Suddenly they were in the midst of a battle, and Sean saw figures running wildly among the windrows and stumps, firing as they ran.
"Frelimo!" Matatu was tugging at Sean's arm and screeching with excitement. "Frehmo!"
Only then did Sean understand. Their desultory exchange of fire with the Renamo pursuers must have called up a large force of Frelimo troops who had been massed in the immediate vicinity, probably preparing to attack the Save River line.
Now the fifty Renamo guerrillas suddenly found themselves attacked by a vastly superior Frelimo force. Judging by the intensity of fire, Sean estimated that there were several hundred Frelimo out there in the forest, front line regular troops in battalion strength.
He saw the small party of Renamo who had cut them off abandon their positions among the deadwood of the cut line and scuttle away in wild disorder with mortar shells bursting among them.
Sean snatched up the AKM and helped them on their way with a long burst. One of the running men fell and flopped around into the brush like a beached catfish.
Then he spotted a sweep line of Frehmo infantry coming in from the left at a run. Their camouflage field dress was East German issue, the blotches of green and brown distinctly different from the Renamo tiger stripes.
Renamo or Frelimo were equally dangerous for them. Sean pulled Claudia down beside him.
"Don't move. The Frehmo probably don't know we are here.
They might just chase off the Renamo and overlook us. We've still got a chance."
Minnie was wailing loudly, terrified by the uproar. Sean called urgently to Miriam, "Keep her quiet. Stop her screaming."
The Shangane girl pulled the child down beside her and covered her mouth and nose with her hand, cutting off her wails abruptly.
Sean raised one eye above the lip of the hollow and saw the Frehmo sweep line still bearing down on them, tough-looking troopers, firing from the hip as they came. They would overrun the hollow within seconds. He raised the AKM. Their salvation had been fleeting; the only real change was that now they would be killed by Frehmo rather than by Renamo.
ie rai tie and aimed at the belly of the nearest of the oncoming Frelimo troopers, the target was blotted out by a tall curtain of flying dust, and from the sky above came the thunderous roll of a 12.7-men cannon. The Frelimo sweep line dissolved before Sean's eyes, blown away by the Hind's concentrated fire, and the dust rolled over the hollow in which they lay, concealing them from the air in those crucial seconds the Hind hovered above them.
Now all was chaos, two forces inextricably mixed up in the deep forest, mortar and rocket fire crashing through the trees, while over the battlefield the Hind hovered, sending in rockets and bursts of cannon fire to makithe confusion complete.
Sean slapped Matatu on the shoulder. "Fetch Alphonso," he ordered, and the' little Ndorobo disappeared into the dust and gunfire, to emerge only a minute later with the huge Shangane close behind him.
"Alphonso, get ready to make another run for it," Sean told him tersely. "Frelimo and Renamo are giving each other a full go out there. We'll try to sneak away before the Hind spots us." Sean broke off and sniffed the air, then raised himself quickly on his knees to look back.
Already the air around them was turning a dirty gray, and above the din of battle and the whine of turbos, Sean heard the first faint crackle of burning brush.
"Fire!" he snapped. "And it's upwind of us!"
One of the exploding rockets had ignited the rows of piled deadwood, and now a dense cloud of smoke rolled down over the hollow where they lay, stinging their eyes and making them cough and choke.
"Now we have no choice-it's run or cook." The crackle and roar of the flames were already drowning out the din of battle.
Dimly they heard the shrieks of wounded men caught up in the path of the surging fire.
"Let's go!" Sean swept Minnie onto his back, and the child locked both arms around his neck and clung to him like a little black flea. Sean pulled Claudia to her feet. Alphonso had Mickey sitting perched on his shoulders, his legs dangling over the bulky radio pack, and Miriam at his side, clinging to the arm that held his rifle.
The smoke rolled over them, thick as oil, and they ran with the wind, bunched up to keep contact with each other. The smoke filled their lungs and blotted out the sky, screening them from the fighting men in the forest around them and from the helicopter gunship that hovered above them. The fire raged close behind them, driving them on wildly but gaining on them with every second.
Sean felt the heat fan the back of his neck, and Minnie squeaked as a flying spark touched her cheek. Gasping for breath, Claudia stumbled and sank to her knees, but Sean hauled her to her feet and dragged her onward.
Sean was suffocating. Each breath burned all the way down into his lungs. They couldn't go much farther. The heat licked their skin, and flying sparks dashed against them. The child on Sean's back screamed in agony and pawed ineffectually at her tortured body as though assailed by a swarm of wasps. She lost her grip and Id have fallen, but Sean snatched her off his back and carried wou her under one arm.
Suddenly they were into another open cut fine. Only dead stumps surrounded them, standing like tombstones in the dense banks of rolling smoke, and the sandy earth beneath their feet had been plowed up by the teams of loggers.
"Down!" Sean pushed Claudia flat onto the ground and placed Minnie in her arms.
The child was struggling wildly. "Hold her still!" Sean shouted, and stripped off his shirt.
"Lie flat, facedown!" he ordered. Obediently Claudia rolled onto her stomach, holding Minnie under her. Sean wrapped the shirt around both their heads to filter out the smoke and sparks and soot. He tore the stopper out of his water bottle and soaked the shirt, splashing their hair and soaking their clothing.
Minnie was still shrieking and struggling, but Claudia held her down firmly. Sean knelt beside them and scooped loose sand over them, burying them under a mound of earth, like one of those beach games children play. The smoke was thinner closer to the earth, and they could still breathe. Alphonso had seen what he was doing and followed his example, burying Miriam and her little brother in the sand nearby.
Live sparks swirled through the blinding clouds of smoke and settled on Sean's bare skin. They stung like the poisonous bites of safari ants. Sean felt his beard begin to frizzle and his eyeballs drying out in the heat. He emptied his pack onto the ground and pulled the empty canvas bag over his head, poured the contents of the second water bottle over his torso, then fell on his back, scooped the loose sand over himself, and lay still.
With his head low to the ground the air was breathable, there was just sufficient oxygen in it to keep him conscious, but his head buzzed and swirled dizzily and the heat came at him in crushing blasts. He smelled the canvas bag over his head begin to smolder, and the thin layer of sand that covered his body scalded him like a pot fresh from the furnace. He heard the roar of the flames rise to a crescendo, and dry branches crackled like rifle fire in the inferno. The fire was in the windrows all around them, but the wind, generated by its own heat, drove it swiftly onward.