‘I can’t do it,’ Hartono sobbed. ‘Please don’t make me go out there.’

Extending a long arm, Boerman reached in and dragged Hartono out before lifting him up like a bag of garbage.

‘Get that bleddy chopper fired up or I’ll kill you myself.’

With a powerful heave, he flung the smaller man onto the pad.

Kaboro had organised four sharpshooters on the bridge superstructure, but the attackers refused to expose themselves. On the bow, Singkepe was calmly reloading the FN. His corporal, Moses, lay flat on his back, a long stream of blood flowing from a nasty hole in the side of his head. Kaboro’s mouth was dry. At this rate they would soon be annihilated.

‘I’ve got one, definite!’ Singkepe shouted up at him. ‘But I can’t see anything in this damned grass.’

The damned grass . . .

Fumbling with his keys, Kaboro opened the captain’s cupboard and raked the contents out onto the floor. Snapping open the brass flare gun, he inserted a fat cartridge into the breech. If only he’d thought of this before.

Two years in Orlando Emergency had taught Mia much about penetrating trauma. While the long black arrow buried in Douglas’s flesh looked horrific, it was a plug for torn veins and arteries. Best practice was to secure the object and have the patient transferred to a hospital, where scans and an ER surgery team would give them the best chance of survival. But there was no ER, and Douglas wouldn’t survive an evac unless she could stabilise him. Not with blood pressure at around 50 over 120, weak and fluttering.

Nash returned with a toolbox and first aid kit. While he braced the arrow, she took the hacksaw and began cutting a handspan above the puncture wound. The fire-hardened cane was incredibly tough, and its silica-rich fibres kept clogging the teeth of the saw. She made fast and light strokes, stopping every so often to clear the teeth. Then she secured the stump with gaffer tape.

‘Will he make it?’ Nash leaned over anxiously.

How many times had she been asked that question? As usual, there were no easy answers.

‘He needs a hospital, Rob. All we can do now is make him comfortable. Let’s get him to the mess.’

Ricki Hartono was terrified, but in the familiar surroundings of the Jet Ranger’s cockpit he saw his opportunity to get the hell out of there, and worked the controls like a man possessed.

‘C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,’ he chanted, as the turbine spun up with agonising slowness. Numerous arrows were already embedded in the Plexiglas, and he pressed himself against the seat in anticipation of more.

Bang!

An arrow punched through, right in front of his face. Hartono found himself eyeballing a vicious hand-beaten steel arrowhead.

‘Damn you, Jaap!’ he shrieked as another slammed into the passenger door.