The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts (25 page)

‘All the men were terrified,’ said Figueras lamely. ‘They believed we were fighting against evil spirits.’

‘Don’t interrupt a superior officer! Two, they were demoralised and frightened.’ The Brigadier paused, and said wearily, ‘Did they tell you at Officer Training School about the nine principles of war?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘What are the first two?’

Figueras searched his memory in vain, and made a wild guess. ‘ “Fight”, and “Don’t retreat”.’

The Brigadier sighed wearily. ‘The first, Figueras, is to select and maintain an aim. The second is that morale should at all times be maintained.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Figueras, ‘I remember now.’

‘You remember too late. If your men deserted it was because morale collapsed. Let me tell you, Colonel, that the best way to maintain morale is by adhering rigidly to the first principle and keeping your men busy at achieving it.’ The Brigadier paused again, and shuffled the papers. ‘What was your aim, Colonel?’

‘To annihilate the Communists, Sir.’

‘And did you do anything about annihilating the Communists? There is no record of any patrols, either for security or for reconnaissance. There is no record of a single shot being fired, even accidentally. There is no record here, Figueras, of anyone even seeing a terrorist. You did not do anything at all, did you, except go camping in the country for a month?’

Figueras stared down at the tip of his boots. ‘We did not know where the Communists were, Sir.’

The Brigadier frowned. ‘I have several points to make. One is that you failed to liaise in any way either with the Air Force Internal Security Group, or with the Army Air Survey, or with the Jungle Rangers, or with the Mountain Rangers, so it is not surprising that you met no Communists. Secondly, when I read of your troubles with “black magic” I conclude that you were being terrorised not by guerrilleros, but by peasants; alligators in sleeping bags are not a part of classical rural guerrilla tactics, and neither are coral snakes and vipers! Thirdly, there are no accounts in your report of your usual decisive heroism against the terrorists. You have been promoted twice, and been awarded the Andean Condor Medal for Gallantry twice, one silver, and one gold. I am tempted to conclude that in your report this time you could not include accounts of heroism because you knew that our military adviser, Major Kandinski, would also be submitting a report, and that yours would have to tally with his!’

Figueras continued to stare miserably at his boots, and continued to sweat copiously.

‘However,’ continued the Brigadier, ‘against my better judgement I have decided for the time being to give your previous reports the benefit of the doubt. I am not going to investigate them, yet.’ The Brigadier emphasised the ‘yet’. ‘And do you know why?’

‘No, Sir.’

‘Because, Colonel, I have found another reason for your inactivity during your camping holiday.’ He flicked through the pile of reports and drew one out. ‘This is from the Chief Medical Officer. Are you aware that homosexuality is, in the Armed Forces, cause for instant dishonourable discharge? I see from his report that you and your officers are already suffering from a variety of dishonourable discharges.’

‘Homosexuality?’ echoed Figueras.

‘Yes, Colonel, homosexuality! And before you protest that medical details are supposed to be confidential, let me read you section sixty-six, subsection five, clause ten, paragraph three of the Manual of Military Regulations, ratified by Parliament under the Armed Forces Act of 1933.’ The Brigadier picked up the book and turned to the page he had dog-eared. ‘The competent military medical authorities are obliged to report to commanding officers all details of a usually confidential nature, when in the opinion of the medical authorities military efficiency and discipline may be adversely affected by failing to report the same.’ The Brigadier put the book down and picked up the medical report. ‘It says here that all the officers of your battalion are suffering from the same two sexually transmitted diseases; one is common gonorrhoea, and the other is syphilis of the strain common around Barranquilla. The simple explanation for this, Colonel, is that you and your officers had congress with each other.’

‘Yes, Sir, that’s true,’ said Figueras, who thought that ‘congress’ was a kind of parliament.

The Brigadier was astounded. ‘Then you admit that your holiday camp was for the purpose of homosexual orgies?’

‘Oh no, Sir. We had military councils and briefings every day, Sir. Sir, I didn’t know you could catch the clap by talking to each other.’ Figueras hung his head miserably.

The Brigadier exploded with exasperation. ‘Colonel Figueras! You fail to understand me! I am saying that you and your officers, and it seems, Major Kandinski, spent your holiday sodomising each other, and that is why you all have the same diseases!’

Colonel Figueras was shocked and horrified. He lost his fear and shame and cried vehemently, ‘I am not a maricon! Any man who calls me a maricon should not be afraid of death!’

The Brigadier smiled for the first time at this outburst. ‘Then what, Colonel, is the explanation?’

‘Felicidad,’ said Figueras, spitting out the word.

‘Felicidad? Colonel, “happiness” does not give you the “clap” as you call it.’

‘No Sir, Felicidad was the girl’s name, the little whore! She seduced every one of us and told each one of us we were the only one. We were fooled, Sir.’

The Brigadier nodded, and put his hands on the desk, leaning forward. ‘It seems, then, Colonel, that you and your companions were the victims of a nymphomaniac with a predilection for officers.’

The Brigadier returned to the window and watched the soldiers drilling below. Figueras apprehensively watched the back of his head. Without turning round he said, ‘Colonel Figueras, my first instinct was to relegate you to the ranks for gross incompetence. However, I have had to take into account your past honourable record and the scandal to the reputation of the Army if you were court-martialled. So . . .’ the Brigadier turned on his heel and looked Figueras hard in the eye, ‘I am giving you one last chance. You will be passed fit for combat duty in three months, I advise you to take your military duties seriously, and to find yourself in the front-line of the fighting. I am putting all this on your record, and I will not remove it until I am assured that all this bungling was an exceptional case. You are dismissed.’

Figueras saluted and said, ‘Thank you, Sir.’ He marched out as smartly as his figure would allow, and leaned back against the wall in the corridor.

Figueras was still mopping his face with his handkerchief when the Brigadier returned to his desk to resume working on an intractable problem. Where was the Military Governor?

FREEMASONS THROUGHOUT THE
world are inclined to say ‘our society is not a secret society, it is a society of secrets’, and when they are not meeting for the purposes of their arcane rituals they raise money for charities and worthy causes. Each Lodge builds up its own distinctive character during the years of its existence, and often it attracts a membership which comes mostly from within one profession.

There was one Lodge in the capital with links with the Vatican Bank whose members were drawn solely from within the upper echelons of the Armed Forces, and which raised money solely for causes like ‘Catholic Action Against Communist Subversion’ and ‘The Society for the Christianisation of Education’.

Normally the branches of the military were jealous and possessive of their own prerogatives and regarded each other as rivals for power. The Navy, indeed, had become so worried about being removed from the centre of power that they had transferred their training establishments and headquarters from Puerto Del Inca on the coast to the capital (hundreds of kilometres inland) so that generations of seamen were trained to defend the territorial waters on dry land. The Lodge was the pivot of inter-service co-operation, because Admiral Fleta, General Ramirez, and Air Chief Marshal Sanchis were all
members of it, and often after the rituals and initiations they would sit in the plush lounge rooms and discuss the state of the country, and how something must be done.

The three men were ardent Catholics, strong believers in the Motherland, the Family, and in Law and Order; but all around them they saw atheism and Marxism, divorces, fornicating banner-waving libertarian students, striking workers ruining the economy, and a civilian government that did not dare to take strong action for fear of foreign opinion. It need not be said that all three of them favoured a military junta run on the principle of ‘one third each’ as there had been in Argentina, but they were also realists. It seemed quite possible that if the Democrats won the election in the United States the flow of dollars would cease in the event of a coup. But they also knew that whatever the monetary policies of the government were, the President would always give them all they wanted because he feared a military coup more than anything else in the world. Even so, they decided that the operation code named ‘Los Reyes Catolicos’ should be entirely secret, and that they should be an unofficial junta. First they would have to find loyal officers who would help them do the spadework of digging out the rank weeds of subversion. All of them set up similar systems doing the same things, and it is with regret that we find ourselves concentrating for the purposes of this narrative solely upon the idealistic efforts of the army.

General Ramirez noticed that one of his ADCs, a handsome and rapidly rising star of the service, was particularly vehement and outspoken about the strategic importance of the Republic both in the inevitable war against the Soviet Union and the more immediate struggle against the atheist Marxists. Ramirez summoned the Capitan to his office, and the young man found himself faced by all three Chiefs of Staff.

‘Capitan,’ said the General, ‘am I right in believing that you would be prepared to fight and die, and even to use means which are against your Christian conscience, to preserve the Motherland and the National Way of Life?’

‘Yes, Sir,’ replied the Capitan, sensing promotion.

‘Good,’ said the General. ‘I suppose you are aware of the dangers we face from The Enemy Within?’

‘The Communists, Sir?’

‘Yes, Capitan, and all their fellow-travellers who are helping them to bleed the country to death. Capitan, I propose that you and all the men you recruit to work with you should be officially posted to our strategic observation posts in the Antarctic.’

The young man’s heart sank into his boots. This was not a promotion to his liking. ‘The Antarctic, Sir?’ he said, and he felt his left leg begin to shake behind the knee.

‘But of course we wouldn’t actually send you there. Instead you will go underground in this country. Capitan, you are to recruit and form independent cadres to root out subversives and subversion. The files of the Army Internal Security Service will be opened to you, and you will arrest, detain and question these subversives about what they know. You will be arresting people without warrants, without charges, and without legal process.’ The General raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness and exchanged resigned glances with Admiral Fleta and Air Chief Marshal Sanchis.

‘So you can see for yourself, Capitan, how serious the situation has become, and to what desperate means we have been driven.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

The General continued: ‘Sometimes, Capitan, we in the military (and this is, Capitan, one of the lessons of history) are driven to adopt uncivilised methods in order to ensure that civilisation itself may continue to exist. It is the hardest burden to bear if one is a soldier, a terrible burden, and a terrible responsibility. Do you understand what I am saying, Capitan?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘What I am telling you, Capitan, is that these enemies of civilisation must be taken out of circulation permanently, for the greater good of all.’

‘Permanently, Sir?’ echoed the Capitan.

‘Permanently,’ repeated the General. ‘However, we cannot allow under any circumstances the honourable name of the
Armed Services to be besmirched by those who seek to undermine our efforts, and indeed, our very existence.’ The General paused for effect. ‘This means that officially your organisation does not exist. If it is exposed we will deny all knowledge of it and will take no responsibility. If you are exposed, Capitan,’ said the General, leaning forward on his elbows, ‘and the evidence is irrefutable, we will try you by court-martial for exceeding your duties and acting without orders, and you will be shot by firing squad.’

The Capitan said nothing at all, and was contemplating hasty withdrawal when the General broke into his thoughts.

‘There will be at your disposal a liberal quantity of funds. You will submit accounts and reports to us which we shall immediately destroy. We will promote you with immediate effect to Colonel, and you will be put on special salary with allowances for hazardous work and unsociable hours. You will operate from the Army School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. We have emptied the officers’ wing, which has many small rooms suitable for temporary accommodation of prisoners, and other suitable facilities such as bathrooms. Is this all clear?’

‘Yes, General.’ The Capitan felt as though he were being steamrollered.

‘Good,’ said General Ramirez. ‘We have provided for you a small fleet of Ford Falcon motor cars, some painted in the colours of the State Telephone Corporation, and some in the colours of the State Oil Company. They have very spacious boots, Colonel.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Very well, Colonel. You will return to this office tomorrow at 11 a.m. precisely, and we will go into practical details. You are dismissed.’

The new Colonel saluted smartly and marched from the room. Outside the door he removed his cap and went and sat in the lavatories for twenty minutes. Panic rose from his stomach and he seriously considered fleeing to Ecuador. But then he remembered the ‘liberal quantity of funds’ and the promotion, and he thought, ‘I’ll just see how it goes.’