they leaned forward towards the tiny screen as it flickered and came alive again.
They were looking into a clearing in the forest. One of the UDC bulldozers was gouging a trench in the soft earth. The trench was forty or fifty yards long and at least ten feet deep, judging by the way the bulldozer almost disappeared into it. Patrick was able to find out from his spies where they were doing this, Daniel explained. So we could get into position the night before. The bulldozer completed the excavation and trundled up out of the trench. It parked nearby. The shot was cut off. This next sequence is about three hours later, Daniel told them.
The head of a column of prisoners appeared out of the forest, chivvied on by the Hita guards on the flanks. It was apparent that all the prisoners were sick or crippled. They staggered or limped slowly into sight. Some were supporting each other with arms around the shoulders, others were using crude crutches. A few were carried on litters by their companions.
One or two of the women had infants strapped on their backs. The guards marched them down into the trench and they disappeared from sight.
The guards formed up in a line on top of the excavation.
There were at least fifty of them in paratrooper overalls with sub-machine-guns carried on the hip. Quite casually they beganfiring down into the trench. The fusillade went on for a long time. As each paratrooper emptied his Uzi machine-gun, he reloaded it with a fresh magazine and recommenced firing.
Some of the men were laughing.
Suddenly one of the prisoners crawled up over the bank of the pit.
It was almost unthinkable that he could have survived this long. One of his legs was half shot away. He dragged himself along on his elbows. A Hita officer unholstered his pistol and stood over him and shot him in the back of his head.
The man collapsed on his face and the officer put his boot against his ribs and shoved him over the lip of the trench.
One at a time the soldiers stopped shooting. Some of them lit cigarettes and stood in groups along the edge of the grave, smoking and laughing and chatting.
The driver of the bulldozer climbed back on to his machine and eased it forward. He lowered the blade and pushed the piles of loose earth back into the trench. When the excavation was refilled he drove the bulldozer back and forth over it to compact the earth.
The soldiers formed up into a column and marched away along the track they had come. They were out of step and slovenly, chatting and smoking as they went.
Daniel switched off the VTR and the screen went blank.
Kelly stood up without a word and went out on to the verandah of the bungalow. The two men sat in silence until Victor Omeru said quietly, Help us please, Daniel. Help my poor people. The word went through the forest that the Molimo was coming, and the clans began to gather at the tribal meeting place below the waterfall at Gondola.
Some of the clans came from two hundred miles away, across the Zaire border, for the Bambuti recognized no territorial boundaries but their own.
From every clan area and from every remote corner of the forest they came, until there were over a thousand of the little people gathered together for the terrible Molimo visitation.
Each woman built her leafy hut with the doorway facing the doorway of a particular friend or a close and beloved relative, and they gathered in laughing groups throughout the encampment, for not even the threat of the Molimo could quench their high spirits or dull their cheerful nature.
The men met old cronies and hunting companions that they had not seen since the last communal net hunt, and they shared tobacco and tall stories, and gossiped with as much relish as the women at the cooking-fires. The children squealed and ran unchecked amongst the huts, tumbling over each other like puppies, and they swam in the pool below the waterfall like sleek otter cubs.
One of the last to arrive at the meeting place was Pirri the hunter.
His three wives staggered under the heavy sacks of tobacco they carried.
Pirri ordered his wives to build his hut with the doorway facing the doorway of his brother Sepoo. However, when the hut was finished, Pamba closed in the doorway of Sepoo's hut and built another opening facing in the opposite direction. In Bambuti custom this was a terrible snub, and it set the women at the cooking-fires chattering like parrots at roosting time.
Pirri called to old friends, See how much tobacco I have. It is yours to share. Come, fill your pouches. Pirri invites you, take as much as you wish. See here! Pirri has bottles of gin.
Come drink with Pirri. But not a man of all the Bambuti took advantage of the offer.
In the evening, when a group of the most famous hunters and story-tellers of the tribe were gathered around a single fire with Sepoo in their -midst, Pirri came swaggering out of the darkness with a bottle of gin in each hand and elbowed a place for himself at the fire.
He drank from the open gin bottle and then passed it to the man on his left.
Drink! he ordered. Pass it on, so that all may share Pirri's good fortune. The man placed the untouched bottle on one side and stood up and walked away from the fire. One after the other, the men stood up and followed him into the darkness until only Sepoo and Pirri were left.
Tomorrow the Molimo comes, Sepoo warned his-brother Softly, and then he also stood up and walked away.
Pirri the hunter was left with his gin and his bulging tobacc pouch, sitting alone in the night.
Sepoo came to the laboratory to call Daniel the following morning, and Daniel followed him into the forest, carrying the camera on his shoulder. They went swiftly, for Daniel had by now learned all the tricks of forest travel, and even his superior height and size were no great handicap. He could keep up with Sepoo.
They started off alone, but as they went others joined them, slipping silently out of the forest, or appearing like dark sprites ahead or behind them, until at last there was a multitude of Bambuti hurrying towards the place of the Molimo.
When they arrived there were already many others before them, squatting silently around the base of a huge silk-cotton tree in the depths of the forest. For once there was no laughter nor skylarking.
The men were all grave and silent.
