"Let's go," Chopper said. "We here."
The two guards walked behind them as they worked their way around the edge of the field to a split-rail fence, heavily overgrown with vines and creepers. A man was lying there, peering through a gap between the rails. He wore heavy field boots and a rain-darkened rubber poncho. He had on an army steel helmet and, when he rolled over and sat up, seven gold stars in a circle were visible on it.
The supreme commander of all the American Armed Forces only had six.
"I understand that you have my letter.” the man said.
"Right here," Bruno answered, groping inside his jacket. "Then you must be the man who wrote it? Mau Mau…"
As Mau Mau examined the letter, Bruno examined him. A wide face, dark eyes, cappuccino-colored skin, an unexpressive mouth under a drooping black moustache. He took one glance at the letter, then tore it in half and stuffed the pieces into his pants pocket.
"You've come a long way — and it has taken a long time," he said.
Bruno nodded. "It was not easy. The immigration people are very difficult these days, and there was the paperwork. Then a legitimate reason had to be found for me to get far enough south to meet the contact."
Mau Mau looked him up and down carefully. "For a white man you're pretty dark.” he said.
"For a black man you're pretty light.” Bruno answered, then went on hurriedly when he saw that the other was not amused. "The Mediterranean, in the south where I come from, people are darker. Perhaps, who knows, that is why I was chosen…"
Mau Mau smiled and the lines of severity, the grimness vanished for a moment. "Sicily I bet. That's pretty near to Africa. Maybe you have a touch of the tarbrush…"
He broke off as a young Negro, barefooted and wearing ragged overalls and shirt, ran up, bent low behind the cover of the fence. He carried a new and efficient-looking army field telephone that trailed a glistening length of black wire. Mau Mau grabbed off the handset and listened.
"A truck coming," he announced. "With a jeep, maybe a hundred yards behind it."
They all ran, with Bruno hurrying after.
"Hey!" he shouted. "Can I take pictures?"
Mau Mau stopped so abruptly that Bruno almost collided with him. They stood close, Mau Mau almost a head taller, looking down at the reporter. "Yes, as long as I can see them afterwards."
"Absolutely, every foot of tape," he called after the man's departing back, then began to dig furiously in his pack. The camera and power pack were reasonably waterproof, and everything else was still dry inside the plastic. He followed the others after slipping a hood over the lens.
They were gathered in a small clump of silver birch trees that stood at the edge of a narrow stream. The water burbled past and ran through a culvert under a road. It was a paved road, narrow but well kept up, with a county marker at its edge. Bruno squinted but could not make out the number or even the state. There were more men here, all waiting tensely, looking down the road to the left where it vanished into the mist and falling rain. A growing whine of tires could be heard.
Everything happened quickly. The truck loomed up out of the mist, a big army truck with many wheels and a canvas top. It was going very fast. When it reached the culvert the ground and the road rose up in a roar of sound and a great flash of orange light. The front of the truck lifted off the road for an instant before it dropped back heavily, the front wheels falling into the gap where the culvert had been. A gun must have been fired — Bruno could not hear it for the roaring in his ears — because sudden holes punched their way across the white star on the metal door of the cab.
The jeep appeared out of the fog, skidding and twisting sideways as the driver braked on the wet road. It stopped, nuzzling up to the tilted rear of the truck, and a gun muzzle jabbed out from behind the front curtains, hammering out a spasm of rapid firing. There was answering fire from all sides — Bruno could hear better now — and the gun dropped to the pavement and a soldier's body slid after it.
"If you are alive — come out!" Mau Mau shouted. "You have five seconds or we blow you out. Hands empty when you come."
There was a silence, then the truck springs creaked and a rifle came over the tailgate and clattered onto the road. A soldier, a corporal, emerged and slowly climbed down. Something stirred in the back of the jeep, a pair of shiny boots protruded out from under the curtain, and an officer slid out onto the road. He had his left hand clutched about his right forearm. Blood ran down his fingers and dripped to the ground.
A sudden burst of rapid firing made Bruno jump and he swung the camera toward the rear of the truck. Chopper had jumped out and sprayed a clip into the canvas. Another man kicked the corporal in the back of the knees so he dropped to the ground. With quick efficienty he pulled the soldier's wrists behind his back and secured them with rapid twists of insulated wire. He did the same with his ankles then stuffed a rag into his mouth and sealed it there with more wire. The soldier, like a hog-tied animal, could only roll his eyes upward in fear.
"Get the aid kit from the jeep and fix up Whitey's arm," Mau Mau ordered, "and bring me a can of sandman." He put his hand behind him without looking, and the can was slapped into it. The soldier rolled on the wet pavement as the blast of spray from the pressurized canister hit his face; then he slumped limply. Mau Mau turned to the officer.
"Ready for your turn, Lieutenant?" he asked.
Raindrops beaded the officer's close-cropped blond hair as he bent his head to watch the field bandage being tied around his arm. He looked up slowly, but did not answer. Yet the answer was obvious in the look of cold hatred directed at Mau Mau. The tall Negro laughed aloud and held out the can and blasted the fine spray full into the contemptuous face. The eyelids fluttered, closed, the features sagged and the man's knees wobbled. Mau Mau put his hand in the middle of the officer's chest and pushed. The man went over backward into the weeds beside the road, his legs and arms sprawling wide. There were appreciative chuckles from the bystanders and Bruno swept the camera across their smiling faces.
"Enough funning.” Mau Mau said. "Put that camera away." As soon as Bruno had lowered it he turned and cupped his hands and shouted, "Come an' git it!"
On the far side of the road the ground grew sodden where the stream widened out and vanished into a swamp. Ghostly trunks of trees readied up from the dark water, their branches hung with festoons of parasitic plants. Figures emerged from among the trees, one, two, then a score, until there was a large crowd of Negroes coming out of the swamp. Old men, women, young children, they moved with a sense of purpose.
One of the gunmen pulled open the truck's tailgate and climbed inside. The first thing he dropped out was the blood-drenched body of a soldier, which was grabbed by the heels and dragged aside. Then came some guns and ammunition, followed by boxes and crates. As he pushed each item to the edge someone stepped forward to take it from him, — sometimes two people if the box was very big. The children carried, proudly, the bandoleers of ammunition and the rifles. The burdened carriers vanished, one by one, down the path leading back into the swamp.
"What did we get?" Mau Mau called out.
"Little of everyfin," the voice called from inside the truck. "K-rations, typin' paper, blankets, grenades—"
"Now you're talking."
"— pro kits, toilet paper. You name it, it's here."
"What the army can use, we can use," Mau Mau said, smiling happily, wiping his hands together. "We're fighting the same war."
While waiting their turn at the truck, some of the people went over to look at the two unconscious soldiers. There was a sudden murmur of voices and a woman called out shrilly.