Recoil

I couldn’t work out exactly where the shots had come from; the trees bounced the noise about. Could have been dead ahead, or down to the right.

I stood stock still, mouth open, and tried to listen. She was breathing noisily into my ear. ‘Ssssh . . . Hold it . . .’

There was more intermittent fire, then a couple of single shots, but again I was none the wiser.

I adjusted Silky once more and staggered on. There was nothing else I could do. It was ineffective fire: the rounds weren’t hitting us or the ground around us, and if I stopped every time I heard a shot we wouldn’t get anywhere.

I’d lost all sense of time and distance; my head spun and my lips were coated with white, foamy saliva.

A scream pierced the jungle no more than ten metres in front of us.

There were shots, long bursts, rounds hitting the floor all over the place and thudding into the trees. It didn’t matter if the rounds were aimed or the guys were just taking a cabby. They’d still make big holes in us.

I dropped like liquid and Silky collapsed on top of me. Her chin crashed down on the back of my head.

I moved to the right, downhill, fast, dragging her along the ground as she whimpered with pain.

12

The firing had stopped, but the screams and shouts hadn’t. They definitely came from ahead of us, on the high ground. I took advantage of the noise and kept her moving. The further away we got the better.

I shuffled along, half squatting, gripping her arm, virtually dragging her, trailing her leg in the mud. My eyes were zeroed in on the noise rather than where I was heading, so at first I didn’t see what I’d stumbled over.

The thousands of flies I’d disturbed swarmed into the air with the force and anger of a tornado.

Then I saw one pair of feet, but two bodies.

Silky saw them too and opened her mouth in a silent scream.

They’d been freshly dropped; the blood still glistened. The chunks of scalp had probably been ripped from their heads after death, but I knew there was a strong chance their arms and legs had been hacked off while they were still alive.

The flies swarmed back on to the raw flesh. I looked at the torsos and saw at least one mag tucked into a pair of jeans. And if there were mags, there might still be weapons.

I climbed over the limbs, grabbed the mag, and handed it to Silky. ‘Have a look,’ I said quietly. ‘Get any others. Careful of the blood.’

I pissed off the flies again as I searched under the torsos. They sounded like a chainsaw in a wind tunnel.

There was an AK wedged under the second guy. I grabbed hold, but it wouldn’t budge. The flies landed again and it looked like the bodies themselves were moving. Silky retched. She’d probably seen a few dead bodies in her time, but none after a gollock had done its worst.

The AK came clear and I fell back into the leaf litter. The magazine had taken a round through it, so I hit the release catch and let it drop. The safety lever was already down, so I pulled back the working parts and checked the chamber. There was a round in. I let the working parts slide forward, and flicked the safety back up.

I started to crawl, and beckoned Silky to follow. She needed no second bidding. I heard her vomit, but it sounded like nothing was coming up.

She’d get over it. I took a mag from her and pushed down on the rounds to make sure it was full. I rocked it back into the weapon, and gave it a little shake to make sure it was firmly in place.

We had to keep moving towards the mine, and try to box round whatever was just ahead.

We moved down into the low ground for another twenty metres, Silky sliding more than hopping. I stopped, checked the sun, and headed north again.

We’d gone no more than a hundred metres when I heard voices.

They were muffled, and I couldn’t make anything out. I dropped to my hands and knees and started to crawl, my body pumping with adrenalin. Silky did her best to keep up.

There was more mumbling on the high ground to our left.

Silky was three metres or so behind me, so I listened as I waited for her to come level.

There was no movement up there, no running around. Just voices.

I signalled to her to keep still.

I didn’t wait for an answer, or even a nod. I wanted to get closer to the voices and try to find a way out of this shit. Right hand on the pistol grip, index finger over the trigger guard, left hand on the stock, I started a very slow leopard crawl on my elbows and knees.

I stopped, looked, listened. Why weren’t they moving out to see if they had dropped us? If they were static, in positions, maybe they were Sam’s guys. The dead ones certainly hadn’t been. The one I’d taken the weapon from had been wearing an Eminem T-shirt and jeans.

I moved a couple more metres uphill and the mud and leaf litter built up on my chest like a bow wave. Now I could hear everything I needed to. I turned round and crawled back down to Silky.

I moved my mouth to her ear. ‘I think we’re near the mine. I need you to shout to them in French. Tell them it’s Nick, Sam and Crucial’s friend.’

I got up into a fire position, in case they patrolled towards her voice and I’d got the whole thing wrong.

‘Go on, shout.’

She gave it a couple of seconds while she worked out what she wanted to say, then did.

She got a reply, also in French. I understood ‘ami’ and ‘matin’ and that was about it.

‘What are they saying?’

‘Sssh, let me listen . . . They’re saying to come out.’

No way. Not without confirmation.

‘Tell them to describe Sam. Ask them what colour hair he’s got.’

She gobbed off, and smiled as she translated the answer. ‘They say it’s as orange as the earth. He’s a redhead?’

That was good enough for me. ‘Tell them we’re coming, and there’s two of us. One injured, so she’ll be carried. Make sure they understand before we move.’

She shouted again, then I got her on to my back and started moving uphill. ‘Keep shouting. Tell them we’re coming in now.’

I leaned forward into the hill and pumped my hands rhythmically to keep momentum. When we crested, we saw two guys standing nervously in front of a well-camouflaged sangar.

Their AKs were tucked under their arms, but aimed, fingers on triggers.

I moved a bit closer and could see Crucial’s arc stakes. These guys must be a standing patrol, the first line of defence, there to give early warning.

PART SEVEN

1

A line of comms cord, tied to one of the arc stakes, led off into dead ground. One of the guys gave it a couple of hard tugs and I followed the other out of the sangar, Silky still on my back. The cords would be jerking now from sangar to sangar, all the way down to the inner cordon.

The guy in front of me also started shouting at the top of his voice to make sure we didn’t get zapped by friendly fire – a good move, as far as I was concerned.