Recoil

10

The track was wide and well worn, but the jungle each side was solid green.

I much preferred primary jungle to this secondary shit. In primary the canopy is much higher and thicker and the sun finds it difficult to penetrate to ground level so there’s a whole lot less vegetation – which means less cover for anyone lying in wait to kick your arse.

I soon developed a searing pain between my shoulder-blades. It had been quite a while since I’d carried anything heavy on my back, but it wasn’t the first time I’d wished someone could invent dehydrated water and weightless rounds. I had two-hundred link for the guns in my pack, and the only way to make it comfortable was to jump on tiptoe every few paces and jolt it higher up my back. To top it all, the heat and humidity were overpowering for someone who wasn’t acclimatized.

We patrolled west for nearly three hours and I checked my compass regularly to get the route into my head. The golden rule in jungle is to trust your compass, no matter what your instincts are telling you when the batteries on your sat nav have run down or the fucking thing just won’t work.

We’d entered DRC a while back, but I only knew that because Sam had said so. There were no signs saying Democratic Republic of Congo Welcomes Careful Drivers – but, then, there were no roads, and the DRC wasn’t a welcoming sort of place.

You could see it easily enough on the faces of the patrol. Heads moved from side to side as if powered by batteries, trying to spot trouble ahead before it spotted us. There had been a bit of gunfire in the distance. It had got the porters spooked, but we couldn’t do anything except crack on, and that was fine by me.

We stopped for ten minutes each hour. The patrol got in all-round defence, making sure there were eyes and weapons covering every arc. The porters would look for any dip in the ground and curl up in it for protection while they took their rest.

Sam had hardly opened his mouth, which I interpreted as ‘Shut the fuck up, I’ve more important things to do right now.’ He checked the watch hanging round his neck and got the patrol up and moving once more as the sun started to lose itself below the horizon. Very soon it was dark.

Sam halted again where the treeline thinned. The rest of us copied. He took the two gunners about ten metres further ahead, and put them on stag at the edge of the canopy. I could see the next phase was going to be an open plain of chest-high brush and grass, with the odd clump of trees. In the far distance – west – I could make out high ground. It was taking the brunt of the lightning, which was heading our way fast. There was almost no gap now between the flashes and the bangs.

I leaned my arse against a tree and eased off my daysack. Sam came up close. ‘This is a twenty-minute rest. There’ll be no more until we’ve crossed the plain and are back in cover.’

Wiping the sweat from my face, I heard the world around me clack, click and buzz once more.

The porters were subdued as they drank from their old plastic bottles. I was hot, out of breath and gagging for fluids. I slapped my face yet again to zap whatever had buzzed in to say hello.

I drank as much as I could before giving myself another dose of Deet. It made my lips numb, but it was pointless trying to rinse the stuff off; the damage was done.

A gust of wind made the trees sway at the edge of the canopy. It wouldn’t be long before the rain was with us. Thank fuck for that.

Sam sparked up his sat nav after shoving it down his shirt to hide the display.

‘We leaving the track?’

‘Not unless we have to.’ He pointed towards the high ground. ‘This is the start of the dodgy bit. Those hills have eyes.’

‘LRA?’

‘Aye.’ He closed down the sat nav again and I passed him my bottle. ‘Standish likes to call them rebels because it glosses over the fact that we’re fighting kids out there.’

Thunder reverberated across the plain, then there was silence. It felt as if the whole world was holding its breath. Two seconds later, the rain beat a tattoo on the trees and the first splashes hit my face. It felt great.

‘Standish using kids – it’s all about money, right?’

Lightning cracked and sizzled, bathing Sam’s face momentarily in brilliant blue light. I’d never seen him look more serious than when he handed me back the bottle. ‘We’ll need just over three thousand bayonets on the ground to do the job correctly. He’s worked out we can get a thousand ten-year-olds for the price of a hundred adults.’ He shook his head wearily. ‘It might keep Standish’s invisible man happy, but it’s sick. Simple as that. That’s why we have to stop it.’

Rain bounced off my head and shoulders and I had to shout to make myself heard as the thunder roared directly overhead: ‘So how would I fit into all this?’

‘You balance things up. Not only that, maybe you get the chance to drop Kony. Remember the team job? Remember what guys like him do and what happens to those poor souls?’

‘All well and good, mate, but what if Standish and his shadows get pissed off and sort things out with a couple of 7.62s?’ I took another couple of swigs, though all I really needed to do was tilt my face to the sky and open my mouth.

He shook his head and the rain flew from his hair. ‘My work is here. The LRA coming south means only two things, both bad. The kids will either be killed or taken and trained up. So, I have to ask myself, what would Jesus do? I know He’d stay and not count the cost. Then He’d keep working on Standish, trying to get him to change.’

I was pretty sure even God couldn’t do that, but I decided now wasn’t the time to say so.

Lightning strobed on Sam’s face as he stared at the high ground. He waited for an answer that wasn’t coming. I wasn’t sure whether he expected me to give it or the Man in charge of the thunder.

The porters got their sacks back on their backs while the two gunners folded their bipods and slung the webbing straps over their right shoulders so the weapons hung horizontally at waist level. The link was then thrown back over the top cover.

Sam went forward.

I jumped up and down a couple of times on tiptoe to get the pack nice and snug on my back, then checked that the safety lever on the right of my AK was fully up before I took the few paces to join them.