The Child's Elephant

by Rachel Campbell-Johnston

  Bat’s gaze swept rapidly across them. He was searching for Muka. She must be among them. Narrowing his eyes, he squinted against the light, but before he had even had time to search half the faces, the muzzle of the gun prodded him onwards again. It jagged him just below the rib cage where the body is most unprotected. He stumbled and bit his tongue as he cried out. The sound as he swallowed it tasted sour as blood.

  Crossing the compound at a half-trot, he reached a shelter made of palm fronds that had been set up on the far side. There, a man sat on a grimy plastic chair. His back was turned to them, his thick legs sprawled to either side of him as he leaned back and listened to the radio that Bat had heard from his hut. It was playing a tinny dance tune.

  The man swivelled slowly. Bat recognized the dark bulging face with its slow bloodshot gaze. He dropped his frightened eyes and found himself looking at a pair of black leather boots. An empty bottle lay between them. The man had been drinking. His trousers were stained and he smelled like a hyena. He reached forward, using the blade of a knife to lift the boy’s chin. Bat trembled so hard he could feel his lips shaking.

  ‘Look! He’s scared as a soaked monkey,’ he heard Lobo jeer.

  The man didn’t answer. He had a crocodile’s stare. He smiled, but there was no emotion in his face.

  ‘So, you are the boy who knows about elephants?’

  Bat nodded dumbly.

  ‘Good. Then we’ve got work for you.’

  Bat was bewildered. Was that what they wanted him for? Had they brought him all this way to look after an elephant? He looked around as if half expecting to see one, searching the clearing for that familiar grey shape.

  ‘Do exactly as you’re told and you’ll be fine,’ the man assured him, unpeeling the cellophane from a packet of cigarettes. He took one and placed it thoughtfully between his lips. He spun the wheel of a lighter. A flame sprang into life.

  ‘But if you don’t do what I tell you, then—’ He made a swiping movement across his throat. It was the movement a butcher makes when he kills a goat, its last bleat pouring out on a flood of dark blood. Bat’s stomach cramped as a wave of fear swept over him. A plume of cigarette smoke was puffed into the air. He could feel his head growing giddy. He tried to steady himself by fixing his eyes on some small detail, but they couldn’t seem to focus until he noticed the scratches that raked the man’s forearms.

  ‘Where’s Muka?’ he blurted.

  ‘Muka?’ The man looked faintly surprised.

  ‘He means the girl we brought with him,’ explained Lobo.

  The man gave a slow smile. ‘You mean the wildcat?’ he said, glancing wryly at his scratches.

  ‘Let’s just say we’ve tamed her.’ He laughed. ‘Now take him back.’ The last order was addressed to Lobo.

  ‘Back to the hut?’

  The man nodded. ‘Yes . . . for a bit. Until he’s learned that this is his new home,’ he said. ‘Until he’s learned to be obedient. And I don’t want him even so much as seeing that girl,’ he added in an undertone. ‘I don’t want them running off and dying. Not when we’ve gone to such trouble for the elephant boy.’

  At that moment a fight broke out amid a group at the far side of the camp. Fierce as spitting genets, two children wrestled in the dust, grappling and pawing and biting and screaming. The man rose to his feet with a thunderous look.

  ‘Lock him in!’ he barked over his shoulder at Lobo. Then he cast a last glance at Bat. The eyes burned like red lamps. ‘And don’t even think about escaping because we won’t waste a bullet on you. We will find you out in the bush. We will make you wish you had never left us. You will die wriggling and squealing like a half-bled pig.’

  Bat was thrown back in the gloom of his hut. What now? The time stretched endlessly ahead of him. At least I know Muka is alive, he supposed. And while she’s alive there’s still hope . . . still some hope of escape . . . I’ll find her . . . and then we’ll . . . His ideas petered out. He strained his ears. He needed to orientate himself, find out what was happening. But all he could hear was the thump of his heart in his head. He tried to imagine that he was back in his village, that the drumbeat of his blood was the sound of the girls pounding cassava in the mornings. Thud-ah . . . thud-ah . . . thud-ah. He longed with every fibre of his being to be back where he belonged.

  ‘I’m in the army now,’ he whispered, as if testing the idea out.

  ‘Yes, we’re in the army,’ murmured Gulu from the far side of the hut. ‘And it would be better to be dead.’

  The words echoed around Bat’s head the next morning when the door was suddenly flung open and two children stormed in. Seizing Gulu, they dragged him from the hut. Bat was left all alone. Outside he could hear talking, sometimes even laughing. He could smell the smoke of the fire. They were cooking. He thought he could smell roasting meat. He ran his hands around the mud walls as if seeking some opening; but he knew it was useless before he even began. He pressed an eye to the door and through a crack saw the guard still standing. It was hard to tell from behind if it was the same boy as before. He shifted his weight and changed his gun to another hand. And then, almost as if sensing that someone was spying on him, the guard turned abruptly and slammed its hard butt against the tin door. The noise rattled round the clearing. ‘Back,’ he growled, ‘or you’ll be getting the same as your new friend.’ Bat shrank back into the darkness and slumped hopelessly down on the floor. He could hear a faint commotion somewhere on the far side of the camp. There were thumps, cries and curses. He hoped that it had nothing to do with Gulu.

  But it did.

  That afternoon they brought the boy back, hurling him down, a broken straggle of limbs in the dust. He made not a sound now; not even a groan. Had they killed him? Bat inched his way hesitantly through the half-darkness. He was almost too scared to find out. Stretching out a hand, he touched Gulu’s shoulder. There was no response, but the skin was still warm, and when Bat leaned his head closer, he could just hear the rasp of breath between teeth. What had happened? Should he rouse him? He tried to look into the boy’s half-hidden face. He put out a hand again, intending to shake him, but then let it drop. Rouse him for what? To remind him that he was a prisoner? Why let that reality intrude on his dreaming? At least in unconsciousness he might find some sort of escape.

  Bat crept away. Curled up on the ground, he lay watching the dust motes that danced in the light as it streamed through the holes in the roof. He watched as they faded away into the black. He listened to the sounds of the camp subsiding until only the cicadas trilled their endless night song. He was cold now, but he had no blanket. He huddled himself, shivering up in his arms. He had never felt so lonely. The night had never felt so endless. Despite the chill that leaked through the bones deep inside him, hot rashes of sweat broke out, burning on his skin. It seemed like for ever until at last he fell asleep.

  ‘Where am I?’ he whispered the next morning when he woke to the sound of the door scraping. But it was only a tiny boy bringing a calabash. It was water mixed with millet flour again. Bat carried it over to Gulu where he lay curled up, his head to the wall. The boy had been so hungry, but now he didn’t respond.

  ‘Take some; it’s food,’ urged Bat and, cradling the back of the boy’s head in his palm, he held the bowl up to him. The boy turned and, gasping, Bat let the bowl drop. Where there had once been a face, there was now only a swollen mess of flesh. Blood caked Gulu’s brow, his lips and his cheeks; a front tooth was broken and his arm was scored with deep cuts.

  Bat edged away, appalled. What had happened? How could he now help? His grandmother would have made a bitter herb poultice to bring down the swelling; she would have boiled up hyena dung with the bark of a fever tree. That would have scalded and cleaned the deep wounds; but all Bat could do was dip a corner of his shirt into the bowl of drinking water and with that try to dab away the worst of the grit. The boy moaned and flinched. Bat wasn’t sure if he was doing much good but he kept on going anyway. Somehow it soothed him to t
hink he might be helping. He remembered the time he had sat with his elephant when she was sick. ‘Suffering is worse for an animal because it can’t understand what is happening.’ That’s what his grandmother had said. Bat gazed into the face of the boy lying beside him. It didn’t feel any different. All he knew was that he was in pain and that he had to endure it. Bat kept on dabbing, as tenderly as he was able, only stopping when he noticed that the boy was once more closing his eyes. Then he sat and watched over him. Gulu’s boots had been taken; not that he could ever have put them onto his feet. They were too swollen. It looked to Bat as he stared, his brain flinching from the thought, as if their bones had been smashed.

  For two days Gulu lay, barely moving. Bat remained by his side. Sometimes he stroked his head gently; sometimes he hummed softly like Muka had taught him, singing the songs that they had sung to their elephant; and sometimes he just waited in silence, staring at the light as it streamed through holes in the ceiling, or gazing out into an impenetrable black. The sounds of the camp outside seemed to fade further and further as the solitude inside the hut slowly thickened. Bat could almost feel the emptiness that surrounded him. It was like the brushing of dewdrops, breaking cold on his skin.

  Once a day the door opened and food and water was brought in by the guard. He seemed less like a child, Bat thought, than some diminutive adult: he looked so resigned. He never spoke; he never even so much as met Bat’s watching eye. He just laid down the bowls and went.

  Left alone, Bat ate his share and drank some of the water before trying to help Gulu take what was his. Parting Gulu’s swollen lips, he placed the rough paste into his mouth with a finger; then he held up his head while he swallowed and winced. Sometimes Bat saw the tears dribbling down Gulu’s bruised cheeks. Their salty fluids soaked into his wounded flesh.

  The days passed. Bat lost count of how many. He retreated further and further into the world in his head. He lived inside his dreams. Sometimes he fell asleep and imagined that he was sitting with his grandmother, sipping bowls of spiced tea. The cook-fire was smoking. It brought tears to his eyes. When he awoke he had to wipe them from his cheeks. He was hungry. He dreamed of his grandmother’s cooking. She was preparing the stew that she always cooked for special occasions, for his birthday, or the last day of threshing, or the time when he and Muka had finished reading their first ever book. He watched her taking malakwan leaves from a basket. He saw her cutting ripe tomatoes into a pot. She added the fermented hide of a hippopotamus and mixed in a handful of groundnuts to form a thick soup. They were just about to start eating – when Bat suddenly woke, his stomach growling with hunger. The pain gnawed at his belly. He was hungry . . . so hungry.

  He imagined the honeycomb that came from the forest, dripping from his fingers, whole bees stuck in its gloop. Smoke from the camp fires drifted into the hut. He yearned for the familiar wood-fire smell of his grandmother. Where was she? Where was Muka? When would he see her? He thought of the way they used to wander, so carefree, drifting the grasslands with their elephant. He wished he could go back to that untroubled world. He yearned for Meya’s touch, for the feel of her trunk slipping over his shoulder, probing his pockets for a hidden piece of fruit or snatching at his herd-switch in the hopes of a game. He wished he could breathe in her thick musky smell . . . just one last time, he thought . . . that would have comforted him. Even the memory made him feel a bit less alone. But she had left with her herd and now, when she came back, she would find he had gone . . . gone without even telling her. She would think he had forgotten her and would never again return.

  Clutching his arms round his stomach, Bat rocked to and fro, as if trying to soothe the feelings that now welled up within him. But it was no good. Memory after memory burst open inside him, blooming for a moment before wilting and dying. For the first time since he had been caught Bat felt utterly without hope. He put his hands to his head and sobbed like a child.

  He didn’t notice Gulu moving until the boy was already halfway across the hut. He was crawling on hands and knees because he couldn’t stand. The hard dirt of the floor dug into his palms. He put his arm gently round Bat and finding his fingers, he squeezed them. ‘Don’t cry,’ he said. ‘Don’t let yourself cry. You have to stay strong to survive in this place.’

  A rising sob shook Bat’s shoulders as he remembered the rumours that the women in the market place had whispered: the tales of fierce gangs of children who raided the shambas, who burned down the villages and slaughtered livestock. He remembered the stories of boys who had vanished without trace. He swallowed. ‘Are they going to make me fight?’

  Gulu nodded.

  ‘But what for?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Gulu shrugged. ‘No one does. You just do as they say. Every day is the same. It’s just another day in which to kill or be killed. Eventually you get used to it. Everyone does.’

  ‘But we could escape!’ cried Bat. A flicker of hope lit his face. There must be a way. He would slip free and run like a lizard that finds the hole in a fist. But Gulu just gazed at him with his blank stare.

  ‘I tried. That’s why they beat me. I tried to escape. I don’t even know if I meant to. But a little while ago they sent me out into the forest to set traps and suddenly, without even thinking, I found I was running. I was running and running as if my legs couldn’t stop. I didn’t know where I was going, but when at last I pulled up I didn’t recognize anything, and so for days I just drifted. I ate berries and grubs. I always know how to find food in the forests,’ Gulu declared flatly. ‘I have lived with the army since I was just eight. I’ve learned how to find nuts and mushrooms and fruit and wild yams; to get water where there isn’t any by cutting a bamboo cane; to catch fish by making a little pronged spear. I know that plants with umbrella-shaped leaves are poisonous, that if something tastes soapy to spit it out quick. But what I didn’t know was where to go next. And after a long time . . . I don’t know how much later . . . I just tracked my way back round in a circle again. I came back to the army because I had nowhere else to run. I told them that I had got lost. But still they threw me in here and they beat me. They beat me and beat me,’ he said as he stared at his mangled foot. ‘They would have killed me if they hadn’t thought that I was still useful. They would have killed me,’ he repeated. ‘And I don’t think I’d have cared.’

  ‘But I could help you,’ urged Bat. ‘You, me and Muka . . . we could get back to our villages.’

  Gulu just dropped his head. ‘I can never go back,’ he said. ‘It’s too late.’ Then, wearied by so much talking, he lay down on the hard earth to rest. Bat curled up beside him and watched him closing his eyes. His breathing slowly steadied and soon Gulu was sleeping, twitching and flinching in a troubled slumber. Every now and then a half-cry choked in his throat. Where did he go in his dreams? Bat wondered as he lay there. For hour after hour he lay wakeful beside him. His mind ached like a broken bone.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The days and nights passed. Time bleared and slid. And then, early one morning, while the boys were still sleeping, the door was suddenly flung open and Lobo stamped in. ‘No more lazing about now, elephant boy.’ He chuckled. ‘It’s time we toughened you up.’

  Gulu scuffled quickly away on his bottom, squatting watchfully against the farthest wall. ‘And you!’ Lobo scowled. ‘You are being put on woodcutting duties. There’s a pile of branches in the compound. You don’t need your feet to work with an axe.’

  ‘Can’t I help him?’ asked Bat. ‘I’m not sure he can manage.’

  ‘More likely he can help you.’ Lobo laughed. ‘He can tell you how not to end up like that. Look at him! That’s what happens to people who get lost. If he learns to walk again, we’ll keep him. He’s useful. He knows how to mend engines. If he doesn’t . . . well, he knows what happens to soldiers who can’t fight. Military life begins now. Here, put these on.’ He threw Bat shorts and a shirt, then turned on his heel and went out.

  ‘Dead men’s clothes,’ Gulu whis
pered as Bat held them up. ‘They come from the people the army has killed.’

  Bat, who for so long had been wishing he could wash his blood-stained shirt, shuddered as he changed. The shorts were too big and he had to roll the waistband up.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Lobo shouted as Bat finally stumbled out. His legs felt strangely weak. Lobo pushed him into a blundering run. On the far side of the compound another boy was waiting and Bat was forced down into a squat in front of him. He froze still as his curls were shaved with the blade of a knife. A group of other children were being herded into the middle of the compound. There must have been about twelve of them, he thought, counting them with the same rapidity as he could count cattle. All were wearing the same hotchpotch of ill-fitting garments as he was; all were looking as worried and bewildered as he felt.

  His eyes darted around them. Was Muka among them? He had to look twice before he finally recognized her. He had never seen her wear anything but a printed wrap. Now she was dressed in a T-shirt and trousers like a boy. Her braids were all gone. She was shorn down to the scalp and she was thinner, much thinner, than when he had last seen her. A blue shirt hung in straight folds from her angular shoulders and a pair of brown trousers had been belted with string. But she flashed him a look that meant she was managing and he felt an answering wave of relief. He longed to run towards her, to ask her what had been happening, to find out where she had been, what she had found out, but even as he began to edge hesitantly towards her, the man with the bloodshot eyes strode across to the group.