Most of the refugees were in the Midlands and the North, and up there conditions were supposed to be worse. There were fewer in the south, and it was supposed to be easier, but nevertheless there were estimated to be around one hundred and fifty thousand civilians living off the countryside.
In a while the group of refugees below me started to organize themselves better, and I saw two or three tents being pitched. A man came into the ground floor of the house and filled two buckets with water. A fire was lit in the garden and food was laid out.
Then I noticed one of the women who was looking after two young boys. She was trying to get them to wash themselves, though without much success. She looked dirty and tired, her hair tied untidily into a rough bun behind her head. It was Isobel.
If anything this should have made my indecisiveness greater, but instead I went downstairs and asked Lateef if Sally and I could join his group.
I was heading south. Alone, I felt more secure than I had done with Lateef and the others. I had no rifle, nor any other form of weapon. I carried only my bag containing a few personal possessions, a sleeping-bag and a little food. I was able to avoid unwanted encounters with military forces, and found that my treatment at barricaded villages or defended houses was easier than if I had been with a group. The first night I slept under a hedge, the second in a barn, the third I was given a room in a house.
On the fourth day I came into contact with another group of refugees. Once initial reservations about each other had been overcome, I spoke for some time with their leader.
He asked me why I had left Lateef and the others. I told him about the rifles and what Lateef intended to do with them. I gave him my reasons for fearing the outcome of participation by refugees. I also told him about my search for my wife and daughter.
We were speaking to each other in what had once been a car-park for a pub. The rest of his group were preparing a meal and taking it in turns to wash in the kitchen of the abandoned building.
“Was your group as large as ours?”
“It was larger originally,” I said. “Before the raid there were twenty-nine men and seventeen women.”
“Who were the women? Were they your wives?”
“Mostly. I had my daughter with me, and there were three single girls.”
“There are thirty-five of us. And we’ve got more women than men.”
He told me about an incident when they had been rounded up by some Nationalist forces. Those men of suitable age had been given two alternatives: internment in concentration-camps, or mobilization into the army. Though the remainder of the group had been freed when a United Nations inspection team had arrived at the camp, many of the men had stayed behind to fight with the Nationalists.
I made a wry remark to the effect that one side wanted the men, and the other wanted the women.
The man said: “Are you sure it was the Afrims who took your women?”
“Yes.”
“Then I think I know where they might be.” He glanced at me, as if to judge what my reaction might be. “I’ve heard — though it is only a rumour — that the Afrim command has authorized several brothels of white women for its troops.”
I said: “Rumours are reliable.”
He nodded.
I stared at him, shocked and silenced. After a moment I said: “She’s only a child.”
“My wife is here,” he said. “It’s something we all have to be guarded against. All we can do is hide until the war is finished.”
I was given some food and we exchanged as much information about troop movements as we knew. They wanted to know details about Lateef’s group, and I gave them directions to where I had last seen them. I was told that the reason for this interest was that a consolidation of the two groups would strengthen their defence of the women, but in my own mind I felt that it was because I had told the leader about the rifles.
I regretted this, and saw that perhaps I had inadvertently helped sponsor a move to which I did not subscribe.
I found out as much as I could about the rumoured brothels. I knew instinctively that this was the fate that had befallen Sally and Isobel. It disgusted and frightened me, but in one sense it was reassuring since there was a chance that if the brothels were at the direction of the command there would be at least a chance of appeal, either to the command itself or to one of the welfare organizations.
I said: “Where are these brothels?”
“The nearest, I’ve heard, is to the east of Bognor.” He named a seaside town, the one in which I had discovered the bungalow with the petrol-bombs.
We consulted our maps. The town was ten miles to the southwest of us, and Lateef’s last position was a similar distance to the north. I thanked the group for their food and information, and left them. They were breaking camp and preparing to move.
The part of the coast to which I was going was not one I knew well. The towns run into one another and sprawl back into the countryside. In my childhood I had spent a holiday in the neighbourhood, but I could recall little about it.
In a few miles I encountered the edges of urban development. I crossed several major roads and saw more and more houses. Most of them appeared to be deserted, but I did not investigate further.
When I estimated I was about five miles from the coast I came across a well-made barricade built in the road. There appeared to be no defenders, and I walked up to it as openly as possible, prepared always to take evasive action should there be any trouble.
The shot, when it came, caught me by surprise. Either the cartridge was blank, or the shot was intended to miss, but the bullet came nowhere near me.
I crouched and moved quickly to the side. A second shot came, this time missing me narrowly. I dived gracelessly to the ground, falling awkwardly on to my ankle. I felt it twist under me and an agonizing pain ran through my leg. I lay still.
Later, my friend told me some amusing stories. He is a large man, and although he is only in his early thirties he looks a lot older. When he tells jokes, he laughs at them himself with his eyes closed and his mouth wide open. I had known him only a few months, since falling into the habit of drinking in the evenings. He was a regular at the pub I went to, and although I did not particularly like him, he had often sought me out for company.
He told me about a white man who was walking along a road one day when he encounters this big buck nigger carrying a duck. The man goes up to the nigger and says: “That’s an ugly-looking monkey you’ve got there.” Whereupon the nigger says: “That’s not a monkey, man, that’s a duck.” The white man stares up at the nigger and says: “Who the hell’s talking to you?”
My friend started laughing and I joined in, amused in spite of myself at the absurdity of it. Before I had finished he began to tell me another one. This was about a white man who wanted to shoot gorillas in Africa. As gorillas were very rare in that part of the jungle, everyone considered it very doubtful that he would find any. After only ten minutes he comes back saying he’s already shot thirty, and can he have some more ammunition? Of course, no one believes him, so to prove it he shows them the bicycles the gorillas had been riding.
I had seen the end of that one coming, and anyway did not consider it to be very funny, so I didn’t join with my friend in his laughter. Instead, I smiled politely and bought some more drinks.
On my way home that evening, I saw with the clarity that alcohol can sometimes bring how our modes of behaviour had already adapted subtly to allow for the presence of the Afrims and their sympathizers. To tell me the stories, my friend had taken me to a quiet corner of the bar, as if about to divulge something of the order of a state secret.