Chapter 2: Well Met on an Ill Road

"Hello, Richard Owls. London Times. I presume you must be Dr. Ludwig Manteuffel. Glad you could take me in on such a short notice."

A somewhat plumb, blond-haired man with a scruffy look and a thin, wiry receding hair line looked up from his writing pad through thick glasses and saw a red-haired, tall and almost gaunt man smiling and squinting under the uncomfortably radiant morning sun:

"There's room for more, actually. Your editor-in-chief was very pleasant on the phone, and quite convincing."

Ethan laughed politely and replied, tilting his head only barely so he could shade his eyes at least:

"He's a wily bastard, I'll say. When he can tell his arse from his elbow that is."

The doctor extended his hand casually and smiled, a bit puzzled:

"I hope he's not exhibiting a cognitive disfunction of such proportions. It could prove quite problematic in his line of work."

Ethan shook the doctor's hand with some hesitation, shaking his head in ignorance:

"I can't say I'm quite following you, doctor."

Dr. Manteuffel wiped the sweat on his forehead with the arm holding the writing pad and exhaled briskly with the hint of a slight laugh:

"Distasteful doctor's humor, Mr. Owls. Can I call you Richard? Please call me Ludwig, we'll be on the road together for some time. This isn't exactly a dinner party we're going to, yes?"

A number of people around them was busy loading the Land Rovers with all sorts of crates, bags, and sacks with everything from gauzes to canned food and flour. Ethan looked quite accustomed to the heat and the Nigerian sun, at odds with the stocky german doctor who seemed to be discomforted immensely, even though he tried his best not to show it. Ethan nodded with a sparkly grin and said:

"Can't see any drinks on offer, and the timing's off too. Ludwig, then?"

The german doctor motioned with his pad to the paltry shade offered by a nearby tent filled with crates stamped with the sign of the Red Cross, and Ethan lead eagerly. The doctor replied:

"You can also call me Baron. It's a nickname my colleagues often use, jokingly of course."

"No real title then?"

"Oh, the family name is old and at some point there was some land associated with it. The land was sold but the title stuck. The war, you see."

Ethan put down his knapsack and welcomed the shade, settling on a crate. His eyes seemed suddenly old, staring outside at the crowd of volunteers when he said:

"There's always some kind of war going on. Isn't that why you're here now?"

The doctor put down his pad on one of the crates, pulled a fold-up chair from a corner of the tent, spread it open and sat down, his relief obvious in the way he splayed his feed, heels on the dirt. He took a few short breaths before answering in a peculiar, thoughtful voice:

"I'm here to help in what way I can. Famine and disease are just as lethal as bullets from what I've seen. But why are you here?"

Ethan frowned in puzzlement and smiled in his usually disarming way. He tried to sound casually baffled when he said:

"Tell the world what's going on in Biafra. Take some pictures. Perhaps ask London for a raise too once I'm famous."

The doctor put one leg on the other and seemed somewhat distraught, perhaps worried:

"So, a professional. I was hoping for a bit of a romantic you see. Every help we can get is better than none at all. And frankly, you look like you don't need much help in these parts."

Ethan crossed his arms against his chest, purely an instinctive defensive motion that only helped to show his nervousness. His charm didn't seem to work as intended, and his sly grin was his way of showing he genuinely liked the plumb Prussian doctor for his openness:

"What can I say, I've been places. Suez. Kenya. Angola. Vietnam."

The doctor reached into his sweat-stained shirt's pocket and procured a pack of Camel's. He put one into his mouth and proferred one to Ethan as well, who politely nodded his refusal, the grin unwaveringly attached on his tanned face. The doctor got up from his seat, while searching around for something to light his cigarette, while replying in a slightly muffled voice:

"I'm sure you enjoy travelling. A lot, I might add. Light?"

Ethan laughed and felt somewhat unburdened. He offered Dr. Manteufel a lighter from one of his pants' side pockets:

"I can't really say what's on your mind, Ludwig."

The doctor lit his Camel and seemed to cherish the moment before answering, his eyes squarely meeting Ethan's gaze before asking him straight:

"Are you going to be trouble? We don't need any more trouble where we're going."

Ethan took his lighter back and answered the doctor, the sudden quietness in his voice the only indication that he himself was somewhat uncertain:

"I want to stay out of trouble as much as you do."

Ludwig drew on his cigarette once more, this time exhaling briskly and adding hastily:

"Good. That's good. Thank you."

Ethan nodded in silence before the doctor went on:

"I just want to help these people, and stay alive in the process. Is it too much to ask?"

"No, I suppose it's not."

Ludwig then put out his cigarette in the dirt and wiped his forehead once more. He seemed to mumble to himself:

"Good man. A good man."

Ethan noticed and asked the doctor, his voice right on the edge of doubt:

"How can you tell?"

Ludwig looked at him with some reluctance before replying:

"I can't. But I have hope."

Space inside the Land Rover was at a premium. Not an inch of space had gone to waste; it almost seemed like the passengers inside were intruding on the cargo space and not the other way around. Ethan had come up with a very comfortable-looking seating arrangement on top of a sack of rice, along with a wooden crate against his back and a couple of flour bags to put his feet up on. He and the doctor were riding along together at the rear of the small convoy of Land Rovers.

Ludwig was sweating profusely, and kept dabbing his forehead and face with a small hand towel. It only made his suffering a little less unbearable and a little more obvious. Ethan had been sleeping on and off, the car's continuous jerks and road bumps having developed into a sort of lullaby. Their driver was invariably focused on the task at hand, barely uttering a word. Ludwig could not stop himself from asking, straining his voice to be heard over the roar of the diesel engine. Even though at previous times he hadn't received an answer he could make good use of yet, his pitch had an air of optimism about it:

"Are we going to stop any time soon, Olufemi?"

The driver's answer was curt and to the point, as had been the case previously as well.

"Yes."

Ludwig who would otherwise consider an endless talker a nuisance at best, appeared to be edging on aggravation. Olufemi's brusqueness felt like he was doing the doctor a favor by even considering an answer.

The doctor made another effort to engage in conversation or at least learn some hopefully interesting information about their whereabouts:

"Well, could you refine that somewhat? How soon exactly, is soon? More or less, of course."

Olufemi paused for a moment before answering in his usual, quietly dry manner:

"Before nightfall."

Ludwig nodded to himself, and tried to clear his parched throat with little success and barely a spit. Ethan had a contemplating look drawn upon his face, his gaze darting from bush to grove. He held his camera in hand, the inadvertent swarm of flies seemingly rather fond of him. Ludwig tried to get his attention, engage in some kind of discussion to relieve himself of the dullness:

"That camera ... It's a Leica, right?"

Ethan turned to face Ludwig with a furrowed brow, and having been caught unawares asked rather plainly:

"I'm sorry?"

Ludwig repeated himself, this time almost shouting:

"The camera. It's a Leica M3, right? Some very good equipment you have there."

Ethan shrugged indifferently, effortlessly shooting down Ludwig's hopes. A prolonged silence followed once again, regularly interrupted by the creaks and croans of the Land Rover's chassis. As the evening wore by, flies began to give their place to mosquitoes. The grassy hills rushed by, lush with vegetation, filled with tall, thin trees and distant mangroves. The swampy savannah drew distant with every passing minute.

Ethan turned and addressed Olufemi in Yoruba with a ghastly accent, but decent enough to be understood. The driver suddenly burst into laughter and started talking vividly with Ethan. A torrential flow of Yoruba was intermixed with laughs, giggles and extravagant hand gestures. Ethan was responding in kind, and judging by his tone, sometimes asking, sometimes filling in and sometimes simply nodding. Olufemi even made eye contact with Ludwig once, before breaking down in laughter once more before finally being able to settle down to his invariably dull and sullen mood. Ludwig looked at Ethan with eyes that shone rather irregularly and a voice slightly reminiscent of gritted teeth:

"Care to share, Richard?"

The last word sounded unusually venomous for the good doctor, while Ethan countered the irate mood with an almost flippant radiating smile, before adding vivaciously:

"He thinks you talk too much."

Ludwig raised his brow and nodded, right before instinctively slapping his arm, failing to kill a mosquito. Before Ludwig could have had the chance to retort in a manner unbecoming of a doctor, Olufemi suddenly cut in:

"For a doctor. We dem almost there. See now, the clearing."

Both of them looked up ahead to where the road steered off course and into a dirt path that seemed to lead slowly upwards onto a small ridge. Ludwig asked then with barely conceiled exhilaration:

"Is that where we stop for the night?"

Olufemi gave a nod instead of answering properly, while Ethan was looking more and more at the sky, its rosy and purple hues lighting up the gathering clouds, dressing them in the imagery of cotton candy. While the last light could be seen falling around them, Ethan said with some disappointment:

"It's going to rain like the devil, that's for sure."

The driver nodded his silent agreement, while Ludwig said with the slightest hint of irony:

"I thought Brits liked rain."

To which Ethan commented wryly:

"We like rain alright. It's all that water we could live without."

Olufemi started laughing again, and this time Ludwig managed to crack a smile. Ethan laid back on his sack once more while the first droplets of water gathered on the windshield. Ludwig retorted with a grin:

"And the rest of us could be spared your dry sense of humor as well."

Ethan lit up a cigarette and inhaled deeply before answering:

"Well said."

As Ludwig joined him, sharing the same cigarette, the small droplets rapidly grew into a proper tropical storm, causing even Olufemi to exclaim:

"Dis dey proper fuck."

Ethan was about to translate when Ludwig made himself heard over the din of the storm:

"I think I get the idea, Richard."

Visibility had been reduced to the car up ahead, and only thanks to the powerful headlights. The caravan was moving with a walking speed, carefully treading on a dirt-turned-into-mud path barely wide enough to euphemistically call a road. Olufemi made some colourful remarks about the driving conditions, to which Ethan replied while throwing out his cigarette through an inch of open window:

"At least we're not being shot at."

Ludwig stabbed Ethan with a gaze unusually hard and firm for such a seemingly light-mannered man and asked him:

"Would it make good press?"

Ethan shrugged and before he had time to answer, a blinding flash lit the area in front of them and in the blink of an eye they felt the surging overpressure of a shockwave on their eardrums. A wall of dirt and mud seemed to go up in the air, lifting with it the chassis of the Rover in front of the column. Ethan's shouting was barely heard through buzzing eardrums:

"Landmine! Stop, stop! Get out, now!"

Olufemi panicked and let go of the wheel, their car bumping on the Rover in front. The flaming debris of the destroyed Land Rover could be seen, lying on the edge of the road upturned and torn. Pandemonium ensued.

"What was that?" Ludwig asked with a slight tremor in his voice. The answer from Ethan came accompanied by a powerful shove:

"Landmine or RPG! Now move! Out of the car! And stay low!"

Olufemi was faster to comply, opening his door and rushing out, frantically searching for more flashes or explosions, but none came. Ludwig sloppily made his way out of the doors in the back of the Rover over the assorted bags and crates, while Ethan opened the window behind him and drew himself out in a fluid motion.

He shouted to the bewildered people in the caravan, some of which had already stepped outside their Rovers, dazed and confused:

"Get out! Lay low and don't move!"

Ethan's eyes were frantically looking for signs of movement in the torrential rain, the light from the headlamps the only source of illumination. There were no muzzle flashes, launch trails or smoke. There was a lot of shouting and confusion, but the characteristic hammering sound of AKs was absent. This was not an ambush. Ethan's voice took on an authoritative yet calming tone:

"Calm down. Stay put. No-one's shooting at us. It was a landmine. Tell the people next to you to calm down and stay put."

Everyone was drenched to the bone. All around him, Ethan could see faces frozen in sheer terror, some of them shaking visibly. Olufemi had started shouting calls to the other drivers in Yoruba, when Ethan's instincts kicked in; he quickly walked over him and put a hand to his mouth. Olufemi was surprised and looked at Ethan sideways, giving him a look of frustrated fear. Ethan put one finger to his mouth while shaking his head, and let go of Olufemi's mouth:

"No shouting, not in Yoruba. Understand, mate? Not around these parts."

Olufemi could only nod. Rather baffled though he was, he motioned with his hands to the other drivers who by now had his attention to 'lay low'. With fear and hesitation as plentiful as the rain pouring down on them, the drivers complied, some of them already on their knees and praying.

Ethan felt the heavy rain on his head, tried to wash away everything else and focus on the moment. He needed to calmly tell these people what to do next, when Ludwig came up from behind him, the sound of his approach muffled by the rain and the din from the people in shock. Ethan's eye simply caught a shadow approaching. He twisted around sharply, grabbed Ludwig from one arm and place his foot to act as a pivot. Before having time to actually see Ludwig, he was already throwing him down to the dirt, still grabbing his arm.

Ludwig splashed in the mud yelling, markedly scared and half-witted:

"It's me! It's me! Scheisse!"

Ethan breathed deeply, letting some of the adrenaline wear off before picking up Ludwig and offering his apologies:

"Sorry I jumped on you. It's a conditioned reflex."

Ludwig could not help but shout irately:

"Conditioned reflex?!"

"Just so happens, yes. Never mind that, we need to get these people off the road. Someone fucked up the itinerary. Olufemi!"

The driver turned and nodded. He looked shaken but he was evidently quick about his wits. Ethan leaned slightly towards him, shouting to be heard and pointing at the column of stopped rovers and the frightened crowd:

"Step on the Rovers' tracks. Tell the rest of the drivers to get the people back inside. See if anyone's wounded, get the doctors working on them. We'll be safe as houses then."

Olufemi nodded and carefully started walking towards the first Rover, while the people were shouting out questions to noone in particular. Ethan started walking up the front of the column, carefully passing by people and telling everyone to be calm and emphasize that they were probably safe.

Once he reached the debris of the first Rover, he saw the people in the second car frozen still. They had bled out of their ears, probably deaf and scared to death. Ethan took a closer look: the driver was still clutching his wheel, all tensed up and in shock. The explosion had shattered the windshield, and along the water that had pooled inside there was what remained of a shattered, blown away arm. The driver had shattered fragments of glass all over his face, and his eyes were a bloody mess.

Ethan shouted to Ludwig:

"Ludwig! Grab a first aid kit, and come up front! Face injury! Try and stay on the tire tracks!"

Ludwig nodded affirmatively and disappeared in the back of the Rover. Ethan grabbed the blind man from one arm and told him nothing. He simply squeezed him gently and felt the man's blood pumping like a flooded river.

Once Ludwig arrived he shot a quick glance at the blown up vehicle, and quickly turned to say something to Ethan who shook his head in denial:

"Not a chance, mate. I'm sorry. Enough explosives to throw five thousand pounds six feet in the air. It's a bloody miracle this one's lost just his eyes instead of his head. The others are in the back, scared shitless, a bit deaf probably but otherwise in one piece."

Ludwig nodded appreciatively and focused on the task at hand, trying not to think about the people in that first Rover. His motions were calm and professional, as if he was working in an examination room. Ethan urged him to hurry up, and took a few steps forward towards the small crater which had effortlessly turned into a pool. He took out a flashlight from one of his pants' pockets and a large leaf-shaped knife from an ankle belt.

He crouched and slowly crept towards the pool, carefully studying the ground, digging in with the knife at seemingly random intervals. Going past the pool, his eyes avidly scanned the mud. Before long, even under the unabating rain and all the mess of debris he caught a glimpse of a dull olive-green shape barely protruding from the muddy ground. A careful prod at the rim with the knife let him know this was another landmine. A few feet to his right, he could make out the outline of another. A slow, careful sweep with the flashlight uncovered two more, less than ten feet apart. He slid back to the crater and got up, jogging back to Ludwig and the injured man.

A certain amount of quiet and calm had started to settle among the crowd. Olufemi could be seen quietly exchanging concerned looks with the other drivers, some of them already back inside their Rovers, trying to find a dry smoke.

"It's a proper god-awful minefield," said Ethan to Ludwig.

Ludwig was still dressing the eyes of the driver, after having administered some sedatives for the excruciating pain that would follow the end of the adrenaline rush. He was dripping wet, smeared with blood all over his hands and shirt.

"Your deductive reasoning amazes me," said the doctor, not bothering to hide the tone of irony. Ethan replied calmly:

"It could have been a single land mine, an old ambush site. No, this was a proper minefield, there's probably more of them around the bushes and trees. We need to go back. I don't know who decided on this itinerary, but it wasn't safe. Killed those people in the Rover, and it might have killed us all. Might still as well. We need to get moving out of here."

Ludwig suddenly stopped tending to the wounded driver. He closed his eyes and seemed to whisper something in German. Ethan told him sternly:

"What are you blabbering about? They're dead, Ludwig. Come on now, pull it together."

The doctor exploded with fury at Ethan, letting his utensils drop to the mud:

"I picked the roads! It was me! So fuck you, Mr. Owls!"

Ethan fell instantly silent, knowing there was nothing meaningful to say to the doctor. The next moment, the doctor was leaning on the side of the Rover, emptying his stomach involuntarily.

Olufemi noticed the slight commotion, and came a bit closer to see. Ethan explained to Olufemi as he approached:

"We need to go back, around another way. It's probably best if we can stop for the night someplace near. Anything in mind?"

Olufemi seemed to pause and think for a while, and then nodded with renewed vigor:

"Yes, dey is a mission," his voice ringing clear through the never-ending rain.

"What kind of a mission?"

"French Catholic. Nuns," replied Olufemi with a very peculiar and untimely grin.

Ludwig suddenly stood straight, hanging onto the Rover's door though, and said with a pale face:

"We're going back. This caravan is no more."

Rivulets of rain ran freely down Ethan's taut face when he said with the slightest hint of irony:

"How are you going to help then, doctor?"

"I'll have no more blood on my hands. I can never -"

"You're scared out of your mind, I know. Maybe you've shat yourself, or pissed on your pants. Can't tell with the bloody rain. It's only natural. Fear is natural."

"It doesn't matter what I feel, damn you! These people trusted me with their -"

"Signed the papers, didn't they? Listen, this is fuckall, alright? You can't think straight. Olufemi, take point in our Rover. I'll drive this one. Doctor, seriously, grab a couple of sedatives yourself and just hang on. Alright?"