AK Page 2

  The boys laughed. Fodo didn’t.

  “The NDR are a bunch of crooks,” he said. “Half of them are leftovers from Boyo’s time. As soon as Malani took Olo they realized they were on the wrong side and switched.”

  “We know what they are,” said Michael. “Malani’s not a fool.”

  “I bet da Yabin thought the same,” said Fodo. “I say anyone who tries to work with the NDR will either be cheated by them or become like them.”

  “Time will tell,” said Michael. “But how can we know what it will tell without giving it the chance? What is the alternative? Two more years of war? Three? Four? How many lives? How many millions of dollars? Shall we blow up the railway today so that we can go and repair it tomorrow?”

  “I’ve already told you—I accept Colonel Malani’s orders. We have got this far by being better disciplined than anyone else, and that is our sole hope. Tell the Warriors what you wish.”

  “My thanks,” said Michael.

  He paused and looked around the circle, studying the Warriors one by one.

  “You have been heroes,” he said. “All of you, and so were those who are no longer among you—Japhet, and Didi, and the other Paul, and Bayi. I lay it on you to remember their names forever. It is for you that they died. But there is going to be no more of children dying in this war. I therefore lay it upon you to live. You are very special children, because you hold in your hands—no, you hold in your minds the future of this country. Suppose there had never been a war, what would have happened to you? You would have stayed in your villages, working in your fathers’ fields, or herding his cattle, or learning to fish with his nets, and then you would have married and had your own children and taught them what your fathers had taught you. You would have been good men in your villages. Knowing you, I know that that is true. But now you are going to be much more than that. You are going to be good men in your country. I do not know the ways of Almighty God. I don’t know why he allows such horrors and terrors as we have seen. But I do know that always, always, he works things so that out of every horror and terror comes something he can be glad of. Let him be glad of you.

  “Look what he has done for you already. He has taken you away from your tribes and clans. Now you can think of something bigger than tribes and clans, because he has put you among men who talk and think and live and breathe that thing. That thing is our country, Nagala. Our country and all its varied people, and how one day, one day soon, they will live together in peace and happiness.

  “Now, you can’t just say, ‘Let there be peace and happiness.’ It has to be built, by men and women working together. And even when it is built you can’t leave it alone. It has to be tended, it has to be fed and repaired and altered to fit with changing times. It’s like a railway, an engine on the railway. That doesn’t run by itself. It has to be stoked and driven, its track must be kept sound and the signals working and the bridges inspected—all that. This you will do for Nagala. Colonel Malani and Fodo and I and the others who have led the fighting will try and build the new Nagala, and by the time that’s done you will be old enough to help run it.”

  “I don’t want to be an engine driver,” said Jonathan. “I want to be an airline pilot.”

  “I’ll be a tank commander,” said Goyun.

  Some of the Warriors laughed. Michael smiled, but shook his head.

  “We’ll need pilots,” he said. “We may need tank commanders …”

  “We’ll always need an army,” said Fodo.

  “Yes,” said Michael. “A small, well-trained force, and no guns anywhere else. How can you have laws and justice in a country where every peasant has an AK in his thatch, every townsman a couple of grenades buried in his backyard, and their only idea when they aren’t given what they want is to go and kill someone for it? But this isn’t your problem, Warriors. This is something Fodo and I and the others must find answers to, so that when your turn comes a peasant with a grievance won’t reach into the thatch for his AK but will come to you, and you will see that he is given justice, and whether he wins or loses he will accept it. This is what you will be doing to run our railway. I don’t mean I want you all to be judges and lawyers. Efficiency is a form of justice. You will be the people who see that Nagala is efficiently run. You will work in the agricultural research programmes. You will plan the roads. You will collect and administer the finances. You will represent Nagala in the United Nations. You will track down and punish fraudulent businessmen. Do you understand?”

  Paul saw the others nodding, and nodded with them. They were doing it to please Michael. It was possible, just, to imagine yourself as a grown man sitting at the controls of an airliner (Paul had seen a picture in a magazine) or leading a squadron of tanks bouncing across the bush, but the things Michael had been talking about were too strange for that.

  “So first,” he said, “you must go to school. You must learn to read and write, and speak English, and do mathematics. You must learn the history of your country, and the histories and geographies of other countries, and then science or engineering or medicine or economics, according to your chosen futures. You must…”

  There was a shout from the men around the radio. Michael rose and they all went over to listen. Colonel Malani’s message was rebroadcast, the light voice speaking in short bursts, full of energy, first in English and then in Naga, and then with interpreters translating each section into Baroba and Fulu. Paul tried to follow the Naga, which was the language the commando spoke among themselves. (It wasn’t the language he’d spoken as a child—that had been something different, which none of the men had recognized, and now Paul could remember only a few words from a song someone used to sing him to sleep with.) When the commando was resting between operations Joshua ran a school for the Warriors, so they could all write their letters and speak some English, though nothing like enough to follow Colonel Malani’s rapid sentences. But even in Naga, though he understood the words, Paul was bewildered by the meanings—the details of the cease-fire, the conditions for the interim government, the integration of liberation forces into a restructured Army of Nagala, surrender of weapons, rehabilitation and resettlement of displaced persons, demilitarization of intertribal zones…

  His fingers felt their way along the gouge on the receiver cover of the AK, as if they were caressing the scar of an old wound. No, he wasn’t going to be allowed to keep his gun—at least he understood that much. What would become of it? Would they give it to a regular soldier, this old, battered weapon, when there were so many others to choose from? Put it in a store, in case another war started? Sell it in a batch for a few dollars each to someone else in Africa whose war was still going on? Destroy it? That wouldn’t be easy. An AK was tough. That was why everyone wanted one, for this kind of war. It mightn’t fire as quickly or as accurately as other guns, but long after those others had jammed or malfunctioned it would still be working. Daniel, who’d trained all the Warriors in the use of their weapons, had told them a story about a soldier who’d been wading through a marshy stream somewhere out west and had caught his foot in something buried in the mud. He found that the sling of an AK had tangled itself around his ankle. Somebody must have dropped it during the previous season’s campaigning. With the mud and reed roots still clinging to it he’d cocked it, eased the safety, and pulled the trigger. The AK had fired.

  Paul liked the story. He could imagine something like that happening with his own gun. He was sure it would fire too. He couldn’t bear the idea of it being deliberately destroyed. Hadn’t it fought for Nagala every bit as much as he had, every step of the way, three whole years in the bush, at Kumin Bridge, and at Tala, and the ambush at Fos? He’d never killed anyone with it as far as he knew, because mostly the Warriors’ firepower was used to give cover while the men made an attack, and in the last year they’d spent a lot of time guarding prisoners, who’d been only too glad to be captured and weren’t interested in running aw
ay. Still, it was a good gun, a hero too.

  While the translators were speaking the men argued among themselves, and when the broadcast was over the discussions went on. They were still at it when Papp held up his hands and told them to listen. For a while there was nothing but the call of the crickets and the usual bush rustlings and tickings, but then, far off, a slow, wailing hoot, repeated three times. They all knew what it meant. The railway was single track, with passing places. The train from the coast was now waiting at one of these, with its guard of government soldiers out around it. There would be more of these than usual because attached to the empty ore-trucks were three railway cars of military supplies, including some vital helicopter spares. Papp must have heard it signalling that the line was clear—he came from a real bush tribe and could often hear or somehow sense movements and presences that no one else could. Now, in the silence, they could all hear the triple hoot of the loaded ore train signalling that it was coming through. War or no war, their long-planned mission to break the line and destroy the military stores had failed.

  Now the arguments changed to whether they should head back at once for the river or spend the night here. Soon it was too late not to stay. The Warriors were set to gather wood. Several men went off to hunt some of the buck Paul had seen, while Papp and Francis looked for other ingredients for a victory feast. Papp could find things to eat in almost-desert. Newcomers to the commando—some of them had never eaten anything except milk and blood porridge from their cattle—had made faces when they were offered things like termite grubs and thistle ribs, but they’d learned before long to be glad of them.

  A dead thunder tree lay near by, so there was more than enough wood. The Warriors piled it up and then settled in a ring, imitating the men, to argue whether Colonel Malani was right to accept the cease-fire, or was it a disastrous mistake, throwing away everything they’d fought for, or was he really only another ambitious soldier, ready to betray his followers as soon as he saw a chance to seize power for himself? Paul didn’t want to argue, or listen. The boys understood even less than the men. Michael was leader still. Why couldn’t they all go on doing what he told them, the way they had until yesterday?

  The shrill voices battled pointlessly to and fro. Paul slipped away and found a patch of shade by a butcher thorn, where he carefully dismantled his AK, oiling each part, the magazine, the receiver cover, the bolt and bolt carrier, the return spring, the barrel and body, with all the oil he had left. He plugged both ends of the barrel with a wad of oily rag, then wrapped each part in a piece of plastic maize bag, tying them around with trip cord. He made a separate parcel of his eighteen rounds and fitted the whole lot into another bag, which he lashed tight. He took one of the mattocks which the commando carried for mine-laying and walked away from the camp, but once out of sight he circled to the left, so that no one who had noticed him leave would be able to guess where he had finished up.

  He chose a place with three good landmarks around it, an oblong boulder, a termites’ nest, and a bean tree, and carefully paced out and memorized the distances. The work took him till after dusk. He came back by the same route, switching a branch to and fro behind him to wipe out any footprints.

  Dark though it was there was no trouble finding the camp. You could have seen the fire from the railway twelve miles away. He smelled scorching meat. He had heard shots soon after he’d started digging and had stood stock-still, every sense sharp with alarm and doubt. Then he’d heard distant cheering and carried on. The war was over indeed.

  He slipped into the circle beside Seme as though he’d only been out into the bush for a piss, but Michael must have been watching for him, because in a minute or two he came and squatted by Paul’s side, in silence, as if thinking of nothing but his hunger, while the fat of two buck sizzled down into the red embers.

  “You were a long time,” he muttered. “Put it good and deep?”

  “Yes. Do you want to see where?”

  “That’s your secret.”

  There was another silence. Paul had believed he’d got his crying done while he was slogging with the mattock at the hard yellow earth. If anyone had found him there they’d have thought the tears were just sweat. Now he felt they’d come again, and he couldn’t hide them. He forced himself to stare around. On the far side of the circle reflected firelight glittered from the eyeballs of his friends. Their teeth shone white.

  “Said a prayer?” asked Michael.

  “My thanks, I said. Hope I’m not needing you again.”

  “My prayer too.”

  Another silence, their own, private, untouched by chatter and happy mockery around the fire.

  “What d’you want to do next?” said Michael.

  “School, like you told us, I suppose.”

  “And after?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “You don’t want to be a rock star?”

  “No. Not an airline pilot either. I suppose it depends what I turn out any use doing. Only thing I know so far is being a Warrior.”

  “Uh. You’ve been good at that. Too good? That kind of life can take you over.”

  “I feel it already. I see it in some of the men.”

  “Only some of them.”

  Another silence.

  “What’ll you be doing, Michael?”

  Michael laughed and stretched his arms as if he could see his future close in front of him, big and full of action.

  “First, get as near as I can to Malani,” he said. “Promised me good work, soon as the war’s over. Of course he’s made more promises than he can keep, so maybe I’ll be unlucky, but I think he’ll reckon I’m one of the ones he can trust, because I don’t want as much as some. There’ll be some asking to be made generals, and some looking for posts where they can get themselves rich, and three or four waiting for the day when they can push Malani aside and step in his shoes, but me, all I want once we’ve got things settled is to look after the National Parks.”

  “What’s a National Park?”

  “Big stretch of bush and forest with wild animals in it. Maybe a few bush people. Tourists come to see it and photograph the animals and so on, so it brings cash into the country. We’ve got to have at least one. But you can’t just point at a map and say, ‘This area’s a national park from now on.’ There’s work to do, stopping poaching, keeping the farmers out, providing facilities for the tourists, managing the animals. Amazing what a mess you get soon as there’s a few too many elephant in one place…”

  He laughed again, happy with the thought of his dream, seen so clear for the moment through the glow of the fire.

  “I’ll come and help with the poachers,” said Paul.

  “Maybe. But school first.”

  “You’ll be around?”

  “Don’t know. I’ll come and see you whenever I can though. I’m not leaving you on your own, Paul. I’ve been calling myself your uncle because that’s how we decided to do it in this commando, in case some of the boys might find their real fathers again one day. I don’t see how that can happen for you, so from now on I’m your father and you’re my son. Maybe I’ll marry and have children of my own, but whatever happens you’ll be my eldest son. All right?”

  Paul felt for Michael’s hand and held it. A thought struck him.

  “Your wife mightn’t like it.”

  Michael’s laugh this time was loud enough to break the bubble of privacy around them. Warriors and men to either side stopped their talk for a moment to glance across.

  “I’ll tell her she’s my second wife,” he said. “My first wife was the war. She was a cruel bitch but she gave me a son, and then she went and died. Good riddance.”

  Paul laughed too, but afterward, while he chewed at the sweet tough meat and the juices ran down his chin, he decided it might be more than a joke. My mother was the war, he thought. She was a witch, a terrible demon, an eater of peo
ple, but she looked after me. It’s not my fault that I loved her.

  2

  The first school was the one back at base camp, bare earth under palm trees till the rains came—heavy that year—and then an open-sided tent, with the boys hunched over their slates in the listless, sticky air. The school grew as other commandos came out of the bush. Two real school huts came in trucks from the coast and were assembled in a day, and a Swedish pastor from the churches which had given the huts blessed them, while Colonel Malani himself flew in from Dangoum to perform the opening ceremony. The whole camp paraded for him, the men still carrying their guns, but the two hundred and eleven boys and thirty-five girls marching past with their slates. Colonel Malani said that these were the weapons of the future. Later Michael told Paul that he himself had written that bit into the speech. He’d stood next but one to the colonel on the saluting base and ridden in his Land-Rover on his tour of the camp.

  Michael was working eighteen hours a day. He headed the bureau for the resettlement of troops who were not being integrated into the regular army; he was on the commission to draw up the new constitution; he was on the liaison committee for the distribution of aid funds which were pouring into the country because the rich nations were so happy about the war ending, or pretended they were. Trouble with Michael, Judah said, was that you could trust him, so he got landed with the jobs where trust was important. Even so he managed to come out to the camp at least once a week on resettlement business, and saw Paul then.