by Rusty Young
Trigeño gritted his teeth. ‘Those cocaine-trafficking communist bastardos! I’ll make them pay.’
Hearing this confirmed that I’d made the right decision not to pass on Javier Díaz’s offer. Although Trigeño could use every dollar he could ‘find’, it would only have been a matter of time before he discovered the true source of the Díaz funding. However, I began to worry that if Javier became desperate enough he would find some other way to get in touch with Trigeño. And then he might mention me and the fact that my mother had been living at his finca. I thought of the two innocent men Trigeño executed simply because they knew what their brother was doing and had benefited from his wealth.
As we waited for the rains to commence Alfa 1 kept us occupied with training exercises. During simulated attacks on the Guerrilla camp, we revised our specific roles.
These first-aid and evacuation exercises made me think of death. At seventeen, even being surrounded by violence, you don’t think you’re going to be the one to die. Of course, I’d told my friends I wouldn’t care if I did, but I’d only said that because I was convinced it wouldn’t happen.
But I was no longer convinced. Seeing the grim expressions on the commanders’ faces, I knew we weren’t attending a football final. Thinking of death every day made me despondent. As platoon commander, however, I couldn’t let that show.
Following another rainless week, the Venezuelan witch doctor renewed our spells in La Quebrada, which, by then, was only knee-deep. Culebra repeated Alfa 1’s trick with the blanks, this time shooting a small boy from Bloque Bananero who was teased for wetting his bed. The boy’s survival was declared a miracle. Half my platoon knew the trick. The other half felt invincible.
A few days later, I gathered the six soldiers I most cared about – those from my original squad. I decided to be blunt.
‘What if one of us dies?’ I asked them. I held up pen and paper and eyed each of my men seriously. ‘Do we trust each other?’
They nodded blankly. Although we’d known each other less than eighteen months, we’d patrolled together, eaten together and guarded each other’s lives. During the Guerrilla skirmish not one man had lost his nerve.
‘Then what happens if we die?’
‘Who cares?’ said Palillo flippantly. ‘Providing it happens quickly, we’ll never know.’
I changed my question. ‘What do you want your families to be told?’
Yucca bit his lip. ‘Tell my parents I died bravely in battle. Tell them I died quickly and painlessly. And tell my girlfriend that my last words were, “I love you.”’
I handed him paper and pen. ‘Tell them how, alias Yucca?’
I emphasised the ‘alias’. Everyone understood immediately. Each soldier wrote his alias followed by his real name, his address and what he wanted his family told in the event of his death. He then folded the paper over and handed it on. We were taking a big risk – it was strictly against the rules to reveal your real name. That had been clear from day one.
I placed the list in a jar and buried it in front of them. Whoever lived could dig it up. Despite the risk, contacting each other’s loved ones in the event of death seemed an obvious thing to do. The harder question, however, I saved until last.
‘What if you get shot, but don’t die?’
They studied their boots. Although we’d practised dragging injured comrades to first-aid posts and improvising stretchers using two rifles inserted through camouflage shirts, Santiago’s camp was several days away by boat and then by foot. There were no hospitals in the jungle. There were no medical helicopters. And of course, no one wanted to slowly bleed to death. Or even worse – be captured and tortured.
Finally, MacGyver broke the silence.
‘Put me out of my misery.’
Looking up, the others nodded slowly. Shooting a friend would be difficult, but that was what had to be done. Passing around my pocketknife, we each pricked two of our fingers and swore two different pacts, both beginning with the words ‘If necessary …’
The first: to die for each other.
The second: to kill each other.
That night, I twisted in my hammock. I imagine everyone did. These were not things anyone wishes to contemplate. At midnight, MacGyver shook me awake. He’d written a farewell note to his brother. He needed the jar. As I dug, lightning flickered on the horizon.
Reading down the list of six names, my former squad no longer comprised fearless fighters with nothing to lose. They were no longer soldiers named Yucca, Ñoño, Giraldo, MacGyver, Tortuga and Palillo. They were ordinary people with ordinary-sounding names – Juan Pablo, Eugene Jaime, Oscar Giraldo, Eduardo Yecid, Ana María and Sebastián Diego. They were people who had parents, siblings and lovers with addresses and phone numbers. However, that wasn’t what kept me awake until dawn.
I hadn’t written a will.
It was a ridiculous thought since I owned nothing of value, but that’s what I kept thinking: I should have left a will.
Around 3 am, the sky flashed like a camera, thunder rattled the dormitory’s zinc roof and I stopped worrying about my last will and testament. What I’d really meant to think of was my family.
If I died, my efforts to achieve justice for Papá would amount to nothing. Four of his killers would remain free. Mamá would be condemned to lifelong poverty, having lost not only her husband but also her son. Camila would be grief-stricken. I needed to call her and tell her I loved her. I’d tell her I wouldn’t be home for my scheduled leave in May. And she should know that if I hadn’t phoned by June, I wanted her to move on.
Barefoot, I snuck across damp grass towards the office. As I clasped the handle, thunder cracked overhead. It was dawn on the 26th of April – exactly six weeks after my seventeenth birthday – and the grey skies opened, dumping rain as loud as falling gravel. The long, tense days of waiting were over.
100
ON THAT FIRST rainy day of April, eight hundred Autodefensas changed into civilian clothes and were divided into groups of twenty. Since Guerrilla spies were hidden everywhere, the transport operation had to be conducted clandestinely. Soldiers were ferried across two provinces in tarpaulin-covered trucks. Weapons, uniforms and ammunition were transported separately. It would only take one sighting of abnormal troop movements to jeopardise the entire invasion.
Boats dropped us across the Venezuelan border, forty kilometres to the south of the camp, and we began the arduous journey towards Santiago’s base. We trekked at night without torches, stumbling over moss-covered buttress roots. As we travelled deeper into the jungle, the moonlight penetrating the canopy grew dimmer and the tropical rains continued to pour down.
When daylight came, we lay down in our wet uniforms and tried to sleep on the decomposing leaves of the forest floor. Ants crawled across our faces and stifling humidity filled our lungs. Since any sound or smell could give us away, we weren’t permitted gas cookers or even insect repellent, and by the second night my skin was covered in scratches and mosquito bites. If not for the zorro solo’s testimony, I’d never have believed humans could live in such inhospitable terrain.
It was almost 3 am on day five when Alfa 1 consulted his GPS and confirmed we were only one kilometre from Santiago’s base. He’d timed our arrival perfectly and the torrential rains now bucketing down were a godsend, reducing our visibility to the enemy.
We slipped our packs from our shoulders, removed the additional ammunition and checked our rifles for dirt that could cause a cartridge jam. Palillo and I donned our ghillie suits. No one spoke. We all knew this was it.
I looked at my platoon members. MacGyver, who would take command in my absence, was relaxed, sitting with his back to a tree. Ñoño stared vacantly ahead. Tortuga paced in circles. Yucca and Giraldo bit their nails. The newly graduated soldiers looked grim. I imagined they had butterflies in their stomachs, whereas I felt curiously elated, imagining Santiago asleep in his base, about to get the shock of his life.
Alfa 1 gave the order for
the three Team X sniper pairs to take up our assigned positions. Palillo and I wriggled slowly towards the riverbank.
I heard the water before I saw it. Rumbling mountains of it, swirling through the jungle. When finally we wormed our way into a good hide beneath a thick, fallen tree trunk, what I saw made my heart sink.
The river was far wider and deeper than we’d expected. We had trained for a one-hundred-metre sprint to their base, across a riverbed no more than ankle deep. But the river was now fifty metres wide and flowing fast.
My plan of injuring and then interrogating Santiago was now impossible. In fact, I was sure that we’d have to turn back altogether. Wading through the river while carrying a weapon was not only dangerous, it would extend the crossing time by two or three minutes – more than enough time for the Guerrilla lookouts to spot us.
‘There’s too much water,’ I radioed through to Alfa 1.
Over the headset I heard him order three scouts to wade out and gauge the water’s depth and speed. Through my night-vision scope, I watched their dark figures emerge from the trees on our side of the bank and creep slowly to the water’s edge at two hundred metres separation. Although the scouts were sure-footed and cautious, I began to worry: if I could see them, so too might our enemy.
Fortunately, they returned without incident. However, the water had reached their waists. Although I couldn’t see Alfa 1’s reaction, I knew that despite his claim that the Autodefensas never retreated, he would not risk the lives of eight hundred men. After many months of planning and the huge expense of recruiting and training, the mission had been a failure – thwarted at the last minute by nature.
I imagined Alfa 1 now searching for a gap in the canopy in order to transmit the bad news via satellite phone to Trigeño and General Itagüí back at base.
As the long, slow minutes ticked by, Palillo and I scanned the opposite bank for movement. The thick jungle on the other side seemed eerily still. Finally, I saw movement: two guerrilleros were changing guard. Their smiles and relaxed hand signals confirmed that they were not aware of us. Palillo nudged me. He’d located the zorro solo’s tree, below which was Santiago’s hatch.
Seeing how close we’d come, however, only increased my disappointment. Fifteen minutes passed with no order to retreat. The delay could only be explained by two things: cloud cover blocking the satellite phone connection to Trigeño or disagreement among the commanders about how to proceed. I suddenly had a dreadful suspicion: Trigeño, not being on the ground, might overrule Alfa 1’s judgment.
A second later, it was confirmed via radio when Alfa 1 grimly relayed Trigeño’s order: ‘Prepare to cross.’
101
EIGHT HUNDRED AUTODEFENSA soldiers spread out along the six-hundred-metre stretch of riverbank. I had strict orders not to take my eye off Santiago’s hatch, but I knew Palillo was watching the hatch and that two groups of bodyguards would emerge before Santiago. Besides, how could I not watch the river when my own platoon would be in the third group to cross?
Rather than storming across as they’d been trained, the first group waded into the waist-deep river in pairs. Each soldier held his rifle above his head in one hand while, with the other, he gripped his partner’s wrist in case either slipped on the mossy rocks.
Unease welled up in my stomach. They’re sitting ducks, I thought, my index finger tapping the trigger guard. I held my breath until the first group reached the opposite bank and fanned out into the jungle. They’d made it.
I imagined Team A sneaking towards the hostage cage and Team B going for the communications tower. Presently, my radio clicked twice – the signal for the second group to cross. They waded in more confidently than the first.
The radio crackled as the leader of Team A reported back from the Guerrilla camp: ‘Hostages aren’t here. Cage is empty.’
‘Any signs of recent habitation?’ asked Alfa 1.
‘No bedding or blankets. No locks on the door. Hostages are not on the base.’
I breathed a sigh of relief and caught the white gleam of Palillo’s teeth as he smiled. I’m sure all the commanders hearing this over their headsets felt the same – knowing our attack wouldn’t jeopardise the lives of civilians lightened our anxiety.
The second group were almost across the river. Through my night-vision scope I witnessed the first soldier set foot on the opposite bank. I felt euphoric; we’d crossed two groups undetected.
Suddenly, a single shot rang out and the soldier fell back in the water. A flare soared into the sky, lighting the river and everyone in it, and the Guerrilla opened fire from two machine gun emplacements upriver and two downriver.
Leopardo, the leader of Team B, shouted over the radio, ‘It’s an ambush. We’re—’
Gunfire crackled over my headset and then the transmission was cut, and that was the last we heard from the groups that had crossed.
It was a clever ambush, even though the Guerrilla had had little time to set it up. Perhaps their lookouts saw our scouts wading into the water. Or perhaps they simply saw the first group crossing. Either way, they had divided us perfectly – allowing a quarter of our men onto their side of the bank, trapping a quarter in the water and leaving the remainder on our bank.
In that first thirty seconds, the Guerrilla took advantage of our temporary disorientation to scurry into position. I caught glimpses of their movements – silhouettes darting between trees. Their trenches were so well concealed behind logs, sandbags and vegetation that they’d be difficult to detect even in daylight. The first flare died out and, as the next flare went up, hundreds of automatic rifles began their mad barking.
The troops still on our bank entrenched themselves and started firing back. But for those caught in the ghastly, flare-lit river, there was no place to hide. They did the only thing they could: took a deep breath and sank beneath the water, letting themselves be washed downstream while bullets sliced into the water around them. If anyone raised his head, he was picked off by the machine gunners. Most pretended to be dead, but the bullets did not discriminate between the bodies of the living and the dead; they pounded into both relentlessly. Even for those already shot, I flinched as their lifeless bodies shuddered with every impact. Soon, bodies were floating past Palillo and me, washed along by the fast-moving current. I was horrified.
Through my scope, I focused on the closest machine gun emplacement. It was manned by two guerrilleros. I was sure Santiago wouldn’t risk coming out into the open with bullets whizzing everywhere. Not when they were slaughtering us from the safety of their base. In any case, I couldn’t bear to see men I’d eaten with and bathed with, men I’d laughed with, being carved up like fruit in a mixer. I radioed Alfa 1.
‘Permission to take out the M60s downriver, comando?’
My muzzle flash would give away our position; we both knew this. But Alfa 1’s priorities had changed: he was now intent on saving his men.
‘¡Adelante!’
I took aim and killed the two guerrilleros manning the machine gun closest to me. The second machine gun was further away, and I didn’t have a clear view of it, but I shot anyway. The second M60 fell silent.
In response to my shots, a hail of bullets rained in on our position. Palillo and I ducked lower. Pressing our stomachs to the ground behind our tree trunk, we heard bullets whizzing overhead like angry hornets. After a minute the bullets stopped and Palillo was back in position with the binoculars fixed on the hatch.
However, our respite was brief. Alfa 1 was shouting over the headset to the troops: ‘Move north. Repeat, move north.’
Hordes of Autodefensas streamed northwards, swarming around us, all of them firing across the river as they came. Their arrival drew more fire on our position.
The bullets ripped bark off trees. Twigs and torn leaves fell constantly from above. Small shells threw up mounds of earth. Bigger shells left man-sized craters, and the largest shells knocked over trees.
My eyes were burning from the smoke, my ears deafened by gu
nfire. I smelled burned sulphur and everything about me was confusion. This was not the war I imagined. I never expected the shouts of fear, the desperate pleas for assistance or the groans and screams of the injured. The second set of flares went out and, finally, there was a lull while everyone’s eyes adjusted.
My own platoon flopped to the ground around us.
‘We can’t leave them,’ MacGyver said to me, pointing to the bodies floating downstream. ‘What are your orders?’
‘Leave them,’ I said ‘They’re dead.’
In the very thick of battle, however, training is often forgotten and very little goes to plan. Discipline breaks down and orders are sometimes disobeyed.
‘Not all of them,’ said MacGyver.
He sprinted to the river and dived in with Ñoño on his tail and Tortuga following.
They grabbed the arms and legs of the injured soldiers as they floated past and dragged them ashore. The rest of the platoon wrenched them to safety behind the trees.
They saved around ten lives before MacGyver was shot in the head as he ran back to the river. Tortuga was ankle-deep in water as bullets began buffeting her body. She started to fall forward but the continued impacts held her on her feet long after she was dead. She appeared to be dancing. When the firing stopped, her knees finally buckled and she slumped into the river and was washed away.
Seeing this, Ñoño lost his mind. He stood on the riverbank – completely exposed to the enemy – and fired and fired. Long after the magazine was empty, he kept swivelling his rifle back and forth. Palillo and I ignored our own orders to watch the hatch and began shooting to provide Ñoño covering fire. Everyone did.
I stood and emptied an entire magazine. Palillo stood and emptied his. Yucca threw a rock at Ñoño, who came to his senses. As he sprinted back towards us, he fell and clutched his right buttock. He was hit. Giraldo rushed out and dragged him to safety.
Ñoño was limping so Giraldo took over, attempting to treat the injured soldiers they’d saved using the médico kit, before others ferried them back to the first-aid station.