Soldier N: Gambian Bluff

by David Monnery

  He would go and have a look, he decided, one part of his mind commending him for his thoughtfulness, the other thanking his lucky stars that he had come up with a good excuse to go out in search of adventure.

  It was almost six-thirty before Colonel Taal felt confident enough of the outcome of the fighting around the Presidential Palace to delegate its direction, and to head back down Buckle Street to the radio station for the prearranged meeting. Mamadou Jabang and his deputy, Sharif Sallah, had arrived in their commandeered taxi more than half an hour earlier, and the subsequent wait had done little to soothe their nerves.

  ‘What is happening?’ Jabang asked, when Taal was only halfway through the door. He and Sallah were sitting at either end of a table in the station’s hospitality room. ‘Has anything gone wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘The Palace is taken?’ Sallah asked.

  ‘The Palace is cordoned off,’ Taal answered. ‘Some of the guards have escaped, either down the beach or into the town, but that was expected.’ He sat down and looked at the two of them: the wiry Jabang with his hooded eyes and heavy brow, Sallah with the face that always seemed to be smiling, even when it was not. Both men were sweating heavily, which perhaps owed something to the humidity, but was mostly nerves. Jabang in particular seemed exhausted by the combination of stress and tiredness, which did not exactly bode well for the new government’s decision-making process. Nothing perverted the exercise of judgement like lack of sleep, and somehow or other all three of them would have to make sure they got enough in the days to come.

  ‘It will be light in half an hour,’ Jabang said.

  ‘And the country will wake to a better government,’ Sallah said, almost smugly.

  Taal supposed he meant it. For some reason he could never quite put his finger on, he had always doubted Sallah’s sincerity. Whereas Jabang was transparently honest and idealistic almost to a fault, Sallah’s words and deeds invariably seemed to carry a taint of opportunism.

  Maybe he was wrong, Taal thought. He hoped he was. Jabang trusted the man and there had to be easier ways to glory than taking part in the mounting of a coup like this one. Everyone knew their chances of lasting success were no better than even, and in the sanctum of his own thoughts Taal thought the odds considerably longer. Seizing control was one thing, holding on to it something else entirely.

  McGrath had decided that even in the dark a stroll along Independence Drive might not prove wise, and had opted for the long way round, making use of Marina Parade. On this road there was less likely to be traffic or headlights, and the overarching trees made the darkness even more impenetrable. He worked his way along the southern side, ears alert for the sound of unwelcome company, and was almost level with the Atlantic Hotel when two headlights sprang to life some two hundred yards ahead of him, and rapidly started closing the distance. There was no time to run for better cover, and McGrath flattened himself against the wall, hoping to fall outside the vehicle’s cone of illumination.

  He need not have bothered. The lights swerved to the left, disappearing, as he immediately realized, into the forecourt of the Atlantic Hotel. He wondered what the rebels had in store for the hundred or so guests, most of them Brits, and all of whom had come to The Gambia on package tours in search of a sunny beach, not the wrong end of a Kalashnikov.

  He would worry about that later. For the moment he wanted to make sure Sibou was all right. Hurrying on past the Atlantic, he came to the doors of the Royal Victoria’s Maternity Wing, and decided that it might be better to use them than attempt the front entrance. Ten minutes later, having threaded his way through the labyrinth of one-storey buildings and courtyards, he found himself looking across at the lit windows of the emergency department some twenty yards away. Several men were standing around inside, some of them bending down to talk to those who were presumably lying, out of sight, on the cubicle beds and waiting-room benches. One man was moaning continuously, almost forlornly, but otherwise there was virtual silence.

  Then he saw Sibou, rising wearily into view after treating one of the prone casualties. Her dark eyes seemed even darker, the skin stretched a little tighter across the high cheekbones, the usually generous mouth pursed with tension and tiredness. McGrath worked his way round the perimeter of the yard to the open window of her private office and clambered over the sill. He opened the door a quarter of an inch and looked out through the crack. The corridor was empty.

  Sooner or later she would come, and he settled down to wait, thinking about the first time they had met, a couple of months earlier, soon after he had arrived on his secondment. The circumstances could hardly have been more propitious for an intending Galahad. He had come to the Royal Victoria looking for the tetanus shot he should have had before leaving home, and found himself face to face with a room full of terrified Gambians, her half-naked on the floor and a man about to rape her at knife-point in full view of everyone else. All the old training had come instantly into use, and before he had had time to ponder the risks McGrath had used the man’s neck for a chopping board and his genitals for a football.

  The damsel in distress had been grateful enough to have dinner with him, but he had foolishly allowed himself to be a little too honest with her, and she had declined to be anything more than a friend. That had not been as difficult as he had expected, though he still dreamed of covering her ebony body with his kisses, not to mention her covering his with hers. But Sibou was great company even fully clothed, and he had even found himself wishing his wife and children could meet her.

  He could not remember being so impressed by someone’s dedication – in the face of such awe-inspiring odds – for a long, long time. She could have had a doctor’s job, and a doctor’s ample rewards, anywhere in the world, but here she was, in this ramshackle office, struggling to stretch always inadequate resources in the service of the ordinary people who came in off the street, and offering every one of them a smile almost beautiful enough to die for.

  McGrath looked at his watch. In twenty minutes it would begin to get light: where did he want to be when that happened? At the Atlantic, he decided, where there would probably be a working telephone and some chance of finding out what was happening. After all, now he had found out that Sibou was all right, there had to be more pressing things to do than watch her smile.

  He was halfway out of the window when she came in through the door. She jumped with surprise, then burst out laughing. ‘What are you doing, you crazy Englishman?’ she asked.

  He pulled himself back into the room, wondering how anyone could look so sexy in a white coat and stethoscope. ‘I’ve come to take you away from all this,’ he said grandly.

  ‘Through the window?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘And anyway, I like all this. And I’m busy,’ she added, rummaging around in her desk drawer for something.

  ‘I just came to check you were OK,’ he said.

  She turned and smiled at him. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What’s happening out there?’ he asked.

  ‘Out in the city? Oh, another bunch of fools have decided to overthrow the government.’

  ‘And are they succeeding?’

  She shrugged. ‘Who knows? Who cares?’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like Papa Jawara.’

  ‘I don’t. But playing musical chairs at the Palace is not going to get me the medicines I need. In fact I’m having to use the little I’ve got to patch up those toy soldiers in there.’

  ‘How many of them?’

  ‘About a dozen or so. We’re already running out of blood. Look, I have to go …’ She suddenly noticed the holstered gun inside his jacket. ‘What are you wearing that for?’ she demanded to know.

  ‘Self-defence.’

  ‘It will give them a reason to shoot you.’

  ‘Yeah, well …’

  She threw up her hands in disgust. ‘You play what games you want,’ she said, adding over her shoulder, ‘and take care of yourself.’
r />   ‘I’ll come back later,’ he called after her, although he was not sure if she had heard. ‘What a woman,’ he muttered to himself, and worked his body back out through the window. He retraced his steps through the sprawling grounds to the Maternity Wing entrance, crossed over the still-dark Marina Parade and scaled the wall of the grounds opposite. Five minutes and another wall later he was standing on the beach. Away to his right, over the far bank of the river mouth, the sky was beginning to lighten. He turned the other way, and walked a couple of hundred yards along the deserted sand to the hotel’s beach entrance.

  The kidney-shaped pool shone black in the artificial light, but its only occupant was an inflatable plastic monkey. McGrath walked through into the hotel building, hands in pockets to disguise the bulge of the Browning. In the lobby he could hear voices, and after a moment’s thought decided to simply take a seat within earshot, and pretend he was just one more innocent tourist.

  It was a fruitful decision. For five minutes he listened to two voices trying to explain to several others – the latter presumably the hotel’s management – that there was a new government, that the foreign guests would not be allowed out of their hotels for at least a day, but that there was nothing to stop them enjoying the sun and the hotel beach and the swimming pool. It was up to the management to make these rules clear to the guests. And to point out that anyone attempting to leave the hotel grounds risked being shot.

  Chapter 3

  ‘All authority now rests in the Revolutionary Council,’ said the voice coming out of the speakers. Someone on the hotel staff had channelled the radio through the outdoor hi-fi system, and around a hundred staff and guests were sitting around the hotel pool, listening to the first proclamation of the new government.

  ‘The Socialist and Revolutionary Labour Party, which was illegally suppressed during the regime of the tyrant Jawara, has contributed nine members to the new ruling Council. The other three members have been supplied by the Field Force, which has already proved itself overwhelmingly in support of the new government.’

  Oh yeah? McGrath thought to himself. Some of the bastards must have been in on it, but he doubted if it had been a majority.

  ‘The Jawara regime,’ the voice went on, ‘has always been a backward-looking regime. Nepotism has flourished, corruption has been rife, tribal differences have been exacerbated rather than healed. Economic incompetence has gone hand in hand with social injustice, and for the ordinary man the last few years have been an endless struggle. The recent severe food shortages offered proof that, if unchecked, the situation would only have grown worse. That is why the Council has now assumed control, so that all the necessary steps to reverse this trend can at once be taken.’

  The voice paused for breath, or for inspiration. What was the magic panacea going to be this time round, McGrath asked himself.

  ‘A dictatorship of the proletariat …’

  McGrath burst out laughing.

  ‘… a government of working people, led by the Socialist and Revolutionary Labour Party, will now be established to promote socialism and true democracy. This will, of course, take time, and the process itself will doubtless provoke opposition from the forces of reaction, particularly those remnants of the old regime who still occupy positions of authority throughout the country. In order to accelerate the process of national recovery certain short-term measures must be taken. Accordingly, the Council declares Parliament dissolved and the constitution temporarily suspended. The banks and courts will remain closed until further notice. All political parties are banned. A dusk-to-dawn curfew will be in force from this evening.

  ‘Guests in our country are requested, for their own safety, not to leave their hotel compounds. The Council regrets the need for this temporary restriction, which has been taken with our guests’ best interests in mind.’

  McGrath looked round at the assembled holidaymakers, most of whom seemed more amused than upset by the news. There were a few nervous giggles, but no sign of any real fear.

  ‘Oh well, we’ll be going home the day after tomorrow,’ one Lancastrian voice said a few yards away.

  Maybe they would be, McGrath thought, but he would not bet on it. It all depended on how secure the new boys’ control was. If it was either really firm or really shaky, then there was probably little to worry about. But if they were strong enough to keep some control yet not strong enough to make it stick, then these people around the pool might well become unwilling pawns in the struggle. Hostages, even. It could get nasty.

  The voice was sinking deeper into generalities: ‘… their wholehearted support in the building of a fair and prosperous society. It wishes to stress that the change of government is an internal affair, and of practical concern only to the people of The Gambia. Any attempt at interference from outside the country’s borders will be considered a hostile act. The Council hopes and expects a comradely response from our neighbours, particularly the people and government of Senegal, with whom we wish to pursue a policy of growing cooperation in all spheres …’

  So that was it, McGrath thought. They were expecting Senegalese intervention. In which case, it should be all over in a few days. He did not know much about the Senegalese Army, but he had little doubt that they could roll over this bunch. And then it was just a matter of everyone keeping their heads down while the storm blew itself out.

  ‘How did it sound?’ Jabang asked as they settled into the back seat of the commandeered taxi. A few minutes earlier two Party members had arrived from Yundum with Jawara’s personal limousine, assuming that Jabang would wish to use it. He had sent them packing with a lecture on the perils of the personality cult.

  Which was all to the good, Taal thought. And maybe riding round Banjul in a rusty Peugeot behind a pair of furry dice was a suitably proletarian image for the new government. At least no one could accuse them of élitism.

  ‘Junaidi, how did it sound?’ Jabang repeated.

  ‘Good, Mamadou, good,’ Taal replied. Jabang looked feverish, he thought. ‘We all need some sleep,’ he said, ‘or we won’t know what we’re doing.’

  Jabang laughed. ‘I could sleep for a week,’ he said, ‘but when will I get the chance?’

  ‘After you’ve addressed the Council,’ Taal said.

  ‘Just take a few hours. We’ll wake you if necessary.’

  ‘And when will you sleep?’ Jabang asked.

  ‘Whenever I can.’ But probably not for the rest of the day, he thought. Whatever. He should get his second wind soon.

  The driver arrived with Sallah, who joined him in the front. The street seemed virtually empty, but that was not surprising. Today, Taal both hoped and expected, most people would stay home and listen to the radio.

  ‘I must talk to the Senegalese envoy after the Council,’ Jabang remembered out loud. ‘Where is he at the moment?’

  ‘In the house where he is staying,’ Sallah said over his shoulder. ‘He has only been told he cannot go out.’

  ‘You will bring him to the Legislative Assembly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’ Jabang sat back as the taxi swung through the roundabout at McCarthy Square, his eyes darting this way and that as if searching for something to rest on.

  Watching him, Taal felt a sudden sense of emptiness. He had known Mamadou Jabang for almost twenty-five years, since he was fourteen and the other man was seven. They had grown up in adjoining houses in Bakau, both sons of families well off by Gambian standards. Both had flirted with the religious vocation, both had been educated abroad, though on different sides of the Iron Curtain.

  Taal had graduated from Sandhurst in England, while Jabang had received one of the many scholarships offered by Soviet embassies in Africa during the early 1970s. The former had worked his way effortlessly to his position in the Field Force, and only Jawara’s unspoken but justified suspicion of Taal’s political sympathies had prevented him holding the top job before he was forty.

  Jabang, on the other hand, had become
mired in politics, and had foolishly – as he himself admitted – allowed himself to overestimate Jawara’s instinct for self-preservation. The SRLP had become too popular too quickly, particularly among the township youths and the younger members of the Field Force, and in the early summer of 1980 Jawara had seized on the random shooting of a policeman to ban the Party. With all the democratic channels closed, the SRLP had spent the succeeding year planning Jawara’s overthrow by force.

  And here they were, driving to the parliament building behind a pair of pink furry dice, the new leaders of their country, at least for today. Taal felt the enormity of it all – like burning bridges, as the English would say. If the Council could endure, then he and Mamadou would have the chance to transform their country, to do all the things they had dreamed of doing, to truly make a difference in the lives of their countrymen. If they failed, then Jawara would have them hanged.

  The stakes could hardly be higher.

  ‘Junaidi, we’ve arrived,’ Jabang said, pulling him out of his reverie. Mamadou had a smile on his face – the first one Taal had seen that day. And why not, he thought, climbing out of the taxi in the forecourt of the Legislative Assembly. They had succeeded. For the moment at least, they had succeeded.

  He followed Jabang in through the outer doors, across the anteroom and into the chamber, where the forty or fifty men who had been waiting for them burst into spontaneous applause.

  Jabang raised a fist in salute, beamed at the assembly, and took a seat on the platform. Taal sat beside him and looked out across the faces, every one of which he knew. He had the sudden sinking feeling that this would be the high point, and that from this moment on things would only get worse.

  Jabang was now on his feet, motioning for silence. ‘Comrades,’ he began, ‘I will not take up much of your time – we all have duties to perform,’ adding with a smile: ‘And a country to run. I can tell you that we are in firm control of Banjul, Bakau, Fajara, Serekunda, Yundum and Soma. Three-quarters of the Field Force has joined us. I do not think we have anything to fear from inside the country. The main threat, as we all knew from the beginning, will come from outside, from the Senegalese. They have the treaty with Jawara, and if they judge it in their interests to uphold it then it is possible they will send troops. I still think it more likely that they will wait to judge the situation here, and act accordingly.