Now, Molly bent to the nearest of the buckets, cupping the tepid water in her hands and sluicing her face. Only when she stood up again did she see the youths sitting behind the schoolroom’s wooden desks. There were three of them. The one with the Santos football shirt stood up and offered her a shy smile. In broken English, he explained that he was a friend of Domingos’s family. Domingos was dead. The Englishmen would need another Domingos. He and the others had come to volunteer.
Molly stared at him, listening to the little speech, water still dripping from her face. When the youth began to ask her what they could do, when they could start, she held up her hands, stepping back into the dormitory and shutting the door behind her. It took a full minute to shake Bennie awake. She tried to explain about the boys next door. Bennie frowned, not understanding. Then he swung his legs off the bed and blundered through to the schoolroom. Molly could hear him snarling at the youths. There was the scraping of desks on the wooden floor, and then footsteps as they left. Bennie was back in the open doorway. Molly was at the window. The youths had disappeared.
‘Were they serious?’ she asked. ‘Did they really want Domingos’s job?’
Bennie looked nonplussed. He was staring at a Jiffybag on the table at the foot of his bed.
‘Yeah,’ he said at last, ‘anything to get them on that fucking plane.’
He picked up the envelope, feeling it. Then he handed it to Molly without a word. Molly took it. It was thicker than it looked. It had Christianne’s name scribbled on the front. Molly weighed it in her hand.
‘Whose writing is that?’
Bennie was back in the schoolroom. Molly could hear him scooping handfuls of water into his mouth.
‘Andy,’ he muttered through the open door, ‘must have left it last night.’
Gunfire awoke McFaul. For a second or two, his head pillowed on his folded arms, he remained completely motionless. The gunfire was coming in sporadic bursts. It sounded like small-arms. McFaul opened one eye. The sun was still low, gilding the mist that hung above the river. He eased his head up, his body still sprawled across the dinghy. The Armalite lay across his lap. His hand crabbed along the stock, releasing the safety catch. The gunfire had stopped now and he could hear men’s voices, the bark of orders, then the cough of an engine stirring into life. McFaul looked across the river. The further bank was eighty metres away, the bush dotted with trees. Of soldiers, there was no sign.
Downriver, his view was blocked by a dense screen of thorn bush and elephant grass. McFaul reached for the holdall and pulled out a pair of binoculars. Then he slipped into the water, staying close to the sand-bar. Underfoot, the bottom of the pool was matted with rotting vegetation. McFaul could feel twigs breaking beneath his boots. There was a bad smell here, too, the smell of human shit, and the closer he got to the sand-bar, the worse the stench became. He frowned. Normally, you’d shit downstream. Not here.
McFaul paused in the water. Through the thinning stands of grass, he could now see down the river. Katilo’s camp was further than he’d expected, more than five hundred metres away. He put the binoculars to his eyes, adjusting the focus ring. A line of trucks was drawn up beside the water, their outlines blurred by camouflage netting. There were soldiers everywhere, some standing in groups, others squatting round a handful of cooking fires. Curls of thin blue smoke hung in the windless air and as McFaul watched, one of the soldiers got to his feet and disappeared behind a truck. Seconds later he was back again, driving a cow before him, pushing and kicking at it. The other soldiers were laughing. Through the binoculars, McFaul watched one of them fashioning a lasso from a length of rope.
McFaul got a little closer to the sand-bar, widening his view. Inland from the river, on a bald patch of scrub, he found a battery of big field guns. There were more soldiers here, stripped to the waist, piling shells in five-layer pyramids. The barrels of the field guns were elevated towards Muengo and beneath the camouflage netting McFaul thought he recognised the brutal outlines of the South African G5. A G5 could hurl a shell fifteen miles. Muengo’s agony was clearly far from over.
McFaul traversed the binoculars back to the river bank, trying to match the shape of the landscape to the images stencilled on his memory from his last visit. The blindfold walk from the cave to the river had been no more than thirty metres. The four-wheel had been parked nearby. He looked at the line of trucks. Beyond them stood a spindly acacia tree and to the left of it there was a tumulus of some kind where the land shouldered upwards before flattening again. At the foot of the tumulus, clearly visible, were two soldiers standing several metres apart. Unlike the men around the fire, they were obviously on duty, their bodies criss-crossed with heavy bandoliers of ammunition, their carbines cradled in their arms. McFaul was about to put the glasses down when a third figure appeared, emerging between them. The build and the body language were unmistakable. The way he paused to flick an insect from his face. The passing word he shared with one of the sentries. The slow, languid, early morning stretch, hands behind his neck, hands raised in the air, hands finally propped on his hips as he looked across at the men around the camp-fires. Katilo. Very definitely.
McFaul felt the first stirrings of fear. If he got this wrong, if the plan misfired, Katilo would tear him apart. Literally. In front of an audience. Was this what he really wanted? Would Domingos have thought any the less of him if he jacked it in and called it a day? McFaul hesitated a moment, then dismissed the thought. Domingos wouldn’t be asking any questions. Ever. Domingos was dead. And this man had killed him.
McFaul returned to the dinghy. He went through the holdall, item by item, making sure he kept everything he needed. The water containers he clipped to his belt. A third spare magazine for the Armalite went into the waistband of his jeans. The last of his precious Kendal mint cake, he ate. Finally he unwrapped the taped slab of C4 and inserted the tiny, pencil-thin detonator in the gap he’d left at one end. The detonator was wired to the Motorola, and he bound the whole parcel together with more tape, making sure that the power switch on the radio was off. Beneath his fingers he could feel the shapes of the nails and the broken glass he’d lashed around the explosive. In the bow of the dinghy was a triangle of sturdy rubberised material that acted as a spray cover. Using more tape, he fixed the bomb beneath the cover. To anyone looking in, the bomb would be invisible.
McFaul slung the Armalite over his shoulder. Then he untied the dinghy and began to tow it out towards the river. Still hidden behind the sand-bar he paused, eyeing the eddies that curled in from the main current. He reached into the dinghy, pulling out the holdall. Inside the holdall was the other Motorola. He pushed it inside the waistband of his jeans, then filled the holdall with water and let it sink. Finally he reached under the spray cover, his fingers finding the power switch on the Motorola. The receiving radio was now on. A call on his own Motorola would trigger the bomb.
McFaul lifted the binoculars, gazing downriver. The water was deeper here, nearly up to his waist. Through the binoculars, he could see the soldiers loading the trucks. The camouflage netting had gone. Of Katilo, there was no sign. McFaul glanced back at the dinghy, measuring the distance between himself and the tell-tale ripple that indicated the middle of the current out in the river. Then he turned the dinghy round until the bow was pointing downstream and gave it a hefty push. The dinghy nosed out across the river, slowing and slowing until it snagged on the current and half-turned and then began to drift sideways downstream.
McFaul was already back behind the thickest vegetation, metres from the river bank, the binoculars to his eyes, tracking the dinghy through the blur of grass and thorn bush. The dinghy was still revolving, turning and turning, already fifty metres downstream. McFaul followed the river down towards the camp. Some of the soldiers were still working amongst the trucks. Others were stamping out the fires. No one seemed to have noticed the dinghy. Minutes went by. To the naked eye, the dinghy was slowly becoming a dot. Then there was a shout. McFaul raised the binocul
ars again. One of the soldiers had seen the dinghy. He was standing on the river bank. He was pointing. He was very close to Katilo’s cave.
McFaul traversed the binos. One of the sentries outside the cave had disappeared. The other one was shading his eyes with his hand, staring upriver. McFaul found the dinghy. It was still two hundred metres from the camp. Back outside the cave, Katilo had appeared. He was pulling on a white T-shirt, tucking the bottom into his fatigues. He was following the sentries towards the river bank. McFaul lowered the binoculars a moment, one hand finding the Motorola tucked into the waistband of his jeans. He pulled the radio out and switched it on. All he had to do now was transmit. The transmission button was yellow. Yellow, for Katilo, was the colour of death.
McFaul took another look through the binoculars. There were soldiers in the water now, a little semi-circle, ready for the dinghy. McFaul counted four of them. They were chatting amongst themselves. Katilo was on the river bank, watching them. The soldiers would capture the dinghy. They would bring it to Katilo. They’d manhandle it out of the water and present it to him, their tribute, their offering, and he’d bend to inspect it. The colour yellow. Channel Six. A tiny blossom of flame. A puff or two of smoke. And a mist of bone and blood where Katilo had just been standing.
For the first time, McFaul heard the voices. They were men’s voices. It sounded like they were walking towards him, on his side of the river, up from the direction of the camp. Instinctively, McFaul edged forward, ducking low, seeking the cover of the sand-bar. The soldiers were clearly visible. There were three of them. They were looking back towards the camp, watching the capture of the dinghy. They were laughing. Only one of them was armed. They paused for a moment, barely fifty metres away, one of them undoing the buttons on his fatigues, and McFaul suddenly realised why they’d come. Shit, he thought. The stench of human shit. These men, for some reason, had chosen this place to defecate.
McFaul peered down towards the camp. The dinghy was only metres away from the crescent of waiting troops. They were reaching out for it. Katilo was still watching them, his arms folded across his chest. McFaul began to edge onto the sand-bar. If the men came here to shit, the place was mine-free. Had to be. If only he could find enough cover, if only he could hang on long enough to see the job through, then the chaos after the explosion would save him. The men would run back to the camp. No one would think of looking upriver. If only. If only.
McFaul waded out of the shallows, slipping the Armalite off his shoulder, keeping his body low. He went to ground almost at once, prone behind a thick clump of thorn bush, the Armalite beside him. The smell of shit was overpowering. The soldiers were still watching the men in the river. As they seized the dinghy, he heard them cheering and clapping. Then they were heading towards him again, moving fester this time. One of them turned onto the sand-bar, his trousers already halfway down his legs. The others followed, still laughing. The taller of the two joined the first man, already squatting in the grass. The other, the shy one, ran past, heading straight for McFaul. McFaul was watching the men in the river. They were manhandling the dinghy towards Katilo. McFaul could see him with the naked eye, a solitary white T-shirt, awaiting his prize.
The young soldier was very close now. Both hands were at his trousers. Then he saw McFaul. He froze for a moment, not quite believing it, watching – transfixed – as McFaul threw the Motorola aside and reached for the Armalite. The first shot took the soldier in the thigh. He screamed and collapsed, holding his leg as the blood fountained up through the torn fabric. McFaul struggled to his feet. The other men were shouting and the one with the rifle came bursting through the tall grass. For a second, bending over his injured comrade, he didn’t see McFaul. Then he followed the pointing finger, looking up as McFaul reached desperately for the transmitter, and McFaul saw him fighting with the heavy Kalashnikov, trying to bring it to bear, loosing off a burst of unaimed fire, wildly inaccurate. The flat bark of the automatic echoed down the river and McFaul saw the men at the camp drop the dinghy and start running along the strip of baked mud beneath the overhanging bank.
The third soldier had appeared now. He’d drawn a machete and he lunged at McFaul, his arm raised, the blade slicing down. McFaul parried the blow with the Armalite, closing with the soldier, smashing the barrel of the carbine into his face. He heard the crack of splintering bone but the soldier was immensely strong. Abandoning the machete, his hands found McFaul’s throat and he began to squeeze, grunting with the effort. McFaul dropped the Armalite and the two men fell to the ground, McFaul gasping for air. He tried to wriggle free but the soldier’s body-weight was pressing down on him, forcing his head back, exposing his throat. McFaul stared up at him, his eyes half-closed, his vision beginning to grey. He no longer cared whether he lived or died. Everything smelled of shit. The whole fucking world smelled of shit. End of story.
Across the river, someone was shouting. The soldier hesitated, relaxing his grip. His front teeth were broken and a thin trickle of blood was dripping from his lower lip. McFaul watched it, wholly detached now, a mere spectator, curious to know what might happen next. The soldier was frowning. He muttered something to one of the others and McFaul felt his body-weight shifting. Then there were hands behind him, pulling him upright, and the soldier with the broken teeth was suddenly very close. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot and yellowed and McFaul could smell liquorice on his breath. The soldier began to grin, reaching forward, running a finger down the side of McFaul’s head. Then he lifted it to his nose, sniffing it, grunting something to himself, reaching forward again, motioning for McFaul to open his mouth. McFaul was staring at the finger. The finger was smeared with shit. It’s all over me, he thought. All over the back of my head, matted in my hair, caked in my ears. I must have fallen in it. Head back. Splat.
The soldier still wanted McFaul to open his mouth. McFaul shook his head. His arms were pinioned now, the other soldier standing behind him. McFaul tried to look round, wondering about the injured man, why the screaming had stopped, but the soldier with the broken teeth reached out, pinching McFaul’s nostrils, the way you might deal with a child refusing medicine. McFaul fought the urge to open his mouth. The finger was waiting, slightly bent, coated with shit. McFaul shook his head again, humiliated already. Anything, he thought. Anything but this.
Abruptly, he heard the sound of splashing from the river. Then voices nearby. The grip on his arms loosened for a moment and he wrenched his face away, half-turning in time to see Katilo stepping over the inert body of the fallen soldier. He recognised McFaul at once, barking an order to the soldier with the broken teeth. A length of cord appeared. McFaul’s elbows were bound behind his back. Then he was stumbling through the grass, back down the sand-bar, onto the river bank. The sunlight was fierce on the water. McFaul lowered his head, shielding his eyes, letting the babble of voices swirl around him. When he finally looked up, Katilo was standing beside him, shouting orders at the men in the elephant grass. They finally appeared with the injured soldier, carrying his body between them. Blood was still pumping from an ugly hole in his thigh.
The soldiers laid him at Katilo’s feet. Water lapped at the torn flesh. Katilo studied the soldier for a moment or two, stirring his body with his foot. He was wearing calf-high, lace-up paratrooper’s boots and he stooped to wipe them clean before turning to McFaul.
‘You did this?’
McFaul nodded, not bothering to explain. The last of the soldiers had emerged from the elephant grass. He was carrying the Motorola. He gave it to Katilo. Katilo turned it over, examining it. Finally, he looked at McFaul.
‘Yours?’
McFaul didn’t say anything for a moment. Downriver, three soldiers had returned to the dinghy. It lay abandoned at the water’s edge and they were bent over it, pointing. McFaul looked at Katilo. He glanced up, telling one of the soldiers to untie McFaul’s elbows. Then he held out the radio.
‘Call your people,’ he said.
McFaul shook his head.
‘No.’
‘Call them. Tell them you’ve shot one of my men.’
McFaul looked at the wounded soldier lying in the water. He could feel the shit drying on his face. Katilo was still offering him the radio. With his other hand he was loosening the flap on the holster strapped to his thigh. Inside the holster, McFaul could see the butt of a big automatic. Katilo was watching him carefully. McFaul took the Motorola. The watching soldiers began to edge backwards, sensing danger.
‘Call them,’ he said. ‘Now.’
McFaul shook his head.
‘No.’ He glanced downstream. A fourth soldier had joined the group around the dinghy. He looked back at Katilo. The automatic was in his hand, pointing steadily at McFaul’s head. He stepped very close.
‘Call them,’ he said softly.
‘No.’
McFaul closed his eyes and took a tiny breath, knowing this was the end. Then he felt a pressure on the yellow button, Katilo’s hand, and a long, hollow explosion came rolling up the river. McFaul opened his eyes. There were birds everywhere, flapping away across the bush. On the foreshore, by the camp, a curtain of brown smoke blew lazily across the river. Behind it, on the baked mud, small parcels of flesh lay beside the shredded remains of the dinghy.
McFaul looked at Katilo. He was gazing downriver. He seemed impressed. He reached for the Motorola, taking it from McFaul. His finger found the button. He pressed it again. The soldiers around him exchanged glances. Nothing happened. Katilo looked at McFaul a moment, then returned the transmitter. One of the men was carrying McFaul’s Armalite. Katilo gestured at it, impatient now.
‘Yours?’ he asked McFaul.
‘Yeah.’
Katilo examined the carbine then fired twice into the soft mud at McFaul’s feet. The soldier with the broken teeth was knee-deep in the water, washing his hands, watching Katilo. Katilo looked at McFaul a little longer, curiosity as well as amusement. Then he stepped towards the injured soldier lying in the shallows and put the muzzle of the Armalite in his open mouth. He emptied the magazine in a long burst before tossing the Armalite aside. McFaul watched, sickened, as the soldiers manhandled the corpse into midstream, releasing it to float slowly away on the current.
The Perfect Soldier Page 28