them and they watched the vehicle come on. The single light gradually became two headlights as it turned a little more in their direction. When a few hundred metres away, the lights swept over the river as the vehicle made a tight turn to face right at it. The vehicle came to a halt with the headlights shining across the river and illuminating the opposite bank.
Stratton had two immediate thoughts. The enemy was setting up a control point or the vehicle was aiming to drive across the river. Then he remembered the track he passed on the approach to the jihadist camp, a track that headed in the direction of the river. He was probably looking at the same place. Perhaps the track led to a ford. Maybe it was a local truck, nothing to do with the jihadists.
They maintained their progress while they still had time to decide whether to pass it in the water or move to the land. The rain continued to fall heavily, providing good cover. In the absence of much scrub on either bank, they would be silhouetted even in the darkened conditions and so the water remained the best option.
The truck’s headlights went off. Stratton could just about make out its silhouette against the distant lighter skies. He decided to remain on course and keep close to the opposite bank, a good football pitch’s width from the truck at that point.
No sooner had he made the decision when small hand-held lights appeared in front of the truck. It looked like men had been at the river and had emerged from cover when the truck arrived.
Stratton weighed the risks, which still remained in favour of the water option. If the people with the flashlights had been watching the river, they would be currently distracted by the truck. Their night vision would also be temporarily disrupted because of their lights.
The rain continued to come down in heavy sheets as Stratton, the girl and the log closed on the point where the truck faced the river. The noise made by the rain hitting the water continued to drown out all other sounds. They couldn’t hear the truck’s engine if it was still running. Judging by the flashlights, the sentries remained preoccupied with the vehicle. Stratton’s confidence that they could get past unnoticed increased.
Then the truck’s engine gunned loudly and its headlights came back on. Stratton and the girl were caught directly in the main beams. And the log ran aground at the crossing point.
It was a ford.
Stratton saw the line of tall sticks in the water that indicated its path.
The truck began to move forward into the river. Stratton cursed himself for relying so much on chance. All he had to do was come to a stop well before the crossing point and wait and see what they would do. But no. He had to be impatient, tempt fate. He recognised the arrogance on his part, the same petty disregard for caution that had resulted in Hopper’s death.
Having been caught in the lights, they had no choice but to push on. If the men saw them, better to be going forwards than backwards. At least they would be running in the right direction.
‘Leave the log!’ he shouted.
Stratton crawled up the side of the ford and waded across it. The girl followed. They would be out of the way of the truck long before it reached them. Stratton could only hope the rain greatly reduced visibility and that the Somalis were looking elsewhere. Almost a dozen Somalis stood on the bank with only a couple of flashlights between them. The chance that none of them would be looking across the river, and into a light that naturally drew the eye, was a small one.
It was the driver who first spotted them as they hurried across the shallows. He pointed and shouted to the fighters.
The girl ran across the ford to catch up with Stratton. They managed to move out of the direct beams of the headlights and plunged into the deeper water once more. But the Somalis caught them in the flashlights. Stratton braced himself for what he knew would follow as he pushed on as fast as he could. He heard the Somalis shouting, the hard-sounding guttural intonation. The sound of the pelting rain went on. Then came the staccato thunder of rifle fire, bullets strafing the water around them. The riverbed continued to fall away beneath their feet and they dived under the surface. They swam hard in the blackness in a desperate effort to put as much distance between them and the enemy.
The single shots became bursts as the Somalis let rip into the night. Stratton and the girl surfaced just long enough to take a breath. The Somalis caught them in the beams and the rounds quickly followed. But an AK-47 on full automatic is a difficult weapon to hold on to a pinpoint target, even at a short distance. The weapon had always struggled to fire high and to the right, no matter how strongly you held it. And in the undisciplined hands of poorly trained militia, the inaccuracy multiplied. A few rounds struck close but the rest flew into the far bank and the sky. He and the girl dived again. Then they came up again and he looked back and saw the log. It had followed them over the ford thanks to its momentum. The Somali guys must have thought they were hiding behind it because the fire all seemed to be aimed at the tree.
Stratton broke into a firm breaststroke, pushing himself beneath the water as much as he could. The girl elected to continue duck diving although she didn’t have the breath to stay below the surface for longer than a few seconds at a time. When she realised the bullets were no longer striking close by and that Stratton was getting ahead of her, she switched to a crawl to catch up with him.
The gunfire petered out behind them and the sound of the rain hitting the water rose up again. They could hear shouts and the truck engine revving again. The alarm would be raised and the enemy would be alerted to the fact they were heading for the coast.
Stratton swam to the bank and clambered out of the water, his clothes hanging heavily from his body. The girl followed and staggered tiredly in pursuit.
‘Time for a change,’ he said, breathing heavily, as he dropped on to his knees to catch his breath and look back in the direction of the lights. She dropped to the ground beside him, breathing hard but at the same time thankful.
The gunfire became sporadic as the Somalis realised the log they been shooting at was unmanned. They started taking pot shots at anything that might be a person in the water or on the distant bank.
‘We’ll go on by land,’ Stratton said.‘If we meet an obstacle, we’ll still have the water as an option.’
She nodded in agreement. She would follow Stratton anywhere at that moment in time.
He set off. She adjusted her cloth sandals and padded after him. The rain had eased off by the time they had covered another kilometre. The river had also become much wider. Stratton thought he could hear waves crashing on a distant beach. The sound heightened their expectations, although these were tempered by the fear that the enemy was waiting for them.
They came across a small rise and Stratton climbed it to survey the scene despite the risk of being silhouetted. The smouldering clouds still hung low in the sky. It was dark in every direction except for a distant glow to the west.
‘The town,’ he said after studying it for a moment.
She joined him to take a look. ‘Do you think they’d expect us to try for the ship?’ she asked.
He had considered the same thing. But only the enemy knew when the ship would sail. That was under their control. Stratton had arrived at that thought from a different direction. She probably thought that the pirates and jihadists would prevent them from getting on board the ship if they thought it was the pair’s intention. Stratton thought the
She hadn’t considered that.
Stratton would make his decision when they had studied the ship and the activity around it. They would learn a lot from just watching for a while.
He stepped off the mound and walked along the bank at a brisk pace.
The ground had changed, become sandier, but the rain had hardened it and although the going was a little slower than on the compacted earth, the girl was thankful for it. They made good progress despite Stratton’s insistence on halting every few hundred metres to listen. The closer they got to the town and the ships, he reasoned, the greater the chance they had of being seen.
The rain had reduced to a drizzle and the sound made by the waves hitting the beach dominated. By the time they could see the white surf folding on to the sand, the rain had ceased. They had lost a good source of cover but the clouds still remained to shut out the stars and reduce the light. Something at least, thought Stratton.
He faced the west and the distant glow from the town, now much brighter. They walked along the ocean side
