Operation: Mongolia

- 2 -

They traveled across the plain for two hours. The black line of clouds crept closer but as of yet was still confined to an area above the distant horizon. Donnie Reid sat high between the humps of the camel, eyes on the horizon but not really seeing. What he was doing was wondering how everything had gone bad so quickly.

Just two days ago, they’d both been as giddy as schoolboys, excited by the find of a whole tail section of an Avimimid that the professor was certain was new to science. It was going to make the months of toil in the heat more than worthwhile—and the professor thought there might still be more of its kind in the current dig area. At the very least they’d get a paper out of it. Being cited alongside the professor in the journals was going to go a long way to kick start Donnie’s own scientific career.

Just forty-eight hours ago—it was hard to believe he’d been in such a good mood. He had helped pack the slab of rock containing the Avimimid carefully in a long box and then got into the truck to take the long drive to the nearest town for supplies. It was eighty miles and over four hours each way on a dusty, rutted track, but he’d done the journey every other week all summer and even looked forward to the wind in his face and the sights along the way. Some time away from the professor was also something to look forward to; the older man wasn’t great company, being too tightly focussed on the finds and his work, his tunnel vision not allowing him to stretch to anything that might approximate to fun.

Donnie had thought that he might even get to have a beer and a chat with some of the locals in town if he made good enough time—and if the truck held out. It had been reliable enough all summer but every trip had brought more tired groans and squeals from the suspension and engine. The professor assured him it would last the summer but this time when he popped the clutch, the old beast let out a roar, then a groan, then it had slumped alarmingly nose down toward the ground, refusing to budge from its parking spot.

Both he and the professor had applied what little mechanical knowledge they had to the problem but the beast wasn’t for moving. Donnie had suggested that the pair of them head for town on the camels but Gillings wouldn’t consider abandoning the finds—especially the latest one. They’d spent several hours arguing about it then finally the professor had got on the satellite phone and called in for help. After that, all Gillings could talk of was how they’d soon—finds and all—be on their way home.

Then the army guys had dropped out of the sky with no vehicular support and their leader had told the old man point blank to get ready to walk away.

I can’t really blame the professor for losing the place.

Without the Avimimid, Donnie’s own future would be in some doubt; research grants were hard enough to come by at the best of times. Returning from a long trip like this with nothing to show for it wouldn’t maintain his place in the pecking order that ruled the allocation of money in academia.

He put it from his mind as something to worry about when they got back.

On his last visit to town, the locals had seemed nervy and anxious. Donnie had put it down to the rumor of rebels or Chinese forces in the area; he’d heard the stories but they’d seen nothing of either, although what little traffic there had been on the desert roads, slight at the best of times, had diminished to almost zero. The soldiers were the first other people they’d seen for two weeks.

Donnie had to admit he felt a whole lot safer now that the guys with the guns were here.

“So how did you come by the camels?”

They’d stopped in the shade of a rocky outcrop to avoid the midday sunshine, have a rest and, what looked to be a habit with these guys, brew up some coffee and have a smoke.

It had been the corporal, the Glaswegian one the others called Wiggo, who spoke.

“We got them the same place as these,” Donnie answered and handed the corporal one of the black cigarettes favored by the locals. “The same town I was headed to if the truck would have worked.”

He saw Wiggins wince as he took the first draw of the smoke.

“Bloody hell, these are rough as fuck,” the corporal said.

“Aye,” Donnie replied. “Like Capstan full strength without the subtlety, but you get used to them when there’s nowt else available for hundreds of miles in any direction.”

He held out a hand for Wiggins to shake.

“Donnie, fae Cambuslang originally, then via Perth, Edinburgh, and now here.”

“Wiggo. Fae Carluke, Maryhill and most recently Lossiemouth. Also now here.”

Donnie waved a hand over the scene in front of them.

“It’s not like Glesga that’s for sure.”

Wiggins laughed.

“I dunno, a few bars, a few lassies, and some more of these fags of yours, we’d be fine.”

Donnie pointed at the horizon.

“And it looks like we’re in for some Glesga-style rain too.”

Wiggins followed his gaze to where the black clouds were piling up.

“I thought we were in a bloody desert?”

“Aye, but even deserts get rain sometimes and when it rains here, it really means it. I’ve never seen it myself—it only happens every ten years or so they say but it’s a big thing for the locals—and the camels.”

Donnie now wondered if the possibility of rain was the reason for the locals’ nervousness on his last visit to town, but his chain of thought was broken by Wiggins’ racking cough as he inhaled too much of the local smoke in one puff.

“Keep them coming, lad,” Wiggins said. “If I could get used to Embassy Regal at fourteen, I can get used to these things here.”

Banks kept them in the shade as the sun passed overhead, the heat of midday being too intense to allow walking across the sand. Hynd, Davies, and Wilkins played cards for cigarettes—Hynd was winning most of them—the professor fretted about the finds they were leaving behind, and Banks kept his own counsel, standing on point looking north and sipping coffee. Donnie spent most of the time with Wiggins, smoking either his black cigarettes or Wiggins’ Embassy Regal, a long-forgotten taste of Donnie’s own youth. Just the smell of them brought back instant memories of buying single smokes from the ice-cream van on the estate and smoking them ‘round the back of the newsagents. Donnie even smelled the peppermints they used to buy in bulk to mask the smell from questioning parents. Wiggins had almost the same story; kids in the West of Scotland, especially ones growing up poor, share a lot of memories even despite an obvious age gap. For Donnie, talking to Wiggins was like talking to the big brother he’d never had. The time went past pleasantly.

They rested in the shade for two hours more. By the time the captain announced it was time to move out, the black line on the horizon was twice as thick as before. Donnie noticed the professor eyeing it warily.

“Have you ever been here during a big wet spell, Professor?” he asked.

The older man shook his head.

“No, I’ve always been lucky with the weather—if you can call baking like a hedgehog in clay lucky. It’s never rained on any of my trips. But the first time I was here—twelve years ago now—the local man we hired as a guide was in abject fear of any kind of cloud at all and refused to come down off the escarpment to the plain if it even looked like it might drizzle.”

“Some local superstition?” Captain Banks asked.

“I have no idea,” the professor replied. “We could never get him to talk of it. All we ever got out of him was two words in his own language—olgoi-khorkhoi—we never did find out what it meant and when we returned the next year, we had a different man with us.” He pointed at the line of dark cloud. “I’ve never seen anything like that. It looks nasty.”

Donnie stood by Captain Banks’ side as they looked ahead of them across the plain. There was a larger rocky outcrop some miles ahead of them, a black outline against the horizon. Banks spoke first.

“If I’m gauging the wind right, we’ve got time to get over there. Let’s hope there’s more shelter than we’d get here.”

He looked up to where Donnie was now lifting himself into the saddle atop the camel.

“See if you can coax a wee bit more effort out of the beasties, Doctor Reid,” he said. “These things make my grannie’s auld milk cow look like a Derby winner.”

Donnie laughed.

“Speed isn’t really their thing,” he said, “especially with older models like this one. Besides, they might be slow but they’ll still be alive out here long after we’d died of dehydration or exhaustion.”

Banks laughed.

“But it’s speed we need right now, not stamina. We’ll be moving at a fair clip. So don’t fall behind. If yon storm really starts to move towards us, we might have to get a move on faster still.”

The captain was as good as his word and worked his men hard over the rocky, uneven ground. Donnie didn’t know how they managed it—he’d struggle to even carry the huge rucksacks each man had on his back, never mind trot at speed over rough terrain while carrying a rifle. Plus, it was a desert, it was hot, and there they were almost running, wearing camouflage suits, helmets, and flak jackets. It made him too hot just to look at them.

Meanwhile, the camels picked their way along in their own stately fashion, not quite as fast as the soldier’s walking pace but not slow enough to cause the captain serious concern as long as the cloud on the horizon didn’t creep any faster. Conversation was kept to a minimum and even Gillings who was normally so garrulous and loud kept his silence as everybody watched the ominous cloud sweep in a stately fashion across the sky towards them. After an hour, the outcrop they were heading for didn’t look all that much closer and the cloud now hung over it, filling almost a quarter of the sky ahead, casting the landscape below it in darker shadows.

“Time to up the pace, lads,” Banks shouted and the men on foot started to ease ahead of the pair of camels that kept on their own sweet way. Donnie kicked his heels against his beast’s flanks and shouted ‘Giddyup’ but the camel paid him no heed, maintaining its almost funereal pace. The professor had a bit more luck with his animal and at least got it to follow slightly faster behind the soldiers, leaving Donnie isolated at the rear.

No amount of kicking and cursing could get his beast to move any faster than it wanted to move, and Donnie was quickly falling behind the rest of the squad. By the time he’d smoked down another of the black cheroots, he was almost fifty yards adrift at the rear and the black clouds had gathered almost overhead. The saving grace was that the rocky outcrop was closer now and looking up, he saw that the soldiers were going to reach it in a few minutes.

Rain started to patter around him.

That gave his camel more impetus than any amount of cajoling had done and as if afraid of the rain itself, the beast put on a burst of speed. Donnie yelled out in joy then between one breath and the next was tumbling through the air as the camel shuddered once and stiffened as if it had hit a wall, its legs giving way beneath it.

Donnie hit the ground hard, black and gray creeping in at the edges of his sight, and all he could hear were wild brays of a beast in pain.