introduction.
‘Stratton.’
‘I am Sebastian’s second in command.’
Stratton knew nothing about the conflict nor did he know anyone’s name, thanks to Steel’s terrible briefing. But he smiled politely and nodded as if it was all quite clear.
‘Did any of it reach the clearing, do you know?’
‘I think most of it did.’
‘If you would lead on, then,’ Victor said. ‘Neravistas are in the area. We must assume they saw the drop.’
Another snippet of information. Neravistas were obviously the bad guys. Stratton picked up his pack and weapon. Someone called out the command to march and the shout was repeated several times, echoing back for some distance.
Stratton had already walked several metres before he remembered that he was supposed to be counting paces. He made a rough estimate of how many he’d taken so far and as they headed up an incline he looked back to see a long snaking line of men and burros. He could not see the end of the column.
They came to the first container. It was hanging several metres above the ground, dangling from its shredded parachute which had snagged in the upper branches of a tree. The crate had broken open and several large plastic boxes lay on the ground.
Victor was incensed. ‘If those idiots only realised that it takes valuable time to retrieve these. We must get these boxes loaded as soon as possible!’ he called out over his shoulder.
Orders were shouted and a group of men set about gathering the container’s contents. Stratton continued on. The undergrowth grew taller and thicker as they approached the edge of the clearing and men came forward with machetes to clear a path. They all looked like they had been living rough in the jungle for a while. They were unwashed and grubby, and most of them had long hair and beards. Apart from their camouflage gear, which seemed to have come from several different sources, they didn’t look like soldiers. But there seemed to be a solid enough rank structure and the discipline was there. Stratton wondered about their soldiering skills, though. Not all the weapons he could see looked in good condition.
The men soon cut through to the clearing where the bundles lay scattered over a wide area. Stratton took a count.
‘That’s it,’ he said to Victor. ‘They’re all here.’
Victor nodded to the serious-looking officers, who barked some orders and the rebels hurried into the clearing with their burros in tow. There must have been over two dozen animals and a hundred men.
Stratton made his way to one of the pallets to inspect a plastic container that had fallen out of the crate and had been damaged. He opened the lid and lifted a sponge cover to reveal a couple of dozen green tubes marked with black stencilling.
‘Rockets!’ exclaimed one of the men who saw them. Within seconds several rebels surrounded the box, removed some of the launch tubes and inspected them excitedly.
Stratton watched one of the men holding his tube up the wrong way round. When he began pushing in the rubber firing button, even though the device was not armed at that stage, it was evident he had no idea how to use it. Stratton watched other rebels beginning to do things with the tubes that were definitely inadvisable. He was suddenly alarmed.
‘Whoa, whoa, guys,’ he called out. ‘Stop. Just a minute. Hold on. You, don’t do that . . . Listen in!’ he finally shouted.
They stopped talking and gave him their full attention.
Stratton looked at the men, most of whom were a few inches shorter than him. At six foot he wasn’t particularly tall, neither was he noticeably muscular, though he was athletic. But he was quite big compared with most of the rebels, this bunch at least. ‘Does anybody here know how to fire these weapons?’ he asked calmly.
A barrel-chested man held his launcher confidently as he stepped from the group. ‘You just pull this bit here and then—’
‘Stop, stop, stop,’ Stratton asked, holding out his hands. ‘Don’t pull
There was silence. ‘It’s the kind that blows things up,’ someone called out, much to the amusement of the others.
Stratton smiled along with them. ‘That’s good. You’re right. It’s the kind that blows things up. And if you’re not careful you’ll blow us all up right here and now.’
‘So show us how to fire it,’ one of the rebels said.
‘Yeah, show us,’ another man echoed.
‘Well . . . I didn’t exactly come here to—’
‘What are you people doing?’ Victor interrupted, calling out as he strode through the undergrowth towards them. ‘Get this stuff loaded! Or are you just waiting for the Neravistas?’
The men put the launch tubes back in the box and hurried to the task.
Victor looked to the sky worriedly, wiping the sweat and grime from his brow before inspecting the rockets. ‘What are those?’ he asked.
‘Sixty-six-millimetre rockets.’
Victor appeared to have mixed feelings about the weapons.
‘You didn’t ask for these?’
‘We never know what we’re going to get. I think they send us whatever they have a surplus of. Last month we got two hundred pairs of chemical-and-biological warfare over-boots and a dozen gas masks . . . Are they simple to use?’
Stratton looked down at the tubes. ‘Well, yes - when you know how.’
‘You can show us?’
‘I came here to show you how to set up the claymores. ’
‘The what?’
‘They sent you several boxes of claymore anti-personnel mines. I was told to show a couple of your men how to set them up and then I’m on my way.’
‘Is it such a big deal to show the men how to fire these rockets as well?’
‘No. If you’ve got time,’ Stratton said with some reluctance. He had set his mind on getting going as soon as possible in the hope of making it to the border before the following evening.
‘We’ll have plenty of time when we get back to the camp,’ Victor said, walking off.
‘Hold on . . . excuse me,’ Stratton said, following him.
Victor stopped to shout at several men tying a box onto the back of one of the burros. ‘Quicker, you people. We need to leave.’ He turned to Stratton to hear what he had to say.
‘My task was to show your people how to set up claymores, but I was supposed to do that here at the drop. I’m leaving as soon as you guys do.’
‘We don’t have time to do any training here. We must pack up and go as soon as we can. What do you people think this is? We’re at war. Didn’t they tell you anything?’ Victor walked away.
‘Actually, no,’ Stratton muttered to himself. But he wasn’t going to give up so easily. He caught up with Victor as he was chastising a group of men who were having problems with one of the burros. ‘If we move away from here a couple of kilometres and take a break, I can run some training then.’
‘We don’t take breaks. We have to go as quickly as we can. It won’t be safe until we reach the camp,’ Victor said, walking away to resolve another crisis.
Stratton watched Victor go, realising that it was pointless to continue with the argument.
He had a decision to make.
He walked to the edge of the clearing, sat down and rested his carbine across his legs. He took the GPS from his pocket and turned it on. The decision he faced was either to follow the rebels to their camp as Victor had suggested, do the training and then leave, or to bug out right there and then. He could slip off into the jungle and probably no one would notice until they were ready to go, by which time he would be a couple of miles away.
But even as Stratton considered the options he knew that he would never be able just to walk off. Although
