In 1960, Dr. William T. Close was part of a small missionary team invited by a Congolese chief to spend six weeks in the Belgian Congo prior to the country’s independence. The six weeks stretched into sixteen years, during which time Dr. Close was, for a while, the only surgeon in a fifteen-hundred-bed hospital.

He became chief doctor of the Congolese army, personal physician to President Mobutu, and responsible for the renovated general hospital of two thousand beds in the capital city. Close lived through rebellions, coup d’état, and civil war as a doctor and surgeon. This is his personal account of the unplanned adventures he encountered.