Richard disliked him. He disliked his washed-out green eyes and his red-freckled face. When he had met them at the airport and handed them their passes and told them he would be their guide and that the Biafran government welcomed them, he had disliked the redhead's expression of scornful amusement. It was as if he were saying, You are speaking for the Biafrans?

"Our relief planes carry only food supplies," Richard said.

"Of course," the redhead said. "Only food supplies."

The plump one leaned across Richard to look out of the window. "I can't believe people are driving cars and walking around. It's not like there's a war going on."

"Until an air raid happens," Richard said. He had moved his face back and was holding his breath.

"Is it possible to see where the Biafran soldiers shot the Italian oil worker?" the redhead asked. "We've done something on that at the Tribune, but I'd like to do a longer feature."

"No, it's not possible," Richard said sharply.

The redhead was watching him. "Okay. But can you tell me anything new?"

Richard exhaled. It was like somebody sprinkling pepper on his wound: Thousands of Biafrans were dead, and this man wanted to know if there was anything new about one dead white man. Richard would write about this, the rule of Western journalism: One hundred dead black people equal one dead white person. "There is nothing new to tell," he said. "The area is occupied now."

At the checkpoint, Richard spoke Igbo to the civil defender. She examined their passes and smiled suggestively and Richard smiled back; her thin tall breastlessness reminded him of Kainene.

"She looked like she was real interested," the plump one said. "I hear there's a lot of free sex here. But the girls have some kind of sexually transmitted disease? The Bonny disease? You guys have to be careful so you don't take anything back home."

His presumptuousness annoyed Richard. "The refugee camp we are going to is run by my wife."

"Really? She been here long?"

"She's Biafran."

The redhead had been staring out of the window; he turned now toward Richard. "I had an English friend at college who really went for colored girls."

The plump one looked embarrassed. He spoke quickly. "You speak Igbo pretty well?"

"Yes," Richard said. He wanted to show them the photos of Kainene and the roped pot, but then he thought better of it.

"I'd love to meet her," the plump one said.

"She's away today. She's trying to get more supplies for the camp."

He climbed out of the car first and saw the two interpreters waiting. Their presence annoyed him. It was true that idioms and nuances and dialects often eluded him in Igbo, but the directorate was always too prompt in sending interpreters. Most of the refugees sitting outside watched them with vague curiosity. An emaciated man was walking around, a dagger strapped to his waist, talking to himself. Rotten smells hung heavy in the air. A group of children was roasting two rats around a fire.

"Oh, my God." The plump one removed his hat and stared.

"Niggers are never choosy about what they eat," the redhead muttered.

"What did you say?" Richard asked.

But the redhead pretended not to have heard and hurried ahead with one interpreter, to speak to a group of men playing draughts.

The plump one said, "You know there's food piled in Sao Tome crawling with cockroaches because there's no way to bring it in."

"Yes." Richard paused. "Would it be all right if I gave you some letters? They're to my wife's parents in London."

"Sure, I'll put them in the mail as soon as I get out of here." The plump one brought out a large chocolate bar from his knapsack, unwrapped it, and took two bites. "Listen, I wish I could do more."

He walked over to the children and gave them some sweets and took photographs of them and they clamored around him and begged for more. Once, he said, "That's a lovely smile!" and after he left them, the children went back to their roasting rats.

The redhead walked across quickly, the camera around his neck swinging as he moved. "I want to see the real Biafrans," he said.

"The real Biafrans?" Richard asked.

"I mean, look at them. They can't have eaten a meal in two years. I don't see how they can still talk about the cause and Biafra and Ojukwu."

"Do you usually decide what answers you will believe before you do an interview?" Richard asked mildly.

"I want to go to another refugee camp."

"Of course, I will take you to another one."

The second refugee camp, farther inside the town, was smaller, smelled better, and used to be a town hall. A woman with one arm was sitting on the stairs telling a story to a group of people. Richard caught the end of it-"But the man's ghost came out and spoke to the vandals in Hausa and they left his house alone"-and he envied her belief in ghosts.

The redhead lowered himself on the step next to her and began to talk through the interpreter.

Are you hungry? Of course, we are all hungry.

Do you understand the cause of the war? Yes, the Hausa vandals wanted to kill all of us, but God was not asleep.

Do you want the war to end? Yes, Biafra will win very soon.

What if Biafra does not win?

The woman spat on the ground and looked at the interpreter first and then at the redhead, a long pitying look. She got up and went inside.

"Unbelievable," the redhead said. "The Biafran propaganda machine is great."

Richard knew his type. He was like President Nixon's fact finders from Washington or Prime Minister Wilson's commission members from London who arrived with their firm protein tablets and their firmer conclusions: that Nigeria was not bombing civilians, that the starvation was overflogged, that all was as well as it should be in the war.

"There isn't a propaganda machine," Richard said. "The more civilians you bomb, the more resistance you grow."

"Is that from Radio Biafra?" the redhead asked. "It sounds like something from the radio."

Richard did not respond.

"They are eating everything," the plump one said, shaking his head. "Every fucking green leaf has become a vegetable."

"If Ojukwu wanted to stop the starving, he could simply say yes to a food corridor. Those kids don't have to be eating rodents," the redhead said.

The plump one had been taking photographs. "But it's really not that simple," he said. "He's got to think of security too. He's fighting a fucking war."

"Ojukwu will have to surrender. This is Nigeria 's final push, and there's no way Biafra will recover all the lost territory," the redhead said.

The plump one brought out a half-eaten chocolate bar from his pocket.

"So what's Biafra doing about oil now that they've lost the port?" the redhead asked.

"We are still extracting from some fields we control in Egbema," Richard said, not bothering to explain where Egbema was. "We move the crude to our refineries at night, in tankers with no headlights, to avoid the bombers."

"You keep saying we," the redhead said.

"Yes, I keep saying we."Richard glanced at him. "Have you been to Africa before?"

"No, first visit. Why?"

"I just wondered."

"Am I supposed to feel inexperienced in jungle ways? I covered Asia for three years," the redhead said, and smiled.

The plump one fumbled in his knapsack and brought out a bottle of brandy. He gave it to Richard. "I bought it in Sao Tome. Never got to take a shot. Great stuff."

Richard took the bottle.

Before he drove them to Uli to catch their flight out, they went to a guesthouse and ate a dinner of rice and chicken stew; he hated to think that the Biafran government had paid for the redhead's meal. A few cars were leaving and arriving at the terminal building; farther ahead, the airstrip was pitch black. The airport manager in his tight-fitting khaki suit came out and shook their hands and said, "The plane is expected any minute now."