Lucilla--NaNoWriMo2014

Chapter Eight

Lucilla and Mark paddled about thirty minutes until reaching the shore. Once ashore they picked up their load and hid their dingy under driftwood and proceeded inland.

When they reached stone ruins as the sun was rising, Lucilla was delighted.

"Oh, Mark, these are the ruins of Ancient Carthage! My father brought me here on a trireme as a young girl. I know these very stones."

"How would you know one from another. The desert winds have carved them for centuries since you were a girl."

"Because of this carved dagger on this stone."

"What of it?"

"Mark, I buried a copper elephant here. Do

You have a minute?"

Mark looked at his watch. "You have five minutes."

In eagerness Lucillia unfolded her small shovel. In two minutes she was clutching a small copper elephant. With tears in her eyes, she handed it to Mark as she filled in the hole and made the sand blend together where she dug.

Mark smiled. "This artifact is an archaeologist's dream. Feel old that you found your toy after only 1700 years?"

"It doesn't matter," Lucilla said as she placed it in her bag.

They proceeded another mile inland, taking advantage of whatever concealment available. When they reached a small hill, they found what they had been seeking. Before them was a whole mechanized German regiment and two Italian regiments. A combined force of five thousand soldiers. In addition there was one battalion of towed Italian artillery.

Mark and Lucilla found drift wood branches and built themselves some concealment and continued to observe the German and Italians through their binoculars. They made notes on their memo books on anything they noticed of significance. To their surprise, a German caravan of staff cars made their way toward their assembly area.

Mark lit up as a general emerged from one of the cars.

"Wow!" He looked at Lucilla. "It's General Rommel. The Desert Fox himself."

"So if we get him, the war's over, Mark?"

"Not by a long shot, Lucy. But we can certainty disrupt them if we got him."

"What are we going to do, Mark?" Lucilla placed her hand on his shoulder looking for reassurance.

"Lucy, this is what I was saying about putting the mission before our lives.". He took hold of her with a serious look on his face. Our mission calls for us to radio our intelligence findings if we cannot meet the submarine tonight."

"You mean that we should communicate what we are seeing now even if we expose ourselves to danger?"

"If we communicate now, our fighter planes can swoop down on them fast and decimate them and maybe get Rommel as well."

"Okay, Mark, I trust you and we can take our chances."

Within minutes Mark had turned down the volume of his small transmitter and began sending the coordinates and strength of the enemy units.

"Lucy, we gotta scram, get out of here fast. My transmission was too long. They may have a fix on our position. We can't wait for nightfall. As they began to make their winding way toward the beach. Just as Mark reached an adjoining wall, he almost laughed aloud at what was written.

. KILROY WAS HERE.

"Maybe I haven't see everything, but on days like these I come close."

But there was no time for laughs as Mark and Lucilla heard the engines of track vehicles in the distance.

"We can't make for our dingy, Lucy. There's no cover, and we can't fight off a whole platoon of Germans."

They managed to elude their pursuers for a few minutes. But then they spotted their probable hiding place. With deliberateness the tracked vehicle with soldiers made their way toward Mark and Lucilla.

As soldiers in the track vehicles began to fire on their position, Mark and Lucilla heard the roar of American fighter planes overhead. The two vehicles in front of them exploded in two mushroom balls of flame.

To their right they could hear the roar of Allied fighter planes dropping bombs and churning up soldiers, track vehicles, and gun emplacements. Fifty caliber rounds tore through desert camouflage nets and set off stores of gasoline. Ammunition then exploded with a deafening roar. For several minutes small arms ammunition rounds shot every which way for several minutes.

The roar was so prolonged that it seemed like Chinese New Year.

"Isn't it dangerous to move now, Mark?"

Mark threw out a yellow smoke grenade.

"Our planes' pilots have been briefed to watch for us th throw out yellow smoke. If they see it, they will look for us to move West and will report our suspected location to headquarters. But they'll also order the submarine not to risk surfacing. So by now They know we are alive at this moment and will be on our way home."

"We're on our own, aren't we, Mark?"

"It's going to take everything we have to get back to Algiers."

"We'll, Mark, if we have to die, I'm happy that we're together."