Free The Henchmen's Book Club by Danny King Page A

a smell at all, but an alchemic. Grenouille’s perfume, as beautiful,
hysterical and intoxicating as it was, was life itself.”
    Captain Bolaji attended every book club
meeting. At first I figured it was just to keep an eye on me to ensure I didn’t
try to insurrect the men, but over the weeks he’d really gotten into the spirit
of things and always made a key contribution, be it picking holes in Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons or wrestling the
pin back into Mbandi’s grenade. Accordingly, I thought he made a good point
here but Jaga wanted to know if life was so beautiful, why did Kasanje’s feet
smell so much?
    Chairs went flying again.
    Captain Bolaji looked to the rafters and
rolled his eyes.
    This time the fracas was interrupted by
Vice-President General-Brigadier Admiral-Colonel Dembo, who’d been making out
like a bandit in the promotions stakes in recent weeks.
    “What is this? What is this” Africa’s
highest ranking soldier cried as he waded into a twisted knot of arms and legs.
“Captain Bolaji, call your men out immediately! We have visitors.”
    This caught the Captain’s attention so he
pulled a whistle from his top pocket and gave it two blasts, ending book talk
for another day. The troops rushed to their bunks and collected their hats and
rifles (which had been banned from book club after the first meeting) and we
all filed outside into a scorching hot dust storm. Across the compound a large
Soviet helicopter was blowing His Most Excellent Majesty’s daisies around and
settling just in front of the main building.
    The Admiral quickly arranged us into some
sort of welcoming committee and found a suitably convincing smile for his face.
A moment later the door on the side of the helicopter slid back and sixteen
pairs of the very latest Russian issued army boots hit the ground and formed an
honour guard of their own.
    His Most Excellent Majesty, the
Commander-in-Chief of the First Lumbala Special Army even made a rare excursion
away from the air conditioner, making me realise that the money men must’ve
flown into town. Sure enough a couple of high-ranking Europeans in incognito khakis
leapt from the bird and strode towards their host for a handshake. Naturally,
His Most Excellent Majesty bemused and amused them by trumping their handshake
with one of his newly learned salutes (these Commander-in-Chiefs, they grow up
so fast don’t they?), but they were good sports and played along to His Most
Excellent Majesty’s delight.
    Words were exchanged and lost in the roar
of the engines, then the money men played Santa and ordered a couple of their
pink and sweaty troopers to drag a crate off the helicopter and plonk it down
in front of His Most Excellent Majesty’s smile. A crowbar knocked the lid off
and a shiny black M16 was handed to His Majesty. Bullets were quickly found and
a nearby bin dispatched, all to His Most Excellent Majesty’s immense
satisfaction, before the leading lights decided they’d had enough fun in the
sun for one day and headed into the house for shadowier discussions.
    The Admiral ordered those of us not
invited to help offload of the rest of the crates so half a dozen of us
mule-trained the remainder of cargo to the weapons bunker.
    Being the only white soldier in a black
African army was always likely to earn me a few looks, though one particularly
tough-looking trooper eyed me with deep-set misgiving. His eyes narrowed
further when a chrome lock-box came off the troop carrier and made its way to
our bunker, followed closely at heel by a couple of white-coated boffins.
    When all was unloaded, the Admiral
ordered most of his men back under the carpet, but the most photogenic of us
were posted outside the bunker to guard His Most Excellent Majesty’s newest toys.
    My tough-looking friend and a couple of
his Russian comrades were given equivalent orders and a dozen of us formed up
facing each other under the murderous African sun while the brass sloped off to
change shirts.
    My