The morning was hot and clammy, even with the thick forest canopy blocking most of the sun. The path was well-worn, with evidence of folks having passed through here recently. Bond envisioned Kobus and his men mounting nighttime excursions behind Zanzari lines using this trail.
Today, though, Bond had walked for two hours without seeing anyone. Lacking fresh water of his own, he had to rely on the fruit of a pawpaw tree for sustenance. He was drenched in sweat from head to toe. About thirty minutes after eating his last pawpaw, the forest began to thin and Bond soon found himself on the edge of a dirt road. A bleached-out road sign seemed to indicate that a village named Lokani was just two kilometers away.
Bond followed the road around a bend and soon could make out a gathering of thatched roofs in the distance. He found a heavy branch on the edge of the forest that would have to do as a makeshift weapon and cautiously approached. The mud huts were roughly laid out in a circle around a cluster of shade trees in the middle of the village. The huts on Bond's right as he approached were heavily damaged – their roofs burned and walls caved in – it seemed as if Lokani had been a target of one of the MiGs.
The village was quiet, seemingly abandoned. Bond worked his way along the inside of the circle. He noted three decomposing corpses under the trees in the center of the village, a woman and two men, it appeared. He cautiously moved along, looking for sources of fresh water and signs of life.
As he reached the last hut in the circle, he found a small boy on the ground leaning against the opening. The boy was frighteningly thin, his bones protruding unnaturally from under the tightened skin and his eyes listlessly staring in Bond's direction.
Bond kneeled down next to him, then poked his head inside the opening of the hut. The awful smell made him recoil instantly. There must have been a dozen, maybe 15 children inside, none of them moving. He turned back to look at the boy in the opening.
"Hello?" Bond asked.
Getting no response, he watched his chest for signs of respiration. There were none. He took the boy's wrist and felt for a pulse. Again, no sign. Bond carefully rubbed his hand over the child's face, closing his eyelids, then laid him down.
Bond's stomach wretched at the sight and smell. He left the village feeling depressed and hopeless. Until he thought he heard the sound of a car coming from a clearing at the end of the dirt road.
Bond rushed to the clearing – he had been right, as he saw the taillights of a car vanish into the distance. It was another one of those beat-up two-lane asphalt roads. He oriented himself to the sun and where he thought Port Dunbar was in relation and began to walk down the gravel shoulder.
Bond figured he had walked walked for more than an hour, having watched three cars speed past, when finally the next vehicle he encountered responded to his gestures and slowed to stop alongside. It was a classic 1970's Volkswagen Beetle, driven by a middle-aged man with silvering hair. This driver had done the same thing as Justine, with a red cross covering the roof of the vehicle.
"Where you go?" he asked.
"Port Dunbar," Bond replied.
"I drop you at Madougo. Too many MiGs near Port Dunbar."
Bond had no idea where Madougo was, but at least Bond would be off his feet for a while. He opened the door and slid in.
As they drove, Bond told the driver about what he had seen in Lokani.
"All the villages dead. Everyone alive go to Port Dunbar."
As they pulled into Madougo, Bond got the man to promise that he would tell the authorities about the children in Lokani. At the least, Bond wanted to ensure they got a proper burial.
Madougo was a larger town than Lokani, and it still showed some signs of life. The Beetle dropped Bond off outside a small roadside shack tended to by a toothless old woman. She had some pieces of fruit arranged in a basket and a couple of Green Star beers. She didn't speak English, so Bond used gestures to barter his jacket for the beers, a pawpaw and a banana.
He sat down on a rickety stool in the shade, using the edge of the table as a lever to open the beers as he devoured the fruit. A few villagers wandered by the stand, staring at him for a few moments before leaving. I must be quite the sight, Bond thought to himself. He figured it wouldn't be long until reports of a dirty white man emerging from the jungle to drink beer at a roadside shack in Madougo would get someone's attention.
The beer was warm and because of the heat and Bond's trek through the jungle, it went to his head quickly. He was sleepy and sluggish by the time he saw a dusty mid-century Mercedes sedan pull up to the shack. The door opened and Kobus stepped out.
"Welcome to Dahum," he said with a brief smile.
