As she slopped down the short corridor that took her out of the adult quarters and into the female showers, she tried to replace thoughts of the night with plans for the day — an enterprise she was helped with by the fact that the showers were walled with reeds rather than tile. And that the red-clay sluice, as usual, harboured a harmless grey house snake which she shooed away with a negligent toe before it got a nasty, soapy surprise. The shower was really just a bucket full of water that could be tilted by pulling a rope and whose outpouring was broken up by a rudimentary shower head so that it became a brief, tepid monsoon rather than a solid waterfall.
She emerged, refreshed. Her mind, like her body, cleansed of the night. With her robe tight at her slim waist and her towel round her surprisingly broad shoulders, she returned to her room, towelled the short shock of her black hair dry and began to dress. In indulgently expensive panties and a bra that was hardly needed, she crossed to her modest desk and checked the old-fashioned paper diary she kept there. Today looked fairly typical. Long on paperwork and short on appointments. So she pulled on a cotton blouse and tucked it into denim shorts before stepping back into her brokeback sandals and — as she was now officially dressed — pulling the backs erect again and buckling them up properly.
She finished her morning’s work at 11.30 a.m. and had an early lunch with the other orphanage staff. She listened to the reports from the teachers, the maintenance staff and the sisters, noting that Sister Georginah kept her eyes shyly downcast when speaking to her; then, like everyone else in the place, she returned to her room between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. This time she slept without nightmares and arose, vibrant and refreshed. And it was just as well. At 4 p.m. she met the senior girls in the largest classroom of the orphanage school. The girls were led by a tall young woman called Ado and a young man called Esan — the only male in the room. Both Ado and Esan were technically too old to be kept at the orphanage and both should really have been sent downriver with others of their age to the Ishmael Bible Seminary and then the Benin La Bas University in Granville Harbour to complete their education. But these young people were different. Esan — which meant ‘Nine’ in Yoruba — was an ex-soldier in the Army of Christ. He had no knowledge of his actual name. General Moses Nlong had called him Esan because he had been nine years old when he was accepted into the army by killing and eating others of his family. The ritual was less brutally pointless than it seemed. Esan had, by that one terrible act, put himself forever outside his family, clan and tribe. Beyond the reach of any of his tribal deities or the jungle gods — except for Ngoboi, whom the army’s brutal leader used to keep discipline and motivation high amongst his troops. Especially the young ones. Particularly when cocaine was in short supply. For all the boys had been introduced into the Poro secret jungle societies. They all believed in the powers of the jungle spirits.
But Esan had changed sides. Come back into the fold. Used his Poro jungle training to do good instead of evil. He and Ado, also trained in female Sande jungle lore as a child, had helped Anastasia and Celine survive their last confrontation with the marauding army and Anastasia was doing her best to make certain that they would help her and her charges survive in the future. Later on Ado and Esan would take the girls through elementary weapons training and jungle lore. Anastasia would join in. And they would have a five-mile jog through the safe secondary jungle and out on to the farmland on this side of the river before returning for dinner. It was a simple daily routine which — if nothing else — kept the girls fit and confident. And kept the boys — and the local farmers, farmhands, families and occasional passers-by — all highly amused.
But this afternoon’s session began, as many of these did, with a simple history lesson. ‘Such armies as The Lord’s Resistance Army, M23 and the Army of Christ the Infant will take the boys and keep them alive,’ said Anastasia, not for the first time — driving home a message the girls dared never forget. ‘Their life in the army will be hard. But it will be life.’ She looked around the room, meeting each pair of wide brown eyes there. ‘But they rape and kill the girls. I have seen it and I know. Like Ado. Like Esan. Should any girl along the river meet such men, they will be dead or a sex slave used by all, all the time … Until they are no more use. And then they will be dead.’ She looked around the rows of wide-eyed girls — aged from ten to fifteen — sitting silently in front of her. ‘But not you!’ she shouted. ‘You are not slaves and fodder for animals like the Army of Christ the Infant! Here is who you are,’ said Anastasia.
And Esan pulled a slide up on to the laptop which shone up on to the whiteboard. It showed an old photograph of a line of soldiers. All armed. All black. All women. Beneath the photograph there was writing in English, which Anastasia translated into Matadi for them: ‘“There they are, 4,000 warriors, the 4,000 black virgins of Dahomey, the monarch’s bodyguard, motionless in their war garments, with gun and knife in hand, ready to leap forward at the master’s signal. Old or young, ugly or beautiful, they are wonderful to look at. They are as well built as the male warriors and their attitude is just as disciplined and correct, lined up as though against a rope.” That was written by a man called Chauduin, who was held captive by them and lived to tell the tale in a book about his life.’
She gestured. Esan pulled up another picture. A detailed, water-coloured drawing. This time of a single woman. Tall. In full uniform. Well armed, with a matchet at her waist, a musket in her right hand and the severed head of an enemy still dripping in her left. ‘Her name was Seh-Dong. She was a leader of the Dahomey Amazons,’ Anastasia explained. ‘The writing beneath comes from another book, this time by a man called Djivo. It says the Dahomey Amazons believed that, “We are men, not women. Those coming back from war without having conquered must die. If we beat a retreat our life is at the king’s mercy. Whatever town is to be attacked we must overcome it or we bury ourselves in its ruins. Our chief is the king of kings. As long as he lives we have nothing to fear. Our chief has given birth to us again. We are his wives, his daughters, his soldiers. War is our sport and pastime, it clothes and feeds us”.’
She looked down at the girls sitting, enraptured, in front of her. ‘Remember,’ she said gently. ‘You are not victims. You are not slaves. You are not food for any men in any army.’ She gestured at the picture of Seh-Dong on the whiteboard, with her musket, her matchet and the severed head in her hand. ‘This is who you are.’
‘This is who we are,’ chanted the girls in unison. ‘This is who we are.’
Spetsnaz
It took the rest of the week and several more trips to Granville Harbour International airport before Max and Felix’s contingent were ready for the off. Even though all of the experts in mining, engineering, chemicals and civilian transport were already there, together with the Kamov chopper and everything else that had gone into the first, abortive expedition to Lac Dudo. A lot more large Russians arrived, but none was quite as huge as Ivan. And none proved as difficult to get through customs. After a while, they blurred into one big, bald, muscular mass for Richard. But, like Ivan, they were all impressively special ops. Like Ivan, in fact, all were Spetsnaz.