Thunderbolt Read online

  Seeing that Mo and I had finished, Jamal’s little helper approached us again carrying a metal bucket half filled with water. Sunk within it was a pink plastic beaker. He scooped the beaker full and handed it to Mo, who drank. I did the same, not allowing myself to question where the water had come from or how clean it might be. I was thirsty. We all were: everyone took their fill from that same cup.

  Satisfied that he’d fulfilled the first rule of hospitality, as he put it, General Sir dismissed Jamal and his friend with a flick of his thin wrist. They didn’t go far, just retreated beyond the fire pit to join a group of kids who had gathered, apparently, to marvel at us.

  ‘I expect you’re tired after the journey here,’ General Sir said, looking over the tops of our heads. ‘So, make yourselves comfortable and I’ll be back later, once you’ve rested. We’ll make a start then. OK?’

  I waited until General Sir had retreated among the bushes before asking Mo, ‘What did he mean by that? Why are we here? And what is this place anyway?’

  ‘It’s a training camp,’ Mo said. ‘For child soldiers. But I can’t believe he’d want you for that.’

  31.

  ‘Child soldiers?’ said Xander. ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t he be?’ Amelia asked.

  I had my eyes fixed on the group of kids watching us. Jamal was among them, and I noticed that he wasn’t the only boy with a gun. Two of the others had weapons of one sort or another that I could see. The biggest kid squatting in the middle of the group was holding what looked like a semi-automatic rifle across his knees, and that scrawny boy wearing a military beret and sitting off on his own was actually cradling a musket.

  ‘What are they staring at?’ asked Amelia.

  ‘Us,’ said Xander.

  ‘Come,’ said Mo, and drew us into the shade of a big thorn bush. We plonked ourselves close to him, and not just because the patch of shade was small. We needed answers, and Mo had them. Xander was twisting at his own fingers and Amelia was doing the fast-blinking thing she does when anxious. Nobody likes not knowing what’s going on but she really can’t bear it; I wasn’t surprised when she blurted out, ‘Who do these kids fight for? And where do they come from?’

  ‘All over,’ said Mo. ‘Places like my village, or the thousands of other villages like it. Anywhere people are poor. General Sir picks kids from the streets, the fields, even takes them from school.’

  ‘From schools?’ said Xander. ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘No. If supply is low from the streets, kids already abandoned, he sends out a raiding party to take some who have a home. They go into schools and steal children from the yard or classroom. If the teachers object … well, they risk their lives if they do that. And they know it, so they don’t, mostly.’

  I let this sink in, imagined myself in a lesson at school, chemistry, say, doing a stupid drawing of a Bunsen burner, trying to concentrate, knowing that at any moment a group of armed kids led by a man in uniform might barge in and tell the teacher the class was over, they were taking us off to war. Perhaps they’d be waving guns around, or even firing them in the air, to spell things out. I’m no fan of chemistry but even so.

  ‘And who do they fight for?’ Xander repeated.

  ‘Ah, that’s the thing with General Sir,’ said Mo. ‘His soldiers fight for anyone who wants them. This is his business, you see. He steals children for others to use. While they’re here he gives them a little training with guns and explosives so they’re more valuable, and then he sells them on to the militia, or the army, whoever will pay.’

  ‘Which militia? Which army?’ asked Xander.

  Amelia couldn’t help herself. ‘Al-Shabaab, I’m guessing. That’s the biggest militia group. Mainly they’re in the south.’

  ‘You mean roughly here,’ I chipped in.

  ‘Correct,’ said Amelia.

  Mo went on, ‘But there are also other militia who don’t much like the idea of sharia law, which Al-Shabaab wants to impose. And then you have the Kenyan army to the south, policing the disputed buffer zone between Kenya and Somalia. Plus of course the main force opposing them and Al-Shabaab, the Somali National Army. As the name suggests, that’s the country’s official army.’

  ‘But surely the government’s army doesn’t recruit children?’ asked Amelia.

  Mo shrugged and said, ‘It’s not official but it happens. They pretend that the children don’t actually fight, just cook and clean and help out, but that’s not true. Both sides, and everyone in between, employ child soldiers. It’s nothing new around here.’

  I looked away from Mo. From this vantage point I made out a building a little way off in the scrub, down an incline to the north. It was a shack made out of scrap wood and cinder blocks. General Sir had gone off in that direction. I wanted to get my bearings in this new place as quickly as possible. Why? So that I could start plotting our escape, obviously.

  The group of kids who’d been watching us by the fire pit had drifted along behind us. The big one, with the semi-automatic rifle, was closest. When I returned his stare, he held my gaze. Most people don’t do that: nine times out of ten, if you look straight back at somebody who’s watching you, they immediately look away. It unnerved me, the way he just stared back. Was he unhinged?

  To be stuck a million miles from God-knew-where at the mercy of mental kids with guns made me gulp so hard my throat hurt. But I wasn’t about to show my fear by blinking first. I stared back at that mean-looking boy soldier until he was finally distracted by one of the littler kids asking him a question.

  There was something odd about this smaller boy’s musket. The barrel was chipped, flaky with old paint. The gun was made out of wood, I saw; it was a fake. I nearly laughed when I realised that, but instead checked the big kid’s gun, and when I confirmed that it was very real indeed the laughter dried up in my chest.

  I’d lost track of time during our blindfolded journey but now noticed that I was squinting at the kids’ guns. Dusk was falling. The nearer the equator you are, the faster that happens. The sun dropped out of the sky very quickly, showboating a blood-red sunset that seemed more or less to be over before it had begun.

  Mo told us more about General Sir’s operation as the sky darkened. Mo himself had been captured during a raid on his village by one of General Sir’s patrols, four years ago. Because of Mo’s cleverness (he didn’t put it that way, of course, he called it ‘usefulness’ instead) he’d been spared the fate of most of the children who passed through the General’s camp, so far at least. They were destined to fight at the front for the army or militia. But Mo’s ‘extra skills with languages et cetera’ made General Sir loan him out to the pirates instead. Their exploits were a strand of the General’s ‘wider operation’. By this Mo meant that General Sir invested – both money and manpower – in the pirates’ raids and took a chunk of the spoils. That’s what we were, I realised: a share of the treasure. Mo called helping the pirates ‘the easy option’ and he wasn’t joking.

  ‘Do the other kids resent you for it?’ Amelia asked.

  ‘Why would they?’ said Xander.

  Mo shrugged. ‘They know I’m expendable too. The thing with the blindfolds, for example. I have to wear one entering and leaving just like you. General Sir doesn’t want any of the kids who pass through this camp to be able to find a way back to it, for obvious reasons.’

  ‘Not obvious to me,’ said Amelia.

  ‘Child soldiers become dangerous men,’ said Mo with a shrug. ‘And they have reason to want revenge.’

  Mo’s face was silver. It was lit, I realised, by a sky bright with stars. I looked up at them for a moment and realised, gratefully, that the flies had gone.

  When I looked back down General Sir was somehow right next to us, flanked by a couple of kids. I started. I hadn’t heard him approach at all. But if he’d been listening to what Mo had told us he didn’t let on. He simply said, ‘You must be very tired after your journey. These may be helpful for your night�
��s rest,’ and motioned for the two boys to put down the basket they were carrying.

  It contained blankets. He passed these around himself. The way he did it seemed courteous, attentive, kind even. I heard myself thanking him as if he’d done us a real favour. ‘You’re very welcome. Sleep well,’ he replied, before retreating.

  Though it could only have been about seven in the evening, General Sir was right. I was exhausted. This was hardly surprising given the ordeal of the day.

  ‘Where do we sleep then?’ I asked Mo. The thin blanket in my hands had a greasy feel to it. I waited for him to make a move, but he didn’t. He wrapped his own blanket around his shoulders, rolled onto his side, and stretched out in the dirt instead.

  ‘You’re not serious,’ said Xander. ‘Isn’t there room in one of the tents?’

  ‘You can look,’ said Mo. ‘But they’re generally full. Besides,’ he said, nodding in Amelia’s direction.

  ‘Besides what?’ said Amelia.

  He didn’t reply, but I understood what he left unsaid. I’d not seen another girl here. The group watching us were all boys. Amelia is more than capable of standing up for herself – among boys or girls – but still. I think she’d also worked out what Mo meant because she said, ‘It’s a good clear night, anyway,’ in a very quiet voice and set about making herself comfortable with her blanket.

  We lay in a line beneath the stars. Amelia was shivering beside me, and not because she was cold. I wanted to tell her that everything would be OK, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep the fear out of my voice if I spoke, and that would only have made matters worse. I put a hand on Amelia’s shoulder instead, squeezed it once, and lay there wondering how I’d ever plot us a way out of this horrendous mess.

  32.

  I slept without dreaming and woke up not knowing where I was. For a second I could have been at home under my duvet. It was a blissful thought. Immediately, however, reality came crashing in. Unlike the freshly laundered smell and feel of my duvet, the blanket currently pulled up under my nose was thin and greasy and smelled of old socks. Also, my bed is soft but the ground beneath me was hard as pavement. And whereas the only things staring at me when I wake up at home are the pictures on my bedroom walls (the closest one is of a tiger swimming across a lake: I’ve had it since I was small), now I was being stared at by eyes I did not recognise.

  I jerked upright. ‘What the hell are you looking at?’ I said.

  The eyes belonged to a boy of about ten. His head bobbed back on his shoulders but he didn’t move away. Neither did the boy behind him or the one to his side. There were more! How long had they been sitting there watching us sleep?

  Amelia was stretching and Xander had pushed himself up on one elbow, but Mo was the first of the others to sit up and take in what was going on. He muttered something to the boys. His tone was kinder than mine and I immediately felt embarrassed at having barked at them. They slunk off.

  Breakfast was the exact same meal as the day before, brought to us by another two boys, who came from the direction of General Sir’s shack. Amelia refused to eat it again. I wanted to encourage her to try but understood her well enough to know that it would just backfire.

  As the rest of us finished eating, General Sir appeared. The dog I’d disturbed the previous day was with him, together with another, more wolf-like hound. He had the big, menacing-looking kid who’d stared me down the day before with him as well. Mo later told me his name was Kayd. The boy and the dogs looked dusty and flyblown; by contrast General Sir looked immaculate again, his uniform pressed, his head newly shaven and oiled, and as usual he had his little baton under his arm. I wanted to rip it from him and snap it in two, but something about the man – the fact he could ship us off to war, probably – made it very difficult to be anything other than polite to him.

  I returned his greeting with a ‘good morning’ of my own. Apart from his baton it seemed that General Sir’s policy was to carry nothing at all. Instead he had his minions lug stuff around in his wake. Kayd had an armful of spades and picks. At General Sir’s instruction he dropped these heavily in front of us and stepped away, a glint in his eye.

  ‘As Mo knows, I encourage new recruits to make a start with some light work. Today I thought you might like to help clear the new field.’

  Never mind the ‘encourage’ and ‘thought you might like’ stuff, there was nothing negotiable about the General’s offer. Without making comment Mo picked up the nearest shovel.

  It was strange, but the whole thing reminded me of the way kids – myself included – behave when they first start at school: they follow the lead of whoever looks like they know the ropes. Mo had been here before. It seemed best to copy him. As I did so it occurred to me that General Sir keeping Mo with us would be a good tactic to make us behave.

  We walked through the scrub for about forty minutes. Already the heat of the day was building. The dust we kicked up smelled like something baked. The scrubland was low-lying and flat at first, but in time it dipped away and bigger bushes sprang up. We were headed towards a meagre stream. Before we got there, we came upon an open stretch in which a number of boys – and, I noticed with relief, for Amelia’s sake – a few girls were already at work.

  We’d made this trip following General Sir. He didn’t walk so much as glide ahead with his stupid baton tucked under his arm, and none of us had spoken to him. Once we’d stopped at the head of the field, however, Amelia stuck her hands on her hips and said, ‘What on earth is the point of making us dig this field?’

  General Sir spun around, flashing his mirthless smile. ‘Once it is cleared, we can use it to plant crops.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Amelia. ‘But why us? No offence, but aren’t we worth more to you than that?’

  I winced. Amelia was trying to sound sure of herself but the fear in her voice came through all the same. General Sir’s smile remained in place. ‘Work is good for everyone. You included!’ he said. He looked around and pointed his baton-tip at an area that had yet to be cleared. ‘Mo will explain what to do, but essentially I would like you to work here. Understood?’

  He didn’t wait for a reply, just ground another dimple in the dirt with his heel and marched off, not in the direction we’d come from, which was from the north, but south-east. We watched him disappear, the dogs trailing behind him. Off he went, gliding with a purpose, like a parking warden doing his rounds.

  ‘He wants us to dig about in the dirt?’ said Xander, incredulous.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mo. ‘He tries out everyone the same way. If they make good workers they progress.’

  ‘To what?’ I asked.

  ‘Soldiering,’ said Mo matter-of-factly. ‘It’s a test.’

  ‘A test I don’t want to pass,’ said Xander.

  More quietly, Amelia added, ‘Me neither.’

  Mo had taken up one of the tools. It was a sort of pick with a wide blade. He tested the weight of it and said, ‘Nobody does, but even so …’ He held the tool out to Xander.

  Xander said, ‘I don’t want a goddamn axe!’

  ‘It’s actually a mattock,’ said Amelia.

  For some reason the fact that she couldn’t help herself correcting him, even here, now, made me laugh, and that broke the tension. Xander smiled with me.

  Mo said, ‘It is unwise to upset General Sir. If he tells us to clear this area we should do as he says, trust me.’ His eyes were wide, pleading.

  I picked up a shovel and said, ‘Well, we don’t want to disappoint him, do we.’

  Following my lead, Xander took the mattock from Mo. He got the picture.

  ‘What happens when General Sir is upset?’ Amelia asked.

  Mo had picked up the remaining two tools, a spade and a sort of crowbar. He held them up for Amelia to choose between. ‘It’s just wise to do as he asks,’ he said, ‘or …’

  ‘Or what?’

  Mo sighed. ‘Or else.’

  So, we cleared the field. Or some of it, at least. I have to admit the
lion’s share of what we achieved was due to Mo. He seemed not to notice the heat, which built through the morning despite the cloud cover. We were lucky it was an overcast day. The full glare of the sun would have been unbearable.

  Xander was wearing a shirt over his T-shirt. He took it off and we ripped it up into sections we could dunk in the dirty little stream, then tied them around our heads. The wet strips cooled us down a little and had the added benefit of keeping off the flies, which were back with a vengeance. I tied mine with a tail I could flick to disturb them. Still, every minute or so I had to stop what I was doing to wave the ever-present fly-cloud away.

  Mostly we were uprooting small bushes. This involved digging round the base of each plant and then yanking it free. Since the earth was hard we had to break it up with the crowbar first. Then we gouged and stabbed at the clutching roots with the mattock, pickaxe and spade. Once they were properly exposed the crowbar was good for levering the roots up and snapping them clear. And after we’d ripped the bush out and lugged it away, we broke up the remaining soil, cleared it of as many weeds and stones as possible, and levelled it off.

  I hadn’t been working more than an hour before the first blister rose across my palm. Changing tools with Xander stopped it from getting immediately worse, but before long the mattock was rubbing at the base of my thumb, and when I swapped, the crowbar made it worse.

  By lunchtime, when General Sir reappeared, dogs in tow again, my hands were a mess, I was filthy, everything else ached, the flies were maddening, and I was boiling up inside and out. I know Amelia and Xander were in a similar state.