The Rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) yesterday morning accused the Sudanese Army of preparing to launch a combined military operation on its positions in the Darfur region along with the Janjaweed Militia.

JEM spokesman Abakar Issa Osman claimed that the Khartoum government mobilized six fighter-bomber jets and 200 armoured vehicles to strike at their strongholds in the western Sudan area. Janjaweed horsemen and camel-riders swooped in from the east.

The timing was pertinent, because it was rumoured that God had been seen roaming through the Darfur refugee camps for the last three mornings before dawn, asking for a certain Equatoria girl. News of the most recent sighting was transmitted electronically to Khartoum by government agents in the camps, and an armed response was set in place by first light.

This was seven days after mass executions on the road leading to Darfur from the south. Four families from the swampland regions had walked up from Equatoria, having heard that khubz bread was being dispensed in the camps to starving wanderers. The families told strangers along the way they were driven from Equatoria because the swamps were polluted with rotting bodies slain by the Janjaweed Militia, blighting the food supply. The families said this in disinterested tones, as though there wasn’t much news in their words, which were taken by the strangers simply as statements of fact.

Amongst the families was a girl bearing the Hebraic name of Sarah. She had sixteen summers, and was a widow. She was also a mother, though both her children were dead. They died with their father, poisoned by the swamp water. But in Sarah’s mind, and in that part of her being which was unseen, but which her teachers and elders told her was called a soul, her children were alive, and her husband tended cattle on an eternal plain. At night, Sarah heard her children singing.

It was common practice for Sarah to walk along the roads in the midst of the four families, in order to make her invisible. A sixteen year old girl of straight-backed bearing and well-favoured features was a coveted possession for those with malign intent: men wanted to make the beast with two backs with her, while women wanted her to collect firewood and suckle their young. There was also the fear of kidnap, as those from the Equatoria region knew that dark female beauty of flowering years was held at a premium by slavers.

A man came in to western Sudan on a small plane from Khartoum. His name was Jonathan Flintlock. He was a good-looking man with sandy blond hair, and youth and strength in his body. He had a habit of carrying a Swiss SG 550 assault rifle across his shoulder, which he liked to show to people in the camps, saying the gun was his best friend. Many of the girls who saw him walking across the sand to his office — a large tent near the camps of the wanderers — covered their mouths with their hands, or drew their shawls across their faces, as they looked on him with a mix of curiosity, desire, and fear, in keeping with the Nomad saying that “the newcomer filleth the eye.”

Some of these girls said that a man not unlike Jonathan Flintlock visited them in their dreams, and promised to give them blue-eyed children who would grow up to be builders of countries and men. Others maintained that they, too, had met with Jonathan, but at a time when they were wide awake, and that the man promised them bangles of gold and many cattle. But the latter group had no recollection of the normal chattering of birds in the acacia trees, or of children laughing; nor could they recall if there were cattle in the fields when time came for the homecoming. So the words of those girls were interpreted as mutterings of unfulfilled desire, rather than actual events.

Jonathan Flintlock represented a firm in London engaged in public relations. He came to Sudan because his company signed a contract with the government in Khartoum, believed to be worth millions of dollars. The Sudanese government wanted their activities in the western areas to be seen around the world through a more kindly eye. Should he be successful in disseminating such a message, Jonathan Flintlock’s company would be paid a great bonus on top of the original fee. Such monies could then be converted into shares in those companies whose directors Jonathan Flintlock met over drinks and dinner during his time in Khartoum, and whose portfolios could then be opened to the London and New York stock exchanges.

On the road to Darfur, before the executions, Sarah thought about her younger brother Hezekiah, whose name means “strengthened by God.” Hezekiah was a tousle-haired boy of ten or so who loved nothing better than playing tricks on people. When his older brothers conducted a cattle-count, Hezekiah tied two calves to a tree, out of sight. He laughed until his legs would no longer support him as his brothers lost their tempers, trying to account for the forfeit. On another occasion Hezekiah planted a dung beetle in the marital bed of his cousin Jen-Jen. Everyone thought that Jen-Jen was a girl of uncommon passion when her cries awoke the village on her wedding night. Hezekiah celebrated his prank by cart-wheeling through the embers of the communal fires which had been used for the wedding feast.

Around that time, a group of men appeared in Sarah’s village from the forest regions further south of Equatoria. This was before the swamps were polluted, and there was still food to be had. Some of the men carried old hunting rifles, while others had automatic assault weapons from Russia, like the notorious Kalashnikov AK-47, or a sniper rifle made by a firm called Dragunov. Villagers knew the weapons’ names because now and again one of the men would say something like, “Mr Dragunov wants to say something to that chief over there;” and the armed man would point his gun at a village elder and laugh as the old man performed a marionette-dance of death under an onslaught of bullets. At other times it would be Mr. Kalashnikov who had something to say, and another member of Sarah’s village would be selected for the visitors’ entertainment.

After three nights, the visitors announced they would return to the forest that day. Sarah’s village prepared a feast to speed the men on their way, in the belief that full bellies would carry them a great distance before hunger might prevail upon them to turn back. As they departed, one of the armed men placed his hand on the shoulder of Hezekiah.

“Come with us and join the Lord’s Resistance Army,” the man said.

Hezekiah gazed up at the man. “I’ve never left my village before,” he said. “The forest is full of animals and ghosts.”

The man laughed. “You’re a child,” he said. “But you are also very nearly a man. Look at this weapon.” And the man went into a combat stance, demonstrating how the Dragunov could give its owner a fearsome quality. “Many boys like you have joined us. But they soon turn into men.”

The man tightened his grip on Hezekiah’s shoulder. As he started to drag the boy away, Hezekiah struggled and cried out.

Dashing across the compound, Sarah picked up a burning stick from the embers. She went after the man with the Dragunov.

“Take your hands off my brother,” Sarah said, as the man turned round to face her. “He’s just a boy. He has never travelled before.”

The man cast his eye up and down the length of Sarah’s body. It amused him to see a girl standing there, of marriageable age, her robe fluttering in the breeze, her arm out holding a stick whose point glistened with embers.

“You are a leopard-woman,” the man said, “You will fight to the death to protect your young.”

“And you are like the milk of the she-camel,” Sarah said, “full of sourness and witchcraft. Hezekiah is our brother and son. Leave him alone. He helps his brothers count cattle.”

The man gazed around the village. He made a great show of his actions, extending his neck, putting his hand over his eyes like a visor, peering into the distances, as though searching for Hezekiah’s brothers. But of course all the young men were in the fields tending cattle.

“Your brothers must be very powerful, to be present yet unseen,” the man said. He balanced the butt of his rifle in his palm, with the barrel resting upright against his shoulder. “Your little brother will have a new family in the Lord’s Resistance Army. We will take him with us now. If you try to stop me I will kill you.” He paused. “Or maybe I will kill your little brother.” He smiled. “It depends on what Mr. Dragunov wants. Should I ask him?”

Sarah inched forward in a half-crouching position. Some of her elders murmured against her, fearing for her life. “These men are dead in their souls,” one of them said. Another one said, “They have the tails of beasts about them.”

Hezekiah looked about with wild eyes, trembling violently. Then, almost in slow motion, he turned to his side and, bending forward from the waist, he expelled a torrent of vomit from his mouth.

Sarah flew at the man. The man was not as adept as he made out, and he struggled to get his weapon into a firing position. Sarah’s burning stick pierced him in his chest. As the man stumbled backward, Sarah buried the stick in his heart, two-handed, as though it were a stake. The man spewed up the red-and-green bile of his death-throes.

Gunfire rang out from the visitors. Villagers were cut down where they stood. As he fell, Hezekiah made a sound like a cry of farewell. Sarah’s mouth was like the mouth of a cave. With her head flung back, she swayed from side to side. She roared like the wind when it sweeps up off the swamps in a storm.

Even strangers wept at Hezekiah’s funeral. The boy’s mother, inconsolable, laid a warrior’s spear on his grave. Supported by his brothers, Hezekiah’s mother sank to the ground with a wail of appalling sorrow. That night, after swallowing boiling cooking oil, she went to join Hezekiah on the eternal plain.

Jonathan Flintlock banged his water gourd. He had an announcement to make. He came all the way from England to make the people of Sudan famous, he said. He said the whole world was interested in Sudan, especially in what took place in Darfur. He had come to take photographs of the people in the camps. A few lucky ones would be seen in the newspapers in London. More still would appear on Internet websites, to be viewed by everyone, everywhere, all at the same time: “You won’t even have to be in London to see them,” Jonathan Flintlock said.

The kernel of Jonathan Flintlock’s announcement was that he was searching for a girl whose face could represent Sudan. The girl would be photographed receiving a trophy from the government’s representative in Darfur. Of course, the trophy was for photographic purposes only. The girl’s face should be unmarked by years, and have characteristics which could appeal to people the world over, so that when they looked at her those people would remark, “What a fine country Sudan must be, that it should produce such a beautiful girl.”

Jonathan Flintlock had had a good time since arriving in the western region. He made friends with many of the elders and leaders in the camps, and he accepted with an air of grace the gifts the leaders promised they would give him when, please God, they might possess land and cattle again. Meanwhile, their gifts consisted of blessings, transmitted to Jonathan Flintlock by the laying on of hands, and the whispering of sacred words in his ear.

But the greatest gift of all required Jonathan Flintlock merely to raise an eyebrow to make his own. His tent — the largest by far in the area, and all for the use of only one man — was guarded by armed sentries from the Sudanese Army. In the heat of the day, or during the freezing desert nights, the sentries stood at attention outside while Jonathan Flintlock feasted on the bodies of girls and young women from the camps.

Some of the girls arrived at his tent smiling shyly; some were dragged from their families in tears; some were sent under protest by their fathers or uncles; some fought like lionesses to defend their honour, then whispered the name of their husband while Jonathan Flintlock’s shadow covered their faces. Some lay with listless resignation, powerless to prevent their ordeal; while some others sought to flatter Jonathan Flintlock by responding with the claws and bites of feigned or sincerely-felt passion, hoping such generosity of favour might lead to enhanced living conditions in the camps for themselves or their families; or perhaps they might thereby acquire a bracelet or bangle made from gold.

Sarah reached Jonathan Flintlock’s camp seven days after the executions on the road to Darfur. She was the sole survivor of the four families, and near death. Her father was selected by the Janjaweed Militia to serve as an example to the families. Leading him by the hand as if he were a dear friend, the Janjaweed tied Sarah’s father’s hands and feet to four camels. They told him this wasn’t a personal matter. They said those from the south stood in the way of progress, for they had reserves of oil under their swamps, but no understanding of global markets. At gunpoint, Sarah and her brothers were ordered to say their father’s prayers for him, so that he should gain swift entry to heaven. The four camels were then ridden away in four different directions. The entrails of Sarah’s father were left as carrion for predatory animals and birds, but his head was taken by the Janjaweed and placed on a pike on the Darfur road as a sign to those who dwelt in the camps.

Sarah survived by lying under the bodies. During that time, her soul left her and travelled to meet her children. Her children touched her face in wonder and told her they would receive her father with a blanket woven with gold. After a while a patrol group in a Toyota pick-up with an anti-materiel gun mounted on the back dragged Sarah away from the scene of slaughter. The patrol group said they were fighting for South Sudan. A Jeep sped past as they drove Sarah toward Darfur, full of soldiers. A flag flew at the rear of the vehicle, undulating in the dust. The flag showed a blue six-pointed star standing out against a white ground. One of the patrol said it was the flag of the Israeli Army, who were active in South Sudan, helping the new republic.

After seven days in the camp Sarah was visited by an assistant of Jonathan Flintlock. The assistant had discovered Sarah behind her tent, which she shared with fifteen other displaced women from all around Sudan. Sarah was kneeling on the ground, doubled up, clutching her stomach. When her head turned to the assistant at the sound of his voice, her eyes revealed the glazed-over look of hunger. The assistant spoke to Sarah in the Thany language, which is the dialect of the Dinka and Nuer peoples of the south, where the Nile dominates the Sudd in the swamplands, in that region which gave Sudan its name. The assistant told Sarah about Jonathan Flintlock’s quest to find a beautiful girl to represent Sudan.

“This man said that the girl will be the queen of the world,” the assistant said.

“Ask this man,” said Sarah, “why his camera should want a picture of one who is wretched.”

“This man has a camera that can change all things, and make them new again.”

“Ask him then: can he give me back my children? Can he give me back my father and mother? Can he make Hezekiah dance with the embers again? Can he give me food?”

“This man can make you heavy with gold.”

“Then you tell this man that, if he cannot give me back my children, or make Hezekiah dance, I will not stand in front of his camera. Nor will I allow him to see my face without the shawl of my robe.”

Near the camp were two telecommunications masts, straight and tall, carrying the new technology across the land to link up the mobile phones, which are the main form of communication in Sudan. This was where the water tap for the camps was located. Girls and women gathered there, for it was they who distributed the water.

As Sarah filled her bucket the day after meeting the assistant, a tall man with the complexion of the north walked by. His chin tilted upward at an angle, and he had golden stubble, and the flight of birds could be tracked in his eyes, for his eyes were the colour of the sky in summer. Seeing Sarah, the man paused. He sent his assistant over.

“This is the man who wants to make you famous,” the assistant said. “He wishes to announce himself.”

Sarah started with her bucket in the direction of her tent. “Tell this man my husband’s father gave my father two hundred and fifty head of fine, fully grown cattle, with many pregnant cows, on the day of my betrothal. This man has only a camera. Ask him: where are his cattle and cows?”

Jonathan Flintlock was impressed with Sarah’s response. To him, this fine Nuer girl was not only a goal, but a challenge. That evening, he drank three glasses of Courvoisier Very Superior Old Pale, while filing a report for his company on his laptop computer. He told his company there was a wealth of human potential in Sudan, not unlike the deprived areas of London and Liverpool and Manchester, where many young black people lived. Jonathan Flintlock added that, before the week was out, he would have the photograph his company required. To that end, he had already sent a gift of Moroccan dates to the chosen girl in her tent.

All the next day Sarah was ill. And the day after that. On the third day her illness was so grave she was unable to stand. That evening Jonathan Flintlock’s assistant arrived with a companion. Unable to protest or resist, Sarah was half-carried, half-supported, to Jonathan Flintlock’s tent. She was laid on a bed which was raised from the ground on legs, and covered with clean white sheets. It was the first time Sarah had seen such a bed. Almost unconscious with delirium and hunger, she lay on her back gazing up through the plastic skylight in the ceiling, beyond which the telecommunications masts rose.

After the assistants were dismissed, Jonathan Flintlock sat alongside Sarah on the bed. Lifting her head, he raised a glass to her lips. “This will make you well again,” he said. “There must have been something in the dates.” Something in his tone set off an alarm in Sarah’s mind. Looking into Jonathan Flintlock’s eyes, she knew. There was something in the dates because this man from the north had put it there. Before she could spit it out, Sarah had swallowed enough of the alcoholic liquid to send her head into a whirl.

In the dead of night, Sarah was woken by a stabbing pain between her legs. Jonathan Flintlock lay on top of her, making his movements. His stubble burned Sarah’s cheek, and his breath interfered with her breath. His SG 550 lay across his back on a strap. On a tripod near the bed a camera with an automatic timer took pictures of Sarah, capturing her expressions of innocence and suffering. Huge anger rose up in Sarah. She made as if to strike Jonathan Flintlock. But her arms and legs were like the sodden wood of the swamplands. Endless herds of cattle stampeded through her head, compounding her anguish and agony. A parched, cracked, noise went up briefly in the tent. Then Sarah realized her mouth was open, and that the sound came from her.

Sarah gazed up through the skylight. Through her tears she saw the telecommunications masts standing out against the red-black sky. An angel was perched on top of one of the masts, of great size, and shimmering with light. Its right hand was raised in benediction, with the forefingers uplifted and curved. And, through the skylight, passing as it were through the body of Jonathan Flintlock on top of her own body, the angel’s words came down to Sarah like little flames: “Before I formed thee in the womb I knew thee; and before thou wast born I set thee apart.”

While it was still dark, Sarah woke again. She was still on the bed, but alone. Jonathan Flintlock slept on another bed at the other end of the tent. Sitting up, Sarah was amazed to find that her body separated and rose up from her sleeping form, as though there were two of her. The one lying down was the form of her being in the sense that she understood it: a young woman, dark and slender, half-dressed in the ragged robes of the desert. The one sitting up was the same, but diaphanous and aglow, like her shining and magnificent twin.

In her glowing form, Sarah placed her foot on the ground next to the bed. Her foot was firm, and strength flowed up her leg to her body. Leaving the bed, Sarah moved through the desk and chairs in the dark, for such objects presented no obstacle for her. At the bedside of Jonathan Flintlock she gazed down at the sleeping man. Jonathan Flintlock stirred and muttered, as if fighting himself in his entangled sheets. Or perhaps he fought against the realization, conveyed to him through sleep, that he was in the presence of a visitation. At his bedside, on a table, stood the trophy of the photographic winner. The trophy had an inscription: “The Property of the JF Group of Companies, London.” Sarah moved through Jonathan Flintlock’s bed and across to the other side, through the walls of the tent.

Embers glowed in the darkness outside. Cooking utensils lay near the fires. Picking up a metal pot, Sarah banged against its underside with a ladle, making a sharp ringing sound. She cried out, “Come with me out of the camps. I will give you food and light.” Half-asleep, people peered out from the tents. At first they saw only the pot, isolated in space, and the ladle clanging against it, and they were frightened. But then Sarah’s presence took visible form, and she could be seen running from tent to tent, banging the pot, her form aglow and transparent. And then the people looked upon her with wonder, and they emerged from the tents to follow her through the compound. And it seemed to them that God ran amok in the camps of the distressed.

And Sarah cried out again, “Come with me out of the camps. I will give you food and light.”

And the people rose up. And they took up what objects they could find that might be used as weapons. And there was great activity in the camps of the distressed during that night. And all the while Sarah ran from tent to tent in her glowing diaphanous form, banging her pot with the ladle, urging the people to rise up.

In the morning, when the Janjaweed Militia surrounded the camps on camel and horseback, and the armoured vehicles of the Sudanese Army negotiated the uneven terrain in advance of the heavy artillery, the people in the camps were ready for them.

They were steadfast. They were fortified.

And at their head, defiant, prepared, stood their leader, Sarah. Returned now to her original form, her arm was raised up clutching the SG 550. And, behind her, like a burning ship, was the tent of Jonathan Flintlock, in flames.