It was a long shot, but at that moment, it was all he had.
Chapter Thirteen
Tuesday 8 October 2013
The barest sliver of a crescent moon offered the only illumination as the party stopped short of the first row of houses representing the outskirts of Selena, which lay in silence a few hundred yards away. According to one of the soldiers who had relatives in the area, there were approximately forty dwellings in all. Smart gathered the men round and they took a knee, a few blowing hard from the rigorous journey.
‘Jeff, take two men and set up a couple of sentinels along the side of the track. Use a mixture of live and blank ammo. If they come through this way, we’ll make them think we’re moving west.
‘Carl and I will go through the back and provide covering fire, while the rest of you clear the houses. It needs to be fast and quiet. Send them this way and keep them moving. If anyone objects, you leave them and move onto the next house.’
Before anyone could respond, Smart turned and jogged towards the buildings, Levine in close support. The rest followed, fanning out as they entered the communal square and starting with the houses nearest to the approaching—though as yet unseen—enemy.
At the rear of the outlying buildings, Smart and Levine hit a wall of darkness. They pushed on, putting a hundred yards between themselves and the hamlet, watching and listening intently for the slightest sign of their foe.
It wasn’t long in coming.
The horizon seemed to shimmer as first tens, then hundreds of heads appeared above the bush line, advancing menacingly towards the settlement. Smart reckoned they had four minutes at the most, and he ordered Levine to follow him as he retreated. Back among the buildings he searched out Johnny, who was organising the evacuation.
‘How many left?’
‘Maybe one more minute,’ Okeke said. ‘We are clearing the last of the houses now.’
Levine gestured for the men to get a move on, urging them to get their charges out of the area as quickly as possible. Many of the villagers were doing as they were told, but the sound of raised voices came from a nearby house, and Smart went to investigate.
Inside, he found two soldiers arguing with a woman, who was clutching two young children to her chest. They looked no more than four years old, one boy and one girl, both terrified at being woken up at such an early hour by armed men.
‘What’s the problem?’ Smart asked one of the local soldiers.
‘She is refusing to leave. She says this is her home and she won’t abandon it to anyone.’
The woman was in her late thirties, Smart guessed, which meant she had the right to make her own decision. The kids, however, were a different matter. They couldn’t appreciate the dangers they were facing, and he couldn’t leave them with a mother who valued her humble dwelling above the lives of her children.
Smart had read enough about the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 to know that kids weren’t given any special dispensation in tribal disputes, which is what this was looking like. Close to a million Rwandans had been slaughtered, a large number of them children, and eyewitness accounts suggested bad things were in store for these two if he didn’t get them out of the area sharpish.
He explained the need to move, but the woman responded in her native tongue.
‘We haven’t got time for this,’ he said, turning to one of the soldiers. ‘Tell her these people will chop her children’s arms and legs off and disembowel them in front of her if she stays here. She’s got five seconds to get moving or I shoot her and take the kids.’
The message was relayed and the woman stared at him wide-eyed, turning slowly to face Smart.
‘One!’
She gripped the children closer and let rip another stream of incomprehensible howls.
‘Two!’
The soldier shouted back, gesturing towards Smart and shaking his rifle in an effort to reinforce the fate that awaited her if she didn’t comply.
‘Three!’
The woman stared at Smart, defiant in the face of death, her anger palpable. She spoke slowly, deliberately, and although Smart couldn’t understand the words, the message was clear.
‘Four!’
He raised his rifle and aimed between her eyes, but the mother remained resolute. She pushed the children aside and spread her arms wide, eyes closed as she awaited her fate.
Smart weighed her up and made his decision.
‘Five!’
He took a step towards her and reversed his grip on the rifle before clubbing her to the side of the head. She collapsed, dazed, and he ordered the soldiers to carry her out. The youngsters started crying; Smart shouldered his weapon and grabbed one of them around the waist, using his other hand to cover the boy’s mouth. He left the house and ordered two more soldiers to go in and help with the mother and daughter.
The woman was brought out, her feet dragging the ground as she was half-carried through the streets, Smart and her son in tow. They were the last to reach the dirt road out of the village, and he handed the child off to another soldier, urging him onwards and into the darkness that would provide them with a little protection, though not for long.
Campbell came to the rear of the formation to update Smart on the retreat.
‘We’ve got over a hundred non-combatants, and several are going to find the going tough. I’ve ordered the able-bodied to help as much as they can, but it’ll still be slow going.’
For the moment, that was all they could do. The priority, though, was getting out of the area.
‘What about the defences?’ Smart asked.
‘The sentinels are set up and we’ve got remote control and video enabled. Once they reach the kill zone we’ll keep them busy while we open up a lead on them.’
Smart nodded. The rendezvous point was a dense area of jungle to the north-east, and they would head through that while the enemy were pinned down from the west. On their own, they’d be clear of the area in no time, but with their new charges, he knew it was going to be a game of cat and mouse until they were out of the danger zone.
There was no time to try to reach the other village. To do so would be suicidal, and the locals would have to fare as best they could on their own. Many, if not all, would die, but Smart and his team had their own responsibilities now. He watched the line of humanity as it snaked into the darkness, and he and Campbell took up the tail position, their eyes and ears focused on the rear for signs of pursuit.
They didn’t have to wait long.
The first they heard was shouting as the frustrated attackers found the buildings empty, followed by a mounting rumble as a multitude of feet jogged down the dirt path in search of the inhabitants.
Smart and Campbell urged the tail-enders forward and ran back fifty yards so that they could see the dirt trail from the edge of the forest. The first of the enemy came into sight, wearing a mishmash of civilian clothes and army fatigues. Some carried AK-47s, though most wielded blades of varying lengths. The one thing all had in common was the desire to use their weapons on someone.
Campbell switched the display of the remote control to red-light mode so that it didn’t give their position away, and once he had a couple of hundred people in the kill zone he toggled the screen and activated each of the sentinel devices.
The weapons opened up and the reaction was instant. A couple took hits from the live rounds, but the majority dropped to the ground and began returning fire. Campbell used the on-board cameras to target those with rifles, though he was frustrated by not knowing if the next round was live or blank. At least it kept them pinned down, and every passing second meant the friendlies managed another yard towards safety.
‘We’ll give them a five-minute head start, then set the sentinels to automatic and follow them,’ Smart whispered.
Campbell nodded agreement, but the plan was blown out of the water moments later. From further up the trail, one of the villagers lost her footing in the pitch darkness, twisting her ankle and letting out a scream as
she fell.
One of the Kanto turned towards the sound, and pointed up the trail into the trees, shouting orders to others who began opening up at nothing in particular. One or two rounds flew too close to Smart for comfort. As he was trying to decide whether to engage them, he saw a few men heading his way.
His mind made up, he told Campbell to switch the sentinels to automatic and catch up with the others. ‘I’ll keep them busy for a while. You get the tail-enders to form a defensive line a few hundred yards in. Just make sure they hold their fire when I come through.’
Campbell slapped him on the back and disappeared into the night while Smart picked the first of his targets. Like Campbell, he initially selected those carrying firearms as they posed the most immediate threat, and when he squeezed off the first round he saw his target stagger and eventually fall. Rather than halting them, it seemed to galvanise the horde, and they soon turned their attention on him. Thankfully, their aim was poor, though he knew one lucky round could ruin his day.
As each of his bullets brought another man down, ten more took his place, until hundreds were advancing on Smart’s position. They seemed to sense that they faced a lone gunman, and fancied their chances based on safety in numbers.
Smart knew it was time to bug out. After his first clip ran dry he inserted the other and fired off a quick salvo before sprinting deeper into the trees. Bullets whizzed through the air, striking trees and shredding branches all around him as he ran at a crouch towards the safety of his own lines.
It was two agonising minutes before he came across Campbell, who was waiting to lead him back to the others.
‘I thought I’d better escort you in,’ Campbell said. ‘The guys are so jumpy, if you’d come tearing in they’d have cut you in half.’
‘They’ll get some targets soon enough,’ Smart said. ‘I reckon we’ve got about a minute to get our shit sorted.’
Campbell called out a password, which was answered immediately, and having been identified, they walked for twenty yards before he signalled for Smart to halt, pointing to the ground.
‘I’ve set up flares,’ he said, indicating the fine wire stretched across the narrow track. Both men stepped over it and trotted another forty yards before taking their place along the defensive line. Campbell had the ten troops spread out with at least eight yards between each man, giving them a large enough field of fire that they didn’t hit their own during a staggered retreat.
Everyone was told to hold their fire until Campbell gave the signal, and the two instructors prayed that the men would heed the instructions. The last thing they needed was a trigger-happy maverick giving the game away.
A faint tat-tat-tat sound permeated the forest, and Smart cursed his luck as he noted the change in weather. A fat raincloud had drifted over their position and begun depositing its load. The rain would cause him only minor discomfort, but he was concerned that the going underfoot would slow down the main body of the party as they tried to escape the area. He had to give them more time, which wouldn’t be easy with just a dozen men and thirty rounds of ammunition each.
He didn’t have time to reflect on the situation as all extraneous thoughts left his head when the first of the silhouettes came running down the path, closely followed by the next wave. Smart could make out the occasional profile of a machete, but he was more concerned with the AK-47s bearing down on them.
The point man was fifty yards out. Smart held his breath, determined to wait until he reached the trip wire.
Just as he’d feared, one of his men opened up early, setting off a chain reaction as the rest began spraying the area with long bursts of automatic fire.
‘Single rounds!’ Smart screamed, but no-one was listening. Now the enemy had gone to ground, and the battle immediately became one of attrition. A dozen men against hundreds, and with ammunition pitifully low and running out fast.
Time to disappear.
‘Pull back!’
He looked over at Campbell and gestured for him to take the first wave with him, while the rest provided covering fire.
‘Even numbers, fall back now!’ Campbell screamed above the noise, and four of the five men followed his instructions, one deciding to stay and continue the fight. Campbell retreated fifteen yards and spun round to offer covering fire while the front rank leapfrogged them.
‘Len, go!’
Smart ordered the others to follow him and he sprinted past Campbell for another fifteen yards before throwing himself to the ground, looking for the next target. Two of his men continued past him, their weapons empty. It was turning into a clusterfuck, with death only minutes away.
He held his fire, waiting for another clear shot, when the man next to him took a bullet to the shoulder, his screams drowning out the chatter of gunfire. Smart ignored him and continued to search for his next hit, managing to take down a man who’d stepped just a little too far away from the tree he was using as cover.
Another figure appeared in his sights, and he squeezed the trigger.
Click.
Smart threw down the empty rifle and crabbed his way over to the screaming soldier. The man thought he was going to get some first aid but Smart rolled him onto his front and grabbed the rifle he’d been lying on. The man cried out in pain but Smart was already looking for his next target.
If they made it out alive, then perhaps he’d apologise.
Outgoing fire dwindled rapidly as Campbell pulled his men back, and soon Smart was the only one putting up any kind of fight. A bad day got even worse when he spotted someone carrying a long tube on their shoulder. He immediately recognised it as a Soviet-built RPG-7. Though primarily used as an anti-tank weapon, the rocket-propelled grenade could do a lot of damage to ground forces.
He got a bead on the man holding the launcher and took him out with a bullet to the chest, but the weapon was quickly retrieved by another. Smart once more aimed for centre mass, but again the firing pin fell on an empty chamber.
By this time, all of the fire was incoming. He scrambled to his feet, ordering a swift retreat as he ran. Bullets chased them through the trees, one of them catching the man to Smart’s right.
A crump resonated through the trees, and Smart awaited the inevitable, but the round thankfully fell well short.
Crump!
Crump!
More explosions landed, each one further away than the last, and as Smart turned he saw a round take out a dozen of their attackers, the fountain of dirt and flames sending bodies flying in all directions. Small arms fire erupted behind him and Smart swivelled to see Sonny and a dozen others joining the fray.
Sonny ran to Smart, weapon up. He handed over a couple of magazines and began picking off those who still fancied taking on the light artillery. As more men collected ammunition and rejoined the fight, the battle swung their way. The enemy had been emboldened by the lack of resistance, but the introduction of the mortars was a game-changer. Coupled with the resumed small arms fire, it was enough to make the marauders fall back and regroup.
Once the sound of incoming rounds died away, Smart ordered everyone to pull back and catch up with the main party. Three men had fallen; their bodies were collected while the more seriously wounded were treated at the scene. The walking wounded would receive first aid once they had some breathing space, during which time the dead would be buried. Smart wanted to leave them where they lay, but the local custom dictated that the bodies be laid to rest in a proper and decent manner, and the Malundian soldiers refused to leave them behind.
Acquiescing, Smart took up the rear with Sonny and put Levine and Campbell on point with instructions to make it a decent pace.
‘You cut that a little fine.’
‘Sorry,’ Sonny smiled, ‘we stopped off for a burger on the way back.’
With the tension of battle dissipating, Smart managed a chuckle, glad his friend had turned up while he still had all his limbs.
‘We got to the RV point but you weren’t there, so we thought we’d come a
nd find you in case you needed help.’
‘Good thing you did,’ Smart conceded. ‘We were down to rocks and harsh words. Did you pass my main party on the way?’
‘Yeah, they’re about a click away and moving fast. Amazing how the sound of a firefight can spur people on.’
‘I hope they can keep it up,’ Smart said. ‘The sooner we get out of this country, the better.’
Chapter Fourteen
Tuesday 8 October 2013
Sese Obi slumbered as best he could in the back of the Land Rover as his convoy rested up thirty miles inland, the initial assault having gone exactly as he’d planned. His men had taken out the two border posts with ease and had moved up country while the foot soldiers swept through, destroying anything in their path. The power station was spared, though the majority of workers had been killed; only the most important technicians saved in order to keep it operational. When the time came, power to the capital would be cut, as would the water supply. The latter facility had yet to be taken, but he was confident it would fall into his hands later in the day.
The troops in the south had been rousted and were fleeing north, but there had been a report of a small pocket of resistance that was being hunted down. It was a minor setback, and one that hadn’t troubled him until he was shaken awake by his lieutenant, Baako.
‘Sir, Kgosi has called in.’
Baako would not have disturbed him for something as trivial as a progress report, so it had to be an urgent matter. Obi came instantly awake.
‘What is the problem?’
‘We lost over two hundred men near Selena. The village had been cleared out and our forces came under attack when they tried to track them down. The stories we heard about abazungu training the Agbi appear to be correct. At least one was seen before our men had to break off the attack.’
The fact that white men were among the defending numbers didn’t concern Obi. Rather, it was the decision to disengage that brought his anger to the surface.
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