by James Steel
Alex turns and looks at him. ‘We had to do it,’ he says with finality. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’
They walk back over to a chopper packed with men bristling with weapons. Alex goes to the little sliding hatch in the window on the pilot’s side and shouts up for something that they pass out to him.
He walks back round to the ramp, and squeezes in next to his men at the back.
The choppers take off and then pass over the carnage. The others fly ahead but Alex’s pauses for a moment.
A figure leans out of the back of it over the raised ramp and a single bright red flare arcs down into the field of bodies. The avtur erupts and flames sweep across the field.
As the helicopters clatter away up the valley, the orange light from the flames washes over them and a pall of stinking black smoke spreads across the land.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The slight, middle-aged man wears a cheap suit and an anxious expression. He stands at the gate at Panzi hospital and says to Mama Riziki, ‘Well, if I could just come in to talk to you about it?’
He glances nervously around him at the crowd of food sellers who have set up their goods on patches of newspaper to sell to people coming in and out.
‘Well, tell me what it is about?’
The man looks pained. ‘It’s a private matter.’
‘Oh, OK, let him in.’ She gestures to the security guard and ambles back to the main buildings. ‘We can talk in my office.’
They sit down and she looks at him. ‘So?’
‘Well, I am here to make a donation to a woman. God has given me a word and told me to give the money to someone who really needs it.’ He unfolds a roll of crisp dollar bills.
Mama Riziki looks at it and raises her eyebrows. ‘Well, he must have had a big word with you. If you want to donate to the hospital then that would be very kind, we are always very grateful for the support of our …’
‘No, God has told me to give this money to one woman, someone who is destitute and has no other means.’
‘Hmm.’ She pauses. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Mr Nguy, I live in Bukavu.’
‘OK, well, I do have someone in mind. She has run out of money and needs another operation but she can’t afford even to stay on in the hospital any more so we would have to send her back to her village. If you could pay for another operation then that would be a miracle for her.’
Mr Nguy beams. ‘God is good, yes. Can I meet her first?’
Eve is lying in her bed, curled up in a ball. The sheets are soaked with urine but she doesn’t care any more. All the other girls are outside in the gardens but she is so depressed she can’t even get out of bed.
Mama Riziki walks over, strokes her head, sees she has tears in her eyes and croons over her and kisses her cheek.
‘Hey, baby, there is a man here who wants to speak to you. He has some good news.’
Eve raises her head and looks at Mr Nguy standing at the end of the ward smiling nervously at her.
‘Who is he? I’ve never seen him in my life. What does he want with me?’
The last helicopters touch down that night on the landing pads under harsh arc lights and wind down their engines for the first time that day.
The soldiers pour off the ramps, tired but elated. Echo, Alpha and Bravo Companies are in high spirits; Alex stands and watches the guys’ faces as they walk back up the hill to base. They know that First Regiment took casualties but victory is a great painkiller. They’re relieved to be through the battle and alive, they know they did a good job and the enemy took a pummelling. Some of the guys grin at Alex as he welcomes them back and flash victory signs. ‘Got ’em, sir!’
Alex feels weak and shaky but straightens his shoulders, grins and gives a thumbs up. He is still in command mode; he will process the emotions later. He knows he has to whip the wheel at this point to prevent the blues setting in. They’ve all had a very long day and burnt up huge reserves of energy – the firefight on the ridge felt like a normal year’s worth of adrenaline packed into a few minutes.
The soldiers from Foxtrot Company, though, are looking shaken up both from the bombardment and the massacre. The men’s morale is a delicate thing and Alex knows he’s got to nip any malaise in the bud. He calls Col over. ‘Let’s have a word with them later on.’
Col nods; as RSM he’s the one who will do the rounds of the barracks that evening, visiting the men as they sit on their bunks cleaning their weapons, chatting to them and taking soundings of their mood.
‘Right, I’ll let ’em get cleaned up and then we can see them later.’
The sixty men from the blocker group all cram into one long hut. They’re sitting on the top of the double bunks and on the floor to see Alex.
He stands front centre, flanked by Col and Major Jaap t’Hooft to present a united front. It’s an intimate meeting so they know that the CO cares about them, and they stare at him expectantly.
Alex is in a forthright, robust mood, standing with his hands on his hips and his feet apart. He gets straight to the point.
‘Gentlemen, what you have seen today is an appalling sight. It was an intense bombardment and the enemy took heavy casualties, some of them civilians. That is something we all regret and it is a terrible thing to witness.’
He pauses and scans their faces.
‘However, I will make two clear points. First, it was my decision as commanding officer to call in the artillery strike and I take full responsibility for it. Tactically and strategically I had no other choice.
‘Second, it is important to emphasise that Operation Wrath and the battle of Lubonga valley that you have just fought was a military victory and not a moral defeat.’
Another pause and a look round.
‘We have to be realistic. We cannot fight this war and delude ourselves that innocents are not going to die. There was no way that we could separate out the civilians and if we had let the soldiers escape then the damage they would have inflicted on other civilians would have been immense.
‘Kivu has been suffering lawlessness since 1997; thousands die unnecessarily every year and thousands of women are raped every year, a lot of them by FDLR forces. This situation will continue for decades because no one in the international community has got the guts to do anything that will actually solve the problem. The UN mission here is just a figleaf to cover their consciences.’
He scans the faces, still in rapt attention.
‘Well, gentlemen, today, we in the First Regiment of the Kivu Defence Force have taken the first major step to changing that situation. Through your bravery you have inflicted a crushing defeat on a group that is a listed terrorist organisation both in America and the EU.
‘We have captured a goldmine of information that our intelligence analysts are going through now.’ He points behind them to the large hut set aside for the purpose up the hill where Zacheus, Mordechai and the Unit 17 team are hard at work.
‘This will enable us to draw up a target list for raids that will mean that we can finally destroy the network behind this organisation. We can then disarm the other militia groups and finally restore civil society to Kivu.’
‘Gentlemen, you did a good day’s work today. It was tough but in years to come a lot of people will look back on what you did and thank God for your efforts.’
Col stands in front of the entire regiment of a thousand men and reads out a list of the dead.
He’s on the raised area in front of the headquarters building. The men are drawn up in front of him on the parade ground in ranks, bareheaded and clasping their berets in two hands in front of them. Some are looking up at Col thoughtfully but most just stare down at the ground.
Twenty-one bodies are zipped into grey bodybags laid out on planks on trestles in front of him, each covered with a piece of camouflage netting. A makeshift cross has been made out of spent 105mm brass shell casings and stands behind them all. It’s rough and ready but heartfelt.
It
’s 5th May, the morning after the battle, and Col’s huge voice booms out in the chill morning air. ‘Flight Officer Karpenko. Flight Officer Pankratov. Aircrewman Zablotny. Volunteer Jensen. Volunteer Rodriguez, Corporal Parker …’
The names roll on and the men listen in silence. It could be theirs next time.
Combat soldiers are irreverent yet profound. Most of the time they are crass and insensitive, cheering their mates’ misfortunes and celebrating enemy suffering. However, in honouring their dead they demand that due ceremony is observed.
Alex stands next to Yamba and Col and scans along the ranks. Some guys look blank-faced, others sombre, others have tears streaking their cheeks. He glimpses Corporal Stein’s brutal face staring at Col with laserlike intensity.
Alex thinks about the speech he is just about to give. He has to articulate the collective emotion of this new military family as it comes together to grieve and he’s got to get the tone right.
Col finishes the list, pauses and then says, ‘The commanding officer will now address the regiment.’ He calls them to attention and then stands them at ease again. It’s all part of the ceremony.
Alex’s voice comes from deep within and is big enough to carry right to the back of the formation. However, it is softer-edged and has lost some of the harshness from his speech the night before and he pauses frequently.
‘Gentlemen, this is a very solemn day. We have come together as the First Regiment to mourn the deaths of our comrades. They were soldiers and airmen and they died carrying out their jobs with bravery and distinction. We all feel their loss keenly.
‘However, these men have not died in vain. Yesterday we inflicted a crushing defeat on the enemy that will allow us to continue the campaign and lead to our eventual victory and a better world for the six million people of Kivu.
‘You all performed superbly in the battle of Lubonga valley. That and these men’s sacrifice has bonded us together as a unit and sealed it with blood. Being part of First Regiment now means a huge amount more to us all. We are a young unit and we face overwhelming odds but what you and these men did yesterday showed that we are brave, that we can fight and that we will win!’
After his speech a Russian, Danish, Spanish and English soldier come onto the platform and, led by Col, the regiment mumbles its way through the Lord’s Prayer in their various tongues. A lot of the men don’t know the words but the slow rumbling rhythm of a thousand voices has enough of a sense of the divine to speak to their souls.
As the ceremony draws to a close they observe a two-minute silence and the men look down, lost in their thoughts.
Alex stands at attention and keeps his face straight. He does feel what is happening but he has an old-school, dutiful way of dealing with it, channelling the feeling into making sure he does his job as CO well. He is there to voice the men’s emotions not to feel them.
Six men who were close to each of the dead then come forward from the front ranks and lift the planks bearing the bodies onto their shoulders. Jean-Baptiste is solemn as he helps carry one of his men; Echo Company lost twelve soldiers in all in Demon 5 and on the ridge. Major McKinley carries one of Bravo Company’s dead from the fighting in the valley. Arkady is among the Russian pilots and ground-crew who carry their own comrades.
The drill is awkward and unrehearsed but they slowly make their way over to a Mi-17 sitting on the parade ground with its rear ramp down, waiting to take the bodies to Kigali from where they will be repatriated. Each party enters the cargo bay and leaves a body before the next one goes in.
The men turn and watch as the engine starts, the ramp closes slowly, and the blades begin to turn. Dust blows back over them and they shield their eyes as it lifts off. The pilot slowly rotates in the air so that the helicopter faces the regiment and dips its rotors to them.
It turns and rises upwards; the men watch until the dot is lost in the bright blue morning sky.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A heavy explosion shakes Gabriel awake at two a.m.
He sits upright in his bunk. Another massive bang rattles the wooden shutters of the hut and makes the empty beer bottles on the floor clink together.
‘What’s that?’ Marcel’s frightened voice comes from the bunk above him. They listen and another explosion comes from the hill across the valley from their manoir.
Shouts start in the huts down the muddy street from them and they pull on their trousers, wellies and anoraks and run outside. Crowds of miners are standing and staring across the valley half a mile away at the FDLR base on the hill overlooking them. It’s cloudy and freezing cold and everyone’s breath steams in the dim lights from the open hut doors.
A brilliant orange flash in the air over the base destroys Gabriel’s night vision and the thump of the explosion knocks the air out of his lungs. More explosions pound the base.
The artillery fire stops and the noise of helicopters swirls in from the darkness. The beating of heavy rotors slows over the FDLR base but the aircraft are completely blacked out so he can’t actually see them. It feels creepy just trying to sense their location by sound.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ someone shouts to no one in particular.
‘It’s the UN.’
‘Don’t be stupid, they wouldn’t take on the Gorilla Brigade.’
Gabriel and Marcel stand and stare with open mouths.
‘What about Robert and Patrice?’ Gabriel finally mutters, wondering if the soldiers they sometimes work with are OK.
There are four helicopters now landing on the hill, dropping troops and then lifting off immediately. They hear orders being shouted, intense bursts of machine-gun fire and the flat cracks of grenades echo back and forth across the valley. Windows smash and doors crash open. They hear more shouting of orders and screaming of men in fear.
A building catches fire, flames licking up from a lower-floor window.
‘That’s Colonel Etienne’s villa,’ Marcel mutters. They have often looked up at the white clapboard house, envying the power he has over them and the wealth he creams off from their labour. It feels disconcerting to see it attacked in the middle of the night so swiftly and so violently.
The raid continues and they can see the bright flashes of tracer fire spreading down the hill into the barracks. Some of the buildings are already on fire from the shells at the start of the raid. A cluster of muzzle flashes in the dark shows where some resistance is beginning to take hold against the assault.
Alex is watching the raid on the plasma screen in the ops room, the infrared images relayed to him by the drone circling high above it all. Col, Yamba and other senior officers are also crowded round. Kill TV they call it. It’s 5th May, the night after the Lubonga battle and Alex is already using the intelligence from the material they seized from FDLR headquarters. He needs to keep the element of surprise and hit the enemy in their bases before they realise what is happening. He is using fresh men from the rifle companies not involved in the Lubonga battle, which all helps to keep the regiment focused on its ongoing mission.
‘Good, they’re in,’ Alex mutters. The landing is a delicate part of the op but there is a lot more to come.
‘Artillery was spot on,’ Yamba murmurs approvingly. Two 105mm light guns were dropped by helicopter into a clearing on a hill ten miles away earlier in the day and a temporary firebase established. They will use the two guns as fire support for two other raids that night happening in a twenty-mile radius area around the firebase and then pull the guns out the next day.
Alex always feels odd watching the silent black and white movie of his men in action but it is also very convenient from a commander’s perspective. He keys the mike on the radio net. ‘Beyoncé, this is Black Hal. Can you neutralise the pocket of resistance behind Barrack Four on the north side of the target?’
‘Black Hal, this is Beyoncé. Roger that.’
Arkady’s gunner, Boris, uses the magnified image from his infrared targeting sight displayed in a monocle that drops down fro
m his helmet over his right eye. He can see the FDLR soldiers crouching behind a line of outdoor cement-wash troughs, using them as cover to fire back at the men of Golf Company. He thumbs the targeting crosshairs over them, the long twin-barrelled cannon in the chin turret under his feet swivels round and he presses the fire button on his joystick.
Gabriel hears the clatter of rotors move in again overhead and bright flashes of heavy-calibre automatic gunfire stab down from the black sky. Wherever the lines of light touch the earth, orange explosions and sparks shoot up illuminating bodies being blown to pieces.
Resistance breaks and the FDLR troops start running away down the road into the valley between the base and the manoir.
Gabriel and the others can’t see them in the pitch black but the dark of the bottom of the valley is suddenly split open by two bright white flashes and loud bangs that roll back up the hill to them.
After the Claymore mines go off, spraying hundreds of ball bearings across the road, multiple bursts of machine-gun fire open up on the troops from higher up the manoir side of the hill.
Corporal Stein can see the men below him in the green underwater vision of his night vision goggles and steers the line of tracer from his PKM machine gun onto them. Using his Special Forces skills he has infiltrated an eight-man blocker detachment into the ambush site from ten miles out and laid up in the forest waiting for the start of the raid. The FDLR soldiers are caught in the trap and shot to pieces in the valley.
After the barracks are cleared of men on the hill, phosphorous grenades are lobbed inside, the bright white flashes illuminating the night, and the buildings start burning fiercely.
The four big helicopters clatter back in to the site and in the light of the flames Gabriel can see men running out from the headquarters building carrying bundles of documents and even a filing cabinet. Handcuffed and hooded prisoners can also be seen being shoved along with rifles into the choppers.
Shouts call the assault troops back in and they start re-embarking on the helicopters. The gunship overhead lands on the road in the bottom of the valley and the blocker detachment slide the side doors open and scramble into the troop compartment. As they lift off a few rifle rounds hit the titanium armour and ping off harmlessly.
