Recoil

7

The track was a river of mud, and they struggled to keep a grip on the blanket with their bony little hands, but it seemed the best way to keep them together, and allowed me at times to virtually haul them up the hill. They weighed so little, I could probably have dragged them up if they’d all lost their footing at the same time.

‘Mr Sam, we’re off to see Mr Sam.’ I kept shouting his name to enthuse them, but I couldn’t tell if it was working. Every now and again I glimpsed a face in the moonlight when there was a break in the cloud, but its owner was never exactly jumping for joy.

We reached the top and headed for the tents.

Sam was with us in seconds, AK in hand. ‘How many?’

‘Only seven, mate.’

Crucial prised their fingers gently off the blanket, waffling away in happy, favourite-uncle French.

I gripped Sam’s arm as we steered the kids into the first tent. ‘Listen, I don’t know what the fuck happened, mate. I checked everything apart from that second cable, but there were no kinks, everything was OK. It had to be the plunger.’

‘Don’t worry, you tried. Good job on the claymores, anyway. Well done. Sort yourself out and get to my fire trench. Time for Plan B.’ He managed a smile. ‘Whatever Plan B is . . .’

I left them to it, not sure if he’d made me feel any better about the fuck-up.

Back at the position, I kept above ground as I pushed the GPMG’s bipods and pistol grip into the mud, rested the link on the wooden crate top, then lowered the launcher into the corner of the trench.

‘Nick? Is that you, Nick?’

She couldn’t disguise her relief. ‘Oh, thank God, Nick. I thought—’

‘I’m OK.’

Tim sparked up from the shadows: ‘The villagers?’

‘Either dead or done a runner.’ I thought I’d leave out the bit about the women. Silky had been through enough.

Tim raised himself painfully to a sitting position. ‘Are there wounded?’

‘There must be. I’ve brought back seven of the orphanage kids. They’re the only ones I found alive. I’m sorry, I saw one of your Mercy Flight guys . . . I don’t know about the other.’

He slumped back on to the cot. ‘Get me out of this hole, Nick. Please, I want to help. I want to do something.’

I could hear a low murmur from alongside the kids’ tent. ‘In a minute, mate. I’ve got to go, but I’ll be back.’ I picked up my AK.

Sam was outside the tent with Bateman. He swung to face me. ‘You see any of the patrol down there?’

‘Just dead, and none of the sangars was firing.’

‘Not one?’

‘I saw the front sangars being overrun. So, dead or done a runner.’

Bateman muttered, ‘I told you these fuckers would do this . . . When the going gets tough, they just fuck off. I told you – cut their fucking hair, that’s the way to keep them under control, man.’

Sam ignored him. ‘Nuka?’

Crucial came out of the tent and I told them exactly what I’d seen. I started to dip the link into a water-filled sag in the tent to get rid of the mud. ‘Some of the women got dragged off when they legged it.’ We all knew that wasn’t because the LRA boys needed help with the washing-up.

Crucial was breathing heavily, pissed off big-time.

I cut away from that stuff: it wasn’t going to help us. It had happened; we had to move on.

Silky appeared out of the gloom. ‘Where are they?’

Sam pointed into the tent and she disappeared. ‘OK, we go down into the valley. I want the guns up here. We need that firepower. We bring back any casualties we come across. But no LRA, apart from kids, OK?’ He slapped Bateman on the shoulder. ‘I want you to cover us with the gun. Take my trench. We’ll go in and out on the left side, same route you took, OK?’

I slipped the link from round my neck and handed it to Bateman. He threw them over his shoulder.

‘They’ll be back, man, once they’ve licked their wounds. Just like dogs, they’ll be back.’ He watched the clouds scudding past the moon. ‘Those fuckers will wait until first light so it’s easier to keep control now we’ve kicked their arses. Their heads will be full to bursting with that ghat shit.’ He paused and turned back towards us. ‘And a side portion of kindoki.’

It was only then that I realized one of us was missing. ‘Standish?’

‘I left him in the trench.’

Sam was already walking towards it. Crucial and I weren’t far behind.