Attack

I apologise for the brutality of this piece. It is not something I enjoyed writing, but something I do know a little about as I have trained in demolition and combat as a Royal Engineer, and have friends who are engaged in mission work in Africa. I spoke only recently to a young doctor who has been forced to leave the Congo through just such events as these. This location is actually Africa but has been left rather vague because it could be almost anywhere.

 

 

They crept through the forest, each piece of headgear a minor thicket in its own right, each white face blackened to match the natural camouflage of the rag tag army they led. Hearts beat loudly enough to disturb the birds, whose jungle squawking obliterated any sound they made as they progressed. The river ahead needed crossing before an attack could be mounted.   Commands were hissed rather than spoken as the white ‘officers’ crouched over the rudimentary map which was all HQ could give them.

 

They spoke more normally now, as even the birds’ evening clamour was overpowered by the water’s rushing sound. Near the bank, they settled down for the night.

 

Three miles away, on the crest of a wooded knoll, a rebel force took shelter, prepared to repulse the attack that they knew must come. But when, and from which quarter? Every sound was a possible attacker, every rustle, a sniper drawing a bead, every animal sound a message between their enemies. None slept, none rested, as night blanketed attacker and defender.

 

*            *            *

 

The attackers used the early hours of the morning, when they calculated the defenders to be least observant, to ford the swift but shallow river. Eighty men and their equipment crossed before first light, the leading whites, cold of heart and without emotion, their command nervous from prolonged silence. As the sun rose, so too did steam from their river-wet clothes. They kept cover, spending time cleaning, drying and oiling weapons. A white and three blacks slipped silently into the undergrowth followed shortly by other groups exiting the encampment, anonymous clusters of nameless men fading into invisibility.

 

From a place that covered all the likely river crossings, a rebel kept watch unknowingly on a river already forded. Even as he watched a hand covered his mouth and a broad blade ended his life from an entry point just below the third rib. Silence. Not even the requiem sound of a parrot’s shriek.

 

To the left, in the very environs of the rebel camp, a sapper wound detonator cord and plastic explosive round a tree as other groups pulled silently killed, still twitching corpses into the bush.

 

*            *            *

 

Confident that no enemy were on this side of the river, and being sure that none would cross in broad daylight within range of their two captured mortars, the defenders’ nervous energy of the night was subsumed by fatigue and the effects of raw native alcohol. One by one, they drifted into sleep, be it only fitful dozing. Even those awake were only half so. Deepest was the eternal sleep of the sentries.

 

So it was when the world exploded around them.

 

*            *            *

 

        A gigantic tree, still branches filled with shrieking birds and scrabbling monkeys crashed into the midst of the encampment. Men, speared or trapped by its branches were torn apart as shrapnel from grenades ripped into them. The attack was swift and deadly, the attacked were swiftly dead. There was an economy of shots. Ammunition was scarce in the forests. Through smoke, dust and blood, and accompanied by the crackle of burning timber and the cries of the injured and dying, the coups de grâce were quickly and mercilessly administered by the knife. Resistance was negligible. Surprise had performed its duty. Few prisoners were taken and their lives were not to be long extended after they had given what information they either had or had invented in vain hope of reprieve. Threat of a severed tongue soon makes it wag.

 

The bloodlust of the attackers sated, and having proved themselves a well disciplined, though ragged force, they continued upon their task of wiping out isolated pockets of resistance.

 

*            *            *

 

From their triumphs, the victors marched post-haste towards the next location described by tortured victims. Passing through a narrow gorge, the biters were bit. Rocks, large and small rained down on them, but inaccurately aimed by rebels on the lip of the pass, casualties were negligible. The white leaders, anticipating this setback had despatched a small commando by a difficult, skirting route to the top of the pass. Suddenly, the rebel force was attacked from above and it was bodies, not stones falling on the troop below, who laughed as one by one, the pitiful force that had prepared what was thought to be a foolproof ambush landed mangled on the jagged rocks at each side of them. Above, vultures wheeled in anticipation. They were not to be disappointed. 

 

Reaching the government held town of Kabanga, the troop relaxed and revelled for a week.

 

*            *            *

 

Having trained their force in sufficient aspects of war to enable it to achieve at least a modicum of success, the white mercenaries, for such they were, prepared to fly out to find another war on which to inflict their special brand of entrepreneurism.

 

The dregs of the armies of Europe and the Americas, these men of blank eyes and narcotised consciences, Serbs, Foreign Legionnaires, Russians, Neo-Nazis, deserters and criminals from the world’s armies sell their murderous skills to the corrupt despots of emerging nations for money and excitement. The scum of world-wide military rejection boarded their ’plane to fly from one war for which they cared not a jot to find another which meant nothing to them.

 

The military skills of this polyglot collection of evil however, were to be of no avail against the attack by a small group far below which, almost as a gesture, fired its lone SAM missile at the old transport, labouring overhead. Another tree crashed, still with its complement of shrieking birds and scrabbling monkeys, in ghastly replication, as the doomed aircraft, with its cargo of bodies now as mutilated as the souls that had once inhabited them, carved its dying swathe through the forest. Again, the vultures wheeled whilst, in the cauldron that had once been a ’plane, dinner was cooked to perfection.

 

*            *            *

Reviews

[Lyndie Bolt aka JustRac..]

With this "still branches filled " would the branches actually be still in the early morning? Animals at this time are usually more awake than humans. Also would they be still falling?

By "small commando by" do you mean small comando forc or unit? On quick read, one may think it is a short man... LOL
This "the biters were bit" would be better as "the biters were bitten."

This sentence "narcotised consciences, Serbs, Foreign Legionnaires, Russians, Neo-Nazis, deserters and criminals " would be more powerful leaving the 'names' (Serbs, Foreign Legionnaires, Russians, Neo-Nazis,)out, because then they can be ANYONES. Question on the Mercs being all white... I would think that there would be a polyglot mix of faces. Yes, with the majority probably white, but more identifiable by their physique, hardened eyes, and battle scars. I actually knew a man who was like this, and he had been a POW in Vietnam... He was Native American, and never really 'right' in the head after finally settling down... well sort of settling. He became a maximun Security prison warden, so he wasn't 'technically' a criminal in this country, but his POW stay, torture definitly changed him-- gave him a 'blood lust'. He had been a Special Forces sniper with 59 confirmed officer kills before capture. He could ne really creepy at times!

[Exa Lectric]

That is a well typed story. Yes it is a bit sad... but there is a lot of imagery.