Lew stepped forward inside the swing, his left arm going up at an angle to deflect the blow upward, at the same time that his right foot was coming up very hard into Charlie’s crotch. Charlie screamed, a very satisfying sound in any language, and shriveled to the ground like an ant on a burning log. The two-by-four hit the floor and bounced away.
The men loved it. They laughed; they clapped their hands; they said admiring things to one another. Lew bent down to place a solicitous hand on Charlie’s shoulder, saying, “You all right, Charlie?”
Charlie couldn’t quite raise his head far enough to look up but he did manage to nod.
“Will you still be able to translate? Should I get somebody else to translate?”
“I can do it.” Charlie’s voice sounded as though it were being strained through canvas.
“I need good translations, Charlie. Accurate translations. You’re sure you’re up to it?”
Now Charlie did lift his head. He and Lew studied one another, their faces just a few inches apart, and Lew watched Charlie work out the equation in his own mind. Bad translation equals extreme pain. Good translation equals an end to pain.
Slowly, Charlie nodded. “I can do it,” he said.
“Fine. Let me help you up.”
Charlie stood, his posture and expression those of a very old man. Lew made a little show of dusting him off, while the watching men giggled and slapped their knees. Then Lew said, “Ready?”
Charlie swallowed noisily. Standing a bit straighter, he said, “Yes. Ready.” His voice wasn’t normal yet, but it was better.
“Good. Tell them the purpose of that demonstration was to prove that a weapon does not make a man invincible.”
From Charlie’s tone, and the men’s interested reaction, he was translating verbatim now. Satisfied, Lew went on: “But we are not going into Uganda to look for a fight. There’s a shipment there, to be loaded and unloaded. That’s what we’re going for. Most of us will not be armed.”
There was a stir of dissatisfaction when Charlie translated that last sentence. Lew said, “If Ugandan Army or police attack us, we will leave Uganda at once. My job is to teach you how to get back to the rafts in case of attack. In other words, how to retreat, while those with guns protect your rear.”
One of the seated men made an indignant statement. Charlie said, “He says, give them all guns, they’ll protect themselves.” He was clearly pleased that Lew was being given some trouble.
Lew nodded. “Look at the man next to you,” he told them, and waited while they listened to the translation and then did actually look back and forth, confused and self-conscious, laughing at one another.
Lew went on slowly, giving Charlie plenty of time to put it all in Swahili: “That man beside you has very little experience with guns, and no experience at all with war. Imagine you are walking in the woods, with an entire army somewhere around. Imagine that man now sitting beside you is also in the woods, somewhere nearby. There’s a commotion up ahead. People are shooting; people are yelling. With all the trees and bushes, you can’t see what’s going on, you can’t tell who’s who. Do you really want that man now sitting beside you to have a gun, out there in those woods, near you?”
There was general discontent at that. Several of the men had things to say. Like most people, they wanted to believe they were capable of decisive heroic action. Probably the most difficult part of Lew’s job—in the armies he’d worked for, as well as here—was to get people to understand their limitations. Once they’d accepted how ignorant and unready they were, they’d be prepared to start listening to instruction.
Charlie, having a wonderful time, turned back to Lew. “They say—”
“I know what they say.”
Hunkering down in front of the attaché case that he’d brought in here like any schoolteacher entering any classroom, opening it so the lid obscured the contents from his students, Lew took out two pistols, both Italian-made Star .38 caliber. Shutting the lid, he stood and faced the group, the pistols held loosely in his hands. “Tell them this, Charlie. If any man here thinks he knows guns well enough to be trusted with one in Uganda, he can prove it by dueling with me now.” At continuing stunned silence from his left, he said, “Tell them, Charlie.”
Charlie did, and the men became wide-eyed and silent. Lew went on: “We’ll stand on opposite sides of this room, each of us holding his pistol at his side. Charlie will count to three, and then we will both begin firing, and continue until somebody has been hit. I won’t shoot to kill; I’ll aim for the knee.”
They discussed it among themselves. Lew continued in a negligent manner to show them the pistols.
At last Charlie, his manner betraying a surprised and reluctant admiration, said, “They don’t want to do it.”
“Tell them this. I’ll say what they know and what they don’t know. And if anyone disagrees with me, he can always call my bluff.”
Charlie translated that with as much relish as when he’d thought it was Lew who was in trouble. The seated men looked mulish and resentful as they listened, but not actually rebellious.
Lew put the pistols away, snapped the case shut, and went on with his lecture.
“I don’t want any of you to die in Uganda. I don’t want you to shoot each other, and I don’t want you to be shot by the police. Mr. Balim knows I have worked as an instructor in different armies, and he has asked me to teach you what you have to know to be safe on our trip together. We only have a few days, so if you don’t want to learn, or you don’t like the way I teach, you can leave. No one will argue with you.”
Lew looked around the room, expecting that this bluff also would not be called. The men were being offered a very healthy bonus for this work, and had been told only the bare minimum they needed to know: that they would travel over the lake to Uganda, that they would work as loaders there of a “shipment” (they hadn’t been told of what), and that they would travel back to Kenya the next day. Lew expected a combination of greed and curiosity to keep them all actively involved.
He was right. They settled down at last, and he talked to them about the terrain they would be covering. He explained how, in heavy woods, even a group their size could avoid being seen from the air. He told them how to react under fire: never run in a straight line, and—most important—never assume immediately that they’re shooting at you. “You’re hiding behind a tree. They’re shooting at some other guy. You panic and run. Now they’ll shoot at you, and probably hit you, too.”
He told them what to do in case they were captured: “Tell them everything they ask. Tell them the truth, cooperate, give them anything they want. Let them see how scared you are. And keep a very sharp eye out for a chance to get away. Listen to me, this is important. If you come on like a tough guy, they’ll beat you down and eventually they’ll kill you. If you behave like a nervous wreck, and answer all their questions, they won’t worry about you very much, they might even get careless with you. In a battle, there’s lots of distractions. If you see a chance to run, take it.”
Out of the attaché case he brought an example of the one weapon he wouldn’t mind their carrying: a woolen sock, filled with sand. “Just tie it loosely. If you think you’re about to get caught, untie it, dump the sand out, throw the sock away. Then you’ve never had a weapon at all.”
They enjoyed the sock full of sand; from the way they pointed at Charlie and laughed and said several things, they wanted Lew to demonstrate the weapon on Charlie. “What are they saying?” Lew asked, straight-faced.