“General Nehru, sir!”
cried a soldier, standing rigidly to attention just inside the entrance to the
base’s large white mess tent, dressed in an Indian Army uniform and pale blue
UN beret, and holding a satellite phone in his hand. “I have a call from
Kinshasa, sir!”
“OK, I’m coming,” said
General Nehru, wiping his moustache with a napkin and excusing himself from the
officer’s table, where he had been enjoying a breakfast of chapatis and tea. He
strode purposefully over to the enlisted man and took the receiver from his
hand, thanking him. ”Hello,” he said cheerily. “Yes, I am he. Fine, thank you.
Pleasure, I’m sure… Sorry, who? No, I had no idea he was coming to town. I
see…Well,
rest assured he will be well looked after by my blue helmets. What’s that? Am I
coming to the tribunal? What tribunal?” The general, struggling to hear the
caller’s next point over the din of the mess tent, stepped outside for a bit
more quiet, but as he did Lieutenant-Major Dasgupta, who was also eating his
breakfast at the officer’s table, looked cagily over his shoulder and strained
to hear what his commander was saying. “Yes, I am fully aware of those
allegations. They’re simply a load of rubbish...I can tell you this much right
now, my soldiers are not involved in any such nonsense.”
“Involved in what?”
wondered Dasgupta, looking around to see if any of the other officers at his
table were paying any attention to the general’s phone call. They weren’t.
“Please, madam. The 57th Battalion is
an upstanding unit of Indian peacekeepers. As their commanding officer I can
vouch for their honour. I’m telling you, I am one hundred per cent certain none of my
soldiers are involved. Why don’t you ask the Pakistanis?” There was a
long delay during which the general listened to what the caller was saying,
while nodding every which way and frantically twisting his moustache. “Has UN
command gone stark raving mad?” he bellowed. “How can I be subpoenaed? I’m in
the middle of a bloody war here, madam. My mandate is to protect these people
here in Walikale, not to fly off to the capital to sit in bloody bastard
tribunals…So now you’re accusing me of being involved in
trading weapons for diamonds?” Disgusted, General Nehru ended the call and
stormed back into the mess hall, shaking his head in astonishment.
“Trouble in Kinshasa?”
asked Dasgupta, standing as the general retuned to the table.
“They’ve subpoenaed me
to attend a bloody tribunal,” said Nehru, sitting himself back down at the
table in a huff. “As if I don’t have enough bloody bastard problems on my
bastard plate already. I really don’t have time to play silly buggers! Why
didn’t any of you useless people tell me the Bishop of Bukavu was coming to
Walikale?” After he’d calmed down a little, he caught the attention of the
communications officer seated across from him and, while tucking back in to his
chapatis, asked him, “Is it done?” The officer gave him an Indian nod to
confirm that it was. “Good.”
Dasgupta eyed them
suspiciously. “That reminds me,” he said, “the Chief Warden called again. He
wants to know about joint patrols. He said he already discussed this with you,
and that you thought it was a jolly good idea.”
“What joint patrols?”
demanded the general with a mouthful of food.
“Joint patrols with the
park rangers,” said Dasgupta, “to protect the gorillas.”
“You see, chaps,” said
General Nehru, hastily swallowing his chapati, wiping his moustache and
addressing the other officers at the table, with his arm outstretched, “now,
you understand what we’re up against. Cosmo Zomba wa Zomba is in the jungle
making festive decorations of innocent civilians, but the only thing these
people care about is tribunals and saving bloody gorillas. Has the whole damn
world gone stark raving mad?”
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