Place of Bones

by Larry Johns

  Grape - Abort.

  Sling - 2nd Strike.

  Yard - Implement.

  Shot - 1st Strike.

  Tinder - Immediate.

  Span - Transport.

  Moat - En Route.

  Hover - E.T.A.

  Hammer - 1 (hour)

  Wave - Confirm.

  Riddle - Readiness.

  Class - Standing by.

  We stared down at what he had written. Piet said, “Jesus Henry! Am I reading that right?”

  Since I had been about to say much the same thing, I did not reply. I read it through again, placing punctuation where it seemed most appropriate; a misplaced full point can sometimes wreak havoc with codes of that nature. There did not seem to be a mistake. I said, “Abort second strike. Well, that’s fair enough.”

  Piet said, “That’s the only bit that does make any sense. Implement first strike...Immediate transport...What the hell does that mean?”

  I said, “It says, implement first strike immediate...Transport en route...E.T.A. one hour...” I saw it written there but did not believe it.

  Piet sat back in the chair and laughed an odd sort of laugh. “One hour! Nah! There’s a blunder somewhere. There has to be.”

  “Show me where?” I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as the full weight of the message came together in my mind. “The man wants us to confirm our readiness. One hour.” I felt like laughing. If I had, it would have bordered on the hysterical.

  Piet chuckled sardonically. “If that’s what he wants, then he’s a bloody lunatic! Confirm readiness! How in the name of pink flying elephants can we confirm a readiness that’s beyond even God Almighty!”

  I refused to give way to confusion. There had to be a good reason for both the update and the verbal transmission. It said in the instructions that the latter would only be employed in the event of an absolute emergency. So, okay, there was an absolute emergency. I said, “Maybe Motanga is getting set to pull out of Kinshasa.” The confirm readiness bit, however, did floor me. Unless...

  Piet spat, “The man says he’s standing by, for chrissakes! He’s not just a lunatic, he’s bloody senile!” He stood up sharply and almost knocked my teeth out with the top of his head. “He can’t seriously be suggesting we move out, lock stock and barrel, in one hour! He knows we can’t get out to the landing area in less than four! He knows it!”

  Exactly! I said, “Right. So it has to be the river.”

  Piet looked agape. “The river? Three hund - “

  I cut in. “No, hang on, Pete. Let me think.”

  He shook his head as if he washed his hands of the whole thing and he wandered over and looked out the door. “Play on,” he muttered at the men, who were squatting around in groups playing their dice games.

  I said, “How many men could we move out to the river?”

  “In an hour?” Pete’s tone was listless now.

  “Yes. In an hour.”

  “Christ knows! Thirty? Forty, tops. It would take an hour simply to unload the trailer.”

  “Forty, then. Enough. Better, in fact.” I had the message pegged then and, strangely, I felt good about it. It had begun. Perhaps on the wrong foot, but it had begun.

  Piet said, “Better than what?” He glanced at me, his forehead creased.

  “Better than a full strike on the compound. That was always going to be unwieldy.”

  “So you said before, squire,” he said almost disinterestedly. “But airborne how? You’re talking about the river, not the landing area.”

  I said, “Sure. So we use the inflatables. Shuttle out and back while the choppers hover. That’s the only way, and our buddy in Brazzaville knows it. He’ll also know...” I reached for the code book and the microphone. I wanted three words for my question. I sorted them out; Grace - Specify, March - Numbers, Span - Transport. I went to transmit and said, “Grace...March...Span... Ends.”

  For at least fifteen seconds the loudspeaker remained silent. Then the voice came in with a single word.

  “Select!”

  I checked the list. Bingo! “Two! They’re sending only two choppers.”

  Piet moved to my side then, interested now, as opposed to dejected. I again put the microphone to my mouth and went to transmit. “You get March...Tip...Granite...” (Numbers; four-zero)

  A pause.

  Then, “Understood, Gemini. Is that Wave?”

  Wave was Confirm. “Wave,” I said, adding, “Out.” I tossed the microphone onto the table and turned to Piet. I felt elated. “I want forty of the best, Piet. As many Kangatzi as you can throw in. Plus that guy...what’s his name? Swafi? You can’t come, I’m afraid, old buddy.” I raised my hand as Piet opened his mouth. “The second strike could just be put back. We won’t know that for sure until I’ve had a chance to have a long talk with our friend over the radio, and we can’t chance long talks over the air until Motanga is taken out. When that’s done, I’ll come back up and we’ll sort the rest out.” I grabbed my ammo bandoleers. “Maybe you won’t have to do a damned thing for your money. Come on, for chrissakes! Smile! Someone’s got to remain in command. You know that.”

  “Yes, but - “

  “No buts, Pete. We don’t have time. Forty of the best, and double-damned quick. I’ll get onto the transport.” I poked my head out the door. “Brook!”

  *

  In Brazzaville, Jean-Paul Winterhoek and Jan Bluthen were also ebullient. So intense was their relief that they shook hands warmly and patted each others arms.

  “It may not work,” said Winterhoek, still smiling broadly, “But, by God, it could!”

  Then the smile vanished. “Now we have other work to do. Contact Pretoria and have Lumimba transferred to an aircraft. They must stand at readiness to take off. Then contact your people in Kinshasa. Let us spread a little confusion over there.”

  *

  Our departure from Kanyamifupa was a frantic, beat-the-clock affair; eleven minutes from start to pull-out. The rapidly-chosen few were given time only to grab their clothes and personal weapons and ammo belts, and pile into the transports. They did not know what had hit them or why. But most of them were Kangatzi and I didn’t see a single sullen face. They were going into action against the FZA, and that was enough. The grenade boxes, heavy weaponry and its ammo, Brook had tossed into the truck amongst the crush of sweat-drenched bodies. Augarde hobbled out to see what the new activity was about. He had a swathe of bandage on his hip, but I did not have time to ask him who put it there. He was teed off at being unfit to go along. So was I. Of the two, Augarde and Brook, I would have preferred Augarde. It only takes one action to know timbre of your man.

  In the end we managed to cram 44 men into the truck and the two jeeps, plus the hurriedly-gathered and distributed accouterments of war. The jeeps accounted for eight apiece. Vastly overloaded. The springs did not simply groan at the weight, they gave up, and most of the trip out was a bone-jarring ride on chassis alone. We had three in the rear spaces, one on each of the rear-mounted spare wheels, two on the front mudguards, plus driver and passenger. It was bloody hectic. The truck took the remaining 28, five of them riding in the cab like fish in a tin. How the hell the driver ever managed to change gear, I do not know. If he did. A quick handshake with Pit and Augarde, and I waved us off from the lead jeep. The small convoy dived into the east track like something you might see in a Crazy Cops movie.

  Almost immediately we hit mist; a smoky opaqueness that soaked up artificial light as if it did not exist. Only the glittering red splotches showed up. As we moved further and further from the camp so the mist thickened. The leaves and branches upon which the paint had been daubed became nothing more than slightly greyer shadows in an integrally grey world.

  On we drove.

  The given hour elapsed when, by my estimation, we were still some fifteen minutes from the river. I tried, again, to raise the choppers on the W/T.

  “Baker-One...Baker-One...Baker-One...Do you read?”

  To re
ceive.

  Again, there was something in the ether, a definite voice mixed in with the crackling static. But it was a garble.

  “Baker-One...Baker-One...If you read, hold position...Hold position...ETA, fifteen minutes.”

  The poor reception I was experiencing, I knew, had nothing to do with the smothering nature of the thickly-entwined vegetation through which we were passing. Well, little anyway. It would be because the pilots would not risk full-strength transmissions. They would be set as weak as they could, holding the range down to the barest minimum. Maybe ten miles. But I figured that if they could hear me, if only as much, or as little, as I could hear them - and it had to be them - then that was enough for the present. I tried again. “Baker-One...Baker-One...This is Charlie-One. Hold position. ETA twelve minutes.”

  To receive. Nothing but interference this time. I tried again. Then I did hear a little of something.

  “...ition...STATIC...outh an...STATIC...inutes...STATIC...”

  “Baker-One. I hear you...I hear you...But garbled...Hold position. We’re closing...We’re closing...Eleven minutes...”

  “...lie-One...STATIC...oud an...STATIC...eeping south an...STATIC...hear me...” Voice and static vying for airspace.

  I jammed a finger in my other ear against the crashing, whining noise of our passage through the jungle. “Baker-One...Baker-One...ETA nine minutes...Hold position...We’re coming.”

  I went over to receive. Then, starling in its clarity and volume, there was another voice. It was Piet.

  “Hold it, Robbie. You’re making a bloody pig’s ear of that. I’ve got one of the pilots on SSB. You’re trying to talk to the copilot of the other chopper, and neither of you is making any sense. Stand by.”

  I smiled. Typical Vryburg. I could imagine him and Augarde at the SSB. I said, “Thanks, Piet. But for Christ’s sake keep the power down.”

  “No sweat. I’m only pushing four watts. Now, get off the air. I’ll come back to you.”

  I lay the walkie-talkie in my lap and continued to dress, or to try to. I’d already had my slacks on; all I needed now was the shirt and boots. It was not easy. I might have just crawled out of a fully-clothed mud bath. The ground ahead was a San Francisco pea-souper but the markers were still visible, though even they were losing brightness in the murk. The men on the mudguards in front of me swayed and jolted like rubber statues. I turned. The three men in the rear space were still with us, as, amazingly, was the spare wheel jockey. I lifted the W/T and changed channels for a word with Brook.

  “How’re things back there, sergeant?” He was riding the trailing jeep.

  “Okay so far, sir. Reminds me of the underground in the rush hour.

  “Oh,” I said, “The British subway system that good, is it? Go up a channel. I’ve made contact.”

  “Right. Up one. Gone.”

  I returned to the other channel and waited. Piet came back a minute later.

  “Robbie?”

  “I’m here.”

  “They’re making sweeps up and down river. They might be in the right place, they might not.”

  “We’ll figure that out when we get there. How many are there?”

  “Two, like the man said. You got fog out there?”

  “We do.”

  “Sod your luck, man. You still got to get up in the damn things. Pilot says it’ll be iffy. Say’s the river is not visible.”

  “We’ll do it somehow.”

  “Famous last words. How far out are you?”

  I checked my watch and did some figuring. “Maybe five minutes. The track’s widening out. Keep the aerial wound out, Piet. All the way, all the time. If you stay on channel you should hear us do our thing.”

  “I’m already selling sit-down space. It’ll be a bloody sell out. You do it proper, man. You hear!”

  “I hear. Be back by late this evening. Have Dondo wamp up a mess of something special. Oh, and get something medical sorted out, if you can. We’ll have wounded.”

  “Where’s that bloody doctor?”

  “Go find him. We didn’t. Just do your best.” Suddenly I saw real daylight up ahead, as opposed to the filtered stuff we’d been driving through. “We’re there, Piet.” We burst out of the trees. “The pilot’s right, it’s not a river, it’s a feather-bloody-bed!”

  “Yeah. Right. Well, try the man for yourself now.”

  I clambered out of the jeep and walked through the waist-high mist towards the river, or, where I thought the river should be. The truck and the second jeep trundled to a halt behind me and the men began piling out. I listened for the aircraft, but could hear nothing.

  “Baker-One. Baker-One. Do you read?”

  And there he was.

  “Charlie-One. I read you loud and clear. And not before time.” The man’s English was near perfect, the accent cultured Asian. “Can you hear us?”

  I yelled for some quiet amongst the men, and listened again. Away off in the distance, somewhere, I could now pick up the whine of turbines. “Which way are you headed now?”

  “North.”

  “Swing south.”

  “Roger!”

  The sound grew fainter then disappeared altogether. “Baker-One?”

  “Here.”

  “North again. Sorry ‘bout that.”

  “Coming north.”

  There it was again, and getting stronger.

  “How’s that, Charlie-One?”

  “Keep coming.” Then, to a hovering Brook, “Break out the inflatables. On the double!”

  But I had my doubts. The mist out on the river must have been five feet thick. In a boat you’d be under it all the way. Unless the rotors of the chopper cleared the air. And how fast was the river running? I felt my way forward until my feet were in the water.

  Shit! It was like a tide race. Was this going to work?

  SIXTEEN

  Prem Mahindru was not a mercenary. He was a professional pilot currently under contract to the Sudanese Air Force. It was a contract that bound him to that service for five more years. But it was a moot point. Two years ago he had been a flight officer with the Omani Air Force, and before that a pilot officer with the Saudi Air Force. If he was not a mercenary it was only because people who flew aircraft seemed to have their own words for things. He was dedicated to the air, and that was all that mattered to him. His part in the current operation was the result of a directive, an order, from the commander in chief of the S.A.F., not a result of personal choice. It was an act of undeclared warfare in an undeclared war, from which choice of words Prem Mahindru drew whatever comfort there was to be had on a mission such as his.

  He was 36 years old and, like most of his caste, was thin and wiry. He was unmarried and, as such, considered quite a catch amongst the unattached women of Tambura’s Asian expatriate population. As Squadron Leader of S.A.F.’s Third Helicopter Strike Force, he was an expert in everything to do with rotary-wing flight. He disdained fixed-wing flight the way a wind-sailor might disdain cruising under power.

  His orders were clear and precise. He was to fly into Zaire airspace at treetop level, thereby avoiding radar surveillance, make contact with and embark an unspecified number of mercenaries at a vague map reference, transporting them south to Kinshasa. At that destination, the mercenary force were expected to deplane “...under possibly hostile conditions...” If feasible he, and the second aircraft, piloted by Mahindru’s friend and subordinate, Ranjid Lulla, were to wait around until “...the passengers were ready to leave.” This was all Mahindru knew or cared to know. He did not know - though he had certainly guessed - why his aircraft had been de-liveried. Neither had he been told why only two were now needed, when the original brief had required almost his full squadron.

  He pressed a button on the lateral-control column and spoke to his copilot over the intercom system. “Don’t ask me how, why, where or when, Kumar, but you’d better prepare the winch.”

  Ahmed Kumar, a Punjabi, nodded bleakly as he stared down at the sea of white
foaming mist. He unplugged his helmet’s “umbilical” cord, slipped off his seat belt and clambered back between the seats. In the vast belly of the aircraft he donned the “monkey” harness, which allowed him to move freely about the compartment tethered to a safety rail along which the clasp of the harness moved, then he slid open the belly doors. The downdraft battered him with the strength of a force-ten gale. He plugged his helmet cord into a socket by the door and moved the gooseneck microphone closer to his mouth.

  “I don’t think this is going to work, sir.”

  Mahindru’s reply was predictable. “Don’t tell me that, Kumar. Tell them! Up ahead. See them? Starboard side, about a thousand yards.”

  Kumar leant further out into the downdraft and squinted along the cotton-wool valley. He saw the Dinky Toy shapes of the truck and what appeared to be two jeeps, back beneath the overhang of the trees! “Is that river they’re standing in, sir? Or are they on the bank? Because if they can’t get out further than that...” He did not complete his observation. Decisions on operational viability belonged to Mahindru.

  Up on the flight deck, Mahindru did not hear Kumar’s final comment in any case. He was now talking to McCann on the short wave channel. “I have you in sight, Charlie-One.” Then, “Baker-Two. Target in sight. Slowing to fifty knots.”

  “Roger!” acknowledged Ranjid Lulla, flying the trailing helicopter, “Slowing to five-oh knots.”

  Minutes later Mahindru brought his aircraft to a hover, his eyes flicking at the rear view mirrors to check on the position of the sister aircraft. He briefly acknowledged the waves of the group of men he could see on the ground. They were waist-deep in the mist, but it was a mist that was slowly boiling up and clearing as the hole cut by the downdraft of the aircraft expanded outwards. It was never, however, clear enough for Mahindru to make out exactly what the men were standing on. “Are you able to move any further forward, Charlie-One? Or is that it?”

  McCann’s voice. “I take one more step and I disappear. Not good, eh?”

  Mahindru sighed. “No, not good. I can’t get above you, not and lower the winch. What is directly below me? Rapids, deep water, or sandbank?”