Falling Platypus - Chapter 3

“Hi. It’s me again.”
—the author

“By the way, I won’t be there in time for Sunday service.”
—the author

The truck that delivered us to Base Camp looked just the same as the truck that had picked us up from outside The Grail, a continent and an ocean away, except the Africa Kit Society’s logo was much more prominent. It was painted on three sides and the canvas roof.

So far, we didn’t know what the Africa Kit Society actually did, except that the Charity Food organizers gave everyone a little black zippered kit with random junk inside, which was apparently sponsored by the Africa Kit Society.

We didn’t know—but we didn’t care, either. We were in Africa.

* * *

With orientation week and special training already behind us, we had a few days to relax at Base Camp and prepare ourselves for our respective missions for Charity Food. Actually, the other volunteers had already been split into teams of two, and sent out to different quadrants around Base Camp. They mostly had to find, secure, escort, and deliver the shipments of bananas that Charity Food provided to the locals. A few of them had more mundane tasks, like stapling exactly two pages together, or washing the windows of the only building with win­dows here at Base Camp. “Each according to their talents,” said the chief camp aide.

So when I say “we”, I mean myself and Dan Denny, because surprising no one he and I had been assigned to work together. We were also to go about finding, securing, escorting, and deliv­ering shipments of bananas, but further afield, to somewhere the chief camp aide called Camp X.

To escape the blistering midday sun, Dan Denny and I would sit in folding chairs in Base Camp’s “theater” tent, in which they had set up a little projector that showed grainy films of Africa, usually of the savanna, shot by other volunteers.

The film we were watching now was about zebras, and coin­cidentally, someone had left a book in Dan Denny’s chair, which was also about zebras. It was called Full Force: My Life as a Zebra Tamer, by Dayton Modwell, and it had a picture of a neon zebra on the cover. Dan Denny put it in his backpack in case he wanted to read it later.

The film changed, meanwhile, showing volunteers wearing Charity Food t-shirts and turbans, stuffed with bananas, on a peace mission into bandit territory. Gunfire broke out, and the cameraman died, but his camera kept filming (albeit sideways, from the ground where it had fallen), as the security escort and other members of the peace mission were shot.

“These are just some of the dangers Charity Food volunteers face,” a message from the Africa Kit Society warned at the end. Then it showed their logo, and then the logo of Charity Food; then the projector reached the end of the tape and clicked off.

We looked at each other in the dark, or at least I looked at Dan Denny. I couldn’t see whether he was looking at me.

Nobody had mentioned anything about “bandit territory”.

“You don’t need to worry about that,” a camp aide assured us when we asked him about the film. “98% of the volunteers never go near bandit territory. There’s only one village in there that Charity Food supports.”

“Really? And where’s that?” I pressed.

“It’s far, far from here,” the aide said. “No one can say its proper name, so around here it’s just called Camp X.”

* * *

He was right about its name. It was spelled Nkangarau Ma­nooeywanahooey, a name so foreign and bizarre that even the lo­cals referred to it as Camp X. How do I know? Because in the three months Dan Denny and I did banana runs to Nkangarau Manooeywanahooey, every single local called it Camp X, even when they were speaking their own language. “Camp X” was the only word I could understand, except for “fatawi”, which a trans­lator told me meant “bandits”. It was usually followed by “!” (which was the same in both languages).

Banana runs they were. On our first trip, we sauntered straight across the savanna in broad daylight until I had a banana shot clean out of my hand, while bandits screamed and chased us from three directions. We turned tail and ran all the way back to Base Camp, abandoning the crates of bananas and the sledges we pulled them on. The bandits feasted that night. The villagers went hungry.

On the next trip, and the trips after that, we timed our runs and arrived at the edge of bandit territory an hour before dusk. While one of us slept, the other watched the savanna until nightfall. If bandits were out there, when they lit torches to see and campfires to cook, we would know where they were and avoid them. They weren’t always about: sometimes they were in another part of the territory.

If the coast seemed to be clear, Dan Denny and I would rope our arms to the sledges and run them straight across the savanna, all the way to Camp X, with hardly a pause for breath; then run all the way back to the edge of bandit territory with the empty sledges; and then walk back to Base Camp, arriving in the dawn light, congratulating ourselves on another successful banana run with a limp high five.

But the trouble with the bandits was, they had been there longer than we had. They knew what they were doing. We didn’t.

* * *

In the fourth month, on what would be our last banana run together, Dan Denny and I noticed a new arrangement of fires. The bandits had never camped so close to our trail before.

“I’m not sure about this,” I said with foreboding. Something seemed off.

“Don’t worry, it’s just nerves,” Dan Denny assured me. He was still irrepressible, even on a banana run.

When the sun had set, we ran our sledges down to the sa­vanna, but before we had gone halfway, I realized what had seemed wrong.

“Did you see any shadows at the fires?” I asked.

Dan Denny slowed and we both came to a halt. “No,” he said thoughtfully. “Almost as if…”

A gunshot cracked the air and before I knew what was hap­pening, the bandits were upon us, appearing out of the dark. Just two of them, for now, but I could hear the shouts of more on the way.

“Hey,” Dan Denny said.

I looked at him, and in the moonlight I could see his clothes were spattered and stained. He was bleeding. He’d been shot.

He toppled onto my banana sledge.

* * *

Somehow, I got away from the bandits. Well, not somehow. First, I opened my Africa Kit. It had a cold pop inside. I shook it until it was practically bursting and threw it at the nearest bandit. It hit him in the eye and the top popped, and sprayed cola every­where. It was enough to stun him for a second and disorient his comrade.

Then, I shoved all the crates of bananas off Dan Denny’s sledge.

Then, I heaved Dan Denny’s unconscious form onto it.

Then, I ran. Faster than I’d ever run on a banana run—though partly because Dan Denny weighed less than crates and crates of bananas.

I stopped when I got to Camp X. The villagers were waiting for me.

* * *

“They knew… we were coming,” I panted. “Must have figured… out… our schedule.”

“Who?” one of the elders asked.

“Bandits! Bandits!” I said. “Fatawi! Fatawi!”

The villagers shrieked and hid in their houses.

“He needs medical help,” I said to the elders, the only ones who had not fled, and they formed a circle around the sledge with Dan Denny bleeding to death on top of it. He probably left a trail straight to the site of the ambush.

“He’s been shot,” I explained further.

The elders looked at each other, at Dan Denny, and at me. “Where are the bananas?” the elder asked.

“I had to leave them behind,” I said. “They let me go after that. All they wanted was the bananas.”

“So, no bananas?” the elder said, as the others frowned.

“No bananas,” I agreed.

“No help,” the elder said, and crossed his arms. Like a wave, going round the circle, they all crossed their arms.

* * *

I appealed every way I knew. I appealed to their sense of compassion, humanity, hospitality, generosity, pity, even greed; I appealed in the name of their gods, my gods, and no gods. But they had only one god now: Charity Food. And it had failed them.

Their philosophy could be summarized with four words, only three of them distinct: “No bananas, no help.”

* * *

Dan Denny died within the hour. I don’t think he felt it, be­cause he had fallen unconscious so quickly. So I did the only thing any sensible person would do, and searched his pockets for valuables.

Then I took the body back to Base Camp.

The camp was distraught: the volunteers and staff, Dan Denny’s many friends, for his death. The accountants for the loss of the bananas. The chief camp aide for the loss of good relations with the locals.

I was removed from banana run duty to Camp X, although they let me say I was stepping down voluntarily in memory of Dan Denny. Two of the idiots who’d signed up at the same time as we did volunteered to take over.

Then the chief camp aide took me aside and said I was too good a man to lose, but he didn’t want me in sensitive situations anymore. He gave me a new mission briefing in a new manila folder and told me to pack my things, and anything of Dan Denny’s I might want. I was being reassigned.