The Perfect Soldier

Darkness came quickly, stealing everything.

She sat in the front of the Land Rover as the light drained away, peering out through the open window, trying to fix the landscape in her mind. It was flat here, flatter than the bush on the other side of the city. The knee-high grass was a pale green, darkening by the minute, and when the wind eddied across towards the road it rippled like the coat of some animal. Far away, on the horizon, there was a single giant baobab tree. Apart from that, nothing.

Beside her, on the driver’s seat, lay the Motorola two-way radio and she wondered again whether she should call for help. James had told her not to. The road was off-limits after dark and he was already in trouble for breaching safety rules. If word got back then there’d be more eyebrows raised, more questions asked, maybe even a report sent back to Luanda. He’d told her he knew what he was doing. He’d said he wouldn’t be long. The kid had probably done something silly. Twisted an ankle. Got lost. Whatever.

The football shirt they’d found was still on the dashboard. It was a Manchester United shirt, doubtless passed on by some long-departed field worker, the colour beginning to fade from the sun. James had spotted it first, draped over a cardboard box by the roadside. It belonged to Maria. He knew it did. He’d seen her wearing it only yesterday, like a dress, enveloping her tiny figure, the bottom flapping round
her knees as she played on the river bank with all the other kids. The box was a giveaway too, with its distinctive Terra Sancta logo, the upturned hands cradling the earth.

James had pulled the Land Rover off the road, getting out and picking the box up, showing her the faded black stencils on the top. CAUTION went the warning, HYDRAULIC EQUIPMENT. THIS SIDE UP. He’d lodged the box in the back of the Land Rover, ever-tidy, making room amongst the carefully stacked piles of drilling equipment, and then he’d gone back to the edge of the crumbling tarmac, shielding his eyes against the last of the sunset, calling her name. Bet she’s gone looking for firewood, he’d said. Bet you anything.

She waited another ten minutes or so, not knowing quite what to do. James had been gone an hour now, far longer than he’d promised, far longer than was safe. There were mines everywhere, the place was littered with them. They called them ‘A/P’ mines. ‘A/P’ stood for ‘anti-personnel’, a neat little phrase that explained the dozens of amputees she encountered every working day. The locals called them ‘
los mutilados
’, the limbless ones. That’s why the bush was off-limits, forbidden territory, and that’s why – she knew – he’d gone looking for Maria. At her age, he’d muttered, you think you’re immortal. Like any kid of ten, you think there are more important things in life than a $3 saucer of high explosive.

She shuddered. Four months’ nursing had taught her all she needed to know about high explosives. She’d volunteered for Angola to help in a feeding programme but she’d ended up in what passed for Muengo’s hospital, dressing the swollen puckered stumps of recently amputated limbs. Day after day, she’d seen what the mines could do, the way they shredded flesh and blood, the way they left a life in ruins. Looking for
Maria, she’d told James, was crazy. They should get on the radio, call for help. To do anything else was madness.

But James wouldn’t listen. In this, as in everything else, he had that total certainty that only newcomers to Africa acquire. He’d said it was simple. All you had to do was read the landscape like a soldier, understanding the way they thought, the way they planned, the military logic behind their decisions. The place was too open, too empty, miles and miles of trackless bush. Even the rebels, even UNITA, didn’t have that many mines to waste. She’d watched him disappear into the dusk with his torch and his cheery wave, wanting to believe that he was right, but knowing as well that there were odds you didn’t risk. Not if you were sensible. Not if you understood.

She sat in the Land Rover, immobile, listening. Once, she heard the scuffling of something small, away in the darkness, an animal perhaps, but of James there was no sign. After a while, the wind stiffened, bringing with it the dry, dusty scents of the bush. Twice, she flicked on the headlights, twin fingers reaching down the pot-holed tarmac towards Muengo. The gesture gave her a brief moment of comfort but in the back of her mind she knew it was foolish. Whatever James said, there were UNITA soldiers active in the area, moving at night, throttling the cities with yet more mines. Quite what they’d do with a twenty-nine-year-old French nurse she didn’t know, but she was in no hurry to find out. All she wanted was James back again, intact, and as the minutes ticked by she realised that she had to get help.

She was about to use the radio, her mind made up, when she heard the footsteps. She froze for a moment in the front of the Land Rover, one hand on the Motorola, then she leaned out of the window, peering back along the road. For a moment or two she could see nothing, just the faintest line
where the crust of tarmac dropped away and the bush began. Then she heard the footsteps again, much closer this time, feet scuffling in the dust. She reached for the dashboard, putting on the reversing light, and then pushed open the door. It was James. Had to be. Maybe he’d picked up some injury or other. Or maybe it was another of his little surprises. Here I am. Safe and sound. Sorry to have kept you.

She rounded the end of the Land Rover, flooded with relief. Instead of James, she found herself looking down at a small, barefoot child with huge eyes and the beginnings of an uncertain smile. For a moment, she could do nothing but stare. Then she understood.

‘Maria?’

The child nodded.

‘Si—’

‘Onde é Senhor James?’

‘Não sei.’

Maria frowned, shaking her head, then bent and scratched her knee. At the same time, close by, there was the short, flat bark of an explosion and the sound of debris peppering the metal panels of the Land Rover. Por a moment, Christianne had no idea what had happened. Instinctively, she bent to the child, protecting her, then the acrid stench of high explosive came drifting across the road and she was back beside the cab, leaning across the passenger seat, fumbling blindly for the satchel she carried everywhere. Inside, there were tourniquets, bandages, antiseptic. She felt the child behind her again, tugging at her jeans, and she scooped her up, wedging her into the passenger seat, tightening the safety belt across her tiny frame.

‘
Restez là
,’ she said roughly.
‘Bougez pas.’

The child stared back at her, frightened now, and she repeated the instruction in Portuguese.

‘Stay there,’ she said. ‘Don’t move.’

The child nodded, mute, and she reached across and retrieved the Motorola radio. The Terra Sancta people were on Channel Two. They lived in a house near the old Portuguese mission. Across the street, in a converted school, were the mine clearance teams. She held the Motorola to her mouth.

‘Tango Sierra,’ she said. ‘Emergency.’

She repeated the Terra Sancta call sign twice more, her French accent thicker than usual. Two voices replied at once. She recognised one of them, an Angolan called Domingos. Domingos worked with the mine people. She’d shared a beer with him only two days ago. She told him briefly what had happened, giving him directions, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. Domingos repeated the directions, said he’d come at once.

‘Merci.’
She swallowed hard.
‘Dépêche-toi.’

She signed off and clipped the radio to her belt, then stood by the roadside in the warm darkness, listening. She could hear nothing. No calls for help, no cries of pain, nothing. She glanced over her shoulder, back towards the Land Rover. The child’s face was pressed to the window. The drive out from Muengo would take half an hour, she thought, maybe longer. Time enough for James to lose a great deal of blood. She stepped across to the Land Rover, shouldering her satchel. She reached inside the cab, turning on the headlights, then locked both doors, aware of Maria’s eyes following her every movement. At least one child will be safe, she thought grimly. And the lights will bring Domingos.

Back at the roadside, she hesitated a moment, all too aware of what she was about to do. Then she left the tarmac and began to move slowly towards the source of the blast, the brief blossom of flame like a scorch mark on her mind.
The knee-high grass parted before her, the soil firm beneath her tread, the soles of her feet mapping the tiniest pebbles, every nerve stretched tight. The smell of the spent explosive was stronger now, an almost physical presence, a harsh, menacing, bitter-sweet tang that caught in the back of her throat. She wanted to stop. She wanted to turn and run back to the Land Rover. She wanted to be anywhere but here.

She stepped carefully on, trying to concentrate on James, how badly he’d been injured, what she’d have to do once she’d found him. He’d be bleeding, probably heavily, and he’d be in shock. The blood flow she’d staunch with a tourniquet from the satchel and with luck the shock would have numbed him to the worst of the pain. For once, he’d probably have little idea of what had really happened. Coping with that would come later. She paused a moment, glancing back towards the road, fixing the position of the Land Rover, trying to keep a straight path. She was sweating now, the thin cotton shirt clinging damply to her back. Close, she told herself. I must be getting close.

She found him moments later, a dark bundle amongst the flattened grass. She knelt quickly beside him, waving away the cloud of flies, slipping the satchel from her shoulder. He was still alive but his breathing was shallow, the barest sigh, and when she whispered his name there was no response. She tried again, her mouth to his ear.

‘James?’

She paused, waiting. She could smell the blood now, the hot, strong, coppery smell of the makeshift hospital operating theatre, and she knew she’d got it wrong. This was worse than a shattered foot or leg. Much worse.

In the darkness, her hands began to explore the rest of his body. Below his chest, his shirt was shredded and where his stomach had once been there was a bottomless soup of
blood and ruptured tissue, stirred by the faintest pulse. She rocked back on her heels, swallowing hard, fighting the urge to vomit. She wanted to go no further. Whatever courage had taken her through the minefield had quite gone. No tourniquet, no bandage, could possibly deal with this. What was left of James Jordan belonged on a butcher’s slab.