Recoil

5

We carried on upstream for the next hour. I did my job, looked, listened and checked the river periodically for a crossing point. It was like checking the chimney for Father Christmas. Nothing. It was still far too wide and deep, the current too strong.

We were due for another rest stop. Yin and Yang were fucked.

I led them away from the bank and headed uphill into a denser patch of jungle. We took cover behind a moss-covered deadfall, a buttress tree that looked like it had toppled over just before the Belgians pulled out.

I knelt down in the leaf litter and mud to cover back down to the river, and Yin and Yang dropped gratefully on to their backs, panting and sweating. They had a whisper and Yin produced a packet of John Rolfe from one of his pockets.

I mimed smoking and shook my head.

Yin thought he understood what I meant and offered me one. Then he started jabbering to Yang. I put my finger to my lips. ‘Sssh! No smoking! No talking!’ They got the message when I snatched the John Rolfe pack and crushed it.

Silky had stretched out on the leaf litter, her neck tilted back as she studied my face. There was a lot going on in that head of hers.

‘Why did you come here, Silky?’

She raised her upturned hands and hunched her shoulders. ‘I just—’

I frowned and very, very slowly placed a finger over my lips. Hers wasn’t the only movement I’d seen.

There was something in my peripheral vision, near the river.

Very carefully, I checked the AK’s safety lever was still fully down, then tried to minimize every single movement as I lowered myself behind the cover.

There was a shout from the other side of the deadfall, followed by laughter. A few seconds later there was another, and this time it was closer.

I was still kneeling behind the tree-trunk. My eyes darted around like they were on springs – as if I was going to see anything with a big lump of wood in front of me. What else could I do? For now, the AK wasn’t our biggest weapon; concealment was.

I opened my mouth to cut internal noises; external noise was what I needed to absorb and process.

A sharp burst of 7.62 shattered the silence, followed by an explosion of bird wings as hundreds flapped and screeched just beneath the canopy.

There was another burst of laughter out there in the trees. Yin and Yang whimpered to themselves as they lay on their bellies, their faces in the leaf litter, fingers clenching the mud as if they were digging a nice big hideaway.

I controlled my breathing through my mouth and slowly lifted my head. Using the foliage hanging from a branch as camouflage, I looked over the deadfall.

I saw movement down by the river, lots of it: maybe ten, fifteen bodies, blurred by the trees, heading downstream. If we’d stayed near the track, we would have walked straight into them.

They were mooching along in groups of two and three, all over the place, no hint of a proper formation, but all carrying. They had to be Kony’s men from the south.

The shouts and banter got louder. One guy lit two cigarettes and handed one to his mate. The smoke hung in a small cloud under the canopy.

I lowered my head again and, staying on my knees, got my mouth to Silky’s ear. ‘We wait. Keep still.’

I leaned down to Yin and Yang and tapped gently to get them to turn their heads and open their eyes. I motioned them to keep still. I put my finger to my lips and gave them an exaggerated smile, trying to bring down their pulse-rate. They looked at me as if I was a madman.

The first group of voices moved closer, then receded as they passed from our right to left, in the direction of the mine, and it wasn’t long before I smelled more cigarette smoke.

So far so good. No voices too close; no rustling of the leaf litter just the other side of the deadfall.

I breathed slowly and shallowly. Yin and Yang trembled, trying their hardest to hold it together. They screwed up their faces, eyes tight shut. Maybe they thought that if they couldn’t see they couldn’t be seen. Or maybe they were doing their best to block out what was happening because they couldn’t hack it.

Silky was curled up on the ground. Her eyes were wide open, but not to take in what was happening. They burned into mine.

Voices came from closer than the track – two, three guys muttering to each other. Following sign we had left?

I gripped the weapon to my chest, left hand on the stock, gently pulling up safety to the first click before easing my index finger into the trigger guard.

My head always switched off when these things happened. I didn’t know if it was the training, experience, or that I was just too thick to think anything but – I’m in the shit and I’m going to die soon, so everything else is a bonus.

One voice had got so close he could have been talking to me.

Less than two metres away and closing.

In a second or two he’d be able to see over the deadfall.

Fuck it.

I jumped up, weapon in the shoulder, and brought it into the aim, both eyes open.

As I bounced down again into a semi-squat to make use of the cover, I registered three bodies.

I squeezed the trigger at the blurred faces in front of me. The burst dropped the first guy at point-blank.

The other two were still shadows to my right as his blood splattered across my face.

They flapped and tried to get their weapons off the shoulder.

I swung mine up to drop them – and held fire.

One was a kid.

I pointed the weapon at the ground in front of them and blasted away a patch of leaf mould. The man ran and the kid froze, staring, shaking, his eyes huge with fear. He tried to lift his weapon. I cabbied off another burst at his feet and he got the message.

Down on the track, the rest of their gang went ballistic. Shouts, screams, crazy fire.

I swung round to Silky and the Chinese. ‘Run! Over the high ground! Run! Run!’

A few minutes ago Yin and Yang had been in the final stages of exhaustion. Now their feet sprouted wings.

I turned back and let the rest of the magazine rip towards the river, keeping their heads down that few seconds more so the others could make distance.

I couldn’t help myself. I had to check the body the other side of the deadfall.

Weapon still in the shoulder, I looked past the butt. His face had almost disappeared into a mush of bone and brain matter, but his undersized torso had the pot belly of a malnourished child.

I fired another quick burst, then turned and chased Silky’s back, changing mags on the run.