Recoil

7

We lowered Tim down beside the backblast channel. Crucial followed. He passed up the RPG gear, and we shifted Tim gently to a point where I could jump in too. Then we lifted him in.

The cot would be important for him. It would support his legs, and when the rain came, the trench would turn into a swamp, logs or no logs. We needed to keep him as uncontaminated as possible, or that leg of his would get infected and fester.

There were lots of groans and much gritting of teeth, but he was eventually settled. There was only a foot or so of room to play with at each end of the cot.

Crucial went back to his own trench and I told Silky to get the RPG rounds down alongside his legs. I looked down and fixed on Tim. ‘Sorry, mate, I can’t leave them out there,’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘Put them wherever you want.’

From the look on her face, Silky wasn’t thrilled to be handling HE. I banged two rounds together to show they were safe. ‘It’s OK, they won’t bite. You can throw them about. And once you’ve moved that lot, get yourself down by Tim’s head, and shove the bag in too. Both of you, make sure your heads stay below the parapet.’

She started to sort herself out, hobbling around on her damaged ankle.

I went back and collected the four mags and some damp Russian factory-packed cardboard boxes that each contained twenty rounds of 7.62 short.

Back into the trench with my jerry-can, I wedged the RPG upright in the corner, then five rounds on each side of the cot. The line stretched from his feet to his armpits.

The stabilizer pipe that stuck out of the back of the round contained more than just the booster charge to kick it out of the launcher and the sustainer motor that carried it on its way. It also housed the two sets of fins that deployed inflight. There were as many variations of this little fucker as countries that made them, but basically there would be two large stabilizer fins about halfway along the pipe to maintain direction, and a smaller set behind to induce rotation, making the round rifle through the air like an American football.

There was a logical order governing this sort of situation: my weapon, my kit, myself. Seeing as there was no kit, and no time, only the first mattered.

The lid of the crate of RPG rounds had been ripped off and placed on the parapet to protect resting weapons from the mud. I took off the AK mag and put it down on it. I unchambered the round, and used my cuff to clean the working parts. My shirt was like wire wool on my raw skin, but a shower and a shave wasn’t on offer right now. Most weapons will still fire if they’re covered with crap, but dirty and contaminated working parts inside will give you a stoppage every time.

Silky was scrunched up in a ball by Tim’s head. Their faces were almost touching, and I had to admit to myself that neither looked out of place. She watched me as I pushed down on each mag to check it was full of rounds, and cleared any mud, then shoved a few of the loose ones in to fill them up. I could tell she wasn’t thinking about the here and now. Her face was too calm for that. She had other things on her mind, and they didn’t include weapons, injuries or the LRA.

And that was OK, because my mind was elsewhere too.

The thunder was getting closer. There was just a sliver of light left over the lip of the valley behind us. I capitalized on it to load a mag, recock the weapon and apply safe before lining up the magazines next to the boxed rounds at Tim’s feet.

‘Look after them, will you?’ I was trying to raise another smile. I don’t know whether I succeeded. It was all but dark down there.

I got into the fire position and followed Bateman’s example. I checked how far I could move the AK, especially in the confined space. I couldn’t move along the fire trench, so would have to keep to one end. The trick was to keep as low as possible, to present a smaller target, yet still have good muzzle clearance. It was easier said than done.

A breeze brushed my face, and it felt great. The wind was picking up. Rain was on its way.

Next to be checked was the RPG, basically a simple steel tube, 40mm in diameter and just under a metre long. The middle was wrapped in wood to keep the heat off the firer. At the front end, you stick in the stabilizer pipe until the round head is locked into position. The back end is flared to help shield the blast, which it does very badly, and reduce the recoil, which it does very well.

On top two iron sights flicked up, one in front and the other about a third of the way down. There were meant to be optic ones, but maybe Lex had sold them to the guy with the fragmentation rounds.

There were two pistol grips underneath. The forward one housed the trigger, safety bar – which was the same design as the GPMG’s – and the cocking lever at the rear. The ignition was mechanical, nothing fancy, the same principle as a firing pin on a revolver’s hammer striking the percussion cap on a bullet. The rear grip was just for support, to help aim the thing. All in all, very simple, very cheap, and it weighed less than a GPMG, even when it was loaded. No wonder that, in tests, nine out of ten rebels preferred them.

I put a round into the launcher, got the weapon on the shoulder and checked out the backblast channel, making sure that when I fired it I wouldn’t be making Tim and Silky’s lives any worse by killing them. I never bothered using the safety on these things; I didn’t trust them. When I needed to fire, I just cocked the lever at the back and squeezed the trigger.

I was ready.

I had one last look at the valley in front of me, to set the mental picture before it went pitch black. The high ground at the top of the horseshoe was behind us; we were on the knoll below it, but still on higher ground than the valley floor. We had about four hundred metres of valley between us and the claymores. The Nuka mob were about two hundred metres down on our left. The valley was a couple of hundred metres wide.

The high ground to the left had four sangars on it, roughly fifty metres apart and at varying heights to maximize arcs of fire. Same on the right; another four sangars.

From my elevated position, I covered not only down into the valley, but also on to the left flank.

Sam and Standish were about five metres away, with Sunday somewhere out of sight. They were covering forwards, but could come round and fire on to the left flank quite easily and, to a lesser extent, the right.

The trench beyond them, another five metres to their right, was Crucial’s manor. I watched as he set up his RPG, plunging a grenade into the launcher. He, too, was covering forwards, but could also aim right.

Bateman was further away still, AK already in a fire position. He covered the right flank. We could all fire up at the high ground behind. There weren’t any sangars. And with all the arcs covered, we didn’t need arc stakes. We knew what the fuck we were doing.

All we had left to do for now was watch the moody light-show ahead, as the storm crept closer.

‘When will they come?’ Silky sparked up, to no one in particular.

I answered anyway: ‘Soon. Maybe fifteen, thirty, an hour . . . Who knows?’