Recoil

by Andy McNab

  ‘It’s OK, Sunday, come on!’

  His eyes looked like they were about to jump out of their sockets. He wasn’t going to come quietly.

  I screamed for her: ‘Help me, help me!’

  I half jumped, half fell the last few metres towards her.

  A man came tearing towards us in cut-down jeans and a seriously distressed Bob Marley T-shirt. A gollock jerked in his hand like someone had just connected him up to the national grid.

  I pulled Sunday towards me and rolled into the backblast channel. His eyes were fixed on mine.

  Feet splashed mud against my neck and I could smell the crazed fucker’s rancid breath as he bent over me, gollock raised. His sweat dripped on to my face as he swung the blade.

  11

  An AK fired a rapid burst from behind him, and the guy piled into me, arms outstretched, flattening us against the mud.

  I struggled free.

  Tim lay behind me, fighting the pain after dragging himself off the cot. He still gripped the weapon, his face showing the same grim determination with which I held on to Sunday’s bony little wrists.

  I knelt down and held his face between my hands. ‘It’s OK. You’re safe.’ I smiled. He stared back, not understanding a word. But maybe he felt it.

  Sam was going ballistic. ‘Where are you, Nick? Come on!’

  I threw Sunday over my shoulder, and legged it back to my position. I wasn’t going to let him feel abandoned.

  Sam was firing forwards and bodies were piled in front of him. His tracer didn’t even have time to ignite as it hammered into others, less than a hundred away. His gun pointed down the knoll and he was almost lying across the front of the trench to get the line of fire.

  I dropped Sunday into the trench next to me.

  Sam sprayed another burst into the frenzied incomers. ‘We’re losing it, Nick!’

  I grabbed the sat phone. ‘Lex, you still got your fuel on board?’

  ‘Always, man.’

  ‘We got them a hundred away and closing. Listen in.’ I told him what I needed.

  ‘Roger that, man. Orbiting right. Coming in from the west.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit about that, mate – just get here.’

  They scrambled up the slippery knoll. Some still fired weapons as they climbed, others brandished gollocks.

  I killed men and kids in wellington boots and trainers, jeans and shorts. All of them screamed, so high and so loud they seemed oblivious to our guns. We dropped them like targets in a video game, and as soon as they fell, others immediately took their places.

  12

  The An12 came in fast and low.

  The ramp was down, and a succession of blue fifty-gallon drums of aviation fuel tumbled down it and out of its arse. I caught a glimpse of the loadie as he yanked frantically on webbing straps to release even more.

  I didn’t wait for them all to fall, just fired into whatever was already in the mud. The one-infour would do the rest.

  Some of the drums had taken bodies with them into the mud. High-octane fuel spurted from the holes I’d drilled and three of them ignited, one after the other. As soon as there was enough heat, the fuel gases would expand and rupture the casing, and we’d get all the explosions we needed.

  Crucial was up with a launcher. He had a better idea. ‘Cover! Cover!’

  I ducked into the trench as he kicked off a round into the valley.

  Death came quickly to anyone within forty metres as the RPG detonation ignited the fuel and the shockwave vaporized it into an instant fireball.

  The heat washed over us as another round kicked off.

  The screams from burning bodies below us were drowned as the second round set off a chain reaction.

  We jumped back up to man the guns, but this time there was nothing to fire at.

  Human torches blundered into each other as flames engulfed the front half of the valley. The rest was filled with survivors running for their lives.

  Lex was high in the brilliant blue sky, sunlight flashing off his wings. I brought the phone to my ear. ‘We’re not taking fire.’

  ‘After that I should fucking hope not, man.’

  He couldn’t resist a little victory waggle as the aircraft banked and roared back up the valley.

  Not even the cicadas disturbed the shocked silence around us. The devastation was almost too much to take in. Bodies were scattered around our fire trenches by the dozen, but down there, among the flames and smoke, they were strewn like trees after a hurricane.

  I turned to Sam as the choking cloud enveloped our position.

  Crucial was still in his trench, holding his hand to his mouth. ‘I lost a diamond!’ Blood dribbled over his fingers. ‘I lost one of my diamonds!’

  Budget-size heads popped up over the parapets of the two trenches. RPG propellant still burned in the mud behind them and the smell of cordite drenched the air.

  Silky emerged from her trench and I did a plunger mime and a thumbs-up.

  ‘Come on, let’s go.’ Sam was in the backblast channel, growling like the pale-faced, skirt-wearing oatmeal savage he was. ‘Game’s over. Switch on.’

  A bony hand reached up and closed round my thumb.

  I looked down to see Sunday on his arse in the bottom of the fire trench. ‘Mr Nick. Mr Nick . . .’ There was just a hint of a smile. I gave him a bigger one back.

  PART TWELVE

  1

  Thursday, 15 June Rwanda

  10:46 hours

  Sam and Crucial stood to either side of me outside the old breezeblock and wriggly-tin church. Eight little heads sat huddled in the shade at our feet, just as they had at Nuka and the mine. But what a difference a few days can make.

  They were getting good-quality mealie-meal down their necks, scooping it up gleefully with their fingers from clean plastic plates, not out of rusty old tin cans. And they couldn’t get over the women fussing around and pouring them clear fresh water from the plastic bottles they normally used for the porters.

  Sunday’s head tilted as he took a few more gulps. Our eyes met, and I got a fleeting, covered-face smile from him. I gave him one back and winked.

  Lex was on his finals. The An12 shimmered in the heat haze as its wheels dropped, and the wings moved left and right as he lined up.

  We’d only been here a couple of hours, and us three hadn’t yet done a thing for ourselves. As always, it was weapons and kit first. We didn’t have to worry about weapons. The AKs were back in Sam’s tent; we weren’t going to need them for a while. The only kit that needed looking after was the little fuckers at our feet. And now that they had mashed-up corn all round their mouths and bloated bellies we could get ourselves sorted out.

  It had taken us two days to get back. We’d rigged up slings from strips of blankets and fixed them to each end of a cot. Two men on, one man navigating, we’d carried Tim and the boy the whole thirty-five Ks back, like removals men with a piano. Silky had strapped up her ankle with strips of blanket and got on with herding the kids behind us. They, too, had strips of blanket. She got each of them to hold on to the one in front, like a herd of baby elephants gripping each other’s tails.

  Lex’s 23mms and Crucial’s RPGs had done their worst. When we crested the lip of the valley, we found the dead ground littered with bodies.

  Lex soon exhausted his fuel reserves at the strip as he kept constant vigil overhead, giving us early warning and helping us navigate. He never deserted us, and only flew to Kenya to refuel and restock with more drums once we were safely over the border.

  Nuka, the mine, the LRA now felt a whole world away.

  I couldn’t believe the sense of satisfaction I felt as I looked down on the tops of the eight heads. It sounded like a pig trough down there, but it was one of the happiest noises I’d ever heard. The little fuckers might now have something resembling a life to look forward to. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so good. I didn’t want to risk Sam seeing the look on my face, though. I’d never hear the last of it.
>
  I glanced as casually as possible towards the two of them. ‘What now for you guys?’

  Sam took a long breath. ‘If Standish is alive, he’ll be back. Then it’ll be time for us to move on.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess we’ll set up somewhere else, maybe a little further east, away from the border. But the work won’t end, Nick. We’ll not give up. We’ll do anything to stop these kids being used by Standish and his kind.’ He nodded down at the munching crew at our feet. ‘Someone’s got to.’

  Crucial fixed me with a stare. ‘And what about you, Nick? You staying, man? You can’t deny it – these little guys have got to you, haven’t they?’

  A huge plume of red dust kicked up at the rear of the strip as Lex started to bounce his way down the runway, and saved me having to answer.

  We turned and started to head from the church to the cam net. As we crossed the strip, one of the kids called, ‘Mr Nick! Mr Nick!’

  I turned to see Sunday beaming all over his mealie-meal face. ‘Mr Nick! Mr Nick!’

  ‘That’s right, mate, Mr Nick. See you around!’

  I waved and got one in return, and all of a sudden the Chuckle Brothers were at it as well, then they all joined in, laughing and giggling.

  I didn’t know what to do so I just turned and carried on walking, my hand still raised and waving.

  2

  Smoke fought its way through the cam net as Jan sizzled steaks the size of dustbin lids on the brai.

  Lex taxied along the strip towards us, laden with new drums of Kenyan aviation fuel, as the dogs and shanty kids ran alongside.

  ‘I’m not staying. Sorry.’ I put an arm round Sam’s shoulder, and would have done the same to Crucial if he hadn’t been about ten feet taller than me. I gripped his arm instead. ‘Unfinished business. I promised myself back at the mine, and I won’t be happy until I’ve done it. Anyway, you know I can’t hang around.’ I nodded in the direction of Tim and Silky. ‘This is their place now. Not mine.’

  Lex turned the aircraft about two hundred metres away, ready to taxi back down the strip for take-off.

  Sam put a brave face on it. ‘Sorry to hear that, Nick. I think it would have been good for you here.’ He thumped my chest with his hand. ‘Remember what I said?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Any time you feel the need to come back, eh?’

  Lex’s engines closed down as we ducked under the cam net. Tim and the boy were lying on the tables, looking a whole lot better. Silky had washed them down and redressed their wounds. Same principle as we operated by: only now was she sorting herself out, by the entrance to Sam’s tent.

  Tim was finishing off his sat-phone conversation with the Lugano office. Étienne would arrange medical care for them both, once we’d got them to Cape Town later that evening.

  The Evian was cold. I pulled bottles out of the fridge and passed them round.

  Jan threw the first lot of dark red meat on to the table. Crucial passed it round with fingers and thumbs because it was still so hot.

  The aircraft’s rear ramp was starting to wind its way down. The two wounded, Silky and I would be in that thing and leaving within half an hour.

  Tim closed down the sat phone. ‘Are you staying?’

  ‘Nah – other plans.’

  ‘Still Australia?’

  ‘Yep.’

  There was a gap in the conversation that we didn’t know how to fill.

  Well, we did – but neither of us wanted to go that route.

  Lex broke the moment as he loped off the aircraft with his golf bag. ‘Sam! You owe me two games – one for the ten big ones, one for the fuel and ammo. Get out here and be a man!’

  3

  Sam stood up with a half-eaten dustbin lid in his hands. ‘Can’t it wait? Why do you want to embarrass yourself in front of all these people?’

  Lex dropped the bag into the dust. ‘Because you won’t be coming back to Erinvale, will you? All this is finished.’ He unzipped one of the side pockets and scooped out dozens of golf balls. ‘I want to make sure I collect.’

  He leaned on one of his clubs, his bleached teeth shining as brightly as his reflecting gigs. ‘Come on, I haven’t all day, man. A bet’s a bet.’

  Sam beckoned Jan, who took his steak and put it back on the brai, then went out on to the strip with a rusty can.

  Sam walked into the sun, bent down and selected a club. Fuck knows what sort: golf was even higher than cricket and rugby on the list of games I didn’t have a clue about. He did a couple of practice swings. ‘Ten balls each for each bet, OK?’

  Lex stood back. ‘You’re on.’

  Jan placed the can upright in the sand, about thirty metres away.

  Lex pointed his club at the aircraft and gave Crucial a shout. ‘Let’s get everybody onboard. This won’t take long.’

  Crucial moved off to organize the barrow boys, who were more used to loading and unloading boxes of weapons. He’d had them on stand-by to collect Tim and the boy, and wheel them on to the aircraft.

  Sam kicked off, swung off, whatever it was called, first. Nearest one to the can seemed to be the objective, but you wouldn’t have guessed it by watching him. He looked as good as I would have been.

  The first ball headed for DRC, and his game didn’t get any better.

  ‘Shame, Sammy boy.’ Lex roared with laughter as Sam’s third ball landed on the cam net. ‘You were robbed!’

  Lex seemed much more the part as he practised his swing. It looked like I was going to be writing a very big cheque – or was this all about Sam taking the debt off my hands? I couldn’t remember. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

  I left them to it.

  Tim was stretching out on one of the barrows. Silky came up and stood by my side. Our arms touched, and for me it was still like the plunger had gone down and I was holding the wires.

  ‘What’re you two going to do when you get back from Cape Town – set up shop next to Sam, or head back to DRC?’

  We faced each other, but neither of us was comfortable with eye to eye. I kind of scanned her face. She’d had a wash, and kind of busied herself pushing her wet hair back. She was as beautiful as ever.

  ‘We’re going back to DRC to finish off what Mercy Flight started. There’s a lot to be done.’ She watched as the barrow boys did their stuff. ‘And you, Nick – Australia? Really?’

  I nodded. ‘Thought I’d try my luck with that message board again.’

  ‘Nick, I—’

  I put a finger to her lips. I didn’t need to hear the rest. I already knew it. I’d probably known it from the moment I saw her in the tent with a pile of blankets over her arm. She’d been in a poxy jungle in the middle of nowhere, but she was in her element. I was happy she’d found what she’d been looking for. Not many people do.

  I looked at Tim, as he fed the boy a strip of meat and they both laughed. I knew she’d found something else as well, and she didn’t have to make it any more painful for both of us by saying it out loud.

  I took her hands and held them together in mine for the very last time. ‘It’s OK. It’s all OK.’

  She leaned in and kissed my cheek. ‘Thank you.’

  The two wounded were wheeled away. Silky walked between them, holding their hands.

  Deep down, I’d probably known all along I wasn’t the sort of man she’d be happy with. After a lifetime of dislocation, she needed roots, and all I had to offer was about an inch of topsoil before you hit rock.

  I didn’t feel sad, I didn’t feel annoyed. I was just glad I hadn’t asked her to marry me, and put her in a position that would have hurt us both. I felt strangely happy for her. Her new life of living in shit and giving polio jabs was what she truly wanted, and there were worse guys than Tim to share it with.

  4

  I wandered back to Sam’s tent to collect my holdall. As I came out and waited under the cam net for the bet to come to some sort of conclusion, Crucial came and shared the shade.

  Jan brought us something to munch as we watched t
he two dickheads out there playing crazy golf.

  ‘Lex still trashing him?’

  Crucial winked. ‘No, man, Sam will win. Lex might want to be seen as the hard act, but he’s got a little soft in his old age. He loses every time the money has anything to do with the kids.’

  I bent down and dug the ring out of my bag. ‘That makes two of us.’

  I opened the box and turned to him as if I was going to ask him to marry me. ‘Take it, it’s yours. A little something from me to you, to fill that hole in your gob.’

  I wasn’t sure if it was the shock of me offering it, or that you needed an electron microscope to see the diamond, but he hesitated.

  ‘Go on, mate. I know it’s a bit small and it’s one of those softie non-conflict ones, but think of it as a temporary filling until you can shoot your way to a newer and bigger one, eh?’

  As he took the box from my hand, a tear rolled from under his John Lennon gigs. ‘No, man, I’ll always wear it. Every time I smile, I’ll think of you. And every time I think of you, I’ll smile.’

  There were Glaswegian-accented shouts of victory thirty metres away. Lex complained bitterly and threw his club to the ground.

  Crucial put out a big leathery hand. ‘It’s time to say goodbye, isn’t it?’

  We shook.

  ‘I hope you change your mind and come back to us.’

  I didn’t know what to say. Crucial was still bubbling. None of us had had a wash yet; the tears had to carve their way through dried mud.

  Lex joined us under the net with Sam. ‘Looks like you got off Scot free, man.’ He punched Sam in the shoulder. ‘Scot free – it’s a joke.’

  ‘Try to remember what I said about doing something for your heart, Nick.’ Sam shook my hand and locked his eyes on mine. ‘And now fuck off, the pair of you.’

  I grinned and turned away.