Recoil - Andy McNab [49]
Crucial headed off towards the shanty.
Sam steered me back to what I assumed was his tent. ‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’
He picked up the suitcase and I followed him. It was muggier than a greenhouse inside, and the smell took me back to years of infantry exercises and time spent sweltering under canvas while the processed cheese from my twenty-four-hour ration pack melted to liquid in its can.
The floor was hard, brushed earth. Sam slept on a US Army folding cot with a new-looking blanket on top. A mozzie net hung loosely above it, ready to be fastened round the frame. Down by the side of the cot I saw a pile of batteries, a small radio and a rusty old fan gaffer-taped to a stick that had been jammed into the ground.
Three shrink-wrapped trays of one-litre Evian bottles were stacked in the corner next to a little wooden table that held a gas burner with a few pots and pans. His party gear – an AK, webbing chest harness with four curved mags, and an old canvas bergen bleached white by the sun – was piled at the end of the bed next to a copy of the Bible and an inch-and-a-half Very pistol, still in its vintage webbing holster. These things had thrown balls of magnesium into the sky over the First World War trenches, then burned like mad for a few seconds to signal that it was time for the poor fucking squaddies to go over the top and get hosed down by the German machine-gunners.
I kept my voice low. ‘What did happen?’
He poked his finger through the plastic shrink-wrap and ripped a hole. ‘He broke both legs in the fall. I stayed to look after him, then he left to do his own thing. You know, went off to become a man. He provided security for a couple of diamond mines, then one day turned up back here at the church.’
He tossed me one of the Evian bottles. ‘It’s OK, Nick. Don’t beat yourself up over it. It was a long time ago, and everything worked out good.’ He moved towards the tent flap with his suitcase and a bottle for himself. ‘Why don’t you leave your bag here and get a load of pay parade? Crucial and I want to talk to you about a bit of trouble we’re having.’
5
We weaved our way through the chaos on the strip. The forty or so bags of fertilizer had been stacked haphazardly at one end of a long line of diesel drums. A guy cranked a hand pump on the closest one to decant fuel into lime-green and yellow jerry-cans his mate was lining up for him. They were the same ones I’d seen hanging on the huts.
I screwed up my eyes against the sun. I could feel it burning straight through my sweatshirt, on to my shoulders and the back of my neck. I felt like I had a searchlight pointed straight into my eyes.
Crucial had joined us and got himself a bit of shade under a big cardboard box of Prudence he was balancing on his head.
‘See.’ Sam jerked a thumb at the box and smiled. ‘They even give protection from UVA.’
There was a buzz of excitement up ahead.
A couple of hundred metres away, a crowd of twenty-odd guys clamoured round the tables in the shade of a tree next to the old tents. One looked a sergeant-major type – they’re all the same, no matter which army; every soldier in the world can smell one heading their way at a hundred paces. This guy wielded a long skinny stick as he hollered and shouted to get everyone in line. Nobody seemed to care. It was pay day, after all.
Sam had other things on his mind. ‘Nick, we have a problem and we want your help.’
Crucial was in on the act too. ‘It’s to do with Standish, the LRA, the kids they use and . . .’ He paused. I looked up to see the two other white guys striding purposefully towards us, clearly intending to head us off at the pass. ‘And those two Rhodesian deadwoods.’
With their bergens, weapons, US jungle boots and full belt kit, they looked like they’d walked straight out of the seventies bush war. Their olive-green shorts were tight and high,