AK

by Peter Dickinson

  He scooped out more soil and worked the parcel loose, then carried it back down the slope to where he had left Jilli on watch, not because he needed a sentry but because he had wanted to be alone. She said nothing as he undid the binding, but took the wire from him and rolled it into a tidy coil. He eased the gun out of the plastic, piece by piece, and wiped the oil from the glistening metal. He unplugged the barrel and assembled the gun, body and barrel, return spring, bolt and bolt carrier (always tricky to get right, but his fingers remembered every move) and receiver cover. He wiped the eighteen rounds, fed them into the magazine, and clipped it into place. At last he rose, cradling the gun on his right arm, put his feet into the firing stance, raised the butt to his shoulder, and sighted toward the distant hills.

  Jilli clapped her hands.

  “You’re a big man now,” she said.

  They laughed together.

  7

  The trail of smoke lay horizontal in the almost windless air, dark, cindery, humped into writhing snake shapes which slowly lost their outline at the farther end while the train puffed fresh hummocks into the scrawl as it took the long curve below the hills. Jilli and Paul had seen it coming for miles. Now they could hear it too.

  They lay in a hollow they had scooped at the top of the embankment above the section of double track. The train they could see was bringing empty ore ctrucks up from the coast. It would steam into the siding, halt, and wait for the other train, laden with ore from the Baroba mines, to pass. Jilli and Paul had watched the procedure yesterday, from the other side, hiding in the nearest patch of uncleared bush, fifty yards away. Boarding the train wasn’t going to be nearly as easy as Paul had hoped.

  All down the line the bush grew close along the track, but around the siding it had been poisoned and burned. And though the war was over there were still armed guards on the trains, two men with AKs and two with a big machine gun. The sides of the ore-trucks were higher than he’d expected, and once inside one you’d find yourself in a sort of giant’s cooking pan under the tropic sun. You wouldn’t stay alive in there long. Yesterday’s train had pulled a few goods-wagons behind the ore-trucks, three of them with tarpaulins. If you could get under one of those…But they’d been at the rear of the train, almost next to the guard’s-van, where the machine gun was set up. The top of the embankment that end was a stony outcrop. There was no hiding there.

  Yesterday there had been just one moment when the other train had come through, and the bored men on the waiting train had leaned out and yelled greetings and insults to their friends, and craned farther for a while, watching the other guard’s-van dwindle toward the coast. It would have to be then.

  And it would have to be today. Joel had given them a spare flask and they’d brought all the water they could carry, caching most of it while they fetched the AK, but now it was almost gone. There was just about enough to see them through to tomorrow morning.

  The train neared. The wail of its whistle drifted through the roasting air. Now they could hear the hammer of iron wheels on the rail joints. The rhythm slowed, then stopped in the bang-bang-bang of closing buffers. The two Warriors lay still, not raising their heads, knowing that this was a moment of alert, with the soldiers looking around while the fireman climbed down to change the points.

  With a fresh whoosh the train came on. The links between the cars banged taut. The hiss and thud of the pistons and the whump of expelled gases passed below. They smelled the coaly breath, felt the shadow of the smoke pass over, heard another big sigh of steam, ending with the triple wail of the whistle.

  Paul counted to a hundred, then lifted his head till he could see along the top of the embankment with his right eye. Nothing. And nothing the other way. Delicately he peeped further. They had spread the spoil from the hollow they’d made into a low mound which looked flat from any distance, but had left notches in the parapet through which they could see the line below. None of the soldiers yesterday had bothered to climb the embankment. It was mid-afternoon, in the hot season. The war was over.

  Directly below stood the line of empty ore-trucks, battered and rusty, the metal of their tall sides seeming to quiver with heat as they absorbed the sun. A soldier was leaning out of the car behind the tender, talking to the fireman. The other way, at the rear of the train, as yesterday, were a few goods-wagons. Only the leading one, which was a flat-top, had a tarpaulin, covering some kind of large crate at the rear and sloping at the front down over something lower and more curved. It might have been a small car. There’d be room in beside it, anyway, for a couple of bodies. If they could get there.

  A soldier was examining the lashings on the tarpaulin. As he straightened Paul saw that he was a corporal, in good new fatigues, and wearing a bright purple beret. Paul could see two men at the machine gun in the open-sided guard’s-van, so he wasn’t one of the regular guards. They were a slovenly lot anyway.

  Now across the silent bush, faint but clear, floated the sound of a whistle. The waiting train answered with a double hoot. Paul’s heart began to hammer, as it always did before action. He could feel the adrenaline tingle through his bloodstream. The distant whistle came again, nearer now, and now they could hear the noise of the train itself, pounding steadily on down the slight gradient. Paul nudged Jilli to get ready and heard her answering murmur. The coming train barely slowed. He checked that the sling of the AK was settled on his shoulder over the satchel strap, gripped the handle of the flask, and tensed. The next whistle hoot was almost on top of him. The engine came hammering through.

  “Now!” he yelled, rose, and careered down the slope, straight at the nearest railway car. Reaching it he turned right and raced along beside the track. The slight curve of the siding meant that the cars themselves hid him from the soldiers at either end, but the cover narrowed the closer he came. There’d be a stretch where he’d be in view from the guard’s-van if anyone was looking his way. With two ore-trucks still to go he ducked in under the buffers and started to wriggle his way through.

  The bodies of the railway-cars were slung lower than the axles, sloping down at the centre till they barely cleared the sleepers, but there was just space to squirm through on elbows and knees, after sliding the AK around so that it hung along his chest. He dragged the water flask through after him. It was slow going. He could hear Jilli, less encumbered, gasping close behind. The noises of the other train were dwindling away. Men’s voices were calling. He was halfway through under the last car when he heard the rattle of points. He wriggled on. The whistle sounded as he rose into the gap in front of the first goods-wagon and slung the flask up onto the loose slope of the tarpaulin. Jilli rose panting beside him. He grabbed her under the arms and lifted her bodily up as the bang of tautening links closed in. Just as the car jerked forward he heaved himself up and hung with his belly against the edge of the flat-top and his legs dangling.

  Jilli hadn’t been ready for the acceleration, which sprawled her back onto the slope of the tarpaulin. The water flask began to slide. He slung a leg up and stopped it with his knee.

  “Help! Quick!” he called.

  She wriggled herself across and grabbed the handle, then lay there while Paul twisted himself around to perch on the edge of the flat-top. He helped her up to sit beside him. The rails and sleepers swept dizzyingly below. The bush spun past on either side. The wall of the ore-truck in front blasted the sun’s heat at them. The wheels hammered deafeningly on the uneven track. Their spines juddered at every rail joint.

  Panting, Paul looked across at Jilli. She’d never done anything like this before, never known this clamour of man-shaped iron or felt such shaking onrush, such obvious danger if she should fall beneath the pounding wheels. He could see she was scared, but still she was laughing with triumph.

  “We’re going to Dangoum!” she crowed.

  Paul laughed too. He gripped the rim of the railway car with his left hand, lifted his AK free and raised it ove
rhead in the guerrilla salute.

  “Basso-Iskani!” he shouted. “You’d best watch out! The Warriors are coming to get you!”

  The tarpaulin was lashed to cleats around the rim of the flat-top. They untied four along the front and one around the corner and rolled it back till they could slide the satchel and flask and Jilli’s roll of clothes and finally themselves into the stifling cavern beneath, but it was harder to fasten it back into place. Even Jilli’s supple fingers couldn’t manage the last cleat. They couldn’t just leave it dangling. The corporal had checked the lashings at the last halt and would probably do so again. Knots don’t untie themselves. But things decay quickly in the tropics. The cords were worn and weak. Paul chose one and rubbed it steadily against the edge of the flat-top till it gave, then retied the rest. The loose section also meant that they could prop the rim of the tarpaulin up with the butt of the AK to scoop a draft of air through into the darkness.

  What next? Paul lay on the oily timber and tried to think. “Just after you’ve hit your target,” Michael once said, “that’s a big danger point. Don’t sit down and rest. Nine times out of ten there’ll be someone or something looking for a chance to hit back at you.”

  The loose lashing was a worry. Maybe the corporal would just retie it, but maybe he’d look in underneath. Paul touched Jilli’s shoulder.

  “Just going to explore,” he said.

  The load at the front of the railway car turned out to be a car. The hot dark reeked of newness, new rubber, new paint, new plastic, fresh, clean oil. In the faint light from the air-hole Paul caught the glimmer of chrome on the radiator, the three-pointed Mercedes symbol he’d seen on the limousine in which Michael had fetched him from Tsheba. But this was something much smaller. Crawling along by its flank he found it was a two-seater convertible, the sort he’d seen film stars driving sometimes in pictures in magazines. You had to be rich to own a toy like this. The minister of commerce, the one who’d given his son the helicopter, perhaps he’d ordered this for his daughter. Before the coup, that would have been. No. There was a soldier looking after it, a corporal, so it must be for someone still in power. What did it matter? Provided it gave Paul and Jilli somewhere to hide.

  Under the car? Its clearance was less than five inches. (What a toy for Nagala! There couldn’t be twenty miles of road where you could risk driving it!)

  In it, then? The roof was down and the seat cover in place, fastened with snaps too stiff to move. Ah, there was a zip down the centre. Paul eased it back and found he could loosen the snaps. Could he fasten it all back from inside? Lying across the front seat he experimented. Yes—snaps first, then zip, easing the fastener up the last few inches with the tip of his knife. The result was a suffocating pit.

  He undid the fastenings and told Jilli what he’d found. They stowed their stores in the car, keeping only the flask to drink from, then did five practice runs till they had the drill right. After that they rested, dozing by the draft of air, though they got a couple more practices when the train slowed almost to walking pace before picking up speed again.

  Third time was for real. By now it was night, and cooler. Paul was dreaming, and at first the changing wheel rhythm was part of his dream, but then Jilli was pinching his arm and he was awake. She took the flask. He eased the AK clear, checked that the worn tie was dangling outside the canvas, and followed her around. Now the wheel hammer had a new, booming note as the train moved on at a walking pace. Jilli wriggled herself into the slot behind the seats.

  “What’s that noise?” she whispered.

  “Bridge over the Oloro, I think. Malani tried to blow it up a couple of years back and they’re still repairing it. There’ll be a bridge-guard, for sure, but maybe they won’t stop an ore-train.”

  The wheel hammer dulled, marking where the bridge ended, but the train loitered only a few more clacks and stopped. Paul lay in the utter dark, breathing shallow and slow to use as little oxygen as possible. Time oozed by, but much of his life had consisted of this sort of wary waiting. Lucky it was night, he thought. Lie here this long in full sun and you’d be dead of heat stroke.

  At last he heard voices, not orders or arguments, just talk. They came slowly nearer, interrupted by pauses and grunts. Two men, checking the railway cars, by the sound of it. For stowaways, maybe. Now they were near enough for him to hear that they were discussing something that had happened in a local soccer match. They reached the flat-top and began to loosen the tarpaulin. The loose tie didn’t bother them. He heard a flop and scrape as they folded a section back. They’d have a flashlight, of course.

  “Ho!” said a voice. “Somebody’s going to give his girl a good time!”

  “Get up and see how she feels to drive?”

  A mumble of doubt. Paul reached for the AK and laid it along his thighs with his finger on the trigger guard. He could take one man for sure, the second probably. The other soldiers would be half asleep. Good chance of making a run for it.

  The men were loosing more lashings when a new voice shouted, from a distance.

  “Hey! You leave that truck alone!”

  “Just checking, man. Just checking.”

  Approaching boots scrunched on loose track ballast. “Don’t you touch this car. It’s evidence for the trials.”

  “Then the old judge gets to keep it, uh?”

  “No damn judge. General Basso-Iskani sent me personally to Jom-jom, just to bring it back safe. So you put that tarpaulin right back on. There’s nothing in under there. I’ve had my eye on it all up from the coast.”

  “Okay, okay. What about these trials, then?”

  “Soon as they get to confess.”

  “You palace guard, man?”

  “Right. Don’t you see my cap? You better watch it, fellow. We don’t bother getting confessions out of the likes of you.”

  The first two laughed uncertainly, as if knowing it was only half a joke. The tarpaulin scraped. Their voices returned to soccer as they retied the lashings and moved away. At last the whistle sounded, the engine whumped steam, and the links banged taut. The train gathered speed and clacked on. Paul slid the zip open and helped Jilli out. All the ties were fastened now, but threads of night air whispered through the eyeholes where the ties held the canvas. Paul lay on the rough deck dozing and waking. The wheel judder drummed through his dreams, the same images coming back and back, him here, on this train, but running now into a black tunnel and then out into a faint-lit track along a corridor with steel doors either side. Fingers, bloody and broken, gripped the bars of the grilles. On some of the doors was a large black check mark—that meant the prisoner had confessed. Paul had the key to Michael’s cell in his satchel, if only he could find it among the spent cartridge cases, if only the train would stop … and then the wheels in his dream would slow and he would prepare to leap, but leap instead into waking, and know where he was, still drumming through the bush toward Dangoum.

  And then he woke and saw daylight spearing through the eyelets. The train was back to a walking pace and the track seemed very bad. Peeping through an eyelet he glimpsed thin bush. It was about a hundred miles from the Oloro to Dangoum, he remembered, but they hadn’t even reached the Flats yet. He dozed again, and next time he woke they were going a little faster, and now through the eyelet he could see grey-white desert reeling by.

  “Not far now,” he said. “An hour, maybe two.”

  “How’ll we get off the train, Paul?”

  “Have to wait and see.”

  It was the next big problem, with the car being closely watched by the corporal from the palace guard. The AK made it worse. Without that they could have been just another couple of kids stowing away to reach the shantytowns in the forlorn hope of a better life, and got off with nothing worse than kicks and buffets. With it they were something else. Besides, there’d been an amnesty under Malani, when all weapons were supposed to have been handed in.
Now it was a crime to carry one. He’d have to make some kind of parcel, disguising its shape. What with? Jilli’s grass mats might have done, but they’d left them all but one up in those dreadful hills. One wasn’t enough. Something out of the car, then? Yes.

  He crawled around, climbed in, and carefully slit around the leather of the seat covers with his knife. Beneath the leather was a layer of cloth. Perfect. He cut it free in big patches. Too soon to make the parcel, though —he might need the gun still. Wait till the last minute. But Basso-Iskani was going to have a nasty surprise when he unzipped the cover of his nice new car! He could send for fresh seats, of course. Pity…

  Meditatively Paul’s fingers caressed the exposed chair stuffing. Why not destroy the car? Completely.

  That would be better still. The anger of his dream still bubbled like vomit in his throat. Yes. Get rid of Basso-Iskani’s car. If it was really wanted for evidence at a trial, that might delay the trial, help Michael somehow. If it was just coming up for Basso-Iskani to play with, it would still be a blow at the enemy. It was going to hurt. Good.

  He understood his own feelings better than he might have. During the winter offensive two years back the commando had mined a road and lain in ambush, waiting for the soldiers who used it, but then the army trucks had come past behind a battered old pickup driven by a farmer. The soldiers kept their guns on him, forcing him to follow the road. A boy, his son probably, sat beside him. His wheel had gone over the mine. Paul had seen the boy’s body twisting through the air, his arms spread wide as though he had learned to fly. The trucks had swung around the wreckage and roared on. Michael had talked to the Warriors about it that night.

  “Don’t tell yourselves it is only one of those things that happens in a war. Don’t argue this way—we have right and justice on our side, so we must act, we must fight. This is true, but the next part of the argument is false. We are right, but that doesn’t make everything we do right also. It wasn’t right for this man and this boy to die. When your enemies are strong and you are weak you mustn’t say to yourself, ‘I cannot strike them directly, so I will strike elsewhere.’ Next step after that you’ll be putting car bombs into crowded markets and burning villages whose people are too scared to help you and executing foreign-aid workers. And soon the rightness that was on your side is dead. It could no longer breathe, because it was smothered by the wrongness of the things you did for its sake.”