Twice they passed burned-out villages. The cultivated lands around them had gone back to weeds, the black ashes blowing in the wind.
Sean pointed at the ruins. "Renamo?" he asked.
His captors were outraged. "Not Not" the sergeant told him.
"Frehmo! Frehmo!" He tapped his own chest. "Me Renamo," he boasted, then pointed at his men. "Renamo! Renamo!"
"Renarno!" they agreed proudly.
"Well, that settles that." Sean laughed. "Frelimo. Bang! Bang!"
He made the gestqire of shooting a Frelimo and they were delighted, joining'in the pantomime of slaughter enthusiastically.
Their attitude toward him improved even further, and at their next meal the sergeant handed him an extra-large cut of rotten meat.
While he ate it, they openly discussed his performance to date, agreeing that he was acquitting himself admirably.
"But," the sergeant asked, "he can run and we know he can kill men, but can he kill a hen shaw
Henshaw was the Shangane word for a falcon. Sean had heard them use it many times over the last five days of their trek. Each time they had said the word, they had looked up at the sky with a troubled expression. Now once again at the mention of that bird, they looked unhappy and reflexively glanced upward, "General China thinks so," the sergeant went on. "But who knows, who knows?"
By now Sean was confident that his position was fairly secure.
His relationship with the band would allow him to take the first liberty and force a resolution of this trial by attrition.
On the next stage he began to force the pace. Instead of keeping his station in the file of trotting men two paces behind the Shangane sergeant who led the column, he closed up until he was running on his heels, not quite touching him with each stride, exaggerating his breathing so the sergeant could feel it on the back of his thick sweaty back. Instinctively the sergeant lengthened his own stride and Sean matched him, keeping close, too close, and pushing him.
The sergeant glanced over his shoulder irritably. Sean grinned at him, breathing into his face. The sergeant's eyes narrowed slightly as he realized what was happening. Then he grinned back at Sean and extended his stride into a full run.
"That's it, my friend," Sean said in English. "Now let's see whose tail wags."
The rest of the column had fallen behind. The sergeant called a sharp order to close up, and they went away at a killing pace.
Within an hour there were only three of them left, the others straggled back over a mile of the forest floor. Ahead of them the path climbed a steep incline to the crest of another tableland.
Sean moved up slightly until he was running shou to shoulder with the tall sergeant, but when he tried to pull ahead the man kept up with him. The hillside was so steep that the path went up it in a series of hairpins. The sergeant forged ahead of Sean at the first bend, but Sean caught him and passed him on the straight.
They ran at the top of their speed now, the lead changing back and forth between them, and the third man dropped out before they were halfway up the hillside. They ran grimly in a wash of sweat, their breathing harsh as the exhaust of a steam engine.
Suddenly Sean darted off the path, scrambling straight upward, cutting across the bend and coming out fifty feet ahead of the Shangane. The sergeant shouted angrily at this ruse and cut the next bend himself. Now both of them abandoned the pathway and ran straight up the steep slope, jumping over boulders and roots like a pair of blue kudu bulls in flight.
Sean came out on the crest three feet in front of the sergeant, threw himself down on the hard earth, and rolled onto his back, moaning for breath. The sergeant dropped down beside him with his breath sobbing in his chest. After a minute Sean sat up uncertainly, and they stared at each other in awe.
Then Sean began to laugh. It was a harsh painful cackle, but after a few seconds the Shangane laughed with him, though clearly each gust of laughter was an agony. Their laughter grew stronger as their lungs regained function, and when the rest of the party struggled to the crest of the hill they found them still sitting in the grass beside the track, roaring at each other like a pair of lunatics.
When the march resumed an hour later, the sergeant left the endless footpath and struck off cross-country toward the west. At last there was direction and purpose in the way he led the column.
Sean realized the trial was over.
Before dark they ran into a Renamo fine of permanent defenses.
They were entrenched along the bank of a wide but sluggish river that flowed green between sandbars and around water polished boulders. The dugouts and trenches were reverted with logs and sandbags and meticulously camouflaged against aerial discovery. There were mortars and heavy machine guns dug in, with commanding fields of fire across the river and sweeping the northern bank.
Sean had the impression these fortifications were extensive, and he guessed this was the perimeter of a large military area, certainly battalion and possibly even division strength. Once they had crossed the river and been passed through the defenses, Sean's appearance in the ranks of his escort created a stir of interest.
Off-duty troopers turned out of their dugouts and crowded around them, and his captors clearly enjoyed the elevated status a white prisoner bestowed upon them.
The crowd of interested and jocular onlookers abruptly thinned and parted as a tubby, bespectacled officer strode through them.
Sean's escort saluted him with theatrical flourishes, which he returned by touching the Min of his maroon beret with the tip of his swagger stick.