CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Gradually, we had worked our way up the line of huts. Some had been empty, but those that were occupied had not remained occupied for long.
I had entered one of the huts to be confronted by an elderly male guerrilla, the waist band of his trousers held tight in one hand, and a grimy toilet roll in the other – such luxury. Obviously, responding to a call of nature – or perhaps it was the roasted dog – his jaw had dropped open slightly when he had caught sight of me standing in the doorway. His jaw had dropped even further – the 5.56 bullet, from my M4 carbine, killing him instantly as it had shredded his brain tissue. The guerrilla had collapsed without a sound on to the mud floor – but I couldn’t take any chances. The old man had not been alone. He had a bed companion, a women sleeping on her side, her naked back towards me. Bringing the carbine up into my shoulder, I had taken careful aim at the back of the woman’s head. Again, just a silenced ‘phut’ and the mechanical clatter of the slide – and the woman was also dead. Systematically, we had gone through the line of huts, ‘visiting’ each in turn – but still no sign of the fifth missing hostage…or the fat woman!
Where hell was she?
Sounds, coming from a storage hut, set back some distance from the main line of huts, had suddenly attracted our attention. Cautiously, in guarded formation we had moved towards the hut, John-Luke and me in the lead – the others close behind, covering our approach. The sounds, like those of a pig squealing, had indeed come from the hut. The sides of the hut had been ostensibly made up from wooden packing cases, and was completely windowless – the only opening to the hut being where there had been a solitary gap in the wall of cases. Silently, I had gone in first, to be greeted by a strange surreal sight – I had found the fat woman. Stripped from the waist down, she had been frantically ‘riding’ the naked figure of a man, who had been lying on his back spread eagled, secured by his ankles and wrists to stakes in the ground. It had been the fat woman who had been doing all the squealing and grunting. She had been so engrossed – or so sexually excited – that she had been totally oblivious to our presence, as we had all quietly filed through the gap, into the hut.
“Get her off him,” I had suddenly commanded, having to shout above the noise that the fat woman had been making.
Carlos and Joshua had moved forward and had pulled the fat woman from off her captive ‘suitor’. Immediately her squeals of delight had turned into high pitch screams of virulent rage.
“For fuck’s sake – will someone shut her up!” I had yelled, having to shout again above her high pitched caterwauling.
John-Luke had moved immediately over towards her. Joshua had pulled the woman’s head back, by her hair, to clearly expose her throat – and, with a quick flick of his wrist, John-Luke had obligingly cut through the fat woman’s vocal cords, his razor sharp Arabian dagger silencing her forever.
Hughie had gone over to cut the ropes securing the spread eagled man, but had suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. “Why my…hello ‘Big Boy’,” he had suddenly chortled out in a leering camped up tone, posturing by placing his hands on to his hips and thrusting his left shoulder forward.
‘Six foot two, eyes of blue – but oh! what those six foot could do – has anybody seen my…,’
Gaj now tips the scales at good two hundred and twenty pounds of bone and solid muscle mass. Back then, he probably weighed some forty to fifty pounds lighter – but he was big in other aspects. His penis, still engorged by his enforced love making, was huge – would easily make twice of me, any day! It had been clearly obvious why he had been kept alive! I think that we had all initially been taken aback slightly by the sight. It’s not something that you would readily admit to staring at…it’s a man thing – pardon the pun – and, in mutual embarrassment, we had all quickly looked away again.
All, that is, apart from Hughie. “I’m only cut you loose if you promise me that you are going to behave yourself with that ‘huge enormous weapon’, of yours,” he had pouted. “I’m a good Catholic boy – and I don’t eat meat on Fridays.”
While Hughie had cut the man free, John-Luke had managed to find the American some new olive drab combat fatigues from a packing case, carrying distinct Cuban markings, which had been stored immediately next to a number of Budweiser cases. From yet another packing case, he had been able to find some jungle boots – size elevens! After conducting a cursory medical check, Hughie had helped the American to his feet, and had helped him dress. Apart from the abrasions on his ankles and wrists, and a small amount of bruising, the American had been in reasonable health.
Sending the rest of the team to search the huts for documents, maps and such like for intel, before torching the place – I had sat down and talked to the American. He had confirmed that he had been one of the Delta team, a Staff Sergeant with the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta; known generically as Delta Force – he had also confirmed that the rest of the team had all been ‘executed’ on the very first day. His name was Gaj – and they had ‘fast-roped’ into an area just south of the camp, straight into the waiting arms of the FMLN guerrillas and, much to his annoyance, their Lieutenant had surrendered without putting up a fight. Bound and lashed to poles, which had been securely fastened behind their backs underneath the elbow joints, with their hands firmly shackled together in front of them, they had been taken directly to the guerrilla encampment. At the camp, they had been separated from their Lieutenant. Satellite reception had been nonexistent in the valley, so the guerrillas had taken the American officer and the TACSAT radio north – to where they could get a signal from a low orbit satellite. The Lieutenant wasn’t seen again. Gaj and the rest of the Delta team had been taken outside the camp, to where the latrines were. There, the FMLN guerrillas, mainly the women folk, had picked them out, one by one. While the rest of the Delta team had been forced to watch, the first American had been stripped of his clothes – and then hacked to death with machetes.
“I sure as hell wasn’t going to hang around to let them butcher me,” the American had continued, his accent Brooklyn but, uncharacteristically, very mellow and subtle. “I used the timber that I’d been trust up with – to whack a couple of them. But then I got whacked – back of the head. Came to in that hut, where you found me.” Gaj had then given a rueful smile. “Guess my little old pecker gone and saved my life,” he had sighed.
At the time, I had wondered why the American should have been so sad – I was to find out later.
Joshua had returned with a 7.62 M21 sniper rifle, fitted with a Leatherwood 3–9x Adjustable Ranging Telescope, in one hand – and an ammunition bandolier in the other. “Martin, this looks like yours,” he had said, referring to the rifle.
“Nope – its mine,” the American had quickly pointed out.
“Joshua – this is Gaj. Gaj – this is Joshua,” standing up, I had quickly made introductions between the two men. I would formally introduce Gaj to the rest of the Family, later. “So, Gaj, you’re a sniper?”
“Not just a sniper – but the best,” he had replied, his head bent over the rifle that Joshua had handed down to him. As Gaj had started to field strip the weapon, he had paused to look up at me. “You got yourself an M21, too?”
“No, I’ve got the previous model, an old M14 with strap on sights.” I had replied.
My M14 had been initially intended as a standard assault rifle, the M21, its successor, upgraded specifically to be a sniper rifle.
“You’re a sniper, too, then?” the American had asked.
It was Joshua who had replied, on my behalf. “Only the world’s greatest!” he had said, giving a broad grin, his teeth set brilliantly white against his dark ebony skin.
“Fuck – is that true?” Gaj had said.
I am many things – I had thought to myself. I had been about to reply back to the American when I had caught sight of Hughie returning, carefully carrying something in his arms that had been wrapped up in a bundle of rags – it was a baby!
FUCK – FUCK – FUCK! What the fuck are we suppose to do with a baby? We couldn’t take it with us – and we couldn’t leave it! What the fuck were we suppose to do with it?
“It’s a little baby girl,” Hughie had said proudly, tickling the infant’s cheeks with his index finger and making pathetic cooing noises at the same time.
By then, John-Luke and Carlos had rejoined us. You could clearly see by the distained look on John-Luke’s face that he had been thinking exactly the same as me.
“Nice work, Hughie,” I had responded sarcastically. “Now you can go and find the mother.”
“You already have,” it had been Gaj who had interrupted, standing up. “It was the bitch who was riding me.” Then he had turned towards John-Luke and smiled. “The bitch that you just been and gone and cut the throat clean out of.”
In an instant, her moving image had been created again in my mind. Held firmly, between Joshua and Carlos, the fat woman had been naked from the waist down with her shirt opened at the front. There had been large damp moist patches of sweat coming through the areas where the fabric had rested against her large breasts…but it had not been perspiration – the woman had been lactating!
“What are we going to do, Skip?” Hughie had suddenly appeared worried – and so he should have been.
“Congratulations, Hughie – you’ve just become a mother,” I had told the Scott, his jaw dropping slightly. “You found the baby – you take care of it.”
“Môn Ami – what are we going to do with it?” John-Luke had asked, his expression clearly telling me what he would have preferred to have done.
“We take the baby with us – we have no choice,” I had replied.
John-Luke had tilted his head a little to one side, his bottom lip coming up slightly over the top one – it was his look of disapproval.
“I stopped killing infants and children a very long time ago – and I don’t intend to start again now!”
This pointed remark of mine had not been lost on him. “Well, Môn Ami, you are right, we can’t leave the little one here – we have to take it with us,” he had admitted. “But the little one will need food. I know Hughie has got tits, but, like the rest of him – they are just empty bags of wind.”
“Fuck you, you fucking ‘froggie humper’ – you leave my pretty titties out of it,” Hughie had countered. “But he’s right, Skip – where are we going to get food for it?” he had added, in all seriousness.
“From the mother.” It had been Carlos who had responded to the question in a very matter of fact way, coming forward to join the debate.
“But she’s dead,” Hughie had pointed out the obvious.
“If she is still warm, which she should still be – then I can milk her,” Carlos had stated emphatically, then adding “If I can’t milk her with these,” he had said holding up his hands. “Then I will milk her with this,” he had added, tapping the handle of his machete.
“You sure it can be done, Carlos?” I had asked.
“I have seen my father do it many times,” Carlos had gone on to explain. “A heifer dies calving, so you take the milk from her udder and feed it to the orphan, until you can bring it to suckle at a heifer that has lost her own calf.”
“If you think that you can do it – do it,” I had told him. “What do you need?”
“Sterilised bottles – and I will also need some rubbers.”
“The rubbers – don’t have a problem. Hughie’s got a load that he hasn’t gotten round to using yet. It’s all talk – no go with him,” I had said, nodding over to the Scott.
“Cheek,” Hughie had protested. “My dick’s as well used as the next mans.”
“Yes – Môn Ami,” John-Luke had cut in, lifting up his right hand in an open fist and making a slow masturbating gesture with it. “Your dick’s well used by this,” he had teased.
“Bitch!” the Glaswegian had come right back at him. “You wouldn’t know a good fuck if you….”
I hadn’t given Hughie chance to finish the rest of his rhetoric. “But we are going to have problems finding sterilised bottles, here,” I had cut in as I had voiced my concern.
“No problema,” Carlos had replied. “Thanks to the kind courtesy of Budweiser, we have cases and cases of sterilized bottles at hand – all I’ve got to do is empty a few.”
Taking the condoms, that Hughie had offered him, Carlos had gone off in the direction of the store hut and the fat woman’s body. He had returned some minutes later with a brown bottle in each hand, containing the milk of the dead woman – a condom fastened to the neck of each bottle to provide an improvised teat. But nobody had asked Carlos how he had actually ‘milked’ the dead woman.
Some things are best left to the imagination.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
After torching the guerrilla camp, we had picked up Maaka as we had proceeded north up the valley, making our way towards the prearranged extraction point with the helicopter. From his vantage point, Maaka had seen everything but, even so, the baby had taken some explaining.
We had continued in a north easterly direction, up the inclined track, reaching the small clearing that we had fast roped down into, earlier that day. The clearing had been wide enough to allow us to have been dropped down into it, but the closeness of the trees had prevented us from being picked up from there – not enough clearance for the sweep of helicopter’s rotor blades. Our EP, our extraction point, had been some five klicks further up country, in a large open clearing where the helicopter could safely land. Although the narrowness of the clearing had prevented a helicopter pick-up, it had provided us with satellite reception, though. Out of the shirt, which the fat women had been wearing, Carlos had made a makeshift sling for Hughie to carry the baby girl in. Strapped to the front of his chest, it had left both of the Glaswegian’s hands and arms free. In the middle of the clearing, Hughie had set up the collapsible umbrella antennae, and had succeeded in making contact with Phil N…Jnr, handing the radio’s handset to me – I was to be in for a bit of a shock!
The distant rumble of thunder that we had heard far off in the south, at about 1100 hours that morning, had not been thunder – it had been a coordinated air strike and ground attack on the FMLN guerrillas, by the El Salvadorian military! Over the SAT radio, Phil had tried to be rather upbeat about the whole thing. The Salvadorian military had claimed overwhelming victory against the FMLN guerrillas, inflicting an estimated body count of between eighty and one hundred!
I had seen the El Salvadorian military carry out body counts in the past; frequently accrediting body parts: bits of arms, legs, torsos and heads, as belonging to different individuals – where in reality they could have all been bits from the same person! This had meant that frequently they would over estimate their kills two – three, or even fourfold!
But worst was yet to come.
We had always worked on the assumption of there being a time gap, of at least some three hours, between the FLNM guerrillas and us. But, because of them being ambushed earlier than planned – a good two hours earlier – the reality of the situation had been that guerrillas might be as little as only twenty minutes behind us. At very best, no more than forty! Our evacuation point had been a further five klicks north and, even if we could have kept ahead of the FLNM guerrillas, our helicopter was not due till dusk – 1800 hours. This had meant that, even if we had managed to stay ahead of them, the guerrillas would have caught up with us at evacuation point, waiting for our helicopter transport. The pick-up point had been a large open clearing, ideal for the helicopter – but not so good for us. Open and bare, there would have been nowhere for us to set up a defensive position. We would have been overrun in minutes. It had been a no brain decision…we would do what we do best – strike first. We would ambush the pursuing FLMN guerrillas where we wanted to – where we had the advantage of surprise and terrain. We had ambushed FMLN guerrillas before, waiting for them to return from raids. Depleted in ammunition, low in energy levels and worn d
own by injury and the onset of fatigue, they had made easy targets and prey.
We would do what we were good at…what we always excelled at – and we would do it now!
The clearing, a narrow elliptical shape, perhaps six to eight metres wide and some fifty metres long, surrounded on either side by trees and dense vegetation, had made an ideal spot for an ambush. Placing ourselves at the northerly end of the narrow clearing, where the wall of the valley had encroached on to the trail with rocky outcrops and haphazardly strewn boulders; it had provided us with an ideal defensive position, well hidden by a ground cover. We had a dominant command of the area and a good field of fire – but, at the end of the day, it would all be down to the numbers. If between thirty and forty…it would be ‘doable’ – above forty, then the attrition rate would favour the FMLN guerrillas by virtue of weight of numbers, alone. Just how many of them had actually survived the Salvadorian air strikes?
In the end – it would all be down to the numbers.
Having placed the baby down at the edge of the trail, the infant sucking happily away at an improvised pacifier made out of knotted rags wrapped around a piece of sugar cane, and soaked in dark rum; Hughie had quickly set up the M18 Claymore anti-personnel mines – two each on either side of the clearing. Hidden by the thick undergrowth, those nearest to our firing position, some fifteen metres away, he had placed in front of sizeable rocks to minimize any risk to ourselves, and had angled them both slightly to point down the length of the clearing; fully exploiting the 60° fan-shaped arc of fire from each device. The other two Claymores he had placed on either side of the clearing, about half way down, offset by some ten metres from each other – again to maximise fatalities. Hughie had wired the mines in series to one another – ‘daisy chaining’ them together. Then, Hughie had attached the two cables which had connected each line of Claymores to his ‘Clacker’, his M57 Firing Device; enabling him to detonate all of the mines simultaneously. Where the cable connecting the string of Claymores, on the left hand side of the clearing, had crossed the trail, Hughie had carefully covered it with loose dry vegetation and leaves, before returning back to where he had put the infant down. The baby girl had been sleeping peacefully, the ragged ends of the improvised pacifier, still in her mouth, gently rising and falling in rhythm with the little tot’s breathing. Lying down alongside her, Hughie had taken out his Fairbairn-Sykes commando knife, placing it next to the sleeping infant – in readiness to silence her, if the need had arisen.
Autobiography of an Assassin:: The Family Page 21