CHAPTER 43
The Belgian army had departed in such haste that they didn’t even notice the last wave of animals that Albert had called forth, the Birds, until they were well on the way back to their ship.
Among these flying creatures that were hurrying the soldiers along were more parrots like Alexis.
Some flightless Ostriches had even broken ranks from my and Rovette’s team, and were chasing the attackers. Two of them caught up to the Captain, who was attempting to maintain his dignity by briskly walking (rather than running) as he made his retreat. On coming within striking distance, the Ostriches kicked the Captain with their considerable force and harassed him the rest of the way without letup.
That had not been our plan. We wanted to allow the interlopers to retreat without any harrying on our part, but in the heat of the battle, some of us lost our cool, unfortunately. Ostriches can be hotheads.
At least the rest of the soldiers were left alone by the flightless Birds. It was only the Captain who they targeted. The rank and file soldiers did not deserve the special attention that he received.
“Oh my ears and whiskers! That was strategenious!” Marmalade said, as she watched the Belgians board their ship and sail away. “Did you see Stripes! He was ready to toss that mean guy around like a ball of thread!”
Stripes grinned, and patted his “little sister” on the head with his right paw.
Rinky, who was swimming at the mouth of the bay, near the Dolphins he was advising, watched with great satisfaction as the Belgian military vessel set its sails for the trip north on its way back to Europe.
On the soldiers’ arrival back in the Belgian capital of Brussels, King Leopold at first thought that the Captain had gone mad, but his story was corroborated by every one of the soldiers. The end result of this debacle was that Leopold reluctantly gave up his designs on Africa, and the Belgians never returned.
That was exactly what we wanted. We won a historic victory without the loss of a single soul — on either side!
Not long ago, Alexis told me about a Stork she had met who had spent a summer in Belgium some years back. This Stork — whose name was Partera, I think she said — told Alexis that while she was there she had overheard a conversation between two old veterans of the Congo campaign. One asked the other if he had ever seen their leader again after that fateful trip. His reply had been:
“The last time I saw the Captain — in fact, the only time I’ve seen the Captain since that trip — was a few years back, when I was walking down the street in downtown Antwerp. I spotted him, sitting sprawled out on the pavement, with his back up against a building. He was wearing a vacant stare, an old hat with the top caved in — like a lid — and his left boot had a couple of his toes leaking out of the front end of it. And there was a ten-cent piece in his tin cup. At first, I thought it couldn’t be him — not the old Captain who had been that proud of his appearance and who was the paragon of meticulousness in his dress! But, it was definitely him, for I recognized the ear that looked like the edge of a postage stamp — That was from the pieces that Parrot had snipped off of it, you know.”
Alexis had gotten a good laugh out of that, even though she was simply referred to as “that Parrot.”
The hard lessons learned by the Belgians were still remembered half a century later. One happy consequence of this was that Italy’s despot Mussolini refrained from attacking Abyssinia (later renamed Ethiopia) in 1934, a crime against humanity which he otherwise would have committed.
As is obvious, then, this was a great victory for Albert, Ward, Warble (whom I still had a difficult time seeing as a do-gooder, having known him only too well in the complete opposite role), Rovette and me, Alexis, and the rest of us animals.
There was one more thing we wanted to do, though, before we could feel that our work in Africa was done.
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