The Last King of Scotland (1998) (35 page)

On delivery of the pamphlet, Amin was very pleased. I was very much back in favour. And still I hadn’t gone. It was several months later before I was prompted, finally, to do so.

I was sitting in my office at Mulago when the post-boy brought me a batch of letters. There was a bank statement from UK (which showed, to my surprise, that Stone’s money was still in the account), a letter from Moira telling me that a great-uncle had left me a bothy on one of the Western Isles, and also a grubby envelope with a domestic crested-crane stamp.

This was the letter inside, jaggedly written on a scrap of lined exercise book in black biro:

Bwana,

i am having to write you because you were here before and hearing what happened in that time. The boy Gugu who you took in your house has been very bad. he is been done in great trouble, pliss move quick to Mbarara to help him from these bad tings.

yours faithfully, Nestor

(watch-man).

The letter brought all the memories of Mbarara – now, as I see it, the happiest time I spent in Uganda – flooding back to me. I suddenly felt a rush of tenderness and responsibility towards the young boy I had left behind. The thought of Amin’s brutal troops dealing out to him the like of what I had seen in Kampala in the last few years filled me with dread and guilt. I resolved that if I would do anything, I would take Gugu out of Uganda with me. It would, I thought, be my way of atoning for my association with Amin.

Once I had decided, I made my preparations rapidly. I took out as much money as I could from the bank in Kampala, filled some cardboard boxes with food and bought two jerrycans full of fuel. My plan was to drive down to Mbarara, pick Gugu up and make my way over the border into Rwanda, by bush roads if need be.

The situation was made more complicated by the increasing amount of military traffic on the road since Amin’s offensive into Tanzania had hotted up. He was sending large numbers of tanks and troops down to the border. Only the previous night, the radio said, a Libyan Tupolev jet had dropped five bombs on northern Tanzania. Three thousand Ugandan soldiers had gone across the border into the Kagera Salient in north-western Tanzania, led by the so-called ‘Suicide Strike Force’. The Tanzanian border guards had fallen back and hundreds of local people had been taken hostage. The Ugandans had raided a cattle ranch and driven thousands of cattle back across the border, and blown open the safes in banks and shops. Factories and homes were razed to the ground.

The US Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, had cabled Amin, with the intention of persuading him to withdraw from Tanzanian territory. On the radio, Amin replied by accusing America of ‘interfering in an African dispute with the aim of creating a second Vietnam’.

“The Uganda armed forces have made a record in world history,” Amin continued. “In the supersonic speed of twenty-five minutes they have taken back this Kagera territory, which has been held by Tanzanian and Chinese imperialists for too many years. All Tanzanians in the area must know that they are under direct rule by the Conqueror of the British Empire.”

President Nyerere of Tanzania broadcast a call for the Organization of African Unity to act against Amin, while defending his right to retaliate without negotiation: “Do you negotiate with a burglar when he is in your house? There has been naked, blatant and brazen aggression against Tanzania. I want to know what the OAU will do about this. I expect African countries to tell Amin to withdraw before people talk about restraint. I expect no dithering…Since Amin usurped power, he has murdered more people than Smith in Rhodesia, more than Vorster in South Africa. But there is a tendency in Africa that it does not matter if an African kills other Africans. Had Amin been white, free Africa would have passed many resolutions condemning him. Being black is now becoming a certificate to kill fellow Africans.”

As I drove, though I didn’t know it for a fact, Tanzanian infantry were marching towards the Ruwenzoris, the ‘Mountains of the Moon’. I was worried that my escape route passed so near to a likely war zone. But I didn’t have much choice. The crossing point to Kenya was closed. Sudan was too far. The Rwanda-Zaire border would be the easiest to pass through, there being a large number of border crossings in the mountains. In any case, I reckoned that in the confusion of military operations I would be able to cross over unnoticed in that vast area. I toyed with the idea of getting special clearance from Amin to check medical facilities in the field – but in the end decided that this would only draw attention to me.

The first hundred miles or so were fine. I passed farms hedged with spiky green manyara plants, forests of blue-gum trees, fields of bright green maize stalks, the usual fleets of banana lorries – one with a bundle of pink tilapia fish tied to its wing mirror to keep them fresh – and the customary complement of people riding sidesaddle on the backs of bicycles, as the cyclists struggled in the heat. Children waved at my white face and cried, “Muzungu! Muzungu!” For a moment it seemed that all was well in Amin’s Uganda.

There were also a lot of army trucks on the road, but I just overtook them in the van and carried on. Some of the soldiers even grinned at me from the back of their trucks. The van still had the red cross Swanepoel had suggested I have painted on it, so I suppose that helped.

I crossed over the equator – I could just see Angol-Steve’s little encampment to the right – and began to recognize familiar landmarks as I got closer to Mbarara: Masaka, Lyantonde, Lake Mburo, a tree near Sanga where I noticed pelicans nesting, their great, scooping bills clearly visible from the road. I thought about the poor Kenyan – his bloody face and my gaucheness, the soldier with the bedroom slippers. That had been near here.

I had just passed through Biharwe trading centre when I saw a sign for Nyamityobora Forest on the right: it brought to mind the sign I had seen with Waziri – the one for the Impenetrable Forest, farther west. It was at that point that I saw an army checkpoint on the brow of the hill. I came to a halt. The sun was going down by now and I could see the silhouettes of the soldiers, the apex of a tent, and the square shape of a Land Rover in the distance.

I didn’t know what to do. I had my usual papers, but those might not be enough. They could send me back, even arrest me. I could try to brazen it out with my red cross, say I was Amin’s doctor – but even that was risky in this kind of environment. I sat for a moment in the van, the engine idling, wondering what to do.

Then I saw that the Land Rover was coming down the hill. It was half a mile away but they had obviously, through binoculars, seen me waiting and come to investigate.

I panicked, hurriedly shifting the gear into reverse and turning round. In the mirror I could see that the Land Rover was speeding up. I looked about wildly – at the tarmac coming up at me and the bush on either side of the road. I put my foot down and the van’s engine squealed. Then I saw the sign to the forest and I veered off left down the dirt track. I looked to see if they were still following me. They were, they had turned off as well. I pressed down harder on the pedal and it soon got very bumpy, and darker, too, since I had passed under the canopy of the forest.

The track twisted through the big curtains of green. My foot was on the floor, my eye flicking between the track and the mirror – but I couldn’t see if they were still behind me because of the twists and turns. Why don’t you just stop, I thought to myself, explain who you are? But fear drove me on.

I didn’t know how far I was ahead of them when I saw another sign – “Nyamityobora Forest Game Lodge” – and suddenly I was in a clearing and the track had just stopped. There was a building made of logs there, like an American cabin, only it was deserted and broken down. I sat in the van, pulling at the steering wheel, not knowing what to do. I noticed a couple of paths leading into the forest but they were too narrow to take the van down.

I turned off the engine and listened. There it was: through the leafy baffles and side-sweeps of liana I could hear the mechanical grind of another vehicle. I grabbed whatever I could – as it happened, only my wallet and passport – and jumped out. I looked about. It was all just bush: bush and the abandoned cabin.

I didn’t know where to go. I looked about. Dark green everywhere, and then I could hear the other engine again. It was closer. I looked at the cabin: they were bound to go in there. The paths? Too obvious. I looked into the bush again. It was full of places to hide but that in itself put me off. It was as if there was too much to choose from and if I ran, I’d have to batter through the vegetation. My tracks would show and they’d easily be able to follow me.

Calm down, I told myself. Stay and wait for them, use Amin’s name to bluff it out. It got darker quickly as I waited. I soon saw the lights of the Land Rover flashing against broad leaves and then they were chopped off again by an intersection of trees. This terrified me further.

The headlights once more, on and off. I looked about again, wildly. Then I spotted that there was a narrow space underneath the cabin. I rolled in just as the Land Rover pulled into the clearing.

The gap smelt musty and I could feel dried vegetation under my back. I heard the door of the Land Rover open. They had left the lights on and I saw a pair of army boots walk into the beam. Trousers with puttees. And then two more. A voice shouted out something in Swahili. By then I’d picked up enough to recognize the word ‘wapi’ – where. Where are you? The voices continued for a little more.

Another light came: the beam of a torch, darting about. I heard them open the door of the van and then the dry hustle of their boots coming over towards the cabin. A creak on the step, the noise of them opening the door, and then their footsteps heavy on the boards above me.

More talking. An insect crawled over my face. I didn’t dare move to brush it off as I listened to the tread of the men above, the sound of them talking and opening cupboards. Looking for me. My heart thumped.

After a while they came outside and wandered about the clearing. The beam of the torch again. Then one of them came over towards the gap under the cabin. The boots – close by me, so close I could smell sweat and leather – and the beam was flashing about in the space. It flickered over me. I thought, this is it. They’ve seen me.

I stiffened. But then the light was gone again and they were walking back towards the van, opening up the boot and looking inside, rummaging in my boxes of food.

Suddenly there was a burst of automatic gunfire. I could see the man’s legs juddering as they absorbed the energy of the recoil. He spun about like a top, sending rounds ripping into the broad-leaved grove around us. The bullets went into the cabin, splintering the wood and shattering was what left of the glass in the windows.

I was paralysed, except in my head, except where I was praying that he wouldn’t lower his line of fire, wouldn’t crouch and fire into the space underneath.

Just as quickly as it came, as if someone had switched off a light in a suburban room, the firing stopped. Quiet. Then one of the men laughed. I heard them get into the Land Rover and the diesel rattle of its engine. The arc of the headlights moved across the leaves as the vehicle turned. My breath came out of me in a long draught and I was about to roll back out from under the gap when I heard another sound, strangely familiar. Another vehicle starting up, its headlights coming on. I stiffened again and watched its wheels move off. They had taken the van. I’d left the keys in it, like a fool, and now they had taken it.

I lay there for half an hour, unsure of what to do. I couldn’t stay here till morning. I couldn’t walk into the forest. There was still some moonlight in the grove but if I was to go deeper into the forest, I would be bound to get lost, even if I followed one of the paths. I put up my hand and gripped the slimy edge of the wood to pull myself up. As I did so, I heard a rustle in the brush under the cabin, just to my right. It made me jump and I banged my head on the wood as I came out.

I stood in the grove, my back to the cabin, staring into vast obscurity of the forest. I was on my own now. I might as well have been naked. All I could see was a dark wall of leaves, broken every now and then by shafts of moonlight and intermittent pinpoints of gold: the living lamps of thousands of glow-worms. What a fool you have been, their Morse code seemed to say to me, oh-what-a-fool-you-have-been.

I don’t know what made me turn round. Maybe I heard another rustle from under the cabin. Maybe it was just a sixth sense. But there behind me, swaying vertically in the emphatic quietness of that moonlit clearing, was a snake. Four or five feet long, it was raised up on itself, with its small hood drawn high and each eye as clear and green as a good emerald. A mamba, I thought, stupefied.

I turned to run but it had already begun to strike. I felt – very precisely – the two points of its fangs go through the fabric of my trousers into the back of my calf. I didn’t feel any pain at first, though, and carried on running, flailing blindly at the enormous heavy leaves that overhung the path. I ran until my breath burned in my chest. I ran and I ran, and all the while I could feel the dull throbbing rising up my leg. It began to hurt, and then it began to hurt a lot. Eventually, the swelling wave of pain flowed up past my thigh, over my pelvis, and I had to run slower. I slowed down, in fact, to a walk. And then I stopped.

I stopped in the darkness, amid the ceaseless soughing branches and the deep sappy smells of the forest, with its bird calls and strange animal squeaks. I started to cry, the tears running down my besmirched face. I wept and I lay down. I curled up on the forest floor and fingered the back of my calf, where I could feel the raised flesh around the puncture points. I suddenly felt terribly thirsty and I realized that it was because of the poison flooding through my body. As I frantically rehearsed my options, grasping at odd bits of snake-bite pathology, I felt my nervous system start to revolt against itself, every bit of me seeming to go into spasm. My arms and legs began to jerk about and the last thing my rolling eyes saw was the face of Idi Amin, high up in the treetops and stretching from pole to pole.