They Came From Benghazi

By Darrell Egbert

What finally is the truth about a lost bomber discovered four hundred miles into the Libyan Desert from its base in Benghazi sixteen years after the War, and what is the truth about the notorious Israeli Nokmim revenge killers. And what is the famous Coco Chanel doing keeping company with a young German Waffen SS officer who is the favorite of Adolph Hitler.

And what is Hitler's personal interest in two obscure American inventors. And how did he plan to destroy the new Jewish state, using these inventions, many years after his death in his Berlin Bunker. These are just some of the ingredients of this fast paced novel of intrigue and adventure that will keep you guessing and entertained from beginning to end.

Darrell Egbert writes with a personal knowledge of his locales from the Kasbah at Tangier to the Medina and women's prison in the Bousbier of post-war Casablanca. This is another of his well written page turners that pushes the edge, and leaves you wondering how many of the participants he might have known personally.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publisher's Place
• Release date: Jun 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452483405

Darrell Egbert

Darrell Egbert was born in Layton, Utah, in 1925. He learned to read and write in a three-room schoolhouse, located in a mining town in the Oquirrah Mountains of Utah. He studied more serious writing while at the Universities of Nevada and Utah, and the art of “readable writing” while at the Air University in Montgomery, Alabama. Like most young boys, he built model airplanes and dreamed of becoming a military pilot. His dream became reality, when, at the age of seventeen, he was accepted into the Army Air Corps. Soon after his eighteenth birthday, he was called to active duty where he spent the next two years of the War as an Aviation Cadet. He graduated from twin-engine school as a Flight Officer and first pilot of a medium bomber just as the atom bomb ended the War. Upon graduating from the University of Utah, he applied for active duty, which coincided with America’s entry into the Korean War. He spent most of his career until retirement in 1969 in staff positions involving the maintenance of bombers and missiles, both air to ground and inter-continental. His overseas assignments included such diverse places as French Morocco and Thule, Greenland. At Thule, he took a ground part in special photoreconnaissance missions, which helped bring about the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. He began writing for publication when his first historical novel came to the attention of Barnes and Nobel. Shortly after leaving the 44th Bomb Wing he met and married Miss Savannah of the Miss Georgia Beauty Pageant. Lieutenant Colonel Egbert and Betty, his bride of 56 years, are retired and live with their dog in Washington, Utah. As he is fond of saying, “I never had it so good”....

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They Came From Benghazi

By Darrell Egbert

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Publisher’s Place

Copyright 2011 Darrell Egbert

Cover Art by Wallace Brazzeal

This digital edition May 2011 © Publisher’s Place

Smashwords Edition

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CHAPTER 1

It is not far off one of the main thoroughfares in the Bloomsbury District. It’s too far to walk from Mayfair, though, unless you’re in better shape than I am. That’s where Alexandre does his tailoring. So, when he finished measuring me for a suit, I took a taxi from there. He let me out in front of this quaint shop. It was not unlike all the others, painted with a green front and a large square window made up of numerous smaller windows. It was situated on a narrow cobblestone street with one of those charming English names. The street was almost barren this time of day, which meant they were obviously not depending on walk-in trade for much of anything.

I opened the door to Jos. Willoby and Sons Ltd. Rare Books. Joseph was no longer publishing, I was to learn later, which was what he and his father and his grandfather before him had been doing for most of the century. But two of his sons were. Rare books, however, was more or less a misnomer. They didn’t deal in rare books, although they might have at one time. Most of their business was more on the order of controversial books, printed and distributed from a place somewhere across town.

I went in and the automatic closed the door behind me. When my eyes adjusted, I was looking at stacks of books, some acting as a partition for a rather large office area. They gave off a slightly musty odor, not the least bit offensive, the way old leather does sometimes. Directly above me a dozen or so long, six-by-six hand-hewn beams ran crosswise and served as support for a mezzanine. I suppose it was added decades earlier as the business had expanded.

I had sent them a copy of a manuscript a few weeks ago, part of which contained a long letter. The envelope I sent it in also contained a healthy advance, and another letter explaining what the manuscript was all about. The money was for a free-lance editor’s time. He or she was to read it, evaluate it, and then get back to Joseph the younger. If, in the opinion of this professional, it had a chance of selling without incurring too much re-write or promotional expense, the Willoby’s might be persuaded to take it on as a project.

In due course, they notified me at my apartment in Algiers. They told me my effort held promise. And they wondered if I could drop by their London office and discuss it. If I had replied in the negative, pleading it was too far and too inconvenient, or if I had simply dropped the matter, it would have been a clear signal that I really hadn’t been that interested in the first place. It came to me that their request was part of a weeding-out process to determine whether I was serious enough to pony-up some more money to help defray printing expenses. That was essential for publishing a first-time author, as far as they were concerned.

From the mezzanine, the younger of the two brothers peered down a steep staircase that wound itself around an ornate iron pole. Then, looking up through an eye piece balanced on the bridge of his nose, he greeted me with a smile, waving his hand as though he might be about to step off the Titanic.The way he handled those tricky stairs indicated he was in fair shape, agile. He might even have been an athlete at one time. His full head of brown hair belied his middle years. But he was a little thicker in the girth than he should have been. His jaw was firm and his mouth generous, full of what appeared to be more teeth than he should have had. They were large, evenly spaced, and squared off like miniature piano keys. His face was smooth and wrinkle-free, albeit having several vertical furrows of pinkish colored flesh suspended from a chin that disappeared into a stiff, white, detachable collar. I doubted his pink complexion had ever been touched by serious sun. It hadn’t for a long time anyway. It would have been referred to as peaches-and-cream if he had been thirty years younger and had been female. On the desert where I come from, it would have been viewed as somewhat effeminate if in fact it had stayed that way for very long. But there was one consolation: he wouldn’t have to worry about skin cancer. Not like the rest of us descended from the English, whose rapacious grandfathers came from Scandinavia in long boats, whitening the gene pool while sacking and pillaging for fun and profit.

This mop of silver-free hair of his was striking. Not a strand was misplaced. It was furrowed directly in the middle and combed back on a forty-five with what must have been a curry comb and protractor, something like the style of the thirties, without the help of Brilliantine and pomade.

He was dressed in a tweed single breasted with vest; the easier to display a scholastic honorary, worn suspended from an old-fashioned gold watch chain.

You must be George Halloran from Algiers. He advanced across a weathered oaken floor with jacket open, his award dangling in plain view. He shook my hand, gesturing toward a heavy mahogany chair with the other. I accepted and sat down.

He introduced himself as Joseph: Now then, George, he said, after the remaining formalities were accomplished and he had offered me a cordial against the winter chill. Let’s get down to business, shall we? I have a million questions to ask of you and I hardly know where to begin. First among them: Do I understand the co-pilot of the bomber actually wrote the letter or is that fiction as well?

I replied: I don’t know. I didn’t write it, though; I lifted it from a briefcase I found in the navigator’s compartment. I assume he did. If he didn’t, then who did? I mean, besides your reader, we’re the only two people who know it exists.

He smiled, although I’m not sure why, displaying those well-kept dentures of his, nestled under a full mustache. He resembled a victorious Theodore Roosevelt, pence nez and all, who might have lost his wide-brimmed campaign hat on the way up San Juan Hill.

Tell me, did you ever find the package you were looking for? Was it onboard as advertised? I suppose that information is classified? But I need to know, since it’s an integral part of your story.

Before I could answer, he said: Astounding. His smile was gone now. Simply astounding, you’re not having me on are you, old boy, his smile returning.

He wasn’t talking about the package, yet that was astounding enough. He was talking about this long letter I found. Specifically, what it implied simply by existing.

As I said, I took it from what appeared to be the navigator’s briefcase. At first I considered it to be no more than a souvenir. But after I started reading, I realized it was a letter meant for his girlfriend. But actually, it was more than that; it was more like a diary or a log meant to tell anybody interested what actually happened. I quickly became fascinated and suspected others might be, too. That’s when I contacted the firm of Joseph Willoby by letter. I was afraid that if I called them, they might dismiss me out-of-hand. But if they had somebody read it, things might be different. Apparently I was right.

I said: Anything I might say that’s not contained in the letter would be pure conjecture on my part. I have some opinions, but they are strictly based on reasoning and little else.

I understand, but do go on, he replied.

The Turegs he wrote about weren’t Turegs at all. Later on, members of one of those fierce warrior tribes approached the airplane. But they were not what the co-pilot was watching on the horizon. What he saw was us. We had been working north of the crash site, mapping the area all through the month of April and into the fall. What he saw was dust being kicked up by the dynamite charges we were using in our oil exploration work.

You know what I want to know, Joseph countered. You’ve been there. Give me your best guess as to what you think went on.

"Well, for starters, I believe the co-pilot and the bombardier were alive when they started out for the airplane. I might be wrong in this, but I have a hard time believing otherwise. I also think the bombardier’s parachute never fully deployed. He was injured, but he might have survived the jump. The co-pilot, I think, left the others. He struck out for the airplane by himself, soon after they all jumped and then gathered at the rallying point.

As for the waist gunner, the one the writer refers to as Larson, he stayed with the bomber and obviously survived the crash landing. This landing, incidentally, had the landing gear been down, it might not have sustained the damage you see in the photos I took. It was the stress on the fuselage, as it slid some seven-hundred feet before coming to a halt. That’s what I think did most of the damage. But that wouldn’t have bothered Larson, who would have been wearing a belt and harness. I doubt he was even bruised.

I agree, he replied. "But if the co-pilot could see the dust, why couldn’t he hear the explosions. Something is funny here, especially when you consider that at one place in his narrative he speaks of his hearing not being as acute as Larson’s. But supposedly it was just as good as Warnick’s, the bombardier. That should tell us something was different, right there.

What an interesting puzzle, Joseph continued by way of comment. "This is certainly one for the Baker Street consortium.

I figure the learned who won’t see it your way are going to have a field day with this book of yours. I mean to say, they’re not apt to accept as fact your story that you took the letter from the airplane. They’re going to accuse you of saying you did, and then composing it on your own later. I believe you, but most of them won’t. And we both know why they won’t. They want to view it as a complete work of fiction. They can handle that scenario, but not what it purports to be now.

That’s for sure, and what about the atheists? I asked. His smile widened even more, showing glistening side molars I hadn’t noticed before. I had the impression he wasn’t going to align himself with either one of them on this issue, and that he might be thoroughly enjoying himself, contemplating their upcoming confusion.

Are you uneasy, publishing something this controversial?

"Not in the least. In fact, I enjoy a little verbal roughhousing once in a while. And the way I see it, we’re about to form a scrum and have a proper go.

You know, he went on to say, I have to come right out and tell you before we go much further with this discussion. Speaking for myself, and not for any secularist or scientist or anyone else: Who knows what happens to us when we die? I certainly don’t, and neither do they. This much I think I do know, however. We’re going to be surprised at what we see and experience. But I’m not sure we’re going to know we’re dead. At least we won’t be aware of any major changes having taken place. I mean, we won’t know exactly when it happens, now will we? You take the ghost story the two main characters in the letter were discussing. That young woman wandering about never had a bloody clue as to what was going on in her life.

And here his smile widened so far that he began to laugh. It was a kind of deep cackle; the wattles dangling from his chin to the bottom of his throat, reddened and vibrated like a fat turkey in estrus. I started to laugh right along with him. The two of us had a jolly time, spontaneously laughing our heads off, me at the ridiculous metaphor and him at the unintentional pun and the joke he suspected was being played out on humanity. But maybe it was to hide what we were actually coming to believe, something that neither of us had discussed with a single soul before, and maybe neither of us was prepared to admit it until just this moment. We slowly stopped laughing and settled back down with somber looks at each other.

There is some re-arranging needed, he told me next, coming back to the present. "My reader believes it could use some editing. And perhaps some plumping-up and verifying of facts and numbers. Maybe some explanation about things that happened after the raid, things the writer wouldn’t have known anything about. I’m talking mostly about the second raid on the Romanian oil refineries at Ploesti. And more elaboration about why those flight crews were really in Libya training for that specific target. The German ships they were bombing on the Italian coast were important. But training for the more difficult Ploesti was the main reason for them being there in the first place. And, hopefully, their efforts against coastal shipping would lead German Intelligence to believe they had given up on Ploesti.

"I would like to ask you to spend a couple of days in one of our good research libraries; the Imperial War Museum comes to mind. Check out the historical details of the Ploesti raid and then compare them to the co-pilot’s writings on the same subject. I could do it myself or have one of my associates do it. But that wouldn’t make it any more authentic. If some readers down the line don’t want to believe he wrote it, and if they choose to believe you did, then nothing is going to change their minds. So it doesn’t matter. But in any event it will make the three of us feel better, and more certain of our position. Incidentally, she believes you, my reader I mean. She believes it took place just as it’s spelled out in your manuscript. She was quite taken with the whole affair. One of the words she used was incredible."

Could I ask you a question? I changed the subject. I couldn’t help myself; I had to know.

Shoot, old boy, he said in his best Public School vernacular, his hand fiddling in his jacket pocket for his pipe. This infectious smile of his was simply glowing again. The truth is, at first I was put off by his friendly, unreserved manner. I had expected a rather stodgy, older English scholar. But he was nothing of the sort; I mean he wasn’t stodgy. What he thought of me, though, the stereotypical brash American, I had no idea. But no matter, we liked each other from the start.

I paused a minute before I said: Do you have a dog? He didn’t answer me immediately. He waited. His mind was seemingly somewhere else, his eyes gazing off into some middle distance; gone was his smile now. At first I thought the question, asked abruptly and out of mood and content, might have thrown him off. But that’s not what changed his demeanor. I could tell that he knew perfectly well what I was talking about.

No. What kind of dog was it?! Where?! Where did you see him? He swore, spitting out the words in East End cockney, his abruptness and sudden change in speech patterns taking me by surprise.

A large red male retriever….

With a long tail, right…? He interrupted me, anxious for an answer. But as far as I knew, all retrievers had long tails.

Right, I said.

Where did you see him? He asked again, agitated, the little natural color draining from his face, his neck folds changing color like a chameleon.

Outside your door before I came in. He was standing on the sidewalk, several feet away, just staring at me.

He’s not mine! he snapped, as if his new tone of voice would change anything. Then, visibly shaken, he stood up and moved unsteadily toward a corner table, pouring himself a glass of water from a carafe. He sat back down and stared at me, his pipe forgotten now. No, he’s not mine, he repeated again, softer and with less emphasis. But I’ve seen him before–last week, in fact. It was raining. He was standing right where you’re standing now, soaking wet. But there was nobody in the shop who could have let him in.

CHAPTER 2

Libyan Desert, 1943

I sat on the bomber’s wing and watched for the longest time, my back against the sun. Whoever’s out there is making visible dust, but I can’t tell whether they’re coming or going. My eyes are still giving me trouble. When you get dehydrated, I mean when your body really cries out for water, your eyes dry up and become irritated and you’re hard pressed to even blink without experiencing the most excruciating pain. I hope they’re not permanently damaged.

The nights are so cold you can’t sleep, and the days are around 115 degrees Fahrenheit. I understand it gets even hotter in mid-summer. I might have solved my sleeping problem, though. I dug a trench in the sand, and then I stacked a pile of small rocks along the side. I waited until dark and then laced them good with some residual gasoline, salvaged from one of the tank’s jiffy drains. It burned for about fifteen minutes, heating the rocks and lighting the horizon for anybody who might have changed his mind and followed me.

I believe I made the right decision, though. While the others elected to walk back toward Benghazi, I opted to follow our heading from the point we bailed out. I knew that if I did, I would eventually reach the airplane.

I was telling you about the rocks; my mind tends to wander. However, it has improved since I drank a dozen or so cups of water over the past twenty-four hours. At least I think it’s been twenty-four. And that’s another thing; time seems to be playing games with me. I can’t tell exactly how long I’ve been here. I do know I’m all right mentally. But I have this feeling that something isn’t quite right where time is concerned. I suppose it’ll clear up after I completely shake off the dehydration that nearly did me in.

This rather funny feeling started when I thought I wouldn’t make it to the airplane. I was weak. My tongue was swollen and I couldn’t have talked had I tried. Then, I attributed it to dehydration. But now I think it’s being out here alone with the clear blue sky and the endless desert. Whatever, it’s definitely causing me to change my perspective about some things I can’t clearly define.

I first noticed it after we jumped and I was trying to make it back. I fell for the umpteenth time in the sand as I approached the airplane. I did try sucking on a couple of small pebbles, a la my Boy Scout training and an Air Corps survival movie. But I can tell you here and now, pebbles don’t work worth a darn. They made me even thirstier, if that was possible. They felt like two cotton bolls, these pebbles did, or a mouthful of dentist’s dams. It was like they ganged up on my tongue in a contest to see which was going to occupy the whole of my mouth. They seemed to search out and absorb any vestige of moisture remaining. Then when I was in danger of choking, and I couldn’t spit them out, I had to bend over and remove them with my finger.

As I was saying, I heated the rocks and then scattered them along the inside of the trench. Then I put a thick layer of sand on top. Believe it or not, it worked. The guy who made the movie knew what he was talking about. Anyway, I was fairly comfortable. This morning, I shoveled out a large hollow under the left wing and crawled in that. I was able to get another couple of winks, away from the scorching sun.

I don’t think I’m going to be here very long. The bomber sticks out like a sore thumb and can be seen from miles away. The reason is, it practically landed by itself, slow, with wheels up, and flaps a third down in a slightly nose-high attitude. By the looks of things, it must have settled in nice and easy when the engines ran completely out of gas. However, it did get pretty banged up after it touched down, and it won’t ever fly again. But I was amazed when I first saw it. Usually, when airplanes crash they go in nose first at a couple-of-hundred miles an hour. They make big holes, scattering airplane for yards in a wide circle. That’s one of the reasons the other crew members never came with me. They figured there wouldn’t be anything left to see; it would be buried in a deep hole. And with empty fuel tanks, there wouldn’t be a fire to burn the sand. And without a contrast, it would be almost invisible from the air.

I knew from experience that it would land smoothly if I set the throttles and flaps just right, so I didn’t go along completely with their reasoning and I told them so. I might add that they believed the water and food left aboard would be destroyed when it went in. That’s one of the main reasons they tried talking me into going with them. They said I might be able to make it to the crash site. But, they said, I might also be dead by the time they could get me any help. That I was able to reach the airplane might have had something to do with the communal prayer the crew offered on my behalf.

We had been praying together about once an hour ever since we jumped. That’s not as strange as you might think. We hadn’t always gone to church, but we were all believers in varying degrees. Most of us are Catholics with a couple of Protestants thrown in. Different denominations praying together might have mattered to civilians on any given Sunday morning, but not here, and not now. To us, it didn’t matter one whit. And it didn’t come as any surprise, either, to discover who belonged to which church. You always carried it around your neck like an advertisement for everybody to see if anybody cared; but nobody really did.

In basic training, when they made up your two dog tags with your name and serial number stamped into aluminum discs, you had to declare what you were. Our first sergeant told us, straightaway, informing us loud and clear what his position was on this subject. He said he didn’t want any dissenters. He didn’t want anybody breaking the routine by declaring they had some kind of right not to be anything. He never had an atheist in his outfit, he said. Furthermore, the only rights any of us had were those he saw fit to give us.I don’t know about that. But one thing I do know, you never argued with him. If he thought you were being a wise guy or you were a troublemaker, you saw more than your share of extra night KP or target pulling on the rifle range. And the rifle range was very cold that time of year. You’ve heard me complain about this KP or kitchen police before. Recall, once I had to break a date with you because of it. And I told you then it had nothing to do with guarding the kitchen. It meant you worked twelve hours washing pots and pans or flying the China Clipper. This last was a huge dishwasher made by somebody calling themselves the Clipper Company. Anyway, if you gave this sergeant any trouble whatsoever, you could plan on seeing your name posted on the bulletin board for every nasty detail that came along. And believe me there were plenty of them that came along. You caught on quickly or you woke up in a world of hurt, and a very sleepless world it was. But I had no objections; I went on record as being a Catholic. Not just to stay out of his clutches, but because I am one and always have been. And so is the captain, our pilot–wherever he is.

Later this morning, before it got too hot, I went inside through the flight crew’s open escape hatch on top of the fuselage. It had to be opened from the inside. Yet it was open, and both the captain and I had gone out through the bomb bay–and he had left right behind me. And something else very peculiar, the crew’s escape hatch over the waist gunner’s compartment, just aft of the turret guns, was also open.

I had no problem getting in the cockpit; it was hardly damaged. If I had stayed put in the co-pilot’s seat and left the controls alone, I do believe I would’ve survived without so much as a scratch. Everything was as it should have been. My flight bag with my winter flight suit was still sitting behind my seat. A large thermos of coffee was in the rack, presumably still full, since we didn’t have time to drink it or we were too busy with other things to be very interested. But there was one thing out of place: my leather A-2 flight jacket was missing. I had taken it off and draped it over the back of my seat when we thought we were headed for the water. It wasn’t something you wanted to take swimming. But where was it? It couldn’t have moved by itself.

This morning I crawled in back of the seats and down into the slightly damaged navigator’s compartment. I wanted to take a good look at his charts. I wanted to try to discover what happened to us.