A Long Way Gone_ Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - Ishmael Beah [60]
The lieutenant stood before us and we saluted him, expecting to hear about our next raid on a rebel camp. “Stand at ease, boys,” he said. He slowly walked along the line, the visitors a few paces behind him, smiling.
“When I point at you, fall out and form a line by the private. Understand.” The lieutenant gave his orders from the far end of the line. “Yes, sir,” we shouted, and saluted. The smiles on the visitors’ faces disappeared. “At ease.”
“You, you…” the lieutenant pointed as he walked down the line. When the lieutenant picked me, I stared at his face, but he ignored me and continued his selection process. Alhaji was also picked, but Kanei was left behind, maybe because he was older. Fifteen of us were chosen. The lieutenant then ordered us, “Remove your magazines, put your weapons on safety, and put them on the ground.” We laid our weapons down, and the visitors, especially the two foreigners, began smiling again. “Attention. Forward march,” a private ordered us, and we followed the lieutenant toward the truck the visitors had arrived in. We stopped when the lieutenant turned around and faced us. “You have been great soldiers and you all know that you are part of this brotherhood. I am very proud to have served my country with you boys. But your work here is done, and I must send you off. These men will put you in school and find you another life.” That was all he said; then he smiled and walked away, asking the other soldiers to strip us of our military equipment. I hid my bayonet inside my pants and a grenade in my pocket. When one of the soldiers came to search me, I pushed him and told him that if he touched me I would kill him. He walked away and searched a boy standing next to me instead.
What was happening? Our faces followed the lieutenant as he walked to his house. Why had the lieutenant decided to give us up to these civilians? We thought that we were part of the war until the end. The squad had been our family. Now we were being taken away, just like that, without any explanation. A few soldiers gathered our weapons and others guarded us, to make sure that we didn’t try to run for our guns. As we were ushered to the truck, I stared back at the verandah where the lieutenant now stood, looking in the other direction, toward the forest, his hands crossed behind his back. I still didn’t know what was going on, but I was beginning to get angry, anxious. I hadn’t parted with my gun since the day I became a soldier.
In the truck were three MPs—city soldiers. I could tell by how clean their uniforms and guns were. Their pants were tucked inside their boots and their shirts were tucked into their pants. Their faces weren’t hardened, and their guns were so clean I assumed they hadn’t fired a shot. The weapons were on safety. The MPs jumped off the truck and motioned for us to climb in. We divided ourselves onto two long benches in the truck that faced each other, and two of the men, the one with the marks on his cheeks and the Lebanese-looking foreigner, climbed in back with us. Then the three MPs swung up on the back door panel, one foot inside the truck, the other hanging out.
As the truck began to pull away from the base, I started boiling with anger, because I couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Alhaji looked at me with a puzzled face. I looked at the guns the MPs carried and envied them. The men who had come to get us smiled as the truck sped along the dirt road, raising light brown dust that covered the bushes on the sides of the road. I had no idea where we were going.
We were on the road for hours. I had gotten used