Blood is Dirt. Robert Thomas Wilson

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       6

       Sunday 18th February.

      Gerhard’s people were dedicated and came in as early on Sunday mornings as they did during the week. They gave us coffee and directions. We crossed the border into Nigeria just after 8 a.m. and headed north from a town called Meko on a dirt road. After ten kilometres we hit a roadblock guarded by men wearing army fatigues and holding AK-47s loosely in capable hands.

      ‘They look like the real thing,’ I said, as we cruised up to the soldier standing with his hand raised.

      ‘This is no place for armed robbery, unless they’re very stupid.’

      The soldier came to my window and looked in and over our shoulders.

      ‘Where you going?’ he asked.

      ‘Akata village.’

      ‘Closed.’

      ‘For why?’ asked Bagado.

      ‘Big sickness. Nobody go in. Nobody come out.’

      ‘What sort of sickness?’

      ‘Typhoid. Cholera. We don’ know. We just keeping people from going there ‘til doctah come telling us.’

      ‘Which doctor?’

      ‘No, no, medical doctah.’

      ‘I mean, what’s his name, this doctor. Where’s he come from?’

      ‘Oh yes,’ he said and looked back at the other soldiers who gave him about as much animation as a sloth gang on downers. He turned back to us and found a 1000-CFA note fluttering under his nose. His hand came up in a Pavlovian reflex and rested on the window ledge. He shook his head.

      ‘This not that kind thing. You get sick, you die. A white man out here, what do I say to my superiah officah?’

      ‘You give him this,’ I said, and produced a bottle of Red Label from under the seat.

      ‘No, sah. You go back to Meko. No entry through here, sah.’

      ‘Who is your superior officer?’

      ‘Major Okaka.’

      ‘Where’s he?’

      The soldier shrugged.

      We drove back to Meko and headed west for about fifteen kilometres before cutting north again, but not on a track this time, through the bush. Within twenty minutes we were stopped by a jeep and a Land Rover, one with a machine gun mounted on the cab. Four soldiers armed with machine pistols got out of the jeep and stood at the four points of the car. An officer type levered himself out of the Land Rover and removed a Browning pistol from a holster on his hip. The gun hung down his side in a slack hand. He approached the window and rested the gun on the ledge and looked at us from under his brow.

      ‘We’re looking for Major Okaka. This is Dr Bagado from Ibadan.’

      Bagado leaned across me and said something in Yoruba to the officer. The officer’s other hand came up on the window and he leaned on the car as if he was going to roll it over. He grinned and spoke with an English accent that he must have picked up from the World Service in the fifties.

      ‘There is no Major Okaka on this exercise. We’re not expecting a Dr Bagado. You have entered a restricted area. If you return to the main road nothing more will be said. If, however, you prove yourselves troublesome we shall have to escort you down to Lagos for interrogation. Your passports, please.’

      He flicked though our passports, the Browning still in his hand, his finger on the trigger and a certain studied carelessness in where he was pointing it.

      ‘Who is the officer in command of this army exercise?’ asked Bagado.

      ‘That is none of your business. You just go back to the main road. It’s dangerous out here. If you wish, my men can escort you back to the frontier and ensure that you cross the border safely.’

      ‘That won’t be necessary … er, Major …?’

      ‘Captain Mundo.’

      He returned our passports and took us back to the main road. We drove towards Meko. The two vehicles disappeared back into the bush. Four kilometres outside Meko we came across a man walking in the dust СКАЧАТЬ