Mark Lee - The Canal House

“Yes, I know. Would you move to one side, please. There’s another box of saline packets beneath the table.”

Richard stood back as I ripped open the box. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” he said. “You’re the one who got us here and made all the major decisions. I’ll hide from the press. I’ll do whatever you want. You’re in charge from now on.”

“All right. Then I’m ordering you to stay here and hand out food. I hope to be back by nightfall.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

I opened another box and scattered its contents on the bed. “When you came to Bracciano, you told me that our relationship was over. I believed you and that’s why I took this job. So why are you always hovering around, waiting for something to change?”

“I can’t help it, Julia. I still love you.” Richard shrugged his shoulders as if his emotions were a peculiar disability.

I finished packing and picked up the canvas bags. When I turned around, Richard was standing a few feet away, blocking the open doorway.

“I’m sorry, Richard. But I don’t feel the same way. When we’re finished with our work here, I’m going back to Bracciano.”

I brushed past him and left the cabin. I jogged across the deck, slung the canvas handles of both bags around my neck like bandoleers, then lowered myself down onto the wharf. The medicine was heavy, but I moved fast, eager to get away from the ship. When I reached the warehouse, I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Richard was standing on the deck, watching me.

It’s common for journaliststo travel with relief workers; you get a story and they get publicity. But this time I felt uncomfortable about Daniel and his motives. Instead of remaining an observer, he had fixed the church truck and loaded the supplies. He actually seemed to care about the people in Liquica and I was worried that I’d catch the same disease.

We drove across the road to the churchyard. Captain Jenkins and a platoon of Gurkhas met us there a few minutes later. Jenkins had gone out to the airport and found three Land Rovers abandoned by the United Nations. One had been set on fire and a second had a jagged line of bullet holes on the side. The third was in good condition, but someone had nailed a dog’s skull onto the hood. Sergeant Gurung pried off the head with his kukri knife, but there was still a smear of blood on the metal.

The seventeen men in the platoon were commanded by a second lieutenant, Colin Mitchell; he was a young officer with wire-rimmed glasses who looked like he should be supervising basketball games at a parish hall. Jenkins split the platoon into three groups. Lieutenant Mitchell would take the point position while Jenkins commanded the reserve. Sergeant Gurung and four other Gurkhas were responsible for everyone riding in the church truck.

“You’ll have about three hours in Liquica,” Jenkins explained. “Most of the platoon will continue down the road for another forty kilometers, then we’ll come back and pick you up before nightfall.”

I could see that Julia wasn’t satisfied with only a few hours in the village. “Would it be possible for your soldiers to spend the night there?” she asked Jenkins.

“General Bates is so bloody cautious that”—the captain saw Daniel take out his notepad and decided to be more diplomatic—“Interfet command isn’t ready to extend the range of the pacification effort. This is only a reconnaissance mission. We’re not holding ground.”

Sergeant Gurung introduced us to the four men in his squad. Corporals Battis and Mainla were in their thirties, but the two privates, Thapa and Rai, looked like teenagers. Thapa was shy and polite around strangers. Rai seemed more confident. He wore his beret at a sharp angle. “You are English?” he asked me.

“Dr. Cadell is from Britain. Mr. McFarland and I are Americans.”

“New York. Chicago. Texas. Hol-ly-wood,” he said, rolling the last word around in his mouth.

“Yeah. That’s about it.”

Lieutenant Mitchell and his men led our convoy, followed by Jenkins. Sergeant Gurung was twenty feet behind them, driving the half-burned Land Rover. The church truck carrying the relief supplies was to follow the soldiers. We were in a fairly safe position unless the militia had mortars or rocket-propelled grenades. I doubted that they’d stop shooting if I showed them my Newsweek ID.

Julia drove the church truck and Sister Xavier sat beside her. Daniel, Corporal Battis, and I sat in the back with our legs dangling over the side. The corporal was a stocky man with a shaven head who smoked cheroot cigars. He told us that the Gurkhas had invented nicknames for the three UN Land Rovers and tried to translate the Nepalese phrases into English. “Sergeant Gurung is driving the fire Land Rover and the lieutenant has the wounded Land Rover,” he said. “It’s wounded because someone shot it with a machine gun.”

“What’s the captain driving?” Daniel asked.

“The dog Land Rover. You can still see the blood.” Battis puffed on his cigar and stared at the hills. “The dog Land Rover is bad luck. We should have taken another one.”

The convoy passed through an Interfet roadblock near the airport and headed west on the coast road. A steep hillside was on the left of the two-lane road, the ocean on our right. The water was clear enough so that even from the truck I could see the coral beds and rose-colored seaweed clinging to the rocks. A pelican circled in the sky, swooping down over a line of whitecaps formed by a hidden sandbar. If I turned my head and ignored Battis and his assault rifle, I could pretend that we were tourists, on our way to the beach.

“I need a rum drink with a little umbrella,” I told Daniel.

He smiled and leaned back against the boxes of water. “Sounds good, Nicky. But first let’s go scuba diving.”

The road went inland a few hundred yards and passed through a small village. Several of the huts had been set on fire and I didn’t see any stray dogs lurking in the underbrush. You could take the pulse of a war zone by evaluating what was going on around you. We had a kind of running list; as you moved down it, the situation got more dangerous. At first, you saw villagers who looked cautious. Then they automatically ran away when they heard a car approaching. Then all the people disappeared. Then you saw burned huts and dead animals. Then dead villagers. And finally, the bodies of soldiers that had been left there by their friends. The road west wasn’t that bad yet, but there was enough to be concerned. It looked as if a powerful virus had spread across the island and destroyed everything but the palm trees.

We passed the turnoff that led south to the mountains and traveled across a mud flat bordered by mangrove bushes. The bare ground was dotted with clay mounds. I had seen the same kind of mounds on the coast of Mozambique; they were ovens, used to boil down ocean water and turn it into salt. Near the drainage ditch the road had collapsed and someone had placed palm fronds across a pothole; it was a typical way to conceal a land mine. Lieutenant Mitchell stopped the lead vehicle and everyone got out. I jumped off the truck, hustled up the road, and took a few photographs of a Gurkha sweeping the area with a mine detector. When I came back, Daniel was talking to the two corporals.

“You know why Mainla is our best shot?” Battis asked.

“No. Why?”

“Six children! He never misses his wife!”

Corporal Mainla was a thin, quiet man. He drank from a water bottle while Battis giggled. “Now you have proof that you’re alive,” Mainla said. “Battis tells that joke to anyone who is breathing.”