Natural Selection (A Free Spider Shepherd Short Story)

by Stephen Leather

mess. A bloody mess.’

  Pilgrim radioed a report back to base and then moved the patrol out, following the trail of dripped blood on the ground but working their way through the jungle flanking the track, rather than using the track itself. They had been following the trail for about an hour when they saw ahead of them the place where the Mayan villagers had obviously been attacked, for the vegetation to either side of the track was splashed with blood and the ground soaked with it. Two dead monkeys lay in the dirt, still bound to the wooden pole on which the Mayan villagers had been carrying them when they were attacked.

  Pilgrim took in the scene, his expression unreadable, then led the patrol back about a hundred yards and signed to them to huddle around him. ‘They may be lying up in ambush,’ he said. ‘They use monkeys as a food source so I can’t see that they would have left them behind. I’m sure Guatemalan rations aren’t so ample that they’d ignore some good protein when they had it.’ He paused. ‘Liam, Geordie, Jimbo, take the far side of the track. Dan and I will take this one. Move twenty paces, scent and listen for one minute, then another twenty paces, and so on. We need to clear the area to a hundred yards past the place where the Maya were attacked. Safety catches off - if they’re there, you’ll have no more than a fraction of a second to see them and fire. This isn’t a drill, lads, this is for real. So keep your wits about you.’

  The other three crossed the track and at a signal from Pilgrim, they melted into the jungle and began to advance. ‘You’re lead scout,’ Pilgrim breathed in Shepherd’s ear. He nodded, and began to inch through the jungle, keeping the dusty track on his left just visible on the periphery of his vision. Shepherd was totally focussed, leaving no sign and making no sound, but scanning the jungle ahead and to either side at every step, tracking the path of his gaze with the barrel of his weapon, alert for any movement or sound, or the slightest thing out of place, that might give warning of an enemy. After twenty paces he paused, listening intently then, hearing nothing, he moved on. Shepherd sensed that Pilgrim was behind him, though the veteran SAS man made not a sound as he moved through the jungle.

  Shepherd moved even more cautiously as they approached the scene of the ambush, raking the vegetation with his gaze, though the wall of foliage seemed as blank and impenetrable as a rock face. He paused once more, listening intently and sniffing the air and had just taken a pace forward again when there was an explosion next to his right ear. The foliage in front of him was blasted into shreds and he glimpsed a figure in camouflage fatigues toppling backwards, blood spurting from a hole punched in his chest, while his weapon stitched a line of tracer across the jungle canopy. Shepherd threw himself flat as firing erupted all round him. He targeted a muzzle flash, a speck like a firefly in the jungle gloom and saw another Guatemalan soldier crumple to the ground as the burst Shepherd had fired tore the vegetation apart. Pilgrim was firing more short staccato bursts and the others were firing too though, his ears still deafened from Pilgrim’s first shot, Shepherd registered that only by the shredding of the leaves as the rounds struck home.

  The answering fire ceased almost at once with any remaining Guatemalan soldiers either dead or fleeing through the jungle. The SAS men remained in firing positions until their hearing had cleared and the jungle birds and animals that had scattered in panic began to return to the canopy. Pilgrim signed to Shepherd to follow him and began to inch his way forward again. They checked the bodies of the two Guatemalans, both stone dead, eyes rolled up into their heads, and with ants already swarming over the corpses, and then moved on, clearing the area and making sure the Guatemalans really had fled before returning to the ambush site.

  ‘You all right?’ Pilgrim said, his voice sounding to Shepherd’s damaged hearing like the buzzing of a wasp.

  Shepherd nodded, shamefaced. ‘I never even saw the guy till you fired.’

  Pilgrim nodded. ‘Another lesson learned. There’s a knack to seeing beyond the surface of the foliage. The trick is to focus on the nearest leaves and then re-focus the eye to look through them. Keep practising and it’ll suddenly click, but you need to learn it - I won’t always be next in line on patrol.’ He winked at Shepherd, taking the sting out of his comments. ‘You did all right in the contact though.’

  They RVed with Jimbo, Geordie and Liam and searched the ambush site. Among the small bare footprints of the Mayan villagers were the booted tracks made by the Guatemalan soldiers who had attacked them. Shepherd stared at them for a moment. ‘The boot treads are the same pattern as the ones we’re wearing.’

  Pilgrim gave a shrug of his shoulders. ‘All supplied by the good old USA, always playing both sides against each other.’

  As they looked around for further signs, Liam spotted a battered torch, lying in the dirt near the edge of the track. He was already stooping to pick it up when Pilgrim grabbed his arm. ‘Don’t touch it, it’ll be booby-trapped.’

  He examined it from all angles, then led them back down the track fifty yards, sighted on the torch and fired at it. The round struck home and there was the flash of an explosion, setting the birds in the canopy to panic-stricken flight once more. Pilgrim glanced at the others. ‘Learn from this,’ he said. ‘A torch is a valuable possession here. Why would one be lying in the dirt? A month ago I had to treat a Mayan kid whose hand was blown off when he picked up a torch like this and tried to switch it on. Right, we’ve bought ourselves and the villagers a bit of time, but we need to find a more permanent way to discourage the Guatemalans.’

  Liam smiled thinly and Shepherd patted him on the shoulder sympathetically. ‘Not your day, mate,’ he said.

  ‘Hey, I could have lost an arm there,’ said Liam. ‘I’m ahead of the game.’ He gestured at Pilgrim, who was checking his weapon. ‘He knows his stuff, doesn’t he?’

  Shepherd nodded. ‘It’s a pity he’s not on the DS,’ he said. ‘I’ve learnt more from a few days with him than all the time we were in Hereford.’

  Pilgrim led the way back to the village, this time using the track. He exchanged a few words with the alcalde, who was hovering nervously at the edge of the village, his smiles now replaced with a worried frown. Pilgrim shook his hand, murmured some more words of reassurance, then led the patrol away, moving fast towards the RV point for a heli lift-out. Just as dusk was falling, a Lynx helicopter clattered out of the sky. Shepherd and the others threw their bergens into the loading bay and jumped up after them and within five minutes the chopper was airborne again. It was now dark - Shepherd still hadn’t got used to the speed of nightfall in the tropics - and looking down from the chopper, he could see nothing but the dark mass of the jungle, extending to the horizon, unrelieved by any glimmer of light.

  They flew in to the dusty airfield camp on the outskirts of Belize City, half-dead from fatigue, but at once went to the headquarters building for a briefing with the Chief of Staff, an Infantry Colonel with thinning, sandy-coloured hair, fleshy features and sweat patches beneath the arms of his shirt. He came straight to the point. ‘As you know, the Guatemalan Army are making cross-border incursions and appear to be waging a terror campaign. We believe it may be the prelude to a full scale invasion, since they’ve long wanted to take Toledo Province from Belize.’

  ‘Why would the Guatemalans want Toledo?’ Jimbo said. ‘As far as I could see, there’s nothing there but jungle.’

  ‘They want a port on the east side of the continent, giving them access to the Atlantic. Punta Gorda would do that, but an oil company has also been prospecting in Toledo and there are rumours that they’ve found significant deposits.’ The colonel paused, putting the tips of his fingers together and lowering his gaze as if in prayer. ‘It’s a delicate situation. We don’t want to provoke a major international incident, particularly in what the Yanks have always considered their own back yard - and the Guatemalan military junta is closely allied with the US - but we need to stop these incursions. So,’ he said turning to Pilgrim, ‘you are to take a patrol into Toledo, going in with the local Infantry Com
pany as cover, and carry out aggressive patrols in the Mayan reservations spanning the border areas.’

  Pilgrim stared at the Çolonel. ‘And what are the rules of engagement?’ he asked.

  The Colonel flushed at the direct question and he dropped his gaze. ‘We are awaiting clarification from the Ministry of Defence about that. So, do what you need to do but don’t on any account get into any more fire-fights with the Guatemalan Army. The diplomatic and political consequences of that could be disastrous, particularly if they take place on Guatemalan soil.’

  Shepherd looked over at Jimbo as the same thought obviously flashed through their minds. They were to carry out aggressive patrols but not fire their weapons? How was that supposed to work? It sounded like standard officer double-think.

  Pilgrim opened his mouth as if he was about to ask another question, but then appeared to change his mind. As they left the headquarters, Pilgrim led Shepherd, Geordie, Liam and Jimbo off to the far side of the compound, away from everyone else. ‘What did I tell you?’ he said, clearly annoyed. ‘They want us to sort it out but won’t give us a direct order to do it. Last time that guy saw action was about