Leopoldville is remembered through a mission hospital outside the city, where Creasy and Guido Arrellio return after a retreat to confront the aftermath of violence. The episode gives a physical setting to Creasy’s conflict over faith: alongside the suffering he cannot reconcile with divine purpose, he encounters people whose religious conviction is expressed as a willingness to remain with those in danger.

Setting and Approach

The hospital lay outside Leopoldville, reached by Land Rover. Creasy had driven there with Guido during their service in the Congo, and the narrative later recalls the journey as part of his argument with himself about belief. The place is defined less by a description of the city than by the hospital’s vulnerability: the simbas were approaching, and the four Belgian nuns were told that they could not be protected.

The warning was specific and urgent. The nuns were informed that the simbas would arrive within twenty-four hours and were urged to leave. They refused because they considered their duty to be with their patients. Creasy pressed them to reconsider, graphically describing what might happen if they stayed. The exchange makes the hospital a place where religious commitment is not abstract doctrine but a decision made under imminent threat.

The Nuns’ Decision

One of the nuns was young and attractive. As Creasy sat in the Land Rover, reluctant to drive away, he beckoned her over and warned that she would suffer terribly, for a long time, before she died. He saw fear in her eyes, but also resolve. She answered him serenely, telling him to go with God, and smiled.

Her response does not settle Creasy’s doubts. Instead, it places a concrete act of faith beside his inability to understand how a benevolent God could permit innocent suffering. The nun’s decision to stay with her patients gives conviction an observable form, even as the danger she accepts exposes the terrible cost of that conviction.

Retreat, Return, and Aftermath

Creasy’s unit was forced to retreat. A week passed before it regrouped and fought its way back to the hospital. Creasy and Guido were the first to arrive. A lifetime of witnessing brutality had not prepared them for what they found there; the account leaves the scene stark, emphasizing the shock of confronting the remnants of the attack rather than detailing it at length.

The two men took spades, dug a grave, and tipped what remained into it. Later that day they caught up with the simbas. Creasy killed many of them, operating a mounted machine gun while Guido drove the Land Rover. The narrative links this killing to the hospital’s aftermath, but leaves uncertain whether Creasy killed more men than had raped and mutilated the young nun. His violence is presented as a response to what he has witnessed, not as an answer that resolves the moral questions it raises.

The Place in Creasy’s Memory

The return to the hospital becomes one of the experiences through which Creasy tests the logic of faith. He wonders whether the atrocity could be called God’s will or God’s revenge, and challenges the idea that suffering is a test by asking who is conducting it. His questions also turn on the contrast between religious privilege and service: he recalls bishops drinking champagne in first class, but also missionaries in the Congo and Vietnam who spent their lives working without material reward.

The memory continues to shape how he regards religious practice. Pinta Balletto later gives him the Cross Pinta Gave Creasy, a solid-gold crucifix on a finely wrought chain, after they have discussed his doubts. She offers a simpler position: belief need not depend on certainty. Creasy keeps wearing the crucifix, and Laura Schembri notices it when he asks her to pray for him. The hospital outside Leopoldville therefore remains present beyond the recalled scene—not as proof that Creasy has resolved his disbelief, but as part of the experience that makes faith, suffering, and acts of care impossible for him to separate.