Beneath the Darkening Sky (21 page)

My hands fall back to my sides, the rush of the fight drains from my fingers. I salute, turn and walk away. I’ve won. For once. It wasn’t much of a battle, but I won. He won’t
mess with me again.

I find my way to Priest’s hut. He’s already asleep and I curl up on the floor, using my arm as a pillow. I can still smell Christmas on my skin.

Days pass and the supply truck arrives. We are rebuilding the camp. I see Christmas sometimes – in the jungle, by the creek, where I know there are no landmines. At her
hut, after dark, when the officers get the new recruits into the lights-out routine, even though there are no lights. We talk about love and death.

More trucks come, another batch of recruits. The work on the camp is almost done when the Commander returns. He comes by truck, loaded with girls. We help the girls out of the truck and Mouse
emerges from the hospitality house for the first time since the government troops found us. As she gathers the girls together, the Commander points to the prettiest two and says they’ve been
claimed already. The chosen pair are taken to the General’s hut, now also rebuilt, and Mouse marches the rest of the girls back to the hospitality house.

The Commander orders a new hut, a little one, to be built next to his. ‘I’ve decided to take another wife,’ he announces.

He talks with the officers, inspects the new recruits. He breaks into one of his speeches about the revolution and how important leadership is. The leaders have to be kept safe or the revolution
will come to an end, so some of the new recruits will be honoured by being made bodyguards. Some of us soldiers snicker, but we don’t breathe a word to the recruits.

I’m not around for their initiation. I’m on the team building the Commander’s new hut. Christmas comes out to see how it’s going.

‘Why do you keep checking on it?’ I ask.

‘I know it’s for me.’ There’s an odd kind of anger in her voice.

More soldiers trickle back into the camp. It gets busier and busier. There are more and more eyes. As we complete the little hut, I’m given new orders. Another village to hit. Lock and
load.

I can’t get the sound of guns and the cries of the villagers out of my head. It makes the taste of blood and the smell of death spread within me like poison.

It’s them or me. That’s what Priest told me.

They made me do it. They made me do it. They made me do it.

Parasite climbs back on the truck without saying a word. We drive onward, past burnt huts that stare at me like empty eye sockets.

I close my eyes.

The wind whistles. I can hear children giggling. I can see them in my mind, running barefoot in the centre of the village. They chase each other in the grassland. I hear a song in the wind. I
can see the thick green trees, the grey evening sky, the sunset of my village. The song whispers in my ears, like the sound of a bird, luring me to sleep. I love this song. I don’t know what
it means but the pain is gone, the sadness is gone. Just the voices in my ears are left.

I imagine myself lying on my back in my village, my eyes open as I take in deep breaths of fresh air. Everywhere I look is beautiful. The sky is a bright baby-blue with pure white clouds
floating through it. I see the black outlines of birds as they soar above me. I see a twirl of colour in the dust cloud. In a very soft voice, Pina is singing, quietly at first. She sings the words
over and over until the others join in.

Her voice is milky, warm and smooth. The sound is glorious. Girls stand up singing, and slowly dance around the mango tree in the centre of the village. The drums and the cowrie shells tied
around their wrists and ankles speak the same language. I want to jump into the circle and twirl to the relentless beat of the drums. The sound calls to me to pound my feet and gyrate to the rhythm
and lose myself. Pina dances like an African opera queen through the haze of red dust. I bathe in the smell of fresh breeze.

I wake in a cold sweat. I look around. Everything is dark and cold. I stare at the dark until my eyes get sore.

Here in the jungle, we are neither humans nor animals. Too intelligent to be forgiven for the deeds of beasts, too unforgiving for the company of humans.

Thick cloud hangs above the horizon, distant and pale, with the morning sun peering through.

Two trucks are packed with soldiers. I sit on the edge. Behind me, more soldiers, some standing, some sitting, but all crammed, taking up every inch of room.

Up ahead, we see a pedestrian caravan. A dozen or so people walking from one village, our target, to another. People get together with as many neighbours as they can, hoping it will bring them
safety. It doesn’t, not today. Whether they have ten or a thousand, it doesn’t matter to us. Our bullets outnumber them, nothing else counts.

I’m sitting closest to them. I will fire and I will be watched. Most of the soldiers love these ‘barrel fish’, so easily picked off. To them, it’s like stretching your
legs before a run. It’s been a while for me, but I can still see the faces from that last time. I can trace the paths of each limb as they fall. Maybe I can close my eyes and shoot straight
out. Yes, I’ll hit plenty, but I won’t have to see their faces.

Last time, we didn’t even slow down – we just drove and watched as the dead and wounded vanished behind us. This time, we take our time. I’ve seen this done before. These
people are leaving the village we are headed for, so they aren’t just sport shots. We aren’t just doing this for fun. These people are targets. I can’t close my eyes. The other
soldiers want my seat, and if I don’t shoot properly, dozens will tell the Commander about People’s Fire. They’ll throw me down with the villagers, pumping rounds into my chest
until they’re bored.

The truck pulls up alongside the caravan. The people stop walking, a fear response. They should run, they might actually live if they do. We don’t wait. The truck stops, we open fire. Aim
for the head. If I have to kill, let me be merciful. I’m one of the best shots in the group. Butt secure against my shoulder, one bullet. At this range, it’s nothing. One shot and the
pain and fear end. An empty body collapses to the ground.

One woman carries a child in a dirty blanket against her chest and runs. But she runs straight. A soldier next to me shoots at her feet. Those close die quickly enough. I line up and shoot her
once in the upper back, barely missing her head. She staggers forward. One arm reaching out, grabbing at the air. The other still clutching the bundled child. I fire again, hitting lower. She takes
one step forward. Her head drops and I think she’ll collapse, but she’s looking at her wound. Her head rises back up and she walks again.

One more bullet, right through the shoulder. No more reaction. She stands there. Soldiers behind me congratulate me on my shots. She staggers forward again, a couple of steps until she’s
under a tree. Her shoulder falls against the tree. Her body slowly slides to the ground. It’s so soft, the way she goes down. Like she’s decided to take a nap. One more bullet and I
finally get her head. She hits the ground, face first. I’ve seen people bleed to death, there’s no mercy in that.

Cheers and clapping give way to a revolution song. We drive on and I watch her body. Never satisfied that she’s really dead.

Afterwards I sit on a small, black, smooth-topped rock on the hill overlooking the creek. I take gulps of the fresh air to soothe myself. Far out on the horizon are green
fields that shimmer in the moonlight. The trees have put out new leaves and the grass has grown lush and green. Here there is new life and hope. I have come from places of death and burning
villages. But here the only noise I hear is crickets. A twig cracks, I turn and see a movement in the darkness, the sound of quick footsteps. I tense, my finger on the trigger guard.

Christmas.

I take her hand and place it against my face and press my lips into the cup of her hand, inhaling deeply, and then trace a line down towards her wrist. I pause to nuzzle the smooth skin
beneath.

My body shivers from the gentleness.

The moon rises high into the sky. I’m alive and free. The stars become brighter and multiply. The metallic barrel of my AK-47 glints in the moonlight. I close my eyes, her hand in mine, in
silence. All I can hear is the night breeze and the crickets. Am I lying next to my own grave?

When the air becomes cold, we get up and walk back to the camp. I hide in the undergrowth and let her go first, just in case the Commander is awake.

She trots to her hut and enters and closes the door behind her without looking back.

Our truck speeds down the dirt road towards another village. My legs dangle over the side. Crazy Bitch is clutched in my hands. The breeze bathes my face. From here I can see
the huts spread out in the village like a huge carpet. The sun is the burning tip of a cigarette in the sky, a beautiful day. The truck bumps between the gaping holes in the red dirt road. Soldiers
shout and yell and scream and whistle, fantasising about what they will do to the villagers.

Priest slaps my shoulder, the way you wake up someone sleeping. I turn and look at him. ‘Lock and load.’

I’m here. A soldier, like my brothers. I lock and load. The huts get closer and closer. Soldiers grin like men going to a dancing field.

Huts are easy enough to burn. The raid begins, we start a fire. Pull some grass off the nearby roofs and throw them on top of a woodpile – villages have those every two or three huts. One
officer always has a lighter. We bring back more fuel, keeping the fire going until it’s time to leave. You drop a burning chunk of wood on one hut, wait for the flames to spread, then grab a
burning log and throw it on the next one. The fire consumes all.

The officers say that fire is scarier than gunshots. When people hear shooting, it might be us or it might be the government. Some villagers are afraid of us, some are afraid of the government,
a few are afraid of both. And most people have never been shot – that’s a distant thing they fear, not like fire. Everyone has been burned, we all know that pain. Fire is much more
real. And there’s no way to fight it. Fire feels nothing, you can’t be angry with it. Fire isn’t for you or against you, it simply burns and blackens and consumes.

The flames spread from home to home, jumping and licking. Everyone runs. For me, silence falls. I go numb. Everything around me is just shadows and paper. I might be walking, I might be
floating, I have no idea. A hundred times I’ve been taught what to do. I’ve been here a dozen times, enough for it to feel familiar. Really, one burning village is the same as the next.
The huts look alike, the people run, and we shoot and we burn and it’s all shadows.

So, I kill. The lessons take over and I kill. A man withers to the ground like burnt grass and my heart swells. I keep walking. Crazy Bitch kicks and bucks and barks in my hands, but I
don’t hear her. I barely feel her. I just watch through another person’s eyes. A hundred nameless faces fall in front of me. Their bodies burst and they flail and they fall. I walk
on.

‘People’s Fire.’ My name is a distant sound in my ears, but closer than all the rest. ‘Go, Fire, go!’ It’s a cheer, I know that. A slow smile creeps onto my
face, it’s nice to be cheered.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
I pull my trigger and people die and I kill them so the rebels can’t.

They don’t get to choose to live and I don’t get to choose to kill.

It’s funny. All these people scream and cry and weep, they pray and protest like it’s some great thing. It’s not. It’s cards dealt on the table, it’s good luck and
bad luck, and what’s the use of shouting at bad luck? If you let bad luck get to you, you’ll go mad. The only sane thing to do is laugh. So I do. And the way bullets make people’s
bodies jump around, like they’re dancing, actually is kind of funny.

I make them dance, and I make them die. I’m a god. If only they knew that People’s Fire, god of destruction, is actually Baboon’s Ass. How could you not laugh at that?
It’s a stupid name, yet for the people of this village, if any of them survive, my name is going to haunt their every nightmare. A baboon’s ass is going to follow them around their
entire lives. If they knew who I was.

The raid is endless. Perhaps it’s another raid already. Perhaps these are different people. Either way, I hate them – they keep coming, without stopping. They keep existing.

I let the world turn red. The fires roar and my gun roars and just for the hell of it, so do I. ‘Baboon, motherfuckers!’ Nearby, a man is dancing with his hands flailing above his
head. Flames engulf him. He’s screaming, but I don’t hear it. Parasite smiles up at me as he pounds into some girl. Her face is contorted, but I can’t hear her cry. Other soldiers
hold her arms, slowly peeling off the skin. Her eyes are wide with horror.

I could just shoot all of them. The girl, Parasite, the soldiers. I see the Commander walking through with his pistol in one hand and his favourite, bloodied knife in the other. He slips the
knife back into his boot as he saunters off. With a big smile under his beard, he gives me a thumbs-up. If he pisses me off, I can kill him. I’m fast, incredibly accurate. I can kill
anyone.

Priest, my friend Priest, has been taken down with malaria.

He has a high fever and hallucinations. He lies in a cot in a dark room in the barracks, he has been sick for the past week. He can’t eat anything. I boiled leaves and the bark from trees
and gave it to him, hoping it would make him better, but it didn’t help. He feels hot and sweaty one minute, and then he complains of feeling cold and not being able to get warm. I fill two
buckets, one with hot water and another with cold water. I wipe his body with the warm water when he complains about being cold and then dab his head with the cold water when he tells me he’s
hot.

I’m beginning to hallucinate myself. The door seems miles away instead of within reach. Sounds become hollow. I realise Priest is an old man compared to me. An old man who has helped me
survive this nightmare, and who now is sick and weak. Maybe I am the old man now. Priest holds my hand and gasps out that he is a fighter who should die on a battlefield, not in a bed. He mutters
about his soul and his brother’s life before drifting into a deep sleep. He turns and tosses like he’s fighting a devil in his body.