The Way We Were by Sinéad Moriarty Page A

Do not antagonize them in any way.’
    ‘I don’t have a death wish!’ Declan said angrily.
    ‘No, but you have a big mouth. Keep it shut.’
    ‘One more thing,’ Declan said, as he stumbled over the rocks.
    ‘What?’ Ben was getting frustrated.
    ‘Ask him how long more to go.’
    Ben raised his voice and asked the leader how much further they had to walk.
    ‘Close now,’ the man snapped. ‘Hurry, hurry.’
    Ten minutes later they rounded a corner and were met with the sight of about thirty tents. They were beige, so they blended in with the pale, dusty landscape of thorn trees and boulders. Women and children stared at them, while men wielding guns watched closely as they were rushed into a big tent to one side of the encampment.
    Ben was surprised to see small children. It was like a makeshift village. He’d presumed it would be a soldiers’ bivouac.
    Inside the big tent was a ‘hospital’, with four men lying on stretchers made of tree branches and sheets. They were groaning softly. There was a dividing curtain, which was pulled back by one of the guards to reveal an ‘operating theatre’. This consisted of a home-made wooden table with a bare bulb hanging over it, a bowl of water and some sheets
on a low table in the corner. Another table was covered with suture kits, antibiotics, painkillers, two battery-powered headlamps, scalpels, scissors, needles and a tourniquet. They’d clearly raided a clinic for medical supplies.
    The fifteen-year-old boy was lying on the makeshift operating table in a pool of his own blood. The leader went to his son and held his hand. He spoke gently to him, pointing to Ben and Declan, smiling and nodding.
    ‘Looks like he’s telling his kid we’re going to save his life,’ Declan whispered.
    Ben looked at the large bloodstain on the front of the boy’s shirt. ‘We have to save him, no matter what. Even if we can keep him alive for a day or two, just long enough for us to persuade them that he’s going to survive and they should let us go.’
    ‘I don’t think we’re going anywhere until that kid is running around playing football for the Eritrean national team. What the hell are we going to do?’ Declan’s voice shook.
    Ben grasped his colleague’s arm. ‘We are going to do our job. Now, I need you to keep it together. I want full focus. We are going to save this boy’s life.’
    ‘I’m trying.’
    ‘Try harder. I thought you came from a tough area of Dublin.’
    ‘Living next door to a couple of drug-dealers and petty criminals hardly prepared me for lads holding Kalashnikovs in my face.’
    ‘Get it together, Declan. Come on.’
    While Declan composed himself, Ben blocked out his own fears and allowed himself to concentrate on his job. He asked everyone to leave the room, but the two soldiers with guns stayed, as did the father.
    Ben was getting angry. ‘If you want me to save your son,
you must leave. We never allow relatives to watch operations. It will upset you and you will distract me from my work. If you want to leave the gunmen, fine, but they are not allowed to say a word or make a move. I need complete silence and calm. One shake of my hand and your son could die.’
    The leader reluctantly agreed, but said he’d sit outside the ‘door’. Then he reminded Ben of the consequences of not saving his son, making a gun shape with his hand and pointing it at Ben’s head.
    Ben turned away from him. He picked up a pair of scissors and went to cut away the boy’s shirt. The teenager had been hit twice in the right shoulder, an exit wound below the right nipple showing the path of one bullet.
    Ben washed his hands carefully, scrubbed them and put on surgical gloves from the suture kit. Declan did the same and came over to look. The boy was gasping for breath. Ben tapped his chest with his fingers. On the right side, below the clavicle, it sounded normal, but when Ben tapped lower down he could hear a dull sound.
Thunk.
    ‘I suppose an X-ray is out