Not Child's Play - Dave Muller

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to discourage anyone from visiting Mozambique, but during the past year numerous reports had appeared in local sailing and travel magazines extolling the virtues of Mozambique’s unspoilt islands, which had escaped the ravages of civil war. My own enquiries confirmed that the civil war was confined to the inland areas around Renamo’s headquarters in Gorongosa National Park. Sanctions meant the options for South Africans seeking international exposure and those wishing to travel were limited, so the siren-like allure of those islands was tempting.

      Our respite in the shade is short-lived. After 15 minutes we are back on our feet, striding south. Waves fling themselves higher up the beach as the tide rises, the soft sand hampering our pace. We’re both aware this is the high tide that was meant to refloat Arwen, but will now be washing her even higher up the beach.

      We round a headland and the coast once again stretches away into the hazy distance beyond which rises the outline of the conspicuous hill we’d passed the previous day. The boys and the old couple walk ahead; only Cyclops stays with us as we lag, forcing our pace with constant annoyed vamushes. Our feet mire in the soft sand, which sucks the energy from our legs. Eventually Seth sits and refuses to move, adopting a child’s limp-doll strategy of passive resistance. Sandy and I have no choice but to take turns carrying him on our backs. Tammy shows amazing strength, plodding on with her head down and shoulders slumped. By late afternoon we are near collapse and indicate we can no longer carry Seth without a rest. Cyclops shouts to the boys. The youngest stops and, without a word, lifts Seth onto his shoulders. The pace quickens.

      As evening advances, cool eddies waft down from the dunes, mixing with the warm sea air, concocting a rich aroma of herbage and iodine. It’s twilight when Cyclops abruptly turns inland to a barren slack between the dunes. We are told to sit on the seaward side of a low hummock dune while the boys and old couple move to a shallow wind-scoured valley beyond.

      The sand is warm and soaks up the sweat from our clothes as we lie back staring heavenward. No one speaks. We’re too exhausted, and words would only confirm the reality of what is taking place. Better to say nothing and pretend none of this is happening. From behind the dune we can hear raised voices and animated talk amongst the boys.

      ‘Sounds as if they are arguing over sharing our things amongst themselves.’

      ‘Let them,’ Sandy mutters. ‘There is nothing we can do.’

      After a few minutes Cyclops reappears.

      ‘Vamush.’

      In the gloom of evening we trudge up the dune face, following the footsteps of the old couple. Our legs ache as the soft sand slides beneath our feet like a treadmill. From the crest, the view inland surprises us. We’d expected a truncated view blocked by more hills, but instead we look down across a canopy of dense forest that undulates inland in ever-darkening grey swathes. A thin crescent moon hangs low in the burnished afterglow above a distant crisp horizon.

      Without hesitation, the boys head down the landward side of the dune, following a wind-blown tongue of sand towards the wall of trees. We hold back, reluctant to let go of the certainty of the coastline. Just as I’d used bearings and depth contours to determine our position while sailing, the beach is a reference point that signifies we are not completely lost. Leaving the comfort of that certainty will be much the same as being washed overboard, or having one’s fingers slip from some secure handhold to plummet into the unknown. Descending into the forest entails crossing into an even deeper level of fear, so we hesitate.

      Cyclops, however, will have none of our dithering. With a swift ‘Vamush’ he prods us towards the edge of the forest.

      We stumble downwards. Leaving the dune crest feels like walking through an unseen curtain into a world suddenly bereft of sound. The roar of the waves is gone, replaced by a hush so palpable that it can be felt as a pressure void in our ears. The trees soak up all sound and the slight breeze I’d hardly noticed before disappears. The air clots around us. In the humid silence, voices in my head, previously ignored, begin whispering a chilling truth: You are now lost. You and your family will vanish – and no one will ever find you.

      Cyclops takes the lead and tells three of the boys to trail behind us. I wonder whether this is to prevent us from slipping away in the dark, or to keep us from getting lost. Whichever, it’s a wise action, because escape is very much in our minds. Walking along the beach, Sandy and I had briefly discussed this possibility, but realised it would be absurd to attempt during daylight. Now that we’re in the forest, even the faint glow from the stars disappears and we realise the futility of trying to escape in darkness. We blunder through thickets, forging a path among the unseen tracery of thin branches that whip our bodies. Underfoot is cool, powdery sand, but our bare feet, softened and abraded by the damp beach, are sliced and scuffed on the twigs littering the forest floor.

      Sandy and I are once again taking turns carrying Seth who, in a deep, exhausted sleep, has slumped into a dead weight on our backs. We stumble, bent double, following the boys more by sound than sight. Our clothes, saturated with sweat, are chill against our skin and our hearts offer no warmth despite the warm night air.

      The boys behind make sure we keep moving. After two hours stumbling through the forest, the canopy opens, and in the dim light we can make out that we’re standing in a shallow valley surrounded by high trees. Stars dust a pale neon sheen across the night sky. The shrill voice of Cyclops, about 20 metres ahead, summons the boys from behind us. They brush past, their AK-47 slings clanking in their hands. We are left, temporarily abandoned. It sounds as if there is an argument about which direction to take. We’re beyond caring and collapse onto the sand, no longer able to carry the weight of our own bodies.

      It becomes silent, almost peaceful, but suddenly Cyclops’s strident shouts, on the brink of hysteria, rise above the sound of blades chopping though the lush vegetation. I assume they’ve lost their way and Cyclops is frustrated by the blocked path and the slow progress of the old couple clearing it. More slashing of pulpy vegetation confirms they must be trying to open a route. Curious, I move towards the sound, but a boy appears from the darkness and pushes me back to where the family sit. There’s nothing to do but wait. Tammy nestles between us and Seth lies asleep on the sand.

      A minute later Cyclops returns, leading the boys. He stumbles past me, breathing heavily, and plunges into the forest to our left. Sandy hoists Seth onto her back and with Tammy between us we follow. The trees soon part, and to our relief we find ourselves walking along a sandy path that gleams faintly in the star glow. One of the boys catches up with me and, as he passes, thrusts a plastic jug into my hand.

      It’s one of the jugs carried by the old man. I’d forgotten about the old couple. The jug handle is sticky. Involuntarily, I lick my fingers. They taste salty and metallic.

      I recognise the taste of blood and know what it means.

      The sounds we’d heard were bayonets slicing into flesh. I walk on, stunned. During my military training I’d been taught how use a bayonet. The lessons in evisceration had revolted me. There can be few more brutal ways of killing a person. Back then our instructors had had to work their students into a frenzy of imaginary hate in order to overcome our teenaged reluctance to enact such a barbaric act on even straw-filled sacks. They’d assured us that if the time came our training would kick in and override our squeamishness.

      This is different. It had been cold-blooded and premeditated. My mind scrambles to find familiar moral handholds, but I find none. Nothing has prepared me for this. My imagination has never ventured into such dark places. Is it possible these children could gag and bind people, and then bayonet them to death?

      Those slushy slashing sounds loop again and again in my head as I try to convince myself I am wrong and they were indeed, as first imagined, pangas cutting though lush vegetation. But there are no pangas, and there is no lush vegetation, and there is now no old couple.

      After a while I turn to Sandy. ‘Are the old couple behind you?’

      ‘No,’ she replies after a moment’s hesitation.

      ‘Do you know what that means?’ I whisper.

      ‘Yes.’

      My

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