The Perfect Soldier

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘Christianne?’

  Nothing. The squawk of a nearby bird. The flapping of wings. Then silence again.

  ‘Christianne?’

  McFaul began to turn, his instinct telling him to get off the rising ground. As he did so he felt a hand in the small of his back, and a peal of laughter, and Katilo’s voice, inches from his ear.

  ‘Hot day, Mr McFaul. We hope you can swim.’

  Too late, McFaul lunged backwards, gasping as the huge arms closed around his body, crushing his sutured wound. Then his feet left the ground and suddenly he was in midair, falling, disorientated again, knowing only that something infinitely terrible awaited him below. An instant later he hit the river bed, feet-first, the water up to his waist, the stump of his left leg absorbing the shock of the landing. He folded onto his backside, hearing himself bellow, more surprise than pain, then there was another splash beside him, a second body in the water, and fingers tearing at the knot on his blindfold. His hands went to his face, covering his eyes. Through his fingers he could see Christianne’s face, close to his, her shirt soaking wet, clinging to her body. Soldiers lined the bank of the river, a row of heavy boots no more than six feet above McFaul’s head. McFaul looked up, wiping the water from his face. Then Katilo appeared, the whiskey bottle in one hand, the SB-33 in the other, rocking with laughter. He raised the mine in a derisive salute as Christianne pulled McFaul towards the waiting Toyota.

  ‘Viva UNITA!’ his men were shouting. ‘Viva!’

  By mid-afternoon, Llewelyn had finished the trickiest bits of the demining sequence. Twenty years on location had given him an encyclopaedic knowledge of camerawork – what looked good, what wouldn’t cut – but until now he hadn’t realised how demanding it could be. Master shots, reverses, POVs, close-ups, Domingos’s actions repeated again and again until Llewelyn was certain that he’d covered every angle.

  In this game, he told himself, the real drama was in the detail. The first scary bleep from the electronic detector. The yowl as the fix was confirmed. The delicate dance steps as Domingos manoeuvred around the hidden mine, unsheathing his bayonet, settling himself on his belly, covering his face with the visor, the thick shield of toughened Perspex that would help protect him if he got it wrong. They’d been using the little Chinese Type 72As as dummies, and for Llewelyn the key moment of all had been the first appearance of the mine, the disk of dark green plastic emerging from the loose soil. He’d shot this sequence from three angles, recovering and re-exposing the mine each time, and he knew that with the right music and the right sound effects it would work a treat.

  Now, pleased with himself, Llewelyn walked back to the Land Rover. He’d already explained the final shot to Domingos. On a cue from the camera position on top of the embankment, he was to repeat exactly what he’d done before. Once the mine had been lifted and laid to one side, he was to shoulder the Ebinger and walk forward perhaps ten metres. The latter part of this shot would serve as an introduction to the whole sequence, Domingos on his way to work, tooled up and ready to go.

  Llewelyn settled the camcorder on the tripod and tightened the nut beneath the baseplate. Bennie was sitting beside him, rolling a cigarette. Once Llewelyn had finished with Domingos, it would be his turn on camera. Amongst the promised sequences was an interview on the tensions of fieldwork.

  Llewelyn zoomed the camera on Domingos and checked the footage on the video-cassette. He was using one-hour tapes and there was nearly thirty-five minutes in hand. His eye returned to the viewfinder and tweaked the focus for a moment or two, then adjusted the framing until the little Angolan was kneeling in the centre of picture. Space, his favourite cameraman had always told him, always leave space around the subject.

  Llewelyn called to Domingos and then waved, the agreed cue. Domingos began to sweep left and right with the Ebinger. After a while he stopped. Then he sank to his knees and spread himself full-length on his belly, getting to work with the bayonet and the brush, carefully sweeping the soil away. Finally, with great caution, he lifted the mine and went through the motions of disarming it.

  Bennie was watching him, impressed.

  ‘Fucking natural,’ he said. ‘Sign the bugger up.’

  Llewelyn frowned, putting a finger to his lips, still shooting. Domingos got to his feet and reached for the Ebinger. He put it over his shoulder, raising the visor on his helmet, then he glanced up towards the embankment, a quizzical grin on his face. Llewelyn waved him on, impatient to get this last sequence on tape, and Domingos turned away, walking down the cleared strip of earth towards the river bank. The agreed limit of the safe area was eighty metres. Domingos had plenty in hand.

  Llewelyn watched through his viewfinder, tightening the shot a little as Domingos walked away. Same size, they always said, keep the walking shots the same size. Domingos’s step faltered a second then picked up again. Llewelyn lifted his eye from the viewfinder, checking how far he’d got. At least sixty metres in hand, he thought. Maybe more.

  The explosion was flat, a short, vicious bark, not especially loud, Domingos’s body disappearing behind a swirl of smoke and dust. When the smoke cleared, a full minute later, all Llewelyn could see was the hump of Domingos’s fallen body, motionless, and then Bennie bent over him, cradling his head, looking back towards Llewelyn, screaming.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Molly Jordan was taking a photograph when she heard the explosion. She’d been inside the cathedral for the best part of an hour, perched on a cool stone ledge beside the door, looking down the aisle towards the altar. Beyond the altar, in the arched recess where the window had once been, the crumbling plaster-work framed the intense, clear blue of the African sky, castled with clouds. The clouds were building all the time, hot air condensing as it rose from the bush below, and Molly had been transfixed by the effect, infinitely more uplifting than any stained glass she’d ever seen. In Europe, she thought, we need to put something between us and God’s heaven. Here, thanks no doubt to UNITA shellfire, glass simply didn’t exist. Not that it mattered. Because nothing could possibly better the real thing.

  She lowered the camera, wondering where the bang had come from, what it meant. It hadn’t been loud, no more than a distant backfire, but she could hear women’s voices raised in the square outside and the flap of wings in the gloom above her head. There were birds everywhere, flying in and out through the yawning hole in the east wall, and the noise had disturbed them. One swooped low in front of her face, bat-like, and she slipped the camera into the string bag she’d borrowed from Christianne, turning to beat a retreat.

  Outside, the women in the market were looking at the sky and as she crossed the square she recognised one or two faces from the cinema. They stared at her as she hurried past and she wondered what they made of her nervous smile and her hand half-raised in a hesitant greeting. She’d like to know more about these people – where they came from, how they coped – but her Portuguese was virtually non-existent and the conversation with Chipenda had taught her that the gulf between their two worlds was infinitely wider than she’d ever imagined. Nothing had prepared her for lives stripped so bare. No clean water. Precious little food. And absolutely no prospect of any improvement. The odds these people faced were beyond comprehension and she swore again that she’d take the lesson back home with her. No matter how bad things seem, she thought, they can always get a whole lot worse.

  Molly paused on the other side of the square, looking back at the cathedral. The building itself and its setting reminded her of similar scenes in Portugal. With its bleached walls, and lilac trim, and stand of closely spaced shade trees, it could easily belong in any of the little towns that dotted the foothills of the Algarve. She and Giles had been down there three summers running when James had been very young, and she thought of him now, sitting in her lap in the hire car, his cheek turned to the cooling breeze through the open window, his blond hair blowing in her face. After a couple of days by the sea, his skin took on a special smell, a delicious saltiness gild
ed by sunshine, and she caught her breath, reaching for the camera again, remembering it.

  Bennie found the ampoule of morphine Velcroed to the bottom of the trauma pack. He broke open the seal on the disposable syringe, plunging it into the plastic ampoule. He knew there were problems with using painkillers. Too much of the stuff could delay surgery. There were horror stories of guys arriving at hospital, stoned out of their heads, dying in the queue for the operating theatre. Bennie eased the plunger back, watching the clear liquid fill the syringe, wondering whether or not he should use it.

  Domingos was still in shock. He lay on his back, his body half-twisted, his eyes closed. His right leg was shredded beneath the knee, the foot unrecognisable, the exposed calf muscle hanging by a single tendon, the surrounding flesh charred and blackened by the searing heat of the explosion. The knee itself was torn open, the shattered end of the thigh bone clearly visible. Domingos stirred, getting up on his elbows, his eyes open but unfocused. As the pain hit him he began to groan, collapsing back, one hand grabbing down, trying to loosen the tourniquet Bennie had wound around the top of his right thigh. Without the tourniquet to stop blood loss, Domingos would already be dead.

  ‘Hey … fella …’

  Bennie reached for Domingos’s hand. The Kevlar waistcoat had protected his chest and belly from the worst of the blast but there was a big entry wound in his other thigh, and his chin and neck, unprotected by the visor, was a mass of lacerations.

  Bennie looked up, shouting to Llewelyn again. He’d let him no further than a couple of metres into the cleared minefield, telling him to raise help on the radio. Llewelyn was cupping his ear. Bennie tried again.

  ‘What happened?’ he yelled.

  Llewelyn was still carrying the camcorder. He put it to his eye then lowered it again. His voice was thin, almost inaudible.

  ‘He’s coming.’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘Peterson.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now.’

  Bennie turned back to Domingos, wondering how best to move him. The little man wouldn’t be heavy. He didn’t have the build for it. He glanced at his watch, trying to work out how long the tourniquet had been on. Already the explosion seemed light years away. Bennie frowned, eyeing the shattered leg. The book said the knot had to be eased every fifteen minutes, otherwise the healthy flesh would begin to die for lack of blood. He reached forward, waving away the cloud of flies, loosening the tourniquet. As he did so, the wound began to glisten with fresh blood and he let the knee drip for a full minute, controlling the flow with the tourniquet before tightening the knot again. Domingos was fully conscious now, shaking his head as if to dislodge some terrible memory. He thinks it’s a nightmare, Bennie thought, and he’s fucking right.

  He looked up, hearing the clatter of a diesel engine. One of the army trucks came to a halt behind the Land Rover. Government soldiers jumped out of the back, looking nervously towards the rebel positions to the west. Behind them, Bennie recognised Peterson’s tall, spare frame.

  ‘Tell them to turn the truck round,’ he shouted to Llewelyn.

  Llewelyn made his way back to the truck. Bennie could see him talking to Peterson. The truck began to reverse into a clumsy three-point turn. Bennie reached for the syringe, capping it and slipping it into the breast pocket of his shirt. Domingos was a tough little bugger. If he’d get through at all, it would be without morphine. He squatted beside the Angolan, his mouth beside Domingos’s ear.

  ‘Can you hear me, fella?’

  Domingos nodded, his tongue moistening his lower lip.

  ‘I’m going to lift you up,’ Bennie said, ‘get you out of here.’

  Domingos nodded again, making a limp movement with his right hand. For the first time, Bennie saw the raw flesh on his lower arm where he’d been carrying the Ebinger.

  ‘Help me,’ Domingos whispered. ‘You can help me.’

  ‘Walk?’

  ‘Yes.’ Domingos tried to get up. Bennie restrained him.

  ‘I’m carrying you.’ He paused. ‘You trod on a mine, old son. You remember any of that?’

  Domingos looked vague, his eyes fighting to keep focus. Then he sighed and his head fell back and Bennie realised just how little time he had. He slipped his hands beneath Domingos’s body and then stood upright, lifting him in a single movement, fighting for a moment to keep his balance. The little man weighed more than he’d thought. He was heavy, and it was awkward trying to scoop the remains of his leg into some kind of manageable parcel.

  Bennie turned, frowning, trying to remember the path Domingos had taken, stepping stones across the sixty metres of pockmarked earth that lay between him and the embankment. This was the one situation you never wanted to face, extracting a good friend from a live minefield. All the training manuals told you to wait for a proper breach, a swept path, but by the time that happened Bennie knew Domingos would be dead. Saving his life meant taking the odd risk. Now.

  Bennie began to move, one step at a time, scanning the ground in front of him. Perhaps twenty metres ahead, little piles of scooped earth indicated the area where Domingos and Llewelyn had been taping earlier. They’d walked all over it. They’d been working with the Ebinger. Had anything been there, they’d surely have found it. He walked on, closing the gap, Domingos’s body sagging in his arms. Some guys dealt with this through prayer. Others said it was a lottery, simple odds, thumbs up or curtains. Either way, it didn’t really matter. What you did was keep walking. What you didn’t do was dwell too much on what might happen if you got it wrong.

  Bennie was a step away now from the first of the upturned duds, the area where Domingos had been working earlier. The Angolan was groaning again, his head lolling back, the blood crusted beneath his chin.

  ‘Fella …’ Bennie urged. ‘Fella …’

  He stumbled a moment, caught his breath, and then began to run, a clumsy shuffle, oblivious now of the chances of triggering another mine. Ahead, he could see Peterson coming towards him. He was wearing a white shirt. His arms were outstretched.

  ‘Here,’ he said, ‘let me.’

  Bennie came to a halt, exhausted, letting Peterson take Domingos’s weight. He saw the expression on the other man’s face the moment he realised the extent of Domingos’s injuries. Already, there was blood all over Peterson’s shirt. Bennie stumbled towards the embankment, trying to keep up.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ he gasped, ‘then loosen it again.’

  ‘What? Loosen what?’

  ‘The fucking tourniquet.’

  Peterson nodded, his eyes never leaving Domingos’s face. Then he was at the foot of the embankment, looking up at the row of waiting soldiers, gesturing helplessly at Domingos’s broken body.

  ‘Someone help me,’ he was shouting, ‘for Christ’s sake.’

  Two of the soldiers scrambled down the embankment, taking over, carrying Domingos between them, and Bennie watched as they lifted him onto the back of the truck, Peterson behind them, shouting in Portuguese. Moments later, he was climbing into the cab, telling the driver to move, and the dust was still settling when Bennie became aware of Llewelyn, standing beside the Land Rover, the camera to his eye, taping everything.

  Bennie stared at him a moment, then his hand went to the pocket of his shirt, feeling the outline of the syringe. He was about to yell to Llewelyn for the keys to the Land Rover when the TV man lowered the camcorder and ducked into the driver’s seat. The engine caught first time, the wheels spinning as he set off in pursuit of the distant truck.

  Christianne dropped McFaul at the schoolhouse. The journey back from Katilo’s headquarters in the Toyota had taken less than half an hour and he was still soaking wet. He limped towards the door, surprised to find it locked. He felt for his keys, cursing when he remembered he’d left them in the MSF Landcruiser. At the back of the schoolhouse, beneath a broken air-brick, they kept a spare. He fetched it now, letting himself into the classroom.

  Two rows of chairs faced an easel. Chalked on the
blackboard was a crude diagram of a minefield. McFaul peered at it a moment, recognising Bennie’s scrawl, then he went through to the adjoining room they used as a dormitory. He found a towel and began to strip off. Then he stopped and returned to the classroom. They stored the radios and rechargers beneath a desk in the corner. Bennie’s had gone. McFaul unclipped his own from the belt around his waist. Bennie’s call sign was Golf Charlie Two. He answered within seconds and McFaul knew at once that something was wrong. Bennie got to the end of the story. He was close to tears.

  ‘Pick me up,’ McFaul said curtly. ‘En route to the hospital.’

  ‘I can’t, boss.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The telly bloke’s gone off with the Rover. I’m just clearing up.’

  Llewelyn abandoned the Global Land Rover beside the army truck. The soldiers in the back of the truck watched curiously as he stumbled across the rubble-strewn wasteland that surrounded the remains of the apartment block. The hospital was up on the third floor, the red and white Red Cross flag still hanging limply from the roof, the windows still screened by lengths of dirty blue polythene. Llewelyn entered the building, picking his way up four flights of stairs. The place was in semi-darkness and stank of urine. On the second floor, a sleeping dog lay sprawled beside a gaping shell hole in the outside wall. Llewelyn went up two more flights of stairs. There was fresh blood on the concrete, big dark splashes of it, and he paused, retracing his steps and then raising the camera and climbing again. POV, he thought. Millions of viewers sharing this journey of his.

  Up on the third floor, a hanging sheet screened the rooms that had been converted into a makeshift hospital. Llewelyn pushed through, the camcorder still to his eye. A symbol in the viewfinder signalled Low Light. He ignored it, coming to a halt, panning slowly around. The sunshine outside, filtered through the polythene, cast strange blue shadows across the room. The floor was littered with bodies, jigsawed together, head to toe. Most of them lay on the bare concrete, or on thin straw mats. The mats were stained with blood and nameless other effusions. Llewelyn tightened the zoom, watching the faces grow bigger in the viewfinder. One of the kids was newly bandaged, his head swathed in white. Inches away, a soldier in camouflage trousers and an ill-fitting singlet had lost an eye and both ears. Llewelyn lingered on the wreckage of his face, wondering how well the detail would show, the flies patrolling the depthless void beside his nose.