Brendan DuBois - Dead of Night

Miriam reached up with her free hand, tickled Peter’s scalp. ‘You’ll do that, won’t you, Peter? Hide Samuel if there’s trouble?’

‘He should ask Charlie,’ Peter said. ‘I’m just a cop, nothing else.’

Miriam sat back. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think cops can boss generals around, now, can they? Why won’t you tell me who you really are?’

Charlie wouldn’t let Peter reply, because he said, ‘OK, we’re here. Now the fun begins.’

We came up to a wooden bridge spanning a fast-moving stream that no doubt led into the river I had crossed the other day. The wood planks made a clunking sound as we drove across them. In front of us was a wide stream bed, and up ahead was a dirt parking lot. There was a steep hill at one end of it and two low-slung wooden buildings. There were stumps again, where signposts had been taken down. The convoy came to a halt, parking in a semicircle. I stepped out, slung my duffel bag over my shoulder.

Miriam saw me and smiled. ‘Still on the job?’

‘Until I’m sent home, yeah, I’m still on the job,’ I said.

The helicopters stayed overhead, darting back and forth like dragonflies seeking prey. Soldiers were moving about and I experienced a little taste of shame, remembering all the times I had thought badly of my father, his service, his chosen career. Being a soldier was more than a matter of black and white. Sometimes they were there in the middle, defending those shades of gray.

Peter got out, looked around. Charlie climbed out and stood next to him, his weapon slung at his side. With Miriam with me I felt indestructible, as though this UN team could go anywhere, do anything to protect the helpless and the innocent.

‘Where do we start looking?’ Peter asked.

‘Wherever the mine entrance is, I suppose.’

Charlie said, ‘There’s a crowd forming, over there by the hill. Let’s take a walk.’

We all walked over, each of us — except Charlie — carrying a bag of gear that marked his or her own specialty. With all the other people around and the soldiers as well, I had the feeling that our little inspection group was about to be overwhelmed. But damn it, we were going to do our job, so long as we could.

There was another series of wooden stumps set into the ground, where signs had been removed. General Hale, now wearing a beret, was standing beside a gravel path that led toward the steep hill. There was a cluster of soldiers and UN types around him, and he caught my eye, offering a slight look of ‘I certainly hope you’re right.’ I turned and looked at the gathering of APCs and earth-moving equipment and white Toyota Land Cruisers. All here because of me. As if she was sensing what was going on inside my mind, Miriam reached over and squeezed my hand.

‘It’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Just you see.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ I said.

Peter said, ‘Enough of that kissy-face stuff. We’ve got work to do.’

Charlie said nothing. He just smiled and led the way up the path. It rose at a slight angle, fairly wide, and I noticed how chewed up it was. Tire tracks, lots of them, making the dirt look tom up. As we got further up the trail Peter said, ‘Congratulations.’

‘What do you mean, congratulations?’ I asked.

Miriam whispered something in her native tongue and Peter looked back at me. ‘Can’t you smell it?’ he asked.

Then I noticed it, right after he said it. A sickly, sour-sweet smell that made my throat swell up and my eyes start to water. Peter said, ‘You smell it once, you never get it out of your mind, Samuel, no matter how hard you try…’

Ahead of us the path widened, leading to an area where the ground rose steeply and where rock was exposed at the side of the hill. A heavy-duty green canvas tarpaulin was secured against the side of the rock and it moved some, as if it were breathing. A mine-clearing crew was there, looking spectral in their gas masks as they finished their work with their detecting equipment. I coughed again, my eyes still watering, trying to take it all in. Peter said, ‘I hope you’re not too fond of what you’re wearing, mate, because when we’re through here it’s going to be good for burning, and nothing else.’

Where the path had widened there were some park benches, and a small metal and wood hut that had refreshments/souvenirs displayed on a red, white and blue sign overhead. Above the tarpaulin was a rock overhang, and the place was thick with evergreens and brush. Not much chance of air surveillance finding anything out. Miriam put down her bag and started taking some things out. ‘This will help,’ she said. ‘Trust me, I know.’

She opened up a little glass bottle of some type of cold cream, which she smeared on my upper lip and in each nostril. Vicks VapoRub rides again. Just like that time -ages ago, it seemed—when we had excavated those cows back at that burned-out farm. The smell was overwhelming, but it was a heavy mint scent that at least overwhelmed everything else. She did the same with Charlie and Peter, and then passed out little paper face-masks as though we were heading into surgery or some damn thing. Lastly, rubber gloves and clear safety glasses. I put everything on, feeling hot and uncomfortable and not quite understanding how the mine-clearing crew could be doing their job. More people were coming up behind us on the path, and they weren’t as prepared as Miriam, for most had handkerchiefs around their faces.

One of the mine-clearing crew came up to me and pulled up his gas mask, his face red and sweating, his black hair sticking to his wet forehead. He said in a thick accent, ‘Things OK here. You want us to open it up?’

I nodded, too stunned to appreciate that he had asked me instead of Peter or Miriam or anybody else. ‘Yeah, open it up.’

He turned and shouted something—in Slovakian, maybe?—and two of the crew went to one side of the tarpaulin. Ropes and turnbuckles were holding down the side of the heavy canvas, and the mine-clearing crew went to work. The ropes snapped free and two men grabbed a corner and started pulling it back. And damn it if there wasn’t an awful gurgling, burping noise as the foul air inside the mine entrance was set free. I got dizzy and walked a few steps, took a deep breath, removed my face-mask, and threw up on the ground. My breakfast came up in three heavy spasms, and I felt enormously embarrassed until I stood up, wiped my face with a coat sleeve and looked around. Except for the men with the gas masks and Charlie, everyone else was standing there as well, a wet mess on the ground around their feet, their eyes glassy and their lips shiny-wet with saliva.

We waited some more while an engineering crew came up with large round metal blower fans, which they set up at the mine entrance. Another engineering crew went to work with a generator, powering up the lights within the mine shaft. With the tarpaulin gone, I could make out the round entrance fairly well. There were timbers holding up the sides and the roof, and it looked big enough to drive a truck into. The low roar of the fans was swamped some by the sound of the helicopters hovering overhead and that of the vehicles moving around in the parking lot. General Hale came over to me and said, ‘The air quality in there is about as good as it’s going to get. Since you led us here, I think protocol should be damned and you should have first crack at taking a look. That all right, son?’

I picked up my gear and said, ‘Only if Peter and Miriam and Charlie go with me. They’re my crew.’

‘Of course,’ Hale said.

The three of them, all dressed like me with face-masks and rubber gloves and safety glasses, joined me as we went up the dirt roadway into the entrance of the mine. The walls and the roof were rough-hewn rock. The blower fans were switched off and a small crowd of a couple of dozen watched us go in. Temporary lights had been set up at the entrance to provide even more light, and I froze as we took just one step in, for I had seen a small child on the ground. Miriam bumped into me and said, ‘What’s wrong?’ I just looked down at the tiny figure and then squatted down on the ground. The doll weighed almost nothing, and its long blonde braids and its cloth face were dirty. I looked ahead to the shapes lying there, stretching out into the darkness, and I stood up, the doll in my hands.