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