'Where are you taking me?' she mumbled. 'This is not the way back to the
village.'
Lieutenant Hammed sat slumped beside her in the seat and would not
answer. She relapsed into a daze of pain and exhaustion.
She was jerked awake when the truck braked abruptly and the driver
switched off the ignition. Rude hands dragged her out of the cab and
into the glare of the headlights. Her hands were jerked behind her back
and her wrists were bound together with a raw-hide thong.
'You are hurting me,' she whimpered. 'You are cutting my wrists.' She
had used up the last of her strength and courage. She felt beaten and
pathetic, with no fight left in her.
One of the soldiers yanked on her bound wrists and shoved her off the
road. Two others followed, each carrying trenching tools. There was
enough of a moon for her to see a grove of eucalyptus trees about a
hundred metres from the side of the road, and they led her there. They
pushed her down at the base of one of the trees and the man who had tied
her wrists stood over her, holding his rifle casually aimed down at her
and smoking a cigarette with his free hand. The others stacked their
rifles and began digging.
They seemed to take no interest in her at all, but were discussing the
All Africa Soccer Championships that were being held in Lusaka, and the
Ethiopian team's chances of reachin the finals.
It was only after a while that it began to sink into Tessay's befuddled
mind that they were digging a grave for her. The saliva in her injured
mouth dried up and she looked around desperately for Lieutenant Hammed.
But he had stayed with the truck.
'Please,' she whispered to her guard, but before she could say more he
kicked her painfully in the belly. -iftu vvurta 3 ivium i- utar vyo
'Keep quied' he used the derogatory term of address only applied to an
animal or a person of the lowest order, and as she lay doubled up on the
ground she realized the futility of appealing to them. A feeling of
weakness anded her and she found herself weeping resignation overwhelm
softly and hopelessly in the darkness.
er swollen lids, &Then she looked up again through oonlight for her to
see that the grave there was sufficient was now so deep that the two
men still digging in it were out of her line of sight. Spadefuls of dirt
flew over the lip of the hole and splattered on to the growing pile. Her
and sauntered over to the guard left her side for a momen edge of the
hole. He looked down in it and then grunted.
'Good. That is deep enough, Call the lieutenant.' The two soldiers
scrambled up out of the grave, then off into gathered up their tools and
weapons and traipsed the darkness of the grove. Chatting amicably
amongst wards where the truck was themselves they headed back to parked,
leaving Tessay and her guard.
the cold and with terror, She lay there shivering with puffed while her
guard squatted at the lip of her grave and her on his cigarette. She
thought that if she could get ton for feet she could kick him into the
hole and make a ru ut when she tried to sit up her it, back through the
trees. movements were stiff and slow, and she he no feeling in her
hands or feet. She tried to force herself to move, but at that moment
