Amie African Adventure
Amie and the Child of Africa
Amie Stolen Future
by
Lucinda E Clarke
All Rights Reserved
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the cases of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
All characters, locations and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 Umhlanga Press
Cover illustrations: Daz Smith
Editors: Poppy Reid – Gabi Plumm
This series is for those who know and love Africa and those who would like to learn more about this amazing continent. It’s also for all those amazing friends who made me welcome in the various countries that became my home, and which I grew to love.
Even after ten years back in Europe, I am homesick for the wide-open savannah, the majestic forests, and the soaring mountains. I miss the smiling faces, the hospitality that is second nature to the African races, the bustling markets and the high-rise buildings in the cities.
Thanks to the best husband who has yet again lived through the time I was glued to the keyboard, and to those friends and fellow authors who, as always, are an inspiration.
While you may leave Africa, a part of Africa will never leave you.
AMIE AFRICAN ADVENTURE
PROLOGUE
1 AN UNEXPECTED MOVE
2 WELCOME TO APATU
3 SETTLING IN
4 PRETTY, TICKS AND ANGELINA
5 VISITORS AND A SAFARI
6 GOING HOME
7 A VISIT FROM THE COLONEL
8 BIKES AND SEWING MACHINES
9 PROPAGANDA AND A FAIR
10 A HORRIFIC SHOOT AND A VISIT
11 A SHOOT AND TELLING TALES
12 NOWHERE TO RUN
13 CAPTURED
14 DANGEROUS TERRITORY
15 THE LITTLE PEOPLE
16 BACK TO REALITY
17 THE RETURN
18 APATU AND BEYOND
AMIE AND THE CHILD OF AFRICA
1 THE CAMP IN THE BUSH
2 RETURN OF AN OLD FRIEND
3 I SAW ANGELINA
4 LEFT BEHIND
5 AMIE SETS OUT
6 WAITING FOR JONATHON
7 A CRUEL DEATH
8 AN UNEXPECTED REUNION
9 ATTACK ON THE ORPHANAGE
10 SHALIMA’S STORY
11 THE RAID ON THE CAMP
12 CROSSING THE RIVER
13 THE STALKER
14 SANCTUARY
15 TAKING TO THE AIR
16 AFTER THE CRASH
17 STIR CRAZY
18 THE WITCH DOCTOR
19 THE DROP ZONE
20 CAPTURED
21 UNDER GUARD
22 LAST DAYS
AMIE STOLEN FUTURE
1 THE FINAL GOODBYE
2 A SENSE OF UNEASE
3 PROBLEM SOLVED
4 SEARCHING FOR SAM
5 OUMA ADEDE TO THE RESCUE
6 HOLIDAY HELL
7 THE ATTACK
8 THE WALKING DEAD
9 LAST DAYS IN APATU
10 CALM BEFORE THE STORM
11 SHOOT OUT AT THE MALL
12 WHERE IS VIVIENNE?
13 TIME TO LEAVE
14 THE RESIDENCE
15 MADDY SAYS
16 NOT A ROMANTIC WEEKEND
17 AMIE CUTS LOOSE
18 WELCOME REFUGE
19 RETURN TO THE BUSH
20 NEW ARRIVALS
21 KEN’S STORY
22 BREAKOUT
23 RESCUE AND DEATH
24 A NASTY SURPRISE
25 MEETING SHARKS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
To my Readers
Also by Lucinda E Clarke
Reviews
AMIE AFRICAN ADVENTURE
PROLOGUE
They came for her soon after the first rays of the sun began to pour over the far distant hills, spilling down the slopes onto the earth below. At first the gentle beams warmed the air, but as the sun rose higher in the sky, it produced a scorching heat, which beat down on the land with relentless energy.
She heard them approach, their footsteps echoing loudly on the bare concrete floors. As the marching feet drew closer, she curled up as small as she could, and tried to breathe slowly to stop her heart racing. No, please, not again, she whispered to herself. She couldn’t take much more. What did they want? Would they beat her again? What did they expect her to say?
There was nothing she could tell them, she was keeping no secrets. She knew she couldn’t take any more pain; every part of her body ached. How many films had she seen where people were kicked or beaten up? She’d never understood real pain, the real agony even a single punch could inflict on the body. Now all she wanted was to die, to escape the torture and slide away into oblivion.
The large fat one was the first to appear on the other side of the door. She knew he was important, because the gold braid, medals, ribbons, and badges on his uniform told everyone he was a powerful man, a man it would be very dangerous to cross. He was accompanied by three other warders, also in uniform, but with fewer decorations.
They unlocked the old, rusty cell door and the skinny one walked over and dragged her to her feet. He pushed her away from him, swung her round and bound her wrists together behind her back, with a long strip of dirty cotton material. She winced as he pulled roughly on the cloth and then propelled her towards the door. The others stood back as they shoved her into the corridor and up the steps to the ground floor.
She thought they were going to turn left towards the room where they made her sit for hours and hours on a small chair. They’d shouted and screamed at her and got annoyed when she couldn’t answer their questions. This made them angry so they hit her again.
She’d lost track of the time she’d been here, was it a few days, or several weeks? As she drifted in and out of consciousness, she’d lost all sense of reality. Her former life was a blur, and it was too late to mark the cell walls to record how long they’d kept her imprisoned.
This time, however, they didn’t turn left. They turned right at the top of the steps and pulled her down a long corridor towards an opening at the far end. She could see the bright sunlight reflecting off the dirty white walls. For a brief moment, she had a sudden feeling of euphoria. They were going to let her go!
She could hear muffled sounds and shouts from the street outside. It was surreal, there were people so close to the prison going about their everyday lives. On the other side of the wall, the early morning suppliers who brought produce in from the surrounding areas were haggling over prices with the market stallholders, shouting and arguing at the top of their voices. Not one of them was aware of her, of her pain or despair. Even if they had known, they wouldn’t have given her a second thought. Why should they care? She didn’t belong here. Only a few years ago she’d never heard of them or their country. The sounds drifting over the wall that were once so foreign had become commonplace, then forgotten, and now remembered. She was aware of the everyday bustle and noise of the market, goats bleating, chickens squawking, children screaming, and the babble of voices. But all these sounds could have been a million miles away, for they were far beyond her reach.
Hope flared briefly. Her captors realised she was innocent. They’d never accused her of anything sensible, and she still didn’t know why she’d been arrested, she’d done nothing wrong. Her thoughts ran wild, as she tried to convince herself the nightmare was over at last.
All the doors on either side of the corridor were closed, as they half carried, half dragged her towards the opening in the archway at the end. The closer they got, against all reason, her hopes just grew and grew. They were going to set her free. She was going home.
As they shoved her through the open doorway, she screwed up her eyes against the bright light, but when she opened them, all she saw was a bare courtyard, surrounded on three sides by high walls. As she looked around, she could see there was no exit leading to the outside world.
Then she saw the stake in the ground on the far side, and brutally they dragged her towards it. She thought of trying to resist, but she was too weak, there was too much pain. It was difficult to walk, so she concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, determined not to give the soldiers or police or whoever they were, any satisfaction. She would show as much dignity as she could.
The skinny one pushed her against the post, took another long piece of sheeting from his pocket and tied it around her chest, fixing her firmly to the wood. She glanced down at the ground horrified to see large brown stains in the dust.
Not freedom; this was the end. She squeezed her eyes shut, determined not to let the tears run down her cheeks. The sound of marching feet forced her to open them again. Four more men, all dressed in brown uniforms, with the all-too-familiar guns had lined up on the other side of the courtyard opposite her. They were a rough-looking bunch, their uniforms ill-fitting and stained, and their boots unpolished and covered in dust.
She was trembling all over. She didn’t know whether to keep her eyes open to see what was going on, or close them and pretend this was all a terrible dream. She was torn. Half of her wanted it all to end now, but half wanted to scream, ‘let me live! Please, please let me live!’
The big, fat man barked commands and she heard the sounds of guns being broken open as he walked to each of them handing out ammunition, then with the safety catches off, they shuffled into position.
To her horror, she felt a warm trickle of liquid running down the inside of her thighs. At this last moment, she had lost both her control and her dignity. They had not even offered her a blindfold, so she closed her eyes again and tried to remember happier times, before the nightmare started. Briefly, she glanced up at the few fluffy white clouds floating high in the sky as the order to fire was given.
1 AN UNEXPECTED MOVE
The wedding day went without a hitch, and Amie, turning twenty-seven in the summer, couldn’t believe it had gone so well. It’s not as if she expected a 747 to make an emergency landing in the middle of the churchyard, or Uncle Oswald to get drunk out of his mind before the ceremony, but she had been worrying herself sick for weeks something awful would happen. Her mother was always teasing her that she worried about everything, but on the wedding day itself, the sun shone in a clear blue sky and there was hardly a breeze. No, not a single thing went wrong, but it was the calm before the storm. Life would soon take an abrupt turn and fate would redress the balance.
Both families approved of their new relations and on the day Amie and Jonathon exchanged their vows, friends and relatives from both sides had mingled well and enjoyed themselves. Even Amie’s dad was secretly congratulating himself. The bar bill was going to work out much lower than expected, thanks in part to the drink drive laws. Yes, all the planning and the time spent in preparing for Amie’s great day had been worth it.
So far, the biggest hiccups had been the usual dramas: finding just the right venue, the perfect dresses for Amie and the bridesmaids, and compiling the guest list. Amie and Jonathon had decided to pay for most of the wedding themselves; this way, they had control over the event with minimal interference from the families. This took quite a bite out of their savings, but Amie felt it was worth it and Jonathon was quite happy to agree.
When everyone raised their glasses to toast the bride and groom, life, to date, had been just as Amie had imagined it. Now, all she had to do was balance her career with having a family and somehow, she would manage that as well. Other women had coped and there was no reason why all her future plans shouldn’t work out just as perfectly.
While Amie had always hoped she would get married and have a family one day, she didn’t consider herself just a permanent housewife and mother. The idea of being tied to the stove, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen didn’t appeal to her at all. To begin with, she enjoyed her job and hoped for promotion in the near future. She’d always dreamed of working in the television industry, but after studying for three years in technical college, she found it was an industry that was very oversubscribed with hundreds of ‘wannabe’ Steven Speilbergs and Richard Attenboroughs!
Following advice from one of the younger lecturers, after three years working at a variety of temporary jobs, she’d eventually got employment as a receptionist in a video production house which made short inserts for television, product launches and training programmes for large companies.
‘This is the way into the industry,’ she had been told. ‘Work your way up, learn how things are done from the inside and make yourself indispensable. The mark of a prospective and successful director is to know how to roll cables correctly, and how to make a good cup of coffee, especially when everyone else around you is faint from lack of sleep.’
So, from day one, Amie sat behind her desk in the reception area and not only answered the phone, took messages and greeted visitors, she also offered to order tapes, help source props, book locations and liaise with the agencies that provided actors and extras. It was often frustrating for her since she knew how to operate a camera and how to edit, but for the moment, she had to watch everyone else rush off on shoot, while she was tied to a desk in the front office.
In the three years since she’d been there, no promotion had loomed on the horizon, but she was hopeful she’d be offered the job of production secretary when the present girl went away on maternity leave.
On the social side, she’d known Jonathon since they’d been in school. When he went away to university to study engineering, she’d had several dates, casual friendships, but no one ever meant as much to he did. Each vacation, they spent every spare moment together, and soon after he graduated, Jonathon took a further year to complete his studies. Amie was disappointed he’d be away for even longer because the course was held at another college much further north and he didn’t come home during the usual holidays. She worried he would meet someone else and fretted when she didn’t hear from him for several weeks. She never admitted her fears to Jonathon, but then he came back and got a job in their hometown with a company that designed and installed desalination plants, and it was as if they had never been apart.
It wasn’t long before they decided to move out of their parents’ homes and get a flat together and for the past three years, life had been very good.
Had Amie noticed that so far life had gone exactly to plan? To be honest, it wasn’t a very exciting plan, was it? Of course, like so many young girls she’d dreamed of being prima ballerina with the Royal Ballet Company, but then changed her mind. She’d take up horse riding and win the Olympics and feature on the front page of the nation’s newspapers. Or, maybe become an actress and win a standing ovation and rave reviews for her interpretation of Ophelia in Hamlet.
But like most of us, she came back down to earth, and realised she’d lead an ordinary life in the town where she’d been born, and as long as she was happy, that was all she could hope for. Part of the plan was for Jonathon to propose, which he did, and the other part of the plan was for Amie to accept, which she also did.
Both sets of parents had been born in Castle Bridge, had their children in Castle Bridge Hospital and expected to be buried in Castle Bridge Cemetery. While Amie’s parents both lectured at the local technical college, Jonathon’s family owned a small chain of hardware stores.
So, in all fairness to Amie she’d more or less accepted the same future. She didn’t yearn for distant horizons, she was happy as she was.
Amie’s older sister, Samantha, was already married to Gerry who worked for the local council. They had two children, Dean and baby Jade and they also lived on the outskirts of town. Amie would often baby-sit and she enjoyed spending time with her small niece and nephew, although she and Jonathon had decided to wait a few more years before starting a family of their own.
They had already begun saving for a deposit on a house; perhaps over on the new estate they were planning south of the town, just large enough for the happy couple and the two children they were going to have.
But fate had quite a different future in mind for Amie, and the bombshell was dropped a few weeks after they returned from their idyllic honeymoon in Spain.
“What? Where?” shrieked Amie, as she almost jumped out of her chair.
“Shush,” said Jonathon, looking around the smart restaurant in dismay. “Don’t shout everyone is looking at you!”
“What do you mean don’t shout? Am I supposed to whisper? What exactly did you just say?” Amie couldn’t quite believe it.
“That the company has offered me a promotion?” replied Jonathon.
“No, that bit I understood. It’s ‘where’ the promotion is,” Amie whispered very loudly.
“Oh, that bit. Well, yes. It’s in Togodo.”
“Well, where the bloody hell is Togodo?”
“I’m not sure of the exact co-ordinates, but somewhere near the Equator, along the coast. On the east side, I think,” said Jonathon miserably. He’d not expected Amie to react quite so badly. He’d imagined this moment and he had persuaded himself Amie would gaze into his eyes and say something like, “How exciting! I knew living with you was going to be thrilling and adventurous. Do tell me we’re leaving soon.”
Well, that was the dream. The reality was somewhat different.
“I thought you’d be pleased,” he added.
“Pleased! You mean leave here, leave England! Go somewhere I’ve not even heard of? Wait. The west coast of where?”
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