Juggernaut

‘It wasn’t so much getting into it as being born into it. My old man was always on the heavy side – he pushed around tank transporters in the war – and I’m a chip off the old block.’

‘Ever handled anything as big as this before?’

‘Oh yes. I’ve done one a bit bigger than this for the Central Electricity Generating Board at home. Of course, conditions weren’t exactly the same, but just as difficult, in their way. There are more buildings to knock corners off in Britain, and a whole lot more bureaucracy to get around too.’

‘Was that with Wyvern?’

‘No, before its time.’ He knew I was pumping him gently and didn’t seem to mind. ‘I was with one of the big outfits then.’

I drank the last of my beer. ‘You really are Wyvern Transport, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. Together with Ben and Geoff Wingstead. We’d all been in the business before, and when we got together it seemed like a good idea. Sometimes I’m not so sure.’ I saw him wave his hand, a dim gesture in the darkness, and heard the slight bitter touch in his voice. I already knew that financially this was a knife edge operation and I didn’t want to spoil Kemp’s mood by raking up any economic dirt, but I felt I could get a few more answers out of him without pressing too hard.

He carried on without my prompting him. ‘We each came into a little money, one way or another – mine was an inheritance. Ben had ideas for modifying current rigs and Geoff and Ben had worked together before. Geoff’s our real ideas man: not only the financial end, he’s into every angle. But if we hadn’t landed this contract I don’t think we’d have got off the ground.’

I had had my own doubts about giving this enormously expensive and difficult job to a firm new to the market but I didn’t want to express them to Kemp. He went on, though, filling me in with details; the costly airlift gear, which they only realized was necessary after their tender had been accepted, was rented from the CEGB. Two of the tractors were secondhand, the others bought on the never-never and as yet not fully paid for. The tender, already as low as possible to enable them to land the job, was now seen to be quite unrealistic and they did not expect to make anything out of the Nyalan operation: but they had every hope that a successful completion would bring other contracts to their doorstep. It was midsummer madness, and it might work.

I realized that it was late, and that I hadn’t yet broached the subject of security or danger. Too late in fact to go into the whole thing now, but I could at least pave the way; Kemp’s practical problems had rendered him oblivious to possible outside interference, and in any case he was used to working in countries where political problems were solved over the negotiation table, and not by armies.

‘How are you getting on with Captain Sadiq?’ I asked.

‘No trouble. In fact he’s quite helpful. I’ll make him into a good road boss yet.’

‘Had any problems so far? Apart from the road itself, that is.’

‘Just the usual thing of crowd control through the villages. Sadiq’s very good at that. He’s over-efficient really; puts out a guard every time we stop, scouts ahead, very busy playing soldiers generally.’ He gestured into the night. ‘If you walk down there you’ll stand a chance of getting a bullet in you unless you speak up loud and clear. I’ve had to warn my chaps about it. Road transport in the UK was never like this.’

‘He’s not really here just as a traffic cop,’ I said. ‘He is guarding you, or, more to the point, he’s guarding the rig and the convoy. There’s always a possibility that someone might try a bit of sabotage. So you keep your eyes open too, and pass that word down the line to your men, Basil.’

I knew he was staring at me. ‘Who’d want to sabotage us? No-one else wanted this job.’

He was still thinking in terms of commercial rivalry and I was mildly alarmed at his political naivety. ‘Look, Basil, I’d like to put you in the picture, and I think Ben Hammond too. But it’s late and you’ve a major job to do in the morning. It’s nothing urgent, nothing to fret about. Next time we stop for a break I’ll get you both up to date, OK?’

‘Right you are, if you say so.’ I sensed his mind slipping away; mention of the next day’s task had set him thinking about it, and I knew I should leave him alone to marshall his ideas.

‘I’ll say good night,’ I said. ‘I guess you’ll want to think about your next obstacle course.’

He stood up. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ he said sardonically. ‘Sleep well. Your bunk is rigged over there, by the way. I sleep on top of one of the tractors: less risk of snakes that way.’

‘I know how you feel,’ I grinned. ‘But with me it’s scorpions. Good night.’

I strolled in the night air over to the rig and stood looking up at the great slab of the transformer. Over one million pounds’ worth of material was being trundled precariously through Africa by a company on the verge of going bankrupt, with a civil war possibly about to erupt in its path, and what the hell was I going to do about it?

I decided to sleep on it.

SIX (#ulink_9e07ef4f-f1f9-5836-8c91-0bc9bd1580d3)

Everybody was up early in the dim light before dawn. I breakfasted with the crew, standing in line at the chuck wagon. The food was washed down with hot, strong, sweet, milky tea which tasted coppery and which they called ‘gunfire’.

‘Why gunfire?’ I queried.

‘That’s what they call it in the British Army. The Army fights on this stuff,’ I was told.

I grinned. ‘If they could stomach this they’d be ready to face anything.’

‘It’s better than bloody Coca-Cola,’ someone said, and everybody laughed.

After breakfast there was a great deal of activity. I went in search of Captain Sadiq, and found him sitting in his command car wearing earphones. He saw me approaching and held up his hand in warning as he scribbled on a notepad he held on his knee. Then he called to a sergeant who came trotting over. Sadiq took off the earphones and handed them to the sergeant. Only then did he come around the car to meet me. ‘Good morning, Mister Mannix.’

‘Good morning, Captain. Sorry I was in a hurry last night. Any problems? Mister Kemp says he is very gratified by all your help.’

He smiled at that. ‘No problems at all, sir,’ he said, but it was a brushoff. He looked deeply concerned and abstracted.

The sun was just rising as I heard an engine start up. It had a deep roar and sounded like one of the big tractors. A small crowd of curious onlookers had materialized from nowhere and were being pushed back by Sadiq’s men. Small boys skylarked about and evaded the soldiers with ease.

I indicated the crowd. ‘These people are up early. Do you have much of this kind of thing?’

‘The people, they are always with us.’ I wondered for a moment whether that was an intended parody of a biblical quotation. He pointed. ‘These come from a small village about a mile over there. They are nothing.’

One of the military trucks fired up its engine and I watched it pull out. Mounted on the back was a recoilless gun. The range of those things wasn’t particularly great but they packed a hell of a wallop and could be fired from a light vehicle. One thing you had to remember was not to stand behind when they fired. ‘Nice piece of artillery,’ I said. ‘I haven’t seen one of those since Korea.’

Sadiq smiled noncommittally. I sensed that he was itching for me to be off.

‘Is there anything I can do for you, Captain?’ I wanted to see how far he’d let me go before he pulled rank on me, or tried to. But outside influences had their say instead.

‘Nothing at all, Mister Man …’

His words were drowned as three jets streaked overhead, making us both start. They were flying low, and disappeared to the south. I turned to Sadiq and raised my eyebrows. ‘We are quite close to a military airfield,’ he said. His attempt at a nonchalant attitude fooled neither of us.

I thanked him and walked away, then turned my head to see him already putting on the earphones again. Maybe he liked hi-fi.

I wanted to relieve myself so I pushed a little way into the bushes by the side of the road. It was quite thick but I came across a sort of channel in the undergrowth and was able to push along quite easily. What bothered me was that it was quite straight. Then I damn near fell down a hole, teetered for a moment on the edge and recovered by catching hold of a branch and running a thorn into my hand. I cursed, then looked at the hole with interest. It had been newly dug and at the bottom there were marks in the soil. The spoil from the hole had been piled up round it and then covered with scrub. If you had to have a hole at all this was one of the more interesting types, one I hadn’t seen since I was in the army.

I dropped into it and looked back the way I had come. The channel I had come along was clearly defined right up to the road edge, where it was screened by the lightest of cover, easy to see through from the shady side. Captain Sadiq was clearly on the ball, a real professional. This was a concealed machine gun pit with a prepared field of fire which commanded a half mile length of road. Out of curiosity I drummed up what I had been taught when Uncle Sam tried to make me into a soldier, and figured out where Sadiq would have put his mortars. After a few minutes of plunging about in the scrub I came across the emplacement and stared at it thoughtfully. I didn’t know if it was such a good idea because it made out Sadiq to be a textbook soldier, working to the rules. That’s all right providing the guys on the other side haven’t read the same book.

When I got back to the rig Kemp hailed me with some impatience, shading into curiosity. I was dusty and scratched, and already sweating.

‘We’re ready to move,’ he said. ‘Ride along with anyone you like.’ Except me, his tone added, and I could hardly blame him. He’d have enough to do without answering questions from visiting firemen.

‘Just a minute,’ I said. ‘Captain Sadiq appears to be cemented to his radio. How long has that been going on?’

Kemp shrugged. ‘I don’t know – all morning. He does his job and I do mine.’

‘Don’t you sense that he’s uneasy?’ I asked with concern. I’d seldom met a man so oblivious to outside events as Kemp. ‘By the way, what did you make of those planes?’

‘They say there’s an airfield somewhere about. Maybe they were just curious about the convoy. Look, Neil, I have to get on. I’ll talk to you later.’ He waved to Hammond, who drove up in the Land Rover, and they were off in a small cloud of dust. During my absence the rig and most of the rest of the convoy including my car had moved off, so I swung myself on to the chuck wagon and hitched a lift down to where the others were grouped around the approach to the bridge.

The scene was fascinating. Kemp was using only one tractor to take the rig across the bridge and it was already in place. Another tractor had crossed and waited on the far side. The rig was fitted with its airlift skirts and looked rather funny; they seemed to take away the brute masculinity of the thing and gave it the incongruous air of one of those beskirted Greek soldiers you see on guard in Athens. Though no doubt Kemp, who had been outraged by the bunting in Port Luard, saw nothing odd about it. Behind it was the airlift truck to which it was connected by a flexible umbilicus. Through this the air was rammed by four big engines.