"That's it, my friend," Sean said in English. "Now let's see whose tail wags."
The rest of the column had fallen behind. The sergeant called a sharp order to close up, and they went away at a killing pace.
Within an hour there were only three of them left, the others straggled back over a mile of the forest floor. Ahead of them the path climbed a steep incline to the crest of another tableland.
Sean moved up slightly until he was running shou to shoulder with the tall sergeant, but when he tried to pull ahead the man kept up with him. The hillside was so steep that the path went up it in a series of hairpins. The sergeant forged ahead of Sean at the first bend, but Sean caught him and passed him on the straight.
They ran at the top of their speed now, the lead changing back and forth between them, and the third man dropped out before they were halfway up the hillside. They ran grimly in a wash of sweat, their breathing harsh as the exhaust of a steam engine.
Suddenly Sean darted off the path, scrambling straight upward, cutting across the bend and coming out fifty feet ahead of the Shangane. The sergeant shouted angrily at this ruse and cut the next bend himself. Now both of them abandoned the pathway and ran straight up the steep slope, jumping over boulders and roots like a pair of blue kudu bulls in flight.
Sean came out on the crest three feet in front of the sergeant, threw himself down on the hard earth, and rolled onto his back, moaning for breath. The sergeant dropped down beside him with his breath sobbing in his chest. After a minute Sean sat up uncertainly, and they stared at each other in awe.
Then Sean began to laugh. It was a harsh painful cackle, but after a few seconds the Shangane laughed with him, though clearly each gust of laughter was an agony. Their laughter grew stronger as their lungs regained function, and when the rest of the party struggled to the crest of the hill they found them still sitting in the grass beside the track, roaring at each other like a pair of lunatics.
When the march resumed an hour later, the sergeant left the endless footpath and struck off cross-country toward the west. At last there was direction and purpose in the way he led the column.
Sean realized the trial was over.
Before dark they ran into a Renamo fine of permanent defenses.
They were entrenched along the bank of a wide but sluggish river that flowed green between sandbars and around water polished boulders. The dugouts and trenches were reverted with logs and sandbags and meticulously camouflaged against aerial discovery. There were mortars and heavy machine guns dug in, with commanding fields of fire across the river and sweeping the northern bank.
Sean had the impression these fortifications were extensive, and he guessed this was the perimeter of a large military area, certainly battalion and possibly even division strength. Once they had crossed the river and been passed through the defenses, Sean's appearance in the ranks of his escort created a stir of interest.
Off-duty troopers turned out of their dugouts and crowded around them, and his captors clearly enjoyed the elevated status a white prisoner bestowed upon them.
The crowd of interested and jocular onlookers abruptly thinned and parted as a tubby, bespectacled officer strode through them.
Sean's escort saluted him with theatrical flourishes, which he returned by touching the Min of his maroon beret with the tip of his swagger stick.
"Colonel Courtney," he greeted Sean in passable English. "We have been warned to expect you."
For Sean, it was refreshing to notice that Renamo wore conventional badges of rank, based on the Portuguese army conventions.
This man had red field officer flashes and the single crowns of a major on his epaulettes. During the bush war the tells had eschewed the capitalist imperialist traditions and dispensed with the symbols of an elitist officer class.
"You will spend the night with us," the major told him. "And I look forward to having you as our guest in mess tonight."
This was extraordinary treatment, and even Sean's captors were unpressed and in a strange way rather proud of him. The sergeant himself escorted Sean down to the river and even produced a fragment of green soap for him to wash out his bush jacket and shorts.
While they dried on a sun-heated rock, Sean wallowed naked in the pool and then used the last of the soap to wash his hair and rid his face of camouflage cream and ingrained dirt. He had not shaved since he had left Chiwewe camp almost two weeks previously, and his beard felt thick and substantial.
He worked up a lather of suds in his armpits and crotch and looked down at his body. There was not a vestige of fat on him; each individual muscle was outlined clearly beneath the sun darkened skin. He had not been in this extreme condition since the closing days of the war. He was like a thoroughbred racehorse brought up to its peak by a skillful trainer on the eve of a major race.
The sergeant loaned him a steel comb and he brushed his hair out. It fell almost to his shoulders, thick and wavy and sparkling from the wash. He put on his damp clothes and let them dry on his body. He felt good, that charged restless feeling of being at the very pinnacle of physical fitness.
The officers" mess was an underground dugout devoid of ornament or decoration. The furniture was crude and hand-hewn. Ms hosts were the major, a captain, and two young subalterns.
The food made up for its lack of artistic presentation by its abundance. A huge steaming bowl of stew made with sun-dried fish and chilis, the fiery peri-peri that was a relic of the Portuguese onialists, and great mounds of the ubiquitous maize-meal porcol ridge.
It was the best meal Sean had eaten since leaving Chiwewe, but the highlight of the evening was the drink the major provided, unlimited quantities of real civilized beer in metal cans. The labels read "Castle Lager" and in small print at the bottom, "Verwaardig in Suid Afrika, Made in South Africa." It was an indication as to which country was Renaino's good friend.
As the guest in mess, Sean proposed the first toast. He stood and raised his beer can.
"Renamo," he said. "And the people of Mozambique."
The major replied, "President Botha, and the people of South Africa," which settled it conclusively. They knew Sean was from the south and was, therefore, an honored guest.
He felt so secure in their company that he could relax and for the first time in months allow himself to get moderately drunk.
The major had fought for the Rhodesians during the bush war.
He told Sean that like Job Bhekani he had been a subaltern in the Rhodesian African Rifles, the elite black regiment that had fought so effectively and inflicted such slaughter among the ZANLA guerrillas. They soon established the camaraderie of old brothers-in arms Without obviously pumping him, Sean was able to nudge the conversation along and pick up the crumbs of information the major let fall more freely as the cans of beer were consumed.
Sean's estimation had been correct. This was part of the northern perimeter of a Renamo army group. The fortifications were deep and dispersed as a precaution against aerial bombardment.