The Dark Chronicles (22 page)

Everyone went quiet and listened to the sound. A few of the men quietly reached for their machine guns.

The banging came again, a dull but insistent thudding.

Gunner walked over to the door and stood a few inches away from it. ‘Who goes there?’ he shouted. Everyone tensed: fingers gripped around triggers, shoulders hunched and all eyes fixed on the door.

‘This is Colonel Bernard Alebayo of the Third Marine Commando Division,’ called out a familiar voice. ‘Who goes
there
?’

Alebayo stood at the front of the plane, his back and shoulders parade-ground straight. Although our encounter in the belly of Lagos Airport had been less than twenty-four hours earlier, it seemed much longer ago than that, and my image of him had changed in the interim. I was surprised at how small he seemed, and how young – with his short sleeves and slight frame, he looked more like a cadet than the most feared and celebrated commander of the war. But as he stood there, motionless, it was almost as though he were waiting for his presence to ripple around the cabin, and within moments I was remembering just how unpleasant he had been.

He was flanked by about half a dozen soldiers, all of them well-built and heavily armed. Rain dripped from their helmets, darkening the green and white Nigeria Airways logo that was repeated across the thin carpet. Alebayo’s eyes slowly swept the cabin. As I followed the line of his gaze, the incriminating details seemed to leap out: the Nigerians in their smart uniforms; the rising sun insignia on the sleeves of the ragged Biafrans; the half-eaten loaf of bread.

When his eyes finally reached mine, they paused for a fraction of a second, and I fancied they glowed with a touch of triumph. He looked like he was about to say something, but if so he thought better of it, for he continued his visual tour. When he came to Isabelle, there was another flicker, but this I couldn’t decipher. Concern, perhaps? Or just surprise to see a woman, and a young white woman at that, in these surroundings?

He jerked away. ‘Who is in charge here?’ he said, and his voice reverberated through the plane.

Gunner stepped forward and saluted smartly. ‘Captain Henry Alele at your command, Colonel. This no be as it appear, sir. I apologize most heartily—’

Alebayo raised his hand. ‘There is no need, Captain.’ He extended an arm and patted Gunner on the shoulder, and at the same time a strange smile broke through his stern features. ‘I applaud you, for you have done the right thing. We must rejoice, today of all days – it is only proper. It came as a shock to me, that is all. I hadn’t heard, you see. When did the news come through?’

Gunner frowned. ‘The news, sir?’

‘Yes,’ said Alebayo, his smile still fixed in place. ‘It cannot have been long ago – I listened to the radio just before leaving my headquarters, and there were no reports of a ceasefire then.’

Gunner lowered his head for a moment – perhaps to gather courage – and then looked up at Alebayo. ‘I have not heard about a ceasefire, sir.’

‘Oh?’ said Alebayo, raising his eyebrows in a caricature of puzzlement. He slowly withdrew his hand from Gunner’s shoulder and set his eyes travelling around the cabin again, in the manner of a lawyer making sure everyone in the jury appreciated that he had just caught out a witness. Then, in a louder, more menacing voice, he said: ‘So why are you fraternizing with the enemy, Captain?’

Isabelle shuddered beside me. I knew how she felt – it had been a nasty little trick.

‘I know it begin look that way, sir,’ said Gunner. ‘The truth—’

‘Save it for afterward,’ said Alebayo. He lifted his hand again, and as though he were signalling the start of a race, or were a Roman emperor ruling on the death of a gladiator, he suddenly brought it down, slapping it against the side of his trouser-leg. ‘Arrest them,’ he said quietly. And as his men moved forward to carry out the
command, he looked across at Isabelle and me with something that looked very much like disgust. ‘Arrest all of them.’

*

The rain beat against the tarpaulin above us, and I watched it bounce off the receding mud track, so thick it was almost impossible to see past. I was getting my ride, but it wasn’t in a jeep and it wasn’t to Udi. Instead, I was shackled to my seat in the back of a dilapidated lorry, headed in the direction, presumably, of Alebayo’s headquarters in Port Harcourt.

Alebayo was in one of the vehicles ahead of us, along with Gunner, his men and the Biafrans. Before setting off, he had assigned three men to guard me and Isabelle. Our bags and the camera had been confiscated, and we’d been chained together and pushed into the truck with about a dozen soldiers.

So we sat, thighs touching – it was hard to tell where my sweat ended and hers began, even through layers of fabric. The smell of sweat was so heady in the confined space, in fact, that I was finding it a struggle to focus on our guards. They were seated on the opposite bench; all three had sub-machine guns aimed at our legs, and were keeping their eyes glued to us.

There was no reasonable hope of escape – I’d realized that at once. I was in poor shape to attempt it, anyway, as the last couple of days were choosing their moment to catch up with me: my eyes were stinging, perhaps because I’d only slept a few hours since leaving London, and I had a nagging ache in my back and down my left thigh, both of which were probably gifts from a nasty little Russian with a sand rake. None of this compared to my thirst, though; my tongue was working frantically in a desperate attempt to create more saliva. I hadn’t had any of the water that had been handed round in the plane – I’d spent enough time in tropical climates to know not to drink from an open bottle – but now I was sorely regretting the decision. Thinking about it would only make it worse, I knew, but I couldn’t
help myself. My eyes only saw moisture: the rain outside; the sweat on the faces of my companions; even the polished metal poles that ran around the roof of the truck holding the tarpaulin up seemed to have a liquid quality to them.

I tried to empty my mind of such thoughts and concentrate on the problem at hand. The lorry’s suspension was almost non-existent, and as we seemed to be taking dirt tracks through the forest, it felt like we were sitting on a drunk camel. The first time we had hit a sizeable bump, a couple of miles back, Isabelle had let out a yelp, and all three of our guards had tensed, as had a few of the other soldiers. But the guard on the left, the one with the scars on his cheeks, had let out his own cry, almost simultaneous with Isabelle’s, and raised his gun, enough to make me think he was serious about using it.

I had no idea if Isabelle was aware just how precarious the situation was: a bigger bump, a bigger yelp, and one or both of us could get a round through the legs, or worse. I’d seen Alebayo give instructions to the men before they had taken us in hand, and I guessed he had told them that the two Westerners should not, under any circumstances, be killed – hence their aiming at our legs. And I was confident that they would try to carry out the order, because Alebayo had a reputation for rough justice: the report I’d read back in London had recounted how he’d had one of his soldiers executed by firing squad for shooting an unarmed Biafran. But would he take into account the bumps in the road, and Isabelle’s nerves? If I were accidentally killed, the man responsible might also face a firing squad – but that wouldn’t help my corpse.

‘Do any of you speak English?’ I said to the guards, in the clearest, calmest voice I could muster.

All three coiled in response, and I could feel Isabelle doing the same beside me. Coiled, but there was no harm done, yet. Fingers gripping triggers, but no shots fired, yet.

‘Do not speak,’ said the man with the scars. ‘The colonel told us if you speak, we shoot you.’

‘That’s just it,’ I said quickly, before he could think about it. ‘I’m worried you might shoot us by accident. My colleague here is very nervous, and if we hit a big bump, I’m worried someone might…’

‘Do not speak,’ said the man. ‘If I were you.’ But he gave a tiny nod and kept his eyes locked on mine, as if to say he understood the problem. A few minutes later, he leaned over and whispered in the ear of the guard next to him, who in turn whispered something to the third man. And a few minutes after that, Scarface quietly put his gun onto safety, and the other two followed suit.

It was an opening. There was nothing now between me and the road – well, nothing but chains and a dozen armed soldiers. But supposing I could bound forward with enough force to break the chains? My hands were attached to the underside of the bench, meaning that if pressure were exerted at the right angle, I could use it as leverage. The bench was quite wide – I could press my feet back at least fifteen inches. It was perhaps even a little too much, but if I sat bolt upright, the distance shortened until it felt almost like a natural starting block.

And the soldiers? Most of them were not on their guard. This was just another journey back to headquarters. They would be looking forward to putting some food in their bellies, perhaps a beer or two, and sleep. They knew there were a couple of prisoners in their midst, of course, but they also knew that three of their colleagues had their weapons trained on us. We were not their responsibility. And unless they had been paying close attention, they wouldn’t have known that those weapons were now on safety. I would have the benefit of surprise.

But, of course, the danger would not be over once I had left the jeep. It would take the fastest of the men only a few seconds to recover, if that, and I would be picked out even through the rain and the mud and the darkness in only a few seconds more. And nobody would face a firing squad for shooting a prisoner who had tried to escape.

My other potential lever was sitting beside me: Isabelle. If I
managed to bring her with me, the soldiers would have two targets, rather than one, and added to the rain and the mud and the darkness that might just be enough to save me…

I stopped the line of thought. It was an exercise, that was all, an exercise I had hoped might reveal a way of prising open the chink. But I knew even as I went through the options that none of them was viable. Even if I managed to pull Isabelle and myself into the road, the chances of survival were too small to take the risk. The fact that escape was possible was no comfort – it had to be likely. In short, it was the kind of plan that looked good on a blackboard in the Home Counties, but when it was your life on the line in the middle of the night in the African bush, it was only good for keeping your mind distracted.

And right now I had more important things to think about. Chiefly: Alebayo. The good news was that I hadn’t done anything I wouldn’t have done had I, in fact, been a photojournalist. If he interviewed Gunner or any of the other men who had been on the plane, they wouldn’t be able to report anything incriminating. And there was nothing in my bag that shouldn’t have been there.

The bad news, of course, was that I had already crossed paths with him. He had been suspicious of my cover then, and it had changed since. Not substantially, but perhaps enough to be a problem. I’d told him I was working for
The Times
, assigned to follow the PM’s trip in Lagos. If he remembered that (and I had a feeling he might), he would naturally want to know what I was doing several hundred miles away, and under the aegis of Agence France-Presse.

I decided the best thing was to bluff it out, and insist that I was still working for
The
Times
, but simply teaming up with Isabelle. As long as she didn’t crack and I stuck to my guns, there would be no easy way for him to prove otherwise. My trump card was that I was British. That meant he couldn’t do too much without provoking an international incident – if I made enough of a noise,
perhaps nothing at all. Hopefully I’d be away from here within a couple of hours, leaving me plenty of time to find my way to Udi.

More light was entering the jeep now, and the road had suddenly become much smoother. Peering through the rain, I saw rows of small houses, a few of them with lit windows, and then what looked like a grass tennis court. That must have been a mistake, though, because I couldn’t imagine many towns in the area had a tennis club.

The truck started to slow, and our guards took their guns off safety with an audible click. It was our stop. Without a word, the soldier with the scars on his face released our chains, and we were pushed out onto a smooth asphalt surface. The truck sped away.

Where the hell were we? It didn’t look like it could be a Nigerian town, or even an officers’ mess – it looked like one of the new towns outside London. Neat, white Snowcem bungalows lined both sides of the road, and each had a small garden in the front fenced off by low hedges. There were even a few sun loungers, and I wondered for a moment if we had fetched up in some sort of luxury holiday resort; perhaps I had fallen asleep and we’d driven into some tropical paradise. But that wasn’t right – it was quarter to ten, so we couldn’t have been more than fifty miles from Aba, and probably less as the roads would have slowed us down. The smell of the swamp was still here, too, and every bit as fetid.

Before I could contemplate my surroundings any more, I was prodded in the back again, and Isabelle and I were marched towards one of the bungalows. We reached a small wooden gate and one of the men struggled with the latch for a few seconds before getting it open. We walked up the narrow path to the door.

A small plate was fixed next to the doorbell: ‘561. Sebastian Tilby-Wells and Family’. A former British army base, then? But why would the British have a camp out here? And looking down the street, it looked very grand for the military – even Fort Gosport didn’t have this level of build. I tried to imagine Sebastian Tilby-Wells, and saw
a very tall man with a neat ginger moustache and a burnt pate, bossing around his fat little wife and their fat little children.

Scarface fiddled in his shirt pocket and brought out a key with ‘561’ stamped on it. He unlocked the door and we were pushed into darkness.

‘Stay here,’ he said. ‘Do not try to leave, or you will be shot.’ He cocked his trigger to make sure we’d got the message, then closed the door and locked it.