Operation: Sahara

-Banks-

Captain John Banks had a headache and Wiggo was complaining again. The two events were not unrelated.

“Oh, there’s plenty of sand, Cap. I think we can all agree on that. And it’s warm. But it’s no’ much of a fucking beach, is it?”

The small airstrip below them lay on the Egypt side of the Libyan border and was also barely ten miles north of bordering with Sudan. It had been chosen as the closest point to their destination by air, or at least the closest point they were allowed access to. Banks’ problems were mounting up already; after landing, the rest of their journey would be on foot, it would be hard going, they’d be in a foreign country without official sanction, and Wiggo was not helping.

The complaints had started back in Lossiemouth at the briefing.

The colonel had been clear enough.

“You’re on your own on this one, John. We can’t offer air support; the Libyans are a suspicious lot at the best of times, and if they find out that we’re running an op behind their backs they’ll go ballistic, maybe literally so.”

As soon as Banks got the squad together in the mess and explained the situation, his sergeant began taking it as a personal affront.

“The fucking Sahara?” Wiggo said. “I thought we were going on leave? Fuck, even Largs would do… a few pints, a couple of fish suppers and a wee warm lass at the disco would do me just fine. Anywhere… just no’ the fucking Sahara. Have we no’ had our fair share of fucking shitty deserts yet? Is that it?”

Even after Banks gave Wiggo ‘the look’ he could tell that the sergeant wasn’t best pleased. On the flight over, Banks gave him the speech about duty, the squad, and the service.

“Bugger me, Cap, I don’t need the newbie’s speech. I get it. You ken that. I wouldnae be here otherwise,” Wiggo said. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and all that shite. But why is it that we are always the fucking few?”

“I can only give you another quote in return. Ours is not to reason why.”

“Do or die? Aye, there’s a great choice right there. There had better no’ be any fucking monsters this time out, that’s all I’m saying.”

Banks laughed.

“Nane that I know of. A team of researchers have gone missing and the brass think they’ve strayed into Libyan territory. We’ve to get them out and be quiet about it.”

“Quiet? That’ll make a wee change then. And these researchers? What were they after?”

“An ancient city; a legend. Nobody even knows if it ever existed.”

“I knew it. I bloody well knew it. Mair Indiana Jones shite. Wonderful. Just fucking wonderful.”

The complaints had stopped, for a while, during a three card brag game with Davies and Wilkins but now that they were approaching their landing at the desert airstrip, Wiggo had turned the volume up again.

“So this lost city, Cap? Does it have a name or is it really lost?”

“The colonel called it Zerzura,” Banks replied. “A fabled white city of an architecture uncommon to Africa, said to have been populated by early white Europeans, possibly Greek or Roman but possibly built by a lost race far older than either.”

“Aye, that’s a lot of very little to be said, that’s for sure. Anything else? Anything concrete?”

“Would you believe treasure?” Banks replied, laughing. “Rubies the size of your fist, emeralds like apples? At least that’s according to a mannie who walked out of the desert in the Eighteen-Fifties claiming to have spent some time there. He said the people were friendly, if a bit strange and reclusive, with weird religious habits. What kind of weird was never specified. The colonel did say that there’s been several expeditions looking for it over the years since but naebody ever found anything.”

“So why this new expedition? Has there been new info come to light?”

“Not that I know of, but it’s the same old story we all ken too well; the brass only tells us as much as they think we need to know to get a job done. And what we know is that a team of ten from Edinburgh Uni went missing off the grid a week ago, probably in Libyan territory. We sneak in, we find them, we bring them home. End of story.”

“And do we know where to start?”

“I have their last known position. It’s going to be a bit of a hike to get there.”

“How far is a bit?”

“More than a day, less than a week.”

“And nae chance of a camel, I suppose?”

“Ye’d have better luck getting off with that lass fae Largs you mentioned.”

They landed five minutes later. The airstrip was little more than a flat piece of packed sand and they had to unload their kit themselves; it wasn’t the kind of place to employ baggage handlers. As the plane taxied off to the far end of the makeshift runway, they were deposited beside a small shack manned by a single old Egyptian who looked old enough to have been there since the place was built.

“Two planes in a month,” he said in perfect English. “The gods have blessed me.”

Over cups of strong dark tea and heady local cigarettes at a shaded table outside the shed, Banks found out that the research team had set off three weeks previously by camel, carrying enough provisions for a month, heading west.

“There is nothing out there but sand and death,” the old man said. “I told them that, and I will tell you the same. There is no lost city; it is a tale told by gullible men to even more gullible men in order to part them with their money.”

“There are lost people though,” Banks said grimly. “They are my only concern.”

“Then may Allah guide your steps,” the old man said, his last words as he went back to sit in his hut and Banks got the team ready to move out.

They’d done most of the preparation back in Scotland; desert camo gear, canteens, rations and packs as light as possible, eschewing body armor in favor of lighter flak jackets and bringing only a light bedding roll, but each man was still carrying somewhere around sixty pounds above their body weight when ammo and weapons were added in.

“It’s going to be tough hiking,” Banks said once they were all kitted up. “By my reckoning it’s a four or five day walk. It might be less, but then again, it might be more, we can’t tell until we see the terrain. We’ll travel mainly by night, rest up when it’s too hot where we can. And remember, it could be worse, it could be Glencoe in the phishing rain, so think on that before complaining too much.”

“Aye, but there’s a pub at either end of Glencoe, and the sheep are affectionate,” Wiggo said.

“Still pining for that camel are you, Wiggo? Then maybe we should make sure you see it first. Lead us out, due west.”

The next complaint came a few hours later, not from Wiggo but from Davies. For the past hour they’d been wading through ankle-deep sand and making slow progress.

“Fucking hell, Cap,” the private said. “You were nae kidding about the going. Can you no’ get somebody to tarmac this shite over? It would make for easier walking.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Banks said. He looked ahead to where the land rose onto a rockier plateau. It was in the general direction they needed to be going and it looked like better ground.

“Thataway,” he said, pointing.

He was proved right ten minutes later when they clambered up an outcrop and saw firmer footing for the foreseeable distance ahead.

“Tarmac as ordered,” he said. “Don’t say I never get you anything.”

He checked his watch. Two hours until sunset. Just ahead of them was an overhanging rock shelf forming a natural shelter both from the elements and any prying eyes.

“Okay, lads,” he said. “Take a break. We’ll camp yonder until after dark then get going under the stars. Smoke them if you’ve got them.”

Wilkins got a brew of coffee going and they broke out the rations; it proved to be a thin chilli-con-carne that tasted of rehydrated tomato soup powder, but it was warm and filling which was all that an old soldier could ask for out in the field. Over a smoke, Wiggo tried to pump him for more information.

“So is this really just Indiana Jones level shite, or do you think there’s something solid in this lost city bollocks?”

“You ken as much as I do, Wiggo,” he said. “The colonel was even less forthcoming than usual about this one. There’s a political game getting played upstairs with the Libyan government but I try not to show any enthusiasm for that side of things in front of the old man; he might take it the wrong way and promote me out of the squad.”

“We cannae have that, sir. I’ve just got you broken in.”

Banks laughed, and realised at the same instant that he’d finally started to think of Wiggo as his sergeant, rather than the corporal he’d been until recently. He’d always miss auld Hynd; they’d been together too many years, and had been too much like brothers for him to be easily replaced. But Wiggo was proving to be a more than adequate companion, despite his foul mouth and mostly good-natured moaning.

“Don’t worry, Wiggo,” he replied. “I intend to be ordering you sad sacks around for a while yet; I’m the only one they could get who would believe the shite this squad has got up to in recent years.”

“Amen to that, Cap,” Wiggo replied. “Let’s just hope it’s just a wee quiet walk in an admittedly sandy park this time around. That would make a nice change.”

“It would at that, Sarge,” Banks answered, and saw Wiggo’s little smile of pride at the acknowledgement of his rank.

At least they were starting in a good enough mood.