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

dog noise started up again then, closer than before, a series of overlapping yelps, each more shriek-like than the last. The sound wasn’t so much menacing as deranged: the dogs seemed to be whipping each other up into a frenzy. Had they caught something? Were they killing it, or arguing over the spoils? I didn’t know. As abruptly as the cacophony started, it stopped. In the silence that followed a shiver ran through me, all the way from my head to my toes.

General Sir knew we were terrified – of him, the camp, and the wild world beyond it. His work done, he simply rose from his chair, said, ‘Sleep well!’ and drifted off into the darkness.

‘You too!’ Xander called after him.

As ever he knew exactly how to defuse the moment. Though trembling, I couldn’t help laughing. ‘Great guy,’ I said.

‘Real charmer.’

Ignoring us, Amelia asked Mo outright, ‘What really happened?’

‘What he said, more or less.’

‘It’s the “more” bit I’m interested in.’

‘The General broke many laws in London. For gangs and drugs mostly. He was young and often in trouble, doing bad things. Motorcycle robberies, even burglaries as he said. Being small and a good climber meant he could get in through upstairs windows. And for him there was never a minimum age for violence.’

‘But why, specifically, did he flee London?’ Amelia asked.

‘There was a murder. General Sir was fifteen. A dispute over drugs and territories. He killed another boy with a knife. But the police arrested someone else. They thought they had the perpetrator. Later they realised they were wrong. In the time gap General Sir’s mother, thinking that the situation in Somalia was improving, put him on a plane to her sister in Mogadishu.’

‘So he returned to the capital. How did he end up here, in the middle of nowhere?’

‘He was recruited to fight in the conflict himself, and he immediately saw that children were valuable in war because so many children fought on both sides. They do what adults tell them; it doesn’t matter if it’s evil or good. But there are never enough children to fight the adults’ wars! General Sir saw this. He spotted a business opportunity. He would find children by whatever means, teach them to be useful, and sell them to the highest bidder. According to camp rumour, he’s been doing it ever since.’

40.

The wild dog noise made it hard to sleep that night. The following morning, bleary and exhausted and because there were no real toilets to use in camp, I took myself off to do my business a little way into the bush. As I was walking back, I heard another animal whimpering. The pitiful noise was intercut with a whacking sound.

Instinctively I went towards the noise and came upon Kayd. His back was to me and he had a stick in his raised hand. As I watched he brought it down on a small boy curled tight on the ground. Realising Kayd was laying into a child, I ran straight in yelling at him to stop.

Kayd ignored me. He didn’t even look my way. He just brought the stick down hard again on the curled-up boy’s back. Weirdly, the little boy didn’t yelp at the blow. He just kept on with his whimpering. As Kayd lifted the stick again I closed in on him and grabbed it.

Kayd spun around. His eyes were blank, his lips expressionless. With his free hand he punched me hard in the chest. It would have been enough to knock me over if I hadn’t been hanging on to the stick. As it was, I staggered backwards with all my weight, yanking at the stick as viciously as I could – hard enough, at any rate to rip it from him.

Kayd just stared at, or rather through, me. He didn’t try to grab the stick back, or run at me, or yell. He looked almost bored. To have punched me one minute and be content simply to stare at me the next made little sense. Neither did the fact the small kid was still curled on the ground rather than running for cover.

I have to admit, I was fired up. I was so frustrated and frightened, and his face was so impassive it looked like a sculpture. I wanted to smash it to pieces.

I swung the stick at his face with all my might. I wanted to burst it open like a piñata. Every birthday party I ever went to in junior school had one of those stupid things. And I was always pretty good at destroying them. You just have to swivel from the hips, put your weight behind the blow, lean in.

The stick stopped in mid-air. I was swinging so hard the dead halt jerked me backwards. I turned in shock to see Mo. I had no idea where he’d come from but he’d arrived in time to catch the stick and he wasn’t about to let it go. Everything about him said: ‘No!’

In stopping me from hitting Kayd he was clearly trying to save me from myself. Still, I didn’t like it. For a nanosecond I thought of ripping the stick free again, but instead I let it go.

Instantly Mo’s expression changed. He laughed, slapped me on the shoulder, and tossed the stick back to Kayd, who caught it. Mo then said something, and although I had no idea what it was, I could tell from the tone of his voice he was making light of what had just happened. I’ve seen the same sort of thing often enough at school. An argument flares up and is about to go off properly, then somebody backs down pretending the whole thing is a joke. It’s a way of saving face. Cowards use it. I didn’t like that Mo had chosen this tactic for me, not one bit.

But we weren’t in school. We were in a camp that turned slave children into child soldiers. The tactic may have been the same, but the