Juggernaut

by Desmond Bagley

  The day wore on. The Nyalan foragers had found some food for everybody. Teams of swimmers were lifting floating planks onto the deck of the first completed 'B'-gon. It was an ungainly structure, with odd scalloped edges and splintery sides, but it floated high and lay fairly steadily in the water. On measuring we found that we could get one truck of not more than an eight foot beam on to it. Provided it could be driven on board.

  Zimmerman, still scrounging about the camp for useful materials, came to me for a word in private.

  'Neil, you'd better know about this,' he said. 'I checked all the trucks including the Frog's.' Dufour had been careful with his truck, always driving it himself and parking it away from the others at camp stops.

  'He's carrying a mixed cargo of basic supplies. Ben will be happy to know that there is some oxygen and acetylene and some welding rods. But that's not all. The guy is breaking the law. He's carrying six cases of forty per cent blasting gelignite and they aren't on his manifest. That's illegal, explosives should never be carried with a mixed cargo.'

  'We ought to stop him carrying it, but what the hell can we do with it? Dump it?'

  'Must we?' he asked wistfully. Explosives were his profession.

  'OK, not yet. But don't let Dufour know you're on to him. Just make sure nobody smokes around his truck. No wonder he parks it way off.' It was a possible weapon with Zimmerman's expertise to make the best use of it.

  Progress on the second 'B'-gon was going well, but I called a halt. We were getting tired and this was when accidents were most likely to occur.

  It was time for a council of war.

  After the evening meal the crew gathered round and I counted and assessed them. There were fifteen men but I discounted two at once.

  'Geoff, you're not coming.' Wingstead had been allowed to eat with us and afterwards he must have given his watchdog nurse the slip. He was very drawn but his eyes were brighter and he looked more like the man I'd first met.

  He said ruefully, 'I'm not quite the idiot I was a couple of days ago. But I can sit on your council, Neil. I have to know what you plan to do, and I might be able to contribute.'

  'Fair enough,' I said. Just having Wingstead there was a boost.

  'And Derek's also out of it. He can't walk, ankle's swollen like a balloon,' Wingstead said. 'He's pretty mad.'

  'Tell him I'll trade places,' offered Thorpe.

  I said, 'Not a chance, Ritchie — you're stuck with this. You should never have been around in Port Luard when I needed a co-driver.'

  'Wouldn't have missed it for the world,' he said bravely.

  I turned to the next lame duck.

  'Dan,' I said gently, 'it's not on, you know.'

  He glanced down at his still splinted arm and heaved a sigh. 'I know. But you take bloody good care of Antoine here, you hear me?' He and the Frenchman exchanged smiles.

  'Bert, how's your leg?'

  Proctor said, 'Good as new, Mister Mannix. No problem, I promise you,' for which I was grateful. He was one of the stalwarts and we needed him. Kemp's shoulder would not hamper him, and there were no other injuries among us.

  I said, 'Sadiq has got twenty-one men. There's one down with dysentery. With twelve of us that makes thirty-four to their seventeen: two to one. With those odds, I don't see how we can fail.'

  A figure slid into the circle and I made room for him to sit beside me. It was Captain Sadiq.

  I said, 'Basically what we have to do is this. We're going downriver on the 'B'-gon. We get there before first light. We try to overpower them without much fighting. We've got a few weapons and we'll be able to get theirs if our surprise is complete. Ideally we don't want any shooting at all.'

  'Squeamish, Mannix?' asked McGrath.

  'Not at all,' I said coldly. 'But we don't know how near any reinforcements might be. We keep this as quiet as possible.'

  There was a slight stir around the circle at our exchange.

  'We have to get their radio under control, don't we?' Bing asked.

  I had refrained, against my first instincts, from forbidding him to join the expedition. He was nineteen and by medieval standards a grown man ripe for blooding, and this was as near to medieval warfare as you could get. He was fit, intelligent and fully aware of the danger.

  'Yes, that's going to be your baby,' I said. 'Your group's first priority will be to keep it undamaged and prevent their using it. The one in the car looks out of action but you'll make sure of that too. Brad, you run the interference for Sandy, OK?' He may not know American football terms, but the inference was obvious and he nodded fervently. Bing was his responsibility.

  'Captain?' I turned to Sadiq.

  'My men will make the first sortie,' he said. 'We have weapons and training which you do not have. We should be able to take the whole detachment without much trouble.'

  Zimmerman whispered hasty translations to Kirilenko.

  'Bert, you and Ben and Antoine immobilize all the transport you can find,' I said. 'Something temporary, a little more refined than a crowbar through the transmission.'

  'Not a problem,' Bert said, his usual phlegmatic response.

  'Mick, you cover Bing in the radio room and then check their weapon store; pile up everything you can. Use…' I was about to assign Bob Pitman to him, but remembered that Pitman had no reason to trust McGrath. 'Use Harry and Kirilenko.' They would make a good team.

  I waited to see if McGrath was going to make any suggestions of his own but he remained silent. He didn't make me feel easy but then nothing about McGrath ever did.

  I turned to Pitman.

  'Bob, you stick with me and help me secure the raft. Then we cover the ramp where they load the ferry, you, me and Kemp. We'll want you to look at it from a transportation point of view, Basil.' If he thought for one second that he could get his rig on board the ferry he'd be crazy but he needed to be given at least some faint reason for hope in that direction. I looked round.

  'Ritchie, I need a gofer and you're the lucky man. You liaise between me, Captain Sadiq and the other teams. I hope you're good at broken field running.'

  'Me? Run? I used to come last at everything, Mister Mannix,' he said earnestly. 'But I'll run away any time you tell me to!'

  Again laughter eased the tension a little. I was dead tired and my mind had gone a total blank. Anything we hadn't covered would have to wait for the next day. The conference broke up leaving me and Sadiq facing one another in the firelight.

  'Do you think we can do it, Captain?' I asked.

  'I think it is not very likely, sir,' he said politely. 'But on the other hand I do not know what else we can do. Feeding women and pushing oil drums and caring for the sick — that is not a soldier's work. It will be good to have a chance to fight again.'

  He rose, excused himself and vanished into the darkness, leaving me to stare into the firelight and wonder at the way different minds worked. What I was dreading he anticipated with some pleasure. I remembered wryly a saying from one of the world's lesser literary figures, Bugs Bunny: Humans are the craziest people.

  CHAPTER 26

  By late afternoon the next day the lakeside was in a state of barely controlled turmoil. Tethered to the shore as close as possible without grounding lay the first 'B'-gon. It was held by makeshift anchors, large rocks on the end of some rusty chains. A gangplank of half-sectioned logs formed a causeway along which a truck could be driven on to the raft. Beyond it lay the second raft, just finished.

  Nyalans clustered around full of pride and excitement at seeing their home-made contraptions being put to use. A few had volunteered to come with us but Sadiq had wisely vetoed this idea. I don't think he was any happier about us either but here he had no choice.

  From the rig patients and nurses watched with interest. Our intention was to have the truck ready on board rather than manoeuvre it in the dark of the following morning.

  'Why a truck at all?' Wingstead had asked. 'If you take Kanjali there'll be transport in plenty there for you. And there'
ll be no means to unload this one.'

  'Think of it as a Trojan Horse, Geoff,' I'd said. 'For one thing it'll have some men in it and the others concealed behind it. If the rebels see us drifting towards them then all they'll see is a truck on a raft and a couple of men waving and looking helpless. For another, it'll take quite a bit of equipment, weapons and so on. They'll be safer covered up. It's not a truck for the time being, it's a ship's bridge.'

  Hammond approved. He was the nearest thing to a naval man we had, having served in a merchant ship for a short time. I had appointed him skipper of the 'B'-gon. 'Inside the cab I've a much better view than from deck.'

  There was a fourth reason, but even Hammond didn't know it.

  The gangplank was ready. Kemp as load master beckoned the truck forward. The driver was Mick McGrath. It was going to be a ticklish operation to get the thing safely on board and he was the best we had, apart from Hammond himself. Zimmerman disappeared behind the truck as McGrath started to drive down the shore.

  There was a sudden high grinding scream from the truck's engine and the vehicle lurched, bucked and came to a standstill. McGrath's face, looking puzzled and annoyed, appeared at the cab window. Voices shouted simultaneously.

  'Christ, watch out! The rear wheel's adrift! 1'

  McGrath jumped down and glared at the damage. One tyre was right off its axle and the truck was canted over into the dust, literally stranded.

  'Fetch the jacks!' he called.

  I said, 'No time — get another truck. Zimmerman, go drive one down here! You men get cracking and unload the gear.' I gave them no time to think and Kemp, always at his best in a transport crisis, was at my elbow. Considering that I'd anticipated the accident and he hadn't, he coped very well. Swiftly he cleared a path through the littered beach so that a second truck could get around the stranded one and still be able to mount the causeway. An engine roared as Zimmerman returned with the replacement.

  Antoine Dufour sprang forward, his face suddenly white.

  'No! Not that one — that's my truck!' he yelled.

  His vehemence startled the men around him.

  'Come on, Frenchie, any damn truck'll do,' someone said.

  'Not that one!'

  'Sorry, Dufour; it must have been the nearest to hand,' I said crisply. Dufour was furious but impotent to stop the truck as it passed us and lined up precisely at the causeway. Zimmerman leapt out of the cab for McGrath to take his place, but Dufour was on top of him.

  'You not take my truck, by God!' He lapsed into a spate of French as he struggled to pass Zimmerman who held him back.

  Tack it in!' Kemp's voice rose. 'Dufour, ease off. This truck's part of the convoy now and we'll damn well use it if we have to.'

  I said urgently, 'McGrath — get in there and drive it on fast.'

  He looked at me antagonistically.

  'There are other trucks, Mannix. Let the Frenchy alone.'

  'Will you for God's sake obey an order!' I hadn't expected opposition from anyone but Dufour himself. McGrath's eyes locked with mine for a moment and then he pushed his way past Dufour and Zimmerman, swung himself aboard and gunned the motor. He slammed the truck into gear and jerked it onto the causeway. Then common sense made him calm down to inch the truck steadily onto the oddly-shaped 'B'-gon raft. The thing tipped under the weight but to our relief did not founder, and although water lapped about the truck's wheels it was apparent that we had a going proposition on our hands. The cheer that went up was muted. The onlookers were still puzzled by Dufour's outburst.

  Kemp got men to put chocks under the truck's wheels and make lashings fast. The gear was loaded. Then the raft was hauled further out to lie well clear of the bank.

  I turned my attention to Dufour.

  He had subsided but was pale and shaken. As I passed Zimmerman I gave him a small nod of approval, then took Dufour's arm.

  'Antoine,' I said, 'come with me. I want a word.'

  As we walked away he stared over his shoulder at his truck where it rode on our ridiculous raft offshore and out of his reach.

  We stopped out of earshot of the others.

  'Antoine, I apologize. It was a dirty trick to play.'

  'Monsieur Mannix, you do not know what you have done,' he said.

  'Oh yes I do. You are thinking of your secret cargo, aren't you?'

  His jaw dropped. 'You know?' 'Of course I know. Zimmerman found it and told me. It's his trade, don't forget. He could probably sniff out gelignite at a mile.'

  Dufour stared at me appalled. I had to reassure him on one point at once.

  'Now, listen. I don't care a damn why you have the stuff. Or where you got it. It's no bloody business of mine. But right now that stuff you've got is the best weapon in our whole arsenal, and to get ourselves and everyone else out of this mess we need it.'

  'Oh, my God.' As he looked at me and I saw a bitter smile on his face. 'Gelignite. You want to use my truck to blow up the enemy, yes?'

  'I hope not. But it's a damn good threat. Harry Zimmerman will pass the word around, and the assault team will know that we've got a bomb out there. It'll be like pointing a cannon. The rebels have no weapon that can reach us, and we've got one that can devastate them. That's why we have the second 'B'-gon along; if we need to we evacuate the first, aim it at the landing point and let her rip. Now do you understand?'

  'Suppose I told you the gelignite was worthless.'

  'Don't try. We need it.'

  He sat down as if his knees had given way. After a couple of minutes he raised his face and said, 'Yes, I understand. You are a clever man, Monsieur Mannix. Also a bastard. I wish us all luck.'

  Back at the camp I put my affairs in order. I wrote a personal letter to leave with the Doctor, and gave Sam Kironji an impressive-looking letter on British Electric notepaper, promising that my company would reimburse him for all expenses and recommending him for a bonus. This I implemented with a cash bonus of my own which impressed him even more.

  Wingstead and I discussed the rig. If we took the ferry the convoy would move to Kanjali so that the patients could be transferred. And there the rig would have to be abandoned.

  'We have to be careful of Kemp, though,' Wingstead said. The rig means a lot more to him than to me. It's extraordinary; personally I think he's been bitten by the juggernaut bug as hard as any of the Nyalans.'

  'I wonder what they'll do when it grinds to a halt and we abandon it,' I said idly.

  'Go home again. It'll probably end up in their mythology.'

  'And the rig itself?'

  'Whoever gets into power will engage someone to. drive it up to Bir Oassa, I suppose. It'll be an interesting exercise in international finance, sorting out the costs and legalities involved. But I'll tell you one thing, Neil, whoever takes it it won't be me. I've had it here. I'll sell it to the best offer.'

  'And what then?'

  'Go back home with Kemp and Hammond and build a better one. We've learned a hell of a lot out here.'

  'Stick to hydroelectric schemes in Scotland, will you?'

  He laughed. 'That's the way I feel now. As for later, who knows?'

  For the second day running we embarked in the chill small hours to sail down the Katali River to Kanjali. I felt very apprehensive. Yesterday had been an unnerving experience for anyone untrained in guerrilla warfare. Today was terrifying.

  The two 'B'-gons were barely visible. We used the runabout as a tender, poling it over the dark water to lie alongside the 'B'-gon on which stood the darker bulk of the truck. We scrambled aboard, passing our weapons up to be stowed in the truck.

  Hammond and his work team had lashed the two 'B'-gons together, slotting hexagon shapes into one another, adding a couple of 'A'-gons here and there and assembling the thing like a child's toy.

  The truck barely fitted on the after section, a foot of space to spare around it. With its high rear section and flat forward deck it was a travesty of the ferry at Kanjali. Aft on a crossbeamed structure Hammond had mounted Sam Kiro
nji's outboard motors; one was a seven horsepower job and one six, which meant they were close enough in motive power not to send us in a circle. He had a man on each throttle and would control their speed and direction from the cab of the truck.

  We were all very quiet as we set off.

  We'd made our farewells, temporary ones I hoped. Dr Kat said that Lang might not live to see Manzu. I wondered how many of us would.

  I had one curious experience on the journey. I hadn't forgotten McGrath's belligerence on the beach, and twice since he'd jibbed at instructions in a way that I could only think of as petulant. He wasn't just important to the success of our mission, he was vital. I had to find out what was bothering him.

  'McGrath, I want to talk to you.'

  He turned away.

  'Now!'

  I moved crouching away from the others and felt some relief that he followed me. We made our way forward, where small waves broke coldly over our faces.

  'Mick, what the hell is eating you?' I asked.

  He looked sullen. 'Nothing. I don't know what you mean,' he said. He didn't look at me.

  'If you've got a gripe for God's sake say so.'

  'We're not in the army, Mannix. You're not my officer and I'm not your bloody sergeant.'

  'Oh Jesus!' I said. 'A goddamn prima donna. What's your beef?'

  'Stop bloody ordering me about. I'm fed up with it.'

  I took a deep breath. This was crazy.

  I said, 'Mick, you're the. best driver we've got. You're also the nearest thing we've got to a soldier, and we're going to need your know-how more than anyone else's, even Sadiq.'

  'Now don't think I'll jump when you say so, Mannix, just for a bit of flattery,' he said. To my disbelief his tone was one of pique.

  'OK, McGrath, no flattery. But what's really eating you?'

  He shrugged. 'Nothing.'

  'Then why go temperamental on me? You've never been afraid to speak your mind before.'