Authors: Robert Muchamore
The ground was littered with bodies. The rebels crashed out on the ground sleeping off drunken victory celebrations were dressed identically to the dead government soldiers. The only way to tell them apart was to inspect for bullet holes and blood stains.
I wandered to the mangled wreckage of the accommodation huts, where most of our enemies had died. The smell of burning was still strong. The corrugated metal sides had collapsed and were all melted out of shape. One bit looked like something out of a horror film: a charred arm, attached to a set of finger bones pointing at the sky.
I’d had a few drinks and celebrated with everyone else the night before, but I didn’t feel that great about what we’d done. Whatever the politics behind it, up until now I didn’t feel like I was fighting for a cause. I was fighting to get supplies, protect our camp and help a bunch of people who’d saved my life. The raid on headquarters felt different. We weren’t plucky underdogs anymore. We’d ruthlessly killed everything in our way, even when that meant burning fifty people burning to death.
Maybe it was marrying Sami and having responsibility for Adam that changed my perspective. Whatever it was, I had a bit of a moment as I stood there. I looked at my filthy, sweat soaked, uniform. I had a pistol in my belt. Grenades, knives and ammunition in my pockets. My whole body dripped with stuff whose only purpose was to kill and maim other humans.
I was ashamed of what I’d become, but I still didn’t have much sympathy for the dead soldiers. They would have done the same to me.
The unit leaders went into conference. We wouldn’t hold our ground for long unless we cut off the roads with some heavy duty blockades. There was also a supply problem. We usually ambushed the fuel, food and weapons we needed, but the government had already sent everything it could forward. Unless new convoys started dropping supplies into our lap, things were going to get tight.
Captain estimated we had weapons and ammunition for months. There was food for a few weeks, after which they’d have to pull men off military operations and send them hunting. Our big problem was fuel. All but a couple of vehicles had survived the raid, but the store of diesel had exploded. We had whatever was already in the trucks, plus a few odd cans at our camps and in the army command posts. Within a week, we’d be reduced to defending our land on foot.
Casino had an engineer in his unit who’d drawn up plans for eight roadblocks, sealing the four roads through our area in both directions. The idea was to stop all government supplies getting through to the front. Our unit was one of the smallest, so we were assigned to build and defend a single blockade about three kilometres from our camp.
A lot of thought had gone into the design. An approaching convoy first encountered a double line of spikes. The spikes were booby trapped, so that anyone who tried to move them would be blown up. We set up heavy machine guns behind a wall of sandbags at the side of the road. If anything got past the spikes and guns a tank or an APC most likely – they came face to face with a giant stack of logs. We parked a couple of trucks at the side of the road, because we’d seen how effective they’d been ramming APCs when we took the money.
The final obstacle, past the logs, was designed to stop tanks, which we reckoned were the only things likely to make it this far. It was supposed to be a trench, nearly two metres deep. We got the logs, spikes and guns sorted out the day after we captured headquarters, but the trench was one of those things that looks good on paper but never really works out.
We only had three shovels and the ground was baked so hard that digging was a nightmare. The sides of the hole crumbled when it was dry. When it rained, it filled with water and the bottom turned into sludge. Mosquitoes love a bit of stagnant water to lay their eggs in. By the third day, you couldn’t go within five metres of the hole without your hands and face disappearing under millions of black dots, all stabbing your skin for a morsel of blood.
Life soon got boring waiting at the roadblock, but it was less tiring than ambushes, when you’d often walk thirty kilometres a night and only get a few hours sleep. We were on duty 24/7 so we made ourselves comfortable. We put tents by the road to sleep in, which was fine as long as a couple of us stayed awake keeping lookout. Captain let us take it in turns to go up to camp for a couple of hours break. Me and Sami usually went to the pool, washed off and had a bit of a romp. I took Becky swimming if I had the time, which she absolutely loved.
Adam spent most of his time with us, messing around with David and Beck, and driving everyone crazy asking them to tell stories about battles they’d been in. There wasn’t any camouflage small enough to fit him, but he carried his rifle everywhere and even managed to get hold of his own supply of grenades, despite me telling everyone not to let him have them.
He seemed really happy. He hadn’t seen anything horrible happen yet, there were plenty of bored people around to pay him attention and as far as Adam was concerned, the weapons were the coolest toys ever. One afternoon, I took Adam out to the abandoned mine. I let him get a feel for shooting his gun, by letting him fire a couple of ammunition clips into a metal shed.
In the first four days, we only stopped two single trucks. Another sign that the government had already sent everything it could to the front, was that both trucks only had a driver, instead of two or three men like usual. Both times, the driver stopped at the line of spikes and got out of his cab with raised hands. We had to kill them. We didn’t have the resources to look after prisoners and we couldn’t let anyone who knew where the blockade was get away.
The fifth day of the blockade, a six truck convoy arrived in the hottest part of the afternoon. Adam refused to leave when I told him to hide in the trees. One of the trucks was a tanker. Unfortunately, the tanker driver had brains. Usually, you shoot at the tanker first because the explosion knocks out half the rest of the convoy, but we were desperate for fuel.
The tanker driver sussed we weren’t firing at him and stayed in his cab. He picked a moment when it looked like we were all occupied shooting up the other trucks and made a run for it. Captain reckoned he got shot in the arm, but before we could finish him, the tanker erupted. The driver must have left an armed grenade on his seat. The cab exploded first, followed a couple of seconds later by a massive fireball as the fuel exploded. The fire surged upwards, setting light to the branches above our heads. Adam and Amin both started screaming. The wave of heat knocked me backwards. I grabbed my pack and ran towards Adam.
The skin on Amin’s bald head and back of his neck had peeled up into little rolls, with the raw flesh exposed underneath. He’d dived forward to cover Adam when he saw the first explosion. I pulled him off Adam. It sound’s awful, but I didn’t care about Amin’s sacrifice, I just needed to know if Adam was OK. First impressions weren’t good, Adam’s forehead was all bloody with strips of skin dangling in front of his eyes. He had another nasty patch on his elbow, where Amin hadn’t quite covered him up.
Amin yelled out in my ear. Adam was in shock, eyes open wide, hands jiggling. There was still a bit of gunfire going on between our people and the last truck driver. Amo was next on the scene, she gave Adam’s burns a quick once over. ‘Looks like it’s only the top layers of skin,’ Amo said. ‘Take him to the pool and run lots of cold water
on the burns.’ I poured some of the water out of my canteen onto Adam and slung him over my shoulder. When I
turned around, Sami was right in front of me. ‘I’m faster,’ She said. Sami grabbed Adam and ran off with him. The tanker still burned fiercely, only a few metres away.
Captain had arrived on the scene. I made to run after Sami. ‘Where you going?’ Captain asked. ‘After Adam,’ I said. ‘That’s a waste,’ Captain said. ‘Help with Amin.’ Me an Amo slung Amin in the back of a truck and drove as far as it would go. That still left us to carry Amin up the final narrow stretch to camp. He could just about walk, with an arm around each of us. He groaned in pain the whole time. Blood dribbled down his arms and torso until we were all sticky with it. It took half an hour to drag him the whole way.
We lowered him onto the ground outside Amo’s hut. All three of us were breathless and covered in insects with the taste of blood. I doubled up in a heap. Amo didn’t even pause for breath. She shoed Becky away and shouted for Ghina to fetch a bucket of water. ‘Will he survive?’ I asked. ‘He would in a hospital,’ Amo said. ‘Out here it’s no certainty.’ Grandma came over to help. Amo gave her a cloth and she started dipping it in the bucket and
squeezing out water over the burns to soothe them. ‘Can I help?’ I asked. ‘I’ll cope,’ Amo said. ‘Take these down to your brother. Sami will know what to do.’ Amo gave me a sterile cloth, a bottle of disinfectant and some clean bandages. I grabbed a fresh uniform for myself and ran down to the pool. Adam was lying flat in the shallow part of the pool with water rushing over him. Sami laid beside him, dribbling water onto his forehead form her cupped hands. Adam was a bit shocked when he saw all Amin’s blood on my uniform. ‘You OK?’ I asked. ‘My head really hurts,’ Adam said. ‘Is Amin dead?’ ‘He looks bad,’ I said. ‘You’re not going down to the blockade anymore. It’s too dangerous.’ Adam sat up, ‘It’s boring up here with Grandma and the little kids.’ ‘Tough shit,’ I said. ‘You do what I say from now on.’ Now Adam was sitting up, Sami started dabbing his elbow with a cloth soaked in disinfectant. He
winced in pain every time she touched him. I stripped off and started washing the blood out of my camouflage. ‘You’re not Mum or Dad,’ Adam said. ‘You can’t tell me what to do.’ I wasn’t in the mood for his lip. ‘You’re eight years old and you’re not going down there,’ I shouted. ‘I told you to hide in the trees
when we heard the trucks coming.’ ‘I’ll do what I like,’ he said defiantly. Adam’s expression changed to horror when I charged through the water towards him. I grabbed his
hand and crushed his knuckles inside my fist. He let out a high whine and started to sob. ‘Dad’s dead,’ I shouted. ‘Mum’s not here. I’m all there is. From now on, you’ll do everything I tell you,
or I’ll make you bloody sorry.’ Adam stared me out, he could be stubborn as hell sometimes. I squeezed his hand harder and bunched
my fist in his face. ‘Got that?’ I said. Adam nodded reluctantly, between sobs. I let his hand go. ‘No more knives and grenades,’ I shouted. ‘You can have your gun if Captain wants you to do guard duty. The rest of the time it stays in our hut. You’re going to stay at camp and help Grandma and Ghina to cook and look after the little kids.’ Adam didn’t have the guts to answer me back. He looked at Sami. ‘Can I get out of here?’ He asked sourly. Sami shrugged, ‘If you want. I’ll put a bandage on your elbow later. Don’t let the burns get dirty.’ Adam got up, scowling at me. He slid his shorts and t-shirt back on and started clambering up the
rocks to camp. When he was almost out of sight, he turned towards me and did a Nazi salute. ‘Heil Hitler,’ he shouted. I was angry enough to run up there and kick the crap out of him, but Sami grabbed my hand. I
dumped myself in the water beside her and stared miserably at my shimmering feet. ‘You OK?’ She asked. ‘He thinks this is a bloody game,’ I said. ‘I want him up here where he’s safe. You can see that, can’t
you?’ ‘All kids need strong discipline,’ Sami said. ‘Captain will let you borrow his whip if you can’t control
him.’ I tutted noisily, ‘Violence: that’s your solution to everything, isn’t it?.’ Sami looked confused, ‘I was just trying to help you… Jesus.’ ‘Everything’s violence,’ I said miserably. ‘I’ve seen people get shot, burned, blown up. It’s turned me into someone who beats up an eight year old to get his own way. I used to be a good person. Now I’m turning into your Dad.’
‘Don’t you dare criticise my Dad,’ Sami said furiously. ‘He’s hard because he has to be hard. He kept me alive when thousands of other kids starved or got shot. Anyone but him would have let Don cut your throat two months ago.’ ‘I’m sick of being here,’ I shouted. ‘I hate this camp. I hate fighting. I want to go home.’ ‘Huh,’ Sami sneered. ‘At least you’ve had some sort of life, rich boy. You want to get out after a few
weeks? How do you think I feel? I’ve been living like this since I was nine years old.’ I took a couple of deep breaths. ‘Screw this,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to fight with you. I’m just messed up because that little idiot nearly
got himself killed.’ ‘Whatever, Killer’ Sami said. ‘I better go back to the roadblock. They’re four short down there.’ ‘I’ll follow you. I better sort Adam out first.’ I gave Sami a quick kiss and we started up the path to camp. It wasn’t hard finding Adam, you could hear him balling inside our hut from the other side of camp. I crawled inside. Adam was curled up on the sleeping mat with his knees tucked up to his chest and a few spots of blood running down his face. He wouldn’t even look up at me.
‘I’m sorry I hurt your fingers,’ I said. ‘I was upset after I saw you get burned. I told you to hide in the trees.’ I was getting the full silent treatment. ‘Listen Adam, I know I’m not Mum or Dad. But they’re not here. I’m the only one who can look out for you. If you want to go back to the blockade, I won’t stop you. But I don’t think you should and if Mum and Dad were here, they wouldn’t let you down there either.’
Adam didn’t say anything until I was half way out of the hut. ‘Jake.’ ‘What?’ ‘I’ll stay up here. I can still see everyone when they come up for their break.’ ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Thanks for being sensible.’ ‘How long do you think we’ll be stuck here, before the other rebels break through?’ I shrugged, ‘You hear the same news on the radio as us. Hopefully, they’ll be here in a week or so.’
Back at the blockade, the others had pushed the shot up trucks from the road, but the tanker was still smouldering, it’s mangled frame too hot to touch. The grey plume of smoke towered above the trees. I slumped next to Sami in the dirt and gave her a kiss. ‘I love you,’ I said. Sami smiled and said the same back. Just before dark, we heard a feint, pulsing, hum. We rushed into ambush positions, but quickly realised that the noise was coming from the sky. A green army helicopter hovered in the trees overhead, keeping out of our firing range. We held our breath for a few minutes, expecting a barrage of mortars or machine gun fire. But after hovering for a while, the pilot tipped the chopper forward and it flew off. We didn’t know what to make of it, but we were sure it wasn’t a good sign.