Warlord. James Steel

their company it is Alex who is the young challenger. Yamba Douala is a tall, severe-looking Angolan who fought for the legendary South African 32 Battalion in the long bush war in his country. He is a thinker, he wanted to be a surgeon when he was a boy and is currently using his money from their last operation to set up a health clinic back in his home province in Angola.

      Colin Thwaites is a short, aggressive Northerner, formerly a sergeant major in the Parachute Regiment’s elite Pathfinder unit. He is currently using his money from their last operation to get drunk in a large house he has bought for himself outside Blackburn where he grew up.

      As Alex comes back down the hill towards the house, he finally resorts to the lowest common denominator approach to the problem.

      ‘If the Chinese don’t recruit me they will just get someone else to do it. The project is going to happen, so it might as well be me.’ It is not actually a logical argument but in his suggestible state of mind it works for him.

      He showers, has breakfast and sits down at his large desk in his study. He picks up the phone and thinks whom he will call first.

      Advice is what we ask for when we know the decision we are going to take but are not yet ready to take it.

      Of the two men, Yamba is the more prone to hypothetical discussions. Col’s blunt nature means he needs to make a black and white decision on an issue in a maximum of three seconds and is usually pretty scathing about it when he does.

      Alex dials a number in Angola and waits as it rings.

      Chapter Nine

      ‘Hello, hello, welcome to Panzi hospital! My name is Mama Riziki and this is Mama Jeanne and Mama Lumo!’

      The head counsellor, Mama Riziki, is cheerfully upbeat, an ample middle-aged woman in a multi-coloured dress and matching headcloth with a fake Louis Vuitton handbag hooked over her shoulder. She points to two similarly smiling women standing next to her. They are both brightly dressed ladies from the town of Bukavu up the road, unlike the four peasant girls that have come in to the hospital from the bush. Mama Riziki has been doing this job for years and knows that she has to cheer up these poor traumatised rape victims. One is only eleven.

      ‘So, ladies, we are here to make sure that you enjoy your stay at Panzi and you go home healed and well. Some people are here for over a year and we will all become a big happy family.’

      Mama Lumo butts in, ‘Yes, and when you go home they won’t recognise you, because we will feed you lots of rice and you will get big and fat like me.’

      The induction session is happening on one side of the main hallway of the single-storey hospital building. A woman patient who is leaning against the wall chips in, ‘Yes, look at my hair. My husband won’t recognise me when I get back. Mama Jeanne did it for me.’ She touches her elaborately plaited hair and they both giggle with glee.

      Eve is sitting on a bench with three other girls who also arrived that day. They all have the smell of stale urine hanging around them and one of them is pregnant. Eve has been feeling very nervous and awkward and so far has only talked quietly to one girl called Miriam, but the typical Congolese banter is beginning to cheer her up and she smiles nervously.

      It’s just what Eve needs to get her out of her shell-shocked, stigmatised mood. The taxi driver who brought her to Bukavu initially didn’t want her in his minivan and demanded extra payment because she was unlucky. He made a big fuss about getting plastic sacks put on the seat so she didn’t leak urine on it and no one sat next to her the whole journey.

      But when the security guard shut the hospital gate behind her and she was inside the compound, Eve suddenly felt safe. It is the first time in years that she has had the feeling of being protected from the men with guns.

      Mama Riziki is pleased with the girls’ smiles and beams back at them.

      ‘OK, so when you are under the care of your Mamas here you will do lots of things. You will help with cooking and cleaning in the hospital and we will keep you busy, oh very busy, with lots of courses. You can do bookkeeping or tailoring …’

      ‘Yes, and cooking with me …’

      ‘And I’ll do medicine and hygiene.’

      The courses help to keep the women busy and heal the psychological wounds of the rape as the surgeons stitch up the tears and gunshot wounds in their genito-urinary tracts to stop them urinating and defecating uncontrollably.

      ‘We will always make sure you leave here healed and ready to go back to your families. Sometimes it does take one or two or maybe three operations before the tears heal but we will always be with you. Praise God for your arrival here today!’ Panzi is a Pentecostal-funded hospital and Mama Riziki prays over them.

      Eve bows her head and prays hard. She knows her family doesn’t have the money to let her stay for more than one operation.

      ‘Yamba, hi, it’s Alex.’

      A guffaw of delighted laughter comes down the line.

      ‘What?’

      The cackling continues in such an infectious way that Alex starts laughing as well. Eventually, they both draw breath.

      ‘Alex Devereux,’ Yamba says his name and hoots again.

      Alex grins and waits.

      ‘It’s good to hear from you.’

      ‘It’s good to hear you too.’

      There was a pause as they both absorbed the pleasure of hearing an old friend’s voice after a long time. They have had only sporadic email contact since the end of the last mission.

      Yamba is someone Alex feels at home with. It is an odd combination – public school cavalry officers aren’t often seen with Angolan mercenaries – but the two of them have been through a lot together. More important than shared experience are their shared values: a fierce, self-reliant professionalism offset by a black sense of humour.

      ‘How are you, man?’ Alex asks.

      ‘Yees, OK …’ Yamba says, smiling and nodding thoughtfully. ‘How are you?’

      ‘Yeah, OK.’

      ‘How is your hut?’

      ‘My hut? Oh, yeah, it’s good, thanks,’ Alex says, looking around at his house. ‘It’s got a new roof.’

      ‘Oh? Like a thatched roof or maybe some tin, yes?’

      Alex laughs again. ‘Yeah, that’s right, I got a piece of tin from the market, fits really well.’

      ‘And have you got yourself a wife yet?’

      Alex guffaws. ‘No.’

      ‘Ah, you are behind the curve,’ Yamba says with relish; he loves using new idioms that he has picked up.

      ‘I know, I haven’t even got divorced yet. What about you, have you got a bird?’

      ‘No,’ Yamba laughs. ‘I have taken up cooking and most African women think I am gay when I tell them I cook,’ he cackles. ‘But I have a little lady friend who I visit in Luanda every now and then.’

      ‘A la-dy …’ Alex says in a ridiculously suggestive tone.

      Yamba laughs.

      ‘And how are the poor and sick of Angola?’

      ‘Oh, they keep dying on me.’

      ‘Oh …’

      ‘Yes, I shout at them and tell them not to but they just don’t listen to me.’

      Yamba is known as a strict disciplinarian with the soldiers he commands. He joined 32 Battalion as a teenager after his family had been killed by the communists and rose to the rank of sergeant major in a vicious bush war. He always wanted to be a surgeon.

      He was educated at a Jesuit school as a boy –