The Long Walk

The patrol had been unforgiving. Out in front, Petros Kyriades led his platoon toward the meeting point. Like his men, he was exhausted, filthy, and dreaming of a hot shower and a pint of ice-cold beer.

The rebels had harassed them for days, well‑armed, patient, snapping at their flanks like jackals. Five men dead. The ambush had been sudden and vicious.

Bear, the lead sergeant, had read the signs and warned him, but the rebels had waited for them to arrive.

With the platoon split into three, the assault on the gun position was brief and bloody.

When the machine guns fell silent and the last RPG thumped its grenade into the dirt, the men waited, scanning the bush. Not even a bird dared chirp. It was over.

Samuel, a hot‑headed corporal, stood and sprinted across the open ground. No one knew whether he had heard Petros screaming at him to stop. The explosion lifted him into the air. A corpse hit the ground.

Petros, Bear, and Sergeant Obaki threw themselves behind boulders at the edge of the killing zone, each gripping a light machine gun.

“Clear a path,” Petros ordered.

The mines erupted in a chain of blasts that made the earth shiver. On hands and knees, Petros crawled forward, knife probing the soil. He checked again. And again.

“Clear!” he roared. “Follow my path.”

He strolled to the rear of the makeshift gun pit and froze. Victory evaporated. In the dugout lay a girl soldier, no older than ten, her chest riddled with bullets, her blood soaking into the dust. Petros trembled with rage.

“Why the fuck are we killing kids?”

“Because they pay us,” Obaki said.

“Not for this. I’m a professional soldier. I don’t wage war on children. Destroy the weapons, blow the ammo, and we leave.”

He dropped onto a rock beside William “Bear” Morris, a giant of a man, and drank his ration of warm water.

“I don’t need this shit. What the fuck are we doing here?”

“Maybe it’s time to hang up our guns,” Bear said. “Find an easier way to earn a crust.”

Obaki approached. “The men want to bury Samuel.”

Petros pointed to the vultures circling high above. “Nature has a better idea. You’ll have to get him out of that minefield. Your decision.”

Obaki grinned and nodded.

“Get the men together,” Petros said. “We’ve a plane to catch, and I don’t want to be late.”

He and Bear stood, heaved their packs onto their backs, and set off with long, deliberate strides. Obaki, a veteran, caught up and marched beside them. The others followed. Petros stopped once, listened, checked his compass, then pushed on.

At dusk, they rested, ate their meagre rations, and an hour later continued. With less than twelve hours to reach the rendezvous, Petros demanded a killing pace.

They travelled fast but stayed alert. At first light, they rested in a sand‑blasted ravine near the airstrip. Petros positioned his men in the shade of a bush‑filled gulley, pulled a small transmitter from his pack, and pressed the red button. When the plane came near, the light should glow.

The arrival of more troops disturbed the birds; they squawked and scattered. Petros crawled between positions, greeting officers he knew by name or reputation. When he returned, the red indicator was burning brightly. His men murmured with relief as the drone of the aircraft vibrated the air.

The Hercules appeared, kicking up clouds of red dust as its wheels touched the ground.

A hundred government troops rushed forward. Petros’ men grabbed their weapons.

A storm of bullets perforated the fuselage.

Bear, first to stand, gaped as wave after wave of dust‑covered men erupted from the ground. He hit the dirt as gunfire and screams filled the air.

Petros dragged his squad into deep cover. Obaki pulled a grenade from his pouch; Petros shook his head.

The Hercules, smoke pouring from one engine, clawed its way into the sky and out of range.

The rebels advanced, killing. After six minutes, the firing stopped. For two hours, Petros’ group hid, not daring to breathe. They listened as the rebels shot the wounded and stripped the corpses.

Only when the rebels departed did they rise.

Petros walked among the naked dead. “Sergeant Obaki, you have a choice. Come with us or go your own way.”

The men conferred quietly.

Obaki smiled. “Sir, you are white and Bear black, but neither of you belongs here. We will go our own way.”

Petros lifted his AK‑47 and waved. “Good luck. Bear, let’s lift and shift.”

They watched Obaki and his ragtag outfit disappear into the bush.

Bear checked their supplies. “Two days at most.”

Petros brushed back his dusty blond hair, shaded his deep brown eyes, and looked east. “Four hundred miles to the Angolan border. If we travel out of the midday sun, we’ll make it. I once heard elephants walk from waterhole to waterhole. We need to find a herd of bloody elephants.”

Bear wiped sweat from his shaven head. “Hope they’re walking the right way, or it’ll be a bummer.”

They split up, found a flattened elephant trail, and followed it eastward, resting and sleeping through the heat.

At sunset, they sheltered in a grove of acacia trees and waited for moonrise. Petros checked his compass hourly, dead‑reckoning every four. The night air cooled. They estimated it would take 9 to 10 days to reach the border.

After two days, their rations ran out. At first light, they searched for roots and bugs and cooked everything over a small fire. Roasted snake filled their stomachs.

Late on the fourth evening, distant machine‑gun fire rattled across the plains. They retreated into the bushes, checked magazines, and waited. Hours later, it stopped. Exhausted, they slept until sunrise.

Breakfast was cold snake as they marched forty steps a minute, stopping only to sip water. The hot, dry wind sucked moisture from their bodies. As the sun climbed, they searched for shade.

“PK. Smoke. Six miles.”

Petros lifted his binoculars. A wavering plume rose above termite mounds and patchy acacia.

“A burning village,” he murmured. “This is not good, and my water bottle is empty.”

Open ground stretched ahead. Keeping low, the two men approached from separate angles, AKs ready. Bear stopped in a shallow hollow.

Petros edged forward until he was certain no one alive remained.

The scene was horrific. Every hut’s thatched roof burned to ash. Wooden beams smouldered, sparks drifting in the wind. Mutilated bodies of women and children lay where they had fallen. From one hut, the stench of burnt flesh drifted.

Sickened, they searched for the well. Both men poured bucket after bucket of water over their heads.

A rustle of grass. An odd sound forced them to dive for cover.

Bear signalled from beside the well. Petros rolled left, eyes darting. No attack came. Guarded, he rose and crept forward on the balls of his feet. Again, the grass moved.

“Stupid,” he muttered, and charged.

In the long grass lay a baby. Its eyes sparkled; its arms lifted toward him.

“PK speak to me,” Bear called.

“Come and have a gander.” Petros lifted the infant. The dead girl in the dugout flashed in his mind, sharp as shrapnel. His grip tightened. “Well, little one, I promise I’ll carry you until… well, you don’t want to know. So small, and you scared the shit out of us. And you smell awful.”

They found shade beneath a tattered canopy.

“I hope you know something about babies, PK. I don’t.”

Petros removed the filthy nappy. “Christ, you’re a girl.” She kicked and howled. “Don’t look at me for food. My tits are dry. From what I remember of my brothers, it’s food, shit, or wind. Shit’s gone, so I suppose it’s food.”

Bear scavenged and returned with a pot of ground maize and squares of cloth cut from dead women’s clothes.

Petros cleaned and bathed the baby, squeezing water into her mouth.

Bear mixed a thin maize drink. Petros fed her with a spoon; she spat most of it out but swallowed enough.

Fed, watered, and changed, she slept in a hammock Bear rigged. They walked through the village, flies swarming over corpses.

“Hyenas and jackals will be next,” Petros said.

He stared at the bodies. Something inside him changed. “What does this prove? Innocents trying to survive, and they get slaughtered for what? Give us a hand. We can’t leave these people for dog meat.”

They built a mound of bodies and covered it with wood.

“That’s the best we can do,” Petros said. “I’ll light it before we leave.”

“May God have mercy on their souls,” Bear murmured. “They got little out of this one.”

They rested through the day, one guarding while the other slept.

At sunset, Petros strapped the child to his chest. Bear bowed his head and plunged a torch into the pyre. Flames licked upward, devouring the dead with a hungry roar.

After drinking their fill at the well, they left the village.

“You did right, PK,” Bear said. “Not many men would’ve bothered.”

When she cried, Petros cleaned her and gave the child water. He glanced at the sky. “God, what did I do to deserve this? We’re running out of water.”

They trudged through the night. Near sunrise, light‑headed and with empty bottles, they staggered toward the next waterhole. The sun rose, burning away the cool. They supported each other the last few hundred metres. At the waterhole, they drank deeply, then rested in the shade of boulders.

A deer approached. Petros raised his AK and shot it. He stripped the hindquarters.

“ Steak tartare with a difference,” Bear said. “Get it eaten. This’ll keep us going.”

“Can I give some to the babe?”

“Chew it first.”

Petros shredded meat between his teeth and touched it to the girl’s lips. She swallowed. For an hour, he fed her water, maize, and meat until she had had enough.

He washed their clothes in the warm pool. Bear joined him.

“Weren’t you married once?” Petros asked.

Bear sighed. “Forty‑two, divorced, no kids. My fault mostly. Loved the army more than home. She deserved better. She’s remarried now. Two kids. Happy. No point being miserable together.”

“I think I’ll stay single.”

“If you could keep it in your trousers, I’d agree.”

“Is it my fault women find me irresistible?”

“I don’t fancy you.”

“Why am I pleased to hear that?”

“Go to sleep.”

Petros dozed. He woke as the evening breeze cooled his skin. Bear snored like a diesel generator. Petros dressed.

“Well, babe, it’s time we made a move. Bear, wakey wakey.”

“I wasn’t asleep.”

“If that’s what you believe, fine. Shift your arse.”

They marched through the night, resting through the midday furnace. They scavenged burnt‑out villages for anything useful for the baby. No bodies this time. Days blurred: find food, eat, care for the infant, walk.

Keep going, Petros told himself. Soon you’ll be in a friendly bed. The illusion shattered every time the baby stirred.

On the ninth day, they entered a cultivated valley. Mud huts. People in fields. For a moment, Petros let himself look at the green. The sun rose, heating the world’s oven. A cross on a church roof guided them.

Petros counted his steps to the door. Two thousand and twenty‑nine. He didn’t know why, but at the entrance he crossed himself. “Looks good for your new home, babe.”

A priest approached. “Please, this is a house of God. Leave your rifles by the door.”

Bear slid down the wall. Petros collapsed onto a pew. “Father, you speak English. Take this girl. And tell me where we are.”

The priest crossed himself and took the baby. “You are in the village of the two streams. And if you don’t mind me saying, you both smell awful.”

“If a baby pissed and crapped on you for days, you’d pong too. What country is this?”

“Angola.”

“Thank God,” Petros explained, where they’d found the girl. “What will happen to her?”

“This child is fortunate. You’ve carried her far. That is not the work of a mercenary. For one who lives by the sword, you have shown mercy. What shall we call her?”

“Cut the sermon. Call, babe Lucy. It’s lucky spelt wrong.”

His fingers loosened. His rifle clattered to the floor as sleep took him.

The priest settled the baby against his shoulder. As he turned, her tiny hand reached out toward Petros.

Bear watched the gesture and huffed a tired laugh. “God help her. I think she’s taken a shine to you, PK.”

Petros didn’t answer. His eyes were closing, but a faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He’d carried her across hell, and now she had a future.

Outside, somewhere beyond the church walls, a bell rang once, thin and bright in the morning heat.

He let his head fall back against the pew. The church smelled of old wood, candle smoke, and cool stone. A world away from the stench of burnt villages and rotting bodies. For the first time in days, he felt something close to safety. Not peace but a pause, a breath, a moment where no one was shooting at him.

The priest rocked the baby gently. “Lucy,” he murmured, testing the name. “A good name. A hopeful name.”

Bear stretched his legs out, boots scraping the floor. “Hope’s in short supply around here.”

“Hope is never in short supply,” the priest said softly. “Only our willingness to see it.”

Petros cracked one eye open. “Father, with respect, I’ve seen enough to last me a lifetime.”

“And yet you carried her,” the priest replied. “Across a land that kills without hesitation. That is not the work of a man without hope.”

Petros didn’t argue. He didn’t have the strength. His body sagged, surrendering to exhaustion. The baby whimpered once, then settled again, her cheek pressed against the priest’s collar.

Bear watched Petros drift. “He’s all in.”

“He will sleep,” the priest replied. “Both of you will. You are safe here.”

Outside, the morning heat thickened, but inside the church, the air stayed cool. Dust mites drifted in the shafts of light slanting through the high windows. Somewhere beyond the walls, a bell rang once as if marking the end of something.

Petros’ breathing slowed. His hands loosened. The last thing he felt before sleep claimed him was the faint warmth of the baby’s hand brushing his face.

Bear leaned back, arms folded, watching over them both. “Rest, PK,” he murmured. “You’ve earned it.”

The priest carried Lucy toward a small side room, humming under his breath.

Petros didn’t hear it. He was already gone, sinking into a deep sleep.

Outside, the world kept turning, the sun climbing, the fields waking, the villagers toiling. Inside the church, for the first time in a long time, there was nothing but quiet.

For Petros Kyriades, mercenary, survivor, reluctant guardian, that quiet was enough