In addition to his own casualties, Sean's men had captured eight suspected officers and commissars. The guerrilla leaders wore no insignia of rank but could usually be identified by the superior quality of their clothing, by their sunglasses, wristwatches, and the rows of ball-point pens in their breast pockets.
They had too many passengers for the helicopters, and Sean was forced to keep some of his prisoners with him for the outward march. He picked those who looked fit enough to survive a forced march with the Scouts. One of these was the man they had captured in the command hut.
Forty-five minutes after the attack had begun, the last helicopter took off and the Scouts were ready to move out. They could expect the Frelimo counterattack to be dilatory and unenthusiastic, but Sean was taking no chances. He was on the riverbank surveying the carnage of the killing ground. They couldn't afford the time to make a body count, but the air force would run another reconnaissance later this morning and they would get a fair estimate from the photographs.
"Must be at least fifteen hundred" Sean decided. They were lying in heaps and windrows like newly cut wheat, and already the flies were hanging over them in a gray mist.
Sean turned away from the scene. "All right," he called. "Move them out!"
The first section of fifty men set off at a trot. The troop trucks would race across the border and come in as far as they could to meet them, but the men would still have to run thirty miles or more before they could ride, a full marathon under arms. But most of their ammunition had been shot away and their packs were almost empty.
Job hurried across to where Sean stood on the bank. "The prisoner you took, Colonel. I have recognized him. It's Comrade China himself."
"Are you sure?" Sean did not wait for Job to reply. "Damn, if I had known I would have sent him out on the chopper."
Comrade China was high on the wanted list of the Rhodesians.
He was the area commander of the entire northeastern sector, the equivalent of a major general and one of their most successful commanders, a man with a lot of interesting stories to tell to military intelligence.
"Make sure he gets out safely, Captain," Sean ordered brusquely. "Treat him like your new wife."
"China refuses to march," Job said. "We can't shoot him, and we can't carry him. He knows that."
under guard, Sean strode across to where the prisoner was held squatting sullenly with his hands behind his head.
"On your feet and march," Sean ordered. Comrade China spat on Sean's boots. Sean unbuckled his holster and drew the.357 Magnum revolver. He laid it against the side of the man's head.
"On your feet," he repeated. "Your last chance."
"You won't shoot," the man sneered. "You daren't shoot." And Sean fired, The muzzle was aimed over Comrade China's shoulder, but the barrel was pressed hard against his ear.
Comrade China screamed and clutched at his ear with both hands. A thin trickle of blood from his ruptured eardrum ran out between his fingers. "On your feet!" Sean said and still holding his damaged ear, Comrade China spat at him again. Sean laid the revolver barrel against his other ear. "After your ears, we will take out your eyes, with a sharp stick." Comrade China stood up.
At the double, move out." Job took over. He placed his hand between China's shoulder blades and sent him tottering down the riverbank.
Sean took one more look around the battlefield. it had been done swiftly and thoroughly, what the Scouts called "a good kill."
"All right, Matatu," Sean said softly. "Let's go home." And the little Ndorobo ran ahead of him.
When Comrade China faltered and his knees went rubbery and he collapsed from the agony of his burst eardrum, Sean gave him a subcutaneous shot of morphine from a disposable syringe and a drink from his water bottle.
"For a soldier of the revolution who shoots babies and chops the feet off old women, this is a stroll in the park," Sean told him.
Brace up, China, or I'll blow your other ear out." And he took one of China's elbows and Job the other. Between them they hoisted him to his feet and half carried him until the morphine had a chance to work, but they kept up the pace of the running column of Scouts through the forest and over the rolling rocky hills.
"You may have killed some of our people today." After a mile or so the morphine was working and China became loquacious.
"Today you have won a single little battle, Colonel Courtney, but tomorrow we will have won the war." China's voice was harsh with bitter self-righteousness.
"How do you know my name?" Sean asked with amusement.
"You are famous, Colonel, or should I say infamous. Under you, this pack of killer dogs is even more dangerous than when the murderous Ballantyne himself was leading it."
"Thank you for the pretty compliment, my old China, but aren't you claiming victory a little prematurely?"
"The side which controls the countryside by night wins the war.
"Mao Tse-tung." Sean smiled. "A most appropriate quotation for one of your kind."
"We control the Countryside at last, we have you bottled up in your villages and towns. Your white farmers are losing heart, their women are sick of war. The black peasants are openly sympathetic to our cause. Britain and the world are against you. Even South Africa, your only ally, is growing disenchanted with the struggle.
Soon, very soon..
They argued as they ran, and despite himself Sean could not suppress a grudging admiration for his prisoner. He was quick witted his command of English impressive and his grasp of politics and military tactics even more so. He was physically strong and fit.