A Time to Die c-13

by Wilbur Smith

  Once they had decked themselves out in this captured finery and fallen in on the beaten-earth parade ground, Se aiD and Job went down their ranks, checking and instructing them on the correct way to wear each item of uniform. The quartermaster tailor followed behind them, correcting any gross discrepancy in size and fit.

  "They don't have to be perfect," Sean said. "They won't be on parade, just good enough to pass a casual glance. We haven't got time to waste on the niceties of dress."

  After the men were fully kit ted out, Sean and Job worked on their plan of Grand Reef base for the rest of that day and most of the night.

  First they sat on opposite sides of a desk in the headquarters communications room and brainstormed for every detail of the base layout they could dredge from their memories. By nightfall they were satisfied they had the most accurate picture that they could hope for. However, Sean had learned from experience that it was difficult for an illiterate to visualize physical reality from a two-dimensional drawing, and discreet inquiry had revealed that almost all his new command, though battle-tried warriors, could neither read nor write.

  Most of the rest of that night they worked on building a scale model of the base, setting it out on the beaten surface of the parade ground, working by lantern light. Job, who had an artistic Barr, whittled model buildings from the soft balsa like wood of the baobab tree and used water-washed pebbles of various colors from the sandbanks of the river to lay out the airstrip, roads, and perimeter fences of the base.

  The following morning the raiding party was paraded and inspected by Captain Job and Sergeant Alphonso and then seated around the model in a ring. The model proved to be a major success, provoking lively comment and query.

  First Sean described the raid, moving =tchboxes; down the pebble roadways to represent the column of Unimogs, illustrating the diversionary attack on the perimeter, the withdrawal of the loaded trucks, and the rendezvous on the Umtah road. Once he had finished he handed his pointer to Sergeant Alphonso.

  "All right, Sergeant, explain it to us again." The ring of attentive troopers delighted in correcting the occasional mistakes and omissions Alphonso made. When he was finished, he handed the pointer to his senior corporal to repeat the lecture. After five repetitions they all had it perfectly memorized, and even General China was impressed.

  "It only remains to see if you can do it as well as you explain it," he told Sean.

  "Just give me the trucks," Sean promised.

  "Sergeant Alphonso was with the unit that originally Captured them. He knows where they are hidden. Incidentally the guards major whose uniform you will use was killed in the same action."

  "How long ago was that?" Sean asked.

  "About two months ago."

  "Beauty!" said Sean bitterly. "That means those trucks have been lying in the bush all that time. What makes you think they am still there, or that they are still in running order?"

  "Colonel." China give that thin, cold smile Sean was coming to know and loathe so well. "For Miss Monterro's sake, You had ile better pray they-are." The smile vanished. "Now, wh the draw their rations and ammunition, you and I will have a final discussion. Come with me, Colonel."

  Once they were in the communications room of the command bunker, China turned to Sean, his expression bleak. "During the night I received a radio message from my agent at Grand Reef base. He only transmits in an emergency, otherwise the risk is too high. This is an emergency. Training on the Stinger systems is complete. They have orders to move the missiles out of Grand r Reef within the next seventy-two hours, depending on availability of transport aircraft."

  Sean whistled softly. "Seventy-two hours-in that case we won't make it."

  "Colonel, all I can tell you is that you had better make it. If you don't, you will have no further value to me and I win begin thinking of old times." He touched his damaged ear significantly. Sean stared him out silently until China went on, "However, not all the news is bad, Colonel. My agent will meet you in Umtah and give full intelligence on the buildings where the Stingers are being YOU held, the room used as a lecture theater, and the training manuals.

  He will accompany you to the base. He is well known to the guards at the gates. He will assist your entry and guide you to the training center.

  "That's something," Sean growled. "Where will I meet him?"

  "There is a nightclub in Unitali-the Stardust, a gathering place for pimps and whores. He will be there every evening from eight until midnight. Alphonso knows the club. He will take you to it."

  "How will I recognize your agent?"

  "He will wear a T-shirt with a large portrait of the comic book hero Superman on the chest," China said. Sean closed his eyes as though in pain while China went on, "The man's name is Cuth Sean shook his head and whispered, "I don't believe this is happening to me. Superman and Cuthbert!" He shook his head again as if to clear it. "What about the RZ with the porters at Saint Mary's Mission?"

  "That is arranged," China assured him. "The porters will cross the border tomorrow night as soon as it is dark and conceal themselves in the caves in the mountains above the mission station to await your arrival."

  Sean nodded and changed the thread of the discussion. 611f we leave now, how long will it take for us to reach the spot where the Unimogs are hidden?"

  "You should be there before noon tomorrow."

  "Is there anything else we should discuss?" Sean asked. When China shook his head, Sean stood up, slung his AKM assault rifle on one shoulder, and with his free hand lifted the small canvas duffel bag that contained the dead guards major's uniform and his personal kit.

  "Until we meet again, General China."

  "Until we meet again, I will take good care of Miss Monterro.

  Never fear, Colonel."

  The column was heavily laden. Each man carried food and water for two days together with ammuration, the extra belts for the RpD machine guns, grenades, and rockets for the RPG-7 launchers.

  Though they could not run under that weight, Sergeant Alphonso, who was driving the van, set a cracking pace. Before jightfall they passed through the Renanio lines into the "destruction area," a Eree-fire zone where there was a possibility of encountering Frehino patrols, and Sean ordered a change of formation.

  They opened up to intervals of ten meters between the men in the angle file of the men column, and he posted flankers at the head and tail to guard against surprise attack.

  They kept going hard during the night with ten-minute breaks every two hours, and by dawn they had covered almost forty miles.

  During the dawn break, Sean moved up to the head of the column and squatted between Alphonso and Job.

  "How much further to the trucks?" Sean demanded.

  "We have done well," Alphonso, replied, and Pointed ahead.

  "The trucks are there in that valley."

  They were on the foreslope of another area of hilly, forested ground, and below them the terram, was broken and bad. Sean appreciated why General China had chosen this area of the Serra da Gorongosa to defend. There were no roads in this wilderness, and an attacking army would have to fight its way past an endless series of natural strong points and fortresses.

  The valley Alphonso pointed out was some miles ahead of them and beyond it the country changed from its savage mood and Battened into a broad gentle plain. Down there the dark forest was broken up and blotched with paler grasslands.

  Alphonso pointed to the horizon. "Over there are the railway line and the road to the coast..." He was about to speak again when Sean caught ins arm to silence him and cocked his head in a listening attitude.

  It was some ;minds%efbre the sound separated itself from the gentle susurration of the dawn wind in the forest below them and hardened into the whine of turboshaft engines and spinning ratam "There!" Job's eyesight was phenomenal and he picked out the approaching specks even against the dark background of hills and forests.

  "Hinds." Sean spotted them just as Alphonso shouted, "Take cover!"
The column scattered into cover and they watched the gunships come on, rising and dropping as they kept low over the hills, sailing northward toward the Renamo lines in an extended formation. 263 Sean watched them through the Russian-made binoculars he had acquired from the Renamo stores. It was the first opportunity he had had to study a Hind at leisure. There were four of them, and Sean surmised that there would be three flights of four machines to make up a full squadron of twelve.

  "My God, they are grotesque," he murmured. It seemed impossible that anything so heavy and misshapen could ever break the ties of gravity. The engines were housed in the top of the fuselage below the main rotor and formed the humpback that gave the machine its nickname. The air intakes to the turbos were situated above the cockpit canopy. The belly drooped like that of a pregnant sow. The nose was deformed by the hanging turret that housed the Gatling cannon, and from the stubby wings and bloated belly were suspended an untidy array of rocket systems, ordnance stations, and radar aerials.

  At the rear of the engine mountings the ungainly lines of the machine were further disturbed by another extraneous structure that seemed to have been tacked onto it as an afterthought.

  "Exhaust suppressor boxes." Sean remembered an article he had read in one of the flying magazines to which he subscribed.

  These structures masked the exhaust emissions of the twin turboshaft engines and shielded them from the infrared sensors of hostile missiles. The author of the article had lauded their efficacy, but although they made the machines almost invulnerable to heat seekers, the weight of the devices combined with that of the titanium armor to reduce the Hind's speed and range severely. Sean wished he had read the article with more attention, for he could not recall the figures for air speed and range the author had quoted.

  The flight of gunships passed a mile or so to the east of them, boring steadily northward.

  "General China is in for a breakfast show," Job remarked as he rose from cover to reassemble the column and continue the march.

  Although they had been going all night, the pace never slackened, and even Sean was impressed by the condition and training of Alphonso's company. "Almost as good as the Scouts," he decided. Then he grinned to himself. "Nobody could be that good."

  More than once Sean dropped back to check that the men he had in the drag were anti tracking and covering spoor, for now there was real danger a Frelimo patrol might find them. He had fallen only a few hundred meters behind the rear of the column and was down on one knee, studying the earth intently, when suddenly he knew that he was not alone, that he was being watched.

  instantly Sean threw himself forward, the rifle coming off his shoulder as he rolled over twice into the cover of a fallen log beside the path and froze, his finger on the trigger, his gaze raking the bush where he thought he had seen the flirt of movement.

  It was closer than he had imagined. From the clump of grass right beside him came a mischievous giggle. Sean raised his head and whispered furiously, "I've warned you not to sneak up on me like that."

  Matatu's head popped out of the grass, and he grinned merrily.

  "You are getting old, my Bwana. I could have stolen your socks and boots without you knowing."

  "And I could have shot your brown backside full of holes. Did you find the memT" Matatu nodded, and his smile slipped.

  "Where is she?"

  "Half a day's march upstream, in a stockade with many other women.

  "Is she well?"

  Matatu hesitated, torn between telling the truth and telling Sean what would please him. Then he sighed and shook his head. "They keep her in a hole in the ground, and there are marks on her arms and legs. They force her to work with the shit-buckets-" He broke off as he saw Sean's expression and went on hurriedly, "But she laughed when she saw me."

  "Did you give her the paper?"

  "Ndio. She hid it in her clothing."

  "Nobody saw you?"

  The reply was beneath Matatu's dignity, and Sean smiled. "I know, nobody sees Matatu unless Matatu wants them to..." He broke off, and both of them looked upward.

  Faintly, from far away, came the now familiar whistle of turboprop engines and rotors.

  "The Hinds, return iQ from clobbering the Renamo lines," Sean murmured. The machines were out of sight beyond the canopy of the forest trees, but he sound passed swiftly southward.

  "With their limited range, their base can't be too far," Sean thought. He looked at Matatu thoughtfully. "Matatu, those indeki, could you find the place where they come from, and where they return to?"

  Matatu's gaze flickered with a moment's doubt. Then he grinned, once again brimming with bravado. "Matatu can follow anything, man or animal or indeki, anywhere it goes," he boasted confidently.

  "Go!" Sean ordered. "Find the place. There will be trucks and Iwo many white men. It will be well guarded. Don't let them catch you.

  Matatu looked affronted, and Sean clasped Ins shoulder with affection. "When you have found the place, come back to General China's camp at the Pungwe River. I will meet you there."

  As unquestioningly as a gun dog sent to retrieve a downed pheasant, Matatu bounded to his feet and tucked up the folds of his loincloth.

  "Until we meet again, go in peace, my Bwana.

  "Go in peace, Matatu," Sean called softly after him as the little man trotted away into the south. Sean watched him out of sight and then hurried to catch up with Alphonso's column.

  "They keep her in a hole in the ground, and there are marks on her arms and legs." Matatu's words echoed in his head, fueling his imagination and anger and determination.

  "Hold on, my love. Stick it out. I'll come to get you... soon," he promised her-and himself.

  They crossed the rim of another line of rocky kopjes, using a screen of jesse bush to conceal their movements against the skyline, and from good cover on the foreslope Alphonso pointed down into the valley below.

  "That is how we brought the trucks in," he explained, and Sean saw that the dry river course would be the only access for a vehicle into this bad country. Even then it must have been a laborious task negotiating the rocky chutes and barriers that broke up the stretches of smooth river sand in the depths of the gorge.

  "Where did you hide the trucks?" Sean asked without lowering his binoculars.

  Alphonso chuckled. "Unless Frehmo is cleverer than I think they are, I will show you."

  They left sentries posted along the ridge to warn of the approach of an enemy patrol. Then Alphonso led the rest of the column down into the gorge. The lower they descended, the steeper became the sides, until there were sheer cliffs on each side and they were forced to take a narrow game trail to the river bottom. It was suffocatingly hot in the narrow gorge; no breeze reached down here, and the rocks absorbed the sun's heat and threw it back at them.

  "The trucks?" Sean demanded impatiently.

  Alphonso pointed to the cliffs opposite. "In there," he said.

  Sean was about to snarl irritably at him when he realized that the cliffs had been carved by wind and flood water over the ages.

  "Caves?" he asked, and Alphonso led him through the ankle-deep river sand to the cliff face.

  Some of the cave entrances were merely scooped shallowly into the red rock, others had collapsed or were clogged with debris brought down by the summer floods. Alphonso indicated one of these and gave an order to his men. They stacked their weapons and began to clear the debris from the mouth of the cavern.

  Within an hour they had opened it sufficiently for Alphonso and Sean to scramble through into the cave. Deep in the gloomy gut, Sean made out the shape of the first truck. His eyes accustomed themselves to the poor light as he moved toward it, and he saw others parked beyond it.