Chapter Text
Frances was hot and bored, but the former was always true. Her feet kicked up on the dash of her car as she inspected her nails. The sun was scorching, and she was fed up with waiting. Waiting for the ragtag band of idiots who decided that it would be a good idea to do a parachute drop into the middle of the desert in the middle of a fucking storm.
But how they decided to waste their lives was not up to Frances. Her job was to pick up what was left of the idiots and deposit them back in Ciro. Beyond that, it was not her problem.
Hering a whistle, Frances's head snapped up, her feet dropping from the bonnet. Within a second, she had a rifle in her shoulder and pointed up the ridge.
Peering through the site, she could see a line of men traipsing their way towards them. A line of ants in the sand.
"Ah," Mike grinned after a moment, "Looks like our passengers have arrived."
"I thought there were 55 of them?" Frances questioned as she continued to peer down her sight. She counted a scraggly bunch of 8, lucky to be alive.
The men around her agreed. They were told 55 had set out, and while they knew not all would come back. They certainly would have expected more.
"Don't worry. You'll still be paid if you drive home empty." Mike assured them, an easy grin across his face before he turned to face the men coming towards them.
Mike started walking towards them. "Long Range Desert Group! Identify yourself." Mike hollered, his hands cupped around his mouth.
The men coming towards them momentarily halted in their path. The blond boy with the backpack came to kneel in front of one of the others as someone behind him pulled out a flag. What a waste of space, Frances mused.
"We are L Detachment, First Special Air Service Brigade." Came the reply as he waved their Union Jack.
Mike raised his hand in greeting. However, they appeared to be kerfuffle, and Frances leaned back in her seat to watch as the man who had just shouted grabbed the man behind him by the lapels. Jostling him before he disragerding him. Throwing him down in the sand as he turned to the men around him
Finally, the men made it down towards their vehicles. Stumbling towards them as Frances put her rifle down. As she swung herself out of the vehicle, her boots landing with a thump as she headed towards the men coming her way.
"That's it, old boy, come on." Mike soothed as they met with the men. "What happened?"
"We experienced some weather." The man who Frances presumed to be in charge told him matter-of-factly, and Frances couldn't help but snort. Sounded like he was putting it lightly. They had been out in the desert in the middle of a biblical storm.
"Ah, yes." Mike nodded, sharing a look with Frances.
"Are you in charge here?" The man questioned.
"He wishes," Frances snorts as Mike sends her a jovial glare.
"The desert's in charge here," Mike tells him. "Maybe you've learned that, sir."
As the men reached them, Frances and her men held out their water bottles. Offering it up to them as they greedily drank the water. Frances held hers out to a boy who must have been her age. Bright blond hair adorning his head. He took the bottle with a grateful smile before chugging it. When he was done, Frances led him back to the cars. Depositing him in the shade of her car.
As Mike got closer, she could hear his conversation with the man she presumed to be in charge.
"But anyway, we run the rickshaws into town." She can hear Mike tell the man.
"How many more can we expect?" Frances questions, leaning forward.
"Ah, well..." the man murmured. "...the weather we experienced was very bad, sir."
"Yes." Mike nods.
"Perhaps not many." the man continues.
"Right." Mike nodes. "And, er... how long do you want to wait?"
"Oh, you know." The man shrugs. "Forever."
Mike and Frances share a look. No way in hell where they waiting around, especially not for forever.
"No." Frances shakes her head, turning to the madman. "I don't like waiting around."
"And I have a poker game in Cairo on Thursdays," Mike explains before turning to the rest of the men. "We have some cattle to round up."
Frances lets out a whoop as she hops into her driver's seat.
"Let's go, boys." Frances hollers, starting up her engine.
"Come on. On your feet." Davies coaxes as he directs their stragglers into the LRDG cars.
"Come on!" Mike cheers when all the men are loaded up, and with that, they head off.
Gunning it through the desert. Frances lets out another whoop as her pedal hits the floor.
Turning to the boy in her passenger seat, Frances beams at him. "I'm Frankie Bates," she introduces, sticking one of her hands out to the pretty blond boy in her front seat.
"Cooper," the boy introduces, looking terrified that Frances had taken her eyes off where they were going. "Johnny Cooper."
"Nice to meet you, Jhonny." Frances grins as her eyes finally drift back to the track they are taking. She can feel Johnny relax next to her at that. "And who do we have in the back?" Frances questions, shouting so as to be heard over the sound of the engines.
"Barney Waygood." He calls calls back.
"So, who is the rest of your ragtag bunch?" Frances questions as she looks over the few men who are scattered about their convoy.
Johnny and Barney point out all their men for Frances, giving her a brief rundown on each as she returns the favour.
Then, finally, Johnny asks the question she has been waiting for. "How the hell are we going to find the rest of our men in all this?"
"Easy," Frances grins at him. "In the desert, everyone and everything can be predicted."
And with that, Frances guns her engines. Drawing level with Mike as she sticks her tongue out at him.
"Fuck off back there," she hears Mike shout as she just laughs. Dropping back.
Looking up, she can see that they are getting close. She watches as Mike parks his car, and Frances neatly stops alongside him.
Turning to Johnny, she smiles. "I'd bet good money your boys will come along that ridge any time soon."
Johnny doesn't say anything, and his face is sceptical. But he knows better than to rise to her challenge.
And Frances isn't wrong. Mere moments after they have stilled their engines, Frances watches as a ragtag bunch of men appear on the rise.
"I told ya." She grins at Johnny as she revs her engine, and the LRDG is off again, heading towards where stragglers on the rise.
Kicking up sand as they drive, getting closer and closer to what is left of the men who jumped in a storm.
Frances watches the men come tumbling over the rise, their bodies battered and bruised.
The men in their convoy clambered out. Reuniting with their brothers in arms.
Working out who has made it and who was lost to the sands.
As the sun blazed high above them, they made their way back to the LRDG cars.
Johnny wordlessly clambered back into her car. Frances gives him a soft, forlorn smile before turning the key in the car and gunning the engine.
With the sun still high in the sky and dust plumbing behind them, they headed off. Except they weren't heading back to Kabrit or Ciro. No, they were heading somewhere else, somewhere new.
They carried on like that for a while, a line of vehicles snaking through the desert, kicking up plumes of sand in their wake as they bombed along.
When they finally came up to the dilapidated walls of Jalo, some of them sprang out, eager to explore. But Johnny stays next to her. Their shoulders pressed against each other.
"Now, then," Mike shouted. "This, my friends, is Jalo. Literally, unquestionably, undeniably the middle of fucking nowhere. If fucking nowhere had a capital city, this would be it. And this would be the main street of fucking nowhere city. And the Lord Mayor would be fucking no one, presiding over fuck all in a place where there was no one around to give a fuck." Mike finished before turning to David. "Which is exactly what you asked for, Captain Stirling, am I right?" At that, David nodded. "We could carry on driving, but I'd say this place is as good as any other part of nowhere we might find."
"How far to the German airfield?" David questions as he steps up to observe it.
"Sirte is 350 miles north-west," Mike calls out.
"The Allied front line?" Lewis questions.
"The first Allied position you'd come to is the New Zealand Reserve troop, 80 miles across the open desert. But the Kiwi fighting men have been sent north, so the camp is empty. If you need any help, there isn't any." Mike answers.
"The New Zealand camp is empty, you say?" An Irishman asks. Paddy, Frances believes him to be.
"A few wounded, a few guards." Mike nods.
"And a few empty trucks, one might imagine," David adds, strolling out of Jalo. The Lord Mayor of fucking nowhere.
"Maybe some guns they left behind. Maybe some ammunition." Lewis adds.
"Will there be a piano?" Paddy questions.
"A fucking piano?" Mike repets, sounding mystified and confused.
But Frances knows where this is going kand nows exactly what these mad man are thinking.
"The capital city of fucking nowhere will do us just fine." David nods. Heading back to Mike's car. "But first, we need to do a spot of shopping," he says as he gets in before slapping the bonnet. "Come on, you dishy bastard."
Now, Frances can't help but laugh as Mike's concerned face turns to her. She just sends him a smile as she slams her car into reverse. Johnny and Barney barely in.
Frances couldn't believe this was happening, couldn't believe this was real, as they parked up in the dark. They really were robbing the New Zealand Reserve troop. The men around them disappeared into the night to raid the New Zealand camp, dragging whatever they could find to the cars they had and the cars they planned to steal.
Frances chooses to watch. Propped up against her car as she watchs the men around her scurrying about in the night
When the men are done raiding the camp they slip back to the vehicles. Loading up to head out.
When everything is packed up, Johnny leaps into the passenger seat of Frances's car, a dazzling smile on his face, his cheeks flushed with excitement.
Frances just grins back at him as she drives the car back out of the camp, pointing it towards Jalo.
Somhow with the happiness radidiating out of Johnny the drive back seems to go even faster as the two happily natter away to each other.
Eventually, long after the sun had risen, they made it back to Jalo.
Pulling into the centre, they pilled out. There were men jumping out of cars and waving guns all around them.
"Philips! Sentry duty." Lewis barks. "On the tower, one hour."
Johnny bounds out, gun in hand, as he waves it about. Frances can't help the almost fond smile that creeps across her face. But squishes it down. Now is not the time for feelings like this.
"And if you can, perhaps you might bury the explosive canisters to keep them out of the direct heat." Frances hears David's directions.
"Where can I put the piano?" Paddy questions. Stepping up to where the piano is in the back of one of the vans.
"You play the piano, Paddy?" David questions, sounding surprised.
"No." Paddy shakes his head. "Eoin was trying to teach me. I want to carry on."
"I could carry on teaching you if you want," Frances suggests softly, stepping up to Paddy.
"I would like that." Paddy nods
"Alright then." David claps his hands. "Put it in the mess hall."
"There isn't a mess hall," Paddy states, looking confused.
"So, build one," David instructs him. They watch the other men gingerly pull out the piano from the back of the van. Her and Paddy watch. Keeping an eye on the proceedings.
They watch as the men pull the piano off the back of the truck, and Paddy picks where their mess hall will be. Frances just leans on her car, observing the chaos around her. Lewis barks orders, and the men hurry around in a flurry of activity.
Catching Mike's eye, Frances silently questions if they should help. But Mike just shakes his head, and Frances goes back to peacefully watching the chaos.