It seemed to me that Joss was observing our preparations with a slightly cynical air. He was sending his own dead and wounded back to the nearest military base by road, and obviously reckoned our reaction was over the top. At the same time, maybe he was ashamed of the way his guys had behaved, and so felt he wasn’t in a position to start making criticisms. I didn’t feel sorry for his casualties, even the two with broken legs. In fact, I hoped they’d have a rough ride home.
Our pilot came on the air when he was twenty minutes out. His name, he told us, was Steve, and by his accent he was an Aussie or a New Zealander. He was flying a Cessna 210, at 8,000 feet, and having no problems with his navigation as he came towards our location from the north-east.
‘Hold that bearing,’ I told him. ‘We’re ready for you. The strip we’ve cleared runs roughly east and west. Four hundred metres long. Level ground all the way. Wind at the minute is zero, but we’ll light a fire at the north-eastern corner to see what the smoke does.’
‘Roger,’ he went. ‘Sounds dinkum. Where’s my passenger?’
‘We’ll have him by the fire. Suggest you come in from the west and taxi right along.’
‘Fair enough. No rebel forces in the area, I suppose?’
‘Not that we know of. We’ve had a patrol out one k to the south, and they’re reporting the area clear.’
‘Okay, then. I’ll see you in a minute.’
The scrub we collected was so dry our marker fire went off like a torch, but the blaze produced practically no smoke, so we sent one of the Kamangans running to pull some branches off a leadwood tree which was growing a couple of hundred metres away. The dusty-looking leaves crackled fiercely and gave off dense black smoke; after a quick trial, we kept the rest ready until the plane arrived.
We heard it before we saw it. The sun was already high and brilliant, and we had to screw up our eyes against its light when we detected the far-off hum. Then we picked up a little dark dot which rapidly grew into a silver and blue aircraft, already descending.
‘We have you visual,’ I called. ‘Come slightly right of your heading, and we’ll be on your nose. You should see our smoke.’
‘Okay,’ he answered, ‘but there are bush fires all over.’ Then his voice sharpened as he said, ‘Got it! Got the strip. Wait one while I take a look.’
Bringing the Cessna down low, he made a pass to the south, with the aircraft tilted over towards us as he scanned the makeshift runway. As he climbed again a covey of terrified guinea fowl exploded from the scrub beneath him, eight or ten heavy grey birds, scattering desperately.
The smoke from our fire was going up straight as a pillar.
‘Looks okay,’ he said.
I saw his undercarriage go down as he pulled round in a tight turn to line up for an easterly approach. Without further ado he came in low — so low that it looked as though his wheels were going to brush through the tops of bushes short of the strip. Then with twin puffs of dust he was down, bouncing a bit but well under control. He taxied steadily towards us, stopped about thirty metres off, closed down his engine, opened the door and jumped out — a stocky young fellow in bush shirt and shorts, with a shock of fair hair that flopped over his tanned forehead.
I went forward to shake hands, and said, ‘Thanks for coming.’
‘Don’t mention it. Sorry you needed me.’ He gestured at Andy’s body, now zipped into a black bag. ‘Trouble with elephants, I hear.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Dangerous animals.’
‘We thought there were none left. We heard they’d all been shot.’
‘Don’t you believe it. I flew over a big herd right back there.’
‘Maybe that was the lot that ran into us. Well, where d’you want him?’
‘On the floor. We’ve stripped out the seats.’
Four of us picked up the body, which had gone stiff as a board in the night, but now was floppy again, and hoisted it awkwardly through the passenger door.
‘What are you going to do with him?’ Genesis asked.
‘The embassy’s laid on an ambulance to take him straight to the city mortuary. They’re arranging a flight back to the UK as soon as possible.’
That seemed as good as we could get. Steve said a quick goodbye and got back on board, but nobody else spoke. None of us had anything to say. We watched mutely as he started up, carried out his checks, turned, taxied and took off in the opposite direction, waggling his wings in farewell as he swung right-handed and climbed away to the north. I had a strong desire to jump into the co-pilot’s seat and fly clean out of this mess, on the pretext that the body needed an escort. In reality I knew that such an action would never wash, and in any case, it wasn’t in me to leave my own guys in the shit.
We’d sent nothing with Andy, because he had practically nothing to send — no money, credit card or wallet. The only personal items I kept were his watch — a good stainless-steel Rolex, which would certainly have been nicked in the mortuary — and a small folder of green canvas holding two photos of Penny, which I found in the breast pocket of his DPMs. Whatever happened, I’d make sure that those two items got back to the UK safely.
In a couple of minutes, the Cessna vanished into the sky, and our little group was left standing in silence under the hot morning sun. Just before we moved off I noticed that Genesis was fingering the crucifix which he wore on a fine chain round his neck, and that his lips were moving in prayer.
‘Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord,’ he was murmuring. ‘Even so sayeth the spirit, for they rest from their labours.’
SIX
We started south again in a sober frame of mind. The fiasco of the ambush had been damaging on two counts: first, we’d taken casualties; second, far from achieving anything, we’d given our presence away. We had no means of telling where the arms convoy had been when things went noisy; but even if it was still too far out for the guys on it to hear the gunfire and explosions, they must have seen the concentration of bush fires raging up ahead of them, and they’d be bound to suspect that a military force was operating in the area. Nor did we know anything about their comms. Had they been in contact with the mine at Gutu and reported the disturbance? Even if they hadn’t, the mere fact that the convoy had failed to come through must have told the garrison something was wrong. We needed to put space between ourselves and the ambush location.
In the morning we’d revisited the scene — and a horrible one it was. In the killing ground we found seven dead elephants: five mature animals and two babies, densely covered with flies, their stomachs blown out like grey barrage balloons. The one that sprayed blood over me had collapsed just past the spot where Whinger and I had been lying. Two more had been killed by the claymores: one had had the lower half of a hind leg blown off, and had dragged itself away for a couple of hundred yards before it bled to death. We found it lying in a gully in a pool of blood. The air was still too cool for the thermals to have got going, and most birds of prey weren’t yet airborne, but something had already alerted two vultures, which were perched in a bare tree to the south, watching and waiting to begin a colossal feast.
The futility of the whole thing made me angry. I was feeling the loss of Andy, too, and although I said nothing more about the witch doctor, I felt certain that somehow the old bastard had put a spell on us.