The Spoilers / Juggernaut

by Desmond Bagley

  But they were not able to do much to help. With a very small staff, some of whom were local and only semi-trained, and limited supplies of bedding, food and medicines they were soon out of their depth and struggling. Adding to their problems were two major disasters: their water supply and their power had both failed. They got their water from a well which ran sweet and plentiful normally, but was itself connected to other local wells, and somewhere along the line pipes must have cracked, because suddenly the well ran dry except for buckets of sludgy muck. And horrifyingly, shortly after the town’s own electricity failed, the hospital’s little emergency generator also died. Without it they had no supply of hot water, no cooking facilities bar a small backup camping gas arrangement, and worst of all, no refrigeration or facilities for sterilizing. In short, they were thrown back upon only the most basic and primitive forms of medication, amounting to little more than practical first aid.

  It was late afternoon and they were already floundering when the hospital was visited by Captain Sadiq. He spent quite a time in discussion with the doctor and Sisters Mary and Ursula, the leading nuns of the small colony, and it was finally decided that one of them should come back with him to the convoy, to speak to us and find out if our technical skills could be of any use. Sister Ursula came as the doctor couldn’t be spared and Sister Mary was elderly.

  Kemp asked why Captain Sadiq hadn’t personally escorted her to the camp and seen her safe. He was fairly indignant and so was I at this dereliction.

  ‘Ah, he’s so busy, that man. I told him to drop me at the military camp and I walked over. There’s nothing wrong with me now, and walking’s no new thing to us, you know.’

  ‘It could have been damned dangerous.’

  ‘I didn’t think so. There were a score of people wishing to speak to the Captain, and no vehicles to spare. And here I am, safe enough.’

  ‘That you are, Sister. You’ll stay here tonight? I’m sure you could do with a night’s sleep. In the morning we’ll take you back to the hospital, and see what we can do to help.’

  Kemp had changed quite a lot in a short time. While not inhumane, I’m fairly sure that as little as three days ago he would not have been quite so ready to ditch his transportation job at the drop of a hat to go to the rescue of a local mission hospital. But the oncome of the war, the sight of the burnt out town with its hapless population, and perhaps most of all the injury to one of his own, our pilot, had altered his narrow outlook.

  Now he added, ‘One of our men is badly hurt, Sister. He was in a plane crash and he needs help. Would you look at him tonight?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said with ready concern.

  Ben Hammond had left the table, and now came back to join us with a stack of six-packs of beer in his arms.

  ‘We’ve relaxed the rationing for tonight,’ he said. ‘Everybody deserves it. Sister, you wouldn’t take a second shot of whisky, but maybe you’ll settle for this instead?’ He handed her a can from the pack.

  She tightened her fist around the can.

  ‘Why, it’s ice cold!’

  Hammond smiled. ‘It just came out of the fridge.’

  ‘You have a refrigerator? But that’s marvellous. We can preserve our drugs then, praise be to God!’

  Kemp and Hammond exchanged the briefest of glances, but I could guess what they were thinking. There was no way that refrigerator could be left at the hospital, urgent though its need might be; it was run by the generator that was solidly attached to the rig, and without which nothing could function.

  Things looked better the next morning, but not much. No smoke wreathed up from the distant town but I suspected that this was because there was nothing left there to burn. We were greatly cheered when Sam Wilson told us that he had located a source of clean water, a well at a nearby village which hadn’t been affected by the bombing, and which seemed to have a healthy supply. He intended to fill the water tanker and top up drinking containers. When he learned about the water shortage at the hospital he said that there should be enough for them too, assuming they had some sort of tank in which to store it.

  Geoff Wingstead joined us for breakfast and met Sister Ursula for the first time. She had been to see Otterman but wanted him taken to the hospital for the doctor to see, and now looked professionally at Wingstead’s gash and bruises and approved of what had been done for them. Wingstead insisted that he was now perfectly well and was eager to see the town and the hospital for himself. In spite of his heavy financial commitment, he seemed far less anxious about the rig and Wyvern Transport’s future than Kemp did. Perhaps it was just that he was younger and more adventurous.

  I drove back to the town in the Land Rover with Kemp, Wingstead, Sister Ursula, and Hammond. Sadiq came over just before we left and said that he would see us at the hospital a little later. He looked drawn and harassed. The lack of communication from his superiors and the consequent responsibility was taking its toll, but even so he was bearing up pretty well. Kemp and I still had a nagging doubt as to his loyalty, but we’d seen nothing to prove the case one way or the other, except that he was still with us, which probably counted for something. As for the shooting down of our plane, nothing whatever had been said about it and I was content to let the question lie.

  The fires had burnt themselves out and the heavy pall of smoke of yesterday was replaced by a light haze fed by ash and still smouldering embers. Kodowa had nothing left worth destroying. A few isolated buildings still stood, but most of the centre was gone, and it was by no means sure that when we cleared the rubble we would find an intact road surface beneath it.

  People wandered about still, but very few of them. Many had simply melted back into the bush, others had gone to cluster round the hospital or the army encampment, and we’d seen pathetic faces hovering near our own camp during the early hours of the morning. We didn’t spend much time in the town, but asked Sister Ursula to direct us to the hospital which stood slightly apart and to the east. The road getting there was not in good condition.

  The hospital looked exactly like the casualty station it had become. We threaded our way through the knots of Nyalans who were already setting up their makeshift homes in the grounds, avoiding the little cooking fires and the livestock which wandered about underfoot, and the small naked children. People stared at us but there was none of the crowding round that usually happened in the villages in happier times. Sister Ursula, though, was accosted and hailed by name as we left the car and made our way indoors.

  We met Sister Mary, who was elderly and frail, and two younger nuns, all fully occupied. I noticed that none of them seemed surprised to see Sister Ursula back with a team of British men, or even particularly relieved at her safe return from what might have been regarded as a dangerous mission; the impression I got was that they all had the most sublime faith in her ability to take care of herself, and to turn up trumps in any eventuality. I could see their point of view.

  She led us into an office, asked us to wait and vanished, to return very soon with the surgeon in tow.

  Kemp said, ‘We’re very pleased to meet you, Doctor—’

  He was a tall, saturnine Nyalan with a strong Asian streak, grey-haired and authoritative. He wore tropical whites which were smudged and blood-streaked. He put out a hand and took Kemp’s, and smiled a mouthful of very white teeth at all of us.

  ‘Katabisirua. But here everyone calls me Doctor Kat. It is a pleasure to have you here, especially at this moment.’

  ‘Doctor—Doctor Kat, I’m Basil Kemp of Wyvern Transport. You probably know what we’re doing here in Nyala. This is my partner, Mister Wingstead. Mister Hammond, our chief mechanic. Mister Mannix is from our associated company, British Electric.’ He ran through the introductions and there were handshakes all round, very formal. Ben hid a smile at the man’s nickname.

  ‘Gentlemen, I can offer you little hospitality. Please forgive me.’

  Wingstead brushed this aside.

  ‘Of course you can’t, and we don’t
expect it. There’s work to be done here. Let me say that I think we have got your water problem sorted out, thanks to some of my lads, provided you’ve got tanks or somewhere to store the stuff.’

  Dr Kat’s eyes lit up. ‘Thank God. Water is a pressing need. We have a storage tank which is almost empty; I have been trying to take nothing from it until we knew about replacement, but naturally everyone is in need of it.’

  ‘We’ll get the tanker up here as soon as we can. We expect Captain Sadiq to join us soon; he’s the officer of the military detachment here. When he comes, I’ll get him to send a message to our camp,’ Wingstead said. He and Dr Kat were on the same wavelength almost immediately, both men of decision and determination. Basil Kemp’s tendency to surrender to irritation and his stubborn inability to keep his plans flexible would be easily overridden by these two.

  ‘Now, what about the electricity? We cannot make our generator work. We have bottled gas, but not much. What can you do to help us there?’ Dr Kat asked. He had another attribute, the calm assurance that every other man was willing to put himself and his possessions completely at the service of the hospital at any time. Without that self-confidence no man would have been capable of even beginning to run such a project, for the obstacles Katabisirua must have had to overcome in his time would have been enormous.

  ‘Hammond and I are going to have a look at your generator. We’ve some experience at that sort of thing. I can’t make any promises but we’ll do our best,’ Wingstead said.

  Sister Ursula interrupted. ‘What about your refrigerator?’ she asked.

  Dr Kat’s head came up alertly. ‘What refrigerator?’

  Wingstead hadn’t known about last evening’s conversation and Kemp, for whatever motives I didn’t quite like to think about, hadn’t referred to it. Sister Ursula said firmly, ‘Doctor Kat, they have a working fridge on their transporter. We should send all the drugs that must be kept cold and as much food as possible down there immediately. We can save a lot of it.’

  His face beamed. ‘But that’s wonderful!’

  Sister Ursula went on inexorably, ‘And also they have electricity. Lights, cooking, even a deepfreeze. I saw all this last night. Isn’t that so, gentlemen?’

  ‘Of course we have,’ Wingstead concurred. ‘We’re going to do what we can to use our power supply to restart yours. We’ll have to get the rig up here, though, and that isn’t going to be at all easy.’

  Kemp looked troubled. ‘I’ve been studying the road up here. What with the refugees and the condition of the road itself, I’d say it’s going to be damn near impossible, Geoff.’

  The nun interrupted, her jaw set at its firmest. ‘But all we want is your generator. We don’t need that huge thing of yours. We could do with your deepfreeze too; and with the generator our own refrigerator will run. You gentlemen can manage without cold beer, but we need that facility of yours.’

  The Wyvern team exchanged looks of despair.

  ‘Ma’am, Doctor Kat, that just isn’t possible,’ Hammond said at last.

  ‘Why not, please?’ The surgeon asked.

  Sister Ursula showed that she’d picked up a bit of politics during her evening at our camp. ‘Mister Mannix,’ she said, ‘you represent a very wealthy company. Please explain to your colleagues that it is imperative that we have this facility! I am sure your board of executives will approve. It is of the highest importance.’

  I was dumbfounded and showed it. ‘Sister, that just isn’t the problem. British Electric would give you anything you asked for, but they’re not here. And the reason you can’t have the generator isn’t economic, it’s technical. Explain, someone.’

  Hammond took up a pad of paper lying on the desk, and his pen began to fly over the paper as he sketched rapidly.

  ‘Look here, ma’am. You too, Doctor.’

  They bent over the sheet of paper and I peered over Ben’s shoulder. He had produced a lightning and very competent sketch of the entire rig. He pointed to various parts as he spoke, and it must have been obvious to his whole audience that he was speaking the truth.

  ‘Here’s the generator. To drive it you have to have an engine, and that’s here. The actual generator is really a part of the engine, not a separate section. If you looked at it, just here, you’d see that the engine casting and the generator casting are one and the same; it’s an integral unit.’

  ‘Then we must have the engine too,’ said Sister Ursula practically.

  Kemp choked.

  Hammond shook his head. ‘Sorry. The engine has much more to do than just drive this generator. Sure, it provides the electricity to power the fridge and freezer, and light the camp at night and stuff like that, but that’s just a bonus.’

  He pointed to the illustration of the transformer.

  ‘This big lump on its trailer is now resting on the ground, practically. Before we can move off we have to lift three hundred and thirty tons—that’s the load plus the platform it’s resting on—through a vertical distance of three feet. It’s done hydraulically and it needs a whole lot of power, which comes from the engine. And when we’re moving we must have power for the brakes which are also hydraulically operated. Without this engine we’re immobile.’

  ‘Then you must—’

  Hammond anticipated the nun’s next demand.

  ‘We can’t ditch our load. It took a couple of pretty hefty cranes to get it in place, and it’d need the same to shift it off its base. Some flat-bed trucks have the mobility to tip sideways, but this one hasn’t, so we can’t spill it off. And any attempt to do so will probably wreck the entire works.’

  It was stalemate. Kemp tried to hide his sigh of relief.

  Into the disappointed silence Wingstead spoke. ‘Don’t be too downhearted. We can refrigerate your drugs and a lot of your food too, if you think it’s safe to do so, at least while we’re here. And we can probably get the whole rig up here so that we can couple up with your lighting and sterilizing units.’

  Sister Ursula did look thoroughly downcast.

  Katabisirua said gently, ‘Never mind, Sister. It was a good idea, but we will have others.’

  ‘But they’re going to be moving along. Then what can we do?’

  Wingstead said, ‘We won’t be moving anywhere for a bit, not until we know a little more about the general situation and have a decent plan of action. Let’s take this one step at a time, shall we? I think we should go back to our camp now. Would you like to make a pack of all your drugs that need to go into the refrigerator, Sister? We’ll take them with us. If you need any in the meantime we can arrange for the Captain to put a motorcyclist at your disposal. What do you suggest we do for our wounded pilot?’

  ‘I will come with you. I think I should see him. They must spare me here for a little while,’ the Doctor said. After a quick conference, Sister Ursula went off to supervise the packing of drugs and other items that could do with refrigeration, while Dr Kat collected the ubiquitous little black bag and said that he was ready to go.

  We found a soldier standing guard over the Land Rover, and parked nearby was Sadiq’s staff car. The Captain was speaking to a knot of Nyalan men, presumably the elders of Kodowa, but left them to join us.

  ‘Good morning, sir. You are better now?’ This was addressed to Wingstead, who nodded cheerfully.

  ‘I would like to know what your plans are, sir. There is much to do here, but do you intend to continue upcountry?’ Sadiq asked.

  ‘We’re not going immediately,’ Wingstead said. I noticed how easily he took over command from Kemp, and how easily Kemp allowed him to do so. Kemp was entirely content to walk in his senior partner’s shadow on ail matters except, perhaps, for the actual handling of the rig itself. I wasn’t sorry. Geoff Wingstead could make decisions and was flexible enough to see alternative possibilities as he went along. He was a man after my own heart.

  Now he went on, ‘I’d like to discuss plans with you, Captain, but we have to sort ourselves out first. We are going to try and help
the doctor here, but first we’re going back to camp. Can you join me there in a couple of hours, please?’

  At this moment Sadiq’s sergeant called him over to the staff car, holding out earphones. Sadiq listened and then turned dials around until a thin voice, overlaid with static, floated out to us as we crowded round the car. ‘Radio Nyala is on the air,’ Sadiq said.

  It was a news broadcast apparently, in Nyalan, which after a while changed into English. The voice was flat and careful and the words showed signs that they had come under the heavy hand of government censorship. Apparently ‘dissident elements’ of the Army and Air Force had rioted in barracks but by a firm show of force the Government had checked the rebels. The ringleaders were shortly to stand trial in a military court. There was no need for civil unease. No names or places were given. There was no mention of Kodowa. And there was no other news. The voice disappeared into a mush of palm court music.

  I smiled sourly as I listened to this farrago. Next week, if the Government survived, the ‘dissident elements’ would be plainly labelled as traitors. The news broadcasts would never refer to a state of war, nor give more than the most shadowy version of the truth. Of course, all that depended on whether the broadcast station remained in government hands. If the rebels took it there would be an entirely different version of the ‘truth’.

  None of us made much comment on what we’d heard, all recognizing it for the fallacy that it was. We piled into the Land Rover with Dr Kat and drove back in silence to the convoy camp.

  ELEVEN

  Three hours later after a short discussion with Wingstead I gathered the people I wanted for a conference. But I had decided that this wasn’t going to be a committee meeting; I wasn’t going to put up my proposals to be voted on. This was to be an exchange of ideas and information, but the only person who was going to have the final say was me.