Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #21 December 2015 | Page 12

being asked my opinion by officers and fall back on propaganda. “Bringing civilisation, sir.” bamboo and saplings to lay on the trail, what the sappers call a corduroy road. Gardiner’s grey eyes twinkle. “That’s what they say, but how can we achieve that at the point of a gun?” Yesterday we lost two trucks to breakdown, a third irretrievably in metre-deep mud. Today we were forced to cannibalise another to repair one of the armoured cars. Orders now are that supply trucks carry supplies only, to save weight and fuel. Soldiers walk. I say nothing. “Of course it’s lies and propaganda, and all propaganda is lies, but this time those anonymous little grey bureaucrats in their bleak little offices have fibbed their way to the truth.” Seeing my expression, Gardiner grins and claps his arm round my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Pedersen, there are eight hundred men in my brigade, and sixteen-hundred opinions, two for each of us: one drunk and one sober.” Grey dusk is falling, early stars gleam above. Smoke from cooking fires drifts up into the savannah air. Desertions have dropped to zero. The first few nights after leaving Uganyika one or two men or women disappeared, despite perimeter patrols. Then a platoon absconded with a supply truck. Gardiner immediately ordered a 72-hour non-stop run, pausing only to refuel. Then, after a four-hour break we set off again, for another three days. Now, deep in the steaming, emerald gloom of the jungle, assailed by heat, sweat bees, and the cries of howler monkeys by day, frogs and cicadas all night, everyone is reluctant to stray from the armoured column. There is nowhere else to go. “What a waste this place is, Pedersen.” Gardiner’s gesture takes in dusty grassland, distant jungle, the mountain peaks jutting beyond the horizon. “Minerals, water, game, all untapped resources. It’s not the people we need to tame, it’s the land. We can win any war with our superiority. Superior guns, training, equipment, discipline. Yes, and superior men and women too. But after the wars are won, that’s the real battle, taming the land.” Taking a final pull on his cigarette, Gardiner grinds the stub under the toe of his immaculate boot. “That’s the fight we have to win, Pedersen, otherwise we’ll sink into this infinite landscape and disappear.” Day 162 Free of the jungle at last, we break out onto high savannah and wait while the scouts locate the supply drop from the cargo airships. We spend the time cleaning our guns. You can roll the MG240 in sand and it will fire, but the Banlite, though a decisive weapon, is more delicate. All supplies are low, food, fuel, spares. After nearly three weeks in the jungle our uniforms have begun to rot, but nobody is ill from anything worse than what Mitchell calls Montezuma’s Revenge. Gardiner’s order, that anyone with malaria will simp