‘You okay, mate?’ said Wilkes, trotting over to Beck. ‘You’re one lucky bastard. Did the bugger hypnotise you or something?’
‘Dunno, boss. Maybe,’ said Beck.
Beck leaned down and picked up the dropped AK-47. He expelled the magazine and checked it. Just as he’d thought: empty. The selector was on automatic fire.
‘If it’d been set to single shot, there might have been something left in the till with your name on it,’ Wilkes said. He held out his hand and Beck passed him the weapon. He turned the carbine over and the two men gave it a cursory examination. It was old and filthy with a stock deeply scarred from years of abuse. The blueing on the barrel was also removed in places and rust eggs spotted the metal here and there.
‘The bloke on the other end was lucky this didn’t blow up in his face,’ said Ferris, looking over Wilkes’s shoulder. ‘What the hell are these bastards doing with Kalashnikovs anyway?’
‘Is there an echo around here?’ said Wilkes.
‘What?’ Ferris asked.
‘Never mind,’ said Wilkes, passing him the weapon. ‘I’d like to know where this came from, and how it got here.’
‘Yeah, well, knowing the important questions is why you’re the leader of our merry band of wankers, Sarge.’ Ferris handed the carbine back. Originally called Wilkes’s Warriors, the sergeant’s troop had been renamed Wilkes’s Wankers when they were in East Timor, and the epithet had stuck.
‘Come on,’ said Wilkes, ‘we’d better see how the rest of our party is enjoying themselves.’
‘What are we going to do about the locals?’ Robson said, nodding in the direction of the popping gunfire.
‘Not much we can do. We’re not here to sort that one out. We’re on protection duty, remember? So we’d best go and protect.’
‘All our guys are accounted for,’ said Lance Corporal Ellis jogging over. ‘A couple of the PNG boys are wounded, though. Stray shots. Nothing serious. Nurse Beck, you might like to see to ’em.’
‘Yep,’ said Beck. He turned and ran back to the Land Rover to get his first aid kit.
‘There’re ten dead — four defenders, six attackers,’ said Ellis, continuing his debrief. ‘Loku, the other pollie and the interpreter are okay, but shaken up.’
‘Could be worse,’ said Wilkes.
‘Sorry about shooting that bugger, Sarge,’ said Littlemore, disappointed with himself.
‘It was you or him, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah, I know, but…’
‘Let it go, Jimbo. Did your best.’
The SAS were the elite of the Australian Army, trained to kill but not killers. There was a big difference and Wilkes’s men were proud of their level of professionalism. Littlemore had just ended the life of a man wielding a stone-age club. If nothing else it was a terribly uneven contest and he didn’t feel good about it. Five more warriors lay dead in the village centre, shot by the PNG troops who were a little less concerned about sparing their countrymen’s lives.
Wilkes’s men stood in a loose group, heads swivelling about, prepared for trouble. ‘How’s everyone for ammo?’ asked Wilkes.
The men checked their webbing and most shook their heads. They’d expended much of their personal stores. Frightening people away took more bullets than killing them. Wilkes didn’t like to be low on ammunition, especially when the jungle around them appeared to be full of people with twitchy fingers. He had half a magazine left — fifteen rounds. He could still call on his trusty pump action Remington, and he had plenty of heavy #4 buckshot to go with it. He also had five HE grenades left for the M203. Wilkes admonished himself for not having a few flash-bangs in his kit. As their name suggested, flash-bangs made a hell of a noise when they went off, as well as making a blinding flash. They were designed primarily for anti-terror work, for disorienting terrorists without killing innocent civilians. A few of them would have come in handy during a skirmish like the one they’d just experienced, stopping the invaders cold, and maybe saving lives on both sides.
Bill Loku, Andrew Pelagka and Timbu walked over, dusting themselves down.
Wilkes gave the civilians a quick once-over. They were dishevelled and muddy, but otherwise unharmed. He asked anyway, directing the question first to Loku: ‘Yu oraet, sir?’
The politician nodded, sweat beads glistening on his black skin.
‘Mr Pelagka?’
‘Yes, mi okei tenkyu.’
‘Timbu?’
The translator nodded.
Wilkes next turned his attention to his men. ‘How about you blokes? All OK?’
‘Fabulous, boss,’ said Beck.
‘Same,’ said Littlemore.
Ellis nodded agreement.
The headman of the village walked towards the group, taking broad steps, his composure not in the least affected, as though the events of the past half an hour were nothing too extraordinary. Indeed, he seemed more interested in Wilkes’s M4. He pointed at it and spoke in a language that was utterly foreign, barely moving his ancient lips. Timbu spoke to him, and they conversed back and forth. Finally, in unaccented English that continually surprised Wilkes, Timbu said, ‘The chief wants many guns like yours, Sergeant, so that he can bury his enemies. Can you show him a grenade? He saw you fire one and wants a closer look.’
Wilkes prised one from his chest webbing and handed it to the chief. It was perfectly safe. The device had to spin clockwise at quite high rotations to arm itself. The chief felt its weight in the palm of his hand, then threw it up and down carelessly a couple of times. He spat a crimson quid of betel nut and saliva on the ground at his feet before speaking again.
‘The chief is amazed that something so small can lift several men off the ground and throw them around like sticks. He says it’s truly magic of the gods, but can’t decide whether those gods are good or evil.’
They might be primitive people, but that didn’t dull their perception any. Wilkes said, ‘Tell the chief I admire his wisdom, Timbu.’
Timbu translated and the chief nodded, handing the grenade back. Next he beckoned for Wilkes’s weapon. The sergeant first checked that the chamber was empty and the safety on before he handed it over. Again, the chief felt its weight then brought it up, pulling the stock back into his shoulder and lining up his eye behind the sight. He muttered something.
‘He doesn’t like it. Says it feels light — not very strong,’ said Timbu.
The old man handed back the carbine. ‘Can you ask the chief where the jungle people get their guns from?’ Wilkes asked.
Timbu nodded and spoke in the strange, mumbling tongue and the chief replied. ‘Men from Papua — Indonesians,’ he said, nodding towards the west. ‘They come with guns and barter for the marijuana that grows wild here. It’s very powerful.’
‘It’s called New Guinea Gold. It’ll blow the top of your head off,’ said Ellis, chipping in.
‘I suppose you’re going to tell me next that you’ve never inhaled,’ said Wilkes with a smile.
‘Actually, I knew a bloke who knew a bloke whose sister’s boyfriend had the stuff once,’ said Ellis. ‘And he didn’t do the drawback.’
‘Yeah, right.’ Stale marijuana smoke. That was the smell Wilkes had recognised earlier but couldn’t quite place.