Juggernaut

Kemp asked if we could do anything to help, but was told that it would be best to keep going. 'They know it wasn't you,' Sadiq said. 'They do not want you here but they have no quarrel with you. You cannot help their grief.'

We moved out again to catch up with the rig and I asked to ride with Sadiq. I had some more questions to ask him, and this seemed like a good moment. As we pulled away I began with an innocuous question. 'How come there are so many people living here? There seem to be more than at the coast.'

'It is healthier country; less fever, less heat. And the land is good, when the rains come.'

Then the radio squawked and Sadiq snatched up the earphones and turned up the gain. He listened intently, replied and then said to me, 'Something is happening up the road. Not so good. I'm going to see. Do you want to come?'

'I'd like to.' I hadn't the slightest desire to go hurtling into trouble, but the more I could learn the better.

He eased out of the line and barrelled up the read-Behind us his sergeant crouched over the earphones though I doubt that he could have heard anything. Several miles ahead of the place where Kemp and I had previously stopped and turned I back we came across one of Sadiq's troop trucks parked just below the top of a rise; the motorcyclists were there too. The corporal who headed the detachment pointed along the road, towards a haze of smoke that came from the next valley or the one beyond.

'A bush fire, perhaps?' I asked. But I didn't think so. 'Perhaps. My corporal said he heard thunder in the hills an hour ago. He is a fool, he said he thought the rains were coming early.'

'No clouds.'

'He has never heard gunfire.'

'I have. Have you?' I asked. He nodded.

'I hope it is not Kodowa,' he said softly. 'I think it is too near for that. We shall go and see.' He didn't mention the planes we'd all seen earlier.

We went off fast with the cyclists about a mile ahead and the truck rattling along behind. There was nothing abnormal in the next valley but as we climbed the hill a cyclist came roaring back. Sadiq heard what he had to say and then stopped below the crest of the hill. He went back to the truck and the men bailed out, fanning into a line.

He signalled to me and I followed him as he angled off the road, running through the thick scrub. At the top of the ridge he bent double and then dropped flat on his belly. As I joined him I asked, 'What is it?'

'There are tanks on the other side. I want to know whose they are before I go down.'

He snaked forward and fumbled his binoculars out of their case. He did a quick scan and then stared in one direction for some time. At last he motioned me to come forward and handed me the glasses.

There were four tanks in the road. One was still burning, another was upside down, its tracks pointing to the sky. A third had run off the road and into a ditch. There didn't seem to be much the matter with the fourth, it just sat there. There were three bodies visible and the road was pitted with small, deep craters and strewn with debris.

I'd seen things like that before. I handed him back the glasses and said, 'An air strike with missiles. Hussein?'

'His tanks, yes. They have the Second Battalion insignia. I see no command car.'

He looked around to where his corporal waited, made a wide sweeping motion with one hand and then patted the top of his own head. That didn't need much interpretation: go around the flank and keep your head down.

In the event there was no need for caution; there were no living things on the road except the first inquisitive carrion birds. Sadiq had the vehicles brought up and then we examined the mess. The three bodies in the road had come out of the burning tank. They were all badly charred with their clothing burnt off, but we reckoned they had been killed by machine gunfire. The tank that seemed intact had a hole the size of an old British penny in the turret around which the paint had been scorched off until the metal showed. That damage had been done by a shaped charge in the head of a stabilized missile. I knew what they'd find in the tank and I didn't feel inclined to look for myself. Anyone still inside would be spread on the walls.

Sadiq gave orders to extinguish the fire in the burning tank, and the dead bodies were collected together under a tarpaulin. There was no sign of the rest of the men except for some bloodstains leading off into the bush. They had scarpered, wounded or not.

I said, 'Nothing is going to get past here until this lot is shifted. We need one of Kemp's tractors. Shall I go back and tell him what's happened? Someone can bring one along. He's only using three.'