by Anita Bell
Locklin slipped into the underbrush, hearing the second of the three bodies disappear. He hoped it wouldn’t be long before the same thing happened to the third, but he didn’t have time to wait around to make sure. Any second now, the Communications Hut back at base would be getting a distress message. He’d left the boy’s mother with the children and other women on the same ridge that he’d rigged with the makeshift antennae earlier, so he knew she’d get a good reception. He also knew the brass couldn’t refuse a cry for help from civilians, regardless of the weather.
The sky would be full of Blackhawks in about fourteen minutes and unless he did something now, the body of his patrol commander and the others might be not be discovered until they were decomposed. He couldn’t carry all of them, he realised, but he could carry one.
Locklin hauled Westy over his shoulder and circled downwind of the east gate, having second thoughts all the way. He could wait for the Blackhawks. Procedures dictated that at least two armoured escorts would accompany an aeromedical evacuation flight, and after getting the call in from a native woman on military equipment, the brass at HQ should have been sufficiently jumpy to leap straight for the textbooks. They’d want their men out safely if possible, he knew, but he also realised they wouldn’t risk the political stability of the entire region to do it.
Two armoured escorts, he thought hopefully. Between them, they could put eighteen men on the ground and provide enough air support to wipe out a fifty-man enclave in a few minutes. This village had only nine targets left. But to succeed against semitrained adversaries without casualties, the rescue team would need a plan and time to organise it. Locklin had denied them that time. His mates were dying now and by ensuring a civilian was the one to call for help, he felt sure the brass would be keen to get control of the situation.
They’d be careful, he realised. Militia usually hightailed it and ran after an encounter with Australian forces, but with casualties as bait, the village could just as easily be used as a trap. Landing forces would have to secure the village before attempting to evacuate any wounded, and again he couldn’t afford them that time.
There was only one way to make sure his mates got the fastest medical attention possible without getting anyone else killed, and that was to secure the village himself. Then he caught his breath and repositioned the heavy weight on his shoulders.
He crossed the short clearing between the forest and the bananas, and let the body of his commander down between banana suckers overlooking the northwest gate.
He crawled through sweet potato vines and heard more screams from his mates. This time it was Rogers, suggesting loudly that his captors had mothers who were four-legged and barked. Someone else started shouting. Then he heard four shots from a Steyr and more screams, reminding him again that waiting wasn’t an option.
‘Hang in there guys,’ he said under his breath.
Locklin landed between the bananas as three of Shorty’s cronies emerged from the eight o’clock hut carrying Australian army boots and uniforms, which explained the argument. The guard on the door looked inside before pulling it closed, clamping his hand over his mouth as if to stop himself from being sick and one of the others shoved the wimpy guard in the stomach and laughed.
They dumped the clothes in a pile under the shanty roof beside Shorty, who pulled the remains of a boiled goat leg out of the camp oven and gnawed on it while they spoke to him. Two of them swapped their ragged boots and shirts for the much newer Australian versions and packed the rest on the backs of the two village ponies that were already tethered under full loads for the night.
That made it three sentries, one on each of the three gates to the village. From any vantage point in the surrounding forest, Locklin could usually see two of them.
There were also three dead down by the creek, plus the guard on the eight o’clock hut, and Shorty with his three punch-happy cronies, which Locklin realised, left one target unaccounted for.
Not good odds, Locklin thought, even if he did know where the missing man was. He dubbed Shorty’s cronies as Larry, Moe and Curly to help him keep track of them and turned his attention back on Shorty.
Shorty was fiddling with the night goggles that hung loosely around his neck. He shifted restlessly, waved to the three gates and scowled as he called Larry, Moe and Curly to report to him again. They pointed east to the creek, raising their voices as if worried about their mates not returning and Shorty barked them into silence. He pointed to the pot as if asking them if they wanted anything to eat. They shook their heads and Shorty pointed south.
They obeyed, jogging under a light rain to the pair of small huts at five and six o’clock. They split up, Larry and Moe into the five o’clock hut and Curly into the hut at six o’clock by himself.
Dim lights glowed briefly above the low rock foundations of both huts, warming the thatched walls and roofs with a small glow before disintegrating into blackness again.
One missing, Locklin reminded himself.
Shorty kicked out the coals under the camp oven, sentencing the rest of the village to darkness, and almost as one, Locklin and Shorty fitted their Ninox goggles for the night. The guard on the eight o’clock hut was a little slower. He had trouble adjusting the elastic to fit his head and he called for Shorty’s help. Shorty came over, but he didn’t sound happy about it and as soon as his back was turned, Locklin saw the sentry mime his feelings for him with a couple of fingers and a fist.
Locklin watched them through the eerie luminescent green of his own goggles, like watching a television show with the red spectrum on the blink, and he almost smiled. He could relate to that. He’d done the same thing to a tough sergeant at boot camp, but he shook his head free of that thought, demanding his mind to focus.
If Shorty didn’t realise that three of his men were dead, he appeared to be planning on keeping four guards on, leaving eight to rest. Shorty was probably figuring on giving them about five hours’ sentry duty each before sun-up. The first four had been on duty about that long already, which explained why Shorty was getting jumpy that the next shift hadn’t returned yet from the creek.
He visited the guard on the three o’clock gate, asking him something, which was answered with a shake of the head. They both stared down the forest trail to the creek, tilting their heads to scan the sky like chickens expecting a farmer to visit them with an axe.
Come into my parlour, Locklin thought, hoping to get a chance to pick more of them off. But Shorty didn’t appear ready to oblige him. Sending more men outside the village would be a risk. He’d need all his men handy, Locklin realised, even if his only plan was to break camp and run, using their wounded hostages as cover.
‘Plan B,’ he whispered, frustrated.
He pulled down four of the ripest bananas from the nearest plant, ate one and put the rest inside his leg pockets. He drew his Browning from his shoulder holster, inspected the silencer and made sure the magazine was full. Then he hefted his patrol commander back over his shoulder and circled further north around the village.
He stayed downwind of the perimeter beyond the treeline to a point about midway between the east and northwest gates. He could see both gates at once, which meant that both sentries could see him too if he didn’t time it right, but it was also the point where he could get closest to the wall under cover of vegetation.
The banana plot extended almost halfway across the clearing to the wall, giving him only five seconds in the open if he ran directly to the short rocky wall around the village perimeter. But the grass was long and he let his commander down, into it, weighing up the choice of either bolting or crawling the rest of the way.
He chose bolting. If the Blackhawks were coming they were only twelve minutes out, and he’d need every second of that to clear the landing zone of un-friendlies for them. He watched the sentries as they scanned the forest to their left and right. They were armed and alert, but they were also undermanned and uncoordinated. There were times when both sentries looked away from his position. H
e timed his lunge and bolted across the gap. His back hit the wall harder than he planned, knocking the wind out of him.
He scolded himself and caught his breath, forcing it to slow, before working his way around the outside of the wall, keeping his head down.
The first one was always going to be the hardest, he realised, He asked the clouds to open up some more and make it harder for him to hear Death coming, but Mother Nature only teased him by easing the rain to a quiet drizzle. He inched his way to within a few metres of the guard and flicked off the safety on his Browning. He tucked it against his chest, steadying it with both hands, took three short breaths and held the last one, then he stood and centred two almost quiet blasts into the bridge of the man’s nose.
The target fell without the time to look surprised.
Locklin slid over the short wall and removed the firing pin from another stolen Steyr and lobbed it into the long grass outside the wall. Then he dropped the weapons beside the body. Pins were a dime a dozen — the stocks and barrels weren’t much more — but they were Australian, and one way or another they’d be recovered in about eight minutes.
He slipped back over the wall and retraced his steps to the banana thicket. He hefted Westy over his shoulder again and took him back quickly to arrange weapons and bodies to make it look like they killed each other at the last minute. The place wouldn’t be treated like a crime scene for another day even if everything went to plan, which meant he might just get away with making a dead man look responsible for the rescue attempt. Westy would become the hero and if Shorty found him in the meantime, Locklin hoped it might stir up enough confusion to help him complete his objective anyway.
Working faster now, he removed the militiaman’s ragged black shirt and put it on over his uniform. He pushed the man’s sloppy grey hat on over his Kevlar helmet, but it didn’t fit well. He had to hold it on the front with one hand as he edged anticlockwise around the village inside the wall.
Ahead of him, on the southwest gate, was Cleverboy and the submachine gun.
Locklin made it as far as the eight o’clock hut, where he took out his army knife and three bananas and etched the words ‘miss me’? into one of them. He forced it through the thatching on the back wall, but he only had to push it halfway before it was pulled the rest of the way by someone on the inside who had the good sense to keep his mouth shut.
Locklin etched the words ‘heads down’ into the next one and forced it through the same way, then followed it with the other one so each of his mates had something to eat to get their sugar levels up, if they were still in any shape to swallow them down.
Then he looked down the north side of the hut towards the east gate to make sure Shorty and his mate were still worried about their missing buddies at the creek.
The guard was still there, but Shorty was gone.
Locklin pulled back behind the hut, cursing Mother Nature as the rain fell harder, Now you open up! he thought. Right when I need to listen. He looked down the north flank of the hut and heard chickens clucking up a ruckus inside their hutch. Shorty came out, sucking out a raw egg, and then resumed his position on the perimeter closest to the creek. He smashed the empty shell against the wall and Locklin allowed himself a sigh.
His eyes moved to the next problem. Cleverboy had made a cosy spot for himself between the outer rock wall and a smaller rock alcove that was just inside the gate for storing firewood. He was sitting low, offering little of himself for a definite kill shot and the only good news was that his eyes were scanning outwards, expecting attack from outside the village.
Locklin made sure the militiaman’s hat still sat on his helmet, then held his Browning down and slightly back beside his leg. He straightened up and then walked straight into the open as if he was one of them.
Cleverboy heard him coming and turned, not recognising the threat until it was on him. He saw the Browning and reached for the machine gun, but he swung a right hook at the same time, which knocked the handgun as it fired. Two shots went wild, one chipping a fragment from the rock wall and Locklin kicked, catching Cleverboy in the cheek — hard, but not hard enough. Locklin ducked a second blow as Cleverboy tried another knock at the handgun, this time sending it into the timber pile.
Locklin caught his balance and leapt onto the militiaman’s back as he spun for the Minimi. There was a crack, and Cleverboy’s neck went limp, snapped back on its spine at the second cervical vertebra, just as Locklin had been trained. Air escaped the militiaman’s lungs in one long, uncontrolled gasp, gurgling through blood as panicked eyes searched for understanding. No pain, just fear and surprise that death was taking him.
Locklin lowered Cleverboy’s body quietly to the ground, crouched to watch for anyone coming and then lunged to the nearest wall of the six o’clock hut. He edged around the corner until he was standing beside the window of that hut and almost directly opposite the window of the next one. From inside both huts he could hear snoring. He took a quick glance inside the closest window and saw Curly asleep cuddling his new Steyr, while the missing man snored under a sack beside him.
Hard day pillaging, boys? Locklin thought, promising them a permanent rest. He pulled the pins on both his M26 fragmentation grenades at once, took off his night goggles and counted to four so there’d be no time for anyone to lob them back at him. He dropped one through the window beside him and tossed the other through the window on the but opposite. Then he hit the deck.
The blasts went over him, splintering the huts in a single mushroom of debris that shot skywards. Locklin didn’t wait for it to settle. He pulled the pin on his smoke grenade and lobbed it into the centre of the village. Too late. He could hear Shorty coming. He rolled to the right and swore again. He’d lost his clean kill. The guard huddled against the door to the eight o’clock hut, clutching his goggled eyes and screaming. He was blinded, but not for long.
Stand up, you big girl!
Locklin’s finger twitched over the trigger. Stand up, part of him screamed. Drop him anyway, cried another. From the right, the three o’clock guard ran in ahead of Shorty, as stupid as he was ugly. He ran directly into Locklin’s sights and caught two rounds in the temple. Momentum carried him another two steps, dead before his legs realised it.
Locklin looked for Shorty, but he was gone. He swore loudly.
He’d been made and he had to move fast. He lunged across the open space towards the eight o’clock guard and something thumped into his shoulder as he took the stunned man to the ground. An unexpected warmth spread across his shoulder like hot rain and he blamed the coward under him who was bleeding now from his neck.
A bullet stung Locklin’s thigh above his left knee, and he half-stumbled, half-fell around the corner of the hut, dragging the wounded militiaman with him. The man screamed and begged, crying as if for mercy, while he clutched at a wound that was just as bloodied as Locklin’s shoulder.
‘Blame your boss for that,’ Locklin told him, not caring if he understood English or not. ‘Head down!’ he added in stilted Tetum.
The man cowered against the wall, reciting prayers laced with the word Allah.
Locklin pushed the Browning into the guard’s neck, cursing him in Tetum to be silent. Locklin shook his head and ripped the night goggles off his enemy. He pushed him onto his belly and held him down with a knee in his back, and while the man blubbered on the ground, Locklin tied his elbows behind his back with the velcro strap off the goggles.
Locklin watched his back for signs of Shorty, and gave the whimpering guard one last nudge with his knee, signalling him to stay put. He would have preferred to hog-tie him too, bending his ankles up to tie with his wrists, but there wasn’t time. Shorty was out there and he would be repositioning for a better shot.
Locklin edged to the front corner of the hut, his shoulder heavy as he scanned the village. He rubbed it, annoyed that he must have strained it when he’d tackled Crybaby, more annoyed as he glanced at the blood on his shirt and trousers that he’d have to be te
sted for AIDS and hepatitis as soon as he got back to base.
He limped a step, forcing himself past the pain in his left leg. It was only a knick he told himself, and even if he did need stitches, stitches and pain and nurse’s needles were the least of his worries now. Through the rain, he heard running.
Where are you, Slimebag? He turned his head to listen for direction, holstering his Browning in favour of his Steyr and pushing the steel button on the end of the trigger to a semi-automatic. He flicked off the safety, readied it to fire as he scanned the village common and was shoved forward, a man’s body ramming him from behind.
It was Crybaby, but Locklin saw as he rolled that the man had been pushed into him. A shape disappeared behind the eight o’clock hut, shouting orders at the guard who was too frightened to obey them. The voice switched to broken English, and the acid in Locklin’s blood turned to ice.
‘Hey Aussie!’ the voice taunted. ‘I got you. I got you mates.’
Locklin pushed his back to the wall, ready to shoot left or right, but the voice was behind him, on the other side of the hut.
‘You want to die today, Aussie? You want all you mates to die today? You don’t have to.’
Locklin edged towards the back of the hut as the voice edged around towards the front.
‘Give yourself up, Aussie. I keep you mates alive. Political prisoners. Better than dead, yes?’
Locklin didn’t agree. In any civilised country, he might, but not here. He pushed the muzzle of his Steyr into the thatching on the back wall, hoping his mates had obeyed the banana.
‘Answer Aussie!’ the voice demanded and Locklin heard the door at the front get kicked open. ‘Answer Aussie or I shoot them now!’
Shuffling came from the floor. ‘Shoot dammit!’ Rogers swore.
And he did. One Steyr fired on auto, spraying the hut with bullets like mist from a can of Mortein. The other Steyr fired two rounds into the roof as the body fell.
Locklin slumped against the wall of the hut feeling suddenly heavy. He edged around to the front, dragging a leg that burned agony to his hip as he dropped his Steyr in the doorway beside Shorty’s body.
