Page 36 of Soul on Fire
Elliot clungto Ikolo’s waist as their motorbike bounced over the ravaged track, barely wide enough for a man to walk down. A thousand floods had turned the track to mud, and a thousand bicycles, motorbikes, and feet had reshaped the earth into a cracked and ragged moonscape. Riding through the dark, with only a dim headlight guiding their way, the craters were impossible to miss. Elliot’s bones jarred with every crash landing, every hard jerk of the motorbike.
Before they left, Ikolo had wheeled out an ancient motorbike from the hospital pharmacy. “It’s the one building that locks,” he’d said. “It’s where we keep our injections, medicines, and the bike.”
“Makes perfect sense.” Elliot had helped him load the bike with their packs, a jerry can filled with bottled water, and Ikolo’s medical kit.
“We must bring our own fuel. There won’t be any, not unless we go all the way to Kisangani, six hundred kilometers from here.” Three hundred miles. Ikolo had strapped another jerry can to the handlebars of the bike. “This is all the fuel I have. Maybe we can find more on the way, but I doubt it. This should get us there.”
“Should?”
“If we make it to Ubundu, we can use the river.”
“I’m not liking all these shoulds and ifs, Ikolo. I thought you said you could get me through the forest.”
“I can. Maybe not on the backseat of this bike the entire way. But I can get you through the forest and I can help you track this man.”
“Then let’s go.”
They’d had to skirt around the remains of the camp and walk the bike into Sake before starting their journey. The East African Standby Force had moved in fast, Tanzanian helicopters following their Kenyan comrades. The Tanzanians helped the UN and tried to put out the fire consuming their compound while they pulled the UN soldiers to safety. The Kenyans had set up a perimeter around the valley, securing their downed helo and picking their way toward the burning tree line where the ADF forces had fired.
The road began in Sake and headed west. It was paved, potholed in places, but the tarmac allowed them to move quickly. At first, Elliot had been optimistic. Paved roads. This would be a breeze. They’d come up behind Majambu and take him down. He could leap off the back of the bike like all those stupid Hollywood movies. No, he’d put a bullet through Majambu’s shoulder, or his knee.
Five kilometers outside of Sake, the pavement ended, dropping off onto a dirt track that steadily narrowed. Their speed slowed to a crawl.
“The UN is only allowed to patrol with their jeeps,” Ikolo had said over his shoulder. “On what they call ‘jeepable’ roads. They never go past where the pavement ends.”
It was five in the morning when they finally entered the forest. Majambu had a five hour head start.
Darkness swept over them like a shroud, like the earth had closed her fist around them both. Soaring canopies of wenge, agba, limba, and iroko trees rose and disappeared into the blackness, choking off the world above. They moved by Ikolo’s fading headlight, flying insects captured in the glow, and the edges of the beam teasing the shape and color of the foliage that reached for the track, and for them. The whine of the bike’s engine was the only sound, save for the clatter and bang they made when they crashed over potholes and craters in the broken road.
Majambu was on foot and they were on a bike. They had to catch up with him. Five hours on foot was nothing compared to a bike. At least, it wasn’t when they were moving faster. Their speed had slowed considerably when they hit the ravaged tracks.
As the hours passed and the world began to lighten, the sun straining through the forest’s thick canopy, Elliot’s certainty faded. Had Majambu found a bike as well? Ikolo said bikes—powered or not—were the only way to travel through the forest safely. Had Majambu ducked off into one of the villages and hidden in the forest for the night, or made his way through the thick brush?
Anything could have happened in five hours.
No, it was impossible to navigate through the forest off the tracks, not for very long. The tracks, the dirt paths, were eastern Congo’s only passable navigation. Majambuhadto be near.
As the sun rose, the forest filled with a soft glow, the sunlight penetrating sideways, sliding between the crowded iroko and sapele trunks and rolling down rattan to the blooming flowers clustered at the tree roots. Dream root vine ran as thick as elephant trunks over the track, almost knocking Elliot off the bike when he didn’t duck in time. The humidity rose with the sun, the cool damp air turning to steam, a mist that hovered through the forest. Women appeared out of the bush balancing water jugs and baskets on their heads and carrying carved hoes and shovels made from wood.
“They are going to their cassava plots,” Ikolo told him, when he asked. “Cassava is what everyone in the forest eats. It’s easy to grow. You can turn it into flour, you can eat it raw, you can cook it. But it’s next to worthless nutritionally. See how skinny everyone is?”
He did.
Men on bicycles appeared, pushing them instead of riding. The bicycles were loaded almost sky high, well over their heads. One carried jerry cans, and he asked Ikolo if he needed any palm oil to cut his fuel with. Ikolo said no and kept going. “He’s a small palm oil farmer. He can sell the oil to motorbikes on the road and in the cities. They will pay him good money for bringing it out of the forest. Here, you have to cut your fuel with palm oil to make it last longer. There is no way to get it other than to smuggle it over the borders, so adding palm oil can make it last longer. Or it can blow up your engine.”
“Comforting. Are we using palm oil in our fuel?”
“I won’t blow you up, Elliot. I promise.”
Another bicycle pusher was wheeling bushmeat, animals he’d tracked and hunted. Smoked and plucked birds dangled on delicate vines tied like string from a bamboo pole across his handlebars. Charred monkeys were tied to another bamboo pole, and stench of burned monkey fur lingered in Elliot’s nose for hours.
“They walk the tracks selling to the villages. Some will walk all the way to the cities. Goma, or even Bukavu and Kalemie. If they can sell palm oil in the city, they can buy things their village needs and bring it back. Soap, rice, tools, lanterns. But they may be gone for six weeks. It takes three weeks to walk from these parts down to Bukavu.”
His radio, still fixed around his neck with his receiver tucked into his belt, chirped mid-morning. He checked his watch. Enough time had passed for his team to make the rendezvous and fly back to theKearsarge. “Ikolo, stop for a sec.”
Ikolo throttled back and rolled them to the side of the track, pushing the overhanging elephant fronds out of the way. The leaves were as big as elephant ears, drooping from a shrub that encircled the bass of a giant wenge tree. The wenge soared over their heads, and Elliot heard the branches rustle and shake, snap and creak, like the trees were alive and moving. Somewhere up there, monkeys were making faster time than he and Ikolo were, swinging through the forest canopy.
Kline’s voice was weak and scratchy over the radio, echoing like he was shouting into a canyon. He had to be bouncing off the UN radio antennas and forcing the signal strength to maximum to reach him. “Lieutenant, what thehellare you doing?”
