The Madonna of the Atlas
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: Non, je ne regrette rien. Rating: K Time: Season five and elsewhen.
"Are you all right?" They asked each other.
"Are you hurt?" Castle demanded.
Beckett managed to check herself for wounds or other injuries. "I'm fine. How are you?"
"Fine."
"You're lying, Castle. I think you tore a stitch. I can see blood on your jacket. I'll try to fix it."
"No, you'll see a lot more blood if we move. They're shooting at us."
For the first time she noticed bullets were landing all around the slit trench, sometimes showering them with bits of rock.
"Why are they shooting at us? Can they tell you're an officer from that distance?"
"They're shooting at you. Normally, killing a woman is not considered worth a bullet. But they know how we feel about women and figure to damage our morale by killing you. Or maybe some entirely different reason."
In twenty minutes, there was full, moonless dark.
"I need to go check my men. You stay here. Don't move one inch from here."
As Castle pushed himself up, Beckett pulled him back down and pressed her lips against his. He felt her tongue pushing against his teeth and opened his mouth allowing her tongue to explore his mouth, and letting him explore hers.
"What was that for?" He asked, breaking the kiss.
"If I am to die tonight, I didn't want to die without kissing you." She pulled him down again and their tongues moved against each other once again.
"And if you are to die, Captain Richard Castle, I didn't want you to die without kissing me."
Castle brushed his lips across hers and pushed himself out of the trench. He ran to a machine gun bunker. There were no shots fired at them for some five minutes after he had left Beckett.
"They know what they're doing, all right, sir." A bearded Legionnaire from the garrison at Fort Dugny said. "They fire a shot or two and then change position. And they know every inch of the ground. Our Berbers will be lucky to get near any of them. Assuming the bastards aren't setting up an ambush for them, sir."
As far as Castle could tell, as the night wore on, was that all the snipers were accomplishing was keeping the garrison alert and jumpy all night. Which was one of the things they wanted to do. He managed to snatch a bit of sleep as he moved from bunker to bunker and from trench to trench.
Before dawn came the snipers were gone. All that the Berbers had found were some Mauser rifle cartridge cases.
Castle went back to the slit trench where he had left Beckett. It was empty. "Have you seen Miss Beckett?" He asked a passing Legionnaire.
"In the medical bunker, sir." Was the reply.
Castle found her having coffee with the doctors. There had been two men wounded the night before, neither seriously.
"Would you like some coffee, Captain?" She asked with a smile.
He nodded and was handed a cup. "I told you to stay in the slit trench."
She nodded. "So you did. But I didn't agree to stay there. Besides, we had wounded and I am a nurse."
He decided that it would be pointless to argue.
The troop commanders had already begun to get the squadron ready to move. Castle and Beckett were ready to lead them out of Ft. Dugny not long after dawn.
"Where are we headed for?" Beckett asked.
The oasis of Taghit. It's a long ride and we'll need to fill up with as much water as we can. We'll be riding along the foothills of the Atlas Mountains after Taghit and there'll be no water until we reach the regiment's main base."
The ride through the desert was long and arduous. And, ultimately futile.
"A scout is coming in." Castle announced from the head of the column.
The Berber came to a halt by Castle and began speaking.
Noticing Castle's expression, Kate spoke. "What is it?"
"A fairly large party of raiders attacked Taghit and flattened it. Killed all the people and sheep, and threw the dead bodies into the oasis. Tariq estimates it was done three to four days ago. The water won't be fit to drink for weeks. Maybe months."
"What are we going to do?"
"March or die."
Castle decided to send a group of Berbers ahead to the regimental headquarters in hopes that they could bring water to his squadron before things got too bad. He also ordered his officers and NCOs to keep an eye on the water.
They had to ride through what was left of Taghit. Every building had been destroyed and every date palm had been chopped down. The stench of rotting bodies assaulted their noses and the whining of endless flies filled their ears. Some, including Castle and Beckett, covered their faces with cloths. Others, who had lived with corpses in the trenches of France were unmoved. But no one wanted to linger.
"We'll go five kilometers and stop." Castle said, having called his troop leaders together. "There's a hill there we can stop at that can be made defensible. We'll stay there tonight and tomorrow. From now on we'll travel at night and rest by day. If we have a bit of luck, we'll make it."
"What about the people who raided Taghit?" Beckett asked. "Where are they?"
"According to Tariq's scouts, they headed east. They've been gone for three or four days."
"They could be a day's ride from here." She shot back. "Just waiting for us."
Castle shook his head. "They only have what water they took from Taghit. There's nothing to the west but desert and they won't go north. There are too many French garrisons there. South are more entrenched French garrisons. They won't stay around here. If they do, they die."
Three nights of marching had been very hard on them. Castle had offered to share his water with Beckett, but she refused, pointing out she had tinned milk and peaches in syrup.
It was just dawn on the third day. Castle kept them going, hoping to find a defensible position for them to stop at.
"What's that over there?" Beckett asked.
"Where?" Castle said.
"In the foothills. There's a cave." She pulled out her binoculars. "Yes. Definitely a cave, with birds flying in and out."
Castle examined the area with his own binoculars. "Tariq, is there a cave there?"
The Berber leader shook his head. "There is an old, old abandoned village there, but for as long as my people have lived in this land, there was no cave there. But it appears there is. Perhaps Allah has sent us a cave?"
"Send some of your scouts to check it out. If there's a cave, it might be cool."
"And birds may be flying in and out getting water." Kate added.
A half a dozen Berbers rode towards the old village. The climb was easy, but they were cautious. Then they disappeared from view. Some ten minutes passed and then a single rider came down the hill, galloping all the way. He pulled up in front of Castle and Tariq. "Allah be praised. There is water there. Enough for a regiment. The cave entrance was blocked up with bricks and dirt. But Allah has seen fit to have the rocks fall away and the bricks open the cave."
Castle ordered the squadron to go up the hillside. There was an easy path to the old village, but the rest of the hill was quite steep and rocky. They found that the old village was little more than a few piles of bricks. The Berbers, however, had been busy tearing the blocked entrance to the cave open. Now you could ride two horses abreast into the cave,
Castle went in and found that the cave was huge. He had no idea of how far it went back, all he cared about was a very large pool of cold water not fifty meters from the entrance. He had the horses and then the men watered, then his troop commanders. Once this was done, he established a camp in the ruins of the village. When he was done, he was satisfied. Even a large force of raiders would have trouble getting at them. More likely they'd go in search of easier prey.
"Castle, there are some old buildings in there, past the pool. Will you come see?" Beckett asked.
He followed her back inside the cave. She had a flashlight which made the journey easier. The buildings weren't much, just a few courses of mud bricks, none higher than Castle's knee.
To his surprise he found Sergent-chef Smith standing in the middle of what seemed the largest building ruin.
"This appears to have been a church, Sir. And Miss Beckett. Shine your torch up there and you can just see the outline of a cross. When North Africa was part of the Roman Empire, most of the Christians were Arians, a doctrine now considered heretical by the Church. When the Muslims came in the seventh century AD the local Christians were extinguished, either killed, forcibly converted to Islam or decided being a Muslim was better than being a Christian. This may have been one of the last Christian villages in North Africa."
Castle had a horrible thought. Was Smith a former priest? What could be have done to cause him to enlist in the Legion? Drinking all the Communion wine? Stealing from the poor box? Deflowering a nun? All of those? He hoped he never found out.
"There's something over here. "Beckett said, flashing her light on something in the corner.
Whatever it was had been covered with cloth. When Beckett touched the cloth, it fell apart. When they wiped the fragments of cloth away, they found a small statue.
"It's beautiful." Beckett said, softly. "It's a magnificent sculpture. Someone of great talent made this."
"A Madonna and the Christ Child." Smith said.
"It's small." Castle said. "We can take it back with us and give it to the Church or the government. Perhaps they'll send an expedition here someday."
Further discussion was cut off by the sound of gunfire from outside the cave. Castle and Smith ran out of the cave. Beckett carefully picked up the statue and walked out of the cave.
Sous-Lieutenant Jobert was standing outside the cave when Castle got there. "Arabs, sir. About two hundred of them. They came riding up as if they hadn't a care in the world. But one of them spotted us and they started shooting. We drove them back to the valley floor, but they left a goodly number behind."
Castle looked down the hill. He could see the bodies of dead men and horses all the way to the plain below. There were also riderless horses being chased by Arabs. Some of the raiders had taken cover at the foot of the mountain and were taking occasional shots at the Legionnaires. However, Castle had his men build a small parapet of old bricks and rocks. So far, none of the French had been wounded.
"Continue building a parapet, Jobert. They only slightly outnumber us, but if they attack coming up hill, we'll cut them to pieces. They may know there's water here. They could have been the ones to crack open the brick wall. I think that once they decide they can't get at the water, they'll leave. But no point in taking chances. And hand out flare guns and flares in case they try to rush us at night."
Castle decided to relax and rest his aching side. After all, things were looking good. Things stopped looking good two hours later.
"Captain, there are more Arabs coming." Chernoff called to him. "Lots of them."
Castle got up and moved quickly to the edge of the parapet. "Damn! There certainly are a lot of them." Below him columns of mounted Arabs rode out onto the plain below them, well out of rifle or machine gun range. Almost out of the range of their lone artillery piece.
"More coming all the time. "Jobert said, having joined the two men.
"Sir, look at the flags."
Castle trained his binoculars on a group of splendidly mounted and dressed men, surrounded by flags. The flag was red with a white diamond in the center containing the green crescent of Islam and a six-pointed star. "That's the flag of the Rif Republic. What the hell are they doing in Algeria? They should be in Morocco."
No one had an answer for that.