guard sprinted back. Sami opened the door again. ‘Upton apologises for the delay Father,’ the guard said. ‘He told me to wave you through immediately.’ The road was barely wide enough for two trucks to pass. Father Desmond gave a friendly wave to the guard hut as we drove past. The rain was still pounding and the roads seemed to be getting worse. Dips and potholes had turned into miniature lakes. You had to judge the speed exactly right. Too fast and you lost it on the bends, too slow and the mud swallowed your tyres. Half an hour past the second road block, Father Desmond made us pull onto a narrow track that led to
a farm house. ‘I’ll be leaving you now,’ Father Desmond said. ‘Who lives here?’ Sami asked. ‘Nobody,’ The priest said, ‘I’ve stayed here before. It’s got a good roof. I’ll spend the night in the dry
and hitch a lift back to HQ in the morning.’ Father Desmond called Billy and Adam into the cab. It was a squeeze with five of us in there. Adam sat
on Billy’s lap and we all pressed our hands together while the Father said a prayer: ‘Our Father, bless these people and provide them safe passage on their long journey. Guide them in the
ways of your son, Jesus Christ and set them on a path that will lead them to eternal glory. Amen.’ We all opened our eyes and said Amen. We thanked Father Desmond for his help. The priest shook all our hands, except Adam who got a little hug. He took his overnight bag out of the foot well and began trudging through the mud towards the dark outline of the abandoned house.
Sami got our packs out the back and grabbed our AK47s. We had to use M16s if we wanted to pass for soldiers. I lobbed mine into the bushes without a thought, but Sami held up her shabby rifle, staring at it solemnly, ‘Five years,’ she said. ‘It never failed me once.’ She raised the gun up to her cheek and kissed the wooden stock before throwing it into the trees on top of mine. Billy lifted Adam into the back and pulled up the tailgate behind himself. Sami looked upset as she switched on the engine on and began a delicate three point turn in the mud. ‘I bet you’re glad I couldn’t do anything to those helicopters,’ she snapped. I couldn’t help laughing, ‘The priest turning up just then; it must have been God’s will.’ She sunk her thumbnail into my nipple and gave it an almighty twist. ‘One more word, Killer. You’re asking for such a pounding.’
. . .
Sami kept our speed low through the night. The rain never stopped. The closer we got to the Maringa river, the lower the ground and the thicker the mud. We crossed loads of small bridges where the water had risen above the wooden deck. The structures groaned ominously. They’d been built for pedestrians and handcarts, not five tonne trucks.
The more experienced army drivers charged through the mud at twice our speed, blasting their horns if they got trapped behind us on a narrow stretch of road. We passed a few trucks that had slipped off the road. One had missed the entrance to a bridge and been swallowed in the muddy banks of a lake. Most satisfyingly, as the sun rose, we re-passed a particularly fanatical driver, who’d spent half an hour trapped behind us, blasting his horn and waving his fist. He had both his passenger side wheels wedged in a ditch. He and his codriver were standing up to their waists in creamy coloured mud. Sami waved out the window and sarcastically shouted ‘Good morning,’ as we passed by.
There were occasional road blocks. All were the basic kind that used to spring up near camp, with a single line of spikes across the road and a tent with three or four troops inside. Every time, we warned Billy and he made Adam crawl into the wooden machine gun crate.
The mud and rain demolished any desire the guards had to search our vehicle or ask questions. We’d blast our horn to get one of the troops to drag the muddy spikes out of the road. The closest we came to being searched was a drunken fellow who moaned about his stomach pains and asked if we had medicine. When we said no, he turned nasty and threatened to search our truck. He only got as far as shining his torch in the back and waving at Billy before he got fed up and let us pass.
We’d managed 140 kilometres in eight hours when the sun rose. We pulled over to go to the toilet and top up the fuel tank. I had to make sure there was no traffic around before letting Adam outside to pee. Billy had slept some and claimed he was a good driver. He took the drivers seat, with Sami going into the back for some rest. Billy hadn’t driven in years, but once he remembered which way round the pedals were, he did OK.
There was no air conditioning in the cab, the sunlight magnified through the glass was unbearable. Most of the time we seemed to be driving through a sheet of muddy water and the glare off it made it tricky to see, even with sunglasses. I rested my head against the open window frame. The noise and vibration were atrocious, but the warm spray blowing inside cooled me off.
. . .
Adam was just a toddler. We were playing on the stairs in our old house, I fell over on top of him and crushed his ribs. He started crying. I was scared that Mum was going to tell me off even though it wasn’t my fault. I woke up with a jolt. Billy looked at me from the drivers seat. ‘You OK, Jake?’ Everything felt wrong. The sky was moving too fast and our progress was smooth and quiet, almost like I was still dreaming. I rubbed a bit of gunk from my eye and sat up straight. There were two lanes of tarmac going in each direction and the truck was doing eighty kilometres an hour. There were big cracks and the road markings had worn off, but after weeks of either choking on dust or sliding in mud, the tarmac felt like heaven.
Traffic was light. There were never more than a couple of other vehicles in view. The land beside the highway was kept clear to prevent ambushes. We passed every kind of wreckage. Giant articulated trucks, rusted tanks, cars, rotted wooden handcarts and thousands of burst tyres. In a few places, the tarmac was all rippled where burning vehicles had melted it. In others, Billy had to drive around craters where the road had been pounded by artillery shells. At one point, it stopped raining for a bit and a rainbow arced across the blue sky ahead.
Billy drove over two hundred kilometres before midday, untroubled except by the eerie columns of tanks and APC’s grinding past in the other direction. As we got closer to the Maringa, I started reading the giant blue road signs. They showed a road heading all the way to the capital. In the top corner of each sign was a painting of a fat man with a moustache and in giant white lettering, President Umberto Sekki Transnational Highway. ‘How far does this road go?’ I asked. ‘Not far,’ Billy laughed, ‘This bit out here was paid for by the mining companies, to help get their trucks to the river. There’s another bit leading out of the capital. You can’t use it though. All the flyovers collapsed in an earthquake and never got repaired. In between there’s seventeen hundred kilometres of highway they never got around to building.’ ‘What happened to President Sekki?’ ‘Military booted him out,’ Billy said. ‘They tortured him for a couple of days to get the number of his Swiss bank accounts, then they finished him off with a firing squad.’
27. FERRY
The Transnational Highway came to an abrupt halt on the banks of the Maringa. Dilapidated shacks on the edge of Kisumba were visible from our side of the river. Our noses caught the tang of rotting food and sewage whenever the wind gusted in the right direction. The four lane road bridge that once spanned the river had it’s central arch knocked out. The road ended abruptly in mangled steel reinforcing wires, with chunks of concrete dangling over the water. The surviving part of the bridge was home to thousands of noisy gulls. Their accumulated lime had stained the tarmac white.
An arrow painted on the tarmac pointed the way to the ferry. We drove a couple of kilometres down a slippery, single lane, track. In places there was only a few centimetres between our tyres and a tumble onto the muddy banks of the river. The road opened into a waterlogged field. There were about thirty trucks parked up, waiting to cross. Soldiers were propped on the tailgates of their trucks, drinking beer and fighting off flies and heat.
Me and Billy jumped out of the cab, pleasantly surprised by the relaxed atmosphere and apparent lack of security. I walked up to
a couple of smoking soldiers. ‘Hey,’ I said. The guy pointed at Billy, ‘You look like that idiot who used to do the TV show.’ Billy laughed, ‘I get that a lot. He’s a distant cousin.’ ‘My sister used to fancy him something rotten,’ the other soldier said. ‘I told her he’s gay.’ We all laughed. ‘He was gay,’ the first soldier said. ‘All those prissy white teeth.’ ‘Billy Mango was not gay,’ Billy spluttered angrily. ‘I’ve met his wife.’ ‘How long for the ferry?’ I asked, trying to change the subject before Billy started fighting for his family
honour. The soldiers both shrugged. ‘We’ve been here since yesterday morning,’ one said. ‘A guy came across in a little boat and told us the ferry had broken down. They’re waiting for a spare part. It’s supposedly being flown up from the capital, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.’ ‘Is there another ferry nearby?’ I asked. ‘Sixty clicks up river,’ the soldier said. ‘But it’s a two-hundred kilometre drive on the crappest roads. I’m in no rush. I’d rather be waiting here than driving the truck up to the front with the rebels trying to blow us up.’ ‘Fair enough,’ I said. I climbed in the back of the truck with Billy. You got a cooling breeze through the canvas when the
truck was moving, but it baked inside as soon as you stopped. We explained that we had to wait or drive north. Sami pulled the lid off the machine gun crate. Adam sat up, looking all puffed. ‘I can hardly breathe in there,’ Adam said. ‘Can I get out to pee?’ ‘There’s soldiers everywhere,’ I said. ‘You can’t go outside. I’ll find you a bottle or something.’ ‘I better stay in here as well,’ Sami said. ‘The less they see of me, the longer it takes them to realise I’m a
girl.’ ‘We could drive up to get the other ferry,’ I said. Sami shook her head, ‘It’s off our maps. We don’t know what kind of roadblocks we’ll encounter, or
where we’ll land on the other side. It can’t take much more than another day to repair the ferry.’ I wandered up to the edge of the river. Half a dozen soldiers were standing there, passing around a set
of tiny binoculars. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked. The binoculars were passed over to me. I focused them up and looked at the rusty ferry a few hundred metres away on the other side of the river. It had a single open deck with ramps at either end for vehicles to drive on and off. A man wearing nothing but blue running shorts was working out of an opening in the middle of the deck.
‘He’s been working there about an hour,’ the soldier standing next to me explained. ‘I think they must have delivered the part.’
I watched the mechanic climb out of the hole. He stamped his bare foot and hurled a wrench across the deck. ‘He just chucked a fit,’ I said. ‘What?’ Someone shouted excitedly. The binoculars got snatched off me. The soldiers all started pushing and shoving, trying to get a
glimpse of the action. ‘Looks like were here for a while longer,’ one soldier said. I wandered back to the truck.
. . .
The day passed miserably. Adam was going crazy trapped inside the hot truck with nothing to do. At least Sami could button up her jacket and wander outside for a little while. Billy borrowed a couple of hundred dollars of our money and found a card game. He staggered back an hour later, half drunk, complaining that he’d been cheated.
Mid-afternoon there was a blast of smoke out of the ferry’s exhaust, which caused great excitement among the crowd with the binoculars. It only lasted a minute. More trucks kept arriving, until the field was packed and they started queuing up along the single lane road. We wouldn’t be able to get out of the field now, even if we wanted to. Shortly before the sun went down, the grubby mechanic picked up his tools, walked up the river bank and rode off on his bicycle. It looked like we were staying the night.
. . .
I slept in the back of the truck, with Adam snuggled up between me and Sami. We hadn’t washed since we left Billy’s and the inside of the truck smelled foul. It was a restless night. I snatched bursts of sleep here and there and never managed to get comfortable.
I woke up just after the sun, with a headache and a stiff back. I jumped off the truck and wandered drowsily through the mud to the riverbank. The men with the binoculars were in a bright mood. ‘He was already working when the sun came up,’ one of the soldiers said when he noticed me. I got a glance through the binoculars. The mechanic had a colleague with him. They looked happy and
there was steam puffing out of the vertical exhaust. ‘Looking good, kid,’ the soldier said, thumping me on the back. I walked back to the truck. Sami and Adam were up. Adam was eating peaches out of a can with his
fingers. He already sounded fed up. ‘When can we get out of here?’ He asked. ‘I’m boiling already.’ ‘Doesn’t look bad,’ I said. ‘The ferry looks like it’s fixed.’ I took a can of mixed fruit and stood outside with Billy, pouring the sugar drenched cubes of fruit in my mouth, while trying not to cut my lips on the jagged opening of the tin. There were shouts firing back and forth among the trucks as the ferry began loading up with trucks. I couldn’t see how the trucks were going to land when there was a queue of trucks blocking the narrow path from the highway.
A little cheer went up when the ferry started moving. It got about halfway across the river when there was a bang. Black smoke spluttered out of the funnel, before stopping entirely. The ferry stopped moving forwards and began drifting downstream with the current. It took the captain ten minutes to get the engine going again and the ferry began creeping towards us. Judging by the noise, the engine was at full power, but the ferry barely moved against the current. When it eventually landed, the ferry had taken nearly twenty minutes to cross the three hundred metre gap. I could have swum it faster.
A couple of crewmembers dropped the front gantry and jumped ashore, only to realise there was nowhere to unload the trucks. Every truck on the single lane road had to reverse back to the highway. One truck got stranded with it’s rear wheel overhanging the river. There was no way to get it back on the road, so the driver got out and the ferry operators pushed the truck into the river, where it embedded itself nose first in the mud.
By the time the road was clear, it was midday. Sixteen trucks crawled off the boat and up the hill and sixteen more from our side on board. I worked out we’d make it on the ferry’s next trip. When it got to the other side and the trucks unloaded, there was another hour delay. The owner of the binoculars had crossed over, so we had no clue why.
The ferry made its second crossing and the trucks unloaded. We sealed Adam inside the machine gun box with a bottle of water. I hoped he wouldn’t be trapped for too long. He could easily pass out, or even suffocate. Me, Sami and Billy got in the cab.
The metal gantry clanged as we drove onto the rusty deck. It was quickly raised up and the ferry roared for a few seconds before the engine died. Choking black diesel smoke billowed into our cab. After a few grinding noises, the captain got the engine restarted and we began crawling across the river. The boat shook violently and the steel deck plates squealed over every bump in the water. As we got closer to the Kisumba side of the river, the smell of sewage got stronger until I had to force myself to take each breath.
We drove off. All the trucks had to queue in front of a security barrier. There were four guards with sniffer dogs. A heavy steel gate protected with machine guns our exit. Some trucks got waved straight through, others were held up and searched. I got more and more nervous as Sami edged us forwards. A guard thumped on the passenger door. I opened up. ‘All out,’ he shouted. I climbed down. Billy and Sami were taken care of by another guard on the opposite side of the truck. ‘Hands flat against the truck, feet apart.’ I did what I was told. The dog rested its front paws on the back of my leg and gave me a good sniff.
The guard patted me down. ‘What’s that?’ The guard asked. ‘Pistol,’ I said. ‘Whose boots did you lick to get one of those?’ He asked. I didn’t answer. ‘Any drugs?’ The guard asked. ‘No.’ ‘Have you or any part of your crew had any association with rebel units?’ ‘No,’ I said. I’ve o
ften wondered why security guards ask questions like that. It’s not like anyone’s ever going to
admit to being a rebel fighter and having half a kilo of heroin stuffed down their pants. ‘Show us inside the truck.’ I walked around and pulled down the tailgate. The guard climbed inside. I tried to not to listen to my pounding heart and act calm. The dog started climbing over everything. It got pretty excited, yapping and wagging it’s tail when it got to the machine gun crate. The mutt could probably see Adam between the wooden slats. The guard looked down at me, ‘Bloody reeks in here.’ I was surprised he could smell anything over the stench of the town. It must be like when you go round
someone’s house and it stinks of cats, but they never even notice because they’re used to it. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘We’ve been sleeping in there the last few nights.’ The dog was getting frantic around the box, but the guard pulled it away, stroked the crown of its head
and jumped out. ‘Wants a good bloody airing in there,’ the guard said, pushing the tailgate back up. ‘Sorry,’ I said again. I think he realised I was nervous. The guard faced me right off. ‘How long have you been in the army?’ He asked. ‘Four months,’ I lied ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘You look really young. How old are you?’ ‘Seventeen,’ I said. ‘Everyone reckons I look younger.’ The other guard emerged from the driver’s side and looked at his colleague. ‘Everything OK?’ He asked. The guard wavered for a second, ‘Yeah… I suppose.’ ‘OK son,’ my guard said. ‘Off you go.’ I walked back to the cab. The three of us exchanged grins and drove off.
28. KISUMBA
Kisumba was a stop off point for troops heading between home and the front lines. Most of the people on the streets near the river were soldiers out for a good time. They wanted drink and girls. Every shop front offered iced beer. There were bars every few metres. Some were in proper buildings, but most were improvised: typically a tarpaulin lashed over wooden posts, with a few bashed up chairs and kegs of beer standing on a filthy table.