Страница 82 из 170
Then, thankfully, the convoy was past, the rumble of engines and the singing dwindling, the pale dust settling.
Timon Nbebi exhaled a long breath. "There will be others," he cautioned, and, with his fingers on the ignition key, waited until the silence was complete once again.
Then he started the Land-Rover, reversed out of the scrub and turned back onto the track.
He swung the Land-Rover in the opposite direction from the convoy, and they drove over the rugged tracks that the trucks had imprinted deeply into the sandy earth.
They drove for another twenty minutes before Timon ducked down abruptly in his seat, to peer up at the sky through the windshield.
"Smoke," he said. "Empandeni is just ahead. Will you have your camera ready, Miss Jay? I believe the Third Brigade will have left something for you." They came to the maize fields that surrounded the mission village. The maize stalks had dried, the cobs in their yellow sheaths were begi
Nobody spoke. Sally-A
The other women lay further from the road, mere bundles of gay cloth, heavily stained. There were possibly fifty huts in the village, all of them were burning, the thatched roofs torching up to the clear blue morning sky.
They had thrown most of the corpses into the burning huts, leaving black puddles drying where they had fallen and drag marks in the dust. The smell of seared flesh was very strong, it coated the roofs of their mouths like congealed pork fat. Craig's stomach heaved, and he covered his mouth and nose with his hand.
"These are dissidents?". Sally-A
They had killed the chickens, the loose feathers rolled on the light breeze, like the stuffing from a burst pillow.
"Stop!" Sally-A
"It is dangerous to stay, "id Timon.
"Stop," Sally' A
She left the door open, and went among the huts.
Working swiftly, changing roll after roll of film with practised nimble fingers, while her white lips trembled and her eyes behind the lens were huge with horror.
"We must move on," said Timon.
"Wait." Sally-A
Sally A
Sally-A
"Go back to the Land' Rover please, Miss Jay," Timon Nbebi said. "There is nothing you can do to help her." Sally-A
At the corner of the burning hut Craig glanced back.
Timon Nbebi had moved up close to the maimed woman, he stood over her with the AK 47 held ready on his hip, his whole attention was focused upon her and his face was almost as riven with suffering as was the woman's.
Craig took Sally-A
Craig took the bottle of cane spirit from the cubby hole.
There was an inch of the clear liquor remaining. He gave it to Sally-A
Timon Nbebi came around the hut. Wordlessly he climbed behind the steering, wheel and Craig helped Sally A
As they passed the little church of red brick, the roof collapsed in upon itself, and the wooden cross on the spire was swallowed in a belch of sparks and flames and blue smoke. In the bright sunlight the flames were almost colourless.
imon Nbebi used the radio the way a navigator uses an echo sounder to find the cha
The Third Brigade roadblocks and ambushes were reporting over the VHF vast to their area headquarters, giving their positions a* part of their routine reports, and Timon pin-pointed them on his map.