To foreshorten the exchange, as I did not like the new tone in his voice, I said: “O.K.”
“You’ve got the rifle,” he went on. “Use it, if that’s what you want.”
He and the other two men started back across the field in the direction of the houses.
“I’ll catch you up,” I said. “I’m going to see what I can do.”
No one replied.
It took only a matter of seconds to establish that what Lateef had said was substantially true. There was no way of freeing the Afrim. Inside, his voice kept lifting and dropping, interrupted by sudden intakes of breath. If I’d had a torch I would have been tempted to shine it inside and look again at him. As it was, I was relieved not to be in the position to do so. Instead, I ran the barrel of the rifle into the space, and aimed it in the approximate direction the man’s face had been.
And paused.
I had no wish to shoot him, any emotion in me having been expended by the act of shooting at the helicopter in the first place. The fact that I was confronted with an Afrim — and that it was barely conceivable that this man may be connected indirectly with those men who had abducted Sally and Isobel — was irrelevant. Practical considerations, such as that I might attract the attention of other troops in the area with the sound of the shot, were similarly unconsidered. The fact was that the physical act of pulling the trigger and killing the man was too positive an act … one in which my commitment would be affirmed.
And yet the humane instinct in me, which had kept me here originally, argued that to kill the man quickly would be marginally better than to leave him here to die.
A final thought was that I had no way of knowing how badly he may be injured. He would be discovered in the morning, and if still alive then would perhaps have his life saved. If this were a possibility, any arbitrary act I made here would be inappropriate.
I pulled the rifle out, stood up, and stepped back two paces. Then I lifted the barrel and fired two shots into the air.
The voice inside the wreckage stopped.
Within two years of Sally’s birth my relationship with Isobel had virtually disintegrated. We learned to suffer one another; growing to dislike the sound of each other’s voice, the sight of each other’s face, the touch of our backs against each other as we lay in bed. My friend explained that the purpose of the new laws was not to persecute the African immigrants but to protect them. He said that the government took the view that they were essentially at our mercy, and that we should treat them as temporary dependants rather than as unwelcome intruders. The population of the country should not be panicked into unconsidered actions by the sight of one or two aliens who may be armed. As illegal immigrants they could only act outside the law for as long as it took the law to apprehend them. This was the whole purpose of the new Order Act.
I argued that I had heard many stories of persecution, of rape, murder and abduction. There was the well-publicized Gorton torture case, in which ten African women had been systematically degraded, raped, mutilated and finally murdered.
My friend agreed with me and said that this was precisely the kind of atrocity which the new Act was intended to prevent. By restricting the rights and movements of the aliens, they would be afforded a greater degree of official protection provided they themselves submitted to the various regulations. The fact that so far the majority of the Afrims had rejected this protection was only a further indication of their essential alienness.
My friend went on to remind me of John Tregarth’s early political career, when, even as an Independent back-bencher, he had made a name for himself by his commendable policies of patriotism, nationalism and racial purity. It was a measure of his sincerity that he had held to his views even during the temporary phase of neo-liberal xenophilia before the beginning of the emergency. Now he had risen to high office, the nation would see that its far-sightedness in electing his party into government would be rewarded.
I said that I was under the impression that Tregarth had come to power through the sponsorship of various business interests which had undertaken the expense of the campaign.
Again my friend agreed with me, pointing out that it is an expensive business to create an entirely new political party. The fact that they had been defeated at only one general election before taking office was further evidence of their immense popularity.
I argued that it was only through creating a rift in the existing Opposition that Tregarth had acquired any following at all.
We lapsed into silence for a while, knowing that political differences can damage friendship if not discussed amicably. I did not care for the way in which the present situation was affecting my own life. I had thought my days of political participation ended when I finished my studies, but now I was able to see with my own eyes the human effects of political extremism.
My friend reminded me that Tregarth had come to power several months before the Afrim situation began, and that there was no question of racial discrimination in the way the emergency was now being handled. A difficult set of circumstances must be dealt with firmly, and for all the declared humanitarian motives expressed from some quarters, the fact remained that the Afrims were hostile and dangerous aliens and must be treated as such.
I caught up with Lateef and the other two in the village, and we moved on in the direction of the wood. Lateef said nothing about the man inside the helicopter. I had evidently overrated the importance of the incident.
As we came out of the village and joined the main road that ran through the wood, one of the older men who had gone with Collins came up to us excitedly.
“In the wood! Collins says it’s there!”
“What is?” said Lateef.
“He sent me to get you. We’ve found them.”
Lateef pushed past him and walked quickly in the direction of the flames. As I followed, I glanced at my wristwatch, holding up the face to catch what little light I could from the moon. It was barely possible to make out the time: it was half past three. I was getting more tired with every minute and could not see us setting up another camp within the next hour. We had found that it was hazardous to try to sleep during the day, unless we were able to find somewhere well concealed.
As we came to the edge of the wood I found my lungs filling with smoke. The flavour of it was not one I was familiar with and appeared to be a composite of many fires. Overriding it all, though, was the stench of cordite; the flavour of war, the stink of a spent cartridge.
We approached the scene of the ambush. A heavy agricultural lorry had been parked broadside across the road. Twenty yards from it was the wreck of the leading truck of the convoy. It had received at least one direct hit from the rockets of the gunships, and it was scarcely recognizable as having once been a vehicle. Behind it were the wrecks of several more: I counted only seven, though afterwards I heard Lateef say that there had been twelve. How he had access to this information, I do not know. At any rate, there were four trucks still burning. To each side of the road, shrubbery had been ignited by the explosions and the smoke from this joined with that of the vehicles. There was not much wind, and in the region of the trucks the air was virtually unbreathable.
I stood with Lateef. We were trying to discern on which side the trucks had been; in this undeclared civil war, the opposing forces rarely displayed colours and it was unusual to see any kind of vehicle bearing identification-marks. Logically, the trucks had been driven by Nationalist or Loyalist troops, as the helicopters had been shown to be piloted by the Afrims, but there was no way of telling for certain. I thought the trucks looked as if they had been American, but neither of us was sure.