WORRALS GOES EAST
by Captain W. E. Johns
XVI. THE BATTLE OF WADI OMAR (Pages
182 – 192)
Brunowsky and his
confederates now plan an attack on Worrals
position. Firstly, Worrals
and her party come under rifle fire from some high vantage point. There is someone in the top of one of the
palm trees, shooting at them. Helen
takes the machine gun from Nimrud and opens fire and a woman and a rifle fall
from the tree. Helen has settled her
score with Hylda.
Brunowsky and a gang of Zogorites
and Berthold and a gang of Zogorites both attack simultaneously, pouring up the two sets of steps that
lead up to the high tomb where Worrals and her
friends are. Nimrud’s machine gun makes
short work of the attacking Zogorites on the narrow
steps as they have no room to move and men fall over the edge. Next, Brunowsky has
fires lit beneath their position in order to smoke them out. “Worrals realised
that their plight could hardly be worse.
Quite apart from the threat of smoke, they were nearly out of
ammunition. The machine-gun was empty. So was her automatic. Helen and Daphne had five rounds between
them. Clearly
they could not hope to stop the next attack, when it came”. Worrals is then
surprised to see Frecks flying the Heron back. Why is she doing this, if she is out of
petrol? Suddenly, Sheikh Azza Pasha and his Meni Sakhr Arabs attack Wadi Omar on horseback. Worrals realises
that Frecks must have seen their tents from the air
and landed. She returned to try and tell
them that help was on its way and has now gone on to Aleppo. The smoke is so bad now, that our heroes are
forced out of their place of refuge and they descent the steps. It is clear that the battle of Wadi Omar is
over. Worrals
sees three white men on horseback heading north, Brunowsky
in the lead. Lying near Hylda’s lifeless body is her rifle and Worrals
snatches it up and gives it to Nimrud who shoots Brunowsky
out of the saddle. Berthold and Voss
ride off and leave him. Sheikh Azza approaches and Worrals asks
him to stop the two men on horseback.
The Sheikh goes after them with some of his men. Berthold and Voss are captured and returned
to Worrals. Frecks returns in the aircraft with Major Kenton and
another army officer with red tabs on his lapels. Kenton confirms that he has sent police to
deal with the warehouse in Aleppo as Frecks has told
him all about it. Worrals
and Frecks have ended their mission successfully and
Nimrud says “It was the will of God”.