Operation: Mongolia

- 1 -

“I don’t fancy yours much, Sarge,” Wiggins said. “Although the hairy humps remind me of your missus.”

A pair of Bactrian camels brayed loudly in unison.

“Aye, and that too,” Wiggins added before going quiet when Hynd clouted the corporal roughly on the side of the head.

Captain John Banks ignored the banter and spoke directly to the two khaki-clad men who stood beside the camels high on a rocky outcrop on the desert plain.

“For the third time, gentlemen, I have my orders and I’m not here to negotiate. We’re walking out of here. There is no other transport and we’ve got fifty miles of desert and rough terrain to cover.” He waved at the tall pile of stacked wooden boxes that were the subject of the current argument. “This stuff will just have to wait here until it can be picked up.”

The older of the two men in front of him, his face already red from sun exposure and even more so now with the heat of the discussion, almost shouted back at Banks. There had been a lot of near shouting since the squad’s arrival and Banks was just about reaching his limit although the man in front of him wasn’t picking up any of the cues, which were getting less subtle by the second.

“This ‘stuff’ is two summers of my life work,” the red-faced man said. “I’m not leaving it behind. Can’t your men just fix the bloody truck?”

We’re not your fucking pet mechanics, Banks thought but bit his tongue and looked over to where privates Davies and Wilkins had the hood up of the ancient, rusting hulk that was slumped by the side of the track. Wilkins looked up.

“The front axle’s buggered, the engine’s shot to fuck, and there’s three flat tires and only one spare. The only place this wreck is going is to the knacker’s yard.”

Banks turned back to the red-faced Professor Gillings, the man nominally in charge of the site and one of the two they’d come to save, only to get no sign of gratitude.

“There’s your answer,” he said. “We’re leaving in five minutes.”

He turned away before he could give into the urge to punch the man unconscious and strap him to one of the camels.

As a rescue mission, it wasn’t off to the best of starts.

They’d come in on a night drop just before dawn, not really knowing what to expect. As always when coming down on rocky terrain, there was the fear of twisted ankles or worse but they’d all landed safely, led down next to the headlights of the truck that was the source of the current argument.

“It’s only two people,” the colonel had said the day before back in Lossiemouth. When the call to a meeting came through, Banks had been contemplating having a few pints of beer while watching Wiggins take the younger privates’ money off them at the pool table in the mess. The colonel had other ideas.

“I’ve got a wee job for you. Nothing onerous this time out, just a babysitting job on two lost lambs. They’re scientists—fossil hunters from Edinburgh University—and the idiots have got themselves stranded in one of the remotest parts of the Gobi Desert. We’ve got reports of Chinese military squads in the area rooting out rebels. We don’t want our citizens getting caught up in that carry on so get in and walk them out to the nearest decent extraction point. Should be a piece of piss for the squad.”

What the colonel hadn’t mentioned was that one of the two men they’d been sent to rescue, Professor Gillings, was, at first glance at least, a monumentally self-important, puffed-up arsehole who was flat out refusing to be walked anywhere. They’d been here for two hours already, all of which time had been spent listening to the red-faced professor working himself up into an ever-greater lather of indignation.

Now that Banks’ back was turned, he heard the man calling on the same sat-phone the scientists had used to call in for help. Banks walked away far enough so that he didn’t have to hear the conversation and took a cigarette from Hynd when offered. The other of their two would-be charges came over to mooch a smoke and looked at Banks apologetically. He was a younger, stocky man in his twenties where the Prof was in his fifties and had been introduced as Doctor Reid, the Prof’s research assistant. Where the Prof was red, Reid was brown, tanned like old leather, a red and white polka dot bandana around his head giving him a piratical look.

“Forgive the Prof. We’ve been working like dogs on this site for months and we’ve got some stuff that’s scientifically very important.”

“What have you been scratching about for anyway?” Hynd asked.

“Dinosaurs,” Reid replied. “Or rather fossils. This, believe it or not, is a dino hotspot. There’s a veritable graveyard under our feet. Nests too, with whole eggs in them. Our cases are full of almost perfect specimens, some of which we believe are newly discovered species. It’s the culmination of not just this summer but of years—decades—of the old man’s work. You’re asking him to walk away from his life.”

“It’s his life we’re trying to save,” Banks replied.

Before Reid could reply, Banks felt someone tap him hard on the shoulder and turned to see Gillings pushing the phone in his face.

“Your superior officer wants to talk to you.”

Banks saw from Gillings’ smirk that the man thought a victory had been won but all that the colonel said when Banks took the phone was, “You already have your orders. Do what needs to be done.”

“Wiggo, hold his arms,” Banks said and before the professor could react, the corporal had him in a tight grip. Within a matter of minutes, they had his hands tied in front of him in tight plastic wraps and when the man started to splutter and curse with rage, Banks had him gagged with three tied handkerchiefs and then mounted him unceremoniously atop one of the camels.

“Now be a good professor and behave yourself,” he said. “Remember, you can make the trip sitting upright or you can do on your belly with your face full of camel hair.”

Gillings looked close to apoplexy.

But at least I can’t hear him now.

Banks turned back to the squad.

“We’re moving out,” he said. “Doctor Reid, collect anything essential you and the old man here need and get it packed. When that’s done, you can walk or take the other camel.”

Within five minutes, the camels were loaded—the professor’s gear in large saddlebags behind and below where he sat high between the humps. The second camel was loaded with Reid’s personal belongings and large water skins, one on either flank. Like the other beast, it had a well-worn leather saddle mounted between its two humps. Reid climbed up as if used to it and minutes later, Banks had Hynd move them all out, heading north. Behind his handkerchief gag, the professor shouted obvious oaths and was so red in the face that it looked like an explosion was imminent.

Banks smiled as he followed Hynd and the others down off the rock.

As they descended the escarpment from the campsite, Banks got a good look at the terrain ahead of them. A line of rugged hills ran away to the horizon on either side to their east and west but northward, the direction in which they meant to travel, was a mostly flat barren plain of rock and thin sand punctuated with craggy rocky outcrops and straggly, dried-out bushes. There was no sign of anything moving, not even a grain of sand for the air was still, pressing down heavy on them. The sky hung devoid of cloud, a flat blue as if a porcelain plate was upended above them. It had been cold during their drop but the day was warming up fast. It was going to be a long hard couple of day’s walking.

It didn’t help that he’d chosen to bring up the rear which meant he was directly behind Reid’s camel and the beast stank worse than a dog that had been rolling in a wet cowpat, the stench almost chewable. He chain-smoked cigarettes and tried not to breathe through his nose but even then, it was like being too close to a recently filled diaper.

A piece of piss, the colonel had said. It tasted more like shite.

The first half an hour saw them slowly descend down off the escarpment to reach the start of the flat plain. Banks called a halt, not from any tiredness but mainly to see if the professor was ready to be more compliant; he didn’t plan on keeping the man tied and gagged the whole way.

Not unless I have to.

The man’s first words when the gag was removed weren’t encouraging.

“I’ll have your jobs for this. Do you know who I am?”

“Fuck me,” Wiggins said from below where he was getting a pot of water boiling for coffee on a camp stove. “He’s both an arsehole and an amnesiac. That’s a damn shame.”

All of them, including Reid, laughing at that didn’t improve Gillings’ mood any but untying his hands and getting some coffee into him at least lowered his rage level down from intolerable.

“We asked for help, not bloody kidnap,” he said.

“Maybe if you’d asked more nicely…” Wiggins said until Banks shut him up with a look. The corporal went back to sucking down smoke and brewing coffee while Banks made what he hoped would be the last attempt to get the professor to see sense.

“Look, Gillings, you called for our help, your truck was wasted, and the hills ‘round here are hoaching with either Chinese military or rebels… what did you expect to happen?”

“I didn’t expect to have to leave years of work lying in boxes for anybody to pick them up.”

“I doubt a random Chinese soldier or rebel is going to know one end of a fossil from another,” Banks replied. “And I give you my word we’ll get your specimens picked up one way or another, but my job here is to get you home to your wife. Are you going to play along with me on that or do I have to tie you to yon fucking camel and gag you again?”

For the first time since they met the professor smiled, a rueful grin.

“I was a bit of an arsehole, wasn’t I?” he said and Banks smiled back.

“Aye, and that’s probably not going to change any time soon, but at least you’ve got your memory back.”

While pouring a coffee for himself, Banks noticed that Wilkins was rubbing the lower part of his leg. The private had only recently recovered from broken bones received in a previous mission. Before setting out, in Lossiemouth Banks had given him the option of staying behind.

“You can sit this one out if you like, lad. It looks like it’s going to be a long walk and nobody will think any the less of you for giving it a body-swerve.”

Wilkins had smiled broadly in reply.

“And miss all the fun? Not bloody likely, Cap.”

But now he saw pain in the lad’s face and they hadn’t even started the walk proper yet.

“We can swap you around on the camel if you need to, lad,” Banks said, keeping his voice low and between the two of them. “Just ask. Don’t go crippling yourself for pride.”

Wilkins managed a grin.

“I’ll be fine, Cap,” he said. “It was just scrambling around on the rocks aggravated it a bit. Now that we’re on flat ground, there’ll be no problem and the smell’s better down here on the ground anyway. I’d rather walk.”

Gillings didn’t look to be giving them any more trouble, although the professor had a lingering look back up the escarpment as they were preparing to move out again. Banks put a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“As I said earlier, you have my word; we’ll get your specimens out of here. With luck, they’ll be back in Scotland before you are.”

He helped the man up onto the camel. As he turned to look north, he saw that the blue sky was now marked with a black line of clouds running across the horizon from east to west, the first sign of weather they’d seen.

It didn’t look promising.