by Andy McNab
I slipped the link from round my neck and handed it to Bateman. He threw them over his shoulder.
‘They’ll be back, man, once they’ve licked their wounds. Just like dogs, they’ll be back.’ He watched the clouds scudding past the moon. ‘Those fuckers will wait until first light so it’s easier to keep control now we’ve kicked their arses. Their heads will be full to bursting with that ghat shit.’ He paused and turned back towards us. ‘And a side portion of kindoki.’
It was only then that I realized one of us was missing. ‘Standish?’
‘I left him in the trench.’
Sam was already walking towards it. Crucial and I weren’t far behind.
PART TEN
1
Standish was leaning against the far wall of the fire trench, arms resting on the mud at either side of it like he was floating in a jacuzzi. Sam and Crucial hunched down into the backblast channel. I sank on to my knees.
He glowered at me. ‘What went wrong with the claymores?’
‘Not sure.’ I shrugged. ‘Second reel of firing cable might have been contaminated, or the plunger didn’t kick out enough amps. Maybe even a knackered det.’
Jacuzzi over. It was like I’d thrown a switch. He pushed himself off the trench wall. ‘We nearly lost the firefight. We have lost Sam’s patrol. This nightmare is all down to you!’ He jabbed a finger at me to underline every word. ‘If you’d done your fucking job correctly, we wouldn’t have had half the fucking LRA in the valley, and Sam’s patrol unable to support us.’ He turned to face the scene of my crime. ‘We wouldn’t be in this fucking situation.’
I was tempted to suggest that next time he could rig the fucking thing up, but knew it was pointless to rise to the bait.
He switched to Sam. ‘And now we have the other half of your church here, what’s the plan? Deafen these drug-crazed heathens with semiautomatic gospel songs? Or maybe beat them off with copies of the Good News Bible?’
Sam didn’t rise to it either. ‘I’m going down there with these two. We need the guns. Bateman will cover us on the one Nick brought up. You can have the RPG.’
Standish had other ideas. ‘No, you’re not. We’re leaving. They’re going to take the mine – there aren’t enough of us. We need to use whatever darkness is left to cover us out of here right now, get back to the strip and evacuate to Cape Town.’
I heard the clanking of link as Bateman returned. He jumped into the trench and moved the weapon forward on to the parapet.
Sam kept his cool, but wasn’t giving up without a fight. ‘What about the Mercy Flight people? Both are injured – one’s a stretcher case. How can we move them in the dark? We’d land up with even more casualties. And how are we going to cross the river at night with them strapped into cots?
‘Then there’s the kids. They’re scared – they’ll get lost. We need to control the situation, not flap and run. Our best chance is to stay here and fight. At first light, we make a break for it. If it works, all well and good. If it doesn’t, well, tough. None of us is going to care, because we’ll be history. But it’s better than turning our backs on these people.’
Standish flicked his hand disdainfully. ‘Get real. Think about yourself, think about the future. We need to get back to Cape Town and reorganize, and we need to do it right now.
‘You two –’ he pointed at Sam and Crucial ‘– you can go and play golf while I go to Switzerland and devise a plan to retake the mines. I’ll get the backing. We’ll recruit, we’ll train, and then we’ll move back in-country and carry on as planned. But that’s not going to happen unless we leave now. And there’s too much at stake to mess around.’
Crucial clenched his jaw. ‘Too much cash, you mean?’
Standish thrust himself the half-metre or so to front him. ‘I’ve never seen you handing it back.’
I adjusted the AK across my thigh as I knelt in the mud. I’d had enough of this. ‘Listen, the longer you lot debate this shit, the longer we don’t have those guns up here. Moving or not, we need them. Let’s get out there while there’s still time.’
Bateman lifted up the top cover of his gun and cleared the feed-tray.
Standish turned. His face was level with Sam’s knees. ‘This is not for discussion. I’m ordering you to start moving towards the airstrip immediately. Leave everyone behind. We don’t need them. If we stay here we’ll die, and not achieve a thing by doing so.’
Sam stood up. ‘No. We’re leaving no one.’ There was quiet menace in his voice. ‘We stand our ground until first light, and then we try to break out with the wounded and the walking. You can do whatever you want.’
Bateman slammed down the top cover and gave it another smack with his clenched fist. ‘No, he isn’t going to do what the fuck he wants, man. We are all staying.’ He squared his shoulders. ‘I don’t give two shits about all these charity people.’ He encompassed the whole valley with a majestic wave of his hand. ‘All these miners, these kids – if I’m honest, I don’t give a shit. But I won’t leave other soldiers to die. That’s not the way it’s done, man.’
He was the bigger, stronger man – and this was the Congo, not the paradeground at Sandhurst or a guest slot on Newsnight – and Standish knew it.
‘My first operation was Uric. We went to destroy a training camp in Mozambique. Op Uric, you heard of it?’
Standish shook his head.
‘Well, you’d better listen good, man.’
He was going to have to do that whether he liked it or not.
‘Tooley was there with me when we flew into Mozambique – three hundred and sixty of us, man. We were going to kill everyone. Rebels, Mozambique Army, Russian advisers, everyone. We weren’t sure how many there were, maybe thousands.
‘We bombed them from the air, we gunned them from the Pumas. But it fucked up. They were dug in, just like us here. They held us down for days, man.’ Bateman was reliving it in his head. ‘We lost fifteen of our own guys but killed three hundred of those fuckers.’
Standish stifled a yawn. He didn’t want to be mistaken for a man who gave a shit.
Bateman shoved him in the chest. ‘You not finding this interesting, man? You think I’m telling you this for fun?’
Standish just stood there, no more than inches between them. He’d got the message now. It was time to listen, and listen good.
‘All but two of our guys were killed by these things.’ He kicked the launcher. ‘They work, man. But let me tell you about the other two. You need to hear this.’
Bateman leaned into him, closing the gap between their faces, eyes fixed on Standish’s.
‘They were young, just like me and Tooley, man. We were in Mozambique, detached, on our own, fighting – simply trying to stay alive.’
Their noses almost touched.
‘One guy refused to fight and decided we should surrender. He was shot by his own platoon commander before he could finish putting his hands up. The next ran, on the second day. He left other men to do the fighting. I shot him in the back of the head before he’d got ten yards.’
Bateman kept his face where it was as he pointed down into the valley. ‘Out there isn’t a place to reason why. You fight, or you don’t. It’s that simple. No questions, no excuses, no courts martial.’ He turned away. ‘You will fight.’ He rammed the butt in his shoulder and checked his arcs of fire. ‘We all stay, or we all go. And we’re staying. It’s that simple.’
Sam and Crucial lifted Tim and his cot into the tent.
I shoved two magazines into my OG map pockets and checked the safety lever was down two clicks. Then I grabbed the jerry-can and gulped as much water down my neck as I could without throwing up.
2
Weapons in the shoulder, we skidded down to the scrapyard where the ANFO had been mixed. The view down here in the stalls was scarier and more claustrophobic than the one we’d had up in the dress circle. It looked like a First World War battlefield, the sort the Germans used to call ‘the place where the Iron Crosses gr
ow’.
Sam hunkered down among the oil drums and we closed in.
‘OK, listen – me and Crucial are going to get the two guns from those sangars. Nick, you get hold of as much link as you can from the stores dugout. We’ve cleaned it out of RPG rounds, but whatever you can find, we need it up top.’
He dug into his chest harness and handed me a cheap plastic version of a mini Maglite. I tried to shove it into my pocket next to the sat nav, but my OGs were so sodden it clung to my hand.
‘Get any link straight up to the trenches. Then come back here and wait. I want some cover down here as well, in case we have a drama on the other side.’
I nodded. ‘Got it. Listen, mate, I want to check the firing cables. That OK?’
Sam thought about it for a second, then nodded. It was going to take precious time, but he knew it would eat away at me if I didn’t find out, one way or another. Who’d fucked up, me or the kit? In my boots, he’d have wanted to do the same.
Sam led off, with Crucial behind him and to the left. I took the right. We moved as fast as we could, safety off, weapon back in the shoulder.
Sam found the cable. I picked it up and started to follow it towards the river. The other two fell in each side of me and covered.
Ahead of me I could see a haphazard arrangement of stepping-stones in the mud. As I got closer, I could see what they were: some adult, some kids, some still with weapons beside them or lying across their bodies. One had fallen face down and was almost fully submerged. His disembodied hands and feet seemed to grow out of the mud.
I got to where I’d anchored the cable, just short of the Nuka hidey-hole. Sam and Crucial knelt, covering the arcs, while I unwound the cable from the rock. I tried to pull the join apart, but the pigtails didn’t give an inch – they hadn’t let me down.
Sam wanted to move on, and I nodded. Job done. I was happy; well, sort of. I untwisted the two strands and let them fall into the mud. I still wanted to test the cable later.
Sam and Crucial aimed for the right side of the valley and I headed back the way we’d come.
When I reached the cover of the drums once more, I undid the torch and turned the bottom battery the right way round again. Old habits died hard for Sam. It saved power, and could also save your life: a torch suddenly coming on if the switch got knocked was an open invitation to any sniper within reach.
I shielded the lens in the palm of my hand. There was a dull red glow through the skin. I turned it off again and kept it in my left hand so that when I gripped the weapon it lay along the stock. When the time came, it would be my searchlight.
I moved off towards the stores dugout, trying to keep low, trying to offer as small a target as I could.
A pace or two from the mouth, it was time to hit the switch. Gripping it against the stock, I shone the beam down the barrel and into the cave.
The marzipan smell embraced me like an old friend, and as I swept the beam I could see the ground was strewn with many more empty wooden crates than last time. Bits of ordnance, the internal box packing for RPG rounds and sweaty slabs of HE covered with grit had been discarded all over the floor. Ahead of me was a stack of boxes.
As I panned the cave, there was a scuffle behind them.
I threw myself against the wall and tensed into a fire position, barrel up, both eyes open, first pressure taken. I didn’t want to give whoever was in here the chance to open up first, especially since they might not realize that if they fucked up and hit a slab we’d all be history.
‘Come out! Allez, allez!’ I didn’t expect it to happen; I just wanted whoever it was to know they’d been heard. ‘Identify yourself!’
I kept up first pressure on the trigger.
Still both eyes open, I aimed the weapon and torch towards the noise, ready for the slightest movement.
I heard it again; something between a gasp and a cough.
Torch beam and muzzle frozen on the stack, I eased myself upright and leaned into the weapon. ‘Show yourself! Allez, allez, allez!’
I shuffled forward a foot or two. The shadows moved with me.
I kept left. My back scraped against the side of the dugout, but the adrenalin killed any pain. I kept each pace firm and deliberate, my feet never crossing. I needed a stable firing platform.
I didn’t call out again. I didn’t want to miss the slightest sound, or provide cover for whatever was in front of me to move.
More noise: a stifled, frightened whimper this time.
I came level with the boxes. The torch beam moved further into the dead ground behind them.
The barrel of an AK toppled to the ground in front of me, rusty, the parkerization long gone.
I reached out for it and the beam fell on a kid. He was lying against the back of the dugout, his swollen stomach torn open by a gunshot wound.
He was panting hard, fighting for air.
I knelt down next to him. ‘Hello, mate. Mr Nick, that’s me.’
His huge eyes gazed up at me but there was little reaction in them as I ran the light across his face.
‘Let’s have a look at you, yeah?’
I eased up the chest harness that covered almost all of the little boy’s torso and lifted his blood-soaked shirt. I saw his intestines ripple with each tortured breath. He was in shit state.
‘That’s too bad, mate.’ I kept up my Mr Nice Guy act as I rolled him on to his side. ‘Let’s have a look round the back, see what you got for us there.’
The exit wound was three times as big, a mess of torn flesh and exposed rib. There was nothing I could do for him here. I doubted there was much that could be done for him up top, beyond strapping him up and trying to keep what was left of him in the right place.
‘Let’s get this harness off you, then Mr Nick will take you to see Mr Tim and Miss Silky.’
His face screwed up with pain and his heels dug into the ground as he tried to fight it. His head, too large for his underfed body, lifted towards me. ‘Mr Nick, Mr Nick . . .’
‘That’s right, mate, Mr Nick. I’m here, you’ll be OK, come on, up you get.’
As gently as I could, I unstrapped the harness and pulled the little fucker up a couple of inches, then slipped off his shirt. It must have hurt like shit, but he didn’t scream; not a good sign. I folded the shirt lengthways, then wrapped it as firmly as I could around his back and stomach. It wouldn’t stop the bleeding, but it might stop him falling apart in my arms.
‘There you go – not long now, mate, before you’ll be playing football on this airstrip I know. Lots of kids there to play with. It’ll be a good laugh, yeah?’
I slipped my left hand under his legs, and my right behind his back, picked up my weapon and lifted. I’d be fucked if we got within range of Kony’s lot, but I wasn’t going to leave him to die here, all on his own. I could feel warm blood oozing down my arms. I clicked off the torch and headed outside.
He cried weakly each time I took a step, and never once took his impossibly wide, pleading eyes off my face. As the moon broke through the scudding clouds again, I knew we presented the world’s easiest target, but I didn’t want to spill any more of this kid’s guts than I had to on the way up. I moved as fast as I could to the ANFO site, then on to the tents.
I pushed through the flaps and into the dull glow of a Tilley lamp. It had been turned right down so the light wouldn’t show through the soaking canvas. Either Tim or Silky knew a lot more than just doctoring, or Bateman had given them a bollocking about staying tactical.
Silky had her back to me as she leaned over Tim. His legs, still bound together, had been elevated on a roll of wet blankets.
Sam’s kids were huddled in a group on the ground, exactly the same as they’d been in the MF tent in Nuka.
‘We’ve got a gunshot wound here.’
Silky spun around. ‘Oh, my God!’ She grabbed the Tilley lamp.
Tim gripped the situation. ‘Get a cot. Put him next to me.’
Silky dragged one over and I laid him down
as gently as I could.
‘There you go, mate. Mr Tim and Miss Silky.’
Tears spilled down his cheeks, washing tracks in the grime from the dugout. His eyes burned into me. ‘Mr Nick . . .’ He struggled to hold up a hand.
‘Yeah, Mr Nick.’ I took his bony little fist. The skin was too rough for a child. ‘We’ll have that game of football, eh? As soon as you’re up and about . . .’
Tim took one look at what was underneath the shirt and told Silky what he needed out of the bag.
He was completely calm, and completely in command. He reminded me of Sam.
I left them to it and went back into the darkness.
I still had a job to do.
3
I found eight metal boxes labelled 200 rounds – 7.62 MDX – Link 1.4 among the empty wooden RPG crates and drums of firing cable. There was a belt of 200 link in each, and every fourth round was a tracer.
A pool of blood glistened in the torch beam as it sank slowly into the grit. There was another big splash of it against the back wall. I felt a jolt of guilt. Was I responsible? Had I zapped him? All of a sudden, Crucial’s words weren’t as reassuring as he’d meant them to be.
I started throwing the boxes of link towards the dugout entrance. I knew that two fold-down handles in each hand and two boxes under each arm was the most I could physically carry. But that was without a weapon. I dropped them into one of the RPG crates and heaved it on to my shoulder. Weapon in my left hand, I started to hump the gear up to the trenches.
I didn’t try to run: I’d have spent more time flat on my face than moving uphill.
Bateman was on the gun, doing his job. Standish was to his left, doing nothing except getting even more pissed off. Tough shit, we were staying. But it worried me that he was so quiet. I dumped my load beside them and went back down to the dugout. Humping boxes of link took me back to my days as the infantry crow. The job of lugging the twelve-pound boxes of link always fell to the new boy – that was just the way it was.
