Cooper and Rosedale sat hidden halfway up a densely scrubbed green hillside, peering down at an excavated, exposed area of earth with a few dozen makeshift wooden structures covered in sheet plastic.
The hillside was a hive of activity as young men wearing rags hammered, dug, worked away.
Cooper estimated there were about a hundred people, walking single file in various lines which snaked around the undulating site where groups of tired-looking men with pickaxes stood in cloudy brown pools, hacking away at kneehigh mud edges which dislodged and dropped down into the water at their feet.
Even from where Rosedale and Cooper sat they could hear the constant metallic percussion of pickaxes clinking against rocks. And Cooper watched men pulling basketball-sized chunks of wet earth from the water into flexible yellow buckets with handles on both sides. The weight of the buckets clearly making it necessary for two men to carry them, as they struggled up the winding track to higher ground and a waiting truck.
Rosedale handed Cooper his Steiner military binoculars, which he lifted to his eyes, following the line of yellow buckets. ‘Jesus, Rosedale, some of them are just kids. The ones at the back can’t be older than eight or nine.’
‘I know, makes me want to go down there, Thomas.’
Continuing to watch, Cooper felt the rage begin to engulf him. He could see the children struggling to drag the heavy buckets along. He could also see the fearful expressions they held on their faces as the armed guards stood at vantage points around the whole operation. Chatting and smoking and laughing.
There was a sudden loud noise but Cooper couldn’t make out what it was or where it was coming from. Then, without warning, the sound of clanking axes stopped. And he stared intently into the binoculars. Swept the whole site from left to right.
Rosedale said, ‘Can you see what’s happening?’
Over to the left by a mound of mud, Cooper saw one of the guards standing over a pair of children. One of them had collapsed. The other was struggling and terrified and trying quickly and desperately to shovel the heavy, soggy mud back into their upturned bucket. From the guards there were angry, threatening gestures whilst the children in another line backed away in fear.
A guard pointed his gun towards the collapsed boy.
And Cooper’s stomach tightened. He was only yards away from being able to help, but all he could do was sit and watch. Sit and watch as the single bullet was fired at the boy’s head. Blowing away half his skull. Blood mixing with the muddy earth.
The sound of the shot echoed through the trees and up around the natural basin of hills, causing hundreds of birds to take to the air, screeching and crying as if they were lamenting for the boy.
The noise of the birds masked the sound of the second shot which killed the other child as he struggled to drag the bucket alone. Trying to run. Trying to escape from somewhere inescapable.
And Rosedale put his hand over Cooper’s mouth as he cried, curling up into a ball. He tried to fight Rosedale off as he went for his gun. But his arm was gripped and twisted by Rosedale until he dropped it.
‘Leave it, Thomas, there’s nothing you can do to save them. You knew this is what a conflict mine was like but you wanted to see it. Those two kids are dead already. If you go down there more people will get killed… I’m sorry but this is one of those times you have to let it go.’