could hear the intense buzzing of thousands of flies. Lying on the ground in a small clearing were the six members of the rebel outpost, all dead, shot through their heads and torsos. One had had his throat slit.
One of the relief patrol moved away to throw his guts up. The rest stared unmoving at their fallen comrades with looks of horror and disgust.
Stratton found the situation curious insofar as the outpost crew had been shot out in the open rather than behind cover as one might expect in a firefight. He picked up one of the dead men’s rifles and removed the magazine. It was full. He checked the man’s magazine pouch which was also untouched. A similar inspection of another dead rebel’s weapon and ammo pouch revealed the same. ‘They didn’t return fire,’ he said.
He grew very uneasy with the location and looked to the high ground.
‘What should we do?’ Bernard asked.
‘You need to keep this outpost open,’ Stratton said. ‘There’s a reason someone wanted it wiped out. Set up the radio, inform your people and get reinforcements down here. Tell them to bring half a dozen claymores. This is what they were designed for.’
The radio operator removed his pack to set up communications, the patrol commander putting the headset over his ears.
‘You?’ Stratton said, getting the attention of one of the young men still transfixed by the dead. ‘Cover the route we came in on. You? Cover in that direction. You and you. I want you to clear the high ground,’ he said, indicating the area above the outpost. ‘That whole area all the way to the top.’
The men obeyed.
Stratton went to the lookout position and studied the panorama. The knoll provided a dramatic view of the junction of three valleys, the main approaches to that side of the plateau. He scanned in all directions with his binoculars, hoping to see what the outpost had not been meant to report on. It didn’t take him long to find something.
In the far distance, at the head of one of the valleys, what looked like a long line of soldiers and loaded burros was snaking its way in his direction. ‘Bernard?’
The young man came to his side.
‘When you get that radio working, tell them a large force of foot soldiers is heading this way. Three to four hundred, rough estimate. I also advise they check on the other outposts.’
The two men who’d been ordered to sweep the high ground mounted the rocks on the edge of the position to carry out their task. A couple of short bursts of high-velocity gunfire from the slope spat several rounds through both men, killing them before they hit the ground.
Other shots raked the position. One of the men covering the routes either side of the outpost was killed instantly, the other was seriously injured. Stratton, Bernard, the patrol commander and the radio operator dropped behind cover.
Stratton brought his weapon into his shoulder, waiting for a target. All he could think was that the outpost should never have been manned without a gun team on the high ground. Their only hope now was to defend themselves against an assault - there was no way that they could mount a counter-attack. They could not attempt a move with that gun covering their position.
A soft moan came from nearby and Stratton peered through the foliage to see Bernard clutching at himself, obviously in pain.
‘Where’re you hit?’ Stratton whispered.
Bernard tried to turn enough to see him. ‘I’m okay,’ he said, his voice quivering.
Stratton suspected otherwise.
‘Drop your weapons or you will all die like your comrades!’ a voice called out from the bushes. ‘We have your position surrounded.’
Stratton remembered the men hanging by their necks in the jungle on the day he’d arrived. These attackers would be all too likely to mete out the same kind of retribution to anyone they captured.
‘I have been ordered to take prisoners. Those others, they went for their guns. If you give yourselves up you will be allowed to live. If you fight, you will die.’
It was the kind of threat that the defenders wanted to hear but still could not really believe.
A man in civilian clothes rose from behind cover, his rifle aimed carefully at the rebel patrol’s position. He was followed by another and then more, all of them in civilian clothes.
‘I’m coming out,’ shouted someone not far from Stratton. It was one of the rebels. ‘I’ve dropped my gun. Don’t shoot.’ The radio operator did not waste any