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We headed back to camp. The sack was full of grubs and fruit. Beck had the dripping monkeys tied on a pole over his shoulder. ‘Sami told me you’re useless,’ I said. ‘But we’ve got all this stuff.’ Beck looked a bit offended, ‘Sami doesn’t like me much. I’m not a soldier like she is.’ ‘But you’re providing all this food. Isn’t that as important?’ ‘We don’t need to hunt,’ Beck said. ‘We steal all the food we need on raids and ambushes. I just pick

up luxury stuff like grubs and monkeys. Everyone would be happier if I was a fighter.’ I laughed, ‘But you’re only 12.’ ‘That’s old enough. They took me on my first raid a year ago. I was supposed to be covering Sami and her brother while they unloaded an army truck. A soldier came up behind them. I hesitated and Sami’s brother got shot in the back.’ ‘How old was Sami’s brother?’ ‘Edo was thirteen. He was my best friend. Captain went crazy. He whipped me until I passed out and

said I wasn’t to fight again.’ ‘That’s so bad… Does Captain whip people all the time?’ ‘Only if they really deserve it,’ Beck said. ‘It was my fault Edo died. I think I got less than what I

deserved. Captain’s OK about it now, but Sami still hates me.’ ‘That’s Captain’s fault really though,’ I said ‘Twelve is too young to fight in a war.’ ‘This is a rebel army,’ Beck said. ‘If you’re old enough to carry a gun, you fight.’

The second night a massive thunderstorm broke just after dark. Don tied me up again. He’d found some nylon cord and pulled it hard so it tore into me. Amo had made me a pillow by sewing an old scrap of cloth and stuffing it with rice. Don grabbed it off me, just for the sake of being mean; so I ended up on the bare earth, listening to the rain and watching blue lightening flashes through the cracks in the walls.

Everyone washed in the pool. Waded in with mud on their boots. The little kids peed in it and so did half the local wildlife. Then they drank the water. Over a lifetime you build up resistance to the parasites and bacteria in untreated water, but I’d only ever drank out of a tap; so when the polluted water hit my stomach, my body wasn’t trained to fight the nasties.

Halfway through the night I started feeling cramps, like my guts were squashed down to a tiny ball. I was afraid to wake Don up, but I’d never needed to crap so badly my whole life. There was no way I could hold myself until morning. ‘Don.’

He never budged. The second time I shouted. ‘Don.’

I ended up having to wriggle over the floor and nudge into him. Don’s eyes rolled open; angry white balls. ‘I need to go to the toilet.’ Don shoved me away, ‘If you wake me again, I’ll gag your mouth.’ ‘You’ve got to untie me. I can’t hold it.’ ‘Maybe this will persuade you,’ Don said, bunching his fist in my face. I let out a massive fart. It had the worst smell ever. Don jumped off his sleeping mat. ‘Dirty, dirty animal,’ He screamed. ‘I told you,’ I said. ‘It’s gonna be all over the floor in a minute.’ He rummaged in the dark for his knife and cut the bindings. I ran out into the trees, pulled down my shorts and let out a blast of diarrhoea that practically launched me off the ground. It was the most unbelievable relief. I stumbled back to the hut, but Don shoved me out. ‘Stay out there,’ he shouted. ‘You’re not coming in here with that foul arse.’ It was an awful night. The rain gushed over the baked earth. I sheltered under the trees as best as I could. Every few minutes the cramps returned and I had to crap again. Morning took forever to come. When it finally started getting light, I stumbled to Amo’s hut. As soon as Amo saw me, she wrapped me up in her arms. I rested my face on her sweaty neck and broke into tears.

I spent two days curled up on the ground, moving only when I crawled into the trees to shit or puke. I had fits of the shivers, even though it was 40C. Amo purified water for me by boiling it over a wood fire, then she added sugar and salt to make rehydration solution. The cramps left my stomach muscles in agony. My legs quivered when I tried to walk. I could only manage a few steps at a time.

Whenever I woke up, it seemed to be from some nightmare about Adam. Watching him choke on a walnut. Trapped in a burning barn. Getting hit by a red London bus. The worst dreams were the ones where I couldn’t find him but his voice called out for me. Dad kept telling me to go back and look properly.

Little Becky was sweet. She’d sit beside me, patting my arm and saying she wanted me to take her swimming when I got better. Amo gave me bits of whatever she cooked. I usually managed a few bites and puked them up soon afterwards. I got really depressed. How can your life get any worse than laying on bare earth, covered in flies and your own dry puke?

The third morning I felt slightly better. I drank two cups of water and kept down a couple of fried banana slices. I wasn’t so tired and the sun felt hot again. Amo helped me down to the pool. I sat in the shallow run off and lathered up with soap flakes. Amo perched on a rock bathing her feet. She asked me loads of questions about London, and told me a bit of her life story.

She’d worked in a clinic run by a French charity and was studying for nursing qualifications. Seven years earlier, when the civil war started, the clinic treated injured soldiers from both sides. The government didn’t like them helping the rebels, so their soldiers smashed up the hospital, killed the rebel patients and sent the nurses and doctors back to France. Beck’s Dad and older brother went to fight for the rebels. Amo reckoned they were dead, but there was no way to be sure. A couple of small rocks tumbled down the embankment. Sami yelled out: ‘Amo, we need you.’ Sami had bloody hands and face. Her camouflage glistened with red stains. ‘Who is it?’ Amo asked.

‘Ben.’ ‘I’ll come back for you,’ Amo said, looking at me. The women dashed over the rocks towards camp. I laid back and let the water dribble through my hair and rush over my shoulders. After fifteen minutes, my curiosity got the better of me. I still felt shaky, but I reckoned I’d get back to camp if I took it slow.

Amo had washed my only set of clothes and laid them on the rocks. The sun had already baked them dry. The cloth was warm to touch. I had to stop a couple of times, leaning against a tree while I caught my breath.

Camp was dead quiet. Everyone crouched in a semi-circle around the flap at the front of Amo’s hut. Beck realised I was a bit unsteady and ran over to help me walk the last few meters. ‘How is he?’ I asked. ‘He’ll die soon,’ Beck said. ‘The bullets almost cut him in two.’ I didn’t want to see it, but sometimes you can’t not look at something. Ben’s eyes were like pools of milk, staring at nothing. Amo had stuffed him with morphine to kill the pain. The empty syringes laid around him on the earth. You could hardly see his wounds for the mass of flies feasting on the blood.

The only time I’d heard Ben speak was the first day, when he offered to take Sami’s pistol and kill me, but he stopped the pickup, so there must have been part of him that cared. The thing that hit me hard, was that Ben was only a bit older than me. If he was born in England, he’d have been learning to drive and doing his A-levels.

I crawled into Amo’s hut and drank some of the purified water. Captain told Don, Amin and a couple of others to get shovels and start digging Ben’s grave. He wasn’t even dead yet, but in the tropics it doesn’t take long for a body to start rotting.

‘This bloody watch!’ Sami said. ‘It wakes me up before the sun comes up. Diddle de dee, diddle de dee.’

Her camouflage was drying on a stick standing in the ground outside her hut. All she had on was a t shirt and a set of men’s boxers. ‘That’s what it does,’ I said. ‘I’ll have it back if you don’t want it.’ ‘You think I’m stupid, traitor?’ Sami asked. ‘Do you see me walking around with a clay pot on my

head? I’m not a bloody peasant. Just tell me what button I press to switch off the alarm.’ She unbuckled the watch and put it in my hand. While I fiddled with the buttons, she scratched her leg

with her foot. ‘Top left button,’ I said, handing back my watch. ‘Hold it for five seconds to turn the alarm on or off.’ ‘It’s a good watch,’ Sami said. ‘I can press the light and see the time in the night.’ ‘I know it’s a good watch,’ I said bitterly. ‘That’s why I bought it.’ Sami smiled, ‘So how are you feeling anyway?’ ‘I started eating this morning. So far I’ve kept everything down.’ ‘What about your head?’ ‘It’s mostly better,’ I said. ‘It’s still a bit sore and it breaks open sometimes.’ She was still scratching her legs and her tits were jigging up and down in time with the scratching. I was getting quite turned on watching them. It never occurred that Sami might have something going on underneath the baggy camouflage. ‘It’s good you’re better,’ Sami said. ‘You’ll be ready to fight soon.’ ‘I don’t want to fight,’ I said. ‘I want to go home.’ Sami laughed, ‘You’re living in our camp and you’re eating our food. You’re going to fight if you like it

or not.’ ‘Beck doesn’t fight.’ Sami raised her hand between us. ‘Don’t mention his name around me. My brother died because he’s got no guts.’ ‘What if I refuse to fight? Will you kill me?’ ‘In two seconds flat,’ Sami shrugged, ‘I’ll kill you myself. We all fight.’ ‘What about you and Ben, were you close?’ ‘We weren’t humping, if that’s what you mean.’ I laughed, ‘No, I mean… Were you friends?’ ‘He joined us about a year ago. He was a good guy to be alongside. I liked him a lot.’ ‘So, what happened out there?’ ‘Mercenaries,’ Sami said.

‘What?’ ‘The government soldiers are crap. They’re conscripts who don’t want to be in a war. They’re usually drunk. They never get paid their wages and half the time they have to steal food because they don’t get enough to eat. So, the government started sending in some real soldiers to catch us rebels: mercenaries.’ ‘So who are the mercenaries exactly?’ ‘Foreigners,’ Sami said. ‘Serbians, Israelis, Yanks. Trained to fight in their own countries armies and tough as hell. They don’t care what they fight for or who they kill, as long as they get a nice fat wad of dollars for their trouble.’ ‘So what are you fighting for?’ I asked. ‘The rebels control the east of the country, the government controls the west and in-between there’s

this.’ Sami spread her arms out wide. ‘Jungle,’ I said. Sami nodded, ‘Exactly. Half a million square kilometres of trees to fight over. Whoever controls the

river and the roads through the jungle can send an army into the other part of the country.’ ‘So who’s winning?’ ‘Nobody really. The war reached a stalemate after a few months. Ever since, we’ve been fighting each other in the jungle and not really got anywhere.’ ‘Sounds pointless.’

‘It is,’ Sami said. ‘Except the government has ten times as many men as us, and they’ve got artillery, helicopters and tanks. If they can get an army through the jungle, they won’t have any problem retaking the east of the country.’ ‘So, what actually happened to Ben?’ ‘We ambushed a truck,’ Sami said. ‘Me Ben and Desi. You know Desi?’ I nodded. I’d never spoken to Desi, but I’d seen him around. He was 16 year old beanpole, way taller

than anyone else at camp. ‘Well normally, you put a log or something in the road to stop a truck getting through. There’s two or three soldiers up front. They get out to move the log, we kill the soldiers and either steal the truck or blow it up so it blocks the road. But this time it was a trap. We shot up the driver, but there were about six mercenaries hiding in the back. They all jumped out and started blasting at us. I’ve never seen so many bullets. We ran into the trees, shot a couple of the mercenaries, then walked about ten kilometres and made camp for the night.

‘It seemed safe, but two of the bastards tracked us the whole way. They tried to take us alive. They wanted information before they killed us. It was pure good luck that Ben’s gun jammed. He’d just fixed it and had it in his hand when we spotted them. If it wasn’t for that, I’d be dead or getting tortured right now. Ben killed one of the mercenaries, but the other one shot him. It gave me and Desi enough time to grab our guns. I doubled back behind the mercenary, came out of the bushes and shot him from behind.’ ‘I don’t know how you do it,’ I said. ‘I’d be so scared.’ ‘I thought the same once. But if the other guy is pointing a gun at you, your survival instinct kicks in.

Oh, I’ve got something you can have if you want.’ Sami went in her hut and came out with a watch. ‘It came off that mercenary I killed,’ Sami said. The watch was an Omega chronometer. It must have cost a couple of grand, but Sami had no idea. ‘Don’t you want this one?’ I asked. ‘I’m keeping yours,’ Sami said. ‘The blue light is cool.’

The grave was shallow. Amin rolled Ben’s body into the hole with his boot and stepped back quickly to avoid the cloud of dust and insects. Captain told everyone how Ben a good fighter and would be missed, but nobody seemed that upset. I’d never seen a body before, but it wasn’t a huge deal to the others. Death is like anything else, you get numb if you see enough of it.

Amo had found a couple of photos and a bible in Ben’s hut. She chucked them in the hole, then everyone took a turn throwing a shovel load of earth onto the body. Captain was the last one. When he finished, he handed the shovel to me. I don’t know if he meant it as a gesture, but it felt like a signal of acceptance: I was one of them now.

Captain walked back to camp with me. He offered one of his little brown cigars. I shook my head and he lit one for himself. ‘How do you feel, Jake?’ ‘I’m getting stronger, but I’m still a bit shaky.’ ‘You’ve been sleeping in Amo’s hut the last few nights?’ I nodded, ‘I suppose I’ll have to go back with Don and Amin now.’ ‘We have an empty hut now,’ Captain said. ‘You might as well have it.’

‘Ben’s?’ Captain nodded, ‘You should have your strength back in a few days. When you do, I want you to come and see me.’

All Ben had to show for his life was a sleeping mat, a few candles, a wood burning stove, some ragged clothes and a hunting knife. I felt like a grave robber and stood uncertainly in the entrance of the hut, breathing the stink of a man who no longer existed. I picked some of the clothes off the floor. My instinct was to chuck them away, but I only had the clothes I stood up in. So I’d be wearing Ben’s clothes, cutting with his knife and cooking on his stove. It spooked me out: it was like I was his replacement. ‘Hey,’ Beck said. I turned around and saw his grinning face in the entrance. ‘Nice hut,’ Beck said. ‘Can I come in?’ ‘Feels sad,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to wash all his stuff tomorrow.’ ‘There’s room for two,’ Beck said. ‘And it’s getting cramped with Becky growing up. So I was

wondering if you fancied a roommate?’ I didn’t want to spend a night in Ben’s hut on my own. . . .

The next few days I got a routine. Get up with the sun, go down to the stream and wash off the night’s sweat. Fill the water barrel, then start a fire and boil my drinking water for the day. I was determined not to get sick again. Amo usually made our food; it was one of the perks of having Beck as a roommate.

After eating, me and Beck would set off into the trees to go hunting. I had a few goes at shooting birds with the bow and arrow, but they only managed to crack Beck up with laughter; so I stuck at picking fruit and carrying the sack. Once I got over my squeamishness, I started to quite like the taste of grubs and beetles.

Beck was a walking encyclopaedia. He knew all what was safe to eat, what snakes were poisonous, where to avoid scorpions, what times of day you were most likely to find animals drinking at the bank of the stream. I asked him how he always knew where we were. To me, every tree looked the same, but to Beck the shapes of the trunks and the size of the branches were like road signs.

Nobody could cope with the heat in the middle of the day. We’d go back to camp and sit in the shade. Beck and the others usually managed to sleep, but I was too hot to relax. I’d rest against a trunk and see how long I could go without having to wipe the beads of sweat tickling down my face.

When it cooled, I went down to the stream with Beck. Becky tagged along and by the third day she was splashing clumsily from one side of the pool to the other. I offered to teach Beck to swim as well, but he stood on the edge and stubbornly refused to even try.

I rested up against a trunk with my eyes shut. Captain grabbed my cheek and pinched it. ‘Oww. What was that for?’ ‘Full belly?’ Captain asked angrily.

‘What?’ ‘I asked if you have a full belly.’ ‘Yes I do.’ ‘Feeling healthy?’ I nodded, ‘Yes.’ ‘Would you like to live with Don again? This time I won’t tell him to go easy.’ ‘No… What did I do? Why are you pissed off?’ ‘What did I tell you to do when you got your strength back?’ Captain asked. ‘Come and see you,’ I said. ‘So why didn’t you?’ I’d been putting it off. I knew I had to fight and I knew that’s what Captain wanted to talk about. ‘I forgot,’ I lied. The metal roof over Captain’s office had baked all day in the sun. The windows were closed to keep out the flies. It was the hottest place I’d ever been. The first time I went in the office it was dark. This time I could see the dots of blood soaked into the concrete floor. ‘Sit down.’

The chair creaked as I sank onto the plastic cushion. Captain paced around to his side of the desk, with the conceit of a man who wouldn’t have to answer to anyone if he killed me.

‘Twenty-two,’ Captain said. ‘What?’

‘That’s the number of people who’ve died in that chair. Eighteen men, four women. Three of them were younger than you.’ I took my hand’s off the arms and shuddered. Captain was pleased that he’d had the desired effect. ‘You must think I’m some kind of animal, Jake.’ I shook my head, ‘No.’ ‘Remember what I told you before, about being honest when you speak to me?’

I nodded. ‘So, do you think killing all those people makes me an animal?’

‘I guess.’ ‘And you’d be correct,’ Captain said. ‘If you asked me ten years ago if I could I kill a man, I would have said no. I was a university professor in the capital. I studied in Paris and got my doctorate in politics. Then the war started.

‘I was born in the east. I wrote a letter to a newspaper saying the east should be allowed to break away and become a separate country if the people there wanted it. I was dismissed from my job. Then government soldiers came to my house. They killed my wife and four of my children. Sami and her brother only survived because they were at a piano lesson.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘My Mum always says the worst thing that can happen to a person is if they outlive their child.’

‘I grabbed Sami and Edo and bribed an army truck driver. He sold me a gun and drove us deep into the jungle. I managed to find a rebel group and I became a soldier. Six years later, here I am. I’m not proud of who I am, or the things I’ve done to people. But I’m still angry about my family and I want my people to win this war.’ ‘So, you’re a complicated animal,’ I said. Captain laughed, ‘Exactly. In the heart of every ordinary man lies a killer, and in every killer lies the

heart of an ordinary man.’ ‘Who said that?’ I asked. ‘Someone famous?’ Captain rubbed his cheek, ‘I’m pretty sure I just made it up… The point I’m trying to get across, Jake, is that any person can become a soldier if they are motivated. Do you know there are more than ten government soldiers for every rebel?’ ‘Sami mentioned it.’ ‘But we hold the government at bay. All the government soldiers think about is drinking and sex. They keep their heads down and count the days until they get sent home. The rebels are different. We want to stop the government sending tanks through the jungle, destroying our homes and killing our families. This motivation makes our men worth ten of theirs. Do you understand?’ I nodded. ‘I want you to fight with us, but sticking a gun in your hand doesn’t make you a soldier. I need to motivate you. So I’ll give you a choice. If you don’t fight, you can’t leave here, you’ll work around camp and you’ll only eat what you find for yourself in the jungle. In a few months, when security is compromised and we abandon this camp, I’ll set you free and you’ll have to look after yourself. If you agree to fight, I’ll pass messages on to all the other rebel groups to look out for your brother and I give you my word that when the opportunity comes, I’ll do all I can to get you back home.’ ‘Do you think there’s a chance I’ll find my brother?’ Captain shrugged, ‘I’d be a liar if I said the odds were good, but there is a chance and if you fight with us, I promise to make that chance as big as I can.’

I said I’d fight to save Adam. It makes me sound like a hero, but the reasons were more complex. There was part of me that was into being a soldier. I was nothing: I ate and slept, people bossed me around and I had no control over my life. By joining the fight, I raised myself off the bottom of the pile. Most important though, it’s human nature to want to fit in and it’s what everyone wanted me to do.

Sami gave me a big hug. ‘So you’re a man after all, traitor.’ I felt a weird mix of elation and dread. ‘You scared?’ Desi asked. I shrugged, ‘A bit.’ I was terrified, of course. ‘Not to worry,’ Sami said. ‘It’s only men who are fitter and stronger than you, firing chunks of metal at

you at a thousand kilometres an hour.’ ‘Great,’ I said. ‘Unless they get up close and slice you up with their knives,’ Desi said. Sami laughed, ‘Or they catch you and zap your balls with a car battery.’ ‘You look really pale all of a sudden, Jake.’ It was all a big joke to them. ‘I’ll get you some kit,’ Sami said. ‘We’re going out on a mission tonight. Dad said to take you with us.’ ‘Tonight,’ I said, shocked. ‘What about training? I don’t even know how to shoot a gun.’ ‘You’ll pick it up fast enough.’ Desi smiled, ‘Or you’ll get you head blown off.’ Me and Sami went inside a lock up underneath the main building. Sami pried the lid off a wooden

crate. The guns inside were Czech made AK47’s, brand new, sealed in air tight plastic so that they didn’t rust. ‘Merry Christmas,’ Sami said, handing me one. ‘What else should you have?’ She started rummaging through the boxes and handed me a tatty revolver. ‘Needs a good clean, but it’s handy if the AK jams,’ Sami explained. ‘Short range only, but revolvers

never go wrong. You want one?’ I shrugged, ‘Why would I not want one if they’re so useful?’ ‘Weight,’ Sami said. ‘Everything you take, you’ve got to carry twenty or thirty kilometres a day, along

with all the food and water you need. And we don’t hang around… Backpack, essential.’ Sami threw me a lightweight pack. ‘Did you want the revolver?’ ‘Might as well.’ ‘Grenades, take two or three.’ The way the grenades were packed in boxes of a dozen reminded me of my Dad’s golf balls ‘You’ve got Ben’s knife and his spare camouflage haven’t you?’

‘Yeah.’ Take some boots, you’ll see those white trainers a mile off. Water bottle. Last and most important:

ammunition.’ Sami handed me a few clips for the AK and a box of bullets for the revolver. The ammunition weighed

a ton. ‘You think it’s heavy now,’ Sami grinned. ‘Add water and food, and imagine how it feels after a thirty kilometre hike. I wont slow down if you start whining. You’re a security risk, so I’ll have to kill you if you pass out.’ We stepped back into the sun. Sami put the padlock on the storage room. ‘Where do all the weapons come from?’ I asked. ‘There’s never been a shortage of weapons,’ Sami said. ‘It’s people that don’t last long.’