——
16.
On the evening of that third day, Gamba took me for a walk. He had two machetes with him, which he gave me to carry, along with hashish, and a sharp mix of cocaine and gunpowder, which I sniffed up my nose. He laughed as my eyes grew big and my lips stretched in a grin. I felt the back of my neck tingling and my shell breaking open. I felt the unfolding of my wings, stretching bigger and wider.
Then we were in a clearing, and I was spinning in the star-filled sky, swinging my long sharp claws, laughing crazily. I was a giant, I was ruler of everything. Gamba was cheering me, shouting at me to “squash it—smash the dirty thing.”
I saw a stupid fly, dirty and useless, wriggling on the ground, and my control was perfect and total. I swung my arm with its long silver blade and severed the fly in two. I tore its wings off and jumped back to watch it writhe and buzz uselessly, and then stop.
Many other young soldiers swooped in close to me, jumping and dancing and shooting their guns. Sparks and flashes and noise were everywhere. Gamba loomed near and offered me more of the gunpowder cocaine, and I sniffed it straight into my brain and it all went wild and stayed wild for some time.
I was dancing too, dripping with sweat. My clothes felt sticky on me and my head was full of loud sounds and bright sights and I was not seeing very well at all. After what seemed like hours, I was so tired that I stumbled and fell, and the others picked me up and shoved me into the middle of a circle of grinning faces and white-rimmed eyes. The world started to slow to near paralysis and I looked down at the broken fly in the centre of the circle and saw Mosi’s beautiful face staring up at me, his eyes surprised, frozen. I staggered toward him, but Gamba pushed me away and down the path that led back to camp.
“I think I killed him,” I shouted, and I began sobbing and could not catch my breath as tears gushed out of my eyes like blood. “No, no, no, no …” Gasping, choking, my face aching, I struggled to breathe through my cries. Gamba walked beside me, a hand on my back. Every time my tears would stop, my brain would force Mosi’s face, his eyes, into my mind. That beautiful, gentle face.
“No, I couldn’t have,” I sobbed.
And Gamba began to sing softly, “Life is a circle; there is no need to cry.” He put one strong arm around my shoulders and held me up and told me that I had acted like a courageous soldier committed to the cause. I had passed the test and was now a young leader, and he seemed so proud of me. I felt sick and disoriented and could not stop crying, but I never wanted him to take his arm away.
At last we stepped out of the shadows into the circle of fires at the camp. At last my tears dried up as I felt myself enter another, familiar world. Not my own, but at least not that one where I had just been. Maybe it hadn’t really happened.
Then my machete, which I was dragging behind me, hit a rock. The thump reminded me, and I saw Mosi’s eyes again. My stomach lurched. The blade was heavy and burning in my hand and I dropped it, letting go of what seemed like a thousand pounds. I would never carry a machete again, I swore. I was dirty and wet. The smell of drying blood on my arms and face sickened me. Now I was a monster just like them, these soldier leaders, and they were happy for me.
Gamba walked me to my lean-to, to my comrades. No one asked me anything, and someone handed me a beer. It was wet and delicious on my sore throat.
One of the other adult leaders ducked into our shelter and dropped the bloody machete in front of us and laughed as we all stared at it. One of my comrades picked up the bloody weapon and slapped me on the back, and carried it away to a corner where he cleaned it as we had been taught to do, then sharpened it with a stone, the rhythm of his strokes the only sound in the hut. There was some sympathy in the faces around me, and at last one of the older ones said, “The first is the hardest. You want the ground to open up and swallow you afterwards. You do not want to go on. The second time, you wait to feel that bad again, but you do not, and you hate yourself for that. By the third time, you are curious to see what happens.”
I could not ask if the first person he had killed was his own brother.
We smoked marijuana late into the night, and I thought, for me there is no home world, there is no Kidom. All I have now is this. Kill or be killed. Teach the others to become just like me, so I won’t be the only one.
17.
Over the next two weeks, I was officially put in charge of a small group of children. I was to train them to use the weapons and ensure that they were made strong. A few of the others in the camp also came to me after their initiation with helpless, defeated eyes, often with the blood of the dead dried on their lips.
I understood that these initiations were important to prepare good soldiers, but I still felt … well, I still felt. But not very much.
Then one morning Gamba told us we needed to prepare for a raid.
“Go through the village like you are shopping at a market,” he said. “Take anything we can use—things, people.”
Please, please, please, please, please, no machetes, I thought. Just my AK-47. How much easier just to shoot and never see the people up close, or look into their eyes. Just stand back and pull the trigger. No slice, no thump, just BANG! I shook my head, shook out my thoughts and reached into my pocket for some hashish to chew.
Gamba stared at me for a moment, and then handed me some knotted grey rags to wrap all around the full length of my barrel. These rags turned my AK invisible in my hands, not a gun anymore but a power stick to bring death, the work of the devil. I was a rebel leader now, and my lieutenant had faith in me. I straightened my shoulders and looked around for my assigned followers.
We headed out, several groups of kids, each with its own leader, along with Gamba and two other lieutenants. My soldiers trusted me totally now, especially because of Gamba’s constant acknowledgement of my fitness to lead them. I walked at the head of them all. I was the smartest and the strongest. I am the leader, I thought, and they are my army, behind me.
The sun’s heat made the thick green leaves in the valley shimmer as we passed. We marched and marched, singing loudly and boldly, shouting slogans the commander and the lieutenants had taught us.
We marched for a very long time, checking the position of the sun for direction, but soon it was directly overhead—of no help at all.
“So,” called Gamba, “now we sleep. We will march the rest of the way in the cool of the night, and you will make your attack in the morning.”
18.
That night the sky was beautiful and the moon ever-present. This made it much easier to lead the way along the small tracks through the dense bamboo forest, but it also made me and the others nervous that our movement might be seen from the hillsides around us. We had slept most of the afternoon, but the sleep had not been restful. So much was wildly bouncing around inside my head.
Gamba had told us to expect an exciting day. By attacking this village, we were going to teach all of the people that they had better remain loyal to us and our cause or they would be exterminated.
After hours on the trail we stopped to rest by a small creek. I was called with the other junior leaders to receive our final orders, repeated several times so they would sink in. We were to attack from the wooded side of the village at dawn with the sun at our backs so we could see the targets clearly but the villagers would have a hard time seeing us. We would attack as they awoke for morning chores and we would catch them totally by surprise. This was good because it would mean less chance of any of my group being injured or killed. Back at the camp during the long nights, I had heard how so many others had been abandoned during attacks or later, along the trail, to be prey for animals, insects or the surviving villagers, or to die slowly, and alone.
Just as Gamba finished talking, a crash of thunder followed by lightning shocked us all. Then came the torrential rain that we always expected in this season, but which had held off until now. As I stumbled through the downpour toward my group, I looked back at Gamba and he was beaming.
“It is a perfect cover for our approach,” he called after us. “They won’t be able to see or hear us through the rain.”
I found my eleven boys and girls, all armed and in their ill-fitting uniforms, huddled together under large banana leaves, trying to stay dry. They gathered around me, and I spoke as quietly as I could over the roar of the rain on the trees and splashing puddles all around us, giving them their orders.
We got the signal to move forward at first light, the rain still pouring down. At the edge of the trees, I ordered my comrades to spread out at arm’s length from each other. Despite the training and everyone’s confidence in me, my palms were sweating. This was a critical moment for our surprise attack but also for me. The commander was ruthless with leaders who failed to live up to what was expected of them. I also knew that if I showed any fear to my small band of young soldiers, we would be lost. So I went to each one of them in turn as they crouched in the wet, tall grass at the edge of the bush and asked if they were okay. There were sets of eyes that were fierce and angry, who wanted to go in fast and furious. There were other sets of eyes that were blurred by drugs but were at least pointed in the right direction, their guns ready. And then there were eyes on the edge of shock and fear that looked straight ahead, hoping that they would not see any people or have to shoot their guns at them. I gave them as much encouragement as I could, then crept into the grass ahead of them and waited for the signal from the lieutenant.
Our weapons were ready and loaded. I cocked my weapon and listened to the snap of safeties being released on guns behind me. I had put so much oil on my AK-47 that the rain was making bubbles on any part of the barrel that was bare of the rag coverings. I was sure it would fire if I pulled the trigger and that gave me some security.
Gamba finally blew the whistle around his neck. On and on it sounded, and as though powered by some hidden spring, I jumped up and ran forward from the line of trees through the tall grass and corn patches between us and the first huts. I was yelling and pulling the trigger, shooting from the hip toward the huts. As I rushed forward I could feel my comrades following me, firing and running, firing and running. Large bangs from rocket launchers and hand grenades boomed extra loud in the rain and low clouds, but I kept us moving toward the edge of the village. I concentrated on the circular, mud-brick house ahead of me, shooting at the windows, and then angling left to cut between it and the other huts. My heart pounded and my dry throat made it hard to yell at the others as well as frighten the villagers, but I kept acting out the plan according to my training, and the fear and apprehension of only moments before totally dissolved, and I was suddenly as high as I’d been on the gunpowder cocaine.
Like ants scurrying out of their hill, people began to spill from the huts, screaming and running in all directions. A grenade hit the hut I’d been shooting at, and it burst into flames. No one was putting up a fight—they were just trying to get away from us. I was sure it would be over soon. I finally reached the gap between the burning hut and the house beside it. As I had been trained, I continued firing my machine gun as I ran between the huts, prepared to shoot blindly inside the door the minute I was in front of the building.
Suddenly, the sound of gunfire greatly intensified and became massive in my ears. There was a lot of shouting from the centre of the village, and many more weapons seemed to join in. But I was already so focused on my next move that these sounds barely registered.
I could sense my group of young warriors behind me, moving at the same reckless speed as I was. Some had already opened fire toward the next row of huts and the open spaces in between. A couple steps more and I was in front of the hut, firing without ceasing, ready to kick in the door. Not twenty feet in front of me was a tall grown-up soldier wearing a blue helmet so bright against the dull colours of the bush and the rest of his uniform that it shocked me so much I nearly stopped. He had his rifle pointed right at me.
My eyes were burning and my mind was overloaded with conflicting instructions and emotions. I felt as much wild excitement as fear. In this moment, we were two warriors—he with his gun, me with mine—and I was still pulling hard and long on the trigger.
I could see my bullets chewing at the bricks, creating small explosions of dried mud as they went. The soldier in the blue helmet moved away from the wall and I saw the tiny flash from his weapon.
I was slammed by what seemed like a big stick right across my chest. The overwhelming force and instant pain tumbled me over backwards so fast I lost all sense of direction and strength. Suddenly, I was on my back in the mud with the rain still falling on me but so gently I could barely feel it. My chest burned as if it was on fire, but I couldn’t put it out.
I did not seem to be able to move. I tasted blood in my mouth and my breathing became difficult, like I was underwater and not able to get any new air in my lungs. It came to my mind simply and clearly: I have been shot by the blue helmet and I am going to die.
My mind began to race so fast that I felt lost in it all, searching, grappling for something familiar, something to protect me. Kesi, Mosi, Momma, Daddy, Jacob, Mashaka, Baingana, the creatures of Kidom—these made me hurt even more, from a different place, from my stomach, from my inside. I had suffered so many nights and days of being lonesome for my family, my friends, my home, my world, and now I was going to lose them forever. A wave of lonely pain and fear spread deeper through me, dumping me into blackness.
19.
I can see him beside me now. This soldier. I can make out as if through a haze his pale face and big eyes staring down at me in surprise. I too am surprised. He is enormous, but still. His khaki uniform is dark but his helmet is light blue with the letters “UN” written on it. I know what this means. It is the sign of peace, of the peace-keepers, of protection. But what is he doing here? Why did Gamba not tell us that peacekeepers were protecting this village? This was wrong—we were not supposed to be fighting the peacekeepers and they were not supposed to be fighting us. The commander told us that all of us were working for security, for victory, and we had to punish this village so that it would stop the fighting and the war.
My mind is thick and jumbled but I can make out the shadow of his leg beside my hand, and I reach out to clutch the cloth of his trousers. His bullets have hit me and I am hurting so, but I see his white face, his shocked eyes. My bullets did not hit him and I am not supposed to miss. Why did I miss and why did his bullets crash through me?
The pain in my chest is suffocating me. Where is my mother and brothers, my little sister, my father, where is Baingana, my teacher, whose words were so full of wisdom? I reach out my other hand to try to draw a circle around me, because this is not for real, just as Kidom was not for real. But I want to go there. I want it back.
My chest still hurts, but I feel lighter and the silence around me is like it was at night when I used to create Kidom with my stick under the dark sky with so many bright stars above me.
I do not feel alone now. I might even let Kesi enter my circle again if she is quiet. I am not angry or mad or sad or lonely. I am not a soldier or a warrior, either. I am free to be me. I am free now. I have been freed by this pain in my chest and I am me again.
I am flying, gripping the wings of a dragonfly. I am no more, I am nowhere. I was a warrior and now I am a child again.
5.
HOW A CHILD SOLDIER IS MADE
THE CHILD SOLDIER WHO DIED at the end of the last chapter at the hands of a UN peacekeeper is fictional, but the circumstances are all too real. There are estimated to be more than a quarter of a million child combatants in wars around the globe; in the last decades of the last century, many adults in many countries undergoing various levels of social breakdown and civil war, in South America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, have made the tactical decision to recruit and deploy children to fight their battles for them. (In case readers in stable democracies think this weapon system is only deployed in countries with serious social unrest, they should remember the growin
g number of children used in many of the same ways by street gangs in the drug trade.)
We live in a time when human rights have been championed at the international level in an unprecedented way in human history, spurred by reaction to the Holocaust and the invention of the global governance body, the United Nations. Yet at the same time as international humanitarian and diplomatic efforts have focused on codifying and protecting the basic rights of all human beings, including security of the person, humankind has been inventing a new weapon system, now widespread, that abuses the most vulnerable, the most hope-filled among us, and uses humanity’s future in order to destroy humanity’s present.
The limited use of children in the military as porters, drummers, cooks, and in other non-combatant roles in garrison locations is a long-standing tradition dating back to ancient times. But through all those centuries, deploying children (especially those under the age of sixteen) in active combat was generally viewed as abominable. So how exactly did this tragic recent reversal in thinking come about?