YOU WILL FIND THE WAY: @jerrybanfield's Supernatural Writing Contest- SWC

This is my father's story. This happened long before I was born. The story is a significant part of his experience during the civil war in Nigeria that threatened to divide the country. I believe this experience went on to shape who my father eventually became.
The Nigerian/Biafran Civil War took place from July 1967 - January 1970. Being from the Ibo tribe, my father and his family were on the Biafran side. It is a fact that millions of the Biafran people died from disease and starvation. My father and his family were not unaffected.
I put together this story from stories I heard about the war from my father, his younger brother and the conversations they would have about the war, several years later.

I hope this following story fits into the supernatural writing sought after by @jerrybanfield.

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July 1968

The truck came to a halt close to the deserted market square. Two men jumped down quickly from the front. They had stopped briefly to refuel. Going to the back of the vehicle, the two men signaled three boys who alighted carrying a jerry can of fuel between them. The boys were cleanly shaven just like the rest at the back of the truck. It was rather quiet amongst them. Most were lost in their thoughts while a few quietly watched the proceedings going on.

He was one of those lost in his thoughts. A frail looking boy of about fifteen, he sat with his back against a side of the truck, looking down at his bare feet. He knew he was quite close to home but the temptation of running back home was no longer there. His small frame harbored a resolute mind. He was convinced that this was the only way. What was there to run back to anyway? The war had taken its toll on them. His siblings were starving; his mother was quite ill unable to fend for them and his father who had married three other wives had abandoned them to their plight. It was only his mother’s brother who had sought his sister and her children out and brought them food to eat. But lately, he was also finding it difficult to cater for his own family and though he offered several times to take them all in, under his roof, they all knew this was almost an impossible feat in this war time.

“Benji! Benji!! Benji!!!” An excited small voice called from a distance.

He looked up to see his younger brother running towards him. Benjamin knew they must have been looking for him for the past two days since he left home. He had snuck out of the house to join the army against his mother’s wish. Weeks of hunger and starvation pushed him to this decision. He could no longer bear to watch his siblings starve even as his mother’s ill health got worse. He had heard that it was only in the army that one stood a better chance of getting regular food supplies and even medicine. So when he heard the soldiers were conscripting boys at a neighboring village and mothers and their boys were busy running and hiding from the army, he had snuck out of the house and run in the opposite direction, towards the army. He saw this as the only opportunity to save his family even if he was at a great risk of being killed himself.

Ambrose, his younger brother, got to where they were just as their vehicle roared to life. The soldiers in front were taking them to a training ground from where they would be deployed to their various battalions. It was sweat and excitement that was spread all over Ambrose’s face. He saw his elder brother with the soldiers and realized where his brother had been all this while they were looking for him. Their truck was leaving, so he could no longer run towards them again. He simply stopped and waved.

Benji now stood, waving at his brother and trying to shout over the noise of the engine at him, telling him not to let their mother know his whereabouts. He didn’t want her to be worried to death knowing he had joined the army. His younger brother seemed to have gotten the message as he stood and kept waving, watching the truck ride into the sunset.

August 1968

She appeared to him in what seemed to be a trance he had fallen into. Benji looked up to see his mother observing him, a deep sadness in her eyes. Surprise, sadness and a cacophony of other emotions filled his heart.
They stood looking at each other for some time. He wanted to apologize to her for running away from home without telling her. He wanted to explain to her, to make her understand that he didn’t abandon them rather it was for their survival that he had run away to join the army. He wanted to let her know that one of the reasons he was here was to get medicine for her. That even though he didn’t know the particular drug that would cure her, he was bent on finding it. He wanted to show her the military doctor he was already talking to about her health condition. There were so many things on his mind to say to her but words failed him. She shook her head slightly as though to tell him not to bother. She appeared to have understood the reason he did what he did. There was no reproachful look from her that implied he had done wrong. No happiness either at the fact that a mother and son just reunited. It was just that sad look that seemed to have become a permanent feature on her face.

“It’s now just you and your siblings left”, she finally spoke to him, drawing closer..

He didn’t understand. He knew his father could no longer be counted since he had abandoned them but he wanted to ask her what about her. Was she going to remain in this place? He wanted to know how she even got to be here in the first place. He opened his mouth to speak but she raised her hand silencing him. She wasn’t done yet.

“You will leave here tomorrow.” She instructed

“You would go back and fend for your younger ones. It’s all on you now. They are all alone with nobody to take care of them.”

“How?” he finally managed to speak.

The question “how?” stood for so many questions. How was it just his siblings left? How would he leave this war front, in the heat of battle? How was he going to cater for his siblings as he was yet to find out anything about getting food supplies?

“You will find the way”

Those were the last words he would ever hear from his mother as she turned away from him and vanished.

That night at the war front, there was an air raid which saw them scramble into trenches to hide, their hearts in their mouth. At the same time, one of them went into bouts of violent coughing. This infuriated their commander and the following morning, he demanded for whoever did that to be produced. Someone pointed to Benjamin and despite his protests that it wasn’t him, the commander refused to believe him. He was sent back to the makeshift military base, several kilometers from the war front, for redeployment.

It was at the military base that he received the news of his mother’s death. She never recovered from that illness and had succumbed to the cold hands of death at about the same time she had appeared to him. He was sent home to attend her funeral and was to report back after one week for redeployment.

He would take his siblings to his uncle’s house(his mother’s brother) before returning to the military base for redeployment. He was to be redeployed as a military guard at one of the relief centres set up by the Red Cross. Even though he was still mourning, he reported to duty the following morning to the smell of food stuffs and with a deep sense of gratitude. He had found the way.

March 1970

The war was over. It ended in January of that year, 1970. My father, Benjamin, and his siblings survived the war living off food rations he was getting from the Red Cross relief centre. News finally got to him that a day after he was sent away from his former battalion, a serious gun battle ensued between his former battalion and the enemy’s army. No one from his battalion had survived.