Jimfish by Christopher Hope

speaking when the characteristic tick-tick of heavy automatic fire around the port sent them scurrying for safety behind a line of burnt-out army trucks. They seemed to have arrived in a war zone. Fighters were everywhere: firing, falling, cheering and dying.
    Crouching near them was a military man covered in medals. He was watching the battle with great calm, as ifhe had seen a lot of this fighting before and was undismayed. Catching sight of him, their friend was overjoyed.
    â€˜The good Lord has saved us! Here is my uncle, one of my very own Krahn people from my home village. He’s a soldier and he will know what this violence means.’
    When she introduced her friends, Jimfish was embarrassed to hear himself and Lunamiel identified as South Africans, knowing how detested his compatriots were throughout the continent. It was scant comfort that he wasn’t white or any other colour anyone could put a name to; while Lunamiel, though beautifully bronzed, was not quite coppery enough to pass for brown.
    He needn’t have worried. Having embraced his niece, the military man introduced himself as Brigadier Washington Truman Roosevelt and he shook Jimfish’s hand warmly, saying how delighted he was to have another South African in his country.
    â€˜Come more often and come in numbers! Liberia needs you. We’re in the middle of a cruel civil war that began earlier this year and gets worse every day. Thousands have been killed in the fighting.’
    â€˜But who is fighting?’ cried the dark lady, distraught at the news that her once-peaceful country was again at war.
    â€˜That’s complicated,’ said her uncle. ‘The army of President Doe – known as the Armed Forces of Liberia is fighting the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, which is the private army of an ambitious young warlord called Charles Taylor. Recently a third group, led by Prince Johnson, an even more ambitious warlord, calling themselves theIndependent National Patriotic Front of Liberia, split away from the second group and joined the war.’
    â€˜What exactly are these groups fighting for?’ Jimfish asked. ‘Land or treasure or power?’
    The brigadier considered this question. ‘Those are some of the aims, perhaps, but for the most part each side simply wants to kill as many of its enemies as possible. Sometimes I think it is the only employment open to men around here. War gives them a job, a gun and a life. Well, at least for a while.’
    Watching the pitched battles going on between fighters who thought nothing of decimating a line of attackers, slicing off the hands of prisoners or decapitating their enemies with enormous knives, Jimfish was struck by the impeccable logic of the brigadier’s reply.
    â€˜Then at the end of the day, will the side with most men still standing be the winner?’
    The brigadier shook his head. ‘At the end of the day no one will be left standing. What we are seeing is not so much war as a long-drawn-out national suicide. That’s why I’m delighted to see you. We think very highly of the fighting skill of South Africans. I’ve seen how good they are in neighbouring Sierra Leone, which is in the throes of a civil war every bit as bloody as ours. Working there is an outfit called Superior Solutions, and it’s full of South Africans. They’re in great demand in many countries north of Limpopo, where their professionalism and their willingness to work for whoever pays them best is widely welcomed. Their slogan is: “To African problems we bring Superior Solutions.” It’s the latest form of out-sourcing.They supply men and materiel and do the fighting; in return, we pay them in diamonds. It’s the perfect marriage.’
    Jimfish struggled to come to terms with what he heard. ‘I thought everyone hated the idea of working with South Africans?’
    The brigadier shrugged. ‘At one time, yes. Of course, a lot