Thunderbolt

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘Pickings?’ said Xander.

  ‘In nutrients?’ said Amelia at the same time.

  ‘I was going to say “reward”, but what you suggest is fine.’

  Mo never revelled in it, but he was indispensable on so many fronts. I could come up with ideas, such as bribing the enforcers, but Mo knew who would stay loyal to General Sir no matter what and he obviously had the words with which to bribe those he thought might give in to temptation. Even determining which kids we could persuade to make a run for it would have been impossible without him.

  When we weren’t working, and whenever General Sir and his henchmen were out of sight, we set traps both near the field in which we were put to work, and in the bush nearer General Sir’s camp. Mo helped us choose the spots. Mostly these were little funnel-shaped clearings, or channels between clumps of scrub, anywhere a small animal might come upon the bait and take it.

  And when we were safely in camp, Mo increasingly split his time between our little area and the bigger tent enclave housing the real child-soldiers-to-be, where, head bowed among a little group or sitting on a log with a child, he had what he described as ‘quiet conversations’.

  The exact topic of these was anyone’s guess. We were powerless to do anything but wait for him to report back, and this he did without specifics. ‘I’m working on it,’ he might say. Or, ‘Softly, softly; patience is a virtue, yes?’ Mostly he’d answer, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll tell you when I have news.’

  I found this vagueness unsettling, and in private I asked the others whether we should pressure Mo to give us more detail. Amelia, ever logical, pointed out that we had little to pressure him with: without him we were lost. That didn’t help much, but Xander said Mo’s quiet approach made sense to him for now. So I sat on my misgivings and waited.

  43.

  The morning after we’d set the first snares, I crept out of the tent early and went to inspect them. They hadn’t worked. Worse than that, two of the five we’d built had gone off without trapping anything. The gunk-bait in them was gone, and something had gnawed through one of the lengths of string, but the snare was empty. I bit my tongue, retied the noose, set the trap again. I didn’t want to break this disappointing news to the others, but they were up when I returned and Amelia quickly put two and two together.

  ‘Empty-handed,’ she said.

  ‘Did you check them all?’ asked Xander.

  Amelia answered for me. ‘Of course he did.’

  Xander’s face fell.

  Mo cut in gently with, ‘What were you expecting?’

  ‘Well, something, I suppose,’ Xander replied. ‘Not nothing.’

  I hadn’t even told them about the snares that had gone off unsuccessfully and decided not to now. Somehow Xander’s bitter disappointment was my fault. ‘It’s early days,’ was the best I could muster.

  ‘Indeed it is,’ said Mo more brightly. ‘Just one night! Trust me, the snares will work if we give them time. And today we can make a few more to increase the probability of success.’

  I tried to look as positive as he sounded for the benefit of the others, but I didn’t like the idea that we had to rely upon him to boost our morale. What, practically, could I do to help us? The traps needed re-baiting. When our breakfast slop arrived, I saved a pinch of mine in a folded leaf. I tried to do this surreptitiously, waiting for a moment when the others were distracted by a squabble that had broken out between two of the little kids, whose fight over one of the wooden guns (at least it wasn’t a real one) had spilled across the dirt patch separating the main clutch of tents from ours, but Mo saw me do it.

  ‘I’ll come with you, help check everything works again,’ he said.

  ‘If you like, but I think I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘You’re disappointed,’ said Mo. ‘In fact, it’s a good sign.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘If something disturbed the traps, took the bait, it means we nearly succeeded.’

  ‘It would be a better sign if the snare actually worked, surely.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Mo. ‘But still.’

  He followed me out of camp. The flies were up already – it was a still morning – but I’d learned to wave them away more lazily, which somehow stopped them being quite so maddening. I went straight to the first trap that needed re-baiting. Mo watched me do it and I was relieved that he said nothing; I didn’t need his supervision after all.

  The short walk to the other spent snare took us past one that had been undisturbed just an hour ago. As we approached it Mo suddenly shot forward, running low to the ground.

  He’d spotted a movement. Unbelievably, something was caught in the snare, and Mo was immediately upon the little creature, smothering it with both hands.

  He had his back to me. I barely had a chance to feel sorry for whatever it was – at least it hadn’t been struggling against the noose for long – before he’d dispatched it with a sharp flick of his wrist. By the time I’d caught him up he’d removed the noose and was holding the creature, limp now, in an outstretched hand. It looked like a big gerbil.

  ‘Here!’ he said, offering it to me.

  I’ve said before that I’m no fan of rodents, and to be honest the last thing I wanted to do was take the dead gerbil from Mo, but I was even less a fan of appearing squeamish before him. Also, I was genuinely delighted the snare had worked. We needed this result. The gerbil was warm to touch. Its head and tail flopped either side of my extended palm, opening up the fur on its neck. Sandy orange at the tips, the fur close to the animal’s body was white. I didn’t like the idea of the dead gerbil in my hand, but in that quiet moment its warmth and delicate beauty sent a strange feeling – a sort of triumphant sadness – right through me.

  We checked the other traps and found them empty. But that didn’t matter now: we had proof of success. I’d trudged back to camp earlier, but the two of us had a spring in our step now.

  Mo had noted who made the successful trap. He wasted no time in congratulating Xander with, ‘Your snare worked!’

  Xander’s mouth fell open.

  By way of proof, Mo pulled the dead gerbil from his shirt pocket and held it up for Xander to inspect.

  ‘Huh! Look at that,’ said Xander. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Looks pretty incontrovertible to me,’ Amelia said.

  The hound I’d stroked was still sleeping on its side under the thorn bush. Another was nosing in the dirt a little way off. ‘I say we give it to the dogs straight away,’ I said.

  ‘Won’t they fight over it?’ asked Xander.

  ‘We’ll give them a piece each,’ said Mo, deadpan, pocketing the gerbil again.

  ‘But we don’t have a knife to cut it up with,’ said Amelia.

  ‘We don’t need one,’ Mo replied, standing up. In plain view he set off for General Sir’s shack, but rather than approaching the front door he disappeared round the back of the little building. He was only out of sight for a minute. When he emerged, he was carrying the four tools we’d be using that day in our field-clearing: the spade and mattock under one arm, the crowbar and axe in the other.

  ‘He’s going to cut a mouse up with an axe?’ Xander said under his breath as Mo approached.

  Mo had good hearing. ‘No,’ he said, ‘not the axe.’ He set down everything but the spade and then in one fluid movement he fished out the gerbil, dropped it onto the dirt, placed the metal spade tip squarely across the little creature’s midriff, and stamped hard on the spade’s shoulder, cutting the gerbil in half.

  I have to admit I flinched.

  Amelia, however, just said, ‘Fair enough, I suppose.’

  ‘You’re already friends with that one,’ Mo said, pointing at the sandy-coloured dog I’d stroked. He bent to pick up one piece of the gerbil and offered it to me. ‘You may as well be the one to feed him.’

  The dismembered creature’s golden fur was bloodstained. I held its back end by the tail, trying to look like I didn’t mind. The others watche
d me. The dog appeared to be sleeping, but raised its head again before I got to it. Its black nose was twitching. As I arrived it levered itself upright, head still low.

  Fearing the dog might snap at my hand, I nearly tossed the half-gerbil at its feet, but held back. As much as possible, the dog had to associate the food with me. I ran my fingers through its coarse fur and murmured nonsense to it, doing my best to project calm. This seemed to work. When I held my offering out the dog just nosed at it before taking it from me surprisingly delicately.

  I stepped back. The dog, still holding the treat, eyed me suspiciously for a second, perhaps fearing some sort of trick. Was I about to grab it back? Not prepared to risk that, the dog slunk away. It obviously wanted to eat its prize alone, but the other hound had caught wind that something was up and trotted after it.

  Thankfully Mo, thinking quickly, snatched up the remaining lump of gerbil and intercepted the second dog with it. This one was thicker set, black and tan, with muscled shoulders and a broader head. It looked part Rottweiler.

  I’m not sure whether Mo would have done what I did off his own bat, but he’s nothing if not a quick learner and he too stroked the dog before feeding it. Unlike the thinner dog, this one gulped down the morsel quickly and immediately looked back up at Mo as if to say, ‘Got any more?’

  ‘We’ll need to set more traps,’ said Xander.

  ‘Later,’ said Amelia, nodding in the direction of General Sir as he emerged backwards from his quarters. He was holding the big silver padlock I’d spotted inside earlier, and now secured the door with it, snapping the lock into place. The thing about a padlock is, you can lock it without a key. Why was I thinking about that? I don’t know. I was just pleased he hadn’t seen us with the dogs. I somehow doubted he’d like us feeding them, even if he didn’t work out why we wanted to do so.

  ‘Why are you still here?’ he called to us. ‘You have work!’ He pointed his stupid baton at us and flicked it in the direction of the clearing field. ‘You can’t do anything helpful with the tools here. Get going. Make yourselves useful!’

  44.

  Over the next few days we did what we could to ready ourselves for our escape. At night, top to toe in the tent, we planned, and during the days we prepared.

  We set extra traps further afield and checked them in the grey light of before-dawn. Sometimes the little animals we caught – desert gerbils, grass rats mostly – were already dead, choked on the line, but mostly we had to dispatch them ourselves.

  Mo showed me how to do this. You hold the poor creature by its back legs, run your other hand down to its neck, grip it behind the head, pull and twist.

  I didn’t like doing it, and Xander flatly refused, but Amelia had fewer qualms. Inspecting the traps with me early one morning she came upon by far our biggest catch, an oversized rabbit Mo later told us was a Cape hare. Immediately she saw it struggling she ran to put it out of its misery swiftly. I admit I winced at the crack I heard as she did it.

  ‘What?’ she asked. When I didn’t answer she said, ‘Just because it’s audible that doesn’t change what’s actually happening, namely the breaking of a spinal cord.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ I said.

  We fed most of what we caught to the dogs immediately, there being no way of keeping meat out of the day’s heat. On the plus side, the dogs cottoned on very quickly indeed. The hound I’d befriended even started following me around on my return each morning, looking hopeful.

  After another benumbing day in the stump-field, Mo, who’d been out among the other kids, re-joined us in the tent. ‘I have nine who’ll come when I say,’ he reported. ‘And three of the five enforcers will accept a payment for turning a blind eye. The other two, Liban and Kayd, I cannot trust; they know nothing for now.’

  ‘What sort of payment are we talking about?’ asked Xander.

  ‘Your sunglasses, for one.’

  ‘They’re cracked, but sure.’

  ‘And from Amelia, your wristwatch.’

  The watch was a chunky plastic diving model. Like Xander’s sunglasses, Amelia had managed to hang on to it, and was equally prepared to give it up now.

  ‘Whatever,’ she said. ‘That’s two things. What’s the third?’

  ‘For Nabil, the eldest, something of more value.’

  I knew what he was getting at: our diving treasure. We’d not mentioned the rings since Amelia revealed she’d hung on to them, but Mo, no fool, hadn’t forgotten.

  ‘What have you told him we’ve got?’ asked Xander.

  Quietly Mo said, ‘I wasn’t specific, just explained you have a little jewellery.’

  ‘I’m surprised he’s impressed by jewellery,’ said Amelia.

  ‘If it’s gold it’s more valuable here than currency,’ Mo replied.

  ‘When do we go then?’ asked Xander, addressing the question more to Mo than me.

  ‘When the time is right. We want to minimise the risk.’

  I was grinding my teeth. ‘The longer we leave it, the more of a risk we’re taking. The little ones could give something away.’

  ‘But we need to stockpile water, what little food we can spare or steal, and we need to neutralise General Sir, Liban and Kayd,’ Amelia said, adding, ‘as best we can, at least.’

  ‘We’ve discussed that. There’s no perfect moment,’ I replied. ‘The important thing is not to miss our chance entirely by waiting too long.’

  The fact was, we couldn’t make our move until Mo gave the go-ahead: without his say-so the little ones wouldn’t come and the enforcers, even with bribes, wouldn’t stand down. I was therefore relieved when he said, ‘Jack’s right, the sooner the better, I suppose.’

  ‘The dogs are already onside, at least,’ said Xander. ‘When the snares next come up trumps, we should take that as a sign.’

  ‘That makes no actual sense,’ murmured Amelia. Then she surprised me by adding, ‘But I know what you mean. Here,’ she went on, taking off her watch. ‘You might as well have this now, and this too.’ From I don’t know where, she’d already magicked up the smallest of the rings, a simple gold band that caught what little moonlight there was in the tent. She handed both over to Mo, saying, ‘You too, Xander. Give him your glasses so he can buy off the boy guards. May as well sweeten them in advance.’

  We talked on into the night, mostly about silly stuff – like what we’d eat when we had the chance to choose again (me: a cheeseburger and chips; Xander: fish pie; Amelia, weirdly specific: half an avocado filled with balsamic vinegar, followed by the other half; and Mo: a glass of cold milk). The thought of these things was delicious and a torment at the same time. Still, it was a diversion, just for a bit. Before long, with the others already asleep, I was back wondering when we could risk bolting. As it happened, a factor none of us had considered came into play sooner than I had imagined possible.

  45.

  That night I dreamed of Pete floundering in the distant wake of his dive boat, and of the man I called Dad for fourteen years turning his back on me, and – as ever – of my poor brother Mark dying on the pavement at my feet.

  I sat bolt upright, blinking in the pitch dark. For a second I had no idea where I was. The tent was flapping hard. A gale had got up. The air tasted funny, burnt almost, charged with something. I assumed the others were still asleep beneath their blankets but it turned out Mo was awake and he somehow sensed I’d woken up.

  ‘Wind storm,’ he whispered. ‘It will soon pass.’

  In fact it didn’t. The canvas was still whip-cracking when daybreak turned it grey. I got up ahead of the others and staggered outside. The wind wasn’t actually as wild outside as it had sounded in the tent, but it was full of grit and smelled of fireworks.

  Though I washed my face at the water butt I felt instantly grimy again as I set off with Mo to check the traps. The scrubland hissed and buzzed in the gloom. We walked the zigzag route between our snares in silence. I thought they’d all be empty, that the commotion of the wind would have driven all the
foraging animals back to their burrows, but I was wrong. We’d set two new snares the day before, bringing our total to seventeen, and three of them – our biggest haul yet – had worked. The sky was a rushing purple bruise as we made our way back to camp. I put my head down against the wind-grit and trudged on, then felt Mo’s hand on my arm.

  ‘Look.’

  Ahead of us, standing stock still between two thorn bushes, stood a huge goat-like animal. Its horns were scimitars, a metre long at least, as thick as my thigh at the base and dagger-sharp at the tip. The creature was so pale in the half-light it looked like a marble ghost, its stillness accentuated by the rushing wind.

  We stared at it and it stared at us and the wind rose and fell and rose again and for what seemed an age nothing moved. At length the goat turned and picked its way through the bush.

  ‘Ibex,’ said Mo.

  ‘It was huge!’ I said. ‘I’ve not seen one before.’

  ‘Neither have I, not an albino.’

  The ibex had radiated a calm that stayed with me as we trudged back to Amelia and Xander. It made me bury our snare-spoils rather than feed them to the dogs immediately.

  Mo understood why. Neither of us said anything.

  We went to work in the field as usual that day, attacked the stump roots as we always did, but although the wind raged the steadiness of the white ibex stayed with me. It helped me think clearly. The wind was tiring, but it could still be a good thing. Every time it dropped for a moment my spirits slumped, but happily the next gust always seemed harder than the last.

  By the afternoon it was howling. Heading back to camp, filthy with the usual sweat and dirt, we were all coated in fine red dust as well. The stuff had got up my nose and into my ears and my hair was thick with it. But I didn’t mind. Mo caught my eye and returned my smile.

  Seeing this, Amelia said, ‘This is worse than normal, and yet you’re grinning about it. Why?’

  Xander had cottoned on. He said, ‘If the wind is like this tonight it could provide a diversion.’