Hell in Paradise

Hell in Paradise

By Samuel Lees

I had joined the army when this war had started. I had just gone through a terrible break up with my now ex-girlfriend. She would just constantly criticise everything I ever did. It was so bad, I just had to get away. That was when I first say the posters, ‘Join the army and see the world.’ That was just what I needed I thought and I just signed up then and there. The first two weeks were spent doing basic training, which I thought was quite fun. Although, the drill sergeants were very strict and screamed at you if you ever put a toe out of line, I did not mind it as my ex would have done the same. My fellow recruits were very friendly, and we quickly developed a strong camaraderie, we were a band of brothers who were embarking on an epic adventure against the world. And, the exercises were easy, marching up and down the courtyard all day and firing our rifles at targets which were dummies. All in all, this was just what I needed to take my mind off the past and look forward to the future. A future where I would exercise by day, chill with my army mates by night in a place where I felt accepted and part of something bigger, something that helped me to make the world a better place by protecting my home and bringing freedom and democracy to all the corners of the world.

Then, before I had realised, my two weeks of basic training was over, and it was time for me to be shipped out with my unit. I would be stationed near Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, thousands of miles from home. It was here where a brutal civil was had broken out. It was started by an uprising by a group of rebels known as the Red Kumuls. They were a dangerous and violent group who gained respect through fear and showed no mercy, killing anyone who had got in their way. At the end of my first month, I had felt that I had been there for a year and that I will be there for the rest of my life as I had constantly been on edge through fear. Regardless of whether I was on patrol through the dense forests and over the soft, sandy beaches or resting back at the camp I had been taken over by a constant fear. A fear that made me struggle to eat or to sleep. A fear that kept me in the state of exhaustion. A fear that, like so many of my brothers in arms had taken me over to drink, drugs and prostitutes, but no matter how much alcohol I had drunk, how many pills I had taken or how many nights I spent at the brothels I could not escape the fear that had taken over me. The that had made me completely unrecognisable from a month ago. This fear had taken a stranglehold of me and would not let go. The thing that had the biggest effect on me was the surroundings. Everywhere I went, patrolling the jungles and the beaches looked like paradise, where people would go for luxury holidays so they could kick back and relax, but I could not relax, not even for a second. I have been told in countless lectures given by my commanders and stories given in graphic detail from other soldiers who have been here much longer than I have is that if you lose your focus whilst out on patrol or even when you were back at camp, you could and often would be killed. ‘A lost concentration leads to a lost life’, they would constantly say. It was this new reality I had out myself into that I was pondering whilst I was out on my latest patrol over one of the beaches that laid to the south of my camp. However, when I looked round to check up on the rest of my group, I couldn’t see them. I froze still with the sudden realisation, through allowing myself to become distracted, I had allowed myself to become separated from the group. I looked around trying to figure out where they went, but it was to no use, I had lost them. The beach was deserted and the air was still, cloaking the beach in an eerie silence. I stood still on soft, white sand underneath a warm sun. This is supposed to be paradise, but the war had turned it into a dangerous place where the high risk of death was ever present. I nearly gave up and broke down until suddenly, out of the corner of my eye a saw a track of footprints in the sand. Maybe I could follow those and then I will be able to make it back to camp before nightfall. However, I was hesitant to follow the tracks. A small, nagging voice in the back of my head kept saying ‘something’s not right.’ How would I know who made these footprints. They could have been left by my unit, and they would lead me back to camp. But it was equally likely that they were made by guerilla fighters that would take me to a rebel camp where I would be killed on sight. I spent what felt like ages debating with myself on whether I should follow the trail. This was until I looked around at this so called paradise I was in, a paradise that due to the war had become cloaked with the threat of death and I told myself, ‘Whether I will meet friend or foe, life or death, surely, it will be much better than remaining on the beach where danger lurks and death could and would strike at any second. I must go on; I must keep moving as I cannot stay because if I do stay I will definitely be killed where as if I keep on moving I would have a chance, no matter how slim of clinging on to this thing called life.

The End