The Devil's Kingdom

by Scott Mariani

  At least it was over for them. Some of the children covered their eyes, some just went on quietly crying, others just stared in shocked amazement.

  ‘You see how easy it is,’ Xulu told them. ‘And how lucky you are to belong to such a well-equipped army. Now, next I will show you how this rifle can also be used for precision marksmanship at long range.’

  On cue, Umutese had the men drag another of the poor nuns to her feet and frogmarched forty yards along the side of the building, to where a gnarly, spreading tree stood alone in the grounds. The soldiers slammed her against the trunk and backed hurriedly away, pointing at her to stay still. The woman looked unsteady on her feet, but didn’t move or try to run.

  Ben closed his eyes and said his own prayer that Xulu would do this quickly and properly.

  Xulu strutted to where he had a clear line of fire. He took his time bracing his feet, then brought the butt of the gun into the crook of his shoulder and lowered his eye to the sights and took aim at the target. The woman still didn’t move. The muzzle of the rifle wavered in a sloppy circle and then spat white flame as Xulu pressed the trigger. The woman’s right hip burst apart in a spray of blood. She screamed and fell.

  ‘There is something wrong with this gun,’ Xulu said angrily. ‘It does not shoot straight. Bring me another one!’

  The victim was shoved back into position against the tree while Umutese quickly fetched a replacement weapon for his captain. This time, Xulu stepped forward another fifteen yards to shorten the range before he fired again. Ben was thankful that the second bullet hit the woman square in the chest and killed her instantly. Her body slumped to the foot of the tree.

  ‘Sometimes you will not have a gun,’ Xulu lectured the children. ‘This is when you must use a blade.’ He drew out his own machete from its sheath and held it up for them to see. ‘This was not made for cutting crops! It is a fine weapon. Look what we did to that old man. I will give you another demonstration of what you can do with it.’

  One of the remaining eight nuns was dragged across the grass for the demonstration. She was a young black woman, perhaps twenty-five. Her eyes remained firmly closed but her lips never stopped moving until her last breath. Xulu grasped a fistful of her tight, short hair, raised the blade and brought it down with a thwack. It took several clumsy blows before he finally severed her head from her shoulders, and her body slumped at his feet, her arms and legs twitching.

  Xulu held the head up in his bloody hand. ‘Here is another important lesson you must learn,’ he shouted at the children. ‘It is that you must also learn discipline. You will take beatings, as this is the only way you can become strong soldiers. Lieutenant, bring me the whip.’ As Umutese scurried off to obey the command, Xulu lobbed the head into the crowd of children as if it were a football.

  ‘Whoever brings me this head will not be whipped! Everyone else will be beaten!’

  There was a brief scrum, after which a stocky ten-year-old in red shorts and a frayed blue T-shirt stepped forward with the head in his hands. Xulu by now had the whip in his, a flexible sjambok made of rhino leather, an instrument that in the colonial Congo had been called a chicote. Ben had heard of men being flogged to death with such things.

  The whipping of the rest of the children took a long time. Xulu waded in among them, thrashing left and right with cruel ferocity until he was glowing with sweat and many of the boys were bleeding and howling in pain. The soldiers leaned on their rifles and seemed highly entertained by the spectacle.

  Ben didn’t want to see any more, but there was still more to come. Once Xulu had sated himself with the children, he ordered for the seven remaining nuns to be put to death. The soldiers used their bayonets. The bodies were left where they lay in the bloody, trampled grass.

  ‘Now we will load these recruits on the trucks and return to base,’ Xulu ordered with a wave. ‘General Khosa will be pleased with what we have brought him.’

  ‘What about the building?’ Umutese wanted to know. ‘Should we loot it? There may be some valuables.’

  ‘We do not need their junk,’ Xulu said. ‘Burn it.’

  Of the four men Ben had injured, one was walking wounded and the other three had to be carried out. Xulu shook his head at the casualties and then turned to Ben with a twisted smile, showing the new gap in his teeth. ‘As for you, soldier, you will soon answer for your actions. If simple punishment is not enough to teach you good behaviour, the General will know what to do with you.’

  ‘Keep on smiling,’ Ben said to him. ‘For as long as you can. Make the most of it, Xulu, because I guarantee you won’t be smiling for very long. That’s a promise.’

  ‘A promise from a dead man,’ Xulu laughed, and the soldiers laughed with him.

  The children were marched to the two empty trucks at the rear of the convoy and crammed aboard the cargo flatbeds, fifty or more to a truck, with guards to watch over them. The rest of the troops took their places in the three lead trucks, Ben among them, with never fewer than half a dozen guns pointing at him. Doors slammed, engines grumbled into life and the convoy set off for its three-hour journey home.

  The last thing Ben saw of the once-peaceful haven of the Orphelinat Saint-Bakanja was the leaping flames and column of black smoke rising into the sky above the trees.

  Chapter 21

  Back at the city, the dusty trucks lined up outside the barracks building, which would soon need to expand into neighbouring buildings to house Khosa’s rapidly growing forces. As Ben disembarked from the lead truck, soldiers grabbed him and put him in the back of a Jeep with Xulu up front and his lieutenant at the wheel. Umutese sped recklessly through the empty streets to the hotel, where a belligerent and fuming Xulu led the way to Khosa’s administrative office on the ground floor.

  Khosa’s secretary informed them that the General had not yet returned from his business meeting. Xulu looked bitter. Ben couldn’t tell which upset the captain more, the disappointment of not being lauded by his beloved commander over the successful mission, or the frustration at not seeing the white troublemaker get what was coming to him.

  ‘This is not the end of the matter,’ Xulu warned him as they returned to the Jeep. ‘But first we have work to do. Hurry! Hurry!’

  Ben felt like hitting him again, just for the pleasure of parting him from a few more of his gold teeth. In for a penny, he thought. Then he thought of Jude, and kept his fists to himself.

  The Jeep hustled back to the barracks building, which was swarming with soldiers inside and out. But not every face there was hostile. ‘Ben!’ called a familiar voice as his guards walked him inside, and he turned to see Jeff and Tuesday standing there under the suspicious eye of their own trio of guards. Gerber was with them, the first time since their arrival in the city that Ben had seen the old sailor on his feet and looking less than cadaverous. As pleased as he was to see them all again, Ben was barely able to manage a smile.

  Jeff caught his expression. His eyes dropped a few inches and he frowned at the damage on Ben’s face. ‘You look like you’ve taken a couple of knocks, mate. What happened out there? You’ve been gone hours. We were worried.’

  Ben touched his bruised jaw. ‘Others had it worse,’ was all he could bring himself to say.

  ‘Any news about Jude?’ Jeff seemed almost too nervous to ask.

  Ben shook his head. Jeff’s lips tightened and his brow furrowed into deep lines.

  ‘Look who’s back in the land of the living,’ Tuesday said, clapping Gerber on the shoulder.

  ‘I wanted to say I’m sorry,’ Gerber said, ‘for letting you guys down. Things just got too much for me, Condor and Hercules and all. I needed some time to myself. Feel a damn sight better if we could get out of this mess, though. And I’m worried as hell about Jude. I love that kid like he was my own, you know?’

  Ben felt a surge of sadness and warmth. ‘I appreciate that, Lou. Thanks. It’s good to see you on your feet.’

  ‘Old Marines never die,’ Jeff said. ‘They just ge
t tougher. Right?’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Gerber said. ‘I guess.’

  ‘Hurry! Hurry!’ Xulu barked at them, a man on a mission. The guards prodded and shoved the four through a maze of plywood-sheet corridors that led all the way through the building and back outside to a wide concrete courtyard shaded on three sides with awnings. Some thirty or forty more soldiers were gathered there, standing haphazardly to attention in the presence of Colonel Raphael Dizolele. In full regalia with a peaked cap and gold braid plastered all over, Dizolele was proudly admiring the large crowd of children assembled at the far side of the courtyard: some fifty boys, about half of the orphans harvested that day. A number of the children bore the visible marks from Xulu’s whip. All of them had had their heads shaved. They shuffled uncertainly, gazing around in bewilderment at their new surroundings. Most of them had probably never seen a city before, let alone one occupied solely by armed troops.

  ‘Who are all these kids?’ Tuesday asked in astonishment.

  ‘There are more,’ Ben said quietly, and Tuesday just looked at him.

  ‘They are our new conscripts,’ Dizolele proudly announced. ‘Now you will begin their training.’

  ‘We’re not primary-school teachers,’ Jeff said. ‘What kind of a joke is this?’

  ‘Silence!’ Xulu yelled. ‘You will show respect!’

  Jeff snorted. ‘To who? Him? You? Now that’s a joke.’

  Xulu shot Jeff a look of contempt, but he had more important things on his mind. He stepped up to Dizolele with an accusing finger pointed Ben’s way. ‘Colonel, I have a serious matter to report. It concerns that man. He is a dangerous traitor who causes nothing but trouble. I do not believe he can be trusted to train our troops. Today he attempted to divert the operation. He severely injured a number of my men.’

  Jeff grinned at Ben, as if to say, Nice job.

  ‘This is very bad,’ Dizolele said, looking sternly at Ben. ‘But we will consider the matter later, when the General returns. Captain, you will carry on with the initiation of the new recruits.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  Xulu had never looked as happy as he did strutting up and down in front of the crowd of children. His lapdog Umutese hovered nearby, standing beside a folding metal table on which some items had been laid out. There was a small zippered bag, a basketball, and a short-barrelled Smith & Wesson revolver. After what he’d already seen that day, Ben didn’t even like to imagine what their purpose was.

  He soon found out. At a snap of Xulu’s fingers, Umutese scuttled over to him with the bag. Xulu reached inside it like a magician about to pull a rabbit from a hat, and with a flourish produced a cutthroat razor and a sachet of white powder.

  Jeff stared at Ben with raised eyebrows. Tuesday’s eyes were boggling in alarm.

  Next, Xulu pointed to a lanky boy of about eleven at the front of the crowd. ‘You, boy,’ he yelled. ‘Come here. Do not be frightened.’ The boy glanced at his friends and then stepped forward, looking deeply apprehensive. Xulu laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Asikiwe,’ the boy replied in a small voice.

  ‘Asikiwe, you will be a brave and fierce soldier.’ Xulu quickly slashed a two-inch-long cut in the boy’s temple with the razor. Asikiwe yelped in pain. Umutese held him tight as the blood trickled down his face. Xulu razored open the sachet, licked a finger, dipped it into the white powder and then dabbed a generous quantity into the cut with his moist fingertip.

  What in hell’s name are they doing? said Jeff’s speechless expression.

  The effect on the boy was so rapid that there was no doubt in Ben’s mind that the white powder could be anything but pure cocaine. Within moments, Asikiwe was reeling and his eyes were floating out of focus. Xulu let him go and pointed to another boy in the crowd. ‘You are next! Come here!’

  And on, and on. By the time the last boy had been cut, the first few to receive the treatment were well under the influence of the drug. It was a deeply disturbing sight.

  Xulu was beaming. ‘If you are to become soldiers, I want to see how well you can fight! Attack whoever is nearest to you! Hit hard! Anyone who does not fight with all his heart will be whipped!’

  The change in these placid, frightened children was startling and horrifying. The first blow landed quickly and produced a ripple effect that soon had all the boys pummelling one another like a feral pack, out of their minds and completely uninhibited in their ferocity. Their yells filled the courtyard. Bloody noses and burst lips started breaking out everywhere. Several boys fell and were trampled by the bare feet of their comrades.

  ‘I can’t watch this,’ Gerber muttered.

  ‘STOP!’ Xulu screamed, and the fighting petered out almost as quickly as it had started. He snapped his fingers again, and this time Umutese brought him the basketball from the nearby table. ‘We have played this game before,’ Xulu said to the children, holding the ball up. ‘But you did not play it well. Let us try again. This ball is the head of your enemy. Whoever brings it back to me will be spared a beating. The rest of you will be punished for your failure!’ He tossed the ball among them.

  Ben could only be thankful that it wasn’t a real head this time. But that was all that was good about the game. The wildest rugby match ever played by big, powerful men couldn’t have compared with the brutality that ensued. Eventually, the victorious boy emerged with bloody knuckles and one eye swollen shut.

  ‘This boy will have food tonight!’ Xulu yelled, grasping the winner’s shoulder. ‘The rest will go hungry! Then you will learn the importance of victory!’

  Just then, the thud of a passing helicopter made them all look up. Xulu shot a glance in Ben’s direction and grinned a nasty grin to himself. Khosa was back. Unfinished business would soon be attended to.

  But the bizarre hazing of the child recruits wasn’t over yet. ‘You!’ Xulu shouted, pointing at a younger boy of about eight. His grimy white vest was spotted with blood and his eyes were rolling. ‘What is your name?’ Xulu demanded. The boy took a few seconds to register the question and remember the answer. ‘Mani.’

  ‘Tell me, Mani. Do you want to eat tomorrow?’

  A nod.

  ‘Then you must pass this test,’ Xulu said.

  Ben and Jeff exchanged another worried glance. Ben was prepared for the worst. The crowd of children, intoxicated with blood and violence, was ready for anything.

  ‘Who are your enemies?’ Xulu shouted at Mani. The boy looked blank.

  ‘Your enemies are who we tell you they are! Say it!’

  Mani mumbled incoherently.

  ‘What do we do with our enemies?’ Xulu yelled, his nose an inch from the boy’s. ‘Spill their blood! Say it! All of you! SPILL THEIR BLOOD!’

  Slowly at first, quickly building in volume, the children all began to chant it. ‘SPILL THEIR BLOOD! SPILL THEIR BLOOD!’ The same awful chorus that was still ringing in Ben’s ears from the massacre of the village during their journey to the Congo.

  ‘This is sick,’ Tuesday said loudly.

  And it was about to get sicker.

  Chapter 22

  At a sharp command from Umutese, the soldiers brought in a young girl of about fourteen, so frightened that she seemed to shrivel at the sight of Xulu and so many men all staring at her. She was the first female of any age that Ben had seen in the city. Perhaps a captive from one of the villages Khosa had raided, kept here as a servant, or worse.

  The soldiers shoved her into the middle of the courtyard and stepped quickly back. Xulu unholstered his pistol and thrust it into Mani’s hands. As the boy stood there uncertainly holding the weapon, Xulu bent down and bellowed close to his ear, pointing at the girl.

  ‘This cockroach bitch is your enemy! Why? Because I say she is. And what will you do? Spill her miserable blood! Obey your commander! You are a soldier now. Spill her blood for General Khosa!’

  Mani had no real idea of what he was doing. His big round eyes were swimming and out of focus. As if in a tra
nce, he raised the weapon in his small fist. Xulu steadied the gun barrel for him.

  ‘We can’t let this happen,’ Tuesday said in a desperate voice.

  Ben said nothing. He could taste blood in his mouth again, because his teeth were clenched so hard. Just keep thinking of Jude. Don’t do anything stupid. You couldn’t save her, anyway. Gerber was standing with his head bowed and his trembling fists balled at his sides. ‘No, no, no,’ Jeff muttered, shaking his head.

  With Xulu doing the aiming for him, Mani’s small finger squeezed the trigger and he shot the girl. She fell in a heap.

  Jeff covered his face. ‘Oh, Christ.’ Tuesday looked ashen. Gerber had his eyes grimly shut.

  Ben felt so ashamed of himself.

  Xulu took the gun from Mani, who was standing staring with glazed eyes at the body on the ground as if trying to make sense of what had just happened. Next Xulu had all the boys line up near the body, and daubed each of their foreheads in turn with the dead girl’s blood, making a sign on their brow that looked like an inverted cross.

  ‘Now you are protected,’ he declared with a triumphant grin. ‘The power of your Lord Khosa is in your bodies. When your enemies see that they cannot kill you, they will drop their weapons and run!’

  Lord Khosa.

  ‘Do you believe me? Say it! Yes, Captain Xulu!’

  The boys chorused, ‘YES, CAPTAIN XULU!’

  ‘It is true,’ Xulu assured them. ‘I will show you. Lieutenant!’ The ever-ready Umutese now brought his captain the snubby revolver from the table. Xulu aimed it into the crowd of children and let off six loud shots.

  At which point Ben almost did something stupid, before he understood what was happening. Some of the boys flinched at the gunfire, the rest just stood there in a state of apparent detachment. But none of them appeared to have been hurt. The trickery was obvious, at least to those who could see through it.

  Xulu ejected the empty cases from the revolver, reloaded six more loose rounds and fired them off, straight into the faces of the entranced children. Still no blood, no screaming, nobody falling over or clutching at their ripped flesh.