Pharmageddon Chapter 14

Komatipoort Sunday 22 May

Colonel Rajendra Narain looked around the table at his junior officers. The commanding officer of the Komatipoort Treatment Camp had supervised its establishment and fortification, and the only surprise about the news he was about to share with his officers was that it had been so long in coming.

‘Gentlemen, we have information that the Zulus are sending a convoy of militia to seize our store of antiretrovirals. They could be here as early as tomorrow, before dawn. Indications are that they are between 500 and 700 in strength, and armed with rifles and handguns.’

There was little reaction from his officers, most of whom were taking notes.

‘We have no intelligence on their strategy, but we know they are not army regulars – since the South African troops remain confined to their bases – so they are probably a mixture of police, private security personnel, and volunteers. Still, we would be ill-advised to underestimate them.’

The colonel picked up a billiard cue and moved to a large-scale map of the camp and its surrounds. It was centered on a 19th century Lutheran mission station on the top of a small hill, so it afforded no vantage point for observers or snipers on the outside. The base of the hill was generally too rocky and steep for vehicles to approach. Two dense lines of razor wire had been laid around the perimeter, with an electrified fence between them to make sure that access by foot was equally improbable. The entire perimeter was floodlit at night and continuously watched from armored observation towers, each equipped with a heavy machine gun, backed up by closed- circuit TV cameras feeding into a control centre.

At one point on the hill a spur of land provided a natural ramp for a road, and in another Indian army engineers had built a second road, to provide a ‘back door’ to the camp. Both roads led to fortified access points. At the main entrance, AIDS patients were admitted for treatment after initial testing at a cluster of prefabricated buildings outside of the perimeter. No drugs were kept or administered in these buildings, and the personnel – along with their testing equipment – could be evacuated at short notice.

At both access points to the camp itself, heavy concrete blocks forced approaching vehicles to weave, preventing them from moving faster than walking pace. In addition a huge trench had been dug across each road, and steel drawbridges placed across the trenches – an ancient but very effective defense.

The colonel issued a series of orders while his officers listened carefully. When the time came for questions, none were forthcoming.

++++

Max felt his pulse quicken as the convoy cleared the city of Nelspruit. His GPS told him it was just 8 miles to the camp. It also warned of a fixed speed camera just ahead, which normally would have seen him slowing down to avoid a fine. Instead the flash of the camera flickered rhythmically as it photographed each vehicle in the speeding convoy, causing some merriment among the men crammed into the seats behind him.

It was still fully dark outside, and would be for another two hours, but Max could see the long line of vehicles ahead, each illuminated by the headlights of the vehicle behind. At the head of the convoy he could occasionally glimpse the five armored cash-in-transit vans which had been ‘recruited’ for the expedition, along with their willing crews. Behind he could see a string of headlights when the road curved. It was an impressive sight.

Suddenly the brake-lights of the vehicles ahead began to flick on, as they slowed and turned left onto a gravel road. Next he could see they were turning off their headlights, relying on their running lights to avoid bumping into the taxi in front. A few minutes of slow driving and the convoy entered a parking area, next to a deserted building. As the vehicles parked, men began spilling out, checking their weapons and staring at the hill, 500 yards away. A row of floodlights lit the rocks and razor-wire, and dazzled them, but gave no inkling of what lay behind.

++++

Inside the Komatipoort Treatment Camp, nothing much happened. This was because every soldier was already awake and at his post, and had been for several hours. The medical staff and patients would not usually be roused for another hour, and the CO had decided there was no good reason to disturb their routine. They had all, however, been warned that their sleep may be disturbed, and told they would be safe if they remained in their tents.

Suddenly a volley of shots shattered the soft sounds of the night, and several of the floodlights flared out in a shower of shattered glass and sparks. Another volley and the rest of the lights went out, although this time mostly because they were turned off rather than shot out.

Colonel Narain was seated in the control center, watching the CCTV monitors which displayed clear images from their infra-red cameras. He could see a row of men surrounding the hill – perhaps as many as 700 – mostly armed with assault rifles, shotguns or machine pistols. He waited.

A voice, amplified by a vehicle-mounted loudspeaker, announced that the camp was surrounded, and that a delegation of men wished to speak to whoever was in charge. Still Narain waited.

The demand was repeated several times as the night slowly gave way to a pastel pre-dawn. Finally Narain’s second-in-command, major Bhaskar, used a megaphone to respond.

‘Good morning gentlemen. We have been expecting you. We would be happy to receive a delegation of no more than three men, unarmed and on foot, at our main gate, in 30 minutes. Tea will be served. For the rest of you, there is tea and breakfast in the reception centre where you parked your vehicles – please help yourselves.’

The Indian soldiers had orders to stay out of sight and not to laugh, jeer, or make any other sound, no matter what they heard. They had also been instructed not to fire, unless directly ordered to do so. But it was difficult for them to maintain their composure as their surprised ‘attackers’ broke into clusters to discuss this unexpected reaction, and eventually moved toward the testing centre to find, as promised, tea and a selection of Indian breads and a mild mutton curry waiting for them.

On cue three men appeared at the gate, and were duly frisked and escorted to the CO’s office. Their route took them past the vehicle park, where rows of armored personnel carriers were lined up, and past the helipad where a Hind attack helicopter squatted alongside a Dhruv air ambulance and two large MI-8 general utility choppers. Next they were treated to the sight of three companies of blue-helmeted troops with assault rifles and body armor, assembled on the parade ground, being inspected by their NCOs. They could see other troops manning the observation towers and access points, or simply moving about. It looked like the camp was awash with soldiers – all of whom were ignoring their leather-jacketed visitors.

Colonel Narain warmly welcomed the men and made sure they had tea before listening patiently as a somewhat subdued Bhengu explained why they were there. When Bhengu told him that KwaZulu had no treatment camp of its own, leaving Zulus with little choice but to cross ‘enemy’ territory to get help, the colonel clucked sympathetically but offered no comment. The Zulu politician concluded by saying that if the Indians handed over their stores of ARVs, nobody would be hurt. The portly policeman and bulky bodyguard accompanying the politician tried their best to look tough and uncompromising.

The colonel offered Bhengu a fresh cup of tea. ‘I’m sure that one has grown cold, Mr Bhengu. We Indians are very fussy about our tea. And we’re also very much against unnecessary bloodshed, so I’m delighted to hear that you don’t want to hurt anyone. I’m sure you know our mandate is to save lives, not to take them?’

He paused as a white-jacketed steward replaced Bhengu’s tea, and refilled the cups of the other two guests.

‘However I regret that your long drive has been in vain, because I am not authorized to disburse drugs to anyone – that is the sole preserve of our medical staff. My job is simply to protect them from any interference. And I’m sure you can see that we are well equipped to resist most kinds of interference. In fact I have arranged a little show for you, just to avoid any possibility of a misunderstanding. I think you may enjoy it.’

He stood, and gestured to the door. ‘Please, this way gentlemen. Feel free to bring your tea with you.’

The colonel politely waited until the men had gathered their teacups before ushering them out of his office and onto the verandah of the old stone manse which served as his command post. From here they had a clear view over the plain below, including the reception center where Bhengu’s militia was milling about with mugs of tea and plastic plates of bread and stew.

In Hindi he checked with major Bhaskar that all their ‘visitors’ had cleared the area around an old bus which been towed the previous afternoon to a small cluster of rocks and trees, about 500 yards from where they stood, and a similar distance from the reception center.

‘Gentlemen, if you will observe that bus over there? I’d say it’s about the same distance from us as your vehicles and personnel, wouldn’t you?’ Sure enough, the rows of combi-taxis and cash-in-transit vehicles were neatly parked in the lot alongside the reception center.

The colonel nodded to the major, who spoke into a two-way radio. Almost immediately there were a succession of four loud popping sounds, about two seconds apart. No sooner had the fourth pop sounded than the wrecked bus disappeared in a flash of white light. An instant later the sound of the explosion reached them – and the men at the reception center.

On the hill, the Indian personnel knew what to expect and had covered their ears, but the Zulus were caught unawares by the monstrous wallop of sound. They barely had time to grasp what was happening before the first blast was followed by a second, then a third, and a fourth. All three men dropped their teacups as they belatedly raised their hands to block their ears. When the smoke cleared, there was a shallow crater where the rocks, trees and bus had stood – and nothing else.

The colonel took his hands away from his ears, and quietly thanked the major for the demonstration. Then he raised his voice so his deafened visitors could hear him.

‘Gentlemen, those were 120mm high explosive shells from our E1 mortars. They are quite impressive, aren’t they? Naturally we have other weapons at our disposal, but a handful of those shells would quickly eliminate a cluster of men and vehicles, at that distance.’ He pointed to the chaos at the reception center, where men were picking themselves up from the ground and trying to get mutton curry and tea off their clothing.

The colonel chuckled and spoke sotto voce. ‘Of course it would have been easy to spike their tea, but that just wouldn’t be cricket.’

He glanced at his visitors to see if they had a different perspective on what they’d just seen, but they were transfixed by the scene below. Bhengu became aware that his trousers were soaked with scalding tea, and began to tug the fabric away from his skin. The other two came to the same realization.

Seemingly oblivious to his guests’ discomfort, colonel Narain continued. ‘I’d love to demonstrate the firepower of our 50 caliber Browning machine guns. Did you know their armor-piercing rounds can go right through a lightly armored van like those you’ve brought along, or evaporate those rocks down there? They don’t go through the rock, of course, they simply turn it into powder. It’s really quite amazing to see. Must be sandstone. Granite would offer better cover, I suppose, but I’d hate to rely on it.’

Narain seemed to become aware that his visitors were preoccupied by their wet clothing. ‘But we’ve disturbed everyone enough for one day, I think. Damn shame about your trousers, gentlemen. You’ll want to get out of those as soon as possible.’

He smiled expectantly, as if waiting for thanks or congratulations on the pyrotechnics display, but the Zulus seemed to be torn between shock and embarrassment.

‘Well then. I’ll have someone escort you to the gate.’ 

++++

Looking back now, it was all so appallingly predictable. After the treatment camps were set up, just three months after the bombings, people and freight started moving across South Africa’s borders again, the local currency recovered some of its value, and there was a sense that the worst was over.

The vast majority of AIDS patients were still in good health, and a growing number were inclined to believe the – now explicit – message from their government, that they had all been duped by foreigners into taking unnecessary and toxic drugs. Pro-ARV patients were not particularly worried either, believing Pretoria would take advantage of the European Union offer to introduce second-line treatment in public hospitals. In good time.

At the same time there were many who read the signs.

The first to leave were those who had a place to go, and little reason to stay. For decades South Africa had been an irresistible magnet for the ambitious and the desperate of Africa. Porous borders and corrupt immigration officials meant the country was now home to uncounted millions of illegal immigrants. But with the balkanization of the country into its tribal constituents, and the shrinking of the economy which drew immigrants here in the first place, the polarity of the magnet was reversed and they began leaving in huge numbers.

At the opposite end of the economic scale, top people in multinational companies, professionals with portable skills, northern expats and South Africans who were thinking of leaving anyway, did so. Soon the airlines were scheduling extra flights, and embassies were working 24/7 to process visa applications.

The government and people of South Africa made it clear they were happy to see them all go. These were the leeches who had been stealing their jobs and committing their crimes. What started as resistance to the hegemony of the pharmaceutical industry was turning into a full-blooded purge of foreign influence. There was a widespread sense that South Africa would be cleaner and stronger, once the hiatus was over. There was even talk that it was high time the Cape went its own way – after all, it had always been different and ‘not really Africa’.

For a great many middle-class South Africans this was just what they wanted to hear. They began to quietly wind up their affairs and head for the Cape, where the only passport needed was a negative blood test, or for Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, who saw it as their turn to skim the cream of intellect, skills and capital from a country that had been doing it to them for a century.

South Africa’s haemorrhage of human capital happened so quickly that, within a matter of a weeks, many products and services were affected. Corporate executives found their accountant and bank manager were leaving, their key suppliers were closing, and clients no longer needed their services. Professionals discovered their family doctor had gone, along with the man who fixed their Mercedes and the woman who gave their kids extra lessons. Increasingly those who had decided to stick it out changed their minds, and joined the chicken run instead.

One of the most remarkable aspects of this exodus was the relocation of the Indians. The vast majority of South Africa’s million-strong Indian community lived in and around the city of Durban, where their forefathers landed 150 years earlier. And even though Durban was ground zero for the AIDS epidemic, Indians had the lowest HIV prevalence of any sector of South African society. The Cape, 600 miles away, had almost no Indian residents at the start of pharmageddon, but when it was all over they made up a significant part of their population.

At first the Indians’ departure was seen as a kind of joke – ‘a dash of curry’ as one blogger described it – but after a few months the laughter died down, then turned to concern and finally to panic as it became clear that this was not merely the unstopping of a national constipation, but was part of a life-threatening diarrhea. Every day the number of shops, offices and factories which failed to open their doors grew. And when supermarkets and banks closed their doors it was just a matter of hours before the looting began.

In no time the shelves of stores were emptied, banks and ATMs were bombed, motor dealers were stripped of cars, and businesses and industries of every description were cleaned out. Pharmacies were a popular target although the looters were disappointed to find that most pharmacists had taken their precious stocks of ARVs with them. Gun stores, too, had been quietly emptied before they were abandoned but liquor stores hadn’t, which helped many to overcome their disappointment. People who held back eventually joined in as it became obvious this was their best and perhaps only chance to provide for their families’ immediate needs.

It took a few more days before the pillage of residences began in earnest, starting with deserted middle-class homes then spreading to those still occupied, along with the mansions of the rich and the hovels of the poor. Once the genie of uninhibited acquisition was let out of the bottle there was no putting it back. But while the plunder of commercial and industrial property was mostly uncontested, the attacks on homes were often fiercely resisted. For weeks the rattle of gunfire was everywhere and the streets were hyphenated with corpses.

Meanwhile the highways were choked with cars, trucks and buses packed with families and possessions, heading for the nearest border where the Indian army and a treatment camp was waiting for them. Nobody tried to stop them from leaving. Instead they focused on moving into newly vacated homes in the suburbs, inhibitions abandoned in the scramble for the best pickings.

People persuaded themselves that it was all good as they moved their new possessions into their new homes using their new cars. Some re-started businesses or applied for jobs, and many talked of new beginnings. Unfortunately there was nothing in the stores, no way to replenish them, no banks to provide capital and, most of all, no desire by anyone to pay for anything. Gasoline ran out, power faltered and water supply became uncertain and unsafe.

As the fabric of society unraveled the gang-wars began. Paradoxically it started in the mansions of the powerful, whose strong-rooms were stacked with ARVs, and whose compounds were guarded by men who expected payment in these drugs, both to keep them alive and to use in place of their worthless currency. Their bosses realized their stock of drugs would not last indefinitely, and the only way to acquire more was to send their troops to steal the other guys’ stockpiles. They figured their men would bring home more drugs or die trying – either way was okay by them.

Once again the masses did not understand what was happening. They saw what looked like police or army raids on the ivory towers, and they heard the gunfire, but their own concern was not for drugs but for food. After five months without ARVs, many AIDS patients were now seriously ill, but their condition appeared no different from their uninfected friends who were starving or poisoned by bad food and water.

As the war of the mansions grew, and the platoons of bodyguards were depleted, men with guns came looking for new recruits – and found them in plentiful supply. All they had to offer was two meals a day in exchange for a man’s willingness to bear arms, and a woman’s willingness to part her legs. What started as a fight for drugs gradually slid into a tribal war of survival, with politicians reinventing themselves as warlords and recycling centuries of grudges, real and imagined.

As the fighting gathered momentum and the last vestiges of ubuntu – the core African value of humanity – were lost in the bloodletting, untrained and youthful tribal militia took to visiting another venerable form of vengeance on their enemies – the rape of their women and children. The urban legend – that sex with a virgin would cleanse the rapist of HIV – not only added fuel to this deadly fire but dragged the nation’s children into the flames, robbing them of their childhood, and leaving most of the next generation with the virus that started it all.

Bloemfontein, Tuesday 7 June

I lay awake all night listening to the sounds of the end. Somehow I knew what the end would sound like – perhaps we all do. It’s what we rehearse in our nightmares so that when it happens, we know.

That sound is mostly silence, which is deeply disturbing in a big city. The murmur of traffic, and whatever else makes a city live and breath, is simply gone. The void is defined rather than replaced by the isolated sound of cars, some growling past at the lowest register of hearing, some sounding like getaways from a bank heist, with screaming engines and wailing tires. But they are alone, there is no chase. One sound I didn’t hear the entire night was a siren. It was almost a pleasant change, in a country where nobody with any political clout goes anywhere, at any time, without a phalanx of wailing outriders.

Between the phrases of car engines, the stretched silence was pricked by sudden sounds, every one unexpected, sucker-punching adrenals and yanking at involuntary muscles. The most frequent was the sound of shouting men – confrontational, defensive, triumphant – and women shrieking or laughing, way too loud for humor.

Occasionally – just when you began to wonder whether you’d imagined the last one – there was the single report of a gunshot, or the dreadful rattle of a fire-fight. But worst of all were the screams – each as unique as a fingerprint. Some short and final, leaving no room for doubt that this was the last sound to come from that throat. Others, long and appallingly detailed, a repulsive script of appealing for help, begging for mercy and venting terror and pain. Some were far away – screams carry a long way in a silent city – and some were dreadfully close, near enough to hear both cause and effect.

The sound of running feet, the thud of an impact, the voices of attacker and victim doing what voices shouldn’t, the ragged breathing of both, or just one, at the end. Some of these sounds came from men, some from women and some, sweet Jesus, from children and animals. It feels like I still remember each one, still carry them all. It’s entirely possible some are still alive, but it’s inconceivable that any are unchanged, after that night.

I know I’m not.

I didn’t want to be here, in the city of Bloemfontein, but I was the guest of the Indian army who had a base on the outskirts of the city. They’d placed me here, in an anonymous city hotel which they used as a kind of staging post for civilians en route to one of their treatment camps. Downstairs a – hopefully strong – contingent of soldiers kept us safe, and tomorrow I’d be accompanying a mission to restore second-line treatment in a regional hospital. 

More history being made. Oh joy.

+++++

‘But why me? I’m a medical journalist, not a war correspondent.’

Captain Singh smiled with his eyes. He was a serious young man, and I’d been told he was tipped for great things in the Indian military. Distinguished military service ran in his bloodline, stretching back to the first Sikh resistance to Mughals in the 17th century, or something like that. Certainly he looked comfortable in his uniform and blue UN turban. He was obviously used to the fact that headsets don’t fit over a turban because he wore his with the strap around the back of his head, and the microphone pulled down so it hovered above his impressive mustache.

‘Surely you’ve been covering the situation in South Africa from the beginning? And wasn’t it you who first called it pharmageddon?’

I was determined to make him smile, to see what happened between the mustache and the beard, so I gave him one of my best. ‘Listen, don’t tell anyone, but this whole thing was my idea from the beginning...’

It worked. His teeth were perfect – white and even – and contrasted well with his black face carpet. He also had a great laugh – very smooth and deep – which carried clearly over the microphone. He glanced around, and I remembered that everyone on the chopper was listening to our conversation, and I saw that most of them were looking at me.

He came to my rescue. ‘Anyway, we don’t need a war correspondent. This is a medical story. A humanitarian mission, as you know.’

‘Right. Just make sure there’s no shooting. I don’t do shooting.’

‘That’s okay, Dr North. We can take care of any shooting that may be required, so you can focus on the medicine.’

I wanted to ask him to call me Gipsy, to see if he’d tell me his first name, but there was the small matter of 26 eves-droppers.

‘Have you done any shooting so far?’ I looked around the soldiers, who made up half of the passengers on the Indian army chopper, to make it clear I meant them all, not only their captain. I saw a few shaking heads before their captain answered.

‘Not in South Africa, no. Other than training. Some of the treatment camps have fired off a few volleys to discourage people who were threatening to use weapons of their own. Fortunately the tribal militia have been too busy fighting each other to worry about us.’

‘Or else they’re scared of you?’ 

‘We certainly hope so.’

I caught the eye of the lead doctor on the mission, Vijay Bhikar. Although we’d been on first-name terms on the ground, I knew that Indians can be sensitive to familiarity when they’re in company.

‘So Dr Bhikar, what’s the plan when we arrive at Ladysmith Hospital?’

‘We’re aiming to do three things, Dr North – test, treat and train. Test as many patients as we can, to determine their viral load and initiate second-line treatment, then train their physicians and technicians so they can continue the testing and treatment after we’ve gone.’

I could see in the eyes of the other passengers that they’d heard this already. So had I.

‘Sorry, what I meant was – do we wait in the helicopter while captain Singh’s men secure the area...’

‘Oh, yes...’ Bhikar looked at Singh, who looked like he was about to explain when the pilot’s voice broke in.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have the hospital in sight. We will approach quite fast and decelerate quickly for the landing, so do not be afraid.’

I thought of clowning around, but suddenly I felt a constriction in my throat and a kind of paralysis in my lower body. Somebody must have farted because there was quite a strong odor, and I could see the soldiers elbowing each other and trying not to laugh.

The engine note of the helicopter changed and to my surprise I saw the top of a tree passing the window. Jesus, I had no idea we were flying so low. Without further warning the front of the chopper reared up and I felt myself been shoved hard into my seat. A second or two later the chopper leveled out and, in the next instant, we landed – hard. The door was yanked open and before I’d even found the buckle for my seatbelt, all the army blokes were out of there.

‘Shit, I didn’t realize the fart was that bad,’ I muttered to myself. I genuinely had forgotten that our headsets were still connected, so I was surprised to find I’d caused a minor riot among the dozen medics who remained on the aircraft with me, and who were now laughing up a storm. Seems like toilet humor does well in India...

Bhikar gave me a broad smile. ‘That was just what we needed, Dr North. Thank you!’

‘You’re welcome, Dr Bhikar.’ I wanted to add something like: ‘If you’re not feeling better, call me in the morning,’ but my follow-ups generally fall flat so I didn’t. Instead I tried to look out of the chopper, which wasn’t easy from where I was sitting. I took off my seatbelt and half stood to peer out of the open door. I felt a hand on my shoulder – it was a soldier standing next to the door, gesturing me to stay in the aircraft. I realized I still had my headset on. When I took it off I realized something else – the engines of the chopper were still going and the rotors were still turning.

Singh was standing a few yards away, flanked by two of his men. They were being confronted by a knot of four or five young African men, dressed in civilian clothes, all carrying rifles of some kind. One of them was shouting and waving his arms.

Singh said something, gave a ‘wait here’ gesture to the men and walked back to the chopper. His face was neutral but the smile in his eyes was gone, replaced by something which brought the lump back into my throat. I sank back into my seat, as he appeared at the door.

He had to shout to be heard. ‘We have a situation here. There is quite a large contingent of militia, and they do not want us to enter the hospital or treat anyone. They want us to hand over the drugs and leave...’

Bhikar looked grave. If he was frightened he did a good job of hiding it. ‘Can we not simply take off...’ 

‘They will probably open fire if we try that.’

A woman sitting in front of the door touched Singh’s shoulder and he turned to look behind him. A portly man – a doctor, judging by his white coat – was trotting towards us across the sports-field where we’d landed. Singh walked back to meet the winded doctor, and was joined by the militants. I noticed now that Singh’s men were standing in a circle around the chopper with their weapons held ready, and I could also see what looked like dozens of men sitting and standing around the sports-field. All of them were armed.

Finally Singh came back, his face still neutral. This time he picked up a headset and held it to one ear. When I got my own headset back on I found he was speaking in Hindi. From the nodding it looked like he was speaking to the pilots and to Bhikar, but then several of the medical team reacted, and one nurse began crying and trembling. I felt a hand on my knee and found Singh was looking at me. His eyes were soft again.

‘Stay in the helicopter, Gipsy. Dr Bhikar will explain what’s happening.’ Then he turned and shouted an order to his men. I heard the sound of the cargo hatch on the chopper being opened, and saw his men offloading crates and carrying them to the edge of the field. Without warning the note of the helicopter’s engines changed and we were yanked off the ground with unbelievable force. The aircraft lurched over to the side opposite to the door, and seemed to stand on it’s nose. I wasn’t sitting properly in my seat and found myself sprawled on the floor, unable to get up because of the G-forces. But in a second we were flying level. I became aware of a heavy thumping on the floor.

‘Fuck – what’s going on?’ I bellowed. A couple of the group looked at me, but nobody spoke into their microphones. Then I heard the pilot say something in Hindi, and several of the medics nearest the door leaned over to drag it shut. Again the chopper lurched, this time to the left, and suddenly I could see the sports-field through the window. It was already some distance away, but I could make out the heavy crates stacked near the edge of the field, in an L-shape.

Then I realized what I was looking at. The Indian soldiers were using the crates as cover. All around them men were running, like agitated ants. I saw one of the ants fall, and lie still. The chopper swung the other way, and I lost my view – and very nearly my breakfast. One of the nurses wasn’t so lucky, and I could smell vomit. I caught Bhikar’s eye, and I saw he was pale.

‘Vijay – what the hell is happening?’

‘Singh said the militia had no intention of letting any of us leave. So he said he would offload the drugs, but we should remain in our seats. You saw what happened after that...’

‘Sweet mother of god. What now?’

Bhikar gave a short shake of his head, but then I heard the voice of the pilot. ‘Dr North, we have radio communications with captain Singh. Or we will have when the situation has stabilized. And then we will attempt an extraction, when it is safe. Right now I am looking for a safe place to leave you all, until the extraction is complete.’

This pilot was a fucking hero. Not only had he got all of us out of trouble, but here he was making time to explain to me what was going on.

‘I... thank you, sir.’

‘You’re most welcome. We have a small mountain dead ahead, where everyone should disembark. You’ll be safe there until... you are extracted.’

I didn’t like the sound of ‘you are extracted’. What’s wrong with ‘when we come back for you’?

Within ten minutes we were sitting on top of a very chilly hill, watching our chopper scoot back towards Ladysmith, about 15 miles away. I thought I could hear gunfire, but it was hard to be sure – it could have been gusts of wind.

We’d taken a couple of emergency boxes off the aircraft, and we wrapped ourselves in silver ‘space blankets’ to cut the icy wind. I could see there was food in the box, too, but nobody looked hungry. Bhika suggested we descend a few yards below the summit, just to get out of the wind, and we found a sheltered spot.

Then I remembered I had a sling-bag full of the greatest technology man could buy, and in a couple of minutes I was talking to Jim. ‘Hey Jim, you may want to press the record button.’ 

‘Go.’

I briefly told him what was going on, and scanned my mini-cam across our shivering group, then zoomed in to the city below. The lens was much more powerful than I expected, and the image was jumping a little as the anti-shake mechanism struggled to steady the image. I leaned against a rock and instantly the picture crystallized. I could see our chopper moving slowly like a bumble-bee. Then it veered sharply left, and it was obvious that it was moving a lot faster than I thought. To my surprise I saw two rockets shoot down from the chopper and explode below, although there was no sound.

‘Great pictures Gip Keep rolling.’

Then we heard the blasts, like rolling thunder in the distance. I hadn’t realized our chopper had missiles. We watched for what felt like a long time as the chopper weaved and turned above the city. Finally it turned back towards us, and 15 minutes later it was throttling down on the plateau above where we were huddled.

I scrambled up with Bhikar and a couple of others to see what was happening, taking the mini-cam along. The pilot and copilot were sitting in the cockpit, talking into their headsets. Then the copilot took off his helmet, climbed out of the aircraft and came over to us. He began to speak in Hindi, but Bhikar held up his hand.

‘English, please.’

The copilot glanced at me. ‘Sorry, ma’am. The section has retreated to the hospital building, which they are holding. They have taken some casualties...’

‘How many?’

‘Two dead, three injured.’

That left six. There was something in the co-pilot’s face. I couldn’t help myself.

‘Who has been killed?’

He looked at me, and I knew before he spoke. ‘Captain Singh and Sepoy Mudali. Havildar Chowdary has taken command. Two of the three wounded men are able to fight.’

Bhikar broke the silence. ‘What is the plan, lieutenant?’

‘Sir, we have two Hinds en route. They should be here in about an hour. They will give us cover while we do the extraction.’

There were so many unanswered questions, but all I could think about was captain Singh’s solemn hazel eyes and his perfect smile. I had no idea whether Sikhs believed in an afterlife, but I was bloody sure his ancestors would be proud of him. His descendants too, if he had any.

‘Did you know captain Singh, lieutenant?’ He looked at me.

‘Yes ma’am. We were friends.’

‘Did... does he have a family?’

The pilot smiled sadly. ‘Yes ma’am. He has a son, already in school. He wants to be a soldier like his father. He also has a daughter, who is very brilliant. Like your good self, ma’am. She wants to be a doctor.’

Oh fuck. That’s all I needed. The picture on the mini-cam monitor jumped as I lost concentration, and then I steadied it. And remembered my job. ‘And the other soldier? What did you call him?’

‘Sepoy Mudali, ma’am. Private Mudali. I didn’t know him very well, ma’am. But he was the comedian in the section. Always making the boys laugh. Very popular. And brave, of course, like all of them.’

He seemed to remember something, and said a few words in Hindi to Bhikar. Bhikar gave a hoarse laugh. ‘He’s just told me the major – the pilot – is wounded, and asked me to send someone to help him.’

It turned out the major had a shallow laceration of his left calf from a bullet which had somehow missed the armor-plated bottom of the chopper, or bounced off somewhere else. His leg had bled quite a lot, but he paid it no attention. One of Bhikar’s team stitched him up and anesthetized the area so he could operate the foot- controls of the giant helicopter. I got most of this on camera, with Jim murmuring happily in my ear at the news value.

While they were patching up the major, the lieutenant was sitting in the cockpit with his helmet on, so he could stay in touch with the approaching Hinds. Finally the pilots cranked up their engines again, and were just lifting off when there was the most god-almighty scream as two ugly helicopters shot around opposite sides of our little mountain.

I thought they might sort of hover and wait for our guys to join them, but they just kept going towards Ladysmith. I scrambled back to the spot where the rest of our group was waiting, steadied the mini-cam on a rock, and watched while two mosquitoes and a bumble-bee took on an unseen militia.

The Hinds circled around the area of the city where the hospital was, giving off little puffs of smoke as they fired their weapons. This time our bumble-bee didn’t swerve and swoop like before, but zoomed straight in, disappearing among some trees and buildings. In an instant it emerged again, flying away from us but then making a big circle and heading back towards us. This time when it landed our medics were ready to scramble into the aircraft the instant it settled on the plateau. The Hinds were back, too, settling a hundred yards away. The noise was indescribable until their engines had faded to silence, then the silence was deafening.

I went over to the big helicopter and trained the mini-cam on the scene inside. The lens, now set on wide angle, instantly adjusted to the relative gloom inside, and I could see doctors and nurses already working on several men, on the floor of the aircraft, while other soldiers sat on the benches along the side and watched, or waited their turn. I saw one man look up, and gesture to me. He probably wanted me to stop taping, but he’d have to drag me away. He rose to his feet and moved towards me. I looked up from my monitor, and realized he simply wanted to talk to me. It was the sergeant. He clambered down from the now quiet aircraft.

‘Are you fine, Dr North?’ 

‘What?’

‘Captain Singh said I must make sure you are safe.’

‘You’re joking!’

The man looked confused. ‘No ma’am.’

I didn’t know what to do with this. At least we could edit it out of the recording. ‘I am fine, thank you. How are you, Sergeant Chowdary?’

‘I am fine, too, ma’am. I am sorry to inform you that captain Singh is deceased.’ 

‘We heard. Also private Munali.’

‘Mudali, ma’am. And private Sewsunkar.’

‘What happened?’

‘He died on the helicopter, ma’am.’ 

‘Captain Singh?’

‘Oh, no ma’am. The captain was shot on the sports-field. After we achieved our first objective, we continued to engage the enemy...’

‘What was your first objective?’

‘To facilitate the departure of the helicopter, ma’am.’ 

‘Sorry, please go on.’

‘We had shot many of the enemy, ma’am, and they had ceased firing. They called to us to talk, and captain Singh approached them to negotiate an exchange of the medicines for a ceasefire, so we could get to an evacuation point.’

He spoke in a sing-song voice, as though he were reciting a poem. ‘Unfortunately one of the enemy shot the captain in the head while they were talking. From behind. An execution. We resumed fire, and sepoy Mudali ran to recover the captain’s body, but they shot him, too. We had no choice but to leave their bodies and retreat to the buildings. Three of my men were wounded during the retreat, and another one while we were boarding the Mi-8.’

‘Do you have any idea how many casualties the militants sustained?’

‘It would be many, ma’am. At least 20 deceased, not counting those who were wounded from the helicopters. The Mi-8’s missiles hit the building where they were hiding. There would be many more deceased.’

We never learned how many of the Zulu militia were killed, but two of the 10 Indian soldiers, as well as their commander, died in the ‘Battle of Ladysmith’. If it were not for captain’s Singh’s bravery our tally could have been 11 soldiers, 12 medics, two pilots and a journalist – whose last words would have been ‘I don’t do shooting’.

When the wounded soldiers were stabilized, I put Bhikar on camera for an update on their condition.

‘Two men are in a serious condition. Unfortunately we don’t have all the medical equipment we need so we are leaving immediately.’

The record light on my mini-cam was flickering to show the battery was low, but I had to get in one more question.

‘Dr Bhikar, what are the implications of today’s events?’ He wasn’t expecting the question, but he didn’t hesitate. ‘I will be recommending that we abandon our plan to restore second-line ARVs to major hospitals. Obviously the situation is highly unstable. It is a very sad day for everyone.’

The light on the mini-cam went out.

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