The Easy Day Was Yesterday

by Paul Jordan

  I see a small baby girl clinging to a pile of red meat that was clearly her mother only moments before. As I continue my run, I make a snap decision and I bend down and scoop up the girl. She screams with fright and then clings to me, tighter and tighter, as if the closeness would somehow protect her. Her grip on me tightens even more as the blast wave from each mortar slaps her face. The blast waves carry dirt and rock and pieces of metal that seemed to be continually fired into our bodies. I look into her face and she has tears forging rivers through her blood and mud-caked cheeks and there is nothing I can do. I feel helpless.

  I hear the salvo of mortars being fired and I fall as one lands too close. I get up and scoop the girl up in my arms. I stop running because the mortars are landing all around me. My path is blocked, I can’t move, there’s no-one left but me and the little nameless girl. I realise I’ve put the girl in danger; I wish I had left her where she was. Now she will die with me. The soldiers make themselves visible and take aim at me. I tell the girl I’m sorry, but she only looks at me with terror mixed with confusion in her eyes. What have I done? I can’t save anyone and manage only to get another person killed. ‘Fuck off,’ I yell at the soldiers, ‘you don’t need to do this!’

  ‘Jordo, wake up! Jordo, you’ve got an orders group in 10 minutes.’

  ‘Huh, what?’

  ‘Mate, you’ve been dreaming, you’ve got orders in 10 minutes.’

  I sat up and looked at the signaller who’d woken me.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Ten to three.’

  ‘Shit, all right, I’ll be there,’ I mumbled.

  The Sig wandered off to wake someone else as I sat in the dark trying to get my bearings. I looked at my watch: 2.55 am. Three hours’ sleep, excellent. That’ll have to do, I suppose. I hadn’t had a nightmare like that before. After the day’s delightful performance, it’s no wonder I was becoming a nutcase. While the nightmare was bad, the fact that one of these people had seen me during a weakened moment pissed me off more. I looked around as my vision improved in the darkness. Most people still slept, some stirred, and one or two were doing the same as me. I hoped I hadn’t yelled and carried on so that others could hear me. Jon was next to me, and he looked to be sleeping soundly and undisturbed; perhaps the demons hadn’t visited him yet, but if I hadn’t woken him perhaps I hadn’t been that loud after all.

  Captain McMahon had taken over now and told us that we were going back to Kibeho and were leaving at 5.00 am. I woke Jon at 4.00 am and we quickly refurbished the ambulance with IV fluid, giving sets, cannulas, bandages and, of course, gloves. Yesterday we were using the same set of gloves on as many people as possible. It wouldn’t matter if the gloves were covered in someone else’s blood —they’d only be thrown away when they were holed. The second CCP, commanded by George Donalec, was to go into the camp first today and Carol’s CCP was to arrive a few hours later.

  On Sunday 23 April, we re-entered the camp at around 6.30 am with the initial mission of counting the dead. As usual, we parked the vehicles in the compound and some members of the new infantry section (the infantry sections were taking turns at going into the camp) indicated to me a lot of dead just beyond the concertina wire. Jon and I stepped over the wire and approached a woman who was in the last stages of dying. There was nothing we could do for her, but she had a baby strapped to her back who was still alive. We released the baby, but she’d been caught underneath her mum all night and couldn’t walk. We gave the baby to a young woman standing nearby. The strange thing was that there were a lot of people standing around this woman, but no-one had helped. Most of the people were in a state of shock. We released a lot of babies that morning who were in a similar state. I found another baby attached to her mother’s back. I rolled mum over — she was clearly dead and had been so for several hours. I unwrapped the cloth around mum’s waist. There was a lot of blood. Maybe the baby was injured? I grabbed the kid and immediately dropped it again. The baby had been decapitated while strapped to her mother’s back; possibly a wild swing from a machete. I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen. The image of that baby still visits me.

  Before the count started, I took Scotty down to have a look at the hospital. Inside there were about 15 dead. We entered one room and a pregnant woman was lying on a mattress with a young boy at the foot of the bed. As we walked in, the young boy smiled and waved at us. After all this kid had been through, he was still able to smile. We couldn’t take him at that stage, but decided we would come back to get him and his mother later. We then went up the hill to look at the woman we’d seen executed the day before. She’d been shot through the chest and probably would have survived if we’d gone to get her. We continued on to have a look at the area around the helipad when an IDP jumped out of the long grass at us. He scared the shit out of me and I nearly shot the prick. This bloke kept grabbing us and mumbling something — he was shitting himself, poor bastard. Jon and I pushed him back into the long grass and indicated that he should stay there. We couldn’t take him with us. If the RPA had seen us walking with him they’d have taken him and shot him, so it was a case of ‘stay there dopey, until after dark’.

  Scotty took half a section and I took another and we walked each side of the road that divided the camp and counted the dead and wounded. On my side of the road I had the hospital that contained 15 dead, and then out in the courtyard there were 100 dead. There were a lot of children just sitting on piles of rubbish; some were sitting next to dead bodies. The Zambians were collecting all the live babies and children and handing them over to the Red Cross who had now arrived. The area was covered in rubbish and, quite often as I walked, I’d disturb some rubbish and find a dead baby. I counted 20 such babies, but obviously I couldn’t check under acres of rubbish. Every time one of the young soldiers called that they’d found another dead person I added another click to my pace counter. I came across another woman with a baby strapped to her back. I could see that the woman was dead, but hoped that the baby was still alive. I rolled Mum over and realised I had found another decapitated baby strapped to Mum’s back. I walked on; click, click.

  Along the road near the documentation point there were about 200 bodies lined up for burial. For some of the dead it was difficult, at a glance, to determine the cause of death. The blood had dried and was difficult to see against their black skin, or in their matted hair, but then I’d notice brain matter exposed, or ribs protruding, all caused by savage blows from a machete. The half-section and I saw a number of casualties lying and sitting inside some small huts that were being protected by the RPA. I told the infantry to watch my back and I walked down the small decline and approached the huts. My intention was to count the bodies and to get an idea of the casualties inside. The RPA soldier defending the group of dead waved his finger at me indicating that he wanted me to leave and leave now. I had a look at him and realised that he was actually about 13 years old. His uniform was too big and the AK47 hung very heavily in his hands. I waved off the soldier and stepped around him and, at the same time, heard the soldiers behind me remove the safety catches on their weapons. I turned around to see what the problem was and found myself looking straight down the barrel of the kid’s AK47. The child soldier had the weapon’s barrel about an inch away from the bridge of my nose. As I looked down the barrel I saw that the end was full of mud. I later wondered whether he had used it the day before in the massacre or whether he had dropped it in the mud overnight. I protested for a minute, but he held his ground, so I left it. Most times the RPA gave in if you pushed them, but with an AK47 in your face, you tend to leave well enough alone. I mentioned before that the RPA were terrible shots, but at a range of two centimetres, it’s hard to miss.

  We continued on and married up with Scotty’s party on the road. They’d counted many more dead than we had. Jon was with this other party and, as I approached him, I saw that he was carrying a very small baby. During the count, Jon caught sight of the baby in the corner of his eye in a puddle
of mud. I had a look at the little fellow and saw that he was very small; in fact the little bloke looked as if he was an hour or so old, and still had a long length of umbilical cord attached. I had an image of a poor woman delivering this baby while on the run. Jon and I wandered over to the Red Cross guys and handed them the baby. They’d set up a small tarpaulin off the side of their Nissan 4 x 4 to shelter the 15 or so babies and children they already had.

  Scotty and I met and agreed the total count was about 4000 dead and 650 wounded, but we knew we hadn’t counted them all. Neither group went down the re-entrant where so many were mowed down the day before for fear of unexploded ordnance or mines. We returned to the compound and set about helping the medics treat the casualties. Carol’s CCP had arrived, so we had the two doctors and more medics. This time, due to the limited gunfire, the medics set up the CCP outside the Zambian compound. We’d really gone from the shithouse to the penthouse: it was luxurious. We had the Unimog to work from which was loaded with medical stores and we had heaps of stretchers. The need for security wasn’t as paramount as it was the previous day, so the infantry were also assisting with treatment. This certainly beat working from the medical packs with our helmets and flak jackets on. With the manpower and trucks we managed to clear 85 patients.

  More and more NGOs started to fill the camp as well as military observers from various countries and, of course, the media. A Ghanaian Major asked Scotty and I to go to another area, not far from the documentation point, to collect some more injured. We collected two patients. One was a small boy of about 10 years of age who was lying under a tarp and, as I lifted the tarp, he looked at us and pulled it back down over his face. He looked as if he just wanted to curl up and die. He was laying in filth, had his year-old tattered shorts and torn shirt on and had a look in his eyes that just said, ‘Leave me alone, I’m done.’ I felt for the poor bloke — what an existence for a young lad. I just couldn’t image what he’d seen and been through or where his parents were. I lifted the tarp again and smiled at the young bloke. He stared at me and didn’t attempt to cover himself again. Maybe he thought that I couldn’t do any more to him than had already been done. I reached out and picked up his hand, patted it and nodded to him. I was trying to let him know that I was going to help him. I scanned his body looking for injuries and quickly saw the problem. He had an open fracture of the femur; the bone was clearly visible protruding beneath his shorts. We had to get him to the Major’s Hilux, so we used his tarp to make a stretcher and carried him. Obviously, when you’ve got a broken femur, any movement is excruciatingly painful and, quite understandably, he screamed in pain.

  The other patient was inside a small shelter and also had a broken femur. Scotty and I just picked him up and put him in the back of the Hilux. As expected, the man screamed the whole way. We took the two back to the CCP to be treated and loaded onto the truck. As I was driving back, I saw the RPA burying a lot of the dead, possibly to reduce the count. The Zambians also buried some of the dead, but at this stage it was only those around their compound.

  Brett Dick and Terry Pickard were tasked with collecting casualties from around the camp. They would identify the casualties and the infantry would deliver them to the CCP on stretchers, or they’d be brought in on trucks. A truck arrived and Jon and I jumped on the truck first to triage the patients. We found that two casualties had died in transit to the CCP and had been left on the truck. By that stage we had both, in our own way, learnt to live with the constant death and continued to triage those still alive with little concern for the dead. We even started to struggle to empathise with those badly injured. When you are constantly exposed to brutal death and horrible injuries by the thousands you tend to become less sensitive; you tend to pull the shutters down and block out the fact that these are real people. They had injuries varying from broken bones, to internal injuries, to gunshot and machete wounds, and they’d been delivered to us on the back of a truck. The pain alone probably killed the two already dead in the back of the truck.

  When the casualties on the truck were cleared, Jon and I went back into the hospital to collect the pregnant woman and her boy. She had a hard time walking and I thought she was going to deliver right then and there. She didn’t, and was lucky enough to be evacuated, with her son, by helo to Butare that day.

  Jon and I made only two trips to the helipad that morning. Shortly after the second helo landed, the pilot handed something to a journalist and received something in return (probably film). My RPA Major friend saw this and went off. He called me over as we were loading the casualties on board and said, ‘The helicopter will not leave until the pilot gives me the package he was handed.’ I thought he was playing with me, so I started to go through my now well-rehearsed banter, but he just looked at me and repeated, ‘The helicopter will not leave until the pilot gives me the package he was handed.’ I knew he meant business and I needed some new lines. I approached the helicopter pilot as Jon continued with the loading. ‘What the fuck have you got on board that you’re not supposed to have?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What did the journo give you?’

  ‘Nothing. He’s a UN photographer. I gave him some film, but he didn’t give me anything.’

  ‘I hope that’s the truth, mate, because they will want to search the helo.’

  ‘No problem, they can search.’

  I returned to the Major who was now inspecting the wounded. ‘Sir [I was starting to suck up], the pilot has nothing on board that he shouldn’t have, and invites you to search the helicopter if you want.’

  Three RPA officers checked every compartment in the helicopter. They opened boxes and packages, which were mostly survival packages, and found nothing — thank Christ. Finally, the Major gave the pilot permission to leave, and Jon and I headed back to the CCP.

  During the morning the RPA shot an IDP very close to where we were. They’d shot him in the leg and then played with him. Lieutenant Tilbrook and a couple of soldiers stood over the bloke preventing the RPA from doing any more damage, and then carried him over to the CCP. He was losing a lot of blood. He wasn’t yelling and screaming as he had been initially, but had begun to drift into a semi-conscious state. Carol and George worked on him, but the blood loss through the femoral artery was too great. We filled him up with morphine and put him behind the Unimog, which was a quiet spot. He was dead inside five minutes.

  The CO and RSM arrived in the early afternoon by helo, and we arranged to AME our four worst casualties on the helicopter that had brought them in. As Jon and I waited at the helipad for the helo, the RPA Major once again turned up to inspect the casualties. I had got to know the Major quite well by this stage, but I never let my guard down. That cowboy hat made him looked relaxed, but he was a crafty, ruthless bastard. He was in control of this camp and therefore responsible for the massacre the day before and for the shit that was continuing. This time the Major went through the four patients very carefully, then pointed to one casualty, a man about 30 years old, and said that we couldn’t take him. I argued and pointed to his horrendous injuries, but it didn’t do any good. The Major explained that the man was a criminal and could only go on the trucks. I explained that the long trip on the truck would be too much for the man and that whether he went out by helo or truck he would still end up at the same place and his men could find him there. But the Major would not change his mind.

  While I was arguing with the Major, a Zambian soldier handed Jon a small boy about 18 months old. He’d been shot in the backside, but there was no visible exit wound and the young boy seemed happy enough. The kid was amazing. He was playing around our feet and getting in the way as any young boy does. He was just like any other kid; only he had a bullet in his butt. What this kid was doing at the helipad I’ll never know, but it probably saved his life. Kids are so resilient. The RPA Major said to take the young boy instead of the man, which we ended up doing. The RPA Major then told me that one of his men was being brought up. He arrived shortly afte
r on an old mattress carried by four of his colleagues. He’d been shot through the right lung and the Major insisted that I hold the helo for his man. I argued that if he wanted me to do him a favour, then he must do one for me and let the other man go as well.

  ‘Either my man goes or no-one goes, you decide.’

  I thought it best to stop arguing. Jon and I patched him up as best we could, but he was in a bad way. A bullet had hit him in right lung and exited just below his shoulder blade taking with it a piece of his lung. The Major wanted to send another one of his soldiers on the helo to accompany his wounded man. I told the Major that it wasn’t appropriate to send an armed soldier on the AME helo (I made that up on the spot) and that the space would be required for wounded. He said his man was going and that he would unload his weapon and give the bullets and weapon to the pilot. The pilot agreed with this and the AME went ahead.

  A convoy of trucks driven by soldiers from India showed up and evacuated the majority of the patients. This meant a two-hour journey (if they made good time which was unlikely) along a bumpy dirt road that was in such a poor state that constant four-wheel drive was required to get from Kibeho to Butare. It would have been incredibly painful for the patients who were sitting or lying on the bare boards of the trucks. Each truck travelled without a medic on board — we simply couldn’t afford the manpower. Given this, drips were turned down so they would last the journey, but no morphine was given because we just didn’t have the stocks. The patients would have been bouncing all over the back of the trucks — most with broken bones. The trucks took all those on board to a stadium in Butare. A C130 Hercules aircraft with a medical team on board was deployed to Butare to load up with priority one and two patients to deliver them to AUSMED in Kigali. Later, we discovered the C130 couldn’t get in and had been forced to return to Kigali.