Decisive Measures

by Decisive Measures (retail) (epub)

  ‘We wait for nightfall and then move out.’

  Chapter Nine

  We lay there throughout the day, eking out our precious water supply and using the palm fronds to give us a little shelter from the sun. The faraway sounds of shots, screams and explosions continued, but the only visible movement was the flapping of the circling vultures.

  Then, in late afternoon, a utility truck crammed with soldiers cruised slowly out of the approach road and down the beach. I sank back deeper into hiding, as they slowed and stopped at the tracks leading down to the sea. Four rebels jumped down and began pacing the beach, staring down towards the sea and back towards the dunes. I inched the rifle forward and eased off the safety catch.

  I felt Layla tense as one of the rebels appeared to stare directly at us. ‘Keep still,’ I said. ‘I’m sure they can’t see us. Don’t move and give us away.’ I squeezed her hand and felt an answering pressure.

  They began to drive on slowly down the beach. I saw their heads swivel from side to side as they scanned the edge of the dunes. I froze, hardly daring to breathe as they drew level with us. From high in the dunes I could still see faint marks where I had brushed away our tracks. I could only pray they were invisible from beach level.

  The truck slowed and then moved on out of sight, but we remained motionless, listening to the engine note. It faded then swelled again, as they turned and began to make their way back.

  The truck came into sight, moving even more slowly, and stopped again at the line of tracks. We heard the murmur of voices rising as an argument began, then there was a crash of gears and it drove off again, speeding away up the beach towards the city.

  Even when nightfall came we remained where we were, for in the darkness we still heard the occasional burst of firing and the sounds of shouts and brutish laughter, carried to us on the breeze.

  Towards midnight Layla said, ‘Come on. We can’t stay here forever.’

  We moved off through the dunes, slowly working our way along the fringes of the beach. We needed water. My plan was to get some from the hotel if it seemed safe to do so, and then strike across the city to the Medicaid International compound. If we found that untouched, I would leave Layla there and make my way on alone to the High Commission, to obtain some means of communicating with Decisive Measures HQ.

  We inched our way along the edge of the approach road from the beach and lay in the shadows behind the hotel for some minutes. There were no lights on and no sign of movement. After watching for ten minutes, I took a last careful look around, then reached across and squeezed Layla’s hand. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s go for it.’

  We broke cover and sprinted for the back of the hotel, flattening ourselves against the wall at the corner of the building. We edged along it, ducking under the windows, until we reached the rear door. It hung slightly ajar, banging softly in the breeze.

  I slid the safety catch off my rifle and eased the door further open with my toe, then paused and listened. There was no sound but the faint drip of water from somewhere inside.

  We moved into the dark deserted basement. Everything had been looted. The kitchens were stripped and even the sink and cooker had been ripped from the wall and carried off. All that was left were broken pipes and smashed tiles.

  We slaked our thirst and refilled our empty water bottles from a dripping pipe and then crept up the stairs to the ground floor. It was deserted, but everything of value had again been torn out in an orgy of destruction. As we moved through the lobby, our boots crunching on broken glass, I heard a faint noise from the owner’s office.

  I motioned Layla to silence and crept round the broken brick plinth on which the reception counter had stood. I listened at the door, eased it open a chink and then burst into the room.

  A bruised, bloodied figure sat in the far corner, half-burrowed into a pile of broken furniture and fallen plaster. He was rocking slowly to and fro, keening to himself.

  It was the hotel owner. He looked up at me for a moment then scrambled to his feet. ‘My English friends, thank God, you have come back.’

  His speech was slurred, and as his mouth gaped open, I saw by the moonlight the stumps of broken teeth.

  ‘Are there soldiers with you?’ His smile faded as I shook my head.

  ‘Are the rebels still here?’ I said.

  He shuddered and shook his head. ‘All gone. Everything gone.’

  ‘Other people?’

  Again he shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you have food?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing.’

  I left him there. We hurried through the rest of the ground floor searching for food, but the rebels had stripped the place bare. We paused just inside the broken doors of the hotel, peering out into the dark. At last I stepped out again into the heat of the night.

  The streets were almost deserted and the handful of people we did see were as nervous and frightened as we were, scuttling away into hiding as soon as they saw us approaching. We kept to the side streets as much as possible and moved a few yards at a time, pausing to scan the way ahead from each doorway or alley.

  There was devastation on all sides and mingling with the stink of smoke was the sickly stench of blood. Several times we had to step over corpses, but we saw no other living thing save the rats sharing the fruits of the rebels’ victory.

  The double doors of the World Food Programme’s warehouse stood wide open and the building had been completely emptied of rice. Layla’s workplace lay a few yards further down the street. Here again the gates of the compound were unmanned and gaping open. We crept across the yard and entered the darkened building.

  We searched it from one end to the other. There were no signs of struggle, no bloodstains, and few bullet holes, but there was no trace of the doctors and nurses who had worked here either and the store rooms had been stripped of every last drug and dressing.

  Layla’s shoulders sagged. ‘What’s happened to them?’ she said.

  I cradled her to my chest. ‘They’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘Even if they didn’t get away in time, the rebels know the value of them both as medics and as hostages. They’ll be well treated.’

  She exhaled heavily, still staring around her. ‘So what now?’

  ‘The High Commission. Let’s hope that hasn’t been looted too.’

  We had been walking for about twenty minutes when we reached the junction of a broad street and a narrow alley running up the hill in roughly the direction we wanted to follow. We inched our way along the alley, paused at the corner listening and looking, then sprinted across a broad street and dived into another alleyway. As we did so, I heard a shout and the sound of running feet.

  We sprinted up the alley. There was another shout followed by the crack of a rifle. I heard the howl and whine of the bullet as it smashed against the wall and ricocheted away.

  The words of a combat-survival briefing I had been given as a rookie pilot came into my mind: ‘Bullets ride walls. If you’re trapped in a street and you have no cover, you’re safer in the middle than pressed flat against the walls.’

  The theory was fine, the practice less attractive. More shots rang out and more rounds whistled past us. I dived into a doorway, heaving at the door and trying to ignore the running feet and the hail of bullets whining around us. The wood creaked, groaned and at last gave way and we tumbled into a single deserted room.

  The running footsteps stopped. There was a moment’s silence, then a grenade exploded outside the sagging door. The blast threw us against the wall. I heard a thunderous concussion and a flash of heat seared me. There was the sour taste of chemicals in my mouth.

  We dragged ourselves up. The stout door now hung from one hinge, part-blocking the doorway. It had absorbed much of the shrapnel that would otherwise have shredded us. We were both scratched and cut but otherwise unhurt.

  Through the ringing in my ears, I heard the sound of running feet again. There was no way out but the way we had come.
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  I looked up. Thick beams supported the shallow, pitched roof above us. Blackened and ancient, they sagged in the middle and sprouted fungus where they joined the walls. I could only pray that they would bear our additional weight.

  The running feet were closer now, almost at the doorway. I threw myself upwards and my fingers grabbed and caught on a beam. I hauled myself onto it, squeezing between the beam and the roof, the muscles of my arms screaming with the effort, then reached down and pulled Layla up and alongside me.

  I put my mouth close to her ear. ‘Lie on your side along the beam and don’t move.’ She gave a small nod and did as I said.

  We lay lengthways, head to head, our hands clasped. A moment later, the remnants of the door were kicked aside and there was the thunder of automatic weapons.

  The shooting stopped. The walls were riddled with bullet holes. There was a pause, then two figures darkened the doorway.

  They began firing upwards. Rounds blasted through the roof on either side of us. More rounds smacked into the beam beneath me. I felt it twitch with the impacts and splinters of wood filled the air.

  The shooting seemed to go on forever. I shook with fright, wanting to scream out my terror, beg, plead, anything to make it stop. There was a sudden pause. I heard voices. Then the dark shadows disappeared from the doorway. I fought the urge to peer down.

  The next moment there was the thunder of another grenade below us. I heard a rumble as part of the rear wall collapsed. The beam we were lying on twisted and we fell together, crashing down among a torrent of falling masonry and timber. I hit the ground with a thump that drove the breath from my lungs and lay there, helpless, as fragments of stone and tile crashed down around and on top of me.

  I heard rough laughter. A few moments later there was the faraway sound of footsteps retreating up the alley.

  As the ringing in my ears slowly subsided, I managed to raise my head a little, forced my right arm up through the dead weight of rubble, then clawed at the mound covering me. It took several minutes of gruelling work to prise myself free. My eyes and mouth were gritty with dust and I had suffered cuts and bruises, but I was alive.

  I looked around, panicking as I realised that Layla lay buried under the rubble. Then I spotted a foot protruding from the mound. I tore at the rubble until I found the beam, which now lay across her chest.

  I dragged and scraped at the stones and dirt covering her head and found myself looking into Layla’s eyes. They were red-rimmed and lined with dirt, and her face was covered in blood from a score of cuts. She was shaking with fright.

  ‘Are you badly hurt?’ I said.

  ‘I – I don’t think so. Just very fr…’ Her voice faltered and died.

  ‘Can you move your legs? Your body? Your chest?’

  Each time there was hesitation, then the faintest of nods. I felt for the underside of the beam and moved my hand along it. There was a fraction of an inch between her body and the beam, no more.

  I glanced around. The building had almost completely collapsed. We were out in the open air, lit by the stars and the setting moon.

  I turned back to Layla. ‘I can’t lift the beam off you, it’s too heavy. I’m going to try to pull you out from under it.’

  The lower end of the beam was wedged fast against the ground, buried in a mound of stones. The upper end was precariously poised, resting on a mound of loose material. I packed it as well as I could, forcing rocks and broken timbers under it. When I was satisfied that it wouldn’t shift, I started to clear the rubble away from one side of Layla’s body.

  Her frightened face looked up at me. I leaned over and kissed her forehead. ‘It’s all right, you can do it.’

  I pulled gently on her upper arm as she wriggled and strained to free herself. Each movement set off tiny avalanches of dust and stone fragments, causing me to look anxiously at the beam above her. She worked her legs and hips free, but her upper body was still directly under the beam. ‘I can’t get any further,’ she said.

  I took hold of her ankles. ‘I’m going to try to pull you out.’ Her face, beneath the streaks of dirt, looked deathly pale in the faint moonlight. I took hold and began to pull, steadily increasing the pressure on her legs. She moved a little towards me, then stuck. I saw her bite her lip as she tried to stop herself crying out with pain. I let go of her legs. ‘It’s no good. You’re well and truly stuck. I’m going to have to try to lever the beam up a fraction.’

  She was silent, but at last I heard her murmur, ‘All right.’

  I clambered back over the rubble towards what had been the front of the house. One side of the doorway still stood; the rest had collapsed. I leaned out and peered up and down the alley. There was no one in sight and not a sound to be heard.

  I took hold of the thick post that had formed one upright of the door frame and began to heave on it, working it to and fro. Dust and mortar dropped away from it and each time I was able to rock it a little further. Finally the fixings gave way. I pulled the timber free, and carried it back to the rubble heap where Layla was buried.

  I forced it in under the beam as close to Layla’s head as I dared. ‘When you feel it lift,’ I said, ‘scramble for your life. Ready?’

  I took the strain and then heaved down on one end of the timber, it creaked ominously and for a moment nothing happened. I redoubled my effort. The blood was pounding at my temples and the veins stood out on my arms. There was a creak and a rustle of dust and stone and the beam rose an inch. ‘Now, now!’

  Her legs kicked and her head disappeared from my sight under the beam as she wormed her way downwards. The timber creaked once more then split with a crack like a pistol shot. The beam crashed down, the mound of rubble collapsing beneath it. I dropped the useless end of the timber and dragged my eyes towards the other side of the beam. The top of Layla’s head was a bare inch from the beam. She rolled over and dragged herself to her feet.

  ‘Thank God,’ I said. I crushed her to me and kissed her face, clinging to her, as our tears made tracks in the dust on our cheeks.

  She returned my kiss then eased my arms from round her and began gingerly feeling her ribs.

  ‘Anything broken?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  The sky was still dark, but the eastern horizon was tinged with the faintest trace of red. ‘We have to move,’ I said. ‘It’ll be daybreak soon and if we’re caught on the streets…’

  Hugging the wall, we moved away through the deserted alley.

  We paused before each crossroads then hurried on, moving up the hillside using whatever cover we could find.

  As we neared the intersection with the main road to the east, we lay flat and crawled our way forward, then paused by the edge of the road, hidden by the rubble from a collapsed shopfront. I could hear the crack and whine of small arms and the thunder of heavy weapons from the direction of the airport.

  Layla’s expression was bleak. I squeezed her arm. ‘It gives us some hope. It shows the rebels are still being resisted.’ As I spoke, I glimpsed two shapes outlined against the sky over the airport and heard the distant howl of jet engines. ‘The rebels don’t have any ground-attack planes,’ I said. ‘The Nigerians might be on the way in.’

  Peering through the tangle of broken timbers on top of the mound of rubble, I could see a steady stream of people moving slowly along the road. They were unarmed civilians, and there seemed no sense or purpose in their movement. If they were fleeing from the fighting, they were fleeing in both directions, for as many were heading towards the hills as were trudging towards the centre of the city. Old men, women and children plodded past us. There were no teenage boys or girls or young men or women to be seen, however. I could guess what their fate had been.

  As the last of the refugees disappeared from sight, we crossed the road. With the sky lightening by the minute, we had to press on, hoping there would be no rebel patrols or roadblocks.

  We worked our way up the hillside, starting at every faint sound. I almost w
ept with relief when at last I saw the harsh white light over the gates of the High Commission.

  We still had a hundred yards of open ground to cross. I took a careful look around us and then we sprinted across the road, the sound of our footfalls seeming to thunder in the semi-darkness as we ran.

  The High Commission was a concrete blockhouse, protected by steel-barred gates and an eight-foot wall topped with razor wire.

  The gates were locked and the door of the guardhouse beyond was closed. I saw a dark figure outlined behind the bulletproof windows and could hear faint music from inside. I called in a low voice. There was no response. I took another look around and then shook the gates. The metallic rattle seemed deafening to me, but still the man did not look up.

  I heard the noise of an engine lower down the hillside behind us. I scrabbled frantically in the dirt and at last my fingers closed round a clod of earth. I picked it up and hurled it through the gates at the window. There was a dull thud and the guard stared at us, shaking his head with disapproval. He opened the door, his rifle loose in his right hand. ‘What do you want?’

  My heart sank. What we needed right now was a trained British soldier, not some local recruit.

  ‘We’re British citizens. We need to speak to the High Commissioner.’

  He shook his head. ‘My orders are to admit no one.’

  I heard the noise of the engine growing louder behind us. ‘Then get your boss here now,’ I said.

  ‘He’s asleep.’

  ‘This is life or death. Wake him up.’

  ‘If I do that, I’ll be in trouble,’ he said.

  The noise of the engine grew still louder. There was no time for further discussion. I swung the rifle up to cover him. ‘If you don’t, you’ll be dead. Now drop your rifle and walk towards the gates.’

  He put the rifle down and began to move slowly towards the gates, a sheen of sweat on his brow. The glow of headlights lit up the sky behind us and the engine note grew to a roar.