"Well, hurry up and fix it."
The yellow coal of the sun that glared down on them like the eye of an angry god, had finally, mercifully, begun to set, staining the cloudless sky a lurid orange. Soon the temperature would drop and the scorching desert would become bone-chilling cold.
Fuchs wiped grease off his hands with a rag, closed the hood, and got back inside the Volkswagen. This time the engine sputtered into life. "Ready to go, Herr Lieutenant."
There was faint droning sound in the air. Steiner pointed up. "Planes!" Black specks flew low towards them from the northeast.
"If they're Tommies we're sitting ducks," said Fuchs.
There was absolutely no natural cover, no time to try and hide their vehicles with camouflage netting, and if they drove away the dust they stirred up would only make them easier to spot. They were totally exposed.
Hartmann looked through his binoculars. A chill crept up his spine. "Those aren't planes. It's more of those giant mosquitos."
"Can't be!" said Steiner. "I killed them all!"
"The whole water table is probably contaminated," said Lippert. "They're probably breeding in other ponds too."
The patrol scrambled for weapons as the swarm dove down on them like grotesque Stukas, their loud drone filling the air.
Steiner jumped into the halftrack and swung the machine gun upwards. Green tracers streaked across the darkening sky as he opened fire. The insects swooped in low and the others tried shooting them down as well. Lippert, behind Steiner in the halftrack, opened up with an MP40. Fuchs and Dietrich knelt beside the Volkswagen and followed suit with an MP40 and a captured Thompson. Hartmann grabbed a captured Lee-Enfield rifle. The cacophony was deafening – the slow chatter of the submachine guns, the rapid deep roar of the MG34, and the sharp single barks of the rifle.
Bullets shredded wings, riddled exoskeletons, sheared off antennae and legs. Pieces of mosquitos fell like grisly rain. The machine gun's mount had a limited traverse, so Steiner could not swivel it far enough to aim at targets to his side or rear. Lippert covered his back, but then his MP40 jammed. As he struggled to clear it a mosquito landed on Steiner from behind.
Before it could bite Steiner reached around, seized one of its legs, and threw it on the floor with a curse. He stomped on its head with a big leather boot, smashing it with a sickening crunch and splattering yellow blood. But a second insect immediately jumped in its place. Gripping Steiner's broad shoulders with its legs, it speared him in the back with its proboscis, the razor-sharp mandibles slicing through his salt-streaked shirt deep into his flesh. An agonized gasp escaped his lips.
Lippert dropped his jammed weapon and began beating the insect with a steel helmet. Then a mosquito jumped onto Lippert’s back and stabbed him. He flailed away desperately, trying to throw the monster off as it sucked his blood. Both men collapsed writhing and screaming on the floor.
Dietrich batted a mosquito away with the butt of the now-empty Thompson, but two more flew in from either side. Fuchs emptied his magazine into one and then a pair dropped on him when he paused to reload. More attacked Dietrich as he clawed for his pistol. The men frantically struggled to fight them off, but they panicked and fled shrieking into the salt pan, immediately sinking up to their shins in the mud. Both were overwhelmed.
Hartmann's rifle was empty. He crawled under the Volkswagen and was temporarily ignored or missed by the mosquitos. They busied themselves gorging on his dying comrades, their cries and sobs mercifully subsiding as the insects' segmented abdomens bloated and flushed red with human blood.
He suppressed the urge to retch at the ghoulish sight. But now was his chance. The car's engine was still running.
He rolled out from underneath and scrambled inside. Questing antennae pricked up; bulbous eyes lifted from the gruesome banquet. The transmission grinded as he depressed the clutch pedal, shoved the car into gear, and sped away.
Four mosquitos flew after him.
The Volkswagen could reach eighty kilometers per hour on a paved road, but considerably less on a bumpy path like this. And if he drove too recklessly and accidentally veered off the trail he would immediately be stuck in the mud. He glanced in the side mirror, straining to see through the yellow plume of dust swirling in his wake, and swore.
They were gaining.
Steering one-handed, he fumbled for his Walther. He flicked off the safety and raked the pistol along his leg to push the slide back, feeding the first round into the chamber. He tossed it on the passenger seat beside him.
The insects caught up.
Hartmann shifted into high gear and floored the accelerator, the engine whining in protest. He gritted his teeth; he could not outrun them.
The celluloid door-windows had been detached for ventilation, so the car only had the front windshield and the convertible top. There was no way he could seal himself inside. Two proboscides punched through the canvas top, probing for him, one striking the back of his seat.
A mosquito thrust its head through the open passenger window to his right. Hartmann snatched up his pistol and rapid-fired four slugs into one of its eyes. The insect dropped away.
Another tried landing on the spare tire mounted on the front hood, but lost its footing as the car bounced along. It tumbled underneath and Hartmann heard a satisfying crunch, then another, as it was run over.
The base of the escarpment was just ahead. Salt marshes and salt pans yielded to scree and sand dunes. The trail curved towards a path zigzagging up the rugged cliff face soaring nearly three hundred meters high.
A mosquito flew up to the driver's side and Hartmann shot it with the remaining four rounds. Just one mosquito left. He clumsily tried reloading one-handed, first ejecting the empty magazine, then putting the Walther on the seat so he could pull out his only spare.
As he groped for it he rounded the bend and the car lost traction in the sand. The Volkswagen fishtailed, slid off the trail, and spun out at the base of the cliff. It crashed into a gray jumble of petrified wood, fossilized relics dating back to when lush forests had stood here thousands of years ago. Hartmann was hurled across the passenger seat and banged his head against the door.
Blood dripping from a cut above his eye, he looked for his pistol. It was gone, lost under the seat somewhere. The last mosquito landed on the rear of the car. Hartmann threw the car in gear and reversed sharply, crushing the insect against the rock face.
He let out a gusty sigh of relief as he shifted into first gear, but only moved forward a few meters before the engine stalled again. Repeated attempts at restarting failed. Hartmann jumped out and raised the dented, blood-spattered hood, switching on a light inside. He could not immediately see what was wrong and muttered a profanity. He was not a mechanic like Fuchs.
Hartmann spotted the black, oval mouth of a cave over by a gnarled, dead acacia tree. If he was stranded that could serve as temporary shelter tonight if necessary. He also noticed some bleaching gazelle bones scattered in the sand, most of them broken. That was odd.
A scuffling and shuffling sound came from within the cave and he glimpsed shadows of movement. Hoffmann's heart pounded. Something was in there – something big.
There might not be soldiers or minefields at this end of the crossing, but it was guarded nonetheless.
A huge yellowish-brown scorpion emerged, a monstrosity as long as a Nile crocodile with eight bowed, hairy legs and a pair of huge crab-like pincers. A long, segmented tail armed with a stinger arched menacingly over its back. Twelve black beady eyes stared at Hartmann.
The scorpion scuttled toward him, pincers outstretched. Its venom was likely lethal, but it would not need to sting him. The pincers looked powerful enough to tear him apart.