Thunderbolt by Wilbur Smith (reading strategies book .txt) 📕

dismissed Jamal and his friend with a flick of his thin wrist. They didn’t go far, just retreated beyond the fire pit to join a group of kids who had gathered, apparently, to marvel at us.

‘I expect you’re tired after the journey here,’ General Sir said, looking over the tops of our heads. ‘So, make yourselves comfortable and I’ll be back later, once you’ve rested. We’ll make a start then. OK?’

I waited until General Sir had retreated among the bushes before asking Mo, ‘What did he mean by that? Why are we here? And what is this place anyway?’

‘It’s a training camp,’ Mo said. ‘For child soldiers. But I can’t believe he’d want you for that.’

31.

‘Child soldiers?’ said Xander. ‘You’re not serious?’

‘Why wouldn’t he be?’ Amelia asked.

I had my eyes fixed on the group of kids watching us. Jamal was among them, and I noticed that he wasn’t the only boy with a gun. Two of the others had weapons of one sort or another that I could see. The biggest kid squatting in the middle of the group was holding what looked like a semi-automatic rifle across his knees, and that scrawny boy wearing a military beret and sitting off on his own was actually cradling a musket.

‘What are they staring at?’ asked Amelia.

‘Us,’ said Xander.

‘Come,’ said Mo, and drew us into the shade of a big thorn bush. We plonked ourselves close to him, and not just because the patch of shade was small. We needed answers, and Mo had them. Xander was twisting at his own fingers and Amelia was doing the fast-blinking thing she does when anxious. Nobody likes not knowing what’s going on but she really can’t bear it; I wasn’t surprised when she blurted out, ‘Who do these kids fight for? And where do they come from?’

‘All over,’ said Mo. ‘Places like my village, or the thousands of other villages like it. Anywhere people are poor. General Sir picks kids from the streets, the fields, even takes them from school.’

‘From schools?’ said Xander. ‘You’re kidding?’

‘No. If supply is low from the streets, kids already abandoned, he sends out a raiding party to take some who have a home. They go into schools and steal children from the yard or classroom. If the teachers object … well, they risk their lives if they do that. And they know it, so they don’t, mostly.’

I let this sink in, imagined myself in a lesson at school, chemistry, say, doing a stupid drawing of a Bunsen burner, trying to concentrate, knowing that at any moment a group of armed kids led by a man in uniform might barge in and tell the teacher the class was over, they were taking us off to war. Perhaps they’d be waving guns around, or even firing them in the air, to spell things out. I’m no fan of chemistry but even so.

‘And who do they fight for?’ Xander repeated.

‘Ah, that’s the thing with General Sir,’ said Mo. ‘His soldiers fight for anyone who wants them. This is his business, you see. He steals children for others to use. While they’re here he gives them a little training with guns and explosives so they’re more valuable, and then he sells them on to the militia, or the army, whoever will pay.’

‘Which militia? Which army?’ asked Xander.

Amelia couldn’t help herself. ‘Al-Shabaab, I’m guessing. That’s the biggest militia group. Mainly they’re in the south.’

‘You mean roughly here,’ I chipped in.

‘Correct,’ said Amelia.

Mo went on, ‘But there are also other militia who don’t much like the idea of sharia law, which Al-Shabaab wants to impose. And then you have the Kenyan army to the south, policing the disputed buffer zone between Kenya and Somalia. Plus of course the main force opposing them and Al-Shabaab, the Somali National Army. As the name suggests, that’s the country’s official army.’

‘But surely the government’s army doesn’t recruit children?’ asked Amelia.

Mo shrugged and said, ‘It’s not official but it happens. They pretend that the children don’t actually fight, just cook and clean and help out, but that’s not true. Both sides, and everyone in between, employ child soldiers. It’s nothing new around here.’

I looked away from Mo. From this vantage point I made out a building a little way off in the scrub, down an incline to the north. It was a shack made out of scrap wood and cinder blocks. General Sir had gone off in that direction. I wanted to get my bearings in this new place as quickly as possible. Why? So that I could start plotting our escape, obviously.

The group of kids who’d been watching us by the fire pit had drifted along behind us. The big one, with the semi-automatic rifle, was closest. When I returned his stare, he held my gaze. Most people don’t do that: nine times out of ten, if you look straight back at somebody who’s watching you, they immediately look away. It unnerved me, the way he just stared back. Was he unhinged?

To be stuck a million miles from God-knew-where at the mercy of mental kids with guns made me gulp so hard my throat hurt. But I wasn’t about to show my fear by blinking first. I stared back at that mean-looking boy soldier until he was finally distracted by one of the littler kids asking him a question.

There was something odd about this smaller boy’s musket. The barrel was chipped, flaky with old paint. The gun was made out of wood, I saw; it was a fake. I nearly laughed when I realised that, but instead checked the big kid’s gun, and when I confirmed that it was very real indeed the laughter dried up in my chest.

I’d lost track of time during our blindfolded journey but now noticed that I was squinting at the kids’ guns. Dusk was falling. The nearer the equator you are, the faster that happens. The sun dropped out of the sky very quickly, showboating a blood-red sunset that seemed