Bantu

Bantu was not a minister, an athlete, or a member of any party. He was the bird who checked the door. Every night for as long as anyone can remember, he made the last round of Coop Two, looked at the latch, and settled on the low rail nearest the entrance, the coldest spot in the building, and the closest one to the outside.

He had a whistle in his call, a soft two-note thing he used to settle nervous chicks. Parents used it as a lullaby. Half the young birds in the Republic learned to sleep to that sound.

On the night of the attack he heard the drainage grate move before anyone else did. He gave the alarm, not the soft whistle, the other call, the one nobody had ever heard him use, and he did not leave the doorway of Coop Two while the chicks went out the far side. Every one of them got out. Sergeant Danladi and Pete Okpara reached him within a minute. A minute was not enough.

He is buried under the mango tree, at the shady end, by unanimous resolution of the Coop Assembly, the only vote in the Republic's history taken without debate. Mama Gold spoke. The Chief Justice closed with the words she uses for every session, and for once nobody moved when she said them: 'Go and share something.'

The Republic marks his rest with a whistle at dusk. If you are visiting this page, the flock would be glad of a word from you.