Daniel saw at once why the name had been chosen. The island at the mouth of the bay was heavily forested. Nourished by the lake's sweet clear waters, the ficus and wild mahogany trees had grown into giants with branches spreading out high over the rocky shore and the surrounding lake waters. Hundreds of mating pairs of fish eagles had built their nests in the high branches. With russet and chestnut plumage and glistening white heads, these were the most spectacular of all the African . raptors. The great birds sat on every prominent perch, while still others sailed overhead on wide pinions, throwing back their heads in flight to utter the wild yelping chant that is so much a part of the African pageant.
The gunboat anchored and launched an inflatable Zodiac to take Daniel and Bonny to the island. For an hour they filmed the eagle colony.
Captain Kajo threw dead fish off the rocky cliff and Bonny captured exciting sequences of rival eagles contending for the offerings and engaging in ritual aerial combat by hooking each other's talons and spinning and swirting in flight.
Daniel helped her lug the Sony camera up the smooth, massive trunk of a wild fig tree to film the eagle chicks in the nest. The parent birds attacked them both on the exposed branch, coming in on screaming power-dives with talons extended and curved yellow beaks agape, pulling away at the Last possible moment so that the draught of the great wings buffeted them on their exposed perch. By the time Bonny and Daniel reached the ground, their personal antagonism had been shelved and they were operating as a professional film crew again.
They returned to the Zodiac and ran out to the gunboat. As they came aboard, the captain weighed anchor and pushed on slowly into the bay.
It was a spectacular site with volcanic rock cliffs climbing sheer out of the blue water and bright orange sand beaches in between the black rock.
Once again they climbed into the Zodiac and landed on one of the beaches near the mouth of the Ubomo River. Leaving Captain Kajo and the two seamen on the beach with the boat, Daniel and Bonny climbed to the highest point on the cliffs and were rewarded with a panoramic view over the bay and the lake.
They could look down on the large fishing village at the mouth of the Ubomo River. Twenty or so dhow-rigged boats were drawn up on the beach while as many more were dotted out upon the lake waters. On gull-winged sails the fleet was bearing in towards the bay, the night's fishing over, coming in to land the catch.
Along the head of the beach the fishing-nets were spread out in the sunlight to dry and the smell of fish carried up to them, even on the top of the cliff. Naked black children played upon the beach and splashed in the lake. Men worked on the dhows or sat cross-legged with needle and palm to repair the festooned nets. In the village the women moved gracefully in their long skirts as they pounded grain in the tall wooden mortars, swinging rhythmically to the rise and fall of the pestles in their hands, or squatted over the cooking-fires on which stood the black three- legged pots Daniel pointed out the various features which he wanted filmed and Bonny followed his instructions and turned the camera lens to record it all. What will happen to the villagers? she asked, still peering into the viewfinder of the Sony.
They're scheduled to start digging the foundations of the casino in three weeks. . . I expect they'll move them to another site, Daniel told her. In the new Africa people are moved about by their rulers like ches pieces He broke off and shaded his eyes, peering out along the road that led back along the lakeshore towards the capital.
Red dust blew in a slow sullen cloud out across the blue lake waters, carried on the mountain breeze from up- country. Let me have a look through your telephoto lens, he asked Bonny, and she handed him the camera. Swiftly Daniel zoomed the lens to full power and picked up the approaching column of vehicles. Army trucks, he told her. And transporters I'd say those were bulldozers on the transporters. He handed her back the camera, and Bonny studied the approaching column.
Some kind of army exercise? she guessed. Are we allowed to film it?
Anywhere else in Africa I wouldn't take the chance of pointing a camera at anything military, but here we've got President Taffari's personal firman. Shoot away! Quickly Bonny set up the light tripod she used only for longrange telephoto shots and zoomed in on the approaching military convoy.
Meanwhile, Daniel moved to the edge of the cliff and looked down on the beach. Captain Kajo and the sailors from the gunboat were stretched out on the sand. Kajo was probably sleeping off the previous evening's debauch. Where he lay he was out of sight of the village.
Daniel strolled back to watch Bonny at work.
The convoy was already approaching the outskirts of the village. A mob of children and stray dogs ran out to greet it.
The children skipped along beside the trucks, laughing and waving, while the dogs yapped hysterically. The vehicles drew up in the open ground in the centre of the village which was both soccer pitch and village square.
Soldiers in camouflage uniform, armed with AK 47 rifles, jumped down and formed up into their platoons on the soccer ground.
A Hita officer climbed on to the cab of the leading truck and began to harangue the villagers through a bull- horn. The sound of his electronically distorted voice carried intermittently to the crest of the cliff on which Daniel was standing. He lost the sense of some of the Swahili as the breeze rose and fell, but the gist of it was clear.
The officer was accusing the villagers of harbouring political dissidents, obstructing the economic and agricultural reforms of the new government, and engaging in counter-revolutionary activities.
While he was speaking, a squad of soldiers trotted down to the beach and rounded up the children and fishermen there. They herded them back to the village square.
The villagers were becoming agitated. The children hid amongst the skirts of the women and the men were protesting and gesticulating at the officer on the cab of the truck. Now soldiers began moving through the village, ordering people out of the thatched huts. One old man tried to resist being dragged from his home, and a soldier clubbed him with the butt of an AK 47. He fell in a huddle on the dusty earth and they left him there and moved on, kicking open the doors of the huts and shouting at the occupants. On the beach another group of soldiers was meeting the incoming fishing fleet and prodding the fishermen ashore at bayonet point.
Bonny never looked up from the viewfinder of her camera. This is great stuff! God, this is the real thing. This is Emmy Award territory, I kid you nodDaniel did not reply. Her gloating excitement should not have offended him as much as it did. He was ' a journalist himself. He understood the need to find fresh and provocative material to stir the jaded emotions of a television audience reared on a diet of turmoil and violence, but what they were witnessing here was as obscene as scenes of SS troopers clearing out the ghettoes of Europe.
The soldiers were beginning to load the fisherfolk on to the waiting trucks, women were screaming and trying
