At 0730 hours, the whole of the camp had come to life. Some waving red and white banners, heavily armed men and women had spilled out into the clearing, in front of the huts. It had taken them several minutes to form up into some resemblance of order – lining up in three raggedy rows. Once they had all lined up, a man wearing a crimson red bandana had walked out in front of them. Standing on a small mound, he had turned to face them. Taking up positions on either side of him, he had been joined by two other men who, in complete contrast, had been wearing bright blue bandanas. The man with the red bandana had then addressed the assembled group of FMLN guerrillas. We had been too far away to hear exactly what he had been saying, but his speech had been very animated, punctuated frequently with flaying gesturing arm movements. He had ranted and raved – for that is exactly what it had seemed to have been – for nearly fifteen minutes! Then, with a long shrill piercing note from the whistle that he had placed to his lips, he had turned smartly to his right, and had marched off down the clearing and out through the southern exit of the camp – his two blue headed subordinates following close behind him. Almost as if taken by complete surprise, the assembled lines of guerrillas had been slow to react, still maintaining their formed up lines until one of the ‘blue heads’ had turned round and had blown his whistle and screamed at them. Shocked into movement, they had collided with one another as they had all tried to simultaneously break rank and march off after their leaders, jostling and cursing each other – about a hundred in all. Not all the guerrillas had gone off with the main group, though. Six men, of an elderly appearance, and eight women of various ages, had remained behind.
A large brown dog, fastened by a length of chain to a stake at the far end of the camp, had started to howl forlornly – and one of the marching guerrillas had suddenly broken off from the rest of the group, and had sprinted back into the camp, directly up to the animal. Dropping down on to his knees, in front of it, he had caressed and rubbed the dog’s head vigorously, ruffling up of the animal’s scruff. Having said his ‘goodbyes’ to the dog, the man had been up on his feet again, running off after the rest of his comrades, leaving an otherwise contented animal to settle back down again. But the animal had not settled for long. One of the women, a large fat woman, had gone over to the dog, in her hands a large deep round bowl. In anticipation of yet more fuss, the animal had got up again, its tail beating out a fast furious rhythm as the woman had approached. Like the man, before her, the fat woman had fussed the excited dog, the animal rolling over on to its back, legs wide apart and up in the air, as she had stroked at its fat belly with her left hand – while slitting the doting animal’s throat with the knife held in her right. The fat woman had then hacked down into its exposed belly, pulling it open with her podgy hands. With years of experience, she had thrust both hands deep inside and, with one sharp pull, had gutted the dog, dropping the animals entrails into the bowl that she had carried with her. Leaving the bowl, she had casually dragged the dog’s carcass over to the centre of the clearing, where a fire pit of glowing embers had smouldered. Equally casually, the fat woman had thrown the dog’s carcass into the pit, causing an instant eruption of red hot cinders to rush up into the sky. Returning to the bowl of offal, she had picked it up and had disappeared into one of the huts. When she had emerged from the hut, she had carried a long round bar, pointed at one end, with a large round flat disc attached to the other. She had used the bar to flick the dog’s smoking carcass over in the embers, causing yet more sparks to fly. Sitting back on her haunches, the fat woman had taken out a pipe, lighting it with a stick that she had thrust into the fire pit. While she smoked the pipe, she had sung to herself, in a soft childlike voice. From time to time, using the long iron bar as a lever, she had lifted the animal’s body and had carefully inspected the underside of the carcass. Having singed the animal’s hair sufficiently, she had dragged the carcass out of the fire pit. Then, using the same knife with which she had used to slit the dog’s throat, she had proceeded to run its sharp blade over the still smoking fur of the animal, methodically scraping the carcass free of the hair that had once covered it – and, all the time, singing quietly to herself. Having removed most of the hair that had covered the animal, the fat woman had then used her knife to remove the dog’s forefeet and hind legs, tossing them into the embers. Taking the long bar, she had inserted the pointed end into the animal’s anus, initially pushing and struggling hard until it had threaded its way through the dog’s pelvis, and up into the empty chest cavity. With her left hand, she had jostled the dog’s head, while pushing the iron bar with her right, its point finally emerging from out of the animal’s gaping jaw. Deftly, she had dislocated the animal’s hip and shoulder joints, enabling her to force them up and fasten the truncated limbs to the metal bar. Then she had called out for help and, from one of the huts, a man had shuffled over the compound clearing, towards her. Together, they had lifted the spit on to steel fabricated brackets, welded to the top of metal posts situated at either end of the fire pit. The fat woman had then thrown in some additional large thick blocks of wood into the fire. Satisfied that she had properly prepared lunch, the fat woman had the gone off with her male companion, into one of the huts. Throughout the rest of the morning, the fat woman had frequently returned to the fire pit, rotating the spit and testing the roasting carcass by sticking it with her knife, checking the colour and constituency of the meat’s juices.
If you don’t eat dog, then it all sounds pretty barbaric. But, hey – in the long run, it had saved me the job of killing it…and you all know how I feel about animals.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Throughout the morning, in pairs, we had taken it in turns to keep the guerrilla camp under close observation – but there had been no sign of the hostages. There had also been little activity within the camp until lunchtime – other than the odd solitary guerrilla visiting the latrines, which had been situated on the furthermost south westerly perimeter of the encampment – for obvious good reason!
A little after 1100 hours, from the south west, had come what had sounded to be the prolonged faint distant rumble of thunder. There had been low heavy cloud, but no forecast of thunder storms – not in our location, anyway. Hughie had tried to get a meteorological update, on the satellite radio, but there had been no signal. He had tried again at 1200 hours for our scheduled ‘check-in’, arranging and pointing the collapsible umbrella antennae at various angles, and positioning it in various locations – but still no signal, only the hiss of static. The combination of the tree cover and the deep walls of the narrow valley had probably masked and obscured the satellite signal – in those days, you had to be pretty much in direct line of sight to be able to receive and transmit to a low level orbiting satellite. The fact that we had been unable to establish radio contact had not affected or changed our game plan, though – we were still good to ‘GO’!
At 1215 hours, there had at last been some been activity in the camp – it had been lunch time! As if summoned by some silent dinner gong, the assortment of men and women had filed out of their respective huts and had ambled over to the fire pit – and the spit roast on it. The fat woman had been the last to join the group, holding a large bowl in both hands; she had offered it up to each of her comrades, in turn. The bowl had contained plates of all shapes and sizes and, in turn, each of the motley group had taken one – some cleaning the surface of the plates with a good mouthful of spit and a hard rub with their fingers. Surprisingly, the fat woman who had done all the preparation did not get to carve the meat; this had been entrusted to one of the men. Pushing and jostling one another, each of the group had tried to force their way to the front, their plates thrust out eagerly before them.
I hate to say it, but the spit roast did smell pretty good from where we were.
With full plates, the guerrillas had sat down on a variety of different types of improvised seating: large tree trunks, empty boxes, and gasoline cans – anything that they could lay their hands on. Upturnin
g the bowl that she had brought the plates in, the fat woman had even sat down on it. One of the men had uncorked a large cord covered jug – obviously containing wine and, after taking a good swig himself, he had offered it around. It hadn’t taken long for the men and women grouped around the fire pit to devour what had been on their plates, several of them going up for ‘seconds’, carving and helping themselves. It also hadn’t taken them long to consume the flagon of wine, either. Then, it had apparently been time for an ‘after dinner’ cigarette – but judging by the strong sweet smell, it had not been tobacco that they had been smoking. Not satisfied with just having the one ‘joint’, many of them had lit up a second. For a while, the group had talked noisily, sometimes screaming loudly at each another – always accompanied by helpless fits of the giggles and laughter. Then, as they had become tired, they had gradually sloped off in ones and twos, back to the huts. The fat woman had been left to clean up. Before placing the plates back into the bowl, she had scraped any remnants left on them into the still smouldering fire pit. She had gone to leave, taking a few steps in the direction of the huts. But, then, as if had it been an afterthought, she had returned to the fire pit and had kicked the spit sending it, and what had been left of the dog, crashing into the smouldering embers.
At 1300 hours, we had begun to make our final approach into the camp. Keeping to the valley walls, and using the cover of the trees, we had flanked the guerrilla encampment to the west. We were going to approach from downwind, from the south west – where the latrines had been situated. For obvious reasons, latrines are invariably placed downwind, and at some distance from the main body of any encampment – and this particular guerrilla camp had been no exception.
You might think, that with the camp dog gone and eaten, this had been overly cautious of us – however, for all we knew, there could have well been tomorrow’s lunch chained up somewhere!
As we had approached the latrines, the unpleasant smell of raw human sewage had started to drift down to us – never a pleasant smell, at the best of times. Getting to within a few metres of the latrine, I had caught scent of another underlying odour – the clinging, repugnant stench of decay! I had brought my right hand up, palm facing foreword, and had pushed it straight up into the air – bringing everyone to an immediate halt. Then, I had lowered my arm, palm downwards to my side – everyone dropping down and taking cover.
“What’s up, Skip?” Hughie, who had been immediately to my left, had asked, in a coarse whisper.
“I need to check out the ‘shit pit’,” I had replied. “Communicate it to the rest of the team and advise them to give me cover,” I had requested.
“Roger that, Skip,” Hughie had responded.
I had half expected him to come out with one of his sarcastic witticisms – but he hadn’t. In fairness to him, Hughie may clown and goof around most of the time – but never ever under combat situations.
The latrine had been a truly ramshackled affair. Surrounded on four sides with panels, crudely thrown and lashed together from an assortment of different materials: rusty corrugated iron sheets; the discarded sides of wooden packing cases; oil drums; and screens, made up from branches and leaves woven into a primitive wattle – the slit trench latrine had been topped off with a low flat roof, covered with an olive green tarpaulin. The makeshift walls of the latrine had only reached up about one and a half metres, leaving a substantial gap between the top of them and the roof – and, apart from the openings at either end, afforded the only ventilation. Ducking down, I had entered inside the rude structure. I would have much preferred to have breathed through my mouth, in preference to breathing through my nose, but the thick clinging swarms of blow flies had prevented that. The stench of raw human sewage had been obnoxiously overpowering, but as rank as it had had been – it had failed to mask that pungent rancid smell of putrefaction. About half a metre wide and some three metres long, the slit trench had run the full length of the latrine. Whether the users of the pit had stood straddling over it, with one foot on either side, or had squatted over it from the edge of the trench, had been irrelevant to me – I had just been rather surprised that over a hundred people could have shared this crude latrine. Moving closer, I had looked down into the steep sided trench. There had not been much in the way of fluid at the bottom of the pit, as urine would have quickly drained off through the floor and sides of the trench, leaving a thick slurry of human excreta behind. Ashes from the fire pit had been scattered over this foul smelling slurry in attempt to reduce the stench, and to try keep down the flies – but not very successfully, though. The slit trench had also contained something else – bodies!
The bodies of four men had been dumped into the narrow trench. Stripped naked, their contorted bodies had been covered in thick coat of human sewage and a light sporadic covering of ash. Where parts of the bodies had been above the surface of the foul smelling sludge, the naked skin, heavily and deeply hacked and slashed in places, had taken on a streaked rainbow appearance of pinks and greenish-blues. In places, animal activity had been clearly evident, myriads of small, gouging bite marks covering the rotting flesh.
I had found the Delta team – the hostages that we had come to rescue!
Judging from the discoloration and blistering, on the bodies, they must have been killed on the very same day as their capture. This had all made perfect sense. While FMLN had tended to keep civilian hostages alive for ransom, cutting off bits and pieces from them to enforce their demands – when it had come to military captives, they had adopted an entirely different approach. The FMLN would still demand a ransom for their military captives, but they would invariably kill their hostages straight away, as there was never any serious intent to release them – even if a ransom was paid!
When it came to our hostages, the whole process had been nothing more than a cynical piss take – rather than a serious attempt to extort a ransom! But I could only count four bodies, at the most – so what had happened to the fifth member of the Delta team?
“You have found the hostages, then, Môn Ami?” John-Luke had asked, intuitively, as I had rejoined the group.
“Maybe – well, some of them, at least,” I had replied, deliberately exhaling out through my nose…I don’t know if it’s because the stench of purification tends to cling stubbornly to the little hairs in one’s nostrils – but it always seems to take an age to be free of it!
“What, the guerrillas dumped the hostages in the shitter?” Hughie had quizzed, his Glaswegian accent emphasising a certain amount of incredulity in his tone.
“Yep, it sure looks like it,” I had answered. “They’re probably breaking camp and moving on soon – so why dig graves when you’ve already got a big hole that you can use.”
Well, that had been my assumption, anyway. Within days, the advanced decay and rotting putrefaction of the corpses, plus all the flies, would have rendered the slit trench latrine unpleasant, if not totally unusable. The guerrillas were either moving on – or they would have to dig another latrine!
“What now, Skip?” Hughie had asked.
“We still need to check out the camp – we still need to find the fifth member of the Delta team,” I had said, turning to face in the direction of the guerrilla encampment, extending my right arm out to the rear and bringing it clearly over my head, palm down, pointing directly towards the line of wooden huts.
More than anything else, this signal had been intended to keep Maaka, who had been covering us from the other end of the valley, informed as to our intentions.
On that command, as one, we had started to move forwards, crouched low in a staggered line. In a pre-agreed, pre-arranged formation, we had entered the camp from the south; myself taking point, followed by John-Luke and Hughie, with Carlos and Joshua bringing up the rear. The procedure for entering each hut had been the same. Because of the heavy TACSAT radio pack, that he had carried on his back; Hughie had remained outside covering our backs, his suppressed 5.56 M4, covering the other huts in the camp. Ma
aka, hidden up in the tree lined valley walls, at the north west end of encampment, had covered the rest of the camp with his M60E3 machine gun. With suppressors on our M4s, John-Luke and I had entered the first of the huts, followed by Carlos and Joshua, their M16’s strapped on their backs – machetes in hand. While John-Luke and I had remained on either side of the door way, ready to give immediate covering fire, Carlos and Joshua had gone straight over to where two guerrillas had been sleeping on their canvass cots, lying on their backs, both men snoring away. Carlos and Joshua had distinctly different styles to one another. Carlos would bring the long blade of his machete straight across the exposed throat, in a firm slicing action. Joshua, on the other hand, would allow his shorter, wider bladed tapanga to initially drop down on to the throat, enabling it to cut through to some depth, before pulling it back across. However, the net effect of both styles had been exactly the same – silent elimination!
Autobiography of an Assassin:: The Family Page 20