We Were Soldiers

The thick brown khaki shirt stayed sat on his body and the large designer buttons clasped the piece to order. Mummy sat just a distance away, tear-soaked yet joy-filled. Otobong had just taken the dreaded military job. YET, that is far from the scary part.

Crickets whistled through the night. The dusty wind blew with reckless abandon. Camp was scarier than usual tonight. Telephone networks had been marshed by terrorists' activities in this area. Wide roads had become bush tracks; except from a little protection by the desert heat. We lay almost a kilometre away from the last explosion...barely 72 hours away. I peered through the shadows and saw figures all looking like myself, except one; Otobong. This is my definition of fate: we both attended the same Secondary School...now, we have just been sent to the same war-front, having been admitted as 2nd Leiutenants the same day. He was more of a specially structured individual. I had felt his shape looked like an improper fraction; where the upper figure always stayed larger than the lower. His head forehead seemed to grow at a pace a little faster than his body. Muscular shoulders followed. Otobong was one man you dared not annoy. Apart from the military training we had, he was a stammerer...not exactly the kind of person you would double-cross. He was the complete soldier; made of steel and built for war.

The camp lay still as we were all fagged out from a whole day's trip in an M35 Armoured Vehicle. The tank's danglings had caused an uproar within my stomach. This was war...toilets were a taboo. In the darkness, Otobong's forehead glittered from a reflection of desert moonlight.

While my thoughts and eyes travelled, I realised that other things had travelled too. There were short and brisk movements around the camp. The trees seemed to change their positions from time to time. It is military enough to understand what this meant; I did. I stayed stuck on my make-shift sleeping rack. We were under attack! 

The terrorists sneaked like a pack of lions into position. I starred, in horror, as a whole crew of about a hundred men were about to be exterminated. Yet, we all lay still.

I had to sound the alarm. No way. The whistle that hung around my neck became heavier than the MG9.0 that lay beside my rack. My heartbeat skipped numerous beats. Otobong lay frozen...still. Something was not right about this. So I readied myself to activate the "seat-eject" button tied to my right wrist. It was a trap door which opened the pit beneath my bed, sent me downward and replaced my bed with a heap of grass. From beneath, I would follow a tunnel out of the territory. Everyone was advised to have a plan like this and one knew the other's. Even Otobong did not tell me his.

Just as the terrorists emerged from beneath the moving trees, my hand swung to the whistle. Too late. The sound of the whistle was buried by the Machine Guns which roared, vomiting bullets the size of my thumb on all our beds. I activated the seat-eject and disappeared into oblivion. Soldiers do not shed tears...yet, I did. I just lost about a hundred men to these animals and, I could have warned them. My conscience weighed much heavier than the gun I hung as I crawled through the tunnel.

The 7 hour crawl was worth it, as sunlight shone through the cracks on the tunnel. Just as I found the outlet, my heart sank. I found a scarier sight; a hand waiting to pull me out and a forehead looking too heavy as its owner starred down at me. As I got pulled out, the rest of the team roared with an applause. I was the last to arrive. How they survived? They never slept in camp! Those make-shift beds were heaped with grass, forming the figures I saw. Otobong must have been a good sculptor; the reflection of his forehead came from the camp football we played shortly before bedtime.

"I wouldn't dare die on my birthday", Otobong retorted, as we jogged along to our next post.

I am i~Witness.

Indlela Yokuthula

I had always believed that God lives right in our midst. There is no pretence about that. Of course, no further explanations could be given to the deep rooted peace I felt whenever I found my feet travelling this particular street. I called it "Indlela yokuthula"; a Zulu phrase I had learnt while in South Africa to mean "The Way of Peace". I would wake on awkward mornings and stroll through it for an exercise, the return trip was always accompanied with peaceful thoughts. You could rob me without any weapon...simply because I lacked the courage to trade that peace for anything. God, obviously, had an apartment on this road and did do some exercises every morning. Today was a typical December morning on Indlela yokuthula; yet, it seemed God had taken a trip to the next street. This notwithstanding, He always shows up on time.

The dry harmattan wind trespassed all bounds. Like a reckless trabadour, it dragged with it, anything that cared to follow, voluntarily or otherwise; dust particles, brown leaflets from nearby trees struggled to stick on mothers; tree stems that had abandoned them and, even little children who seemed to be unperturbed by the freezing morning wind. I strolled along, humming G. F. Handel's "The Heavens Are Telling...", loudly greeting the farmers that hurried to their farmlands amidst the unkind temperature and wind. Just then, I greeted one; and, like John, her foetus kicked at the sound of my " aunty amesiere o". She was "fully loaded". Intuitively, I hit the end of the road, took a quick turn and followed her.

She was not only loaded biologically, but physically. The basin on her head indicated that this one was one hell of a workaholic. In a python-like fashion, she trod along. It occurred to me that her steps seemed numbered and laboured. My heart skipped several beats as she came to a standstill. I flipped a quick look ahead of her, there was no physical hitch. No gutters to cross. No road blocks mounted. I starred hard again, nothing had gone wrong...none that I could notice. I got stuck in this frenzy until I realised her fingers were tingling. Her bid to communicate something to me was obvious. I hurried closer and beheld a sight!

A stream of blood mixed with water hurried downwards between her legs. Until now, I had completely failed to notice how shapely they were. They shock as she struggled in vain to keep the load on her head. Before I could muster the courage to grab the filled basin, it had begun its journey from her head. Her hands had failed as they vibrated from the force of an incoming truck. Confused as to what to catch, the basin landed with a thud, spraying its numerous contents on the sand ahead. Then, she followed! Her "water had just broken".

A quick look around confirmed my fears; I was the only living thing on this road. This was not the major problem, there were two other basic issues. The first was that it seemed the road would remain lonely for a longer while. The second? The last time I ever sat beside a Biology textbook was 15 years ago, while I laboured to survive WAEC. Every other thing I ever knew about the human body was just due to my consanguinity with a doctor for an elder brother; who, like his professional colleagues, took a lot of humanly abnormal things for granted.

The harmattan wind seemed to have stopped and stared helplessly too. The swaying leaves stood at akimbo, smiling at my ignorance. My Michael Kors time piece screamed its tick tock into the very depths of my soul, reminding me of the essence of time in the presence of blood. Yet, this blood would not just stop coming. In fact, the indlela lokuthola lost its peaceful flavour. All that came to reality now was that a lawyer was about to practice traditional midwifery. This was not fun. I breathed in deeply...and ignorantly began.

She had already laid on the sand, legs apart. Her fall had caused a little injury to the side of her head. Then, I realised that a lot of blood had been lost already. White eyes, pale skin...the blood slowed down! Her heart skipped some beats...then...stopped completely! Just then, I realised she had fallen badly and hit her head on a small stone hidden the thick folds of sand. Her temperature quickly reduced and her eyelids struggled to stay open...in vain. In minutes, she had found peace.

Shocked, my gaze tilted upwards and the last I saw was an image of a blue sky and the sound of gushing wind. Then, the DARKNESS CAME!

When I Served My Country (contd...)

13.

The ocean roared past my eyes like a bride hurrying late for her wedding. With mixed feelings; of joy, seeing the waters and of sorrow, imagining the up-hill task of fetching it back home, i turned and started the stroll back, making haste to complete the day's task ahead.

The sound of sweeping kept thrashing my ears as i got closer to my room! Dirty water flowed freely from the doorway. In semi-shock, i found two "mute" kids doing a perfect job; cleaning my "kitchen". These young ones were not actually mute, but English language was a far cry from their understanding. With this difficulty in communication, i simply crawled away from them and reoccupied my seat of authority in the Bull.

Truly, money is a language understood even by the dead. As i produced my wallet, they smiled. Of course, they understood that their labour was about to be rewarded. Quite awkwardly, i never knew who they were, because we could not communicate.

While i relieved the Bull of the load it carried, my "kitchen" kept frowning as it was almost filled already. "Knock, knock", the awe-inspiring figure showed up with a...hang on; is this a matress or a mat? Whatever it was, it was meant to be slept on. I received it with fake smiles and threw it on the floor as the figure rattled away.

As i looked for space to hang my numerous clothings, it was obvious I needed a carpenter to re-inforce the swinging wall hanger. Well, i doubt these people have any carpenter with equipments. Stones were everywhere, so, i walked towards one. I could do the job myself.

The stone seemed to follow my hand in a magnetic fashion. A shiny dark-tanned snake lay beneath it, starring at me with its head hanging!

.

.

.

I sluggishly picked up my diary. Before i could write anything, my dull eyelids unsuccessfully fought the urge to stay alive.

When I Served My Country (contd.)

12.

"Corper, follow me!". I was startled as the voice by the doorway met me staring in wonder at the sleeping figure before me. Nonetheless, I stood up and hopped after the container from which the command had emerged. It was a carefully packed confederation of bones, held together by bandage-like ligaments that served the purpose of flesh. The only difference between the neck, the back and the buttocks was that the latest advertised two covered Akara balls, which moved mechanically like pistons of an old generator, in turns. The pink gown and a green headtie suggested a feminine creature.

"Na me de take care of Corpers for council", the creature continued, still moving forward like a robot. "I wan give you accommodation. Before that...", then she turned around, "...your acceptance fee na 1000 Naira." I quickly produced my wallet, just to avoid looking at the construction which stood in for a human face. To worsen my feeling, my hand came in contact with her's in the process of paying the fee. At that point, I was worried it had rather fallen on the hard blocked half-wall on the corridor...but the corridor moved; it was her palm!

The 7 minutes walk through a bush-track terminated in a "haunted-house". I stopped behind her and looked ahead in surprise. The question as to the status of occupation of the house ahead went right back to my throat as a slim beautiful young lady with an NYSC cap emerged from the block and smiled at the figure ahead of me! The contrast was terrible.

"Uduak", the figure called out. I exhaled for my neighbor was from Akwa Ibom. My excitement quickly reversed when the door to my supposed room popped open. Uduak had strolled far off, out of sight. The room was just enough to contain only the books the Bull carried on my behalf! It had a kitchen wash-hand sink attached to the wall. Opposite the sink, lay 2 tubers of yam, 8 cooking pots, a kettle, a stove, some old newspapers and, quite awkwardly, a pillow!

                                  The rattle of bones behind

 alerted me just on time to see the figure turn and walk away. At this point, I knew I wasn't going to do my NYSC...but I hoped I could.

My Bull crawled through the track and stared at where his commander was to abide. First, I needed to keep pouring water in that room until it spoke. i quickly changed into work clothings, put on my canvas for a trek in search of water. A little stroll towards the other end of the track revealed a slope. Beneath the slope lay a road that had endured much more seasons than the colonial masters expected it to. I kept on down the track, smoothing my fingers through the edges on my NYSC Identity card inside my pocket...security issues.

Suddenly, the temperature of the late morning hurried downwards. The sound of an untuned radio gushed into my ears. Then, I stood face to face with a tributary of the Atlantic Ocean...on the other end, was a flag of Cameroon!