Snake Eaters

PROLOGUE

The chaplain had only just arrived in the Gulf. He was very new to the Army, but was a sensitive man and conscientious, convinced that God had sent him here to do some good.

But how? His first service was scheduled for this very afternoon, and he couldn’t think of anything to say in his sermon, or at least nothing that would be inspiring. The men here were on the front line, the tripwire of the allied defense. At any second, Saddam’s minions could appear over the next sand dune and overwhelm them. He needed something powerful to encourage and comfort them. But he could think of nothing.

Finally, the minister decided to seek inspiration from the desert itself. He walked out from the sandbags and strolled into the open sand, shading his eyes from the sun overhead. He gazed across the undulating land, trying to imagine what this desert might have been like three or four thousand years before, when God had come among the Israelites and smote their enemies.

At that instant, the ground trembled and the chaplain felt himself being thrown down by the force of a heavenly wind. He writhed in the sand, certain that he was experiencing heavenly enlightenment.

Or worse.

Turning his eyes upward, he saw not an angel but a black-green monster, ugly and ferocious, breathing fire. It roared overhead, shaking the marrow of his bones.

It took the minister a moment to realize it was not an apparition, and then another moment to connect the monster to a briefing one of the soldiers had given him earlier. The sandbagged-position was directly in a flight line used by some of the Allied Coalition fighter bombers returning from missions north. The plane was an A-10A Warthog, heading for a nearby airbase to reload and refuel for another sortie.

The minister felt more than a little embarrassed as he pulled himself from the ground. But then he realized that it had, after all, been a message; if not entirely divine, certainly useful.

“The Apocalypse. Revelations. Of course,” he said, brushing the sand from his trousers as he ran back to write his sermon.

It was later said to be the best ever preached in Saudi Arabia.