Recoil

by Andy McNab

  Her hair was red with mud, and lay flat against her head.

  She tried, but couldn’t look me in the eye. She picked up a leaf and started playing with it. ‘Whatever Stefan told you, it would have been true. I run, Nick. I run from everything. Always have done. That’s why we met, remember?’

  At last I got a little eye-contact and a smile I returned. Melbourne – a backpackers’ hostel, opposite Flinders Street station. I’d gone down to the lobby, where she was looking at the message board on which I’d offered a lift to Sydney for a share of the gas.

  ’You don’t want to go with him.’ I prodded a rival’s note. ‘Rubbish conversation and, besides, he’s an axe murderer. You’d be much better off with this bloke.’ I prodded mine. ‘Much better-looking, and no axes.’

  She turned her head. ‘So what’s his weapon of choice?’

  ‘Ice-cream. Free cone at every gas stop.’ I’d stretched out my hand. ‘I’m Nick.’

  She shook. ‘Silke.’ I liked her German accent. ‘Under what circumstances would your offer include crushed nuts and syrup?’ And the fact her grammar was better than mine.

  And that was pretty much that. She’d slung her surfboard on to the roof of my combi van, and five days later, after a thousand miles of great conversation, four vanillas and a couple of tuttifruttis, we were sharing more than expenses.

  Now her smile faded.

  ‘My mother would stroke my hair. I can still smell her perfume when I think about her, even now.’ She tugged at the leaf. ‘When she died, I ran away. And I kept running, from anything too complicated, or just to avoid it completely. I’d pretend the problem wasn’t there – and if I didn’t think about it, well, it wasn’t.’

  I wanted to ask why I couldn’t be the one to listen, but I already knew the answer. I’d never been the listening kind.

  She leaned down and touched her swollen ankle. ‘I’m sorry, Nick. I needed to figure stuff out.’

  I knelt beside her and stroked her cheek. ‘Well, next time you need to do that,’ I said, ‘make sure you go to Butlins.’

  She didn’t get it. Maybe they didn’t have holiday camps in Germany.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. An English joke.’ I hesitated. ‘I guess Tim isn’t a Butlins kind of a guy, eh?’

  She held my gaze now, and I could see tears in her eyes. ‘I needed to see him. Not in the way you think. But now I’m here, you know . . . Look at what he is trying to do . . . Can we really just head back to Lugano, or Sydney, or any other damn place and drink cappuccino and feel comfortable about the world?’

  I got up slowly, not wanting to carry on this conversation. ‘Wait here. I’m going to check things out.’

  I scrambled up towards the higher ground, looking, listening and giving myself a hard time. What I really wanted to do was scream into her face: ‘So you came all the fucking way here to talk to him about us when you could have done that with me over a brew – not in a fucking war zone where I’ve just had to kill another kid!’

  I stopped. I couldn’t hear much above the yelling in my head, but I could see movement down by the river, where we’d just been.

  I checked the sky and let my prismatic point settle. The sun was directly overhead, but still only a ball of light trying to penetrate the cloud.

  I looked north. If we kept on the high ground, we’d eventually get back to the valley – as long as we didn’t trip over any hostiles on the way. Whatever, I wasn’t going to wait until last light.

  11

  There was nothing scientific about what I’d been doing for the last ninety minutes. Carrying Silky on my back was like humping eight stone of bergen up and down the Brecons. All I had to do was lean forward to take the weight, then get one foot in front of the other as fast as I could.

  I’d kept off the top of the high ground, the natural route, moving instead just below it to hide my shape and silhouette. I’d moved in bounds, no more than five metres at a time, using the cover as best I could, stopping after each to look and listen, then plan the next – scanning the ground in front of me for more cover, for a route without too many rocks, bushes or anything else that might send me flying. Silky never left my back. Once I’d got her on, it was easier to keep her there.

  I stopped against a tree. I rested both hands on the trunk and leaned forward to balance her and control my breathing. This was taking for ever. I listened and looked between the tree-trunks and bush for any irregularities of shape, shine, shadow, spacing, silhouette or movement.

  Sweat dropped from my forehead and chin on to the leaf litter, like water from a melting icicle.

  Birds twittered in the trees and the cicadas went for it hammer and tongs. I’d never seen one of the fuckers in all the times I’d spent in jungles, but they always let you know they were out there, ready and in sufficient numbers to take over the world.

  She slid off, hobbling on to her good left leg, either to give me or herself a rest. She levered herself down slowly with her back against the tree-trunk, her right leg out in support as the left did all the work. Finally she sank into the mud.

  Too tired to do anything else, I kept my position, looking and listening as I pulled out my prismatic and checked our direction. Everything hurt; everything was heavy. Anything with wings, the size of a pinhead or bigger, landed on me to bite. I glanced down at Silky and saw they weren’t saving it all for me: she had lumps on her face and neck the size of witch’s boils.

  My head swam and my throat was so dry it felt like I’d been swallowing the gravel Crucial should have been getting down his neck to sort out that squeaky voice. I knew I was dehydrating, and that I had to take on fluid urgently. These symptoms were Nature’s final warning. The next step was collapse.

  I tapped her shoulder and offered a hand to pull her up. A small flock of birds rattled out of the canopy somewhere in the distance, but not close enough to worry about. I was trying to work out my time and distance. We’d been on the move for about an hour before we’d got the contacts, and we’d been going slowly an hour and a half since. We must be at least halfway to the mine, maybe even a bit more.

  I thought about the contact. Well, more about the boy whose face I had destroyed. I knew now that if we got back to the mine, there was a pretty strong chance I might have to do it again.

  Silky looked at me. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I got ready to take her weight. ‘Come on.’

  She climbed on as best she could, but she was fucked, and she wasn’t the only one. I adjusted her on my back as best I could, as if she was a bergen and I was twenty-nine Ks into a thirty-K fast tab. I got my hands round her thighs and jumped up that last little bit to get the balance right. Her legs rubbed against the sores on my back and I almost shouted with pain. But there was fuck-all to be done about it; I had to crack on. I leaned forward, took the weight in my hands again, and shook my head of sweat. I checked my next bound and made distance.

  I didn’t know what I was supposed to think or feel about her running away from me. When I heard the next burst of gunfire ahead of us, I realized it didn’t much matter.

  I couldn’t work out exactly where the shots had come from; the trees bounced the noise about. Could have been dead ahead, or down to the right.

  I stood stock still, mouth open, and tried to listen. She was breathing noisily into my ear. ‘Ssssh . . . Hold it . . .’

  There was more intermittent fire, then a couple of single shots, but again I was none the wiser.

  I adjusted Silky once more and staggered on. There was nothing else I could do. It was ineffective fire: the rounds weren’t hitting us or the ground around us, and if I stopped every time I heard a shot we wouldn’t get anywhere.

  I’d lost all sense of time and distance; my head spun and my lips were coated with white, foamy saliva.

  A scream pierced the jungle no more than ten metres in front of us.

  There were shots, long bursts, rounds hitting the floor all over the place and thudding into the trees.
It didn’t matter if the rounds were aimed or the guys were just taking a cabby. They’d still make big holes in us.

  I dropped like liquid and Silky collapsed on top of me. Her chin crashed down on the back of my head.

  I moved to the right, downhill, fast, dragging her along the ground as she whimpered with pain.

  12

  The firing had stopped, but the screams and shouts hadn’t. They definitely came from ahead of us, on the high ground. I took advantage of the noise and kept her moving. The further away we got the better.

  I shuffled along, half squatting, gripping her arm, virtually dragging her, trailing her leg in the mud. My eyes were zeroed in on the noise rather than where I was heading, so at first I didn’t see what I’d stumbled over.

  The thousands of flies I’d disturbed swarmed into the air with the force and anger of a tornado.

  Then I saw one pair of feet, but two bodies.

  Silky saw them too and opened her mouth in a silent scream.

  They’d been freshly dropped; the blood still glistened. The chunks of scalp had probably been ripped from their heads after death, but I knew there was a strong chance their arms and legs had been hacked off while they were still alive.

  The flies swarmed back on to the raw flesh. I looked at the torsos and saw at least one mag tucked into a pair of jeans. And if there were mags, there might still be weapons.

  I climbed over the limbs, grabbed the mag, and handed it to Silky. ‘Have a look,’ I said quietly. ‘Get any others. Careful of the blood.’

  I pissed off the flies again as I searched under the torsos. They sounded like a chainsaw in a wind tunnel.

  There was an AK wedged under the second guy. I grabbed hold, but it wouldn’t budge. The flies landed again and it looked like the bodies themselves were moving. Silky retched. She’d probably seen a few dead bodies in her time, but none after a gollock had done its worst.

  The AK came clear and I fell back into the leaf litter. The magazine had taken a round through it, so I hit the release catch and let it drop. The safety lever was already down, so I pulled back the working parts and checked the chamber. There was a round in. I let the working parts slide forward, and flicked the safety back up.

  I started to crawl, and beckoned Silky to follow. She needed no second bidding. I heard her vomit, but it sounded like nothing was coming up.

  She’d get over it. I took a mag from her and pushed down on the rounds to make sure it was full. I rocked it back into the weapon, and gave it a little shake to make sure it was firmly in place.

  We had to keep moving towards the mine, and try to box round whatever was just ahead.

  We moved down into the low ground for another twenty metres, Silky sliding more than hopping. I stopped, checked the sun, and headed north again.

  We’d gone no more than a hundred metres when I heard voices.

  They were muffled, and I couldn’t make anything out. I dropped to my hands and knees and started to crawl, my body pumping with adrenalin. Silky did her best to keep up.

  There was more mumbling on the high ground to our left.

  Silky was three metres or so behind me, so I listened as I waited for her to come level.

  There was no movement up there, no running around. Just voices.

  I signalled to her to keep still.

  I didn’t wait for an answer, or even a nod. I wanted to get closer to the voices and try to find a way out of this shit. Right hand on the pistol grip, index finger over the trigger guard, left hand on the stock, I started a very slow leopard crawl on my elbows and knees.

  I stopped, looked, listened. Why weren’t they moving out to see if they had dropped us? If they were static, in positions, maybe they were Sam’s guys. The dead ones certainly hadn’t been. The one I’d taken the weapon from had been wearing an Eminem T-shirt and jeans.

  I moved a couple more metres uphill and the mud and leaf litter built up on my chest like a bow wave. Now I could hear everything I needed to. I turned round and crawled back down to Silky.

  I moved my mouth to her ear. ‘I think we’re near the mine. I need you to shout to them in French. Tell them it’s Nick, Sam and Crucial’s friend.’

  I got up into a fire position, in case they patrolled towards her voice and I’d got the whole thing wrong.

  ‘Go on, shout.’

  She gave it a couple of seconds while she worked out what she wanted to say, then did.

  She got a reply, also in French. I understood ‘ami’ and ‘matin’ and that was about it.

  ‘What are they saying?’

  ‘Sssh, let me listen . . . They’re saying to come out.’

  No way. Not without confirmation.

  ‘Tell them to describe Sam. Ask them what colour hair he’s got.’

  She gobbed off, and smiled as she translated the answer. ‘They say it’s as orange as the earth. He’s a redhead?’

  That was good enough for me. ‘Tell them we’re coming, and there’s two of us. One injured, so she’ll be carried. Make sure they understand before we move.’

  She shouted again, then I got her on to my back and started moving uphill. ‘Keep shouting. Tell them we’re coming in now.’

  I leaned forward into the hill and pumped my hands rhythmically to keep momentum. When we crested, we saw two guys standing nervously in front of a well-camouflaged sangar.

  Their AKs were tucked under their arms, but aimed, fingers on triggers.

  I moved a bit closer and could see Crucial’s arc stakes. These guys must be a standing patrol, the first line of defence, there to give early warning.

  PART SEVEN

  1

  A line of comms cord, tied to one of the arc stakes, led off into dead ground. One of the guys gave it a couple of hard tugs and I followed the other out of the sangar, Silky still on my back. The cords would be jerking now from sangar to sangar, all the way down to the inner cordon.

  The guy in front of me also started shouting at the top of his voice to make sure we didn’t get zapped by friendly fire – a good move, as far as I was concerned.

  There was more sporadic gunfire down by the river to our right.

  My legs felt so heavy now that I was beginning to stagger. After about a hundred very laboured paces we came to the point where green stopped and orange began.

  We were about halfway along the valley. Squaddies ran to and fro below us, and even in the midst of the commotion, miners kept lobbing rocks out of their holes in the ground. On the far side, about two hundred away, I could see the re-entrant where the Nuka lot were harboured. Bodies sat or lay in the mud; others had tucked themselves into the hollows dug into the rock.

  Our guide aimed us at a track that led down to the tents, then turned and headed back towards his sangar. I could see Sam pacing along the knoll, issuing instructions, fine-tuning his defences.

  The four trenches were now dug, about chest deep, two and a half metres long and a metre wide, on the edge of the knoll so they covered the valley and its flanks. Shit, these guys could dig. Behind each one was a fan-shaped backblast channel to take the shit that blew out of the rear end of an RPG. My eyes followed the line of the track, and I realized then that it wasn’t a natural valley at all – it had been gouged out of the hillside, not by an ice-cream scoop but by ANFO and bare human hands.

  The hillside was precipitous, and with the world’s heaviest bergen on my back, and legs that were close to buckling, I didn’t stand a chance.

  ‘I’m going to have to do this backwards.’ There was no other way. ‘Hold tight.’

  I turned round so my hands, knees and feet were in the mud and began to lower myself down the track like it was a ladder.

  ‘Stop, stop!’

  Silky clambered off and collapsed in a heap. ‘This’ll be quicker.’ She started to slide down on her arse, keeping her injured foot in the air and using her hands and good leg to steer.

  We slid down the thirty or forty metres to the tents. I managed to ease her on to my back a
gain and staggered the last few paces past the cooking pot and the still-smoking fire.

  Sam came across to join us. He was on the sat phone, and not happy.

  I laid Silky down beside the fire, and lifted the lid from the pot. I passed her a knackered wooden spoon of the lumpy brown stuff and nodded at the jerry-can. ‘Start getting some of that into you. It’s not exactly Perrier but it’s clean.’

  Sam was listening now, not talking. He didn’t seem surprised to see us.

  ‘Nick’s back.’ He held the phone out to me.

  ‘He over the river yet?’

  Sam shook his head. ‘Moving slow with the gunshot wound. And they’re following him up.’

  ‘He know the bridge is down?’

  ‘Aye. Not happy . . .’

  I took the phone.

  ‘Surveyors? You still got them?’ Standish was out of breath. There was gunfire in the background, and I could hear moans, then Bateman screaming, ‘Shut up! Fucking stupid kaffir!’

  ‘No. One down, one missing.’

  ‘Shit.’

  I caught sight of Sunday, now tethered at the entrance of the tent Yin and Yang had been sitting in. He was surrounded by scraps of paper and just stared back at me with his big dark eyes. It was almost as if he knew what I’d done to the kid by the deadfall.

  I turned away and tried to concentrate on Standish.

  ‘I got a crossing point for you.’ I explained about the tree and the sangar on the high ground. ‘Call when you get across. We’ll warn the standing patrol.’

  The phone went dead.

  Sam checked the watch hanging round his neck. ‘You tried, and that’s good enough. It’ll be up to Standish to explain to the big Swiss cheese. He won’t like it. That’s five of them dead now. Two out there, three of disease. The Chinese won’t be happy either. But that’s not our problem right now, is it? We got just under four hours of light left. That’s when things will kick off around here. He’d better grip that gunshot wound and get a move on.’