Under Fire and Sun

The sun was just dragging itself above the horizon, a red eye opening over a sea of dust. Long, blade-sharp shadows spilt across the wadi below. No birdsong. No wind. Just the tick of cooling metal and the slow, shallow breaths of three men lying motionless in the sand. A fine mist of grit clung to his lips. The world was all silence, sun-bleached sand, and the faint tang of engine oil. “Still think this is a good idea, Sir?” Jacks muttered beside him, his voice low and dry as parchment. He’d taken over as platoon sergeant after Mallory was promoted to company sergeant major during the reconstitution of the 9th Battalion. “Ten days out of Alexandria, and they’ve already got us poking our noses where they don’t want us.”

Archer didn’t reply. His stomach was tight… not with fear, but with something colder. Doubt. The kind he couldn’t afford to show. He shifted, careful to stay below the dune’s crest. Sand scratched between cloth and skin, worming into every seam, boots, sleeves, the curve of his spine. It was inescapable. The desert didn’t fight fair. It just wore you down.

Behind them, Pritchard let out a dry cough, one hand resting across his Lee Enfield. To no one in particular, he muttered, “Don’t like ground you can’t hide in.” They were out on a reconnaissance patrol southwest of Fort Capuzzo, skirting the edge of Italian-held territory near El Adem. Officially, their mission was to confirm intelligence reports ahead of the planned bombardment. Unofficially, Archer suspected it was a test—a quiet appraisal of the new arrivals. A chance for the 7th Battalion to see what the “Dunkirk boys” were really made of. But the air between the seasoned hands of the 7th Greenmoors and the battered survivors from Archer’s outfit—the decimated 9th Battalion—had been stiff with unease since the moment they’d come ashore. Not among the men. The enlisted ranks had found easy ground in shared routines: fixing kit, filling sandbags, grumbling about rations and the heat. You didn’t need to know a man’s name to share a cigarette.

It was the officers who trod warily around Archer—a lieutenant already awarded the Military Cross, his record the quiet envy of regulars who had spent the past year stationed in the forlorn desert, guarding forts, rail crossings, and other mindless outposts.

A few weeks before, his twentieth birthday had been spent aboard the Durban Castle, somewhere south of Crete. He felt older than the number suggested as though the year behind him counted for more than all of those before it. There had been tinned fruit and a tot of rum passed along the mess, nothing more. He hadn’t mentioned the occasion, and no one had asked. Voices carried along the steel passageways, and a wind that smelt faintly of salt and diesel worked its way in wherever it could. The men had swapped smokes, played cards in narrow bunks, and tried not to think too hard about where they were headed. Archer had kept the day to himself. A quiet marker, nothing worth announcing.

Archer remembered standing alone on the deck that night, a tin mug of lukewarm tea in his hand, staring out over black water. The little parcel had sat in the bottom of his kit for weeks, tucked inside an old gas mask case he now used as a personal bag. The khaki canvas casing was faded, the original markings long worn away, and a leather strap had been added by a farrier of the Essex Yeomanry back in Colchester—for the costly sum of half a bottle of Napoleon brandy that Archer had swiped from the mess one drunken night. He wore it slung across his chest and over his webbing, so it rested comfortably on his thigh… a quiet constant amid the weight of official gear.

Inside, he kept his captured binoculars from the German officer at the bridge, some six months ago. There was also a folding travel clock that ticked silently; a battered shaving kit; and a small picture frame, containing the image of his beloved Charlotte wrapped in cloth to stop the glass from breaking. Two pairs of thick socks. A set of brown leather gloves, softening with wear. A new, although already bent, notebook that still smelt faintly of paper and ink. Folded among it all was the letter he’d been handed in Colchester, informing him he had been awarded the Military Cross for his actions at Cassel. He hadn’t looked at it since. Then, at the very bottom of the case was the small, battered metal flask… Pembroke’s given to Archer on the first day he’d joined the battalion in France, in what seemed a lifetime ago.

He’d promised Charlotte he wouldn’t open her parcel until Christmas. Yet standing beneath a foreign sky with only the creak of steel and the wind for company, it had felt like the right time. Archer had untied the twine, careful not to tear the paper. Inside was a small, square dark-green box, the lid embossed in faded gold leaf: “F.H. Steer & Co.  Jewellers of St James’.”

He’d opened it. Nestled inside was a wristwatch, an Omega, understated and elegant, with a black dial, luminous hands, and a chestnut leather strap fitted with a stitched leather cap to protect the face. The kind worn in the field… not for fashion, but for function.

He’d turned the watch with a slow and methodical inspection the cap open. On the back, engraved in small italics, were five words: Stay safe, my love… Charlie. As he’d stood on the deck that night, he ran his thumb over the words, then slipped the watch onto his wrist, the strap snug and reassuring against his skin. For a long moment, he had stood at the rail with the box open in his hand, the wind tugging at his collar, and the sea stretching away into the night. Then he’d closed the box gently and tucked it back into his satchel. The thought of Charlotte engraved deep in his mind and heart. As he hunched below the dune’s crest, Archer lifted the leather cap on his watch, holding the bezel between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.  For a fleeting moment, the thought of Charlotte crossed his mind the memory of her light hazel eyes set shallow in her pale, smiling face. Just a moment, and then it passed, carried away by the dry whisper of the desert wind.

Jacks’ hand nudged his boot. “Sir. Movement… two o’clock. Just dust for now, but it’s coming fast.”