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of his own attendance
despite the sickness of his partner before lapsing into a surly silence.
    This interview with the great leader constituted the whole of his welcome and introduction into the army of Moses. It was made plain was that they were behind schedule and they broke camp before
dawn the following day, moving off to the East in a straggle of unlit vehicles down the rough track. It was three hours later when the crisis struck, but it didn’t take Josh unawares. His
every sense had been warning him from the moment when he had walked into this outfit that a moment of truth was approaching, the only questions being what and from which quarter.
    First they stopped and then they sat. From his vantage point beside the driver in the elderly Mercedes truck which had wheezed its way up the track, Josh could see in the full daylight that his
vehicle was about two thirds down the line. The column ahead wound up a shallow incline and there was a gathering way ahead by the lead vehicle, a similar truck to his own with its squat, blunt
bonnet lifted. Presumably some sort of breakdown. After a twenty minute delay, brilliant for mobility tactics he thought ruefully and all the better for being in wide open country, Josh saw the big
Belgian start to descend the track on foot. As he approached, he acknowledged Josh with a jerk of his head and shortly afterwards, Josh heard him bellow to a Frenchman who was riding shotgun in a
Land Rover further to the rear. Josh waited for them to come up to him. There was some delay while they exchanged conversation. He could see them from his cab as they talked. They knew each other
well, he decided, well enough to work together, close enough to be discussing something from which he was to be excluded.
    Finally, they walked up to his truck and Josh nodded to his driver before descending to join them. The three walked together to the head of the line and there made out a group of a dozen or so
gathered around the lead truck which by now had its bonnet mostly closed again and the engine on tick over. The assembled company included all the white mercenaries, an assortment of Africans who
served as Samson’s personal staff and of course the General himself, apparently spitting tintacks and fulminating enough to make his spray fly.
    Plus one more: a powerfully built black man, completely naked, bloodied back and buttocks. His head, neck and arms were pinned beneath the bonnet of the Mercedes truck on which two soldiers were
seated, casually raining further blows on the unprotected torso beneath them. The prisoner was flinching, jumping and scratching his feet in the dirt as he fought for purchase from which to ease
his position. His discomfort would owe less to the beating than to the under bonnet heat on his face and hands. Josh Trollope had seen this form of bush stocks treatment before.
    As Josh and the other two mercs arrived at the scene, Moses ceased his harangue to boot his captive between the legs and then turned to Josh, at the same time snarling at the Belgian to come
forward. Not that much interpretation was needed. Josh could pretty much write the script himself, but he settled himself in a casual pose, hands on hips, allowing the tirade to sweep over him and
ignoring the stumbling translation whilst he thought furiously.
    The theme of the Moses speech was that the captive was a Nigerian, an Army deserter presenting himself as a mercenary. He had been assigned to travel at the front of the convoy to be on hand for
the General in case they met English speakers. He had been caught rifling through papers, no doubt looking for cash and saleable commodities. Just now under questioning, he claimed to know you, Mr
Trollope. Probably nonsense, but just to be sure, you grill him a bit more and then finish him off. Enough time wasted already.
    It was just as Josh would have expected, and the real version said ‘this poor sod has been singled out as a means of testing you whom I