I knew that and didn't want to dwell on it. I would have liked to admire McGrath whole-heartedly but found it impossible. I was pleased to hear that Sadiq had sustained no losses among his men, and only a couple were wounded.
Our losses were worse.
The Russian was dead. Lang was in a bad way and lay on Dr Kat's operating table. Proctor had a bullet graze on the leg and Kemp on the shoulder, and others had an assortment of bruises and abrasions. But a roll call proved one man missing. After a search we found the body of Ron Jones, shot through the head and stomach by machine-gun bullets.
CHAPTER 22
It was ten o'clock before Sadiq took his chance on the bridge. First he wanted the tractor shifted so that if necessary he could get troops across fast, and we were wary of sending anyone out of cover to do that until we felt fairly sure, it was safe. Sadiq would not send scouts across, as being too dangerous. He was going to cross first himself in the Scorpion tank, which was a brave thing to do because even a lone infantryman might have a tank-killing weapon. He was taking three men with him, a driver, a gunner and a radio operator, and he left instructions that nobody was to move until he came back or sent a coded all clear signal.
Before that we'd cleaned up the camp, repairing what was possible and listing what needed repair when we could spare the time. Luckily Maksa's men had not destroyed much of importance, though there were two car windows shattered and sundry minor damage done here and there. Bishop and Bing, with help from the others, got a food supply moving, and on the rig the medical people were kept very busy.
Max Otterman's body had been found at the foot of the rig with a bullet in his back and two ribs broken, presumably by the fall though the damage could have been done by a boot. It was an appalling death. We organized a digging party off the road and held a mass funeral service. Otterman, Burns, Ron Jones and Andrei Djavakhishkili, a Rhodesian, an American, a Welshman and a Russian, shared one grave, though we gave them each separate headboards. In another grave were two of Sadiq's men and with them four rebels, all with the common bond of being Nyalans.
Both the ailing infant and the hospital's other serious patient, Sister Mary, had survived the night. But the two doctors and the nursing staff were under great strain and an urgent discussion on ways and means was long overdue.
Astonishingly, during the early hours of the morning we had visitors.
Sandy Bing, carrying a bucket of hot water towards the rig, stopped and said, 'I'll be damned, Mister Wingstead! Just look at them.'
In the distance, quietly and almost shyly, little clumps of Nyalans were reappearing, still mostly women and children, to stand in respectful yet wary homage to their travelling talisman. Some of them spoke to the soldiers, and Dr Kat and two of the Nyalan nurses went down among them, to return with news that the vast majority had melted away just far enough to be within earshot of the fight, and close enough to come back if they felt all was safe again. It was truly extraordinary.
'I think it may mean that the other soldiers have all gone,' Dr Kat told us. They speak of them as evil, and they would not come back if they were still close by.'
'But they'd be across the river, Doctor Kat. How could these people know?'
'I think you call it the bush telegraph,' the surgeon said with his first smile for a long time. 'It really does work quite well. You will see, the Captain will return to give us an all clear. In the meantime, they have brought me a woman who. broke her leg last night. I must go back and see to her.'
I went to have a look at the Saracen that had caught fire. I was curious to see why it had happened; an armoured car isn't a paper bag to be burned up by a Very flare.
It was simple enough when we reconstructed what had occurred. At the time that the shooting started someone must have been filling the gas tank and in the hurry to get things moving the fuel tank cap hadn't been screwed back on properly. When the Very ignited, a spark must have gone straight into the tank, blowing up the vehicle in fine style. We found the cap still on its hinge, military fashion, but hanging loose.
I had another job to do that I didn't relish, and that was to speak to McGrath alone. I started by telling him about the Saracen and he grinned approval.
'Dead lucky. We have to have some of it,' he commented.
I said, 'McGrath, there's something bothering me.'
'Why then, let's have it,' he said calmly.
'In the warehouse you told us that Maksa was getting ready to burn it down with us inside. But I found no petrol drums anywhere near the warehouse, and there's no fuel of theirs this side of the river. Our tanker is still locked and nobody took the keys.'
'Well, maybe they were going to do it another way,' he said easily.
'Don't mess with me, McGrath. Did you actually hear them say anything like that?'
'Oh for Christ's sake,' he said, driven out of his normal calm, 'I had to say something to get you lot moving! You were just going to stand there and take it. Or try talking your way out, I suppose.'
'You were safe enough, free and armed. Why the hell did you bother to come back for us?'
'If I thought I could have got away through this benighted country on my own, Mannix, I'd have done so. I need you, that's why.' He crowned this casually selfish statement with one more shocking. 'I must say Otterman's death came in handy. That really did the trick.'
I felt disgusted, and then had another appalling idea.
'McGrath, did you kill Ron Jones?'
He looked amused rather than alarmed. 'Why should I do that?'
'You know why. And you had time to do it. In God's name, how can I believe you even if you say you didn't?'
'Well now, you can't, Mannix, so if I were you I'd stop worrying about it. I didn't as a matter of fact, though he's no great loss for all that. In fact he was more dangerous to you than I've ever been.'
I couldn't help rising to the bait. 'What do you mean?'
'Well, he was a bit of a sniveller, wasn't he? You know that, the way he came babbling things to you that he shouldn't. He saw you take the shotgun into the warehouse, Mannix, and it was he who told the Colonel about it. I heard him myself.'
Quite suddenly I knew that this was the truth. I recalled Jones's fear in the warehouse, the way he hung back from Maksa as he'd always hung back from McGrath, perhaps fearing lest he be unmasked before us all for Maksa's pleasure. Any regret I had for his death ebbed away, and despite myself I felt a nagging touch of understanding of McGrath and his ruthlessness. He'd manoeuvred us into doing the one thing he knew best; fighting and killing. He'd done it all for the most selfish of reasons, and without compunction. And yet he was brave, efficient and vital to our cause; and perhaps justified as well.
I walked away from him in silence. I would never know if he had killed Ron Jones, but the worst of it, and the thing that filled me with contempt for myself as well as for him, was that I didn't care. I prayed that I wouldn't become any more like him.
McGrath was a maverick, intelligent, sound in military thinking and utterly without fear. I felt that he might be a useful man to have about in a war, but perhaps on the first day of peace he ought to be shot without mercy, and that was one hell of an assessment.»
Sadiq had decided that it was time to go.
'Mister Mannix, if I do not return I have told my sergeant to take command of the soldiers,' he said. 'And they are to stay with you unless given alternative orders in person by a superior.'
Thank you. I wish you good luck.'
He saluted and climbed up into the Scorpion, dropping down through the command hatch and dogging it shut. He was taking no chances. The tank trundled slowly across the bridge. Sadiq had reckoned he could pass the wrecked Saracen but might have to nudge it aside and he proved right. Once past it he picked up speed and the driver did not bother to avoid the scattered bodies. I remembered being told back in Korea that if one wanted to sham dead on a battlefield better not to do it with tanks around.