weaved back and forth, trying to avoid the two lines of soldiers narrowing a gauntlet to keep the boys in a single line.
The sergeant motioned the two soldiers to Ojo. Holding the unconscious body by the armpits, they dragged the boy forward, his toes creating small furrows in the dust behind them.
They respectfully nodded to Ojo when they stopped in front of him. They held the boy by the armpits, the lad’s small chin lolling back and forth against the chest. Ojo leaned forward, careful not to drop his AK-47, and grabbed a handful of hair, pulling the boy’s head up. Only white showed in the eyes, the pupils having slipped back under the top eyelids. Spittle ran from the boy’s mouth, mixed with blood from where the sergeant’s slap had broken the skin. The upper lip was already swelling. Ojo nodded toward Niewu. He released the boy’s head, the chin bounced off the thin chest. “Bring the stick,” he said to the sergeant.
He glanced over his shoulder at the spot in the jungle where the African boy had escaped. Others had probably slipped into the jungles when the battle started, but he allowed it as this kept his name and his army’s fame growing across Africa.
Many new recruits had spoken of rumors and the pride Africans felt to have an African army achieving victories against the outsiders.
The sergeant standing before him was Nigerian. Nearly the same height as Ojo, his broad shoulders dovetailed to a muscular waist. He wore a sleeveless khaki shirt that lacked buttons. Old scars decorated the man’s hands and arms, revealing a lifetime of hard, menial work—day in and day out. A couple of times, in battle, the performance of this sergeant made him think that the man had had military training before Ojo selected him as an enforcer. The Nigerian was a man of few words.
“Niewu!” the sergeant shouted.
The two soldiers turned to where Niewu stood, the staff anchored in the red dirt. The stick was bare of limbs, about three inches in diameter. It had a natural curve along its length, and where limbs had once grown from it, dark rings of age had sealed the spots. Ojo knew the staff was slightly over a meter long because he personally measured it. A meter was a little over three feet. A child captive in a religious school must be shorter than the staff. A child of that height he was considered malleable—capable of being retrained and recovered from religious lies, the worse of which were those that taught you that taking death through your own was God’s way—Allah’s way to enter paradise. There is no paradise but Africa.
His Pan African would remove whatever the mullahs had taught; remove the lies implanted into the fertile minds of African boys. He didn’t care for Christianity either, but the Christians weren’t teaching their students that salvation lay by blowing yourself up along with everyone else who happened to be around you at the time.
“Hold the staff,” Ojo said.
At arm’s length, Niewu placed the broad end of thestick on the ground, holding the slightly narrower end by his right hand.
“Measure him,” Ojo commanded, pointing at the unconscious boy.
The two soldiers dragged the boy the couple of feet to the stick and lifted him as straight as possible. The boy’s toes touched the ground.
“No, his feet must touch the ground. The heels and toes must be level,” Niewu said.
“Aiwa,” they said together, saying “yes” in Arabic.
Ojo grimaced over the foreign language. Having an army composed of hundreds who spoke dozens of dialects and languages made necessary the use of Arabic, French, and English as the common languages. If he could, he would have mandated English as the common language for the army, but that would have isolated hundreds. No, for the time being, until he achieved his goal of ridding Africa of foreign influence, they would use the three languages.
The two soldiers lowered the lad slowly until the small feet touched the ground. The boy’s feet turned