Operation: Congo

- 4 -

Hynd took the lead, sharing one of the long canoes with Privates Davies and Wilkins.

Banks and Wiggins followed behind, their canoe carrying the team’s backpacks and gear in lieu of the extra man.

Although they had to paddle upstream, it wasn’t hard going, the river being slow, winding, and sluggish in these parts. The scooped paddles, almost like giant soupspoons, drove them strongly through the water and Hynd soon got into a smooth rhythm that allowed his muscle memory to take over and his mind to concentrate on watching the shoreline on either side.

He couldn’t shake a feeling that they were being watched—and closely at that—by someone, or something, hidden under the thick canopy. He’d had the same feeling during his stretch on watch during the night, and it hadn’t faded any with the coming of the sun. Whatever it was, he thought it was tracking alongside them upriver but he saw no sign of disturbance in the foliage. That either meant that he was imagining it or, more worrying, that it was an expert hunter in these conditions.

Not for the first time in the jungle, Hynd felt like an intruder, a man out of place in this almost primeval landscape. It didn’t help that it continued to be almost deathly silent. They hadn’t seen a bird all morning and the river itself flowed brown and quiet with no feeding fish to disturb the surface; the only splashes were the ones they made themselves as they paddled. It felt empty, or rather, emptied, for Hynd thought that whatever was following them might be the reason that everything else was keeping its head down. He expected an attack at every moment.

But none came.

The captain called for a break after an uneventful hour of paddling. Rather than haul up on shore, they made for a shallow pool in a turn of the river and held the two canoes together while Wiggins got a pot of coffee brewing in the belly of the second craft.

“Smoke them if you’ve got them,” Banks said and Hynd lit up gratefully, for here in the still pool the clouds of black flies had found them again and the smoke managed to disperse them just enough to cut down on their nuisance value.

“Did you see anything on the way up?” Banks asked him over a mug of coffee.

“Nope. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing there. My spidey-sense hasn’t stopped tingling all morning.”

“Mine too,” Banks replied.

“How far upriver do we go?”

“As far as we have to. But my gut is telling me we’re getting closer. Something’s going to give and it’s going to happen soon.”

When they set off paddling again ten minutes later, the captain’s words still echoed in Hynd’s ears. He felt much the same thing himself, instincts honed by many years of tight spots, sudden firefights, and explosive acts of violence.

Davies spoke up from behind him.

“The cap thinks we’re in for trouble, doesn’t he, Sarge?”

“Aye. And I agree with him. But trouble’s what we do, lad—it’s why they pay us the big money.”

He didn’t get a reply, for at that moment the quiet was broken by a bark, almost a roar, from somewhere on the left bank of the river. The greenery swayed and rustled, several large leaves dropped into the river to float away downstream, and the agitation in the foliage moved upstream, keeping pace with the canoes at first then steadily moving ahead. But no matter how hard Hynd peered, he couldn’t make out any sign of the animal—it had to be an animal, no human could have made that sound—that was causing the disruption.

“What the fuck was that?” Wiggins asked from the rear canoe as a quiet calm once again fell over the river.

“Gorilla?” Davies said. “We’re at the edge of their territory from what I remember.”

“If that was a gorilla, it was a big bugger,” Hynd said.

“Fucking Mighty Joe Young,” Wiggins replied. “That’s all we need.”

“It wasn’t a gorilla,” Banks said. “I’ve encountered gorillas before. They move quietly and gently in the main, keeping to themselves. Whatever yon beast was, it wanted us to know it was there.”

“Aye?” Wiggins said. “Well, it got my attention. I damn near pished myself. If it’s a fag it’s after, it can ask nicely the next time.”

Hynd kept a close eye on the left bank for a good while after that but there was no recurrence of any barking or branch shaking. They continued upstream in relative silence, punctuated only by Wiggins’ supply of risqué gorilla jokes that eventually earned him a rebuke from the captain.

“Wiggo, if you don’t shut the fuck up, I’m going to give you to the first gorilla we see, male or female, then we’ll see if they find you funny.”

“I already know the Sarge’s wife,” Wiggins replied.

That would normally earn him a comeback from the sergeant. Although he’d been widowed several years now, Wiggins’ jokes hadn’t stopped, and usually he took them in the spirit they were intended. The corporal had stood at Hynd’s side at the funeral after all and got him too drunk to cry the night after. But he let it lie this time.

The incident in the trees had disturbed Hynd’s mood and he found that he couldn’t get back into the smooth rhythm of paddling he’d been in earlier. He started to feel the paddle drag at his upper arms and shoulders, a deep ache settling there. He was more than happy an hour later when the captain called for a lunch stop on a rocky outcrop that stretched out from the right bank and allowed them a view from atop it both up and down stream for several hundred yards each way.

Lunch was a pot of stew from their field rations—it said beef on the packet, tasted like Marmite, and didn’t mix well with either coffee or nicotine, but at least it stayed down. Hynd stood up on the outcrop with a smoke and a coffee, watching the left bank.

“Still twitchy, Sarge?” Banks said, coming to his side.

“I think I will be until we get home and away,” he replied. “I hate all this warm, damp shite. And not being able to see more than a few yards at a time just gives me an itchy trigger finger.”

“I know what you mean. And I’m starting to think we’re on a hiding to nothing here. There’s been no sign of our quarry all day. We could be going the wrong way entirely for all we know.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“A few hours more upriver, find somewhere dry to camp up for the night, and hope for a miracle.”

As it turned out, they only had twenty more minute more of paddling before Hynd led them ’round a bend in the river and saw a crude X-shaped wooden cross standing in a shallow spot on the left bank. He indicated that he was heading over for a closer look while Banks held the other canoe back in mid current, Wiggins sitting up in the rear to cover Hynd’s approach to the bank.

As he closed in, he spotted something hanging on the upper right side of the structure and knew immediately what it must be. As he brought the canoe to a halt only yards from the cross, he saw that his suspicion was right—a single human hand, still bound at the wrist, hung loosely from the ropes. It looked to have been torn off—or bitten—as there was only an inch or two of the arm and below that hung dangling scraps of flesh and too-red blood, still dripping into the water below.

Beyond the cross was a muddy embankment. Even from where he sat in the canoe, Hynd saw the distinctive furrows where canoes had been dragged up out of the river.

“They went through there, Cap,” he said, motioning into the foliage at the top of the bank.

“And we’re going after them,” Banks replied, his features set grim as he replied. “Fetch me that hand, Sarge. It might be all that’s left of some mother’s son. Let’s give her something to bury.”

Hynd fought down a sudden wash of revulsion as he stood gingerly in the canoe, making sure he was balanced before reaching up to untie the knots holding the hand. It was a cold, almost clammy thing under his fingers, black airs across the knuckles and a heavy gold ring showing that the motive surely hadn’t been robbery.

“They fed him to crocs?” Davies asked.

Hynd shook his head. He’d already had another look at the muddy banks beyond and saw how the footprints of the people had once again by overlaid by the heavy, three-toed prints he’d seen earlier.

“They fed him to something, right enough. But I doubt it was a croc.”