a thought struck me.
‘If you come from this village, General,’ I said, ‘you must know the witch doctor.’
‘The sin’ganga? Old Chilukole? Of course. What about him?’
It seemed too late to start on the saga of the dead boy, so I just asked, ‘What d’you think of his spells?’
‘Why, has he witched somebody?’
‘Not that I know of, but I wondered if he can foretell the future. Doesn’t he do something with bones?’
The President’s manner changed. It was as if my question had let the wind out of him. His boisterous good humour vanished, and all at once he looked serious, even alarmed. ‘Did he make a prophecy, some forecast?’
‘No, no.’ Suddenly feeling bad vibrations, I decided to turn the enquiry into a joke. ‘I just thought he might tell us how to win the lottery.’
‘Steer clear of him,’ said Bakunda heavily. ‘You never know what trouble that old devil might stir up.’
I said nothing else, but secretly felt glad that I’d binned the dose formulated to ward off evil. I’d sent the witch doctor five dollars, as agreed, but next morning, instead of taking the medicine, I threw it into the fire, where it went off with a miniature explosion and a spurt of bright green flame.
FIVE
As our little convoy rolled south, Whinger and I had plenty of time to discuss the situation. The morning after the ambush, Bakunda had been up at dawn, none the worse for having put away half a bottle of rum on top of ten or fifteen beers. Far from sporting a hangover, he’d come out, cocked a leg, executed a couple of rhino-power farts, and gone off chatting and laughing with his officers, handing out zikomos and compliments all round.
The fact that one of the Kamangans had lost his head didn’t seem to worry him in the least. He knew what had happened, all right; I had overheard him talking to Joss about the incident. But when I cornered Joss about it after breakfast, and suggested we should recover the body, the answer was, ‘Forget it, Geordie. All our guys knew Chidombo had been witched by a fiti . Sooner or later he was going to die. Now he’s dead, no one would touch his body even if we went looking for it. They think the spell might jump into them. Anyway, it’s probably gone already.’
‘Eaten by animals, you mean?’
Instead of answering straight, Joss gave me a peculiar look, half evasive, half angry. Then, after a pause, he said, ‘Maybe the devil’s got it.’
I wasn’t sure what he meant. There was something odd about his manner. He didn’t sound quite himself. But I sensed there was no point in arguing. The strange thing was that when Pavarotti had gone out with a recovery party to bring back the targets, he’d found no trace of a body. He, if anyone, knew exactly where the scuffle had taken place, and while the Kamangans had collected the figure-eights, he’d gone straight to the spot. As he said, if hyenas had eaten Chidombo, he’d have found traces of blood and chips of crunched-up bone – probably the head, too, or at least the remains of it. In the event, there was nothing – not even any flies around the place. It was as if something had lifted the body whole and whisked it clean away.
As Pav had reported this back, I felt the hair on my neck creep. We’d been getting too many stories about the devil using owls and hyenas for transport, too much stuff about witching.
‘Don’t mention it at the wash-up,’ I had warned Pav. ‘If one of the Africans starts in about it, okay, but otherwise, let it go. I reckon they’ll bin the whole episode and pretend it never happened.’
My hunch had soon proved right. At the debrief, which Bakunda attended, the incident was simply passed over. Joss bollocked men for other mistakes – firing at the hyena, the ND while I was away, somebody walking off his position to have a dump – but never mentioned what had been by far the worst incident of all. It, and poor old Chidombo, were wiped from the record.
‘I don’t like
‘If you come from this village, General,’ I said, ‘you must know the witch doctor.’
‘The sin’ganga? Old Chilukole? Of course. What about him?’
It seemed too late to start on the saga of the dead boy, so I just asked, ‘What d’you think of his spells?’
‘Why, has he witched somebody?’
‘Not that I know of, but I wondered if he can foretell the future. Doesn’t he do something with bones?’
The President’s manner changed. It was as if my question had let the wind out of him. His boisterous good humour vanished, and all at once he looked serious, even alarmed. ‘Did he make a prophecy, some forecast?’
‘No, no.’ Suddenly feeling bad vibrations, I decided to turn the enquiry into a joke. ‘I just thought he might tell us how to win the lottery.’
‘Steer clear of him,’ said Bakunda heavily. ‘You never know what trouble that old devil might stir up.’
I said nothing else, but secretly felt glad that I’d binned the dose formulated to ward off evil. I’d sent the witch doctor five dollars, as agreed, but next morning, instead of taking the medicine, I threw it into the fire, where it went off with a miniature explosion and a spurt of bright green flame.
FIVE
As our little convoy rolled south, Whinger and I had plenty of time to discuss the situation. The morning after the ambush, Bakunda had been up at dawn, none the worse for having put away half a bottle of rum on top of ten or fifteen beers. Far from sporting a hangover, he’d come out, cocked a leg, executed a couple of rhino-power farts, and gone off chatting and laughing with his officers, handing out zikomos and compliments all round.
The fact that one of the Kamangans had lost his head didn’t seem to worry him in the least. He knew what had happened, all right; I had overheard him talking to Joss about the incident. But when I cornered Joss about it after breakfast, and suggested we should recover the body, the answer was, ‘Forget it, Geordie. All our guys knew Chidombo had been witched by a fiti . Sooner or later he was going to die. Now he’s dead, no one would touch his body even if we went looking for it. They think the spell might jump into them. Anyway, it’s probably gone already.’
‘Eaten by animals, you mean?’
Instead of answering straight, Joss gave me a peculiar look, half evasive, half angry. Then, after a pause, he said, ‘Maybe the devil’s got it.’
I wasn’t sure what he meant. There was something odd about his manner. He didn’t sound quite himself. But I sensed there was no point in arguing. The strange thing was that when Pavarotti had gone out with a recovery party to bring back the targets, he’d found no trace of a body. He, if anyone, knew exactly where the scuffle had taken place, and while the Kamangans had collected the figure-eights, he’d gone straight to the spot. As he said, if hyenas had eaten Chidombo, he’d have found traces of blood and chips of crunched-up bone – probably the head, too, or at least the remains of it. In the event, there was nothing – not even any flies around the place. It was as if something had lifted the body whole and whisked it clean away.
As Pav had reported this back, I felt the hair on my neck creep. We’d been getting too many stories about the devil using owls and hyenas for transport, too much stuff about witching.
‘Don’t mention it at the wash-up,’ I had warned Pav. ‘If one of the Africans starts in about it, okay, but otherwise, let it go. I reckon they’ll bin the whole episode and pretend it never happened.’
My hunch had soon proved right. At the debrief, which Bakunda attended, the incident was simply passed over. Joss bollocked men for other mistakes – firing at the hyena, the ND while I was away, somebody walking off his position to have a dump – but never mentioned what had been by far the worst incident of all. It, and poor old Chidombo, were wiped from the record.
‘I don’t like
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