by Dave Hazel
“Did you Mykal?” Mathis asked when Mykal didn’t answer him the first time.
“What was that?”
“Did you already get something to eat?”
“No, I’ll just eat later. I wanna leave.”
“Good, it looks like everyone is getting a start on moving out,” Mathis said when everyone began to move forward.
“Hey Myk, look at what Ferria, Taylor and myself did,” Private First Class Anka said and pointed to what had been a clean slate in the rock wall about twenty feet from where Mykal had slept. “We were a little bored so we left our mark again,” Anka laughed and pointed to the carved messages on the soft stone wall. Ferria and Taylor rushed over when the saw Anka pointing out their work to Mykal.
“Cool,” Mykal laughed while he eyed a repeat of the carvings they did earlier in the cave. They did the same graffiti as earlier, though updated. They listed the nine names who died and then carved ‘Mykal’s Marauders were here 1/19/1984’. They also added a new message over the Wall Drug directions. ‘To this big ass mountain and everything in it: We came, We saw and We kicked its ass!!!’ “But no one will ever know what in the world this all means.”
“We know,” Ferria replied. “But we had some time to kill and we were bored.”
Towbar and the Dosch brothers came back to join Mykal. “My friend, Captain Diaz and Lieutenant Finley have decided for the time being we will continue on our journey toward our destination to see what comes forth. They do not desire to put the Pass at risk for foreign eyes.”
“That’s good I guess,” Mykal said as he joined those marching along. “Cuz if there is any threat, we’d have to kill all of them dudes just to play it safe and I know Diaz doesn’t wanna do that.”
When they stepped out of the cave opening of the mountain they walked into a dreary drab cloudy day. Though the sky was overcast the brightness of the day light versus the two days of darkness under the mountain was a shock to the eyes. The grass was wet and the air had a slight chill to it.
Mykal thought they would have walked into the Forest of Death, but they were in wide open plains. The forest was in the distance a long way off. The slight rolling hills reminded Mykal of his first few days being lost in Towbar’s world. The scenery was plain with only an occasional tree here and there. Mykal was so tempted to go back to the Pass to get some vehicles, but there was the risk that the fifteen with them could possibly cause the downfall of the Pass.
The men walked together in twos and threes and chit-chatted while they trekked the wide open vastness of wet grasslands. Mykal was happy to see his men taking the time and effort to befriend the soldiers of Zizmon-Tarl. Mykal believed the soldiers were solid committed troops of the evil leader, but they apparently believed the story that they were on a mission for Zizmon-Tarl and the Elves desired to become Hawkmen.
Mykal was still undecided if he wanted to take the chance and go back to the Pass. If they returned to the pass without the soldiers then they would probably not be able to meet up with them again. The soldiers could be a great help in finding the palace where Doninka could possibly be held. If they took the soldiers back to the Pass with them, then there was the possibility they could be a doorway, eyes, for Zizmon-Tarl to use the green fog to attack the Pass.
As they traveled, fog in the area closed in on them and limited their visibility. It was a plain old white fog, not a green fog that would transport them to another location. Many of the men joked that the fog reminded them of horror movies they had watched. Though some of the men laughed and joked about it, it was something they took a little more serious since they talked about zombies from horror movies and they clearly ran into something similar to zombies.
2.
Several hours later they came to the top of a small rise in the land which enabled them to see for great distances before them. The land was flat except for a single tall twisted tree in the middle of an ocean of green. The fog was still present in the distance hanging slightly off the ground. It created an odd sight that would have looked eerie at night time. The tree had many long branches full of lush green leaves, but it didn’t appear to bare any fruit.
The point men in the lead walked toward the tree. Mykal assumed the front people were following the advice of Hidtotim the leader of the soldiers of Zizmon-Tarl. The grass was wet and green and there was no wind. Mykal really felt at peace and he wasn’t sure if it was because they were no longer inside the mountain or because the wide open plains reminded him of North Dakota which brought him back to home mentally.
It looked like a message was being passed down the line from the front. When the message was shared to the person behind them the next couple turned and passed the message to the next group. It was a message from the front proclaiming they were going to stop near the tree and have a quick bite to eat before they pressed on. Right away Anka, Ferria and Taylor planned to carve the tree in order to leave their mark as they did inside the cave, but they agreed to leave the names of the nine dead men off the tree. They asked Mykal if he had any problems with them leaving their carved graffiti. He didn’t care either way.
Mykal sat with Towbar near the tree and others came to join them. His closest friends sat with them; the Dosch brothers, Mathis, Vick Daring, his cameraman Benjamin Milnar and a couple of others. The ground was dry and with nothing in the distance that could possibly be a threat, it made for an enjoyable meal and rest time. Mykal and his friends talked about past adventures during this long journey in Towbar’s world. Towbar remained silent and still did not understand their fascination with entertaining each other with near death experiences, or as they called it ‘war stories’.
“And just think Myk,” Roy Jr. chuckled. “With all the things we done been through, it’s only been a little more than six months.”
“I know,” Mykal snickered with him as an expression of his amazed disbelief washed over him. “It definitely feels like we have been doing all this for a few years.”
“You gotta admit though,” Randy chimed in. “There have been a lot of fun times through it all.”
“Yeah, I’ll agree with you on that,” Mykal smirked though inside a great pain of loss pricked his heart from all the close friends he lost in Towbar’s world. “But I sure as hell feel like an old man sometimes cuz of this place. But Randy, you and Ski have been here in Towbar’s world more than any other. You and Ski are the only two left who were stuck here when we made it back to the real world.”
“That’s right,” Roy Jr. said with a light gasp. “That means since June 23rd of last year you and that crazy religious boy Ski have been here the whole time except for just a couple of days.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Randy replied and laughed at all the strange looks given him. “But I guess we’re both crazy cuz we both wanted to come back for different reasons. Ski came back here to save people and I came back here to kill people,” he added with a laugh and those gathered with them laughed with him.
Mykal caught sight of what looked like a disturbance starting some fifty feet or so away. He saw Lieutenant Finley and a few of Mykal’s soldiers talking excitedly with Hidtotim and a couple of his soldiers. Mykal gripped his rifle tighter. He was unsure what was happening between them but he realized there didn’t seem to be any hostile words exchanged. All the men stared at the ground where they stood and pointed to different areas. The men started to spread out slightly and stared at the ground like they were looking for a lost coin.
Mykal’s curiosity was getting the best of him but he didn’t want to get up to go see what they were looking for. More men joined them and the search intensified. Since there didn’t appear to be any danger Mykal tried to figure out what they were doing by watching their body language and interaction between the men, both his men and the soldiers of Zizmon-Tarl. He felt he should go see what they were looking for since he was the leader of the group, but the comfort of the cool cloudy day was relaxing and he didn’t want to get up until he had to.
“What do y
ou think is going on over there Myk?” Roy Jr. asked when he saw where Mykal’s eyes focused.
“I don’t know, I’ve been watching them and can’t figure out what they’re looking for. I hope none of them lost something important to them. But since they haven’t made a big deal about it I’m not getting up from this comfortable spot until I have to.”
“I hear ya on that Boss man,” Randy said with a laugh.
Mykal looked at Randy when he said that, it pricked his heart because that was what Kurt’s favorite term of endearment had been. Kurt had called him that many times. Randy had no idea the words ‘Boss man’ held a special meaning for him. ‘Or is it this damn ring getting me all wishy-washy?’ He wondered and glanced at the gold band.
“Mykal, do you want me to go find out what’s going on?” Mathis asked.
“I can do it,” Private First Class Anka said. “Mathis, you have to carry that big ol’ radio. Besides you’re a sergeant and I’m just a lowly grunt,” he added and laughed. “Anyways, we’re just about done leaving our mark on this tree,” he laughed. Ferria and Taylor laughed with him.
“Grunt?” Towbar asked and looked confused.
“It just means that I’m a foot soldier,” Anka answered the giant with a shrug. “Low man on the totem pole kind of thing.”
“Na, don’t worry about it,” Mykal answered both of them. “If it’s important or something I should know about, they’ll send someone over here to get me or to tell me what they’re doing. Look at that, as if on cue,” Mykal laughed when Lieutenant Finley yelled his name and waved for him to join them. Before Mykal started to rise Finley ran to his location at the tree. Since Finley ran to him he didn’t feel the need to get up and join them.
“Mykal, oh my goodness, you have to see this,” Finley burst with excited passion in his voice. His hands moved wildly to express his new enthusiasm. “Oh my goodness. You’re not going to believe this. This is absolutely crazy. It’s unbelievable. It’s, it’s, it’s just crazy. I can’t believe what I think we may have discovered. This blows my mind,” he rambled passionately.
“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Mykal laughed and used both hands to signal for Finley to put the brakes on his wild rambling. “Take a deep breath,” Mykal continued to laugh and the others laughed with him. He looked and saw the men continued to search the ground in that area. “Okay now, whatta ya talking about?”
“Okay, okay let me take a deep breath,” Finley laughed with him and took a deep cleansing breath. “Seriously though, you’re not gonna believe this. Let me explain this so that it will make sense. First of all Myk,” he started and looked at all the men staring at him while he began his long in depth explanation. “I’m a history nut. I love history. Especially anything to do with the military, war and wars around the world, etcetera etcetera. In my spare time I study all things military as a hobby.”
When Finley said he loved to study war and military it suddenly reminded him of his close friend Boris who had been a ‘history nut’ when it came to military and war. “Okay,” Mykal said as a cue to continue.
“Well, I think we have made a great discovery. A discovery that may be the answer to one of the greatest military mysteries, ever!” He declared and stressed his emphasis on the word ‘ever’. “Have you ever heard of the Sandringhams? Or the 5th Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment of the United Kingdom? The Vanishing Battalion?” He asked as they all shook their heads negatively.
“No, what is that?”
“Well the Sandringhams were a company in the 5th Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment of the U.K. Back in World War One. On August 12, 1915 the United Kingdom and their allies were fighting the Turks on the peninsula of Gallipoli. Colonel Beauchamp and 266 men made up of 16 officers and 250 men disappeared from the face of the earth and have never been found. They were given orders to fix bayonets and began their charge on the Turks even though they were about a mile and a half away. They had to travel through trees and there was a mist or a cloud hovering over them. When they went into the trees, they were never seen or heard from again. All of them just vanished,” Finley said with a dramatic snap of his fingers.
“Wow, are you serious?” Mykal asked not because he doubted Finley, but he used it to stall so he could search his memory bank to see if it would ring a bell in his thoughts. It didn’t.
“Yes I am serious. At the end of the war, World War One, ‘they’, the authorities, tried to say that the men were all killed in action or taken prisoner, but the Turks didn’t take prisoners. When the Turks were questioned about it after the war they repeatedly said they knew nothing about this group of men and they didn’t take them as prisoners. Many believed they were all taken as prisoners and executed at the hands of the Turks which would mean the Sandringhams became cowards after they advanced in front of everyone else in the major battle, and just gave up. That means they just surrendered without really fighting. They were new troops to that battle and weren’t worn down and beaten like those who had been there since April, May or June. They just got there like a week or so before.
“So it was kind of blown off and written away that they all died,” Finley continued excitedly. “And the case of the Vanishing Battalion remained pretty much a closed case, until April of 1965, the 50th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings. So fifty years later a New Zealand World War One veteran named Frederick Reichardt and two of his countrymen came forward and told what they saw with their own eyes.
“This Frederick Reichardt said they had been sappers for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and they were doing missions in the area near a Turkish position that was known as Hill 60 which wasn’t far from where the Norfolk Regiment was fighting. Reichardt said they noticed between six and eight odd grayish brown ‘loaf shaped’ clouds just hanging over or hovering over the battlefield. They said the strange clouds were just hanging there completely still even though the winds were blowing pretty hard at the time. Then below those six to eight clouds there was another cloud that was even larger and denser. That larger looking cloud was estimated to be about 800 feet in length and about 200 feet high. This much bigger cloud was supposedly hugging the ground over a dry creek bed when the Norfolk Regiment approached. And it was there that they, the Vanishing Battalion, just marched directly into the larger cloud.
“Now Reichardt said all those men disappeared into the cloud and he claims that the cloud rose upwards to join the other six to eight clouds in the air and it took all the soldiers with it. He said the clouds, all moved to the north before they disappeared from view. What’s really weird was, fifty years later, fifty years after the incident happened, in 1965, this story was first published in the September slash October edition of the New Zealand UFO magazine called ‘Spaceview’. The story was then somewhat supported and validated a year later when in 1966, another New Zealand veteran of the Gallipoli campaign, Gerald Wilde, told ‘Spaceview’ magazine that even though he didn’t actually see the disappearance directly, he had heard many rumors among soldiers that the entire Norfolk Regiment had disappeared into a cloud that had been floating or hanging over the ground,” Finley continued to explain with the same excitement he started with.
“It was definitely a bizarre story and it went against the ‘official story’ of what had happened to the Vanishing Battalion,” Finley said with air quotes around official story. “What’s really neat is more than fifty years later, after the supposed disappearance occurred, UFO fans and enthusiasts got on board with it, and then the Vanishing Battalion became an almost legendary tale among missing persons cases, especially those who believed in alien abductions and that kind of stuff.
“Like I said, the story started to really spread and it took off with a life of its own among those who believe in UFOs and those who believe aliens have abducted people. So the story got told again and again in all different kinds of publications. People just couldn’t seem to get enough of the story, but all these new people really believed it was UFOs in the shapes of these clouds.
“The thing is Myk, my thinking is, it was probably a green cloud and not grayish brown clouds that looked like loaves that took them, and I think it brought them here,” he added and pointed to his feet so they would know he meant this part of Towbar’s world. “They said it was a grayish brown cloud that took them into space, but it could have been a green cloud,” Finley offered as if he was trying to get points to match up for him. “Green like the one we were transported through.”
“Green is like the fog we have been transported through,” Ben Milnar said as he set his camera down. He didn’t seem to realize Lieutenant Finley was trying to make a connection.
Everyone looked at Ben Milnar as if he took a wrong turn into a bad neighborhood.
“Right mate,” Vick Daring Laughed. “That’s why he holds the camera and I do the talking,” Vick added with a laugh to rescue Ben and they all laughed with him.
Finley laughed lightly and continued. “Now, to be honest where I have a little bit of a problem is that we know we have gone through a green fog and not a grayish brown cloud, but remember it was during the heat of war and so on. It could have been a green cloud. They could have been mistaken because it took place in the heat of battle and it was fifty years earlier,” he repeated as if trying to argue his case and make his point. “And who knows Myk, maybe our green fog was more of a grayish brown cloud back then, you know, almost seventy years ago from now. I don’t know,” he chuckled at Mykal’s serious expression of deep interest.
“Okay, but why do you think they were brought here?” Mykal asked. Those who sat with Mykal were just as enthralled and captivated by Lieutenant Finley’s enthusiastic excitement.
“I don’t know why they were brought here. Maybe it was just random like it was with your first trip to Towbar’s world. But while I was over there talking to Hidtotim, he told us the this tree which is out in the middle of nowhere as you can clearly see, and he deliberately led us this way so he could point this out I might add, but anyway, he said this single, lone, tree is called the ‘Tree of Strange Happenings’ and this land around here,” he said while he pointed all around them, “is called the ‘Battlefield of Strange Warriors’. Hidtotim said that many, many years ago there were strange warriors with strange magical weapons who appeared here suddenly.