10: Congo

Six Months Later

Kolwezi, Democratic Republic of the Congo

A buzzer went off every day at six o'clock in the morning, and it was always enough to wake George up. He felt groggy and confused for a few seconds, because he'd just been dreaming about being back on CHERUB campus. Weirdly, he'd got muddy playing football and needed a shower, but every time he tried to go back to his room to get cleaned up, something distracted him, and all he could think about was how much he needed to shower.

He'd no sooner managed to shake off the odd sensation of the dream when he felt a powerful hand grab his ankle and shake it.

"Rise and shine, buddy." Michael's voice cut through his confusion and his current situation rushed back to him. He was lying on the top bunk of a bed in a large communal dormitory, covered in sweat from the heat of the night. The cool metal of the bed frame felt good on his skin, and he rested his feet and hands on it for a couple of seconds, before heaving himself into an upright position.

He'd been sleeping in the same bed in the Kanuki No. 3 Mine Facility for six months and it felt like home. The facility had been built by the Chinese in the first few years of the 2000s, but the prices of metals had dropped dramatically in 2008 and the Chinese had pulled most of their workforce out. Highly-paid Chinese mine engineers had been replaced by cheap labour from all over the African continent, mostly forced by poverty or war to work in the mines for a stable, if low, income. George was just one of over a hundred males from twelve or thirteen years old through to eighteen or nineteen to live in the facility. The older men lived in the other two mine facilities, which they preferred since the atmosphere was quieter and more relaxed.

Since the buzzer had gone, there were bodies throughout the room jumping down from top bunks or stretching sleep away. The smell of sweat and BO was everywhere, which gave the place a foul atmosphere and encouraged George to jump down onto the concrete floor and start the day.

He'd slept in a pair of boxer shorts to try and beat the heat, but they were still stuck to his thighs and bum as he yawned, unsticking them. The floor was covered in a thin layer of dust which everyone brought in from outside, no matter how careful you were, and it stuck to his damp feet as he followed Michael and the rest of the crowd out of the room.

Every day followed the same routine: first George went to his locker. He kept the key on a piece of cord around his neck so he couldn't forget it or lose it. Inside were all of his clothes, toiletries like his toothbrush and deodorant, and a stack of paperback books written in Mandarin or French. He grabbed the least dirty-looking set of clothes, which were just a clean pair of boxers, synthetic t-shirt and some cargo shorts. Then he pushed down his dirty boxers and tossed them into his locker, locked it back up again, and followed the others towards the shower. At first he'd felt embarrassed walking around naked, but there were no women within ten miles and nobody else gave a toss so he'd pretty soon got over it. He passed huge wall murals written in Chinese with pictures of smiling Asian workers standing side-by-side with local Africans, but didn't bother looking twice at them.

There was no hot water, but George didn't mind because he'd spent all night sweltering, so the cold water was refreshing. He didn't bother to dry himself off, just pulling his clothes straight on. They got damp, but they'd keep him cool as they dried. He hung around the exit, waiting for Michael and examining his reflection in a floor-length mirror. He'd hit a growth spurt over the past few months and reckoned he'd grown at least four inches. Add that to his close-cropped hair, bulked-up physique, and he couldn't help admiring how much more mature he looked as a thirteen-year-old than the skinny twelve-year-old he'd been last year. Michael eventually appeared wearing only a pair of running shorts.

"I don't know about you, but I am starving today," Michael said, scratching his shoulder as he walked towards George. "Hopefully there's something good for breakfast."

George opened his mouth to reply, but he was interrupted by Pierre, a light-skinned fifteen-year old from North Africa, who jogged up behind Michael with a grin.

"Put some clothes on, you dirty beast," he said in French, aiming a haymaker punch at Michael's chin. He swung slowly, giving Michael plenty of time to duck away.

Michael slow-mo spun and aimed a slap at him. "Time for my Dirty Beast Strike Special Move," he said, causing Pierre to burst out laughing, and the three of them carried on walking to the cafeteria.

"It's gonna be another scorcher today and I don't want to get my shirts all dirty," Michael explained, in accented French, banging his fist on his chest. "Plus, I'm such a fine physical specimen that it would be a crime to keep covered up."

George rolled his eyes. He was only a few inches shorter than Michael now, but where he'd grown upwards, Michael had grown outwards, piling on fifty pounds of muscle around his shoulders, arms and chest. His biceps were as big around as George's legs.

"I don't know who you think you're impressing, but it's definitely not me," Pierre said, smirking. "You see any girls here who care? I don't."

Everyone spoke French to each other and the basic fluency that George had learned on campus had rapidly improved. It helped that there was a huge variety of accents and tons of slang, so he didn't worry too much about perfect grammar.

"I think I could probably still win in an arm-wrestle," George joked, flexing his own bicep. "You don't look that strong."

Pierre laughed and Michael swatted the top of George's head.

"Don't get any ideas," he warned, but he was smiling and George felt in a good mood as they grabbed trays and helped themselves to breakfast.

Despite the low pay, there was never any shortage of food, which was provided by the corporation which owned the mines. It was mostly dried or powdered and came in giant tins, but they sometimes bought food cheaply from local farmers, which meant an occasional supply of fresh fruit and vegetables. Each worker was entitled to a certain food allowance, but the corporation deliberately overstated its workforce to receive extra money from its Chinese parent company. The top managers divided this extra money between them, but extra food came with it and if they got caught selling company property to the local population, there would be an investigation, so the workers got to eat as much as they wanted.

Michael loaded his plastic plate high with scrambled eggs and lumps of mashed potato, giving himself extra helpings. George had no idea how he could eat so much and keep it all down, limiting himself to just a couple of scoops of potato and some cassava bread, which he found surprisingly edible.

The cafeteria was huge, with more than thirty long, mass-produced plastic tables with chairs attached by rigid metal struts. All of the workers from all three facilities used it, so as people woke up for the day, the noise increased in volume and intensity. George, Michael and Pierre grabbed three empty chairs at a table used by No. 3 workers, who were engaged in a noisy discussion of what the temperature was going to be like that day. There were two untidy piles of US dollar bills lying in the centre of the table, in between the trays of food.

"Michael, you're always good for a bet," an older boy with a thick black beard said, patting Michael on his bare shoulder when he sat down. "Yesterday was seventy degrees exactly, over or under?"

All the workers got paid one US dollar per day, which was handed out weekly. The problem was, none of the works were permitted to leave the compound, and so there was nothing to spend the money on. Certain black-market goods made it in, mostly cigarettes or glue for sniffing, but otherwise the only way to spend money was by gambling.

"What's the odds, Sahlu?" Michael asked, in an interested tone.

"Over is three-to-two, under two-to-one," Sahlu replied, tapping his fingers on the piles of notes. "You in?"

"Five on over," Michael said, pulling a pile of green bills out of his pocket. He counted out five singles, which was five day's wages, and Sahlu scooped them up rapidly before making a note in a tiny notebook with a pencil.

"Pierre?" he asked, looking over at the other boy, who shook his head, then at George. "C'mon Georgey boy, I'm practically giving money away. Michael's in, why aren't you?"

When George and Michael had arrived at the facility, George had wanted to fit in and went in on bets like this, but after getting cleaned out by hustlers a couple of times, he'd learned his lesson. Michael was massive enough that nobody dared rip him off, and he'd offered to go after the cheaters for George, but it was only twenty dollars or so and it wasn't worth causing a fuss. Given the strange economy that operated inside the facility, occasionally George had to remind himself that in the outside world, ten dollars wasn't very much money.

George shook his head as well. "Nah, I'm good, thanks."

Sahlu shrugged. "Your loss." With no other targets at the table, he grabbed the money and got up, heading over to an adjacent table to repeat the entire process.

After breakfast was done, the three boys cleared their trays and then headed out of the main door, following a stream of people all going in the same direction. When George was growing up in London, he'd always thought it was really multicultural, and CHERUB agents came from a wide diversity of backgrounds, but this was the first time he'd really been in an environment where he was in the minority. The intense equatorial sun had given him a deep tan, but his light hair gave away his white ethnicity. None of the other workers at the facility cared - they reserved their dislike for the handful of Chinese who still worked as managers - but even after six months, it felt strange to be surrounded by people who looked, spoke and acted totally differently to what he'd been used to.

Through the doors led to outside, where the sun was already well into the sky and the air was warm.

"That bet's guaranteed to pay out, today's a scorcher, I can feel it," Michael said confidently, covering his eyes as he squinted at the blue sky.

Around the corner, they were leaving the facility compound and heading towards the mine workings. There weren't any fences to keep them in, only raw jungle, but that was much more effective than the tallest fence. As they'd been told when they arrived, if you were stupid enough to venture into the jungle, you weren't the mine's problem any more. That said, there were still armed guards to keep order.

Pierre stretched his arms and shoulders as they walked, getting some satisfying clicking sounds from his joints.

"George, your friend wants you," he said, pointing briefly towards one of the guards, who was trying to catch George's eye.

Leaving the other two, George jogged over to the guard.

"Morning Moses," he said cheerfully as he approached.

"Hi George," the man replied, his face already streaked with sweat from the heat. He was wearing army fatigues, but his semi-automatic rifle was standing on the ground so he didn't have to carry its weight. "My man in Lubumbashi will be here later, I'll drop your books off."

"I'm finished at four so I'll get the next money," George responded, glancing around as some boys started shouting at each other behind him. "Ask him to get three more."

Moses nodded, his eyes flicking to the commotion. "Okay George." His attention was distracted, so George left without saying anything else. The shouting turned out to just be a heated argument about something, conducted in rapid Swahili, which cooled off when Moses picked up his rifle again and gave them a meaningful look.

The workers were either on the A-shift (midnight to eight am), B-shift (eight until four pm), or C-shift (four until midnight), and apart from mealtimes, the rest of the day was just downtime. The leisure facilities built for the original Chinese workers consisted of little more than a few basketball courts and exercise facilities, but without balls or any effective organisation, these were usually dominated by older boys and young men lifting weights or working out. George occasionally joined in a kickabout when something like a ball was put together, and he was actually above-average in terms of skill, but most of the time he preferred to sit in the shade and read. Before coming to the mine, he'd associated reading with schoolwork and typically stuck to reading sport news if anything. But with five or six hours a day to kill, some of which involved being stuck in his bunk, he'd bought some old French textbooks from someone in a nearby bunk and decided he might as well try and keep up some studying. When the weeks had turned into months, he'd run out of reading material inside the mine and approached Moses, a guard known to turn a blind eye to contraband, to get some new books brought in. Anything in English was completely impossible to get, so he'd started with French. There was a faded, dusty library stuffed with books in Mandarin which, with the aid of a French-Mandarin dictionary, he'd slowly started teaching himself. Given that each book from outside cost him ten dollars, it had been a lucky find.

Early on, he hadn't had the confidence to read anywhere other than his bunk in case it was a sign of weakness, but Michael came to his aid and now he could read wherever he wanted, and occasionally gave impromptu Mandarin lessons to Michael when he was bored.

Learning and reading also helped him stay sane when the routine of life was extremely tedious. The food barely changed, the work never changed, and the same topics of conversation went round and round. On campus, lessons were hard and really pushed the Cherubs, and George knew that if he spent his time lazing around, he'd be badly behind when he returned.