Honour Amongst Mercenaries

Republic of Congo, 2005

There was a slight chill in the air that night. There were no stars and only a crescent moon in the darkness of the night sky; just the Central African darkness wrapping round the scattered groups of men.

The cloud cover was lying hardly off the tops of the iroko trees, and the waiting men prayed it would stay a while longer as they waited for the approaching aeroplane to take them to safety.

Further up the makeshift airfield, in an old derelict aircraft hangar, with its doors wide open, four men sat in a 110 Land Rover and watched the dim figures moving from the bush towards the plane, and outside the hangar there were an abandoned military truck and two Land Rovers.

As the minutes passed, the groups of men waiting in the bush felt dejected, and as the chill of the night air encompassed them, they heard the soft rumble of an aircraft approaching. The Jetstream light aircraft was on its way.

Quickly, bodies ran towards the makeshift runway carrying their fluorescent handheld batons. They then lined up either side of the dirt-track runway, spaced about thirty yards apart, to act as markers for the approaching aircraft and began waving their arms frantically so as to attract the pilots’ attention.

The other group then made their way towards some abandoned vehicles, and the pilot saw their fluorescent markers and began his descent. As soon as he had touched down, he taxied towards a group of abandoned vehicles. He then turned the Jetstream round so that it faced the runway and then killed the engines, bringing the aircraft to a halt adjacent to the waiting men, and climbed down onto the dirt apron.

An African officer ran over to him, and there was a muttered conversation, and the two men walked through the darkness towards the hangar…

“There is just one more thing, sir. The boys and me, we were talking things over… if you should ever need us, you only have to let us know. We'll all come. You only have to call.”