35. Veteran

I reached into my pocket for another coin and, as I handed it to him, Manesh seized my hand.
“You’re a good lad, Tommu,” he said, “even though the rest of them have forgotten us. I always said you were a good friend, not like the others.”

“I’m sure that your services are appreciated, Manesh.” I said, trying to detach myself.
“Oh don’t doubt that!” He released my hand and picked up a woven straw basket shaped like an envelope from the ground next to him.

“Look at this. How many of these have you seen? Not many, I bet.”
Fumbling in the basket, he drew out a parcel made of banana leaves and began to unwrap it.
“Do you know who gave me this? It was Head Gardener Tahmo Lukuni himself. He shook my hand and gave it to me.” Manesh finished unwrapping the dried leaves to reveal a bouquet consisting of some brightly coloured feathers surrounding a carved wooden flower. He handed it to me and continued.

“I was one of the bravest men he had ever met. That’s what he told me. For exceptional valour. He would never forget the sacrifices I had made for Our Granny, defending her name against the dishonour of the savages. I am remembered forever. Can you believe that? Sergeant Major Manesh! I was promoted too, before I was discharged. Remembered forever.”

I looked at the object he had handed to me and straightened a kink in one of the rather dusty feathers.
“Careful, Tommu!” Manesh interjected. “That’s very delicate stuff. You see the flower? That is the flower of Our Granny’s garden, the same as on our money. Then the feathers are for service in the jungle. They come from birds that are only found in the deepest forest and they are rare and fragile.

Our Granny sent us out into the forest to fight against those who try to corrupt and misinterpret her message. Tahmo Lukuni told me that. They attack us with knives and arrows, but those are not the real danger. He said that the real danger is their words. When they say that they speak for Our Granny they are like the Shai-hathan.
They lurk in the mud and they inject their poison and then they eat the victim.

Out in the forest, we can see who the enemy is. It’s here in the Village that they are more dangerous. They want to destroy the way of life of Our Granny’s people and they speak soft, convincing words until they seduce young boys who don’t know any better. I told you before. We win the fight when it is in the open. That was our job. But in the Village we aren’t tough enough. We allow the soft words to grow and fester when we should stamp them out.”

“It’s hard, though, to control what people think.” I handed the trophy back to him and he carefully began to wrap it up in the dried leaves.
“That’s the excuse they always use.” Manesh was speaking quite loudly, “But what we need is discipline. Discipline the body and you discipline the mind. We allow these kids to do what they want to, when we should be keeping them under strict control. Every hour of the day should be filled. If they spent all their time doing, then they would have no time to think. It’s too much thinking that creates the danger.

And if any of them showed signs of not joining in, then the others would soon sort them out. If the body is healthy you don’t need medicine. It fights the diseases itself. In our platoon, if one of the men started behaving oddly, the other men would deal with it. I never had to do anything and that is the truth. The men would soon enough make him feel like an outsider and one day, if he didn’t pull his socks up, then the problem would deal with itself.” He made the gesture of a knife across his throat.

“That doesn’t sound like much fun for the one who is a bit of an outsider.” I commented. “Being picked on by the rest of the group.”
“Exactly. There is a type of behaviour that we don’t want and it should not be tolerated.”
“Yes,” I agreed; thinking, though, that I was probably not agreeing with his remark in quite the sense in which he had intended it.

“The Village isn’t like that.” He went on, “In the Village you have all sorts of people. Most of them don’t know they are born. They live on the fat of the land because of Our Granny and every day they are doing something to undermine her. They dress however they like. They come in illegally from the plantations.

These days, I live in a hut in the barrio and I know what it’s like there. All sorts of illegals. Stealing and intimidating people. If you have a couple of coins that you’ve earned honestly, then you had better watch out. And the Guardians down here? Don’t make me laugh. If you gave me one of my old platoons, I could show you how to deal with them.

One day I will meet up again with Tahmo Lukuni. I’ve seen him from a distance once or twice and he’d remember me. That’s what he said. And then I’ll be able to give him a report on what is happening down here. The people round him think they can keep the truth from him. But we shall see. When he knows what the situation really is here and how these Block Shadows – you know that there is a whole illegal organisation in the barrio – they think they can rule the roost. When he knows the truth, he’ll burn the place down.”

“Surely you can report them to the Guardians?” I asked.
“In theory, in theory,” Manesh answered, “but then you’re a dead man. There was one guy lived near me. He fell out with the Shadows and decided to do something about it. He had a good job down in the fields and he was sick of having to part with the percentage of his pay each week, so he gave information to the Guardians.

Five o’clock next morning, four platoons of Guardians turn up at the Block Shadow’s house. They surround it and in they go, clubs swinging. Well the Shadows inside put up one hell of a fight. The place was full of illegals and of course they were armed to the teeth, but in the end our guys burned the house down and most of the Shadows inside were killed and the rest were captured. And the ones who were captured would soon have been wishing to change places with the ones who had been killed, I can promise you that.

They thought that they were big men, of course. They always do. I could hear one of them going on about the Shai-hathan of the Tractor and the rest of the stuff they always talk about. They were going to get rid of the Tractor. The Americans would come back. The jungle would come back and we would all be like birds in the trees. You know their nonsense.

Well the Guardians took him away and I thought to myself, ‘You may think it’s OK to show disrespect for Our Granny, my friend, you may think you’re a big man!’ but I knew that he would soon be singing a different song. I knew what he was off to find.
But they found out who it was that informed on them. The next night the Shadows were there. None of us could go out to look. That would’ve been more than your life was worth. But we heard them come for him.”

“Did they kill him?”
“No. They wouldn’t do that. They took out his eyes so he couldn’t see. They burst his ears so he couldn’t hear. They cut out his tongue so he couldn’t tell. Then they cut off his parts so that he wouldn’t have children to see or hear or tell and they broke his legs and they left him. And the worst thing is that he didn’t die. He is still there, to warn everyone who sees him. I think that perhaps the best thing would be to finish him off, but his family cares for him. That is the terrible thing.”

“Good grief! Manesh,” I exclaimed, “That really is terrible!”
“Yes. But that is the sort of people you are dealing with. They have been brain washed by Hama Batu so that they don’t know right from wrong. They are as good as mad. Their fanatical ideas about their ‘Granny Frum’ justify any atrocity.

You would think that anyone who believed those ideas must be stupid, completely deranged, and yet some of their leaders are as clever as snakes. Leading honest people completely up the garden path. If I were still fit and in the service, I would hunt those people down. I would not rest until they were brought in. But what can I do, half a man? What can I do? And that is why I say that the Guardians in the Village are soft.” Manesh paused, breathing hard.

“Sometimes I think how things could be different. I feel the toes where my foot used to be and I think that I could still do something, but of course it’s too late. When the arrow scratched my leg, it didn’t feel like a serious wound. Just a scratch but I knew that if I let the poison get through to my heart I was dead.

So I took off my belt and I strapped it round below my knee. They say that it takes twenty minutes for the poison from one of those arrows to kill you and we were an hour and a half from the nearest plantation. So I just had to tie off my leg so that no blood could get through and I ran through the forest. Every ten minutes I slackened the belt then I twisted it tight again with the stick and ran some more.

It seemed like hours. Days even. My head was swimming when I got to the camp. I could hardly stand. And there was nothing they could do. They lanced my leg and let out the poison but they couldn’t take the belt off. If they had then either I would have bled to death or the poison would have got me. So I lay there on the bed. Three days they didn’t know whether I would live or not.

Then slowly I began to get better. But not my leg. My leg was blackish green and it began to stink. You have never smelt anything like it and they said the only way to save the rest of me was to cut the leg.
Even with that, there was no guarantee. But it worked and I’m alive.”

“Yes Manesh, at least you’re alive.” I was a bit shocked by the story.
“Don’t think I’m not grateful. Or that I want you to feel sorry for me.” Manesh looked at me defiantly. “I know that I’ve been lucky. There are men that fought with me who are paralysed. They have to sit in a cart and pay a boy to wheel them around. Others have lost both legs or been terribly mutilated. I’m one of the lucky ones.
But there’s nothing more that I can do. I sit here and watch the way the world goes and there is nothing that I can do about it. Nothing!”