"Move into attack position,"Tungata signalled.
"Query?" Craig flicked his thumb. "Four! Query?" Craig questioned the odds.
"Go right!" Tungata signalled, and then enforced the order with the clenched fist. "Imperative!" Craig felt his blood charging with adrenaline the heat of it spreading down his limbs, his mouth drying out. He clutched the round stone in his right hand.
They were so close that he could see the wet spit on the tip of the cigarette as the machinegunner took it from his lips. The nest was littered with their rubbish: paper wrappers and empty food cans and cigarette b.u.t.ts. Their weapons were laid carelessly aside. The man lying on his back had covered his eyes with his elbow and the burning cigarette stuck up likea candle from his lips. The sergeant against the tree was whittling a piece of wood with his trench-knife. The third had unb.u.t.toned his smock and was minutely searching his own chest hair for body vermin.
Only the man behind the gun was alert.
Tungata was sliding into position beside Craig.
"Ready?" He raised his hand and glanced at Craig.
"Affirmative." Tungata"s hand came down, the order to execute.
Craig went in, rolling over the edge of the nest, and he hit the man with the trench-knife. He hit him in the temple with the stone, and he knew instantly that it was too hard. He felt bone break in the man"s head.
The sergeant sagged forward without a sound, and at the same instant Craig heard a soft scuffle and grunt be-hind him as Tungata took on the machine-gunner. Craig did not even glance around. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the Uzi machine, gun and c.o.c.ked it.
The searcher after body vermin looked up and his jaw sagged open as Craig thrust the muzzle into his face, pressing the circle of steel against his cheek and glaring into his eyes, dominating him, compelling silence.
Tungata had picked up the sergeant"s fallen trench knife and now he dropped onto the reclining trooper, driving one knee into his diaphragm, forcing all the air from his lungs in a single explosive sigh, and then pressing the point of the knife into the soft flesh below his ear. Still on his back, the man"s face swelled and contorted, as he struggled to refill his lungs.
"If any man cries out," Tungata. whispered, "I will cut off his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and stick them in his mouth." It had all taken less than five seconds.
Tungata knelt beside the sergeant whom Craig had stoned, and felt for the pulse in his throat. After a few seconds he shook his head, and began stripping the corpse of its battle-smock. He shrugged into it. It was too sma for him, binding across the chest.
"Take the gunner"s uniform," he ordered, while he took the Uzi from Craig and covered the two prisoners with it.
The machine-gunner"s neck was broken. Tungata had jerked back his helmet and the strap had caught under his chin. The dead man"s camouflage smock stank of rancid stale sweat and tobacco smoke, but it fitted Craig well enough. The steel helmet was too big, it came down to his eyes, but covered his long straight hair.
Tungata thrust his face close to those of the prisoners.
"Drag the bodies of these Shana dogs with you." Craig and Tungata covered them while they pulled the two naked dead men, fAt first, through the gra.s.s to the cave entrance and then rolled them down the slope into the dark interior.
The two girls were shocked and silenced.
"StripP Tungata ordered the prisoners. when they were in their army issue shorts, Tungata ordered Craig, "Tie them! Craig gestured them to lie on their stomachs, and using the nylon rope bound their wrists at the small of the back, then pulled up their legs and bound wrists to ankles. It was a hogtie that left them helpless. Then he -pulled the stockings off their feet and stuffed them into their mouths and tied the gags in place.
While he was working, Tungata was dressing the girls in the discarded battle-dress. It was many sizes too large, but they folded back the cuffs at wrists and ankles and belted the trousers in a bunch around their waists.
"Black your face, Pendula," Tungata ordered, and she smeared herself. "Hands also. Now cover your hair." He pulled a beret out of a pocket of his purloined smock, and tossed it to her.
"Come on." Tungata picked up the canvas bag of diamonds and started back up the slope. He led them back to the abandoned machinegun nest.
Tungata tipped up a field pack, emptying it out onto the ground, and then shoved the bag of diamonds into the pack and rebuckled it. He slung the pack onto his back.
Craig had been ransacking the other equipment. He pa.s.sed two grenades to Tungata and stuffed two more into his own pockets. He found a Tokarev pistol for Sarah, and gave another Uzi to Sally-Anne. There was an AK 47 for himself, with five spare magazines. Tungata kept the second Uzi. Craig added a water bottle to his load. He broke open an emergency pack of chocolate and they all stuffed their mouths as they prepared to leave. It tasted so good that Craig"s eyes watered.
"I"ll take the point." Tungata spoke through a sticky mouthful of chocolate. "We"ll try and get down into the valley, under cover of the trees." They kept just under the shoulder of the hill, going directly down the slope, taking the chance that the open slope to their right was clear.
They were just above the tree line when they heard the helicopter.
It was coming up the valley. It was still behind the shoulder of the hill, but coming on fast.
"Hit the groundP Craig ordered, and slammed Sally Anne between the shoulder-blades with the flat of his hand. They went down and pushed their faces to the earth, but the beat of the rotors changed, altering to coa.r.s.e pitch and now the sound was stationary, just out of their line of sight behind the fold of rocky hillside.
"It"s landing," Sally-Anne said, and the engine noise died away.
"She"s down." Sally-Anne c.o.c.ked her head. "She"s landed. There! He has cut the motor." Into the silence they could hear, very faintly, orders being shouted.
Tupho, come up here," Tungata ordered. "You two, wait." Craig and Tungata crawled up to the shoulder of the hill and very slowly raised their heads to look over the crest.
Below them, a quarter of a mile down the valley, there was a small level clearing at the edge of the forest. The gra.s.s had been flattened and there was an open-sided canvas sun shelter at the edge of the trees on the far side of the clearing. The helicopter stood in the centre of the clearing, and the pilot was climbing down from the fuselage port. There were uniformed troopers of the Third Brigade under the trees near the tent, and in the tent they could make out three or four other men sitting at a table.
"Advanced headquarters," Craig murmured.
"This is the valley thae"we entered, the main cave is just below us."
"You are right." Craig had not recognized the ground from this direction and height.
"Looks as though they are pulling out," Tungata pointed into the trees. A platoon of camouflaged troopers was moving back down the valley in Indian file.
"They probably waited for forty-eight hours or so after dynamiting the grand gallery, now they must have given us up for dead and buried." "How many?"Tungata asked.
"I can see," Craig screwed up his eyes, "twenty at least, not counting those in the tent. There will be others staking out the hills, of course." Tungata drew back from the skyline and beckoned to Sally" Anne She crawled up beside him.
"What do you make of that machine?" He pointed at the helicopter.
"It"s a Super Frelon," she replied without hesitation.
"Can you fly it?" 11 can fly anything."
"d.a.m.n it, Sally-Anne, don"t be clever," Craig whispered irritably. "Have you ever flown one of those?"
"Not a Super Frelon, but I have five hundred hours on helicopters."
"How long would it take you to start up and get moving, once you are in the c.o.c.kpit?" Now she hesitated. "Two or three minutes."
"Too long. "Craig shook his head.
"What if we can pull the guards away from the clearing while Pendula starts up?" Tungata asked.
"That might work," Craig agreed.
"This is it then." Tungata set it out quickly. "I will track UP to the head of the valley. You take the girls down to the edge of the clearing. Got it?" Craig nodded.
"Forty-five minutes from now," Tungata checked his wrist.w.a.tch, nine, thirty exactly, I will start throwing grenades and firing with the AK. That should pull most of the Shana away from the clearing. As soon as the shooting starts, you head for the helicopter. When I hear the helicopter lift off, I"ll run out on the open slope, there! He pointed up the valley. "Just below that rock sheet. The Shana will not have reached me by that time you can make the pick-up from there."