Another Bloody Love Letter by Anthony Loyd

Author:Anthony Loyd [Loyd, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

A group of child soldiers lazed in the sun outside Jibrl Massequoi’s home, their eyes sliding lizard-like in my direction from beneath hooded lids, then away again in apparent disinterest. A tethered monkey hissed from the yard at the few passers-by, while under the shade of the wooden veranda two young women played with Massequoi’s infant son, a pudgy, rambunctious brat dressed for life in a camouflage romper suit, watched by an RUF informer, fresh up from Freetown, who sat on the porch steps, waiting to be debriefed.

Alone, I sat down under a tree and waited, my mind sharp enough despite the sour aftertaste of the previous night’s beer, and considered what I already knew of Kurt’s death from past conversations with Mark and Yanis. On the day of his death, the three of them had moved up from Freetown towards Rogberi Junction in a blue Mercedes. Behind the wheel was their driver, a Freetowner named Abdul. Rogberi Junction, an hour and a half’s drive north of the capital, marked the forward edge of the area controlled at the time by the government army and its allies, a renegade gang known as the Westside Boys.

Kurt went to Rogberi for two reasons. First, he was interested in the bodies of the UN soldiers found there by the army, men who had been executed after their position had been overrun by rebels. There was a rumour, unfounded as it happened, that the UN were to send a team of pathologists to the site that day to identify the dead. Kurt, having seen the corpses twenty-four hours earlier, intended to gather further information for his story from the pathologists at the scene. Second, the army commander at Rogberi, a Colonel Bangura, whom the three journalists had met several times before, had earlier notified them that he would be leading a fighting column from Rogberi towards the town of Lunsar, held by the rebels. Kurt wanted to accompany him.

But they were late for the rendezvous. They had stopped to buy some fish and whiskey for Bangura, and were further delayed when a tyre blew. When they finally arrived at Rogberi it was just after midday. By then, Miguel had made his own way there and was reading a book under a tree, waiting for the UN pathologists, his white Data jeep parked near by. Bangura and his men had set off up the road more than an hour earlier. In the distance, some miles away, gunfire crackled as his column, more than a hundred strong, made contact with the RUF. Kurt smiled at the sound. He, Mark and Yanis decided to go up the road to see the action. Miguel, somewhat more reluctant, elected to follow them in his jeep.

He was heavy with his own thoughts that day, having lost a close friend in Sierra Leone two years before. I had met Myles myself in Freetown during my ill-fated trip to the country in the nineties. He was the exact opposite of Miguel:

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