Lauren Beukes

So, after trying to take over Equatorial Guinea, South Africa’s dogs of war have got off with the equivalent of a rolled-up newspaper slap on the nose and the promise to piss on Mark Thatcher’s leg for orchestrating the whole thing.

We could arrest the sorry bastards and try them again the moment they cross the border, but that would be a waste. After all,  these are some well-trained puppies! They could be put to all kinds of uses rather than being impounded on charges of trying to take over other people’s dictatorships.

I mean, I could do with a private mercenary army. Just think how useful it would be to be surrounded by burly men with automatic weapons. No-one would ever push in front of me in the supermarket again!

Blackwater Mercs (almost as good as Simon Mann's)

A soldier of fortune or 66 sure would have come in handy when we bought our house. We could have sent them to have a friendly little chat with our bank manager or to use their subtle powers of persuasion to convince the other potential buyers to go away quietly and the seller to lose a couple of hundred grand on the asking price.

There are limitless daily uses you could come up with. I could dispatch my drooling human rottweilers to ‘take care of’ those inconsiderate menaces who answer their cell phones in the middle of a movie, for example. Or deal with the scum who nip in to steal your parking space at the last second, when you’ve been sitting there waiting patiently with your indicator going for ten minutes. It would be brilliant!

Of course, they’d have to be kept on a tight leash. Maybe even literally. Because nothing says Statement! like a vicious killer on a chain. Then again, in dog collars, they might be mistaken for Goths, which would totally ruin the image because no-one finds Goths scary.

Naturally, they’d have to be thoroughly house-trained. Having a pack of hulking great thugs in camo  romping around the house could prove hazardous. You’d have to teach them not to get on the couch or leave muddy (or, for that matter, bloody) footprints everywhere. And they’d have to play dead when the cops came round to investigate all the complaints of intimidation and assault from queue jumpers and road ragers and all the other inconsiderates who may have pissed me off along the way.

I believe mercenaries require frequent exercise, so I’d have to take them for regular walks, although maybe they should leave their AKs behind so as not to freak out the yuppies jogging down the Sea Point Promenade. And after their recent excursion, they’d also have to be sent to the doggy salon for grooming and de-fleaing after four years in one of Africa’s most notorious prisons.

Of course, you’d have to feed them too and I somehow don’t think they’d settle for Husky, although by all accounts, Guinean prison food isn’t much better. Ditto on the accommodation. A blanket and a fresh bowl of water should suffice, I think, but then, just keeping them in khaki and bullets could drain my credit card.

On second thoughts, this could prove to be an expensive exercise. Unless I could persuade the largely inept son of a British high-up to bankroll it for me?

Anyone have Mark Thatcher’s home phone number?

(originally appeared in The Big Issue)