Juggernaut

Our tractor blocked the nearside of the bridge and at the far end the second Saracen lay canted over diagonally across the road and forced up hard against the coping. There was no sign of men or vehicles beyond.

I said to Sadiq, 'What now, Captain?'

He studied the opposite bank carefully through binoculars, holding them one-handed as his left arm was in a sling. He was no longer the immaculate officer whose pants were creased to a knife edge and whose shoes gleamed. He'd lost his boot polish to McGrath. His uniform was scorched and rumpled.

There were lines of strain about his eyes and mouth. Presently he said, 'We watch and wait for one, two hours maybe. If everything is still quiet I will send scouts across the river.'

'Risky.'

'Would you expect anything else in war, Mister Mannix?'

'You did well last night, Captain. It was a fine operation.'

He nodded gravely. 'Yes, we did well. But you all did well, especially Mister McGrath. He is very efficient. Without him it might not have come about.'

I knew that and didn't want to dwell on it. I would have liked to admire McGrath whole-heartedly but found it impossible. I was pleased to hear that Sadiq had sustained no losses among his men, and only a couple were wounded.

Our losses were worse.

The Russian was dead. Lang was in a bad way and lay on Dr Kat's operating table. Proctor had a bullet graze on the leg and Kemp on the shoulder, and others had an assortment of bruises and abrasions. But a roll call proved one man missing. After a search we found the body of Ron Jones, shot through the head and stomach by machine-gun bullets.

CHAPTER 22

It was ten o'clock before Sadiq took his chance on the bridge. First he wanted the tractor shifted so that if necessary he could get troops across fast, and we were wary of sending anyone out of cover to do that until we felt fairly sure, it was safe. Sadiq would not send scouts across, as being too dangerous. He was going to cross first himself in the Scorpion tank, which was a brave thing to do because even a lone infantryman might have a tank-killing weapon. He was taking three men with him, a driver, a gunner and a radio operator, and he left instructions that nobody was to move until he came back or sent a coded all clear signal.

Before that we'd cleaned up the camp, repairing what was possible and listing what needed repair when we could spare the time. Luckily Maksa's men had not destroyed much of importance, though there were two car windows shattered and sundry minor damage done here and there. Bishop and Bing, with help from the others, got a food supply moving, and on the rig the medical people were kept very busy.

Max Otterman's body had been found at the foot of the rig with a bullet in his back and two ribs broken, presumably by the fall though the damage could have been done by a boot. It was an appalling death. We organized a digging party off the road and held a mass funeral service. Otterman, Burns, Ron Jones and Andrei Djavakhishkili, a Rhodesian, an American, a Welshman and a Russian, shared one grave, though we gave them each separate headboards. In another grave were two of Sadiq's men and with them four rebels, all with the common bond of being Nyalans.

Both the ailing infant and the hospital's other serious patient, Sister Mary, had survived the night. But the two doctors and the nursing staff were under great strain and an urgent discussion on ways and means was long overdue.

Astonishingly, during the early hours of the morning we had visitors.

Sandy Bing, carrying a bucket of hot water towards the rig, stopped and said, 'I'll be damned, Mister Wingstead! Just look at them.'

In the distance, quietly and almost shyly, little clumps of Nyalans were reappearing, still mostly women and children, to stand in respectful yet wary homage to their travelling talisman. Some of them spoke to the soldiers, and Dr Kat and two of the Nyalan nurses went down among them, to return with news that the vast majority had melted away just far enough to be within earshot of the fight, and close enough to come back if they felt all was safe again. It was truly extraordinary.

'I think it may mean that the other soldiers have all gone,' Dr Kat told us. They speak of them as evil, and they would not come back if they were still close by.'

'But they'd be across the river, Doctor Kat. How could these people know?'

'I think you call it the bush telegraph,' the surgeon said with his first smile for a long time. 'It really does work quite well. You will see, the Captain will return to give us an all clear. In the meantime, they have brought me a woman who. broke her leg last night. I must go back and see to her.'

I went to have a look at the Saracen that had caught fire. I was curious to see why it had happened; an armoured car isn't a paper bag to be burned up by a Very flare.