Mad Dog Killers by Ivan Smith

Author:Ivan Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Modern / General
ISBN: 9781908916884
Publisher: Helion and Company
Published: 2012-05-18T16:00:00+00:00

8

The jungle road out of Lisala had been driven over and cleared many times, and at regular intervals the moist air mixed with the stench of rotting corpses. The ugly remains of rotten bodies lay at the side of the track, bones and tattered clothing was all that remained. These sites were of long-forgotten firefights. No-one had claimed and buried the dead. It was the rainy season and the road was deep with red mud and slippery so the corpses were pressed into the mud and partially buried when the trucks ran over them. The rainforest crowded the road menacingly and the massive trees met overhead so the route led through the familiar green tunnel. At long intervals there were villages along the road, and there the jungle had been cleared back for the odd field of banana trees. There was no sign of human life in any village. The sound of trucks coming drove the people into the safety of the forest. Sometimes a mistake had been made in the haste to leave, and a cooking fire in a thatched hut leaked blue smoke into the thick air. Even the dogs and chickens had been locked away. If a plantation was found with the short fat plantains a halt was at once called and the trees raided; the sweet, sticky, fat banana was a much sought-after food. The taste was less cloying than conventional bananas and they were much sweeter.

Once the limit of previous patrols had been reached another halt was called. Wilson and his chosen in the leading Jeep now fell back and mine and another Jeep moved to the van. The order of advance from then on was two vehicles abreast with the other Jeeps, also two abreast, following. The track was just wide enough for two. Wilson and his pals boarded one of the trucks immediately behind the column of Jeeps. He explained carefully that better control over the convoy could be kept from there. This was true, but at the time it looked to me very much like fear.

“The privilege of rank, old boy,” Harry said. He was feeling tense and his pipe was clamped in his back teeth. “Nothing wrong with that.” “They’re fucking shitting themselves. What the hell, it gives us first crack at the fucking Simba, hey?” Boeta said, his grey eyes sparkling in anticipation.

As the column moved on Boeta kept a thin smile on his face and his pale grey eyes watched the road intently. He hunched forward while looking hard at the road and forest ahead, his whole attitude, that of a man wanting a fight. There were many swamp areas in this region, and one rose out of the dense vegetation as the column advanced. The road became a causeway. It was raised above the swamp waters much like a dam wall, but wider; it had been built to allow two trucks to pass each other without one being forced off the road into the swampy water. Each side of the causeway shallow lakes had bamboo and the odd tree growing in them.

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