Sam appeared at the run with four squaddies, all gulping oxygen and sweating. ‘What do you think this is? A debating society?’ He glanced at Tim. ‘OK?’

Tim nodded.

‘Up to the tents, then. What good are you to anyone down here? Any casualties will be brought up to us. Your arms are still working, so you can sort them out up there. Both of you, no questions.’ He pointed at me. ‘And you get those devices in, soon as.’

‘Standish here yet?’

‘Aye, just.’ He pointed at Crucial. ‘Give him a hand. I’ll sort these two out.’

The two of us set about hauling the ANFO up the slope on our own.

The bags weighed a lot more than their original fifteen kilos, once the diesel had been added, and each seemed to weigh a bit more than the last. Crucial was on autopilot, shouldering bag after bag, but I knew what was on his mind.

‘Have you thought about staying, Nick?’

‘Fucking hell, mate, I haven’t had time to shit, let alone think. Besides, now’s not the time. Let’s get on with this.’

We got to the dugout and dumped the bags in layers, as before.

‘You know what, Nick? It’s always the right time to talk about doing some good.’

We could stack them maybe three high – if we used the time and he stopped waffling. ‘Let’s get on with this, eh? We ain’t got that long, mate.’

We scrambled back down the slope. All this pious talk was really starting to get to me. ‘Mate – you talk about good, but you know what’s being mined here. Do these fuckers even get paid?’

‘Of course – two dollars a sack.’

‘Not bad for something that sells for four hundred.’

Crucial bristled. ‘Hey, listen, if this was an LRA mine they’d get nothing. They’d be working at gunpoint, and they’d get shot if they weren’t working hard enough. That doesn’t happen here. These guys get to feed their families. Sam and I had to fight to make that happen.’

‘Another Standish cost-cutting initiative?’

We hefted another bag each. Even with fifteen kilos plus on his shoulder, he managed a shrug.

We attacked the hill once more. ‘But doesn’t it make you angry? These people living in shite while fat bastards like Stefan rack up millions?’

‘I just worry about the kids, Nick. I know what’s happening to them. I know what they’re going through. The rest of it, I can’t do anything about. All I can do is what I’m doing. I can’t change the world, but I can do something for this bit of it.’

I didn’t think I had any more fluid in me to sweat. I leaned against the stack of bags and gulped air. There were about thirty-five of them now, and it would be last light soon. We had to get a fucking move on.

Crucial’s sermon hadn’t improved my headache, and I had to wipe white foam periodically from my lips. He and I looked like a couple of rabies victims. We needed fluid urgently, but not as urgently as we needed to finish the claymore.

We started to shovel, but Crucial wasn’t giving up on his pitch. ‘I was like Sunday. I was taken from my village, used and dehumanized, Nick. Turned into a killer.’

‘Sunday tell you that?’

‘He’s not talking yet. His mind’s too numb. We get the kids to draw pictures to start with – it’s the only way they can express themselves. Most of them draw the same thing. They draw the LRA attacking their village, then they draw themselves being taken away. Sunday has drawn his hut being burned, and then being forced to shoot his parents.’

‘You kill yours?’

He held his shovelful of mud in mid-air for a moment, but said nothing. It was all the answer I needed.

‘What about the kids coming in tonight? How do you feel about hosing them down?’

He nodded slowly. ‘I know you’ve killed children, Nick. I was there, remember? It was a very big thing for Sam, also. That’s why he’s here now. It tested his faith. How could the Lord let such a thing happen?’

This God stuff wasn’t what I was after, and he knew it.

He lifted his crucifix and kissed it. ‘If I have to kill to save life, then I must. But it is not easy for me, man. The worst thing of all is condemning a child to death through no fault of his own. I will have to live with that until I meet my God. Then it will be between Him and me.’

I carried on shovelling. Part of me envied his certainty about the pearly gates. I wouldn’t be seeing them. My ticket was for totally the opposite direction.

There was a lull in the waffle, but I knew he still hadn’t finished. ‘Nick, the only thing you can do is what Sam and I do. Help us to help them. Then maybe, God willing, you’ll be at peace.’

I let my spade do the talking for a moment or two. The kid’s shot-away face flashed through my head and the prospect of doing it again tonight made it stay there a few seconds longer than I would have wanted. ‘Listen, mate, if we don’t get these fucking claymores done, you’ll be having that meeting a whole lot quicker than you want . . .’

13

It took the best part of an hour to finish the digging, get the metal in and the claymores set and prepared. The sun had never won its fight with the cloud, but could still be seen trying to break through as it dipped towards the end of the valley.

I had run det cord from both dugouts. They met behind the mound where Tim had been dumped. The two lots were of different lengths, with one running across the valley entrance and the other up to the higher ground on this side. Differing lengths could sometimes cause problems; ideally, they should be the same so there’s simultaneous detonation. But these claymores were so far apart it wasn’t as if the first one kicking off a nanosecond before the other would dislodge or compromise its mate. And to any LRA within reach, it would be one big, fuck-off bang.

Crucial and I had trodden the det cord from the right-hand claymore into the mud to avoid any LRA feet kicking it out of the devices as they came screaming into the valley.

To make best use of the killing area, Sam would want the first wave to come into the sangars’ arcs of fire before he gave the order to detonate. The claymores would then take them down as they moved along the riverbank and the entrance to the valley, and we got to kill more of them more quickly. We might even have a chance of being alive at the end of it.

Crucial was on his way back from the stores with the firing cable, the detonator and the firing device. Sam would make the decision as to when the plunger would be depressed and the electric current sent down the two- strand firing cable. That would initiate the detonator, which would initiate the det cord that ran to the balls of HE at the heart of the claymores. In less than a second, all our hard work would be history, and so would be a whole pile of LRA.

I concentrated 100 per cent on making sure I assembled the devices right. I was already cutting myself away from the fact that some of the targets getting the good news from these things tonight would be kids.

Crucial came back with the goodies. ‘I’m going to see the children before I join Sam. You OK?’

I nodded. I didn’t need him. This next bit was a one-man drill – in case I fucked up and the whole lot exploded prematurely. ‘Just bring in the gunners. We need them in now.’

He screamed and shouted at the sangars. A guy jumped out like a jack-in-the-box and started relaying the order.

I wasn’t going to do anything until they were all sitting on the safe side of the claymores. While I waited, I took the ends of the firing cable, twisted them together and pushed it into the mud. Earthing was an SOP: if the cable still held a residual current, it might be enough to initiate the det when I attached it.

Crucial stood behind me, waiting for everyone to take his position. Everything had gone quiet. No gunfire, no shouts, just the constant racket of the cicadas taking over the world.

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