Chapter 15 - One of Them

The Sun drops quickly in its near-vertical path towards the horizon. It is time to stop, for darkness will swallow the forest very soon. The workers hammer the last nails into the final rail that will be laid today. We have worked well and covered a surprisingly long distance. The engineer Christensen gives the order to stop, and one by one the men throw their tools into the wagon of the train. I wipe the sweat from my forehead with my handkerchief and shake the engineer’s hand.

"Well done…" I say, and he congratulates me in return.

"Christensen!" Commander Rom suddenly shouts.

The engineer turns and goes towards him to understand what is wrong.

"The major wants to see you, at once!" the commander says sharply.

"What the hell…?" the engineer mutters, not understanding the alarm.

"Christensen, over here!" the major’s voice also rings out. He is standing on the last piece of railway we have just laid. "And you too, Deghendt!"

He summons me as well. A terrible premonition grips me, though I cannot see what the problem might be. Both the engineer and I have checked the work carefully, and as far as we are concerned everything is in order.

"How much track have you laid today?" the major asks in a voice twenty degrees below zero.

We look back at the length we have put down in this long day. Now we understand.

"Each rail is thirty-nine feet long, or roughly more than twelve yards, let us say…" the major begins. "And I see… one, two, three…"

He starts counting in a low voice.

"… twenty-five rails, yes?"

"Yes… that’s right…" we reply together.

"So twenty-five rails is hardly more than three hundred yards, if I am not mistaken?"

We shake our heads to show that indeed he is not mistaken.

"Did I not demand five hundred yards a day?"

"Yes, understood," the engineer tries to defend himself, "but you have seen with your own eyes the difficulties, and the means at our disposal…"

"Silence, engineer! I do not wish to hear your comments!"

The major is furious.

"I asked only for a result. You promised me it was possible, yet I am forced to conclude you have failed. Someone will have to pay the consequences! Rom, Roger, come here as well!"

The commander and the captain step forward and stand at attention before the major.

"Roger, you observed the work all day, did you not?"

"I did, major."

"Then choose the ten workers who, in your view, did the least, and bring them here."

"With respect, major," the captain hesitates to my surprise, "but the blacks resemble each other too much. I would not know who…"

"Then damn well choose the ten whose faces you dislike the most! At once!"

"At once, major!"

The captain runs back to the train where the others are gathered. I hear confusion and shouting. I also hear chief Mokoko helping him to choose; he seems to have very clear ideas about whom to send. In the end the captain returns with ten Africans, accompanied by twenty FP soldiers. The chosen workers hesitate and are reluctant to approach, but the guards push them forward.

"Good," says the major, turning to the engineer and me. "Now take a sleeper and put it here across the rails."

We obey.

"Rom, do you have the axe?" the major asks the commander.

"I have it here, major."

"Then let us see if your idea works. Put the first one here on his knees with his wrist on the sleeper!"

Three soldiers shove the first native to the ground and stretch out his right arm over the railway sleeper. The labourer is begging and praying like his friend yesterday. My heart breaks at the sight of a poor man weeping so, his cheeks streaming with tears. He looks up towards us, his masters, his face tormented, his back ruined by toil and by the lashes of the chicotte. The other labourers look ready to rebel, but the soldiers level their rifles at them.

"Deghendt, you were the one who claimed these blacks can finish five hundred yards a day, weren’t you?"

"But Major…," I stutter.

"So you agree with me that the fact we’ve managed only three hundred today is entirely the workers’ fault, don’t you?"

It is a rhetorical question. Any reply would be unwelcome, so I keep my mouth shut. I lower my head. What horror I’ve landed myself in, and all because the Major did not wish to be contradicted this morning.

"Then it is your honour to carry out the sentence. Take the axe and cut off his hand!"

I am stunned. My mouth falls open in terror. A freezing chill spreads through my body, most of all at my temples, damp with beads of sweat. I can feel my heart hammering in my throat at an unnatural rhythm.

"W… what, Major?" I stammer.

"You heard me well, Deghendt! Cut off his hand. Now!"

The Major fixes me with the gaze of a lion about to tear me to pieces. Everyone stares at me. Some with cynical delight, like Commander Rom and Captain Roger. Others with relief that the Major's ordered me to do it and not them. Still others without the slightest care in the world, like Chief Mokoko who has joined us for the spectacle, lazily waving his damned chasse-mouche.

"You heard the Major!" the Commander presses, thrusting the axe towards me. "Take it and do it!"

With trembling hands I accept it. I turn towards the poor soul who is murmuring pleas, his arm stretched across the sleeper. My legs visibly quiver. My hands grip the axe so tightly my knuckles turn white. I feel my sweat dripping onto the ground. I am petrified.

"What the hell are you waiting for? Do it!" the Major roars.

Slowly I raise the axe into the air. The desperate pleas rise louder, more urgent. The man looks into my eyes. An innocent man, whom I am about to condemn to lameness or, more likely, a slow and painful death. All because I, damn it all, did not have the courage to contradict the Major. And it would have been so easy. The only thing I ought to have done was hide behind the much wider knowledge and experience of Engineer Christensen. But I was a coward. I don’t even have the damned courage to take responsibility now and cut the hand from this pitiful monkey. A monkey who knows exactly what is about to happen, who speaks to me, who begs me with tears on his cheeks in a language I cannot understand, yet whose meaning is perfectly clear.

"Do it!"

The Major’s imperious voice thunders louder and louder in the background. The Sun has just dipped behind the dome of the forest. White spots dance before my eyes. I feel myself floating away from this place. I dare not look the man in the face any longer. My shame is too great. I have no choice. I cannot refuse a direct order, not when it might cost me my very life in this land ruled by martial law. Him or me. I fix my gaze on the black wrist and try to imagine it is only a log.

Tzak!

A rending scream.

It is done. The hand lies on the ground between the rails. Blood spurts everywhere, mostly over the guard who held down the poor man’s arm. The victim shrieks in unimaginable agony, yet I hardly hear him. I am about to faint. Still I hear the major’s voice, distant, barking at one of the black soldiers:

"You there! Do the others, or we’ll be stuck here all night!"

The guard does not hesitate. He seizes the axe from my hands and begins hacking frenziedly at his own brothers, severing the right hand from each labourer. Ten hands for failing the Major’s target by two hundred yards. I dare not look. I am shaking, my legs ready to give way beneath me.

"Well done, Deghendt!" the major remarks laconically. "Now you are one of us."

One of us. The words echo in my head. I had always wanted to be part of the club, to belong to the exclusive circle, to be an example in society. What sort of example is this! Is this what we would teach our children, that to become a true man one must pass the rite of the hand-cutting? I remember my old Latin teacher, a zealot of a priest who spoke with disdain of the Roman barbarians delighting in their bloody games. But are we different? Are we superior to those ancient savages? Truly?

I fix my eyes on the gravel at my feet, on the astonishing hues of the tiny stones shaped by natural erosion over millions of years. I try to find peace with myself but I already know this day will remain a black stain on my soul until the end of my life. May God forgive me for what I have done.

Suddenly I raise my head again, startled by shouts. One of the workers has taken advantage of the distraction and broken free from his guards. He runs for the jungle with all the speed his scarred feet can muster.

"Shoot him! Christ, shoot him!" the Major bellows.

The FP guards fumble with their rifles, then fire one after another. Ten, perhaps fifteen shots ring out. One bullet strikes the man in the side, tearing away a chunk of flesh, yet still he runs, flailing his arms, driven forward by sheer momentum. Then I see Commander Rom lift his pistol, aiming with a smile as though hunting rabbits. Oh yes, he is enjoying himself! He is beside himself with glee that the stupid bougnoul has given him the pretext to fire. He shoots once, hitting the fugitive at the back of the head. The man drops straight to the ground like a sack of flour, and moves no more.

Meanwhile three guards reach the corpse and keep firing. The Major now truly loses his temper.

"Idiots! Stop shooting! Christ! We must save ammunition!"

The soldiers turn to him, baffled, looking utterly foolish in their dark-blue zouave trousers and red caps. They stare at the Major as though waiting for instructions.

"Throw him into the jungle and get back here!" the Major shouts.

They obey. The sentences are carried out. One dead, nine maimed, writhing on the ground, likely to die soon in this merciless jungle.

Two hundred bloody yards.

"I think it’s supper time now," I hear the Major say.

I collapse to my knees and stare at the ground. No-one notices me anymore. I am the man of shame. But now… now I am one of them.