barrel pokes out over the square like an admonishing finger.
Fighters emerge by twos and threes, the guys who’ve been left behind to guard the town. They keep their distance from the new arrivals, so Andre walks over to them, and Daniel follows a few minutes later. He takes out his notebook and writes,
“These guys say there’s a big fight going on at a town called Mile 91, on the road to Makeni,” Andre says. He’s snapping photos of the kids while he talks. “I think we should go.”
“What was yesterday like?” Daniel asks, flipping his notebook open. “What was the battle like?”
The kid unleashes a fast, guttural account that is accompanied by chops and slashes with his hands. Daniel barely understands any of it. He writes what he sees:
“They came in last morning and cleared the plaza and killed three rebels,” Andre says. “There were at least two hundred rebels. They’re regrouping up-country. There’s going to be a big fight.”
Daniel scribbles,
“Da road dae no’ fine,” the kid says. “So so soljahman, so so rebel.”
“The road’s no good—too many soldiers, too many rebels,” Andre translates.
“What do you think of those guys?” Daniel says, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the soldiers. The kid spits into the dust. Daniel offers the kid a cigarette, which he takes. He pulls one out for himself but doesn’t light it. It occurs to him that he’s smoking too much. He can quit when this thing’s over with. A few more fighters wander toward them with their guns over their shoulders. Some have sunglasses and some have no shirts and some are barefoot. Most of them have lines of parallel scars on their cheeks that were put in when they were young. Pretty soon there’s a crowd of ten or twelve of them pressed around. Daniel hands out more cigarettes. They’re so young that if it weren’t for the guns, he’d feel like some schoolyard pervert corrupting the neighborhood children. “This is a waste of time,” Daniel says to Andre. “We’re not getting anything.”
“We’re not getting a ride, that’s for sure,” Andre says. He drops his camera back onto the strap around his neck. The kids are starting to lose interest and edge off around the empty plaza. Daniel hasn’t eaten in twenty-four hours and his stomach is a sour mix of bile and cigarettes. He’s starting to think about disengaging from the group and walking back to the APC when he hears the sound of a car engine. Two pickup trucks come around a building from the other side of town, drive through the plaza, and come to a stop in the open. A dozen fighters jump out. They’re from one of the militia groups. The letters CDF are badly painted on the door of one of the trucks: the Civilian Defense Force, a frankly terrifying bunch of lunatics who would probably be attacking Freetown if they hadn’t been bribed into defending it. Daniel can see the captain watching them carefully. “Those guys,” says Andre. “Maybe those guys.”
Even at a distance, the energy coming off them is agitated and ugly; the kids in the square seem to sense it as well. Daniel reluctantly follows Andre over to the trucks. It doesn’t even feel safe to approach them, much less beg a ride to the front, but the fighters barely acknowledge their presence. There’s a dead guy in the back of one of the trucks, but Daniel doesn’t know if he’s a rebel or not. There’s a lot of excited talk. Daniel doesn’t understand much of it—he busies himself writing down what he sees. Local color: it’s better than nothing. Andre finally barges into the conversation. “Mile 91,” he says. “We’re trying to get to Mile 91.”
This prompts a lot of shouting. The CDF commander pulls back the cocking bolt on his machine gun and points the barrel into Andre’s chest. His eyes are blank with an inexplicable rage. “NO, NO,” he screams. “Whatin na’ you name?”
Andre doesn’t flinch. Daniel feels his bowels slide around hotly inside him. “Andre and Daniel,” Andre says. “We’re journalists. We’re hoping to go north.”
All the men seem to have both hands on their guns. The commander screams some more, and the other fighters look around uncomfortably. The sun is barely up and we’re in trouble, Daniel thinks. Andre has his hands up apologetically, and he starts to back up, and Daniel backs up with him, and soon they’re walking back to the APC. The soldiers stare at them when they return. Andre doesn’t say anything, just walks by them to the fresh early- morning shade behind the APC and sits down against one of the oversize tires. “All right, I give up,” he says. “We’ll take the next ride out of here.”
A little while later, the CDF trucks start up and drive off with five or six fighters in the back and more hanging out the windows, rifles and RPGs pointing up into the air. One of them fires off a short burst from his gun, and the shots clatter across the plaza and make everyone jump, even the captain. A sick infusion of adrenaline doesn’t reach Daniel’s system until long after the echoes have died off, and it lingers in his gut for a while like warm poison.
Their ride comes that afternoon. Andre doesn’t say a word the entire time, and Daniel is just as glad; they sit hungry and silent, watching the road leading west to Freetown. Daniel pretends he has decided to leave Africa—in fact, to leave journalism—to see how it makes him feel, but it doesn’t seem to solve anything. A whole new set of problems appear. What’s more frightening at age thirty: a rebel checkpoint or a job interview for a life you don’t want? Eventually a convoy of trucks appears in the heat-shimmer a mile away, and the soldiers take up positions, because of course there are no radios and no communication, and they have no idea who it is. The trucks turn out to be regular army—four flatbeds filled with soldiers and a Suzuki Samurai sporting a bad camouflage paint job and more soldiers standing up in the back. The trucks chug to a stop in the shade, and the soldiers jump down and start unloading ammunition. Daniel watches the captain walk over to talk with them.
“You think he’s trying to get us a ride?” Daniel asks.
“I think he’s trying to get us the fuck out of here, if that’s what you mean,” Andre answers.
The captain is gesturing vigorously and then turns to look at them and continues talking. Several of the soldiers look over as well.
“I think we’ve just become part of our story,” Daniel says. “That’s a big ethical no-no at journalism school.”
Andre flicks a pebble into the dirt. “Ethics,” he grunts. “I’d drive this piece of shit myself if they’d let me.”
Andre as some kind of rogue reporter who’s gone native up-country with an APC is not hard for Daniel to imagine. He has the sort of hard confidence—coupled with a deep exasperation with the natives—that kept the Brits in control of places like this for centuries. But he also has a nearly bottomless sympathy for the locals that Daniel can’t hope to match. Daniel is endlessly polite—he never yells at the drivers or the translators or tries to bully the soldiers—but in his heart he knows he also doesn’t give a damn about these people. At the end of the day, he’s going home and Andre isn’t—Andre belongs here, and the locals can tell that in an instant.
The conversation over by the trucks breaks up, and the captain starts walking back toward the APC. Andre and Daniel get to their feet. “This better be good,” Andre mutters. The captain stops in front of them, looking displeased. The other soldiers look away.
“You’re leaving now and you will not come back,” the captain says in his good English. He’s obviously had some schooling, maybe even in London. “You’ve caused a lot of problems.”
“What kind of fucking problems?” says Andre. “We’re journalists, and we’re just trying to do our work.”
“You didn’t get permission from the minister of information to come out here,” the captain says. “You know very well you were supposed to. Back in Freetown, they’re saying you’re spies.”
“Spies? You know damn well we’re not spies,” Andre says, his voice rising. “This is fucking outrageous. We have press passes from your government.”
The captain goes from polite to steely in an instant. The soldiers shift on their feet, unsure whether to stay out of it or present some kind of backup for their captain. The captain is shouting now: “You are in a military zone without permission. You have asked about troop strength. You’re trying to get up to the front line. Do you have a satellite phone in your bag?”
“Of course we don’t have a satellite phone,” Andre says. “If we did—”
“If you do,” the captain interrupts, “you will be taken right over there and shot. Soldier!” One of the young soldiers jerks to attention. “Take control of these men.”
The bewildered soldier cocks his machine gun and points it unsteadily at their bellies. Daniel can feel his heart suddenly whacking sickly in his chest. His head is not swimming yet, but that’s next. Andre is holding on to
