Devil’s Harvest (28 page)

‘Jesus Christ,’ Gabriel moaned, feeling his bowel loosen, suddenly warm and liquid. Kamal was running down the road in the opposite direction, his legs pounding the surface before he threw himself at full speed into a drainage ditch. Gabriel looked around for similar cover.

‘Get away from the bridge!’ Alek screamed, also now breaking into a run but heading across the river and into the bush on the other side.

Gabriel followed, his chest heaving. He should’ve run more with Jane, he thought vaguely as the sound of blood pumping in his ears started to block out everything else. Alek was lying flat on her stomach just off the road, her neck craned to look up at the sky. Gabriel fell to the ground beside her, the gravel and stones scouring his chest and legs.

‘What the hell is it?’

‘Russian Antonov.’ She pointed at a spot in the sky some distance off the horizon. Something metal glinted and disappeared, then another flash of reflected light. The road was deserted now. The officer and his men disappeared from view, and only two men remained behind with the truck and its gun, the barrel pointing at the aeroplane. Large black ants crawled over Gabriel’s hands. One started to investigate the recesses behind his ear before he managed to squash it. A sharp smell filled his nose. The metal shape glinted closer, then disappeared into the haze. If he strained, he could still hear its distant drone.

They seemed to lie alongside one another for hours, silently waiting for the plane to make an appearance. The ants kept attacking him, stinging bites on his legs and neck. The stones pushed into his scratched and sunburnt skin. Is this how war is, he wondered, a toxic mix of boredom and terror? Waiting, holding your breath, hoping something might happen, praying that something else might not?

No one spoke. Then, without further comment, it was over.

The soldiers emerged from the shadows, the canvas was pulled back over the gun and the truck lumbered back into the bush. A few men laughed and lit up cigarettes. The roadblock was re-established as if nothing had occurred, though Gabriel noted that the young soldier who had stopped them still scanned the skies from time to time.

Gabriel returned to the tent with Alek to find the officer back in his position, the radio crackling.

‘Transport plane for the UN,’ the man said. He handed Gabriel his passport. ‘You are free to carry on to Bentiu. Good day.’

* * *

They arrived in Bentiu as night fell. There appeared to be few generators that could provide electricity for light, and the town was covered in a dense fog of smoke from fires and paraffin lamps. Exhausted from the day’s events, and the residual tension from the incident at the roadblock, they spoke little around the fire. Kamal seemed particularly morose, picking at his food and complaining to himself in Arabic.

The flames spat as the resin in the damp wood reached boiling point and started to bubble at the ends. The smell of creosote was strong, perhaps from the surrounding fencing, or the wood on the fire; Gabriel could not tell in the deceptive light. Supper was
nyama choma
, fatty goat meat grilled over open flames and served with a heavy dollop of ground cassava. But Gabriel was ravenous and ate with enthusiasm, his fingers sticky with meat juice and drying starch. He caught Alek eyeing him, but she turned away before he could acknowledge her.

There were times when she looked quite regal, when the light struck her harsh angularity from just the right position, softening her features. The few times that the tension between them had eased, Gabriel had enjoyed their conversation, listening to her wistful stories. But in his heart there were doubts that would not be quelled. There was some tough self-interest motivating her, and an ageing European professor was not going to take precedence over whatever it was she was planning. They had not spoken of the route into Bahr el Ghazal and Safaha, where the
Arabidopsis
were to be located. She had shown no interest in his research since their initial meeting. He had only half-believed what he had told the military officer at the roadblock. He might be paying, but that gave him only the illusion of control.

Gabriel stood up stiffly and said good night. Mercifully, the truck stop was almost empty and they each had a room to themselves. He collapsed onto a stretcher bed without washing, his feet painful and his body gritty with sweat and sand.

He was woken by the cry of the morning call to mosque, a melodious rising and falling of intoned prayers from the adjacent building. He lay on his uncomfortable bed, already feeling the heat emanating from the door, listening to the muezzin. Eventually he roused himself, smearing ointment on his toes, and hobbled outside. In the light of morning, the strong Arabic influence on the town was clearer. Minarets and the parapets of mosques stood tall above the simple dwellings below. Arabic signage was everywhere, and the dress code appeared to be strictly traditional.

He pointed this out to Alek, who was sitting at the cold embers of the night’s fire sipping tea.

‘This is dar al-Islam,’ she said. ‘Arabic was the language in all schools here right up until secession.’

‘More like the land of the United Nations,’ Gabriel joked as yet another convoy of UNHCR vehicles lumbered past the truck stop, spewing red dust behind them.

Bentiu seemed populated with UN blue helmets, driving militarised Land Rovers. From where they stood, Gabriel could make out the damaged El Salaam Bridge, repeatedly bombed over the years by MiG-29 warplanes from Sudan. It was now permanently guarded by an antiaircraft gun mounted on the back of a truck. A squat UN military vehicle, with six wheels and a turret on the top, was parked nearby. The sudden increase in visible military personnel did nothing to ease his sense of disquiet.

‘Why’s there such a military presence here?’ Another truckload of blue helmets passed as if to emphasise the question.

Alek shrugged. ‘The Heglig oil fields are north of here. They are a long way away, but this is the closest centre.’ She opened the back door of the Land Cruiser and threw her bag into the back. ‘Remember what I told you about the Kiir River yesterday? The dividing line between Baggara and Dinka?’

Gabriel nodded.

‘Well, imagine that it wasn’t a river of water. Imagine that it was a river of oil. Imagine then how the people will fight and die over that.’

Alek held out a pair of sandals, simple plastic flip-flops, a gaudy blue. ‘Stop wearing shoes,’ she said. ‘Your feet won’t get any better wrapped up in leather.’

Gabriel thanked her, touched that she’d thought of him. She turned away and opened the driver’s door. He heard her utter a foreign expletive under her breath.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘The keys are in the ignition. Kamal always keeps them on him.’

It took Gabriel a moment to understand the significance of what she was saying. By then, she was striding across the gravel towards the grimy dormitories where they’d spent the night. Without bothering to knock on the door, Alek turned the handle and gave it a stout kick. Gabriel followed into the room. The bed had not been slept in.

Alek sighed, then pushed past Gabriel. ‘We don’t need him anyway.’

‘I’m not sure about that. Who will drive?’

Alek shrugged and turned away. In truth, Gabriel’s worry lay elsewhere: the loss of their surly driver was less a concern than the fact that Kamal was sufficiently fearful to abandon his job and give up another advance on his money. Gabriel stood at the door of the vacant room, leaning against the frame, watching Alek kick the tyres of the Land Cruiser. He felt overcome with loneliness. He would die here, alone, with no one to know or even care. Alek would carry on without him. The military would ignore him. He would slip away, unrecorded and forgotten. There was something manic in the intensity of his fear. He felt unhinged by this new development. How did people bear to live with heightened states of emotion, he wondered. It would exhaust him within a day.

Alek had her bossy expression fixed on him. ‘Get in the car and drive.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ he protested.

‘There’s no other way. You know it as well as I do.’

He was too weary to fight her. He did not have his driver’s licence with him. He had never driven such a large vehicle before. He’d never driven on dirt before, let alone some appalling African back road, fresh from the rains. But she sat with her arms folded, daring him to argue.

‘Just as far as your mother’s grave. Then we stop and work out the route to Safaha. From then on,
Arabidopsis
has priority.’ That was the best he could do. It was weak, he knew, but short of running away like Kamal, he was as much a prisoner to whatever was burning inside her as she was.

He scraped the back bumper on a pole as he tried to reverse out of the truck lot, misjudging the size of the four-by-four. His muttered apology was stonily ignored by his companion. His new sandals cut between his toes, though he had to admit that it felt better to have his feet uncovered. He battled with the gears, grinding them repeatedly until he found first, and they lurched out onto the main road through Bentiu. On the outskirts of the town, Gabriel noted a massive double pipeline tracking through the bush, all undergrowth hacked away for at least fifty metres on either side. He wondered just how far away the Heglig oil fields really were. He thought to consult his map and peered over his shoulder at the back seat where he had left it. The seat was empty.

‘Do you know where my map is?’

Alek shook her head without looking at him. A motorcycle hooted at him as he realised he had drifted across the road while looking behind him.

‘Shit!’ he exclaimed, glancing at Alek in disbelief.

Should he make the accusation, he wondered. If he did, he would have to disclose all his misgivings; he would have to confront her with all his doubts. He no longer believed the story about her mother’s grave. Nobody would go to these lengths to visit a graveside. Still he said nothing. Coward, he thought, as he settled back into the driver’s seat and tried to concentrate on the narrowing road in front of him.

Two hours later they were still thumping along, only now the road had been reduced to little more than a track, the trees tall on either side. The red-brown strip snaking out in front of them was the only break in the bush. The atmosphere in the car was dire once more. His repeated questions as to their destination were met with hard-set silence. His pleas became increasingly desperate, her jaw progressively clenched. But there was nowhere to turn around without running the real risk of getting bogged down, and moving forward seemed simpler than trying to negotiate a retreat. Dark thoughts churned in his mind. He would never leave Bristol again, he thought bitterly. In fact, he would not venture beyond Clifton Village. Perhaps never leave the confines of his house. He would be reduced to a recluse who never left the comfort of his bed.

He tried to ignore his anger by focusing on mastering the Land Cruiser. He aimed the front wheels at the side pitch of the gullies and felt the rear wheels grip and fall into line. There was something satisfying about this. His mind started to clear, fixed on the next churned-up portion of road, scanning for deceptive pools of water, keeping the revs at a reasonable rate. At one point, he started to pull over onto a flattened area at the side to relieve his straining bladder.

‘No, don’t drive there,’ Alek said in alarm, speaking for the first time since they had left Bentiu.

Gabriel turned back onto the rutted track, too afraid to ask. He drove for another few minutes in silence.

Then she said: ‘Landmines.’

‘I see.’

‘Stop on the road, not off it. Go behind the car.’

Gabriel did as he was told. He left the engine running and made his way to the back, keeping his footsteps as close to the side of the car as possible. It was utterly still, just the sound of the Land Cruiser idling, the pop-pop-pop of its exhaust. A colourful bird, all pinks and iridescent blues, swooped down and caught an insect in midflight. A large black-and-yellow wasp buzzed past, its wings making a clicking sound. There wasn’t a person to be seen in either direction. His urine collected in a hollow in the road, foaming at the edges. Somewhere in the bush an animal – a monkey or some large bird – screeched, moving across the canopy in a whirl of branches and falling leaves.

He climbed back into the car and closed the door.

‘Where are we going, Alek?’ he asked again. ‘You owe it to me to tell me where we are going.’

‘I
owe
you something? I don’t owe anyone a thing.’

‘I thought you said your mother’s grave was close by. There is no grave, is there?’

‘There is a grave. Oh yes. We will be there soon. Then you will see.’ She looked at him now and Gabriel thought he saw her eyes glisten with tears. She turned away, repeating, ‘Then you will see.’

Gabriel put the car into gear and pulled off. It was madness, sheer madness. He shook his head, laughing out loud in frustration. Yet he’d reached a point when moving forward into apparent oblivion was easier than trying to trace the way back. But he refused to forego the purpose of his journey. He would confront her and force her to concede to the original plan.

After another eternity of following the muddy track, they began to see the first signs of habitation once again. A small cluster of huts, abandoned, their roofs burnt, and then a destroyed truck, the front windscreen cracked into a jigsaw of shattered shards. Gabriel slowed down to push past the hulk. There seemed to be bullet holes punched through the metal of the driver’s door.

Then, a few miles further along, they came to a set of poles sunk into the earth on the side of the road. A white cloth banner was strung up between them with the blue logo of the UNHCR splashed across it. The UN Refugee Agency, it announced. Below it was a smaller poster nailed between two cross-poles. It depicted an assault rifle with a red circle and line across it. ‘No Weapon,’ it said.

‘Jila Refugee Camp,’ Alek informed him.

Chapter 16

POTTERGATE CLOSE, LINCOLNSHIRE