Place of Bones by Larry Johns Page A

where Augarde and the other white, Brook, were issuing ration tins. I switched on the goose-neck map light and calculated how far we had moved since dawn. The result was disappointing. And it would not have helped had there been sufficient transport for all the men; because the speed we made, or the lack of it, depended not upon how fast a man could march, or trot. It depended upon how many times, and to what degree of difficulty, the wildly over-laden truck and trailer had to be manhandled out of potholes and bogs; the latter perfectly firm enough to take the weight of a man, or even the jeeps - the weedy crust being several inches thick - but not the weight of the truck unit.
    “Rations, sir.”
    I looked up. It was Brook. He was holding out a tin. “Pulled, sir,” he added as I reached for it. I nodded and took it by its lower section. The ten-in-one tins had been invented back in WW1, and I cannot remember a time when I would have survived without them. You pulled a tab which broke a seal and allowed two chemicals to interact, producing a fair amount of heat which transferred itself to the food in the upper section. Brook also handed me a spoon.
    Brook was a strange character for a mercenary. He always managed to look “Regimental”, right down to keeping his hair neatly trimmed. Luang had fitted us out with unmarked fatigue uniforms, ex British S.A.S., I guessed. He had also given Brook, Augarde and Bjoran sergeant’s chevrons, which they had sewn into place. Brook had added the flashes of a regiment of Marines. And where I was already mud-spattered from top to bottom, and soaked through from the incessant rain of dew, Brook looked reasonably presentable. He had an eager, intelligent face, though with an odd kind of vulnerability about his expression. He could have been no more than twenty-five or -six; a little younger perhaps than Augarde. Bjoran was older, in his mid to late thirties. Brook had no accent that I could pin down, and could have been brought up in any part of England. I had brushed with a lot of Englishmen in Africa and was getting better at pinpointing accents. Brook’s, I couldn’t fathom. He did not sound like a Londoner.
    “How’s it going back there?” I asked.
    Brook shrugged. “As expected, sir.” He tried to dodge a drip that had already exploded on his shoulder. “Bloody place!” he hissed, glaring uselessly up into the murk. As if in answer, a monkey screamed; a thin, echoey sound that seemed to reverberate everywhere.
    I swallowed a spoonful of ten-in-one. “What is this stuff?”
    “Chicken stew, it says on the carton, sir. And there’s custard and something to follow, if you want it.” He added, “I was up in this part of the world a while ago, sir.”
    “Makanza?”
    “No,sir. Close. Bogbonga.”
    I guessed that Augarde had not mentioned Camp-One, and I did not feel like another explanation. Besides which, Brook struck me as the type who did not require explanations; he went where he was told. End of story. “Ah!” I said. Bogbonga was, or it used to be until the tungsten deposits petered out, a mining settlement. Upstream of Makanza by some fifty kays. And Makanza was upstream of Camp-One by about the same distance. “When was that?” I asked, for something to say.
    “Jungle training programme, sir. With the regiment. Marines, sir. Back in eighty-three. An exchange deal, or something. Filthy place. We’re headed close to Makanza, aren’t we, sir?”
    I nodded. “Close.”
    “Is it a big town, sir? Makanza?”
    I recognized the signs. Brook just wanted to talk for the sake of it. I did not mind that. “Not since the Simbas razed it.”
    Brook frowned. “What’s up there, then, sir?”
    I sighed a secret sigh. “Where? Makanza? Or where we’re going?”
    His frown deepened. “I thought...” he began, and I waited to hear what he thought. He did not enlarge. We ate in silence for a while. Then he said, “I’m signed on for three months, sir. Will we be at