THE nurse was not a little flustered, as she kept wondering what happened. But it was a gunshot Moro heard that made him duck in fear.
He’d heard a bang, loud enough to throw one to ground. But there was no such sound—only a metal dropped.
Right then the young woman called to the others for help. So the freer ones raced there to help the troubled man.
Now the women were just not used to those behaviours yet, that went on to mark the trench war.
For when they thought of it, they reasoned that Moro had developed a shock. Close to what they’d later term Shellshock.
They thought that he couldn’t go on fighting. That they had to keep him around to heal much more.
So the nurse spoke to her team head, and the person telegraphed the army officer in charge.
Thus, Moro was kept on watch much longer.
◘◘◘
Moro woke up within a short time and was told he’d developed some panic.
He was taken care of by kind nurses who worked there. He was equally served food and medicine.
The man picked at his meal even when he should be hungry. It was the early hours of dawn and that night had been a toil.
He sat up on the bed to eat, and was silent through it.
Then as soon as Moro finished his meal, he gazed up with a nervous stare.
He faced the soldier beside him, the countryman he had there.
‘Please tell me,’ he requested softly, ‘must we really fight this war?’
The man dropped a sigh, but Moro wouldn’t stop.
‘I fled from the great Yoruba war when I was a boy, only to be drafted for a total stranger’s war this time!
‘Must I really fight this war? How can I escape it, please?’
Alukho wanted to help. ‘But you’ve not told me your name sir?’
‘Oh pardon me, my friend,’ he retorted. ‘Moro is the name—and the days of my life have been quite a sojourn.
‘I was born among the Ekiti tribe of Yorùbá people in a time of warfare across the land.
‘I fled my native land as a lad to escape being drafted then. Settled down in a town of another tribe – I mean, in Ẹdẹ town of Ọyọ tribe.
‘I grew to speak the Ọyọ dialect spoken there, bought land, and raised children.
‘But here I am again on other men’s land, having to fight the sort of war I fled from.
‘If I feared dying in war when I was too young to face it, how then can I fight with grey hairs on my head now?
‘Why must I look death in the face just when I cannot? So, is there no way I can escape this?’
That query felt so desperate. And the question too dropped with a laden sigh.
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