"You are my wild card, Matatu," he said in English. Then in Swahili, he said, "I want you to keep out of sight. Do not let any of the men here see you, except Job and me."
"I bear you, my Bwana."
"Come to me each night as you have tonight. I will have food for you, and I will tell you what to do. In the meantime, watch and tell me all you see."
Matatu went so silently that they heard only the faint rustle of the netting at the entrance as he passed through.
"Will he be all right?" Claudia asked softly. "I worry about him.
He's so cute."
"Of all of us, he is probably the most likely to survive." In the dark, Sean smiled fondly after the little man.
"I'm not sleepy anymore." Claudia snuggled against him like a cat. Much later she whispered, "I'm so glad Matatu woke us UP... it was still dark when Sean turned Job out of his blanket the next morning. "We've got work to do," he told him. While Job laced on his boots, Sean described his meeting with General China' You mean we are now instructors." Job laughed softly. "All we know about those Stingers is what we have read in the manuals."
"That will have to change," Sean told him. "The sooner we get the Shanganes into action, the sooner we are going to get the hell out of here."
"Is that what China told you?" Job raised an eyebrow at Sean.
"Let's get Ferdinand and his boys cracking," Sean said brusquely to cover his own misgivings. well sort them into teams of two men, one to serve the launcher and the other to carry the extra missiles. Of course, the number two must be able to take over if the leader is put down."
Sean pulled out his notebook and drew the candle stump closer, writing in its guttering yellow light.
o get here?" Job stuffed his "When do you expect Alphonso t shirt into the top of his tiger-striped pants.
sometime today, if at all," Sean replied.
"He's the best of the Wnch," Job grunted.
"Ferdinand is not b ad," Sean pointed out, placing their names at the head of the pagE as his section leaders. "Okay, we need thirty names for our number ones, give me some."
It was like the old days working together this way, and Sean found he was beginning to enjoy himself.
As soon as it was light enough, they paraded the men who had returned in the Hercules from the Grand Reef raid. With the two casualties missing, there remained eighteen men under Ferdinand Sean immediately gave Ferdinand a field promotion to full sergeant and was rewarded with a huge grin and a flourishing salute that almost swept Ferdinand off his feet with his own vigor.
Sean had to find something to occupy them and keep them out of the way while he and Job gave themselves a crash course on the Stinger missile system.
"Sergeant." Sean addressed Ferdinand by his rank for the first time. "Do you see that hill over there?" It was just visible through the trees, shaded blue with distance. "Take your men for a run around it and get them back here in two hours. Weapons and full field packs."
As they watched the column of men doubling away, Sean said, "If Alphonso and his lads don't arrive by this evening, we'll have to recruit replacements. That's no problem, however. China will be keen to let us have his very best men. At the moment, we are right at the top of his list of favorite flavors."
"In the meantime let's hit those manuals," Job suggested. "I haven't swatted since varsity days. I'm not looking forward to it."
Claudia joined them in the dugout, helping them sort through the thick red plastic-covered looseleaf manuals, picking out the information relevant to their situation and discarding the vast body of technical data they had no need of, as well as the operational reports and instructions that did not apply to deployment in this altitude and terrain. After two hours" work they had reduced the mass of information to one manageable slim volume.
"All right." Sean stood up. "Let's go find a training ground."
They picked out a spot a few hundred meters downriver from the dugout where the side of a low kopJe formed a natural lecture theater. The tall riverine mahogany trees spread their branches overhead to provide cover from a surprise raid by the Hind gunships. When Ferdinand and his men returned bathed in sweat from their little outing, Sean put them to work clearing the amphitheater of thorn and scrub and digging shell scrapes conveniently close at hand for use when air raids interrupted classes.
"Right," Sean told Job and Claudia. "Now we can uncrate the trainer set and one of the launchers. From now on it's "look and learn,"
"show and tell" time."
When they opened the first crate, Sean discovered that the battery power pack was discharged. However, each crate contained a small charger set with appropriate connections and transformers.
Under Job's supervision Ferdinand and his men carried the power packs up to the headquarters communications center, and at General China's order they were given priority use of the portable 220-volt, 15-kilowatt generator. Sean connected up the power packs in batches of five, but it would take twenty-four hours before they had power available for all the missile launchers.
With the batteries on charge they laid out the trainer set and one of the launchers on the makeshift table Ferdinand had built on the floor of the open-air theater under the trees. While Claudia read aloud from the instruction manual, Sean and Job stripped and reassembled the equipment until they were thoroughly familiar with all of it.
Sean was relieved and pleased to discover that with the exception of the IFF, the operation of the equipment was not a great deal more complicated than the conventional RPG-7 rocket launchers. The RPG-7 was so much a part of the guerrilla arsenal that, as Job remarked, every single man in China's division could load and lock it on a pitch dark night in a thunderstorm.