The naked guerrillas took them from behind, and this time Craig heard the explosive grunts as they swung the long, bladed pan gas likea tennis-player hitting a hard forehand volley. A pan ga blade cleaved through the subaltern's burgundy-red beret and split his skull to the chin.
Sarah whirled and raced back, gathering the other girls.
One of the younger ones was screaming as they floundered over the submerged sandbanks.
There was a single shot, and then all the troopers were down, scattered along the edge of the bank, but the guerrillas were still working over them, swinging and chopping and hacking.
"Sarah," Craig called to her as she reached the bank.
"Get the girls back into the bush! " She snatched up her shirt, and pushed her s4ters ahead of her, shepherding them away.
Carrying the AK, "Craig ran across the bridge. The guerrillas were already stripping and looting the dead men.
They worked with the dexterity of much practice, wrist, watches first and then the contents of pockets and webbing pouches.
"Was anyone hit?" Craig demanded. That single shot had worried him, but there were no casualties. Craig gave them two minutes to finish with the corpses, and then sent a patrol back to the crest to cover them against surprise.
He turned back to the dead Shana. "Bury them!" They had , and they prepared the mass grave the previous afternoon dragged the naked bodies away There was blood down the side of one truck where the machine-gunner had hung. "Wash that off!" One of the guerrillas dipped a canteen of water from the river. "And FJ wash off those uniforms." They would dry out in an hour or less.
Sarah returned before the burial party had finished. She was fully dressed again.
the girls back to the village, they know the "I have sent country well. They will be safe."
"You did well," Craig told her and climbed into the cab of the leading truck. The keys were in the ignition.
from out of the thick bush The burial party returned and Craig called in his pickets. The guerrilla detailed to drive the second truck started it, and then the rest of them climbed aboard. The two trucks crossed the bridge and growled up the far slope. The entire operation had taken less than thirty, five minutes. They reached the felled mhoba,hobo tree and Comrade Lookout stepped into the track and directed them off the road. Craig parked in thick cover, and immediately a gang of guerrillas covered both gan vehicles with cut branches, and another gang be unloading the cargo, and clearing the roadblock.
There were two-hundred, pound sacks of maize meal, of canned meat, blankets, medicines, cigarettes, cases to the ammunition, soap, sugar, salt all of it priceless guerrillas. It was all carried away, and Craig knew it would be hidden and retrieved later whenever the opportunity occurred. There were a dozen kit bags containing the dead troopers" personal gear, a treasure trove of Third Brigade uniforms, even two of the famous burgundy berets. While the guerrillas dressed in these uniforms, Craig checked the time. It was a little after five o'clock.
Craig had noted that the radio operator at Tuti camp started the generator and made his routine report at seven o'clock every evening. He checked the radio in the leading truck. It had a fifteen-amp output, more than enough to reach Tuti camp, but not sufficient power to reach Harare headquarters. That was good.
He called Comrade Lookout and Sarah to the cab and they went over their notes. Sally' Anne would be over Tuti airstrip at 5.20 a.m. tomorrow morning, and she could stay in the circuit until 8.30 a.m. Craig allowed three hours for the journey from Tuti camp back to the airstrip at the mission station that would take into account any minor delays or mishaps. Ideally they should leave the camp at 2.30 a.m but not later than 5 a.m.
That meant they should time their arrival at the gates of the camp for midnight, or close to it. Two and a half hours to secure the position, refuel the trucks from the storage tank, release the prisoners, find Tungata and start back.
"All right," Craig said, "I want each group to go over their duties. First you, Sarah-"
"I take my two with the bolt-cutters, and we go straight t o Number One hutment-" He had given her two men.
Tungata might be so weak as to be unable to walk unassisted. Number One hutment was set a little apart from the others behind its own wire and was obviously used as the highest secu cell. Sarah had seen them lead My Tungata from it to their last meeting on the parade ground.
"When we find hi im we bring him back to the assembly point at the main gate. If he can walk on his own I will leave my two men to open the other cells and release the prisoners."
"Good." She had it perfectly.
"Now the second group."
"Five men for the perimeter guard towers--2 Comrade Lookout went through his instructions.
7i
"That's it then." Craig stood up. "But it all depends on one thing. I've said this fifty times already, but I'm going to say it again. We must get the radio before they can transmit. We have about five minutes from the first shot totes for the operator to realize what is do it, two minu happening, two minutes to start the electric generator and run up to full power, another minute to make his contact pass the warning. If that with Harare headquarters and " He checked his watch.
happens, we are all dead men.
"Five minutes past seven we can make the call now.
Where is your man who speaks Shana" Carefully Craig coached the man in what he had to say, and was relieved to find him quick-witted.
"I tell them that the convoy is delayed on the road. One but it will be repaired. We of the trucks has broken down, will arrive much later than usual, in the night, "he repeated.