The Beach

I suppose they might have been battered to death right there and then, but just as I was beginning to feel that the scene was getting too unpleasant to watch, another bunch of guards arrived, and this lot appeared to have a boss. I'd never seen him before. He was older than the others and had no automatic rifle – only a pistol, still in its holster. Traditionally a mark of power amongst gunmen. One word from him and the beating stopped.

Beside me, Mister Duck reached over and clutched my arm. 'Rich, I think they're going to be killed.' I frowned at him and mouthed, 'Quiet.' 'No, listen,' he persisted. 'I don't want them killed.' This time I shut him up not just with my finger but my whole hand. The guards' boss had started talking.

He spoke in English. Not flawlessly by any means. Not like a Nazi POW camp commandant who appreciates English poetry and says to his prisoners, 'You know, we are much alike, you and I.' But good enough.

'Who are you?' he said, very loud and clear.

A deceptively tricky question. What do you say? Do you formally introduce yourself, do you say 'no one', do you beg for your life? I thought Sammy handled it very well, considering he'd just had his front teeth knocked out.

'We 're travellers from Ko Pha-Ngan,' he replied between tight gasps for air, involuntarily dribbling as he spoke. 'We were looking for some other travellers. We made a mistake. We didn't know this was your island.'

The boss nodded, not unkindly. 'Ve'y big mistake.'

'Please, we're very…' Gasp. 'Sorry.'

'You alone now? Any frien' here now?'

'We're alone. We were looking for a friend. We thought he was here, and we know we made a mist…'

'Why you look for frien' here?'

'Our friend gave us a map.'

The boss cocked his head to the side. 'Wha' map?'

'I can sh…'

'You can show me tha' map. La'er.'

'Please. We're very sorry.'

'Yes. I know abou' you bein' sorry.'

'We'd like to go. We could leave your island now and we wouldn't tell anyone about anything.'

'Yes. You tell no one. I know abou' tha'.'

Sammy tried to smile. All his remaining teeth were bright red. 'Will you let us go? Please?'

'Ah.' The boss smiled back. 'You can go.'

'…We can go?'

'Yes.'

'Thank you.' With an effort, Sammy raised himself on to his knees. 'Sir, thank you. I promise you, we won't tell any…'

'You can go wit' us.'

'…With you?'

'You go wit' us now.'

'No,' Sammy began to protest. 'Please, wait, we made a mistake! We're very sorry! We won't tell anyone! '

One of the German guys started to get up, holding his arms in the air. 'We will not speak!' he blurted. 'We will not speak!'

The boss gazed at the German impassively, then spoke quickly to the guards. Three of them moved forward and tried to lift Zeph by the arms. He began to struggle. Another guard stepped forward and jabbed the barrel of his rifle into Zeph's stomach.

'Richard,' said Mister Duck, who had squirmed from under my grip. 'Listen to me. They're definitely going to be killed.'

I took no notice.

'Do something, Richard.'

Again I didn't respond, and this time he poked me hard in the ribs with his finger. Luckily, my yelp was drowned out by the sounds of the rafters screaming.

'Jesus fucking Christ!' I whispered incredulously. 'What's your problem?'

'Do something to help them!'

'Like what?'

'Like…' He considered this question whilst over in the field the guards piled on to the German girl. She'd tried to run away and been brought down after only a couple of stumbling metres. 'I don't know!'

'Well neither do I, so belt up! You'll get me killed too!'

'But…'

Resisting the urge to shout at him, I grabbed him by the lapels of his combat jacket and put my mouth right up against his ear. 'For the last time, shut the fuck up! '

Mister Duck covered his face with his hands and the guards began dragging their terrified captives away.

Cheap Shots

The cries and howls were gradually replaced by jungle noises. Commonplace sounds I'd never normally have registered, but which now seemed unnatural. Worse, obscurely facetious; twittering birdsong like twittering bad jokes, jangling my nerves and my temper. I stood up without a word to Mister Duck and set off on my way back up to the pass. It wasn't an easy trek. My head ached with a fading adrenalin rush, my legs felt unsteady, and I was giving far too little thought to stealth. Twice I tripped and more than twice I pushed through a thicket without pausing to see who might be on the other side.

Looking back, it seems obvious that I was shaken by what I'd seen and in a hurry to leave an area which still felt heavy with screams. But that wasn't how I saw it at the time. I only thought about the importance of getting back to camp and filling in Sal on the morning's developments. I was also furious with Mister Duck. From the moment we'd started tracking the rafters, his wires seemed to have got severely crossed. Not only had he apparently asked me to intercept Zeph and Sammy before the plateau, his blathering had put me in jeopardy. As far as I was concerned, that was a serious offence. The DMZ was way too dangerous a place if you couldn't rely on your company.

I think Mister Duck sensed this anger because, unusually, he made no attempt at conversation. Until we reached the pass. Then he stopped me with a firm shove and said, 'We need to talk.'

'Fuck you,' I replied, shoving him back. 'You could have got me killed.'

'The rafters probably are being killed!'

'You don't know that. And I didn't want that beating shit to happen any more than you, so don't get on some fucking moral high horse. We knew they might be caught. That was understood when we made the decision to make no contact with them unless they got to the waterfall, so what do you want from me?'

'Decisions? I didn't make any decisions! I wanted you to help them!'

'Steaming in like Rambo, waving an M16 that doesn't even exist?'

'You could have done something!'

'Like what? You live in a dream world! There was nothing I could have done!'

'You could have warned them before they got to the plateau!'

'I had clear orders not to warn them!'

'You could have broken the orders!'

'I didn't want to fucking break them!'

'You… didn't?'

'Not for one second!'

Mister Duck frowned and opened his mouth to reply, then appeared to check himself.

'What?' I snapped.

He shook his head, his features calming. When eventually he spoke I knew he wasn't saying what was on his mind. 'That was a cheap shot, Richard,' he said quietly. 'About me living in a dream world.'

'You could have got me killed, but I hurt your feelings. God forgive me. I'm a monster.'

'It's your world I live in.'

'That must be a comfort, considering you were the one who pointed out I'm…'

I cut myself off. While I'd been talking, I'd heard a sharp crack from somewhere in the DMZ.

'…Did you hear that?'

Mister Duck hesitated, his eyes narrowing, and suddenly he looked extremely worried. 'Yes. I heard something.'

'You sure?'

'Definite.'

We both waited.

Within five or six seconds the silence was exploded by a burst of gunfire. It was entirely unambiguous, somehow managing to ripple through the trees like a quick breeze and tear through them with shocking loudness. A single burst, but a long one. Long enough for me to blink and hunch my shoulders, and then be aware that the shooting was still going on.

When it finally did stop, the next thing I heard was Mister Duck, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly.