TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO, Second Evacuation, 1964, Part One

Following a precipitate evacuation from the USIS post in the northwest Congo, ordered by his superior, Fred Hunter was allowed to return. After a day and night back in the town, he found the situation much deteriorated. Here’s his account:

Dawn wakes me. Light shimmers in the room. There’s a moment of struggle to keep my slumber, a moment of savored semi-consciousness. Then my elbow pushes me toward wakefulness, lifts me off the bed and above the brink of the windowsill. The sun, just above the trees on the eastern horizon, is like a white disc standing on its edge. The morning is as crisp as chilled papaya. There is no sound. Nothing stirs on the square. It’s before 6:00. I lie back down.

When I wake again and shave and dress, the square has begun its morning life. A cluster of Congolese loiters on the terrace that jointly serves Schambourg’s bakery and the coffee shop next door. Women drift toward me carrying on their heads cardboard cartons filled at the bakery, bread for the cité markets. Clerks move toward their jobs, some of them on bicycles. They pedal slowly, conversing with friends who trudge along on foot. ANC guards on the porches of the UN Headquarters and the Conseil Monetaire seem at last to have mostly wakened. As usual they sit spread-legged and half-asleep on metal folding chairs, their rifles lying on the cement beside them.

A picture I have seen dozens of mornings.

Judging from the streets, rain did not come during the night, after all. The dawn has been sunny, but now there are dark clouds in the sky and there may well be rain before noon.

As I walk to Schambourg’s bakery, Lermusiaux passes me in his black Oldsmobile, taking his daughters the three blocks to school. We wave. The town fool, as he so often does this time of morning, stands at the Conseil Monetaire driveway, dressed only in khaki shorts with a red necktie knotted and pulled tight against his skin. He’s executing close order drill, roaring orders to himself, falling over his feet and amusing the clerks who snicker and sometimes stamp their feet in enjoyment.

In the bakery a Katangese soldier who says he has no food is begging bread from M. Schambourg. He leans on his rifle and looks imploringly into the baker’s eyes.

“You’re no different from anyone else,” Schambourg says. His tone suggests this has been going on for some time. “If you want to buy bread, I’ll sell it to you. But I won’t give you any.”

“But, patron, I’m hungry.”

“Monsieur?” says the baker, addressing me.

As usual I buy three couques, small Flemish sweet rolls, and hand Schambourg 90 francs. He shakes his head, commenting silently on the Katangese. Before I leave the shop, his begging begins again.

Back at the house I sit down in the living room among the remainders of last Thursday’s hurry and have an unsatisfactory breakfast. Schambourg’s couques, often delicious, are too dry this morning. Soda is the only water now that all the boiling pans are gone, now that Joseph has taken the filter. It’s not a breakfast drink. I open a can of fruit juice from the food stocks that remain in the magasin and drink it as one would canned beer. I miss Joseph’s omelette and the Kivu tea. Outside I can hear Jules talking to his men.

When I go out to the courtyard and we shake hands, he asks, “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, thanks. And you?”

He nods. We have been regarding each other closely during this ritual, ready to sense any change that has taken place since we saw each other last night. But we seem the same as before.

“What news?”

Jules shakes his head and we go our separate ways. “I’ll see you at lunch,” he calls.

The first order of business at the Center is to try to send equipment out by Otraco. As I drive N’Djoku over to the port to get the papers processed, he tells me, “Patron, I am not happy.” He knows I will leave again if I must and does not want to be left behind again. Back at the Center Ahenga seeks me out in the office with the same plea. Once more we go over the ground covered yesterday: that they are not Americans, that they have no loyalty to the United States, etc., etc. The Director, they remind me, had said that there might be places for them in the USIS operation in Léopoldville. Can I make inquiries for them? I agree to try to get some message to Madison so that a decision can be made in Léo.

N’Djoku returns to say that Otraco has taken the expected move. It will no longer accept large cargo of any kind. I can stop preoccupying myself with the equipment. I felt critical of Madison for preoccupying himself with it; now I understand that it represents something to do.

What to do now? From all indications, though I have not yet gotten many this morning, the situation is continuing to fall apart. It seems more certain that eventually I’ll have to leave again, perhaps in a matter of hours. There’s little that can be done in the Center. I tell the boys to remain at their work in the library and with the films.

When I arrive at UN HQ, Belgians are gathered outside, awaiting news of developments. When I enter, a new feeling buzzes in the air. In the Game Room, shadowy in this still early morning light, I have the impression of other figures sitting by the magazine tables, looking up with interest at every newcomer who, like me, hurries past the ping-pong table to the office.

The radio is on in the empty office, humming contentedly to itself. Rishi’s nowhere to be found. I glance around for him in the halls and other offices. The secretary appears, maybe Portuguese, maybe Indian, I can’t tell. I address her in French. She doesn’t seem to know where Rishi is either. Back in his office, I thumb through papers on his desk looking for some acknowledgment of my last night’s message from the Embassy in Léo. I find nothing.

As I leave the UN, a car speeds into the drive, a door flies open and almost before it stops DeWalsch seems to be walking from it toward the group of Belgians. They open their circle and he moves into its center. “Van Nitsen,” he says. He expels a short, brutal mouth noise and draws his finger across his throat.

“Dead?”

“Murdered by rebels.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

Van Nitsen is the manager of the Hévea rubber plantation just outside of Boende. As such, he’s the dean of the European community there and would be the first person targeted should the conquering rebels wish to introduce a reign of terror against the whites. In addition, he’s a personal friend of most of these men.

“Where did you hear this?”

“Radio Stan.”

But what kind of source is Radio Stan? We don’t know. Such an announcement would be just the thing to break the European morale in Coq – or in Boende itself if by some chance it’s still holding out. Could the rebels really have killed Van Nitsen? Many Congolese enjoy threatening a white man, from government clerks and soldiers on guard to thugs and bandits. But to kill one? For that a Congolese must overcome tremendous psychological blocks. Has the rebellion pushed Congolese beyond that psychological barrier? If so… We don’t even want to think of the cruel death Van Nitsen may have met. Or of what has happened to the Europeans and Americans in Stan.

“Radio Stan announced that Boende was taken yesterday morning,” DeWalsch reports. “And that in the afternoon Van Nitsen was executed at the edge of the river.”

There is a moment of silence.

Then DeWalsch continues: “It announced that Coq would fall soon.”

Before returning across the street to the house, I survey the men. This news has hit them hard. It has posed the question – go or stay – in a very direct way.

Back at the house I set myself to writing letters. The first to a girl I have plans to meet in less than two weeks in Munich. It’ll be Oktoberfest. A letter picked up only an hour before we evacuated last Thursday told me she’d succeeded in getting me hotel reservations. Reading over my note – which confides that I don’t know what the hell is happening – I realize that this activity is a kind of waiting. I don’t really believe any letters will be sent. But they give me, as we enter the lull before the storm, a sense of accomplishing something. What could be better than that?

Outside the usual town noises continue: cars coming and going from UN HQ; doors slamming; Congolese women yakking in shrill voices as they walk past; work sounds from Jules’ men in the courtyard. The sky grows black with clouds. Without noticing these things, none unusual, I write another friend, a Wall Street securities analyst, whom I hope to see in Europe.

Now there comes an urgent pounding at one of the windows in the courtyard door. Jules bursts through the door in the manner of la réaction vive: eyes alert, enormous strides, head poised forward (it’s as if he were sniffing).

“Did you hear that?” he asks. “Just a minute ago there was–”

Jules cocks his head as the sound repeats itself, a metallic rat-tat-tat-tat like those we heard after midnight that evening I played cards at the Madisons.

Shooting? Machine-gun fire? We look at each other, these questions in our eyes. Our ears strain for repetitions which do not come. What the–? As usual the Congo is stretching our sense of credulity. Can there actually be machine-guns firing in a town where I am living?

Next post: Fred sends a message to US Embassy Léo requesting an evacuation C-130.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO: Second Evacuation, 1964, Part Two

Following a precipitate evacuation from the USIS post in the northwest Congo, ordered by his superior, Fred Hunter was allowed to return to Coquilhatville. He found the situation there much deteriorated. Here’s his account:

Hardly has Jules disappeared into the courtyard to check out what sounded like machine-gun fire before Rishi knocks at the front door. Hardly has he confirmed that no answer has been received to my last night’s message than Cabiaux and Herman are in the room.

They ask if I have received news from Leopoldville.

I have not.

Cabiaux takes a cigarette from his breast pocket and asks if I have a match.

Let’s see… My only matches are stuck away with the candle in the medicine cabinet where I can find them during an electricity failure. I run upstairs to fetch them. While my body takes the steps two at a stride, my mind detaches itself for a sidelong look at me. It’s puzzled to see me doing for Cabiaux what it doubts he would do for me; it’s a bit piqued with him for sending me off on an errand when the need for taking decisions seems to hang momentously in the air. It’s perplexed at my preoccupation with being a host (I’ve already excused myself for having nothing in the house to offer them). And most of all amused at my preoccupation with everything (hosting, letters, a trip to Europe) beside The Situation.

I get the matches (there are about five left), return below and help Cabiaux set himself afire. Herman asks again that I request rescue planes from the Embassy. We review The Situation as it’s developing. As the threat grows, I’m told, ANC officers are losing confidence, disputing among themselves what should be done. They will certainly not relinquish the arms shipped in to reinforce the gendarmerie’s defense of Ingende. And it appears that the gendarmerie has abandoned any idea of making a stand there. About the probable incompetence and questionable loyalty of Major Kwima? Nothing.

There’s the ever worrisome possibility of a local explosion. That this will come, that the rebels will be welcomed, none of us doubts. The question is: When?

There’s also the problem of escape. Getting out by land is impossible. As the events of 1960 showed, river escape by women and children is problematic, especially now that local control of Otraco rests in Congolese hands. Moreover, the road to the airport can be easily cut.

“And in any case,” says Herman, “the Europeans are having great difficulty boarding Air Congo flights.”

“But why is that?” I ask.

“The Congolese authorities are taking over the planes,” Herman says. “What was left of the Provincial Government went out on the plane this morning.” If the Belgian Embassy decides to evacuate its citizens, it will use Air Congo planes, Air Congo being an affiliate of Sabena, the Belgian National Airlines. There will be no point in the Belgian Embassy sending them if its citizens cannot get aboard. We all understand what the report of Van Nitsen’s execution means in terms of the direction the rebellion may have taken.

Herman reiterates what he told me last night: “The women and children must be evacuated.” Cabiaux leans forward, elbows on his knees, the cigarette still burning between his fingers,

“What about the men?”

A look passes between the two lawyers. Again Herman speaks: “Most of them are ready to go, too.” Cabiaux nods in agreement.

“When?” I ask.

“Today,” says Herman. “Now. People are going to the airport right now to wait for planes.”

“For what planes?”

“For any planes. Air Congo. American planes. Anything.”

If I have been waiting for some demonstrated willingness by the Europeans to leave, their flocking to the airport would seem to meet that requirement.

“Okay,” I say. “I’ll write a message immediately.”

Taking a pad of paper, I move to the dining table and start to print in large block letters: FOR 250 LEOPOLDVILLE AMERICAN EMBASSY. This is the Embassy’s telex address. Without our KWM-2 transmitter, I have no direct contact with Léo except via UN radio or the telex at the post office.

I don’t trust the UN radio. There’s no assurance that last night’s message got through. In any case a message has to be transferred twice: from UN Coq to UN Léo, from UN Léo to US Embassy. Judging from my own transmission experience with the KWM-2 and from the fact that UN people transmit in second or third languages where mutual comprehension is often faulty, the possibility of transmission errors seems tremendous. As does the possibility of a snafu in getting the message from UN Léo to the Embassy. (What if this rescue cry gets into the hands of someone who doesn’t know what to do with it? Horrible thought!)

The post office telex, on the other hand, is a commo channel I’ve often used for one-way messages – even in preference to our own transmitter. It’s a kind of telephonic typewriter. The post office technician dials the address and connects with a telex inside the Embassy. In principle two telex machines can converse with one another (via typed messages) although in practice the post office will get no more answer from the Embassy than an acknowledgement of receipt. But that will be all I need to know that the message has reached the Embassy.

But there are two problems with the post office telex. First of all, it’s an open channel, in these circumstances even more open than the radio. While its messages cannot be intercepted as can those sent by radio, any official can look through the outgoing messages, of which copies are kept. That presents a danger. Should the wrong people see the message, they might set off a panic or the local combustion we all fear. Fortunately, diplomatic usage tends to understate and my message will be in English. Both will act as fairly effective codes in this underdeveloped, francophone region.

The second problem is that the telex, like everything else, doesn’t always work. We’ll just have to take our chances with that.

As I print the message, I feel on the fleeting edge of dizziness, at the border of a trance. The words flow easily: EUROPEAN POPULATION READY TO EVACUATE TOWN NOW MORALE OF MILITARY LOW WRANGLING AMONG OFFICERS APPARENTLY NO DEFENSE CAPABILITY.

Some messages – even the most banal – have to be changed and redrafted before I’m satisfied. Not this one. For a moment I let myself feel swept up in history, participating in it a little. But only for a moment.

Herman and Cabiaux converse in low tones.

“How many people?” I ask them.

“Four hundred fifty? Five hundred?” As the number of evacuees, Herman has given me the figure most people offer as the entire local European population.

I finish the message: CAN YOU SEND C-130 AIRCRAFT TO EVACUATE 300 PERSONS TODAY TODAY RESPOND VIA UN RADIO. I sign the message: HUNTER.

The capacity of a C-130, each refugee carrying one suitcase, lies between 125 to 135 people. The Embassy will probably send three planes into Coq. They can evacuate around 400 refugees. The Belgian Embassy, too, will undoubtedly try to do something. And if other C-130s are needed, they can probably be sent.

Finished, I read through the message. It strikes me as a little understated. One doesn’t want to follow too closely the traditions of the profession! I stick in at the top: URGENT URGENT URGENT and imagine the commo clerk doing a backflip when he sees it coming in on the machine.

“All right,” I tell the two lawyers, the message in my hand, “I’m asking for the kind of planes that came in here last week. I’ll send it right away.”

Herman smiles with relief. Once more I see that expression of doglike appreciation, that we-can-really-count-on-you-Americans look. But the smile transmits to me less gratitude than a reminder of last Thursday afternoon when his glare in the airport waiting room said: “Vous américains, vous rats! You think you can sneak out on us!”

Cabiaux smiles, too. “And the planes will come today?”

“That’s what I’ve asked for.”

“When you get an answer,” he says, “let us know and we’ll spread the news.”

Before following the lawyers out the door, I find Jules in the courtyard to tell him what I’m doing. A few minutes later when I return to the UN Hq, the sky has grown very black. The storm will break in a matter of minutes. Is it the one that failed to come last night? Already men standing in the growing circle of Belgians, Cabiaux among them, are wearing raincoats. Expecting rain, the clusters of men have moved to the covered walkway on the terrace. Figures are milling around in the Game Room. It is quite dark now, no one having bothered to turn on a light.

I find Rishi, show him the message, and tell him I’m hoping for a reply through his channel.

Back in the Game Room, I run into Marcus dressed in a black Gendarmerie uniform. He’s carrying a lightweight sub-machine gun. The stock is only curved aluminum tubing. Seeing him, I’m immediately struck with the feeling that this is one of the men who isn’t going to get out. He’ll get stuck leading a gendarmerie outfit that doesn’t want to fight, that will eventually bug out and leave him. No matter how untrained and ill-armed the rebels are, Marcus and his sub-machine gun can’t hold them off alone. When he offers his hand and greets me in English, however, he doesn’t seem to share my estimate of his fate. He says an officer from the Belgian Embassy, a young count, has arrived on the early plane to report on the situation.

Marcus corroborates Herman’s report that the defense of Ingende has been abandoned. He says, in fact, that thirty-five mercenaries will be flown in specifically to hold the airport. It’s the 1960 strategy all over again: hold the airports and evacuate the Europeans. What about the town itself? Has it been written off? Are the mercenaries for real? So far as I know they haven’t seen much action yet. Will that happen? So much requested, so little received. Questions buzz around my head, only half-formed. The question about mercenaries is: Will they actually arrive?

A newcomer enters the Game Room from the admin offices and passes quickly through it, followed by DeWalsch. He’s a young man with a young man’s mustache, very Belgian-looking, wearing a tie, coat and a raincoat. These more than anything mark him as the Belgian Embassy’s young count. I give him the once-over (one must know, after all, what the other big embassy is fielding this year!). Just then the storm breaks with a roar of thunder and the quickening splatter of rain. I must get to the post office before the worst of it. I excuse myself from Marcus and head out into the heavy tropical downpour.

With rain pelting down, Coq could be a ghost town in a cloudburst. Except at Air Congo across the street from the post office. I have never seen so many people, Europeans and Congolese both. All of them trying to buy a way out of town.

In the telex room, upstairs just beyond the urine stench in the stairwell, a gloom pervades: dark light entering from the small, high window, the gray banks of Siemens equipment, black typewriters. It’s quite cold; the temperature always drops sharply during rain and in here the air-conditioner is purring. My friend the technician looks up as I enter, smiles, greets me with a few words, indicates a chair and returns to his work. He’s wearing wool trousers, a tie and a sleeveless pullover sweater as he learned to do during his training in Hamburg, about which he has told me. (The place he trained was undoubtedly as dark, humid and cold as this cell is now.) From the noise he produces striking typewriter keys, one would expect metal castings to clink out somewhere. The banks of equipment click and flash.

“It’s working all right today, huh?” I ask when the noise of his typing stops.

“Yes, fine. You have a message? I’ll do it in a minute.”

He continues to work. Then he gets up, goes to the door and, promising to return immediately, disappears. I wait. Sitting at first, glancing through an old copy of a magazine. I get up and move around, read the messages on his machine.

“Tu es là, mon cher ami?” my operator has written to the man in Léo. “You are there, friend?”

“Je suis là. Comment ça va, ami? I’m here. How are things?”

Finally I search through offices for the operator. He finds me, having seen me looking for him. We go back to the telex room; he prepares the tape that will actually send the message, feeds it into the teletypewriter and starts it. The keys begin to print. The same impulses that form these words form identical words in the Embassy commo room.

I watch the message go.

When it’s finished, the operator sits down at the keyboard and asks: “M’avez-vous réçu?” “Did you receive me?”

The keyboard prints almost immediately: “Bien réçu.” “Gotcha.”

Next post: Will the evacuation plane actually arrive?

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO: Second Evacuation, 1964, Part Three

Following a precipitate evacuation from the USIS post in the northwest Congo, ordered by his superior, Fred Hunter was allowed to return. He found the situation in the town much deteriorated and telexed US Embassy Léo for an evacuation plane. Here’s his further account:

Returning to the house from the post office where I’ve sent the telex, I write Tom Madison a letter in several copies. It seems a crazy thing to do, but having been firm with the boys, it seems important to be firm enough with myself to honor my promise to write to Léo in their behalf, even though there’s no hope of getting permission to bring them out.

Half an hour later – I’m addressing envelopes to Munich, New York and Léo and wondering whether or not to write home – Rishi knocks at the door.

“Come on in.”

“Here’s a telex for you.”

He watches as I read it standing in the doorway. It says:

coquilhatville=
most urgent.
tab 618 rishi from saunders. please transmit urgently following message to Fred Hunter, us consulate coquilhatville. quote c-130 scheduled arrive coquilhatville 1300 zulu today will evacuate up to 130 persons with one bag each. also understand two air congo dc3’s left this morning for coquilhatville carrying fresh troops and should be available for evacuation. you instructed to return by next aircraft.
signed godley unquote

“What time is it now?” I ask Rishi.

“About 10:45.”

The plane will be here in a little over three hours, at 2:00 o’clock. Since the Congo spans two time zones, messages indicate zulu hours, Greenwich mean time, an hour earlier than Coq and Léo.

I wonder what Rishi is planning to do. Of the UN personnel, beside him and Sami, only a few doctors are left, called in from the bush. These feel an obligation to the Hippocratic Oath. Earlier this morning, however, I heard a Belgian doctor, a pre-Independence hand, saying to one of them: “That’s fine, but are you going to stay around and let these savages chop you up the way they did Van Nitsen?”

“You going to send your people out?” I ask Rishi.

“I guess we’ll wait for instructions from Léo.”

Gee, he’s always calm! I admire that, but wonder about the wisdom of leaving his staff’s fate to people in Léo who don’t know what’s going on in Coq.

After Rishi leaves, I go into the courtyard to show Jules the message, then zip past Cabiaux’s house. He’s an orchidéeiste and plant boxes hang from the trees. Recognizing my car, he and Herman come out. They promise to spread news of the plane.

Next out to the Madisons’. When I honk, Louis, all smiles as usual, runs out to unlock the gate. Word has gotten around to inform him I’m in town. The house is in good shape. A pile of books stands on top of the buffet; mysteries borrowed from the DCCM, an Ian Fleming, and the Portable Conrad, which I’m tempted to make off with. I pay Louis and the other two boys and put the books in the car.

To the Mission. Dr. Mullen is there, discouraged with the futility of trying to get on an Air Congo plane. I tell him to be at the airport at 2:00, offer to fetch him when I realize he won’t want to leave the new Landrover at the airport. He’s already made other arrangements and will hide the Landrover out at Bolenge Station.

Tall, smiling Maurice is at Ron Sallade’s old desk in the Treasurer’s office. “Oui, tout va bien,” he says. I return the borrowed mysteries and ask for mail that’s arrived for the missionaries since last week. Laughing, he shows me an enormous pouch full of it. No question of trying to take that along.

Up in Gary Farmer’s old office, I visit Jean Bokeleale, new Secretary of the Church, upon whom its entire direction now depends. He opposed the missionaries’ withdrawal last week as an abandonment and greets me more coolly than he ever has before. He looks at his desk blotter as I tell him that I’m going out again this afternoon and want the Mission to use my car. “I will leave it at the airport,” I say. “You can pick it up there.” He takes the keys.

“May Jesus be with you,” he says.

Returning to the car, I feel puzzled. Something’s changed on this mission ground that so long seemed a haven of friendship to me. Something more than the mere departure of my compatriot missionaries. The screen door that I have heard so often slam over at the Farmers/Taylors’ slams again. I glance across the road at the house, surprised to see it reoccupied already. Watching women move in and out of the house, I’m still pondering Bokeleale’s coolness. Does he feel that I was one of those who abandoned him? Yet resent my reappearance? Or is coolness his business manner? Do I want a fuss made over my presentation of the car? Now one of the Mission’s VW’s drives up and three Bolenge Congolese wave to me from it. When we greet each other, their faces are wreathed in grins.

On the way back to the house it suddenly hits me. “Les blancs partent!” “The mindeli are leaving!” The Congolese are delighted to see us go. Delighted! It’s like Independence all over again! Once more they’ll get our cars and houses, our furniture and mattressed beds, our silverware, plates, glasses, radios, soft chairs, clothes, everything that’s left. And they won’t have to work or take orders or do what they dislike doing. They’re delighted to see us go. Delighted! Most of them will welcome the rebels with open arms.

The next caller is a Belgian patron of our library whose name I do not know, though I recognize his plain face, chubby figure and slightly pigeon-toed walk. I’ve seen him around town, know that he works at Otraco and rides a bike (which suggests he’s missed out on the financial gain that is supposed to attract all colons). I haven’t talked to him since the morning he asked if we had the National Geographic in the library; he had a collection of issues that he’d sent home to Belgium. He’s my friend because, unlike so many Belgians, he’s always smiled and waved when we passed on the street.

After preliminaries he says: “I’ve heard American planes are coming this afternoon.”

I tell him the time.

“I’ll have my wife out there,” he says. “And I’ll go, too, if there’s room.” He looks a little sheepish and drops his eyes to his in-turned toes. “I stayed through all of it in 1960,” he tells me. “And nothing ever happened to me. But this time… This time I’m scared.” Indeed, he speaks for people all over town now packing their one suitcase. He smiles, relieved to have gotten it off his chest. “See you at the airport.”

Packing myself. I pare down to one suitcase. Can’t leave the typewriter which has seen me through every day of this Coq experience, though I don’t quite know how I’ll get it on board. I decide to leave the cash box, put its money in my wallet, its papers in the suitcase. In its bottom compartment, where I’ve put them to discourage petty theft, three ball-point pens roll around. A while back I gave each clerk a pen, telling him he’d have to replace its loss from his own pocket. About six weeks later N’Djoku lost his – and began to bother me regularly for a replacement. “Patron…?” the prodigal returning, hesitant voice, big downcast repentant eyes. I’d burst out laughing, so would he and he’d wait another week before trying again. Remembering this game, I stick the pens in my pocket to give to the boys.

When I load the car, Jules and Pierre Bogaerts are talking together in front of the driveway gate. I join them, hear their speculations about the boat and the river and listen to their estimates of the safe time left in Coq. We joke a little – there’s still enough safe time for that – and Jules says he’s about to return to the river house for lunch. I say I’ll follow immediately after dropping by the center.

Contrary to my instructions, the boys have gone to lunch, leaving only Tata Edouard. More likely, they’ve closed for the day, figuring on the basis of rumors that I’ve already gone. I look around at what was only empty rooms ten months ago. That first day I was here alone, sitting on the floor. The old tata, pensioned, but still man enough to produce yearly babes, came in that day with his two tiny daughters, naked except for a little cloth and charms tied to thongs. They all stood and stared – and unnerved me with their stares. The tata and I have been father figures to each other. I’ve grown to rely on his steady presence.

When I go back outside, he shuffles up from his empty quarters. “Tu pars?” At first the familiar “tu” annoyed me.

“Oui, Edouard, I’m leaving.” I give him the pens for the clerks and realize immediately that little joke gifts built on allusions aren’t right for the occasion.

“Qui va me payer? Je demande qui va me payer?” Abruptly he’s quite angry, almost spitting the food he’s munching, waving his arms about his head. “I ask who’s going to pay me.”

“You’ll be paid,” I say.

“Qui? Qui va me payer?”

Suddenly we’re in the moment before the storm where it’s dark, the wind has begun to blow. We’re shouting at each other; events are pulling us apart. Is this how things end with Edouard?

“Qui va me payer?” It’s what every Congolese wants to know.

“You’ll be paid. Have I ever failed to pay you?”

“Mais qui? Qui? Tu pars!”

“You’ll be paid.” I get into the car. “Give those pens to the boys, huh?”

Grumbling, frowning, he walks back to the empty boyerie and I hurry off.

Passing Boudart’s house on the river road, where his partner Delinte is now living, I see Jules’ white BMW parked in the drive. Jules himself is talking on the lawn with Delinte and a man I do not recognize. Their faces are thoughtful and tense, their stances poised as if to take action. When I pause, still in the car, the man I do not recognize approaches. He’s tall, nervous and distracted, and in a quick instant he gives a bird-like impression of flying in circles.

“M. Oontaire?” he addresses me. “Are you coming with us in the boat?” I look confused, too. “The Sédec boat.”

So that is what Delinte and Jules are discussing. And this man is Clochette, manager of the local Sédec store who has been instructed by his superior from Léo that I am to be given a place in the boat.

“We are preparing the boat now,” Clochette chatters on when I do not answer. “We are about to go down and stake it now. Are you with us?”

I thank him and tell him I will leave on the plane. He hurries back to the group. I drive on to André’s house at the river.

When Jules pulls in beside my car at the house, he’s irritated. “Delinte wanted me to let him put the Sédec boat into this pier!” he says. “He would have this beach the center of attention for everyone watching the shore.”

Hardly have we entered the house when a car speeds into the chantier and throws up a mist of dust in skidding to a stop. We rush outside. It’s Clochette again.

“Your plane has come in,” he says.

Already? It’s not due yet for an hour.

“Did you see it?”

“Someone told me it was in.” He pauses a moment. “Major Kwima won’t let anyone board it.”

“What?”

“Major Kwima refuses to give anyone permission to board it.”

“Why?”

He doesn’t know.

Next post: Fred gets to the C-130, but Major Kwima refuses to let refugees board.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO: Second Evacuation, 1964, Part Four

Following a precipitate evacuation from the USIS post in the northwest Congo, ordered by his superior, Fred Hunter was allowed to return. He found the situation in the town much deteriorated and telexed US Embassy Léo for an evacuation plane. It arrives. But can refugees board it? Here’s his account:

As usual the town’s deserted under the noon sun. Jules and I race through it to DeWalsch’s house where he and the Belgian attaché will be. Rishi and Sami from the UN arrive just before us. DeWalsch and the attaché receive us at lunch, their mouths full. And are just as alarmed as we were when they hear the news.

It’s quickly decided that someone must talk to Kwima. We limit the delegation to a carload of people. We’ll take only one car so as not to frighten Kwima with our numbers and excite his stubbornness. But a carload of European men won’t much affect Kwima. There’s been a steady stream of cars on the airport road since early morning. What we are really doing, I believe, is limiting ourselves in order to control ourselves. We are resisting that strong pull toward panic, trying to remain well on the sane side of it. The delegation comprises Rishi who will represent the UN’s principles and prestige, DeWalsch, dean of the local Belgians (who alone among us speaks Lingala), the Belgian attaché and me as a representative of the US government.

Rishi offers his car, an official one that will pass more easily, we hope, through military barricades than our unofficial ones. I hand my key purse over to Jules so he can take the car. He knows I must return to Léo on the plane. We look at each other, wondering when we’ll see each other again. “A tantôt,” I say. “See you in a little while.”

“A tantôt.”

Moving out through the cités Rishi drives calmly – and is forced to drive slowly. Large trucks that hire for drayage, old wrecks kept working by expediency, ingenuity and need, clog the pavement, chugging forward. They are loaded high above the cab with European furniture: lounge chairs, armoires, floor lamps, tables. So the looting has begun.

Approaching the airport on the long spur of road that parallels the runway, we see the looming bulk of the C-130, parked seemingly isolated on the boarding area tarmac. The US paratroop guard stands before it, facing the crowds milling around the airport building. In battle dress, rooted at parade rest on the pavement, the guard appears very military and capable after the sloppiness of the ANC.

The airport parking lot is a jumble of cars. I have never seen so many here and so many ill-parked, as if abandoned. Seen through its windows the airport waiting room is dark with people. Figures file through the mass of automobiles. Many of them struggle with suitcases. Since they’ve been limited to one, they’ve taken the largest they could find and have packed it with more weight and bulk than it should hold. A teenaged girl plods along, three coats over one arm, the other pulled stiff, almost unsocketed by the weight of her suitcase. She arches her back to heft the suitcase, teeters forward on unproven high heels, shakes her head in frustration. The sun catches the swinging, stringy locks of her hair.

I catch a glimpse of Major Kwima. He’s surrounded by Belgians, ANC officers, and what’s left of the provincial government; he’s shaking his head. But I break free from our delegation to head out onto the tarmac to make contact with the flight crew. Two soldiers man a barricade; a long file of Congolese with suitcases and woven baskets and belongings wrapped in cloths stand before it. “Tu ne peux pas passer,” says one of the ANC soldiers. “You cannot pass.”

“Mais c’est mon avion,” I tell him.

He regards me dubiously. But he knows I’m ”l’américain” and so probably it is my airplane. He lets me through.

“Say, what the hell’s going on?” asks one of the officers as I introduce myself.

The question is so appropriate that I smile and try to explain. What he’s really wondering – so are the paratroopers; I can see it in their faces – is whether or not we’re going to have to fight to get off the ground.

“You speak French?” he asks.

“More or less.”

“You’re gonna hafta lead ‘em on then, if they ever get out here.”

A few Congolese are already on the tarmac. Somehow they’ve gotten past the barricade. A paratrooper nervously watches them edging forward. It’s a little like “Simon Says,” the child’s game where you try to advance without being seen. The trooper shouts in English, retreats a step or two, cursing under his breath and tries to motion the Congolese away from the propellers.

“You must stay back. S’il vous plaît. S’il vous plaît.” My sing-song French and flapping arms induces them to retreat a little. “Everything will be organized in just a few minutes.” I don’t like being once more the man who seems to save white Europeans and turn away black Congolese; I don’t want a repetition of Friday’s ugly scene. But I’m going to be that guy.

At the loading ramp at the rear of the plane I greet the other officers. Dr. Mullen is among them. Inside the plane are Flemish priests, refugees from Lisala and Basankusu. At the very rear of the plane huddle two Portugese families; they seem superstitious, death-absorbed and very frightened indeed.

I return to the huddle around Kwima. DeWalsch is trying to explain why women and children must be allowed to leave. Kwima shakes his head. “We must avoid a panic,” he keeps insisting. “If any Europeans leave, there will be a panic.” It’s an argument that doesn’t make much sense; even Kwima seems to understand that. But he continues adamantly to shake his head. “No European will leave.”

The words fall on my ears with the weight of a sentence. A kind of shuddering hollowness opens inside me all the way to my bowels. Trapped in Coq, with the rebels already on the road to take it, with the looting already started, and the ANC betraying us. All the fears that visited my sleep the night before I left Léo hit me again. I think of those poor guys trapped in Stan. Nobody’s heard from them for weeks. And I think of my mother who assumes I’m in Paris.

Now a Congolese I’ve worked with in the government, the provincial public relations director, steps forward, holding a paper. A telex message. More fear jumps onto what I already feel. Almost immediately, however, I see that the message is too long to be mine. And it’s in French. It starts out: “La situation à Coq est catastrophique.” The rest of the message (I’m told later; there is no time now to read it) outlines why things have deteriorated and what actions need to be taken. It specifically mentions Kwima’s incompetence and fears that he intends to betray the entire European population.

“Who sent this telex?” demands the Congolese who holds it. “He’s the man we must find. He points to a name at the end of the message, that of the young Belgian attaché.

Most of the Europeans in the group look at him. While maintaining a surface calm, the Belgian attaché stutters and can’t control the trembling of his hands. All in all, it’s a commendable performance (I’d hate to be in his shoes), but I can hardly believe what he’s done. He’s sent an alarm message, questioning a key man’s loyalty, over an open, public commo channel. And he’s sent it in French, the country’s first language, when he could have used either English or Flemish. Incredible!

The attaché emphasizes the need to evacuate the women and children. Everyone looks at him. The Europeans know he signed the message that produced this violent reaction; most Congolese seem now to suspect that he did.

Kwima stands against the wire fence that divides the waiting area from the grass that leads to the tarmac. Never has he looked so small inside his uniform. Nor so scared. As everyone else stares at the young attaché, Kwima glances away across the field, shaking his head. But he seems also to be biting the inside of his lip. Is adamancy his only defense against tears?

Next post: Major Kwima allows women and children to leave.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO: Second Evacuation, 1964, Part Five

Following a precipitate evacuation from the USIS post in the northwest Congo, ordered by his superior, Fred Hunter was allowed to return. He found the situation in the town much deteriorated. An evacuation plane has arrived, but will refugees be allowed to board it? Here’s his account:

Catastrophic possibility. Rebel money may have passed into Major Kwima’s pockets. That’s what the Europeans fear. He may have agreements with rebel elements already in town. But at this moment it’s hard to believe that he’s going to betray us into their hands. His nearness to tears is the betrayer, not of us, but of this child-man. It reveals him as not cruel enough to betray us. As not strong enough to break with the system that has produced him: Belgian paternalism.

Suddenly able to act with independence, he can’t break with the dependence that has been his way of life. Always in the past les blancs took decisions; les blancs found solutions. Les blancs were the fathers, les noirs the learning children. Kwima may have hated that system; he may still hate whites. (And with good reason. Isn’t it the whites whose message has questioned his loyalty and may wreck his career?) “I hate you,” say the eyes and shaking head. “But,” say the tears, “I cannot betray you, you who have betrayed me with your message and your leaving.” (I sense this attitude very forcefully, but perhaps it’s my own sentimentality and naiveté.)

The Europeans sense that Kwima is saying, “I hate you, but don’t leave me.” They understand that he can be palavered, cajoled, flattered at least into letting the women and children go. And finally this is what happens. Kwima relents. The women and children of Europeans may board the plane, but all the men must stay. Does he expect these men to fight the rebels as they enter? I sense that they will not allow themselves to become embroiled in this. Or does he hope to turn them over to the rebels as hostages?

Suddenly once again there’s the naked emotion of goodbyes. The tears. The passionate embraces. The men crouching beside their children. The contradictory desires, on one hand, never to leave these loved ones and, on the other, to get the emotion done with and the refugees loaded and the plane gone.

The women and children begin to file out toward the plane.

I am still in the crowd of men around Kwima, not certain what to do. There’s a strong pull to stay. I know how the Belgian men feel: that they sacrifice their own sense of themselves if they leave. That they will have to live for some time with the feeling that they are cowards, the sense that Tom Madison is now having to deal with in Léo. But there’s little I can do for Jules. Last night’s communion with the river on the Andrés’ terrace made me realize how foolhardy and arduous that adventure might be. Two months on the river! What would we eat? How would we survive the heat, the sun, the glare? My instructions order me to return with this plane. I will do myself no good in Léo if I ignore these instructions. And in any case I am needed to help with loading the plane.

When Kwima moves off, I nudge Jules, next to whom I’m standing, and offer my hand. He nods to me. We shake hands. I melt into the file of refugees that stands at the plane’s loading ramp.

Crewmen have strung straps of webbing in lines across the width of the cargo bay. They signal to women and children to climb inside the plane and take designated positions on the cargo floor. When the plane is loaded to capacity, we tell those whom we cannot accommodate that another plane is on its way. I hope this is true.

Finally everyone is set in the cargo bay where apprehension has caused a quiet to descend. The cargo ramp is raised. Goodbye, Coquilhatville. The motors start. We hear their sound, feel their vibration. The crew guarding the plane jumps aboard and the huge machine begins to crawl across the tarmac. The passengers listen intently. They are wide-eyed but all we see is each other and our various emotions: fear, uncertainty and a relief that already has some people crying.

The plane inches onto the runway. The motors roar. The plane shakes. We look at each other. Suddenly the plane hurtles down the runway. Then: whoosh! An enormous surge of power. The plane lifts. It tilts us. We start sliding backwards on the cargo bay and reach for the straps of webbing, understanding now why they’re there. And we are in the air.

Next post: A refugee in Léo, Fred realizes that the end has come for USIS Coquilhatville.

TRAVELS IN AFRICA: CONGO: Second Evacuation, 1964, Part Six

Following a precipitate evacuation from the USIS post in the northwest Congo, ordered by his superior, Fred Hunter was allowed to return, only to evacuate again two days later. Once more he feels in limbo in Léo.

Léo is another world altogether.

At the Embassy I feel the chill of air-conditioners. My shivering corpuscles swim in thin blood. Officers frown into telephones: coats, beautifully knotted ties. Political section secretaries (scarlet lips, pancaked cheeks, titillating tits) swing girdled asses inside tailored skirts. Like Ad Agency Career Girls in New York. They wonder at the bush bumpkin sitting cold and wide-eyed in short-sleeved shirt, cotton trousers and gooseflesh. Is he really Officer Corps (as they’ve been told) or Staff Corps (as they suspect).

A short meeting with the Ambassador. This huge, friendly man stands behind his desk in rolled shirtsleeves, wrinkled trousers. His hair is mussed. Political Section officers, coated, unmussed, dance attendance in the great space of his office. He regards me over the top of reading glasses with lenses shaped like quarter moons.

“That was a short trip,” he says.

Very quickly we review how things have deteriorated.

“What about our locals up there?” he asks.

I report what I’ve told them about loyalties to the United States.

“Good,” he says. “Let’s hope you’re right.”

That’s the end of the interview. He looks around at his POL officers and says, “Well, we’re out of that one.”

As I leave the office, I have the sinking feeling that the people in Coq – and what I’ve tried to build there – have been wiped away.

A long session in his POL Section office with the good Paul Bergman. He feels the US government usually tries to do too much. We compose a telegram to the Department. As we are sitting in his office, the Press Attaché comes in, then USIS chief John Mowinkel. He greets me with his big Norwegian smile and sparkling eyes.

When Bergman steps out of the room, Mowinkel asks: “Did you take the first plane out?”

I tell him that I did.

“Good. That’ll make the Old Man happy.” He lowers his voice a little. “There’s been cable traffic going back and forth about you. The Department questioned his judgment in sending you back there and told him to get you out.”

At last out alone into the Léopoldville night. I pass by the pied-à-terre. Thérèse and Martine are out somewhere. I go over to the Hotel Memling lobby where there’s some light and scribble on the open spaces of a Sabena timetable a note to Thérèse about Jules. Returning to the apartment, I slip the note under the door. Leaving, I meet Thérèse and Martine on the street, coming back from dinner. In the apartment Thérèse reads my note about Jules; that avoids the necessity of discussing his safety before Martine. She gets me a Pepsi from the frigo and tells me a little of what she knows. A second C-130, only partially loaded, has come down from Coq. On it, among others, were Mme. Bogaerts, whose son finally persuaded her to go, and M. DeWalsch. The ANC finally arrested him and the Belgian attaché, realizing they’d sent the message. The telephone rings. Someone asks about Jules. Hanging up, Thérèse re-reads the note. Finishing it again, she stares woefully at the wall.

“You said DeWalsch came on the second plane,” I say to jog her thoughts.

“Oh, yes,” she answers. She has to pull her thoughts back to that story. She gives one of her ironic smiles. According to what she’s heard, the attaché and DeWalsch were taken to ANC HQ. At a propitious moment DeWalsch, who had no diplomatic immunity, snuck out, went to the airfield and boarded the plane. And word has come that the attaché was released.

“I hope he’s out on the river right now,” she says, assuming that Jules will have made his escape in the boat with Delinte, Clochette and Pierre Bogaerts. “Do you think he could be?”

“I’m sure he’s safe. He can take care of himself.”

Martine whimpers with boredom. Thérèse reads the note yet again. I excuse myself. I have some dinner, get out to the basement apartment where I sleep in Léo and decide to fly to Europe as soon as possible.

Coq was never taken. The mercenaries Marcus told me about arrived late the afternoon I left. They did not take up positions to hold the airport, but went instead directly to Ingende where they stopped the rebel advance.

With the failure of the rebels to take Coq, news of the rebellion seemed to fall out of the international press. In Munich at Oktoberfest with friends from the States, I tried not to think at all of the Congo.

What was Donanne doing at this time? Having returned from a summer with her parents at their Foreign Service posts in Cambodia and Malaysia, Donanne arrived at UCLA to begin a year-long master’s degree course in Library Science.

Next post: Fred returns to Bukavu in the eastern Congo where he first served.