Torch beam and muzzle frozen on the stack, I eased myself upright and leaned into the weapon. ‘Show yourself! Allez, allez, allez!’
I shuffled forward a foot or two. The shadows moved with me.
I kept left. My back scraped against the side of the dugout, but the adrenalin killed any pain. I kept each pace firm and deliberate, my feet never crossing. I needed a stable firing platform.
I didn’t call out again. I didn’t want to miss the slightest sound, or provide cover for whatever was in front of me to move.
More noise: a stifled, frightened whimper this time.
I came level with the boxes. The torch beam moved further into the dead ground behind them.
The barrel of an AK toppled to the ground in front of me, rusty, the parkerization long gone.
I reached out for it and the beam fell on a kid. He was lying against the back of the dugout, his swollen stomach torn open by a gunshot wound.
He was panting hard, fighting for air.
I knelt down next to him. ‘Hello, mate. Mr Nick, that’s me.’
His huge eyes gazed up at me but there was little reaction in them as I ran the light across his face.
‘Let’s have a look at you, yeah?’
I eased up the chest harness that covered almost all of the little boy’s torso and lifted his blood-soaked shirt. I saw his intestines ripple with each tortured breath. He was in shit state.
‘That’s too bad, mate.’ I kept up my Mr Nice Guy act as I rolled him on to his side. ‘Let’s have a look round the back, see what you got for us there.’
The exit wound was three times as big, a mess of torn flesh and exposed rib. There was nothing I could do for him here. I doubted there was much that could be done for him up top, beyond strapping him up and trying to keep what was left of him in the right place.
‘Let’s get this harness off you, then Mr Nick will take you to see Mr Tim and Miss Silky.’
His face screwed up with pain and his heels dug into the ground as he tried to fight it. His head, too large for his underfed body, lifted towards me. ‘Mr Nick, Mr Nick . . .’
‘That’s right, mate, Mr Nick. I’m here, you’ll be OK, come on, up you get.’
As gently as I could, I unstrapped the harness and pulled the little fucker up a couple of inches, then slipped off his shirt. It must have hurt like shit, but he didn’t scream; not a good sign. I folded the shirt lengthways, then wrapped it as firmly as I could around his back and stomach. It wouldn’t stop the bleeding, but it might stop him falling apart in my arms.
‘There you go – not long now, mate, before you’ll be playing football on this airstrip I know. Lots of kids there to play with. It’ll be a good laugh, yeah?’
I slipped my left hand under his legs, and my right behind his back, picked up my weapon and lifted. I’d be fucked if we got within range of Kony’s lot, but I wasn’t going to leave him to die here, all on his own. I could feel warm blood oozing down my arms. I clicked off the torch and headed outside.
He cried weakly each time I took a step, and never once took his impossibly wide, pleading eyes off my face. As the moon broke through the scudding clouds again, I knew we presented the world’s easiest target, but I didn’t want to spill any more of this kid’s guts than I had to on the way up. I moved as fast as I could to the ANFO site, then on to the tents.
I pushed through the flaps and into the dull glow of a Tilley lamp. It had been turned right down so the light wouldn’t show through the soaking canvas. Either Tim or Silky knew a lot more than just doctoring, or Bateman had given them a bollocking about staying tactical.
Silky had her back to me as she leaned over Tim. His legs, still bound together, had been elevated on a roll of wet blankets.
Sam’s kids were huddled in a group on the ground, exactly the same as they’d been in the MF tent in Nuka.
‘We’ve got a gunshot wound here.’
Silky spun around. ‘Oh, my God!’ She grabbed the Tilley lamp.
Tim gripped the situation. ‘Get a cot. Put him next to me.’
Silky dragged one over and I laid him down as gently as I could.
‘There you go, mate. Mr Tim and Miss Silky.’
Tears spilled down his cheeks, washing tracks in the grime from the dugout. His eyes burned into me. ‘Mr Nick . . .’ He struggled to hold up a hand.
‘Yeah, Mr Nick.’ I took his bony little fist. The skin was too rough for a child. ‘We’ll have that game of football, eh? As soon as you’re up and about . . .’
Tim took one look at what was underneath the shirt and told Silky what he needed out of the bag.
He was completely calm, and completely in command. He reminded me of Sam.
I left them to it and went back into the darkness.
I still had a job to do.
3
I found eight metal boxes labelled 200 rounds – 7.62 MDX – Link 1.4 among the empty wooden RPG crates and drums of firing cable. There was a belt of 200 link in each, and every fourth round was a tracer.
A pool of blood glistened in the torch beam as it sank slowly into the grit. There was another big splash of it against the back wall. I felt a jolt of guilt. Was I responsible? Had I zapped him? All of a sudden, Crucial’s words weren’t as reassuring as he’d meant them to be.
I started throwing the boxes of link towards the dugout entrance. I knew that two fold-down handles in each hand and two boxes under each arm was the most I could physically carry. But that was without a weapon. I dropped them into one of the RPG crates and heaved it on to my shoulder. Weapon in my left hand, I started to hump the gear up to the trenches.
I didn’t try to run: I’d have spent more time flat on my face than moving uphill.
Bateman was on the gun, doing his job. Standish was to his left, doing nothing except getting even more pissed off. Tough shit, we were staying. But it worried me that he was so quiet. I dumped my load beside them and went back down to the dugout. Humping boxes of link took me back to my days as the infantry crow. The job of lugging the twelve-pound boxes of link always fell to the new boy – that was just the way it was.
I waited by the drums. Crucial appeared, a body over his shoulder, butcher style, legs held, arms dangling. He must have been knackered. He was also carrying a GPMG by the handle, and an AK in his left hand.
Sam had another gun, and stooped like an old man under the weight of link round his neck.
I joined them at the track and nodded at the body. ‘He from Nuka?’
‘No, he had a weapon.’ He accelerated away from me in his haste to get the boy to treatment.
‘I’ve just taken another one up there.’ I grunted with the effort of talking and climbing. ‘Little fucker’s got a round through the stomach.’
Crucial crested the top of the knoll and disappeared. Sam stopped, and gripped my arm. ‘This can’t go on, Nick. You know that, don’t you?’
4
The first thing I did was check on the kid. Silky was holding the Tilley lamp over his cot while Tim packed the hole where his stomach used to be with dressings. His surgical gloves were smeared with bile and blood.
The kid was still panting, eyes half closed and fluttering, and his little swollen, undernourished belly moved up and down with each short, sharp breath. He must have been in terrible pain, but he still wasn’t screaming, and I could see from Tim’s face that he was as worried about that as I was.
The boy opened his eyes and struggled to move his lips. ‘Mr Nick . . .’
Crucial’s casualty was lying on the floor alongside. He’d been peppered from head to toe by the fragmentation of an RPG round. There were so many open wounds I wouldn’t have known where to begin patching him up, but at least he was still gulping in oxygen so he could cry.