Operation: Sahara

-Davies-

By the time they reached the oasis Davies’ calves felt hard as rock and burned as if stabbed with a hot poker. His pack dragged with every step, threatening to tug him back and down onto his arse. Despite the fact that it was not yet full dawn the heat came in intense waves across the dunes. Every breath felt like hot ash in his mouth and nostrils and his head pounded with a hangover-sized ache.

All of that was forgotten when they crested the last dune and looked down on the oasis.

Davies’ knowledge of deserts came mainly from old Hollywood movies. As such he had expected a small concave hollow ringed by palm trees with a wee blue pool of water, perfectly circular of course, in the center. Instead he looked down over a verdant valley the size of a major town. Yes, there were pools, yes they were blue, but there were scores of them dotted amid swaying palms and ferns in an undulating landscape pockmarked with rocky outcrops. A camel trail led down from where they stood and when Davies’ gaze followed it led directly to a small clump of tents around one of the aforesaid pools several hundred yards west of where the squad stood. Lifting his head and looking up gave a view west past the oasis. A mountain chain shimmered in the dawn, twenty miles and more distant.

Banks stopped the squad at the top of the dune and had them lie prone while he used his rifle sight to check out the camp.

“No sign of movement,” he said. “But maybe they’re sleeping. You ken how much these Uni types like their kip. No sudden noises, lads. We don’t want them spooked like yon camel. If we wake somebody up unexpectedly they might shoot first and ask questions later.”

The squad went down the dune in single file, taking care not to disturb the sand into an avalanche. They needn’t have bothered; it was obvious long before they reached the camp that there had been trouble.

Several of the tents were no more than tattered shreds. Clothing and equipment was strewn across a wide area, as if picked up then tossed aside. One of the tents, the largest of the group, contained two overturned trestles. A firepit in the center was long cold, the blood spatter on the inside walls and ceiling dried to a brown crust.

They didn’t find a single body.

“Inventory,” Banks said to Wiggo. “I want a record of everything here. Shout if you find anything that’ll shed light on what happened.”

Davies went with Wiggo to the west end of the encampment while the captain and Wilkins searched around the main tent. They still didn’t find any bodies but they found plenty of disturbed sand in a trail heading west, pointing directly towards the mountain range they’d seen from the dunes.

Davies bent to examine the area.

“What do you make of this, Sarge?”

Scratched tracks, grooved and pitted, led away from the tents and off west, many of them, but neither Davies or Wiggo could conceive how they were made. There were no footprints, no camel tracks, just a tangled web of grooves and scratches.

Davies looked up to the hills.

“Whatever it was, it went thataway,” he said.

“Aye. And took something with it. I’ve got more blood here too.”

“What the fuck happened here, Sarge?”

“Buggered if I know, lad. Let’s hope the others have had better luck.”

Davies followed Wiggo back to the heart of the encampment and found the captain and Wilkins poring over a small cork board with a map pinned to it. Beside the map was a list of ten names, split into two clusters, six and four. An arrow pointed from the group of six off to a spot high in the mountain range to the west.

“Looks like this group went ahead to suss out the area while four stayed here to make a base camp,” the captain said.

“But where are they?” Wilkins asked.

The captain looked grim.

“Look around you, lad. There’s been enough blood spilled here to account for them. As for who, or what, did it, I’m open to suggestions. It wasn’t a gunfight, there’s no sign of a struggle. Whatever happened, it went down fast.”

“And they were taken off west, if we’re reading the track right,” Wiggo added.

They went back to the spot where the tracks left the camp. The sun was up now and the heat was rising fast. The captain looked at the tracks and sucked his teeth. He looked up at the mountains, then at the sun.

“You’re right, Sarge,” he said. “They went this way. We don’t know whether they were taken alive or not but at least one of them was bleeding, so we’ll hope for the best. I was planning on a rest here for the daylight hours, but I’m going to ask that we press on; if anybody survived, they could be in sore need of our help.”

Davies joined the others in mock groaning but like the captain they all knew it was the only choice. They’d come here on a rescue mission; sitting on their arses wasn’t an option.

It was going to be a hard slog; the trail rose upward out of the camp and within minutes they were on a rocky path that wended its way through the other reaches of the oasis and rose sharply into stony foothills with no places to provide respite from the sun. The only consolation was that the ground was firm underfoot and Davies was able to at least regain the practised loping stride that kept the pack from dragging at his shoulders.

They climbed in silence for twenty minutes before the captain called for a rest break. He’d stopped on a flatter ledge. There were more of the scratches and gouges here, and more spatter of dried blood.

“At least we’re on the right track,” he said.

“Any idea where they might be going, Cap?” Davies asked.

The captain explained about the old journal entry.

“The description in there matches what we’ve done so far and where we might be going.” He pointed off west. The mountains were closer now, shimmering in the heat.

Davies thought he could just make out a darker patch that might be a ravine or valley but it was still too far to be sure. Whatever it was, it seemed like a long walk was yet ahead of them.

They rested for twenty minutes, trying to find shade behind some of the larger rocks. Davies sipped at his water; it was getting warm and felt thicker on his tongue.

“I could murder a cold pint,” he said, and Wiggo laughed.

“Well, you were last into the oasis, so the first round’s on you,” he said. “I’ll have two.”

“And a packet of cheese and onion,” Wilkins added.

As usual even a bout of light banter did a lot for their spirits but they were soon dampened again.

The captain called them to their feet. As Davies stood, he thought he heard a high whistle in the wind. He was about to remark on it when he saw the others had heard it too, and the sound quickly grew in both depth and volume into a loud screeching drone that echoed around the foothills only to die off as quickly as it had come.

“What the fuck was that?”

Wiggo did not look happy.

“Fucked if I know. But I’ll lay you two to one that it’s the same bloody thing that took the people we’re after. And I’ll also give you even money it’s a fucking monster.”