We tensed up at this renewal of hostilities but it was happening a long way off from us, to our relief.
Geoff Wingstead was beside me. 'I've had it. This is Sadiq's war. Let him fight it from now on. I'm all for going back to being a truck driver.'
'Me too – only I'll be happy just to ride that desk of mine.'
McGrath said, 'I'll be happier when we've got a detachment down here; they still might try to rush that bridge and Sadiq isn't nearby. We might still be wanted.'
'I hope to God not. We've had one casualty and we don't want any more.'
Wingstead said, 'I'm afraid we've had more than one.'
I said, 'Who else, then?'
He pointed to a group of men at the foot of the water tanker, consisting of Harry Zimmerman, a Russian, and Brad Bishop.
'One of the Russians bought it,' Wingstead told me. Together we walked over to Zimmerman, who was looking sadly at the huddled body. 'I'm sorry about this, my friend,' I said to his fellow countryman, standing impassively by, then to Zimmerman, 'Who was he – Brezhnev or Kosygin?' I never could tell them apart.
Zimmerman sighed. 'His name was Andrei Djavakhishkili and he came from Tbilisi in Georgia. He was a nice guy when you got to know him.'
The remaining two hours to dawn were quiet. Sadiq had joined us, and we sat in the cover of our vehicles, waiting for the morning light. We didn't expect the enemy to try anything; their only passage was blocked off and the decisiveness of Sadiq's action, and our own, must have rocked their morale.
With the rising of the sun we could see no sign of movement from across the river. The scene was one of destruction; burnt out vegetation still smouldered, the camp site littered with debris, and the wreckage of the first Saracen huddled in a ditch. We found the bodies of three men near it, one shot and two who had died of burns. There were more bodies up the hill at the soldiers' camp but Sadiq's men were taking care of them and we didn't want to see the site of that battle.
Our tractor blocked the nearside of the bridge and at the far end the second Saracen lay canted over diagonally across the road and forced up hard against the coping. There was no sign of men or vehicles beyond.
I said to Sadiq, 'What now, Captain?'
He studied the opposite bank carefully through binoculars, holding them one-handed as his left arm was in a sling. He was no longer the immaculate officer whose pants were creased to a knife edge and whose shoes gleamed. He'd lost his boot polish to McGrath. His uniform was scorched and rumpled.
There were lines of strain about his eyes and mouth. Presently he said, 'We watch and wait for one, two hours maybe. If everything is still quiet I will send scouts across the river.'
'Risky.'
'Would you expect anything else in war, Mister Mannix?'
'You did well last night, Captain. It was a fine operation.'
He nodded gravely. 'Yes, we did well. But you all did well, especially Mister McGrath. He is very efficient. Without him it might not have come about.'
I knew that and didn't want to dwell on it. I would have liked to admire McGrath whole-heartedly but found it impossible. I was pleased to hear that Sadiq had sustained no losses among his men, and only a couple were wounded.
Our losses were worse.
The Russian was dead. Lang was in a bad way and lay on Dr Kat's operating table. Proctor had a bullet graze on the leg and Kemp on the shoulder, and others had an assortment of bruises and abrasions. But a roll call proved one man missing. After a search we found the body of Ron Jones, shot through the head and stomach by machine- gun bullets.
CHAPTER 22
It was ten o'clock before Sadiq took his chance on the bridge. First he wanted the tractor shifted so that if necessary he could get troops across fast, and we were wary of sending anyone out of cover to do that until we felt fairly sure, it was safe. Sadiq would not send scouts across, as being too dangerous. He was going to cross first himself in the Scorpion tank, which was a brave thing to do because even a lone infantryman might have a tank- killing weapon. He was taking three men with him, a driver, a gunner and a radio operator, and he left instructions that nobody was to move until he came back or sent a coded all clear signal.
Before that we'd cleaned up the camp, repairing what was possible and listing what needed repair when we could spare the time. Luckily Maksa's men had not destroyed much of importance, though there were two car windows shattered and sundry minor damage done here and there. Bishop and Bing, with help from the others, got a food supply moving, and on the rig the medical people were kept very busy.
Max Otterman's body had been found at the foot of the rig with a bullet in his back and two ribs broken, presumably by the fall though the damage could have been done by a boot. It was an appalling death. We organized a digging party off the road and held a mass funeral service. Otterman, Burns, Ron Jones and Andrei Djavakhishkili, a Rhodesian, an American, a Welshman and a Russian, shared one grave, though we gave them each separate headboards. In another grave were two of Sadiq's men and with them four rebels, all with the common bond of being Nyalans.
Both the ailing infant and the hospital's other serious patient, Sister Mary, had survived the night. But the two doctors and the nursing staff were under great strain and an urgent discussion on ways and means was long overdue.
Astonishingly, during the early hours of the morning we had visitors.
Sandy Bing, carrying a bucket of hot water towards the rig, stopped and said, 'I'll be damned, Mister Wingstead! Just look at them.'
In the distance, quietly and almost shyly, little clumps of Nyalans were reappearing, still mostly women and children, to stand in respectful yet wary homage to their travelling talisman. Some of them spoke to the soldiers, and Dr Kat and two of the Nyalan nurses went down among them, to return with news that the vast majority had melted away just far enough to be within earshot of the fight, and close enough to come back if they felt all was safe again. It was truly extraordinary.
'I think it may mean that the other soldiers have all gone,' Dr Kat told us. They speak of them as evil, and they would not come back if they were still close by.'
'But they'd be across the river, Doctor Kat. How could these people know?'
'I think you call it the bush telegraph,' the surgeon said with his first smile for a long time. 'It really does work quite well. You will see, the Captain will return to give us an all clear. In the meantime, they have brought me a woman who. broke her leg last night. I must go back and see to her.'
I went to have a look at the Saracen that had caught fire. I was curious to see why it had happened; an armoured car isn't a paper bag to be burned up by a Very flare.
It was simple enough when we reconstructed what had occurred. At the time that the shooting started someone must have been filling the gas tank and in the hurry to get things moving the fuel tank cap hadn't been screwed back on properly. When the Very ignited, a spark must have gone straight into the tank, blowing up the vehicle in fine style. We found the cap still on its hinge, military fashion, but hanging loose.
I had another job to do that I didn't relish, and that was to speak to McGrath alone. I started by telling him about the Saracen and he grinned approval.
'Dead lucky. We have to have some of it,' he commented.
I said, 'McGrath, there's something bothering me.'
'Why then, let's have it,' he said calmly.
'In the warehouse you told us that Maksa was getting ready to burn it down with us inside. But I found no petrol drums anywhere near the warehouse, and there's no fuel of theirs this side of the river. Our tanker is still locked and nobody took the keys.'
'Well, maybe they were going to do it another way,' he said easily.
'Don't mess with me, McGrath. Did you actually hear them say anything like that?'
