Marine J SBS Page 4

The two boats zoomed away from the packed mass of canoes. Willan winced as the bow of the Rigid Raider bumped against bodies floating on the surface of the lake. The entire skirmish had lasted about six minutes from start to finish.

  They beached the boats back at camp to find the trainees cheering jubilantly and jumping up and down on the sand, despite the efforts of the other four SBS men to calm them down. Geary marched over to Willan, furious.

  ‘The stupid buggers think we’ve just won World War Three. You all right, Sarge? It sounded pretty hot out there for a while.’ He fingered a bullet hole in Willan’s vessel.

  Willan was suffering his usual feeling of let-down after a contact. The adrenalin was leaking out of him, leaving him exhausted and muddle-headed.

  ‘We couldn’t press on – we hadn’t the ammo for it, and it was too big a risk. It’s too early yet to be charging in like the Seventh Cavalry. It was a mistake, Willy.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘They know now that something’s up. They’ll be prepared for us next time.’

  Fraser splashed through the shallows from his boat, still wild-eyed from the fight.

  ‘We could have taken the whole lot of them out, Sarge, or followed them back to that mother ship of theirs.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ Willan grunted. ‘We gave them a bloody nose – that’s enough for now. I’ll bet we took out at least twenty of the bastards. But the mother ship will have to wait. No point in going off at half cock.’ He turned to Okello, who was hovering nearby, listening in.

  ‘For Chrissake, Okello, can’t you get your men to shut up? They’ll wake up the whole coast.’

  Okello stumped off grumpily. They heard him shout harsh words in Swahili to the cheering trainees who were lining the beach. Gradually they calmed down and began filing back up to the buildings of the camp.

  Willan patted his Ingrams, looking round at the other SBS who had gathered about him.

  ‘From now on, we treat the ammo for these babies like gold dust. We were blowing it off out there like there was no tomorrow, and God knows if or when we’ll be resupplied. I want you all to get hold of AKs, even if you have to take one off a trainee. The Ingrams are to be saved for special ops only. Is that clear?’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ Fraser said, grinning.

  ‘You fucking Jocks – you just love a good dust-up, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s mother’s milk to us, Sarge . . . I mean, Colonel Willan, sir.’

  Willan laughed. ‘All right, back to camp. Let’s get everyone settled down. We’ve a busy day ahead of us tomorrow.’

  * * *

  News of the lakeside battle spread quickly. In the morning there were another three hundred men standing on the dusty parade ground, eager to be part of the fun. Willan had enough personnel now to make up a good battalion, but he continued to organize the camp along company lines. The brightest and best of the recruits were taken away and put through a special training cadre designed to turn them into some form of NCO. Lacking uniforms, Willan gave these men white armbands as badges of rank and as far as he was able, made sure that they had the best of boots, weapons and clothing. They were to be the backbone of his little army.

  A week went by. The supply problem continued to be a nightmare. There was no real logistical back-up for the men of the camp, and Willan was forced to use a substantial number of his trainees as scavengers, builders, cooks, labourers and so on. But the recruits continued to trickle in, and the camp grew in size. On the other hand, the weapons and rations that Prentiss had pledged him never arrived and a large proportion of the recruits continued to train with pangas and shotguns, dressed in rags. More than once, they all went to bed hungry. Willan fumed, sending off the old Studebakers in rattling convoys to Mwanza for supplies and news, but little of either was forthcoming. The Ugandan raiders did not come back to the vicinity of the camp, but they struck at other stretches of the coast, their activities seemingly deflected but still unchecked.

  Okello and Kigoma, Willan found to be good officers. The Ugandan exiles were keen as mustard to hit back at their renegade countrymen, and formed the core of Willan’s rapidly growing NCO cadre. Soon they were ordering about the other recruits in their turn, and a proper military organization began to make itself seen throughout the camp.

  Under Mick Morgan, the trainees built for themselves a system of foxholes about the complex, protected by rusting barbed wire. An assault course was constructed that formed part of every day’s activity. The curriculum of daily events followed the tenets of basic British military training, with a run or session of callisthenics just after reveille, then a meagre breakfast, then a morning’s training in weapons handling. In the afternoon small-unit tactics were taught.

  While these disciplines formed the timetable for most of the trainees, the NCOs were taken away and taught on their own, with more emphasis on tactics and administration in the field. Finally, a group of the recruits were detailed every day for fatigue details such as guard duty, construction and ‘foraging’.

  The last became a real problem. Willan felt sometimes that the entire world had forgotten about the existence of the Mwanza camp. His foraging parties had to roam farther and farther afield in search of supplies, and after complaints of extortion and looting came back to him he had to send one of the SBS with each party to make sure that the trainees did not use their weapons to take what they wanted. But it was difficult. Despite the keenness of the novice soldiers to learn, they were irritated and annoyed – as was he – that they seemed to exist in a vacuum and received no support from the British government or the Tanzanian military to keep going. Kigoma himself was dispatched to Mwanza on more than one occasion to plead for arms and rations, but each time came back with empty promises that were never fulfilled. As for their ‘contact’ in the country, Willan swore that the next time Prentiss popped into view he would strangle the spook with his bare hands.

  * * *

  Eleven days after the skirmish with the Ugandan raiders, Okello came into headquarters to say that an aircraft was circling the camp. Willan went out into the blinding sunlight and looked up to see a small white civilian plane with a single-prop engine buzzing the roofs of the huts. He smiled grimly and called for a truck and a small escort.

  They bumped through the bush to the little overgrown airstrip at the south of the camp, and there waited as the plane landed, lurching and jolting over the uneven surface. The propeller feathered to a halt and William Prentiss got out of the cockpit in a grubby linen suit, looking like something out of a Graham Greene novel. He waved to Willan, but the SBS sergeant stood with his arms folded, bush hat shading his eyes.

  ‘I’m impressed, Colonel Willan,’ Prentiss said, smiling. ‘Sandhurst in the jungle, no less. You’ve made progress.’

  ‘We do our best,’ Willan said quietly. He and Okello stood unsmiling, not offering to help the Englishman with the two heavy bags he carried.

  ‘I say, give me a hand, will you? These things weigh a ton.’

  Willan waved a hand and two of the recruits who had come with them picked up the bags and threw them into the back of the truck. They crashed down on the truck bed as heavily as if they were full of pig-iron.

  ‘Now,’ Prentiss said, quite unabashed. ‘We have a lot to talk about.’

  ‘You’re right there,’ Willan said drily as they boarded the truck together.

  A little later Willan, Okello, Kigoma and Prentiss were sitting on the rough chairs in the HQ hut, drinking mud-coloured tea and listening to the regular crump of feet out on the parade ground. Prentiss’s long, strangely heavy bags lay to one side. The MI6 agent seemed unperturbed by his frosty reception.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Willan asked, unable to rein in his impatience any longer.

  ‘Oh, all over the place. Business is good – booming, in fact. I’m thinking of branching into tourism. Airborne safaris and the like . . . What bloody awful tea.’

  ‘You get used to it,’ Willan growled. Okello and Kigoma sat imp
assively. They could hear Fraser’s Aberdeen accent shouting orders outside.

  ‘I’ll bet you do. Now, I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’m so late . . .’

  ‘And why we’ve received nothing in the way of supplies or equipment,’ Willan interrupted harshly.

  ‘Quite. Well, you have to remember that this is Africa, Willan. Everything takes time, and nothing is as simple as it seems. The Tanzanian government is a little leery of arming Colonel Okello’s good men; it finds it hard enough to look after its own.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes. By the way, congratulations on your little skirmish on the lake. The President found it most gratifying, I am told, though he seems to believe that it was native Tanzanian forces who took part in it.’

  ‘And he’s becoming less than willing to finance a project to arm and train forces other than those of Tanzania,’ Okello added.

  Prentiss shrugged. ‘He seems to believe that Amin’s projected invasion may not happen after all. He’s quite willing to train a defensive force to protect the southern shores of Victoria, but I’m afraid, Okello, the prevailing feeling in Dar-es-Salaam seems to be that your men must look out for themselves.’

  Okello scowled.

  ‘That’s just fine and dandy,’ Willan rasped. ‘But I have damn near eight hundred men to feed here, and many of them are Tanzanian. What do you want me to do, feed them and let the Ugandans go hungry? It’s a recipe for mutiny. And how the hell am I supposed to train an army if half the men have no weapons or ammunition? Most of them are barefoot, for Chrissake!’

  Prentiss held up a hand.

  ‘No need to panic just yet, my friend. I come bearing a useful piece of information from the Tanzanian Army chief himself – unofficially, of course.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘These raiders whose style you cramped in that abortive raid two weeks or so ago, they’ve been striking elsewhere now, avoiding this place like the plague. And they’ve been reinforced. Everyone is a little pissed off with it in Dar-es-Salaam. The unofficial feeling is that if you can wipe them out for once and all and capture – as opposed to destroy – their mother ship, then you’ll have earned yourselves a little slap on the back, in the manner of weapons and ammunition and the like. Plus, of course, whatever you happen to capture on the steamer.’

  Willan glared at the other white man angrily.

  ‘Capture it? Do you have any idea what you’re asking?’

  Again, Prentiss held up a hand in a gesture that somehow conveyed a wealth of world-weariness.

  ‘I am only relaying what is on the grapevine in official circles. I realize that to destroy it would be a lot easier, but I think . . .’ – here he lowered his voice slightly – ‘. . . I think that the government would like your Ugandans, Okello, to take the war to their countrymen.’

  ‘Do unto them what they have been doing unto us,’ Okello said drily.

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Getting the Ugandan exiles out of the way and also hitting back at Amin. Two birds with one stone. How very convenient,’ Willan said savagely.

  ‘Don’t shoot the messenger,’ Prentiss said, a tinge of real irritation in his voice now. ‘I’m as much of an errand boy as any of you.’

  ‘But that’s it, is it? Either we capture the steamer and wipe out the raiders or we can wait until doomsday for any kind of equipment or support from the government.’

  Prentiss shrugged.

  ‘Terrific.’ Willan bowed his head in thought.

  ‘My men are at your disposal, Colonel,’ Okello said quickly.

  ‘And mine,’ Kigoma added, breaking his long silence.

  ‘And for what it’s worth, so am I and my little air-taxi,’ Prentiss said, grinning now.

  ‘Do you know where the steamer might be at the moment?’ Willan asked the MI6 agent.

  ‘Roughly. It was last seen off Bukoba, to the north-west. Over a hundred and thirty miles away.’

  ‘How much fuel is there in that plane of yours?’

  ‘Enough.’

  ‘Good. We’ll take a ride out first thing in the morning and see if we can spot the bugger.’

  ‘It’s a hell of a big lake, Willan.’

  ‘I know, but we’ve got to start somewhere. Once we’ve found it, we can start planning.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Prentiss hesitated. ‘There’s one more thing I ought to tell you.’

  ‘More good news?’

  ‘That depends. How do you feel about the press?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Word of your little operation here has got out. There are quite a few foreign journalists hovering about Mwanza trying to find out where the camp is. There are rumours of white mercenaries all over the town.’

  ‘Great,’ Willan said. ‘Just great. This operation is going pear-shaped at a rate of fucking knots.’

  ‘Just thought you should know.’

  ‘I’ll make up orders for disposing of journalists before we leave tomorrow. Christ, this is getting more unreal by the day.’

  ‘This is Africa,’ Prentiss said wearily. ‘It’s par for the course.’

  Dawn came with the silent blaze of a vast rising sun, flooding the camp with orange light. Willan and Prentiss trudged out to the aircraft just as reveille was being sounded in the camp with its usual clatter of sticks on corrugated iron.

  ‘What a bloody awful way to wake up,’ Prentiss observed as half-asleep men tumbled out on to the parade ground by the hundred and the new NCOs bawled orders at the top of their lungs. The morning quiet was shattered.

  It was more peaceful out by the crude airstrip. Once there, Prentiss popped open the aircraft’s door and lugged a large plastic tank out of the cabin. Then he began refuelling the plane, for all the world like a motorist topping up his car. Willan looked the little aircraft over suspiciously. He was a marine, not a para, and distrusted aeroplanes on principle.

  ‘How far will this thing take us?’

  Prentiss lowered the fuel container, puffing slightly.

  ‘Once we get there, we’ll have about forty minutes over the area before we have to head back. I can refuel at the airstrip outside Mwanza, and then head north for another shot at it. It may take a while – like I said, it’s an awfully big lake.’

  ‘It might help to have someone on the ground as well, pumping the locals for information.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that – it’s not a problem. I have sources all over western Tanzania. It’s where Amin will have to invade, you see – if he does invade.’

  ‘If he does invade,’ Willan repeated wearily. ‘I sometimes wonder if all this is a joke cooked up by some mad pen-pusher in Whitehall.’

  Prentiss shook his head. ‘It’s no joke, my friend. If Amin conquers this country he’ll make it a hell on earth for these people. We can’t let that happen.’

  ‘You like it here, don’t you?’

  The MI6 man lowered the empty fuel container and wiped his brow; it was already hot, and flies were buzzing about his eyes.

  ‘Yes, I do. This is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and the people are as open and friendly as any I’ve ever met. It could be a paradise, if it was managed properly.’

  ‘What, by the old colonial rulers, you mean?’

  ‘No. They fucked up in Africa too. Look at the Congo. There’s half a dozen wars just waiting to start on this benighted continent, most of them legacies of colonial incompetence. Tribalism is what is the ruin of Africa. It’s always been here, but now they slug it out with AK47s and T-55s instead of with assegais and knobkerries. What the colonial powers did was to heighten the potential for genocide across Africa. Look at Uganda now; it’s like an African Cambodia. And it was the British and Israelis who helped Amin into power.’

  ‘And the Libyans who are keeping him there.’

  ‘Yes. There’s always some fucker who wants to keep the pot boiling.’ Prentiss tossed away the empty tank.

  ‘All done. Let’s get going, shall we? Best t
o take advantage of the early light. It’ll get hazier as the day wears on.’

  Prentiss’s pre-flight checks looked decidedly perfunctory to Willan, and he belted himself into the tiny seat tightly. He had a Browning pistol at his hip which made life a little uncomfortable, and a pair of binoculars slung from his neck. When the engine started up he seemed to feel the vibration shaking up and down his spine. He wondered what it would be like to ditch this thing in Lake Victoria and play tag with the crocodiles, then put the image out of his mind. Best not to dwell on it.

  The little aeroplane jogged and bounced along the crude runway and with a sudden, sickening lurch, was airborne. The T-wing configuration made for good observation, but also gave the impression that the passenger was on the edge of a vast cliff, with the ground speeding past at its foot. But it was exhilarating too. Willan relaxed somewhat, and tried to ignore Prentiss’s persistent tapping of the artificial horizon gauge. It seemed to be stuck at an impossible angle.

  There were no spare earphones for the passenger, it seemed, and so Willan had to endure the ear-aching roar of the engine and any conversation with the pilot had to be conducted at a shout. He resigned himself to it and the rumbling of his stomach. They had breakfasted on nothing but cold tea, gulped down in the half-light before dawn.

  Sunrise had occurred with the speed customary in that country. The sun was well over the horizon now, pouring down on Willan’s right side whenever the aircraft banked to port. He could see the first dots of fishing boats on the lake and the pink swarms of flamingos in the shallows. Peering through the binoculars, he studied the maze of small islands that studded the western shores of the lake. A veritable labyrinth of convoluted waterways, shining like silver in the sunlight. For the first time, he wondered if it might be possible to find one medium-sized vessel in the midst of all that, and shouted as much to Prentiss.

  The Intelligence man nodded, slipping off one earphone.

  ‘No good just to circle about and hope for the best,’ he yelled in Willan’s ear. ‘But my information is pretty recent. Bukoba, that’s what they said. It narrows the odds down quite a bit. And the steamer will be standing out to sea, remember. They won’t risk it in among the islands.’