march and the shout was repeated several times, echoing back for some distance.
Stratton had already walked several metres before he remembered that he was supposed to be counting paces. He made a rough estimate of how many he’d taken so far and as they headed up an incline he looked back to see a long snaking line of men and burros. He could not see the end of the column.
They came to the first container. It was hanging several metres above the ground, dangling from its shredded parachute which had snagged in the upper branches of a tree. The crate had broken open and several large plastic boxes lay on the ground.
Victor was incensed. ‘If those idiots only realised that it takes valuable time to retrieve these. We must get these boxes loaded as soon as possible!’ he called out over his shoulder.
Orders were shouted and a group of men set about gathering the container’s contents. Stratton continued on. The undergrowth grew taller and thicker as they approached the edge of the clearing and men came forward with machetes to clear a path. They all looked like they had been living rough in the jungle for a while. They were unwashed and grubby, and most of them had long hair and beards. Apart from their camouflage gear, which seemed to have come from several different sources, they didn’t look like soldiers. But there seemed to be a solid enough rank structure and the discipline was there. Stratton wondered about their soldiering skills, though. Not all the weapons he could see looked in good condition.
The men soon cut through to the clearing where the bundles lay scattered over a wide area. Stratton took a count.
‘That’s it,’ he said to Victor. ‘They’re all here.’
Victor nodded to the serious-looking officers, who barked some orders and the rebels hurried into the clearing with their burros in tow. There must have been over two dozen animals and a hundred men.
Stratton made his way to one of the pallets to inspect a plastic container that had fallen out of the crate and had been damaged. He opened the lid and lifted a sponge cover to reveal a couple of dozen green tubes marked with black stencilling.
‘Rockets!’ exclaimed one of the men who saw them. Within seconds several rebels surrounded the box, removed some of the launch tubes and inspected them excitedly.
Stratton watched one of the men holding his tube up the wrong way round. When he began pushing in the rubber firing button, even though the device was not armed at that stage, it was evident he had no idea how to use it. Stratton watched other rebels beginning to do things with the tubes that were definitely inadvisable. He was suddenly alarmed.
‘Whoa, whoa, guys,’ he called out. ‘Stop. Just a minute. Hold on. You, don’t do that . . . Listen in!’ he finally shouted.
They stopped talking and gave him their full attention.
Stratton looked at the men, most of whom were a few inches shorter than him. At six foot he wasn’t particularly tall, neither was he noticeably muscular, though he was athletic. But he was quite big compared with most of the rebels, this bunch at least. ‘Does anybody here know how to fire these weapons?’ he asked calmly.
A barrel-chested man held his launcher confidently as he stepped from the group. ‘You just pull this bit here and then—’
‘Stop, stop, stop,’ Stratton asked, holding out his hands. ‘Don’t pull anything . . . Do you know what kind of a rocket this is?’
There was silence. ‘It’s the kind that blows things up,’ someone called out, much to the amusement of the others.
Stratton smiled along with them. ‘That’s good. You’re right. It’s the kind that blows things up. And if you’re not careful you’ll blow us all up right here and now.’
‘So show us how to fire it,’ one of the rebels said.
‘Yeah, show us,’ another man echoed.
‘Well . . . I didn’t exactly come here to—’
‘What are you people doing?’ Victor interrupted, calling out as he strode through the undergrowth towards them. ‘Get this stuff loaded! Or are you just waiting for the Neravistas?’
The men put the launch tubes back in the box and hurried to the task.
Victor looked to the sky worriedly, wiping the sweat and grime from his brow before inspecting the rockets. ‘What are those?’ he asked.
‘Sixty-six-millimetre rockets.’
Victor appeared to have mixed feelings about the weapons.
‘You didn’t ask for these?’
‘We never know what we’re going to get. I think they send