Thunderbolt Wilbur Smith (surface ebook reader .TXT) 📖

Mo told us more about General Sir’s operation as the sky darkened. Mo himself had been captured during a raid on his village by one of General Sir’s patrols, four years ago. Because of Mo’s cleverness (he didn’t put it that way, of course, he called it ‘usefulness’ instead) he’d been spared the fate of most of the children who passed through the General’s camp, so far at least. They were destined to fight at the front for the army or militia. But Mo’s ‘extra skills with languages et cetera’ made General Sir loan him out to the pirates instead. Their exploits were a strand of the General’s ‘wider operation’. By this Mo meant that General Sir invested – both money and manpower – in the pirates’ raids and took a chunk of the spoils. That’s what we were, I realised: a share of the treasure. Mo called helping the pirates ‘the easy option’ and he wasn’t joking.

‘Do the other kids resent you for it?’ Amelia asked.

‘Why would they?’ said Xander.

Mo shrugged. ‘They know I’m expendable too. The thing with the blindfolds, for example. I have to wear one entering and leaving just like you. General Sir doesn’t want any of the kids who pass through this camp to be able to find a way back to it, for obvious reasons.’

‘Not obvious to me,’ said Amelia.

‘Child soldiers become dangerous men,’ said Mo with a shrug. ‘And they have reason to want revenge.’

Mo’s face was silver. It was lit, I realised, by a sky bright with stars. I looked up at them for a moment and realised, gratefully, that the flies had gone.

When I looked back down General Sir was somehow right next to us, flanked by a couple of kids. I started. I hadn’t heard him approach at all. But if he’d been listening to what Mo had told us he didn’t let on. He simply said, ‘You must be very tired after your journey. These may be helpful for your night’s rest,’ and motioned for the two boys to put down the basket they were carrying.

It contained blankets. He passed these around himself. The way he did it seemed courteous, attentive, kind even. I heard myself thanking him as if he’d done us a real favour. ‘You’re very welcome. Sleep well,’ he replied, before retreating.

Though it could only have been about seven in the evening, General Sir was right. I was exhausted. This was hardly surprising given the ordeal of the day.

‘Where do we sleep then?’ I asked Mo. The thin blanket in my hands had a greasy feel to it. I waited for him to make a move, but he didn’t. He wrapped his own blanket around his shoulders, rolled onto his side, and stretched out in the dirt instead.

‘You’re not serious,’ said Xander. ‘Isn’t there room in one of the tents?’

‘You can look,’ said Mo. ‘But they’re generally full. Besides,’ he said, nodding in Amelia’s direction.

‘Besides what?’ said Amelia.

He didn’t reply, but I understood what he left unsaid. I’d not seen another girl here. The group watching us were all boys. Amelia is more than capable of standing up for herself – among boys or girls – but still. I think she’d also worked out what Mo meant because she said, ‘It’s a good clear night, anyway,’ in a very quiet voice and set about making herself comfortable with her blanket.

We lay in a line beneath the stars. Amelia was shivering beside me, and not because she was cold. I wanted to tell her that everything would be OK, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep the fear out of my voice if I spoke, and that would only have made matters worse. I put a hand on Amelia’s shoulder instead, squeezed it once, and lay there wondering how I’d ever plot us a way out of this horrendous mess.

32.

I slept without dreaming and woke up not knowing where I was. For a second I could have been at home under my duvet. It was a blissful thought. Immediately, however, reality came crashing in. Unlike the freshly laundered smell and feel of my duvet, the blanket currently pulled up under my nose was thin and greasy and smelled of old socks. Also, my bed is soft but the ground beneath me was hard as pavement. And whereas the only things staring at me when I wake up at home are the pictures on my bedroom walls (the closest one is of a tiger swimming across a lake: I’ve had it since I was small), now I was being stared at by eyes I did not recognise.

I jerked upright. ‘What the hell are you looking at?’ I said.

The eyes belonged to a boy of about ten. His head bobbed back on his shoulders but he didn’t move away. Neither did the boy behind him or the one to his side. There were more! How long had they been sitting there watching us sleep?

Amelia was stretching and Xander had pushed himself up on one elbow, but Mo was the first of the others to sit up and take in what was going on. He muttered something to the boys. His tone was kinder than mine and I immediately felt embarrassed at having barked at them. They slunk off.

Breakfast was the exact same meal as the day before, brought to us by another two boys, who came from the direction of General Sir’s shack. Amelia refused to eat it again. I wanted to encourage her to try but understood her well enough to know that it would just backfire.

As the rest of us finished eating, General Sir appeared. The dog I’d disturbed the previous day was with him, together with another, more wolf-like hound. He had the big, menacing-looking kid who’d stared me down the day before with him as well. Mo later told me his name was Kayd. The boy and the dogs looked dusty