It was a bright, clear morning as the two men walked across the compound. On the far horizon a thin line of dark clouds seemed to be waiting to roll in but for the moment the air was a perfect temperature with hardly any humidity.
The ground was slippery, unable to absorb the constant rains, and the path to the main camp area was peppered with deep pools of mud. Everything was mud-coloured except for a sprinkling of green and blue plastic sheeting on the roofs of the habitats, and the lines of laundry. Smoke rose from countless cooking fires to form a grey cloud that hung in the windless air. There were people everywhere - women doing morning chores, men in fatigues hanging around smoking and chatting, and children running in and out of the huts and playing in the open field.
Victor and Stratton crossed the higher ground away from the main camp and walked along the side of a gentle hill, until a long wooden hut came into view at the top. It had a circular corral in front of it in which a white horse was trotting around.
‘The stables,’ Victor pointed out. ‘They are just above the cabins. We’ve come around in a semicircle.’
They walked across the slope and approached a small isolated wood. Several men were gathered around a smouldering fire to one side of an entrance guarded by a sandbagged defensive position.They acknowledged Victor with a nod as he approached.
Victor led the way into the wood, which concealed several rows of pallets covered in tarpaulins and camouflage netting. The cooler, damper air beneath the low canopy of branches smelled of a mixture of rotting foliage and gasoline.
Further along the path lay a line of boxes that Stratton recognised.
‘We keep some of our stores here,’ Victor explained. ‘There are other caches around the camp - away from the living quarters, of course. These are your weapons.’
Stratton noted that there was only about a third of what he had delivered. ‘Do you have a training area? Somewhere we can fire a sixty-six?’
Victor pointed up ahead where a narrow path cut through the wood. He led them back to within sight of the sentries and the stables on the hill. ‘We use this area for weapon testing. You can fire in that direction. Beyond those bushes the ground drops away to a cliff, above a river. Nobody goes there. Will it do?’
‘It’s fine,’ Stratton said, looking around and thinking how he might organise things.
‘What else will you need?’
‘Half a dozen guys smart enough to be able to teach others what I teach them.’
Victor nodded. ‘Is this afternoon okay?’
Stratton sighed to himself. Yet another delay.
‘The men have work this morning,’ Victor explained as if he had sensed Stratton’s disappointment.
‘Sure,’ Stratton said, forcing a smile.
They both looked up as a horse and rider appeared, speeding across the top of the slope and silhouetted against the blue sky.
‘Louisa,’ Victor said. ‘She rides like an insane person.’
‘Is she from here . . . I mean, from this country?’
‘She’s second-generation. Sebastian was born here. His father came from Spain when he was twelve.’
‘She wasn’t brought up here?’
‘Until her early teens. Then, apart from the last few months, she’s been in the US and Europe. Living life as a young person should.’
‘Why did she come back?’
Victor looked as if he disapproved. ‘She says she wants to be with her father. I think there is more to it than that. She majored in some political subject. She’s one of those youngsters who knows everything and has experienced nothing . . . She loves her father. She also believes in him and the struggle.’
‘She’s friendly to you.’
The scientist chuckled, as if he understood how Stratton thought she felt the opposite about him. ‘She thinks I’m a romantic idealist, and an old one at that. If I was ten years younger I would sweep her off her feet.’ He noticed Stratton staring at her and thought he could read the soldier’s thoughts. ‘A mercenary would have no chance, my friend.’
‘I’m not a mercenary.’
‘Well, you look and act like one, and that’s enough.’
They watched Louisa pull her horse to a spirited halt when she reached the stables and dismount lithely. Sebastian came out to greet her and after a brief exchange she led her mount into the stable. Sebastian went to the corral and leaned on the fence. The white horse strolled over to him and he stroked its cheeks.