‘I thought so.’
Joss was back, swaying, no less aggressive. ‘Finished your private conversation yet?’
‘Sure.’ I nodded. ‘If there’s nothing we can do here, we’ll be getting back to camp.’
‘Get back to camp. Stay in camp. I don’t want to see you here any more.’
Did he mean today, or any day? I wasn’t going to ask. I shot Boisset a glance and saw consternation on his face. He, too, was baffled by this head-on hostility.
‘Come on,’ I said to Phil, loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘We’ll have another chat in the morning, when the temperature’s lower.’ Turning to Boisset, I said, ‘Thanks for your help. Be seeing you.’
With that I swung round and walked out. No thank you to Joss, no goodbye. If I’d had FUCK YOU written across my back in big white capitals, my message couldn’t have been clearer. As we headed for the gate I tensed myself, half expecting somebody to open fire on us from behind. Going through the strongpoint I muttered to Phil, ‘The bastards never buried anybody. They must have thrown the bodies in the river.’
Even when we were in dead ground behind the hummocks, I was uncomfortable. Only when the surly boatmen had landed us on the north bank of the river did I start to feel safe.
Reading my thoughts, Phil said, ‘If we sank the pontoon or cut it loose, at least we’d confine the buggers to the far side.’
‘Yeah,’ I went. ‘That might delay them, but it would really strop them up. I can imagine a couple of kamikaze swimmers braving the crocs to come over with special orders to take us out.’
We’d been expecting the resupply that evening; now it wasn’t due until the morning. If a fresh infantry unit had come in, I’d have felt a lot safer: reinforcements might have calmed Joss down and made him feel more secure. As things stood, the situation looked so threatening that I changed our plans. It certainly wasn’t safe to remain where we were: we might easily end up getting our throats cut by our nominal allies. So, instead of staying in camp with the Kamangans, we used the last hour of daylight to hive off our own vehicles and equipment and shift to a new site a kilometre away, higher up the hill. There we set up a defensive position and staked out the approaches with trip-wires.
Ever since our showdown with Joss, my mind had been on the witch doctor and his bones. The death of the South African mercenary brought the score of white casualties to four. I didn’t bring the subject up with any of my mates, because I knew they’d think I was becoming obsessed. All the same, it wouldn’t go away.
With Whinger out of action, we were down to eight fit men. By the time dark fell, I wasn’t the only one feeling apprehensive. We’d put three guys out on stag, watching possible routes to our location, in touch by covert radio to give us early warning of anyone approaching. That left only five to hold a Chinese parliament on what we should do.
Once we’d got some food down our necks, we gathered round Whinger’s cot so that he could join the discussion. With a big piece of gauze stuck over the right side of his face, and his arm and leg swathed in bandages, he showed up well in the dark. He was cursing steadily with the pain, but it chuffed everyone to have him with us.
Pavarotti, Chalky and Mart were on the first stag, so round the prostrate Whinger were Phil, Genesis, Stringer and Danny. The woman had eaten in the back of the seven-tonner, and I’d told her on no account to leave it. The arrangement suited all parties. Without quite putting it into words, she’d managed to give the impression that she didn’t like being at close quarters with a group of dirty, sweaty soldiers. As for us, we were chuffed to have her out of earshot.
‘All right,’ I kicked off. ‘How does anyone feel about binning the task and going home?’
‘Won’t the shit hit the fan if we do?’ Stringer asked.
‘Well, we’re supposed to give Alpha Commando six weeks. We haven’t completed three yet. But because Joss has gone bananas, there’s a strong case for pulling out right away.’
‘What’s wrong with the guy?’ asked Danny.
‘You tell me. He’s on something powerful, for sure.’
‘He’s gone round the fucking bend,’ said Phil. ‘You should have heard him yelling insults.’
‘What did you do to annoy him?’
‘Nothing. That was it.’ Phil was full of indignation. ‘We didn’t give him the slightest hassle. It was as if the battle had got to him. The sight and scent of blood put him right over the edge.’
‘You really think he might send guys to top us?’ Danny sounded incredulous.
‘I wouldn’t put it past him,’ I went. ‘Like Phil says, he wasn’t making sense. He was just mouthing off. But even if he was still on-side, I reckon we’re too bloody close to the war zone to carry on as we have been. In fact, we’re in the war zone. If we carry on any further, we won’t be training the silveries any more, we’ll be fighting their campaign for them.’
‘You’ve got a point,’ Stringer agreed. ‘After today, training’ll be too fucking dangerous. While our attention’s tied up trying to get some discipline into these bastards, we could get attacked.’
‘Yeah,’ went Genesis. ‘Caught with our pants down.’
‘Christ!’ exclaimed Phil. ‘Just as we’re getting to grips with these arseholes of rebels. Why don’t we whack a few more of them?’
‘Come on!’ Gen needled him. ‘You’ve had a good blast-off today. Won’t that satisfy your blood lust for a bit?’
There was silence except for the crickets and the odd shot from the direction of the mine. Then Whinger croaked, ‘It’s unlike you, Geordie, wanting to chicken out.’
‘You didn’t hear Joss carrying on,’ I told him. ‘It was horrific. I’m not chicken. I’m just trying to be realistic.’
‘All right,’ he persisted. ‘So what are we going to do? Tell the Kremlin we don’t like it?’
‘I’m not doing anything unless everyone agrees.’ I looked round the darkened faces. ‘Usual drill. We need a majority verdict. It’s just our silvery friends are starting to behave like fucking apes. If you’d seen them shoot that guy…’
‘Let’s all of us go down in the morning and give Joss a right bollocking,’ Phil suggested.
‘That’d send him totally ballistic.’
‘What if we do carry on?’ Stringer asked. ‘What’s next on the agenda?’
‘When the aircraft comes in with the relief garrison, Joss’s guys are supposed to hand the mine over to them,’ I said. ‘Then, in theory, they’ll be free to move on, and we’re supposed to go with them.’
‘To?’
‘Good question. The next enemy base is reported to be at Kapani. That’s a town about three days south of here. On another river. The objective is the bridge bringing the main road in from the south. If Alpha can capture that, or cut it, they’ll have a stranglehold on the rebels’ main supply route. I was planning to carry on with them at least as far as that.’
‘Help them plan that attack, too,’ went Phil.
‘That’s the obvious option.’
‘And what if we quit?’ Stringer persisted.
‘We piss off back to Mulongwe under our own steam.’
‘HMG wouldn’t like that,’ went Whinger. ‘What if Muende gets the upper hand, takes over the uranium mines and starts shipping the stuff to Gadaffi? Then we’d look a right bunch of pricks.’
‘Too bad,’ I said. ‘What does anyone think?’
Stringer began to say something, but before he got it out Genesis asked, ‘What about the woman? She’s hell-bent on getting to the convent at Msisi.’
‘Don’t I fucking know it,’ I told him. ‘But we can’t head that way. If we’re splitting with Alpha, we need to get our arses away to the north pronto.’