Don't make it worse...
than it was, 212man! The Isolo Gun Club had their AK-47 set on 'semi-automatic' that Monday morning when they pimped our ride. What with the cost of ammunition, I guess they were being economical. And lucky for us, they hadn't splashed out on shooting lessons either, so that many of the holes were rather high on the mini-bus.
Muzzle-rise is a known problem to experienced AK-47 users. If they had asked politely I could have explained that to them, but there was so little time. To give any self-respecting gun thug an AK and a mini-bus to shoot at just a few feet off... how many of its passengers could he kill? Umm, ALL of them? As it was, we had 'just' two guys wounded and the rest of us more or less badly frightened but that was mostly down to lousy marksmanship, I think.
Not to worry, though! As was carefully pointed out to me by Management, the incident was a one-off, (until the next time, at least). Between the Kevlar curtains and the two-way radio every eventuality has been taken care of. My crazy idea of sourcing old American Embassy vehicles with real Kevlar armour was discarded out of hand as NTOH (Not Thought Of Here).
I was feeling quite chipper about the whole thing, having gotten away with a bullet whizzing through the adjacent headrest while I was busy giving my shoes a very close inspection. There was some lint on my upper back, afterwards but what of that?
On my next ride back from Lagos airport, on the way in for a tour I was sat one row back in that same mini-bus when I noticed a tiny rip in the seatback. On closer inspection it seemed to have been made by a bullet on about the level of my upper chest and headed my way. Ah, so that was where that lint came from!
Then someone told me about another bullet they dug out about where my ankles would have been if I hadn't had my feet up on the wheelhousing. So make that '3 out of 3' for luck that day.
I am not terribly superstitious but I do feel as if that day I really had used up all of my Nigerian luck. I miss the cheap abuse from you 'rotorheads,' assuming that passes for friendship, and I miss the big bucks, but that's about it. I think I shall do well to try my luck elsewhere.
All the best to those of you who have decided to stick it out, and be careful!