Excerpt from WAR  BROTHERS, Penguin, Canada. 2008.

Sharon McKay 

Chapter 7-8 

Gulu, Uganda, 2006. 

 The three boys sat on Jacob’s bed, with a jar of peanut butter to share. The school’s evening meal of potio might have filled their stomachs, but it hadn’t left them any less hungry. It was the only thing about school that Jacob really didn’t like—the food.

  “Look at him,” said Paul.

  The three glanced over at Norman. Despite only one meagre, bald, dim light bulb dangling from an overhead beam in the middle of the dormitory, Norman sat on his bed with his knees up and his head buried in a book. Jacob sighed. They should do something with him, talk to him maybe, include him. They had promised.

  “We’ll take him to class with us tomorrow,” suggested Tony.

  Jacob and Paul nodded vigorously. The idea eased their guilt. They would make friends with the new kid tomorrow.

  Jacob carried on with his story.

  “So the two bulls charged at each other, and the head boy yelled so loud he fell out of the tree!” Jacob could hardly finish his tale about school break before convulsing with laughter.

  Paul had the most exciting story of all. He told them about his father, about how he had stood in front of many important people and given a speech. He was obviously very proud of his father, Jacob thought, although he was trying not to show it. Paul didn’t want to look like a show-off. None of them did.

  “Tell us about America!” Jacob prompted him.

  “Well, in New York City there is a team called the Yankees. They play a game with a hard white ball and bat, like cricket but not at all like cricket. They play at night but it looks like day.”

  Jacob and Tony nodded their heads, although neither understood. Night was night. How could night be day?

  “And there are moving staircases, and they eat dogs in buns. And Jacob, your father has many bulls on his farm, but I drank Red Bull in a can.” Paul howled with laughter at that.

  Tony and Jacob sat confounded. Liquid animal juice? Blood? Did Americans drink bulls’ blood out of a can?

  “And the telephones are attached to the wall with a wire.”

  Wires on a telephone? How could it fit into a pocket?

  “Are American streets filled with wires?” Jacob asked.

  “No. There are telephones that are attached to the walls, and they have cellphones, too.” Paul said all this with great authority, but still none of it made sense. Lots of people in Africa had cellphones, lots and lots. But why would Americans need two kinds of phones?

  Jacob looked at Tony. “So, what did you do on your holiday?” he asked.

  “I read the entire book of Matthew in Italian. Father Ricardo suggested that I study Italian. After all, the Vatican is in Rome.” Tony stopped, looked down at his hands, and started to mumble. “I mean, if I ever went to Rome, it would be ….” Paul and Jacob plastered perplexed looks on their faces, which made Tony stumble even more.

  Jacob tried not to laugh. Everyone knew that Tony wanted to become a priest—Tony, always last to leave chapel and first to raise his hand in religious studies class. Did he really think his friends didn’t know?

  The peanut butter jar was licked clean and Paul’s crackers—meant to last the whole term, or at least the week—were almost gone before the boys said their prayers and crawled into bed. Some of the boys in the dorm wore nightclothes, although most, like Tony, wore their school shirts and shorts to bed.

  The prefect flicked off the overhead light and the humming generator outside the barred window was instantly silenced. The lock on the door clicked. The boys were locked in to prevent them from running off in the night to the girls’ convent school a few kilometres down the road. That’s what they were told, although not once had Jacob known anyone to do such a thing. There was a deadbolt on the inside door too but no one bothered with it.

  Jacob lay in the dark, hands behind his head, and thought that he couldn’t have been happier. Once, old Bella had said that cooking made her happy because it allowed her to share her happiness. It was true, he thought. A person could be content alone, maybe even at peace, but happiness was real only if it was shared.

  Someone farted. The dorm erupted in laughter.

  “Put it back! Put it back!” yelled someone down the row of beds.

  Then another voice in the dark, “Farts can’t be caught.”

  The whole dorm roared with laughter all over again. The prefects didn’t barge in and turn on the light. Even the prefects this year were great. It took a while for everyone to settle down again.

  “Paul,” Jacob whispered across the space between their two beds, “what was it like to fly in the air across the ocean?”

  “I was scared, very scared. But I did not want to embarrass myself so I did what my father did.”

  “What is the food like in America?” Tony leaned out of his own bed.

  “Very bad. It tastes like dust and comes in packages.”  

  Jacob was not surprised. People from America, Canada, and even England and Australia sent food over to Africa that tasted terrible. He thought that maybe they sent only the food they refused to eat, but maybe their food really was terrible. Maybe they did not know how to cook.

  “But many American people are very fat,” said Jacob. He had seen many pictures and he wasn’t being mean. He admired fat. “If their food is so bad, why are they so big?”

  “They eat a great deal of the bad food and there is much food available. It is hard to explain their markets that they call super …” Paul’s voice faded for a moment. “I think that even when they are full, they eat,” was all he could think to say.

  “Do they all eat twice a day?” Tony’s voice rose up in amazement.

  “More than that. Maybe three, four, five times a day. They call it snack,” he said quietly.

  “What is snack?” asked Tony. They were taught English but none had come across such a word.

  “I do not know,” said Paul.

  None spoke for a moment.

  “Do they all smell sweet?” Despite his amazement Tony could not stop his questions.

  “Even the black people in America smell white!” laughed Paul.

  Jacob, who was listening intently, flopped back on his mattress, stared at the ceiling, and tried to picture the sweet-smelling fat people, telephones attached to walls, and wires hanging out of pockets. The full moon shining through the barred window cast stripy lines on his bed. Smiling, Jacob drifted off to sleep.

  It was two o’clock in the morning when the entire dorm awoke to the sound of gunshots.

Chapter 7

Abduction

Every boy bolted upright at the same time. The terror was immediate.

  Bang, bang, bang. Somebody was hammering at their door, over and over, smashing it as hard as they could.

  “LRA,” one boy after another hissed. “LRA.” It did not have to be said. No one had to be told. They all knew it. They all felt it. “LRA, LRA, LRA.”

  Rebels? How? Jacob, sitting, stiff, peered into the dark. Father had arranged for extra guards. They were safe. Safe. How could this be?

  The dormitory was partly lit by the full moon that shone through the windows.

  Bang, bang, bang.

  Jacob looked to the door. It seemed to pulse, in and out, as if it were breathing.

  “The lock won’t hold,” yelled Paul.

  Bang, bang, bang—the sound reverberated around the room. Some boys crawled under their beds and curled up like snails. Others stayed put and drew their knees to their chests.

  “Bolt it!” yelled Paul. Out of the corner of his eye Jacob caught a glimpse of Paul at a window.

  Whatever ingenuity Jacob had came to him now. Using the bed as a springboard he vaulted toward the door. He couldn’t see; he stumbled. His hands pawed the wooden door as he slid to the floor. Face down, Jacob could hear footsteps on the other side of the door. Thud, thud, thud—the steps echoed as if an army of hundreds was about to trample them underfoot. Shouting, lots of shouting. He couldn’t make out the words over the sound of his heart pounding in time with the hammering of footsteps.

  “Jacob, the bolt!”

  Who was that? Paul? Again a club, or maybe a rifle butt, hit the door. He reached up and slid the bolt into place. Thunk. The sound was reassuring and for a moment there was protection, safety, hope.

  Jacob, still on the floor, looked up. He could see Norman’s small body sway as if caught in a whirling wind. Then bang, bang, bang. The door was being rammed by something larger than a rifle butt now. 

  Paul, Tony, and a bunch of boys were pulling at the bars on the window. Tony placed his feet on the wall. With his hands reaching for the bars between his legs, he strained. He made desperate, guttural, animal sounds. Moonlight bounced off the muscles popping on his neck, but still the bars wouldn’t budge.

  The thumping stopped. Another silence, but this one lasted longer. A communal holding of breath. Perhaps the soldiers had turned their attention to one of the other dorm rooms? Perhaps? Perhaps?

  The moment passed. An axe splintered the door.

  “Get dressed.” Paul’s voice was somewhere between a scream and a guttural hiss. “Dress. Get dressed!”

  Snapped out of a trance, Jacob and Tony scrambled toward their lockers and pulled on shirts and sweaters. Shoes, they needed shoes most of all. A few boys did likewise, but many, like Norman, were paralyzed with fear.

  “Dress!” Jacob yelled. Nothing seemed to shake Norman out of his stupor. Jacob opened the boy’s locker, picked up a pair of shorts and a sweater, and tossed them at him. “Shoes, put on your shoes!”

  First the axe created a sliver, then a slit, then an [[opening.]] What little moonlight there was filtered through the window and shone on the hole in the door. The hole widened and through it came a dirty hand. The disembodied hand flopped about, found the bolt, and yanked it back. The door opened with a crash. Windup flashlights scanned the room like searchlights, settling on one terrified face then another and another and another. The overhead light was flicked on. Outside the generator sprang to life.

  A moment passed before Jacob’s eyes adjusted to the overhead light. Standing on the threshold was the LRA—the Lord’s Resistance Army.

  An unnatural quiet settled as the soldiers swaggered down past the beds. Some smiled, others laughed; most were grim-faced.

  “ATTENTION!”

  The boys tried to stand tall, all in different states of dress.

  “My name is Commander Opiro. Do I have your attention?” Commander Opiro—perhaps twenty-five years old, but who could tell?—wearing dreadlocks and dressed in dirty camouflage clothes, paused. “If anyone cries or screams for any reason he will be punished by death. Do you understand?” Opiro, who had begun by yelling, suddenly lowered his voice and spoke softly, as if he were telling children a bedtime story. “And when you are dead, you will better understand.”

  He stopped in front of Jacob. Spit crackled in his mouth as he peered into Jacob’s eyes. Jacob tried to look away but Opiro stuck the barrel of his gun under Jacob’s chin. Eyes wide, heart pounding, Jacob looked into black, smiling eyes.

  “You will be soldiers now. You will fight for your country and kill for God.”  

  Casually, almost indifferently, Opiro slung his gun over one shoulder then sauntered down the line of students, looking them up and down as if browsing in a market. The rest of them, the other soldiers, leaned against the walls. They looked bored. The more energetic soldiers kicked open the boys’ lockers and rifled the contents.

  Panic has a way of keeping reality at bay, but now Jacob felt his lungs being squeezed and air being cut off. The room began to reel. He wanted to steady himself but was afraid to reach out, terrified that any movement might draw the soldiers’ attention.

  A cellphone rang. Commander Opiro answered it. He said “Yes” three times then snapped the phone shut. Down the line of beds a cheer went up as a soldier unearthed a stash of peanut butter from a student’s locker. He twisted off the lid and plunged his hand into the jar, then slopped the brown goop into his mouth.

  “This yours? Did your mother make this?”

  Jacob did not turn his head but he was pretty sure the soldier was talking to Arthur—a good boy who wanted to drive a car one day. Last term all he’d talked about was cars. The soldier stuck out a pink tongue and licked the side of the peanut butter jar. Jacob turned his head just a little. Laughter spilled out of the mouths of the soldiers like poisonous drool as urine ran down Arthur’s leg.

  “Look!” The soldier pointed to the puddle between Arthur’s feet. More laughter.

  With the soldiers’ attention diverted, Jacob balanced himself against a bedframe. He dared not look at Paul or Tony, and he was afraid to look at Norman, afraid that the boy would do something stupid.

  Think, think. There were ten or more soldiers in the room, more in the common room. Had they broken into any other dorms? Had they killed the guards? How many rebel soldiers were outside? Most of the rebels’ guns were small and lightweight, but others looked as if they could kill an elephant, two elephants! Jacob had never seen such guns, not up close. Some soldiers cradled their guns like treasured babies, others carried them as if they were extensions of their arms and hands. Bullets hung around their necks like rows of beads, and their clothes were rags. Many wore cast-off army fatigues, others wore T-shirts or tank tops with names of athletic shoes sprawled across their chests. Most had green or black gumboots, while others wore military boots with broken laces and flapping tongues. As they walked down the line, past the boys and beds, they left a trail of stink.

  Something was odd about these rebel soldiers. Jacob looked closer. Several of them wore filthy and torn tank tops. They held their guns high. His mouth dropped open. There was no hair under their arms. Kids! Children with guns, some younger than himself. Carefully, without moving his head too quickly, Jacob glanced from one soldier to the next and the next. There were only two adult soldiers in the room: the one who called himself Commander Opiro, and his second-in-command, who also looked to be in his early twenties. Jacob knew the LRA used boy soldiers, but only a few, not this, not everyone. 

  “What are you looking at?” A soldier pivoted in front of Jacob. He couldn’t have been more than thirteen years old. Long, grotesque gashes lined his face. They were old wounds, healed mostly, leaving raised, dark ridges up and down his cheeks. It was as if someone had haphazardly dragged a trowel across his face. His eyes were bloodshot and blank, as though he wasn’t really looking at anything, like he was blind. No, not blind, it was as if he couldn’t see.

  “I said, what are you looking at?”

  “Nothing,” Jacob whispered. Should he call him “sir”?

  There was another soldier standing behind this disfigured thirteen-year-old. Was he thirteen?

  The soldier behind the scarred boy soldier was tall, taller than Paul. His hair was short and his face was sculpted, with high cheekbones and sloping almond-shaped eyes. There was something familiar about him. His eyes were glued to Jacob’s face. Jacob tried to take a good look. The tall boy was staring. It was as if he was saying to Jacob: Shut up, shut up, shut up.

  “Nothing? You see nothing?” the thirteen-year-old yelled. The tall soldier, the one with the high cheekbones, receded, then disappeared from view.

  That’s it! The boy from the church. It was him! Jacob was sure of it. What was his name? It was hard to think, let alone remember. Yes, it was Oteka. Jacob wanted to reach out, to touch him, to say something, anything. But this Oteka was a rebel, a soldier, the enemy. Then why was he talking to him with his eyes?

  “Nothing, sir.” Jacob immediately cast his own eyes down. He was in that position, eyes staring at his shoes, when the rifle butt smashed into the side of his head. And then came a flash of white light.