by Chris Ryan
What happened next, I’ll never be sure. I saw Mart go down on his knees to recover the boy, but then something soft brushed across my shoulders and a sudden draught put out the lamp. In the darkness I felt an intense chill close in on me.
Behind me, Phil gave a sharp exclamation of ‘Fucking hell!’ I heard a movement, looked round, and found he’d disappeared.
‘Phil!’ I said sharply. ‘Are you feeling anything?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Phil!’ I went. ‘Where are you?’
It was Mart who answered: ‘He’s back in the crowd.’
‘Did you feel anything just then?’
‘Cold,’ said Mart. ‘Freezing cold, horrible.’
‘I got it too,’ I told him. ‘It was deadly. How about pulling out?’
‘I’m okay.’ Mart sounded solid. ‘D’you want to?’
‘No, I’m okay to stay.’
That was what I said. But in fact I was shuddering and felt sick, as if gripped by fever. What surprised me most was that Phil had quit. Phil, the least scared of all our people, the toughest, the most punchy.
Through those unnerving seconds the twittering had kept up unabated. Then I heard Mart exclaim, ‘Shit! He’s gone!’
‘Who?’
‘The kid. No pulse. Breathing’s stopped. I’ll try mouth-to-mouth.’
‘No, for Christ’s sake!’ I told him. ‘If the people see you doing that, they’ll think you’re killing him.’
‘They think that anyway.’
‘Try it,’ I said. Then instantly I changed my mind and ordered, ‘Cancel that. Leave him!’
The crowd outside seemed to sense what had happened. The tide of voices swelled again. I heard more drums going in the distance, and at our feet the woman began to wail. Joss called out something in Nyanja, and a man came through from the back of the hut carrying another lamp.
Light showed that neither the witch doctor nor his assistant had moved. Both held exactly the same posture: the giraffe tail was still thrashing the air; spirit messages were still arriving. The woman was on the deck, with Mart on his knees beside her. Apart from Phil having vanished into the crowd, nothing had changed. Certainly there was nobody close behind me who could have flicked a garment or shawl over my shoulders.
The back of my neck was crawling. What was it that put the lamp out? What had produced that icy chill?
‘He says, white men must leave Kamanga,’ Joss translated.
‘Tell him we had nothing to do with the accident,’ I said. ‘It was a Kamangan driving the truck.’
‘He knows that. But he says white men bring evil to our country.’
‘We’re trying to help. The only reason we’re here is that your government invited us.’
That information produced a long pause. The witch doctor transferred the buffalo horn to his left hand and clawed at the air with his right, fingers spread, drawing in handfuls of air towards his head, as if plucking at the spirits who were talking to him. Several times he turned his hand slowly and brought it back towards his face, palm-first. But in the end his message was the same: ‘All white men must leave Kamanga.’
‘What happens if they don’t?’ Mart demanded.
‘They will die.’
‘All of them?’
Another pause, then, ‘Some.’
‘How many?’
‘To find this out, the sin’ganga needs to consult his bones.’
‘Okay, then,’ I agreed. ‘Tell him to do it.’
Later, I wished to hell I’d never issued the challenge. But at the time, in the heightened atmosphere of that stinking hut, one question seemed to lead on from another so fast that there was no time to think of possible consequences. Before I could start worrying, the acolyte was ordering the woman out, shooing her backwards as if she were a sheep.
‘She will have to pay for the consultation,’ said Joss.
‘It’s all right,’ I told him. ‘I’ll pay. How much is it?’
The answer came back, ‘Four thousand kwatchas. One dollar US.’
‘Okay. We’ll see to that.’
The woman rolled her dead child in its blanket and disappeared into the crowd with her pathetic burden. Wailing broke out, but the anger seemed to have given way to grief. The people began to move off, back into the middle of the village, leaving us alone.
The witch doctor was coming out of his trance. Convulsive shudders ran through his body, and he gave a few loud gasps. Red froth still hung around his mouth, but at last he opened his eyes and looked about, as if trying to get his bearings.
The acolyte, who’d disappeared into the blackness behind him, came out again into the light without his bible, holding a small, pear-shaped bag made of leather, with a draw-string gathering the neck. The witch doctor handed over his horn and giraffe tail, took the bag, then abruptly sank down on his haunches, his knees cracking as they bent. Then he started sweeping the flat of his right hand across the earth floor in front of him. Once again the helper stood at his master’s right shoulder.
A high-pitched humming started up, like the drone of bees. At first I thought it was coming from the helper, then I saw that the witch doctor had his lips pressed tight together as he produced the sound, which had a slight beat in it, so that it seemed to come and go. Shaking the bag, he tweaked the cord at the neck and shook out the contents. With a light, dry pattering about a dozen bones landed on the beaten earth. They were brown with age and use, and must have come from a small animal about the size of a hare.
After a few seconds’ scrutiny, he said something, speaking now in a normal voice, surprisingly deep.
‘Death,’Joss translated. ‘He sees death.’
‘Fucking roll on!’ went Mart under his breath.
‘We’ve had a death already,’ I said.
‘More now.’
‘Who?’
‘Wait.’
After a pause and more humming, the wrinkled old hands gathered the bones, shook them like dice and threw them again, harder than before, so that they clicked on each other and spread out over a wider area of earth. I saw that the man’s right-hand index finger was missing.
This time the pattern seemed to give an immediate answer.
‘Ten will die,’ Joss translated.
‘Ten what?’
‘Ten white persons.’
‘Men?’
‘And women. Either.’
‘Why ten?’
As the questions were relayed through our interpreter, the witch doctor never glanced in our direction, but kept his eyes down, fixed on the bones, his right hand, with its missing finger, stretched out downwards over them. There was a long silence before he gave his next answer.
‘Because the boy was ten years old. One death for every year of his life.’
Mart, who’d been squatting still and silent beside me, suddenly asked, ‘Why’s he putting this spell on us?’
Joss answered that one off his own bat, without translating the question: ‘The spell is not from the sin’ganga. He’s only telling you about it. It is from a fiti, a sorcerer. Very bad man. The sin’ganga can feel the spell coming.’
‘Where’s this fiti then?’
Joss shrugged and gestured outwards into the darkness. ‘He lives in the village, but now I think he is hiding in the bush.’
‘How the hell can he put a spell on us if he hasn’t seen us?’
‘He has seen you. In the past few days he has watched you all. He is a powerful man, very dangerous.’
‘Can’t this guy make up a counter-spell?’ Mart gestured at the witch doctor. ‘Put something on the other bastard?’
I knew the question was meant to be sarcastic, but Joss took it seriously, translated it, and passed back the answer: ‘He will give you medicine, to stop you being witched.’
‘Medicine!’ snorted Mart. ‘Medicine against evil spells? For fuck’s sake!’
I felt just as cynical, but I reckoned this was a game we had to play.
‘Ok
ay,’ I said. ‘I’ll have some. How much will it cost?’
‘Twenty thousand kwatchas. Five dollars.’
‘All right, then.’
I reached into my shirt, going for my money belt, but Joss waved my hand down, and said, ‘No need to pay now. He has to prepare medicine first. He will give it in the morning. Pay then.’
‘Okay. But I’ll pay for the woman, anyway.’ I handed over a one-dollar bill, which the acolyte accepted.
I’d had enough of this mumbo-jumbo, so we pulled out. We left the witch doctor still squatting, still staring fixedly at his bones, and the acolyte sorting little heaps of wood and bark that lay about on the floor. As we pulled away, Phil materialised out of the darkness.
‘What the fuck happened to you?’ I asked.
‘I dunno. Something horrendous.’
‘Feeling of cold?’
‘Like a tomb. I had to get the hell out.’
Back in camp we found that the crowd had dispersed, and there was no immediate threat. The mother of the dead boy had taken his body away. It turned out that the girl with the scratches wasn’t related to him, and had been recovered by some of her own people.
Round the fire again, we broke out a bottle of rum and shot the shit while we had a good slug apiece — all, that is, except Genesis, who stuck to his normal Coke. I felt shaken.
‘What do we reckon to that, then?’ I asked the circle in general. I gave a quick run-down on what had happened, for the benefit of the guys who’d missed it.
‘It all started with that fucking owl,’ said Pavarotti.
‘Did they kill it?’ Chalky asked.
‘Did they hell!’ said Pav. ‘I bet it just cleared off. It probably does a fly-past every night, just to wind the bastards up.’
‘Surely,’ said Genesis, ‘the accident to the kids must have happened before the owl appeared?’
‘I dunno,’ I told him. ‘I reckon the two were much the same time.’
‘Maybe the old owl came to tell us about it,’ Chalky suggested.
‘Bollocks to the owl,’ went Stringer. ‘It’s only a bloody bird, after all.’
‘Those guys were both phoneys,’ Mart declared.
‘Who?’ Genesis asked.
‘The old witch doctor and his mate. The whole thing was just a performance. No disrespect, Gen, but that business with the bible really gave them away. The helper guy never turned a page or anything. Besides, it was far too fucking dark for him to read a word. The book was nothing but a prop. What could the Book of Daniel have to do with the injured kid? If you ask me, the entire show was a load of shite.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It was and it wasn’t. How did the guy know the kid was dying? He couldn’t see him. He never even touched him. He never asked the mother any question. He just knew — at the exact moment, as well.’
‘Lucky guess,’ said Mart.
‘Could have been,’ I agreed. ‘But his timing was spot on.’
‘True.’
‘Another thing,’ I went on. ‘Something touched me on the shoulders when the lamp went out. Something like a big bird, with soft wings.’
‘The owl!’ cried Stringer. ‘To-whit to-bloody-whoo!’
‘Piss off, Stringer,’ I told him. ‘You didn’t feel it. You didn’t get the cold, either. Phil got it, though, didn’t you?’
‘Yeah. And I don’t fucking want it again.’
‘Cold?’ went Pav. ‘What are you on about?’
‘It was like I’d stepped into a freezer,’ I said. ‘I was shaking like I had malaria or something. It made Phil do a runner.’
‘Philip Foster!’ went Whinger in mock horror. ‘Don’t tell me you left your colleagues in the shit.’
‘You’d have shat yourself,’ Phil told him, ‘if you’d felt what I was getting.’
‘Geordie!’ said Whinger, relentlessly. ‘I can’t believe you were bricking it as well.’
‘I was,’ I assured him. ‘I was scared shitless, because I didn’t know what was happening. Brrrrrh!’ I shuddered again. ‘Get that rum moving, for Christ’s sake.’
We passed the bottle round again and sat gazing into the fire.
‘I dunno,’ said Mart. ‘Joss was telling me yesterday that witch doctors’ medicines really work. These guys are herbalists. They get their stuff out of the bush: leaves and roots and bark and things. The point is, for the locals, these are the only drugs that exist. There’s no hospital this side of Chiwembe — not even a clinic. The clinics that do exist don’t have any drugs or trained staff. Joss reckons that without traditional medicine, very few of his mates would have made it to twenty-five.’
‘Come on, Mart,’ went Whinger. ‘You can’t swallow all that crap.’
‘It works,’ Mart insisted, stubbornly. ‘That’s all I’m saying. Maybe a lot of it’s psychological. If you believe in it, you get better.’
‘Yeah,’ went Danny, ‘or you can get witched.’
‘Better not to believe in it,’ said Genesis. ‘If you don’t let it get to you, it can’t do you any harm.’
‘That’s right,’ said Whinger. ‘And for fuck’s sake don’t take any medicine the quack throws you. Don’t give me any, either. Imagine calling up the CO in Hereford and saying, “Boss, I’m dying. I’ve been poisoned by a fucking witch doctor.”’
Everyone laughed. I took a deep breath and got up to kick some pieces of wood towards the centre of the fire.
‘One thing about it,’ I said. ‘There’s only ten of us, and no white women in sight. If ten freak out, there won’t be many left.’
‘Nobody’s going to freak out,’ said Phil, confident and aggressive again, in spite of the fright he’d had. ‘It’s all in the mind.’
If we’d taken a vote on the genuineness of the witch doctor, I reckon it would have gone seven to three against, or possibly six to four. Phil and Mart and myself had all felt that peculiar cold, and Genesis, who was wavering, couldn’t help being fascinated by the fact that the acolyte had wielded a bible.
When I told the guys to watch themselves particularly over the next few days, they gave me some peculiar looks, as if I was going soft in the head. But my own mind was far from easy. I lay looking up at the brilliant stars, thinking of the white powder, done up in a twist of dirty paper, a messenger had brought me. It was a long time before I could go to sleep.
THREE
The Kamangans had a form of reveille that I found spooky but attractive. At 0530 a single hand-drummer would start up, tapping out any rhythm he liked as he went on his round — and since a different man did it every morning, each day’s summons was unique, sometimes quite short, sometimes carrying on for a couple of minutes, until everyone was fully awake.
Next morning, as always, we were up in the dark, but by the time we’d had breakfast in the grey light of dawn, and everyone had got themselves sorted, it was already eight o’clock and the sun was hot. Whinger and I had recced the ambush site and laid out half the pop-up targets the day before; now our task was to show the location to Joss and his section commanders so that they could work out their own plan.
The dry watercourse we’d chosen for the ambush had no name — it didn’t feature on our maps — so for ease of reference we’d called it the Congo. The scenario of Exercise Mantrap was simple. Intelligence sources, it said, had revealed that terrorist forces were planning to come across the border with a shipment of arms: the party would use the earth road that ran roughly east to west along the far bank of our Congo. If the terrorists performed as predicted, they would cross in front of our guys from left to right. Alpha Force’s brief was to intercept and eliminate them in a linear ambush.
We were planning a conventional ambush, with a killer group and and two cut-off parties, right and left, and a Bergen cache which would act as rear protection. At the point we’d selected, the sandy bed of the river was forty metres wide, and the track that ran along the bank was three or four feet above the level of the watercourse. Beyond it lay thick bush. From the h
ome forces’ lying-up position on the near side of the river, the range to the track would be barely a hundred metres — a perfect killing ground. On our side of the river the vegetation was relatively sparse, but the terrain was rough, broken up by banks and dry ditches, so there was plenty of cover for the Kamangans to conceal themselves.
Another feature that confirmed our choice of site was a small hill, no more than a mound, made up of enormous lumps of smooth black volcanic rock, with grass growing between, about fifty metres behind the centre of the killer group’s position.
‘Look at that!’ exclaimed Whinger. ‘What a treasure.’
I knew his rhyming slang well enough to realise he meant ‘made to measure’, and so it was. The mound would make us an ideal tactical headquarters and OP. From there we could oversee the whole of the exercise area; even better, we’d be able to move around a little without causing any disturbance. By crawling away along the grassy hollows among the rocks, we could withdraw on to the back of the hill without being seen, and kip down, one at a time. In deference to the fact that we were in southern Africa, we called the hill the Kopje.
In a line straight across country, the ambush location was no more than six or seven kilometres from camp, but because the direct route was severed by two deep gullies, the only way to drive there was along thirty kilometres of roundabout dirt tracks, and the trip took a good hour. Therefore I decreed that, once we’d finished our planning, the whole of Mantrap would be carried out on foot.
First, though, we needed to ferry out the remaining targets and set them in position, and we had so much kit that we needed to go by vehicle. Whinger, Genesis and I went in one of the pinkies, and the Kamangan O-group followed us in one of their Gaz trucks, bringing a selection of home-made claymore mines loaded with nails and ball-bearings. Joss had two of his junior ruperts and three sergeants with him, so they were quite a crowd. The ruperts looked very young — in their mid-twenties, I guessed — and very nervous. They had note-books and ball-point pens tucked into the breast pockets of their immaculately ironed bush shirts, and were trying to appear efficient, but I could see they felt they were very much on trial.