‘Yeah, I think so. Exactly the same.’
‘And us, do you think we’re safe with them?’
It was a question I’d been asking myself, too. Only one commander in the town had appeared unhappy with the film. I was sure none of them had actually seen it, though they would have known what was in it. There was only one real explanation why no one had tried to kill me yet.
‘The reason that none of these guys is pissed off with me about the film is because none of them thinks that I filmed them doing anything wrong,’ I explained to Tim. ‘That’s just what you do to prisoners. One of these days I’m going to be asked to testify against them, though. I can see that coming a mile off. I don’t think they’ve thought about that.’
‘Would you?’
‘Yeah, probably, though I don’t know what more I could say than is already in my film. It says it all, really, and Deku is dead, don’t forget. He was responsible for a lot of what happened here.’
‘And Nick, would you testify against him?’
The possibility was still fresh in my mind. I fudged an answer. I had no idea how much blood was already on Nick’s hands from his career in Special Forces.
‘If he murdered someone, then yes. Yes, I would. Fuck, it would be hard, but yes. I’m not really sure what murder is here, though – or even what an accessory to murder looks like. I mean, we’re all on fucking thin ice, man.’
I glanced sideways at Tim as we walked, weighed down with fruit. Perhaps he was calculating what compromises he’d already made or would have to make as we went further into the war.
‘Or I am, anyway,’ I continued. ‘The Americans, the Brits – everyone’s in it up to their eyeballs. The UN could end this war in a day, but no one wants to. Does that make them, their commanders, accessories to murder, too? Nick’s a good guy. He’s a mercenary, but he’s honest in his dishonesty, which is more than you can say for anyone else here.’
Once we had unloaded our stash back at the house, we prepared a light field bag for the impending journey. We had one small black rucksack – our emergency grab-bag – in which, packed between layers of waterproof plastic, we put fresh tapes and shot tapes, spare batteries, chargers, a torch, our satellite phone and a small medical trauma pack. I managed to squeeze in two bags of intravenous fluid in case either of us needed serious attention. We also had a waterproof canoe bag each, to keep the cameras dry in the torrential rains, and two water bottles with integral purifying filters in pouches on our belts. Everything else we carried in our pockets. We would have enough to keep us going for ten days, flat out.
That evening, as we sat on the balcony and imagined what might lie ahead of us, rebel troops paid us regular visits, hawking the wares that they’d looted from the outskirts of the city. Would we be interested in buying a satellite phone? A calculator? Or perhaps a broken video camera? We sent them away disappointed, with American cigarettes as consolation prizes. The last rebel of the day approached us – a shaven-headed youth with a cut-down AK tied to a piece of string slung over his shoulder – with a brand-new electrical appliance that he’d filched from someone’s house a few days before.
‘Wha’ dis?’ he wanted to know, excited that he may have bagged some valuable swag.
‘These’, Tim informed him, ‘are curling tongs.’
The youth looked blank.
‘For women’s hair,’ Tim added. And then, by way of compensation: ‘Here, have a Marlboro. Better luck next time.’
The teenager slunk off, puffing on the glowing tobacco in the gathering gloom.
That night didn’t go well. I lay half on a mattress, half on a concrete floor in the pitch black. Tim had crashed out, balled-up in a sleeping bag next to me. Fully clothed, sprawled under a mosquito net, I was still awake, identifying different gunshots echoing across town by distance and direction. Government troops had attacked the village of Bar that afternoon, around ten miles away. The rebels’ position was not at all secure. In the room next door, someone was dying.
Low moans gave way to louder repetitive screams, which drowned out the Kalashnikovs tearing up the night outside. Tired by the journey in, the suffocating humidity and the uncertainty of Nick’s departure, screams in the night didn’t scare me so much as annoy me.
Disturbed to the point of irritation, I jumped to my feet, wiping the sweat out of my eyes, tasting its salt on my lips. My torch found a doorway along the corridor, a shuddering hole in the black wall, illuminated from inside by a flickering palm-oil lamp. Curled up on the floor was a teenage boy, incoherent with pain, bellowing something instinctual. He was thin, emaciated; his damp clothes gave off a sharp smell of urine that made the thick atmosphere nauseating. A rebel soldier was crouched over him, silent and still. I kneeled down.
‘What happened?’
‘He koll’ Rocket,’ the fighter said quietly. ‘I don’ tink he ca’ mak i’.’
Rocket, he explained, had taken part in the first rebel attack on Monrovia two days earlier – the aborted shambles that ended in looting and retreat. Barely sixteen years old, he was a radio operator, so he didn’t carry a rifle. During the attack, Rocket had been shot in the head by a Liberian Government soldier. Entering his cranium an inch above his left eye, the bullet, an 8g lump of copper-covered lead, travelled through his brain at over 2,000 feet per second, before punching out a hole the size of a matchbox at the back of his skull.
Squatting over him, inhaling the rank fumes emanating from his body, I tried not to vomit. I could see the head wound clearly. Someone had put a clumsy suture through the entry wound. He was lying on the exit wound. I turned him over. A fistful of wadding was taped to the back of his head. The humanity of this child had almost completely evaporated with his screams. Tim crouched down next to me, trying not to gag. Half-asleep, I fumbled through the contents of my medical bag.
‘What do you think?’ Tim asked, looking at me through the unstable lamp light.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. I’m tempted to put him out of his misery, I thought. In my hands was a small, glass phial of synthetic morphine, enough to relieve his pain for hours. In my bag there was enough to relieve his pain for ever.
Rocket was clawing at the ground, howling with pain as my thumb tensed against the neck of the tiny, delicate phial. The nearest medical facility that could treat him was hundreds of miles away – over a front line and a national border. It was hopeless.
He probably won’t last till morning, I thought. You wouldn’t let a dog die like this.
Although the moral ambiguities of conflict were beginning to blind me, as I felt Rocket’s weak pulse I heard my own conscience, clearly, at last. There are already too many executioners here. Stop. There is no difference between giving a child a morphine overdose and beheading a prisoner. I imagined a bayonet in my hand instead of the morphine, and put the phial back into the bag. Instead, Tim and I helped Rocket to swallow a powerful cocktail of tablets. He stopped screaming almost immediately, and, eventually, slept. The animal departed, leaving a brain-damaged boy in its wake, limp on a damp sheet.
I lay awake for a long time afterwards. The further my professional life became entwined with Nick, the harder the choices I faced were becoming. I feared that my solutions were becoming morally unhygienic – compromises, not robust responses. I had seriously considered killing a child. I had agreed to film Nick’s coup. I had thought I was unrecognisable to myself in the mirror when I first escaped from Liberia. In retrospect, that was just the beginning.
I considered my conversation with Tim, about murder. I had once told myself there could be no moral relativism in war – that it was the first step on the road to genocide. I was no longer sure that was true. Perhaps doing the right thing was doing whatever it took to survive. I thought of Deku shooting the prisoner: was it really murder, or was it just part of his attempt to survive the ongoing, indivisible obscenity of war?
I thought about the conversation with Nick in Conakry, too. I was worried that I’d crossed a line when I
said yes to getting in an assault boat with Nick and the other mercenaries. But the truth was that the line had been crossed when I sent out that ambush in Tubmanburg; agreed with the Americans not to expose the Guinean Army; discussed shooting down helicopters. I was already an accessory to war.
As first light crept into the sky outside the window, I finally admitted the truth to myself. Saying yes to the coup wasn’t just about telling an untold story and giving a voice to the people whose lives would be affected. There was another, more troubling dimension to my decision. My first-ever film had been shocking, and ultimately acclaimed. But if this current attack on Monrovia failed as a programme, I didn’t know where to go next. Nick was offering me a sequel – a film that would be as new, as bold and as raw as anything I could imagine. And that was why I’d said yes.
13
TOO TOUGH TO DIE
On Monday, 23 June 2003, Cobra amassed the bulk of the LURD fighters in Tubmanburg onto the forecourt of the town’s blasted gas station for a final briefing. The ceasefire was dead. Freshly equipped with weapons from Guinea, the rebels’ offensive was about to begin. Around 400 men, women and children soaked from the rain and bedecked with RPGs, Kalashnikovs and bandoliers full of shiny brass bullets marched out at his command. Tim filmed from one side; me from the other.
‘De Liber’an people a’ no’ yor enemy,’ Cobra reminded them. ‘Taylah i’ yor only enemy.’
A bucket of water was brought out, and everyone gathered round. Verses from the Qur’an were recited in Arabic, and then the Lord’s Prayer was chanted in English. I mouthed the words Deliver us from Evil, and framed tight close-ups of the kids who were off to battle. After the last Amen, everyone rushed forward and dipped their hand into the bucket, splashing themselves with the blessed water in a frenzy of excitement. It was a surreal sight. One man ran around in a green dress, sporting a huge, bushy wig; another streaked past, grunting wildly, wearing only tight red underpants. Sweat was pouring from his forehead; his hands brandished a loaded Kalashnikov.
‘De operashan i’ call’ “Butterfly”,’ Cobra explained. ‘De secon’ stage, when we attack de Executive Manshan, wi’ be call’ “Web”.’
Cobra had christened his own bodyguard force ‘The Wild Geese’. The troops who were joining us from Robertsport were somewhat less romantically named ‘The Taliban Brigade’.
‘You know, sir,’ I said, choosing my words carefully, ‘if you’re keen on US support, that might not be the best choice of name.’
He looked at me as if I was an idiot. Before he went back to his men, he explained the name just meant that they were fierce fighters. Anyone knew that.
‘Taylah will ron,’ he assured me. ‘He wi’ ron, or he wi’ be arreste’...’ And then he added, after a moment’s reflection, ‘… or kill’.’
Tim and I went back to our room to pack – and wait. Dragon Master had gone ahead a day earlier with 200 men. The plan was to form a bridgehead on the Po River outside Monrovia; Cobra’s forces would follow up, and push through into the city.
Forty-eight hours passed, and we had heard nothing. Cobra was nowhere to be seen. It was a typical rebel cock-up, I explained to Tim. I began to feel foolish for ever having believed the rebels would reach Monrovia. Dragon Master must have been pulverised by now. As I lit a cigarette and considered what to do, a junior commander jogged up the steps to greet us, his AK cradled against his chest.
‘We leavin’. Everybody in town. Y’ wan’ com’?’
Tim was on his feet, peering over the edge of the balcony through the heat haze.
‘What, now?’
‘Yeah. Now, now, now, mah man! We goin’ fo’ Taylah!’
‘What?’ I asked. ‘We’re going to Monrovia? Right now? Where’s Cobra?’
‘He leavin’. Y’ bedder ron.’
And with that he turned on his heels, and jogged back into town.
‘Have you got everything?’
I was in shock, but I was wearing everything I needed. The pockets of my photographer’s vest bulged with all the kit required to film on the run. I picked up the camera and stuck my head around the door into the lounge. Rocket was there, lying on a dirty mattress, moaning and intermittently listening to a radio blaring the news in French. Somehow he was clinging onto life. Good luck, I thought, and then I followed Tim into town at a run – just in time to catch Cobra striding down the main street, heading south.
We walked out of the once-prosperous iron-ore mining town of Tubmanburg thirty-five miles southeast to Monrovia. We walked through baking sunshine that made our skin blister, and then through rain so unrelenting that it was hard to stand upright. Acres of trees, grasses, full and broken canopy jungle and swamps – populated by islands of fire-blasted houses scarred by nearly thirteen years of war – fanned out to the horizon on either side of the miraculously intact, metalled road that dragged the rebels towards potential oblivion. We walked at the front, with Cobra, followed by around 300 men, women and children – the vanguard of the LURD’s 3,000-strong guerrilla army that by now controlled over two-thirds of Liberia. We walked for ten hours straight.
Crippled by dehydration and the lack of salt in our diet (what little was available was used as currency, and not for cooking), our thighs cramped and burned with the effort of the march. We crunched chalky Valium tablets to relax our aching muscles, and spoke only when necessary. Quickly exhausted, we took it in turns to run ahead and shoot panoramic footage of the advance, or film short sound bites of the rebels on the move. For the last hours we marched in pitch blackness, relying on the tarmac conveyor belt of the road to guide us.
‘Who der? No creep!’
‘What the fuck is that?’ Tim whispered, as I put out my hand to hold him still.
In front of us a disembodied voice in the darkness called out. Men moved around ahead of us, unseen in the bushes, accompanied by the ominous metal click-clacks of rifles being made ready.
‘Shit!’
Other rebels immediately behind us stopped in their tracks, too. We all turned and ran, and dropped into a group crouch back on the road. It was hard to see more than a couple of feet in any direction. Please don’t start firing, I thought. We’ll be cut to ribbons. Then Cobra was there, and flicked on his torch. The failing beam was just powerful enough to illuminate the iron supports of a bridge and the glinting barrels of the rebels defending it. Hushed greetings were exchanged; Tim and I straightened up and exhaled loudly.
‘I think we’ve made it,’ he said, clicking on his own torch. There was more than a hint of incredulity in his voice. ‘How are your knees?’
‘Pretty fucked. I strapped them up really tight, but that last run bloody hurt.’ I was so shattered, it was hard to sound coherent. ‘They are actually going to attack Monrovia. Fuck, this is intense.’
We both stood, grinning stupidly while we considered our position. Then we crossed the bridge. On the far side there was a sentry box protected by a large.50-calibre machine gun. Tim, the officers and myself trooped inside.
‘We sleep here tonigh’,’ Cobra said. ‘Tomorro’, Monrovia.’
There was no food, no ceremony – almost no talking – from the rebels. There was really nothing to be done except rest.
I woke up at first light. A drizzle of rain, blown in through an observation hatch, brought me to my senses. The atmosphere in the squat concrete building was palpable – a stinking miasma of stale sweat, rank breath, farts and putrid feet. Locked in cramp, my left leg had twisted itself over Tim and was jammed up against the sleeping figure of Cobra. Today would be one of the most testing days of the 43-year-old major-general’s military career. I extracted myself carefully and hobbled outside.
We were on the east side of the Po River; 300 rebel fighters crouched, lay, slouched, stood and dozed among the trees and in the buildings around us. I took a long draw of water from the bottle on my belt and lit a cigarette. There was nothing to eat. One by one the other ten men, Tim among them, emerged from the bunker. It was a sti
ll, eerie morning: mist clung to the road like a thick, wet blanket, muting the tell-tale clatter of an army preparing to move.
‘You know, man, if this gets really nuts, just tell me what to do, okay? No bullshit. Don’t hold back.’
Tim was quiet, and serious. I could sense him going down into himself like I did before a battle began. I wanted Nick’s AK trained on the bush around me: if it came to a rout, there was no telling what might happen to us. Fuck you, man, I thought. Why couldn’t you be here, now, when I need you? Part of my anger came from jealousy, and I knew it. However extraordinary the situation I was in now, I knew I was missing out on Nick’s secret meetings to plan the coup. I reassured Tim as best I could.
‘Yeah, don’t worry. It will be okay.’
We’d talked at length about the ambushes I’d filmed the year before, and how best to survive them, but there was no way to prepare for the chaotic violence of the fighting.
‘Just stay back, and stay low. If all else fails, lie down. Watch me, but watch out for me, too. Once it kicks off, it’s hard to see anything that’s not right in front of you. Tell me what to do, too – and what to film. I may not have seen it. I mean, grab me. Physically grab me and show me if you need to.’
Tim nodded.
‘Right, let’s do it.’
He handed the grab-bag to our appointed bodyguard – an older, wiry fighter not best pleased with his babysitting detail – and started to film as the rebels began to march.
As the light grew stronger, so did the sounds of explosions towards the city centre. After an hour of hard walking, head-down in the rain, the bush had begun to retreat, giving way to a steadily increasing concentration of villas and houses, schools and churches. The city spilled out to greet us, monochrome in the flat morning light of the rainy season.
The first contact caught us during a heavy downpour, trapped in a cutting in the road. There was no cover of any description. On either side of us there were muddy six-foot banks, slippery as glass from the rain. I threw my camera, sealed up in its canoe bag, up and over my head. I heard it land with a crunch as I dug my fingers into the soft, red earth. Tim helped pull me up, and was quickly ahead of me on all fours, scuttling through someone’s cassava crop towards a house where a group of rebels were making a stand. What the fighters on the road were doing – how they were reacting – I didn’t know. We reached the house, covered in mud. Tim stood up.
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