by Mark Lee
“We’re supposed to stay here,” I said.
“Why? There’s no danger. The militia has run away.”
We followed Sister Xavier past the burned-out cars to where the three dead militiamen lay sprawled on the road. Corporal Mainla and Private Rai picked up the abandoned rifles, then dragged the bodies over to the grass, leaving three ribbony streaks of blood on the asphalt. The shrill brightness of the color startled me.
Mainla pointed down the hill at the beach. “There are many people there,” he said to Julia. “No water. No food. It’s very bad.”
Liquica had once been a resort town for the Portuguese and there were still a few remnants from that era. An elaborate wrought-iron fence surrounded the local Catholic church, and banyan trees spread their branches and shaded the street. Weeds had overwhelmed a cobblestone road that led down a hill to the ocean. Looking across the beach, I could see the remains of a pagoda, changing rooms, and an outdoor restaurant. Everything had been destroyed by grenades.
Near the edge of the beach, the Portuguese had dug into the hillside and built a tennis court. Retaining walls ran along two sides of the court and the rest was marked off by a chain-link fence that had once captured wayward tennis balls. I could imagine Portuguese children darting back and forth with their rackets while their parents sat beneath striped umbrellas and watched them play. Now the militia had turned the tennis court into an enormous cage to hold their prisoners. Hundreds of women, old people, and children sat on the court. Some had taken plastic tarps and constructed open shelters to protect themselves from the sun. The Gurkhas stood near the fence and stared at the villagers, but no one approached the crowd. There were too many people. It was too big a problem. Even Captain Jenkins looked intimidated.
The villagers didn’t move until they saw Sister Xavier. People shouted her name, pushed through holes in the fence, and surrounded her. Standing in the middle of the crowd, Sister Xavier tried to find out what had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Some of the information was confusing and there were arguments about who was dead and who had run away. An old lady began to weep about her missing grandson; another person shouted about the lack of water. This man was shot, that girl was raped, the militia had set the school on fire.
Sister Xavier explained the situation to Julia and Captain Jenkins. The leader of the militia, a man named Cristiano, had been waiting for Indonesian ferryboats to come up from West Timor and land on the beach. He hated the independence movement and wanted the villagers out of the country. All the hostages were going to be shipped to special camps organized by the Indonesians. After a few people ran away, no one was allowed to leave for food or water. Most of the villagers were suffering from heat stroke and dehydration.
“Where are Cristiano and his men hiding?” Jenkins asked.
“Somewhere up in the hills.”
“Can they walk to the border?”
“It would be very difficult. The pro-independence guerrillas hate the militia. They’ll kill everyone if they catch them on the road. That’s why Cristiano was waiting for the boats.”
Jenkins told his radioman to send a message to Interfet; then he went over to talk to Sergeant Gurung. “Form a defensive perimeter around this area. We’ll continue down the road a bit farther. When we’ve finished the reconnaissance, we’ll come back here to pick you up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“As far as I’m concerned, we followed the rules of engagement. If you see anyone with a weapon, kill the bastard right away.”
I watched Jenkins, Mitchell, and the rest of the platoon disappear down the coast road. Sergeant Gurung and his four men had been left behind to defend us. While the sergeant and Corporal Battis remained on the beach, Corporal Mainla and the two younger men were told to patrol the village. Mainla retied his bootlaces, then carefully checked his assault rifle, knife, and grenades before leaving. He reminded me of an electrician about to rewire a building.
Daniel went up the hill to get the church truck while Julia and Sister Xavier walked around the crowded tennis court. Julia did a quick triage of the villagers. This person was dying. This person can be saved. This person is sick, but can drink water. I took a few photographs, then put my camera away as Daniel drove the pickup truck down the cobblestone walkway. Daniel didn’t say anything when I started to help him. He kept glancing at Julia and Sister Xavier.
“They won’t want to leave when Captain Jenkins comes back.”
“You’re probably right. I can’t see Julia walking away from a lot of sick people.”
“It’ll be safe as long as the Gurkhas stay here. Cristiano is probably up in the hills, waiting to see what we’re going to do.”
Julia came over to the church truck and gave directions to everyone. It felt like she was in an operating room, picking up a scalpel and cutting through someone’s skin. “This is going to be difficult,” she said. “I didn’t bring enough saline solution.”
“What do you want us to do?” Daniel asked.
“Help Sister Xavier and start distributing water bottles. Nicky, go talk to Sergeant Gurung and see if he can find some sticks to hang the IVs.”
Daniel ripped open a cardboard box and began handing out bottles of water while Sister Xavier told her parishioners to swallow one mouthful, count to two hundred, and swallow another. I went off with Sergeant Gurung to look for sticks and we came back with lengths of steel rebar pulled from wrecked buildings. After Julia inserted a needle into someone’s arm, I used a brick to hammer the rebar into the cracked tennis court, then hung a bag of saline solution.
An old woman lay on a quilt, moving her lips as if in prayer. Julia knelt beside her with an IV needle. She tapped the woman’s arm with her forefinger and tried to make a vein appear. No luck. She moved over to the other arm.
“You feeling okay, Nicky?”
“I’m fine.”
“Keep drinking water. You don’t want to get sick.”
A young woman in a flowery dress sat a few feet away from us holding her four-year-old daughter in her arms. The little girl was barely breathing and her body was limp. Without really thinking about it I knew that the child was going to die. The woman pressed her daughter against her body as if her own life could filter through cloth and skin. The child’s open hand and faded red dress, her mother’s hopeless expression, created a perfect photograph. I would like to say that I cared about them, that I felt compassion, but at that instant my only thought was, Don’t move until I get the shot.
I pulled out my camera, switched on the auto-advance, and placed mother and daughter in the middle of the frame with the blue sky as a background. I moved forward a step. The click-clicking of the shutter sounded like an obscenity.
Julia looked angry. “Put the camera down, Nicky.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop being a photographer for five minutes. We’ve got to help these people.”
“Dr. Cadell!” Sergeant Gurung shouted. “Please! I must talk to you!”
Gurung stood over an army radio, adjusting the knobs. “One of the vehicles has broken down and they’re trying to fix the engine. If they don’t come back for us, we need to return to Dili.”
“These people need a doctor,” Julia said.
“You can’t stay here alone. We must go back to the city.”
Ten minutes later Gurung called us back to the radio. The reception was bad and the radio voices had to contend with static and a popping noise. Lieutenant Mitchell was doing most of the talking and he spoke in a clipped British manner that barely concealed his tension.
“Command, this is Delta One. There’s a sniper here. Possibly two snipers. We’re under fire.”
• • •
I STAYED NEAR the radio and listened to the sporadic conversation between Jenkins and UN command. The British had taken cover in the ruins of a power station and were trying to find the sniper. Jenkins asked for helicopter support and was told that there were logistical problems. All the messages back and fort
h were short and full of military phrases, but Jenkins sounded angry. The Interfet officer in charge of the UN radio kept saying, “You were informed there was resistance in the area,” as if this one phrase absolved General Bates of any responsibility. Jenkins was told that the logistical problems would disappear the next morning. If the British forces had been foolish enough to leave Dili, then they could spend the night sleeping in the rubble and swatting mosquitoes.
Sergeant Gurung listened to this final message and switched off the radio. “It’s politics, Mr. Bettencourt. Very much politics.” He said the word as if politics was in the same category as an earthquake or a hurricane.
All five soldiers came down to the beach and stood guard. The sun was just a hand’s width above the horizon. A light breeze made the tops of the palm trees sway back and forth. Daniel, Julia, and Sister Xavier returned to the pickup truck and we all drank some water. Julia was still wearing her surgical gloves and splotches of blood were on her khakis. If human souls have weight—some vague but perceptible mass—then she was carrying an immense burden.
Gurung came over to the truck and said it was time to leave. “Corporal Mainla didn’t see any of the militia, but they could still be in the area.”
“I counted three hundred seventy-eight villagers,” Julia said. “Twenty-five to thirty of them are in critical condition. They might die tonight.”
“It’s dangerous to stay here.”
“Yes, it’s dangerous. But we can’t just abandon them.”
She looked over at the villagers as if someone might be dying at that exact moment and she wasn’t doing anything to save them. Daniel touched her arm, then spoke to Sergeant Gurung. “Did you receive an order to return to Dili?”
Gurung hesitated, then shook his head. “It wasn’t a direct order. Captain Jenkins told us to protect you and shoot anyone carrying a rifle.”
“Could you decide to stay here?”
“I can’t speak for the others, Mr. McFarland. We must have a conversation.”
The sergeant led his men across the beach to the ruins of the pagoda. They sat on chunks of concrete with their rifles cradled in their arms. Battis passed around his cheroot cigars and everyone had a smoke. The Gurkhas discussed the problem and I felt like I was watching a village meeting in Nepal. Everyone got a chance to talk, even the younger men.
The western horizon was a luminous gold ribboned with red light. Waves came in with a soft hushing sound and the pebbles on the shore tumbled and clicked against each other. I hiked down the beach a few hundred yards and took a silhouette shot of the sunset and the palm trees and the walls of the destroyed restaurant. During the moment that I was taking the photograph, I forgot about the villagers; there was only light and shadow. When I got back to the tennis court, the Gurkhas had made a decision. Rai and Thapa began to open their field rations while Sergeant Gurung approached Julia.
“We will stay here tonight, Dr. Cadell.”
Julia relaxed slightly and she touched Gurung’s arm. “Thank you, Sergeant.”
“Battis and Mainla said that you would stay here without us and it’s our job to protect you. Private Rai said that he isn’t frightened of the militia and we would be cowards to run away. Private Thapa said that if the people at his village were sick he hoped a doctor like you would help them. And I said”—Gurung shifted his rifle around and looked embarrassed—“I said we must do this.”
The sun disappeared behind the hills and a cool breeze came off the ocean as the stars and sliver of new moon appeared in the night sky. Julia had brought along a flashlight and she borrowed another one from the Gurkhas. She and Sister Xavier moved among the refugees, paying special attention to the children. The two light beams came together for a few minutes, then wandered off in different directions.
Daniel finished unloading the supplies, then sat on the tailgate of the church truck. I went over and joined him. “Corporal Mainla said we could eat some of their rations,” I said. “One packet has deviled ham, crackers, and applesauce. The other has processed cheese and canned peaches.”
“Maybe later, Nicky. I’m not that hungry right now.”
I sat down beside him. The steel truck bed was still warm from the sun. “Julia would have stayed here without the soldiers.”
“I think so.”
“And Sister Xavier would have stayed because this is her village. And you would have stayed because of Julia.”
“What about you, Nicky?”
“I would have stayed because I’m a damn fool.”
“You’re a better person than you think you are. For some reason, you keep telling yourself that you’re not good enough.”
“Maybe that’s true.”
“Nobody is good enough, but we can still hope.”
Daniel began to talk about his farm at Bracciano. He wanted to plant some peach trees near the house but La Signora insisted that the trees would die. Did I know anything about peaches? If peaches could grow there, why not apples? I didn’t know anything about gardening, but I began to argue about winter frost.
A Timorese woman began screaming. The two flashlight beams, now weak and yellow, moved toward the sound. “Daniel!” Julia shouted. “Bring the truck down and turn on the headlights! Hurry!”
Daniel drove the truck down onto the beach and aimed the headlights at the villagers. The two beams were so bright and unexpected that the refugees shielded their eyes. Trying not to step on anyone, we walked across the tennis court and found Julia bending over the little girl in the red dress. The child was dead, but her mother refused to accept it.
“Ajudar-me!” the mother shouted. “Por favor, ajudar-me!” But we couldn’t help her. It took almost an hour to get the girl’s body away and cover it with a towel.
Some of the old people began to weaken. Julia hurried to each one, trying to defeat death with a few medical supplies. As we helped her I thought of the sand castles my sister and I used to build on the beach every summer. We’d guard our creations all afternoon from the attacks of other children, but then the tide came in and the relentless waves pushed over our walls, destroyed our towers.
Two more people died. Our flashlights began to weaken. The pickup truck was low on gasoline. Daniel talked Sergeant Gurung into driving the Land Rover down on the beach so that we could use the headlights. “Only for a short time,” he said. “If snipers are around, it’s not safe to shine a light.”
Moths and mosquitoes swarmed around the Land Rover’s headlights, bouncing against the glass. Julia moved into and out of the light as she tried to help an old man who was having trouble breathing.
“Is there enough petrol to drive the truck back to Dili?”
Daniel nodded. “What do you want to do?”
“I’ll stay here with Sister Xavier and the soldiers. I want you and Nicky to put six or seven of these people into the truck and get them to the airport.”
As she led us over to a sick old woman, a rocket-propelled grenade came out of the darkness and hit the Land Rover. All three of us fell to the ground, shielding our heads with our arms. When I glanced up the Land Rover was burning and three of the Gurkhas were lying on the sand. Private Rai was on his knees, his face covered with blood. Gurung was bending over as if someone had punched him in the stomach. He raised his rifle and fired down the beach.
There was a booming sound and a second RPG hit the Land Rover. The vehicle split apart and bright fragments of burning metal went spinning into the night. Gurung was knocked off his feet by the concussion. Gunfire. Bright flashes. And then the militia ran down the beach and came toward us. A man stood over Sergeant Gurung, pressed the muzzle of his rifle against the wounded man’s neck, and fired.
Some of the militiamen went over to the tennis court and shot a refugee woman who tried to get away. People were screaming. I raised my hands to surrender. A boy with braided hair swung his rifle and hit me in the face. I started to go down, but another man grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the burning Land Rover. I could taste b
lood in my mouth as Julia, Daniel, and Sister Xavier were pushed up beside me. A young man carrying an M16 approached us. He had a scraggly beard and wore a white yachting cap with a plastic brim. The other men were waiting for his orders and I realized he was Cristiano, the militia leader.
Cristiano screamed at us in Tetum. I glanced to my left. Private Rai and Corporal Mainla were lying on the ground. Both of them moved slightly, but the other three Gurkhas were dead.
In the light of the burning Land Rover, I could see Daniel’s face. He watched the militiamen fire a few more bursts at Sergeant Gurung’s body. I knew that he was considering every option, trying to figure out some way to save our lives. Daniel began to say something, but the boy with braided hair punched him in the mouth. Cristiano shouted a command and two men forced Julia to her knees. One of them took a long knife and slid the tip inside her T-shirt, ripping through the cotton fabric. Her shirt fell away, exposing her breasts and stomach.
The militiamen laughed and I realized what was going to happen. I tried to make my brain retreat to a safer place, to be the observer one step back, looking for a photograph. I watched the smoke and flames rising from the Land Rover, the dirty orange light, and the shadows moving across Julia’s bare skin. Her face was rigid and defiant as she willed herself to be brave, but her eyes kept jerking around, showing her fear.
“I must talk to Cristiano,” Daniel said to Sister Xavier. “Translate for me.” He took a step forward. “I have something you want, comandante. I have something.”
Sister Xavier translated the words into Tetum. Cristiano made a joke and the men laughed again.
“Cristiano says that you can’t trade this woman because she already belongs to him.”
“But I can give him the thing he really wants.” Daniel’s voice was urgent, pushing hard. “I can protect him. I can save his life.”
