Hunter Squadron

by Robert Jackson

  ‘Ah,’ Gibbons said. ‘Delayed action.’ Richter, who had seen what happened, looked at them from his position among the roots and raised a thumb, grinning.

  During the next few minutes, the fire from the Kerewatans intensified. A heavy machine-gun, placed behind the cover of some fallen trees, sprayed the area with bullets every few seconds. Its position was quickly located and two Special Force commandoes crept forward inch by inch, their camouflage suits rendering them almost invisible, until they were within yards of the enemy position. Two hand-grenades curved through the air and exploded with a crack, obliterating the machine-gun’s crew. The two Special Force men retreated under cover of a withering fire laid down by their colleagues, but one of them was hit twice in the back only yards from safety. Two more men dashed out and dragged him under cover, but there was nothing anyone could do for him. He died a few minutes later.

  De Salis came back to speak to Yeoman. ‘We’re tightening our defensive perimeter,’ he told the RAF officer. ‘It’s as I feared — there are more of them out there than we thought at first, and they’re trying to push us back towards the swamp.’ His face was grim. ‘I don’t know how much longer we can hold out,’ he said. ‘Our ammunition is starting to run low.’

  De Salis looked round sharply as the forest echoed to a fresh burst of firing, then said: ‘I have to go now. Maybe we aren’t going to get away with it this time, George. If not — well, you know what to do, if the worst comes to the worst.’ He tapped Yeoman’s carbine significantly, and the pilot nodded.

  ‘Good luck, Peter,’ he said, and shook the other’s hand. There was nothing more to add. De Salis hurried away to join the others, and the two pilots settled down to await what now seemed an inevitable outcome.

  ‘If they rush us,’ Yeoman told Gibbons quietly, ‘kill as many as you can, but keep one round. You know what I mean.’ Gibbons nodded; he was familiar with the tales of atrocity.

  A few minutes later, with the battle still raging, Yeoman heard the thunder of a jet engine overhead. Gibbons looked up hopefully. ‘One of our Hunters, sir. Maybe they’ll try to do something ... ’ His voice trailed away as he realized the impossibility of the situation.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Yeoman said, ‘and there’s no chance. Our chaps might have spotted the Kerewatan trucks, if they haven’t been placed under cover, but they have no way of knowing where we are and they won’t risk an air strike for fear of hitting us. I’m afraid we can’t rely on any air support. There’s only one way out, and that’s through the road block on the other side of the swamp. You may not have noticed, but there’s been no firing from that direction so far. They must be saving their ammunition in case we decide to make a break for it.’

  The defenders were beginning to take casualties as the Kerewatan fire grew more accurate. Before long, a dozen wounded men had been pulled back to where Yeoman and Gibbons lay. Some of them were still capable of firing their weapons and, like the two pilots, were prepared to sell their lives dearly if their comrades were overwhelmed. Equally, they were determined that their friends who were more seriously injured should not be taken alive by the enemy.

  Slowly, the defenders were pushed back until they formed a tight semi-circle around the wounded men. They had a good field of fire from this new position, for the trees in front of them were thinly scattered, with a good deal of open ground between. Some Kerewatan troops who tried to dash forward and take cover behind some of the closer trees were shot down before they had gone ten yards.

  Suddenly, there was a lull in the firing. A heavy silence descended on the jungle, broken only by a spatter of metallic clicks as men inserted fresh magazines of ammunition — their last magazines, in most cases — into their weapons.

  Then the chanting started. The primeval sound of Africa, it swelled to a crescendo, died away and then grew in volume again, punctuated by a voice that shouted something in a high-pitched scream at regular intervals. Koppejans, crouching beside Yeoman, spat on the ground.

  ‘Somebody’s whipping them up into a frenzy,’ he muttered. ‘A few minutes of that, and they’ll have plucked up enough nerve to charge us, regardless of casualties.’

  The undulating chant was taken up by the Kerewatans on the other side of the swamp. The trees shuddered to the rhythm of it, and Yeoman felt his flesh creep. ‘Now we know how they must have felt at Rorke’s Drift,’ he said to Gibbons. The latter, who had never heard of Rorke’s Drift, or the epic stand made there by the South Wales Borderers against two thousand Zulus, looked at him questioningly and made no comment.

  As though a knife had sliced through it, the chanting stopped. ‘Let ’em come,’ de Salis told his men quietly. ‘Let ’em come, and make sure of every shot.’

  A fearsome, blood-curdling screech rose suddenly from a hundred throats somewhere among the trees in front of the defenders’ positions. An instant later, the trees erupted men, running forward in a dense mass, firing as they came. The defenders hugged the ground and sighted their weapons on the wave of humanity that raced towards them. ‘Let them come,’ Koppejans shouted, echoing de Salis’ words. ‘Let them come!’ To Yeoman, the enemy charge seemed to unfold in slow motion. The sights of his carbine were on a huge African who seemed to be some sort of officer; he was covering the ground in great leaps and waving on his men, his mouth wide open in a continuous shout.

  ‘Now!’ Yeoman dimly heard de Salis’ command and squeezed the trigger. The M-I jerked, and the African came on, although Yeoman was certain that he had hit the man. He fired again, and this time the African’s head jerked back as though he had run into an invisible fist. He went over backwards and was trampled under the feet of the men who came behind.

  The air was filled with the roar of gunfire. The front ranks of the Kerewatans, packed closely together, melted away as the bullets ripped into them. The impetus of the charge died away and the solid phalanx of men became broken up into smaller groups. The defenders were able to select their targets now, concentrating on the groups of attackers who were nearest, cutting them down with deadly accuracy. The rest wavered and then turned and ran, tripping over the bodies that now littered the ground. Blue smoke drifted through the air, stinging the eyes.

  ‘Cease firing!’ De Salis roared. The jungle echoed for a few seconds, then was silent except for the cries of the men who lay scattered in front of the defensive positions.

  ‘They’ll be back,’ de Salis said grimly. He might have added: and this time, we won’t be able to hold them. Each man was down to his last few rounds of ammunition.

  The chanting began again. Then, cutting across the raucous voice, a new sound intervened, causing the defenders to turn their heads away from the immediate threat and look behind them across the swamp, to where the road emerged from the forest and led towards the Kerewatan road-block.

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ someone said. ‘Now we’re for it.’

  Like a prehistoric monster, a tank churned its way out of the trees, its long cannon pointing towards the road-block. The tank was sand-coloured, and Yeoman felt a wild surge of elation as he recognized it for what it was. He looked at de Salis, who was grinning broadly.

  ‘It’s all right,’ the pilot yelled, breaking the spell. ‘It’s a Centurion — one of ours!’ His words produced a hoarse cheer from the defenders. It was cut off abruptly by the crack of the Centurion’s 105-mm cannon. The high-velocity shell hit the road-block squarely in the middle, and part of it disintegrated. The tank fired twice more as it came on, blasting further holes in the obstacle, and a few moments later its bulk pushed what remained of the road-block aside effortlessly.

  On the other side of the swamp, the Kerewatans, taken from the rear, were running around like ants, screaming in fear as the tank’s machine-gun sprayed them. Then a second Centurion emerged from the forest, adding its fire to that of the first.

  The tanks were followed by infantry, dashing forward in short, disciplined spurts behind the cover of the armoured vehicles. The Kerewatans on t
hat side of the swamp, realizing that it was hopeless to resist, began to surrender, squatting down on the ground with their hands held high.

  The leading tank reached the western edge of the swamp and halted, its cannon and machine-gun traversing slowly in search of further targets. Behind it, the men of the Cumbrian Regiment advanced more cautiously now, fanning out among the trees on the right of the position held by the mercenaries and de Salis’ men. De Salis hailed them and an officer sprinted over, keeping well under cover.

  De Salis briefed the newcomer quickly, pointing out the enemy’s positions in the forest to the west. The officer was crisp and businesslike.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘We’ll push them back and keep them busy while you pull out your men. We have some transport following us. Get aboard as quickly as you can. We have no wish to hang around here any longer than necessary.’

  The tanks moved slowly forward again, pushing westwards along the road to cover the flank of the infantry’s advance into the forest. The Cumbrians were soon in contact with the enemy, who began to fall back in disorder. Under cover of the diversion, the mercenaries and the Special Force men, carrying their wounded with them, filtered back via the road that led across the swamp, past the shattered road-block and the scattered bodies that lay around it, and embarked on the trucks that were waiting under cover amid the trees by the side of the route. When the convoy was safely on its way the Cumbrians also began to fall back, still covered by the tanks, and embarked in their turn. Within an hour, they were heading back at speed towards the river frontier, spanned now by pontoons erected beside the bridge that had been destroyed earlier. Overhead, covering the withdrawal, the Hunters roved vigilantly, ready to dive down and strafe any pursuers. But the Kerewatans had had enough. They were streaming back towards the provincial capital, their new leaders already squabbling amongst themselves as they quarrelled over their failure to wipe out the white soldiers. It was a loss of face they could hardly afford.

  *

  ‘There will be repercussions, of course,’ Sampson said. ‘Bringing out Nkrombe was one thing; the United Nations had no quarrel with that plan. But fighting a pitched battle in the Congo was quite another. Nevertheless, there was no other way. If we had not sent in the troops and armour, you and the others would not have escaped.’

  Yeoman lay in a hospital bed in Warambe, awaiting the arrival of an aircraft that would fly him to Nairobi, where there were better medical facilities. Not until then would he know whether the damage to his back would be permanent. In the meantime, he was doing his best to put the thought out of his mind.

  Peter de Salis and his men had departed in the Beverley, together with Swalwell and his SAS. The Cumbrians would remain in Warambe for a while as an insurance against any further threat from across the river, but the indications were that they would have a quiet time.

  Koppejans’ mercenary force had been disbanded and disarmed, and the men were interned pending repatriation to their respective countries, a prospect that pleased some of them not at all. Richter had been interned with them; he had asked to see Yeoman, to bid the Englishman farewell, but his request had been turned down. Yeoman had no knowledge of this, but he suspected that something of the sort must have happened and regretted it, for he would have liked to see the German again.

  Richter’s Sabres were still in Warambe, awaiting disposal. The Hunter Squadron was about to depart for the United Kingdom, its job done. Yeoman had received a hint that the pilots planned to invade his hospital room that evening to hold a party. That, at least, was something to look forward to.

  He looked at Sampson for a moment, then said: ‘It was a balls-up. Not as bad as Muramshir, but a balls-up nevertheless. You know it and I know it. It’s time we stopped sacrificing good men in other people’s bloody silly wars.’

  He could see that Sampson was annoyed by his remarks, and decided to change the subject.

  ‘How is Nkrombe?’ he asked.

  Sampson looked uncomfortable, and hesitated before replying. Then he said quietly, ‘Nkrombe is dead. He hanged himself in his hotel room, only a matter of hours after we brought him out. I suppose that the loss of his family must have been too much for him.’ He paused, and stared directly into Yeoman’s eyes. ‘I’ll say it before you do, Yeoman. It was all for nothing.’

  Yeoman slumped back on his pillows and felt like crying.

  Epilogue

  IT WAS GOOD TO BE HOME. YEOMAN WAS ON INDEFINITE sick leave and had returned, with Julia and the children, to their cottage in Wiltshire, not far from Boscombe Down. The proximity of the airfield, and the sight of military aircraft passing overhead every few minutes, had helped to break the monotony for Yeoman as he sat in the garden, soaking up the spring sunshine and taking lengthening strides along the road to full recovery. He was walking with the aid of a stick now, and soon he would be able to dispense with that too.

  It was the end of the first week in May 1961 — almost two months since Yeoman had been released from hospital. The long, tedious weeks in bed, while doctors painstakingly repaired his spinal injuries, had cost him a good deal of weight, but now he was beginning to put it back on again with the help of Julia’s substantial cooking.

  On this May afternoon, he had forsaken the sunshine to watch television with Julia and their surprise guest. Joachim Richter had turned up unexpectedly, looking every inch the successful businessman, and had been staying with them for the past few days. He was on his way to Austria, where he had his fingers in what he described as a ‘very promising business enterprise.’ Yeoman knew better than to ask questions.

  ‘There he goes,’ Richter said, pointing at the TV screen. The cameras followed the rocket as it rose from the launch-pad on a vivid column of flame, slowly at first, then gathering speed as it roared upwards. On the rocket’s nose, strapped into his tiny Mercury capsule, Commander Alan B. Shepard was about to make history by becoming the first American in space.

  ‘It’s a pity the Russians beat them to it,’ Yeoman commented, recalling the day a month earlier when Major Yuri Gagarin had astonished the world by completing an orbit of the earth in his Vostok spacecraft. Richter shook his head.

  ‘I don’t think it really matters,’ he said. ‘Space is something that is open to the whole of mankind — the last great challenge. Maybe that’s where our real hope lies, out there.’

  They watched the programme avidly, to the point where Shepard was picked up from the Atlantic at the end of his three-hundred-mile sub-orbital space flight — a journey summed up admirably by the astronaut in his own words: ‘Boy, what a ride!’

  Richter laughed. ‘Only an American could have come up with a comment like that,’ he said. ‘A Russian would have said that it was all for the glory of the motherland, or something of the sort.’

  Yeoman smiled at him. ‘I wonder what an Englishman would have said — or a German, for that matter? Maybe we’ll find out, one day.’

  The expression on his face suddenly became serious, and he stared at the TV screen, where Alan Shepard was being greeted enthusiastically by the crew of the aircraft carrier whose helicopters had picked him up.

  ‘You know,’ Yeoman said wistfully, ‘that must be one hell of an experience. I’m not much older than Shepard. Maybe one day — ’

  Julia glared at him. ‘Forget it,’ she said firmly.

  Yeoman raised an eyebrow, touched a match to his pipe and made no reply.

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