History, Politics And Current Affairs

Another stored from the old site
Cheers: Mark


BUTTERFLIES

“In the whole convoluted history of East Timor, from the invasion, through the Balibo Incident and even through the fighting of 2005-2006, one incident towers above all others for the severity of its outcomes. Only one incident destroyed a Government. Only one incident cast the path of an entire nation into a new channel. And that was the event which became known as The Second Tol.
The Massacre.
In three nations, those two words now mean just one thing.”

The Island Wars 1999-2015, Sean Argus, Ventura, Sydney, 2020, p.132.

Lake Taupo, 2005

The old man had heard enough. He was slightly shamed by having listened to the conversation, yet not doing so had been almost impossible. They were not conversing loudly at all, but the restaurant was civilised so there was no dreadful background music. And there had been a spreading pool of silence as people had quieted…

He thought for a second. No, they had been rendered silent. The wounded couple were very unusual, and obviously on their honeymoon. But they had been discussing the war, and it was obvious they had both been in the thick of the fighting. He’d been moved, very nearly to tears by some of the things they said, the wounded young woman especially.

It was time to go.

So walked over to the manager, he could do that, their families were fast friends and besides, he part-owned this restaurant. Jake was also a second cousin once removed, and making quite a splash as a restaurateur. He’d go far.

‘Jake, the unusual couple there in the centre?’

‘The Australian newlyweds?’

‘Yes.’ He handed over several hundred dollars. ‘Will that cover their, and my, expenses?’

‘Far more than that,’ he made no effort to take the money.

‘Oh, take it Jake, just add any excess to a credit, I have already left twenty for Gwendolin, she did a good job tonight. And the hot smoked trout was superb.’

‘Why, Morris?’

The old man sighed. ‘Just tell them, please, that it’s taken care of, and … and tell them fair winds and following seas to them, and to their dead. Nothing else.’

His much younger cousin gripped his shoulder. ‘Morris…’

He nodded sadly. ‘No, Jake, I know. You never do get over it, you know. One day you notice that the sun is still shining, the sky is still blue – but it’s not shining as brightly as it was, and the sky is not as blue.’

‘Morris, come around for breakfast tomorrow, please, Melodie and the kids would love to see you both, and it’s been too long for their little lives, even a couple of weeks is forever for them.’

The old man looked at his cousin, then sighed. ‘Well, yes, then yes, I shall.’

‘Eight, then, Morris. The littlies will be full of beans, and they love you both so very much.’

The old man smiled, but it was wan, and very tired.

He’d dismissed his driver for the day – the man had his own family – and he’d driven his favourite car, the 1929 Frazer Nash Fast Tourer. He liked the quirky old two-seater, it had been his father’s. It remained very fast and could out accelerate most modern cars even with its ludicrously low powered old 1920s engine – 20 horsepower! This was the benefit of the extremely light weight a wooden chassis and having no gearbox resulted in. He snorted. He routinely left it in the street and it had no keys, just a starter button. The old car was basically unstealable by any but a specialist because nobody could drive it these days without special training. Very few knew how use the wriggly monkey to change chains. Bill had also loved the old car… and there it was again.

He drove home, the big old house perched on the side of its hill. It looked like a mansion for the very good reason that it had been one, completed just before the Boer War ended, but only one wing was residential these days and only half a dozen of the extended family now lived there. The main building bustled, it was the headquarters of all of their extended family businesses, which did not stop the old ballroom from being filled with the monthly extended family get together, normally a riot of children especially when the day was nice, as it was a barbecue with all the men outside cooking, the women talking family while the kids hurtled around like kids do. The other wing had beautiful views out over the valley rather than the lake and was the hunting lodge business run by yet another relative. The deer hunting on the family properties was exceptional.

He shook his head slightly, he no longer hunted much beyond fishing and ducks, and kept going past the garage and stables, up a narrow gravelled track forbidden to all but family. He waved at little Faamanatu as he passed the house, Jake must have phoned. That was OK, she’d be up with the flowers in just the right time and the walk up was very good for her and her Nanny both. The slope was fairly gentle and the meadow danced with butterflies.

The top of the hill was under half a mile from the house, and it had a small, flat top. Only a couple of acres, with the family cemetery there. He’d often thought of his great-grandfather’s wisdom in the matter, and had long realised that having the house down the hill a bit and the cemetery here had been the right choice. It gave them a place to sit and reflect, and it was a place of near transcendent beauty. Right too had been his agreement that his son be buried with his comrades at Waiouru Military Camp, a fairly short drive to the south. All New Zealand Army soldiers completed their initial basic training there at the All Arms Recruit Course. More importantly, that’s where the Army’s marae was. The Army’s marae was, of course, the home of Ngati Tumatauenga, and the Army had held the Tangihanga there for his son and his comrades. It had been odd … savage; perhaps not a remembrance but more a swearing of blood-vengeance, the day they’d buried the Timor Eight not far from the marae. He drove down there weekly to visit the graves, they all had a base pass to do so.

The graves were all there, the headstones were the white limestone of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, but the memorial stone was a beautifully carved Cross of flawless and beautiful Timorese granite, a gift of their people. Another Cross of New Zealand granite stood in a hot clearing far away, in a place where nobody now dared to live.

He softly said the names, long memorised.
Sgt Warwick Nolan
Cpl William McCallister
Pvt Murray Lambton
Pvt Nicholas Dodd
Pvt Patriki McTheat
Pvt Michael Hallinan
Pvt Apirana Waititi
Pvt Eric Jansen VC

He prayed for them as often as he could.

And so he sat by his wife’s grave as he often did and spoke to her for a while, told her the news, and pulled out the little report which had been written for him after interviewing Whiteman and his comrades. The death of her only son had killed her, of course, and I was kept alive by fury, he thought. He had read this to his wife’s soul many times. Now he read it again, just speaking the words very softly.


In March 2000 Whiteman’s unit had been part of a Quick Reaction Force responding to reports of a militia attack on a remote village. It was located in wild country about eight kilometres south-east of Fatu-Lulik and north east by north of Suai. The village – more of a hamlet really – should have been safe as there was a detachment of our engineers from 2nd Engineer Regiment. However, because of manpower shortages in the regular army caused by defence cuts and the fact that New Zealand had not called up the Territorial Army, the half troop sent to the village had only numbered eight men. There were about 180 men, women and children in the little village.

The first sign that anything badly wrong had happened occurred when a seriously wounded New Zealand sapper (‘That was Jansen, love, you remember him, nice lad, got a VC for this’ he said to his departed wife, as he always did at this point.) carrying a young child had staggered into the next nearest village, ten walking hours away. Fortunately, this village was home to a platoon base of 1st Battalion, 7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles. The Gurkhas immediately put out the alarm and prepared for an attack on their own village, which perhaps fortunately for the militia and villagers never developed.

Tragically while the little girl had survived, (‘Faamanatu’s on the way up now with flowers for you,’ he said) the sapper had died of his wounds before the casualty evacuation helicopter had arrived. Unsurprisingly he had been awarded the Victoria Cross. He’d left a literal trail of dead Indonesian militia behind him after using his bayonet to get one of their AK-47’s the hard way.

On reaching the attacked village the QRF, mostly but not all Gurkhas, had discovered to their horror that the inhabitants were all dead, either shot or stabbed, and all of the buildings burned. Initially they had thought that many of the women and children had escaped. Then they’d investigated the burned ruins of the village’s little chapel. In it they found the women and children, they’d been alive. They’d been tied up with wire and tossed like logs of cordwood into the chapel, and the building torched. The Gurkhas did not go berserk with rage, they were a quiet, undemonstrative people and very, very good soldiers. It was never remarked afterwards that no Gurkha unit ever took prisoners again in Timor. They’d simply shrug and say that the militias were crazy brave and all fought to the death with their golok. And if a cornered militiaman pulled out his golok, what could a Gurkha possibly do except cast his rifle aside and draw his khukri? Any passing Australian or New Zealander would earnestly agree. Crazy brave were the enemy militias, and they preferred to fight to the death against them, too.

They also found the bodies of the other engineers. It was clear that the sappers had fought until they had run out of ammunition and that those still alive had battled on with bayonets and entrenching tools. But the corpses had all been mutilated. It was terribly obvious that one sapper had been captured, wounded but alive, by the militia. The army had instantly decided never to reveal what had been done to him before he died. But the word spread and worse, so did the hard proof of two images. These were hardcopy, and the Gurkhas had carefully showed them to selected people after showing them to their own. It was reported that even the strongest men blanched at the mere memory of what they showed, knuckles whitening on their weapons. Unfortunately, most unfortunately, the Gurkhas also showed the New Zealanders, and they’d shown Maori troopers first as he’d been Maori. Like the Gurkhas, the New Zealanders never again took an Indonesian Militia prisoner. They also became known for remarkably aggressive patrolling.

An internal New Zealand army enquiry had inevitably revealed that the half-troop should have been at least twice the size it was. It was also short of ammunition and did not have working radios, both direct consequences of the recent defence cuts. The report was supposed to have been kept at high levels of classification, but so outrageous were the outright political lies and evasions of the then-Government that within days parts of it began to leak to the New Zealand media. Public pride in soldiers who had sacrificed themselves to protect others soon turned to outrage, which ramped rapidly up to fury. The fury was then made incandescent when rumours of how the villagers and the last Sapper died in the village began to be whispered – although the full report never was leaked. It reached some distant stage beyond incandescent – perhaps the word supernova described it – when the description came out. ‘It was worse than Tol’. That was what they whispered, it was worse than Tol, it’s a second Tol Massacre. Just that was much more than enough. Over the following days there was a drip, drip of leaks – it was revealed that senior Defence Force officers and the Minister of Defence had warned that the cuts would leave the army unable to carry out the tasks that the government was asking it to do – and the PM had overruled him. Then scores of images of what had happened to the villagers had surfaced. This was followed by details of a furious Cabinet meeting being leaked, where the Minister of Defence had warned of serious consequences. Then there were leaks that carried warnings from the Minister placed responsibility for the cuts fairly and squarely at the door of the Prime Minister. Her personal dislike of the NZDEF was already well known – but then the salacious and rather pathetic details of just why that hatred existed were made public. The public did not take well the point that the Prime Minister loathed the New Zealand military because of a bad emotional breakup with a fighter pilot when she was nineteen years old.

She might conceivably just have been able to survive if one further set of leaks had not revealed that the PM had decided to pull New Zealand forces out of East Timor in the aftermath of the attack, and the death-blow was that her original hand-written draft of the announcement also leaked. In it she sketched out how to use the incident for political gain, blaming the incompetence of the soldiers and the Australians, to justify further defence cuts The sun-hot rage of the New Zealand public had exploded. Normally an undemonstrative lot, there had been actual riots outside the parliament, and the Police had had a massive outbreak of ‘Blue ‘flu’ when the government had tried to stop them. But Kiwis were civilised folk and little significant damage had been done beyond a couple of government cars torched and a lot of glass broken at the Beehive, as the Parliament building was known.

Indeed, the just-resigned Defence Minister had tamped down the rioters by addressing them from Parliament’s steps and calling for the PM’s resignation.

Predictably Canberra had also hit the roof – very heated messages had flown back and forwards over the Tasman Sea and in a first-ever move, Canberra had briefly recalled its ambassador for consultations. Somewhat less terse messages expressing disappointment in the PM’s apparent decision had come from London and Washington. The PM’s popularity had already fallen to rock bottom and this called in the heavy mining equipment. Even within her own party she became profoundly unpopular and to cap it all the Minister of Defence resigned. Very publicly. Then walked out the door to address the rioters. In his resignation speech to Parliament he had savaged his former Cabinet colleague for forcing through cuts that had ‘killed eight brave New Zealand soldiers and an entire village they had gone to help’.

It took a matter of ten days for the massacre to claim its most high-profile casualty – the Prime Minister of New Zealand. The new PM had very quickly gotten on the phone with his Australian counterpart and had agreed that a ‘Claret’ style cross-border raid was in order. A combined SASR and NZ SAS team had launched a very successful raid on a big militia training facility outside Kupang and militia activity had fallen off very noticeably, at least until Indonesia had ramped things up in 2003. The salami slicing of the NZDF had been immediately reversed, with a vengeance. The public would simply not accept less, and the recruiting centres were swarmed by volunteers. The former Government’s plan to disband capabilities like the fixed wing capability of the RNZAF just flash-evaporated. In that particular case, an order for Hornets had been one of the new Governments’ first decisions.

The no-confidence motion which had brought down the government was inevitable, and their being annihilated in the following election was more like a maraschino cherry on top of a cupcake than anything else. It was the worst political defeat in New Zealand history – the former Labour Defence Minister had run as an independent and his electorate re-elected him in a landslide. As one voter had said, ‘I never liked him much, but he’s proven he has personal integrity, and that I certainly voted for.’

Very much to their credit, ABRI was also appalled at what had been done (if for very different reasons). The team that had done it were interrogated and their leader was quietly executed for the murder of the women and children and murder of a PoW. But the damage simply could be reversed although the Junta tried hard. They had very quietly invited the US and British Attaches to witness the execution and that had actually helped, if only by keeping certain channels open – and salvaging ABRI’s honour.

McCallister’s smile was a baring of teeth. He’d played quite a role in the disturbances and election that had destroyed the government and Prime Ministership of ‘that evil female’ as he had dubbed her – he never, ever used her name – running a privately funded and utterly off-the-charts virulent advertising campaign against her. She and her team had had no ability for comeback; they’d used her own words from leaked emails and documents, with brutally savage imagery. The very first billboard posters had been a picture of her with blood on her hands, grinning, standing up to her knees in corpses, and quoting her; ‘what a political opportunity for our agenda’. And that had been very gentle compared to what followed it.

This place was where he got rid of the anger. He sat and just emptied his mind into the quiet serenity of God’s creation as he watched his beautiful little adopted daughter approach. She was only six (nearly seven Daddy!), and her smiling Nanny waited at the gate, as normal. He looked tenderly at her as she ran towards him for a hug. She had no memory of what had happened in that little village that day, yet she still had formless nightmares, they were easing slowly away but he still occasionally awoke to find a small, terrified bundle trying to climb in to his single bed, having fled her Nanny’s room next to his. So he’d get up, comfort her, awaken the Nanny if necessary, make them all a hot chocolate, and they’d calm her, then put her into his bed while he sat next to it for the rest of the night, wide awake, guarding her. He could never sleep after the terrified little girl awoke him. She needed to be kept safe. And that he could do. When she awoke, she saw him sitting there, watching over her, her smile filled the world. The whole family protected her, she never lacked for playmates her age and they were all relatives – it was actually rostered so everyone got to know her.

There had been few issues adopting her, they knew who her family had been from DNA tests, none had survived and her distant relatives could not take her. The Timorese really had tried, she had never recalled her name due to the trauma of the day, but in naming her they had accidentally asked a Samoan, not a Maori, which was why she was named Faamanatu McCallister. It was a good name for her, meaning ‘Remembrance’ in that tongue. They had only had one condition, that she be raised as the Catholic she had been baptised as. Even in a strong Anglican family this was no issue, given the circumstances. The Priest at St Patrick’s was immensely helpful, and McCallister took her up to the Dominican Sisters at Wanganui several times a year. The timing there had been fascinating, for in 1997 a New Zealand Dominican Sister came to Wanganui to teach in the schools run by the Society of St Pius X. Wanganui was not that far away from the Taupo area. It had (sort-of) been good timing that in January 2002 two young ladies from Australia joined that Dominican Sister in the hope that a religious congregation would be founded. As Faamanatu had joined them by then, the McCallisters had helped a bit with funding and contacts – as they had with other groups over the century prior. Why not? It helped with local community cohesion and that helped everyone when something bad happened. And New Zealand was not called ‘the shaky isles’ for nothing. It was tectonically active and all they had their fair share of natural disasters. So when on 8 December 2002 Bishop Fellay had given permission for the foundation of a Congregation with the status equivalent to a Congregation of Diocesan Right, a relationship already existed. And the Timorese had been pleased with the family’s diligence in keeping their word – they did check, through the offices Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo of the Diocese of Dili.

So he scooped up the giggling little girl, then they solemnly placed the little bunch of orchids she had so carefully carried up the hill on his wife’s grave, said their prayers and then walked over to the old car. He had a brief chat to her Nanny as he settled her into the passenger seat and belted her in. After that brief chat he started the car and very slowly drove back down to the mansion so she could see the butterflies.

She loved butterflies.

oOo

It was the butterflies that gave them the first sign.

Sergeant Nolan had them up just before dawn for a stand-to as they did every morning. After that they’d broken into their work details, while two locals had gone off on perimeter patrol. Eric and Api were detailed off to finish the work on the new tube well’s pump and tank while the rest of them continued work on the little combination clinic and school room. The little village was on the schedule to receive a part-time teacher in a few months.

Sergeant Nolan was pissed. Warwick – ‘Wozza’ to the other Sergeants – had been trying to fix the crappy old radios they had and thought he’d cracked it last night. The morning call-in had proved him wrong. Again. They could receive, but not transmit. Again. The half-troop had enough food, barely enough kit and supplies to do the two jobs here, old radios and even too little ammo.

Eric shifted the F88 a bit on his shoulder, cursing not the rifle, but the lack of even basic kit. Bloody defence cuts. They had to carry their F88s and that was not a problem, the Indon militias might not be active in this area but they were active, while Linaes, the villager he was training to look after the tube well system, carried some piping and some of the tools. It was simply stuff out here in the back of beyond.

They’d been discussing the day’s work on the pump when Linaes stopped, frowning. He reached for his beautifully maintained militia .303, slammed two 5-round stripper clips into the magazine and chambered a round. Eric and Api automatically brought their F88’s to the same state by jacking a round into the chamber and dropped into such concealment as they had.

‘What?’

‘The butterflies,’ said Linaes. ‘see them rising above that flowering tree? They don’t do that unless disturbed by something big. Something’s wrong. I’ll go to the edge of that hut where the little girl is.’

They had noticed the little toddler, standing stock-still, entranced by the butterflies dancing in the sweet potato vines.

Eric started to call it in, watching as Linaes, bent into a crouch, ran to the corner of the hut. He saw him tell the small child to move away, pointed at them, and she started to toddle over, a huge smile on her face. The New Zealander’s carried sweets and she’d obviously been promised one.

Eric took a Chup-a-Chup from his pocket, she saw it and broke into a toddling run. When she got to them, he’d unwrapped it, then he gave it to her, and swung her down into the pit around the pump with him. She sat, quite contented.

By this time, Linaes was on the ground between the hut and next to a raised bed of sweet potato, and was sighting on something.

‘This is not good, bro!’ said Api. ‘What does the Sarge say?’

‘Militia patrol’s late. The rest of the boys are inside the clinic. He’s got a bad feeling….’

That was good, it had thick adobe walls, great for insulation and well able to stop a bullet, and there currently mostly at chest height.

‘So have I….’

Stunningly, Linaes fired a shot, a split second later a corpse tumbled bonelessly out of a tree, his AK obvious as it spun in the air, sunlight glinting off it in tiny sparkles as it fell to the ground.

All hell broke loose. Dirt spurted from just next to Linaes, he jumped back towards the hut, eeled past it and then sprinted towards the pump pit, using the hut for partial concealment. Just as he dived into the pit, the hut erupted. The little girl started to wail.

RPG, thought Eric, we are in serious sh*t. A wounded woman staggered from the burning ruins of the hut, but got no more than two paces before the bullets slammed in to her, tossing her to the ground like a puppet with cut strings. Eric did not even notice the little girl’s wails of fear as he fired a round at a moving bush. He was rewarded with a high scream that went on and on and on. Gutshot. Good. Murderer.

Linaes stood next to him and got another shot off. ‘That was her mother! This is a massacre! We’ve got movement on two sides, looks like they are surrounding the main group at the clinic.’

A dozen more villagers ran to get away from the shooting, including two children. They were cut down without hesitation.

‘Yes,’ Eric screamed back, ‘no chance of getting back there, grab the kid, they’ll RPG this position! We’ll get around the spur and hit them from behind. Keep her quiet!’

Linaes grabbed the child and put his hand over her mouth. Terrified beyond hysteria, she had actually stopped shrieking and was hiccupping.

It was obvious to Eric that their opportunity was fleeting, there seemed to be a platoon’s worth of attackers and that was ample to cut them off and kill them. Their best move was to loop around and hit them from behind, staying out of the net. That might even be enough to drive them off.

oOo

Linaes’ head blew apart, spattering Api with his brains.

‘Not working now, Eric!’

They had worked their way to the spur and for a few minutes their fire had wrought havoc and shaken the enemy. They had stopped the attack in its tracks and killed several enemy militia.

Then their reinforcements had arrived on the scene. And they had a LMG. The amount of suppressive fire coming their way was ridiculous.

‘We can’t do anything now! How many mags you got? I only got two left!’

‘What’s in this mag and one more. Eric, you’re a runner I’m not. Gimme your two, grab the kid and get to the Gurkhas as fast as you can! Go!’

‘Fuck off! We both go, one can cover the other.’

‘Can’t mate, I have to stay. Got a bullet through my ankle. I’ve lost the tendon, I can’t even walk.’

‘Sh*t!’

oOo

Jansen was very far gone. Just a hundred yards more, then rest, he lied to himself. He’d make ninety, and make the same lie.

He stole a glance at the exhausted little girl clinging to him like a limpet; as soaked in blood as he was. But she is unharmed, I must make it. I must. He staggered on.

Just a hundred yards more, then rest.

Private Kharanbahadur Gurung was in the hide, observing an approach to the village where his platoon of the 1st Battalion, 7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles were based when he saw the movement. He never consciously realised that it was out of place at all, instantly clicking his radio button.

The Gurkhas were very, very well trained. He knew that within seconds the response squad would be moving to flank him, and the platoon would be sliding into their positions within a minute.

The village a few hundred metres behind him was full of sprinting, silent men.

‘He’s just behind the grass on the 150 metre corner, Sergeant, I’ll have eyes on in six seconds. Moving slowly, definitely got an AK.’

The expected brief silence.

‘Got him … he’s one of ours, Sergeant, wounded, carrying a small child. Badly wounded.’

‘Flank will be there in twenty seconds, take the risk and move to help him. Running and badly wounded and carrying a child, so he is being pursued. We need the intel so get him back here as fast as you can, duty squad will probe down that track. Got two village guards coming out to help you with him.’

oOo

‘I just do not know how he’s still alive, sir. He’s a New Zealander from Alpha Lima Three Niner, attacked by two enemy platoons at sunup. He says it’s an all out massacre, they fought as hard as they could but didn’t even have enough ammo. Carried a little girl out despite his wounds, killed several militia on the way, ran out of ammo and had to take out two with his bayonet to get a new gun, killed some more. I expect attack here and am prepared.’

‘RRF is outbound to Alpha Lima Three Niner. Two helo’s in route you with another squad and ammo, will medevac the New Zealander out.’

‘Ack. Out.’

oOo

Veteran Gurkha NCO’s do not lose their lunch into the trackside grass.

Not unless everyone else already has.

Not unless they had seen – that.

‘He must have lasted for hours.’

‘And the Kiwi died just before the helo got there. No survivors except for one tiny little girl.’

The pale, badly shaken British officer had also lost his lunch. There was no shame in that, not on this day, and not in this place. He’d ordered them to take notes on everything, and had ignored the couple of forbidden mobile phones as they had come out. They were priceless now.

‘Sir, we have found the women and children.’

He turned, sudden hope … died. The voice was like nothing he had ever heard. Like a broken stone speaking, he thought, and a Gurkha Corporal grey with hate with tears of killing rage streaking his face.

‘My God, what have you found.’

‘You, you have to see, sir.’

oOo

The Colonel was not in shock, it was raw horror and killing anger. He’d had pre-warning, but he had to see for himself, and had to be seen by his men to see for himself. That’s how it worked.

He looked at the three senior NCO’s he’d called to the still smouldering ruin of the little Chapel. They all seen what was inside. It was still too hot to remove them.

‘The mood of the men?’

‘Killing rage, turning into real hate, sir. Bone deep.’

‘Khukri’s being sharpened?’

Small silent nods. Silently returned.

‘I thought as much. I feel it myself. Very quietly let it be known to the boys that there is no quarter with the militias, not now. I hear the militias are all crazy brave, and always fight to the death.’

His NCO’s were impassive, but he knew they liked that very unofficial order very much. And they will do exactly that anyway, but now they know it’s my very quiet policy too, and that makes it OK, and they know that I will take the bullet if it ever comes out, and I am not stupid enough to give an order I know they will not, cannot, now obey. Not after this.

The Colonel turned without another word and walked to the well, where he carefully took out his own khukri, drawing the eyes of all of his men present. Then he unwrapped a small oilstone. Some sort of silent wave went through his watching men.

Then he sat, slowly and deliberately, and with total focus very carefully honed the already razor-sharp blade.

Not one man misunderstood the message. The khukri was being sharpened for all of them.

Around him, the butterflies danced, seeking the moisture around the well.

oOo