Andy McNab - Recoil

'Once they'd rested, our patrol would usually take this lot back tonight, and come back in three days' time with full bags. Then it would be their turn again.' He waved in the direction of the two white guys across the strip. 'But now we've got to protect the assets big-time, eh?'

'Doesn't it ever get to you?' I nodded towards the shanty town and the porters collapsed in the shade, eating from old tin cans. 'These fuckers getting shit, while Standish and the middle men feed off their misery?'

He didn't have time to answer. Standish reappeared with the Iridium still in his hand, its stubby antenna jabbing the air between us. 'You understand exactly what you have to do?'

Obviously the call hadn't cheered him up any. Maybe it hadn't been his bank manager after all.

'Yep.'

'Don't fuck me about or you and this little rich girl can make your own way back.' He swung round to Sam. 'Don't just sit there. Get on with it.'

I followed Sam towards one of the tents. 'I've got to tell you, mate, there's only so many times I'm going to be able to turn the other cheek with that arsehole.'

'Like I told you, Nick, I've got my own agenda. I have kids living near that mine and I've got the church here so I put up with him, the war, the crap, the hypocrisy, the greed – anything that's thrown at me. If I didn't, who'd protect the orphanage? Who'd prevent those kids getting lifted by the LRA?'

We reached the tent flaps but Sam didn't go inside. 'You sure you don't want to know about the boy?'

I tried to read the expression on his face. 'Only if he didn't end up going the same way Annabel did…'

Sam smiled. 'He didn't. He lived. Only just, but he lived.' He pointed across the strip. 'The little feller's over there.'

A guy the size of Sam's fridge back in Erinvale strode towards us from the shanty, eyes masked behind a pair of John Lennon sun-gigs. He gave the odd wave to the miners, and got a much warmer reception from them than the white guys had.

Sam beamed. 'Crucial!'

He looked to be in his late twenties and, apart from a barely perceptible limp in his left leg, carried himself better than any of the other soldiers I'd seen. His shaved head and arms glistened with good health. His green cargoes looked brand new, and his white T-shirt came straight off a Persil ad. He wore a holster like a cowboy, down on his right hip with some Russian thing hanging off it, maybe to save him carrying an assault rifle and getting gun oil on his top. The other thing dangling off him was a wooden cross round his neck.

Over the last twenty years Sam hadn't wasted any time.

They headed towards each other with open arms. 'Crucial! How are you? I've brought your coconut butter.'

That explained the shiny, supple skin. I'd seen a lot of Africans moisturize with the stuff – but usually just the women.

The two exchanged hugs and slaps before Sam ushered him over. 'Nick, I want to introduce you to Crucial – Crucial Umba di Mumba.'

He took off his gigs and gazed directly into my eyes. My stomach lurched. I was hoping to see a different expression in his now, not the one that pleaded with me to hold on to his stick-thin wrists whenever I couldn't cut away from my nightmares.

My hand disappeared into his big leathery grip.

'I'm Nick.'

'I know.' His eyes sparkled. 'We met before, man.'

His accent wasn't as strong as a South African's and sounded more native, and the tone was surprisingly high-pitched for a man mountain. I bet no one ever told him, though.

'It's good to see you, Nick. I wasn't sure what to expect after all these years.'

He gave me the world's biggest smile. A diamond glinted from each of his two front teeth. His eyes looked forever vigilant, as if he plugged them into the mains every night to power up his X-ray vision. I wasn't sure if he could see through me, but he certainly knew he needed to break the ice.

'Certified conflict diamonds, man.' He beamed. 'None of that wishy-washy everyday Posh Spice conflict-free stuff. These had to be fought for.'

Whatever the rights and wrongs of conflict diamonds, the ones on his teeth were a whole lot bigger than the one I'd bought for Silky.

He turned to Sam. 'We should get the boys paid up and ready.'

Sam indicated his daysack. 'It's in there.'

Crucial opened the top flap. 'I'll start getting them on parade.' He took out a couple of tubs of oil and tried to palm a small white box, but not before I'd spotted the typed prescription label. Sam had also been to the pharmacy for him.

Crucial headed off towards the shanty.

Sam steered me back to what I assumed was his tent. 'That wasn't so bad, was it?'

He picked up the suitcase and I followed him. It was muggier than a greenhouse inside, and the smell took me back to years of infantry exercises and time spent sweltering under canvas while the processed cheese from my twenty-four-hour ration pack melted to liquid in its can.

The floor was hard, brushed earth. Sam slept on a US Army folding cot with a new-looking blanket on top. A mozzie net hung loosely above it, ready to be fastened round the frame. Down by the side of the cot I saw a pile of batteries, a small radio and a rusty old fan gaffer-taped to a stick that had been jammed into the ground.

Three shrink-wrapped trays of one-litre Evian bottles were stacked in the corner next to a little wooden table that held a gas burner with a few pots and pans. His party gear – an AK, webbing chest harness with four curved mags, and an old canvas bergen bleached white by the sun – was piled at the end of the bed next to a copy of the Bible and an inch-and-a-half Very pistol, still in its vintage webbing holster. These things had thrown balls of magnesium into the sky over the First World War trenches, then burned like mad for a few seconds to signal that it was time for the poor fucking squaddies to go over the top and get hosed down by the German machine-gunners.

I kept my voice low. 'What did happen?'

He poked his finger through the plastic shrink-wrap and ripped a hole. 'He broke both legs in the fall. I stayed to look after him, then he left to do his own thing. You know, went off to become a man. He provided security for a couple of diamond mines, then one day turned up back here at the church.'

He tossed me one of the Evian bottles. 'It's OK, Nick. Don't beat yourself up over it. It was a long time ago, and everything worked out good.' He moved towards the tent flap with his suitcase and a bottle for himself. 'Why don't you leave your bag here and get a load of pay parade? Crucial and I want to talk to you about a bit of trouble we're having.'

We weaved our way through the chaos on the strip. The forty or so bags of fertilizer had been stacked haphazardly at one end of a long line of diesel drums. A guy cranked a hand pump on the closest one to decant fuel into lime-green and yellow jerry-cans his mate was lining up for him. They were the same ones I'd seen hanging on the huts.

I screwed up my eyes against the sun. I could feel it burning straight through my sweatshirt, on to my shoulders and the back of my neck. I felt like I had a searchlight pointed straight into my eyes.

Crucial had joined us and got himself a bit of shade under a big cardboard box of Prudence he was balancing on his head.

'See.' Sam jerked a thumb at the box and smiled. 'They even give protection from UVA.'

There was a buzz of excitement up ahead.

A couple of hundred metres away, a crowd of twenty-odd guys clamoured round the tables in the shade of a tree next to the old tents. One looked a sergeant-major type – they're all the same, no matter which army; every soldier in the world can smell one heading their way at a hundred paces. This guy wielded a long skinny stick as he hollered and shouted to get everyone in line. Nobody seemed to care. It was pay day, after all.