A rebel veteran saw the foliage opposite him move. He knew the Neravistas were there, waiting for the order to charge. He saw something beyond the outer branches, a pair of legs in camouflage clothing. He pulled his rifle tightly against his shoulder and rested his finger on the trigger as he aimed.
The enemy’s legs shifted position. The rebel was sure that the man was about to charge.
He adjusted his sights to where the man’s chest should be and squeezed the trigger.
His gun went off. The Neravista dropped out of the bushes and fell face down into the dirt, dead.
‘Hold your fire!’ a rebel commander yelled.
An instant later the grenade the soldier had been holding slipped out of his hand, the lever flew off and after a few seconds it exploded.
Several Neravistas nearby were hit by shrapnel. One of them screamed in agony as he fell.
‘They have grenades!’ a rebel shouted. ‘Grenades!’
The implications spread along the rebel line like wildfire.
The commander was unsure what to do at that second. He had made up his mind to fire only when the Neravistas charged. But now things were different.
The realisation of the new danger struck many of the rebels far more quickly. They knew that they had to act first.
‘They have grenades!’ one of them shouted again. ‘FIRE!’ he yelled and the rebel front line erupted in a thunder of guns.
Dozens of Neravistas were cut down inside the forest. Explosions shook the ground as the grenades they had been holding went off.
The government soldiers reacted in desperation and many in the front line threw their grenades. Many were shot as they emerged from cover to ensure that their devices flew freely into the rebel positions.
The Neravista officers realised they had lost the element of surprise and knew they had only one option left to them. ‘Charge!’ they yelled repeatedly, running behind the lines and firing their pistols into the ground behind the heels of their men.
The Neravistas burst into the open. Many were cut down immediately but a fair number of grenades were thrown and succeeded in silencing the rebel guns long enough for the government forces to cross the gap.
The Neravista soldiers screamed as they came, leaping over fallen comrades, rifles held out in front of them, the points of their bayonets leading the way. They pulled their triggers repeatedly, firing at anything and everything confronting them.
The rebels had the advantage of being defenders behind cover but although they killed an enormous number of Neravistas the far larger force overwhelmed them.
Rebels caught changing magazines were killed before they could reload. Bayonets plunged into throats and chests. The sound of metal upon metal joined the gunfire as men parried lunges and skewered bodies. Rifle butts slammed across faces. The screams of the impaled and of those doing the impaling joined the cacophony. Soldiers gouged eyes, sunk teeth into flesh. They smashed skulls and shot faces.
All along the rebel line, Neravistas charged through gaps.
‘Fall back!’ came the order from rebel commanders but for many it was too late.
The line of rebels began to thin. Gangs of Neravistas set upon individuals, who were stabbed and shot from all sides. They battered, slashed and blasted the wounded where they lay or crawled.
Stratton and the others had listened to it all. The sounds of death and battle had not helped their morale any. If Stratton had stayed behind the others would gladly have done the same.
They watched the last of the Neravistas head into action.
‘Now,’ Stratton said as he hurried forward.
Victor gritted his teeth and followed closely behind, feeling utterly vulnerable and not just because he had no weapon. This is madness, he thought.
The sound of gunfire grew louder as they made their way up the slope and into the undergrowth where visibility dropped to a few metres. The fighting seemed to rage all around them.
A bullet zinged through the air between Stratton and Victor, and more slapped into the leaves and branches above. Victor crouched as low as he could without actually crawling on his belly and stretched a hand out in front of him, almost touching Stratton as if afraid of losing contact with him.
Bullets raked the ground close by and Stratton checked behind to see if the others were okay. Kebowa had suffered a nick across an arm but otherwise the team seemed to be unscathed.
They came across their first dead body, a Neravista with most of his head blown away. Stratton snatched up the rifle beside him and cocked it to ensure it was loaded. A few metres further on lay another body and Stratton relieved the dead man of his magazine sack. Victor grabbed up his weapon, eyes wide as he looked ahead.
They pushed on at a steady pace, Stratton aware that they had to avoid getting too close until the way was clear.
More bullets spat past them as they reached the cleared zone. Stratton crouched low and paused on the edge to take a look. Dead and injured Neravistas littered the sunlit ground.The main sound this far behind the battle line was the groaning of the wounded.
The sound of gunfire came from ahead. Stratton continued to wait, his gaze darting everywhere, his heart pounding in his chest.
The fighting seemed to move to the left and right of their front. It suggested that the Neravistas had successfully breached the perimeter at that point and were clearing the sides.
‘The Neravistas have won through,’ Stratton said as he turned to face Victor. ‘From here on it’s whatever your goal is. You know mine.’
Victor nodded. When he looked at Stratton the man was wearing a thin smile. Amid the madness that surrounded them, the flying bullets and the grotesque screams of dying men, the Englishman’s expression had a calming effect on him. His fear remained but he could focus his thoughts.
‘Thanks for everything,’ Stratton said.
Victor wanted to say something but could not. This was a place where men said goodbye to life without a word.
Stratton looked at the Indians who understood he was saying farewell. He turned his back on them and ran across the clearing.
Victor watched him disappear into the foliage on the other side and when he was gone he felt a sudden relief. Stratton’s single-mindedness had driven Victor to levels he could never have hoped to reach on his own. Mostly it had simply meant following the man but it had always seemed as if they were heading straight into hell. Now that he had gone the pressure was off. Victor felt free.
He faced his companions. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, jutting his chin back the way they had come. ‘We made it to the camp. How I don’t know. We can go now.’
Kebowa and Mohesiwa indicated that Stratton had gone forward.
‘He’s got things he must do,’ Victor explained. ‘We go,’ he said.‘I’ve come this far. It’s enough. My conscience is clear. I don’t want to see any more dead bodies, especially those of people I know.’
Victor started back down through the forest, followed by the others. Yoinakuwa made his way to the front, moving stealthily down the slope. But as they reached the point where the foliage began to thin out Yoinakuwa stopped and held his hand out behind him to indicate that the others should do the same.
He moved forward and crouched to look through the leaves.
Victor came to his side. ‘
Merde
,’ he muttered.
Trudging along the track was a fresh company of Neravistas. An officer yelled an order and they came to a halt. Another command and they faced towards Victor and the rebel perimeter and marched forward.
Chapter 10
Stratton jumped through the rebel defences and over and between bodies as he made his way carefully towards the other side of the strip of jungle that formed the perimeter at that point.
He paused halfway through the strip to look ahead. Figures ran across in front of him in the field beyond. He could not make out which side they were from. Shots rang out - a distant machine gun. Some of the rounds entered the jungle and struck the trees above him.
Something grabbed his leg and he leapt back like a cat, his gun barrel traversing and ready to fire. It was a wounded rebel, lying on his back. Blood oozed from bullet holes and bayonet cuts around his chest and face. He tried to say something but the words would not come out. His eyes were filled with sadness as he reached out to Stratton for help.
It was the cruellest of choices for Stratton, but one to which he knew the answer immediately. Even if he could have saved the man, which did not look possible, he would not have done so. ‘I’m sorry, mate,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Stratton hurried on, as much to get away from the man and the feeling of guilt as to pursue his goal.
He reached the edge of the jungle strip from where he could see the interior of the camp. He made out the roof of the stables a few hundred metres away. Smoke was everywhere. Gunfire raged to either side of him but directly ahead, towards the stables, it seemed to be quiet.
As he stood to better see the ground ahead he saw several dead Neravistas lying in the grass between him and the stables. There were a dozen or so of them, cut down while advancing across the open ground. Stratton remembered a machine-gun emplacement at that end of the stables and suspected it was the source of the gunfire that had killed them.
A loud explosion nearby made him duck behind a tree. It was too big to have been a grenade and smaller than the artillery ammunition that the Neravistas had been using. It had to have been a mortar shell. Having secured the perimeter, the Neravistas were preparing to carve up the camp interior. Stratton had no time to waste.
He concentrated on solving his immediate problem, which was how to get to the stables. He considered going further round the perimeter to approach from a different direction but it would waste time and the obstacles would probably be the same.
Stratton looked for a nearby dead rebel, one whose camouflage jacket was not too bloody, and quickly removed it. He pulled it on, found a rebel cap and moved back to the edge of the strip.
A helicopter screamed overhead, banking steeply, with another close on its tail. Stratton watched as they flew to the far end of the camp where they seemed to hover low. Troops leapt out of the side doors and the helicopters took to the air again.
He took a deep breath and headed across the field past the dead Neravistas and into the open.
Louisa, daubed in blood, applied pressure to a heavily bleeding wound in a young rebel’s thigh. A woman came over to help and removed the young man’s belt, looped it around his leg above his wound and, pushing a spoon under the loop, twisted it repeatedly until it tightened around the muscle. The man winced at the pain but the blood gradually stopped flowing from between Louisa’s fingers.
A burst of machine-gun fire slammed across the outside of the house, several rounds smashing in through the window. Louisa and the woman dived to the floor. As Louisa lay there waiting for another burst she looked over at the crowd of women and children huddled at the back of the room.
Blood began to pour off the table onto the floor beside her and she sprang to her feet to reapply the tourniquet that had come undone. As she began to twist the blood-soaked belt she stopped in horror. A fresh bullet hole was visible in the young rebel’s chest. He was dead.
Louisa put her shaking hands to her face, fighting to choke back her anger, and quickly turned her attention to an injured soldier seated in a chair. Another burst struck the building and as Louisa flinched the front door flew open and a rebel fell into the room with a comrade in his arms. Louisa helped one of the women drag them out of the doorway so that the door could be closed. Then she inspected the soldiers. Both had been badly wounded. Louisa checked the pupils of the one who had been carried in, confirming her suspicions that he was dead. The other had a severe chest wound that was beyond Louisa’s skills and she placed a dressing on it for no other reason than to give him hope. She put his hand on top of it to hold it in position and went to inspect another casualty.
A helicopter flew low overhead, the vibration of its engines rattling the building, and an explosion went off nearby.
Louisa’s thoughts went to her father and she opened the door enough to look at his cabin that was partially obscured in smoke.
The sound of machine-gun fire came from across the courtyard. It was David, firing bursts from behind his sandbags.
Single rifle shots came from scattered rebels lying prone on the ground at the corners of buildings. The log table had been turned onto its side and men were lying behind it, shooting through the smoke at distant Neravistas closing in.
She looked back at Sebastian’s cabin. The smoke had cleared just enough to reveal that the door was open and her father was walking around the front. She watched him, wondering what he was doing. He headed past the end cabin and up the slope in the direction of the stables.
‘Father!’ she called out.
Sebastian did not respond, unable to hear her above the noise of battle.
Louisa left the hut and as she stepped into the courtyard an explosion threw her to the ground.
She lay dazed for a few seconds before trying to get up, her vision out of focus. As she rose shakily to her knees a man was at her side, helping her.
‘Stratton?’ she asked, confused, looking into the face that was a blur.
‘It’s me, David,’ a familiar voice replied.
Louisa’s vision came back into focus. It was indeed David. Blood and black powder burns covered his hands and face. ‘Are you okay? Are you hurt?’
‘I . . . I think I’m okay,’ she said, not really sure.
‘Quickly!’ he said, helping her to her feet. ‘Come with me.’
He guided her across the courtyard to his sandbagged emplacement and they dropped to the ground as a burst of machine-gun fire raked the position.