Manus Xingue (12 page)

‘But Taffy’s
left
arm was missing,’ pipes up Lacy.

‘Taffy was
left-
handed,’ Dublin says. ‘Something our
venereal
friend must have noticed. We have to kill him first chance we get, Jim!’

‘Something dodgy is going on here, alright,’ says Kane, looking at Dublin. ‘What do you know about all this, Frank?’

‘It’s not me you should be worried about – it’s that ugly
gargoyle
we have for a guide!’ answers Dublin.

Kane is not convinced. He believes Dublin is using Manus Xingue as a smoke-screen to cover his own agenda.

‘
Hang
a
trout
,’ says Lacy. ‘Manus Xingue has latched on to us like he did to the Yanks – fuck that!’

‘Don’t you start as well,’ says Kane. ‘Ok, Manus Xingue is not a Marpari but a Cat-man. So what? He’s still a good tracker and wants Chevez dead. That’s good enough for me – I don’t want conflict with the Cat-men, Frank!’

‘Why not? That’s how you
English
got your empire – rifles against bows and arrows.’

Kane ignores the remark and lifts the skull to looks at the back of it. ‘He’s been killed by a machete blow!’

‘That’s it, Jim,’ responds Dublin. ‘I will kill that deformed
troll
as soon as I set eyes on him – I owe that to Taffy. That ugly prick knows a lot more than we give him credit for.’

‘I doubt if we will ever see Manus Xingue again,’ Kane replies.

The three SAS troopers move on. Several miles later, on turning a corner on the track, they are
shocked
to find
Manus Xingue
standing in front of them, grinning!

‘Well, fuck me gently!’ Kane swears.

‘Act friendly, get him off guard,’ whispers Dublin, taking out a small, hidden knife.

‘I agree with Frank, Sarge, on this one – Rumpleforeskin is bad news,’ says Lacy. Kane is now having second thoughts about their deformed tracker. ‘Kill him tonight – we can use his help until we ambush Chevez.’

Manus Xingue acts totally unconcerned about his past deception. He points to the jungle track. ‘Chevez,’ he announces, ‘join track here – before you come.’

‘Fuck a duck!’ Lacy swears. ‘Chevez has stitched us up again, like a kipper.’

Kane checks the tracks. It’s Chevez all right –
Goodyear tread
sandals.

‘How long?’ he asks Manus Xingue.

Manus Xingue flashes all his fingers four times – forty minutes.

‘How the fuck did he manage it? exclaims Dublin. That means Chevez will now be waiting to ambush
us
at the junction, only a kilometre away.’

‘We can still turn this to our advantage,’ answers Kane. ‘At least we know where he’ll be. One of us can outflank him, another cut off his retreat to the north.’ The SAS troopers spread out the map.

‘He won’t be waiting
here,
at the most obvious place of ambush, at the T-junction,’ says Dublin.

‘I agree,’ replies Kane. ‘He’ll take the right fork, heading north, giving him a clear line of retreat after he has fired at us.’

‘Chevez will wait to ambush us at this bend,
here
,’ suggests Dublin.

‘I agree,’ answers Kane. ‘He will plan to kill one of us, then escape around the bend out of sight and continue north.’

‘Ok,’ replies Dublin, ‘I’ll take the left flank – Lacy do a right hook and cover Chevez’s escape route north.’

‘I’ll go straight down the middle,’ adds Kane; ‘get a shot in if I can. As soon you get in range, Frank, lob in a grenade. Lacy lad, crawl on your belly – don’t worry about spiders – a round from an old German Mauser is far more dangerous.’

‘Ok Sarge,’ answers Lacy, ‘but where’s Rumpleforeskin?’

Manus Xingue has disappeared as usual, while the three SAS troopers were studying the map. ‘The bastard’s done a
moody
again,’ observes Kane. ‘We can’t worry about him now.’

‘Manus Xingue is up to something, Jim,’ whispers Dublin, taking Kane aside, out of Lacy’s earshot. ‘It
must
be done tonight – no more putting off what we should have done a long time ago. Don’t let on to Lacy – he may give the game away by his body language.’ Kane ponders.

‘You are the best tracker in the regiment, Jim. Manus Xingue will be the death of one of us if he’s not killed, immediately!’ Dublin urges.

‘Ok,’ answers Kane, ‘as soon as we stop to bivvie tonight. Bury him deep – do it quietly, silently – his tribe won’t be far off.’

The SAS troopers move forward. After a short while, Kane stops again and points to Chevez’s tracks.

‘Look at the state of those tracks – they’re all over the place. What do you reckon, Frank?’ Kane asks.

‘Hard to say,’ replies Dublin. ‘He could be exhausted having knocked his pipe out in the effort to overtake us – exhausted recruits on a long tabs stagger around like that.’

‘Or he’s got Oliver Twist at that knocking shop you were on about, Sarge,’ suggests Lacy.

‘You hope,’ answers Kane.

The three SAS troopers soon reach the junction and start to disperse to their agreed positions. Frank Dublin dashes across the track, working his way towards Chevez’s likely position – Lacy circles to the right – Kane waits and watches. The loud crump of a grenade exploding shatters the still humid jungle afternoon and launches flocks of screaming birds into the cloudless sky.

All the SAS men rise, ready for a quick shot at Chevez. But there is no sign of their target. The soldiers close in.

‘Bollocks, he was not here,’ swears Dublin.

‘Something’s wrong,’ says Kane. ‘We are missing something. Chevez is a master of jungle warfare – this was the only sensible place to ambush us and escape. We must get to the bottom of this.’

The soldiers return to the junction and the most obvious spot for ambush.

‘Well, damn my eyes; he was here all right, minutes ago – look at the flattened grass,’ exclaims Dublin. ‘Then why the fuck didn’t he take a shot at me? And why did a master of jungle warfare pick a dangerous position like this?’

‘That’s what I must find out,’ answers Kane, getting on his hands and knees, and searching the ground intently. Dublin and Lacy look around nervously – is this another Chevez trick?

‘Here’s our answer,’ says Kane, holding up a small yellow twig with the bark missing. ‘Cinchona, the quinine plant – Chevez has malaria! That explains his erratic footprints back on the track.’

‘Malaria parasite fucks up the brain,’ adds Dublin. ‘You can’t think straight. That’s why Chevez is making mistakes and picked an ambush position he couldn’t escape from.’

‘He probably got the malarial shakes,’ answers Kane. ‘Couldn’t aim straight, so changed his mind and left before we arrived.’

‘Lucky for one of us,’ Dublin replies. ‘Chevez can’t have gone far, Jim.’

‘He must be well
Tom
and
Dick.
Do we
have
to kill him, Sarge?’ Lacy asks.

Kane and Dublin ignore Lacy’s sentimental remark.

‘We can finish this today,’ announces Dublin. ‘Chevez cannot be more that half an hour ahead. He will be falling unconscious at intervals – we can catch up and finish it!’

The three SAS troopers push on. Kane is now doing the tracking; every two or three hundred metres they find a spot where Chevez has fallen. Manus Xingue is still missing.

‘Chevez is on his last legs,’ comments Dublin; ‘we should find him unconscious…any time now.’

‘Watch points,’ whispers Kane. ‘Chevez still has the strength to pull a trigger!’

The three troopers soon reach a fast-flowing, white-water river and crouch down, observing the opposite bank which is bare of cover.

‘The Japari River!’ Jim Kane announces. ‘Lacy, scan the opposite bank with your sniper-scope.’

‘Nothing, Sarge – there’s no cover on the other side he can snipe from – but how has he crossed the river?’

‘Fucked if I know,’ answers Kane. ‘My crystal ball’s still covered in shit. And by the look of it, Chevez is not sure himself – he’s been up and down this stretch of bank several times, as if he couldn’t remember the right crossing point.’

‘Remember José, Lobo’s man?’ Dublin reminds. ‘He said the crossing was somewhere here – a
secret
crossing – it has to be hidden.’

‘That makes sense, Frank,’ answers Kane. ‘The fever in Chevez’s brain has made him forget.’

‘Look Sarge,’ exclaims Lacy, pleased with himself; ‘someone has cut a stick .’

‘That’s it,’ says Kane. ‘Cut me one, lad.’

‘What colour, Sarge?’ asks Jack Lacy, unable to stop himself.

‘Just do it today – cut out the wisecracks,’ replies the Sergeant.

With the stick, Kane walks along the bank using it as a feeler underwater. He stops every twenty yards and marks five points with smaller sticks. From his pocket he takes a pair of Polaroid sunglasses and looks into the river. ‘What can you see, Sarge?’ Lacy asks.

‘Now I see through a light glass darkly – fuck all, in other words,’ answers Kane. ‘It’s too deep, fast–flowing – but I know ancient races built hidden crossings, kind of puzzles, to confuse and delay the enemy. I can feel five stone slabs, about five metres apart, under the water, laid out of sight well below the surface. I bet only one set of stone slabs
reaches
the other side – the rest are traps. Lacy, get your kit off.’

‘Why me, Sarge?’ Lacy asks.

‘Because you are the youngest and fittest and, most important, the most expendable!’

‘What about….
things
in the river?’

‘You will be fine, lad,’ answers Kane. ‘The current’s too strong for dangerous wildlife.’

Lacy enters the river and stands on the first slab – it is knee-deep. However, after reaching the fourth stepping-stone, Lacy is hip-deep and is suddenly swept off his feet into the white water.

‘Come back, lad,’ shouts Kane. ‘That crossing’s a trap – each stone took you deeper.’

Lacy manages to struggle back using powerful strokes and tries another crossing. This crossing takes him out to midstream – then ends abruptly, causing Lacy to fall in the deepest part of the river. Lacy, a very strong swimmer, just manages to make it back to the bank. Just a good swimmer would have failed.

‘Fuck this for a game of soldiers,’ the ex-marine swears.

Try this one,’ says Kane, without emotion at Lacy’s narrow escape.

Lacy mumbles under his breath. ‘I know, I know – the only sympathy you’ll get in this mob is in the dictionary between
shit
and
syphilis
.’

Jack Lacy tries the third crossing. It’s only thigh-deep – all the stones are level and Lacy reaches the far bank safely.

Manus Xingue suddenly appears! He proceeds to snort a line of cocaine.

‘I had a feeling,’ comments Dublin, ‘that our
venereal
friend has been watching us all this time. Now he knows the right set of stones for the crossing.’

The SAS troopers cross to the other bank, leaning back against the strong current; Manus Xingue follows. The three SAS troopers watch the short, muscular indian struggling to keep his feet against the current.

‘Let me shoot him now, Jim,’ requests Dublin. ‘Put a round in his big, ugly head while he is occupied – we will never get a better chance.’

‘No,’ answers Kane. ‘It’s too dangerous here in the open, his tribe could be watching. Tonight – we agreed. Chevez now is at his most desperate – we need
all
our eyes not to walk into an ambush.’

Reaching the opposite bank, Manus Xingue grins and picks up Chevez’s tracks again.

‘Rumpleforeskin has got more front than Selfridges,’ Lacy quips.

The group stops occasionally to examine spots where the fever-ridden Chevez has collapsed. The trail is leading them into the jungle-covered foothills – Kier Verde country.

Once into the foothills, the track they are following becomes completely hemmed in by jungle; Manus Xingue is some way ahead.

The grotesque indian stops, just before a small break in the surrounding jungle wall, from which it is possible to see the next hill and valley below. He snorts a line of cocaine and regards the SAS troopers with a knowing grin. Dublin and Lacy take up defensive positions; Kane moves from the jungle gloom into the light of the open space to study his map.

‘This track bends left,’ says Kane, ‘and heads back south. Chevez is heading north.’

‘You are in
danger,
standing there, Jim!’ Dublin warns.

Before Kane can move, a bullet whistles past his ear and cuts a groove in a tree behind him. Kane hits the deck. ‘Fuck me gently! Lacy – over here! Take cover behind this tree.’ Lacy crawls over.

‘Place your barrel in the angle of that groove and scan the top of that hill in front. Chevez is up there
somewhere.
The sun’s in your favour – look for any movement or reflection,’ orders the Sergeant.

After a short while, Lacy calls out. ‘Sarge, a reflection!’

‘Keep your eyes on it lad,’ Kane replies.

On the opposite hill, behind a rock, lays Chevez; sweat is dripping down his forehead, obstructing his vision. Chevez wipes his brow; he is having trouble remaining conscious. He notices the valuable, spent brass cartridge to his right, just out of reach!

It is this spent cartridge that is causing the
reflection
! Chevez looks up at the sun and realises the danger; it would give his position away. He also needs this used, irreplaceable cartridge for reloading.

Without his malarial fever, Chevez would have just slipped away and picked it up another day but his parasite-ridden brain was not thinking straight. He reaches out for the spent brass cartridge case, not just exposing his arm but also his
head
!

Jack Lacy zeroes the cross-hairs of his telescopic sight on the bridge of Chevez’s nose – a perfect brain shot! Then the soft-hearted Lacy changes his mind and, instead of killing Chevez with a headshot, moves the cross-hairs of his sights back down onto Chevez’s forearm.

A high velocity shot echoes through the valley, ricocheting off the valley’s rocky walls.

‘I got him, Sarge!’ shouts the jubilant Lacy.

‘A head shot?’ Kane asks.

‘No, couldn’t see his head,’ lies Lacy; ‘just his right forearm.’

‘Well,’ replies Kane, disappointed, ‘at least it will weaken him further and give us a blood-trail to follow.’