Tales from 5 Commando: Innocent until proven guilty

 After the success of Operation Dragon Rouge, there were all manner of soldiers, mercenaries, civilians and exploiters running about in the streets of Stanleyville. Col. Hoare and his men worked with the Belgian paras in an attempt to restore some order to a city gone mad. After the hostage had been freed, Mike described the sounds of Stanleyville to be that of constant gunfire throughout the majority of the day. Most of the Simbas that weren’t killed in the main assault were rounded up by other soldiers or mercs in the city at the time, and some certainly took advantage of the situation.

One soldier, who was not a member of 5 Commando or any of the related companies, is one such person. He found a 2 story building with multiple locked doors and took it upon himself to shoot out the locks and start kicking down doors. He went room by room until he found a young Congolese girl hiding in a shower cubicle in one of the rooms. The soldier ordered her to shower and then forcefully had his way with her. After the heinous act he performed, he ordered her downstairs and marched her to the river’s edge 60 yards away from the building.

He ordered the woman to march to the end of a small pier, and while doing so she shouted at him “you don’t know how to make love, you're too small!”. The soldier fired two shots and her body disappeared into the fast flowing darkness of the Congo river.

At midnight the next night, as Col. Hoare laid soundly asleep, he was awoken by a hammering on the door of his quarters. He opened the door to see 3 of his officers standing in the rain, and without a single smile they all headed inside. Col. Hoare named the officers John and Jack to protect their identities.

The Captain apologized for waking Col. Hoare but regarded the matter as rather urgent and asked if the Col. could try a man for murder at that exact mo

ment. The Col. responded “I’m not at my best in the middle of the night, particularly when woken from a deep sleep, no, tomorrow”. Col. Hoare paused for a moment and realised that the fact that the timing is what upset him and not the act of murder showed how his mind has aclimitized itself to his environment. John urged the Col. that it had to be right then or never or the murderer would escape in the night since he knew the officers were after him. Jack told the story of the Congolese woman that the soldier had raped and murdered. Mike noted that of the 3 men with him, Jack was the most agitated. The Col. responded “Why wish it on me Jack? He’s not a part of 5 Commando, you know that, let his own CO try him”. 

Jack retorted stating that the only man in charge was Mike, Jack said that if the murderer wasn’t tried and made an example of, that every soldier in Stanleyville could follow suit with the idea that they can do whatever they please. The Col. sent Jack and John to fetch the murderer, and an hour later they returned with the accused. The Col. recounted the story to the accused and he pleaded not guilty. Mike told him that if they found him guilty, they would execute him not soon after. The accused demanded Mike to produce evidence and stated that he was a police officer in Rhodesia and rattled his information off expertly. John and Jack did not have any first hand evidence, just what they had been told by Congolese civilians. 30 minutes later Jack and John returned with an interpreter and 3 Congolese that had witnessed the event. Mike deemed their evidence to be irrefutable. The witnesses then left and the Col. asked the accused what he had to say for himself. He admitted what he had done and claimed it was the “spoils of war” and claimed that the woman was a “rebel” and that he was “entitled to do what he wanted”. 

His case was beyond poor and he began to cry, Jack started to soften toward him whilst John and the Captain were unamused. The murderer began to tell them about his home, wife and kids, and that he played soccer in a minor league, and other details of his home life hoping that Jack would speak on his behalf. Mike stopped him and had him taken outside to be held by a sentry while they discussed the verdict. It was decided that he was guilty, and that they should show no mercy, but what about his sentence? They all wrote their ideas of punishment on slips of paper and agreed that if theirs was chosen to carry out the punishment themselves. Jack proposed 35 strokes with a cat of nine tails and his immediate discharge from the service. John; to be shot in the same way as he shot the girl, at the river’s edge with no mercy. The Captain; give him a pistol with a single shot to shoot himself. 

Mike said that the crime warranted death, no doubt about it, but they were not a proper court and even given the circumstances they should give him a punishment worse than death; the big toe of each foot will be removed. Jack agreed with relief and the other two agreed reluctantly. They carried the man down to the spot where he killed the woman and held him down. John pistol whipped the man to reduce his struggle while Mike pulled out his .45, and with two quick shots, blew off both of the murderer’s toes. He bled profusely, and they loaded him in a jeep and threw him out into the mud in front of the hospital. 5 days later he was killed in a plane crash, and upon hearing the news Mike said “fate had confirmed his sentence”.