Underground by Andrew McGahan

Author:Andrew McGahan [McGahan, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen and Unwin
Published: 2010-05-02T12:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

TWENTY-ONE

You know me well enough by now, I assume, to understand that, when the fire-fight started, the first thing I did was to drop my own gun, unused, and the second thing was to fall flat into the dirt with my hands over my head. And there I stayed, eyes shut fast, as all around me semi-automatic weapons sputtered flatly and voices yelled and screamed and swore. It was probably no more than a minute. One of those minutes that is measured in years.

Eventually, however, the shooting stopped, even if the screaming didn’t. I opened my eyes. Bodies lay everywhere in the fading light. Wailing. Mourning. A figure violently kicking another figure that lay unmoving on the ground. Unreal, unreal, unreal. Except that I’d seen it all before, such an aftermath. This was my fourth time now. And as I rose to my feet, a part of my brain reflected with cold rationality that the nausea and the revulsion and the sweat of fear turning into a deep chill . . . it was all getting worse with the repetition.

I stumbled around in the dimness, smelling smoke and shit and blood. I saw many dead detainees, and others wounded, and others still unharmed, milling about as shocked and dazed as I was. I saw three dead security guards. I saw a body wearing an army uniform, and it was Staff Sergeant Daphne, her face set as hard and disgusted as it had been when she was alive. And then I heard someone calling my name. It was Harry, over by the Humvee.

‘Move it, Leo, we gotta go!’

I stared at him. His face looked all black.

‘Are you hurt?’ he demanded, voice hoarse. ‘Are you shot?’

‘No.’

‘Then come on, for fuck’s sake.’

I walked over, still treading on ground that felt like rubber. I passed by the white four-wheel drive. It had been sprayed with bullets, and multicoloured liquids were streaming from the engine compartment. There was a body hunched in the driver’s seat. The fourth guard. And from within came the crackle of a radio, and the urgent voice of someone in authority, calling and calling, unanswered . . .

Harry was beside me. Blood was streaming down his face from a gash on his forehead. Only his eyes stood out, furious and white.

‘The bastard got to the radio before I could stop him,’ he said. ‘He put an emergency call into his base. In half an hour this place will be swarming.’

He was dragging me towards the Humvee. Behind us the wailing and moaning went on. Then Aisha appeared out of the gloom, pristine and untouched.

‘We can’t leave them here,’ she said.

I glanced back. There were at least a dozen men still upright.

‘Are you kidding?’ Harry retorted. ‘We don’t have room.’

‘Even so, we have to help them.’

‘Help them? You stupid bitch—any second now they’re gonna realise that we’ve got the only serviceable vehicle here, and then it’ll be our arses on the line.’

Aisha sounded as mechanical as a robot. ‘They have no chance without us.

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