style despite its cheap manufacture. David found himself staring at her body with open desire. She turned to catch his eye and he looked away guiltily. ‘I do not have sugar and the coffee is not good, but it is hot.’

  She placed two mugs in their hands and took a seat in a decrepit lounge chair opposite them. ‘Tell me, Comrade David, of the circumstances of your imprisonment in Dachau.’

  David tasted his coffee; she was right about it being of poor quality. It was bitter without milk and sugar. He related his experiences in Germany with as little emotion as he could. As he spoke he could see that the Russian woman was staring at him intently, leaning forward as if to hear every word.

  ‘When you talk at our meetings your story will touch the hearts of those who listen,’ she said, rising from the couch to pace the room. ‘You are a living example of the cruelty of the fascist state of Germany. I thank you, Comrade David.’

  Horace glanced at David with an expression of envy. David grinned in response, as if to say, I can’t help it if she finds me interesting.

  Natasha allocated the two men a room and scrounged some moth-eaten blankets for them. She informed the two that an evening meal would be provided that night at a café sympathetic to the cause.

  When they were alone in the room Horace turned to David, who was spreading his blankets on the mattress.

  ‘I should have asked Natasha when we will be going to Spain,’ he said. ‘I didn’t sign up to spend my time in this flea-infested dive.’

  David sat down on the mattress and leaned against the damp wall. ‘I wouldn’t be in a hurry to get to Spain,’ he said, surprising the Englishman. ‘You haven’t had a chance to see Paris yet.’

  Horace slumped down on his mattress. ‘If it is like this I may as well have stayed in London. At least the rats there understand English. What have the Froggies got that we don’t have in England?’

  ‘Nicer looking sheilas,’ David replied with a cheeky grin.

  ‘What’s a sheila?’ Horace countered.

  ‘You know, a girl, a woman.’

  ‘You have your eye o
n Natasha,’ Horace said. ‘You can forget it. Ikey told me that the Ruskies send in their spy agents to recruit, and that they are completely dedicated to Stalin’s secret service.’

  ‘Are you a communist?’ David asked and Horace fell silent for a moment.

  ‘It’s the only way we’re going to get our rightful share of the wealth the capitalists have accumulated at the expense of the working man. You only have to see that birth into the capitalist classes overrides hard work and intelligence to achieve a decent life. It’s time for revolution. Fighting and defeating the fascists in Spain – who are so admired by the capitalists in England – will send a message to all the oppressed people of the world that the time for revolution has come.’ Horace looked slightly abashed at his impassioned response. ‘Why have you signed up?’

  ‘To fight fascism,’ David replied. ‘But not as a communist. I’m a Jew.’

  ‘A Jew!’ Horace exclaimed. ‘You don’t look anything like Ikey.’

  ‘My mother was a Jew,’ he said, ‘and in Germany that makes me a Jew and the Germans are backing Franco. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. So, I will go and fight the Spanish fascists.’

  Horace shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter that you’re not a communist, you’re my pal and you’re prepared to fight beside me, and that’s all that counts.’ He held out his hand and David accepted the gesture. They shook, sealing their friendship for life.

  That evening the two men accompanied Natasha to a café in a narrow cobblestoned street and entered a rather large smoke-filled room crowded with men wearing berets. David noticed that Natasha had attached a small enamel red star to her dress above her right breast. She was immediately welcomed by the large crowd of patrons and returned their greetings with salutations of ‘Comrade’. Natasha had a table cleared for her and the three sat down; a bottle of red wine and glasses were placed on the table. David was hungry and a platter of crisp baked bread, cheese and an appetising soup were soon delivered. Horace poured the wine while Natasha raised her glass. ‘To Comrade Stalin and the revolution!’ she said. Horace echoed her words but David simply tucked into his soup.