Scribbling the Cat: Travels With an African Soldier Read Online Free PDF Page A

winged-sword symbol, like something that has been copied off a coat of arms. Above that, the words “A POS” had been written. The only men I know who have found it practical or necessary to have their blood group indelibly scratched into their limbs in blue ink have been soldiers in African wars.
    So when K’s torrent of unstrained observations and ideas had slowed to a halting trickle, I said, “Selous Scouts?” because even twenty years after the end of the second chimurenga, K had the build and attitude of a soldier from Rhodesia’s most infamous, if not elite, unit.
    K startled. For a moment I thought he was going to deny it but then he said, “Is it that obvious?”
    “Oh no,” I lied.
    “No, not the Scouts,” said K. “RLI. Rhodesian Light Infantry. Thirteen Troop.”
    The RLI had been Rhodesia’s only all-white unit, highly trained white boys whose “kill ratio” and violent reputation were a source of pride for most white Rhodesians. Their neurotically graded system of racial classification apparently gave the Rhodesians a need to believe in white superiority in all things, even the ability to kill. During the worst years of the war, a quarter to a third of RLI members had been foreigners covertly recruited from Britain, West Germany, the United States, Canada, Australia, France, Belgium, New Zealand, and South Africa in a desperate attempt to ensure the unit remained lily-white.
    K said, “I passed the selection course for the Scouts, but it wasn’t my scene. I stuck with the troopies. ‘The Incredibles.’ ”
    “Oh?”
    “I’m a hunter,” K explained. “We did the hunting, we found the gooks. We had to sniff them out.” K rubbed his knee as if an old injury had begun to twinge with the memory of combat. “Five years in Mozambique,” he said. Then he added, “Of course by the end of the war, the RLI weren’t hunters anymore. They were just killing machines—but by then I was out of it. I missed Operation Fireforce by about a year. You know, when ous were flown in and dropped on top of gooks for an almighty dustup—four, five times a day. Thankfully, I was out of it by then.”
    “How was the selection course?”
    “For the Scouts, you mean?”
    I nodded.
    “You know what they called that training camp for the Scouts?”
    I shook my head.
    “Wasa Wasa. In Shona wasa wafara means, ‘Those who die, die.’ ”
    “So it was tough.”
    K shook his head. “Not so bad. They left four of us on an island in the middle of the lake for a couple of weeks. I’ve done worse. You weren’t allowed anything except a shirt and a pair of shorts. When we got hungry enough we chased a baboon into the lake and drowned it.”
    “How’d that taste?”
    K considered. “Well, if I had to do it all over again, I’d cook the fucking thing first.”
    “Ha.”
    Then K said, “Was it this?” He put his hand over the sword-symbol tattoo.
    “Perhaps,” I said.
    K’s voice sank. “This is the sign for the paraquedistas.”
    “For the what?”
    “The Portuguese paratroopers,” said K. “The Pork-and-Cheese jumpers, we used to call them. I tracked for them a few times.”
    “Portuguese from Portugal?”
    K’s chin gave an abrupt pop backward, which I took as a gesture of the affirmative.
    “Were they good soldiers?” I asked.
    “Yes, they were good. They could shoot straight. They had a pretty good kill ratio.”
    I took cover behind my teacup and said, “So did the RLI. Didn’t they?”
    K threw the dogs off his lap and dusted his hands. I thought he might get up and leave now.
    Instead K said, “Ja, not bad.” He leaned forward, fixed me in his lionlike gaze, and added in a soft voice, “Look, the life I’ve lived . . . shit, I wouldn’t be here . . . you might not be here—a lot of people might not be here—if I, if we, couldn’t slot people faster than they could slot us. I was good at what I did. . . . It was my job. I did it.”
    And then to my alarm I saw tears swell and