It looked like a coup, McGrath thought, and at that moment a fresh volley of shots resounded away to his right, from the direction of the Palace. There was a hint of lights through the trees – headlights, perhaps – but he could see nothing for certain, either in that direction or any other. Banjul might be surrounded on its three sides by river, sea and swamp, but at four in the morning they all looked like so many pieces of gloom.
The Royal Victoria Hospital, whose main entrance was little more than a hundred yards from the Palace gates, showed no more lights than anywhere else. McGrath wondered if Sibou was sleeping there that night, as she often did, or whether she had gone home for some of that rest she always seemed to need and never seemed to get.
He would go and have a look, he decided, one part of his mind commending him for his thoughtfulness, the other thanking his lucky stars that he had come up with a good excuse to go out in search of adventure.
It was almost six-thirty before Colonel Taal felt confident enough of the outcome of the fighting around the Presidential Palace to delegate its direction, and to head back down Buckle Street to the radio station for the prearranged meeting. Mamadou Jabang and his deputy, Sharif Sallah, had arrived in their commandeered taxi more than half an hour earlier, and the subsequent wait had done little to soothe their nerves.
‘What is happening?’ Jabang asked, when Taal was only halfway through the door. He and Sallah were sitting at either end of a table in the station’s hospitality room. ‘Has anything gone wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
‘The Palace is taken?’ Sallah asked.
‘The Palace is cordoned off,’ Taal answered. ‘Some of the guards have escaped, either down the beach or into the town, but that was expected.’ He sat down and looked at the two of them: the wiry Jabang with his hooded eyes and heavy brow, Sallah with the face that always seemed to be smiling, even when it was not. Both men were sweating heavily, which perhaps owed something to the humidity, but was mostly nerves. Jabang in particular seemed exhausted by the combination of stress and tiredness, which did not exactly bode well for the new government’s decision-making process. Nothing perverted the exercise of judgement like lack of sleep, and somehow or other all three of them would have to make sure they got enough in the days to come.
‘It will be light in half an hour,’ Jabang said.
‘And the country will wake to a better government,’ Sallah said, almost smugly.
Taal supposed he meant it. For some reason he could never quite put his finger on, he had always doubted Sallah’s sincerity. Whereas Jabang was transparently honest and idealistic almost to a fault, Sallah’s words and deeds invariably seemed to carry a taint of opportunism.
Maybe he was wrong, Taal thought. He hoped he was. Jabang trusted the man and there had to be easier ways to glory than taking part in the mounting of a coup like this one. Everyone knew their chances of lasting success were no better than even, and in the sanctum of his own thoughts Taal thought the odds considerably longer. Seizing control was one thing, holding on to it something else entirely.
McGrath had decided that even in the dark a stroll along Independence Drive might not prove wise, and had opted for the long way round, making use of Marina Parade. On this road there was less likely to be traffic or headlights, and the overarching trees made the darkness even more impenetrable. He worked his way along the southern side, ears alert for the sound of unwelcome company, and was almost level with the Atlantic Hotel when two headlights sprang to life some two hundred yards ahead of him, and rapidly started closing the distance. There was no time to run for better cover, and McGrath flattened himself against the wall, hoping to fall outside the vehicle’s cone of illumination.
He need not have bothered. The lights swerved to the left, disappearing, as he immediately realized, into the forecourt of the Atlantic Hotel. He wondered what the rebels had in store for the hundred or so guests, most of them Brits, and all of whom had come to The Gambia on package tours in search of a sunny beach, not the wrong end of a Kalashnikov.
He would worry about that later. For the moment he wanted to make sure Sibou was all right. Hurrying on past the Atlantic, he came to the doors of the Royal Victoria’s Maternity Wing, and decided that it might be better to use them than attempt the front entrance. Ten minutes later, having threaded his way through the labyrinth of one-storey buildings and courtyards, he found himself looking across at the lit windows of the emergency department some twenty yards away. Several men were standing around inside, some of them bending down to talk to those who were presumably lying, out of sight, on the cubicle beds and waiting-room benches. One man was moaning continuously, almost forlornly, but otherwise there was virtual silence.
Then he saw Sibou, rising wearily into view after treating one of the prone casualties. Her dark eyes seemed even darker, the skin stretched a little tighter across the high cheekbones, the usually generous mouth pursed with tension and tiredness. McGrath worked his way round the perimeter of the yard to the open window of her private office and clambered over the sill. He opened the door a quarter of an inch and looked out through the crack. The corridor was empty.
Sooner or later she would come, and he settled down to wait, thinking about the first time they had met, a couple of months earlier, soon after he had arrived on his secondment. The circumstances could hardly have been more propitious for an intending Galahad. He had come to the Royal Victoria looking for the tetanus shot he should have had before leaving home, and found himself face to face with a room full of terrified Gambians, her half-naked on the floor and a man about to rape her at knife-point in full view of everyone else. All the old training had come instantly into use, and before he had had time to ponder the risks McGrath had used the man’s neck for a chopping board and his genitals for a football.
The damsel in distress had been grateful enough to have dinner with him, but he had foolishly allowed himself to be a little too honest with her, and she had declined to be anything more than a friend. That had not been as difficult as he had expected, though he still dreamed of covering her ebony body with his kisses, not to mention her covering his with hers. But Sibou was great company even fully clothed, and he had even found himself wishing his wife and children could meet her.
He could not remember being so impressed by someone’s dedication – in the face of such awe-inspiring odds – for a long, long time. She could have had a doctor’s job, and a doctor’s ample rewards, anywhere in the world, but here she was, in this ramshackle office, struggling to stretch always inadequate resources in the service of the ordinary people who came in off the street, and offering every one of them a smile almost beautiful enough to die for.
McGrath looked at his watch. In twenty minutes it would begin to get light: where did he want to be when that happened? At the Atlantic, he decided, where there would probably be a working telephone and some chance of finding out what was happening. After all, now he had found out that Sibou was all right, there had to be more pressing things to do than watch her smile.
He was halfway out of the window when she came in through the door. She jumped with surprise, then burst out laughing. ‘What are you doing, you crazy Englishman?’ she asked.
He pulled himself back into the room, wondering how anyone could look so sexy in a white coat and stethoscope. ‘I’ve come to take you away from all this,’ he said grandly.
‘Through the window?’
‘Well…’
‘And anyway, I like all this. And I’m busy,’ she added, rummaging around in her desk drawer for something.
‘I just came to check you were OK,’ he said.
She turned and smiled at him. ‘Thank you.’
‘What’s happening out there?’ he asked.
‘Out in the city? Oh, another bunch of fools have decided to overthrow the government.’
‘And are