Lament for the Fallen (28 page)

D’Este smiles, he knows Argenti paid more, but he will not start negotiating just yet.

‘Tell me about Guerra,’ he says.

‘It doesn’t matter any more,’ says Argenti.

Argenti and Uberti joined the militia as children. In those days they could still live off the people in the lands outside Calabar. He remembers when he was twelve, the first time he raped a village girl. His excitement and terror at the blood and heat. The girl had lain there, silent, staring at him in the darkness. Her eyes unblinking and dead. Uberti took his turn straight after him.

That was how they were. Uberti followed him. Even then, Argenti was calculating, silent. Uberti coarse and loud. He had assumed that Uberti was content to let him lead. He had underestimated the savagery of the man.

They joined Guerra when he was still working his way through the rabble of warlords raiding villages around Calabar. Two teenage boys indistinguishable from the other militia, living from day to day on scraps left over by the stronger men as they went from village to village. Gradually, though, the villages emptied, their people taking refuge in the slums around Calabar. The warlords in the city were too powerful and would attack them if they came near. Argenti thinks that the scar on his belly was caused by one of d’Este’s men. After he was shot, he almost died from the infection until an Idiong man poured some foul potion on his stomach and cauterized the wound. They lost many fighters that day and were forced out into the wilderness.

Once they travelled far, almost to Cameroon. He does not remember where they ended up. The village they stumbled on was much larger than they had seen even during his childhood around Calabar. There was a high wall, meticulously laid out farmland and a crowded market visible through the gates as they stared out through the trees. They had ignored the white sentry posts along the edge of the forest. Peasants use them to keep animals out of the fields. They were not animals and the sensors ignored them. They should have thought longer about that.

The village was a little higher than the level of the river, with their lands sloping up and towards the jungle. Like half of a wide, gently sloping bowl.

The militia had been so excited that they had simply charged straight at it, Guerra leading and roaring at the front.

Argenti realized their mistake when they were still midway across the cassava fields.

A group of people, women amongst them, appeared across the top of the wall. They were armed and started shooting immediately. He noticed that they did not fire randomly as the raiders did. Their shots struck home with terrifying accuracy.

They were running back into the jungle before they had even begun.

Uberti and Argenti swore a blood oath that day that Guerra would have to be punished for almost getting them killed.

There were only eight of them who returned to Calabar. No longer a force, they sold themselves to Nimrod, then the Awbong of Big Qua Town. They were starving, sick and their clothing in scraps.

Uberti and Argenti stayed close to Guerra as he murdered and bought his way up through Nimrod’s organization. In the war between the Awbong that followed Nimrod’s death, Guerra won control of Henshaw Town. He beheaded fifty slaves in Henshaw Market as an offering to his ndem for his good fortune.

Uberti and Argenti waited.

‘You, I understand,’ says d’Este. ‘You are that patient. But Uberti? He doesn’t seem a patient man?’

‘It was my mistake. He is a messy thug. I thought of him as stupid, not calculating,’ says Argenti.

There was stability in Calabar, for a time. The warlords were at a stalemate. Each watching the other from within his domain. Their raiding parties would return with less and less from the rural areas around the city. Every so often, debris would fall, but it was rarely worth the effort of going out to seek it. Only Uberti seemed stupid enough to waste his time.

‘That was how he bought his way,’ says d’Este.

‘Titles were cheaper then, and debris fall was more predictable. That trick will not work again,’ says Argenti.

Ten years ago, the fabricators revolted. They had been printing weapons for themselves for months. A few extra at a time whenever the Awbong demanded new rifles, smuggled out of the market. They were also deliberately sabotaging replacement parts for the various militia. Subtle weaknesses in the firing mechanisms. The printers in Henshaw started first, refusing to pay comey. The other markets followed.

Guerra sent men to persuade the printers. That was when the Awbong discovered the fabricators now had their own protection. Guerra’s men were butchered in Henshaw Market.

Many of the Awbong blamed Guerra for the chaos.

Uberti and Argenti struck, using their shift on guard in Guerra’s house to dismember their leader. Argenti assumed he would simply claim Henshaw Town.

He misunderstood Uberti’s preparations.

‘He had already spoken to the other Awbong. He sold his sons, one to each of the leading Awbong. Promised ten per cent of his market take. He laughed at me when I realized I would have nothing,’ says Argenti.

He took the men loyal to himself and fought hard. The Awbong were in crisis, still agreeing terms with the fabricators. Argenti took a risk and bought new weapons from the printers. He still remembers his fear following the purchase lasting until he gunned down a few peasants along the shore of Beach Town. The guns worked. His attack was successful, and he gained a foothold beneath Henshaw Town.

The years that followed were lean. The fabricators were content to leave the warlords alone, so long as they were paid for their services and were not subject to the comey of the smaller traders.

The Awbong watch, spy in the markets, make sure that no one else organizes themselves.

The markets in Harbour and Big Qua, however, remain profitable. As d’Este knows, sacrifices to the ndem are essential to continued success. His Images dismember a living girl in his market every year. Corneto prefers machine-gunning his staked offering, but the result is the same. Uberti has not gone against the will of the fabricators in Henshaw Market, taking his sacrifices instead to the trees out in the swamps.

‘And now you feel that Uberti is vulnerable?’

‘Yes, and I am no longer patient,’ says Argenti.

‘All you are buying is Egbo leaving you to fight. No one will move to support either of you.’ D’Este is laughing softly.

‘I am ready. Uberti will fall,’ says Argenti.

It is time, thinks d’Este. ‘And what will you pay for Henshaw Town?’

Argenti does not hesitate. ‘Will you take my second wife, all her children and my three youngest sons? I also offer five per cent of Henshaw Market for five years.’

D’Este smiles, his face cruel. ‘Ten per cent for five years, your family as before, and forty slaves,’ he says.

Resigned, Argenti nods his acceptance.

37

Beach Town is quiet as Faysal leads Joshua and the others down to the shore.

The stalls are wrapped in tarpaulins, the homes dark and closed. The skyline is vaguely outlined by dim electric arcs from within the poorly maintained solar resin smothering every roof. Prefabricated cellulosic walls clipped together like a child’s game of cards. Chickens cluck and cocks cry. Otherwise, all is in stillness, fog-drenched before dawn.

A smelly stream of effluent winds its way through the shacks and down to the beach. There are no street lights. Sodden wrappers, empty cigarette cartridges, used sanitary napkins and other flotsam line the upper tidal range along the shore.

Four guards carry the battery, fastened to two poles thrust beneath it. Joshua runs ahead, indicating their boats. They are careful carrying it down the beach, their feet sinking deeply into the slimy, muddy banks.

Many boats are tied up here, most empty. A network of ropes runs from the bows across to posts hammered deep into the ground. It is low tide, and the boats are leaning to their sides in the dark mud. Their boats are half-filled with water from the rains over the past few nights.

Joshua, Daniel and David push the boats apart to create space. Tipping theirs, they empty the water out where it seeps back towards the river.

A dog begins to bark somewhere in the midst of the shacks in the shadows beneath Henshaw Town. The guards look watchful, looking back towards the village and up and down the beach.

The carriers walk each side of Samara’s boat, gently lowering their cargo until the poles rest across the boat’s gunwales. They untie the ropes.

Samara stands with one foot in the boat and one in the mud and lifts the battery so that the men can roll the poles out from underneath. He lowers it carefully on to the cellulosic grid they have brought with them to raise it above any water that may collect in the bottom. The unit is sealed, the terminals coated in hardened resin, but there is no need to wet it more than necessary.

Not a word is said.

The carriers withdraw, their poles resting on their shoulders as they go. Faysal indicates with his head and more guards walk down the beach. They are carrying the group’s weapons, as well as their possessions and supplies.

These are quickly stowed, pistols holstered and rifles rested against the boat seats.

Joshua shakes Faysal’s hand, clasping his elbow with his other.

‘I will see you in Ewuru before the rains. Safe journey,’ says Faysal.

‘Thank you, I look forward to that.’

The men touch their hearts, bowing slightly, and then Faysal turns. His men withdraw without a sound.

They are on their own.

The boats are pushed out into the water. Knee-deep, they clamber on board. Settled, they row quietly towards the sea, going with the current past 7-Fathom Point.

Across the river, between a long tongue of land and Parrot Island, a thick black lake is restrained by an oil barrier. The yellow floats have been bleached almost white. Here and there, an oil sheen tapers out of the barrier from small breaks in the retaining curtain.

At the far end of Parrot Island, another floating barrier cuts across the river to the mainland. It, too, holds back a deep and endless expanse of oil. The water here is, in spite of the barricades, thick with oil, and they must strain against the clinging, filthy mess.

They go slowly, taking care not to get any of the oil inside the boats.

Sarah, looking at the island as they pass, thinks about all the children who have been sacrificed on that small patch of land, superstitious offerings to the slave trade, and shivers.

The coast is blackened and dead, caked in a century of the oil still bubbling up from the Bight of Bonny. There are no dead seabirds, no dead fish, only the stumps of old trees as black as the beach. There is nothing left to kill.

There is no access to the sea here.

To their left, and before the oil barrier, the entrance to Qua River, and they turn into it, going upstream and into the network of rivers and canals that will lead to Ewuru.

They are watchful. Every sound causes them to freeze, before continuing again.

The water freshens but still the lingering smell of oil.

Gradually, the sun rises, bringing with it the heat of the day. Jason leans over the side, catching water and wetting his face.

They paddle onwards. There are termite mounds on islands they pass. A skull, perhaps human, on one of them. Others are covered in bits of fur or plastic sheets. Old superstitions that the hills are filled with evil which must be blocked.

For all the web of canals, there is still only one route through the lower part of the swamp. There could be an ambush anywhere along it.

The water remains oily, and their boats are sticky with residue. They say nothing, hunting for anything, any movement.

The day passes. They do not stop for lunch. They do not speak. They dip their oars with care.

Raffia trees and oil palm cluster on these islands. It is harder to see through them, amongst them.

Still they row, the day drifting past.

Two shots.

Samara is flung backwards, disappears into the water. He vanishes.

‘You are ours,’ says Uberti, emerging from the trees. All along the banks, men appear from hiding. There could be sixty of them. Some are shirtless, their torsos smeared in glistening blood-red palm oil. All are armed, all wary, pointing their rifles directly at the remaining six. A few draw their lips back to expose teeth sharpened to points.

Joshua gently lowers his oar, setting it inside the boat, and raises his hands. The others follow. The boats coast.

Seven of the militia walk out into the water and bring the boats to a halt.

‘Get out,’ says Uberti. ‘You will come here.’

Carefully, slowly, Joshua, Daniel, Sarah, Abishai, Jason and David climb out of the boats, dropping into the water. They wade up on to the beach. The men in the trees behind them follow, crossing the river.

Everything is very quiet. Uberti laughs to himself, looking pleased.

Between the oil palms is a clearing. Uberti indicates seven trees that have been prepared. There are ropes laid down around them. A knife buried in each trunk. On the sand is a symbol: two parallel arcs, one broken off-centre, and a dot between them.

‘You know my sign,’ says Uberti. It is a statement, not a question. They nod anyway.

‘Search them,’ he says.

Rough hands rip at their clothes, removing their pistols. One of the militia shoves his right hand inside Abishai’s trousers, driving his fingers into her vagina. He smells of lust, sour beer and cigarette smoke. His breath stinks, and his bloodshot eyes glare at her. She says nothing.

Uberti smashes the man in the head with the butt of his rifle. He falls to his knees, clutching at his head as blood flows between his fingers and drips on to the sand.

‘She is mine first,’ Uberti says, rotating his rifle and shooting the fallen militiaman in the face.

Abishai spits on the body. Uberti slaps her, drawing blood. She staggers but remains standing.