Far from Europe, deep in the choking green of the African jungle, beneath the suffocating humidity and the relentless, warm rain of August, a column of dark skinned men forced its way forward as if the land itself were something to be beaten into submission.
They did not march in lines, because the jungle did not permit lines, but instead stretched out in a long, uneven file that twisted through mud, roots, and narrow trails carved more by stubborn repetition than by any deliberate design. Boots and bare feet alike sank into the red earth and pulled free again with wet, sucking sounds, every step a small battle against the ground.
They wore sand coloured uniforms that had long since lost they're color, the cloth darkened by rain and sweat until it clung to their bodies like a second skin, while red fez caps sat upon their heads, tassels limp and stained. Rifles rested across shoulders or hung at their sides, wood blackened by moisture, metal oiled yet never fully free of the creeping touch of rust. Ammunition pouches bulged at their belts, leather swollen and dark, while packs pressed against their backs, filled with whatever little they needed to keep moving and not die.
Behind them came the porters that were hardly better than slaves, bent beneath loads that would have broken lesser men, carrying crates of ammunition, sacks of food, bundles of tools, and even the weight of a light artillery piece dragged through mud and over roots by sheer human effort. Their bodies glistened with rain and exhaustion, muscles trembling beneath the strain, yet they kept moving because the alternative was worse.
And whenever one of them faltered—whenever a man's strength gave out and he dared to drop to a knee for even a moment's breath—the response came instantly.
From above—always from above.
From the white men carried high in their chairs, borne forward through the jungle like kings who refused to touch the earth, their weight resting on the shoulders of others, their boots dry while everything else drowned in mud and sweat and rain.
"Move it! Move it, you worthless animals!"
The voice tore through the humid air, sharp with irritation, and the man in the chair rose with it, not sitting anymore but standing atop the wooden frame itself, boots planted on the crossbars, balancing easily as the carriers staggered beneath him. The chair swayed with their movement, but he did not care. He leaned forward instead, eyes burning with anger as he spotted the porter who had dared to fall.
"Get him up!" he roared again, pointing down like a judge delivering sentence. "Get up, you scum! You don't stop unless I say you stop!"
Below him, the porter had dropped to one knee in the mud, chest heaving, arms trembling beneath the weight of what he carried. Rain ran down his face, mixing with sweat, his vision blurred, his strength gone for just a moment too long.
"No… mercy… I just—"
"No excuses!"
The officer's hand moved before the man could finish. The whip came free in a single motion, a thick, dark strip of hippopotamus hide snapping loose from his side as he drew it back, arm rising high above his head while he stood balanced on the chair like something unshaken by the world beneath him.
The porter saw it.
His eyes went wide.
And then—
The whip came down.
It struck with a heavy, brutal force that cracked through the wet air and landed across the man's face with a sound that was not clean, not sharp, but thick and tearing, as if something had been ripped open rather than struck. The lash cut across his left side, the impact bursting through flesh and bone alike, and for a split second there was nothing—then the eye was simply gone, destroyed under the force, the socket erupting into blood and ruined tissue as red sprayed outward into the rain.
The man screamed.
Not a cry, not a shout—a raw, animal sound that tore out of him as he fell fully into the mud, hands clawing at his face as blood poured down through his fingers, mixing with the rain and running in dark streams into the earth beneath him.
The white Belgian officer stood above it all, chest rising, whip still in his hand, breathing hard with irritation more than exertion.
"So weak, so pathetic," he spat.
He pointed again, voice rising once more, cutting through the noise of rain and jungle and suffering alike.
"Get him up! Now! If he doesn't move, I'll have his guts fed to the others—do you hear me?! Move him!"
The Askari reacted instantly.
Not with shock.
Not with hesitation.
With routine.
One stepped forward and drove his boot hard into the man's side, the impact rolling him in the mud as another grabbed at his shoulder, dragging him upright with rough, practiced force.
"Move!" one of them barked, striking him again, this time with the back of his hand. "Pick it up! Move!"
The porter's body shook uncontrollably, breath broken, blood still spilling down from the ruin of his face, one eye gone, the other barely seeing through the haze of pain and rain and terror. For a moment he sagged—just a moment—and then instinct, fear, and something deeper forced him back into motion.
He reached for his load.
His hands slipped.
He tried again.
And somehow, impossibly, he lifted it.
The weight settled onto his back once more, his body bending under it, his legs shaking so badly it seemed they might give way again at any second—but they did not. They held. They moved.
He stumbled forward.
Alive.
Behind him, the other porters watched.
They did not speak.
Their faces were tight, their eyes fixed on the ground or on the man ahead of them, because they had seen this before, and they would see it again. Horror lived there, yes—but it lived alongside something stronger.
Acceptance.
This was the way of things.
And when one of them slowed, even slightly, an Askari would be there at once—stick, fist, or boot correcting the delay without hesitation, without thought, without mercy.
Above them, the officer lowered himself back into his seat, settling as if nothing of importance had happened, the whip hanging loosely at his side once more.
"Forward," he said, voice calmer now, almost bored.
And the column obeyed.
It pushed on through the jungle, through mud and rain and blood, swallowing the moment as easily as it swallowed everything else, until the man's screams faded into nothing and only the steady rhythm of movement remained.
Time blurred beneath the rain until, at last, the downpour softened and the heavy clouds above began to tear apart, thin shafts of harsh, white sunlight forcing their way down through the canopy in broken columns that lit the steaming earth below. The air did not cool with it—if anything, it grew heavier, thicker, the kind of heat that pressed itself into the lungs—and through that suffocating stillness came a sound, low at first, then clearer, steady and unmistakable.
Water.
Running water.
The column slowed as the sound grew, boots dragging more than stepping now, men lifting their feet from the mud with effort, shoulders sagging beneath loads that had long since become unbearable. Then, almost without command, they stopped entirely, the long line compressing in on itself as those at the rear walked into those ahead, confusion rippling backward through the ranks.
The officer in the chair felt it immediately.
The halt.
The delay.
His head snapped forward, irritation flashing across his face as he pushed himself upright again, rising to stand on the wooden frame beneath his feet, towering above the men who carried him, balancing easily despite the sway.
"Why do you stop?!" he barked, voice sharp with anger. "What is this? Move! Move, you worthless scum! Cross the river! Is it not shallow enough for you?!"
No one answered him.
At the front, one of the Askari raised a hand and pointed.
"Sir… there."
The officer's expression twisted, annoyance turning to open contempt as he gestured sharply with one hand.
"Forward," he snapped. "Take me forward. I will see what idiocy holds us here."
The carriers obeyed at once, shifting beneath his weight and pushing ahead through the last of the brush, branches snapping aside as the jungle opened.
And there it was.
The river.
Broad and slow, cutting across their path in a wide stretch of brown water that glinted beneath the broken sunlight, its surface deceptively calm, the near bank shallow enough to wade while the center dipped deeper, the current sliding lazily between sand and scattered rock. It was a good crossing—easy, even—and already the first ranks of Askari had entered it, water rising from knee to thigh to waist as they pushed forward, rifles lifted above the surface.
And yet—
They hesitated.
Because on the far side of the river, standing knee-deep in the water, unmoving, was a man.
He stood as if he had grown there.
Black-skinned, bare from the waist up, his body painted in white ash that covered him from head to chest in stark, unnatural patterns that caught the light like bone. In his hand he held a spear, not raised, not threatening—simply present—and he did not shift, did not step back, did not react to the dozens of armed men wading toward him.
He watched and waited without a shred of fear .
The Askari moved more slowly now, spreading slightly in the water, their eyes flicking toward the banks, toward the trees, toward the thick brush beyond the far side as if searching for something they could not yet see but could feel.
One of them muttered under his breath.
Another glanced back.
The officer saw it.
Saw the hesitation.
And his lip curled.
"What are you doing?" he snarled. "Why do you slow? It is one man. One. Move! Or do you fear a ghost now?"
He laughed once, harsh and short, then kicked at the frame beneath him.
"Forward! Take me across! I will deal with this myself."
The carriers pushed on, stepping into the river, water rising around their legs as they bore him forward through the shallows.
They moved past the Askari warriors, and as they came to the halfway point across the river, with water pressing at their waists and the distance between them and the painted warrior shrunk to nothing—did he speak.
In German.
"This is Duala land," he said, his voice calm, steady, carrying across the water without strain. "You shall not pass. Turn back… or be met with fire and death."
The words settled like a stone dropped into still water.
The officer's eye twitched in irritation, and yet he smiled, understanding every word of what was said.
"What, what did you say," he said, leaning forward slightly as he was carried closer, eyes narrowing as he looked down upon the man. "You dare speak to me, in German no less?"
When they reached the far bank, he did not step down, did not lower himself, but remained sitting upon the chair, towering above the lone warrior as if elevation alone confirmed his superiority.
"You court death, you little neger," he said, voice low and venomous now. "Standing there as if you command me? No, I do not think so."
He laughed again, softer this time.
"Go, get out of my sight," he said, gesturing lazily with one hand. "Run back to your village, to your primitive little masters. Tell them they will surrender to me. Now. They will give us guide's, and they will lead us to these German Bauxi towns, and they will pay for the privilege of not being erased by my mighty 75 millimetre cannon."
His eyes hardened.
"And if they refuse," he continued, voice dropping further, "we will not just use the cannon, but we will burn your primitive little huts. We will cut off your hands, take your land, and take as many of your lives, until you learn what it means to stand before us, the Belgian's."
The painted warrior did not move.
He simply looked up at the man standing above him and answered, calm as before:
"The Duala have no master."
The words were not loud.
But they carried.
"We only bow to our king, to God… and to His emissary—the Prince of Iron, Oskar."
For the first time, something in the officer's expression shifted.
The name landed.
Behind him, in the river, the Askari felt it too—the tension tightening, something unseen pressing in from the trees, from the brush, from the silence that had become too complete.
Eyes flicked left.
Right.
Toward the elevated banks.
Toward the shadows between the roots.
Ambush.
The thought moved without being spoken.
But the officer did not see it.
Or chose not to.
"I see," he said slowly, his voice full of contempt, "So, fire and death it is then, hmm?" He gave a short, humorless chuckle, rolling his shoulders as he shifted his weight and rose fully upright atop the chair, boots planted on the wooden supports beneath him, towering over the man in the water. "Well," he added with a faint shrug, already reaching for his side arm, "I suppose that concludes our talks."
His hand moved with casual ease and before the warrior realised what was going on, the pistol came free. And there was not even a second of hesitation.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
The shots cracked across the river in rapid succession, each one sharp and final, the first tearing through the warrior's skull in a violent burst that snapped his head sideways as white paint and blood exploded outward in a spray, the second and third punching into his chest and shoulder, driving him backward as water erupted around him. The body folded, collapsed, and fell into the river with a heavy splash, sending red spreading out in widening streaks as it sank and then floated, limp and broken.
Behind the officer, the Askari flinched.
Not in fear—but in that brief, instinctive recoil when violence came too fast, too suddenly, even for men used to it. Some lowered themselves slightly in the water, others froze outright, the moment catching them between action and reaction.
And in that pause—
He exhaled.
The officer lowered the pistol, lifted it lazily toward his lips, and blew across the barrel as thin smoke curled upward, his expression settling into something smug, satisfied, almost amused.
"Hah…" he muttered. "That, was fun."
But then suddenly, the sound of bushes rustling came from the far bank—just beyond where the body fell.
His eyes flicked upward.
And there—
From the brush along the elevated ground, a shape burst through the bushes.
Fast.
Violent.
It was a warrior painted in white ash, who leaped into the air, seemingly exploding out of the greenery, body launching forward with raw force, feet in the air, machete already raised high above his head, blade catching the light of the sun through the clouds as it arced toward the officer.
"What the—"
The officer moved on instinct, his arm snapping up as he fired again.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
The rounds struck—one tearing through the warrior's side, another punching into his chest—but the man did not stop. Momentum carried him through the pain, through the impact, through the violence of it, his body already committed as he crashed into the officer.
The machete came down.
It bit deep into the collarbone, just beside the neck, the blade driving through flesh with a thick, brutal force that split skin and muscle apart in an instant, blood bursting out in a hot spray as the officer's body jerked violently with the impact.
The two collided.
Hard.
The warrior's body slammed into him, driving him backward as the chair beneath his feet lurched and tipped, the carriers stumbling, losing balance as the entire structure collapsed sideways into the water.
Wood cracked.
Men fell.
The officer hit the river with a heavy splash, the world vanishing into cold, muddy water for a split second as pain detonated through his shoulder and neck, blinding and immediate. His body thrashed, instinct taking over, and he forced himself upright again, staggering back to his feet in the waist-deep water, one hand clamping down over the wound where blood poured freely between his fingers.
His vision blurred.
Sound distorted.
Everything became distant, muffled, like the world had been shoved underwater with him.
And then—
Gunfire.
Sharp cracks erupted from the far bank, flashes bursting from the trees and brush as hidden figures revealed themselves, rifles speaking in quick succession. Bullets tore into the river, striking men where they stood, Askari jerking and falling as rounds punched through them, bodies collapsing into the water as red spread outward in violent clouds.
Shouting followed.
Confusion.
Some of the Askari turned, firing back toward the trees, rifles cracking in uneven rhythm, while others stumbled backward, retreating toward the near bank, dragging themselves through the water as more shots cut them down one after another.
On the nearer side, men tried to form a line, raising rifles, firing across the river in return, their movements desperate, uneven, driven more by instinct than command as the ambush swallowed them whole.
The officer stood in the middle of it, bullet's whistling past him, as his body kept swaying.
One hand pressed hard against the wound at his neck, blood slipping through his fingers no matter how tightly he held it, his pistol hanging uselessly in the other hand as his vision swam.
He saw bodies.
Floating.
Turning slowly in the current.
Saw the man he had shot drifting nearby, face gone, white paint washed into red.
Saw his own carriers lying in the water, unmoving.
Saw his men—his black Askari—falling, one after another, as the river filled with death.
He blinked.
Tried to focus.
Failed.
A bitter, twisted sound forced its way out of him, half laugh, half breath.
"Fucking…" he muttered, the words thick, slurred, barely forming. "Useless… scum…"
The world tilted.
His legs gave.
The hand at his wound slipped.
And he fell forward into the river, the water closing over him as his body went slack, carried by the current along with the others, drifting slowly away as the gunfire echoed on behind him.
The jungle did not react.
The trees did not move.
And the river carried everything away.