The war was not without lighter moments and always not so serious without any fun and there were many moments of mirth when elaborate practical jokes were staged.. In fact I had acted very casual when the angry tank commander had blown in to kick ass, thinking it was Charles plan to scare us.
We were a loose gang and some soldiers were our friends . I have to have a word about them especially the black Americans among us. .They were so different from the stereotypes projected to us that they surprised me to the point of adulation .High school grads mostly, with an easy presence and fine manners, but without the cloying show that got under the skin. , sensitive enough to appreciate others, easy to touch and without any hesitation would hug a poor grubby mechanic for a successful repair job done. Parties and late night bashes were enlivened by their vibrant talents. Dancing and singing came to them without practice, musical instruments were handled as if they were born with it and liked practical jokes that could make you laugh again and again in retrospect.
Lambertin hired trucks from local transporters. We had leased some heavy haulers from a Saudi gentleman and they broke down under the extra tonnage we loaded on them and repairs were his business and would sometimes take his own time getting about it. When we paged and killed him, he would sent one of his underlings with preposterous excuses or bribes to let him off without a penalty. One day we set him up. We sent word that the commander was so pleased that he wanted to honor him with a badge for exemplary services.
He came in fully decked and an orderly received him and bought him to Charles , behind whom five heavily armed men in uniform and war paint on their face stood to ramrod attention. . He came in to receive the honor, his head tilted upwards ,chin out, arching eyebrows with eyes looking sideways and fiddling his balls through his robe. That was a custom in this land, checking whether his male appendage had loosened itself from it’s moorings or was in free fall.
There was a single chair opposite ‘Charles Commander’, a title that existed nowhere, and he motioned the Saudi gentleman to sit. No words were spoken. I was called in and demurely gave him a file from which the ‘commander’ drew out enlarged pictures of the broken down trucks and clipped it on a board. At the same time, somebody lowered a noose in front of his face from the roof truss. First the man’s face shot a crimson red and then retracted and flit like a harried cock , gurgling sounds like “bluock..… goluck… aloaraghhhh escaped from his throat and made his first mistake,he didn’t wait for the question but ran for the door,which drew the men in war paint and two more soldiers stood with lethal weapons to shoot him down. Saudis are mortally scared of Americans and always believed they could shoot and kill anybody. What followed was straight slapstick.
First he hiked his robe so high,exposing his bare behind and dangling balls and tried to jump through , failing which he dived and tried to crawl between the soldiers’ legs and when he got to the end, one sat on him. The next sound was a croak followed by a bray of absolute terror ,a cow led to slaughter, that brought in the real security guards. They yanked him up , hooked him by his armpits and they hung him the air between them , his eyes now shone like a rat caught in a trap. He desperately tried to explain, cringed , entreating them by furiously moving his face left and right but they hauled him away..
For a moment we were caught unawares,Charles was slightly concerned as the security guys were not brought into the ambit, so we ran after them. . Fear shot from his eyes when he saw us running towards him ,he twisted and somersaulted a full circle in air to face us again. terror seeped from every pore in his body and he cried bubbubooo, we couldn’t stop laughing and my stomach ached and I bent double.
The security guards let him go. I don’t know whether he ever complained, but once, his assistant asked me what we had done to him.
“Why, what happened” I asked
“No Sir, from that day onwards he is behind the curtain and peeping out through the window”. He thought he had genuinely escaped execution.
