The Syrian whirled furiously and grabbed my shoulder. I let him have a fist in the gut, and he sprawled to the ground. He tried to scramble to his feet and clawed under his coat for some weapon so I kicked him in the ribs and he went down again just as Sadiq came up, unfastening the flap of his pistol holster.
'You have no right to attack citizens, Mister Mannix,' he said angrily.
I pointed to the ground. A heavy cosh had spilled out of the Syrian's jacket and lay near his inert hand.
'Some guys need a lot of persuading,' I said mildly. 'Let's get this thing out of here.' The other man had vanished.
Sadiq's pistol was a better persuader than my voice. He grabbed four able-bodied men out of the milling throng and within three minutes the road was cleared. As he reholstered his pistol he said, 'You believe in direct action, Mister Mannix?'
'When necessary — but I'm getting too old for brawling.' In fact the small display of aggression had done me the world of good. I'd really been needing to let off steam and it had been the Syrian merchant's bad luck to have been a handy target..
'I would prefer you do no more such things. For the moment please stay with your own men. Tell Mister Kemp I will meet him in the central square soon.' He was off before I had a chance to respond.
I pushed through the crowds and found our Land Rover parked at the intersection of the two main roads. Dozens of distressed, battle-shocked people milled about and smouldering debris lay everywhere. Our eyes watered with the sting of acrid smoke. Broken glass crunched under our boots as we picked our way through the rubble. The Nyalans shrank away from us, weeping women pulling their bewildered children from our path. It was incredibly disturbing.
It became obvious pretty soon that there was no one in charge; we saw no policemen, no soldiers apart from Sadiq's own troops, and no sign of a doctor, a hospital or even a Red Cross post. Attempts to get sensible answers from passers-by proved useless. Presently, utterly dispirited, we decided to withdraw.
The stream of refugees thinned out as we left the town but there were still a lot of them, going God knows where. But I was interested and pleased to see that on the outskirts Sadiq had set up the rudiments of a command post, and slowly his troops were beginning to bring order out of the chaos, reuniting families and doing a little crude first aid of their own. A makeshift camp was already taking shape and people were being bedded down, and some sort of food and drink was being circulated. It made me feel more confident about Sadiq.
We left him to get on with it. Our men were ready enough to give assistance, but we were not welcome and what little we had to offer wouldn't go nearly far enough. Kemp was anxious to keep our unit together; the crew were his responsibility and he was still thinking in terms of the safety of the rig. We drove back to our camp site in the dusk feeling very depressed.
Kemp went to give Wingstead an edited version of what we'd found. I settled down for a quiet cigarette while waiting for the meal that Bishop was preparing for us, and into the silence McGrath and Ron Jones settled down alongside me. Two cigarettes and one foul pipe glowed in the dusk.
'A hell of a thing, this,' Ron Jones said presently. The Welsh lilt in his voice seemed more pronounced than in full daylight. 'Shouldn't we be back there helping?'
'We can't do much,' I said. 'And I don't think Captain Sadiq really wants us. If he needs us he knows where we are.'
'We could spare them a bit of food, though.'
McGrath snorted.
'There could be five thousand people out there, Ron, and none of us is Jesus Christ. Five French loaves and two lobster tails?' I asked.
McGrath said, They get wind of our food stocks and they'll mob us, as like as not. I'd be happier with a gun in my fist, myself.'
'I don't know if you're right. Nyalans are peaceable folk. A gun may not be such a good idea. People tend to get the wrong impression when armed foreigners wander about taking part in someone else's war.'
'I'd still be happier with a gun in my cab,' he said. 'One of those Russian Kalashnikovs that the black lads carry, maybe. Better still, a Uzi like Sadiq has in his car.'
I glanced at him. 'You're observant.'
'It pays. I told you I was in the army once myself.'
'What rank?'
He grinned. 'Never more than sergeant. But I made sergeant three times.'
Ron Jones laughed. 'I never had the pleasure of army life,' he said. 'This is my idea of something to watch on the telly, not be caught in the middle of.'
Wingstead had said something similar. I reflected that a lot of men of my age were comparative innocents, after all.
McGrath said, 'Not this mess, maybe. But there are worse lives.' In the twilight he seemed even bigger than he looked by day, a formidable figure. He tamped down his pipe and went on, 'I've seen sights like this before though, many times, in other countries. It's all right for the soldiers but for the civilians it's very sad indeed. But there's nothing you or I can do about it.'
I had seen it before too. I thought back to my young days, to Pusan and Inchon, to the wrecked towns and refugee-lined roads, the misery and the squalor. I didn't want to see it ever again.
McGrath suddenly dug his elbow into my ribs.
'There's someone out there — with a white face. I think it's a woman!'
He scrambled to his feet and ran into the growing darkness.
CHAPTER 10
Her name was Sister Ursula and she was a nun, and how in hell McGrath had detected that she had a white face in the semi-darkness I'll never know because it was blackened and smudged with smoke and wood ash. Her habit was torn and scorched, and slashed down one side showing that she wore long pants to the knee. She managed it so decorously that it didn't show most of the time.
She was tired but very composed, and showed few signs of strain. I once knew a man who was an atheist; he was also a plumber and had done a week's stint in a convent fixing the water system. He'd gone in with the firm conviction that all religious types were nutters of some sort. When he finished I asked him what he now thought about the contemplative life. He said, Those women are the sanest lot of people I've ever met,' and seemed baffled by it.
I went to my gear and fetched out a bottle of whisky. This was no time to be following Kemp's camp rules. When I got back she was sitting on a stool surrounded by our men. They were full of curiosity but polite about it, and I was pleased to see that they weren't badgering her with questions. McGrath's eyes gleamed when he saw the whisky. 'A pity it's only Scotch,' he said. 'Irish would be better, wouldn't it, Sister?'
Her lips curved in a small, tired smile. 'Right now, whisky is whisky. Thank you, Mister — Mannix, is it?'
I'd have said that she was about thirty-five, maybe forty, but she could well have been older; it's never easy to tell with nuns. When Hollywood makes movies about them they pick the Deborah Kerrs and Julie Andrews, but Sister Ursula wasn't like that. She had a full jaw, her eyebrows were thick black bars which gave her a severe and daunting look, and her face was too thin, as though she didn't eat enough. But when she smiled she was transformed, lovely to look at. We found out that she didn't use that radiant smile very often; and with reason, just at that time.
I said, 'Someone get a glass, please.'
'From the bottle is good enough,' she said, and took it from me. She swallowed and coughed a couple of times, and handed it back to me. The men watched transfixed, though whether this was the effect of the nun or the bottle I wasn't sure.