The Perfect Soldier (28 page)

Bennie was looking at him now, his face turned on the pillow.

‘How is he?’

McFaul described Domingos’s injuries. With luck, they
might save one leg. Then he fell silent again. Celestina, he thought. And her little sack of rocks.

‘You should have fucking checked him,’ he said at last.

‘I did.’

‘Double-checked him.’

‘I did. I told you, boss, on the radio. He had the notes. He showed them to me. Shit, you were only there a couple of days back. Four? Five days?’

‘Sunday,’ McFaul said briefly. ‘Nearly a week.’

‘Yeah, but what’s a week? You don’t forget these things. You don’t. He knew exactly how much he’d done. It was down there on paper. He’d entered it into the laptop, too. Black and white. Check, if you want.’

McFaul nodded, falling silent, picturing the minefield. He’d need a print-out from the laptop for the inquiry. Middleton would insist.

‘So how far had he gone?’

‘Fifty metres. Sixty. Absolute max.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Fucking don’t then. Only it’s true.’ Bennie sounded aggrieved, turning his face to the wall. Seconds later, he rolled over again. ‘What about a stray? A rogue? One you missed last week?’

McFaul didn’t answer. The same thought had been haunting him since the first conversation with Bennie on the radio. If it wasn’t a fault on Domingos’s part, if he was still within the safe area, then maybe he’d stumbled on a mine they hadn’t found before. He closed his eyes, examining the possibility afresh, trying to take himself back to the afternoon they’d last worked on the path to the river. It had been hot, hotter than usual. Peterson had arrived on a flight from Luanda. They’d had a brief discussion about the boy Jordan. Peterson had wanted a sight of the field report he was putting in. They’d
been talking on the embankment while Domingos took the final turn. McFaul shook his head, swamped by a sudden wave of remorse, remembering the little figure out on the bare, red earth, diligent as ever, sweeping left and right, interlocking arcs, textbook stuff, nothing left to chance. No, if they were talking human error then the fault was more likely his own.

He looked across at Bennie again, changing the subject.

‘So whose idea was all this,’ he asked, ‘in the first place?’

Bennie got up on one elbow, affecting surprise, and McFaul knew at once that he’d been expecting the question.

‘Being there, you mean? Doing it?’

‘Yeah, last time we talked it was all down to stuff in the classroom. Training sequences. What happened to all that?’

‘We did it,’ Bennie said at once. ‘Next door. Me at the blackboard.’

‘But why go to the river? Afterwards? When you knew I had to see Katilo first?’

‘I …’ Bennie shrugged. ‘It just seemed obvious, the best use of time. The place had been swept. Matey was banging on and on about how important it was, all the stuff we had to do, all those shots. Takes for ever, he said. Plus we might be out of here by tomorrow, who fucking knows?’

‘So you did it? Went right ahead?’

‘Yeah, he’s got a mouth on him, that bloke. You’ve heard the way he goes on. Plus …’ He rolled over again, punching the pillow. ‘I dunno, I just got the idea you were up for it, that’s all.’

‘Up for what?’

‘You know, all this training shit. Teaching the locals how to do it, spreading the word, all that. Domingos’s a natural. Right fucking colour for a start. Poor little bastard …’ He shook his head. ‘I never want to see anything like that again. Ever. I’m fucking out of it, me. Nice little newsagent’s place.
Corner shop somewhere. Pub. Seaside B and B. Anything but this …’

Bennie fell silent, rolling himself a cigarette, and McFaul reached for a towel, flicking at a mosquito, halfway up the wall. The corner of the towel left a smudge of blood on the chipped plaster. He closed his eyes again, trying not to think about Domingos. Bennie was stirring. He heard his footsteps padding across the room, then the rasp of a match and a long sigh as he exhaled.

‘If you don’t believe me about Domingos,’ he muttered, ‘you can always see it for yourself.’

‘How?’ McFaul asked drily.

‘Matey’s video.’

‘What video?’

‘The one he was shooting. At the time.’

‘He was shooting when Domingos …?’

‘Yeah.’

‘It’s all on
tape
?’

‘Yeah. And quite a bit afterwards, too.’

McFaul found the Global Land Rover at the UN compound. It was parked untidily on the street outside and McFaul limped past it, ringing the bell on the open gate and then taking the path up towards the reinforced front door. It was dark now and he could see chinks of light through the makeshift blast-proof curtains. Generator, he thought. Fernando must have laid hands on some of the diesel that had come in with Molly Jordan on the flight from Luanda.

McFaul knocked twice and waited. Eventually the door opened. Peterson stood in the hall. There were dark splashes of blood on his white shirt and he looked harassed. As soon as he saw McFaul he extended a sympathetic hand.

‘I’m very sorry,’ he said. ‘How is he?’

McFaul explained again about the operations. Domingos and his family should go on the evacuation list. He needed a hospital bed in an acute ward in Luanda and a couple of months afterwards at the rehabilitation centre at Bomba Alta.

‘That may not be easy.’

‘Why not?’

‘Question of precedent. If they get on the flight, how many others will want the same treatment? Think about it. They’d have a point.’

They were in the kitchen now. A single candle stood in an empty sardine can. McFaul sank into the only chair. He suddenly felt very tired.

‘He’s badly hurt. He may die.’

‘Lots of them are badly hurt. This is an aid flight. Not a mass exodus.’

‘OK.’ McFaul shrugged. ‘I’ll stay. He can have my place. Simple.’

‘You’re priority listed. Orders from Global UK. I was talking to Ken Middleton this morning. He wants you back.’

‘He wants the team back. Domingos’s part of the team.’

‘Flat on his back? Without a leg?’

McFaul looked at Peterson a moment, knowing at last what it was that pissed him off about the man. He was as compassionate, and committed, and as keen as the next man to help in Angola but he had the mentality of a civil servant. Talk to Peterson, and you were back in the world of meetings, and sub-committees, and long turgid memoranda about the importance of toeing the party line. Policy had to be consistent. Everything had to be subject to endless analysis. Africa, alas, wasn’t like that. In Africa, you did what seemed best at the time. And hoped to fuck it worked.

‘Who’s drawing up the passenger list?’

‘Fernando. It’s done. You’ve had a copy,’ he smiled, ‘for two days now.’

‘Put Domingos’s name on it.’

‘I’ll …’ Peterson made a helpless gesture, ‘do my best.’

‘Where’s Llewelyn?’

‘That’s another problem.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s got malaria.’

Todd Llewelyn lay in bed at the MSF house, covered only by a single sheet. Molly Jordan sat beside him, a sponge and a bucket in her lap. Llewelyn was delirious now, his head moving constantly on the pillow, left to right, his eyes wide, saliva bubbling from the corners of his mouth. His skin was hot to the touch, his face flushed a deep pink.

‘Quarto vinte e três,’
he kept shouting.
‘Quarto vinte e três.’

Molly squeezed excess water from the sponge, mopping Llewelyn’s forehead. He seemed completely oblivious, unaware of her presence. Molly glanced at Christianne, standing in the shadows behind her. MSF had invested in three solar-powered lighting units and the only one not to be stolen had developed a battery fault, shedding a dim, yellow light that barely reached beyond the bed.

‘He’s talking about room twenty-three,’ Christianne murmured. ‘Whatever that means.’

Molly shrugged, returning the sponge to the bucket. It was her mention of the previous attack, back in Luanda, that had led Christianne to diagnose malaria. Before dark, they’d had a call from Peterson at the UN compound. Llewelyn was in bed with a fever. Earlier, he’d complained of
extreme cold. Now, his temperature was way up. What should Peterson do?

Molly and Christianne had driven over, returning with Llewelyn. In the Landcruiser he’d sat at the back, completely motionless, oblivious to the offer of a blanket, his hands clamped around the camcorder. Now, it stood on the bedside table, beyond his reach.

‘You started taking the tablets?’ Christianne asked. ‘Before you came?’

Molly nodded.

‘But only for a couple of days. That’s all the warning we had.’

‘And him?’

‘The same, I imagine.’

‘He’s taking them now? Maloprim? Something similar?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

Christianne nodded, her eyes returning to Llewelyn. He’d quietened a little, his head briefly motionless on the wet pillow, but she’d nursed enough malaria to recognise the pattern. His temperature was already nudging 104°. Within hours it might rise to 105°, even 106°. After that, the fever would break, his whole body running with sweat, the headache and the pains beginning to ease. By morning, with luck, he’d be through it, wrung out, exhausted, but almost normal again. Then, a day or two later, the whole cycle would begin afresh.

There was a knock at the front door. Christianne stepped to the window, peering out, recognising McFaul’s long frame. She let him in. Llewelyn had started shouting again, someone’s name this time, and McFaul paused in the darkened hall, listening.

‘Who?’ He frowned.

Christianne shrugged. McFaul had brought Llewelyn’s
bag and the light safari jacket he’d worn on the flight down from Luanda. Leaving the UN compound, he’d had the firm impression that both Peterson and Fernando were glad to see the back of Llewelyn. Expecting an evening or two of amusing anecdotes, stories from the glitzy world of television, they’d found themselves living with an obsessive. The film. Always the film. What it would look like. What it would say. The impact it would make. The heads it would turn.

McFaul stepped into the bedroom. Molly was on her feet now, physically holding Llewelyn down. He was trying to sit upright in the bed, the single sheet in a wild knot by his feet. Apart from a pair of Paisley briefs, he was naked. McFaul limped across the room, forcing Llewelyn down onto his back. The eyes stared up at him without a flicker of recognition. His neck was corded with veins and his shoulders and chest were mottled scarlet. For a second or two he fought against McFaul then he gave up, sinking back with a low sigh before his whole body began to convulse. Molly turned to Christianne. For the first time, she looked alarmed.

‘What is it?’ Molly was saying. ‘What’s happening?’

‘I don’t know. Sometimes …’ Christianne nodded at the bucket. ‘Try more water.’

Molly tried to sponge Llewelyn’s face but whenever she did so, he twisted away, thrashing wildly with his arms and legs, then lying rigid for a second as some spasm seemed to pass through him. McFaul, watching, caught Christianne’s eye.

‘Cerebral?’

Christianne nodded.

‘Maybe.’

‘You got any drugs? Quinine? Pyrimethamine?’

‘Not here. At the hospital perhaps. I don’t know. We tried to pool all the drugs. Last week.’

McFaul looked at Molly, the question unvoiced. She shook her head.

‘The best I can do is Nurofen,’ she said, ‘or some antibiotics.’ She paused. ‘What’s cerebral?’

McFaul and Christianne exchanged glances. Then McFaul looked at Llewelyn again.

‘Cerebral malaria. Your temperature just goes up and up, way off the scale. I saw it in a squaddie once, in Belize. It’s not nice.’

‘Is it fatal?’

‘Very.’

McFaul bent low across the bed, seeing the camcorder for the first time. Llewelyn lay rigid in the bed, his lips moving, some wordless message. McFaul put his ear to Llewelyn’s chest, hearing the hesitant rasp of his breath. The man was seriously ill. No question about it. McFaul reached for the camcorder and stepped away from the bed.

‘Nothing we can do for now,’ he murmured, settling himself against the wall. ‘See how he goes.’

He held the camcorder up to the light and peered at the footage counter. The video-cassette was nearly at its end. His fingers found the rewind controls and he began to spool back through the tape, wondering how much life was left in the battery. The camcorder they’d used in Afghanistan had worked on rechargeables, giving you three or four cassettes a whack. If anything, this one looked even more professional.

He got to the head of the tape and lifted the camcorder to his eye. Pressing the review button replayed the recorded pictures back through the viewfinder. McFaul smiled. Bennie was standing awkwardly in front of a blackboard, expounding on the theory of minefield clearance. He was trying very hard to play the tough guy, understating everything, Mr Cool. Every now and then he’d run his fingers slowly through his
crew cut, always the right hand, and the third time he did it McFaul realised why. The tattoo, he thought, the big striking cobra that wound around his forearm. Yet more evidence that Bennie was committed to the business of living dangerously.

The sequence came to an end. There were more pictures – maps, Bennie’s stubby fingers tapping at the laptop computer, an exterior shot of the schoolhouse – then they were suddenly in the back of the Land Rover, bumping away towards the road that led out to the river. McFaul recognised Bennie and Domingos in the front. Bennie began to tell a joke about a walrus and a donkey but a word from Llewelyn shut him up. The Land Rover came to a halt. Then it was Domingos in close-up. Llewelyn was holding the camera low, catching Domingos’s eyes scanning left and right behind the visor, the big white clouds piling up behind his head. Other shots followed – the loop at the business end of the Ebinger, Domingos’s hands, the blade of his bayonet, and then the first glimpse of one of the little Chinese mines emerging from the ochre soil. The sequence went on and on, endless repetitions, Llewelyn’s voice on the soundtrack occasionally prompting some fresh reaction. Then, abruptly, the camera was back on top of the embankment and Domingos was a dot in the distance, growing rapidly bigger as Llewelyn worked the zoom. Full-length in the viewfinder, he turned and smiled. Then a little wave, and the sunshine briefly dancing on the visor as he lowered it again, heading away towards the river bank, the Ebinger over his shoulder.