Recoil

2

Weapons in the shoulder, we skidded down to the scrapyard where the ANFO had been mixed. The view down here in the stalls was scarier and more claustrophobic than the one we’d had up in the dress circle. It looked like a First World War battlefield, the sort the Germans used to call ‘the place where the Iron Crosses grow’.

Sam hunkered down among the oil drums and we closed in.

‘OK, listen – me and Crucial are going to get the two guns from those sangars. Nick, you get hold of as much link as you can from the stores dugout. We’ve cleaned it out of RPG rounds, but whatever you can find, we need it up top.’

He dug into his chest harness and handed me a cheap plastic version of a mini Maglite. I tried to shove it into my pocket next to the sat nav, but my OGs were so sodden it clung to my hand.

‘Get any link straight up to the trenches. Then come back here and wait. I want some cover down here as well, in case we have a drama on the other side.’

I nodded. ‘Got it. Listen, mate, I want to check the firing cables. That OK?’

Sam thought about it for a second, then nodded. It was going to take precious time, but he knew it would eat away at me if I didn’t find out, one way or another. Who’d fucked up, me or the kit? In my boots, he’d have wanted to do the same.

Sam led off, with Crucial behind him and to the left. I took the right. We moved as fast as we could, safety off, weapon back in the shoulder.

Sam found the cable. I picked it up and started to follow it towards the river. The other two fell in each side of me and covered.

Ahead of me I could see a haphazard arrangement of stepping-stones in the mud. As I got closer, I could see what they were: some adult, some kids, some still with weapons beside them or lying across their bodies. One had fallen face down and was almost fully submerged. His disembodied hands and feet seemed to grow out of the mud.

I got to where I’d anchored the cable, just short of the Nuka hidey-hole. Sam and Crucial knelt, covering the arcs, while I unwound the cable from the rock. I tried to pull the join apart, but the pigtails didn’t give an inch – they hadn’t let me down.

Sam wanted to move on, and I nodded. Job done. I was happy; well, sort of. I untwisted the two strands and let them fall into the mud. I still wanted to test the cable later.

Sam and Crucial aimed for the right side of the valley and I headed back the way we’d come.

When I reached the cover of the drums once more, I undid the torch and turned the bottom battery the right way round again. Old habits died hard for Sam. It saved power, and could also save your life: a torch suddenly coming on if the switch got knocked was an open invitation to any sniper within reach.

I shielded the lens in the palm of my hand. There was a dull red glow through the skin. I turned it off again and kept it in my left hand so that when I gripped the weapon it lay along the stock. When the time came, it would be my searchlight.

I moved off towards the stores dugout, trying to keep low, trying to offer as small a target as I could.

A pace or two from the mouth, it was time to hit the switch. Gripping it against the stock, I shone the beam down the barrel and into the cave.

The marzipan smell embraced me like an old friend, and as I swept the beam I could see the ground was strewn with many more empty wooden crates than last time. Bits of ordnance, the internal box packing for RPG rounds and sweaty slabs of HE covered with grit had been discarded all over the floor. Ahead of me was a stack of boxes.

As I panned the cave, there was a scuffle behind them.

I threw myself against the wall and tensed into a fire position, barrel up, both eyes open, first pressure taken. I didn’t want to give whoever was in here the chance to open up first, especially since they might not realize that if they fucked up and hit a slab we’d all be history.

‘Come out! Allez, allez!’ I didn’t expect it to happen; I just wanted whoever it was to know they’d been heard. ‘Identify yourself!’

I kept up first pressure on the trigger.

Still both eyes open, I aimed the weapon and torch towards the noise, ready for the slightest movement.

I heard it again; something between a gasp and a cough.

Torch beam and muzzle frozen on the stack, I eased myself upright and leaned into the weapon. ‘Show yourself! Allez, allez, allez!’

I shuffled forward a foot or two. The shadows moved with me.

I kept left. My back scraped against the side of the dugout, but the adrenalin killed any pain. I kept each pace firm and deliberate, my feet never crossing. I needed a stable firing platform.

I didn’t call out again. I didn’t want to miss the slightest sound, or provide cover for whatever was in front of me to move.

More noise: a stifled, frightened whimper this time.

I came level with the boxes. The torch beam moved further into the dead ground behind them.

The barrel of an AK toppled to the ground in front of me, rusty, the parkerization long gone.

I reached out for it and the beam fell on a kid. He was lying against the back of the dugout, his swollen stomach torn open by a gunshot wound.

He was panting hard, fighting for air.

I knelt down next to him. ‘Hello, mate. Mr Nick, that’s me.’

His huge eyes gazed up at me but there was little reaction in them as I ran the light across his face.

‘Let’s have a look at you, yeah?’

I eased up the chest harness that covered almost all of the little boy’s torso and lifted his blood-soaked shirt. I saw his intestines ripple with each tortured breath. He was in shit state.

‘That’s too bad, mate.’ I kept up my Mr Nice Guy act as I rolled him on to his side. ‘Let’s have a look round the back, see what you got for us there.’

The exit wound was three times as big, a mess of torn flesh and exposed rib. There was nothing I could do for him here. I doubted there was much that could be done for him up top, beyond strapping him up and trying to keep what was left of him in the right place.

‘Let’s get this harness off you, then Mr Nick will take you to see Mr Tim and Miss Silky.’

His face screwed up with pain and his heels dug into the ground as he tried to fight it. His head, too large for his underfed body, lifted towards me. ‘Mr Nick, Mr Nick . . .’

‘That’s right, mate, Mr Nick. I’m here, you’ll be OK, come on, up you get.’

As gently as I could, I unstrapped the harness and pulled the little fucker up a couple of inches, then slipped off his shirt. It must have hurt like shit, but he didn’t scream; not a good sign. I folded the shirt lengthways, then wrapped it as firmly as I could around his back and stomach. It wouldn’t stop the bleeding, but it might stop him falling apart in my arms.

‘There you go – not long now, mate, before you’ll be playing football on this airstrip I know. Lots of kids there to play with. It’ll be a good laugh, yeah?’

I slipped my left hand under his legs, and my right behind his back, picked up my weapon and lifted. I’d be fucked if we got within range of Kony’s lot, but I wasn’t going to leave him to die here, all on his own. I could feel warm blood oozing down my arms. I clicked off the torch and headed outside.

He cried weakly each time I took a step, and never once took his impossibly wide, pleading eyes off my face. As the moon broke through the scudding clouds again, I knew we presented the world’s easiest target, but I didn’t want to spill any more of this kid’s guts than I had to on the way up. I moved as fast as I could to the ANFO site, then on to the tents.

I pushed through the flaps and into the dull glow of a Tilley lamp. It had been turned right down so the light wouldn’t show through the soaking canvas. Either Tim or Silky knew a lot more than just doctoring, or Bateman had given them a bollocking about staying tactical.

Silky had her back to me as she leaned over Tim. His legs, still bound together, had been elevated on a roll of wet blankets.

Sam’s kids were huddled in a group on the ground, exactly the same as they’d been in the MF tent in Nuka.

‘We’ve got a gunshot wound here.’

Silky spun around. ‘Oh, my God!’ She grabbed the Tilley lamp.

Tim gripped the situation. ‘Get a cot. Put him next to me.’

Silky dragged one over and I laid him down as gently as I could.

‘There you go, mate. Mr Tim and Miss Silky.’

Tears spilled down his cheeks, washing tracks in the grime from the dugout. His eyes burned into me. ‘Mr Nick . . .’ He struggled to hold up a hand.

‘Yeah, Mr Nick.’ I took his bony little fist. The skin was too rough for a child. ‘We’ll have that game of football, eh? As soon as you’re up and about . . .’

Tim took one look at what was underneath the shirt and told Silky what he needed out of the bag.

He was completely calm, and completely in command. He reminded me of Sam.

I left them to it and went back into the darkness.

I still had a job to do.