Missing in Action (17 page)

The Ford only had rear-wheel drive. Pat realised that even if it had four-wheel drive it would still have been touch-and-go whether it could pull the 4.5-tonne chassis weight clear of the ditch. With a sinking feeling, he realised that a winch would probably be required to get the armoured car free of the ditch, and the Ford had no winch fitted as standard.

Pat’s head dropped for a second with the stark realisation of what had just happened. The armoured car was their best chance of reaching safety and now it was gone. What were they supposed to do now? A quick glance into the back made up Pat’s mind. Mick was badly hurt and he needed to get medical attention. If they had to get away over the fields and walk to a hospital then that is what they would do. If he had to carry his friend, so be it.

Pat slid awkwardly out of the driver’s seat and onto the floor beside Mick Nolan in the rear. He reached over and opened the side access hatch and, when it only creaked open a few inches, he used his boot to kick it open further. Pausing for only a second, he jumped out into the Katangan night. Pat gazed around warily but there was only silence along the road. He reached back into the Ford and, after scrambling around for a few seconds, finally found the Carl Gustav sub-machine gun he was looking for. He slung it over his shoulder and reached back in to try and get a grip on Mick’s unconscious form.

‘Come on, Mick – it’s time to go. We’ll get you to a doctor straight away,’ he whispered. The angle of the car and his friend’s limp position made getting him out of the vehicle all the more difficult. But, after a minute, Pat had finally eased Mick out of the Ford and propped him up alongside the armoured car. All he had to do now was get his arm around Mick and try to walk and drag him away from the stranded UN vehicle. Maybe they could move along the drainage ditch for extra cover, he thought. But the idea vanished as, out of the darkness, came a sudden guttural shout.

Pat cringed at the realisation that they had just been discovered. He knew instantly from the tone of the shout that it was not a local resident curious at what had just happened on the road. The shout had the tone of soldier or policeman stamped all over it – it was a challenge not a simple question. Then, from the darkness, came the distinctive metallic ‘click’ of a weapon having its safety catch released.

Pat’s training took over. He turned to ease Mick back against the armoured car for shelter, and in one smooth motion, swung the Carl Gustav off his shoulder and brought it to bear on the area where the shout had come from. ‘Damn it but we weren’t even able to get clear of the armoured car,’ Pat thought. ‘But, then again, if there’s going to be a fight, better that it is by the car for some kind of cover.’

From the darkness came a second shout. Pat couldn’t make out what was said – he was not even sure if the language was French or Katangese – but he knew it was not the accent of a friend. He crouched down in the ditch, careful not to offer any outline of himself or Mick against the armoured car. He reached back to check that Mick was okay, but his friend was slumped motionless against the Ford. Pat hadn’t even time to bring his hand back onto the Carl Gustav when the first volley of shots shattered the stillness of the night.

One hundred metres from the Ford, a patrol of Katangan gendarmes knelt by the side of the roadway. They had been on duty near the perimeter of a nearby gendarme barracks when, in the distance, they heard the distant approach of a vehicle. The engine revs were being kept low as if the vehicle was being driven very carefully and cautiously. The noise of the engine sounded louder as the vehicle came closer. Then, suddenly, there was a slight ‘crunch’ and the engine noise stopped. It started up again a few seconds later only to be cut off a second time.

The gendarmes initially thought it was a UN patrol but realised that the Irish, the Indians or the Swedes wouldn’t send just a single vehicle into this neighbourhood. The base on Boulevard Elisabeth was the major camp for the Katangan gendarmes in Elisabethville and everyone had been on high alert since the fighting broke out over the past twenty-four hours. And it was clear that the noise was that of a single vehicle. The senior gendarme ordered one of his privates back to HQ to report what had just happened to his Belgian mercenary commander. ‘Les Afreus’ would know precisely what to do, the corporal decided. In the meantime, he ordered his men to follow him up the road to determine what was going on.

The Katangan patrol had travelled barely 100 metres when, in the darkness, they made out the distinctive shape of a vehicle across the road. ‘Mon Dieu,’ the corporal whispered, ‘it is a tank.’ He frantically waved to his patrol and the gendarmes spread out along the road, trying not to offer a single target to the tank’s guns. ‘What the hell is a single tank doing here?’ the corporal thought. ‘And where are its infantry?’ The corporal decided to hold position until his mercenary commander arrived at the scene with reinforcements. Suddenly and without warning, one of his men issued a shouted challenge to the tank. Emotions had been running high over the past twenty-four hours because of all the UN operations around Elisabethville, but the corporal was appalled that the man should so readily have given away their position.

Before he could hiss a reprimand at the man, one of his comrades – emboldened by his friend’s challenge – shouted a warning of his own. The corporal – now furious at his men – decided safety was now the best policy and he slipped the safety catch off his FN rifle, which he now brought to bear on the tank shadowed in the gloom. He was peering at the vehicle for any sign of a threat when, in the darkness, he thought he spotted a shadowy movement. ‘Merde,’ he whispered to himself as he squeezed the trigger without a second’s hesitation.

The volley was well aimed and noisily ‘clanged’ off the armoured hide of the tank in the darkness. The corporal heard the sound of footsteps behind him as his Belgian officer brought gendarme reinforcements racing to the scene. That sound was instantly obliterated by the roar of gunfire to his left and right as the other members of the patrol followed his lead and opened fire on the tank. Ignoring his own training, the corporal glanced sideways straight into the muzzle-flash of an assault rifle – instantly losing what little night vision he had.

In the drainage ditch, Pat Mullins pressed himself into the damp earth as the bullets whistled around him. Mick was in the shelter of the armoured car but Pat knew he had to try and keep from being flanked. He realised that the soldiers were to his front and right. There was no sound of movement or gunfire coming from behind him or back up the road on which he had just travelled. ‘Protect your flanks, fire aimed bursts and watch your ammunition,’ he thought as he levelled the Carl Gustav.

The Swedish sub-machine gun roared into life as Pat fired a short burst. He eased the muzzle to the left and fired a second short burst. The Carl Gustav fired a 9mm shell, which was fine for close and medium quarter work, but pretty useless for long-distance fire. ‘Don’t be gung-ho and empty a whole magazine,’ Pat recalled his training sergeant warning. ‘Short, aimed bursts,’ the NCO had chanted as a mantra. The young trooper was uncertain if he heard a shout of pain in the darkness, but he scrambled over to the armoured car to get whatever 9mm magazines were available for the Gustav. Above his head, the Vickers machine gun aimed limply and uselessly into the bottom of the ditch.

Out on the roadway, the Katangan gendarmes had scattered looking for shelter as the bursts of 9mm fire whistled around them. One gendarme fell, screaming that he had been shot in the leg. Several jumped into the drainage ditch on the opposite side of the road from the tank and emptied their entire magazines in its general direction. The corporal waved at his men to fire and move as they had been taught, but they were oblivious to him.

‘Idiots,’ roared a voice in French from behind the corporal. The corporal’s mercenary commander had arrived on the scene and immediately took charge. ‘Allez-vite, allez-vite,’ he shouted, indicating that he wanted the gendarmes to fan out and manoeuvre around the tank. As the initial excited bursts of gunfire eased, the gendarmes heard the furious demands of their officer. Slowly, the Katangan soldiers heeded his orders and began to use the drainage ditch to move up on the flanks of the tank. In a few minutes, the tank would be taking enfilading fire from two different directions.

On the roadway the Belgian mercenary crouched and peered at the hulking vehicle in the darkness. It was clearly a UN vehicle. He knew instantly that the Katangans had nothing remotely like this. ‘Why does it not fire?’ he wondered. And then he realised, from the angle of the vehicle’s hull, that it must have crashed into the ditch. ‘Maybe it was damaged at the Radio College engagement earlier?’ he thought. Another burst of gunfire came from beside the vehicle, and the mercenary guessed that it was 9mm fire, which meant a sub-machine gun. After listening to several short bursts, he realised that it all came from the same location. ‘One man, maybe two. Definitely not three,’ he smiled. He also realised that the enemy was armed only with a sub-machine gun, which his men would out-range with their new FNs. ‘Move around and finish this,’ the Belgian snarled to the corporal.

In the ditch, Pat was now desperate. Mick had slid down from his position by the side of the armoured car and was now lying motionless in the bottom of the ditch. Pat wasn’t sure if he had been shot or had finally succumbed to his wounds, but he realised with horror that his friend was most likely dead. Seconds earlier a volley of shots had drilled into the hull of the Ford just inches from where he had taken up position. ‘God help me, what do I do now?’ Pat thought as he swept the Carl Gustav across the roadway, looking for a target to engage. He had already used three magazines for the sub-machine gun and now had only two left. That meant a total of seventy-two rounds. There were hundreds of rounds of .303 ammunition inside the armoured car for the Vickers, but the old British gun was useless to him. ‘What a joke,’ he thought, ‘stuck in a battle with loads of ammunition for the wrong gun.’

As he cradled the Carl Gustav in his hands, Pat noted that the pressed-metal stock was now sweaty to the touch. Some of the lads thought the Carl Gustav was an ugly weapon, but he had always appreciated the gun for its firepower and convenience and found the polished wooden butt behind the trigger comfortable. He just wished someone had thought to throw a few extra magazines into the Ford for the sub-machine gun. The Gustav could fire 600 rounds a minute, but there was no selector switch for single-round fire. That meant the Gustav ripped through magazines if your finger lingered on the trigger for half a second too long. The Swedish gun weighed 3.9 kilos, but tonight it felt like an extension of Pat’s own hand.

Pat gazed up at the mute Vickers to see that incoming fire had torn several jagged holes in its cooling jacket. If only he could have brought the old British gun to bear tonight he might have held these characters off for hours.

From behind him, Pat heard a muffled sound like a twig snapping. Reacting instantly, he swung around, held the Carl Gustav rock-steady to his body and fired an extended burst into the darkness. There was a shout, the sound of a crash and then silence. The incoming fire stopped momentarily and the returning silence of the night now seemed eerie.

Pat knew he had only minutes left to make a move. The Katangans were slowly working their way around his position and he simply couldn’t cover all three flanks at the same time. He had been forced to stay by the armoured car and the Katangans knew exactly where he was. Once they moved around behind him, he would either be caught in a lethal crossfire or overwhelmed in a sudden assault.

He realised his only option was to drop into the ditch, combat-crawl on his hands and knees through the tangled undergrowth on the far bank and disappear into the fields in the darkness behind. If he was lucky, he would find a UN patrol or a protected base before the Katangans hunted him down. At least out there in the open fields he would have a fighting chance. But he just couldn’t leave Mick – not here in a ditch like this. With a shake of his head, Pat ruled out that option. No, he would not leave his friend behind. His hand tightened on the Carl Gustav as he decided to make his final stand here by his fallen friend’s side.

Pat slid the magazine out of the sub-machine gun’s mounting slot just ahead of the trigger guard and squinted in the darkness to check it. The last burst had emptied it so Pat clicked in a full thirty-six round replacement and threw the old magazine into the mud of the ditch bottom. It was his last magazine so he would have to make it count. His only hope now was for a UN rescue column to reach him. But why would they come this far towards the African city, he thought? Maybe, just maybe, a relief column had reached the Radio College and they had heard the gunfight, which had been going on now for almost thirty minutes. ‘It’s in God’s hands now,’ Pat smiled grimly.

On his three flanks, the Katangan gendarmes worked their way slowly and carefully into their final positions. They had finally achieved the flanking manoeuvre the mercenary had demanded – and done so despite the ferocious defence mounted by the UN soldier. Initially, the gendarmes had been convinced they were up against a whole UN patrol. But the firing against their positions always seemed to be from the same location and from the same kind of weapon. Most of the gendarmes now guessed that they were up against a single man – a brave enemy who had chosen not to flee.

From the safety of a position some 100 metres away, the merce-nary silently ordered the Katangans to finish the fight. He’d been a brave one, this UN soldier, the man admitted to himself. The soldier hadn’t panicked and had kept the Katangans under accurate, short bursts of fire, which made their flanking manoeuvre all the more painstaking. Luckily for them, the mercenary realised, the heavy machine gun had not been brought into action. It was time to end this fight before dawn broke and brought with it the risk of another UN patrol. ‘Move now,’ the mercenary said.