Recoil - Andy McNab [126]
The screams from burning bodies below us were drowned as the second round set off a chain reaction.
We jumped back up to man the guns, but this time there was nothing to fire at.
Human torches blundered into each other as flames engulfed the front half of the valley. The rest was filled with survivors running for their lives.
Lex was high in the brilliant blue sky, sunlight flashing off his wings. I brought the phone to my ear. ‘We’re not taking fire.’
‘After that I should fucking hope not, man.’
He couldn’t resist a little victory waggle as the aircraft banked and roared back up the valley.
Not even the cicadas disturbed the shocked silence around us. The devastation was almost too much to take in. Bodies were scattered around our fire trenches by the dozen, but down there, among the flames and smoke, they were strewn like trees after a hurricane.
I turned to Sam as the choking cloud enveloped our position.
Crucial was still in his trench, holding his hand to his mouth. ‘I lost a diamond!’ Blood dribbled over his fingers. ‘I lost one of my diamonds!’
Budget-size heads popped up over the parapets of the two trenches. RPG propellant still burned in the mud behind them and the smell of cordite drenched the air.
Silky emerged from her trench and I did a plunger mime and a thumbs-up.
‘Come on, let’s go.’ Sam was in the backblast channel, growling like the pale-faced, skirt-wearing oatmeal savage he was. ‘Game’s over. Switch on.’
A bony hand reached up and closed round my thumb.
I looked down to see Sunday on his arse in the bottom of the fire trench. ‘Mr Nick. Mr Nick . . .’ There was just a hint of a smile. I gave him a bigger one back.
PART TWELVE
1
Thursday, 15 June Rwanda
10:46 hours
Sam and Crucial stood to either side of me outside the old breezeblock and wriggly-tin church. Eight little heads sat huddled in the shade at our feet, just as they had at Nuka and the mine. But what a difference a few days can make.
They were getting good-quality mealie-meal down their necks, scooping it up gleefully with their fingers from clean plastic plates, not out of rusty old tin cans. And they couldn’t get over the women fussing around and pouring them clear fresh water from the plastic bottles they normally used for the porters.
Sunday’s head tilted as he took a few more gulps. Our eyes met, and I got a fleeting, covered-face smile from him. I gave him one back and winked.
Lex was on his finals. The An12 shimmered in the heat haze as its wheels dropped, and the wings moved left and right as he lined up.
We’d only been here a couple of hours, and us three hadn’t yet done a thing for ourselves. As always, it was weapons and kit first. We didn’t have to worry about weapons. The AKs were back in Sam’s tent; we weren’t going to need them for a while. The only kit that needed looking after was the little fuckers at our feet. And now that they had mashed-up corn all round their mouths and bloated bellies we could get ourselves sorted out.
It had taken us two days to get back. We’d rigged up slings from strips of blankets and fixed them to each end of a cot. Two men on, one man navigating, we’d carried Tim and the boy the whole thirty-five Ks back, like removals men with a piano. Silky had strapped up her ankle with strips of blanket and got on with herding the kids behind us. They, too, had strips of blanket. She got each of them to hold on to the one in front, like a herd of baby elephants gripping each other’s tails.
Lex’s 23mms and Crucial’s RPGs had done their worst. When we crested the lip of the valley, we found the dead ground littered with bodies.
Lex soon exhausted his fuel reserves at the strip as he kept constant vigil overhead, giving us early warning and helping us navigate. He never deserted us, and only flew to Kenya to refuel and restock with more drums once we were safely over the border.
Nuka, the mine, the LRA now felt a whole world away.
I couldn’t believe the sense of satisfaction I felt as I looked down on the tops of the eight heads. It sounded like