by Danny King
That’s it, I figured, I’m out of here.
The upside of losing Savimbi and the Land Rover was that I also seemed to have lost Captain Bolaji. Taking this as my cue, I pointed the Earth Mover in the direction of the distant hills and flattened the accelerator.
Suddenly I was swimming against the tide. Jeeps, APCs and armour were pouring into the works while I was intent on leaving via the same holes. Luckily my Earth Mover could cart over three hundred and fifty tonnes when fully loaded, so brushing aside a few old Russian trucks hardly scratched the bumpers. The armour I pushed to one side, but the jeeps I just went straight over without jigging the windscreen wipers.
Sparks started to explode all around the cab as my former comrades voiced their objections, but I ducked beneath the steering wheel and carried on over the top of them until I was outside.
Once clear of the main perimeter I found less people to run over. Most of the Special Army were now inside and attacking the mine’s installations, while the population at large had taken to the hills. I’d momentarily lost the main road from having to duck under the dashboard so I made one of my own through a row of corrugated houses until I found the official road again.
For a few precious minutes I rolled away from the mine stupidly thinking I’d made it, but only too quickly bullets began strafing the cab again.
I glanced into my wing mirror and saw Captain Bolaji making free with his ammo moments before the glass disappeared in an explosion of shards. I swung the steering wheel into the Captain’s direction, but he just popped up in the opposite wing mirror and carried on rattling bullets off my doors.
What was left of my windows disappeared in the next hail, but Captain Bolaji couldn’t bring his arc of fire to bear on me. The driver’s seat was a good twenty-five feet above ground and protected from the rear by six inches of solid steel. The only way to get anywhere near me was to shoot through the driver’s doors, but in order to do that he had to make it past a trio of twenty-foot high wheels, which didn’t appeal to his driver in the slightest.
I checked the clip on my carbine and resorted to my Colt when I found it was empty.
The road ahead was relatively straight, so I stuck the Carbine through the steering wheel and checked my rear. Captain Bolaji had disappeared from the driver’s side, so I clambered over the seats and checked behind the right rear wheel. Sure enough there he was, bouncing bullets off the rubber in an attempt to burst my tyres, but having about as much luck as the residents of Caia were. Well, like I said, this truck carried over three hundred and fifty tonnes of dirt and rocks fully laden so they didn’t muck around when it came to the tyres.
I took a bead on my target and pulled the trigger three or four times until I saw his driver’s hat come off. Captain Bolaji’s jeep immediately veered into my rear wheel and disappeared under the axles with a satisfying bump. Captain Bolaji himself leapt for his life but I didn’t see what became of him as a crunch from the front suddenly grabbed my attention.
I turned just in time to see the side of a steel bridge vanishing under the front wheels of the Earth Mover and a river looming large in the windscreen. I gasped through sheer terror, but just about managed to hold onto the breath as I plunged thirty feet and crashed face first into the mighty Zambezi.
10.
DILEMMAS WITH HYDROGEN AND OXYGEN
Everything immediately went black and I tumbled and turned inside the cab until the Earth Mover hit the bottom with a thump.
My head hit the ceiling and I lost the breath I’d been saving for later, but when I spluttered and choked, I found to my surprise that I could still breathe. A small pocket of air had accompanied me to the bottom of the river so I sucked in as much as I could and studied my latest share price.
Not brilliant, but things could’ve been worse.
And suddenly they were. The rear of the Earth Mover started tumbling after the front and the air began draining away as the machine twisted in the murk and came to a rest on its back. Fortunately, by the time I was submerged again, I’d managed to pump my lungs full of air and was confident I had a couple of minutes before I had to find any more.
I’m pretty good at holding my breath these days. Most Agency Affiliates have to be. Besides marksmanship, flying kicks and unbreakable skulls, a good pair of lungs is all part of the kit. Very few jobs won’t dunk you in the drink at some point, whether it be oceans, seas, lake or rivers, shark pits, moats, alligator enclosures or piranha tanks. And if you want to get out of them again and pick up your wages at the end of the job, you’d better know how to hold your breath. The Agency actually runs courses for surviving water. And pretty vigorous they are too. More than a few blokes have drowned just attending these courses but The Agency has world-class lifeguards and medics on hand at all times and has yet to permanently lose a student to water. The drowning side can actually help you. I almost drowned doing this course and nothing makes you more aware of the limits to which you can push your body. As long as you’re able to pump your lungs before you’re submerged, as long as you know to release it slowly, as long as you let your own natural buoyancy do as much of the work as you dare, as long as you don’t panic and as long as you don’t breathe the water, more times than not you’ll live to climb onto dry land again.
I launched myself through the windscreen of the Earth Mover and was pulled clear by the current. I could see the African sun twinkling far above my head, sending golden rays through the dirty water to show me the way back to life, so I kicked off my boots, my jacket and my gun belt and motioned my arms and legs in gentle circles, clawing myself towards surface inch by murderous inch.
The current was mercilessly strong and for every three feet I rose, I sank another two until my lungs burned with impatience. I knew not to kick too frantically as that had been my undoing on The Agency course. You don’t rise any quicker, you just use up your oxygen. Instead I tried meditating my way to the surface. This sounds a bit gay, and I’ll be the first to admit it, but it can actually save your life. By focussing inwardly and shutting down all extraneous activity, you conserve oxygen for your vital organs, granting you precious extra seconds to circle around in the swells as you float towards daylight. But it is an incredibly hard thing to do, because you’ve basically got to fight against your instincts. I mean, when you’re in thirty feet of water and gasping for breath, your panic stations will demand that you strike for the surface, but fighting against the water will only make you want to breathe all the more. What you actually have to do is take a moment to calm yourself, then relax as many muscles as you can (your back, neck, buttocks, stomach etc) and slowly and rhythmically waft yourself toward the light. Hopefully, if you’ve done it right, Saint Peter won’t be standing there when you open your eyes to tell you you should have kicked, and you’ll break the surface as gently as a sea turtle on its journeys around the oceans.
Of course, it’s almost always those last few inches that actually kill you, tricking you into believing that you’ve made it when you haven’t, and that’s when you’ve got to be at your most disciplined and resist the urge to thrash for the finishing line.
Though this can be particularly hard when a semi-submerged tree branch stabs you in the face.
“Oh you… [cough]… fuckin’…. [retch]… cuntin’… fuck… [gag]… shi… [heave]… urghhh!”
I managed to somehow cling onto the branch and pulled myself the last few inches to the surface, though the pain that gouged my face almost knocked me back into the depths. I gulped down a bellyful of river and air, coughing and hacking with every breath until I was eventually able to keep some air down.
The river continued to pull at my feet, but my arms were tightly wrapped around the branch to keep me afloat.
I looked around to take stock of my situation but saw nothing out of the right eye but blood and shapes, and nothing at all out of my left. I felt my face and a shiver ran down my spine when I found a tangled mess of skin and bone where my left eye used to be.
&nbs
p; “Oh shit!”
I splashed some water into my right eye to clear my vision, but I was still unable to see anything at all out of my left.
Blood started pouring down my face again, flavouring the water and banging the dinner gong for any nearby crocodiles, so I put my less immediate worries on hold for a moment and hauled myself along the branch until I reached the bank. The mud sucked at my hands and feet but a little more clambering saw me up the slope and away from the Zambezi’s circling patrons.
I wanted to clean my face, push it back together and pick out any fragments of wood and dirt that were stuck in my eye, but my hands were caked with mud and my shirt was somehow filthier than the water it had just left.
I found some waxy vegetation nearby and did what I could to clean my hands up, and although I was still reluctant to put them into an open wound, what choice did I have?
A couple of bits of bark and one of the tastier splinters of wood fell from my face as I tried to flick it clean, along with one or bits I think I was meant to keep. Only my hand was keeping my eyeball and eyebrow in place, so I untied my bandana from around my neck and did what I could to tie it around my head. My eye was gone, and a good proportion of my face too, but at least I was alive, which is more than a lot of people would be able to say come the end of this day.
I was stupidly just allowing myself think that the worst of it was behind me when the same waxy vegetation that had served as my medicine cabinet began exploding all around me. I looked up and saw Captain Bolaji on the crest of the riverbank, emptying his pistol in my direction in a fit of ill-judged impatience. If he’d snuck up on me or had lain in wait, he would’ve had me for dead, but like so many inexperienced gunmen, he’d opened up on me from a distance, assuming I’d be as easy to hit at fifty yards as a paper target.
I was on my belly and scrambling before he’d got more than three or four shots off, and used the sloping bank as cover.
Captain Bolaji swore at me and told me to die, but I hadn’t accommodated any of the hundred or so other piss poor shots who’d made similar demands in the past so I didn’t see why I should make an exception for him.
If I’d still had my Colt and my 3D vision I might’ve stayed and taught Captain Bolaji how to shoot, but I was unarmed and hurt, so I scrambled through the undergrowth, keeping my head down and arse moving as I slithered for salvation. Thanks to the loss of my trousers my legs were soon scuffed to sirloin and together with all the blood that was pouring off my face I quickly realised a half-cut tracker with a hangover could’ve happily run me down, so I took the decision to lay up and wait for Captain Bolaji. If he was impatient enough to open up on me from fifty yards away, he was a good bet to run straight into a blade if I gave him the opportunity.
I rolled off the trail and pulled my combat knife from my ankle sheath. The Captain soon caught up with me, eyes to the dust as he chased down my blood trail, and I saw that he too had been hurt, presumably when his driver had taken a detour under my Earth Mover. This bolstered my confidence and I sunk back behind the tree and crouched with the blade poised to strike.
Sounds of twigs cracking heralded his arrival and I stabbed into a rush of movement but misjudged the distance thanks to my newly acquired 2D vision. Still, the shock knocked him off kilter long enough for me to turn my attention to his gun and I slashed it from his hand, opening his tendons and veins as I did so.
Far from falling back as I would’ve expected, Captain Bolaji launched himself at me, seizing my knife hand and tumbling us both into a scrub-filled gully to crack our heads on the waiting rocks.
“Dog bitch!” Captain Bolaji screamed, trying to turn the knife on me.
“Fucking twat!” I screamed back, equally determined to be the one who did the stabbing around here.
Captain Bolaji smashed me on the side of the face with his free hand, rocking my head back and exposing my neck for a dangerous few moments. However, I managed to use the momentum to bring my face straight back into his, head-butting him on the bridge of the nose with a sickening crunch. To be honest, I wasn’t sure which of us had just done the crunching but neither of us seemed that happy about it and both reeled back with nausea.
“That wasn’t good,” I spluttered, and for one moment Captain Bolaji nodded in agreement.
Almost immediately though we were straight back to it, grappling and scratching at each other as we fought for possession of the blade.
My shock and blood loss must’ve begun to tell because Captain Bolaji started to get the upper hand. He rolled me onto my back and twisted the blade in my grip until my hand was almost at a right angle to itself. It was impossible to push the blade away when my wrist was at this angle, so I held him for as long as I could and settled for opening a second front on the bastard, whipping my knees up between his legs until I eventually won a coconut.
Captain Bolaji’s strength slipped and I was able to push him off and turn the knife around. Captain Bolaji still had a hold of my wrist but the tide had turned and he knew it.
“No!” he gasped, as the tip of the blade began to pierce his neck.
I’ve killed a couple of people with a knife before and they always react the same way when the end comes. Pleading, desperation, pity and regret. Mr Fedorov, my late lamented Russian colleague, used to say that knife fights were like games of chess; each player started out on the attack with such intent, rushing their Queens and Rooks into the fray with only final victory on their minds until inevitably the issue was forced, and the losing King was left to run around in ever decreasing circles until the final blow was struck.
Well my knee-to-the-nuts had sapped Captain Bolaji of all his Bishops, Knights and Rooks and only a few token Pawns stood between him and Check Mate. Captain Bolaji recognised this and did what everyone in his position always did when their time came. He pleaded with me to “wait”, used the last of his strength to delay the inevitable and prayed for a miracle to save him.
It arrived right on cue, just as I was about to deliver to killer blow.
11.
THUNDERCLAP
A white hot flash filled the sky behind me, searing my back and making me recoil in surprise. A supersonic blast of superheated air arrived right on its tail and me and Captain Bolaji scrambled away to escape its wrath, throwing ourselves behind a rocky overhang as bushes and trees spontaneously combusted all around us as far as the eye could see.
The nuke – I’d forgotten about it.
I could tell by the confusion on Captain Bolaji’s face that he hadn’t been part of His Most Excellent Majesty’s strategy meetings either and was probably wondering if we’d managed to stab each other and taken a tumble into hell as a consequence.
Because hell was exactly what we’d found.
Fire raged on all sides, sucking the oxygen from the air and choking us where we cowered. Having seen firestorms before I knew we’d suffocate if we stayed where we were. We had to get away, find air and a respite from the heat. The solution was no more than fifty yards away.
The Zambezi.
I shouted this at Captain Bolaji and he nodded to show that he understood, so we jumped to our feet and sprinted as one through the burning vista.
The heat was incredible, almost too much to bear, and it came in rolling waves as we careened in zigzags through the crackling vegetation, feeling the most bearable route down to the river. If we’d stumbled, we would have undoubtedly roasted where we’d dropped, but our movement prevented us from burning too deeply. Like hogs on a spit, we cooked all over, slowly but evenly until the river was suddenly there, broad and inviting, and we leapt into its cool waters without hesitation.
The relief was all embracing and we bobbed in the swell as the current swept us downriver and away from the flames. But this was when our problems really started. See, we weren’t the only ones who’d had the brilliant idea of hitting the water the moment the bomb went off. Every croc and hippo sunning itself on the water’s edge had decided that was enough sun for one afternoon so
that the Zambezi was now standing room only with all creatures great and small.
The first thing to have a lunge at me was a fifteen-foot crocodile with tan lines across his face. I managed to keep it at arms length with a boot on the nose and a branch in its eye before I was helped out by a passing impala which floated straight into his outstretched mouth.
And the impala wasn’t the only one who was having an off day. Lots of half-cooked antelopes and wildebeests clogged the waters in a desperate attempt to escape the flames, some were kicking and whinnying, some were not, but the crocodiles quickly recognised the bounty for what it was.
I decided to take my chances back on shore when a submerged hippo took exception to my proximity and I floundered and thrashed about in the rip until I fished up on a silt beach nearby.
I pulled myself clear of the water, but stayed close to the river for the air and finally allowed myself to actually put a little thought into my next move, rather than simply reacting to whatever was trying to shoot, roast or eat me.
After a little frantic splashing and a cry of “Oh God please no”, I had company in the form of Captain Bolaji, who hauled himself out of the water and who looked up at me warily. I barely had the energy to speak, let alone continue our game of chess, so I just shrugged to indicate that my bolt was shot and the Captain pulled himself up the beach and collapsed next to me.
Neither of us said anything at first. We just watched our surroundings burn and the sky turn black with smoke.
The radiation would follow, but as long as we didn’t linger and as long as we didn’t have a stiff wind on our backs all the way home we’d escape the worst of it. Well, maybe. We’d been about three miles from the blast when it had gone off and judging from the fact that I was still alive to feel my wounds I reckoned the bomb must have been a relatively small affair. Just a couple of kilotons or so. Plus it had been a surface detonation, maybe even a subterranean detonation if the late Admiral had driven the payload into the mine itself. All of these things had worked in our favour. We’d caught the bomb’s flash and had felt its breath, but we’d been on the very fringes of the destruction zone and escaped with a couple of tanned necks and singed eyebrows. Much of the vegetation around us had burst into flames, but this was southern Africa, you only needed to turn on a flashlight around these parts to burn the place down. Oh yes, we’d been lucky all right. Or rather, Captain Bolaji had been lucky. I’d missed martyrdom by design rather than accident.
