SEAN OF THE CONGO

by Sean McCarthy

  Twenty bangs and bumps later — Shaggy still flying through the air in the rear — we were again by the main route, and our chauffeur slammed on the brakes and violently skidded the pickup to a halt. Thanking our Portuguese friend for his kindness, I undid my seatbelt and bounded enthusiastically from my secure comfort, only to witness a battered–senseless Shaggy crawling agonisingly from the back. Now bruised left, right and centre, my colleague still had the good grace to thank Trevor — although no more was he punching the air with his, “This is it! This is the Indiana Jones stuff!”

  One more day’s journeying and maybe we could be in Mambasa, a noteworthy milestone, as it was halfway between Goma and Kisangani and would prove to be a good incentive for both of us, particularly the waning Shaggy.

  We walked and walked and walked. Three hours passed. Nothing. Again my friend swore he was suffering too much to continue, and we were in the process of debating how much of a break the big girl’s blouse needed when fortune again sprang to our aid. Another huge truck was spotted heading in the direction we wished to travel. In flagging it down, we learned it was going to Bunia, which was to the north–east, not to the west as was Kisangani, but the driver was happy to take us as far as the crossroads at Komanda, some sixty miles. We accepted the lift and jumped onboard, consequently with the same agreement as Trevor’s pickup. By this I mean that, because the truck was loaded to the brim with both passengers and commodities, one of us had had to sit in the front, the other the back. That it was I who again managed to opportunistically attain the seat next to the driver, while in the back Shaggy was forced to sit on a small bag of nuts and bolts the entire eleven hours, which he later admitted were the most torturous of his whole life, may appear to be the product of a hidden agenda on my part — especially since he’d already perched on a metal box through to Butembo, and of course there was also Trevor’s pickup — but I assure you it just turned out that way (cough).

  The journey was a drawn–out affair and the hideous, undulating road hadn’t aided Shaggy’s grieving undercarriage any, although the sighting of pygmies, their males alone averaging less than five–feet in height, briefly cheered him.

  Along the way, the driver had to stop occasionally to drop off or pick up and pack in various produce and passengers, and it was most likely one of these characters who added to Shaggy’s growing list of grievances. Upon arriving in Komanda, he discovered his (borrowed) tent was missing.

  Red with anger, blister–footed, lacerated–lipped, battered–bodied, numb–buttocked Shaggy demanded the entire truck be stripped so he could find it, but the driver didn’t want to unload his many supplies until he’d made Bunia, seventy miles to the east, and closed his case by saying it was too dark to see anyway.

  “I’ll soon bloody well sort that out!” snapped Shaggy, tearing open his rucksack and producing his torch.

  The driver again protested, but when Shaggy remained unmoved he instead asked us to accompany him to Bunia, claiming that only there would they be able to search the truck properly. To further the idea, he offered to waiver the fee for the extra mileage: a humungous wrong move. After eleven hours of having his arse mangled by a bag of nuts and bolts, Shaggy wasn’t too keen on repeating the experience and, with figurative steam flying from his ears, reacted accordingly.

  “Why the fuck should i waste my time travelling to fucking bunia, probably picking up a fucking hernia on the way, when i’m only going to have to pay for some other fucking shithead to fucking well drive me back?!!!”

  I had got on well with the driver and couldn’t help feeling sorry for him — although this didn’t stop me from erupting with laughter — but Shaggy was having none of it and insisted, once again, that they move the entire cargo, or he would get the police (not that there were any). So they started to unload it.

  Attempting to use logic, I assumed the tent would be located in a corner that had recently been covered with hundreds of bananas. I tried relating this but couldn’t recall what ‘corner’ was in French (le coin, Sean, le coin), which resulted only in the crew staring vacantly at my “dans la corner”, even though I was vigorously pointing at the corner. Yet each time I looked at any of the crew to get confirmation of what I was trying to explain, I’d just find myself being gaped at by some completely nonplussed ‘dopey’ face.

  Frustration spilled over. Now it was my turn to lose my composure and grasping Shaggy’s torch I brutally ripped open my bag, threw half its contents across the floor, then with a salvo of gratified laughter maniacally grabbed my French phrase book and tore open the pages.

  There was no word for corner.

  Dejectedly, I gave up.

  Despite my failings and the complaints of the other passengers, Shaggy made the driver carry on searching until he got so bored he proposed to return our fare and call it quits. Whether the tent was still under some freight or had indeed been stolen, no one found out, as the vexed Shaggy decided to accept the deal and took back our Z 2,500 fare. Minutes later, the truck was reloaded and restarted, and we watched it melt into the night.

  Once the truck had disappeared Shaggy began grinning.

  “Why the smile?” I quizzed.

  “Oh, I knew the tent had been stolen.”

  “You knew! Then why on earth did you make him shift all those goods?”

  “I reckoned that if I kicked up enough of a fuss I’d get our money back. Worked didn’t it.”

  “You crafty…”

  With the truck gone and our pockets refilled, we looked around. Hmm, Komanda seemed familiar. Very familiar indeed. Ah yes, that’s because it gave me the same sense of unease that I had felt at …Goma.

  Groan.

  “Tell you what,” said Shaggy, “have you seen the film Papillon?”

  “Course I have. Steve McQueen on Devil’s Island.”

  “Think of the parade ground.”

  I had a hazy recollection of Henri Charriere’s eponymous hero on screen, but Komanda’s central square, a plaza of compressed dirt and encasing single–storey, canopied units, did have some semblance of the Devil’s Island image I had in mind.

  “Oh yes, I see where you’re coming from.”

  “Oh yes? You mean, oh no.”

  Double groan.

  The sense of unease was heightened when a couple of locals began pestering us for freebies, although our anxiety was probably owing as much to the want of light — only a few campfires lit the village. Either way, it was time to make a decision, and although we contemplated walking on, it was decided that our best bet was to stay where some form of protection was offered. So we sat by the crossroads hoping to thumb another lift, but none materialised. Come midnight, we gave in and rented another fleapit, the worst so far, its decaying walls and lack of windows contributing to the stale air and B.O. stench, while the principal look of grime was compounded by the two ancient beds' half–sticky, half–crusty covers. At least the door had a reassuringly strong lock.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE QUIET MAN

  In addition to a mutual though diminishing–by–the–day ignorance of Africa, as friends Shaggy and I naturally shared a number of interests and traits. Rainforest adventure aside, the interests included a love of sports, books, movies, debate, and also humour — whether bawdy or innocent, adult or adolescent, our humour ranged from wicked and exceedingly adult in content, to childish sniggering; Shaggy was always giggling. Our shared traits on the other hand included sheer bloody–mindedness. Another obvious similarity was a tendency to swear, and whilst I don’t excuse Shaggy or myself for our bad language — toned down here, to tell the truth — it is an element common to many like–minded men when away from the general public, in particular when as young and full of beans as we were. Add this to our being in an environment that wasn’t exactly a haven of creature comforts, and any habit you have becomes amplified.

  A third shared trait was an offshoot of the last two — a temper. Don’t get me wrong, we were both very easy–going people who could
be pushed and pushed without a reaction, but push that one time too often and, as chip–thief Limpet and this last driver had discovered, believe me you are going to know about it. Now bear in mind that even the closest of friends disagree every now and then, so when two stubborn alpha males find themselves plonked in a setting to which they are unaccustomed, blood may boil. In England, Shaggy and I had lived under the same roof for over a year and had never had one dispute. In Africa, where our emotions were taken right to the wire, it took just over two weeks for all that to change.

  The altercation began when Shaggy again insisted we stay put. He said he was struggling with his chapped lips and blistered foot and wanted to hang about in Komanda for a lift. My itchy feet, however, wouldn’t let me wait around doing nothing. Not when we could be walking, and certainly not for something I regarded as trifling. Did he have a broken leg? A punctured lung? Malaria? What is more, I knew from our training camp days that whilst Shaggy had a Mach One turbo–boost starter kit to what was a very formidable V8 engine, this was counterbalanced by his tendency to regularly switch off his motor altogether. Hence I expressed the opinion that he was just using his afflictions as an excuse for being a “lazy twat”, which kind of put the cat amongst the pigeons.

  A slightly ticked off Shaggy launched a retaliatory tirade, but I was having none of it, and to settle matters I simply upped my gear and set off — adding the odd “diddum doos” and “aww, has poor baby got blisters”.

  Incensed, Shaggy groped for his bag, dragged it on to his back and scampered after me. Discontented with the outcome, he pressed his case.

  “Why are you so pigheaded? You should consider every option.”

  “I have considered every option. Yours is a load of shite.”

  “You didn’t bloody well consider it long.”

  “It was that shite, I didn’t have to.”

  “This blister’s killing, you know.”

  “It’s a blister, not a fracture. Get over it and stop moaning.”

  “What! You’re the one who’s always fucking moaning.”

  “Yeah, and don’t you just keep fucking moaning about that.”

  The spat continued, each sentence laden with more venom, more antagonism, and more lewd words, until finally it concluded with the inevitable.

  “Right then, Sean, when we get to fucking Kinshasa you go your fucking way and I’ll fucking go mine!”

  “Too fucking right!”

  At that precise moment a vehicle rolled into view, and with it the argument was long forgotten and never mentioned again.

  We never bore grudges.

  The truck that rolled towards us did just that — rolled. This was due to the excessive overloading of merchandise, and to cap that, a throng of Zairians had somehow squeezed into a holding pen on top, like sardines in a tin. Thinking our chance of a lift more improbable than Albert the Bore winning a personality contest, I lamely dropped my thumb. But, hold on, what was this? Taking us both by surprise, the truck pulled over. Surely we couldn’t fit aboard this lumbering mass? Not only that but, on this undulating, pot–holed road, it would also be far too risky to travel atop such a contraption. Yet we were wrong, for the closer of two men sitting on the passenger side hung his head out of his window, plainly expecting us to start the negotiations.

  “Où allez–vous?” I asked.

  Apparently they were heading to a place called Isiro, in the north, but we could be dropped off where the truck turned, at Nia Nia.

  “Combien de kilometres?”

  “Cinq cents,” the man answered.

  500 kilometres equalled 311 miles. So far so good.

  “Combien zaires?”

  Unlike the “pay now” fraudulent passenger on the ride through the Virunga National Park, this man was evidently part of the team, and he proceeded to take out a tariff chart. The fee would be Z 5,000 each — in advance. Ten pounds was another fair old sum, but then again the probability of obtaining another lift seemed low. Even if someone else did come by, for all we knew they might want to charge more, and anyway, covering 500km would mean we would have to travel only half as much again and we would be in Kisangani. I took another look at the truck, which was a ten–tonne, six–wheeled Isuzu. Commonplace in Africa, they had a reputation for being robust and reliable, but this one’s goods were packed ludicrously high and, atop the cockpit, in a ‘sardine tin’ holding pen, sat ten locals, six of whom were very generously proportioned women.

  “What the hell,” I said, looking at Shaggy for conformation and getting an acquiescent shrug back.

  After paying as requested, we somehow burrowed in amongst the disgruntled passengers, all audibly grumbling at the thought of more sardines crushing into the tin.

  The driver, a stocky Zairian in his mid–thirties who appeared to be mixed–race due to his more European features and lighter skin tone — and who, for reasons that will unfold, I shall refer to as ‘Duke’ — slipped the gearstick into first and, with a heave and a splutter, the Isuzu chugged off down the potholed backwater road, which was even more churned up and dangerous than the one to Komanda. So much so that we constantly tottered all over the place; on many occasions the truck literally tipped over on to its outer wheels, leaving everyone to pray for a brief moment that it would fall back in the right direction. Thankfully it did, and we passengers would look knowingly at each other, unanimously gasping huge sighs of relief.

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, in various spots the ‘craters’ were so bad that it was impossible to get out of first gear, which only fuelled my impatience. I wanted to go—go—go, but my frustration found new heights when Duke stopped off at Apawanza. Powerless, I watched in horror as he dismounted the truck, placed a rug on the floor, himself on top, then fell asleep — for three hours.

  Argh.

  To add to the frustration, a quick scan of the area rekindled the wrong memory.

  “We’re back on Devil’s Island,” I said to no one in particular.

  Even so, with the arrival of necessity, and the reassurance that we were with the crew, I told myself to deal with it and went for a walk. Presently, I asked a local the whereabouts of a toilet, but he declined to tell me unless I put Z 100 in his hand (Shaggy later told me that I should have just shit in it). Sadly for him I was here as an explorer, so kept my cash and soon found relief in a nearby hut — I assumed it was a lavatory due to the hole in the ground. If not, my apologies to the owner. Thereafter I continued my ramble, but Apawanza was unfortunately no more than a hamlet, so all of five minutes later I rejoined Shaggy for a mind–numbing three–hour stint of marking time.

  During those long Apawanza hours we just lay around, under the scorching sun, listening to the heartrending screams of a lone monkey enclosed in a cage, not twenty paces from the wagon. Its crime: being caught. Its punishment: solitary confinement, probably for life.

  Finally Duke woke and remounted his vehicle, and we were back on the road to Kisangani.

  We had travelled quite some distance and had long since passed Mambasa, the halfway point, when Shaggy forecast, “If we get a move on we’ll be in Nia Nia by twelve. That means we’ll be in Kisangani by Monday night, with a bit of luck.”

  The Isuzu instantly blew a tyre.

  Now then, in the ‘normal’ world with which I was familiar, at this juncture one would merely substitute the defunct tyre with the spare — or call the breakdown service. Of course this was rural Zaire, so out came a ‘quick fix’ repair kit. This meant that, as well as the obvious fiddling about, we would also have to wait for the glue to dry. The whole shebang took no fewer than eight hours to fix. Eight painfully boring, watching–paint–dry hours.

  Aaaaaargh.

  Throughout that seemingly endless period we were, for part of the time, gratefully relieved of our boredom by a passing, well–travelled local who, belying the appearance of his tattered trousers and shirt, luckily spoke several languages, including English. Being something of a linguist wasn’t the fifty year–old’s on
ly boast, for he also claimed to be a gold prospector, which straightaway made two Englishmen’s ears prick up — especially those of Indian Jones wannabe Shaggy. Upon hearing that ‘Goldfinga’ was every bit as intrigued by our presence, he readily kick–started what turned out to be a lengthy chitchat, which had us relaying not only our Congo plan, but also an account of our lives to date.

  “Growing up my only interest was sport,” said Shaggy, closing out a dialogue of his upbringing and why he didn’t take A–Levels, strange as it was to hear anyone talking of such things deep in the jungle. “I did a few meaningless jobs but was then offered the chance to become a full–time athlete, which was how I met Sean.”

  In telling his story, I have to say that Shaggy sold himself a little short. After leaving school he had actually blended his “meaningless” jobs with the obtaining of sports–related qualifications — orienteering, gymnastics, swimming, weight–training, you name it. He was even licensed as an Oriental Concept of Fitness Tutor, whatever that was, before eventually becoming a track instructor at his local athletics club. Nor did he just coach; Shaggy participated too. But his preferred sport of running overshadowed a great natural ability in other fields, at one time or other reaching competitive standards in both football and cycling. As a matter of fact, when I first met the then nineteen–year–old Shaggy, not only was he a county 1500m champion (and threw so fluently with a set of ‘manky’ — one of Shaggy’s pet adjectives — darts that I often wondered how he might fair with bespoke ones) but for a laugh he would also soon enter an inter–counties javelin tournament and, with no prior training, win.

  Shaggy’s finale signalled my turn to spill all. Without wanting to shorten my account (we were trying to kill time, after all), I still glossed over a whole slew of specifics. Of how, as the son of a former RAF serviceman, I had spent toddler–time in places that included France and Holland. Of how over later years I had mixed numerous college courses with a range of backpacking episodes and meaningless jobs of my own. Of how, like Shaggy, I had indulged myself in a number of sports during my life, although it was athletics that had brought us together, in the shape of ‘Bournemouth’. Named after the town we had at the time moved to, Bournemouth was our shorthand for the athletics camp that we had been part of. The brainchild of a senior British athletics coach, Jim Arnold, the four–year project had started in 1984, “with the intention of getting a few half–decent athletes to live and train together, in the hope that at least one of us would make it to last year’s Olympics,” I told Goldfinga.