Operation: Mongolia

- 22 -

Donnie held on to the vase with both hands. It was more difficult now that the captain had picked up speed and made more so by the fact that the surface of the vase had grown hot like touching a recently boiled kettle. He didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to keep contact with it. He’d almost lost it for good when the huge worm exploded right in front of them and they’d been showered with a rain of tiny worms. The soldiers’ calm, almost casual, brushing off and stamping on the menace seemed to spread to him and he was surprised to find his hands weren’t shaking as the truck headed for the valley rim.

“Let’s give the captain a smoother ride, shall we, lads?” Hynd said. “I’ll take the front. Wiggo, you’re on the left, Wilko on the right. You other two, just don’t drop yon vases. Another minute and this will be all over.”

Donnie’s hands felt like they were burning but if the sarge needed a minute, a minute is what he would have and he was once again grateful for the cotton in his ears as the firing started again. He saw Wiggins take out the largest worm so far, an almost fifteen-foot-wide mouth was a large target, even at over fifty yards, and Wiggins’ three-shot burst went right down its throat. It blew apart in the same fashion as the one they’d killed on the road. This one appeared to have been crammed to bursting with the smaller worms, a mass of them gathered in a tight ball that quickly collapsed onto the sand in a frenzy of feeding on the scattered remains.

All around the truck the same scene was being played out. Hynd blasted another large worm that was threatening to park itself on the road. Wilkins took out one that tried to sneak up behind them, rising high over the rear of the truck before the private took it out with two volleys of three down its throat. That got them another rain of smaller squirming worms but Wiggins and Wilkins were able to stomp them into oblivion before they could do any damage.

Donnie chanced a look up; they were almost at the rim of the lakebed and as if he too had noticed it, the captain put on another burst of speed. The truck lurched, Donnie stumbled, almost fell, and the vase slid away from him. He made a grab for it but was too late. It slid off the driver’s cab roof, tugged its copper wire attachment away as it fell, and tumbled off the side of the cab and out of sight.

As if emboldened, a huge worm came up out of the sand behind them, the largest one yet, its mouth big enough to swallow the whole truck. Davies abandoned his vase and turned to stand with the others. The line of four of them across the truck all fired at once, even as the vehicle lurched heavily left then right. The worm blew and the truck caught firmer ground and sped forward so that the mass of tiny worms escaping from the downed one fell and scattered only on sand.

Donnie scrambled for the remaining vase on the cab roof, trying to attach it to the trailing copper wire.

“Leave it, son,” Hynd said, clapping him on the shoulder. “We’re free and clear.”

Donnie turned and saw that they were now looking down on the lakebed from a higher position on a rocky track. Behind them, the sand seethed with tiny worms as they fed on the sudden feast of the dead. As they watched, the frenzy subsided. The tiny worms burrowed deeper, the sand shivered, and a wave ran through the lakebed heading away north and west toward the river outlet and the wide desert plains beyond.

Banks drove them into town two hours later. By that time, the sat-phone had got over its huffy spell and was working again. He’d put in a call for support and made a quick report to the colonel with a request to collect Gillings’ remains and the finds from the dig site.

They had time for a long-anticipated beer in a roadside bar. Donnie joined them and got the first round in.

“We did it,” he said. “We won.”

Wiggins smiled thinly.

“Naw, it was a draw at best. We nearly got our arses kicked. Those wee buggers are all still out there in the sand just waiting for it to rain again.”

“Aye? Well, they’re welcome to it.”

“And what’s with all this ‘we’ shite, Donnie. Are you thinking of signing up? Want to join us on our wee adventures?”

He thought of the camaraderie, of how close he’d felt to these men during the action. Then he thought of Gillings, the worms eating through his body, gnawing at his tongue as he screamed. He could only manage a weak smile as he clinked his beer bottle against the one Wiggins held up.

“No fucking way,” he replied.