Recoil

1

There were no trucks buzzing round the back of the aircraft this time. Here, it was down to muscle. Thirty or so guys were already trudging up the ramp. They wore ripped, dirty loincloths and T-shirts, and some had flip-flops or wellies on their feet. A few were even sporting rubber swimming caps. They had them so they wore them. Every one of them, clothed or not, was caked in dust and grime, and the skin on their knees and elbows was white and cracked.

The flies’ welcoming committee gave us a warm reception now that the props had stopped. I started the Thai hand dance round my face; most of the others seemed happy to let the little bastards get on with it.

The loadie shouted at the guys in French, presumably trying to marshal them to start offloading. The only equipment I could see was a couple of vegetable-market-type barrows. Kids jumped on and off them as they were trundled towards the aircraft.

We walked along the airstrip, keeping the shanty town on our right. Piles of empty red food-aid sacks lined the verges, weighted down with logs.

The scabby dogs were now busy scattering a flock of three or four bony old chickens. Washing hung from trees. A few of the circular huts were made from beer cans mortared with mud then painted blue. Wriggly tin roofs were clearly all the rage.

Sam waved at the women and kids.

They waved back and smiled. ‘Mr Sam! Mr Sam!’

Lime-green and yellow jerry-cans were piled everywhere, and old plastic one-litre water bottles hung like strings of onions outside each hut. Everything looked like it was used until it fell apart.

We passed a group of young men, smoking and drinking, Czech AKs slung over their shoulders. The brown plastic furniture tried hard to be Russian wood, but failed.

They followed us with their eyes. They were curious about the new white face in town.

The smell of wood fires and cooking filled the air. ‘Takes you back, dunnit?’ Sam did some more smiling and waving. This was beginning to feel like a royal walkabout. ‘These people are the lucky ones. The total number of Palestinians and Israelis killed in the past six years is about four and a half thousand. Here, that’s not even the score for a long weekend. Over four million dead, Nick.’

‘You know what they say about records?’

‘What?’

‘They’re there to be broken.’

Sam chose to ignore what he thought was a bad joke as more overexcited kids ran up and bustled round him. He shook hands and patted heads. They seemed healthy enough. The whites of their eyes were actually white. They were getting protein.

I smiled. ‘They seem to like you.’

‘They know that I know what’s going on in there.’ He tapped the top of a young head with a forefinger. ‘My mother died when I was five and my father hit the drink and forgot to come home. I lived in council shelters until I joined up.’

I wished I’d been sent to one when my dad fucked off. Instead I’d got a drunken stepdad who beat the shit out of me and my mother. But I understood where he was coming from.

We pushed through the crowd. ‘Aren’t the UN supposed to be doing their bit to stop all this shit? And what about the aid organizations like Mercy Flight?’

‘Toothless, the lot of ’em.’ He checked the sun and pointed west. ‘The DRC border’s just twelve Ks that way. That’s where the nightmares begin. You got the different rebel groups fighting each other to control the mines. Even the army’s in on the act. Every man and his dog are at each other’s throats. Raping, machete-ing, and no one’s doing zip to stop it.’

Sam gestured at the kids and the shanty town, the dust-covered goats and black pigs nosing around in the mud and trying to avoid getting kicked out of the way. ‘They butcher these people to maintain a climate of fear. Sometimes they even eat them.

‘Yeah, that’s right, cannibalism.’ He turned and pointed at a small girl at the back of the crowd. She couldn’t have been more than two or three, standing with her thumb shoved in her mouth. ‘Her two sisters were cooked and eaten. It’s an empowerment thing. She was only saved because she was barely six months old and there wasn’t enough meat on her.

‘So these people stay here. We protect them, they work for us in return and worship in my church.’

‘Why don’t you have the orphanage here? Wouldn’t it be safer?’

‘There’s fourteen kids in it at the moment. They’re scared of staying in DRC but even more scared of coming here – they’re scared of everything and everyone. They think it’s safer to be near the mine, you know, nearer local tribes. But I eventually calm them down and trickle them here.’

I looked past the tiny little girl to the breeze-block and wriggly-tin building Sam was pointing at. The massive white wooden cross above the door told me all I needed to know.

The An12 was being refuelled from light blue drums rolled to the aircraft and hand-pumped into the tanks. The onboard drums weren’t getting unloaded. Just like having a couple of litres of fuel in the boot, they were Lex’s back-up.

Twenty or so people were lined up behind the ramp, manhandling the cargo out of the aircraft and on to old wooden trolleys. The blue coolers were getting thrown up on to the women’s heads as heat bounced off the aircraft wings.

We came to a row of worn and tattered eight-man tents at the end of the shanty town. Guys sat round cigarette-scorched trestle tables, using boxes and tree-trunks as seats. Every one of them was carrying an AK; some were in a uniform of sorts, green trousers or bottoms or T-shirts, but most were in a mix of football shirts and ripped civilian clothes. Some had boots, some had flip-flops. There was no ‘Mr Sam’ being shouted in this part of town.

A few heads emerged from behind tent flaps and disappeared as quickly. At first, they weren’t as excited as the others had been – until they saw Sam’s suitcase. Hurried orders and glances were exchanged.

Sam led me away from the soldiers towards the end of the strip and a cluster of much newer, bigger, neater tents set back into the jungle. A big cam net had been secured between the trees. I could hear generators. We were in the high-rent part of town. ‘This is home for us, Nick.’

It looked like a typical open-square headquarters set-up: nice area, six good-quality green-canvas tents, and an old Indian guy sweeping dust from the hardened mud with a homemade witch’s broom.

Kids weren’t clamouring around us any more. It was like we’d crossed a line and they daren’t follow.

Sam shepherded me in the direction of a large, slightly rusty fridge parked under the cam net. An extension cable snaked away into the trees, towards a distant generator. Folding wooden chairs were arranged round a couple of six-foot tables, on which sat a couple of big cans of Paludrin. ‘Fancy some iced tea? I’m gagging.’

I nodded as he opened one of the fridge doors. A waft of cool air bathed my face. As I waited for my drink I extracted two Paludrin tablets. I couldn’t remember if they were good for preventing malaria or not, or gave you kidney problems either way.

I took the tea and rattled the pills down me anyway. It was OK for Africans. Some become immune in their fifties, but only if they live that long. There weren’t many grey-haired guys in these parts.

A loud voice rang out from one of the tents: ‘That you, Sam? Stone with you?’

It didn’t matter how long ago I’d last heard it. A voice like that you never forget.

‘Aye, we’re both here.’ Sam went for a chair, and put a finger briefly to his lips. ‘I’ll explain later.’

The voice emerged from the tent, a sat phone to his ear. He smiled, his teeth still perfect, not a hair out of place. Worst of all, he didn’t look as if he’d aged a second.