The Desert Hike

Gazala [Richard], Bernard [Jamie], Wonton [Darryl], Cooper [Ian], Mezmer [Shane], Mario [Kevin],

had just completed fire-arms training with the Légion Étrangère (French Foreign Legion), and began a three day hike through the rocky hills of the desert. Fleur was left back in camp marmalading. Also marmalading was Miriam and Jacob; they were brought along on in a hand-cart.

It was a solid day's travel, uneventful, and the weather wasn't too hot; 29. They made camp at an oasis.

After a Spartan dinner, Mezmer did a Detect Mythos. Sergent-Chef  Branleur showed up; it was him or his belongings.

Just after dark, Gazala called Branleur out of his tent, and distracted him with her winsome ways. While she was doing this, Mezmer undressed in the darkness, cast his new Invisibility poem ("When all around intend me woe, To shoot and stab and fight. I pucker up my little mouth, And vanish from their sight !"), and vanished.

Branleur's statue

Now invisible and naked, he searched Branleur's tent. He found a small stone statue hidden in the bed-roll. It was a weathered Eskimo carving about the size of a torch, made of soap-stone and cool to the touch. He snuck it out of the tent, but Branleur happened to glance over at the wrong time, and Mezmer forgot that objects he picks up don't become invisible too. Branleur saw the floating statue, shrieked and raced off after it, into the darkness.

But, out in the darkness, away from any light from the camp, it wasn't hard for an invisible Mezmer to hide the statue. He managed to shake off Branleur from following.

Sergent-Chef  Branleur raced back to camp and sounded a General Quarters, getting everyone up. Then they did a roll call. The party dithered and vacillated to try to stop it, but failed. Mezmer was marked as absent.

Mezmer found a cave, and tried a Sanctify on the statue. After the required hour, it flashed, but nothing else happened.

Back at camp, however, the Sergent-Chef suddenly clutched his chest ad collapsed coughing blood.

Just before morning, Mezmer hid the statue under a rock, and then snuck back to camp. He made himself known to the commanders with a "I was here all along, even during General Quarters" cock-and-bull story, and claimed, with fake embarrassment,  that he had spent the night with Gazala. Gazala reluctantly confirmed the lie.  They were both put on report.

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In the morning, Sergent-Chef  Branleur's health had not got any better, so Sous-Lieutenant Mâchoire ordered a squad of men to head back to base with Branleur on a stretcher.

The rest of the troops continue the hike to the next oasis. They left the rough jagged hills and started to cross the dry flat wastes. Mezmer contemplated returning to pick up the statue, but then decided against it. He could get it some other day.

Empty fort by the oasis

In the distance, the troops spotted some suspicious vehicles, about ten kilometres away in the hazy distance. With binoculars, the party noted that there were three trucks which matched what they saw the other night with the German-speaking soldiers. They told Mâchoire and Adjutant-Chef Garnier who noted this down. 

By nightfall, they arrived at the Aimra'at Muflis oasis. There was an LE mini fort here - an empty one - so they would have barracks and walls for the night.

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Next day,  Sous-Lieutenant Mâchoire selected all the best sneakers - some party members fitted this criterion - and sent them out to investigate the suspicious trucks that they had spotted yesterday. Mezmer went too.

Légion Étrangère flag

There were three trucks and two Mercedes staff cars in a circle surrounding a sand-coloured marquee tent with a large Légion Étrangère flag flying over it. Outside the marquee was a diesel generator. There were four machines-gun nests dug in outside this circle, each with MG-15s (German-made guns). It was well-defended, so they dared not go too close.

While they were busy surveilling the place, Mezmer surreptitiously undressed and said the Invisibility poem. Then snuck inside.

There were about 50 troops, all in LE gear, but all speaking German. There was a phonograph with the French national anthem "La Marseillaise" being played again and again. On one of the desks was a bunch of papers with some writing in French but most in German.  

There was a hole in the floor of the marquee and a ladder going down, and power wires from the generator too. Mezmer climbed down, best he could, naked and invisible. 

Down here, there was a 10m tunnel, with the roof supported by shoring, and lit by electric bulbs.

Two guys were digging at the end. They were mostly clearing out dirt and sand rather than digging difficult rock.

There were stone slabs on both walls, some of which had hieroglyphs, and many of them looked mythos. This was very old tunnel. Carthaginian time, Mezmer guessed. Some tomb maybe.

Mezmer got back to the group, got dressed and reported his findings. The other sneakers were already suspicious of the party's activities, so they didn't ask too many questions as to how Mezmer could have found all this out.

"Je suis bon pour me faufiler." (I'm good at sneaking)

Then they all went back to the LE fort.

There was no communication from this fort (there was an old telephone line but it was long broken), but Sous-Lieutenant Mâchoire, with much enthusiastic prodding (and chicken noises) from the group, decided that tonight would be a good time to attack the LE German impersonators. So, he gave the order. Maybe this is why he was a Sous-Lieutenant rather than a full Lieutenant or a Lieutenant-Chef.

First, a squad of no-names was sent off, with dispatches, back to the original LE fort, to tell Capitain le Beau. As this trip would take them 18 hours at best speed, no help was expected from that quarter.

Chauchat-Ribeyrolles
submachine gun

The LE whole force now numbered about 53 men including the party. Everyone was issued live rounds for their rifles, twelve were given Chauchat-Ribeyrolles submachine guns (with extra clips), and everyone got two grenades.

It was 2am when they left.

Four groups of three LEs were sent to each of the four machine-gun nests; the plan was to get close as possible, and to lob three grenades into each nest. The grenade explosions would be the trigger for the rest of the troops to advance. Nice and simple.

• Group 1: These three LEs took out their nest with professional aplomb.
• Group 2: These three turned out incompetent, and basically dropped two grenades at their own feet, and blew themselves up. This bright flash gave that MG-15 a clear target, so it shot them too for good measure.
• Group 3: Bernard, Mario and a soldier all superbly threw their grenades, and blew up their nest.
• Group 4: Gazala threw her grenade off to one side. Cooper's one was perfectly lobbed into the nest, and landed right at the base of the machine gun. But the numpty with them, dropped his grenade at Gazala's feet. Cooper and the numpty leapt away. Gazala tried to grab the dropped one, but just juggled it and it went off, blowing her up. She collapsed in a smoking heap, and Cooper rushed to check a for pulse. There was one, so he got out his sticky bandages and kept her from dying. [It's an abstract system.]

Bernard, Mario and soldier, sprinted the short distance, and occupied their nest - a fox-hole with the destroyed machine gun and bodies. Then they all took their second grenades to roll them under the nearby truck.

Mario and the soldier's rolls were superb, and the explosions set the truck on fire. But Bernard dropped his grenade at his feet, tried to leap out of the hole, but slipped and fell back in, right on top of it. It blew up, all but killing him. At least his body shielded the shrapnel from hitting Mario. Mario bandaged him.

Cooper's man did the rolling trick and blew up a second truck.

All the while this was happening, the rest of the LEs were advancing and spraying everything that moved with Chauchat-Ribeyrolles fire. Also, Sous-Lieutenant Mâchoire had kept a bunch of sharp-shooters at the back with rifles who picked German soldiers off. But they got a bit too keen, and everyone was dressed the same, so shot some of their own. C'est la vie.

MG-15

One of the Mercedes staff cars tried to drive away, but Mâchoire had sent a group of 7 troops to stop this contingency. They successfully shot it to bits. But, because nest 2 was still active, the MG-15 there spoke its throaty song and shot them all down.

But before the MG-15 could be brought to bear on the camp and the invaders, another group of LE troops silenced it with a grenade.

The Germans surrendered and the fight was over. But the LEs had lost 15 men, with another 10 wounded - plus Gazala and Bernard.