stopped and held his hand out behind him to indicate that the others should do the same.
He moved forward and crouched to look through the leaves.
Victor came to his side. ‘
Trudging along the track was a fresh company of Neravistas. An officer yelled an order and they came to a halt. Another command and they faced towards Victor and the rebel perimeter and marched forward.
Stratton jumped through the rebel defences and over and between bodies as he made his way carefully towards the other side of the strip of jungle that formed the perimeter at that point.
He paused halfway through the strip to look ahead. Figures ran across in front of him in the field beyond. He could not make out which side they were from. Shots rang out - a distant machine gun. Some of the rounds entered the jungle and struck the trees above him.
Something grabbed his leg and he leapt back like a cat, his gun barrel traversing and ready to fire. It was a wounded rebel, lying on his back. Blood oozed from bullet holes and bayonet cuts around his chest and face. He tried to say something but the words would not come out. His eyes were filled with sadness as he reached out to Stratton for help.
It was the cruellest of choices for Stratton, but one to which he knew the answer immediately. Even if he could have saved the man, which did not look possible, he would not have done so. ‘I’m sorry, mate,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Stratton hurried on, as much to get away from the man and the feeling of guilt as to pursue his goal.
He reached the edge of the jungle strip from where he could see the interior of the camp. He made out the roof of the stables a few hundred metres away. Smoke was everywhere. Gunfire raged to either side of him but directly ahead, towards the stables, it seemed to be quiet.
As he stood to better see the ground ahead he saw several dead Neravistas lying in the grass between him and the stables. There were a dozen or so of them, cut down while advancing across the open ground. Stratton remembered a machine-gun emplacement at that end of the stables and suspected it was the source of the gunfire that had killed them.
A loud explosion nearby made him duck behind a tree. It was too big to have been a grenade and smaller than the artillery ammunition that the Neravistas had been using. It had to have been a mortar shell. Having secured the perimeter, the Neravistas were preparing to carve up the camp interior. Stratton had no time to waste.
He concentrated on solving his immediate problem, which was how to get to the stables. He considered going further round the perimeter to approach from a different direction but it would waste time and the obstacles would probably be the same.
Stratton looked for a nearby dead rebel, one whose camouflage jacket was not too bloody, and quickly removed it. He pulled it on, found a rebel cap and moved back to the edge of the strip.
A helicopter screamed overhead, banking steeply, with another close on its tail. Stratton watched as they flew to the far end of the camp where they seemed to hover low. Troops leapt out of the side doors and the helicopters took to the air again.
He took a deep breath and headed across the field past the dead Neravistas and into the open.
Louisa, daubed in blood, applied pressure to a heavily bleeding wound in a young rebel’s thigh. A woman came over to help and removed the young man’s belt, looped it around his leg above his wound and, pushing a spoon under the loop, twisted it repeatedly until it tightened around the muscle. The man winced at the pain but the blood gradually stopped flowing from between Louisa’s fingers.
A burst of machine-gun fire slammed across the outside of the house, several rounds smashing in through the window. Louisa and the woman dived to the floor. As Louisa lay there waiting for another burst she looked over at the crowd of women and children huddled at the back of the room.
Blood began to pour off the table onto the floor beside her and she sprang to her feet to reapply the tourniquet that had come undone. As she began to twist the blood-soaked belt she stopped in horror. A fresh bullet hole was visible in the young rebel’s chest. He was dead.
Louisa put her shaking hands to her face, fighting to choke back her anger, and quickly turned her attention to an injured soldier seated in a chair. Another burst struck the building and as Louisa flinched the front door flew open and a rebel fell into the room with a comrade in his arms. Louisa helped one of the women drag them out of the doorway so that the door could be closed. Then she inspected the soldiers. Both had been badly wounded. Louisa checked the pupils of the one who had been carried in, confirming her suspicions that he was dead. The other had a severe chest wound that was beyond Louisa’s skills and she placed a dressing on it for no other reason than to give him hope. She put his hand on top of it to hold it in position and went to inspect another casualty.
A helicopter flew low overhead, the vibration of its engines rattling the building, and an explosion went off nearby.
Louisa’s thoughts went to her father and she opened the door enough to look at his cabin that was partially obscured in smoke.
The sound of machine-gun fire came from across the courtyard. It was David, firing bursts from behind his sandbags.
Single rifle shots came from scattered rebels lying prone on the ground at the corners of buildings. The log table had been turned onto its side and men were lying behind it, shooting through the smoke at distant Neravistas closing in.
She looked back at Sebastian’s cabin. The smoke had cleared just enough to reveal that the door was open and her father was walking around the front. She watched him, wondering what he was doing. He headed past the end cabin and up the slope in the direction of the stables.
‘Father!’ she called out.
Sebastian did not respond, unable to hear her above the noise of battle.
Louisa left the hut and as she stepped into the courtyard an explosion threw her to the ground.
She lay dazed for a few seconds before trying to get up, her vision out of focus. As she rose shakily to her knees a man was at her side, helping her.
‘Stratton?’ she asked, confused, looking into the face that was a blur.
‘It’s me, David,’ a familiar voice replied.
Louisa’s vision came back into focus. It was indeed David. Blood and black powder burns covered his hands and face. ‘Are you okay? Are you hurt?’
‘I . . . I think I’m okay,’ she said, not really sure.
‘Quickly!’ he said, helping her to her feet. ‘Come with me.’
He guided her across the courtyard to his sandbagged emplacement and they dropped to the ground as a burst of machine-gun fire raked the position.
David’s machine-gunner was lying slumped over the ammunition boxes. Louisa reached to help him.
‘He’s dead,’ David told her as he lifted up the feed tray from the M60 and placed a new belt of ammunition in it.
Louisa saw the bullet hole through the corpse’s head and lowered her gaze despondently. ‘Are they going to kill us all?’ she asked.
David cocked the weapon. ‘We should expect that,’ he said before firing several bursts. The noise hurt Louisa’s ears.
The gun jammed and David pulled up the slide to clear it, only to discover a bullet stuck in the breech.
‘Damn,’ he cursed. Without bothering to try and remove the obstruction he struggled to twist off the M60’s barrel while looking around the debris inside the emplacement. ‘Hand me that other barrel,’ he told Louisa.
She followed his gaze, saw what she assumed he was talking about, grabbed it up and held it out to him. Several enemy rounds struck nearby. David hardly flinched as he pulled the old barrel off, threw it to the floor, grabbed the spare from her grip, placed it in the bracket and in a few seconds was firing the machine gun
