Page 42 - The Circle of Life

Accordingly we used our handcuffs on his feet to stop the uncalled for

unpleasantness. One skinny constable had the great idea to put his torn shirt
over its eyes and it calmed down a bit. With a lot of curses and no doubt silent
praying we got the beast down to ground level and into the local police truck

where it laid quietly as it realised (since I told it in plain Afrikaans) that

execution and handbags for the Colonel's wife is his future if he keeps on
resisting arrest. We are just trying f help him so stop this f silliness before we
get angry and fatherly and he will then regret it before he dies. Not being a long

haired liberal he listened to the voice of reason. I can also tell you crocodiles

suffer from bad breath and invented the evil eye stare.

Feeling proud if a bit bloody we shook hands all around (it is an Afrikaner

tradition) and reported to ROMEO "We arrested one crocodile, age unknown,
black in colour and at least eleven feet tall for trespassing and being ugly. By the

way we are also in need of new uniforms including pants as the crocodile
resisted arrest and was fatherly talked to and now calmed down considerably."

That caused a lot of mirth for some reason and me to meet with the duty officer
to explain what happened at a coffee shop right across the Sterland movie

theatre in the middle of town. I think it was called Black & White or something.
Coffee was really good too.

Before I could be accused of being a long haired liberal and worse we handed

the crocodile over to the local constable for his soon to be father in law and left
the scene to explain to the much amused lieutenant that “(1) yes we did indeed

arrested a crocodile and no (2) our pants are not wet front or rear but torn by
the vicious claws (read feet) of the crocodile who (3) did not want to be arrested

and (4) resisted in fact until we (5) fatherly persuaded him otherwise. And thank
you for your kind interest sir.”

The story does not stop here for the local constable went off duty to find his
girlfriend to convince her to convince her dad to take the crocodile which he left

in the back of the police truck as lobola for her instead of the cattle her dad

originally wanted. With all this on his mind he forgot to inform the new crew
coming on duty about their passenger. I understand that and have much
sympathy with him. Being a man and unable to think of two things at the same

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