As careful as we were to respect each other’s privacy, and personal space, we had not questioned each other’s beliefs about anything more complicated than our daily survival. Nick’s illness, and these revelations, collapsed that space into a vacuum. Now I knew what Nick might look like in death, and that he had (definitely) killed people while he was in the service of the South African Government. This last point seemed obvious in retrospect – but it was one thing to assume it, another to be told it for certain. I’d known, of course, that at some point I would have to confront Nick’s past, however ugly it was, and try to come to terms with it. Despite our earlier chats, I’d been putting it off. My upbringing was clear about it. The apartheid government of the 1970s and ’80s, and those who supported it, were treated by my family, friends and school teachers with the same moral disapprobation as the Nazis. Zimbabwean independence, celebrated in 1980, was my first political memory.
‘Apartheid served a purpose,’ he said, simply. ‘It put us ahead of the other African countries.’
I was disarmed by Nick’s honesty. I had expected him to hide it, like a dirty secret, or at least make excuses. Instead, he seemed proud chatting about it, apparently without any idea of the symbolism his career had for an outsider like me. Killing ‘terrs’ had been his profession, and in his eyes it was a noble, necessary enterprise. There was no easy way out of this conversation. I tried a different tack.
‘Do you believe in God?’ I asked later that evening, trying to fathom the depths of his cultural beliefs. ‘I mean, were your family religious?’
‘Ja, very. But, ag, you know … Who knows? There’s definitely someone up there. But I’m not ready to fokken meet Him just yet.’
I laughed as he went on to say that he had no truck with the idea of apartheid being somehow sanctioned by God Himself. He’d seen enough people blown to bits to know that they were all the same on the inside.
It was a testament to human individuality that Nick, the product of a small, conservative, white settler farming community, was not a rabid racist. In fact, he never used racist language; he never appeared to judge people by their colour alone; and I’d never heard him use the word ‘kaffir’ (or ‘nigger’, its rough English equivalent).
I wasn’t looking for reasons to excuse Nick of anything – but I thought I wanted to understand him. We were going to be together for a long time – for weeks, at least. But in that hut, in the glow of the lantern, as Nick came back to life and I struggled with my own physical and mental exhaustion, I gave up trying to judge him. Seeing Nick prone and helpless had helped to fade my earlier awe of my own GI Joe; in its place familiarity bred not contempt, but respect. Nick was who he was, and nothing would change that, certainly not my political misgivings. He had a right to his past; he’d fought for it, whatever I may think of it.
Over the following day Nick’s cramps dissipated, and colour came back to his cheeks. He pulled his camouflage trousers on, and returned from a short visit to Deku with another two AK magazines and a few small boxes of ammunition. He was better.
Twenty-four hours later, on 23 June 2002 – the day Nick and I were originally supposed to have finished filming, and be settling into a flight back to Johannesburg – I sat shivering on the floor. I drew the sleeping bag around my shoulders as my teeth chattered out a tattoo in the muggy heat of the mid-morning. By the evening, my body had ejected everything in my stomach.
‘This isn’t going to be a lot of fun, is it?’ I stammered.
Nick nodded in careful agreement, helping me back onto my old mattress. We traded places. He made himself a nest out of his sleeping bag on the floor beside me.
‘Ja, it’s the fokken cramps that does it. Take these.’
He rummaged through our surviving medical bag, and handed me tablets to ease the spasms we both knew were coming. That night I staggered to and from the latrine, while rebel guards barked out warnings.
When the cramp finally arrived it hit me like a chainsaw in the guts. By the morning, my anus was oozing blood and mucus. I sipped from the cup that Nick held out to me, and drifted in and out of sleep.
In the darkness of the following night, the guards shouted more vigorously as I left the room. One chambered a round in his rifle.
‘It’s me – James,’ I hissed into an infinity of shadows. Fucking shoot me, I thought, anything to end this.
By the small hours, I could no longer walk. Monsoon rains lashed the thatch and walls of our abode. I crawled to the door of the hut and let my backside hang out over the step, my body balled up in a soaking knot of skinny limbs and aching muscles, serenaded by hundreds of frogs belching in the dark. I was, literally, shitting on my own doorstep. Nick closed the door behind me as I crawled back in.
After dawn broke, I drank water, and immediately cramps rolled up and down me like a tide of razor blades washing through my intestines. Without any of the strength acquired by Nick from his military training, my body surrendered. Nick picked me up, hauling my arm across his shoulder, and drag-walked me to the ruins of a house a hundred yards away. He held me up by the wrists as I squatted over a pit and purged myself until I thought I would pass out.
All day he ferried me to the house and back, helping me to undress, explaining to the rebels what was wrong. ‘Sarry’ they would say in unison, and offer me cups of unfiltered well water. It seemed ridiculous that only hours before, I’d been contemplating Nick’s political rectitude. Once a man has held you up while you take a crap, little else matters between you. Either you are mates, or you are not.
Later that day Nick came back to the hut with a small, smartly dressed Liberian man. He held out his hand. In it was a twist of paper containing a dozen Flagyl antibiotic tablets. I had never been so grateful for anything, ever.
‘This man is a kind of doctor,’ said Nick.
‘Oh, yeah-o. I di’ mah trenin’ lon’ time ago. An’ nah, dese day’ …’ He trailed off. ‘I tink dis wi’ mak’ y’ bedder.’
I offered him a packet of cigarettes in thanks, which he politely declined. After he’d left, Nick filled me in. Deku had been very concerned that I would not pull through like Nick had, and they had sent out men to go to a village where a local doctor was treating wounded rebels. They had all but run out of everything – Nick and Deku had acted just in time. I had been given what were probably the only antibiotics for fifty miles.
My fever broke. I woke from profound sleep the next morning to the sweetest noise I could have asked for: the growl of a Toyota diesel engine. Nick and Deku flooded the hut with light as they swung the door open. The rebels had ambushed and commandeered a United Nations ambulance some days previously. Now loaded with fuel, RPGs and AK ammunition, it would drive us to the front line as soon as I was strong enough.
Slowly I recovered. Finally, I was strong enough to venture out to film the ambulance being loaded with more weapons. The warmth of happiness lifted my mood. We were going to make it after all. I grabbed my satellite phone, extended the aerial and moved around, waiting for the reception signal to lock steady. I was jubilant – I couldn’t wait to let my colleagues in Kenya know not only that Nick was better, but that we were finally heading to the front.
‘From here we’re driving to Bopolu, about a hundred clicks south, and then on to Tubmanburg. We should be there in a couple of days, depending on the rain. Deku says there’s been some heavy fighting there, but the rebels are doing well.’ I paused. ‘Well, who knows how they’re doing, but I think they’re holding out, otherwise we wouldn’t be going there.’
I expected to be congratulated. The line went quiet. And then the owner of the company broke the news. The Liberian film had dried up their cash flow. The business had been running on the assumption that, if they needed to, they could liquidate other assets to keep the money coming in. That was now impossible. All the fees up to that point would be paid, but no more. Cobus had been let go, the office in Johannesburg would be ditched. Liberia was a financial vortex for them. With no prospect of a
return on their investment, and still no TV commission forthcoming, it was time to pull the plug.
‘If you can pull it out of the bag, great.’ The boss’s voice rumbled on. ‘We’ll still pay your retainer, but there is no more money for Nick. You’ll either have to go on alone, or cut a deal with him yourself.’
I felt winded, but thanked him for his candour and cut the call while there was still some battery power left. I stood in silence, looking at the patterns I’d kicked in the dust as I’d pleaded for more money. How do you tell a heavily armed mercenary that he’s, well, fired – and that there’s no money to pay him another single day, not even if it takes another month to get home?
‘Nick?’
He was cleaning his AK, ready for our departure in the morning. He looked up, saw the anxiety in my face, and clicked the safety on.
‘It’s a fuck-up. The company has gone bust,’ I blurted. ‘There’s no more cash. The only hope is if I finish the film, but they can’t pay any more day-fees from now on – not for me or you.’
I sat down on the stool opposite him, stilled with apprehension. Heat was seeping into the day; it was almost too hot to sit outside.
‘What do you want to do? I’ve got some dollars they think I’ve spent, and there’s the kit … I mean … I think the game’s up.’
He cut me off before I embarrassed us both.
‘This is like rowing the fokken Atlantic. We’re halfway there. Let’s carry on. You need to film some action.’
‘It’d be hard enough to get out now,’ I countered, giving him one last get-out, ‘but if we go forward, it could take us ages.’
I trailed off. It was our Cortez moment, and we both knew it. A long silence unfolded between us before he shifted his weight, and burned our boats.
‘Forget the money, James.’
I looked at him, incredulous.
‘Really,’ he smiled, ‘it will be okay.’
I waited for a caveat. None came. What I thought would be the hardest conversation to have, had been the easiest. Nick was no longer my employee. He was my friend.
As dawn filtered through the tree tops the next morning, we left Fassama and our hut. We’d been in Liberia for three weeks; two of them in the Spider House. It was a relief to be on the move again, even if we were heading to the front line at Tubmanburg. The ambulance and another rebel pick-up truck, now re-fuelled, sped past the skeletons of the logging station and down the beaten-earth road used to haul logs to Gainkpai and Bopolu, with their hazard lights flashing. Each vehicle was crammed full to bursting with rebels, fuel and ammo (and the goat from Voinjama). Our Land Cruiser alone had more than thirty rebels packed on board. Those who couldn’t find a seat walked. We bumped over ditches and swerved around dead branches littering the road. We drove for hours until the sun dipped in the sky and the town of Bopolu emerged from the bush.
We were to stop here overnight. I took the opportunity to film Seeya Sheriff, known as Cobra – the LURD’s deputy chief of staff. It was a bizarre interview. Cobra either didn’t want to play politics, or didn’t know how. Through his almost inaudible drawl, I fathomed that the national chairman’s idea of establishing an interim civilian government in the wake of Taylor’s defeat was not quite what Cobra had in mind.
‘Deh wi’ be no election,’ he told me in a hoarse whisper. ‘We establish military junta. I wan’ ’ear nattin’ abou’ election. Our only mishan eh to destroy Taylah.’
That night we stretched out on a proper mattress with laundered sheets in a spider-free room. The windows even had curtains. The beige tiled floor and whitewashed walls reminded me of the youth hostels I’d stayed in as a child, hitchhiking with my father.
At daybreak we were off again. I put my bag into the ambulance and jumped up into the passenger seat. Nick shook his head.
‘Cobra says it is too dangerous. The road from here to Tubmanburg is really not safe. If we hit an ambush, they’ll try and take out the vehicles with RPGs and then open up with small arms, AKs. You don’t want to be anywhere near them.’ He must have seen the begging look in my eyes. ‘We really have to walk. Ja, it’s fokken dangerous in that thing.’
He jerked his head towards the Toyota packed with explosives and fuel. Buckling up his Recce webbing, and slinging his AK across his chest, Nick set out with me and Deku and around a hundred other fighters into the bush.
For hours we were drenched by the monsoon rains. Huge, curled palm fronds channelled the downpour into gushing spouts. When we rested under the blast-mangled zinc roofs of abandoned houses, the rain drummed out a persistent rhythm, drowning all other sound, thoughts. We stood mute, exhausted, peering into the green and grey world beyond the road.
As the rain eased, we marched on. And then, three or four hours into the trek, a volley of shots went high up into the air above our heads from somewhere in front. One rebel fired over the empty jungle in reply. Deku jumped on him.
‘Don’ sta’, don’ sta’!’
No one fired. Nick moved to my side, AK in his hands, stock extended.
‘Ja, nice and slowly. Let’s just keep moving. If there are any more shots, try and stay low.’
Tiredness, pain and adrenaline washed through my body. I was sleepwalking my way to the front line.
Eventually, with the light failing and a nine-hour walk behind us, the Monrovia Highway hauled us into Tubmanburg. As the rain came down in lightning-lit sheets, the town’s besieged population of hungry civilians and rebel fighters poured into the streets. Young men in cut-down jeans and soaked bandanas chanted victory songs. Everyone was shaking hands; local fighters embraced the newcomers; ammunition passed from hand to hand. The entire town was engulfed by rebels in riotous good humour, singing in the rain. Under the awning of a shuttered shop, I looked out across a bright patchwork of umbrellas as volleys of AK rounds went up to the clouds over the front line. I was laughing. Nick beamed at me. We had made it.
5
UNIVERSITY OF BULLET
By the time we arrived in Tubmanburg, the LURD had been in control for nearly two months. Nestled in the Bomi Hills, the dilapidated old mining town a mere thirty-five miles north of Monrovia consisted of maybe 200 houses huddled around a rare strip of metalled road that led to the capital. All of these forlorn concrete dwellings – thinly covered by scraps of rusting corrugated zinc – had been damaged by the ebb and flow of conflict around them. Many had been raked with machine-gun fire, or partially destroyed by what Nick said were armour-piercing RPGs. At least two-thirds of the town lay deserted. Most of the civilians preferred near-starvation in the relative security of the surrounding, malaria-infested jungle to the urban shooting gallery they once called home.
As he showed us to our billet, Deku recounted with relish how his men had defeated Taylor here, pitching up out of the forest and strolling into town.
‘Y’ cudda seen ’em ronnin!’ he hollered as we neared a cluster of dwellings a couple of hundred yards off the main road. ‘Dey nah stron’ enough fo’ our forces.’
The local Government garrison fled in disbelief. Hardly a shot had been fired. After the LURD victory, though, quite a few shots had been fired by both sides. In the seven weeks since the town’s capture, Deku admitted that the occupying rebels had seen almost daily combat with Government militia.
Our quarters were in a white, two-storey house. Stone steps guarded by a delicate metal banister led up to a broad balcony. It reminded me of my mother’s house in Canterbury, with added bullet holes. In the evening gloom, I could make out with relief the comforts of a sofa and an easy chair on the balcony. Our bedroom – a good ten-foot square and furnished with one double bed, a wardrobe, two dressing tables and actual curtains – was luxury compared to the privations of the Spider House. To my delight and astonishment there was an en suite bathroom with a tiled concrete bathing trough – and an intact ceramic toilet bowl. It was the most imposing house I’d seen in town, but there were no clues to the identity or whereabouts of the former occupants. With the ex
ception of these few sticks of furniture, it had been completely gutted.
‘Lekker.’
Nick liked it. He stripped off his battle dress and pig-skin army boots, flopped on the bed and wrinkled his nose as he was enveloped in a cloud of dust.
I unpacked my clothes and grandly hung them in the wardrobe. One spare pair of trousers, two shirts and two pairs of pants and socks were all I had. My wash bag consisted of one toothbrush, one thin bar of soap and a skinny tube of toothpaste. On Nick’s advice, I’d ditched my heavy, waterlogged leather hiking boots – which had helped wreck my knees – in favour of a pair of lightweight trainers. All the equipment I needed to film with was stuffed into the pockets of a dirty beige photographer’s waistcoat. Nick was in the same boat. We had walked into the war in the clothes we stood up in.
By the time I’d rigged my mosquito net over my half of the bed (Nick found the nets claustrophobic and slept without one), it was dark. I stretched out next to him, finally taking the weight off my knees. He was, without doubt, the strangest bedfellow I’d ever had.
‘Y’ comin’ see som’ rea’ ac-shan,’ Deku promised excitedly, sticking his head around the door. ‘Everyting alrigh’?’
He peered at us through the gloom, like a boarding school matron checking on her boys. I nodded.
‘Trus’ me. Dey try, boh dey can’ mak’ i’. We readeh, an’ we prepare’!’
Satisfied with our condition, he ducked out to fetch a palm-oil lamp and candle stubs, and check the whereabouts of the portable generator that my camera and telephone batteries relied on. His voice trailed off, barking orders to the fighters sent to guard us as he headed for the stone steps that tumbled down to the commanders’ wives quarters. Nick got up to test the military radio we had borrowed from Cobus. It didn’t work. If the satellite phone failed, we would be entirely cut off.
My Friend The Mercenary Page 10