Bernard was helping Victor cover the enemy soldiers and looked over at him.
‘Collect their guns before they realise how few of us there are.’
Stratton climbed the embankment onto the road and walked towards the bridge. The smoke rising from the wreckage was mostly black because of the burning tyres. Ash floated in the air. Every metal span that a mine had been tied to was buckled or shattered.
The bridge creaked and groaned loudly and Stratton wondered how badly weakened it was. He stepped over wreckage to get to the side where he could pull himself up a few feet onto a span for a better view. The vehicles were misshapen wrecks, peppered with countless small holes. Their interiors were laid bare, windows shattered, roofs crushed, engines exposed. The bodies inside were almost unrecognisable as having once been human. Not a single piece of them was untouched by a ball bearing or the blast itself. Some body parts were identifiable - a foot, a hand, a boneless face lying flat on the ground. The rear door of the Mercedes hung open on one hinge and a large piece of flesh, the remains of a man but without any limbs or head attached, lay across the back seat, flopping out onto the road. Only DNA analysis could prove that it was Chemora, but Louisa had seen him. He had been in the Mercedes, and nothing in the car could have survived.
The smoke irritated Stratton’s throat and he jumped down and backed away. He slid down the embankment and crossed the river, heading for the rise, his thoughts now on Louisa.
She had not moved and sat near the crest staring at the bridge, unaware of him, a gentle breeze playing through her long hair.
‘You okay?’ he asked as he came up to her.
Louisa glanced at him and nodded. ‘You did it.’
‘We,’ he corrected.
‘Tell me something. And please be straight with me.’
‘I’ve never been anything but.’
‘When did you decide that I would be the one to blow the bridge?’
She was distant. It was only to be expected. ‘It just worked out that way.’
‘As long as you didn’t do it.’
‘I always hoped to avoid that, but I would’ve, if I’d had to.’
‘That’s right. You came here just to teach . . . We owe you an apology, don’t we? We abused you.’
‘Maybe Victor was right. This is everybody’s fight.’
As Louisa watched the peasants gathering together, the women clutching their children, tears formed in her eyes, spilling forth to roll down her face. ‘Why does it have to be like this?’ she asked softly.
‘We’re still growing up.’
‘We’ll always be like this.There’ll always be those willing to destroy in order to get what they don’t deserve.’
‘I don’t agree. I can’t agree. Otherwise what would be the point in fighting them? I’d just look for a place on this earth to wait out my life. We’ll win in the end. Some day.’
Louisa did not look convinced and she got to her feet. ‘What shall we do with them?’ she asked, looking at the peasants.
‘What do you want to do with them?’
She got his point. ‘We’ll take them back with us.’
‘What about the soldiers?’
Victor and Bernard were stripping them of any weaponry, while Kebowa and Mohesiwa kept them covered with their drawn-back arrows.
‘We’ll let them go,’ she said. ‘They can tell the story of what a handful of revolutionaries can do.’
Stratton began to walk away down the rise.
‘Legend will, of course, include a shadowy Englishman. But no one will really know who he was and why he came here. He was called The Mercenary, but that couldn’t have been true. He took no payment for his work. And then he left as mysteriously as he arrived.’
Stratton continued walking.
Louisa watched him go.
The rebels were strangely quiet on the homeward journey. Even Victor did not say much. But they were not really subdued, not in their hearts. What had happened at the bridge had simply made them more serious. In part they could not believe what they had done or, indeed, that they had all survived - and with hardly a scratch, at that. What was more, they had saved a dozen souls. As Victor had said, it was the stuff of legend.
He believed Neravista would be so shocked by the death of his brother that it could take him weeks to react. That was not due to any emotional debilitation, he was quick to point out. The man was incapable of such a thing, even when it came to his own family. Neravista would have been knocked back by the sheer audacity and fury of the assault.
Those adult peasants unfit to walk rode on the horses and burros with the children. The group travelled during the daytime and rested at night even though there was a possibility that government troops would be mobilised to find them. Stratton decided that the risks of serious injury to the women and children moving at night were far greater. By late afternoon of the third day they reached the plateau and the familiar approaches to their encampment.
Louisa had not given the reunion with her father much thought. But the smell of the campfires seemed to revive the guilt she had originally felt about leaving him, knowing how much he would have worried.
Victor suggested entering the camp the same way they had left, by the rarely used route direct to the stables to avoid the main entrance. It was more than likely that the entire camp already knew about the death of Chemora. News like that travelled fast. Whether or not it was known who precisely had undertaken the task remained to be seen.
As the group approached the stables Yoinakuwa came out to greet them. Victor never ceased to be amazed how that man knew about things before anyone else did. His sons ran to him and after embracing they walked off together, the sons evidently gabbling on about the explosion they had seen and the carnage it had caused.
Louisa lifted off the children who’d been riding on her horse and saw that they were escorted to the main camp. As she unbuckled the animal’s saddle she noticed the white stallion running around the corral in an agitated fashion, which was most unlike it. A sudden fear coursed through her - the horse was Sebastian’s and such animals were sensitive to a much-loved master’s feelings.
As she walked to the top of the track Stratton sensed her concern and watched her. Suddenly she broke into a sprint, and he hurried after her towards the cabins. Sebastian’s had a large hole in the side with burn marks around it and the roof had been badly charred.
Louisa reached the front door, pushed it open and hurried inside. The room had been almost destroyed by what appeared to have been a blast of some kind.‘Father?’ she shouted, clambering over broken furniture to the room at the back. She pushed open the door to find it looking normal other than the bed being dishevelled. The maid always made it up while her father had his breakfast.
Panic gripped her heart and she ran out of the room and back to the front door as Stratton arrived. She hurried past him and raced outside, filled with dread that something had happened to Sebastian. Reaching the door of the smaller cabin she flung it open. Sebastian was seated at a table, calmly writing something. ‘Father!’ she cried. He got to his feet and she fell into his arms. They hugged tightly.
‘I was very worried about you,’ Sebastian said.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you,’ Louisa said. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘I’m fine,’ he said, happy to see her. ‘What about you?’
She nodded, almost overcome with relief. ‘I’m fine too.’
They laughed and embraced again.
Stratton stepped into the doorway and, seeing them together, turned away as Victor came running over. ‘Where’s Sebastian?’ he asked with urgency.
‘He’s in there. Everything is fine,’ Stratton said, taking Victor’s arm to lead him away. ‘Give them a moment together,’ he said.
Victor understood and exhaled deeply as his tension eased. He looked back at the main cabin and the damage that had been done to it. ‘They tried to kill him. I’m sure of it.’
