massaging his wrist.
"See that she's clean and not too old. You hear me?"
"Yes, Wally.
I'll get one." Andre went to the door and Bruce noticed his expression.
It was stricken beyond the pain of a bruised wrist. What lovely
creatures they are, thought Bruce, and I am one of them and yet apart
from them. I am the watcher, stiffed by them as much as I would be by a
bad play. Andre went out.
"Another drink, Bucko?" said Wally expansively. "I'll even pour you
one." "Thanks," said Bruce, and started on the other boot.
Wally brought the glass to him and he tasted it. It was strong, and the
mustiness of the whisky was ill-matched with the sweetness of the beer,
but he drank it.
"You and I, said Wally, "we're the shrewd ones. We drink ,cause we want
to, not "cause we have to. We live like we want to live, not
like other people think we should. You and I got a lot in common, Bruce.
We should be friends, you and I. I mean us being so much alike." The
drink was working in him now, bluffing his speech a little.
"Of course we are friends - I count you as one of my very dearest,
Wally." Bruce spoke solemnly, no trace of sarcasm showing.
"No kidding?" Wally asked earnestly. "How's that, hey?
Christ, I always thought you didn't like me. Christ, you never can tell,
isn't that right? You just never can tell," shaking his head in wonder,
suddenly sentimental with the whisky. "That's really true?
You like me. Yeah, we could be buddies. How's that, Bruce? Every guy
needs a buddy. Every guy needs a back stop." "Sure," said Bruce.
"We're buddies. How's that, hey?"
"That's on, Bucko!" agreed Wally with deep feeling, and I feel nothing,
thought Bruce, no disgust, no
pity - nothing. That way you are secure; they cannot disappoint you,
they cannot disgust you, they cannot sicken you, they cannot smash you
up again.
They both looked up as Andre ushered the girl into the room. She had a
sexy little pug face, painted lips - ruby on amber.
"Well done, Andre," applauded Wally, looking at the girl's body.
She wore high heels and a short pink dress that flared into a skirt from
her waist but did not cover her knees.
"Come here, cookie." Wally held out his hand to her and she crossed the
room without hesitation, smiling a bright professional smile. Wally drew
her down beside him on to the bed.
Andre went on standing in the doorway. Bruce got up and shrugged into
his camouflage battle-jacket, buckled on his webbing belt and adjusted
the bolstered pistol until it hung comfortably on his outer thigh.
"Are you going?" Wally was feeding the girl from his glass.
"Yes." Bruce put his slouch hat on his head; the red, green and white
Katangese sideflash gave him an air of artificial gaiety.
"Stay a little, - come on, Bruce."
"Mike is waiting for me." Bruce
picked up his rifle.
"Muck him. Stay a little, we'll have some fun."
"No, thanks."
Bruce went to the door.
"Hey, Bruce. Take a look at this." Wally tipped the girl backwards over
the bed, he pinned her with one arm across her chest while she struggled
playfully and with the other hand he swept her
skirt up above her waist.
"Take a good look at this and tell me you still want to go! The girl was
naked under the skirt, her lower body shaven so that her plump little
sex pouted sulkily.
"Come on, Bruce," laughed Wally. "You first. Don't say I'm not your
buddy." Bruce glanced at the girl, her legs scissored and her body
wriggled as she fought with Wally. She was giggling.
"Mike and I will be back before curfew. I want this woman out of here by
then," said Bruce.
There is no desire, he thought as he looked at her, that is all
finished. He opened the door.
"Curry!" shouted Wally. "You're a bloody nut also. Christ, I
thought you were a man. Jesus Christ! You're as bad as the others.
Andre, the doll boy. Haig, the rummy. What's with you, Bucko? It's women
with you, isn't it? You're a bloody nut-case also!" Bruce closed the
door and stood alone in the passage.
The taunt had gone through a chink in his armour and he clamped his mind
down on the sting of it, smothering it.
It's all over. She can't hurt me any more. He thought with
determination, remembering her, the woman, not the one in the room he
had just left but the other one who had been his wife.
"The bitch," he whispered, and then quickly, almost guiltily, "I
do not hate her. There is no hatred and there is no desire."
The lobby of the Hotel Grand Leopold 11 was crowded. There Were
gendarmes carrying their weapons ostentatiously, talking loudly, lolling
against walls an dover the bar; women with them, varying in colour from
black through to pastel brown, some already drunk; a few
Belgians still with the stunned disbelieving eyes of the refugee, one of
the women crying as she rocked her child on her lap; other white men in
civilian clothes but with the alertness about them and the quick
restless eyes of the adventurer, talking quietly with Africans in
business suits; a group of journalists at one table in damp
shirtsleeves, waiting and watching with the patience of vultures. And
everybody sweated in the heat.
Two South African charter pilots hailed Bruce from across the room.
"Hi, Bruce. How about a snort?"
"Dave. Carl." Bruce waved. "Big
hurry now - tonight perhaps."
"We're flying out this afternoon." Carl
Engelbrecht shook his head. "Back next week."
"We'll make it then," Bruce agreed, and went out of the front door into
the Avenue du Kasai.
As he stopped on the sidewalk the white-washed buildings bounced the
glare into his face. The naked heat made him wince and he felt fresh
sweat start out of his- body beneath his battle-suit. He took the dark
glasses from his top pocket and put them on as he crossed the street to
the Chev three-tanner in which Mike Haig waited.
"I'll drive, Mike."
"Okay." Mike slid across the seat and Bruce stepped up into the cab. He
started the truck north down the Avenue du
Kasai.
"Sorry about that scene, Bruce."
"No harm done."
"I shouldn't have lost my temper like that." Bruce did not answer, he
was looking at the deserted buildings on either side. Most of them had
been looted and all of them were pock-marked with shrapnel from the
mortar bursts. At intervals along the sidewalk were parked the burnt out
bodies of automobiles looking like the carapaces of long-dead beetles.
"I shouldn't have let him get through to me, and yet the truth hurts
like hell." Bruce was silent but he trod down harder on the
accelerator and the truck picked up speed. I don't want to hear, he
thought, I am not your confessor - I just don't want to hear. He turned
into the Avenue I'Etoile, headed towards the zoo.
"He was right, he had me measured to the inch, persisted Mike.
"We've all got our troubles, otherwise we wouldn't be here." And then,
to change Mike's mood, "We few, we happy few. We band of brothers." Mike
grinned and his face was suddenly boyish. "At least we have the
distinction of following the second oldest profession - we, the
mercenaries. "The oldest profession is better paid and much more fun,"
said Bruce and swung the truck into the driveway of a double-storeyed
residence, parked outside the front door and switched off the engine.
Not long ago the house had been the home of the chief accountant of
Union Mini&e du Haut, now it was the billet of V section, Special
Striker Force, commanded by Captain Bruce Curry.
Half a dozen of his black gendarmes were sitting on the low wall of the
verandah, and as Bruce came up the front steps they shouted the greeting
that had become traditional since the United Nations intervention.
"U. N. - Merde!"
"Ah!" Bruce grinned at them in the sense of companionship that had grown
up between them in the past months.
"The cream of the Army o Katanga I He offered his cigarettes around and
stood chatting idly for a few minutes before asking, "Where's Sergeant
Major?" One of the gendarmes jerked a thumb at the glass doors that led
into the lounge and Bruce went through with Mike behind him.
Equipment was piled haphazardly on the expensive furniture, the stone
fireplace was half filled with empty bottles, a gendarme lay snoring on
the Persian carpet, one of the oil paintings on the wall had been ripped
by a bayonet and the frame hung askew, the imbuia-wood coffee table
tilted drunkenly towards its broken leg, and the whole lounge smelled of
men and cheap tobacco.
"Hello, Ruffy, said Bruce.
"Just in time, boss." Sergeant Major Ruffararo grinned delightedly from
the armchair which he was overflowing.
"These goddam Arabs have run fresh out of folding stuff." He gestured at
the gendarmes that crowded about the table in front of him.
"Arab" was Ruffy's word of censure or contempt, and bore no relation to
a man's nationality.
Ruffy's accent was always a shock to Bruce. You never expected to hear
pure Americanese come rumbling out of that huge black frame. But three
years previously Ruffy had returned from a scholarship tour of the
United States with a command of the idiom, a diploma in land husbandry,
a prodigious thirst for bottled beer (preferably Schlitz, but any other
was acceptable) and a raving dose of the Old Joe.
The memory of this last, which had been a farewell gift from a high
yellow sophomore of U. C.L. A returned most painfully to Ruffararo when
he was in his cups; so painfully that it could be assuaged only by
throwing the nearest citizen of the United States.
Fortunately, it was only on rare occasions that an American and the
necessary five or six gallons of beer were assembled in the same
vicinity so that Ruffy's latent race antipathy could find expression.
A throwing by Ruffy was an unforgettable experience, both for the victim
and the spectators. Bruce vividly recalled that night at the
Hotel Lido when he had been a witness at one of Ruffy's most spectacular
throwings.
The victims, three of them, were journalists representing
publications of repute. As the evening wore on they talked louder; an
American accent has a carry like a well-hit golf ball and Ruffy
recognized it from across the terrace. He became silent, and in his
silence drank the last gallon which was necessary to tip the balance.
He wiped the froth from his upper lip and stood up with his eyes
fastened on the party of Americans.
"Ruffy, hold it. Hey!" - Bruce might not have spoken.
Ruffy started across the terrace. They saw him coming and fell
into an uneasy silence.
The first was in the nature of a practice throw; besides, the man was
not aero-dynamically constructed and his stomach had too much wind
resistance. A middling distance of twenty feet.
"Ruffy, leave them!" shouted Bruce.
On the next throw Ruffy was getting warmed up, but he put excessive loft
into it. Thirty feet; the journalist cleared the terrace and landed on
the lawn below with his empty glass still clutched in his hand.
"Run, you fool!" Bruce warned the third victim, but he was paralysed.
And this was Ruffy's best ever, he took a good grip neck and seat of the
pants - and put his whole weight into it. Ruffy must have known that he
had executed the perfect throw, for his shout of
"Gonorrhoea!"
as he launched his man had a ring of triumph to it.
Afterwards, when Bruce had soothed the three Americans, and they had
recovered sufficiently to appreciate the fact that they were privileged
by being party to a record throwing session, they all paced out the
distances. The three journalists developed an almost proprietary
affection for Ruffy and spent the rest of the evening buying him beers
and boasting to every newcomer in the bar. One of them, he who had been
thrown last and farthest, wanted to do an article on Ruffy - with
pictures. Towards the end of the evening he was talking wildly of
whipping up sufficient enthusiasm to have a man-throwing event included
in the Olympic Games.
Ruffy accepted both their praise and their beer with modest gratitude;
and when the third American offered to let Ruffy throw him again, he
declined the offer on the grounds that he never threw the same man
twice. All in all, it had been a memorable evening.
Apart from these occasional lapses, Ruffy had a more powerful body and
happier mind than any man Bruce had ever known, and Bruce could not
help liking him. He could not prevent himself smiling as he tried to
reject Ruffy's invitation to play cards.
"We've got work to do now, Ruffy. Some other time."
"Sit down, boss," Ruffy repeated, and Bruce grimaced resignedly and took
the chair opposite him.
"How much you going to bet?" Ruffy leaned forward.
Bruce laid a thousand-franc note on the table; "when that's gone, then
we go."
"No hurry," Ruffy soothed him. "We got all day." He dealt the three
cards face down. "The old Christian monarch is in there somewhere; all
you got to do is find him and it's the easiest mille you ever made."
"in the middle," whispered the gendarme standing beside Bruce's chair.
"That's him in the middle."
"Take no notice of that mad Arab - he's lost five mille already this
morning," Ruffy advised.
Bruce turned over the right-hand card.
"Mis-luck," crowed Ruffy. "You got yourself the queen of hearts."
He picked up the banknote and stuffed it into his breast pocket.
"She'll see you wrong every time, that sweetfaced little bitch."
Grinning, he turned over the middle card to expose the jack of spades
with his sly eyes and curly little mustache. "She's been shacked up
there with the jack right under the old king's nose." He turned the king
face up.
"Look you at that dozy old guy - he's not even facin in the right
direction." Bruce stared at the three cards and he felt that sickness in
his stomach again. The whole story was there; even the man's name
was right, but the jack should have worn a beard and driven a red Jaguar
and his queen of hearts never had such innocent eyes. Bruce spoke
abruptly. "That's it, Ruffy. I want you and ten men to come with me."
"Where we going?"
"Down to Ordinance - we're drawing special supplies."