Trade Winds

by T. M. Parris

  The camp

  We have to move. A woodsman wandered into the camp yesterday. He looked confused and wandered off again. They’re saying he might be here to do illegal logging. So he probably won’t report us. But it’s still a risk. So we have to move.

  We go cross-country on foot. At first it’s okay but we descend into the mangrove. We’re wading through mud, tripping on tree roots and stumbling on the rough ground. I step in mud up to my ankle and my foot comes out without my sandal. I kneel and try to prise it out but Cesar comes up behind me and shoves me forward. I remove the other sandal and carry on barefoot. Thorns scratch the exposed skin all over my feet and ankles. Cesar is wearing thick leather boots up to his ankles. I have never owned a pair of boots like that.

  Our hostages are slow and we often have to stop for them. The man has to go into the bushes often, because he has a problem with his stomach. He’s pale and stumbles more than his wife. She glances at him frequently but they say very little. She finds the walking difficult even with shoes, slipping and sliding. Where it’s very muddy, two of us support her on either side. Her husband cannot: he is too weak.

  After several hours most of us are barefoot. We struggle in silence, single file, for more hours. We are all wet, from the mud, from the damp ferns and trees that we battle through, from sweat as we press on in the hot humidity. I’m hungry all the time. In the camp we get a single bowl of rice a day. The swamp smells of soil and something rotting. Insects buzz round my face and bite my skin. Every time we put something down it’s covered in leeches. They hide in folds of clothing and seek out bare skin to suck the blood from and become fat on it. I pull their slimy bodies off with horror. When Cesar sees me, he laughs.

  “Ignore them! They don’t do any harm. You’ve plenty more blood left,” he says.

  We arrive at the new camp after dark. There’s a fast-flowing river nearby which we can use for clean water. We are joined by more people who bring equipment with them. Now we have canvas roofing which we can set up above the whole camp, and camouflage over the top with vegetation. The whole camp will stay dry. We have hammocks which we string up between the trees to avoid sleeping on the ground. The hostages have hammocks too and quickly climb into them even though they find them uncomfortable and too small. I sleep, then I’m woken up to keep watch. The woman, Yvonne, is asleep, but the man is not. He looks at me as he sits up rocking in his hammock. He says something in French and I shake my head. He tries English.

  “What is your name?”

  “Adel.” We are whispering. We must be as quiet as possible in the camp.

  “I am Lucien. Not everyone here speaks English.”

  “Most of the guards are from the villages on these islands. They speak Tuareg.”

  “But you?”

  “I’m from a village too. But I went away to Davao to university.”

  “And then you came here?”

  “I joined this group, yes.”

  He is curious. Davao is where I met Ismael. He was my economics lecturer but he has opened my eyes to so much more than that. Through him I understand the need to fight for Islam.

  “You’ve got family?”

  “Just my mother.” I came straight here from Davao without going home first. I spoke to my mother on the phone, briefly, to tell her that I was called to jihad. Ismael said this was for the best. But I don’t want to think about her.

  Lucien gazes about him then looks at me again. His eyes are hollow. “How long will we be here, do you think?”

  I have no answer for him, but his face is pleading. “Not long. I hope.”

  He nods and gives a thin smile. His gaze turns to the sleeping form of his wife, slumped awkwardly in the hammock. “Her feet are cut,” he says. “Do you have anything? Can you help her?”

  I shake my head. Everyone’s feet are cut.

  Next day, someone brings a video camera. They spend ages deciding where to make the film, with a backdrop that won’t betray where we are. They want the hostages in the centre and us standing around them with cloths over our faces, holding our guns and magazines of bullets. Lucien is made to read a statement aloud. It’s in English, but not very good English. I could write it better but I say nothing. They are demanding a huge sum of money for the ransom. They think everyone from the west is very rich. Lucien reads it to practise. But when we are ready for filming, nobody knows how to operate the camera. Several people try and they discuss and argue, but no one can do it. We stand there clutching our weapons for an hour watching them take turns. Then Cesar says that the camera is not working and they will get another one and do it tomorrow.

  I listen to the guards grumbling in soft voices. With no video we have made no ransom demand. None of us will be paid anything until the ransom comes in. The men from the villages are doing this for a few weeks only. To them, this is not war. This is not jihad. They are here for the money. Some of them have not told their wives at home what they are doing. They have said that they are going to “look for work”. They’re hoping to go back in a couple of weeks with a pocketful of cash and carry on as before. They start to talk about the women from the villages, women they know but who are not their wives. They smirk and chuckle.

  Cesar joins them. He tells a story of how national soldiers tried to besiege a building he was defending. He fought one of them and strangled him. His voice rises above a whisper. His eyes are bright. He has been taking shabu, like some people do here. The guards watch and listen silently.

  “You, Adel!” His voice gets even louder. Everyone in the camp looks up. “How many have you killed? You think you’ve got the stomach to strangle an infidel? Or even an animal?” People snigger. “What about a tiny mouse?” More sniggers. “We can show you how to use that gun of yours, but do you have what it takes to look someone in the face and pull the trigger? End a life? They can’t teach you that at university.”

  His teeth gleam white as he grins. I get up and walk away.

  I wash myself in the river. I move downstream, further from the camp than I should go. The ground is dry here. I kneel, and put my head forward on the ground. I stay there, focused on my prayer. The righteous war is difficult. Nobody said it would be easy. I hear Ismael’s voice in my head. It will take determination and persistence to resist this corrupt government which has turned a blind eye again and again to the death and suffering of Muslims. Don’t be weak, Adel. You must stay strong. I lift my head. In the bushes in front of me I see a pair of eyes. It’s a small boy, maybe eight or nine years old. He stands and stares. I look around. Nobody else is near.

  “Go away!” I whisper to the boy. “Don’t come back here. Go! Go!” I shoo him away with my hands. His eyes widen and he turns and disappears into the bushes with a rustle.

  I go back to the camp. I should tell Cesar about the boy. He would berate me for wandering too far from the camp. We would have to move again, another long, painful walk. I get into a hammock. I like the hammocks. They keep us off the ground away from the biting ants and the leeches. I am clean and dry. This is a good camp.

  I turn to my side and try to sleep.

  Jolo Island

  From Jolo City in the Sulu archipelago, Fairchild travelled the rough road by jeepney to the village and home of Mahalia, a cousin of a friend’s friend in Davao. In their rickety wooden hut she served him rice and sesame flour balls, skewered chicken and corn, fried bananas. He was getting by with the Tuareg he was picking up en route, on top of Tagalog and random words of English. He told Mahalia what he was looking for, and she quietly spread the word. If nothing came forward quickly he would move on. He was a foreigner a long way off the beaten track. It wouldn’t be long before people started asking difficult questions.

  Outside in the dusty open space, the children played basketball with a worn brown ball and a hoop attached to a tree. When Fairchild went to join them, their whoops and screams drew out more children with curious stares, edging closer to the tall foreigner. Mahalia sat on
the steps and watched, smiling. He knocked the ball away and joined her. They looked out onto palm leaves bending in the wind and a distant deep blue sea. Life was good enough in the village, she said, when they could get their surplus crop to market and make a little money. But that didn’t always happen.

  In the evening, while he was sitting on the floor reading by torchlight, Mahalia brought one of the village boys to him.

  “Tell him what you saw,” she said.

  “A man, praying,” said the boy. “In the jungle.”

  “Did he see you?” asked Fairchild.

  The boy nodded hesitantly.

  “Can you say where?”

  The boy gave a rough location, helped by Mahalia with some of the words, a mixture of languages. If it were them, they were on Jolo Island itself, not one of the many smaller islands they could have jumped onto. Maybe they thought the vastness of the jungle would be their best defence. Maybe they had to move fast and didn’t have enough time to find something more remote.

  Mahalia said in English: “The family needs money. His grandmother is on her own. If he can help…?”

  Fairchild hesitated, then nodded.

  Later, in the light of the torch, he retrieved a pair of used but serviceable trainers from his backpack, and a small round disc loaded with electronic circuitry. With a needle, thread and scissors, he carefully split the fabric of one of the trainers, inserted the disc into the lining and sewed it tightly shut again. He moistened his hands, slipped outside, crouched and picked up a handful of dirt, working it with his hands. He coated both trainers with it, and spread some on his own face. Inside, he repacked the trainers into a backpack heavy with gear, and shouldered it. Everyone was asleep except Mahalia, who wordlessly watched him leave. He nodded a silent thanks before slipping away. He’d already left some money in his bedding where she would find it in the morning. He wouldn’t come back this way.

  At the edge of the village the boy was waiting. He seemed suddenly shy of Fairchild appearing in camouflage gear. They left together, the boy leading, up along a river then fording across where it was shallow. They took a path up into the centre of the jungle. After twenty minutes, Fairchild stopped him.

  “How far from here? Which way?” The boy answered as best he could, pointing. Fairchild handed him a wad of pesos. “Go back to the village. Give this to your grandmother straight away. Don’t tell anyone what you told me. Don’t tell anyone you came this way. And don’t return here. Stay in the village and look after your grandmother. You understand?”

  The boy nodded, his face serious, and ran back to the village.

  Fairchild waited for the rustling leaves to completely subside, then waited and listened some more, getting used to the natural night time sounds. Then he resumed, working his way deeper into the jungle.

  The camp

  I kneel, eyes closed, waiting for the right frame of mind for prayer. I feel the warmth of early afternoon sunlight on my face. A hand closes over my mouth and steel digs into the side of my head.

  “Don’t move or say a word,” says a voice, in English. A foreigner, a Westerner. An infidel, of course. Who else would attack a praying man?

  He pushes me face down into the ground. “Make a sound and I’ll shoot you in the head.” The weight of his knee is on my back as he binds my hands with a cable tie. “Now get up and walk,” he mutters in my ear.

  He directs me in front of him towards the river, the flowing water masking our voices. “Sit,” he demands, shoving me to the ground. He comes round to perch on a rock in front of me, his gun pointed at my chest.

  “The French couple,” he says, “Are they in good health?”

  I don’t answer. I will not help him.

  “Why haven’t you made a ransom demand? Are they dead?” He looks like a soldier but he doesn’t sound American. I look beyond him and listen. He reads my thoughts. “I’m alone,” he says. It doesn’t make sense, that he’s alone or that he tells me so.

  “You’re devout,” he says. “You pray five times a day. You leave your gun and your shoes behind.” He’s looking at my bare feet. I don’t tell him that I don’t have any shoes.

  “We’re all devout,” I say.

  “But you’re the only one who prays.” It sounds like he is laughing at us but his eyes are steady.

  “You’ve been watching us,” I say. I realise this is my fault. I should have told Cesar about the boy I saw. I am weak. “People pray at different times in different places. Why are you here?”

  “I’m interested in your hostages.”

  “Are you going to rescue them?” I hope it sounds like I am mocking him.

  “So they’re both still alive, then.”

  I’m annoyed with myself for my indiscretion. “You’ve been watching us. You tell me.”

  “I can’t see the whole camp. I see who goes in and out.” His eyes narrow. “Your English is very good. You’ve been a student. You study the Quran. But you’re here to be a fighter. To kill if necessary. What does the Quran say about killing?”

  I hold his gaze. I will not show fear. “It says that you who believe should fight the disbelievers and let them find harshness in you.”

  Then he speaks, distantly. “Jihad is ordained for you though you dislike it, and it may be that you dislike a thing which is good for you.”

  My blood boils. “How dare you say the words of the Quran! You are an infidel!”

  “Yes,” he says, “I am. But I’m not the one who’s dragged an elderly French couple halfway to their death beds.”

  My anger has given me strength and I realise I have managed to loosen the cable tie. I speak through gritted teeth. “Those who disbelieve can be taken as captives for ransom, if it benefits Islam. We are treating them well.”

  “And the benefit to Islam is an Islamic state. That’s right, isn’t it? Tell me, who will govern this Islamic state? That guy with the big beard who laughs at all of you?”

  I struggle and feel the tie slacken. My hands are free, but I keep them behind my back. “The rules of sharia are clear. The state will follow them.”

  “But what if the state doesn’t follow them?” A smile spreads across the infidel’s face. He’s resting the gun on his knee. I leap forward and charge at him. He’s on his feet and comes towards me. We grapple. He’s skilled and strong. I end up face down on the ground with a mouthful of dirt. He’s twisting my arm up across my back. But I don’t care. I won’t sit and listen to that. I look up and see that the gun is on the ground in front of us.

  He shifts position, lowering himself onto the ground. But the pressure on my arm doesn’t ease. “Where did they get to you?” he asks. “The people who recruited you? At university? Or before that, at home?”

  I spit dirt out of my mouth. He waits, but I don’t answer.

  “Where is he, then?” the voice continues. “The one who persuaded you to come here. Is he hiding in a swamp with a rifle on his back?” I make an effort to breathe more slowly, get control of my energy. “Didn’t think so,” says the voice. “What does your family think, your friends, about you coming here? Or did you drift away from all of them somehow? Lucky obedience is required by the Quran. Obey Allah, obey the prophet, obey those in authority, that’s right, isn’t it?” My skins crawls at the sound of this unbeliever mocking my faith. “Obeying the law, on the other hand, that’s not so important, right? Kidnapping, murder?”

  I lift my head to get the words out. “The law of the colonialist oppressors! Their laws only serve themselves. They allow the corrupt to get rich at the expense of the people!”

  “The laws of a democracy. It was the people who chose these laws.”

  “Democracy? You believe in that? Then you are stupid!” I hear a quiet intake of breath, but I don’t care. “Democracy is a hole in the ground! A hole filled with bodies, people murdered on the roadside, on their way to exercise this so-called democracy! Women raped and shot in the genitals, thrown alive into a pit,
for believing in democracy! And who has been punished for it, according to these laws of yours? Nobody! Your laws are worth nothing.”

  There’s a silence. “You’re from Magindanao,” he says. “That was the massacre at Magindanao.” His voice has changed. The harshness is gone. I’m surprised at what he knows. “You were there?” he asks. “You were involved in some way? A family member?”

  “My mother’s sister,” I say quietly. The pressure on my arm has eased. “She was a journalist. They thought the journalists would be safe. And the women.”

  Another pause. He is still holding my arm but his attention has wavered. I gather energy and focus on the gun still lying on the ground.

  “There’s a prosecution, isn’t there? Dozens of people facing charges?”

  I snort. “No one will be punished. The Ampatuan clan is in the pay of the government. The whole of Mindanao belongs to them. They do whatever they like with their private army. And you criticise us, when we do the same.”

  “The Ampatuans,” says the voice thoughtfully, “They’re Muslims too, aren’t they?”

  I burst up and knock him back. He springs forward but not fast enough. My hands are on the gun and I turn and point it straight at him. He freezes. I get to my feet, not taking my eyes off him. He sits back.

  “It’s not enough to be Muslim,” I say, “if you’re puppets of a Christian state. They’re the instruments of our oppressors. They betray our faith while pretending to have faith themselves. They make a mockery of Islam. Only an Islamic state can guarantee the rights of Muslims to live the true way.”

  I release the safety catch on the gun. He stares at me with his steady eyes. “Are you going to kill me?” he asks.

  “What do you want here?”

  “To talk. To you. And to give you something.”

  “I don’t need anything from you.” My finger tightens on the trigger. I can’t let this man get away. He’s a danger to the camp, to our cause. I’ve already shown weakness and paid a price. I can’t do so again.