I can see his body jerk strangely as he sees us.
He remains sitting for a short while, then makes a sign to one of the men. The man walks up to him all respectful. The hooded man bends, on account he is much taller, and whispers through his shawl in the man’s ear.
The man looks a bit upset.
He turns round and asks us how we got there and if there is someone else following us.
We give a quick glance at Hena. His eyes follow our eyes and his mind follows our mind.
‘No, she didn’t tell us anything,’ he says.
If Hena don’t want to say nothing Hena don’t say nothing. We all know that.
‘We followed bits of food. We picked it up as we came along so there isn’t any trail left,’ says Matt, which is true enough as the wind keeps blowing the footprints off the sand as soon as they’re made.
The man looks a little less upset now.
The hooded man whispers something else in his ears and they both walk out of the room through another crack in the rock wall, to the right of the one which we came through.
One man remains in the room with the three of us.
There is no sign of the white folk.
‘How did you get here, Spirit of a witch?’ I say, trying to look angry though I am really full of wonder at what Hena can do and know.
‘Same way as you, I hope,’ says Hena. ‘I nearly missed the crack in the rock. I tore up a piece of my shawl and stuck it there to help you. I see that you found it.’
Now I’m really angry at Hena. I should truly be thankful to her.
One of the men in jeans comes back.
He is looking at us with a new look in his eyes.
‘Why have you followed us here?’
‘To meet you,’ says Matt.
‘And why do you want to meet us?’
‘We want to ask you a favour.’
‘And what is the favour you would like to ask us?’
This is getting us nowhere, I say to myself.
‘We want you to give the white folk back to us.’
‘How do you know the white folk are with us?’
‘Because you took them from us only a short while ago.’
‘How do you know we took them? You couldn’t have seen our faces as they were covered.’
Matt says nothing to that.
The man understands his mistake, but it’s too late.
‘And why do you want us to give the white folk back to you?’ he says at last.
‘Because they are our friends. And we think you are our friends. Friends shouldn’t take away their friends’ friends.’
It’s getting worser by the breath.
The man seems to think this over.
‘Are you hungry?’ he asks after a while.
I am, after all that walk. But Matt says, ‘No thank you.’
I hate him.
‘No thank you,’ says Hena.
I hate her.
‘No thank you,’ I say.
The man looks at us with a smile, then turns round and disappears into the rock. He is gone for a long time.
The man with us in the room says nothing at all.
I start getting more and more worried.
At last the other man returns.
When he comes back he has this huge paper bag in his hand. I think maybe he’s got some food for us. My mouth waters like the river in the rains.
But he don’t give us anything.
He just stands there all quiet for some time.
‘Don’t you ever sleep?’ he asks, looking from one to the other.
‘He don’t,’ I say, pointing to Matt.
The mention of sleep brings back with power my sleep which had been chased away by fear and worry.
‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll let you go back home now as your family will be worried. They might think you’ve been taken as well. Then come and see us in the morning and we’ll talk it over. That fair enough?’ he says, again looking our way from one to the other.
Sounds fair maybe, but the thought of walking the long walk back in the night, maybe losing our way without the trail, and then walking the long walk back here again, it nearly kills me with its weight.
The man seems to think what I think. He must have a cruel mind for he seems to enjoy it. He cuts his face in two with this big grin and says, ‘All ready to walk back then? I’ll see you out.’
I can tell by Matt’s face even he don’t think it is funny. Nor does Hena.
‘Can’t we settle the matter now?’ Matt says. ‘We are in no hurry to go.’
‘I am afraid that’s not possible. There are a lot of things to be talked over. It’s not quite as simple a matter as you might think. You’ll have to come in the light of the day when we’ve all had time to rest and time to think. I’m tired even if you aren’t.’
Like hell we aren’t! I think. But I say nothing.
I think he’ll have pity on us and ask us to sit down for a while or bring us some water to drink or something, but he don’t.
‘Let’s go,’ he says, and walks past us making a sign for us to follow.
We go back into the narrow passage, but instead of turning left – the side we came from – we turn right.
We keep walking through the unlit craggy break in the rock till we come out into the moonlit plain. There are many trees and high bushes this side of the mountains.
The man takes us towards one of the larger trees. Underneath is a green jeep. With a happy smile he pushes us up in it. He gets in himself in the driver’s seat.
‘Have you ever ridden in a jeep before?’
‘Only once,’ says Matt.
That was the time we were brought home from Gonta by a friend of Kofi, after the air attack.
The man is a bit disappointed to hear that. He’d wanted to thrill us by what he thought would be our first ever jeep ride.
We’re thrilled plenty anyway and he can see that. He soon forgets his disappointment.
He gives us the bag he holds in his hand. ‘Here, something for you to eat while I get you home.’
He takes us to the outer edge of the village, close to our little tree by our little hill. We pile out one by one.
‘I will come here to pick you up tomorrow when the shadows are no shorter than up to that stone over there. Wait for me if I’m late. But don’t be late yourselves. I can’t afford to hang out here for long.
‘We’ll talk about your white folk when we get back to our place. In the meantime they’ll be well looked after. Don’t worry. Take care, and don’t get into any trouble.’
So saying he drives away, waving cheerfully as he goes.
Early next morning Matt’s Dada takes him to the fields to help him clear the furrows. My Mam wants me to sift grain out of dirt and sand she and big sister have been gathering from the old fields over the last many days.
We do what we can as quickly as we can and as best we can; and then we rush to our little tree by our little hill. We were hoping to take Golam with us but as we’re getting late we make a run for it.
Hena is sitting there.
‘If you say “You took your time coming, didn’t you?” once more, I’ll jump into the river and not come up,’ I say to Hena.
‘You took your time coming, didn’t you?’ says Hena to me.
That cuts me up.
‘See you at the bottom of the river when it dries,’ says Matt.
I don’t think that’s a nice thing to say.
Even Hena don’t think it’s a nice thing to say.
‘I don’t think that’s a nice thing to say,’ says Hena.
‘You started it,’ I turn on Hena. I’m still cut up with her sharpness.
‘I started it! I?’ goes Hena. ‘You asked for it.’
Maybe I did, but I’m not about to say I did. Nor can I say I didn’t.
So I keep my mouth shut, though I’m not happy about it.
The shadows are getting shorter. Much shorter than what the man ha
d said. But he still don’t turn up.
We’re getting worried. We’re getting worried why he don’t come.
We’re also getting worried the school Master don’t send anyone looking for us – everybody knows where we hang about.
We start wishing we’d gone to look for Golam.
Somehow it’s not best without him. He don’t say much bit it’s good to have him around.
‘If the man’s going to be long I think I might as well go and get Golam,’ I say.
Matt don’t look too sure one way or the other. He wants Golam to be here but he also wants us to wait in case the man comes and wants to go back at once.
Just then we see him coming. Not raising sand from the east but crunching earthy soil from the west.
He’s looking much more thoughtful than last night.
He don’t say much, just helps us into the jeep and drives along with a frown on his face. Maybe it’s because the sun’s in his eyes. But we can tell there’s some difference. And not a happy one.
In the light of the day and on the jeep we get to the hiding place in no time at all.
We don’t notice the hollow plain where the jeep was kept until we are upon it. It is hidden away so well by rocks and trees and shrubs that even the man has to slow and look carefully about before finding his way in.
We are truly surprised to see the place now that we can see it properly. There is almost a little village in there, with a few straw huts and even two small stone buildings – all flat and low and hidden under trees and behind tall bushes and in the belly of the mountains.
We get off the jeep and the man tells us to follow him.
We seem to be going towards the opening in the rocks leading to the cave room we were in last night.
The shadows are still long but shortening fast. The chill of the morning is still in the air though the heat of the noon is not too far off.
All is still and silent.
Suddenly Matt stops. He stretches out his hand, grips my wrist and holds me back as well.
I can see his whole mind is leaning towards one side of the ground. I can’t tell what it is but I can tell his whole mind is taken up with it.
‘Come on, let’s go. We’re already late,’ says the man.
By the nervous way he looks around I think he knows what Matt has seen or heard. He wants to hurry us out of there.
By now even I can tell there is something in the air. Strange soft sounds. I can’t tell if they’re human or animal – or just wind in the bushes.
Hena is listening, a funny look on her face, eyes turned to glass.
Matt’s whole body which was stone a breath ago turns to wind.
He rushes past us all in the opposite direction, practically pulling my arm out of its socket on account he is holding my wrist. I’m left with no choice but to follow.
Hena runs with us as well.
The man tries to catch hold of us one by one but we slip out of his hold.
By now we are in front of a large stone room the size of a medium house.
Matt runs in followed by me. The man has managed to grab Hena and carries her with one arm trying to stop her from screaming and shouting with the other hand. He don’t know whether to come in after us with Hena struggling or just take her away. He settles on taking her away.
Inside the stone room three men are hanging by their arms from the ceiling. They are not wearing much. There are spotted green clothes lying about on the floor.
Also on the floor, beneath each man, is a big box with high sides and an open top. In every box there are three snakes. If the men let go their hold they will fall into the box with the snakes. Not just that. They have to keep pulling themselves up, for fear if their feet dangle too low the snakes will rear up and bite.
The men are gagged but they are still making muffled sounds: half squeaky and sharp, half rough and gruff. Sounds that stopped Matt on our way to the caves.
Standing in front of the dangling men, holding a big ugly gun, is the man in the white robe, the man we saw last night. He still has his shawl round his head and face, but he turns sharply when he hears us enter and it slips, showing his face.
‘Not you again,’ he says.
The voice and the face look familiar, but I cannot be sure who they belong to.
‘I think you were expecting us,’ says Matt.
‘Not in here I wasn’t,’ replies the man.
I remember. It is the poor man we saved from the green soldiers more than two years ago.
‘You shouldn’t be doing that,’ says Matt.
The man looks partly embarrassed, partly annoyed; mainly just taken aback.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he says.
‘Do you know who they are?’
‘You still shouldn’t be doing that.’
‘Do you know what they have done? They have taken men, women and children from Nedika only last night. They have killed at least sixty people and thrown their bodies in the only water-hole in the village! Can you understand that?’
Matt’s eyes are filled with pain and anger and sorrow.
‘You still shouldn’t be doing that,’ he says.
‘I’m trying to find out where they have taken the people they have taken, strong men who were providing food for their families, mothers with children left behind, children with their mothers left weeping. Can you understand that?’
Matt is silent for a long time. He is having difficulty breathing. He moves back to the stone wall and leans against it.
‘You still shouldn’t be doing that,’ he says.
They both stand silent, looking into one another’s eyes, bodies turned to stone.
Neither bats an eyelid or moves a finger.
I hear the snakes hissing louder than the wind flying through the cracks in the stones.
The eyes of the three soldiers dangling from the ceiling with their hands bulge so I fear they’ll fall out of their sockets into the snake boxes. I’m not sure they are breathing any more.
The man and Matt keep looking into one another.
Gradually the man’s body relaxes, his arms hang lower, his head looks up at the three soldiers.
He pulls the shawl from round his head and chucks it on the floor.
He moves forward and puts back the lids on the snake boxes and kicks them to one side.
‘Their biting teeth were removed anyway,’ is all he says.
The soldiers keep hanging for a while, then let go and steady themselves on the floor.
The man kicks their uniforms towards them.
In slow, jerky movements they start getting dressed.
Matt walks up to them.
‘Where have you taken the people of Nedika?’ he asks.
One of the men takes a paper and pencil out of his pocket and draws a map showing where those and some other kidnapped people are kept. He also tells when it will be best to try and save them. The time when most of the soldiers are either resting or out on raids with only a few left to guard. But he says we may not find all the captives living.
The man slides down on the floor in one corner and holds his head in his hands.
Matt goes and sits down beside him. He puts his arm round him and runs his fingers through his hair.
‘What are you going to do with us now?’ says one of the soldiers.
‘We are no use to them any more,’ says the second.
The third says nothing.
I think they are going to make a run for it but they don’t. I expect they haven’t the nerve left after their fight.
The man gets up from the floor and leads us out of the room, locking it up after him.
‘We’ll take them out tonight and leave them in the middle of somewhere to get back to wherever,’ he says. ‘If some villagers get them before they can get to their friends it’s their bad luck. I can do no more.’
On our way to the caves Matt stops again.
‘What now?’ I say in my moaniest voice.
‘Can I
go and let the snakes out, please?’ says Matt to the man.
The man don’t know whether to be angry or amused.
‘Oh all right,’ he says, ‘but don’t go on your own.’
He makes a sound like a dove and suddenly from behind the bushes or from inside the caves – I’m not sure which, it happens so fast – four or five men come out and walk towards us. They are wearing blue shirts and blue jeans.
To our left I hear a scuffle and many shouts.
It is Hena running towards us, followed by two men. They slow down when they see us and let her join us.
‘She’s quite a fighter, that little girl of yours,’ one of the men says when they get near us.
It seems they’ve all been kicked good and hard and bitten deep and sharp by our Hena.
The man who brought us in the jeep has actually gone to put some sticky plaster on one of his bites. She drew blood from round his neck and he don’t want it to get all over his shirt.
The man in the white robe says to two of the men, ‘Take these kids to the… that shack. Let them in. Here are the keys. Let them take the snake boxes out, but see the prisoners don’t escape. OK?’
He winks at us sadly.
We start walking with the two men to the stone room. Hena comes along with us.
We’ve just reached the door of the stone room when we hear this roar, getting louder by the breath.
Before we know it, it swoops down on us. There is one bang, then two more. Then fire and smoke and dust.
Hena, Matt and I fall on the ground, but the men remain standing; stunned.
Our eyes see the dust and the sand stretching out in front of us. Some of it is red. It is red where we left the man in the white robe and some of his friends standing. The man’s white robe is red too.
We want to get back to our feet but can’t and then can.
One of the men has rushed to his friends. The other is still standing there muttering something about the white man’s radio, over and over again.
The blast has blown away the door of the stone room. The soldiers are crouching in one corner, looking up in panic.
I don’t truly remember paying attention to any of it, but still I remember it. I don’t know how or why.
The soldiers have by now realised what has happened. Their shock turns to joy. They run out shouting happily. I remember seeing their wobbling bottoms.
Both the men who came with us are now kneeling by the bodies of their friends and their leader. The man we helped to live once; and now helped to die.
My Friend Matt and Hena The Whore Page 10
