Wilbur Smith - C07 A Time To Die

by C07 A Time To Die(Lit)

  Alphonso was a Shangane and a warrior with a deep sense of tribal loyalty and a tradition of absolute obedience to his chief and tribal elders.

  "Yes," Sean thought. "He'd probably have a few regrets, but without question or hesitation, he would do it."

  He raised his voice. "All right, China, we all know exactly where we stand. Let Miss Monterro come to me now."

  The bodyguard removed her handcuffs, and politely General China helped her out of the chair. "I apologize for the unpleasantness, Miss Monterro, but I'm sure you will understand the necessity for it."

  Claudia was unsteady on her feet, and she staggered. When she reached Sean, she clung to him.

  "And so I'll wish you farewell and good hunting." China gave them a small, mocking salute. "One way or the other, we will not meet again, I'm afraid."

  Sean did not deign to reply. With the case of cassettes in one hand and his other arm around Claudia's shoulders, Sean led her to the doorway.

  They moved out two hours before darkness. It was an unwieldy column, and the missile launchers and the backup missiles made awkward burdens; apart from their weight, the length of the packs made them cumbersome. They hooked up in thick bush when the path narrowed and slowed down the column's ability to react to threat and danger.

  At first Sean kept the column bunched up in a close, cohesive whole. They were still some miles from the tenuous front line of the Renanio army and would not be seriously menaced until much later in the march.

  However, taking no chances, Sean kept the assault troops of the vanguard and rear vigilant and at the utmost degree of readiness to repel any attacks and to give the missile bearers a chance to escape. To ensure this, Sean sent Job to the head of the column while he stayed in the center, from which he could reach any trouble spot quickly and where he could be near Claudia.

  "Where's Matatu?" she asked Sean. "We've just gone off and left him. I'm so worried about him."

  "Don't worry about leaving him behind. He's like one of those puppies you can't send him home. He'll follow me anywhere. In fact, the little bugger is probably watching us out of the bush at t s very moment."

  And so it proved, for as darkness descended on the column, a small shadow appeared miraculously at Sean's side.

  "I see you, my Bwana," Matatu twinkled.

  "I see you also, little friend." Sean touched his woolly head as he would his favorite gun dog. "I've been waiting for you to find a way for us through the Frelimo lines, and so lead us to the roosting place of the ugly falcons."

  Matatu swelled with self-importance. "Follow me, my Bwana, he said.

  Now, with Matatu to guide them, Sean could rearrange the column into a more streamlined formation for passing through the Frelimo advance and getting into their rear.

  To his advantage was the size of the battle being fought ahead of him. There were six thousand Frelimo and Zimbabwean troops advancing against less than half that number of Renamo defenders, and the area of the battlefield was tens of thousands of square miles in extent. The fighting was taking place in small, isolated pockets, while most of the ground was wild, rugged, and drafted.

  Sean sent Job and Matatu ahead with a small party of assault troops to find any wide gaps in the line and steer them through.

  The rest of the column followed at a discreet interval, protected by the conventionally armed assault division of Shanganes.

  They kept going steadily through the night, runners coming back from the vanguard to guide them whenever it was necessary to make a detour or change direction.

  At intervals during the long, cold march, they heard distant gunfire and the sound of mortars and heavy machine guns as elements of the Frelimo advance ran into the Renamo defense.

  Occasionally they saw the twinkle of signal flares soaring above the dark forest, but there was no sound of Isotov turbos and helicopter rotors in the night. It was clear the Hinds were limiting their depredations to the daylight hours, when they could distinguish friend from foe and make their close-support operations more effective.

  An hour before dawn Job came back down the column to find Sean. "We aren't going to reach our first objective until an hour or so after first light," he reported. "The pace has been slower than we expected.

  What do you want us to do? Shall we take a chance on the Hinds finding us?"

  Sean looked up at the sky before he replied. The first lemon colored flush of dawnlyas paling out the stars.

  , "The forest roof isn't dense enough to hide so many men and so much equipment, "he decided. "We have to keep going and get them into hiding" Tell Matatu to quicken the pace."

  "What about the Hinds?"

  "The main fighting is well behind us now, that is where they will be headed. We have to take the chance but move fast."

  As the light strengthened, the faces of the men in the long column turned more frequently and fretfully to the sky. The pace was fast, almost a run. Although they had been going all night, the Shanganes bore their heavy burdens with all the hardiness and fortitude of the African, burdens that would have broken the heart and back of even a strong white man.

  it was light enough to define the treetops against the orange blossom of dawn when Sean heard the dread whistle of turbos, faint and distant, passing to the east. The Hinds were flying their fast sortie of the day, and the alarm was shouted down the length of the column. The porters dived off the path, seeking the nearest cover, and the section leaders crouched ready to wave the captured Frehmo colors Sean had provided for each of them should the Hinds spot them and come in to strafe them.

  The deception was not necessary, for the pair of Hinds passed two miles east of their position. Sean saw their silhouettes, like deformed pats, black against the oncoming dawn, and minutes later heard the thunder of their Gatling cannons and the boom of their assault rockets as they pounded another Renamo stronghold among the ironstone hills far behind them.

  Sean got the column moving again, and the glimpse they had been given of the "flying death" sped their feet. An hour later, the tail end of the column clambered swiftly down the almost sheer side of the gorge at the bottom of which lay the dry river-bed and the caves where the captured Unimogs had been hidden.

  It was almost a homecoming, and the men crept thankfully into the gloom of the caverns and laid down the heavy packs.

  "No fires," Sean ordered. "No smoking."

  They ate their rations of cold stodgy maize cakes and dried fish and then curled on the cavern floor and slept like a pack of hounds exhausted at the end of a day's hunting.

  Sean found a private place for Claudia at the back of the cavern, behind a natural screen of tumbled sandstone blocks. He spread a blanket on the rocky floor, and she sat cross-legged upon it and munched the unappetizing rations. But before she had half finished, she slumped sideways, asleep before her head touched the floor. Sean spread the other blanket over her, for it was chilly in the depths of the cavern, and then went back to the entrance.

  Alphonso had rigged the antenna of the small portable two-way VHF radio. He was crouched beside the set with the volume turned com low listening to the situation reports of the Renamo field manders as they reported in to General China's headquarters.

  "It goes very badly," he told Sean glumly. "Frelimp will be on the riverbank by noon tomorrow, and unless the general pulls back he will be overrun." Alphonso broke off as he recognized their call sign in the jumbled static of the wave band.

  "Banana Bush, this is Warthog," he replied into the hand Mike and then gave the "primary objective established" code: Coca Cola Sean smiled at this subtle commentary on modern Africa, and Banana Bush acknowledged and signed off. Their next report scheduled for dawn tomorrow, by which time the fate of the his.

  mission would be decided one way or the other.

  Sean left Alphonso rolling up the antenna and packing the radio into its carrying case and from the entrance of the cavern watched the party of five men who under Job's supervision were sweeping the sandy river-bed with
thorn branches to obliterate the last traces of their passing.

  Job climbed back to the mouth of the cave and Sean asked, "Sentries?"

  "On each of the peaks." Job pointed to the heights above them.

  "I have covered every approach."

  "All right." Sean led him back into the cavern. "It's time to arm and program the Stingers."

  It took almost a full hour to assemble the launchers, connect the battery packs, and feed the cassettes into the microcomputers in the consoles. Finally each of the launchers was fully armed and programmed for the "two-color" attack sequence on the Hind gunships, and they handed them back to the Shangane section leaders.

  Sean glanced at his wristwatch, mildly surprised that it was still keeping time after all the abuse he had given it recently.

  "We can grab a few hours" shut-eye," he told Job, but neither of them made a move to do so.

  Instead, as if by consent, they moved back to the entrance of the cavern, away from the others, and leaned against the rock wall with their shoulders almost touching, staring thoughtfully out into the river-bed where the early sunlight was sparkling the crystalline sand like powder snow.

  "If you had taken my advice, you could be living high in the fleshpots of Harare now," Sean murmured.

  "And never have the chance to bag a Hind?" Job smiled carefully; his damaged lip was crusted with a fragile scab, and a drop of blood like a tiny ruby appeared as it split open again. He dabbed at it with the corner. of his bandanna as he went on, "We have hunted all the dangerous game together, Sean, in all the worst places. Buffalo in the jesse bush, elephant in the Kasagasaga. This will be another trophy, the best and biggest."

  Sean turned to study his face. It was typical of their friendship that their feelings should be so perfectly in tune. During the long night march, Sean's fury and hatred of General China had abated and given way to this emotion Job had just articulated, the excitement of the hunter. They were both hunters; the chase was a fire and a passion in their blood that they had never attempted to suppress. They understood each other, recognized and accepted this bond between them that had grown stronger over the twenty years of their friendship. Yet, Sean realized, they had seldom spoken of their feelings for each other.

  "Perhaps now is the time to do so," he thought, and said aloud, "We are more than brothers, you and me."

  "Yes," Job replied simply. "We are beyond the love of brothers."

  They were silent then, not embarrassed by what had passed between them, but rather fulfilled and fortified by it.

  "As a brother," Sean broke the silence, "may I ask a favor of you?"

  Job nodded, and Sean went on softly. "There will be hard fighting at the laager. I would not want Claudia to fall into the hands of Frelimo if I were not there to prevent it. That is the favor I ask."

  A shadow passed behind Job's eyes. "I do not like to think about that possibility."

  "If I am not there, will you do it for me?"

  Job nodded. "I give you my word."

  "If you have to do it, do not warn her, do not speak, do it unexpectedly. "She will not know it is coming," Job promised. "It will be quick.

  "Thank you," Sean said, and clasped his shoulder. "Now we must rest."

  Claudia was still asleep, her breathing so gentle and silent that for a moment Sean was alarmed. He put his face close to hers and felt the warmth of her breath on his cheek. He kissed her, and she murmured in her sleep and reached out, fumbling for him and sighing contentedly as he crept into the circle of her arms.

  He seemed only to have closed his eyes for a moment before a light touch on his cheek woke him again and he looked up to see Job squatting over him.

  "It's time." Job's lips formed the words, and Sean gently disentangled Claudia's arms.

  "Sleep sweetly, my love," he murmured, and left her lying on the blanket.

  The others were already waiting for him at the entrance of the cave, Matatu and Alphonso and the section leaders, only lightly armed so that they could move swiftly and steathily.

  "Four o'clock," Job told Sean, and he saw that the light in the river-bed had mellowed, the shadows were lengthening.

  There was nothing more to say. They had both done this half a hundred times before.

  "See you around," Job said, and Sean nodded as he strapped on his pack.

  With Matatu dancing ahead of them like a forest sprite, they slipped out of the cavern and into the trees, immediately turning south and settling into their running formation.

  Twice they heard the Hind gunships passing at a distance, and once they were forced into cover as one of the helicopters came directly overhead.

  However, it was high-over four thousand feet, Sean estimated-and flying at the top of its speed. Studying the aircraft through his binoculars, Sean guessed it had completed a mission and was racing back to the laager to refuel and rearm. Confirming this, the racks for the Swatter assault missiles below the fuselage were empty, and the nozzles of the rocket pods were scorched with the backblast of discharged rockets.

  The Hind was heading on exactly the same bearing as Matatu was leading them, and even as Sean held it in the field of his binoculars, the Hind reduced power on its turbos and commenced its descent, homing in on its laager.

  "Not more than five miles ahead," Sean guessed. He glanced across at Matatu, who was waiting expectantly for Sean's approbation.

  "Like a bee to its hive." Matatu grinned.

  "Your eyes are like those of the vulture," Sean agreed. "They see all." Matatu hugged himself with pleasure and rocked on his haunches. Sean's praise was all the reward he ever asked for.

  Half an hour later they leopard-crawled up onto the crest of a low, rocky kopje and slid over the skyline into the dead ground below. Sean raised his binoculars, using his cap to shade the lens; a reflected ray of sunlight would telegraph their position like a heliograph.

  He picked up the raiNvay line immediately, less than two miles distant; the ballast was of blue granite and the single set of tracks gleamed dully in the late sunshine, polished by the steel wheels of rolling stock.

  He followed the tracks for a mile and found the spur onto which two railway tankers had been shunted. They were partially hidden by scraggly trees and rank bush, but minutes later a feather of dust rose out of the forest and a fuel bowser came down a dirt track and pulled in beside the leading tanker. Sean watched though the binoculars as overall-clad workers connected the delivery hose and began to pump fuel between the two vehicles.

  While this was happening, a Hind gunship rose with dramatic suddenness from the foreslope of the hill just beyond the railway spur.

  At last Sean had a positive fix on the laager.

  The Hind rose to three hundred feet above the hill, then turned and bore away, humpbacked and nose-heavy, for one more mission over the battlefield in the north before the light failed and fighting was suspended for the night.

  Now that he knew exactly where to look, Sean was able to make out other heavily camouflaged emplacements on the slopes of the hill. He counted six of them and said so to Matatu.

  "There are two more." Matatu grinned patronizingly as he pointed out the hidden emplacements Sean had overlooked. "And there are three more on the far side of the hill, you cannot see them from here."

  The wisdom of making this reconnaissance in daylight became as Sean was able to pick out the discrepancies between the clearer model with which they had planned the raid and the actual tapa 9raphy of the laager and its surroundings.

  Sean jotted the amendments in his notebook, making new estimates of the ranges and fields of fire his missiles could command.

  One by one, he called over each of the section leaders and pointed out exactly what positions he wanted them to occupy as soon as their teams arrived and darkness fell to cover them.

  Satisfied that Matatu could supply no further information, Sean dispatched him. "Go back to Job. As soon as it is dark, guide him and all the other soldiers up here." of daylight When Matatu
was gone, Sean devoted the last hour to watching the gunships return out of the north. There were eleven of them, ample proof of the efficiency of the Russian maintenance crews, who must have repaired the two Hinds that Matatu had reported were not flying. The entire squadron, less the single It gunship that Sean had knocked out of the sky, was once again operational and doing dreadful execution among the Renamo guerrillas.

  As each gunship hovered above the hillock, then settled into its emplacement, Sean pointed out the flying characteristics to his section leaders and urged them to mark well the exact position of each emplacement.