“How is it that your weapon, Temebe, is so clean? Of all of these, yours is the one most often in the field.” Sambako said.
“I have two weapons I use in the field, my brothers. Both are like this one,” the goat herder replied. “As you said, mine are always in the field, not in some closet waiting for the future. They are with me always, and therefore I always think of them. I have never lost a goat to a wild animal or to a thief, because these weapons are my mates.”
“Where did you serve in the military?” Marcus asked.
“Is it this obvious still?” Temebe replied.
“Yes, it is, Marcus observed. “You were a professional, weren’t you?”
“I was in the Legion Etranger, the French Foreign Legion, for five years in the 1980’s. I served in Chad, Malaysia, Sinai, and Angola.” He opened his shirt, revealing a dark tattoo of the Wing & Dagger emblem of the Legions Parachute Regiment emblazoned above his heart.
“Would you be willing to help these people escape to the refugee camp safely?”
“That is why I am still here,” replied the goat herder. “I had already planned to be a rear guard if we were attacked. Since you have survived your wounds, that job will be much easier, I think.”
Sambako was curious. “Temebe, you have never mentioned before that had you served in the French Legion. You have lived with us for many years now, since you came from your home village. Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“My home village had banished me. They sided with the rebels at the beginning of the war. I couldn’t justify fighting with them, so I left.”
“This much you did tell us before, but why did you not trust us to know that you were a soldier?” asked one of the village elders.
“If I said I was a soldier, especially a Legionnaire, word would have spread and one side or the other would have forced me to join them. I am on neither side in this war, and only want to raise my goats in peace,” He replied.
Marcus nodded. “You are a wise man, Temebe.”
With a small amount of discussion, all the men soon agreed that it would be suicidal to attempt to resist Sergei’s army. Instead, the entire village, a total of less than eighty remaining people, would make for the border of Guinea as a group, with the armed men guarding the retreat. Temebe would lead on point, Marcus would be the rear guard.
The route they agreed to would take one full day of walking, through twenty miles of hilly, wooded backcountry until they reached the border. It would be another day to the northwest before they came to the refugee camp that meant safety.
That night, Marcus and Temebe posted guards at key points of the village. They planned to move out in the darkness two hours before dawn. Most of the animals would be left behind, except for what was needed to feed the group. With most of the goats and donkeys still in their pens, if Sergei’s force attacked that morning, they would be temporarily fooled into assuming that the people were still there with their animals, thereby buying some time for the escape.
Throughout the night, the guards reported that all was quiet. No traces of the Soviet or his men were seen or heard. At just before four am, Wednesday, July 1st, Marcus sat down and wrote a short letter to Lonnie. He didn’t know if he would make it out of this alive, and if he didn’t, there was no way of knowing that she would ever get the letter. He wrote it anyway.
Lonnie,
You cannot know how hard these past two months have been. I should rephrase that—I’m sure they have been hard for you too, wondering what has happened to me. If you get this letter, I have probably been long dead. But just in case, I wanted to let you know what happened, so you wouldn’t think I forgot about you.
Our Commando Troop discovered that all the people we had been sent to rescue had been massacred only minutes before our transport dropped us off. As we were searching the village, we were ambushed at the mission in the jungle of northern Sierra Leone. Everyone was killed but me. It was May 14th, 1998.
I had been badly injured, but was rescued by a local minister named Sambako Tonega. He nursed me back to health and now I and another man, Temebe, a former Legionnaire who lived in Sambako’s village, are leading the people out of this area to a refugee camp in Guinea.
If all goes well, you will get this letter from me personally, or at least by post. If not, and you receive this by someone else’s hand or in a package with my belongings, presume me dead, and move on with your life.
I love you Lonnie. I always have, and I always will.
Dreams of you kept me alive these past months when infection and sickness tried to kill me. I can hardly wait until I hold you again. It has been so long.
I am intoxicated by the anticipation.
Marcus
Intoxicated…a poem for you
He inhales deeply
The flowery scent of beauty hangs in the air
Her nature-given perfume
That which is felt more than breathed
Quietly permeates
The places she has been
Soft, shining
Images of her fill his mind
Eyes sparkling in the light of the falling sun
Silken, smiling lips shimmer
Luminescent amidst the dancing glimmer of candles
He awaits the hour
In which he will see her again
To no longer be lost in the imagination
Of that lovely form
He so strongly
