This Angry Land - Softcover

Strong, T.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 034058033X ISBN 13: 9780340580332

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Canada, 1993

Synopsis

In a remote village in Mozambique, an ex-SAS sergeant tries to redeem his troubled past, helping the villagers. But a guerrilla war sweeps over his haven and with it comes an Irish girl who reawakens yearnings he thought had passed. The author also wrote "Conflict of Lions" and "Dragonplague".

About this title

About the Author:

Terence Strong, the author of many bestselling thrillers, is renowned for his detailed and authorative research. A freelance journalist and writer, he has a keen interest in international, political and military affairs, and special forces in particular.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

PROLOGUE

It was the distant blast of the whistle that woke her.

Straight from deep sleep to instant awareness, her eyes wide and her heart palpitating with apprehension. The sweat was cold on her ebony skin.

Was it the sound of a whistle? Had she dreamed it like so many times before? There was no sound from outside now apart from the incessant cicadas and the riverside bullfrogs.

She relaxed back on the moth-eaten pillow of the hotel bed and stared up at the ceiling fan that hadn't turned for ten years.

Of course it had been the dream. The same one that had haunted her since she was twelve years old. When the Renamo bandidos had come to her village with their guns and their pangas. And, of course, their whistles.

Pale predawn light washed the stark plaster walls and she could now see him more clearly on the bed beside her. Sleeping like a baby, curled up in a tangle of thin sheet, blissfully unaware of anything.

If it had been a whistle he would have heard. And if it had been he would know what to do. He always knew what to do. He would protect her as he always did. Five years ago he hadn't been there when the bandits came. But now he was and she was safe.

Tentatively she reached out to touch him, afraid that she would wake him and he would snap at her. Her fingertips glanced the tousled fair curls of his beard. She loved his beard and his hair. Most white men she had known before Mike Branagh had been of Portuguese blood. They tended to be short with swarthy complexions and black hair. So it had been a shock when her family came to Gutala with the other refugees and she saw him for the first time.

He had been standing outside this very hotel, the only one in the town. The only place suitable for a white man to work. Two adjoining rooms: this bedroom and a second which served as an office.

As a twelve year old she remembered clutching her mother's hand, staring up at this towering stranger with his tanned face and the sun shining on his short golden beard and hair. An angel, she had thought, sucking on her thumb. Like the pictures in the tattered Children's Bible that was her mother's prized possession.

It had not occurred to her that angels don't wear denims and bush shirts; to her childish mind he had seemed nothing less than godlike as he laughed and joked with the nervous refugees. He had brought a smile to their faces for the first time in weeks while he handed out sacks of mealie and blankets.

Her eyes travelled to the upright chair by his bedside. The bottle of Jameson was almost empty. Last night, after making love, it had been half-full.

Even angels have bad dreams, she thought, and gently kissed his cheek. He stirred. Yes, just like her he had bad dreams. Sometimes she would wake and find him standing by the window. Staring out into his past and drinking slowly and steadily until some unwanted memory died.

Maraika sat bolt upright.

It was no mistake. A single whistle trilled, then another. More whistle blasts answered from a different place.

Momentarily she was paralysed, feeling the sudden thudding in her chest. 'Mikey! Mikey!' she hissed urgently.

There was no response. She shook him briskly, but he merely tried languorously to put his arm around her.

More whistles. Closer. Then a solitary gunshot.

Mike Branagh was awake.

'Oh, God, Mikey!'

He screwed his eyes against the light. 'What was that?' She stared at him, not wanting to believe her own words: 'Bandidos. I think it is bandidos.'

A stutter of gunfire ripped through the still dawn air like the sound of tearing calico.

Branagh was on his feet, naked and swaying slightly to keep his balance as he padded to the window. He cursed the pulsing ache that threatened to burst his skull in two.

The hazy light hurt his eyes as he tried to focus through the torn gauze of the mosquito gate. From this corner room on the second floor of the hotel there was a clear view down the main street of Gutala. The wide ribbon of ochre earth separated the Portuguese-style town centre buildings on either side. Farther down, the dilapidated Mediterranean stucco architecture gave way to the reed and wattle compounds of the civilian population.

It was from here that the gunfire and the screams came. And then the people.

Branagh could hardly believe what he was seeing as the first of Gutala's inhabitants burst onto the dusty track, running and screeching in their terror. Some naked, some half-dressed, they came in a growing torrent. Young men, old women hobbling on sticks, mothers clutching their children. Others carried whatever few possessions they could snatch. They streamed down the road seeking safety in the town centre where there was a detail of Frelimo government troops.

He switched his attention to the dirt square beneath his window. Facing him was the shuttered and pockmarked headquarters of Embamo, the state-owned company which administered the district's banana plantations. On the west side stood the crumbling façade of the long-closed row of shops which served as a billet for the small government garrison.

The first of the soldiers emerged now. Dressed in a torn vest and camouflage fatigue trousers, he stumbled through the accumulated rubbish on the sidewalk and stared down the street at the clamorous tidal wave of humanity rushing towards him. He had no gun.

Branagh drew back and threw open the mosquito gate; the glass in the window had long gone. 'Bandidos!' he yelled down. The soldier turned, his mouth agape. 'Bandidos for Christ's sake, man! Wake up your bloody detail! Get your weapons!'

As Branagh's voice was drowned out by the rising cacophony of screams and shouts, punctuated by gunshots and whistle blasts, the soldier at last appeared to comprehend. He ran back into the shop doorway and returned with four companions. They all appeared disorientated, half-asleep, two of them just wearing sports shorts. But at least they carried rifles.

They stood watching as the people scurried past, calling out to demand what was happening. No one had a mind to stop and explain. The detail of soldiers began a heated debate on the sidewalk.

Branagh shook his head; he could guess what the outcome would be. He knew full well that part of the detail was supposed to spend each night in the sandbagged observation post on the hotel roof; it offered a commanding view of all approaches to the square. But he also knew that they never did for fear of being trapped there in the event of a Renamo attack.

One of the soldiers began pulling off his fatigue trousers, another tossed aside his forage cap. And as the first surge of terrified civilians passed, the soldiers joined the stragglers in their hurried exodus to the surrounding bush.

Smoke began rising from the outlying compounds as huts were put to the torch. Now the earthen street was clear except for a few confused, crying toddlers who had become parted from their parents.

Then Branagh saw them.

The column of bandits strutted into view on the main street most of them with smart new uniforms and boots that glinted in the rising sun. They were led by a big officer who moved with a slow, elephantine gait. He blasted on the silver whistle in his mouth and the column immediately responded by separating into three sections. One charged into the compounds to the right and another to the left in a search for booty, while the rest advanced inexorably towards the square.

Branagh slammed the mosquito gate shut and turned into the room. Maraika hadn't moved, sitting at the bedhead with her long legs drawn up to her chin, clutching at the sheet as though it would give her some protection.

He tossed across the yellow dress he had bought for her in the Mozambique capital of Maputo. 'Put that on. They'll be here in a minute.'

'It is the bandidos?'

He grabbed his trousers from the bed and pulled them on. 'Well it's not a bloody carnival - although no one told that to the Frelimo troops down there.'

'Are they shooting the bandidos?' she asked earnestly as she pulled the dress over her head.

'Are they hell!'

He glanced round the room, trying to size up the situation. They would have no time to get downstairs before the first of the bandits reached the lobby. And there was no escaping from the window that fronted the square.

He moved to the side window. That offered a little more hope as any descent would be partly obscured by a protruding neon sign that hadn't shown a flicker of life for a decade.

'Start tying the bedsheets together,' he ordered.

'I don't understand, Mikey.'

'Like a rope, corner to corner,' he snapped. 'We'll climb out.' Sometimes her lack of worldliness could drive him mad. He flung open the wardrobe doors and extracted the stack of spare sheets. As he began knotting them, he again glanced out the window.

The bandits were fanning out across the square. Half a dozen women cowered on the sidewalk by the shops, having retrieved their wandering infants. He saw a bandit raise his rifle. Saw the muzzle flash. Then several of the bandits rushed at the mothers. Reflected sunlight on the bayonets shone and blinded him. The screams were piercing.

Maraika's mouth dropped and she stopped what she was doing. He snatched the sheets from her and knotted them to the ones he had tied. 'Get the side window open, quickly!'

As she rushed to obey he dragged the bed across the room until it was jammed fast beneath the sill. He secured one end of the sheet rope to a leg of the bed, and fed the other out of the window and down the outside wall.

Maraika's eyes were wide with horror. 'I can't do that, Mikey! I will fall.'

'No you won't. Just hold on tight. It's hardly thirty feet. And keep quiet. If you start screaming one of the bastards will hear you.'

She stared at the window, summoning her courage. If Mikey said she could do it, then she could. He always knew what to do.

There was a sudden crash of splintering timber from downstai...

About this edition

• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Canada
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 034058033X
• ISBN 13: 9780340580332
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 512