"We will go into extended line," Tungata told them, "and sweep along the line of bearing." "Comrade Commissar, if we stay too late, we will not be able to reach the river tomorrow. The kanka will be here at first light," one of his men pointed out diffidently.
"We will find the wreck," Tungata said. "Do not even" think otherwise. That is why we have done this. To lay a trail for the kanka to follow. Now let us begin the search." They moved like grey wolves through the forest, Tungata keeping them in line and on direction with a code of bird whistles like those of a nightjar. They went southwards for twenty minutes by his watch, and then he pivoted his line, and they went back, moving silently, bowed under their packs, but with the AK 47 rifles held at high port across their chests.
Twice more Tungata pivoted his line, and they searched back and forth, and the minutes drained away. It was past nine O'clock, there was a limit to how much longer he dared remain in the area of the wreck. His man had been right. First light would bring the avengers swarming out of the skies.
"One hour more," he told himself aloud. "We will search one hour more." Yet he knew that to leave without laying a hot scent for the jackals to follow was to abandon the most important part of the operation. He had to entice Ballantyne and his kanka to the killing ground that he had chosen so carefully. He had to find the wreck, and leave something there for the kanka that would madden them, that would bring them rushing after him without regard to any of the consequences.
He heard the helicopter then, still far off, but coming back swiftly. Then he saw the glow of its landing-lights on the tree-tops, and he gave the signal to put his line into cover. The helicopter passed within half a kilo metre of where they lay. Its glaring eye confused and jumbled up the shadows beneath the trees, making them run across the forest floor like ghostly fugitives.
Abruptly the light was quenched, but the memory of it left a hot red spot on the retina of Tungata's eyeballs. They listened to the engine beat dwindle, and then Tungata whistled his men to their feet, and they went forward once more. Within two hundred paces Tungata stopped again, and sniffed the dank cold air of the forest.
Wood smoke! His heart jumped against his ribs, and he gave the soft warbling bird-call that presaged danger. He slipped out of the shoulder-straps of his heavy backpack and lowered it gently to earth.
Then the line went forward again, moving lightly and silently. Ahead of Tungata something large and pale loomed from the darkness. He flicked his flashlight on. It was the nose-section of the Viscount, the wings sheared off it, the fuselage shattered. It lay on its side, so that he could flash his beam through the windscreen into the cockpit. The dead crew were still strapped into their seats. Their faces were bloodless pale, their eyes staring and glassy.
The line of guerrillas moved on quickly down the swath that the machine had hacked from the forest for itself. It was strewn with wreckage and debris, with clothing from the burst luggage-hold, with books and newspapers that fluttered aimlessly in the small night breeze. In the litter, the corpses seemed strangely peaceful and relaxed. Tungata turned his flashlight into the face of a grey-haired middleaged woman. She lay on her back with no visible injury.
Her skirts were' tucked modestly down below her knees, and her hands relaxed at her sides. However, her false teeth had been flung from her mouth and it gave her the look of an ancient crone.
He passed her and went on. His men were stopping every few paces to hunt swiftly through the clothing of the dead, or to examine an abandoned handbag or briefcase. Tungata wanted a live one. He needed a live one, and the dead were scattered all about him.
"The smoke, "he whispered. "I smelled smoke." And then ahead of him, at the very edge of the forest line, he saw a pretty little flower of flame, flickering and wavering in the gentle movement of-air. He changed his grip on the rifle and slipped the selector onto semi-automatic fire. From the shadows he searched the area around the fire carefully and then stepped up to it. His jungle boots made no sound.
There was a woman lying beside the fire. She wore a thin yellow skirt, but it was stained with blood and dirt. The woman lay with her face in her arm. Her whole body was racked with gasping sobs. Her one leg below the skirt was roughly bound up with wooden splints and field bandages. Slowly she raised her head. In the feeble firelight her eyes were dark as those of a skull, and the pale skin, like her clothing, was smeared with blood and dirt. She raised her head very slowly until she was looking up at him, and then words came tumbling out of her swollen lips.
"Oh, thank you, God," she blurted, and began to crawl towards Tungata, the leg slithering along behind her. "Oh, thank you. Help me!" Her voice was so hoarse and broken that he could barely understand the words. "My leg is broken please help me!" She reached out and clasped his ankle.
"Please," she blubbered, and he squatted down beside her. "What is your name?" he asked very gently, and his tone touched her, but she could not think could not even remember her own name.
He started to stand, but she reached out in dreadful fear of being left alone again. She seized his hand.
"Don't go, please! My name, - I'm Janine Ballantyne." He patted her hand, almost tenderly, and he smiled. The quality of that smile warned her. It was savagely, joyfully triumphant. She snatched her hand away and pushed herself to her knees. She looked wildly about her. Then she saw the other dark figures that crowded out of the night around her. She saw their faces, the white gleam of teeth as they grinned down at her. She saw the guns in their-hands and the glittering stare in their eyes.
"You," she gasped. "It's you!" "Yes, Mrs. Ballantyne,"Tungata said softly. "it is us He stood up and spoke to the men about him. "I give her to you. She is yours. Use her but do not kill her. On your own lives, do not kill her I want to leave her here alive." Two of the men stepped forward and seized Janine's wrists. They dragged her away from the fire, behind the tail-section of the wreckage. The other comrades laid down their rifles and followed them. They were laughing and bickering quietly over the order of preference and beginning to loosen their clothing.
At first the screams from the darkness were so shrill and harrowing that Tungata turned away and squatted over the fire, feeding it with twigs to distract himself, but very soon there were no more screams, only the soft sound of sobbing, and the occasional sharper cry immediately muffled.
It went on for a long time, and Tungata's early disquiet was submerged and controlled. There was no passion or lust in this thing.
It was an act of violence, of extreme provocation to a deadly enemy, an act Of war, without guilt or compassion, and Tungata was a warrior.
One by one his men came back to the fire, adjusting their clothing. Strangely, they were subdued and stony-faced.
"Is it over?" Tungata looked up, and one of them stiffed and half rose," looking enquiringly at Tungata. Tungata nodded.
"Be quick then," he said. "It is only seven hours to first light." Not all of them went back behind the wreckage, but when they were ready to move out, Tungata did so. Ballantyne's woman's naked white body was curled in the foetal position. She had chewed her lips until they were raw meat, and she blubbered softly and monotonously through them.