Free Blood Is Dirt by Robert Wilson Page B

inches of earth and the dead man before throwing its neck back and swallowing. The digger manoeuvred to the side of the trench and tipped out the shovel and scraped the earth in over it.
    â€˜Toxic waste,’ said Bagado.
    The soldiers stood with their backs to the drums, the other workmen in front of them. The noise from the generator and digger overwhelmed the scene. I stepped out from the trees and shot off half a roll of film. Bagado and I moved back into the trees. We made a rough calculation of the size of the dump and put the figure at around a thousand two-hundred-litre containers; a lot of them were in poor condition and all the ones we could see had Italian language printed on them.
    From where the soldiers had come into the light we guessed the direction of Akata village. At the back of the dump there was a track of dead vegetation leading from the drums down a slight incline. At the end of it we found a stream running towards the village. Bagado filled the water bottles.
    We circled back round to the other side of the dump to get some shots of the machines and men with the dump in the background. The digger was scraping more earth away from in front of the drums and dumping it in the forest. There was a jeep parked up near the generator with its licence plate facing our position. The workmen were on their haunches, eating. The soldiers looked down on them, still with their rifles but at ease.
    I was more nervous this time and didn’t step close enough to the light. When I reeled off the shots the automatic flash operated. I might as well have used a heliograph to yoo-hoo them over here. One of the soldiers pointed at me. I stumbled back and fell hard on my shoulder tying to protect the camera. Bagado dropped a water bottle and hauled me up by the collar. We bolted into the trees. All I could see was the black-and-white scene burned on my retina—two soldiers running, the other two kneeling and loading. I blundered through the forest. Bagado was gone. The first bullets snapped through the foliage, hungry but wide, well wide.
    I ran like all people in films should learn to run who’ve just seen the lunatic making his selection from the Sabatier block. I ran with no control over my tongue. I ran faster than my bowels. I found the quickest cure for gout—three pints of adrenaline injected directly into the heart.
    Just when I’d begun to think I could see something beyond the X-ray of the halogen-lit scene in my eyes, the generator cut. The light imploded behind me and with a jack-hammer jolt a jagged crack of light opened up in front of me. I ran into it, but it was too small, too tight. Then I wasn’t running any more and it was dark. So dark I thought I hadn’t been born.

Chapter 7
    Near Akata. Nigeria. Monday 19th February.
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    I surfaced from a liquid heavier than mercury into chaotic night where distant voices shouted incomprehensible things—
bola numasabba hanipitti tibiwanna subsub nabbitihib.
Why did I feel sandwiched in sponge cake? There was a popping sensation. No noise. A soap bubble bursting. A smell. I was never so glad to smell that smell. Earth. Rich, damp, black earth. The voices were speaking language this time. Yoruba. Not one of my strengths. Bad-egg saliva squirted into my mouth, my tongue was as huge as a zeppelin in a hangar.
    A mechanism clattered. A man checking to see if there was a round up the sleeve. I lay flat on my back. A ridge of pain was scored down my forehead, over my right eye, my cheek and jaw. I wanted to put my hand to my face but my arm was as heavy as a truck axle. The voices, movement, came closer. Shafts of thin light swept above the undergrowth, boots shuffled by my head, a word repeated close enough to hear the plosive on a lip. Voices moved off. High-lifted boots crushed leaves and such. I wanted to move now. I wanted to take off through the trees. The darkness pinned me, pressed me into the moist ground.
    The voices vanished. Only