22
Something exploded right on top of them and Leon thought he would be buried alive. Clods of earth smashed down on him, the wind went from his lungs. The noise was hot, it burnt his eardrums. Somewhere he couldn’t see, someone was screaming. With no time to set up he leant the gun against his hip and fired. A figure ran fast away from him, and he walked the tracer bullets across the man’s back and he fell bucking like a sliced fish. Pete was at his side, replenishing the ammunition, missing three fingers from his left hand. His face was limestone, his mouth black. He handed Leon the bullets with his good hand and bled with his bad, holding the radio in the crook of his neck calling, ‘Dustoff, dustoff!’ Banana leaves shredded over them, hot green smoke, it seemed to last for hours.
When earth and dust and leaves had settled, when there seemed nothing left, he let his gun run dry. The screaming had stopped. A mosquito bothered Leon’s eyelid and he let it.
The chopper landed and there were two baddies dead, their bodies eaten by bullets; the others had melted away. Pete held his claw hand, spitting dirt and blood and tooth on to the ground. The screaming man turned out to have been Rod, his legs both gone below the knee. Thick blood leaked from his mouth and his eyes were wide and dead.
Cray sat propped against a tree, a small leak of blood coming from between his fingers where he held on to his stomach. He smoked a cigarette. ‘Flesh wound, I should think,’ he said quietly. ‘Bit of shrapnel scraped by me. Leave a pretty scar, but.’ He looked up at the tops of the trees, watching his smoke mix with rising mist and get carried up. He waved Leon away. ‘I’ll be right after a smoke,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay and keep Daniel company.’ Daniel nodded to him, his hand on his smashed knee.
Leon and Pete carried Rod to where the green marker smoke of the helicopter waited. The medics arranged Rod on a stretcher and tucked him into it like he might have been cold. Someone bandaged up Pete’s messy fingers. ‘Well, that’s it for you, mate,’ he said, ‘no more trigger finger. Time to get home.’
‘I’ll never play the flute again either,’ said Pete and chuckled in a way that echoed and then faded out. ‘Reckon you’ll have to take us all back – Leon here he’s the only bugger not wounded.’
The medic raised his eyebrows injecting something yellow into Pete’s wrist. ‘How many you got?’
‘We were only five to begin with.’
‘That’s rough. Think you’d be better off getting out of here now, mate. We’ll send someone else to pick up the rest.’
Pete nodded at Leon. ‘You happy with that?’ Leon nodded back, and they touched each other’s shoulders and Pete handed over the radio. The chopper took off and Leon watched as Pete closed his eyes and held up his bandaged hand to cover his face from the dust.
Leon led the way for the stretcher bearers, just a couple of minutes away. Their radio buzzed and a voice said there was a chopper zero five minutes away. It was amazing, in just a couple of hours they would be in a hotel room. He’d have a drink for Rod and Clive, then he’d have a drink for himself.
They returned to find that Cray was dead, a long tube of cigarette ash next to him.
Daniel was tight-mouthed. ‘He had one through the throat too,’ he said. ‘Don’t know why the bastard didn’t tell anybody.’
‘Probably nothing to be done anyways,’ said the medic, shaking his head.
Leon spat into the grass.
On the bitumen of the base airport he felt an awkward jab in his pocket. As stinking tired men poured around him, he looked at the mud baby that rested in his palm. Somehow it was still in one piece, brittle as pulled sugar. An eye had rolled out of its socket, but the baby still smiled.