Stapler felt the fluid in his boot and knew without looking another blister had broken. Eventually, the sock would stick to the wet sore and rub against the back of the steel toed desert combat boot. Then every step would send a sharp pain through him. Still, he marched forward, periodically walking to the side and staring back along their path of movement, looking for the Taureg rebels who pursued them.
The sun was touching the horizon when they reached the path leading down into the wadi. From the vantage point at the top of the plateau, the terrain gave way to a series of rough valleys with high red cliffs and sandy bottoms.
The valleys were created eons ago from massive floodwaters raging through the area, washing away the softer soils and leaving the exposed granite and rough rock formations to be worn down further by the desert winds that followed. Stapler sighed. How in the hell would they ever find their way out of this maze?
Lieutenant Nolan faced Gunnery Sergeant Leslie Stapler, United States Marine Corps. “Not a nice sight, is it?”
Stapler tugged his ear. “No, sir, LT. Once we are in that maze, about all we can is follow the compass and hope the wadis are open-ended, so we don’t find ourselves going into a bunch of dead-end valleys.”
“Think we can go around it?”
Stapler shook his head. “It’d be nice if we could. Too far, and not enough water. I doubt we have the food to last, either.” “It’s just a thought, Gunny. I don’t think we can go around, either. It’s over three hundred miles around these valleys, and it is only about thirty to forty through them.
We have little choice. We enter and pray we make it through, or we go around and die.”
Stapler tugged his earlobe. “We’ll live, LT. We might be thirsty buggers when we come out, but we’ll survive.”
* * *
Two hours later, the convoy reached the bottom of the wadi and set up camp. The sun had set an hour before, but the sheer walls surrounding the wadi caused the darkness to descend sooner than if they had remained topside. Stapler put out sentries and sent Cowboy back to the top of the wadi entrance to watch for their pursuers.
Lieutenant Nolan had taken upon himself the responsibility for calling Base Butler every fifteen minutes.
So far, no luck. They had not talked with anyone since the Air Force Aerospace Expeditionary Force flew — blew— through over eight hours ago. Amazing, Stapler thought, the Navy used carriers to keep its air power readily available and able to respond almost immediately. The Air Force had developed its own version of a carrier, one that used the air itself and revolved around tankers. They could send an expeditionary aerospace force anywhere in the world from the continental United States by using a continuous string of tankers.
Of course, Stapler knew if the USS Stennis with the Marine Corps Moonlighter F-18D squadron had been the one circling overhead instead of the Air Force, those Tau regs would be greeting Allah right now. The question he had — and one he was sure Top Sergeant Macgregory would ask — was how long could a fighter pilot go without taking a crap. Sure, they had “piddle packs”—small Zip-loc bags with a compressed sponge in it a male pilot could unzip, stick his pecker in, and take a leak, but what if you had the trots? And what about women pilots? Those piddle packs wouldn’t work for them. He tugged his earlobe.
What was he doing? He had more important things on his mind than wondering about Air Force pilots’ body functions.
They could crap in their pants for all he cared. He had forty-three souls depending on him and a world of doubts that he would reach the rescue point with forty three.
They tied the camels to the humvees parked in front of the makeshift camp. Several huge boulders in front of the solid wall of craggy, vertical cliffs bracketed the rear of the camp. Stapler warned the riggers, who were beginning to take up residence at the base of the boulders, to be careful of scorpions. When he turned back later, he found no one resting along the rim of boulders. Steve Kuvashin, the Russian cook, was opening cans of beans, dipping the cold mash out into small tin cups, and passing them around. Lieutenant Nolan, after completing another routine, unanswered call to Base Butler, stood beside the short, graying cook and poured out a small cup of water for everyone as they silently marched past to take the meager portions. Stapler would get his later. Right now, he needed to assess their defensive position and get the sentries in the right place. He looked up toward the top of the wadi, where they had entered, hoping to see Cowboy return. Starlight illuminated the area. The lack of a moon and the close proximity of the valley walls made the surroundings a weaving maze of grays and blacks.
The cliffs behind the boulders rose straight up for about two hundred feet before bending at an oblique angle to form a narrow plateau at the top. Stapler eyed the plateau for a long time before deciding it was too narrow for a person to stand on it. If anyone got up there, they could wreak havoc on them before they could blast them out. He had Gonzales, Garfield, Heights, and four of the riggers unload the camels and stack the supplies against one of the larger boulders. The fuel containers he put between the boulders where they were cached away from any firefight — Lord, don’t let there be one — and the morning sun.
Movement from out front caught the edge of Stapler’s peripheral vision. He swung his M-16 toward it and slipped the safety off. His finger traced the switch, telling him he was on single shot. Stapler crouched and moved swiftly to the bumper of the second humvee. He peered around the edge. It was Cowboy. Stapler stood. “Private Cowboy, over here.” He waved the young Marine toward him.
“Hi, Gunny. Nothing out there that I saw. Just miles and miles of nothing, except our tracks. You can see them pretty clear in the moonlight.”
“Cowboy, there ain’t no moon.”
“Sorry, Gunny. Starlight. You can see our tracks clear as a bell in the starlight.”
Stapler moved forward to stand beside the mounted Marine. “Okay, Cowboy. That makes me feel better. Get off the beast and go have a bite to eat and your sip of water.”
Cowboy nodded and tugged on the camel’s lead, moving the animal toward the front of the first humvee, where the other camels bayed their discontent. He tugged twice, patted the camel on the neck. Stapler was impressed when the camel folded up like an accordion onto the ground, and Cowboy stepped off.
Stapler turned and nearly bumped into Lieutenant Nolan. “Damn, LT, you want to get yourself killed?” He flipped his safety back on. Should have done it when he recognized Cowboy.
“Sorry, Gunny. I thought you heard me walk up. No joy with Base Butler. You need to go get a bite to eat and your ration of water for the night. Can’t go around mothering all of us, you know.”
Stapler reached in his shirt pocket and brought out a pack of cigarettes he had requisitioned off the belongings of the dead Algerian regulars at the oasis.
“I thought you gave those up.”
“IT, I did. I went two days without a cigarette.”
“Two days is two-thirds done. Gunny. Why are you giving up?”
“Because I found some more, LT,” Stapler snapped, waving the pack at the LT. “I wouldn’t have gone two days if I hadn’t run out.” He struck a match and inhaled deeply.
Lieutenant Nolan removed his helmet and ran his handkerchief through his sweaty black hair. Looking back the way they came, the LT pointed at the top of the wadi.
“What do you think, Gunny?”
Stapler turned and stared at the entrance. He tugged his ear a couple of times, realized what he was doing, and let go. “I think, LT, that we need to leave early in the morning and try to keep ahead of that group of Tauregs the Air Force says are following us.”
“Maybe the Air Force is right. Maybe those behind us are friendlies who can help us out.”
Professor Walthers stepped out of the shadows. “I believe the Air Force are wrong in their assumption, Lieutenant.
They are out there. We didn’t need an airplane to tell us. They are out there right now, watching, waiting.
They are let
ting the desert do their hard work … tearing our resistance down … so when they do make their move, they will lose fewer warriors. This is their country.
They know it as well as each of us knows our hometown.
And we are invaders, as far as they are concerned. Not only us, but every person who has ever entered this part of the Sahara.” He took off his jungle helmet, looked down at it and then back up, shaking his head. “No, they will catch us whether we want them to or not. No matter how hard we try to hide from them. Why? Because they know where we are, they know where these wadis go, and they know where we have to come out. This is probably the widest of the small valleys that we will traverse in our journey It is a good two hundred to three hundred yards wide. If you noticed when we entered”—he pointed to the west—“the path narrows toward the end of this wadi, and it appears to be only a few yards wide where we enter the next one.”
Stapler tossed his cigarette down and ground it into the clay sand. “You know, professor, you have a real knack for ruining a man’s first smoke of the day.” He moved past the professor and reentered the main camp, looking for Cowboy. With the exception of the Marines and several of the oil riggers, the others had staked out a small part of the ground and had already begun to lie down. How in the hell was he going to move them another 130 miles to rescue?
Realization slammed into Stapler like a blow to the head. They were not going to be rescued, because they would never survive the remaining miles. Although he realized it, he never missed a step as he moved around the campsite, where he found Cowboy sitting beside Catsup Kellogg.
Ten minutes later, the young Marine was back on his camel and galloping toward the top of the wadi, his M-16 strapped to his back and his hands out to the side, each with a lead grasped in them. The professor was right, Stapler knew, and he hated for someone to be right all the time, especially when they confirmed his worst fears.
* * *
The gunshot brought Stapler’s eyes wide open. He pushed himself off the wheel of the humvee where he had been napping. The M-16 safety came off— his touch told him it was on single shot — and he positioned the weapon around the edge of the humvee. Night hung heavy on the camp with sunburned bodies accented by the cool desert air.
“Quiet!” he shouted to the camp. Everyone was awake, talking, and asking questions, wanting to know what was going on. Christ! He didn’t know, and he couldn’t very well find out if they were going to be making all of that noise. The conversations stopped. Several of the oil riggers with their own civilian M-16 automatics moved to the humvees to join the Marines.
Stapler saw Lieutenant Nolan across the campsite, brushing himself off hurriedly and heading toward the rear of the humvee where Stapler had taken position. Stapler also noticed that the person with whom the LT was sharing his blanket was his favorite Miss. Sheila Anne Forester. Probably sharing her pain.
“Someone’s coming!” one of the riggers shouted, his voice high.
The hairs on Stapler’s neck bristled as he heard the noise of a camel approaching. “Be careful, it’s probably Cowboy!”
The outline of the camel appeared a few seconds later without a rider. Stapler ran outside of the humvee barrier and grabbed the lead, quickly pulling the camel to the front of the humvee and tying it, to another camel’s lead.
He patted the camel a couple of times on the hump, felt something wet, and looked at his hand.
Lieutenant Nolan came running up. “Where’s Private … Cowboy?”.
Stapler looked up toward the top of the wadi. “Up there probably, LT.” Stapler turned his hand over, showing the lieutenant the blood.
“Gunny, let’s get a couple of Marines and go see if we can find him.”
Stapler held his hand out. The starlight showed a dark smudge running along his fingers and across his palm.
“Blood, LT. This was on the back of the camel. If he is up there, he’s probably not alive. If a bunch of us go running off into the dark … ” His voice trailed off. “Better chance if I go alone.”
“He could be alive.”
“He could be, LT. I hear a gunshot, I see a camel with blood on its back and its rider missing, ergo, I think the rider has been shot. Worst case, he’s dead.” He pulled his pack of cigarettes out, started to light one, then realized it would give a sniper a target, so he shoved the unlit cigarette back into the wrinkled pack.
“Let’s don’t forget who’s the officer here, Gunny,” Lieutenant Nolan replied testily.
Stapler sighed. “Yes, sir, you are the officer. Therefore, you need to stay here and lead the men.” He pointed toward the top of the wadi. “Cowboy is one of mine, and I’ve done this sort of thing before as a buck sergeant when I was with a recon team. I’ll go find him.”
“Gunny, we can’t afford to lose you. Let’s send Corporal Heights and Garfield.”
“LT, they don’t have the experience in night patrol. I will go. And I do not intend to take chances. If he is out there, I will find him.” Stapler walked around the back of the humvee, heading up the wide path they had traveled earlier.
He kept close to the wall of the wadi, blending in with the shadows. He checked his safety on the M-16, making sure it was on. He listened intently for any sounds out of place as he moved quickly and quietly from one shadow to the next, inching his way up the incline leading to the top. The LT and the others might not believe it; the professor would. The pursuers were here. The gunshot he heard was not an M-16, and an M-16 was the only weapon Cowboy had — that and maybe a couple of grenades.
There had been neither return fire nor grenades, which told ” Stapler that Cowboy was either dead, wounded, or gone to ground. Either way, he would know soon.
An hour passed with Stapler continuing to dart in and out of the gray and black shadows of the wadi, stopping every few steps to listen. A faint breeze blew toward him, carrying any slight noise he might make away from the direction he was approaching. He heard voices before he saw them as he neared the top. He ducked behind nearby rocks, continuing a careful advance toward the voices.
Four voices he heard. His foot touched a loose bunch of rocks, sending several tumbling down the side of the wadi. He stopped, waiting for the voices to change in tempo or go silent. When nothing happened, Stapler decided their nonstop conversation drowned out the minor noise he made.
Carefully, Stapler stepped one foot at a time on the small area made up of loose pebbles and stones, trying to keep from dislodging any more. A slight mound of sand rose in front of him. The voices were behind it. He dropped to the ground and crawled forward on all fours to where he could put his head against the bottom of a nearby boulder, blending in with the dark landscape.
Christ! He hoped there were no scorpions here.
Four Taureg natives squatted in front of him, less than ten feet away. Across from them, propped up against a wall of rocks, Cowboy Joe-Boy lay, his head resting on his shoulder and his left hand pressed against his stomach.
The shirt and the belt line of the Marine’s trousers were soaked in blood. He saw a slight movement of Cowboy’s hand as if he was trying to stop the bleeding. If Stapler waited too long to do something, the young Marine would die. There was little they could do back in camp, but if he died, he’d die with his buddies and among friendlies. All they brought with them from the compound was a couple of first aid kits, but it was more than Cowboy had now.
No way he could take them silently. He reached down and with his left hand flipped the safety off. Fire was pushed to the burst position. He would have to act quickly and accurately. All it would take would be one lucky shot for these Bedouins to have two wounded Marines — or two dead ones. He had no way of knowing whether these four were by themselves. Others could be nearby. Stapler drew his head back and glanced around, searching for any signs of others. He would shoot, rush in, strap his M-16 across his chest, throw Cowboy across his back and see how far he got before someone creamed him.
Dawn was not that far away. Stapler wanted t
o be back at the campsite when the sun broke. He wanted to be back inside the safety of the perimeter.
He pulled the M-16 up beside him and eased the barrel over the crest of the small dune. Then, with a Marine Corps shout that brought the four natives to their feet, he pulled the trigger, killing two of them and wounding the other two. One of the wounded tried to bring his ancient rifle around to bear on Stapler. Stapler let go another burst from the M-16, killing the last two. He ran to the other side of the campsite and peered over the rise there. He discovered that he was at the top of the wadi.
Across the plain about three to four miles away, a cloud of dust rose into the starlit night as camels galloped toward him. He slid back into the depression, slid the strap of the M-16 over his head, and bent down beside Cowboy.
“Cowboy, you hear me?”
The eyes of the wounded Marine came slowly open.
“Gunnery Sergeant Stapler, I would like to report the presence of an enemy patrol.”
“I know, Cowboy. Listen to me, son. I am going to have to carry you down to where the others are. It is going to hurt like hell. You understand?”
Cowboy reached up with his right hand and touched Stapler’s shoulder. “I knew you’d come for me, Gunny.
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