“Bloody hell, how many of these buggers are there?” he asked.
“A fuckload by the looks of it,” Donnie replied.
“That would be another of yon scientific terms, would it?”
“Well, it’s more than a shitload anyway…my scientific eye tells me that much but speaking as a piss-poor excuse for a scientist, I can tell you that it looks like we’re stuck here for a while.”
“Not if the captain’s got any say in the matter,” Wiggins replied. “We’re on a schedule here. No amount of wee sparkly worms are going to slow us down much.”
The corporal motioned to the skies and the drizzle. “But I thought it didn’t rain much here? We had some yesterday.”
Donnie laughed.
“And I thought you wanted it to be more like Glesga?”
“If you’ve got a bridie and a can of Irn-Bru on you, I’m willing to abide the rain for a bit of decent breakfast.”
“Sorry. Another of these crap local fags is all I can offer.”
Wiggins took the offered smoke and lit it from the butt of his own. He coughed at the first draw and grimaced.
“Let’s go and see if coffee makes these any better. Wilko will have a brew going by now.”
It turned out the hot bitter liquid did ameliorate some of the cheroots’ astringency. By the time Donnie had two mugs and some of the soldiers’ hard biscuits, he felt just about ready for the day. It seemed that Captain Banks did indeed plan to attempt the walk across the plan, despite the electrical activity.
“Doctor Reid, Professor Gillings, we’re going to need your local knowledge of the terrain,” the captain said as around them the squad packed away their gear. “We’re going to want to stick to rocky areas and avoid the sand where possible.”
Donnie remembered the purple-robed monk’s little jumping dance outside the monastery and saw the captain’s plan.
“That’s going to slow us down,” he replied.
“Aye but the alternatives are either getting fried or sitting up here on this rock all day, and they’re both a damn sight slower still.”
They moved out five minutes later.
*
The first traces of dawn were just starting to lighten the eastern sky but Donnie didn’t welcome it; the darkness had made it easier to see the swathes of crackling electricity. Even the dim arrival of daylight had already washed out the blue from the landscape leaving only the distinctive smell of ozone to remind them of the deadly menace that might be lurking underfoot.
The camel wasn’t keen on descending onto the plain, its nostrils flaring, eyes wide, but it moved quickly enough when the professor kicked at its flanks and Wiggins gave it a hefty slap on the rear end. The corporal was rewarded with a loud moist fart, noxious enough to cause Donnie’s eyes to water even though he was some yards farther back.
“Fuck me,” Wiggins said, holding his nostrils pinched shut as he fell back to walk beside Donnie. “And I thought your fags were bad.”
Captain Banks called Donnie forward to join him at the head of their small caravan.
“I need you to be my eyes, Doctor. Find me a trail through that avoids the softer parts.”
“I’m a paleontologist, not a geologist,” Donnie started but he realized he was as close to the latter as it made no difference in the captain’s viewpoint and besides, looking out over the plain, he saw that he could probably make a decent guess of the path they’d need to take. The rocky areas were slightly darker in color, made more so by the slight dampening from the drops of rain and were noticeable by the prevalence of the low, tough grasses and occasional shrubs that would not grow on shifting sand.
“Straight north for a hundred yards or so then veer a wee bit west,” Donnie said.
“You point and I’ll break the ground. Just give me a wee bit of warning when I need to stop,” Banks said and walked off when Donnie pointed due north. Donnie followed in his footsteps with the rest coming along single file at his back.
*
The drizzle persisted and although it was a warm rain, the dampness crept down the back of Donnie’s shirt, making his clothing cling wetly to him, his collar chafing at the neck. There was no smell of ozone now, no blue flashes visible, but every so often he’d hear a crack like a whip and feel his body hairs rise up.
They were moving much slower than they had been the day before, limited by the frequent stops and starts as Donnie and the professor tried to keep them all on a trail of stonier ground. The rain helped, as the harder rocks definitely showed up darker when wet compared to the sandy soils and made picking out a track much easier.
As they got farther across the plain, they started to see the same shifting sands phenomenon they’d seen the day before, although now they knew the origins. Donnie’s thoughts echoed Wiggins’ question of earlier.
How many of these buggers are there?
Donnie realized it must be the wet weather bringing the things up, probably from stygian depths that was their normal habitat. He knew that many species had behavioral triggers linked to changes in weather patterns and that it was most probably some kind of breeding behavior.
But if there’s going to be even more of them as a result, I hope we’re long gone before they reach any kind of maturity.
He concentrated on finding the fastest route to get them off the plain.
*
They made a first stop two hours later on a flat slab of rock only a foot higher than the surrounding plain. The rain hadn’t got any heavier, just a constant, steady, dreary dripping that sapped their spirits. It was obvious that Wilkins, the youngest of the soldiers, was in pain, hobbling in a heavy limp before coming to a halt on the slab and letting himself fall to a seated position. Davies was over by his side immediately. Donnie was too far away to hear what was said but it was obvious that Wilkins had pushed his stamina to the limits and that Davies was berating him for stupidity. Donnie was close enough to the captain to hear Davies’ report a few minutes later.
“The daft wee bugger’s been trying to be a brave soldier,” Davies said. “God knows what damage he’s done to that bad leg. He’s not fit for any more walking today, I can tell you that.”
Banks nodded.
“I was going to get him up on the camel for the next stint anyway.”
He turned to the professor.
“Looks like you’re walking, Professor, if you’re up to it?”
At first, Donnie thought that Gillings might refuse—he wasn’t a man known for any fondness for much apart from his own well-being—but he got down off the camel without having to be cajoled further.
“Take fifteen minutes, lads,” Banks said. “A brew and a smoke then we’ll be on our way again.”
The professor took Donnie’s arm and led him away to the edge of the rock, out of hearing of the others.
“You’ve been talking to them,” Gillings said. “Have they said anything about securing our finds?”
Donnie laughed.
“I think they’ve got more important things on their minds, Prof,” he said and realized, too late, that the other man was building up to one of his red-faced rages.
“More important? More bloody important? There’s nothing more important than what’s in those boxes.”
Young Wilkins there might disagree with that, Donnie thought but didn’t say. He knew the man well enough to know when not to provoke any more outbursts—Gillings’ rages were legendary in the department but they usually passed as quickly as one of these desert storms.
“I’ll tell you something; I’m not leaving without them,” the professor continued. “One way or another, those boxes are coming home with us. I know people in high places. Our captain here would do well to take heed of that. In fact, I’m going to make sure he does. I’m going to make sure right now.”
Gillings took out his sat-phone, checked his menu, and chose a number, pressing the button to make the call. The call didn’t go through, didn’t even get a ringtone.
“Aren’t the
se buggering things supposed to work anywhere?” he wailed.
Donnie took the phone and attempted a call for himself but there was still no ringtone, just a fuzzy screech, not even a ‘your number cannot be reached’ message. Without handing the phone back, Donnie walked over to where Captain Banks was having a coffee and a smoke with his sergeant.
“I think we’ve got a problem, Captain,” Donnie said. “The professor’s sat-phone is on the fritz. I think you should check yours.”
“The GPS was working fine last night before we bedded down,” Banks said, taking out his own phone and tapping the screen, then more urgently when he obviously didn’t get the desired result. “But you’re right, it’s buggered now.”
Donnie waved out over the desert.
“If you want my theory, it’s all the electrical activity. There’s some kind of EM field being generated—one that’s strong enough to interfere with our signals.”
Wiggins piped up from where he sat by the camp stove.
“We’re sorry, your call cannot be connected due to the wrong fucking kind of worms on the line. That’s a new one, right enough.”
“Not to worry,” Banks said. “I’ve got a line of sight bearing on where we need to be and this field as you call it cannot stretch forever. We’ll just have to walk out of it.”
“There’s another thing,” Donnie said. “The professor’s dwelling on those boxes of finds we left behind. Is there anything you can do to reassure him you’ll get them out with us?”
Banks smiled grimly.
“Not without a phone, but I gave him my word. That’ll have to be good enough for him, for now.”
- 7 -
Banks had too many other things to worry about to pay much heed to the professor’s finds at this point. The phone was down, Wilkins was out of commission when it came to walking and the rain was now showing signs of becoming more persistent, darkening the sand itself and making the stonier patches they needed to walk on less distinctive. His gut roiled but he didn’t need the old signal to tell him that their troubles were mounting up. What had started as a simple mission was slowly but almost certainly getting out of control.
And we still have a long walk ahead of us.
“Will they send anybody to look for us if we’re late?” the professor asked.
“Doubtful,” Banks replied. “It’s a big desert and if your man’s right and there is a widespread EM problem, they’re not going to risk putting anything in the air until it’s cleared up. We’re on our own but dinna fret—we’re used to that.”
He gave the squad their fifteen minutes then gave the order to move out. He saw young Wilkins eyeing the camel warily.
“Just get up between yon humps and enjoy yourself, lad,” Wiggins said. “Pretend it’s the sarge’s wife.”
Wilkins climbed up with some difficulty, sat up in the saddle, and took the reins. He nudged the camel’s sides with his good leg. The beast didn’t budge.
“I’d better lead it,” Doctor Reid said. “They’re temperamental buggers at the best of times and this lassie’s a wee bit spooked.”
“It’s a lassie?” Wiggins said. “Let me at her.”
Reid laughed. “You’ve heard the joke then?”
“What joke’s that?”
“It’s as old as the hills. Stop me if you’ve heard it before. This wee man joins the French Foreign Legion and gets sent to a fort way out in the desert, miles from the nearest town. There are only men at the fort, no women. After a few months, the wee man gets desperate for a woman, so finally he approaches his sergeant and confesses.
“‘Sarge,’ he says, ‘I cannae take this any longer. A man has needs, ye ken? What do the lads here do for relief?’
“The sarge says ‘It was only a matter of time!’ He lowers his voice to a whisper and says ‘When the men get desperate, they use the camel.’
“‘That’s fucking gross,’ the wee man says. ‘I’d never do that.’
“The sarge simply smiles and says, ‘All men come to the camel in time. The desert is patient and can wait.’
“Sure enough, after a couple of more months pass, the wee man is beside himself with desperation. He dreams about women every night and wakes every morning with a raging hard-on. He cannae take it, so he returns to the sergeant and agrees to meet him in the stables that night.
“At midnight, the sergeant is waiting for him, with a bad-tempered, fly-blown, dung-encrusted, ancient-old camel on a short lead.
“‘I will hold her head,’ the sergeant says, ‘so she cannot bite you while you mount her.’
“The wee man disnae reply, he’s too embarrassed by the situation but his hard-on is getting bloody painful by this point, so he decides to do the business. While the sergeant holds the camel’s head, the wee man gets behind the beast. The animal grunts and bawls as the legionnaire thrusts and moans behind it. Eventually, the wee man sighs, catches his breath, and does up his flies.
“‘Thanks, Sarge,’ he says. ‘That was pretty gross but I feel better now.’
“Too late, he spots that the sergeant is horrified.
“‘I’ve never seen anything like that in my life! How could you do that to this poor old camel?’
“‘But you said all the men mount the camel when they get desperate!’ the wee man says.
“That they do,’ replies the sergeant. ‘Then they ride her to town, to meet women.’
They were all laughing as Banks gave the order to move out.
*
Their good spirits didn’t last long. The drizzle continued under low gray skies that washed all color out of the landscape. Banks now had Professor Gillings up front with him to check the lie of the land ahead but as the rain had got heavier so the wetness had seeped everywhere. It was much harder to distinguish the rocky parts from the sand so their going had slowed considerably. Banks was damp and feeling every pound of the weight of his rucksack. He wasn’t sure he could get much more miserable.
Then he found that he could. They had been in view of a group of buildings ahead of them for half an hour. He’d been looking forward to them possibly being inhabited and given that they appeared to be on a rutted track that ran east to west, possibly even in possession of a working telephone, but as they got within four hundred yards, it became obvious that the site was derelict. At one time, it had been a filling station of a kind. There were a pair of ancient pumps, a shack, and several outbuildings surrounded by half a dozen ancient trucks, but all had been abandoned many years before and the desert was making inroads into it, with sandy drifts lying alongside the walls and around the rusting vehicles.
Worse still, the ground between where they stood and the buildings was clearly a wide stretch of sand with no rock or stony patches in evidence.
Gillings didn’t seem to see the decay—he only had eyes for the trucks.
“We can surely get one of those running,” he said. “Come on, we can get back in an hour and retrieve my finds.”
Before Banks could stop him, the man stepped out onto the sand and broke into a shuffling run.
“Come back, you daft bastard,” Wiggins shouted but Gillings kept running, heading directly for the filling station. Banks held Doctor Reid back from trying to follow.
“Not yet, lad,” he said. “One daft bugger at a time is enough.”
Gillings got almost halfway to his goal before he collapsed, pole-axed. They all heard the whip-crack of a jolt of static electricity, then the sand around the fallen man began to roil and seethe.
“Fuck,” Banks said. “Wiggo, Davies, you’re with me. Sarge, watch these others.”
Banks broke into a run, his chest tight, his balls tucked up in hard knots between his legs, expecting at any moment to be hit with a jolt that would floor him. The sand sucked at his feet and ankles, like running through treacle. He unslung his rifle as he ran. Up ahead, the ground around the fallen man seemed to boil. A worm rose up out of the turmoil, four feet of it in length above the sand and almost two feet in diam
eter, a wide mouth full of teeth gaping. Banks fired on the run, blowing the whole top half of the worm to pieces with three shots. As the decapitated thing fell to the sand, the ground where it lay seethed even more violently and the worm disappeared quickly, dragged away below.
Banks arrived first, out of breath, over the prone body of the professor and laid down covering fire into the sand, not knowing if he was hitting anything, not caring, only hoping that the jolt and blue flash wasn’t in his immediate future. Wiggins arrived seconds later and began to fire downwards on the other side of the prone man, while Davies bent to check for vital signs.
The sands stopped roiling and seething under them. Banks’ magazine, then Wiggins’ ran dry and they stood, gunfire still echoing in their ears, on a suddenly, deafeningly quiet plain.
“No heartbeat,” Davies shouted and immediately started CPR on the downed man.
Banks looked back to where Hynd and Reid stood with the camel and Wilkins, then looked north to the derelict station. They were about equidistant. He slammed a new magazine into his rifle, still aiming at the sand, knowing that another attack could come at any moment.
We’re stranded in no-man’s land.
Davies continued to work frantically on the downed man. He had torn the professor’s shirt open and was pumping, double-handed, at his chest, alternating with blowing down his throat, trying for a kick-start.
“Davies? We cannae hang about here in open ground for long. Is he a goner?” Wiggins asked.
At that same moment, Gillings coughed and his eyes opened but they fluttered wildly and were unfocused. All color seemed to have drained from his normally ruddy features and he was breathing too fast, hyperventilating.
“He’s tachycardic,” Davies said. “We need to get him lying down somewhere safe where I can work on him properly.”
“Okay,” Banks said, pointing towards the derelict service station. “You two get him up and get him into yon shack over there. I’ll cover your arses. If anything but us moves, put it down hard and fast.”
Operation Mongolia (S-Squad Book 8) Page 4