In the makeshift infirmary set up inside one of the Zeppelin's vacant staterooms, Harry and Danny, who had a little knowledge of medicine from apprenticing in his father's pharmacy as a boy, had just finished patching up Von Beitz, lying sedated and bandaged-up on the bed.
Luckily, they'd found plenty of medical supplies onboard, which the pirates had looted from some French hospital ship it seemed. With Ayden, the only man onboard who could read French, translating the labels of the different drugs for Harry and Danny, they'd worked through the day on Von Beitz, fighting to keep him alive.
Harry, working with a pair of surgical clamps, had pulled no less than half a dozen slugs from Von Beitz's body. There was severe blood loss and pretty extensive organ damage, but, miraculously, no bullets had found his heart or head, which explained why he hadn't died instantly. Operating on him alone had been extremely risky – with so much blood loss, the patient was unlikely to survive the surgery – but in the end, Harry had won. Von Beitz would live.
Keeping him pumped up with as much morphine as they dared give him for the pain and sulfa to keep his wounds from turning gangrenous, they let him rest. The German definitely had a long road to recovery ahead of him, which would involve weeks of pain and there would almost certainly be permanent organ damage that would trouble him later in life, but he would live. Next, Harry turned to his next patient: Nala.
He had rinsed out the young lionesses' eyes with a saline solution and applied an anti-gas rubbing ointment he'd found in the ship's stores to treat the burns. Although nobody had any idea whether the medicines Harry was using would even work on a lioness, or whether they'd have any complications, it was their only hope of saving her eyesight. With her eyes bandaged up, but at least no longer in pain, Nala was left in Simba's care, until Harry's treatment had run its course so they could determine whether or not they'd be any permanent blindness. Mheetu had been assigned to guard Fritzer, currently in custody, handcuffed to the bunks in another stateroom. The young lion had told the pirate captain he'd better hope his sister wouldn't be blind, or else he'd have his guts for garters, to which Fritzer had scornfully replied he'd only be doing him a favour and that he hoped to see them all one day stuffed and mounted.
With the injured taken care of as much as possible, Harry and his men got to work on their next task at hand: assessing their newly acquired airship and taking inventory of their resources.
After removing the remaining bodies of the pirates that had been killed in the siege and burying them in an unmarked mass grave in the middle of the desert, the eight companions took stock of their supplies. Their luck had finally taken a turn for the better, for there were plenty of weapons, tools, food, clothing and other supplies onboard the Zeppelin. The pirates, who spent most of their time holed up in their airborne stronghold when not conducting their raids, were well provisioned, living in luxury up in the skies.
Among the airship's cargo, the soldiers also found plenty of loot; gold shipments, jewellery, silks, liquor and tobacco products, and money of many different nationalities; entire treasures, seized from ships and trains that they'd captured. There were French, English, American, Libyan, Greek, Italian, Turkish and even German goods to be found here, all worth a fortune. A king's ransom by every definition – and now it all belonged to them! Such a pity, out here on the plateau, it was all worth less than the sand on the desert floor.
Of course, there were a few drawbacks. The ship's Marconi was ruined, so there was no hope of sending out another distress signal and staying put until they were rescued. None of them were experienced airmen, and Von Beitz, their original balloonist, wasn't going to be much help to them now. It would be quite a challenge figuring out how to get this Zeppelin going again and flying it back to the nearest civilisation. Still, they had no choice but to figure it out somehow.
Harry, as commanding officer of the group, had announced himself the new captain. Danny was assigned the duties of helmsman, with Slayn as planesman and gas control officer. Ayden, who knew how to draw charts and read a compass and sextant from his career as a war correspondent, was assigned ship's navigator. Mick, who had some prior experience of repairing truck engines for his country's armed forces, was promoted to chief engineer and took up his new duties in the Zeppelin's engine room. As for the lions, Harry had appointed Mheetu as round-the-clock guard for Fritzer, while Simba was assigned the duties of ship's lookout.
Once duties had been assigned and work shifts divided between them all, Harry had ordered everyone to study every mechanical blueprint, every handbook and every piece of machinery onboard, before they were ready to take the airship up for their first test flight. The biggest problem was the fact that all the blueprints and all the control labels on the Zeppelin were in German and their only German speaker was currently recuperating, doped up with morphine, unable to translate for them.
Searching through the airship's library, Harry had finally found some dictionaries, so they were able, with painstaking efforts, to make some crude English labelling tags. Those they attached to all the valves, switches, levers and controls throughout the ship, so they'd have a general idea of what was what. By the end of the day, the gondola looked like it was decorated for a child's birthday party with all those ridiculous paper tags strung up everywhere, but it was better that having to learn fluent German.
A week after the destruction of the oasis, Harry and his companions, all of them now washed, shaved and with a change of wardrobe, albeit civilian rather than their customary army uniforms, gathered in the infirmary, where Harry was ready to remove the dressings from Nala's eyes. Simba and Mheetu had joined them, anxious to learn whether she'd be able to see again or not. Harry ordered Danny to dim the lights and he carefully removed the bandages from Nala's face. The blisters on her nose and mouth had gone down substantially and no longer pained her. But her eyes could be a very different story.
Harry removed the dressings. Nala blinked a few times; her eyes were still their normal stunning blue, but looked horribly bloodshot from the chemical burns, as well as from the ointments Harry had applied to treat them. At first glance, it seemed Nala wouldn't retain any sight at all. But then, much to everyone's astonishment, she smiled, staring at each of them in turn. She could see again!
"It's still pretty blurry, but I can see," she said, blinking in an attempt to clear away some of that annoying blurriness. The lions breathed a sigh of relief; Nala wasn't going to be blind after all. She turned to Harry, standing up on her hind legs to nuzzle him in gratitude. "Thank you, Harry. I will never forget this." Harry stroked her over the head.
"Just doing my duty, Nala."
On his bunk nearby, Von Beitz, who had finally regained consciousness three days ago, but still too weak to get out of bed and dependant on morphine for the pain of his injuries, muttered a congratulations in German, as they all cheered at Nala's recovery. Harry had severely chastised him for almost getting himself killed by boarding the pirate Zeppelin against orders, to which the German had responded that he couldn't have allowed his own countrymen to threaten his friends. When he heard of the massacre Fritzer had unleashed upon the Oasis Pride, he furiously declared that man lacked the honour to be called a German and that he deserved to be prosecuted as a common criminal when they got back to civilization. In the end, Harry had to give him some credit for his actions; although foolish and reckless in the extreme, it firmly established his loyalty to their group.
At last, things were looking up for them. With their new airship, they now had equipment, arms, supplies and proper means of transport. After nearly two years on the plateau, they would soon be going home! But first, their commanding officer had one final mission for them.
It was late evening. Over the past few days, they had made good progress learning how to commandeer their new Zeppelin and had made a few successful, albeit sloppy test flights over the desert. The airship performed splendidly. She'd come through the siege completely undamaged, except for the ugly tear in the outer skin, caused by their glider crash-landing onto it, which they'd stitched up after a couple of days of hard work. Ayden had even taken the liberty of taking down the pirates' black flag and put up the Union Jack, along with the American, Russian and German flags, which he'd found in the chart room, all flying together on the ship's rudder as a testimony to their international group.
Harry had summoned everyone in the ship's first-class lounge for a meeting, to discuss their next step. He had brought down the maps from the chart room and spread them out on the pool table for everyone to see. Using the notes from his brother's journal and now having proper navigation instruments to work with, he and Ayden had been able to determine exactly where they were and their way home.
"This is where we're now, gentlemen," said Harry, pointing with the tip of a pair of callipers at a tiny circle with an X he had drawn on the edge of the Hoggar Mountains where the plateau was, yet not marked on the chart as it was unknown. Using a ruler, he drew a line between the plateau and the M'zab Valley, 347 miles to the north. "And that's our destination."
"Hooray, we're going home!" cheered Danny. The boy was anxious to finally see his home and mother again, who'd probably given him up for dead by now, after he'd went missing in action. What a story he'd have to tell her! But his Captain's next words wiped the smile off his face.
"I'm afraid we have a little problem," said Harry, "We could easily make it to M'zab – if we had the fuel." Beside him, Mick, who had spent the last couple of days measuring the fuel load, showed Harry a clipboard with his calculations. As it turned out, they only had enough left in the tanks to do another fifty or sixty miles at best. It seemed Fritzer's plan to set up a base of operations here on the plateau had been due to the fact that his airship was running low on fuel and would soon reach the end of the road.
"There's no way we can make it to M'zab on only 50 miles worth of fuel," Harry continued, "So, my decision is that we set course for the Pride Lands instead." He pulled up a hand-drawn map of the Plateau he had made from his brother's notes, which showed the Pride Lands on the north-eastern side and the Oasis Pride than had once existed on the western end, close to where they were now. He winked at the three lions, who looked delighted; they were finally going home! Harry's men however were not all that keen for not setting course straight for home. After being stranded here for two years and with the war finally over, they were all anxious to see their families again.
"Captain, with all due respect, why take such a pointless detour?" asked Slayn incredulously, "What's the point?"
"He's right, you might want to spend the rest of your days on this godforsaken plateau, Captain, but we have to get home!" retorted Mick angrily, "Your lion friends are not our concern!"
"You can't keep us here forever, Captain...!"
Under normal circumstances, Harry would have severely chastised them for questioning his orders, maybe threatened them with a court-martial. Unfortunately, with the exception of Danny, none of his men were of the British Army, so, legally, he had no authority over them. He was just a de-facto leader of a mixed group of escapees from the Front and, right now, he could suddenly feel his authority collapsing. However, he couldn't let his position as leader be jeopardized now; unless they worked together, nobody would ever get off this plateau alive.
"Quiet!" he barked, before continuing, "The Pride Lands are only about 20 miles from here – well without our current fuel capacity. Also, that's the only place where we can get some help." He showed them a blueprint Von Beitz had drawn up. It consisted of two metal containers fitted into each other, filled with wood-scraps. The fire in the open, larger one would heat the wood-scraps in the smaller, airtight one, producing a highly flammable mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and methane, commonly known as wood-gas. Such contraptions, called wood gasifiers, had often been experimented with during the war, as an alternative fuel source to run vehicles and machinery during shortages. Now, faced with their own fuel shortage, they would attempt to build one themselves, to run the Zeppelin's engines.
"Von Beitz tells me his gadget can run on any kind of old, dry wood," said Harry, "As it so happens, we're nearing the end of the dry season now, which means there should be plenty of dried weeds and shrubs in the savannah of the Pride Lands that we can use. However, acquiring them might be a little more...challenging." He turned to Simba, who spoke to the humans.
"My wicked uncle has seized my father's kingdom, through treachery, deceit and murder," he said, his face visibly darkening, as he told them the story of how his father had died. By the time he was done, Harry's men were deeply moved.
"Villainous treachery!" growled Mick, regretting his earlier outburst towards Harry, "This is positively outrageous!"
"They ought to tan that wretched lion's hide for a throw-rug," muttered Ayden, always the reporter, furiously scribbling away Simba's story in his notebook, as he had their entire journey on the plateau, hoping to publish it in the New York Herald someday, "I wonder what my readers will say about this? If they ever do believe my story..."
"I have to go back and fight to reclaim my throne, but I can't do it alone," Simba continued, "Both Nala and I need your help to save our people from tyranny. I implore you all to fight with me!"
"Simply put, gentlemen," explained Harry, "The only way to get off this plateau is to reinstate Simba as king of the Pride Lands. It's the only place out here where we can find the fuel we need for our ship. Needless to say, the current king Scar and his minions would sooner kill us that let us have a blade of dry grass from his territory."
Harry's men looked at each other; although they hated the idea of having to go to war again, this time against a most unusual enemy, they realised they had no choice. They needed that dry grass for their wood gasifier, or they weren't going anywhere. Captain Van Owen was right; as soldiers, they still had their duty. Harry went on speaking.
"You're all fine men; and you've more than earned the right to return to your families. But I still have a duty as Simba's guardian, assigned to me by the late King Mufasa. Therefore, this last mission will be entirely voluntary; those who don't wish to accompany me to battle one more time are free to remain on the ship until this is over. So, who's signing up for this?" After some hesitation, Mick stepped forward.
"I'm with you, Captain," said the husky Russian, "This isn't just about your lion friends; it's also about us getting home. This is my battle too!"
"Me too," said Danny, "I'm with you, Captain, all the way! We all are!" The rest of Harry's men also muttered in agreement, their previous debate about making straight for home totally forgotten.
"Thank you, my friends," said Harry, before resuming his usual stern, military tone of voice, "Well, prepare your kits, gentlemen. We're going to war!"
Meanwhile, handcuffed to his bunk in his stateroom-turned-prison-cell, former Captain Fritzer had been eavesdropping to the conversation the Allied swine were having next door, making his own plans.
So, rather than setting course for home straight away, they were going to assist those freak talking lions in retaking their land from another rival lion. That was just the opportunity he needed to make his escape and retake his ship. He wouldn't be going to the gallows yet, not he, Captain Wilhelm Fritzer, the pirate of the skies! He had a plan.
The Allies allowed him three small meals a day, brought to him on a tray, and a bucket to relieve himself. He was never allowed any exercise around the ship, or to have his handcuffs off, even when he was eating. They didn't even allow him to smoke, fearing he might try and blow up the ship.
Reaching for his empty dinner tray, he took the fork and bent one of its tines, fashioning a makeshift lock-pick. This, he hid in his boot, for when the time was right. Later, when that cheeky British Private called Mensh came to collect the empty tray, giving Fritzer a mocking smirk as he walked out, he didn't notice the missing fork.
Several hours later, after he was sure the Allies had gone to bed, Fritzer, working blindly in the dimness of his unlit cabin, save for a small patch of night sky through the window, got to work, picking his handcuffs open. He'd soon have his revenge on those Allied pigs and their lion pets!
Author's note: My apologies for the delay, but Lion King fanfics are bloody difficult to write and I often get writer's block. At last, we're picking up again the main events of the story. Enjoy and please review!