Beneath the Darkening Sky (19 page)

Priest has gone by the time I wake up. Normally one or two officers stay behind during missions, but this time the last few have been called away somewhere, so there are no
drills.

The wounded rest in the sick tent, next to the hospitality house. Mouse and her girls change bandages. Plenty of soldiers walk around, guarding the camp, taking shifts on lookout.

‘Hey,’ Priest calls out as I’m walking back to the barracks.

I give a combination wave/salute.

He smiles. ‘We got some guinea fowl while you were sleeping in. How about getting your lazy butt into the kitchen and making lunch?’

I’m grateful for the task, something to occupy my mind. I go straight to the kitchen tent. The birds hang from a cold cooking frame. The kitchen tent is a few tarps tied up to block wind
and rain. Short metal arches are dug in every metre or so, eight in all. Two rows. Each little arch has a different-sized pot hanging from it over a shallow fire pit.

The hospitality girls have already been cooking, so there’s water in one of the buckets. I grab a pot and drop it in the water, then bring it over to the fire pit. A few boxes of matches
are near the water. They’re only allowed in the kitchen tent. The people who smoke use lighters looted from government towns and villages, their war mementoes. If the Mobile Force catch you
with matches out of the kitchen tent, they beat you and then get extra portions at dinner. I think they plant matches on people more often than anyone tries to steal them.

The firewood pile is low. I’ll have to cut down more in the evening. Something else to do. I take most of what’s left of the firewood and start my cooking fire. While the water is
boiling I pluck the fowl. Yanking out handfuls of feathers, I feel like I’m back in my village. Everything was taller than me there, and the birds were bigger. Mama used to take the long
feathers and stick them in her hair, then pretend she was a lion coming to steal my birds.

My long combat knife is always on my belt, so I pull it out and set to cleaning the plucked birds, just as the water starts to boil. I plonk the first bird in. Then
boom!
Loud and
close. The shock knocks me over and the bursting roars of gunfire erupt outside the camp.

Government soldiers. The lookout either hasn’t seen them or has been killed before he could sound an alarm.

I jump up and run. Without my rifle I’m useless. I curse myself.

But maybe I can surrender and get out of here. Maybe the Commander will come back and think I’m dead. I can explain what’s happened, and the government men will set me free.

As I run from the kitchen, my foot catches on the pot and I tip the boiling water in front of me. Momentum carries my feet into the scalding mud and I try to hop out, dancing burning steps as I
stumble and fall out into the main field.

People are running like crazy, a few turn and fire. Government troops storm up the path, shooting anything that moves. One camp soldier throws down his gun and falls to his knees, hands in the
air. The troops shoot him in the head. I scramble to my feet and run straight. More explosions shake the buildings. The hospitality girls tear into the jungle. The wounded fly out of their tent,
shooting with bandaged arms. As the barracks loom, I can’t decide whether I should get my gun. If I get it, perhaps I can protect myself. If I don’t, maybe they’ll listen to me
before shooting.

Boys are running out of the barracks and one pushes me aside. I spin and see the government troops mowing down the wounded. I keep running. Now no one is shooting back. We’re running away
from the troops. The gunfire barks, followed by the occasional mosquito sound of a bullet flying close to your ear. A boy next to me falls. I keep running.

I duck behind a building, cutting to the right. Where is Priest? I can see his hut.

‘Go! Go!’ I hear from the fleeing boys behind me.

Now I hear other, different explosions – hand grenades. I run back towards Priest’s hut. Another
boom!
Shards of wood fly into my face, hot and sharp. My back hits the
corrugated metal of the hut. My ears ring. A huge cloud hangs. My breath is muffled, but loud inside my head. A group of troops come towards me, leapfrogging positions with covering fire.

My feet kick at the loose dirt and my hands claw against the wall, trying to get my body up. Three boys run out onto the path. They see the troops and turn away without breaking stride. One face
bursts open. Another jerks in the air and drops lifeless to the ground. The third spins as a round clips his leg. He hits the ground and tries to get back up. Three more rounds and he stays
down.

Finally I’m on my feet, making for the trees near the creek. Another explosion and I jump into the thick green before me, landing on hard roots. I lunge forward, rolling into the creek.
The cold hits me and my pain dies in shock.

I push through the waist-deep water for the heavy foliage on the other side.

A flash of red against the green makes me turn and drop into the water for cover.

A trail of silk fabric hangs among the plants and snakes into the lush green.

The sounds of gunfire seem far away now. I get up and slowly, quietly push in the direction of the fabric. As I reach the edge, I part the broad leaves and see a face. Arms grab and pull me into
the undergrowth.

Someone shushes me. It’s Christmas. She huddles next to me. Her chest heaves against her untidy sarong. Even fleeing for my life, sure that we’re about to be cut to pieces by
gunfire, I hope the sarong will loosen a bit more.

‘I’m so glad you’re alive,’ she whispers. Then she lunges forward and hugs me. I fall backwards under the unexpected weight. The machine guns bang far, far away. A warm,
soft body is in my arms. Her breasts press against my chest.

My heart beats a hundred miles an hour and her breathing is fast. After I don’t know how long, she pushes herself up and peeks back through the leaves.

‘Oh,’ she whispers, ‘I was so scared, Baboon.’ She’s kept my old name.

‘Me too,’ I tell her.

At first I thought it was just someone doing target practice. Until that first explosion. That was when I ran.’

‘Yes.’ I don’t have anything else to say.

‘I didn’t see any of the other wives. I just ran.’ Her voice is tinged with surprise. ‘The guards were gone.’

‘There was a lot of running.’

Again we fall into silence. There isn’t much gunfire now, just pops in the distance every once in a while. I feel like going to sleep. It is the aftermath of the adrenaline rush of
fighting.

‘Is this what it’s like?’ she whispers. ‘On missions, when you attack a village?’

I don’t answer.

She looks at the sky framed by leaves.

‘I was a gift,’ she says. ‘We heard that a town nearby had been attacked. The elders gathered up a bunch of us girls, all the pretty virgins. Then they sent a messenger to the
rebels, saying our village supported them. We gave them goats and some fruit and six girls. I think they left my village alone.’

‘Not mine,’ I reply.

‘Was it like that?’ she asks. ‘When they came?’ Not even Priest has asked that before.

I imagine the government troops raping Mouse. It doesn’t make much sense, I can’t picture it. Those men in their proper uniforms, raping. ‘It was dark,’ is all I can
say.

More silence. The wind makes leaves rustle in the trees and we both jump before realising what it is. Christmas laughs. I join her and we laugh in silence, letting the fear go. We are just kids
hiding in the jungle. I’m not a kidnapped soldier. She isn’t a traded peace treaty. No camp or war or world, just me and her alone in the wild.

We both know where we have to go. We know what the government troops would do to each of us. We know what we are.

We return together, just as the sun begins to set. The plan is to tell people that I rescued Christmas from the camp, protecting her from the government troops.

But when we return, no one notices us. Paradise is smouldering. Not one building has been left untouched. Just a few walls remain, tombstones for what had been there. The hospital tent is in
shreds, the General’s house is no more than a pile of tin. Even the fowls have been taken from the kitchen.

Bodies lie everywhere. Most have been shot and left to rot, but some have been tortured. Not for information, but justice.

Christmas cries softly behind me. All this I’ve seen before, it’s what we do. We quickly gather what goods and food we can find among the carnage. The able-bodied are already moving
the dead into funeral pyres, and lighting the gasoline-soaked corpses before disease or animals come. I feel I am truly in hell.

The fallback camp is our next destination.

The government troops followed our fleeing soldiers into the jungle. By the time they gave up the chase, our reinforcements had arrived. It was just a small raiding party and
was easily outnumbered. But it wasn’t enough revenge.

The Commander tells us that he knows who led the attack on our camp. I don’t know how he knows, just like I don’t know how the government soldiers knew to attack when all the
officers were away. But we believe him. So we go to the border, to this little village, the hometown of the raiding party’s commanding officer.

It’s night when we reach the village, which is of course what we want. First, the Commander orders us to shoot into the air, get everyone good and scared. Then we walk into the village
centre and open fire. Open the gates of hell and let the demons run free.

I’m standing next to Priest as we begin firing, just short bursts. No one’s running around yet, so there’s nothing to aim at except the huts. In the flashes of fire from his
rifle, I see Priest’s still eyes, his quiet face.

As the gunfire pounds the air, the animals panic. Dogs barking, cows and goats mewing between the stutters of our bullets. People burst out of their huts. Some look around dazed. They die
quickly. I wonder if they’ve heard of us. The ones who just stand there in surprise, it’s like they don’t know there’s a war on. They hear gunfire and freeze. I don’t
understand that reaction. The smart ones run. They throw on shoes, if they have them, and flee.

‘March!’ the Commander yells from the centre of our firing circle.

It’s less of a march than a run, but we break the circle and charge the huts, firing on anyone we see out of uniform. Screaming and more gunfire. Soldiers shout obscenities and cheer. Then
quiet.

A man runs out in front of me, wearing a ragged pair of trainers and nothing else. I don’t really aim, just shoot in his general direction. One bullet wings him and he cries out, spinning
into the dirt.

‘Nice shot!’ Parasite yells from behind me. He’s watching me again. I thought if I stayed with Priest, he’d leave me alone. This guy wants me dead, I’m sure.
‘Now, go finish him.’

Bang.

‘Fuck his ass!’ Parasite yells, and shoots once into the air.

‘Faggot!’ I call back.

I walk down one of the village lanes. Priest joins me. We’re walking shoulder to shoulder through the darkened huts.

Aim for the head,’ he says.

A door opens to our right. Priest swings his gun around and fires at the shapes in the doorway. No screams ring out. I don’t think they even knew we were here.

‘Come on,’ Priest says, running into the hut. He pulls a torch from his belt and shines it around the single room. ‘We need to check quickly and get back out there. We have
more mercy to deliver.’

We march back out into the lane. Other soldiers have joined us and are already in the neighbouring huts. Gunfire, screams, crashing. The Commander laughs as two boys drag a screaming woman out
of her hut.

‘No, no!’ the Commander says, chuckling. ‘You’re wasting your energy trying to hold the bitch’s arms like that.’ He walks over, pulls out his pistol and
shoots the woman once in each thigh. She screams in pain, but her legs stop. ‘That’s how you do it!’

I turn away, heading for the next hut.

‘People’s Fire!’ the Commander bellows.

I run over. ‘Yes, sir?’

He grabs my chin and turns my face towards the moonlight. ‘Ah, you got some blood on you, finally. About time you acted like a soldier.’

Yes, sir.’

He wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me close, the affectionate uncle again. ‘There’s nothing like being a soldier! Nothing better.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Maybe, if you’re lucky, one day you’ll be like me. Tough, strong, with a couple of bright stars on your shoulder.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He laughs. ‘Go get some!’ He pushes me forward.

Yes, sir,’ I reply, running to rejoin Priest.

The little one-room huts are nothing to us. Their occupants are just random people and we kill them to spread fear. We want everyone to know how tough and ruthless we are. We’re strong and
brave, we kill unarmed civilians. The real targets, though, are the huts. With the whole place in flames, bodies littering the lanes, the howls of the dying mixing with the protests of captured
animals, we turn to the one brick building in the village. Such houses are the houses of traitors to the people. Such houses mark entire villages for destruction.

How could anyone build one of these? Where did they get the money? While everyone else sleeps in huts of mud and grass walls, these people have nice brick and concrete. They have windows and
metal doorknobs. Clearly, they have exploited the people, they have betrayed the people. The villagers might have been silent out of fear, making them complicit in the treachery. We are the voice
of the people. We cry out when they are silent. When we kick in the door and open fire, the people have spoken.

As I enter I tread on crackling glass, it’s strewn everywhere. We knock everything over, kicking at chairs and tables like we think they could hurt us. A picture of a mother and daughter
stands on one table, next to plastic flowers. I grab the frame and fling it against the wall. Priest is the last one in, sweeping with his torch through the chaos of young soldiers running about in
search of one more thing to break.

‘What have we got?’ Priest bellows.