Of Rice And Men (No longer being updated)

Chapter 5

That morning I awoke in a much less eventful fashion, a mug of tea waved across my nose and the wafting scent of sizzling bacon. A famous comedian had once spoke of bacon’s life giving properties, detailing its miraculous ability to bring someone back from the worst hangover or the most exhausting fatigue. Not for the first time in my life, it had brought me back from the brink of just letting myself go once again.

As I slowly rose up from my spot, I rubbed my eyes and gazed at the beautiful sight before my eyes. A spectacle of culinary delights, a hot kettle brimming with tea, some warm white bread slowly browning over an open fire and the sweet sizzle of frying bacon. How they had got hold of this after our supplies being so thinly spread only a day before, I didn’t know, but I was determined to get my fair share of bacon before I made the effort to find out.

I swiped up the mug of tea from Carter, gave quick thanks and wandered over to the makeshift cooker, its hob a roaring fire. A rickety wooden stand and pan hung above it, the flames licking at the metal and scorching it black. I rummaged round in my day sack, safely stashed inside the Viking, and wrenched out my mess tin from its depths. The desire for the juicy, fatty bacon overrode my need to rest and it carried me over into the sweet embrace of its streaky rashers. Simple things like bacon were a godsend after a fight, the only things that kept us going most of the time and they almost turned into items of worship in the forces.

“Carter, Sam, where did you get this little delicacy from? They certainly don’t give us anything tasty, let alone solid, in the ration packs.” I queried, with no idea how they could have got fresh meat in our current situation.

“Went out this morning, to recon the area, and found some poor old sod had been slotted by the guerrillas. His farm was in flames and most of his stuff was gone but we did manage to find our little Mrs piggy here, curled up in the corner of the barn.” Sam told me, gesturing to the carcass of the pig that was slowly being turned on a spit by Carter, obviously determined to get as much meat off it as possible.

I shrugged my shoulders and picked up a metal tin full with the bacon. As I tucked into the tender, slightly overcooked meat, I glanced around suspiciously, my eyes seeking the Yanks who I’d seen fraternising with the enemies in the bush. The Delta’s were laughing and joking, sat out at their own little campfire, reminiscing about their past experiences with the opposite sex and pretending they were a lot better and less awkward in the bedroom than they probably were.

Crispy and streaked with pure cholesterol, it was heaven on earth, a little escape from the hell hole we were confined to. But something was amiss. I could see both Delta’s sitting together, and the diplomat desperately trying to get some signal on his mobile phone, but the liaison officer was nowhere to be seen. After the events of the previous day, with him talking to the guerrilla, it was more than a little worrying.

I went to stand but everyone turned to face the west as a rumble echoed over the horizon. Four little black blotches just below the tree line at first, then, as they hurtled towards us, it became obvious they were Burmese Liberation Force trucks. Everyone hit the deck, faces ground into the dirt as the trucks pushed on; ignoring the little clearing we currently had our faces dug in to. After a minute of waiting, making sure they wouldn’t come back, everyone went back to their seats and resumed whatever they were up to, wiping the black, peaty dirt from our faces.

“I’m off for a piss,” I said, standing up and walking with my true intentions still closely guarded. Soft voices were speaking somewhere over in the jungle, obviously trying to keep what they were doing a secret. When I was far enough into the bush, I finished off my final piece of bacon and spun around, trying to pinpoint just where the muttering and occasional angry shout was coming from.

A shadow moved across my left hand side, sweeping back and forth across the canopy as its owner paced to and fro. Slowly and steadily, I turned and skulked over, the thick, long leaves rustling and bouncing as I went. I edged ever closer to a small clearing, the spot the noise was emanating from. All was exactly as I suspected, the liaison officer, strolling around.

He was well prepared for something too, a sat phone in one hand with its transmitter at full length and a map in the other. It would’ve almost looked like he was a battlefield commander directing artillery, if it wasn’t for the muddied, tarnished black suit he was wearing. He was speaking in another language too, didn’t sound like Burmese from what I’d heard of it so far, more eastern, maybe Japanese, possibly Chinese? It didn’t matter to me; I knew this guy was doing something bad.

He pointed to places on the map, just ahead of where I guessed we were at, along with the closest city and a few small military depots. At that point I was sure he was a defector, probably turned to their cause on his last trip over. Dixon must have been too; probably turned more recently and that explained why he didn’t slot the guerrilla earlier. Tyson though, I honestly thought that he knew nothing about it from the way they looked down at him behind his back. My mind felt like a living puzzle as I tried to piece the myriad of jigsaw pieces together, his plan slowly forming in my mind.

From what I’d seen him point to, I guessed he was setting up an ambush for us, doing his best to get the rest of the forces to disrupt any men coming to rescue us by attacking their depots. The place he pointed to on the map of the city, right on its outskirts, must have been the meeting point. It was obvious what he was going to hand over, the diplomat, probably to use as a bargaining chip to get their government in power. All this had left me wondering, where were they getting this equipment from?

So far I’d seen a couple of dozen RPGs, at least a hundred AKs, a couple of vehicles passing by and now our friend the defector had a sat phone and an extremely detailed, well annotated map of our entire area, with all the routes we’d covered marked out too. At least that made sense of why he was with the guerrilla in the jungle during the fire fight, retrieving the sat phone from him. But where had he gotten it from? People don’t just come across specialised, long range optimised satellite phones in the first world, let alone in some third world backwater like this. It was firmly set in mind that there was another player in this somewhere, but at the time, I had no idea who.

What I did know though, was that I had to keep watching this guy and as soon as he made his way back to camp, take action. For half an hour I waited, pen and paper in hand, noting down anything he said that I recognised or anything he pointed to on his map. Then, cool as a cucumber, he just strolled of back towards the Viking, completely unaware I’d been stalking him and noting his every move the whole time. Naturally, I followed a good ten meters behind, crouched and stealthily creeping behind him until we reached camp’s outskirts.

After he had made his way in and found a nice spot leaning against the vehicle, I moved across to the left a few meters before exiting the thick brush a little out of his field of view. I knew what I had to do and I was intent on doing it as quickly as possible.

“Where have you been, got the shits have you son?” laughed Carter, thinking the look on my face was one of pain. Little did he know, it was the look of someone who was about to get vicious. I shrugged him off and brushed him aside, slowly slipping my Sig pistol from its holster on my chest and hiding it behind my back.

“Wait lad, what are you doing?” he asked, but once again I ignored him and focused completely and utterly on my target. As I neared, he turned and looked at me, obviously nervous and apprehensive about if someone had spotted him lurking through the jungle. I had and from the look in my eyes, he knew full well what I planned to do about it. He whimpered and cried “No, please, don’t do it!” but I wasn’t listening to that back stabbing little runt.

I jabbed into his stomach, bending him over double before slamming my boot down hard on his left calf. Brought to his knees, he clutched at his stomach and straightened his back, looking into my eyes like a frightened puppy, still whimpering like one too. I unveiled the handgun from my back and slowly placed it on his sweating, dirty forehead.

“Goodbye, you whiny little bitch.”