The Perfect Soldier (32 page)

McFaul peered down towards the camp. The dinghy was only metres away from the crescent of waiting troops. They were reaching out for it. Katilo was still watching them, his arms folded across his chest. McFaul began to edge onto the sand-bar. If the men came here to shit, the place was mine-free. Had to be. If only he could find enough cover, if only he could hang on long enough to see the job through, then the chaos after the explosion would save him. The men would run back to the camp. No one would think of looking upriver. If only. If only.

McFaul waded out of the shallows, slipping the Armalite off his shoulder, keeping his body low. He went to ground almost at once, prone behind a thick clump of thorn bush, the Armalite beside him. The smell of shit was overpowering. The soldiers were still watching the men in the river. As they seized the dinghy, he heard them cheering and clapping. Then they were heading towards him again, moving fester this time. One of them turned onto the sand-bar, his trousers already halfway down his legs. The others followed, still laughing. The taller of the two joined the first man, already squatting in the grass. The other, the shy one, ran past, heading straight for McFaul. McFaul was watching the men in the river. They were manhandling the dinghy towards Katilo. McFaul could see him with the naked eye, a solitary white T-shirt, awaiting his prize.

The young soldier was very close now. Both hands were at his trousers. Then he saw McFaul. He froze for a moment, not quite believing it, watching – transfixed – as McFaul
threw the Motorola aside and reached for the Armalite. The first shot took the soldier in the thigh. He screamed and collapsed, holding his leg as the blood fountained up through the torn fabric. McFaul struggled to his feet. The other men were shouting and the one with the rifle came bursting through the tall grass. For a second, bending over his injured comrade, he didn’t see McFaul. Then he followed the pointing finger, looking up as McFaul reached desperately for the transmitter, and McFaul saw him fighting with the heavy Kalashnikov, trying to bring it to bear, loosing off a burst of unaimed fire, wildly inaccurate. The flat bark of the automatic echoed down the river and McFaul saw the men at the camp drop the dinghy and start running along the strip of baked mud beneath the overhanging bank.

The third soldier had appeared now. He’d drawn a machete and he lunged at McFaul, his arm raised, the blade slicing down. McFaul parried the blow with the Armalite, closing with the soldier, smashing the barrel of the carbine into his face. He heard the crack of splintering bone but the soldier was immensely strong. Abandoning the machete, his hands found McFaul’s throat and he began to squeeze, grunting with the effort. McFaul dropped the Armalite and the two men fell to the ground, McFaul gasping for air. He tried to wriggle free but the soldier’s body-weight was pressing down on him, forcing his head back, exposing his throat. McFaul stared up at him, his eyes half-closed, his vision beginning to grey. He no longer cared whether he lived or died. Everything smelled of shit. The whole fucking world smelled of shit. End of story.

Across the river, someone was shouting. The soldier hesitated, relaxing his grip. His front teeth were broken and a thin trickle of blood was dripping from his lower lip. McFaul watched it, wholly detached now, a mere spectator, curious
to know what might happen next. The soldier was frowning. He muttered something to one of the others and McFaul felt his body-weight shifting. Then there were hands behind him, pulling him upright, and the soldier with the broken teeth was suddenly very close. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot and yellowed and McFaul could smell liquorice on his breath. The soldier began to grin, reaching forward, running a finger down the side of McFaul’s head. Then he lifted it to his nose, sniffing it, grunting something to himself, reaching forward again, motioning for McFaul to open his mouth. McFaul was staring at the finger. The finger was smeared with shit. It’s all over me, he thought. All over the back of my head, matted in my hair, caked in my ears. I must have fallen in it. Head back. Splat.

The soldier still wanted McFaul to open his mouth. McFaul shook his head. His arms were pinioned now, the other soldier standing behind him. McFaul tried to look round, wondering about the injured man, why the screaming had stopped, but the soldier with the broken teeth reached out, pinching McFaul’s nostrils, the way you might deal with a child refusing medicine. McFaul fought the urge to open his mouth. The finger was waiting, slightly bent, coated with shit. McFaul shook his head again, humiliated already. Anything, he thought. Anything but this.

Abruptly, he heard the sound of splashing from the river. Then voices nearby. The grip on his arms loosened for a moment and he wrenched his face away, half-turning in time to see Katilo stepping over the inert body of the fallen soldier. He recognised McFaul at once, barking an order to the soldier with the broken teeth. A length of cord appeared. McFaul’s elbows were bound behind his back. Then he was stumbling through the grass, back down the sand-bar, onto the river bank. The sunlight was fierce on the water. McFaul
lowered his head, shielding his eyes, letting the babble of voices swirl around him. When he finally looked up, Katilo was standing beside him, shouting orders at the men in the elephant grass. They finally appeared with the injured soldier, carrying his body between them. Blood was still pumping from an ugly hole in his thigh.

The soldiers laid him at Katilo’s feet. Water lapped at the torn flesh. Katilo studied the soldier for a moment or two, stirring his body with his foot. He was wearing calf-high, lace-up paratrooper’s boots and he stooped to wipe them clean before turning to McFaul.

‘You did this?’

McFaul nodded, not bothering to explain. The last of the soldiers had emerged from the elephant grass. He was carrying the Motorola. He gave it to Katilo. Katilo turned it over, examining it. Finally, he looked at McFaul.

‘Yours?’

McFaul didn’t say anything for a moment. Downriver, three soldiers had returned to the dinghy. It lay abandoned at the water’s edge and they were bent over it, pointing. McFaul looked at Katilo. He glanced up, telling one of the soldiers to untie McFaul’s elbows. Then he held out the radio.

‘Call your people,’ he said.

McFaul shook his head.

‘No.’

‘Call them. Tell them you’ve shot one of my men.’

McFaul looked at the wounded soldier lying in the water. He could feel the shit drying on his face. Katilo was still offering him the radio. With his other hand he was loosening the flap on the holster strapped to his thigh. Inside the holster, McFaul could see the butt of a big automatic. Katilo was watching him carefully. McFaul took the Motorola. The watching soldiers began to edge backwards, sensing danger.

‘Call them,’ he said. ‘Now.’

McFaul shook his head.

‘No.’ He glanced downstream. A fourth soldier had joined the group around the dinghy. He looked back at Katilo. The automatic was in his hand, pointing steadily at McFaul’s head. He stepped very close.

‘Call them,’ he said softly.

‘No.’

McFaul closed his eyes and took a tiny breath, knowing this was the end. Then he felt a pressure on the yellow button, Katilo’s hand, and a long, hollow explosion came rolling up the river. McFaul opened his eyes. There were birds everywhere, flapping away across the bush. On the foreshore, by the camp, a curtain of brown smoke blew lazily across the river. Behind it, on the baked mud, small parcels of flesh lay beside the shredded remains of the dinghy.

McFaul looked at Katilo. He was gazing downriver. He seemed impressed. He reached for the Motorola, taking it from McFaul. His finger found the button. He pressed it again. The soldiers around him exchanged glances. Nothing happened. Katilo looked at McFaul a moment, then returned the transmitter. One of the men was carrying McFaul’s Armalite. Katilo gestured at it, impatient now.

‘Yours?’ he asked McFaul.

‘Yeah.’

Katilo examined the carbine then fired twice into the soft mud at McFaul’s feet. The soldier with the broken teeth was knee-deep in the water, washing his hands, watching Katilo. Katilo looked at McFaul a little longer, curiosity as well as amusement. Then he stepped towards the injured soldier lying in the shallows and put the muzzle of the Armalite in his open mouth. He emptied the magazine in a long burst before tossing the Armalite aside. McFaul watched, sickened,
as the soldiers manhandled the corpse into midstream, releasing it to float slowly away on the current.

Katilo was looking at his watch. He nodded towards McFaul and said something brisk in Ovimbundu. Then he turned to ford the river, a tuneless whistle on his lips. The soldiers closed around McFaul, roping his elbows behind his back again, and began to push him after Katilo. They were nearly halfway across before McFaul recognised the tune. Dvořák, he thought. The New World symphony.

Christianne opened McFaul’s Jiffybag as soon as Molly arrived back at the MSF house. The French girl had been up all night nursing Llewelyn. His temperature had climbed again at dusk and now he lay in Christianne’s bed, semiconscious, his eyes still bright with fever. Molly looked down at him while Christianne scissored the sticky tape that secured the Jiffybag. In three days, Llewelyn had aged ten years. Thin, gaunt, helpless, he’d become an old man.

Christianne was emptying the Jiffybag. Twenty-dollar bills cascaded onto the bed. She began to count them, bewildered. There were seventy.

‘Fourteen hundred dollars,’ Molly murmured, ‘and this.’

She handed Christianne a single sheet of graph paper, a grid of tiny blue squares. There was writing on one side. Christianne read it quickly.

‘The money’s for Celestina,’ she said. ‘He says it belonged to Domingos. Here.’

She passed the note to Molly. Llewelyn was peering at the pile of dollar bills, uncomprehending. Molly folded the note and returned it. McFaul had careful, backward-sloping writing, like a child.

‘He wants you to get her on the plane,’ Molly pointed
out. ‘Her and the kids. Maybe he thinks the money might help.’

‘It won’t. They’ll never allow it. I know the way these things go. You take one African, you take them all. That’s what they’ll say.’

‘But why don’t you try?’

Christianne looked at the note again. She was frowning.

‘How much did you say?’

‘Fourteen hundred dollars. About a thousand pounds in sterling.’

‘And this is supposed to be Domingos’s money?’

‘His wages, I imagine.’

‘Impossible.’ Christianne shook her head. ‘I know how much they paid him. Fifteen dollars a day, maybe. Good money in Angola but not this.’ She picked up the wad of dollar bills, weighing it in her hand.

Molly was watching her carefully. So far, Christianne had packed no bags and time was running out. On the doorstep, just now, Molly had found a handwritten note from Peterson establishing a schedule for the evacuation. The plane was due mid-morning, a big Hercules from Luanda. Everyone was to report to the UN bunker at 09.30. Vehicles would leave for the airstrip fifteen minutes later in convoy, personal belongings only, no additional equipment. The list of instructions had gone on and on, detailed, precise, businesslike, an elaborate master plan covering every eventuality. Luanda were sending a second aircraft, one of the little Twin Otters. The Otter would remain airborne, circling the grass strip. If the rebels seized the Hercules, cutting off communications, the Otter would provide radio back-up, sending word to the coast. What might happen after that was unspecified but a final line from Peterson left Muengo’s aid community in no doubt about their individual responsibilities. ‘My job is to get you
all out intact,’ he’d written. ‘One mistake, one miscalculation, could hazard the entire operation.’

Molly nodded at the money.

‘Aren’t you even going to try? With Peterson?’

Christianne shook her head.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

Christianne stooped to retrieve Llewelyn’s bowl. He’d been throwing up most of the night and the smell still hung in the airless room.

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘There’s no time. I have to find a stretcher for this man. Pack his bags. Get him ready.’

‘There are stretchers at the schoolhouse,’ Molly said quickly. ‘I’ve seen them.’

‘Of course. But they have no vehicles, no transport.’

‘Why not?’

‘McFaul took it.’

Molly stared at her.

‘How do you know?’

Christianne turned away, refusing to answer. Molly caught her up in the garden. She was standing beside a dying rosebush, emptying Llewelyn’s bowl.

‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Why did he go?’

Christianne shook the last drips from the bowl, then began to scour it with a handful of grass. In the sun, it was already hot.

‘You must know,’ Molly repeated. ‘You must know why he went.’

Christianne said nothing. When the bowl was clean she threw the grass away and wiped her hands on her jeans.

‘I think it was Domingos,’ she said at last. ‘He loved that man, the family, everything. He told me so.’

‘But Domingos is dead.’

‘Exactly.’

‘So why should he go away? Why should he—’ Molly broke off, remembering something that Bennie had said the previous evening. It seemed that McFaul had got hold of a weapon, a rifle of some kind.

‘Did he have a gun? Yesterday?’

Christianne seemed not to be listening. She began to walk back towards the house, stepping into the cool of the kitchen. Molly looked at her watch. It was nearly eight. The time for arguments had gone.

‘We’ve got an hour and a half,’ she said briskly. ‘I’ll get the stretcher. Bennie can help me. You get packed and ready.’

Christianne was standing beside the sink now. The taps were beginning to rust.

‘I’m not going,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m staying here.’

Molly smiled, sympathetic, understanding. She admired courage. She applauded independence. But seven days in Muengo had taught her a great deal about Africa. Staying behind, the one white woman left in town, was madness.

‘Where?’ she said. ‘Where will you go? Who’ll look after you? How will you cope when the rebels come?’