south of the Equator—but not oppressively so, and they were about five thousand feet above sea level, so while the humidity was high, it was not as oppressive as, say, the Florida panhandle, where Special Forces troops are trained in “jungle warfare.”
Sergeant First Jette had not spoken more than a dozen words to Major Tomas since they had left Outpost George and crossed Route 5 and gone into the bush. When it had been necessary to communicate—not often: “Stop.” “That way.” “Listen.” “Move.”—he had done so with hand movements.
The Simbas were herding half a dozen head of cattle ahead of them, and the trail had not been at all hard to follow.
Jette had set the pace, a sort of a lope, and it had been all Doubting Thomas could do to keep up with him.
Jette put his left hand to his ear. “Listen.”
Thomas heard the sound of mooing cattle, and he nodded.
Jette made signs indicating the direction, and that they should move. The path he chose was in the bush, parallel to the track, and his pace picked up.
By the time Jette held up his hand, “Stop” again, Doubting Thomas was breathing hard.
Thomas could now hear voices in addition to the mooing of the cattle, but he could not make out what was being said.
Jette began to move again, this time slowly and carefully, and then held up his hand again, “Stop,” and pointed. He dropped to the ground and moved on his hands and knees through the bush, and finally signaled another “Stop.”
The Simbas were no more than twenty yards away. There were nine of them, ambling along both sides of the cattle and to the rear of them. They were all armed, with an assortment of both rifles and machetes. A few had pistols, and one had a pair of binoculars hanging around his neck. Most of them had some piece of uniform clothing—Belgian officers’ brimmed caps with the insignia missing; dress uniform tunics; camouflage fatigue jackets or trousers; Sam Browne belts—but not one of them was completely uniformed.
It would have been easy to take them all out, Doubting Thomas judged professionally, but that wouldn’t make much sense. He looked at Jette for any sign that he wasn’t going to obey the one order “Major Tomas” had given him: “Unless we’re attacked, you will not shoot without my specific permission.”
Jette was lying on his stomach, his arms folded in front of him, resting his chin on his hands.
He knows what he’s doing, Thomas thought approvingly. There was no sense in going back into the bush. If the Simbas hadn’t seen them yet, it was unlikely they would before, in their own good time, they ambled out of sight tending the cattle.
As Thomas started to lie down near Jette, the rain started. It had been threatening to rain for an hour. It began with a few large drops, and then it came in a torrent. There was no way the Simbas would see them now. The rain would last no more than an hour or so.
Thomas touched Jette’s leg and signaled that they were to move back into the bush. Jette nodded and said nothing, but there was a look in his eyes that told Thomas that Jette had no idea what he was up to.
Thomas walked 122 paces—he counted them—before he found what he was looking for: a natural clearing in the bush open to the sky.
He unbuckled and shrugged out of the backpack radio and then his web gear, then hung it all on a broken-off limb on a tree. Then he took his compass—he carried this hanging around his neck, next to his dog tags—and sighted it back to the trail the Simbas were using.
Sergeant First Jette squatted on the ground, holding his rifle between his knees, and watched him with unconcealed curiosity. He did not take off his pack.
“When do we kill the Simbas, Major, sir?” he asked.
“Not now, Sergeant First Jette,” Thomas said. “First we must talk and think and see what weapons are available to us.”
“Yes, Major, sir.”
“Is there any question in your mind that you can track the Simbas to their base?” Thomas asked.
“It is not hard to track cattle, Major, sir.”
“Do you think the Simba will stop for the night if they cannot reach their base by dark?”
“I think they will reach their base by dark.”
“I was told it’s fifty miles, eighty kilometers, from Route Five to the shore of Lake Tanganyika. We have come . . . what?”