A Long Way Gone_ Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - Ishmael Beah [73]
“Please sit down,” she said, taking the package from me, putting the battery and cassette in the Walkman, and handing it to me. I put the headphones on and there was Run-D.M.C.: “It’s like that, and that the way it is…” coming through the headphones. I began to shake my head, then Esther lifted the headphones off my ears and said, “I have to examine you while you listen to the music.” I agreed, and took off my shirt, stood on a scale, and she checked my tongue, used a flash-light to look into my eyes…I didn’t care because the song had taken hold of me, and I listened closely to every word. But when she began examining my legs and saw the scars on my left shin, she took my headphones off again and asked, “How did you get these scars?”
“Bullet wounds,” I casually replied.
Her face filled with sorrow and her voice was shaking when she spoke: “You have to tell me what happened so I can prescribe treatment.” At first I was reluctant, but she said she would be able to treat me effectively only if I told her what had happened, especially about how my bullet wounds were treated. So I told her the whole story about how I got shot, not because I really wanted to, but because I thought that if I told her some of the gruesome truth of my war years she would be afraid of me and would cease asking questions. She listened attentively when I began to talk. Her eyes were glued to my face, and I bowed my head as I delved into my recent past.
During the second dry season of my war years, we were low on food and ammunition. So, as usual, we decided to attack another village. First, I went with my squad to spy on a village. We watched the village all day and saw that there were more men than us and that they were well armed and had newer guns. I am not sure if they were rebels, because they had fewer boys than any of the other groups we had attacked. Half wore army uniforms and half civilian clothes. We returned to base and I reported my squad’s findings to the lieutenant. We immediately left for the village, which was about three days’ walk. The plan was to first secure the village, then remain there and form a new base instead of bringing the goods back.
We left our village that night, alternately walking fast and jogging on the path all night. During the three-day journey, we stopped once a day to eat, drink, and take drugs. We carried with us all the ammunition, guns, and semiautomatic machine guns. Each of us had two guns, one strapped to our back, the other held in our hands. We left only two men behind to guard the base. On the morning of the third day, the lieutenant made us rest longer than we had during the previous days. Afterward, we walked all day and into the evening until the village was in sight.
There were many mango, orange, and guava trees in the village, and it looked as if it had been a farm. Surrounding it, we waited for the lieutenant’s command. As we lay in ambush, we began to realize that the place was empty. I was lying next to the lieutenant and he looked at me with a puzzled face. I whispered to him that the village had been full of gunmen a few days ago, even though it now looked deserted. As we continued to watch, a dog strolled across the village, barking as it went down the path. About an hour later, five gunmen entered the village. They took buckets from the verandah of one of the houses and headed toward the river. We were beginning to suspect that something was amiss when a shot was fired from behind us. It was clear now: we were being ambushed. The attackers wanted to push us toward the village so they could have us in the open.
We exchanged fire all night, until morning arrived, at which point we had no choice but to retreat into the village where they wanted us. We had already lost about five men, and the