Lumago nodded again, and Kinabau dragged the unconscious man from the room by his heels, thoughtfully shutting the door when they were both outside.
As Lumago leaned back in his chair he allowed himself a smile. Here was a morsel to offer up to Amin, a way of securing his own position in the purges to come. He had uncovered a Tanzanian spy, linked to white mercenaries. Heads would roll, all right, but his would not be one of them. Another storm weathered.
It would be easier when the war began, he thought. Things would loosen up. There was nothing like a war to improve the tone of an army, and to distract the heads of government from their navel-gazing. Well, it would not be long now.
He paused a second, then reached for a sheet of headed paper across his desk. He began writing a set of orders. This Tanzanian mercenary business had best be investigated.
8
The old steamer had made good time back to the camp, and they had anchored a hundred yards out from the beach in five fathoms of water. After that, the hard work had begun.
First, the unloading. It took most of a day, ferrying tons of equipment, supplies, weaponry and ammunition from the Victoria to the shore. Morgan, acting quartermaster for the camp, had rubbed his hands with glee at the sight of the stuff that was being ferried out from the old ship’s bowels. Crates of AK47s, unopened and pristine. Ammunition, explosives, grenades, a dozen RPG7 rocket-launchers, a pair of Dragunov sniper rifles, boxes of Tokarev automatic pistols with hundreds of clips. The list was endless. He told Willan that they would be able to properly arm at least a third of the camp’s recruits now. Two companies maybe. Okello and Kigoma were tasked to select the best of their soldiers and NCOs for the honour, and were nominated company commanders. It was, Willan reflected, like Christmas come early. Soldiers like nothing better than to be issued with mounds of brand-new equipment. Until they have to start cleaning it and carrying it around, that is.
But there were other things in the hold of the ship besides weaponry.
Down in the bilge, the lowest part of the hold, the enraged soldiers discovered fourteen young women, bound and gagged and laid in a row like sacks of flour. Three of them were already dead of dehydration, and the rest were dazed and mute, covered in bruises and all manner of filth. These were the merchandise that Van Dorn had been intending to sell up north to Sudan. Once again, Willan regretted that they had not bagged the Afrikaner on the night of the mission. He would have court-martialled him and then hung the bastard from the nearest tree.
The women were sent by truck to hospital in Mwanza, an escort of the most presentable of the recruits with them and Kigoma and Prentiss in the cab. Prentiss thought there might be some capital to be made out of their fate. Ugandan forces dabbling in slavery – the headlines could be sensational. Willan saw them off with a distinct feeling of relief.
In addition to the unfortunate women, there were crates of much-appreciated supplies on board the ship. Tinned foods of every description, along with boxes of bananas, yams and plantains. The cornucopia eased the supply problem somewhat, and the success of the mission, both Kigoma and Prentiss had assured Willan, would engender swift reaction in Dar-es-Salaam. Willan did not intend to hold his breath. It was enough that he now had two fully equipped companies of soldiers who were well on the way to being adequately trained and whose morale was sky-high.
That still left some four hundred men for whom there were still not enough weapons, uniforms or sleeping-space, but it was best, Willan thought, not to look a gift-horse in the mouth.
As soon as the steamer was unloaded, he sent out Jock Fraser with a small team to reconnoitre a discreet little harbour for her. They found an overgrown cove half a mile from the camp, and after sweating over the boilers in the engine-room for a couple of hours, finally got the ship moved there and made sure she was thoroughly camouflaged. A fire team of four men were on guard in her constantly; Willan had every intention of holding on to the old vessel, and he did not want the Ugandans either reclaiming or sinking her.
Two days passed, two of the busiest that Willan had yet spent in Africa.
The day after the taking of the steamer, three hundred more men appeared on the beaten earth of the parade ground. Rumours had been flying round the surrounding villages of a battle out on the lake in which the Ugandan raiders had been destroyed once and for all; and the villagers themselves had seen Willan’s recruits with their brand-new weapons and equipment. Now more of them were keen to get in on the act.
It was impossible to house them and next to impossible to feed them, but the SBS did their best. The newest of the recruits were put under some of the better of the NCOs and turned their hands to constructing their own barracks. The forage parties began to be sent out again, and the cycle of training went on, slipping back into routine so quickly that at times Willan felt he had never soldiered anywhere else except Africa.
There were almost a thousand men in the camp now, and it had been extended and enlarged to nearly four times its original size. Some of the most basic aspects of the training could safely be left in the hands of the new NCOs, but most was still handled by the eight-man SBS section. The men found themselves getting up before dawn and getting to bed well after last light. They were continually tired, and had begun to pick up some of the more unpleasant inhabitants of the bush, such as bush lice and ticks. Tony Parker, nominated the post’s medical officer because he had completed a field medics’ course before leaving England, had his hands full with training injuries, continual delousing and three suspected cases of malaria, as well as having to oversee the diet of the men to make sure it was adequate.
‘We’re running on a shagging shoestring,’ Geary said one evening while seated at one of the cooking fires.
‘You can’t train up an army like this – not in the long term. We have two companies of good men, bombed up to the nines. But the rest are glorified boy scouts with nothing but pangas and their grandfathers’ shotguns. It’s a farce. We can’t even stockpile food.’
‘Hand to mouth,’ Jock Fraser agreed, nodding. There were dark rings under his eyes that the flames of the fire seemed to make deeper.
Willan was irritated, annoyed. They were only voicing his own views but he was not in the mood for it right now.
‘We’ll see what Kigoma and Prentiss bring back from town. If they can guarantee that we’ll receive proper support from the government, then our worries are over. If not . . .’
‘If not?’ Fraser asked.
‘Then we’ll have to scale down the operation. We’re running an overstrength battalion on the resources of a large company. It can’t go on.’
‘What about other ops? Any word?’ Breckenridge asked. The fittest of the SBS men, he was now beginning to look gaunt and worn because he had the least excess flesh to draw upon.
‘Not a whisper,’ Willan answered him wearily. ‘But like I said, we’ll have to wait on that until Prentiss gets back from Mwanza.’
‘Whenever that is,’ Geary muttered.
It was not as long as they thought it might be. A week after the arrival of the new recruits word was brought to Willan of a convoy moving up the Mwanza road towards the camp. He took out a section of soldiers to meet it at the gate. The plume of dust the vehicles sent up into the air was visible for miles. He and Morgan, who had joined him by the gate sentry’s hut, exchanged glances.
The line of vehicles ground to a halt in front of the gate, and Kigoma jumped out of the lead truck, grinning and saluting flamboyantly.
What the fuck? Willan wondered.
There were at least a dozen vehicles in the convoy. Most of them were the inevitable Second World War trucks, but there were also a trio of M3 half-tracks bristling with fifty-calibre heavy machine-guns. Perched atop one of the half-tracks was a woman in khaki fatigues hung about with bags and sporting a camera with a telephoto lens. She was enthusiastically clicking off photographs of the camp and the vehicles.
Prentiss jumped out of the lead truck. Like Kigoma, he was gr
inning broadly.
‘What the hell is going on – and who the fuck is that?’ Willan demanded, pointing at the photographer.
‘That’s the press, my dear fellow,’ Prentiss told him, unabashed. ‘And we have come bearing the greetings of the Tanzanian government, and a load of gear to go with them.’
Willan paused a moment, considering.
‘Kigoma, Prentiss – the HQ hut, if you please. Morgan, get that bloody woman out of the way somewhere, and stop her taking those bloody photos.’
‘Pleasure, Sarge,’ Morgan said, grinning evilly.
‘What’s going on?’ Willan asked, once he, Kigoma and Prentiss were alone in what he called his office: a small, mud-walled room in the headquarters hut.
‘Equipment, Colonel,’ Kigoma answered him, plainly surprised by Willan’s attitude. ‘The government has opened one of the arsenals in Mwanza and let us take what we need from it.’
‘And they’ve promised to set up a proper supply line,’ Prentiss added. ‘From now on you’ll have truckloads of food and other gear every day.’
‘Why?’
‘Isn’t that what you were hoping for?’
‘Yes. But why the sudden cooperation, the recognition of our existence – and why the photographer?’
Prentiss looked distinctly coy.
‘Well, you could say that the Tanzanian government, or rather Julius Nyerere, has come to a little accommodation with us. The idea is that they will supply this camp and recognize it as an official training camp of the Tanzanian National Army.’
‘But most of the recruits are Ugandan exiles – like Okello.’
‘Yes, but we’ll keep that under our hat, shall we? And we’ll also keep it quiet that there are British nationals organizing and running the training. As far as the country and the rest of the world is concerned, this is a wholly Tanzanian set-up.’
Willan looked at Kigoma. ‘And who is to be commanding officer?’
Kigoma nodded. ‘I am, Colonel.’
‘I thought as much. What about my men – and Okello?’
‘They’ll keep doing the jobs they’ve been doing up until now,’ Prentiss said smoothly. ‘But they’ll be discreet about it, that’s all.’
‘Discreet! Is that why the photographer is here? To keep things discreet?’
‘In a way, yes. She’s been well briefed by the Tanzanian Foreign Ministry. She’ll take photos of Tanzanian soldiers undergoing training and of the camp in general. These photos will be circulated to prove to Uganda that Tanzania has an army of sorts and does not intend to take lightly any aggression on the part of Amin.’
Willan sat down in his wicker chair, shaking his head.
‘A bloody PR exercise – is that all this is?’
‘By no means,’ Prentiss told him sharply. ‘These men you are training are the only organized force capable of offering the Ugandan Army real resistance, should it choose to invade. The rest of the Tanzanian forces are little more than untrained militias, armed with tribal weapons and old hunting rifles. No, Willan, these recruits of yours are going to be trained to perfection, and then shipped up north to the Kagera salient.’
‘A deterrent, or a sacrifice?’
‘They’ll try and halt Amin in his tracks long enough for the delay to prove fatal to his regime. He is already tottering, or else he wouldn’t be considering an invasion in the first place.’
‘I’ve got a thousand men here. Do you really think that’ll be enough?’
‘It’ll have to be. You’ve got a month to finish licking them into shape; then they’re all heading north to dig in north of the River Kagera.’
Willan digested this for a second, frowning. There was a babble of activity outside as the convoy of trucks and armoured vehicles were unloaded. He heard a woman’s voice raised in outrage but it barely registered in his mind.
‘I see. They’ll still be pretty raw after a month, but I guess needs must when the devil drives. What about Okello? I take it he’ll keep his command.’
‘None of the command positions are to be changed, Colonel,’ Kigoma said. He had bought himself a new uniform, Willan noticed, and sported a .45 automatic in a webbing holster, much as Okello did.
Willan raised both hands. ‘All right then, tell me what you’ve brought.’
There was a fresh commotion outside that interrupted Prentiss’s reply. The sound of flesh being struck, and then the unmistakable sound of Morgan’s voice raised in startled fury. A moment later a tall, blonde apparition with blazing eyes threw open the door to Willan’s office and stormed in with Morgan in hot pursuit.
‘What the hell’s going on here?’ the woman demanded in an Australian accent.
Willan looked coldly at her a second, then addressed the purple-faced Morgan.
‘Talk fast.’
‘I tried to take her camera away, sir, like you said, but she wasn’t having it. Clocked me one in the eye.’
The photographer was still clutching her precious camera in one hand, Willan noted. Still ignoring her, he turned to Prentiss, who was smiling behind his hand.
‘You say this woman had been briefed by the Tanzanian Foreign Ministry?’
‘Oh yes. She’s doing us a favour really. Don’t worry; she knows what to snap and what not to.’
Willan nodded curtly, then said to Morgan, ‘That’ll be all, QM. You might want to see the MO about your bruises.’
Morgan gave Willan a glare, then stomped out. The photographer was standing there taking it all in, her bosom heaving very prettily, Willan could not help but notice. He dragged his eyes off it to her face.
‘My apologies, miss, for any inconvenience. You arrived at a rather hectic time.’ Spoken like a true CO, he thought.
The young woman – she couldn’t have been out of her twenties – threw back her hair with one hand.
‘Doesn’t a gentleman and an officer stand when a lady enters a room?’ she asked archly.
‘Doesn’t a lady knock before she enters?’ Willan retorted. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have a lot to discuss. Go and take your pictures. You won’t be molested again.’
‘I’d rather sit in on your meeting if you don’t mind,’ she said.
‘I do mind. If you’ll excuse us.’ Willan stood up, closely followed by Prentiss and Kigoma.
The photographer looked at the trio for a moment, then turned and stormed out again without another word.
‘Spirited creature,’ Prentiss said appreciatively.
Willan was still thinking of the way her buttocks had filled the khaki trousers. It had been a long time since he had seen a sight like that. He shook his head as if to clear it and took his seat once more.
‘She’s trouble. She’s so much trouble I can smell it.’
‘She’s only here to take a few photos, Willan. Don’t get paranoid on me.’
‘Paranoia has kept me alive before now.’
‘You’ve been working too hard – all of you. How about a bit of R and R?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Beers, Willan. A relaxing evening. Civilized surroundings. Have you forgotten what it’s like to wear civvies for a while?’
The thought was appealing, Willan thought. He was starting to shake his head, though, when Kigoma spoke.
‘All the men from the first batch of recruits need some time off, Colonel. I think it would be a good idea to give them two days to see their families.’
‘But will they come back again once we let them go?’ Willan asked.
‘I don’t doubt it, sir.’
Willan thought again of that khaki-clad backside, and then of a long, cold beer. He blinked, almost tasting it.
‘Let’s get done here with the paperwork,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll see about a forty-eight-hour pass perhaps.’
‘Excellent,’ Prentiss said. ‘I may even be able to lend you some presentable clothes.’
It would be good, Willan admitted to himself. All the men needed a break. He had a feeling that it would be t
he last one they had for a very long time.
Prentiss’s idea of presentable clothes, Willan thought sourly, did not quite mesh with his own. He had been given a pair of flared white trousers, white socks, white shoes which pinched his feet cruelly and a Bermuda shirt which was louder than the music currently grating over the tinny loudspeakers in the bar.
They were in the Deluxe Hotel in Mwanza, off Uhuru Street. The best place in town, Prentiss had informed them authoritatively. Well, it was air-conditioned, which raised goose-bumps on their arms after so long in the oven-hot bush, and the Tusker beer was cold, which hurt their throats but was very welcome. They sat at the bar in their borrowed clothes and raised the frosted bottles to their lips in appreciative silence. Cold beer, one of the small but important pleasures in life.
There were six of them. Willan, Breckenridge, Jock Fraser and Gordon comprised the SBS contingent, and alongside them were Okello, looking incredibly neat as always in pressed shirt and chinos, and Prentiss, doing his Man from Havana impersonation again and smoking hideous local cigarettes. Somehow or other, the MI6 agent had got hold of civilian clothes for all of them, though they were garish, mismatched and ill-fitting in the extreme. Perhaps the bastard had done it on purpose, Willan thought. But he didn’t much care. It was enough, for now, to be cool and clean and drinking beer in civilized surroundings – all on Prentiss’s expense account. Now there was a laugh.
‘I’m going to have another shower,’ Breckenridge said, getting up from his stool.
‘Another one?’ Gordon protested. ‘Man, you’ll wash yourself down the plughole if you keep that up.’ It was Breckenridge’s third of the day.
‘Making up for lost time. See you later, lads.’ He wandered off to his room, a little unsteadily.
‘If only Mick could taste this,’ Jock Fraser said, eyeing his beer blissfully.
‘Poor bastard is probably up to his armpits in gun grease,’ Gordon grinned. Willan shot him a warning glance, and he sobered. If anyone asked, they were businessmen, out here for a little aerial safari with Prentiss’s cover company. The other four SBS men were back at camp, as Gordon had said, up to their armpits in work with Morgan. As QM, Morgan was still sorting and storing and redistributing the tons of equipment and weapons that had arrived the day before. Geary and Hill were breaking in the latest batch of recruits, and Parker was dealing with a mild epidemic of dysentery which had hit the camp only in the last day. Worse luck for him. But they would all get their turn at the fleshpots of Mwanza, if there were any. Mwanza was an attractive little town, the terminus of the Dar-es-Salaam railway and a port on Lake Victoria which handled large quantities of cotton, tea and coffee. It was surrounded by hills which still looked fairly green despite the heat of the dry season, but it was not exactly a cosmopolitan place.
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