Peter Cawdron - Xenophobia

Dr. Kowalski came up beside them, seeing Elizabeth Bower berating the sergeant. He was an older man of European descent, with thick gray hair tossed carelessly to one side. He wore small round glasses, like those immortalized by John Lennon, only they made his face look large by comparison. In any other context he could have been mistaken for a mad scientist, only his demeanor was such that Bower doubted he could ever hurt a fly.

“What’s going on?”

“They’re pulling us out, Mitch,” Bower replied. “Can you believe that? No explanation as to why, just some vague bullshit, orders to evacuate.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. What about our patients? What about the staff?”

“I’ve got to call this in to Kasungu,” Bower growled, turning back to the loadmaster. “I want to talk to someone in charge.”

“There’s no one in Kasungu,” the loadmaster said. “They pulled them out two days ago.”

“Why the hell didn’t anyone tell us?” Bower was fuming, her hands defiantly on her hips. Her world was falling apart around her.

“I don’t know. They were supposed to.”

“Well, I’m not leaving,” Bower replied stubbornly.

“You have to,” the loadmaster said emphatically.

“I’ll have you know, the military has no jurisdiction over an NGO medical mission. You’re here for our security, nothing more. We’re answerable to the UN high commission in Lilongwe, not some idiot thousands of miles away in New York.”

“You don’t understand,” the loadmaster replied, but Bower cut him off before he could continue.

“I don’t understand?” she yelled, her finger just inches from his nose. “Oh, I understand exactly what this is. Some politician’s losing votes over body bags and decides another Bosnia or another Rwanda is nothing compared to saving his sorry ass in his next election.

“You can’t give me one good reason why you’re pulling out other than that you’re following orders. I’m sorry, but just that’s not good enough. As a doctor, I have a duty of care to my patients and my staff. I will not just up and leave.”

Elizabeth Bower was in full voice. She didn’t get to be in charge of a field hospital in the middle of a smoldering civil war by being a wallflower. She had no problem raising her voice.

“You and I can run. It’s easy for us. We just hop on some bloody flying contraption and disappear into the sunset. But what about them?”

Bower pointed at several of the nurses standing outside the hospital tent, watching the commotion from a distance.

“You and I might be able to wave a passport and hop on a flight to Europe or the US, but they can’t. I have a responsibility to support my African staff. I will not leave them to the rebels.”

“We have an obligation to care for these people,” Dr. Kowalski added, adjusting his glasses as he spoke. His voice was calm. Bower could see he was trying to take the emotion out of the moment. “If we just up and go, the militia will come riding in here and steal our supplies. God knows what they’ll do to the villagers that have collaborated with us. You can’t just pull us out like this. Surely, there’s been a mistake. There must be some other way.”

Jameson was unusually quiet for an energetic American soldier. Bower could see him weighing his options mentally.

“But they’re Africans!” the loadmaster protested, pointing at the nurses and the medical orderly. “They can blend in with the rest of the natives.”

“It’s not that simple,” Dr. Kowalski explained. “If someone stumbles in here with a broken arm or a bullet wound, we’ll treat them regardless of where they’ve come from. The rebels know that. They may not dare attack you openly, but don’t think for a minute that they’re not out there watching and waiting. They know about everything that goes on in this village. They’ll stroll in with a bag of seed or with some other pretense to keep tabs on people. This is exactly what they’ve been holding out for. They haven’t been trying to beat the UN, just to outlast it. You’re playing right into their hands.”

“It’s not my problem,” the loadmaster snapped. “You’ve got five minutes to get on that aircraft or I’m leaving without you.” He looked for support from Jameson, but the sergeant was quiet.

Bower felt like screaming. The loadmaster was being completely unreasonable. Typical bloody authoritarian bureaucracy, she thought, gritting her teeth.

The loadmaster wasn’t going to waste any more time. He turned and jogged back over to the open bay of the Osprey. Soldiers milled around the back of the aircraft, taking the opportunity to stretch their legs or to urinate in the bushes on the edge of the clearing, which infuriated the loadmaster. He started yelling at them, corralling them back into the aircraft.

“Like herding cats,” Kowalski said, laughing as he watched the loadmaster waving his arms and calling for the troops to re-board the Osprey. “So, what do we do, Liz?”

Bower looked at Jameson. His eyes seemed to say something his lips couldn’t.

“We’ll be fine,” she said. Her voice sounded convincing, but she knew her bravado was sorely misplaced.

Jameson was silent, his eyes focused straight ahead, looking into the middle distance.

“Honestly. You should follow your orders. We’ll make do.”

Standing there in his camo gear, Jameson flipped his regulation-issue army cap on his head. His eyes focused intently on her as his lips pulled tight. Bower felt a little intimidated by him. She had to say something, to articulate some kind of plan. That’s what the military did, wasn’t it? They always had a plan, she thought, and Bower was determined to offer something to break the impasse.

“We’ll bring in a couple of trucks from Mzimba and drive the staff and patients down to Ksaungu. The rebels will leave the villagers alone, but if they catch anyone that worked in the hospital, they’ll kill them for mingling with us foreign devils. We’ve got to get our staff out of here. We owe them much, at least.”

“And from Ksaungu?” asked Jameson.

“From Ksaungu they’ll be able to make their way overland to Mozambique. We’ll drive on to Lilongwe. There’ll be someone there. The UN is not going to abandon the capital. We’ll be able to get a flight out to Kenya or South Africa.”

Private Bosco came up beside Sergeant Jameson. “We’re ready.”

“Bring the guys in,” Jameson replied. With a wolf whistle, Bosco called the other soldiers over.

The loadmaster was standing by the cockpit of the Osprey, talking with the pilots. Jameson jogged over to him.

Bower couldn’t hear what was being said, but the exchange was heated, arms were flying as the two men went toe-to-toe, pointing, waving, yelling. Snippets floated on the breeze, barely audible above the whine of the idling engine.

“She’s a goddamn Brit. Let the Brits take care of her… You’re disobeying a direct order… We have no idea if there will even be any more evacuation flights.”

Alile ran over to talk to Bower and Kowalski.

Alile was the senior nurse within the hospital. She was the only native Malawian Bower knew who had received formal medical training as a registered nurse, although Alile had to go to South Africa to get it. Bower knew Alile was concerned about the young woman with the premature baby.

On her part, Bower’s head was spinning. She was trying to gauge her own reaction, trying to detach herself from her emotional outrage and think clearly about the implications of her decision.

“Is everything OK?” Alile asked. Her dark skin glistened in the sunlight. Beads woven through her tightly plaited hair twinkled in the sunlight. Most of the African women kept their hair in plaits, with braids running in tight cornrows woven hard against the skull. Alile’s hair looked pretty. Bower never had time for plaits and braids, they took hours to put in and only lasted a couple of weeks before they had to be painstakingly unpicked and woven in again. She didn’t see the point.