I shaved not once but three times, showered twice, arranged my books first by content, then by colour, then by size. I put on the cleanest of clean clothes—a red shirt, blue trousers, grey desert boots—and stepped out of my dark concrete room onto the street and into the dust of El Fasher. Outside our compound we were engaged in silent activity, making final preparations for the mission. Conversation was pared back to what was strictly necessary—all the more lucid and eloquent for its truncated, listlike form: ballistics blanket, full medical kit, small medical kit, run bag, 180 litres of petrol, camp beds, water, food, fire extinguishers, sat phone, HF radio, VHF radio, radio call-sign list, travel authorisation, GPS, white and blue flags. Body bags were stored under the back seat of the Toyota Land Cruiser Troop Carrier—a large and highly prized car known throughout Darfur for its speed, agility and long desert range. A car used by aid workers and coveted by killers. Take off the roof, attach a machine gun and you have a ‘technical’—a makeshift instrument of war capable of striking deep into the continent.
