Able Sentry

by John Schettler

  Siwa was once the site of an ancient oracle at the temple of Amun that dated from the 26th Dynasty. It was there that Alexander the Great came to be anointed “Son of Amun,” and Protector of Egypt, and the great harbor at Alexandria still bore his name. There was even a spring said to have been visited by Cleopatra, now known as “Cleopatra’s Bath.” The water here made for lush growth, with stands of palms, date and olive groves, and other greenery.

  None of these antiquities mattered to Brigadier Hale at that moment, for they were surrounded by layers of the more modern city, with places like the Siwa Lodge, Oasis Hotel, Dream Hotel, restaurants, shopping bazars, and tour guide offices. Just over 30,000 people lived there now.

  “Sir,” came Lieutenant Stokes. “Second Para and the Gurkhas went in first. The Egyptians appear to have no more than a single battalion, mostly in the city center, near the old town. We’ve taken one prisoner—222nd Special Forces. He won’t talk, but we know the OB of that unit. It would put the remaining two battalions at Sultan Apache.”

  “Where are their positions.?” Hale unfolded his map.

  “The Gurkhas report a company sized force here, at the Siwa Oasis Hotel. There’s an MG position here on this low hill, with an old fort, and another on this conical hill, next to the helicopter landing pad.”

  “We’ll need that helo pad.”

  “Yes sir. They also have men in this lodge on our right flank. The olive groves fringe that main hotel position on our left. Their second company is up here near the old town. They’re in the Police Station, the old fort near Gebel Mawta, and Fort Siwa. There’s a third company east of the hotel, here on Gebel Dakrur. Right near the Cleopatra Spring, sir.”

  “We’ll have to be discreet,” said the General. “There may be westerners and tourists in these hotels.”

  “We think they’ve cleared the sites they occupy, sir, but we haven’t gotten into the city proper yet.”

  “Better tell Major Ghale[2] that his men should sharpen their Khukris knives. It may be knife work if we have to get in there after nightfall. Alright… Who’s on the right near that hill?”

  “C and D Companies, 3rd Para, sir.”

  “Very well. Let’s clear that first, then get the mortar teams set up there with an observation post. It commands the whole area. Once they’re in position, we move into the town in force.”

  “Are we really going to use mortars in the town areas, sir?”

  “No, that would make for some bad headlines. But that hill has a good view of this road coming up from the southeast, and that causeway across the wetland.”

  The General was already thinking ahead. He knew the Egyptians had mechanized forces coming from the east, and that hill commanded their advance into Siwa proper.”

  “What about the air strip north of the town?” asked Hale.

  “We’ve got that, sir, but it isn’t much—about a mile in length.”

  “It will have to do.”

  “Shall I give the order to take Gebel Dakrur, sir?”

  “Let’s get the other two companies of 3rd Para over there before we attack. It may be tough going. We’ll want all the old forts, and the high ground. Secure the Police Station and hospital, but stay out of the mosques unless you receive fire from them. As for the resorts and hotels, tread lightly there, but if they’ve occupied them, then it’s fair game. That will be all. See to it, Lieutenant. I’ll set up Brigade HQ here, near this chemical factory.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  The Lieutenant saluted, and was out to deliver those orders by radio. Hale spent some time looking at the map. Easy enough to get in here, he thought. But even this one battalion they have here could make for a difficult fight. Urban warfare is nasty, and we can’t very well use heavy weapons on all these mud adobe houses. So it may get dicey, but we’ll take the place. Holding it… that’s the rub. How soon before they get that mech division up from the Nile?

  * * *

  Siwa was famous for its colorful sunsets, and that night the skies were painted in hues of red and gold, all reflecting over the still waters in the salt lakes east and west of the town. As the color faded to grey and black, the helicopters were up south of the oasis, low over the Great Sand Sea. They were carrying the last two companies of 3 Para to the southeast section of the town. Once the men were in position, Major Kemp ordered several teams to move up and probe the hill area for enemy positions.

  There were two resorts south of the hills, the Tala Ranch and the Shali resort, with a long row of cottages set in a landscaped garden. Just east of the hill was the El Gedihah Spring, nestled amid light farmland. To the north the orchards and stands of trees thickened as they approached the Cleopatra Spring. In the center of all this, sat three barren hills, shelving up to rocky tops strewn with boulders. The north hill was Gebel Dakrur, with a limestone quarry at the top, and some remains of ragged old adobe walls. The middle hill was lower, but fatter in circumference, and the southern hill was a bare stony nob. Behind these hills to the west, was the small hamlet of Mardam Abu al Qasim. It had a new shopping mall, the Al Amira Farm, markets, and another inn on the main road to Siwa proper.

  Lieutenant Rollins took his B Company up into the orchards and date farms north of the hills, and Lieutenant Gaines brought up his D Company to the El Gedihah Spring area. They could see that getting up those rocky hills would not be easy, but helicopter recon reported that there was just a single enemy company deployed here, one platoon on each hill, so with four companies in the battalion Major Kemp had the advantage.

  D company led the advance at 18:00, rushing across 300 meters from the farmland to the base of the middle hill. They got more than half way across before the enemy opened up with machinegun fire. Reaching the base of the hill, the weapons platoon began putting fire on the crest, while the men worked their way up the first of several stone shelves, picking through the tumbled boulders and rocks. There came a distant crack, and then the whistle of an incoming round. A 105mm gun had fired a spotting round from somewhere to the west.

  The stark rawness of the reddish stone hill seemed to get inside the men as they took up positions at its base. The pigment of that stone had been used for centuries to color the distinctive Siwan pottery, and that’s what the broken walls at the top looked like, the shattered shards of red pottery. Cave sites riddled the hill, ancient burial sites dating back to the time of the Romans, and Ptolemy.

  A wind came up, and they could hear the Egyptian troops above them singing to buck up their morale. One of the Paras, a man named Johnson, claimed it was the afrit, spirits of the night that the locals spoke of, saying they sang mournful songs in the haunted hills and gardens of the oasis.

  “That hill is run through with tombs,” he claimed. “There’s even a legend that says there’s treasure buried up there somewhere, and a secret hidden tunnel that runs up north to the Temple of the Oracle.”

  “You read too much, Johnson,” said the Sergeant. “Well, don’t count on digging up any gold or jewels. And if there’s any ghosts up there, they’ll have automatic weapons. So hush up and keep your head down, or you’ll give away our position. They’ll have snipers, and we wouldn’t want to have to leave you here in one of them tombs.”

  That got a quiet laugh from the squad, but then the men settled down to the business at hand. They set up their night vision equipment, and peered up the tumbled, barren flank of the middle of three hills. It was the widest of the three, but not the tallest. Moving in twos and threes, the platoons slowly worked their way up, with firefights breaking out when they encountered an enemy fire team hidden in a shadowy cave or tomb site.

  The main enemy force was up on top in the quarry area, and slowly, the paras cleared the western side of the hill, closing inevitably on that stronghold as they climbed. It took until 8:00PM, or 20:00 before the platoons of D Company had all reached the upper portion of the hill and were in position for the final close assault. Tracers zipped from one hilltop to another, the bullets snapping off t
he limestone rocks. With the whole company attacking, supported by fire from the weapons platoon of A Company on their left, the Paras went in, the men firing, heaving grenades, and shouting at the top of their lungs.

  It was a sharp, bloody firefight, but the Paras carried the hilltop, driving the Egyptians down the broken north face of the hill towards the higher promontory of Gebel Dakrur. The platoon on that hill had just witnessed what would likely become their fate in the next hour. They could see British Paras coming out of the thick groves to the north, and moving like shadows towards the base of their position. And they just heard that fierce firefight, the sound of men screaming and dying. With a way still open to the west, they slipped away, down the slope and into the town. The troops on the lower nob had come to the same conclusion, that withdrawal was better than dying on that barren hill that night.

  This retreat of two platoons found company in Mardam Abu al Qasim. There was a machinegun team covering both their northern and southern flanks, and the company heavy weapons team was just behind them at Qasar Alzaytuna Inn, where their commander was none too happy that they had abandoned those hilltop positions. Yet even he could see that he had a little strength in numbers now, a better position in the town than seeing his men besieged one by one on those hills. Here, he thought the British would not be able to use their mortars.

  21:00 Local, 7 JAN 2026

  The Chemical Factory

  Brigadier Hale got word that hour from major Kemp of 3 Para Battalion. They had cleared all three hills as ordered, and were now reorganizing to begin moving west up the road to the main town center. While that action was going on, Major Ghale had moved up from positions southwest of the town, overrunning the helo pad and a few outlying buildings, reducing the MG positions, and chasing the enemy out of the Oasis Hotel. The main hospital was just a couple hundred meters north of that resort, and that appeared to be where the Egyptians had redrawn their line of defense.

  Just a little way north on the road, the so called “Sand Mosque” dominated the center of an urban zone. At its northern edge was the Cleopatra Inn, right near the crumbled adobe ruins of the old town. There was a museum, two low truncated hills, and then the modern city center, where the Egyptians were holding the sturdy Police Station building and Fort Siwa.

  1 Para Battalion was coming into the town from the north, with two key objectives. They had to take that fort, and the ruins atop the conical Gebel el Mawta, about 700 meters to the northeast. Known as the “Mountain of the Dead,” the place bore the tombs and burial sites of hundreds of lost souls, dating back centuries. In the hollows carved in the stony flanks of the hill, hieroglyphics paid tribute to the dead entombed there, and one in particular, was dedicated to Si-Amun, dating to the 3rd Century BC.

  Some say the artwork depicts the wealthy owner of this resting place, Si-Amun, shown as both a young man in his early life, and as an older man at the end of his days. On the ceiling above there are rows of yellow stars on a blue night background, and a depiction of Nut, the Goddess of the sky. Solar barks were drawn, recounting the journey of the sun each day through the sky, in effect, denoting the passage of time. It was an appropriate theme for a tomb, the place where the owner would end his own journey through one day of light to night, over and over again until he reached that resting place—the final journey back to the stars. One day, when the earth itself has worn away, we will all go there, back to the stars from which we came.

  Now other gods or demons were coming to the Mountain of the Dead, the Men of B Company, 1st Para Battalion. A few hundred meters east of the hill, the weapons platoon had taken up positions near the Dream Lodge Hotel, but they were told they were not to use heavy weapons on that hill. Brigadier Hale had seen the damage done by soldiers from another era, and told his men to spare the ruins and tomb sites harm, if at all possible.

  Now Hale had two battalions ready to put the squeeze on Siwa, the Gurkhas in the south, and 1 Para with him in the north. When he got the news that the three hills had been taken to the east, and with fairly light casualties, he was encouraged.

  “I thought they’d fight for those hills like demons,” he told his aide, Lieutenant Stokes.

  “Got the middle hill bang away, sir, and when the Egyptians saw that, the other two platoons cut out for the town. They wanted no part of us.”

  “Good. Then tell Major Kemp to leave one company on those hills, and bring the rest of his battalion toward the town center. We’ll round them all up here and be done with this business by morning.”

  Chapter 18

  The Café and site of the Oasis Hotel had been cleared easily enough, and now Major Ghale and his 1st Gurkha Battalion were about to push into the town south of its old ruined center. Two platoons of Egyptian troops were now on a line centered on the Hospital, about 300 meters north of the hotel. The Major had ordered a company to swing well north through heavy groves to flank the position. That would essentially bring them out of the groves to the old center of the town.

  At the same time, Lieutenant Parker’s A Company, 1st Para, had found an Egyptian AA platoon positioned just west of the Police Station, and put in an attack to see if they could knock it out. The truck mounted 20mm guns popped off desultory fire, then the Paras forced them to withdraw. This opened that street and allowed the British to join with the Gurkhas to have a go at the Museum, where they were taking fire from another Egyptian Special Forces platoon. As these actions pushed closer to the city center, the enemy defense was compressing, and resistance was stiffening, but the British cleared both the Hospital and Museum by 23:00. Unfortunately, the fighting left the Museum a shambles.

  Only small arms fire was used, but bullets have a way of shattering glass, and doing a good deal more damage than anyone wanted. Picking his way through the broken displays, Gurkha Sergeant Thapa stooped to pick up a heavily corroded tri-finned arrowhead, squinting at it, and then just slipping it into his shirt pocket, a little souvenir of the firefight that had just secured the place. The rest of the battalion was now moving through the ruins of the old town, and ready to make a move on the Cleopatra Inn.

  “The squeeze is on, sir,” said Lieutenant Stokes. “We’re compressing their perimeter to positions just north of the old town.”

  “Which means we have some hard fighting ahead,” said Hale. “What’s happening with 3 Para?”

  “Slow going, sir. They’ve cleared all three hills, and the small hamlet to the west, but now they’ve got a lot of heavy groves and cultivated terrain in front of them. The Egyptians are fighting a delaying action there. Some of the locals have gotten into the argument too. There’s a few Siwi militias about. ”

  “What’s holding up Sutcliffe?”

  That was B Company commander, 1st Para, near Gebel el Mawta, the Mountain of Death. The enemy had machineguns in the hollowed out tombs of that hill, and they made the British pay for it.

  “He’s just reported in, sir. They have the hill.”

  “Good enough. Let’s move there. It will give me some elevation come daylight. Sutcliffe should bring his company into town. Have we cleared out that Police Station?”

  “Yes sir. Lieutenant Bean’s D Company in on that position now.”

  “Then we’ve bloody well got this old Fort Siwa surrounded.”

  “Could be a tough nut, sir.”

  “Indeed, but let’s see how much fight they have in them once we clear the town itself.”

  Midnight, 7 JAN 2026

  As Kinlan’s column approached the rejoining of the two tracks he had been using, there was more trouble with the locals. Another company sized force of Technicals, and a much larger force of Libyan fighters had heard the news and came east from the Sarir oil refinery, rifles in hand. Kinlan was roundly annoyed, and this time he told his men to take the gloves off and go at them hard.

  “Scots Guards, clear the lower track, but send men back and get everything else on the upper track. Reeves says that’s clear.”

  Up ahead, the road bent to its c
losest point to the Egyptian border, about 35 kilometers east, and that was where Kinlan was headed. If he stayed on the road, it would just take him south to Jarabub Oasis, so at this point, he was going to cut across the open desert to the wire, and enter Egypt.

  A fine little invasion, if I can get these Libyan sand lice out of my hair first. We’ll cross to Garn el Grein and Hill 597 on the border. There’s a wadi to get over, but after that we can swing over to hill 594, and keep southeast until we get to these three roads heading south. They all meet at Siwa, but from the eastern track, we can jog off again to go for Sultan Apache. We’ll want to come at the place from the northwest, but at this rate, it will be another day getting there. The planners never figure on the locals getting underfoot like this. We’ll be two hours running these louts off again, and the latest report from the satellite has that Egyptian 3rd Mech Division snaking its way west on the road beyond Bahhariya Oasis.

  Trouble brewing up north on the coast too… Another train got through to Sidi Suliman, and they’re mustering up forces there. They haven’t crossed the border yet, and probably won’t do so until they get their whole division up, but if they do cross, getting out may be damn near impossible. And that’s assuming we can get to Sultan Apache and secure those people and facilities. Yes, everything looks good on paper when you que things up. It’s what happens on the ground that really matters.