have ever met. Her name is Mary Magdalene Lotetse. She’s got three inches and fifty pounds on Sergeant Thomas, and if she says Lieutenant Portet’s Swahili is perfect, I am not about to argue with her. But just for the record, I know his Swahili is better than mine.”
He let that sink in for a moment.
“Is there among this band of would-be warriors, Lieutenant Portet, in your judgment, any one who would not be spotted as a tool of the Imperialist Devils—the prize for which, gentlemen, is having your head sliced open, or off, on the spot, with a dull machete—the minute he opened his mouth in the woods around Stanleyville?”
Two of the men had spoken surprisingly good Congolese, and Jack found their faces. He could not recall their names, but that didn’t matter, he realized with relief, because Lunsford had said they were all at least sergeants.
“The sergeant there, sir,” Jack said, pointing. “And the sergeant there, sir. They could, with a little luck, pass themselves off as Congolese.”
“Let the record show the witness identified Sergeant First Class DeGrew,” Lunsford said. “And Staff Sergeant Williams. Try to remember their names, Lieutenant. I know all we Negroes look alike to you honkies, but if you’re going to be with us, I would appreciate it if you would try to learn people’s names.”
Now there were a number of smiles. The major’s giving it to the lieutenant, too.
“Sergeant DeGrew and Sergeant Williams, you have an additional duty from this moment forward,” Lunsford said. “Every time, and I mean every time, you hear anyone—including our beloved Master Sergeant Thomas—saying anything wrong in Swahili, you will not only correct him on the spot, but make him repeat it and repeat it for however long it takes until he’s got it right. Clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Williams and DeGrew said in unison.
“The U.S. government has invested a lot of my tax dollars in you people,” Lunsford said. “And I don’t want it flushed down the toilet, as it would be if you’re running around the bush, open your mouth to some bona fide African, and he says, ‘Hey, that brother speaks Congolese like a honky’ or words to that effect, and cuts your stupid head off. Clear?”
There were shrugs of acknowledgment, admitting the logic behind Lunsford’s orders.
“And now another show of hands, please. If I announced that this honky airplane driver wants to join our little private army, but that I was leaving it up to you, how many of you would vote to take him?”
After a long pause, one hand went up, and it was evident from the look on his face that he had done it to get a laugh. He got it.
“And I was just starting to hope that maybe at least of couple of you weren’t as stupid as you look,” Lunsford said.
He waited until that had time to settle in, then went on.
“Let me set the scene for you. You are a Belgian paratrooper. You have just landed in Stanleyville, where some really nasty people have been practicing cannibalism on white people, possibly including your relatives. You go to the apartment house where you hope your relatives are. There are dead white people all over the lawn, and in the elevators. You break into your apartment, and there is this barefoot black guy in a Belgian officer’s tunic, a leopard skin, and shorts. And, of course, holding a gun. You’d blow the motherfucker away, right?”
There were no smiles now.
“Teeter?” Lunsford said, pointing to one of them.
“Yes, sir, that’s what I’d do.”
“Anybody who wouldn’t blow the motherfucker away, raise your hand.”
No hand raised.
“Well, lucky for me—I was the black guy in the Simba suit— that paratrooper thought before he pulled the trigger. Lucky for me, that Belgian paratrooper had control of himself under pressure. I don’t think I would have had that control myself. That Belgian paratrooper did.”
“You’re talking about the lieutenant, aren’t you, sir?” Master Sergeant Thomas said. “We heard that an American jumped with the Belgians. . . .”
Lunsford didn’t reply.
“Anybody who wants to change his mind about the lieutenant,” Sergeant Thomas said. “Raise your hand.”
His hand rose.
“Jesus, Major, how were we supposed to know?” one of them asked as his hand went up.
“You were supposed to think,” Lunsford said. “The only way you’re going to stay alive is if you think.”
Lunsford waited until they all had raised their hands.
“Enough with the hands bullshit,” he said. “You all look ridiculous. And this is the Army—we don’t take votes.”