Michael looked up at his visitor.
The man wore a tan-colored short-sleeved shirt open to show his white undershirt and a pair of tan-colored trousers tucked into dusty black boots. On the pocket of his shirt was pinned his Iron Cross and his Luftwaffe airman’s badge. He was an example of the handsome Nordic breed, with the touselled blonde hair of a wild little boy and sardonic amber eyes that belonged to a worldly-wise man. He was of compact, powerful build with a chiselled face, a hooked nose and a firm jaw, and he stood about five feet ten. Across his right cheek the slash of a fencer’s scar showed pale against his desert tan. A second smaller scar divided the left blonde eyebrow into two halves. Michael thought that this man had definitely seen his share of action, and perhaps another man’s share as well. The way he held the gun said he knew how to use it and would use it at the slightest provocation. The amber eyes focused fully on Michael and the pistol was unwavering, yet the man had also today seen his share of injury. Blood from a gash at his hairline had coursed down his forehead and along the right side of his face. His lower lip was split open and blood had dried on his chin. A blue knot swelled over the left eye. He had been through some rough weather.
Behind the man, maybe two miles away, Michael could see the black smoke rising from another aircraft wreck. This pilot had not come down with his ship, however, for he still carried his parachute pack slung over one shoulder and folded up within it could be seen the white chute itself.
“Name?” the man asked.
“Gallatin,” Michael answered. His jaw felt dislocated, but so be it.
“Gantt,” the pilot said. “This is yours?” He motioned quickly with a tilt of his head toward the open kitbag on the ground a few feet away. Michael figured the man must have carried it over from beside the still-burning Lysander, since it was scorched by flames.
Michael nodded.
It had been gone through. Michael noted his Colt automatic in Gantt’s waistband under the outer shirt. Michael’s change of clothes was scattered around, and the canteen with its black leather shoulder strap lay atop his second pair of shorts. He could not fail to see the three bullet holes in the kitbag’s canvas and the bullet hole about midway up the canteen. Gantt had pushed a knot of cloth into the hole. “Unfortunately most of the water was lost,” Gantt said, “but I did squeeze some back into the canteen from your clothes.” He frowned and glanced toward a third plume of black smoke many miles away. “The talented bastard who shot me down had a superb Immelman, but he was not quite so good at his snap roll. What was his name?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a flyer.”
“No, you’re a faller,” came the reply. “You should feel lucky you’re not dead. Most who tangle with me end up that way.”
“Do most who tangle with you,” Michael said carefully, “not have guns on their planes? What was the point of shooting down the Lysander?”
“You got between me and a Spit. The bullets go where they go.” Gantt quickly scanned the horizon. “Now it’s time for us to go. They’ll see the smoke and come looking. Stand up.”
“No,” Michael said.
“What did I hear, Englisher?”
“I said…no. Meaning I’m not standing up. You go where you please, but I’m staying here.”
“Are you?” Gantt stepped forward and placed the gun’s barrel against Michael’s injured shoulder. “I can hurt you a little more, you see.”
“Go ahead. I’ll just bleed some and wait for the RAF to arrive. As you say, they’ll see the smoke and come looking.”
“I didn’t mean your air force will come looking,” Gantt said. “You’re too far from your base and you’re off the regular patrol route. I’m talking about the Dahlasiffa. The Death Stalkers. You have heard of them, yes?”
Michael had heard rumors. Supposedly the Dahlasiffa was a warlike tribe of scavengers who stripped corpses of anything valuable after a battle. They knocked out gold and silver teeth, took money, watches, medals, helmets, boots, and it was speculated they were likely stockpiling rifles, pistols and grenades to use against enemy tribes. Michael had never seen a Dahlasiffa or met anyone who’d seen one, but the word at HQ in Cairo was that the Dahlasiffa not only stripped corpses but also made short work of the wounded.
“They’re real enough,” Gantt said. “They usually travel in packs of six or seven. We’re in their territory. They’ll see the smoke and they’ll come looking to strip corpses. And they won’t care who’s wearing what uniform, either, or how close to being a corpse you are. They’ll finish that job. What’s the brand of your watch?”
“Rolex.”
“Breitling.” Gantt showed Michael the watch on a brown leather band on his wrist. “I intend to keep it, and my arm. Shall we go?”
Michael thought about it, but not for very long. The Lysander, burned to its metal framework, cast no shade. The world was made up of yellow sand, black rock and white glaring sun. It was a furnace. He stood up.
“Carry your bag,” Gantt told him. “And…oh, yes… I have your nice straight razor in my pocket, if you’re wondering. I’ll carry the canteen. But you should put those clothes back in your bag, as well. They might be useful.”
Michael did what he suggested.
“Your left arm’s broken?” the flyer asked.
“Possibly. Whatever, it’s not working.” Michael had already considered his situation regarding a change to wolf form and tearing this man into pieces even the Dahlasiffa could not loot. The problem was, he couldn’t run on all fours. He couldn’t leap to avoid a bullet. So in this particular instance he had more power on two legs, as a man.
Gantt nodded. “Bind it up,” he said, as he once again cast his gaze along the horizon.
Michael spent a moment getting the dark blue collar scarf tied around his neck and then forcing the arm into it. The pain made him growl deep in his throat. When he was done, fresh sweat stood out on his face. He picked up the kitbag, moving as slowly as a hobbled old man.
“Go!” Gantt pointed to the west. “This way!”
It was no surprise to Michael that Rolfe Gantt, the German Messerschmitt ace who since the beginning of his career in the 1939 invasion of Poland had shot down forty-six enemy planes—and now added four more credits to that number—wished to head toward the German lines instead of toward the British in Cairo. Michael was more versed in the ground war but he’d certainly heard and read of Gantt’s prowess. There were other Luftwaffe aces in North Africa, among them Richard Thess and Franz Ubevelder, but it was Rolfe Gantt who’d appeared on the cover of last month’s German Signal magazine, standing with his arms crossed and a wide grin on his face in front of the black-tailed 109.
Michael walked, carrying the kitbag. Gantt held the pistol on him for a while, but then lowered it to save his arm strength.
Michael knew exactly what Gantt wanted: to find a German patrol or outpost as soon as possible, to give up his prisoner and maybe get a truck ride back to his airfield.
Then it was off to a POW camp for Michael Gallatin, and it would be a very long war for a caged lycanthrope.
They crossed a landscape that seemed to have no beginning and no end. It was a world apart in its solitude, its merciless fury, its silence but for the hissing of a sudden wind that brought a further blast of heat and a scatter of sand thrown into the eyes.
They hadn’t gone very far when it was obvious to Michael that they weren’t going to get very far. His shadow upon the stony hammada was the blackest ink. The sun drove a white-hot spike into his head, he was already craving water and the flies had found them. Found their wounds, to be more exact. First one or two came to feast upon the crusted gashes, and then they summoned others to the banquet. Within thirty minutes of leaving the Lysander’s charred skeleton, Michael was the victim of a moving mass of flies that clung to a cut above his left eye. A score of flies tried to get up his nostrils at the tasty gore he was breathing around. They fastened themselves to his lips and crawled into his mouth, and no amount of head-shaking or slapping them away could keep them from their food. Also, they did have a taste for sweat. Likewise, Rolfe Gantt’s forehead wound was the focal point of a fist-sized clump of flies that writhed and rippled in nearly orgasmic delight to get at what he was made of. They got hold of his split lip and tried to winnow into the fissure, to break it open so more blood would flow. They dashed themselves against his eyes as if to blind him and make him drop. They spun around his head like a dark halo, and settling down into the thick blonde field of his hair they sucked at his scalp for salt.