‘Which you will settle when you get the chance, brother.’
‘That I will. Maybe when we are clear of this dry place, I will find you a nice fat wife to tend your fire and your bed,’ Chilemba said.
***
The group sat on their haunches in front of the scraped-out fireplace and ate dried fish and wild cabbage out of a small plastic container. The gusting wind had died down in the village, and there was silence on the valley floor.
One of the other men nearest to Chilemba asked, ‘From Lake Chew Bahir, are we to progress straight to Addis Ababa? What happens when we get there? I hear that it is a difficult city to live and work in.’
Chilemba was silent for a while before turning to Jackson, who answered for him. ‘We have been running for nearly nine years now and have nothing to show for it, our families are most likely murdered, our country is no longer able to provide for her children, our future is dark and dangerous.’ All the men looked down at the dry soil beneath their feet, nodding in silent acknowledgement.
‘After Dudu was killed, Chilemba and I started talking about leaving our beloved Africa for the shores of the abundant Europe. The white missionaries told us so much about it. A place where fields are green, rain falls in abundance every day, and a man can raise and feed many cattle. A great place to raise a family.’
The sound of scree and falling rocks broke the reverie, and they all swung their weapons in the direction of the path that led into the village. Stumbling towards them were two figures. One of the men, who had his bloodied arm around the taller man’s shoulder, had blood stains all over the front his green shirt, and he dragged his left foot, using his AK47 as a walking stick.
‘Help them,’ Chilemba shouted.
Two of Chilemba's men ran out to meet the men and helped carry the wounded man into the village. His face was a mask of pain, and he winced every time one of the helping men moved in the slightest. Blood dripped down the front of his shirt and his eyes rolled back in their sockets.
‘Lay him against that hut and get him something for a pillow,’ Chilemba ordered. ‘Get him some water, Jackson.’
‘No, brother, do not waste your water on me, my time has come. Water will not help me now,’ the wounded man replied.
Chilemba knelt beside the wounded man and took his hand. ‘Speak, young Chambonda.’
‘There are around thirty men tracking us including some of those mangy London Boys. They are heavily armed and about five kilometres behind us. They were tracking easily on the dusty path,’ he struggled to say, his breathing laboured and the pain evident on his face.
‘How long until they reach us?’ Chilemba asked.
‘About an hour. Leave me some ammunition and a grenade and I will hold them off as long as I am able. I cannot travel anymore and will be pleased to take some of them with me to meet my ancestors,’ he said, grabbing Chilemba’s hand.
Chilemba swallowed hard, and he looked deep into his comrade’s eyes. He unclipped a grenade from his military webbing and pressed it into the man’s bloody hand. ‘Your sacrifice will not be forgotten, brother.’
Chilemba walked away from his men towards the edge of the village, looking up to the spot where their pursuers would come over the ridge. He turned to look at his small group of men.
‘You two! Carry our brother into that hut over there. Make sure he can see the incoming path and has a good view of the filthy hyenas when they fall to his bullets. The rest of you, pack up,’ Chilemba said. ‘We will not waste the time that Chambonda will buy for us.’
Quickly and well-drilled, the men packed without saying a word then moved to the furthest edge of the village. Slipping into running mode, they moved up the other side of the valley, driven by a welcome rest and a new urgency. To make the time count.
***
The sun had started to throw long shadows across their path, and Chilemba felt the tiredness in his legs. The terrain had thankfully softened, and the narrow path had all but vanished, giving way to large whistling thorn acacias and small shrubs on either side of them. A fine carpet of green grass shoots covered the floor in between the trees, and they sensed that they were through the bad terrain for a while. One of his men shouted something from the back of the group.
He pointed to a grassy area in a thicket of small trees to their right. Hidden by large bushes, was a donkey. Excitement broke out at the sight of a possible meal.
As the group of men slowly approached the little brown animal, it looked up at them with shaggy brown hair covering its eyes, and then carried on eating. When they got near, Chilemba raised his AK47, and a second donkey calmly walked into his line of sight, followed by a few more. Two of them had crude hessian halters on them.
‘There are seven of them,’ Jackson exclaimed. ‘Scout around and see if there is an owner sitting under a tree somewhere.’
The men split up and calmly canvassed the area, and a few minutes later one of the men came running back to Chilemba. ‘We have found the old man. He is dead. It looks like old age took him.’
‘Okay then, leave him where he fell. We will take the animals and use them as a diversion,’ Chilemba said.
‘What do you have in mind, brother?’ Jackson asked.
‘The path has opened up for us because of the open terrain, and the ground is a lot softer, so we can start to anti-track. These animals can help us to create some confusion and buy us some more time,’ Chilemba said. ‘Tie them up in pairs. Leave the little one to run loose, and hurry, my brothers. The hyenas are near.
‘Jackson, take three men and the donkeys and head west,’ he gestured. ‘Stay on the valley floor for about two kilometres and make as much spoor as possible. Then you must anti-track and head to the top of that west ridge. We will anti-track in an easterly direction from here, and then head up to the East Ridge. Both groups can then turn north, and move onto Chew Bahir.’
Jackson nodded and smiled. ‘We will meet in Chew Bahir, then.’
‘Until then,’ Chilemba replied.
Chilemba turned and headed east, feeling revived to be doing something to thwart the pursuing men. They all followed each other, taking care to walk in one another’s footprints. The two men at the back then masterfully walked backwards and brushed away any sign of the spoor using clumps of local foliage. They didn’t have time to do it properly, and a real seasoned tracker would, on closer inspection, notice the deception, but it would slow them down.
Thirty minutes later, Chilemba walked up to an old barbed wire fence that ran in a northerly direction. He climbed onto it and slowly made his way, hand over hand, foot over foot, along the length of the fence. Although it was rusty, it could still carry a man’s weight, so his men waited their turn and one by one they followed him. Blood wetted their hands from the occasion nick of the old barbs, but they soaked up the pain. Two hundred meters along, Chilemba climbed off, and they started up the side of the valley wall again. He felt the pressure of the day release from his shoulders.
They pressed hard one final time, and as dusk turned to darkness, they crossed the border into Ethiopia.
To read the rest of the book, follow the link to Phoenix - book 2
Acknowledgements
To my parents, Mark and Jenny, for allowing me to spend time reading, instead of doing my chores.
To all the teachers at boarding school, who believed my bullshit excuses at evening study, and allowed me to do my homework in the school library. There, I escaped from the boring world.
To Bill King and Walker Cairns, two noble Scottish lads, who listened to my book ideas over many drinks in bars across Aberdeen. Thanks for being my beta-readers and whisky companions.
A big thank you to The Grill where I sipped whisky and watched the character of Kyle Gibbs come to life.
General Note
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Author Bio
Many of you know about my passion for our planet. I write about it, and I try to capture its wonders through the wildlife and landscape photographs that I take.
For as long as I can remember I have loved reading books and studying nature. Growing up on a farm in South Africa meant that I was always out and about, up to mischief somewhere. My imagination flourished and ran wild as I spent my childhood sitting in trees, climbing on rooftops, fishing in our local dam and bird watching from one of the hides that I built.
My love of the outdoors developed in those early years and my passion for all things wild and natural meant that my reading, writing and photography inevitably followed that path.
Now, many years later, I am moving ahead with writing and photography on a more serious basis. I hope my passion for conservation and environmental issues will make some small contribution to opening people’s eyes to the beauty and fragility of the planet we live on. I intend to use my blog as one of a few platforms to share my creative content and the content of others who share the same passions.
The first major environmental piece of work that I am working on is the Kyle Gibbs series. A series set in a climate changed world, which is a topic very close to my heart. My current focus is to write novels and short stories that span the action/adventure/ thriller genres, with a particular focus on the environment and our planet.
I invite you to take this journey with me and look forward to chatting to you as we go.
Author Notes About The Book
This book is a work of fiction, so any similarities to living people or anyone that you may know is purely coincidental. The places that I have written about in the Kyle Gibbs trilogy are all places that I have visited, either in real life or virtually by the powers of Google Maps.
Military equipment, fighting units, and battle manoeuvres were all sourced via the standard search engines and thus seemed to be in the public domain.
Being a wildlife photographer and conservationist, the topics of climate change and overpopulation are never far from my mind. I researched climate change for four years before writing the Kyle Gibbs series and found that there is a myriad of facts and misconceptions out there, no matter what media formats you read.
For many years, global warming was the buzz word until scientists realised that it was a confusing term as not all the areas of the planet are indeed heating up. I believe that climate change is the better term to use.
The science that I researched tells me that man is indeed responsible for the changes in our climate and the massive increases in COTM over the past 40 years. Many anti-climate-change scientists have come around to accept man's role. Now the debate is more about how much it will affect our future.
The premise of methane release in the novel is pure fiction because, although there are vast reservoirs of Methane Hydrate in the ocean depths, scientists agree that it would not be a single planet changer on its own and what I understand is that most, if melted, would simply not make it into the atmosphere.
PUBLISHED BOOKS
The Kyle Gibbs Series
Gibbs- The early years (short story)
Phoenix - book 2
Kharon – book 3
Anhur – book 4
The Hudson Drake Series
IGAZI
ORANG
Published Short Stories
Floodlanders
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If you liked the book and have a moment to spare, I would really appreciate a short review. Your help in spreading the word about my work would be gratefully received. http://eepurl.com/D7L61
Celt_The Journey of Kyle Gibbs Page 24