Recoil - Andy McNab [42]
It wasn’t long before the propellers were feathered and the aircraft came to a standstill. I started to flap even more about Silky fucking about in Nuka.
I now had a clearer view of the huts and tents. Brilliant cobalt blue was definitely the colour of choice in Africa.
The dogs finally caught up with us and yapped at the cockpit as the engines closed down. They were probably just too fucked to take chunks out of the tyres. Some of the older kids followed a football on to the runway so the barefooted game could continue.
The loadie pressed a button and the ramp whined. A horizontal shaft of daylight appeared where it left the fuselage. It hit the ground and Sam and I walked down into a solid wall of heat.
PART FOUR
1
There were no trucks buzzing round the back of the aircraft this time. Here, it was down to muscle. Thirty or so guys were already trudging up the ramp. They wore ripped, dirty loincloths and T-shirts, and some had flip-flops or wellies on their feet. A few were even sporting rubber swimming caps. They had them so they wore them. Every one of them, clothed or not, was caked in dust and grime, and the skin on their knees and elbows was white and cracked.
The flies’ welcoming committee gave us a warm reception now that the props had stopped. I started the Thai hand dance round my face; most of the others seemed happy to let the little bastards get on with it.
The loadie shouted at the guys in French, presumably trying to marshal them to start offloading. The only equipment I could see was a couple of vegetable-market-type barrows. Kids jumped on and off them as they were trundled towards the aircraft.
We walked along the airstrip, keeping the shanty town on our right. Piles of empty red food-aid sacks lined the verges, weighted down with logs.
The scabby dogs were now busy scattering a flock of three or four bony old chickens. Washing hung from trees. A few of the circular huts were made from beer cans mortared with mud then painted blue. Wriggly tin roofs were clearly all the rage.
Sam waved at the women and kids.
They waved back and smiled. ‘Mr Sam! Mr Sam!’
Lime-green and yellow jerry-cans were piled everywhere, and old plastic one-litre water bottles hung like strings of onions outside each hut. Everything looked like it was used until it fell apart.
We passed a group of young men, smoking and drinking, Czech AKs slung over their shoulders. The brown plastic furniture tried hard to be Russian wood, but failed.
They followed us with their eyes. They were curious about the new white face in town.
The smell of wood fires and cooking filled the air. ‘Takes you back, dunnit?’ Sam did some more smiling and waving. This was beginning to feel like a royal walkabout. ‘These people are the lucky ones. The total number of Palestinians and Israelis killed in the past six years is about four and a half thousand. Here, that’s not even the score for a long weekend. Over four million dead, Nick.’
‘You know what they say about records?’
‘What?’
‘They’re there to be broken.’
Sam chose to ignore what he thought was a bad joke as more overexcited kids ran up and bustled round him. He shook hands and patted heads. They seemed healthy enough. The whites of their eyes were actually white. They were getting protein.
I smiled. ‘They seem to like you.’
‘They know that I know what’s going on in there.’ He tapped the top of a young head with a forefinger. ‘My mother died when I was five and my father hit the drink and forgot to come home. I lived in council shelters until I joined up.’
I wished I’d been sent to one when my dad fucked off. Instead I’d got a drunken stepdad who beat the shit out of me and my mother. But I understood where he was coming from.
We pushed through the crowd. ‘Aren’t the UN supposed to be doing their bit to stop all this shit? And what about the aid organizations like Mercy Flight?’
‘Toothless, the lot of ’em.’ He checked the sun and pointed west. ‘The DRC border’s just twelve Ks that way. That’s where the