Salvation Colony

Chapter Twenty-Four

151 Salvation Colony: Sequel to No Way to Die Chapter Twenty-Four Cosmas Mfetebeunu W e worked ceaselessly and by the 9th of October the maiden issue of THE NAKED TRUTH appeared on the newspaper stands. There were three scandals: the first concerned a university lecturer who was caught making love to a student on the desk in his office, having forgotten to lock the door. The second concerned a highly-placed lady who had cut open her own thigh and transported cocaine in it to America by having a doctor friend of hers stitch it up again. However, we had our eyes mainly on ALCA! As we had planned, Salvation Colony occupied the two centre pages. There was a large picture of Shrapnell on the top right hand corner. Below the picture was that of THE BRETHREN’S KEEPERS, Shrapnell’s twelve close collaborators including Dennis whom the man had chosen his second-in-command. We took time to make the article as thorough as possible. We began most harmlessly, saying everything that needed to be known about The Colony. And then very deliberately we added much that did not need to be known, and which was sure to draw attention to it. We appended a sketch map of the place showing in a very painstaking manner every location in relation to the other. The paper ended with the call on the public to react to the information in the next issue. There was also a VOX POP page on crucial topics in each issue. If nobody said anything we were determined to tickle them into saying something about ALCA. Fortunately 152 Linus T. Asong for us, the public reacted just as we had predicted. The VOX POP page of the second issue of October 19th raised so many disturbing questions that when we visited The Colony again on October 22nd, Shrapnell not only denied us entry but declined to be interviewed even by phone. We had thus had him where we wanted. We could then quote or misquote him at will. *** There were two contributions in the VOX POP, one of which was written by Istromo, which I knew was bound to irritate Shrapnell. One which insinuated something sinister by misspelling Shrapnell’s name said: It was intriguing to learn that Pastor Sextus Shrapnell had proved happiness not only to the barren and widowed, but even for women whose marriages had broken down because of total neglect which amounted to sexual starvation on the part of their husbands...While we congratulate Pastor for this rare achievement, we are very anxious to know how the sexual desires of these women are satisfied within the confines of the Colony. A second article said: I am interested in knowing who the architect or draughtsman was who designed the buildings of the Colony such that Pastor’s house opened to the back to the back door into the widows’ and divorcees’ chambers, such that anybody could under the cover of darkness move from the women’s chamber into the Pastor’s and back through the letin let-out doors, without being detected. The very next issue of THE NAKED TRUTH continued to focus attention on THE COLONY. The first article on the front page was a brief disclaimer by the publishers. It read: The name of the pastor at Salvation Colony is not SEXTUS SHRAPNELL, or SEXTOOL SHARPNAIL, but SIXTUS SHRAPNELL. Anybody who for some sinister reason misspells the names to cast aspersions on this undeniably “Holy Man” is doing so at his own risk, and should be ready to shoulder the responsibility which his or her error provokes. 153 Salvation Colony: Sequel to No Way to Die In an inside VOX POP article conceived by Ngiawa in the Job’s comforters’ tradition, the reader, purporting to defend Shrapnell said: I am amazed that we should be so blind. The interview with Pastor Shrapnell indicated that he was taking care, and that he had brought happiness to the deaf, the blind, the lame, the ex-convicts. It did not say he was there to take care only of the interests of women. The emphasis on the pastor’s sexual propensities is uncalled for, and unfair. From the good he has done to the inmates of The Colony, it is clear that women, whether divorced or widowed or blind, once they had taken up residence in the Colony were animals in...