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

Kayd was staring right through me again, ignoring Mo’s nothing-to-see-here joking entirely. I couldn’t help but stare back. His eyes were a very dark brown but facing the morning sun they swam with tiny flecks of amber. Very slowly, he turned from me to the kid on the ground.

The little boy was still curled tight, shielding his head and neck with his hands. They were thin, with slight fingers. Why, oh why, hadn’t he crawled off when he had the chance? Kayd was toying with the stick, daring me to challenge him for it again. It took every ounce of my willpower to stop myself. But Mo’s forced jocularity was if anything more effective than his panic had been.

I had no choice but to trust him. I’m ashamed of it, but I stayed rooted to the spot as Kayd brought the stick down on the little kid’s back one last lazy time. The boy’s whimpering started up again. Kayd tossed the stick down next to him and walked off slowly towards General Sir’s shack without looking back at us.

41.

As soon as Kayd had gone, Mo switched his attention to the little boy on the ground. During the beating his shorts had twisted round his waist so that the fastener was on his hip. He wriggled them back into place. He wasn’t crying. Kayd must have hit him a dozen times with that stick, but the boy put up with the hurt as if it had been nothing more than a slap. Mo said something to him that actually made him smile, nod, and jog off towards the main camp. I couldn’t believe a boy that young could shrug off such brutality.

‘Compared to what’s coming for him, that was nothing. It’s almost helpful, in a way. Means he’ll be less scared when he sees war.’

Mo wasn’t defending Kayd so much as stating a fact. I thought of the kids I’d seen working the tantalum mine in the Congo, and the two General Sir had imprisoned in holes in the ground, and the dozens of little ones here being groomed to fight, and I thought of Mum and what she would want to do about it.

‘When we escape, we’re taking him with us,’ I told Mo.

‘Sure. Why not,’ he said.

‘I’m serious. In fact, any kid who wants out of here should be free to come too. A rebellion is what’s needed. The more the better. With enough of us working together, the General will be powerless.’

Mo sighed. ‘You’ve just seen Kayd at work. There are others loyal to General Sir who will stop us.’

‘They’ll try,’ I said. ‘But –’

‘And even if we get past them, which we won’t, there’s the dogs. I’ve already told you about them.’

An idea came to me, obvious and yet surprising: ‘Then we’ll take the dogs with us as well.’

‘What?’ Mo looked at me like I was an idiot.

‘They can’t track us for the General if they’re already with us, can they?’

‘They’re hunting dogs! They belong to him. What makes you think they’ll come with us?’

‘I’ve seen the way he treats them.’ I shrugged. ‘They’re frightened of him, sure. That can make a dog obedient, but it doesn’t make it loyal. There’s a big difference.’

Mo sighed. ‘Either the dog wants to do something or thinks it has to: the pain you’ll feel when its teeth sink into your leg will be much the same.’

We’d been walking back to the others as we talked and now arrived at the tent. Xander and Amelia were sitting in front of it on plastic chairs. Mo and I sat down too, just as one of the little boys arrived with our breakfast. We each took a bowl from him. The sun was still low, bathing everything in a welcoming early morning light. Zoom in on the tent and chairs, cutting out the context, and we could have been on a camping holiday, about to tuck into some cornflakes. But we weren’t in a campsite, with cereal, bowls and spoons. Breakfast here was more slop, eaten with our fingers. I ate it anyway and, between mouthfuls, told Xander and Amelia what I’d witnessed.

‘Poor kid,’ said Amelia. ‘At least he wasn’t badly hurt.’

‘That’s not the point,’ I said.

‘I reckon it was for him,’ she countered.

‘There are divisions here to exploit.’

‘There are big kids terrorising little ones,’ said Amelia. ‘We can’t do a lot to help them.’

Xander said, ‘I think I see what Jack is getting at. The younger boys and girls could be helpful to us. At the moment they do what they’re told because General Sir has a bunch of thugs working for him. It’s too much to expect the little ones to rebel on their own. But with a leader to follow they might turn against General Sir. And with the dogs out of the equation he couldn’t do much against a mass breakout.’

Mo had his head in his hands. Now he leaned back in his chair and spoke to the sky. ‘You think they’ll listen to you, get behind you, support you when you go up against Kayd and the enforcers, who have weapons to make their point with? You’ve got, what? Fists against their guns? Sticks at best. And you think you’re their great hope?’

‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m not the great hope here. You are.’

Mo didn’t reply to that. He set down his breakfast bowl, stood up and said, ‘We need to start work,’ instead.

42.

Over the next few days Amelia, Xander and I made plans. Despite himself, Mo was a part of them. He was working, eating and sleeping alongside us, so he didn’t really have a choice but to overhear us, and I deliberately made sure he was in earshot.

To begin with he just listened, occasionally shaking his head in weary disbelief, even puffing out his cheeks from time to time, as if to say ‘impossible’ without words. But as the shape of what we