Decisive Measures Read online

  ‘What are they?’ I said.

  ‘The illicit miners. They work at night by candle- or lantern-light. They dig out the gravel and carry it in baskets on their heads to the nearest stream. They sieve and jig it, then turn it upside down and hand-pick any diamonds.’ She paused. ‘If they have time before the guard patrols chase them away or shoot them.’

  ‘There must be at least a thousand of them.’

  ‘Why be surprised? There’s no other work to be had. The mines have destroyed or flooded most of the farmland, and wrecked the fisheries too.’ She searched my face for a moment. ‘If you want to see the real Sierra Leone, come with me tomorrow. I’m doing a clinic in Boroyende, a village a few miles north. Some of what you’ll see is far from pleasant but it can be inspiring. It’ll give you an insight into what the country could be like if the war ever ends and the mines start to be run for the benefit of Sierra Leone, not Britain and America.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’d like that.’

  She gave me a dazzling smile. ‘Good. Now I’m pretty tired and we have an early start in the morning. I’m going to get some sleep.’ She walked across the compound to one of the breeze-block houses. As she closed the door and walked through the house I saw her shadow outlined against the blinds. I stood watching for some time before I went back into the container building.

  Grizz gave me an old-fashioned look when I asked him if I could go with Layla. ‘I’ve told you, you’re wasting your time with her.’

  I remained impassive. ‘So may I go?’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose so. I could do with the time up here to lick these useless bastards into shape. But don’t get captured by the rebels. They’re not that far from Boroyende. Take a rifle as well as your pistol and ammunition. And be back in time to get us back to Freetown before dark.’

  As I walked to my bunk, Grizz’s mocking voice came floating after me. ‘Oh and Jack? Want Tom to come with you for company?’

  ‘If he wants to,’ I said.

  ‘No chance,’ Tom said. ‘I’ll let you do the tourist bit. I’m quite happy here, thank you very much.’

  I smiled to myself as I stretched out on my bunk.

  I closed my eyes and lay there replaying in my mind the shape of Layla’s body outlined against the blind, trying to hold off sleep as long as I could, knowing that the familiar nightmare would once more be lying in wait.

  * * *

  I got up as soon as the first grey light of dawn showed in the sky, but by the time I’d showered and grabbed some breakfast, Layla was already waiting for me.

  ‘We drive part of the way and then walk the rest,’ she said. She climbed into the driving seat of one of the mine’s pickups.

  ‘The mining companies do have some uses, then,’ I said.

  She gave me a sharp look. ‘It’s part of the deal with Medicaid.’

  We drove out of the gates of the inner and outer compounds through the shanty town outside and up a steep track skirting the spoil heaps from the mine and climbing towards the ridge. The narrow summit plateau bridged two vastly different worlds. Behind was bare rock, polluted water, the din of heavy machinery and ugly shanty towns shrouded in a pall of dust and smoke. Ahead was a lush valley, a patchwork of villages and small fields, surrounded by broad swathes of dense forest. Only as we began to descend the hillside did I see the scars of war on the land – smashed buildings and abandoned fields slowly reverting to forest.

  We drove on towards the distant mountains. The vegetation grew sparser and more patchy and the few tribespeople looked desperately poor and thin. Some men were dressed in rags, others wore no clothes at all. All carried pangas – bush knives.

  ‘They subsist on slash-and-burn agriculture,’ Layla said. ‘In the last few years, the fighting has forced many of them to flee before they’ve even been able to harvest their crops.’ She shrugged. ‘Some say it’s deliberate; the rebels and the government forces drive them out, then share the crops between themselves.’

  Some villages had disappeared altogether, their sites only detectable from the overgrown orange and mango trees and the circles of burnt, blackened earth where huts had been torched.

  Layla pulled up at one set of ruins and parked the pickup.

  I picked up my rifle and a rucksack heavy with ammunition, and followed Layla through the ghost village and out along a path leading into the forest. It was green and cool at first, after the heat of the sun, but before long our clothing was soaked with sweat.

  We walked for an hour. Eventually the path widened and small, cultivated fields began to appear, niches carved out of the enclosing wall of the forest. We passed women with headloads of firewood, and men carrying hoes and pangas. All gazed warily at my rifle, but broke into broad welcoming smiles as they recognised Layla. Many of them embraced her and the women held up babies for her inspection, their faces glowing with pride. Layla was soon surrounded and she stopped to carry out her first impromptu treatment at the side of the track.

  I walked the last few yards to the village alone. It appeared to be deserted. The path ended in a clearing of beaten earth. A breadfruit tree stood in the centre, casting a pool of shade. Around the edge of the clearing were a dozen mud huts, roofed with palm thatch.

  I glanced inside the first hut; it was empty. The earth floor was swept clean, the cooking pots and bowls were stacked on a shelf nailed between two of the stout bush poles supporting the roof, and the sleeping mats were neatly rolled.

  The next hut must have belonged to the village carpenter. There were tools with the dull glint of age and the patina of constant use, and a handful of nails burnished where they had been hammered to straighten them. There were also scraps of wire, rope and string and a broken saw blade refitted with an improvised handle. The furniture included a beautifully carved and jointed rocking chair that any English craftsman would have been proud to have made.

  I stepped back outside and a moment later Layla joined me. ‘That was quite a welcome you got back there,’ I said.

  ‘I was based in Boroyende for three years when I first came out here and I’ve been doing clinics in the village ever since – eight years all told. I’ve nursed them through a few illnesses, delivered their children, come to their weddings.’ A shadow passed over her face. ‘And the funerals of those I could do nothing for. They’re good people.’

  She walked to the centre of the clearing and called out. Slowly the frightened people began to reappear from the forest. A grizzled, white-haired old man led the way. He embraced Layla and talked animatedly to her in the local language.

  She replied, then gestured to me. What she said must have been reassuring, for the old man gave a broad smile and shook my hand.

  ‘This is Njama,’ she said to me. ‘He understands a little English.’

  I introduced myself and made the ritual congratulations on the village and the crops. He smiled, bowing his head in acknowledgement, then clapped his hands and signalled for food to be brought.

  They had little enough but it was shared without a second thought.

  As people moved around the village, I noticed that several of them had only one arm. ‘What happened to them?’ I said.

  ‘The rebels,’ Layla said. ‘Anyone suspected of supporting the wrong side at the election had an arm severed in punishment. You get the idea: cut off the arm that voted for the government. Thousands of people were mutilated. You see them everywhere. Worse things are done every day here.’ She looked past me and called out to a boy who was loitering at the edge of the clearing. He hesitated, then made his way over to us. He seemed no more than nine years old, but, when his gaze met mine, the sad, world-weary eyes of a far older man looked back at me.

  ‘Kaba is from a different tribe,’ Layla said. ‘But Njama’s people have taken him in. He has no family of his own.’ She stroked his hair as she spoke. ‘His tribe are traditional hunters. At first, they fought to defend their villages against the army and the rebels alike, but then they were recruited by the governmen
t as mercenaries or forcibly conscripted by the rebels.

  ‘When the rebels attack a village, they usually kill the adults and take the children. The boys are formed into “Small Boys Units”, brutalised, drugged and sent into battle. They’re highly valued as soldiers because they’re fearless. They go into battle believing that bullets cannot hurt them.’

  ‘And has their belief in their own invulnerability survived the evidence of their friends dying around them?’

  ‘They are told that if one of them dies it is because he has broken one of the myriad rules governing their way of fighting. They are not allowed to have sex with a woman before they fight. Kaba was too young anyway. He speaks good English. Let him tell you his story.’ She gave the boy a gentle smile and held his hand as he began to speak.

  ‘I was a captain in one of the Small Boys Units,’ he said. ‘Our job was to cut off people’s hands, to kill and burn houses. I was promoted because I did it well. The rebels gave us tablets with our food. They gave us power; they made us brave.’

  ‘They feed them a mixture of amphetamines, marijuana, alcohol and gunpowder,’ Layla said.

  ‘It made our hearts strong,’ Kaba said. ‘We were not afraid of anything. Sometimes we drank the blood of those we had killed. The men ate the hearts and livers, as well. We were told it gave us power.’

  I shuddered. ‘What happened to your parents?’

  ‘They are dead.’ He hesitated, twisting his hands together. ‘I killed them. The rebels told me, “Kill your mother and father, and your brothers and sisters, or we will kill you.”’

  He pulled his hand from Layla’s and walked back across the clearing.

  The food had arrived, so we sat down to eat. Kaba’s story had left me with little appetite, but out of politeness I took a little of the dried, smoked fish and rice.

  ‘As you can see, it’s a limited but adequate and healthy diet,’ Layla said, ‘provided they can harvest their rice. They also eat fruit, potato leaf, cassava and okra, and catch fish in traps.’

  A jug of palm oil was passed round and poured over the food. ‘It makes it more palatable,’ Layla said. ‘They use palm oil for everything. They cook with it and preserve food in it; fish in oil keeps for months. It’s also mixed with ashes and used as soap.’

  Njama began to speak to me, pausing to allow Layla to translate. ‘We have lived here for many generations, our land is good, but we have lost too many people. We dare not stray far from the village. We have to clear and cultivate where we can, when we can.’

  As soon as we had finished eating, a queue of patients formed for Layla to examine. As she worked, Njama took my arm and led me away across the village towards his hut. He ushered me inside.

  His sons, four beetle-browed men ranging in age from twenty to thirty, I guessed, followed us in. It was a few minutes before I realised that three of the four had had their right hands severed at the wrist.

  The sons stared at me but did not speak as their father proudly showed me around. The internal walls were just bare mud. The men’s weapons – pangas, spears and an old hunting rifle – hung from pegs and nails driven into the walls. A line of shell casings held water, rice, dried fish and palm oil, and metal from the doors and body panels of wrecked vehicles had been beaten into plates and bowls.

  Njama raised his eyes to the ceiling, his face glowing with pride. I followed his gaze and found myself staring at a flyspecked electric light bulb dangling from the thatched roof.

  Njama pulled a switch. The light bulb lit with a feeble glow, casting a fitful light into the recesses of the hut.

  I shook my head in disbelief. ‘How?’

  He laughed, then led me out and around the side of the hut. We walked down to the river, where the rusting wheel of a truck had been set up on an axle attached to the riverbank. Rough metal paddle blades, cut from the truck’s bodywork, had been fixed at intervals around the rim. They spun in the current, powering a dynamo.

  I smiled. ‘You remind me of my father. When I was a small boy, he was always out in his shed in our garden, trying to find uses for bits of metal and wire or the motor from an old vacuum cleaner.’

  I reached in my pocket and took out my Swiss Army penknife. I showed him the different tools and blades, then folded it up and pressed it into his hand. His sons clustered around him, exclaiming at each new blade or tool that he produced from the handle, like a conjuror pulling rabbits from a hat.

  When I made as if to leave, Njama detained me for a moment. He stared hard into my eyes. ‘You will not take Layla away from us?’

  I shrugged, embarrassed. ‘I hardly know her. We work together, that’s all.’

  He smiled. ‘But I have seen the way you look at her. I think you will bring her happiness.’ He spread his hands, encompassing the whole village. ‘And if you do, you will have many friends here.’ I was silent most of the way back from the village, mulling over what I had seen and heard. Layla glanced at me frequently as we walked along the forest path and drove back to Bohara.

  ‘It’s both better and worse than I imagined,’ I said at last. ‘They have nothing and yet they have everything they need. But when you hear Njama or Kaba talk.’ I paused, seeing Kaba’s young-old face in my mind as he recounted those unspeakable horrors in his expressionless voice. ‘I wish there was something I could do for them.’

  ‘There is. But you have to be willing to work for someone like Medicaid for the benefit of the villagers, not the mercenaries and the mining corporations. I’m not sure you’d be able to do that.’

  It was more of a question than a statement. I didn’t reply.

  Chapter Four

  We collected Grizz and Tom from Bohara and flew back to Camp 17 that afternoon. The flight was uneventful, and as I swung in towards the base I was thinking about a cold beer when there was a sudden silence. The whine of the turbines had disappeared. In its place there was just the rush of wind and the slowing noise of the rotors. Then there was the scream of a siren.

  I shouted a warning. ‘Engine failure! Prepare for autorotative landing. Get back in the cab, Layla. Hold on for your life!’

  A helicopter in free fall drops at around one-thousand-seven-hundred-feet per minute. Already under two hundred feet, I had less than six seconds to react to the power failure, identify a clear area and land in it. Instinctively I rammed the collective full down to neutralise the pitch angle of the rotors. If they remained at flying angle the blades would slow and stop immediately. Rigid, they would then fold up like a bird folding its wings, with similar results. But once I’d made sure they were flat, the uprushing air would continue to turn the rotors and provide enough uplift to cushion the impact. That was the theory, at least.

  There was a clear, roughly level patch of land just inside the perimeter of the base. I aimed straight at it, and fifty feet from the ground I hauled back on the cyclic to flare the heli and bleed off the forward airspeed down to zero. I kept the nose in the flare as we plummeted groundwards, then at the last minute I levelled it.

  We crashed down with a sickening thud. My teeth crunched together and my neck was whipped back into the headrest. The heli bottomed on its springs and gave an almost human groan as it bounced up again. We came to a rest, canted at a slight angle.

  The rotors wound down and stopped and there was a sudden silence. I was already tearing at my straps and twisting to look back into the cab. The cockpit was cushioned by powerful shock absorbers, but the cab had almost no protection. People in the back often suffered crushed vertebrae after an autorotative landing.

  ‘Layla.’ I struggled through the narrow gap between the seats and into the cab. She was still strapped in, her eyes closed, her face deathly pale. ‘Layla!’

  Her eyes flickered open. ‘I’m all right. I was just scared to death, that’s all.’ She started to unbuckle her harness.

  ‘Don’t move until you’re sure your back’s all right.’

  She made some cautious exploratory movements of her neck and shoulders, then
eased herself away from her seat. ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’ I began to help her towards the door.

  ‘Well, don’t worry about me, will you?’ Grizz said.

  ‘Sorry, Grizz. Are you all right?’

  ‘As a matter of fact I am, yes, but thanks for asking anyway.’

  Tom began to giggle and within seconds we were all creased up with laughter. The release of tension made it seem the greatest joke we’d ever heard.

  We clambered down from the heli and began looking it over. ‘Nothing broken as far as I can see,’ I said, ‘but I’d rather not take it up again until we know why the engines cut out like that.’

  ‘I’m with you on that,’ Grizz said. ‘I’ll get the guys here to haul it back to the hangar, then I’ll strip it down and put it back together.’

  ‘What about us?’

  ‘I’ll need one of you to give me a hand. The other one can take Layla back to Freetown and come back out here tomorrow.’

  I turned to look at Tom.

  He stared at me for a moment. ‘All right, you win. I’ll stay here.’

  I tried hard not to look too pleased.

  Grizz handed me a rifle and some spare clips. ‘It never hurts to be prepared. And take this radio so we can stay in touch.’

  ‘All right. But I don’t want you bothering me all the time when I’m trying to relax.’

  He gave an enigmatic smile.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. Just have a nice night, that’s all.’

  Layla studied him, arms folded, head on one side. Then she looked around the dusty, flyblown base and laughed. ‘I tell you what, Grizz. We’ll be hard-pressed to have a worse night than you.’

  * * *

  We reached Freetown in the late afternoon. The sky was pale, almost white, and the low sun was a faint ghost of itself, obscured by dust. The months of rain had at last given way to the dry harmattan wind, laden with fine sand carried from the Sahara. As we drove down the hill to the city centre, it hung like fog in the air.