They would not cross.
The Americans dismounted and, through Kinyo, commanded the men to lead the horses across the river.
When Father joined the men surrounding the beasts, Corporal Quinlan wagged a finger at him, smiling.
‘He says not you,’ Kinyo said. ‘He’s got another job for you.’
The men plunged into the river, clucking and whistling and clutching the horses’ manes. The great beasts bared their huge teeth and shook their heads, dragging Juan behind them. We watched on the shore, Father, Kinyo and me, standing slightly away from the Americans.
It took an age. The animals shied in the crashing water, their hooves beating down on the boiling swirl. Juan gurgled in the water, half swimming, half drowning.
At last the men and horses emerged on the other side. The horses wandered off calmly to crop the grass in the shade, Juan still stumbling behind them. The lowlander threw himself on the ground next to the beasts, eyes closed, his chest rising and falling.
The men sat on the grassy banks, eyeing us on the other side. What next?
Corporal Quinlan whispered instructions into Kinyo’s ear. My brother’s cheeks suddenly tinged with red.
‘What’s wrong? What did he say?’ Father said.
Kinyo swallowed. ‘He said … squat.’
‘Squat?’ I said. ‘Are you sure? What for?’
‘He says they-they-they don’t want to get th-th-their clothes wet,’ Kinyo began to stutter. ‘He says y-y-you must carry them over.’ Kinyo looked at Father with fearful eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’
Father was silent. Corporal Quinlan folded his arms across his chest and smirked.
Father nodded. He handed his digging stick to me, then unstrapped the basket of food from his back and gave it to Kinyo to carry.
He lowered himself onto his heels.
Across the river, the men sat up.
Corporal Quinlan swung one leg over Father’s shoulder. And then his other leg. Father rose easily even though the man on his shoulders was more than a head taller than him. The American grinned, swaying ever so slightly, his hands on his hips, surveying the world, as Father stepped into the water, planting every foot with care.
I avoided Father’s eyes. It would shame him to see me looking. But I needn’t have bothered. Father’s eyes were resolutely fixed on the opposite shore.
Five times Father had to cross the river, carrying each American across then returning to fetch another.
I tried not to watch, concentrating on making my own way across with Kinyo, who was holding our provisions basket above his head while I carried Father’s digging stick high above the water. When we got to the other side, the men had turned their backs to the river so as not to watch Father’s humiliation.
When all the Americans were across, they stretched their arms and twisted this way and that to soften their bodies before climbing back up onto their horses. They were smiling. Crossing the river had put them in a good mood.
Corporal Quinlan led his horse to the front of the column. He was just about to mount when somehow his eyes settled on Kinyo and me. He smiled, reaching into his pocket.
I did not expect it. He held something out to me and I was so surprised I reached up and took it. It was square and small and wrapped in something that was not fabric. Kinyo accepted his with a bright smile.
‘The Americans call it “fudge”,’ Kinyo said, ‘Just take the wrapper off like this.’ He grabbed mine and quickly stripped away the thing that was not cloth to reveal a brown coloured square. He handed it back to me then unwrapped his and popped it straight into his mouth. ‘It’s delicious!’
I suddenly realized that the American had not mounted the horse. He stood there, smiling, as if he was waiting for something. As if the sticky brown square in the palm of my hand was something I had always wanted. As if I should show him gratitude after the way he had treated Father and Luki. I felt something sharp stabbing in my gut. It was the angry spirit.
The angry spirit closed my fist over the sweet and made me draw back my arm. Then it made me throw the fudge, as hard as I could, into the American’s face.
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It struck him hard enough to make a thin little noise as it bounced off his nose. The smile slowly dripped from the American’s face and a tiny red fire flickered in his eyes.
What had I done? The angry spirit was gone instantly, replaced by a horrible sense of dismay. Kinyo was staring at me, his mouth open so that I could see a tiny, uneaten piece of fudge still on his tongue.
Suddenly Father was there. He squeezed into the space between me and Corporal Quinlan, shouldering me away as he crouched, his head bowed, hands uplifted in supplication. He was mumbling in a voice I had not heard him use before. It was a begging voice, full of fear and weakness and submission.
‘Please, please, my son is only a child. Translate, Kinyo! Please, my son does not know what he’s doing – please forgive him. Kinyo! Are you translating? It was just a naughty impulse – I will punish him for it, I promise. Please forgive, forgive, forgive.’
And I watched my father, our village’s greatest warrior, bend down and touch his forehead on the American’s foot.
The American said nothing. He carefully removed his foot from under Father’s forehead and, turning, mounted his horse. Father remained where he was, as if he felt that the shame he had endured was still not enough.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw the horrified looks on the faces of the men behind us.
Corporal Quinlan kicked his horse and the column began to move off.
Only then did Father get back onto his feet.
The Americans chose a treeless place to stop for the night, where the dirt was packed and hard, as if it had not rained forever. The moon had long risen by that time, and the black of the sky was hung with thousands of stars, tiny and glinting like fireflies in a tree.
Corporal Quinlan summoned Kinyo to his side and, gathering us all together, he told us we would be arriving at our destination before the end of tomorrow morning. He said we would have to dig a trench and then explained at length how he wanted it done, such-and-such a width and such-and-such a depth and how the bodies of the dead would be neatly stacked and how, afterwards, we could fill the trench with soil and stone. Afterwards, he opened his box of fire sticks and began handing them out again, one to each man. Father joined the queue of men and smiled and thanked the American with an ingratiating little bob of his chin. It made me feel sick to see it and I pretended to be busy searching for something in our provisions to avoid being invited to the queue – I had no desire to look into the American’s face. When Kinyo joined me later, he was holding up his own fire stick and chewing on another piece of fudge.
Fires were built – we had ours on one end of the clearing while the Americans built theirs on the opposite side. Funnily enough, nobody attempted to use a fire stick to light the fire. Perhaps everyone was saving its magic to show off at home. Then the men settled for the night, squatting in the dirt to eat, or unrolling their blankets and curling up to sleep.
I was hungry after our long day of walking, but I could barely eat the rice, parcelled in banana leaves, that Father offered from his basket
Father sent Kinyo to ask the Americans if he should organize a rota to keep watch through the night. But this only made the Americans argue amongst themselves, at the end of which Corporal Quinlan told Kinyo that they would keep watch; they didn’t need any help from our men. Later, Kinyo said Corporal Quinlan had warned the other two that he didn’t trust us not to run away.
I looked at Father to see what he thought about it. But there was a great shadow lying on his face.
Running away sounded like a good idea, I thought, wearily. Leave the Americans to bury the men they murdered.
Soon everyone was spread across the clearing like so many stones. Father, Kinyo and I lay together in a far corner. I could feel every bone of Father’s spine against my back and Kinyo’s elbow lay just short of my nos
e. I stared across the huddled bodies at the horses silhouetted against the fire. Somewhere in the darkness, Juan was still tied to the horse.
The others were soon asleep, their snores combining with the steady trill of night crickets. The star-spattered sky pressed down on our heads and I could feel the ache of the day in my limbs, but sleep would not come.
To think I was only supposed to retrieve Tambul’s head. But now here I was.
And then, perhaps, I slept because when I opened my eyes Kinyo’s knees were needling into the small of my back. I reached out to touch Father. He wasn’t there.
‘Please.’
It was a whisper somewhere in the blackness.
Hairs rose on my arms as I peered into the night. There was someone standing in the middle of that field of bodies, head thrown back as if he was searching for something in the night sky. He held his arms out like a toddler begging to be lifted up.
‘Please.’ The word caught in a sob, deep in his throat.
It was Father’s voice.
Slowly, I got to my feet and crept towards him, stepping over slumbering bodies.
There was enough moonlight to see that his eyes were open. But they were blank as they stared skyward. And the muscles on his face were slack. His breathing was deep. He was dreaming.
‘Father?’ I whispered.
‘No,’ he murmured. ‘Not you!’
I looked over my shoulder fearfully, expecting to see the looming outline of Corporal Quinlan, waving his gun. But there was only the yellow moon and the glinting sky.
I took Father’s hand. He did not resist as I led him back to our sleeping place. He walked blindly, stepping on someone’s hand by mistake, kicking an outstretched leg. The sleeping men stirred and murmured at the disturbance but soon returned to their dreams.
I pulled Father down to the ground. He sighed as I pushed his head down. I lay myself next to him and stroked his arm, listening to his breathing deepen.
The ancients say one who walks in his dreams is walking in the realm of the spirits.
Not you, Father had said.
Not who?
When the Americans shouted us awake, the night crickets were still chirping and there was a veil of grey over everything.
Father was already sitting on his heels, eating a sweet potato from our provisions. His face was haggard, the lines on either side of his mouth deeply etched, and his eyes bloodshot.
‘I have boiled eggs here, for you and your brother,’ he said, holding out a banana-leaf parcel.
‘I’m starving!’ Kinyo cried, grabbing it eagerly.
‘Father, are you all right?’ I asked tentatively.
He looked at me, expressionless. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Last night, something woke me up … and you were dream-walking.’
I told him what happened, trying to make his eyes meet mine.
But Father turned his eyes away and fixed his gaze on the ground.
‘Do you remember what it was you were dreaming about?’ I said. ‘Why were you dream-walking?’
But now Father was on his feet. ‘Eat up, boys,’ he said. ‘We will be off soon.’ He set off to busy himself around the camp, rousing the men who had not yet awoken.
When we continued with the journey, he looked distracted, his eyes twitching everywhere, alighting on the stones under our feet and up the trees that walled either side of the trail, as if he was looking for something. Every unexpected noise made him startle.
Anger boiled in my breast. It was Corporal Quinlan’s fault. He had humiliated Father, making him carry them across the river when they were perfectly capable of crossing by themselves. In my mind I marched up to Corporal Quinlan and tapped him on the shoulder. Go away and take your guns with you! I yelled. Leave us alone!
But of course I did nothing of the sort.
By the time the sun had turned into a tiny white disc in the sky we had crossed yet another ridge to another mountain. This mountain was different from the others we’d passed through. There were no more green woods now. No more tiny threading streams, no more trees, no more wet, dripping moss.
It was hot, and the dry air sat in our throats like sand. We made a descent down a long trail made of narrow, sloping shelves of stone. The gravel under our feet moved and rolled like something alive, making the horses nervous. They whinnied and trembled, their hooves slipping and clattering. The Americans were forced to dismount and lead their horses.
A fat blowfly hummed near my sweaty head, its sticky wings brushing against my ear. Every time I tried to slap it, it darted out of reach. It didn’t take us long to realize that the blowflies were everywhere, circling the rumps of the horses, evading the slap and swish of their tails, humming in and out of the column of men, hovering close over our heads, getting into our eyes and mouths. There were so many it seemed as if the air had turned grey.
And then I noticed the stench.
We had endured many odours on the way: rotting leaves, stagnant water, dung in all its odorous stages, animal urine. But this was different.
At first the men behind us laughed and teased each other, demanding to know who had relieved himself so stinkily right on the trail, but very quickly the smell became so pungent they had to stop their joking and cover their noses.
The Americans shouted something at Kinyo and my brother turned to Father.
‘We have arrived.’
The steep slope led down to a flat clearing that narrowed to a cut between two mountains with only enough space for a single horseman to pass through. Where were the bodies? There was nothing in the pass but grey logs scattered everywhere and small black clouds of blowflies hovering over everything.
And then I realized. It was not wood that was strewn across the rock but dead men. The blowflies were feasting on the dead.
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These corpses are just empty shells, I told myself. Their souls had fled long ago. Besides, I never knew these dead men. They were nothing to me.
And yet at the sight of those flyblown bodies, a terrible sorrow cut into me. It thrust deep into my belly then twisted up to spear my heart. I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle the sounds suddenly bubbling up my throat. But it was no use. Tears were streaming from my eyes and when Kinyo asked, ‘What’s the matter, Samkad?’ I could only shake my head, clamping my lips tightly together to stop the howl threatening to escape.
‘Sam?’ Father’s voice was gentle. I felt his hand on my shoulder.
I pulled away, ashamed of my tears. I wanted to run away and hide, but now my knees were shaking and I had to crouch down on my haunches, both hands covering my mouth, my wet face hidden in my shoulder. These were not our dead! Why did my eyes want to weep for strangers? I rubbed my nose on my shoulder and wished that I had never come.
‘Corporal Quinlan is asking what is the matter,’ Kinyo whispered. ‘What should I say, Father?’
Father didn’t answer. He just knelt and put an arm around me. It was a comfort – even though the day was too hot to be so close to another human being – the grief in my throat stilled.
‘I want to go home,’ I mumbled.
Father held me closer. ‘Not long now and we will be going home,’ he said gently, ‘When today is finished, we will return to the forest and the Americans will show us where they buried the Mangili. Then we can take Tambul’s head back. Bury him complete. So that his soul will find peace in the world of the dead.’
The Americans’ voices were rumbling all around us now. ‘They’re getting impatient!’ Kinyo said urgently.
‘Tell them …’ Father paused to think. ‘Tell them to go ahead, but Sam will remain here. We don’t need him to help with the digging. And when the Americans no longer need your tongue, I want you to return and keep your brother company.’
Kinyo spoke Father’s words … and the Americans laughed. The sound made me squirm with shame, and fresh grief stabbed so deep that I almost cried out. I heard Corporal Quinlan speak, his deep voice light with amusement.
/> ‘What is he saying?’ Father said angrily. ‘Why are they laughing?’
‘He says,’ Kinyo’s voice broke, ‘why are your children so squeamish when you people thrive with the stink of death? He says if we don’t mind displaying a headless corpse then our children shouldn’t mind a few more dead bodies.’
For a heartbeat, Father was silent. It filled me with an awful terror. What if Father leapt up to defend our honour only to be murdered by American guns? But he just leaned close and whispered in my ear. ‘Stay here, son. Do not let this trouble you. It is right to mourn the dead.’ He patted my back and stood up.
And so there I remained, crouching by the side of the trail, as the men processed down to the desolate pass where they would have to dig a grave deep enough to contain so many dead. I could not bear to return their curious glances so I threw my arms over my head.
When the sounds of passing feet had long passed, I attempted to stand. My knees were still soft and I stumbled a little as I crossed to the shadow of a boulder where I could wait for Kinyo to join me. I lowered myself carefully to the ground. Sorrow was a kind of pain, I realized. I could feel its wound, deep inside me, heavy and burning. Perhaps the death of Tambul had been the first cut. Perhaps losing my friend had made it easier for me to mourn total strangers.
It was a long, narrow incline to level ground. I could see vast wet patches of sweat blooming on the blue of the Americans’ clothes. The heat made the odour of decay even more intense and they were holding squares of cloth over their noses. The Americans were shouting their commands even though nobody could understand them until Kinyo had translated their words.
Some of the men had already begun to dig, their bodies glinting with perspiration. The others were dragging corpses into piles, scattering the clouds of flies.
I’d never seen a place like this. The mountains huddled too close, sheer walls of stone plunging down to the rocky landing below. No gentle inclines here – everything was straight up and straight down, and anyone could see that it was a trap, that it was not a place that was easy to flee. You could only double back on the steep incline we’d arrived by or slip out through a narrow passage between two fingers of black stone where the horses were grazing on a stubble of brown grass. How did anyone come to decide this was a good place for a battle? It was only good for death.
Bone Talk Page 13
