Place of Bones

by Larry Johns

  Augarde said, “FZA again. The same guy on his way home, I reckon.”

  “Mmm,” replied Vryburg. He glanced back out the door in time to see the first man fall.

  Then there was nothing

  EIGHTEEN

  Over the headset I could hear Mahindru humming, squeezing out, some tuneless melody, the sound falling and swelling as if orchestrated with the violent movements of the aircraft. Keep low, I had said, and keep low he was doing. And hell and high water and yacht races notwithstanding, he was obviously going to keep to the letter of that instruction.

  The Zaire River at Makulu was alive with tall masted craft with sails billowing. It was a regatta! A bloody boat race! And Mahindru had entered us in the damned event! It was absolute bloody chaos and I could find neither the breath nor the presence of mind to override my instruction. It was too late for that, anyway, so I just gripped the edges of the seats and held on tight, listening to Mahindru humming his intentions.

  “mmmMMMmm...MM...mmm...”

  A tug loomed up, itself having difficulty finding a path through that moving maze of masts and sails. I saw a gap and hoped Mahindru had too. But it was filled before we reached it and my gut sank to my boots.

  “mmmMMM!...the pai-ail mooonNNN...OOooon that exciIIIItesmmm...”

  The flight deck lurched sickeningly. “Sorry about that,” said Mahindru. Then, “Get out of the bloody way, can’t you!” This, to a monster sail that came from nowhere. The registration letters MMP, burned themselves into my brain, then it was gone as we seemed to leap into the air. I closed my eyes then opened them again. Where the hell was the customs building? More sails. More violent evasive action. Then I saw it; a large, red-painted affair up on the south back amongst a row of white warehouses that hadn’t been there the last time I had. I yelled, “Get ready to swing to port.” The customs house disappeared and there was the Pool. “NOW!”

  The horizon, just a blur, tipped, spun, then righted itself. Next the hospital. There! “Dead ahead! Up and over, pilot!”

  “Up and over,” Mahindru acknowledged. He stopped humming and checked his mirror. “Good boy, Ranjid!”

  The hospital fell away. A man on the roof ducked. There were faces at windows. Then there was the freeway, filled with traffic; buses, cars, trucks and cycles. Some pedestrians, faces upturned, mouths open. But mostly it was a blur. Beyond the freeway, trees and another road. More people. All looking up, pointing and waving. And there, on the skyline, the long white wall of the Luana garrison. I felt the bile rush to my throat and my heart was pumping wildly. I was trembling, as I always did. But that would go.

  “That’s it!” I yelled to Mahindru. I depressed the air-to-air transmit button. “Brook!”

  “Sir!” came the screamed reply.

  “Break off now! There it is...Left...See it?” The radio mast.

  “I see it. Breaking off!”

  The wall swept beneath us and there was the compound laid out in front of the nose - the two-storey building, sun glinting off the windows like heliotropic messages; the out houses, the blockhouse, the orchard, the car park, several trucks and a few cars, and running figures. And the open space that was the parade ground.

  Oh, sweet Jesus!

  My stomach lurched. The area was alive with men! It was a goddamned football match! I couldn’t believe it. First the regatta, now a bloody football match! But there it was, when the place should have been empty.

  “Mind your heads!” cried Mahindru at I don’t know who, “I’m coming in!”

  And he did, just as the waist gun opened up and the tracers flashed by the side window and into the milling, threshing crowd. I did not see Brook’s aircraft zoom in over the main building, nor the rain of grenades leaving the open belly door. But I heard the crashing explosions even above the hammering of our cannon and the screaming of the engine as Mahindru set us down heavily on the hard-baked soil.

  Once, twice, we bounded back into the air before he regained some kind of control, the whole airframe shuddering and protesting treatment it had never been designed to withstand. Then the dust reared up to smother all vision.

  *

  Arnold Hewes did his best to appear impressed and interested, and he thought that he achieved it, if only by a whisker. The truth was that he was sickened by the whole amateurish, blundering, puffed-up affair. Oh, the operations room itself seemed proficient enough in its equipment and layout, but the personnel, of whom there were far too many for both real efficiency and comfort, appeared to have been brought in off the streets and thrown into other people’s uniforms. Mostly they collided with each other, picked things up and put them down again elsewhere, peered at expensive radar sets and transceivers and avionics displays as if they knew what they were looking at, fingering buttons and switches but doing absolutely nothing constructive with them. The whole thing was all-too obviously an impress-the-visitor charade.

  The room itself was windowless, as operations rooms should be, and there was a well-lit map-wall onto which light-dots were projected. It was on two levels separated vertically by a set of stairs. On the lower level, the nuts and bolts level, some twenty or so uniformed bodies, men and women, were crammed onto a floor space that should have accommodated no more than six or seven at the absolute most. Some were Asians, most were black Africans. The higher level, where Hewes, Motanga, Nglabi Lutope and two men to whom Hewes had not been introduced sat, contained a table, five chairs and a coffee/tea dispenser which had been positioned so that it half covered an apparently operating avionics display of a type Hewes had seen in some U.S. operations rooms. The ash tray on the table was filled to overflowing, the table itself littered with discarded plastic cups. The atmosphere was cloyingly hot and sticky, evidence of a non-operational air conditioning system.

  The same thoughtless reasoning that had placed the beverage dispenser in its current position, had also – but with far worse consequences later – sealed the second and only other access to the operations room. This second door led upstairs to the roof. At least, it used to lead upstairs to the roof. Now it led nowhere. Motanga had, some time ago, complained of a draft which was eventually traced to that second door. And, since access to the roof could be readily obtained from at least three other locations, that entrance had been sealed, permanently. This act of stupidity, plus some exploding grenades, sealed all their fates.

  They had watched the dots on the map-wall converge upon a marked area, and they had heard Craig Harding’s voice over the tannoy saying; “...Introducing...” The dots had continued north for a space, then had turned south. Some time later Harding had said, “Operation complete.” Motanga had looked vaguely disappointed at something and had ordered sandwiches to be brought in. They sat now, waiting. For something to say Hewes mentioned that he thought the area – the target area – comprised mostly of trees.

  Motanga guffawed. “Trees!” He nudged Lutope with a stove-pipe elbow. “Trees, Nglabi.” He came back to Hewes. “That whole area, mister Hewes, is Central Africa. They are not merely trees, they are colossi!” His smile disappeared. He added, “And swampland.” And then he dropped his bombshell, a bombshell that, had circumstances been different, would have proved the perfect foil to the American’s aspirations in Zaire.

  “A thought occurs, mister Hewes,” he said in a new tone.

  “Oh?” responded Hewes, biting into his sandwich, “Which is what, sir?”

  Motanga appeared slightly confused. “It is your business, of course, and I do not wish to pry. But, how do you propose to verify the...the, ah, the efficaciousness, or otherwise, of your, um, your magic potion?” He hurried on, shrugging hugely, “I am merely curious, you understand.”

  “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  “Ah!” said Motanga knowingly, tapping the side of his nose significantly, Jewish-style. “I fully comprehend, sir. That is for you to know, and for the rest of us to guess, eh? Very wise.” He turned to Lutope, as if to begin another topic with him.

  Hewes was perpl
exed. Verify? What the hell did the man mean? Verify? Why would you need to verify several hundred dead bodies? A dead body is a dead body. “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t quite follow.”

  Motanga turned. His expression said that he was trying to recall what it was they had been discussing. Then he appeared to remember. He repeated his question, rather more slowly and precisely than was called for.

  Hewes said what was in his mind. “Simplicity itself, mister president. By this evening, as I told you, the...ah!” He thought he understood what the man was getting at. He was concerned about possible contamination by MSB2Z. “Well,” he went on, “In the morning I will send my men back up there. A photograph or two?” he added nonchalantly. “Then you can send some of your people up there later, and they can see for themselves.”

  Motanga’s face slid easily through several shades of disbelief, and he sat back in his chair as if utterly dumbfounded. “My good God!” he breathed, “I cannot believe it.”

  “Believe what, sir?” asked Hewes, at a total loss.

  Motanga stared at Hewes the way a teacher might stare at a pupil who had just claimed that Africa was in the Arctic Ocean. “Mister Hewes,” he said at last, “Why is it, would you assume, that we did not move our troops up there in the first place? Why – would you assume...” His tone dripped unconcealed ridicule now. “...did I not send three thousand picked troops to wipe out a force of a puny three hundred or so mercenaries?”

  Hewes shrugged. “Well, I – “

  “Because, mister Hewes, interrupted Motanga, his face set in granite now, “the place is totally inaccessible! It is the very heart of the swamplands! And the way in is known only to those mercenaries themselves. This, mister Hewes, was why I agreed to the proposal set by the British, who were to deliver this mercenary force into my hands! I cannot verify the effects of your gas, mister Hewes, so it is up to – “

  And at that moment the two SAF helicopters roared in over the high walls of the compound and the men at the waist cannons opened fire.

  *

  I pushed out past the man at the waist cannon into a maelstrom of dust and noise. The blast of the downdraft hit me like a vertical tornado and I staggered like a drunken man in the whipping, biting dust storm. The chopper was already clawing itself back into the air; a mind-numbing cacophony of banshee jets and thumping rotor blades. I stepped forward to try and get out of the dust and see something, collided with a running figure and went over all arms and legs, the weight of the ammo belts and grenade strings hauling me down. I caught a momentary glimpse of tracer zipping through the cloud and was conscious of one of the chopper’s wheels passing, shuddering, within inches of my face. And for several seconds the world was nothing but swirling dust and debris and yammering noise. I was beyond stage fright now, beyond nerves and fear. I was thinking; forty-four men against a football match crowd. God help us!

  The trouble with command is that you have to keep part of your brain free to think with. The enlisted man simply does! And while I was crawling around like a blind zombie I hoped they were doing just that - doing. I had the crowd pegged, which was something. They would be mostly from some other barracks, here for the match. I doubted they would have brought loaded weapons with them. It was a reasonable bet, anyway.

  Then, suddenly, there was the sun. I blinked my eyes clear of the dust and hauled myself to my feet, AK ready for whatever presented itself. I saw in front of me a scene of utter pandemonium. The men of Red-One section stood, shoulder to shoulder, in a loose arc. Their weapons blazed into the milling, surging, screaming horde of tan-uniformed men. They fell like nine pins under that scything rain of bullets.

  “H.M.G.!” I yelled.

  “Sir!” The first two-man team stood behind me, exactly according to the briefing in the chopper.

  “Cover the blockhouse until Red-One get there.”

  The two men hared away through the confusion, one hefting the heavy BAR - Browning Automatic Rifle - the other laden down with three boxes of belted ammo. I looked around for Red-Two. I saw them, disappearing into the trees of the orchard, firing from the hip as they ran. There was no shortage of targets. The chopper was pulling away now, dragging the dust cloud with it, the cannon hosing tracer down onto a target on the far side of the trees. I turned my scattered attention back to the killing ground that should not have been there. I expended my AK in a long burst, the spent casing flying into the air like glittering stars. I ejected, then rammed home another charge. The wall on the far side of the “pitch” seemed afire, but not with flames, it was afire with torn and powdered plaster from the misses. Seconds passed, seconds lost utterly in that daze of slaughter. I fired, and fired, then changed mags and fired again, and for a while my mind could cope only with the sight and the sounds of the tan-uniformed men running and falling. And then it was over.

  Bodies lay scattered everywhere, some writhing in gathering pools of their own blood, most still. As if on some psychic command the guns of Red-One fell silent; a smoking, hot silence. They turned to me, their expressions those of wild men, eyes wide and glinting in the sun, the smiles so deadly as to be pain-wracked grimaces, the flesh almost grey with sweat-caked dust. To a man they had daubed their faces with the white stripes of the Kangatzi war symbol, reminding me of Simbas I had faced in battle. I knew exactly where they were, how they had gotten there, and what it would now take to bring them back to normalcy again.

  “What are you waiting for!” I yelled, “GO...GO...GO!”

  They moved. One of them lifted his AK into the air, a gesture of invincibility, and screamed the typically Kangatzi fighting whoop. The others took it up as they turned and streamed for the trees. They would not stop now, I knew, until they were either dead, or there were no more people left to kill. I pushed the W/T to my ear. “Brook!”

  The reply was immediate. “Sir! Moving in now. Radio mast down. No opposition so far.” The distant rifle fire and the hollow thudding of grenades duplicated itself tinnily as a background to Brook’s voice.

  “What about Blue-Two?”

  “Gone, sir. But there’s not a lot for them. I can see the hanger from here. Big job inside and a single chopper out on the grass. Several men, sir, but they’re running away. Blue-Two are almost there now.”

  “Right. Inside. Quick as you can. They’re going to wake up pretty bloody soon.”

  I allowed the W/T to fall to its strap and hared after Red-One. A tan-uniformed figure appeared in front of me, doing what, I did not know. I pulled my trigger and the man went over. It was like a pigeon-shoot.

  So far!

  CRUMP-UMP!

  Two grenades, the second an instant echo of the first, exploded somewhere in the trees off to my right. There was dust and smoke everywhere. A cry. Then I heard the throaty growl of the BAR. I ran on, dodging the trees like some addled quarterback. Then I was out of the trees and bathed in brilliant sunshine. And there was the blockhouse.

  That monstrosity had cost me dearly the last time I had done this. It was an iceberg - more of it beneath the ground than showed above it. Living space down there for a hundred men. But it was confinable if the head of the stairs could be secured, and quickly. Then a single automatic could stem the flow.

  There were some half a dozen tan-uniforms scrabbling to get in the door, under continuous fire from the BAR and Red-One, who had thrown themselves to the ground on the edge of the trees. A bullet sighed past my head and I thought, about time! I looked up. There! On the roof of the main building. A single marksman. Perversely, I felt disappointed as I sprayed his position. The man pulled back his head.

  I took quick stock.

  There was Mahindru’s chopper, hovering at about a hundred feet, out over the freeway, the cannon’s tracer curving in like a moving, waving string of yellow fairy lights. Of the second aircraft I could see no sign. Smoke was rising thickly from the far side of the main building. Out on the car park a truck was moving, drawing fire from what could only have been the second BAR team. Where the hell
was Red-Two?

  There! Over by the corner of the main building. At least, I could see three of them.

  A puff of smoke emerged from a ground floor window, shattered glass flashed in the sun like a broken chandelier, and ugly black splotches appeared around other windows as if by magic, as someone’s wildly-aimed volley peppered the masonry.

  SSSssss!

  The guy on the roof again. “Get down, you bastard!” I hissed as I yanked off another burst. He did not get down, and now there were two of them. Then three. I dropped to one knee and took more careful aim. Spouts of dirt danced across the ground in front of me and a ricochet screeched into the air. The edge of the parapet appeared to disintegrate and the three heads disappeared. I yelled at the nearest man of Red-One. “Keep that position pinned down!”

  The man waved acknowledgment and angled himself slightly more left. I looked at the blockhouse. Men were firing from a window now, but spasmodically, and then only wildly.

  BOOOOM!

  That came from away off to the right, over the wall that separated the compound from the airfield. The ground seemed to shake under me and a great gout of oily-black smoke billowed up. Forget the damned airfield! I rose to my feet and started to run the sixty or so yards to the main building. A face appeared at a window and I shot at it.

  The moving truck exploded then, suddenly and violently; a dirty, flame-streaked, debris-filled eruption that came as more of a shock than the one from the airfield. A single wheel, ripped from its axle, came spinning out of the smoke like a huge, wobbling discus. As I ran I felt stupidly compelled to follow its trajectory. It hit the corner of the building and ricocheted straight up into the air. I ran on. Then a grenade exploded in the blockhouse off to my right with a resonant THUD! On the edge of my vision I saw two men of Red-One crouched low at the base of the wall as glass, wood-splinters and smoke belched from the window. The door flew off and cartwheeled away. I could forget about the blockhouse. I called to the others of Red-One and waved them after me.