Solo

all the more obscene because of the unnatural angle of the head with the giant hook through the jaw.
    Breed looked on with an eerie, satisfied smile on his face.
    ‘That’s a good haul,’ he said. ‘The more the merrier. One isn’t enough, you need a cluster, like. Once I strung up more than thirty. I tell you it—’
    ‘Why do you do it?’ Bond interrupted.
    ‘Because it freaks them out when they see this,’ Breed said, cheerfully, lowering his voice as he spoke to Bond. ‘I leave them all over the forest, hanging from trees. Scares the shit out of the Zanzaris – bad juju.’
    ‘Where did you learn that little trick?’ Bond asked, concealing his disgust.
    ‘Down in Matabeleland in ’66,’ Breed said. ‘I used to string up the ZIPRA terrs we caught like this.’ He smiled. ‘What do you say in French?
Pour encourager les autres
.’
    Bond turned away from the dangling bodies, feeling nauseous, and went to join Sunday, who looked equally distressed.
    ‘Does he do this all the time?’ Bond asked Sunday.
    ‘Yes. He like it too too much.’
    ‘I don’t like it,’ Bond said. ‘It’s revolting.’
    ‘I go ’gree for you, sar,’ Sunday said. ‘They are just soldiers, like our own men.’
    Bond looked over to see Breed striding around and shouting at the Dahumian troops, forming them into a rough column of about 200 men. They were charged and energised by their victory, armed with an odd variety of weapons – AK-47s, SLRs and ancient World War Two Lee–Enfield rifles. They all had machetes at their waist in leather scabbards or thrust through their belts. Every one of them, Bond noticed, despite their patchwork uniforms, had the red, white and black flag of Dahum sewn on to their right shoulder.
    ‘Bring him on,’ Breed shouted and from behind a ruined hut a witch doctor appeared. Bond couldn’t think of any other word to describe him. His face was painted white with lurid green circles around his eyes. A great mass of shells and beads was wrapped around his neck and wrists setting up a coarse rattle as he shuffled forward in a half-dance. He was bare-chested and wore a thick dry grass skirt that fell to his ankles and he carried a gourd and a long horsehair fly whisk. He shuffled up and down the column of men – who stood there rapt and rigid – and as he went he drank from the gourd and spat out the liquid through his clenched teeth in a fine spray into their faces and flicked their chests and groins with the fly whisk, chanting all the while in a low monotone. When he had sprayed and touched them all he screamed shrilly, three times, stepped back, made a weird sign of benediction over them and shuffled off behind the house again.
    ‘Take ’em away, Dawie,’ Breed shouted at one of the other white mercenaries and the men wheeled around and, beginning a chant, started to jog out of the village in pursuit of the rest of the Zanzari soldiers fleeing back up the road to what they hoped was safety.
    Breed whooped encouragement at them. ‘I just love that,’ he said to Bond, taking out a pack of Boomslangs and offering it to Bond. They both lit up.
    ‘Great show, isn’t it?’ Breed said. ‘That fetish priest is worth a thousand men. They won’t fight without his blessing.’
    ‘What does all the mumbo-jumbo mean?’ Bond asked.
    ‘He makes them immortal, you see,’ Breed said. ‘If they die today they come back as spirits and continue the fight. You can’t see them but they’re fighting beside you.’ He chuckled. ‘Now they’re fearless, those boys. They even want to die – to become a “ghost warrior”. Amazing.’ He dabbed at his weeping eye. ‘If they catch those Zanzaris it’ll be quite a picnic, I tell you.’ He turned away. ‘Let’s head back,’ he said. ‘I just wanted you to see this – good copy for your newspapers, eh?’
    Bond was happy to leave the village and its shade tree with its hanging fruit of dangling corpses.
    ‘We’ll pull back,’ Breed said. ‘Mine the embankments. They’re attacking us all over the place at the moment – but there’ll be no way through here.’
    They walked back towards the Peugeot.
    ‘I want to speak to Adeka,’ Bond said. ‘Can you help?’
    ‘You must be joking,’ Breed said. ‘Even I can’t get to see him.’
    ‘How do you communicate?’
    ‘Most of the time I get these written orders. Reinforce there. Destroy that bridge. Move more men there. Repel this attack. Fall back and regroup. He seems to see