The Smoke Jumper (52 page)

As dawn approached on the sixth day they found themselves walking along the side of a winding wooded valley. Their night’s journey had been hard and they were weary and weak from hunger. The birds were starting to call and white butterflies the size of saucers fluttered before them in the half-light, startled from the dew-damp elephant grass. A herd of antelope of a kind Connor didn’t recognize moved slowly off through the trees, their ears and tufted tails atwitch and Connor found himself wishing, not for the first time, that he had accepted Vincent’s offer of the gun. They found a place to lay up and Connor left the boy to rest and took the plastic bottle and walked down through the trees in search of water.

As he dropped deeper into the valley bed he heard the rush and tumble of a stream and soon caught sight of it down between the trees. There was a waterfall and a dark pool below, half rimmed with rock. He made his way down and squatted there to fill the bottle, staring at the surface of the pool and at a twig that slowly twirled there. The water felt cool and soothing to his hand. It was a place where they both might bathe and wash their dirt-caked clothes then dry them in the sun while they slept.

Had he been less lost in the thought of this, he might have seen in the pool’s darkened mirror a pair of eyes staring back at him. For all the while a lone figure stood watching him from the trees that fringed its other bank and watched him now as he stood again and drank and walked back up the slope to fetch Lawrence.

By the time they had drunk their fill and washed themselves and rinsed their clothes then climbed naked and dripping back to their hideout, the sun had almost risen. They spread their clothes on the bushes and settled in the grass to sleep.

Connor woke with the feeling that an insect had settled on his neck. He was lying on his back and could feel the morning sun already hot on his bare chest. Without opening his eyes he lazily lifted a hand to brush the bug away and it was then that he felt the cold hard edge of the blade.

He opened his eyes and saw the figure standing over him, silhouetted by the flaring sun behind. And for an instant as he squinted up he thought it was Lawrence. Then he saw it was a man and that the blade now poking hard into his throat belonged to a spear. The man was tall and broad and his eyes were fierce. His head was shaven and except for a loincloth he was naked. And now Connor saw there were half a dozen others with him, all armed with spears and machetes. He tried to sit up, but they started to shout so he lowered himself again and, craning his neck, saw that Lawrence too had spears at his throat. The boy looked petrified.

The men were yelling so excitedly that it took Connor a while to figure out that they were speaking a kind of Swahili. And though he couldn’t make out much, he understood enough to know that he and Lawrence were suspected of belonging to the rebels. He heard Makuma’s name several times and Kony’s too. One of them was shaking out the contents of the bag. The discovery of the machete and Connor’s Bible seemed to bolster their suspicions.

The men made them both get to their feet and it was plain from the way they looked Connor up and down that they hadn’t seen too many naked white men before. He kept his eyes fixed on the one who appeared to be their leader and who still had his spear poking at Connor’s chest. Connor tried not to look as frightened as he felt and greeted him in Swahili.

‘
Shikamoo
.’

It was the respectful greeting normally used for addressing elders but it didn’t seem to impress anyone, for they all began shouting and accusing them of being Makuma’s spies. Connor felt the spearhead pierce his skin and he looked down to see a trickle of blood run down his ribs. He waited for them to stop talking and then told them as calmly as he could that they were not Makuma’s spies but his captives and that they had escaped.

There was a gabbled conference and from the little Connor understood, it seemed that he had sown enough doubt to avoid being murdered on the spot. One of the men seized Lawrence’s tattered fatigues off the bush and shoved them into the boy’s face, shouting why, if he wasn’t a rebel, did he wear a rebel’s clothes. Connor said that the boy didn’t understand Swahili and when the man ignored him the leader told him to stop. He turned to Connor and said that they must put on their clothes and come with them.

They were marched for maybe an hour down the valley with spears at their backs until they saw a cluster of mud and grass huts in a clearing above the river, sheltered by acacia and borassus palms. News of their capture had clearly gone before them for as they drew near a gaggle of naked children came running toward them, calling out
muzungu! muzungu!
and daring each other to touch Connor’s arms. One even jumped to touch his hair.

They were made to sit on the ground in the shade of the palms with two of their captors standing guard and a throng of women and children who stood staring and talking and giggling. Then the crowd hushed and parted and the leader reappeared with an older man who seemed to be treated by all with great respect.

‘
Shikamoo
,’ Connor said.

The old man nodded. ‘
Marahaba
.’

The old man asked where they had come from and Connor told him their story as best he could in his faltering Swahili and the man watched him all the while without interruption. When he had finished, the old man asked if they had seen other soldiers on their journey here and Connor told him about the convoy. Finally the man asked when they had last eaten and Connor told him that for three days all they had eaten was leaves. The man told the crowd to disperse and left without any indication of what was to be their fate, but a short while later a woman brought them a pot of water and two bowls filled with a thick porridge which they both ate hungrily.

In the late afternoon some soldiers arrived and from the drift of their questions Connor gathered that they belonged to the SPLA. Their commander wanted to know all about Makuma’s camp, how many men were there and how well armed. Connor and Lawrence told him what they knew. The commander asked why, if their destination was Karingoa, had they come this far east and Connor said they had been warned that there were troops massing in the west and only here would it be safe to cross the border.

At dusk they were taken to a bare hut and fed again. Through the guarded doorway Connor could see the soldiers across the compound talking with the old man and some of the other men but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. Lawrence sat slumped and forlorn against the wall, staring at the ground. Connor settled himself beside him and put his arm around his shoulders and tried to cheer him up by talking about Thomas and St. Mary’s and the kind of things they did there. His Acholi was so primitive and poor that soon the boy started to smile at his mistakes and correct him.

Lawrence asked him what kind of food they ate there and Connor told him it was always tree leaves, but plenty of them. The boy laughed. Connor asked him what was his very favorite food and Lawrence thought for a while and said with great seriousness that it was roasted goat meat and
matoke
, a mash of plantains. Once, however, his father had brought home a jar of peanut butter which they ate with warm corn bread and this, on reflection, was probably his favorite taste.

He fell asleep with his head resting on Connor’s chest.

The soldiers woke them at dawn and marched them from the camp without saying where they were going, though it soon became clear that they were heading south, following the course of the river. The valley was thickly forested and the going hard and by the time they stopped to rest, the sun had climbed high and their clothes were soaked with sweat. They cooled themselves in the river and drank. The soldiers gave them some sorghum bread and they sat eating it in the shade, watching scarlet and yellow birds swoop for flies above the water.

The commander told Connor that they were close to the Ugandan border now and that he had sent men ahead to make contact with the Ugandan government forces who patrolled it. Half an hour later the men returned with a UPDF sergeant and two younger soldiers. The sergeant greeted Connor solemnly and asked the same questions that they had answered many times already. The SPLA commander led his soldiers off without another word.

Once across the border they were met by a Land Rover and driven south for many miles along dirt roads and then across dry savannah until at dusk they arrived at an army barracks. It was at the edge of a small town and Connor asked its name but the sergeant wouldn’t tell him. At the barracks they were separated and Connor was led to a room with a dirty cement floor and bare walls with barred windows. There was a table and two chairs and he sat waiting for a long time until a young major in a smartly pressed shirt came in and sat in the other chair on the other side of the table and asked all the same questions again and many more besides.

The man spoke precise English and had a brisk manner in painful contrast to the slow and meticulous handwriting with which he noted every answer. When Connor told him about his botched attempt to buy back the abducted children he seemed mystified.

‘But you are a photographer. Why would you want to do such a thing?’

Connor shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I think you do.’

‘You really want to know? Well, I guess it was something to do with the fact that all these years I’ve made a living out of other people’s misfortune. At the outset you figure the pictures might help in some way but after a while you discover they don’t change a thing. I guess I just wanted to try giving something back. You know? To
do
something rather than just stand there and watch.’

It was the only answer that the man didn’t bother to note.

Afterward Connor was led across the compound to some sort of detention block where he found Lawrence already in the cell waiting for him. The boy looked relieved to see him and said that they had asked him questions but hadn’t beaten him.

The cell had two narrow bunks. It was the first time in almost three months that Connor had slept in anything like a proper bed and even though the mattress was hard and full of lumps and the blanket mangy it felt like five-star luxury.

The next morning he was summoned once more to see the major and this time the man’s manner was friendlier. He said he had made a number of calls, including one to the U.S. embassy in Kampala. Someone there had in turn managed to get hold of Harry Turney at the agency in New York and even tracked his mother down in Montana.

‘Everybody thought you were dead. You have been missing for a long time, much longer than you told me.’

‘I was traveling.’

‘Where?’

‘All over. Australia, India.’

He didn’t elaborate and the major didn’t press the point. ‘You and the boy will be taken today to Kampala.’

‘We have to get to Karingoa.’

‘That is impossible. The rebels have made a great push south. There is much bad fighting. The army has sealed off that whole section of the country. You cannot even get to Gulu.’

Connor asked if he could call St. Mary’s to tell them about Lawrence but the major said this too was impossible. All communications with Karingoa had been cut.

 

Connor sat on the bed looking out over the hotel gardens and waiting for the operator to call him back. A pair of marabou storks were tumbling and flapping in the tops of a row of flame trees and he couldn’t decide if they were fighting or mating or playing. Maybe it was all three.

It was late afternoon and after all the frantic activity of the past hours he suddenly felt weary. He had spent the day so far shuttling around Kampala, talking to government officials and aid agencies and people at the U.S. embassy and generally trying to figure out what to do about Lawrence. The embassy people were going to fix Connor a new passport and they let him use the phone to call his bank in Nairobi to arrange for some money to be wired. Meanwhile, so that he could buy them both some new clothes, he had borrowed money from the only real friend he had in Kampala.

Geoffrey Odong was a journalist whom he had met on his first ever visit here before going into Rwanda. He was a year or two younger than Connor and being bright and ambitious had since risen to become an assistant editor of the country’s leading newspaper. Both he and his wife Elizabeth were Acholis and it was they who had first made Connor aware of what was going on in the north and about the extraordinary work being done at St. Mary of the Angels. Elizabeth worked part-time for a local radio station and they lived with their three daughters in a modest house at the foot of one of the city’s seven green hills.

Connor had called them the previous night as soon as he and Lawrence arrived in the city after a sweltering and spine-jarring day’s drive from the northeast in the back of an army truck. Geoffrey came at once to collect them and insisted they stay the night. Elizabeth was appalled at how emaciated they were and fed them until Connor thought the boy was going to burst. Their eldest daughter was Lawrence’s age and after a shy start the two of them were getting along well. The place was small and Connor felt bad that the girls had been ousted to the living room so that he could have their bedroom. After heavy protest, Elizabeth had reluctantly conceded that he should move to the Sheraton, but only on condition that Lawrence stay on.

Connor had never much cared for the kind of antiseptic corporate luxury which such hotels seemed to deem necessary. And after his long weeks of deprivation the room with all its cellophaned frippery made him feel like a visitor from another planet. The chilled air and the white roar of the air-conditioning marooned him from the world outside and even that, the rolling acres of lush and manicured garden, the silent traffic, the white office blocks and the tree-lined hills beyond, all seemed faintly surreal.

Stranger by far was the figure he saw in the fluorescent glare of the bathroom mirror. He had asked the concierge for a razor and shaving foam and after showering for at least twenty minutes (a luxury that he wasn’t going to knock) he had slowly scraped off the scraggly beard and watched another alien version of himself emerge, this one with vanished lips and white and hollowed cheeks and his long hair wildly adrift like some fanatic frontier preacher.