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Fantastic Adventures, October 1943, with "The Warrior Maids of Libya"
THE Americans were in Tunis, the greatest story of the war had broken, and I was in the soup. More accurately, I was a war correspondent buried up to my ears in the sand of the Libyan Desert. A khamsin, hot murderous wind of the desert, was filling our clothes and filing our tempers with sharp, cutting bits of sand. I hunched back as far as I could under the tarp that covered me and swore until my throat choked up and I couldn't speak any more. Then I looked at Howard Frazer and kept on swearing under my breath.
Everything was fine as long as Frazer and myself stayed with the troops up around Tunis. Bombers were going in every day for a crack at Tunis and our dispatches to New York were the same, week in, week out. Finally "Inkpot" Jameson, my boss on the Mirror got bored with the stuff I was paying cable rates on. It had been just two weeks since I received his cable through the London office.
SUGGEST YOU DESERTWARD GET FEEL OF DESERT FIGHTING
Howard Frazer had come along at my suggestion. He was as tired as I, waiting for the Yanks to make their final march into Tunis. We checked the map for a spot east of Ghadames where a small band of Yanks had been cleaning up bands of renegade Nazis. We finally got a station wagon and slugged hell out of the desert for a week, then we bogged down to the axles. We caught a ride on a supply-truck into camp. Another week, and here we were half buried in the sand, listening to a Tommy tell us he had just picked up the news of Tunis' fall by radio.
Frazer looked across the bleak trench at me. He wanted to bite me, I could tell by his voice.
"I listen to your talk and find myself five hundred miles away from the first break I've had since I came to Africa!"
I was silent. Tunis had fallen the day before. Other New York papers carried the headline at this very minute. Our papers would have to rehash their stories because we were buried alive in the center of a twisting, gyrating mess of sand.
After a while the storm stopped and we crawled out of the sand. We found the cook-shack still standing, so we crawled in and ate beans and bread. Water supplies were low so I only moistened my throat and tongue, crawled into a corner of the shack and tried to go to sleep.
HOWARD FRAZER and I were in a small valley the Yanks called Hell's Acre, all around us was the desert. Hell's Acre lay between a ridge and low sand hills a mile away. Nazi tanks and heavy guns were holding on in those hills with a tenacity I was forced to admire.
Why the Nazis stuck it out I never could figure. There were about a thousand of them, just too ornery to give up. The Yank commander, Captain Barth Rodman had been giving them hell now for a week. The score was even. Eight hundred Yanks sweated and cursed through murderous days at Hell's Acre, wondering whether they would be called north to let the Nazis stew in their own juices now that Tunis was taken.
I was lying there thinking about all this, and finally the watch on my wrist said it was close to three in the morning. I fell asleep, and didn't awaken until Howard Frazer shook my shoulder.
"Reg, wake up. Hell's breaking loose."
"Huh? Let it break. It'll be cooler there than it is here."
"Shut up and listen," he was on his knees, his dark, eager face close to mine, "we got a story that'll knock the Tunis thing into page four."
That did sound interesting. I sat up and slipped on my boots.
"Lead me to it," I whispered.
I followed his dark figure from the shack. He said nothing until we were close to Captain Barth Rodman's quarters. Then he turned and I could see that he was excited. Something really was breaking!
"A patrol came in ten minutes ago," he said hurriedly. "Honest to God, Reg, the story those men tell will make Hitler himself howl at the moon."
I heard voices buzzing within the small tar-paper shack where Rodman had his headquarters. Frazer knocked on the door and went in. I bent my head to escape the top of the door. Captain Rodman rose to greet us.
"Johnson, I told Frazer to call you. I want you to hear the story these men have to tell. It's fantastic, and I want a newsman's opinion."
Barth Rodman was no fool. If he thought the story was important and took the time to call me in, I was flattered to listen.
HE turned toward three Yanks who had come in from the patrol. They were good-looking kids, young and covered with dust from head to foot. One of them, a thin-faced, eager-eyed kid was a corporal.
At a nod from Rodman, he began.
"Like I said before," he spoke in jerky, excited sentences, "we—Private Wenton and Private Harden and myself —were close to the Nazi line. We spotted a couple of tanks and wanted to line them up so the guns could pick them off when we came back. It was dark as hell up there. I was getting finicky about things in general. We knew there was a khamsin coming up and wanted to make it back ahead of the storm. We turned and were crawling back into Hell's Acre when the wind came down on us."
He stopped speaking for a moment, his eyes wide with the memory of what they had seen. Then he went on.
"We hugged the sand with our bellies, hoping the storm would pass over. The sand was so thick overhead that it made a black curtain. But we could see pretty well in the direction of the German lines, where the sand was really kicking up...."
He paused dramatically.
"Right in the middle of that storm, riding like fury, was a woman on a white horse. So help me, Captain Rodman, she wore a light dress that whipped around her body. I'da thought the sand would have ripped the skin off her body."
The kid was crazy, I decided. I took a quick look toward the Captain and saw he was silent, attentive. Frazer, also, seemed to have faith in the boy. I decided to hear him out.
"As I was saying, this babe rode right over our heads as though she didn't see us. She carried a long spear raised in her hand and she had a helmet with wings sticking up each side of it. Then right over the middle of the Nazi camp, it happened."
"What happened?" I blurted out. "Did a dragon eat her up?"
The corporal turned a pitying eye on me.
"Wait until I'm finished," he said coldly. "Just wait."
Then, at a nod from Rodman, he went on.
"Like I said, right over the Nazi camp she seemed to stop in mid-air. Her horse stood there in that cloud of sand, head high and body reared up. A long scream came from the woman's lips and she plunged the spear down into the ground before those two tanks we had spotted."
The corporal stared straight at me.
"Them two tanks exploded just as the spear hit the ground, and the woman on the horse wheeled around and dashed away toward the mountains."
HE stopped talking, wiped his forehead and sat down. He looked like a small school-boy waiting to be whipped. Rodman turned to me.
"This isn't the first time these warrior maids have been seen," he said. "I waited until I was sure the men weren't dreaming them up to pass the time. Seven men have seen and described them to me. Every man did it in privacy and was sworn to secrecy before he left this office."
I shrugged my shoulders.
"Interesting, Captain Rodman," I admitted, "but I can't send my paper a story like that. I'd be laughed out of Africa."
"That isn't the reason I called you in," he said soberly. "If this was a fairy tale, I'd dismiss it. Unfortunately it isn't.
"If these women had been seen only in the Nazi camp, I would thank my lucky stars and try to forget it. Unfortunately that isn't the case."
I leaned forward against the desk. Frazer was at my side, mouth open a bit with eagerness.
"You recall that a truck blew up yesterday morning, killing three men and destroying a load of ammunition?"
I remembered the mess on the road and nodded. The captain went on.
"The truth of the matter was, I was close to that truck when it went up. The khamsin was thick at the time. I saw a girl like the one the corporal describes dive out of the air and throw her spear into the tarp of the truck. That's what blew it up!"
BROTHER, take it from me, you may think a captain in the United States Army is going nuts, but you don't tell him so. The Libyan Desert does strange things to a man's mind. I'll admit that hearing the same story from several directions was convincing. Mass suggestion, however, is a powerful thing. It was quite possible that the story had been passed around until it seemed like the real thing. I caught my breath at Captain Rodman's words.
"You actually saw this rider yourself?" I asked solemnly.
"Saw her very clearly," he nodded, "and if you think the desert is getting me, Johnson, banish the thought. My mind is as clear as a bell."
I tried to cover the blush of guilt that spread over my face.
"It's not that I don't believe what you thought you saw," I said, "but, Captain Rodman, you'll admit yourself that this sounds out of the question. If there were any women down in this sand-blown hell, they couldn't ride horses and blow trucks and tanks up with a spear."
"But they do!" the corporal protested.
I turned on him, shaking my head stubbornly.
"How the hell can they?" I snapped. "I'm a newspaperman. I've seen some queer things in this world, but when you show me your flying horses and warrior women, I'll believe them. Until then I'm blaming the whole thing on this cursed, sun-blasted desert."
Captain Rodman looked irritated.
"I called you in because I thought you'd be interested in the tale," he said. "If you stay at Hell's Acre much longer, you'll see all this for yourself."
"I appreciate your help, sir." I took his hand. "I'm just not good at believing such stuff at this time of night. By God, sir, if I sent a story like that to New York, I might as well start running toward South Africa and stay there. My paper would send a dog catcher after me."
I went back to my shack. Frazer followed.
"I don't know what to make of it," he said quietly, "Rodman doesn't usually imagine things."
"Suppose you hang out a sky hook and trap one of them babes for me," I grunted, "or else shut up and go to sleep."
Across Hell's Acre the Germans started their morning barrage. The sand outside jumped under their hits.
WHILE I waited for the barrage to lift, I thought back to the time I first came to Africa. That had been at Cairo. I'd met Gertrude Hunt, correspondent for Associated News, there. Gertrude was a clever, resourceful kid, about twenty-four years old and plenty witty. I figured I had made enough of an impression on her to merit a follow-up later on.
"I'll be in Damascus while the British get established there," she said when we parted at Cairo. "When you get tired of eating sand, come up and see me. I've got a nice room, swimming pool and all that."
I promised I'd do it, and now it seemed was the time. I went to the radio shack and radioed Cairo and dispatched a cable to Jameson, asking for the change. Some time later I got a reply.
OKAY TRY DAMASCUS FEW DAYS ADVISE ANYTHING NEW. JAMESON.
I packed quickly, found Rodman and asked him for a jeep to take me into Ghadames.
He looked at me from under dusty brows.
"So you're going to ignore this warrior maid story and head for civilization?"
"Look, Captain," I protested, "you know as well as I do that there's something wrong with that story. Haven't you thought over the possibility of seeing those flying horses just because others told of seeing them, and the story growing so vivid that it got control of the whole camp?"
He shrugged, as though he didn't want to say more about them.
"Fairy tales, we'll call them," he agreed, "but I'd feel better if these phantoms would pick on the Nazis and leave us alone."
He walked swiftly across the sand and I followed him to a paintless and battered station wagon. Slim Waters, a mechanic, was leaning over the open hood. Slim was a sallow-faced Iowa farm boy with sandy hair and a wealth of freckles.
"Waters."
Slim looked up, saw us and grinned. He had a streak of grease across his upper lip.
"Yes, sir?"
"Johnson wants you to take him into Ghadames," Rodman said. "Better leave right away before the sun gets too hot. Stay over and come back out tomorrow night. Keep an eye open for Nazi patrols."
"Yes, sir." Slim wiped the grease from his hands, found a couple of water bags and in ten minutes we pulled out into the desert.
Howard Frazer caught up with us.
"Tell Gert hello for me." He shook my hand and his fingers were tight on mine. "God, how I envy you taking a real bath."
Frazer and I had been pretty close in the past six months. I hated to leave him behind.
"Wire me if anything breaks." He said. "If there's nothing doing in Damascus, come back down in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, if we run into trouble here, I'll file a ghost story for you."
He grinned.
"Good luck with Gert," he said and turned away. We rode out of camp. The desert road was hard-packed and smooth and the car moved swiftly.
The morning wore along slowly and the wind became stronger. Sand began to obscure vision and finally became so bad, Slim pulled off to the side of the road and halted.
"Have to wait 'til she's over," he said. "Can't see enough to stay on the road."
NOW that I'd started, I wanted to get out of Libya as fast as I could. I felt pretty grumpy as we sat there, wondering how long the sand-laden wind would howl around the stalled car.
Slim's hand gripped my shoulder suddenly.
"Horses," he said, and the word was pronounced with as much horror as if he had suddenly said, 'forty-foot snakes.'"
I twisted about. The air was so black with the storm that I could see nothing. Clouds of sand rolled across the road towering to a height of a hundred yards. The sun was blotted out completely.
"Elephants too?" I chuckled. "Slim, Hell's Acre is becoming a home for prize screw-balls. I don't see a damn thing!"
He turned toward me, his mouth hanging open.
"Honest," he said with a groan. "There was a white horse standing out there on the road ahead of us. The storm cleared for a minute and I saw it as plain as day."
I strained my eyes ahead, wondering just how crazy he really was. Then all at once I was glad Captain Rodman wasn't here to hand my laugh back to me. Standing not fifty feet ahead of the truck, head bent downward against the storm was the most noble-looking white horse I'd ever seen.
I pushed the car door open quickly, pulling the collar of my coat up around my neck.
Slim said tensely. "Stay away from the thing. It ain't real."
Wordlessly I jerked away from him and slammed the door behind me. The khamsin took me full in the face and nearly knocked me flat. Sand, biting stinging particles of it, swept into my clothes, down my neck, and scratched my face. It worked under my eyeballs and made them sting like red hot needles. I went forward, head down.
The horse was clearly visible now, and I saw the reason it stood so quietly, seemingly disinterested in what was happening close to it.
On the road, lying almost under the animal was the motionless figure of a girl.
WITHIN ten feet, I halted. The beast's head came up. It stood looking at me, and reared up on its hind feet. The eyes were blazing and an angry whinny came from his nostrils.
I heard a command, low and soft, come from the lips of the girl on the road.
The horse dropped to all fours and backed away obediently. I went to the girl quickly. She was lying on her back. Her clothing made me wide-eyed with surprise as I knelt down beside her. She was dressed in a short skirt of soft, brown material. A small, linked metal blouse covered her from the waist up, over which were protective breast-plates of heavy brass. Her helmet was also of brass and from its sides feathery, white wings sprouted.
Her hair was soft and brown; and her skin, in spite of the harsh sand and sun of the desert, was white and soft as velvet. The blue eyes that stared up into mine, pleading for help, held a haunting quality of mystery.
She held one hand to her side and I realized that she was in pain.
"You re hurt?" I said.
She was staring at me, eyes full of wonder. She ignored my question.
"You are a man of the desert?"
I drew her hand away from her side and saw an ugly red gash that cut through her skirt and into her side.
With its usual unpredictable vagaries, the wind died as abruptly as it had begun. Slim came over and stood beside me, looking down at the girl with superstition in his eyes.
"Right now I'm the sandman," I said quickly to the girl. "But you're hurt badly. I'll take you back to the car."
"No—you must not move me away from the horse." She nodded toward the horse. "Put me on his back and I'll be grateful."
"Put her back on the horse, you sap," I said to myself, "and she'll sweep into the sky just like Rodman said, and you'll never see her again.
Funny how I suddenly believed that! But when things actually happen to you....
I pulled my first-aid kit from under my coat and started to tear away the skirt over her wound.
"How did it happen?" I wondered if I could stall until I found out who she really was.
"My spear," she said, "it slipped from my hand in the dark and hit the ground. It broke and a part of it flew up and cut me. I fell...."
"But hard," I admitted. "You need hospital care."
She was silent then, staring at my face as I covered the wound with a bandage and taped it down securely. The blood stopped flowing.
"Where did you come from?" I asked. "I'm going to Ghadames, if the lift will help."
"I ride in the opposite direction," she answered. "To the stronghold of Dido in the mountains."
I KNEW when she said Dido that I was licked. Dido was an ancient queen, dead for centuries, I knew. Captain Rodman and the men at Hell's Acre were right. The girl had come from the sky. There was no possible way a kid could ride across the hundreds of sand-cooked miles to the mountains without being something supernatural. I tried hard not to betray the feeling inside me.
"But surely that is a long journey for a girl to make." I said.
She did not answer for the moment. The air was beginning to clear.
"You will put me astride my horse? I will be grateful for your help."
What the devil could I do? Here was I, Reg Johnson, a war correspondent for the New York Mirror trying to fool around with some sort of goddess. It didn't make sense and I could see what a laugh Rodman would have on me, when Slim went back and told him what had happened.
I lifted her in my arms and the big horse started pawing the sand and baring his teeth at me. She spoke to it quickly in a lingo I didn't understand, and it stood quietly alert.
I lifted her carefully to the bare back of the horse and made sure she was secure.
I felt goose pimples rise in my neck. What would happen now?
"You—you feel all right to ride?" I asked, swallowing hard.
She nodded.
"My body is fit," she kept those eyes trained like guns, straight into mine and I felt warm under the collar. "You will stay at Ghadames?"
I shook my head.
"Nope. Going to Damascus," I answered. "Don't know where I'll be sent from there."
Her face clouded. She leaned forward, placing a small hand on my shoulder.
"I think you will come back to Libya," she said in a low voice, and without warning kissed my forehead. The horse seemed to leap from the ground and I jumped backward in alarm, sprawling in the sand. I caught a glimpse of the girl, clinging to his back as he flew directly into the last of the khamsin and out of sight into the sky!
I stood there, waiting for another look at her, but she was gone. I turned like a blind man and stumbled toward the truck. My foot hit something and reaching down, I picked up a long, lance-like pole. Its end was splintered.
The shaft of her spear!
Clinging to it as though it were one bit of evidence that would save me from going crazy, I went to the station wagon. Slim climbed into the driver's seat, shifted into low gear and we rolled onward without speaking.
Finally he turned in his seat. His face was still pale.
"I don't suppose you'll want Cap Rodman to hear about this?"
"I—I'd appreciate it if you'd forget the whole thing," I admitted, "no use repeating the impossible."
GHADAMES isn't much. A little smelly water, a few trees and a dozen sun-baked huts. A half-dozen British water-trucks were around the well.
I saw a Captain Bret Wasserman of the R.A.F. and convinced him that I should fly to Cairo with him. I knew that a plane was available there to take me on to Damascus.
At Cairo I stayed at the Sporting Club over night. Wires from Howard Frazer and Gertrude Hunt were waiting for me the next morning.
FILE STORY BOTH PAPERS
NAZI CAMP DESTROYED LAST NIGHT
GOD BLESS THE FLYING HORSES
FRAZER.
That last line hit me in the face. Had Slim told Frazer about my experience on the road? How had the Yanks, after a deadlock of two months, suddenly wiped out a thousand Nazis over night? I knew the obvious answer, but I didn't dare believe that my help to the girl on the road had anything to do with the destruction of the Germans. And yet, the wire mentioned flying horses....
I read Gertrude Hunt's wire then, and for the time being, forgot Hell's Acre and what had happened there.
FRAZER WIRED YOU ON WAY DAMASCUS
FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE HURRY HELL'S POPPING
GERT.
A story at last. I sent cables to Jameson and to Frazer's boss at the Blade, that the Yanks were withdrawing from Hell's Acre after accomplishing their mission. Then I rushed through six British 'red tape' stations and finally got my passports and press cards cleared for Damascus. It was midnight before the Imperial Airways flying boat left the Nile and drifted up into the cloudless sky over Egypt. The night was bright and I felt cool and clean away from the biting khamsin winds that swept Hell's Acre. There would be no warrior maids riding over Cairo.
I grew drowsy with the hum of the flying boat and thought of Gertrude Hunt waiting for me at Damascus.
"Hell's popping," she had wired. Sounded as though I was about to earn some of the money the Mirror had handed out so freely during the past six months.
Damascus had been in the hands of the British since they had pushed out the Vichy French. It was an age-old city, filled with Moslems and Arabs who had seen so many conquering armies that they paid little attention to any force that occupied the place.
I HAD to leave the flying boat and catch a small plane that took me inland to the dusty airport at Damascus.
Gertrude Hunt was waiting for me. I had radioed her from the flying boat.
"Hiya, Reg!" she greeted me enthusiastically.
I dropped my bags and took her by the elbows, lifting her up to my size. She kicked her feet, giggled, then kissed me on the lips. I put her down.
She gasped.
"Something else besides Damascus has been cooking!" she said. "Take it easy, will you, big boy?"
We went toward a taxi that waited by the gate to the field and I stacked my two bags and the typewriter into the front seat beside the native driver. Once inside, I turned serious.
"Look, Gert," I said. "I got your wire at Cairo. What's going on here?"
She lowered her voice. We were on The Street Called Straight, and headed for the center of the city.
"The British are due to get kicked out of Damascus on their little fannies," she whispered. "Now don't shout. I want it kept quiet."
I couldn't believe it. The Vichy French were licked. The Nazis were busy at Tunis and were due for more trouble when they retreated across the Mediterranean Sea.
"By whom?" I asked suspiciously. "Have you been drinking this stuff the Arabs hand out?"
The taxi stopped outside a two-story, adobe hotel and we were busy getting my name on the register and my bags upstairs. Once in my room, Gertrude stretched out across the bed. I took out the typewriter, tuned it up with finger practice and wheeled around in my chair.
"All right," I said, "in ten minutes we'll eat. I'll foot the bill and you can eat your little self corpulent. Meanwhile, get rid of this dream you're dreaming. A young girl like you should be careful.... And, by the way, corpulent means fat."
"Shut up, Reg," she said good naturedly, "the trouble with you is you can't see through the fat in your head to recognize a news break."
That humbled me a little and she went on.
"Did you ever hear of Queen Dido?"
"Dido?"
The name brought me forward in my chair.
Gert arose from the bed and drew the shades. She walked to the door, opened it and looked down the hall. Then she threw the bolt, came back, and sat down.
"THERE'S a small British garrison here," she said in a low voice. "By the end of the week the Arabs will destroy it. Then before the British can move in reinforcements, Damascus will be in the hands of the Arabs."
I didn't believe it. The Arabs were peaceful. They didn't want to fight.
"And Dido," I asked. "Where does the ancient queen of Carthage figure in?"
"You're going to think I'm nuts," she admitted. "I'll never be able to use this part of the story, but I can say the Arabs have risen against the British. That's good enough for me.
"I met a young Arab by the name of Rubal Khan out at the Tennis Club."
"Ah," I said, "the tall, dark man?"
"He fell for me hook, line and fez," she admitted. "I've been seeing him for a month. Last night he talked at great length about building a new country. It is to be a new retreat for Arabs and Arabs alone. I asked him just how he was going about all this and he said his people would strike when the world was busy at greater problems. He said he had the support of a great tribe of people who would come from Southern Libya."
"Led by Dido?" I asked, half facetiously. She nodded.
"It's a fairy tale, at least part of it," she admitted. "But the Arabs will make a lot of trouble. It will make good copy."
I was troubled by something that went deeper than the fear of another war with Arabia. I thought of the girl on the desert.
"I'm not so sure that any of it's a fairy tale," I said at length. "Perhaps some ancestor of this Dido dame really does live. Perhaps she has a lot of power hidden down there in the desert. No one knows much about that part of the country."
She wrinkled her nose and chuckled at me.
"Reg is going sensational again." She chided. "That's why you boys don't get the breaks. You're always dreaming up something that can't happen. You let the story escape you and go dreaming after impossibilities."
That was a challenge and I took it as such.
"I'll tell you something that can't be cabled," I said suddenly, "a story that you'll laugh at with every muscle in your pert little body."
"Oh, what a pretty compliment."
QUICKLY I told her about the girl who rode the flying horse, and how I had laughed at Captain Barth Rodman. Then I went on, giving her the details of my trip to Ghadames, the wounded girl warrior and her strange reference to Dido. When I had finished she was silent for a long time. She stood up, walked to the bed and sat down again. Lighting a cigarette, I passed it to her and took another for myself. A smile crossed her face.
"You say the girl on the horse kissed you?" she asked.
It made me mad. I couldn't resist tossing a hard one at her, and the minute I did it, I was sorry.
"Jealous?" I asked. "Yes, and I liked it. It's obvious that you don't believe a word I've told you."
Her face was suddenly solemn and she looked as though she was about to cry. She stood up again and walked to my side.
"Reg," she said softly, "you don't have enough imagination to dream up that story. I'm afraid I have to believe it, although it sure puts me and my appeal behind the eight ball."
I felt cheap then, and tried to kiss her. She backed away, teasing.
"Lips that have touched a warrior maid will never soil mine."
She walked swiftly to the door, pivoted and stood there staring at me.
"Look, Reg Johnson," she was deadly serious, "keep this under your hat. I tried to warn the British, but they just laughed at me. If you take your story to them they'll do the same thing." She hesitated, opened the door and added, "At least we're safe until the khamsin sweeps over Damascus. I hope the weather stays clear."
She went out and closed the door softly behind her.
Until the khamsin sweeps over Damascus.
That was on Wednesday. On Friday afternoon a hot wind came from Libya, caught up the desert sands of Egypt as it whirled onward and by night Damascus was full of biting dust. The moon was hidden and the wind rose in intensity until traffic was halted.
No one knew where the storm had started and strict commands to vacate the air grounded every R.A.F. plane. By Saturday morning the streets were deserted and the sky was a thick, black mass of whirling sand.
IT WAS about four when Gertrude Hunt pounded on my door as though she were trying to put a hole in the panel. I was trying to wash away some of the dirt the khamsin had showered over me that afternoon.
"Open up, Reg," she sounded excited and worried, "make it snappy."
I put on my bathrobe and went to the door. She came in with a worried scowl.
She sat on the edge of the bed, and I sat on a chair. "What's up?"
"Plenty," she said shortly. "Remember those warrior women you told me about?"
"What are they up to now?" I kidded.
"They're over the city," Gert said abruptly. "They've been seen north of the main gate, and they are slaughtering the British troops."
"What?" I leaped to my feet. "That can't be possible."
Her voice grew impatient.
"Oh, it can't, can't it?" She was plenty angry. "Well, the Arabs took over three of the gates this afternoon. While you were wandering around the roof of the hotel watching the storm, your flying girl friends came down and bottled up all the British patrols outside the city. They killed off the few men they found and now Damascus and everything way down to the center of the Arabian Desert is once more in Arabian hands."
Gert wasn't fooling. I didn't know then just how completely the British had been routed. I learned from her that the stout old commander in Damascus was tossed into a pig pen and his finger and toe nails torn off gently by Arabian fighters. The Arabs seemed to have done the torturing. The women who rode from the air made all the quick strikes and bewildered the British troops. They had been killed in their barracks and in their tanks on the desert.
I dressed hastily, and Gert and I made a quick round of the city. The storm had cleared and tall, white-robed sons of the desert were on every corner. They didn't disturb us, but their tanned, inscrutable faces and long rifles were enough to tell me that our presence wouldn't be desirable in another few hours.
We tried the British Consul and found that everyone had been forcibly removed across the border. British headquarters was a mess of smashed furniture and bodies.
RUBAL KHAN came in as we watched bearded men carry away the papers of the British war office.
Kahn was a tall, slim man with a fez and a loosely fitted robe. His eyes were pitch black and he had a nose that hooked cruelly down to a thin, expressionless mouth. By desert standards he may have been handsome.
He gave a few orders then turned and saw Gert Hunt. His bow was low, but there was no doubting the expression of hatred on his face.
"The American, Miss Hunt." He swept gracefully across the room and took her hand. Bending over it he kissed it tenderly, and then his eyes bored into mine.
"Miss Hunt, you will introduce me to this sahib?"
My eyes never wavered from his, but I knew I was facing a tough baby. I wanted to smash his nose flat, but I decided to bluff my way through. Stepping forward, I took his hand.
"Gregory Johnson, foreign correspondent for the New York Mirror," I said. "I hope your fight is with the British and that I remain neutral?"
He did not answer for the moment. Finally a faint smile crossed his face.
"You will wish to contact your paper?"
"This is important news." I admitted. "Will you let a cable go through?" He smiled.
"But of course, Sahib Johnson." He bowed low. A little too low to please me. Gert was making frantic signals behind his back, but I ignored her.
"I take it that you are the leader of this uprising?" I said, digging for my notebook.
Khan leaned back against an overturned cabinet.
"You will be allowed to cable a full-length story," he said coolly. "You will wire that North Africa, extending west to the border of Algeria and including all of Libya, Egypt and Arabia is under the control of the Arabs. You will give full credit for this move to me, Rubal Khan."
I interrupted him.
"Not to mention a certain armed band of women who ride the khamsin?"
His face darkened.
"You have been reading fairy tales," he said quickly. "Many people who told such tales in Arabia have gone away without their ears."
My eyes dropped to the broad-bladed sword at his waist and I grinned, although I didn't feel like it.
"I get it," I said. "I'll wire it the way you gave it to me, and tell nothing but the story you give me."
"When you have finished, I'll see that your story is dispatched," he said. "Meanwhile my men will stay with you."
THREE Arabs came in and stood behind me. I felt the bars of a prison closing in as he turned away. Gert was pleading with me silently.
"Wait," I protested. "Miss Hunt—we are together."
Khan turned and there was blank rage on his face.
"Miss Hunt was with you," he assured me in a steely voice. "What we want we take. She will be happier with me than she is with you."
I had no choice. If I tried to move, I'd be cut down on the spot. I watched him go out and saw one of the guards prod Gert gently in the back. She looked over her shoulder at me, flashing a wan smile.
"Looks like that Tennis Club date is washed up."
I nodded. She was trying to tell me that she thought Rubal Khan's headquarters were at the Club and that I should try to make it there.
"I have a pal out there," she said. "He sure keeps an eye on what's cooking."
While Khan's playboys stood over me with the urge to cut my windpipe, I wrote the cable in longhand. I told everything I dared to and wrote out instructions to send copies to the Mirror, the Blade and to Gert's outfit. As an afterthought, I added to each message : "Expect no further message from here for sometime. The knives of war are sharpened and God knows where they'll fall."
I knew that "Inkpot" Jameson would read between the lines and hoped that if he had any power to keep the knives from falling on my tender neck, he'd go to work at once.
After that I went to the cable office and turned the stuff in. My convoy was still with me. The Arab at the cable office was having trouble with the English equipment, but he took the message, filed it under a pile of paper and nodded.
"Sahib will be taken care of."
They hustled me out to the street and into a car. I wondered just what Khan had told the boy at the cable office. Frankly, I figured Jameson would never see the story. Khan was either a damn fool or he felt himself powerful enough to fight the United Nations single-handed.
As the car picked up speed and rolled through the town, I remembered the fierceness of previous Arab wars and wondered if, perhaps, Khan wasn't smarter than even I had guessed. The desert men hated whites and would spit on them at the slightest provocation. They might be spitting for a long time now. The British were cleaned out. The Germans were keeping us busy to the west, along the Algerian coast.
WE REACHED a low, mud hut and I was dragged from the car. They went through my clothing quickly, took my press cards and ripped off my shirt. Inside the dark, stinking building I was tossed into a cell. No light came from outside and a single, barred window in the door let in more smell than it did light.
The guard was a fat, greasy merchant of Damascus. As he locked the door, he leaned close to the window and sent a blob of saliva shooting into my face.
"Sahib will be comfortable," he gloated. "Later, perhaps, we will improve his beauty by removing his ears."
I remembered the scarred, torn faces of British, soldiers returning from the desert and was silent. He turned and shuffled away, disappointed that I hadn't busted into a tirade of abuse.
There had to be a way out. I knew that Khan intended to dispose of me later. His own pride had prompted him to permit my sending the cable. He would make love to Gert and if I knew the kid, she'd slap his face at the first pass. Khan was a tense, nerve-driven man. His temper would stand no stretching. When Gertrude died, I'd go with her.
I sat in the cell for an hour, wondering how the devil I could escape. I could not leave alone. Gertrude Hunt was true blue and to leave her here in this bandit's nest alone was unthinkable.
"Looks like the Tennis Club date is washed up," she had said. It wasn't, if I could prevent it. "I have a pal out there—knows what's cooking."
The fat jailer came with a plate. He pushed it under the cell door. I took the plate eagerly. My stomach had been shouting for food. He stood there, a wide, idiotic grin on his face. The plate was covered with uncooked, stinking intestines of a goat. I lost my temper. I threw the plate full in his face, against the bars. The man jumped back and the glass showered over him. He fell on his back and rose brushing the stuff from his face. I expected him to enter the cell then and there, and run a knife into my belly. I didn't care much.
"You stinking savage," I was close to the door, shaking the bars with my hands. "Do that again and I'll break every bone in your body."
He turned and went down the hall. 1 knew then that Khan was saving me for a bigger plan. The jailer had evidently been told that he could not have the honor of running me through.
The plate had shattered and bits of it were on the floor at my feet. For a while I was too bitter to do anything but walk the width of the cell, swearing bloody murder.
My foot hit a sliver of glass and I stooped down quickly. The floor was covered with the stuff. Eagerly I found a long piece, broad where it had broken from the edge of the plate, and slivering down to the sharpness of a dagger. It was about eight inches long. I pushed it into my belt. I was grateful for that plate of garbage. It had given me a slim chance.
I THOUGHT the whole thing out carefully, waiting until I knew the jailer was worked up to a murderous pitch of hate. At last I went to the door and called to him.
"Hey, you son of a seventh son of a pig!"
My voice carried down the length of the hall and I heard his stubby feet coming on the run. An Arab hates and fears the pig. He came into sight, knife unsheathed. The man was cunning. He stood well away from the bars, staring at me speechlessly. This fool American was asking for death. Begging for it.
"Come here, porky" I said in a low voice. "You look fat enough to turn out plenty of pork chops."
He started weaving toward the cell slowly, his knife in his hand. I knew he intended to use it this time. There is a limit to what he could take, I saw.
He was close to the door. I felt the long piece of heavy glass in my hand. Suddenly he lunged, throwing the full force of his body toward me. I dodged to one side and for a fraction of a minute, his arm came through the bars. I grabbed it tightly and held on.
A howl of fear escaped his mouth and he kicked the outside of the door, trying to release his arm. The glass dagger came up and reaching out I planted it in the soft part of his thick throat. He stopped kicking and sank down against the door. I held on with all the strength I had. Holding his arm, I saw the dagger slip from his limp fingers and clatter to the floor. I reached out as far as I could and tried to reach his pockets. I had seen him take his key ring from the right side of the dirty robe.
My fingers found the ring and drew it out. I released the arm and heard him hit the floor with a thud. The building was still silent. Khan had evidently hidden me well. He didn't care to be caught with an American prisoner on his hands.
The door opened easily and I stepped over the man on the floor. Pushing him inside, I retrieved the dagger, hid it in my boots and took off his robe. It was three sizes too large for me. I wrapped it around me quickly and went down toward the outer door.
I went outside and into a narrow, dark street. I wanted to run, but dared not try it.
I KNEW Damascus well. By keeping to the edge of the streets and grunting occasionally when I was spoken to, I managed to reach the outer gate. I passed through without being challenged by the three Arabs who guarded the place. They weren't expecting action as soon as this. In half an hour I reached the Tennis Club.
It was a low, well laid-out place. The British had made it the prize location for their games and drinks. Rubal Khan had chosen his headquarters well.
There were a lot of natives around the rear door and I saw they were offering heavy baskets of vegetables to the cook. I went toward the crowd and shouldered my way through them. It was now or never. As soon as my escape was noticed, no amount of bluffing would get me through. The cook was a slim, cadaverous individual who looked as though he had never tasted one of his own meals. I recognized him as the same one who had cooked for the club when the British were here. His expression of sadness and the rebuffs he was handing out on all sides convinced me that the man might still be loyal. I did not think he was an Arab, although I couldn't be sure.
He stared at me for an instant, complete bewilderment on his face.
"You have nothing to offer," he said. "Get out before I throw you out. The others have already been told."
I drew several gold pieces from my pocket and held them carefully before me where he could see them.
"You are a friend of the American girl?"
An amazing change came over his face. He took my arm quickly and drew me inside. He closed the door in the face of the waiting crowd, leaned against the door and wiped his face with his apron.
"You shouldn't have come here, Sahib."
"Miss Hunt expected me?"
He nodded.
"The Miss Hunt is locked in her room on the second floor. She told me you might escape and come for her. It is necessary that you stay well hidden until night."
He led me along a short hall, opened the door to a dark store room and I found myself inside. Footsteps came from the front of the building.
"Dogs, they are," the cook started sputtering outside. "They sell me dirty vegetables and rob the purses of my master."
He was evidently putting on an act. I heard the footsteps stop and a heated conversation between the strange voice and the cook. At last the cook sounded more humble and the steps went away. I sighed with relief. So far so good.
IN FIVE minutes he told me that he was sympathetic with the British and had plans ready for our escape.
"Miss Hunt was here early this morning," he said in a low voice. "I went to her room with food soon after she came. She told me about you. That pig, Rubal Khan will leave here tomorrow for Cairo. He plans to take her with him. If you hadn't come, she would have tried to find you in the city."
I felt a new warmth for Gertrude Hunt. She would have faced Damascus alone to find me.
"But the escape?" I was eager. "The place seems well guarded." .
A smile crossed his thin face.
"I would poison the food of the men here with pleasure," he answered. "Fortunately, it isn't necessary yet. I am of more worth here where I can hear plans. I have located an airplane that will fly. Miss Hunt says you are a pilot."
"I can get them up," I admitted. "It is easy enough to come down, though perhaps I can't do it in the approved manner."
He shook my hand and backed out of the store room.
"I will tell Miss Hunt that you are here. Wait until you hear the clock in the kitchen strike nine. It will be dark. Go to the edge of the last tennis court. We will be there."
I wanted to thank him, but he was already out of the closet and whistling about the kitchen.
I waited for hours. The clock struck seven. Men seemed to come into the kitchen often and I got the impression that there was a lot of cooking to be done.
At last the clock struck nine.
I made sure my dagger was where I could reach it easily, opened the door cautiously and looked out. The room was deserted. I found the door through which I had come and stepped outside. There were several guards stationed about the place.
It was dark and I still wore the robe. I went slowly across the courts, pretending that I had no definite destination. The last court was well away from the building. The lights were blazing in the main dining room. I assumed that Rubal Khan was busy with a victory dinner. I waited for, perhaps, ten minutes, straining my eyes toward the lower doors of the building.
"Reg!" Gertrude Hunt's voice was close to my elbow. "Gee, but it's good to see you."
I WHEELED around and saw that the two Arab guards who approached, were not guards at all. Gert and the cook were swathed in white. She took my hand and squeezed it.
The cook led her past me. I heard his voice, low and filled with caution.
"Follow us at ten yards. You are watched."
I saw them drift away into the darkness, turned and walked in the direction they had taken. I could see several planes in the field some distance ahead. Some of them were wrecked beyond repair.
I caught up with them beside a broken-down British transport plane. The cook pushed me into the shadow of the machine.
"Get out of your robes," he said swiftly. "You have less chance of being seen."
I saw Gert slide out of her robe and followed her example quickly.
From the upper story of the hotel, a high-pitched cry of alarm went up.
"Quick, into the plane. They have discovered your escape."
Gert slipped into the forward seat. I took the cook's hand.
"You'd better come along."
"No," he drew away from me. "I am trusted here. I must get away from you before they see me."
He turned and was gone, a slim, white wraith in the night. I climbed in quickly and felt around for the controls. The plane would be cold.
Figures were rushing from the hotel. The guards were running around like wild men. A few shots were fired.
Now or never.
I gunned the engine and it started with a deep-throated roar. I felt the power go through me and felt safer. A group of guards broke away from the building and rushed across the tennis courts toward us.
"Give her the works, Reg," Gert turned in her seat, her worried eyes on me.
The instrument panel was strange to me, but I could guess most of it. I yanked on a lot of levers that looked vaguely familiar and we started moving. The night was clear and the field looked smooth. Shots zipped over my head and I felt lead tearing into the fabric of the wings.
"Here goes nothing," I shouted.
The engine roared wide open and we shot down the field. Before I knew exactly what happened, we were in the air. On the ground, the Tennis Club looked like a small, white birthday cake. Tiny figures ran around under us and flashes of gunfire popped into the sky.
"Where to, Miss Hunt?" I was trying to remain calm about the whole thing.
SHE had hitched herself around and was staring at me with solemn eyes.
"One place is as bad as another, Reg," she said. "They'll have planes after us in a minute. I think the desert is the best for our money."
"Then you believe my fairy tale now?" I asked. "Perhaps, we can get the flying horses to work for us for a while."
"It's worth trying," she shouted.
Two planes took off and as we floated ahead through the night, I could see them, two small streaks, gaining altitude on our tail.
"Can you use the gun?" I pointed toward the machine gun rigged up forward.
Her lips parted in a game smile.
"I can pull the trigger," she said. "When the ammunition runs out, we'll try walking."
I realized suddenly that there were no parachutes in the plane. It sent a chill through me that I couldn't control.
"It's a long way down," I pointed over the side at the vast, smooth sand bed under us. "Make your shots count."
The first pursuit plane was gaining rapidly. The second was directly behind, flying five hundred feet over my tail. The next three minutes would put them within firing range. I wondered vaguely why I had got Gertrude Hunt into this mess and thanked God for having a swell sport along when I really needed help.
A burst of tracer bullets tore at us from above. Looking back, I saw the highest plane cut down suddenly with its engine wide open. He had his gun on my tail and the little row of bullet holes crept steadily along the top of the plane.
I threw the stick over and we went down in a long; clean dive. The desert came up like lightning and the plane was still on my tail, pounding lead in a thin, deadly line not three feet above our heads.
I didn't dare let the plane dive too long. It was an antiquated model and might decide to rip apart at any minute.
We came out of the dive and shot skyward, up past the plane that was diving and into the clear night sky. No use trying to run for it. They were single passenger Hurricanes, a lot faster than the big bus I piloted.
I saw the second plane come up under my belly and knew his shots were ripping into the lower wing. Swinging around, we had him for a minute, directly in front of us.
I'm sure it was good luck and not Gert's marksmanship that sent a blast from our thirty-caliber gun straight into the cockpit of the plane ahead. I saw the pilot slump over and Gert's thumb go up in a gesture of triumph. The Hurricane, piloted by one of Khan's Arab pilots, tipped over and started a slow, lazy spiral toward the desert.
THERE was a dense spot of clouds high above. I saw the other Hurricane climbing behind me, dived down to gain speed and then shot directly up into the cloud bank. Looking back I saw that he was still there, trying desperately to get over us. The clouds closed in. To throw him off, I turned directly back toward Damascus and stayed high. I knew if he followed, he'd think we were going in the opposite direction.
Things were a bit calmer now. I found the earphones and noticed Gert had donned hers.
"Looks like we settled the first one," I said. "If we can dodge the other...."
She turned and a sickly grin spread over her face.
"I—I killed him," her voice was low over the phone. "That's the first time I ever killed a man, Reg."
I grinned.
"Take your choice," I said. "It was him or us. I think it's safe to turn and head East now. We'll have to stop for gas."
"But where?"
I hadn't thought of that. Cairo, and every point between here and Tunis would be swarming with Arabs. I thought of Captain Barth Rodman, still buried in the Libyan Desert. Frazer had advised that the Nazis had been beaten. I wondered if Rodman had evacuated Hell's Acre yet. It was worth a chance. We left the cloud bank and I saw no trace of the Hurricane.
"We'll try to make Captain Rodman's camp," I said to the head phone. "He's our only chance now."
She nodded and kept staring ahead into the vast loneliness of the night. I pitied Gertrude Hunt. I had, in a way, got her into this mess. Yet, God knows what might have happened to her if she had been alone in Damascus.
She understood now just how important the contact I had made with the flying warrior might be. There was no mistaking the importance of the flying horses, when the Arabs took control. They had struck on all sides, slaughtering the small outposts of British soldiers before they could imagine what had happened. Seemingly, the Arabs had the full support of the flying army, and yet I could not believe the girl I had seen on the road was a heartless killer. Another thing seemed to point to certain flaws in leadership of the flying horse band. In Hell's Acre, they had attacked both the German and the American troops. In fact, if I could rely on Frazer, it was the flying horses who destroyed the German camp there.
The mess gave me a headache. I hoped fervently that my cable had been released to New York.
THE hours reeled by with a sameness that nearly drove me mad. Gert slept fitfully, awakening to turn an anxious eye toward me. I knew we must be somewhere near Ghadames. The sun had risen in a huge, burning ball of fire and the sand below sent up shimmering, dust-blown heat that I could feel in the plane. The sand was endless.
"I see something," Gert's voice came on the earphones. "Looks like a column of men."
She pointed a slim finger eastward, and I thought my own tired eyes could pick up a slight rise of dust.
Sure enough, in five minutes I could make out a line of soldiers marching northward out of the desert. Then the gas gauge of the plane started to flutter and bounce on the bottom. The engine sputtered and stopped. I gave the starter a few sharp jerks and it roared again, spit and stopped for the last time. The tanks were empty.
"Sit tight," I shouted. "I'll try to get us down the easy way."
I saw her grasp both sides of her seat. It was bumpy, and try as I might, I couldn't keep the machine in a straight glide. We were over the column of troops now and I still could not identify them. We drove downward and twice I had to swoop upward to cut the speed. The desert rolled up under the wheels and it suddenly looked rough and deeply scarred. I felt the wheels touch, bounce clear and we drove into the air again. Then we came down hard. The plane ripped across the sand, hit a ditch and nosed up with a sickening thud. My head hit the instrument panel and I blacked out.
THE next face I saw was the homely, lovable phiz of Howard Frazer. He was bending over me, my head on his arm. He held a canteen close to my lips. My face was wet where he had poured water over it. He hadn't shaved in a week and there was a wide, dirty bandage across his forehead.
"Welcome home, Reg," he said quietly. "You must have been carrying a crystal ball to find us like this."
I tried to grin, but my face was so badly cut up it hurt to move.
"Gert?" I asked. "Was she—she...?"
Frazer lifted me up until I could look around. Gert was stretched out in a small tent that had been thrown up hurriedly. Captain Rodman was kneeling beside her, washing the sand from her face.
"She's okay," Frazer assured me. "Flew clear of the plane and hit soft sand. Took the skin off her forehead and one arm. She's in one piece."
A wave of relief passed over me and I stretched out on my back.
"How in hell did you get here?"
Frazer grinned wryly.
"That's what I was going to ask you," he said. "Rodman got orders to come north to Tripoli. We're all finished up at Hell's Acre."
"Tripoli?" I remembered with sickening clarity that the Arabs were in Tripoli. In fact, they were along the entire coast line. "You can't go to Tripoli. Rubal Khan and his men are there!"
Captain Rodman had left Gert's side and was walking toward us. He had on an extra heavy coat of desert dust, but was as tall and stern as always.
"Who the hell is Rubal Khan?" He took my hand and I stood up with difficulty. "Glad you made it, Johnson. I don't know how you picked us up out of all this sand."
I returned the greeting, and then as we retreated into the tent, I told them what had happened in Damascus. If I had exploded a load of T.N.T. under Frazer's bottom, it couldn't have affected him more.
"But I never even heard of Khan," he protested when I had finished. "He's probably some two-bit tribesman who is putting up a bluff."
Rodman was silent, waiting for us to finish.
"You weren't at Damascus," I said, "or you'd know just how powerful this attack was."
"These flying horsewomen," Rodman said at last. "We had a taste of them down at Hell's Acre."
I wanted to know about that.
"Well," Rodman said, "it was about three days after you pulled out. It had been quiet all night. Toward morning a storm came up. The khamsin came out of the mountains and some of the men went around telling stories about seeing more of the warrior girls. After what happened to you on the road to Ghadames, I couldn't call them liars.
"The khamsin swept over us and blotted out the whole valley. When it cleared, I sent a patrol out to see what damage it had done to the Nazi lines."
He paused, wiping gritty sweat from his face.
"Johnson, there wasn't a German soldier alive over there. The whole camp had been blown sky high. We found a couple dozen of those spears, bits of blown-up tanks and that was all."
WE WERE all silent after that. Frazer found a case of canned beans in one of the trucks and we drank water and ate beans. Rodman's men set up camp for the night. After a while I sat alone by the wrecked plane, trying to plan some sort of action. Gertrude Hunt came out of the tent and walked over to me and sat down.
"I want you to know I appreciate the rescue act, Reg," she said softly. "If it hadn't been for you...."
A shudder passed through her.
I turned and saw the raw, torn skin on her forehead, the compassionate look in her eyes.
I leaned over and kissed her on the lips. They were soft and she didn't draw away. Just sat there looking at me as though I was a very important cog in her machinery of life.
"Don't do that again unless you mean it, Reg," she said. "We've only started this thing. I don't forget a kiss."
I was silent, looking across the desert and wondering what the next few days held for us all.
"Still plan to look for those warrior maids?" she asked suddenly.
"It's all pretty helpless," I admitted. "The Arabs will do a lot of fighting before they give up. With Egypt, Libya and Arabia up in arms, Hitler will have a breathing spell and 'Fat Chin' can get ready for us in Italy."
She was suddenly angry, her eyes looking fiercely into mine.
"If it hadn't been for those flying horses," she said bitterly, "it wouldn't have been possible."
"And yet," I reminded her, "Barth Rodman says the flying horses wiped out the German army down here. It doesn't make sense."
"War never does," she answered. "But—Reg—wait a minute."
"I'm waiting." I wondered if she was thinking of the same thing that had been troubling me.
"Suppose these flying horses would fight on either side. Suppose they don't know who to fight and that Rubal Khan was the first one to reach them. They may be fighting for a price."
I nodded.
"Exactly what I've been thinking for the past week," I admitted. "That's why I want to find them and try to tell them what they're doing to the world."
She stood up.
"What's holding us up?" she asked.
"Rodman," I admitted. "I don't know what he should do now, nor does he. We have about nine hundred Yankee soldiers here. They have supplies for a week, and they might as well be an army without a country. There are a million Arabs between here and the Yankee lines to the north."
THE sun was down and as we sat there, I heard a faint call over the dunes to the west. I stood up, listening, every nerve taut.
"Did you hear...?"
"Maybe a sentry," she answered.
"I think not," I said grimly. I could see them now, hundreds of horsemen, their robes flying in the wind as they swept across the sand a mile away.
"Get Rodman and tell him the Arabs are attacking!" I shouted. "I'll find a tank or some place where you'll be safe."
As I ran toward Frazer's tent, I saw a half-dozen tanks lumbering down upon us. They were British, medium weight type, evidently captured by Khan's men. Rodman's sentries were on the job now, and the cry of alarm went up.
The next twenty minutes were filled with plenty of action. We had three tanks left, a couple of anti-tank guns and plenty of small ammunition. Frazer came out in his underwear and slipped into his pants. We ran back toward the tanks. Rodman was with Gert, getting her into one of the huge American jobs as we came up.
"How many of them?" Rodman was panting, shouting orders in all directions and trying to get Gert to safety at the same time.
"I'd guess over three thousand," I said. "They'll circle in and pick off the men a few at a time. We'll have to keep under cover and in a close ring."
The first tank was a hundred yards out. A couple of Yanks behind me opened up with an anti-tank gun and it spattered shot against the oncoming tank. A shell went over my head and splashed fire among the trucks.
Our men dug in as quickly as possible, but the attack had been unexpected.
The first sweep of Arab fighters came in, their voices shrill and murderous.
From hurriedly scooped out fox holes, and under the trucks, the Yank fire drove them back. A few fell from their horses, staining the sand with blood. A dozen Yanks had been shot with the long-barreled Arab rifles.
I found myself standing in plain sight before the trucks, firing like a crazy man. A hand grabbed me and drew me behind the supply truck. The Arabs came in again, firing hurriedly and withdrawing before we could organize.
Gertrude Hunt was in a tank with Frazer. Rodman went along the line, shouting at his men, encouraging them to fire and keep out of sight.
THE Arabs swept toward us five times, killing a couple dozen men on each raid. Their own ranks showed no hint of diminishing. There were too many of them. The night was clear now and every shot could be sent home with deadly accuracy.
Somewhere down the line a Browning went into action, spattering lead into the sand out beyond the trucks. The Arabs were smart. They stayed out of range and finally the firing stopped.
Rodman came to me.
"You're not in the army," he said in a worried voice, "but you've been with the desert fighters for years. You know as well as I what the chances are?"
I grinned, trying to reload the Garand he had pushed into my hands ten minutes before.
"With these kids you've got, we'll shoot ten men to their one," I said. "But with a ten to one average, we can't hold out until morning."
I pointed across the sand where the Arab band was getting steady replacement.
"We are the only Americans between here and the Tunis front. They don't intend to leave until they kill every last man."
He looked grim.
"If that's the way they want it...." He turned away.
As I sat there behind the thin wall of sand that kept my neck intact, I felt a cold shiver go down my back. The wind had risen and far to the south I thought I made out a thin streak of black climbing into the sky.
The warrior maids were riding. At first I couldn't be sure, but as the wind increased, I knew the khamsin was coming. It arose in intensity and the desert was covered with flying sand.
Rodman's men noticed it and so did the Arabs. The white-robed men sat on the far hill, evidently assured that they need not attack again. Our doom was sealed.
Yet I wondered as I saw our men holding their places in the column just what manner of women these could be who would calmly wipe out honest soldiers and let the blood-sucking desert bands go free.
There was no time for dreaming. We drew our lines in tightly, placed the tanks where they could do the most good and waited with pounding hearts.
The first full force of the khamsin hit us and I could see no further than the end of the truck under which I had buried myself.
I saw a flash of white and knew.the horses were swooping from the sky and down among our men.
Then I saw her.
FATE sent her to me before our small army was destroyed. She came out of the flying sand and her horse landed on the desert not five feet from my hiding place.
She rode with a lazy grace that accented every line of her slim body. I scrambled from my hiding place and saw that she was riding away swiftly with raised spear.
"Wait!" The sand choked me and I fell.
I thought she was gone, but she bad heard my voice and wheeled around.
"You!" Her voice was harsh. "You are in the enemy camp?"
I stood up quickly as she jumped from the horse and ran to me. The girl who had fallen and hurt herself on the road. Those same depthless eyes. The soft flesh that no desert storm could touch.
Her arm was on my shoulder and her fingers gripped tightly, as though she could not believe.
"But these are not the enemy!" I cried. "They are Americans, my own men!"
"But the god-men of the desert?" She pointed through the storm to where I knew the Arabs were waiting. "They are the all-powerful!"
It wasn't for me to judge then why she fought against us. I couldn't stand there, her eyes burning into mine, listening to the screams of my own men as they felt the thick spears of her army.
"You're a fool," I shouted into her face. "You destroy men who fight for the freedom of the world. You fight for the scavengers of the desert."
I thought she was going to strike me. Her eyes flashed fire and her hand withdrew from my shoulder quickly.
"You say that?" she asked.
I nodded.
"I didn't think a girl as lovely as you could murder in this way." Her lips parted slightly and a smile brought dimples to her cheeks. "I—lovely?"
"Yes," I answered savagely, "you're a beautiful, savage killer. If I didn't know you were killing my friends, I'd...."
She stepped close.
"On your word," she said softly, "I am going against the command of our fate."
Before I could stop her, she was once more on the bare back of her white horse. As I watched, a strange thing happened. She leaned back and a thin, high-pitched scream escaped her lips. It carried above the storm and echoed with the night wind. The khamsin, filled with the hurtling, flying bodies of her followers, seemed to hesitate and a hush came over the sands.
Her lips opened again and a series of commands that were gibberish to me escaped her mouth. As I stood there, wondering what death awaited me, the khamsin seemed to twist away from its course. It reeled back away from the line of Yankee soldiers and gathering speed, swept straight across the sand toward the Arabs. The girl was gone, and with her, thousands of her kind, riding the night straight toward the Arab army.
I felt a strange lump come up in my throat, and knew that my words had changed the fate of Bart Rodman's troops.
SOLDIERS came out from under trucks and Rodman found his way to my side.
For half an hour we watched the cloud of death that hung over the Arabs and listened to the screams of dying men. Then it cleared and the khamsin swung around toward the south.
We waited, knowing how complete the slaughter had been.
Fraser came from the tank and Gertrude Hunt walked over to where we were standing. There was nothing to be done. There wasn't a horseman in sight across the hill tops. Red-stained white robes were twisted and massed in ugly piles.
"I—I don't understand?" It was Gert's voice, taut and frightened.
Frazer's dark little eyes were on me. They glinted as I turned toward him and we understood each other.
"The same girl?" he asked.
I nodded, wondering how he had guessed.
"She must have a lot of power," he suggested.
I felt weak and let down. I was glad that we had been spared, but somehow events had been taking place much too fast during the past half hour.
"Wait a minute," Gert broke in. "What's the gag? You two know something?"
Frazer was staring straight over my shoulder toward the last whirling strands of the khamsin.
"Sit tight, sister," he said. "We're going to find out."
At the same time a little cry of fear escaped Gert's lips and Rodman jumped away from me as though I were a leper.
"Look out, Greg!" It was Frazer.
I pivoted and saw a half-dozen white horses bounding over the sand. They were bouncing into the air with every leap and seemed to cover forty feet with every move. The first horsewoman was almost upon us.
I knew why they had come. In some strange manner I was going to have to justify the part I had played in changing the tide of battle. I didn't try to escape. It was as though Fate were finally catching up with me.
I saw Rodman, Frazer and the awe-stricken face of Gertrude Hunt as they watched me. A strong arm swept around my waist and I was lifted into the air quickly. I felt my shoulder strike the softness of her body and knew the maiden of the khamsin had lifted me to her horse's back.
The dust swept in about us, blackening everything from sight. I was conscious only of the strong, white horse under us and the smiling, full-lipped face that stared down into mine. Then we were lost in the vortex of the storm and I could only hold on, hoping she had a firm grip on me. There was something awful about that flight into the center of the khamsin. Still, knowing she had done all this for me, I felt that I owed a debt in return. Where and how that debt would be paid, I could not guess.
FOR what seemed like hours I lay across the back of the horse, wondering at what moment I would slip and hurtle to death below. I couldn't guess how far we had come.
We rode swiftly, the girl with one hand grasping the mane of the flying horse and the other around my waist. I tried to see the expression on her face, but in the darkness it was impossible.
Then our speed diminished. The storm was clearing and the sky was almost clean of sand. I looked downward and saw jagged, chasm-cut hills. Green, dark valleys and high peaks lay below us like a relief map.
"You need not be frightened," she had evidently felt my body tense up as I looked downward. "You will be safe."
I looked back and saw the others following as the horse leaned its neck forward and dived toward the earth. Down we shot, faster than the wind. The valley sprang toward us and I saw the green spread out slowly and become clear outlines of brush and trees.
I had to open my mouth and breathed only with great difficulty. The pressure on my ears as we dropped downward was terrific. The horses descended between great cliffs and into a secluded valley. I could see a smooth field, roadways that criss-crossed the place and a number of low, tile-roofed buildings at one end of the valley. Then our steed hit the ground as lightly as thistledown and halted.
"We can walk now." The girl slipped from the horse and I dropped to the turf. I was terribly sick from the ride. "We must go at once to the cavern."
We were alone, near one of the roads that lead across the valley. The other riders had dropped beside us and galloped away swiftly. I didn't know what to say. I wanted to thank her, to ask why I had been brought here.
"We are going to the outer chambers of the cavern," she said abruptly. "You will remain there until you are summoned."
Now that we were once again on the ground and she stood before me I had a better opportunity to study the girl. I couldn't guess her age. I only knew that she was the most desirable thing I had ever seen. I felt a warmth of gratitude in my heart for the way she had spared us on the desert.
"What strange valley is this?" I asked. "I don't know what is expected of me here. I want you to know how much I appreciate...."
She smiled, squeezing my hand warmly.
"You need not worry. We must go to the chambers at once."
SHE whirled around and walked away toward the tiled buildings. As we approached, I tried to see everything through a cool, news-wise eye. I had been trained to put every scene in concise word lengths. Perhaps that is why I was so impressed by the one-story, colorful structures that grouped in a low line along the face of the gray cliff. They were surrounded by wide, grassy slopes and to my left, a number of the warrior maids splashed in the green waters of a mountain stream. I saw that we were in a valley with no visible outlet, and guessed that the stream came and went through underground passages.
The other horses had been taken away. The girl who led me, the fine Arabian steed that walked behind her, were masterpieces from an old print. Her body was lithe and smooth. The soft garment that clung to her legs, the brass breast-plates, and the feathered helmet were all part of a startlingly fresh picture of youth.
Whatever strange qualities the horses might have, anyone would have been impressed by their appearance alone. Without doubt they came from a pure strain of ancient Arab. The girl's white horse was clean-limbed and held its head proudly. At every step, it pranced and lifted its hooves like the king that it was.
We crossed the lawns and an attendant took the horse away to the stables along the cliff. The girl led me through a small door and into the coolness of the chambers. The room was small, spotless. Walls were hung with bright draperies and a tiny fireplace sent out the warm heat of charcoal.
"You will bathe in the stream and await the pleasure of Queen Dido." She turned quickly and left the room.
I should have felt proud of myself, because I was evidently making an impression on this lovely creature. Instead I felt like hell. Gertrude Hunt had my heart strings tied up tighter than I liked to admit. After what the warrior maids had done for us, I knew I owed a debt. I hoped fervently that I would be able to pay it in full and still return to Gert and Howard Frazer out there on the desert.
The stream was deserted when I bathed. The water was cold and fresh and I felt better when I returned to the chamber. Shaving was out of the question so I sat with my back to the outer wall, letting the warm sun pour down over me.
I dozed for a while, and the thought of Queen Dido went flashing through my head.
Queen Dido, so history said, was an attractive woman. No one could guess how attractive, but she had founded the city of Carthage, and she had drawn there men and women who made it the richest trading center of the world. She must have been powerful both in physical attractions and powers of recourse. To believe that she was alive, and I was to see her in the valley, was hard to swallow. Yet, after the flying horses, nothing could surprise me now. "Inkpot" Jameson, facing the everyday facts of the editorial desk, would certainly put a black mark down for me if he knew my present trend of thought.
"The queen is awaiting your coming."
I JUMPED, awakened fully and felt the glare of the sun in my face as I stood up. A tall, supple girl was before me. She had approached silently and her face was stern and unsmiling.
"Thanks." I didn't know what else to say.
"You will follow me to the cavern." She turned and crossed the grass swiftly, entering one of the doors that lined the colored tile.
I stumbled after her only half awake, brushing my hair back from my face to present a half-way decent appearance. The room we entered was very dark after the sun outside. We crossed it quickly and she pulled hard on a long cord that hung from the ceiling. The wall slipped away. Beyond us, going directly into the face of the cliff, was a wide, blue-rocked tunnel.
I went along it, wondering at the pale, precious glow that radiated from the wall. The tunnel widened suddenly and I stopped short.
We were in the cavern. It was a huge round-ceilinged cave, all of it glowing a faint, luminous blue. A circle of stone steps led downward into the center and on these steps sat the warrior maids. They were dressed in simple, ankle-length white robes. An entire army of perhaps two thousand women, a solid circle of white, topped with the gold and chestnut of luxurious hair. They faced the center of the cavern, and my eyes followed until they focused on the queen to which they were so attentive.
"What the devil?"
My own voice was suddenly loud and hollow and the exclamation had emerged before I could stop it. Small wonder. Seated on her blue stone throne, a simple chair-like thing carved from solid rock, was the girl who had brought me to the valley.
No wonder she had been able to turn the tide of battle. I had ridden here with the queen of the warrior maids.
It's hard to say whether I was frightened or extremely happy about the whole thing. I was terrifically impressed, as though I had interviewed a woman who, after my story was written, turned out to be the most important person on earth.
I stood there for a full minute, mouth open foolishly. I couldn't take my eyes from the slim figure on the throne. She wore a long, white robe covered with tiny gold clips. Her head was crowned with a gold ringlet that reminded me of a halo and from its sides soft white wings spread above her hair.
I felt a nudge in my back, and stumbled down the steps between the warrior maids. I went toward her, trying to get the words out of my throat that were sticking there so tightly.
She motioned me closer and I stood below her. A small flurry of movement came from her audience and I knew that in placing myself below her feet, I had favorably impressed her court.
"I find the queen a complete surprise." I was trying to say something nice. "In fact, I find that she is as attractive as I had hoped she would be."
IF YOU'VE ever faced a couple of thousand good-looking women and tried to pass out the right kind of compliments without hurting anyone's feelings, you know how I felt. The queen stood up and I knew the warm, radiant smile she gave me was in complete approval.
"I am sorry I could not tell you before." She hesitated and the smile played over her face. "I had to be sure that you knew nothing of my power when you asked for my help."
"I'll be grateful forever for what you did." I thought of Frazer, Gert and Rodman's men all alive because she had listened to me. "I'll try to repay...."
She held her hand up to silence me.
"There will be no payment," she assured me. "Only, in respect to those I lead, I must ask for a complete explanation."
I didn't know where to start. I had no idea how she felt toward the present world, how she had come here or what she expected to accomplish. I said as much in a few words, and summed up the whole situation.
"First I must know why you came here and why you fought with the Arab leader, Rubal Khan. He is our enemy."
An angry murmur rose from the warriors who surrounded me. I knew that I had said the wrong thing. Queen Dido, however, ignored them.
"When the city of Carthage fell," she started, "the women who fought with their men were sent across the desert to retreat before the Romans came. They were under my leadership. A storm came up suddenly...."
"Khamsin?" I asked.
She nodded.
"The entire army of women were buried deep in the desert. Before we were lost there, the goddess of the khamsin appeared before us. She was an old, old woman but she was not harsh with us. She gave us a promise."
"'You will not die,' she said, 'for you have committed no crime. This world will be man's world of blood for many centuries. In coming ages you will arise and with you will go two blessings. You will ride high in the khamsin and fight against the destroyers of the world. You will ride a pure strain of stallion. When the khamsin lifts the sand from you, go and find the horses that will help you fly above the storm.'"
I stood very still, trying to absorb the full meaning of her story.
"There is little more," she went on. "The goddess of the khamsin also said, 'You will be rewarded for your fight against the dictators. When you have at last freed the little people of the world, the khamsin will again come and sweep you back to the Carthage of your time. There you will live with peace as your watchword and no man will question your rule, though it be for countless ages.'"
QUEEN DIDO sat down quickly, as though very tired. There was a sadness etched on her face that I did not understand.
"But why did you fight with Khan?" I asked. "You fought against us and for us at once. I do not understand."
"We did our best," she said simply. "We could not understand the world with its changes. The dark man, Khan, came here in his winged bird. We thought he was a god, come to give instructions. We are yet unable to decide whether he or you are correct. We will hear your story."
That was a large order. Perhaps I was fortunate in having chosen a profession that schooled me in history. I spoke for a long time, sometimes looking across the audience of eager warriors, sometimes staring straight into the deep, understanding eyes of the queen above me. I knew in my heart that she did not question my honesty. I was in fact, speaking for her, to convince her followers.
I tried to remember what ancient history told of the world after Carthage and I traced the lives of man down through the ages. At last I told of the paper-hanger, Hitler, and his pig-faced follower, "Fat Chin" of Rome. I outlined the present war in Africa and explained what they had done against our cause in putting Rubal Khan in power.
"It will take a long time to throw Khan out," I ended. "During that time Hitler will go on killing babies and Khan will be his best student."
I saw a shudder pass through her and knew from the dead silence that followed that I had spoken well.
"Then we have been moving away from our goal, instead in toward it," she said sadly. "I think we are agreed that you tell a simple, untarnished truth."
Around me, to the delight of Queen Dido I was sure, a low murmur of assent arose. For the first time in my life, I felt as though I had done something toward killing the hateful beast of dictatorship. It was a deep, wonderful feeling. Only a newsman, fighting day after day to get the truth to his people, could understand the thrill that passed through me.
Queen Dido left her throne and walked slowly down toward me. She took both my hands in her own and I was ashamed of the rough, blistered skin that rubbed the smoothness of her tiny fingers.
"You have done us a great service," she said. "We can only ask that you lead us against these enemies of the world. You are better fitted to know them than I, a woman long away from the world."
I KNEW when I left the Cavern that I would do as she asked. There was a power in the touch of her fingers, something about the sincere admiration in her eyes that flattered every atom in my body. Rubal Khan would come here soon and demand an explanation from his unfaithful allies. Khan had learned by now that his army of Arabs had been attacked and destroyed. He wasn't a man to be toyed with. When he came to the valley there would be power with him to destroy. Just how the warrior maids would fight I did not know. I wanted to learn and learn quickly every trick they employed. Dido taught me.
In the days that followed, she was again the simple warrior. Never once did she order her fighters to do a thing that she would avoid. I saw that her tenderness and loyalty to each of them was a wonderful thing. They followed her about constantly, taking care of her every need.
Because she had accepted me, I was also all powerful. With her help I learned about the explosive tips of the spears, a secret left her by the goddess of the khamsin winds. I rode a flying horse and knew how to guide him with a touch of the knee. At first, to rise above the earth frightened me. When I realized the full power of the steed under me, I learned to delight in the strong, heady feeling that flight gave me.
Yet that uneasiness in me did not change. I wondered if Rodman had led his troops into the Tunis territory and if Gertrude Hunt was safe. Daily I went into the clouds above the valley and watched for the coming of Rubal Khan.
Then one morning when I arose, the air was filled with the khamsin. I went to the grassy slopes before the queen's quarters and waited until she appeared. The valley was already black with the dust and the wind howled from the hills.
"Do we ride out in this storm?" I asked.
She smiled.
"The khamsin has come to protect us. Some power approaches and the goddess of the khamsin has sent it to us."
We waited, and in ten minutes I heard the hum of planes in the air overhead.
"It is the man, Khan," she said. "He thought to destroy us."
By the stables a dozen horses had been brought out and were bucking impatiently. Warrior maids came from their quarters, mounted and swept into the sky.
"We will wait," Queen Dido said. "They will return soon."
I HEARD the planes circle the valley, but they could see nothing through the black, twisting dust.
Finally they sounded fainter and died away to the north. One plane remained. I waited, trying to tell from the queen's expression what would happen. Suddenly the roar of the bomber grew louder. It must be almost over our heads. It dived and the motors howled a protest as they cut through the flying dust. I waited for the pilot to pull up and avoid a crash. He didn't. The sound grew to a shrill scream of hurtling metal and the plane crashed somewhere below us in the forests.
When the warrior maids returned, they carried Rubal Khan with them. He was unhurt and furiously angry. They brought him to us across the grass and he stood in front of me, his face a hateful mask. He was as handsome as he had been when I saw him in Damascus. Kahn had a powerful, sunburned face that was handsome and dreadful at the same time. He spat angrily.
"I thought an infidel dog was at the bottom of this." Whirling to Queen Dido he shouted. "You promised to help me. You have destroyed my men and turned like an ungrateful wretch upon my country."
Taken aback by the suddenness of his onslaught, the queen hesitated.
Before she could answer, Khan had whipped an automatic from under his leather tunic. He was perhaps three feet away from me as the gun flew up and aimed straight at the girl's heart. I'm not sure what happened then. I knew that Dido didn't know the death she was facing. I couldn't lunge out quickly enough, so I kicked his wrist with every ounce of strength in me.
The gun flew through the air and hit the turf. While I was still off balance, he tackled me and we went to the ground. The warriors who had brought him stood in a circle about us. They made no attempt to interfere and Dido stood very still, a puzzled expression on her face.
Khan had the advantage of the first attack and I found myself under him. What he could accomplish by this fight I didn't understand. He had thoroughly lost his temper and was a raging animal. He pounded a heavy fist into my face and I tasted blood. Rolling quickly with all my strength I managed to throw him from me. The circle broke as he rolled over and over on the ground.
Too late I saw that he had reached his automatic and was on his knees, pointing it at my head. I ducked quickly as he fired and went in low. When I hit him, it was like a ton of bricks tossed at a wall. Khan sank back with a groan and I was so darned mad I could have killed him then and there. I sat astride him, pounding my fists into his rotten, black face until it was nothing but a bloody pulp. He tried to fight, but his arms fell at his side and after that I didn't have the heart to finish him.
I STOOD up and turned toward the group of warriors. Then I knew they had seen the power of the automatic. One of the girls led a white stallion to the queen. A dark, bloody bullet hole was in its flank. Khan's bullet had gone wild and hit the horse. It stood there, still powerful and a king, of his breed.
"You saved me from his fate." The queen walked to me and before her court, threw her arms about me. On tip-toes she tipped her face upward and pressed her lips to mine. The warmth of her swept through me and I wanted to hold her tightly. Instead, I stood very still until she released her hold and stepped away.
"Throw the Arab on the wounded horse," her voice was sharp and angry.
Quickly they tossed the wounded, sullen Rubal Khan on the back of the stallion. The horse knew its mission well and the look of gratitude in its eyes was wonderful to see. I knew then that even a horse can take revenge and be happy. The stallion leaped into the teeth of the khamsin and flew upward into the darkness. As it arose the storm departed with it and swept south toward the unmapped country of dark Africa.
I knew I would never see Rubal Khan again and that no paper could ever carry the true story of the Arab chieftain's disappearance. Perhaps he was destined for torture in another world—another land where we could not go—ancient Carthage.
WITH the death of Rubal Khan, I grew more lonely for my own people. A month had passed and I was at home in the khamsin. At first I was puzzled because the storm did not harm my body. I had expected to be cut apart by the stinging sand.
The queen explained this to me one night as we sat under the soft moonlight by the stream.
"The powers the goddess of the khamsin gave us are many," she said. "Why do you think we bathe our bodies in the stream?"
I wanted to say, "To keep you as fresh and lovely as you are." In spite of our close bond, I dared not. I did not reply.
"Because," she went on, "the water protects us from the storm. Our skin is untouched by the khamsin and our eyes are left clear to fight for the good people of the world."
I thought of "blind justice" and smiled.
"That stream would be a fine thing for everyone to bathe in," I said.
"It might wash away a lot of the meanness and filth of men."
I came closer to falling in love with Dido that night than I ever had before. The valley was a magic scene of moonlight and subdued color. I wanted so badly to stay with her always and protect her from men like Khan. I knew inside me that she was more powerful than I could ever be. She, a girl who had kept youth over the centuries, was older than time. A powerful ruling queen who some day would return to a world of her own.
In spite of this, she was lonely. I could not put up a wall against that loneliness.
We spent hours alone and I was human enough that her love for me forced me into returning her caress and holding her in my arms.
I did not feel equal to her. With Gert it had been a warm, human friendship. Queen Dido dwelled in a world away from me and to press my lips to her firm mouth was a privilege. A feeling of worship for a queen who was immortal arose within me and I longed to get back to the worry and war action of my own place in the world.
THE second day of the second month, the strong khamsin came to the hidden valley. It had been like this always. The warrior maids were prepared for battle, but they could not move from their valley prison until the goddess of khamsin sent her storms to carry them across the desert.
In the early morning I saw Queen Dido and talked with her near the cavern. I knew as she stood before me, her eyes worried and stormy, that destiny would split the thread of our lives and send us apart. The storm had arisen and was tearing through the valley and up over the rim of the cliffs toward the desert.
"I've tried to reason it out," I said. "I know we cannot live together. You are a queen whose destiny is in a far off land. I'm a man of the present."
"For many days I have forgotten that I am a queen," she said softly. "Now it is very hard to remember anything but our being together."
I felt a lot like that. I was tempted to sock destiny in the nose and make wild promises. That's the way of a man when woman's spell is upon him. Instead, I held her gently at arm's length.
"The army of Khan will be unruled and ripe for conquest," I said quickly. "If we fly against Tripoli we can strike them to the heart. After that my people will come and finish the battle."
A smile fluttered her lips and she dried her eyes quickly.
"My followers will doubt my ability if I show such weakness."
She was again a queen, and as she threw the softness from her heart, I thought that I had been right. We were not destined to stay together. The goddess of the khamsin, potent and ever-present, had seen to that. I had one duty now. I must see that this troop of lost women would have a chance to redeem themselves in the eyes of the past and return to their own time, conquerors under the wise hand of a powerful queen.
THE warrior maids of Libya were astride their stallions and anxious to ride. They were drawn up in formation across the wind-swept lawns before the cavern. Fate had placed me beside their beautiful queen, and I was proud of our mission. Not once did it occur to me to draw comparisons between my life of a month ago and today. Then I was a man, crawling through the desert with a defeated army. Now, for a few hours, I was a flying king, helping to lead a cause that was good.
We left the valley, riding wildly in the heat of the khamsin. We swept upward into the blanket of dust and driving my heels into the solid, snorting stallion, I swept ahead with the queen, straight across the sandy wastes toward the seaport of Tripoli.
We passed over Ghadames and I knew that already the Arabs could feel the coming of the khamsin and were afraid.
Dido rode close to me, sometimes letting her hand touch mine as we swept ahead through the storm.
"Your friends of the desert troop," she shouted, "will be at Tripoli?"
I remembered Frazer and Gertrude Hunt with a sudden hurt in my heart.
"They had to fight the Arabs all the way north," I answered. "I hope they are safe."
She was silent for a while.
"You thought much of the girl with the troops?"
I hated to hurt her now. Our remaining hours were to be few. I did think a great deal of Gertrude Hunt, although I had never completely classified that feeling.
"She's an old friend of mine," I sid. "We've worked a lot together."
Dido smiled.
"More than a friend," she answered. "I think she is the one who will be your queen."
She startled me. I didn't realize that she was so aware of Gertrude. The girl queen who rode at my side was wiser than I had thought. I said nothing, not daring to pursue the subject further.
"O would gladly exchange my entire kingdom to take her place."
I still could not answer. We were already near the sea and I knew that soon we would sweep down on a helpless people and destroy them as they deserved to die. I wanted to comfort her, and was miserable to think that I, a man made god for a day, was helpless.
"If we become parted in battle," I said at last, "always remember that if I could fight destiny, I would go anywhere you wished me to go. I owe you more than I can ever repay."
"You would go—even to Carthage?"
"Even to Carthage," I said, "if that would make you happy."
TRIPOLI was beneath us.
The khamsin swept down over the colorful roofs of the sun-baked town and filled the streets with its fury. Into the heart of it rode the warrior maids, their murderous spears slaughtering the enemy. I saw great battalions of men drawn up with full fighting array, mowed down before us as though a storm of fire had hit them.
Dido was always by my side, and we followed the long avenues of the city, taking every armed column in its turn.
The khamsin continued to rage throughout the day and late into the night. Every street was strewn with dead and there was much that was holy about the clean-limbed, handsome women who rode above all this like living angels of mercy, destroying a diseased nation.
Then the fighting was over and I was thinking of Gertrude Hunt. I confess she had been increasingly in my mind since I had talked with Dido.
I knew that American troops were stationed outside Tripoli and that after the storm they would come here. I wanted to go to them now and find out what I could about Captain Barth Rodman and his men. He would know what had become of my friends.
I didn't dare speak of this, but as the storm withdrew from the city and we followed its path, Dido rode close once more.
"You need not return with us," she said. "Your destiny is here."
I was puzzled at what my next move, my next words would be.
"I wanted to find the troop of men I left on the desert," I admitted.
"They will know where you can find the girl?"
I blushed.
"I guess that is right. I promise to return with you as I said I would, but I want to make sure she is safe."
We passed the outer gates to the city.
Not once after that did the queen speak to me. We rode straight toward the lost valley and as the khamsin left, we were there again before the door to the blue cavern, our task completed, our mission done.
IN SPITE of our success a strange sadness seemed to hover over the valley. The warriors passed me quickly as they retired to their quarters and Queen Dido left without further words, seeking the depths of the cavern.
I wandered around like a lost man. The stream was cool and I bathed carefully, trying to wash away the ever stronger thoughts of Gertrude and the way I had left her on the desert. I trusted Howard Frazer and knew he would die himself before he'd let any harm come to her.
Several hours passed and I saw no one about. I went across the lawns and down the valley. The sun had gone long ago and the night was cold. I wanted to go to Dido and beg her on bended knee to forgive me. She knew that Gertrude and I were bound together by earthly ties and that she, a queen of the past, could never live happily with an earth man.
I went to the room that had been my home and saw that a fire had been lighted in the fireplace. Food was on the floor and I sat on the rug and ate some of it. I tried to sleep, but toward midnight I was startled by the sudden appearance of a warrior maid. She stood at the door, clothed in the robe of the cavern. Her face was calm and expressionless. Her lips moved as though she were in a deep hypnosis.
"The queen will see you."
I followed her down the tunnel I knew so well by now and my heart was heavy when I approached the throne. There was a lead weight inside me that refused to lift from my spirits as I faced Dido across the chamber.
"I had hoped to linger longer here," Dido spoke to me from the throne and her voice was sad and hollow with heartbreak. "You have done your job so well that you have liberated us. We return to our own time."
I went to the throne, and kneeling before her, waited for her command.
I felt her hand in mine as she descended and stood before me.
I remained waiting, I knew not what for.
The room was suddenly cold. The sand on the floor wafted upward and a wind arose from nowhere.
"The goddess of the khamsin."
Dido's words were filled with awe.
I TRIED to look about, but no longer could I face the sand with open eyes. The wind howled louder and through it I heard her voice, strong once more and triumphant. "The mission has been successful.
"We return now to our world. Some day, if you wish to follow, find the valley of the khamsin and wait for me."
The force of the wind tore us apart and the cavern was a vast, hollow mixing bowl of sand. The khamsin threw me on my face and I lay still, trying to catch my breath. For God knows how long, I lay there.
When the whirlwind stopped, I sat up, trying to dig the sand from my skin. My eyes stung and ached, but gradually I could see once more.
The cavern was no longer alive with warriors. Its blue, shining walls were pitted and dusty. The floor was deep in yellow, unmarked sand as though the desert had swept in and retaken its lost heritage.
I looked for the throne and found only a faint outline of it under the dust of ages.
Outside it was the same. The valley was a vast pit of the desert. Trees, the stream, even the stables and living quarters were torn apart and scoured to a colorless white by the force of the last khamsin.
Waiting for me by the room where I had lived was the magic horse of Queen Dido. She had left me an escape. I went to the lonely stallion and wrapped my long fingers in the coarse hair of its neck. It turned friendly understanding eyes toward me and licked a red tongue across my face.
PERHAPS fiction would dictate a wonderful end for this story. Perhaps I should have swept into the sky on the horse's broad back, found Gertrude Hunt waiting for me in Cairo and kissed her into a happy ending. That would have satisfied everybody.
Unfortunately, life is not like that. I found that with the going of Dido, the flying horse had become only a fine Arabian horse. It no longer flew into the sky on a shaft of light, but plodded exhaustedly into Ghadames, a half-dead man clinging to its back.
I returned to Tripoli, found Barth Rodman and through him, learned that Howard Frazer had married Gert and returned to New York. The Mirror and my boss, Jameson, heard Frazer's story and gave me up for dead. A new man represented the Mirror in Tripoli.
Captain Rodman was kind enough. He told me that Gertrude was broken up about my loss, but Frazer had treated her kindly and they were married in Tripoli. They had just taken a boat home.
"Tunis is taken," he said. "Thanks to you we'll have no more trouble in Africa. How about coming with me to Italy? We invade it next. Plenty of action and stories."
I muttered something about having business somewhere else, and stumbled out into the street. The horse was waiting patiently for me and I climbed wearily on its back.
I don't know what will happen when I finish this script and head south toward the desert valley. Perhaps, with a month's supply of food, they'll find my body in the foothills where the horse finds itself too weak to go further. I have but one path from here on. They don't need me up north. I did my part with the help of Queen Dido.
"Someday, if you wish to come, find the valley of the khamsin and wait for me."
I'll try very hard to wait. I only hope that the goddess of the khamsin is kind and that she will, when she is ready, take me to an ancient city called Carthage and leave me with the woman who hoped my destiny and my happiness was with her.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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