Chapter 1, Section II: Uncle Gilbert’s Arrest, August 8, 1968

Inside the pit toilet where he had foolishly entered to urinate and defecate, the two recruiters cornered him. Realizing the situation he had gotten himself into, he admitted how reckless he had acted, knowing full well that it was a time of war and that he was the only youth of fighting age left in Eziama. All the others had either been killed or were currently fighting for the Igbo and Biafra.

Later, he rationalized. Who would have blamed him for getting up at three in the morning to tiptoe to the pit bathroom? Who would have known that recruiters would come into his house out of nowhere, to recruit him, to force him to fight?

Four months after the war started, he had stopped going to church. Churches and markets, especially churches, were often places recruiters loved to go. They would tear men from the presence of God, only to send them into the darkness of the devil. The home was also not safe. Still, it was better that he should die in the town of Eziama than on the battlefield where his corpse would never be found, where there would be no priest available to give the last sacrament.

‘Out! You’re under arrest!’—Bang bang, bang—- It was the voice, and the sound, of one of the recruiters banging on the zinc door of the toilet.

Gilbert held his thoughts momentarily and waited in silence. ‘Why are you so angry?’ he wondered when he might start thinking again.

If men like you hid, who would the bullet kill? yelled the recruiter angrily.

Gilbert did not reply. He was astride the round, dark hole in the toilet when they collided. Then, by sheer force of will, he quickly cut off urine and defecation, zipped up his pants, and walked backwards to lean against the rear wall of the pit latrine.

In addition to his right leg there were two cement blocks, one on top of the other. Above them, a family of little apprentice spiders and suicidal black ants posed as sidekicks. With the foreknowledge of how their collaboration would end, Gilbert sighed and cruelly sat on them as if they were worthless.

Then he made a decision. Neither prayers nor heavy sighs would save him. There was a way to outwit these recruiters, for even though they might have a weapon and some imaginary authority given to them by a faceless area commander in Enugu, they were still playing their turf.

A casual glance up made him think fast. Between the tin roof and the back wall of the outhouse there was space, a small opening through which a breeze blew and a flash of light came from the aged moon. What if he, Gilbert, threw himself into the bushes behind the wall? Then he would have a head start before the two recruiters could jump the fence and go after him. Knowing the terrain of the thick brush gave him a recognizable advantage, so he had a short-lived celebration.

But then he remembered the size of his head and the overgrown hair. Once he began to poke his fat head through the crack, the recruiters didn’t hesitate to slam open the zinc door, grab him by both legs as he dangled from the wall, and toss him out like a sack of cassava.

Gilbert sat down on the two blocks again, and without any particular purpose began to group together in search of an object of any kind. First find an item, and then the use would be revealed. Luck was on his side when he felt a sword. It didn’t matter that the knife had no handle. Weeks ago he had heard the story of how Bartholomew, a young man almost his own age, had been discharged from the Biafran army because he had cut off the fingers of his right hand.

Thinking of how successful Bartholomew had been, Gilbert began to cut off his hand, starting with the left little finger. He had broken through the skin and had begun to draw the first drop of blood when the angry recruiter began tearing at the bottom of the zinc door with both hands. In a panic, Gilbert dropped the knife.

Whats Next? She didn’t have time to cut off a finger. On the other hand, coming across as foolish wasn’t that hard to cut off fingers. No army worth his blood and treasure wants a madman on the battlefield. Why he had never thought of the foolish game, the only stratagem that came naturally to him, baffled him. Without his active involvement, the circumstances thus far, while humiliating, had been perfectly set up in a mysterious way for him to play the fool.

If the recruiters judged him without prejudice, not considering that his lateness had made his job more difficult, they would release him with the conclusion that no sane person would hold out in a privy for an hour or more.

Who but a madman would bear the stench? Who but a madman would tolerate scores of bath flies, some landing in his hair, others crawling up his nostrils? Who but a madman would not raise his hand to hit them?

Terrified of death, Uncle Gilbert hesitantly approached the tin door, unlatched it, and surrendered.