Three Kings (Kirov Series) (29 page)

The Australian 6th Divisional
Cavalry Regiment was the one unit that had managed to escape the onerous garrison
duty. Being well motorized, it was sent south to keep watch on the long
frontier wire, and particularly on the Italian outposts at Garn el
Grein
south of Fort Maddalena, and at the Oasis of
Giarabub. Along the way, Captain Brown’s Squadron of motorized Infantry fought
a sharp engagement with the Italians at Garn El
Grein
,
cutting through the wire to try and take the place by surprise, but finding the
enemy defense alert and vigorous. Brown soon found his column under artillery
fire, and the Italians had also managed to call on the services of three C200
fighters from Giarabub, which were strafing his men and trucks until they
finally ran out of ammunition.

Captain Brown withdrew his column
to the British held outpost at
Siwa
, where he joined
the Regiment HQ under Colonel Fergusson and the 2nd Squadron commanded by Major
Abbot. Even together, the force comprised no more than 300 men in trucks,
mostly armed with Vickers machine guns and a few light mortars beyond the
rifles carried by the troopers. Yet Fergusson soon was given the task of trying
to lever the Italians out of their oasis outpost at Giarabub.

“It was one thing to go after
them while we were heading west,” said Fergusson as he gathered his officers
together to try and come up with a plan. “Now, with Rommel heading east, we
aren’t likely to get any of the reinforcements I requested.” Fergusson had
asked for two more infantry companies and an armored squadron, with supporting
artillery and a platoon of engineers. He would get only the artillery and
engineers, four 25 pounders, two 40mm Bofors and 32 engineers under Captain
O’Grady. The Italians at Giarabub were now thought to number at least 1200 men,
with six MG companies, engineers and artillery under Colonel
Costiana
. The British therefore found themselves
outnumbered four to one.

Brigadier General
Morshead’s
18th Australian Brigade was supposed to
reinforce the desert force at
Siwa
and capture the
Italian outpost at Giarabub, but it would not be coming in this history. Hard
pressed by at least five Italian Infantry divisions, Wavell had sent it to
Tobruk by sea to reinforce that garrison to four brigades. So Colonel Fergusson
was alone at
Siwa
with his 300 man motorized cavalry
unit, and a few hardened souls belonging to the Long Range Desert Group that
were watering there,
Popski’s
confederates.

The ‘diggers’ in the tough
Australian cavalry unit nonetheless set to aggressive patrolling and probing of
the enemy’s positions, always answered by plenty of enemy artillery and
machinegun fire. Unable to live with the tortuous names on the maps they had of
the area, they began to rename prominent terrain features with easier handles.
A depression where Captain O’Grady had been forced to dismount his men to push
his 25 pounders along on foot soon became “O’Grady’s Dell.” A narrow wadi
covered by a small Italian 44mm gun the Aussies called “Pipsqueak” was
summarily named “Pipsqueak Valley.” A stony outcrop known as El
Hamra
became “Brown’s Hill.”

The heat wasn’t as bad in
December, though it was bitterly cold at night under the cloudless, star sewn
sky. The pristine, rugged beauty of the desert was the only consolation the
Aussies had. When word came that they could count on no further reinforcements
for some time, Colonel Fergusson resigned himself to a cautious watch on
Giarabub, still mounting regular patrols, largely in an effort to convince the
Italians he had far more troops than he actually did.

“Keep nipping at them like an
angry terrier,” he told his men. “If they find out we’re no more than battalion
strength, then the tables will turn bang away, and we’ll be the ones sitting at
Siwa
with the
Degos
at the
perimeter trying to get in.”

A day later he got even more
disheartening news. General O’Connor’s plane had gone down in the desert
somewhere northeast of Giarabub. The Blenheim twin engine light bomber, once
the fastest plan in the air force, was now well behind the aeronautical
engineering curve, and it had been no match for the Me-109 that found it that
day. The German fighter got off one good pass, striking the left wing with MG
fire as it flashed away, apparently out of ammunition.

In the effort to evade, the
Blenheim had turned south and dove. Before the plane could recover altitude,
the winds kicked up into a sudden, fierce sandstorm, blowing heavily out of the
northwest. They tried to climb above it, but that single pass by the Me-109 had
nicked the left engine and it caught fire under the strain. Unable to climb,
they knew they would have no chance in that sandstorm, so the General told the
pilot to run south away from the storm and towards
Siwa
.
They were still well north of the oasis when the engine gave out, and so they
wisely elected to attempt a crash landing.

Lieutenant Cory, of B Troop 1/6th
Australian
Cav
, thought he saw something through the
gloomy silted sky that evening, a strange glow in the sky, but he and his men
had to hunker down for the storm as well. They were out on point, up beyond a
gully they had dubbed “Davidson’s Pass” after the first scout section that went
through. Their position was right near the Libyan border at
Ayn
Melfa
, which they had taken from a small Italian
patrol the previous day. Giarabub was 35 kilometers due west of his post, and
much farther to the east, on a high rocky outcrop, there was a lonesome, haunted
plateau that would soon be visited by spirits and demons from another world.

* * *

The
KA-40 with Fedorov’s
rescue team was very close, well south over the dread Qattara Depression, at
the trailing edge of that storm as it swept south. The depression was the
lowest place in Egypt, descending from impassible craggy escarpments to a depth
of 80 meters below sea level. There were endless miles of soft wet ‘
sebkha
,’ a silty soil that made the area impassible to all
vehicles and even camels if they were loaded with any cargo. All around it lay
a maze of parched dry lake beds fed by gnarled, dry wadis. Other places were
dotted with shallow sand and salt marshes, fringed by parched stony ground that
had been baked in the hot sun and scoured by the harsh desert winds for ages.
It was no place for any man to be, if he wanted to live very long, and
O’Connor’s Blenheim was fortunate to have avoided it on his run south.

Fedorov was stooped over a good
map of the region, checking signal coordinates from O’Connor’s last known
position just before the plane went down. He squinted out through the forward
view panes on the helo, seeing the dull brown silt in the air, and knowing that
if they found themselves in the thick of it, the engine filters could clog up
and they would be in the same position as O’Connor. At the moment, they were in
a void between two great arms of brown blowing sand and silt, and Fedorov
thought they had better look for a safe place to land. Even technology from his
future time would have to bow before the wrath of Mother Nature, and so he
began to look over the map for a suitable spot where they could ride out the
last of the storm.

“This feature looks interesting,”
he said, fingering a high plateau surrounded by sheer escarpments. “Come to 170
southeast, and we can set down on that plateau. The map indicates firm ground,
some gravel and scattered sand over hard stone. It should take the weight of
the helo easily enough.” He showed Popski the map, indicating the spot he had
in mind in case he had any advice.

“Put down here,” said Popski. “
Bir
Basúre
. There’s a water cairn
there that feeds from an underground artesian spring. It’s not much, but better
than nothing. There’s a road that passes close by that place, and runs here,
all the way down to
Siwa
. These other roads shown on
that map of yours don’t even exist, as far as I know, and that’s a good deal
when it comes to this desert. But what’s this bit here?” He pointed to a shaded
zone on the map sitting square atop the escarpment fringed plateau, a large
triangle spanning some 50 kilometers.

“Old map,” said Fedorov, quickly
folding it and putting it away. In fact it was a very new map, printed in 2021,
and the features Popski had asked him about were new developments northwest of
Siwa
, and the roads that serviced them. Fedorov reminded
himself to keep that map under wraps in the future. Popski was not aware of
their true origins and identity. He had only been told that they were ‘allies,’
a catchall category that would hang on the citizens and soldiers of many
nations before this war was over.

“The desert shifts and changes
every day,” said Popski. “At least the bugger got
Bir
Basúre
right when he drew that map. There’s three
hills north of the place. If you get down low it should be easy to spot. That
will put us about 70 kilometers northwest of
Siwa
. I
can radio the lads there and have them come out with a few jeeps.”

“Well the storm can’t last
forever,” said Fedorov. “We’ll be conducting the search with the helicopter.”

“No, it won’t last forever,” said
Popski, “but it may damn well come to feel that way once it sweeps in. I’ve
seen these storms bury field phone wire six feet deep in an hour. That’s stony
ground where we’re landing, well up on the plateau, so we’re safe from sand
drifts. But if it’s no bother to you, I’d feel better with some vehicles at
hand. Just in case.” He gave Fedorov a wink and a nod, and the young Captain
could see no reason why he shouldn’t make the call.

As they made their approach,
Fedorov spotted the angular plateau ahead, recognizing it from an article he
had read the previous year… so long ago it seemed now, in the year 2020. That
was the place where BP made that great breakthrough. He was not thinking of
Bletchley Park this time, but of another BP, British Petroleum. Yes, that was
the place that was supposed to save the Western world for the next twenty to
fifty years with flows of light sweet crude that must be hidden there even now,
deep beneath the forbidding terrain. What was the name? He remembered it now, a
strange handle for the world’s newest superfield in 2020. It was called Sultan
Apache.

* * *

“Troyak calls it the Devil’s
Teardrop,” said Orlov.

“Don’t be stupid,” said Zykov.
“The Devil never weeps. He’s too busy laughing.”

The other men chuckled at that as
they huddled near their field tents. The helo was down, safely landed with the
engines capped off and secured from blowing sand, which wasn’t bad yet. The men
had established a camp to wait for
Popski’s
comrades
and their jeeps. Popski thought it might be wise to have a look around while
they were on the ground, and Fedorov agreed. If the Italians had patrols out,
they might stumble on them by surprise.

Popski assisted the Marines in
getting ‘desertized’ as he called it. He had them tuck their trouser cuffs into
the top of their boots, and made sure each man had a good pair of goggles and a
scarf. Thankfully they had brought these things at his request, and they now
proved their worth when the sand started blowing. The Marines then set up tents
that could be well sealed off, but Troyak knew they would have to mount a
security watch, and he took the post himself, along with Popski, who seemed
restless and ill at ease the moment they were on the ground again.

“You expecting the night witches
any time soon?” Zykov asked their guide, ribbing him a bit.

“If they come, they’ll be in an
Autoblinda-40 armored car with a pair of nasty 8mm machine guns mounted in the
turret.”

“Oh?” Zykov smiled. “If they do,
they’ll get a nice little RPG-30 for their trouble, and I’ll blow them half way
to hell.”

Popski gave him a stolid grin.
“You men might be well armed, and I can see you’ve been well trained, but
understand one thing here. You’re never safe in the desert. Never. Look around,
we already
are
half way to hell. If any place on this earth could be
called that, it’s right under your ass as we speak. Your Sergeant Troyak knows
as much. I can see it in the way he took his post the moment we landed.” Popski
nodded to Troyak, who was standing off a ways out from the helicopter, his
assault rifle unshouldered and at the ready.

“Hey Popski,” said Orlov. “What
do you make of this?”

He tossed their guide the strange
object he had found in Siberia.

“One of your grenades?” Popski
gave it an odd look.

“Naw, just something I happened
across on another mission. Troyak calls it the Devil’s Teardrop. Ever seen
anything like it?”

“Can’t say as I have. Damn thing
is smooth as silk, so it is not any kind of rock I’ve ever seen. Good name for
it, given its shape. Where’d you come by it?”

“Siberia, another kind of desert.
Dangerous there too.”

“Scared the shit out of Orlov,”
said Zykov. “That’s for sure.”

“
Zavali
yebalo
!” Orlov swore in protest, but Zykov just gave
him a wink.

“Maybe I’ll get there one day and
we’ll see,” said Popski. And he tossed the object back to Orlov, who held it in
his hand, fiddling with it like a man might play with a marble. Then he
suddenly had a strange look on his face, his eyes widening, hand opening
quickly as he dropped the object to the stony ground.

“
Yob
!”
he said loudly, shaking his hand. “What did you do to the damn thing ? It’s hot
as hell!”

They all stared at the object,
amazed to see that it was glowing with a strange luminescence, a phosphorescent
green. Then there came a roar that sounded like a peal of distant thunder, and
Popski looked over his shoulder, his weathered eyes laden with concern.