19 With a Bullet (16 page)

We would also have a celebration tonight. We rode off in the direction of Charlie water tower about 20 clicks away, close to
Oom Willie se Pad
. Charlie water tower was a big concrete water reservoir that was enclosed by a high fence. It had a small, constant guard of infantry who lived in tents behind a mountain of sandbags with twin MAGs pointing out from behind a tall watchtower.

The sun was dipping behind the thorn trees when we pulled into the area. It had once been a small border post but now only the big reservoir stood surrounded by a dozen empty and broken-down small buildings. Old political slogans in Portuguese were faded and barely visible on the crumbling walls that were riddled with hundreds of bullet holes.

That night, safe in the compound, we lit big fires and feasted on fresh steak which we shared with the infantry who were happy to have some company and fresh meat. They told us that there had been no action in this area for many months and confirmed that the new infiltration point was farther east in the thick bush. We casually bragged about our company who had made two contacts that afternoon. They were impressed and we put on our ‘paratrooper bush fighter’ act, even though all we had shot was a poor young bull who had been grazing away peacefully.

At dawn the following morning we received a radio dispatch to join the rest of the platoon as soon as we could at Oshikango, a base camp that was smack in the middle of the dense, high-treed bush close to where the previous day’s contacts had been made. We wasted no time and loaded the Buffels, bade our infantry buddies goodbye and headed east, shivering in the chilly dawn. We reached Oshikango that afternoon. Kevin Green and John Delaney were sitting with the others in the shade of their Buffels on the far side of the camp. They could not stop talking about the contact. They quickly took Stan and I over to the chopper pad, where they gleefully pointed out 13 green body bags that lay propped up against the sand embankment. Kevin unceremoniously unzipped the first bag a few centimetres and revealed a two-day-dead, grey-faced SWAPO who had had his half his jaw shot away, the corpse now crawling with maggots. John had his wide-eyed John Travolta look and took over the story.

“Lieutenant Doep and I were running dog with some Koevoet on the spoor of about 30 terrs. We had been on them the whole morning; fresh spoor. All of a sudden, as we come out of a
chana
and cross a
muhangu
field, boom! boom! Fucking RPGs just over our heads; just miss the vehicles behind us.” John bopped up and down, as was his fashion. “All fucking hell breaks loose. We hit the dirt and I start shooting fast as I can pull the trigger. Couldn’t see what I was shooting at.”

John Delaney put his arm up and moved his finger as if he was shooting in rapid fire and keeping his head down.

Kevin took over. “Yeah the moment they started shooting the Koevoet charged the ambush with their Casspirs and we followed them. We crashed right into their ambush positions and were right in on top of them and shooting down at them. Bardie, the driver, rode right over one guy laying on the ground with an RPD machine gun.” He demonstrated how the unfortunate terr had curled up and died under the huge tyres of the Buffel.

John Delaney was now hopping and dancing, his blue eyes wide with excitement as he took up the story. “Soon as the Buffels rushed past us into the ambush, we went in after them and were the only ones on the ground. This terr turns around and makes a run for it through our Buffels and runs straight into us. All of us open up on him from ten metres. He had no chance!”

They described how, 20 minutes later, while giving chase to the surviving terrs who had bombshelled from the failed ambush, they ran into a group of 20 terrs on the run, heading for thick bush, who stopped to make a fight of it when they saw that they were trapped. Because of the terrain our troops had to disembark and were almost hand-to-hand combat, shooting from ten metres apart, and less. Point-blank stuff.

“They stood to fight,” John repeated uncharacteristically, looking solemnly down at the dead terr’s grey face who, despite his missing chin, looked relaxed in death and almost at peace. Then, back again to the John we knew as he grinned broadly: “You should have seen them dance when those gunship cannons ripped them up!”

That night we had a small party, with free access to the infantry pub and Castle lager. We sat in the recreational area and hooted with laughter at the tenyear-old black piccanin who was mimicking South African troops shooting SWAPO. He would charge into an imaginary contact, taking giant steps and look from side to side with his eyes bulging wide. When he spotted his enemy he would stop suddenly, hunch over and creep up on them and then jump up, pointing and shouting loudly, “Hey ... hey!” Chasing his enemy he would close one eye, cock his head to the side and shoot a volley of shots from his outstretched finger. He would then become the dying SWAPO, push his tongue out and roll his eyes in his head and collapse in a heap. He wore a brown army shirt that had been cut to size, sleeves rolled up and old worn—but clean—grey flannel school shorts. His parents, as well as almost everybody in his small village, had been cold-bloodedly gunned down in front of his eyes by a SWAPO patrol which had wandered into the kraal. He had been adopted by infantry and had been living in the camp ever since, doing small chores for his keep. He had a wide, mischievous face that would light up with a big grin, but a scowl would cross his young brow when we asked him about SWAPO.

“SWAPO …
maak dood. Maak dood
!”
⁹
He spat on the ground in disgust, and then stomped in the sand like he was squashing a bug. “
Maak dood ... maak dood
!”

After he had done his SWAPO routine the deep scowl changed back to a broad thick grin, as he hustled us for some spare change. He then sat quietly and watched us drinking and laughing, his eyes darting from person to person, not missing a thing.

“He is going to make one good soldier,” I thought.

⁸
crowbar (Afrikaans)

⁹
kill (Afrikaans)

CONTACT

Fixin’ to die—Bob Dylan

Dark ominous rain clouds loomed high in the distance and a low thunder that sounded like far-off artillery rumbled in the west, signalling the beginning of the rainy season. A fresh breeze had sprung up, blowing in cool air that tasted like iron and left a tangy taste in the back of your mouth. It was about four days since the contact and we had been conducting a fruitless vehicle patrol of the area, this time as a full paratroop platoon with only a few black troops from 101 Battalion to act as interpreters and trackers. We were all tired after manning a couple of all-night ambushes on a likely crossing point, but to no avail.

We pulled into a small infantry camp 30 clicks west of Oshikango for the night to wash and rest, but were not allowed in and had to sit in the Buffels for half an hour before the camp CO begrudgingly let us spend the night in his camp. Rumour was that he disliked paratroopers, calling us “glamour boys”. This just made us strut our newly acquired ‘bad ass’ paratrooper pose all the more, now that we could rightfully do so, since our platoon now had 13 kills to its name. We were told not to mix with the troops or to roam the small camp and could only shower and sit tight in the tents provided for us at the entrance under a sandbagged watchtower.

We eyed the infantry troops with venom from our tents, but later that night got out to talk to some of them; they said their CO was a real prick. They turned out to be okay and even gave us some cans of sausages and fruit from the kitchen.

The next morning, just as we were preparing to ‘shoot in’ our rifles on the small shooting range, Lieutenant Doep came charging over from the ops room shouting that we were to mount up immediately, as some helicopters had sighted a group of about 20 terrs just north of us. We ran to get our gear and, still shirtless, piled into the Buffels that had fired into life. We pulled out like police cars, with half the troops still hanging onto the sides.

The infantry troops scampered to give way as our five Buffels threw some tight U-turns on the small parade ground, spraying them full of fine red dust. We careened out of the camp gates and headed north up the straight dirt road, sending clouds of dust billowing into the air.

“Put on your safety belts; we’re going to be driving on the road,” barked Doep in a hoarse voice, his small brown eyes shining with excitement.

I squeezed on my Fireforce vest and fumbled with the safety belt which I was not used to wearing. We didn’t usually buckle up as we hardly ever used the road when we drove patrol. We stuck to the bush because of the reduced risk of landmines. After I finally got buckled in tight I shifted around trying to get into a comfortable position.

Lieutenant Doep was rasping on the radio in his strange new confident voice, trying to fix co-ordinates, but was apparently unsuccessful because he yelled to us to watch for a chopper that was coming to look for us so that we could follow him to the terrs which the other choppers had trapped in some thick bush. I felt cold with excitement and, contrary to the lemon ops we flew a few weeks ago when I had felt all hyped up, I now felt emotionless, numb and eager. I checked my rifle, took out the magazine, pushed the top bullet snugly against the back of the clip and clicked it back into my R4 clamped between my knees.

“There! There’s the chopper!”

We all followed Kevin Green’s finger; a small spot on the horizon was following the road and coming towards us low and fast. We quickly met the Alouette gunship and his rotor blades hammered as he turned and headed into the bush at a 45-degree angle from the course he’d followed coming in. We turned off after him with a bump and crashed through the small thorn trees, zigzagging to avoid the clumps of tall, thick trees that made SWAPO choose this area. The Buffel bounced and flew over old stumps and swerved at right angles to go around the trees.

“Thank God we’re strapped in,” I cussed.

The Buffel lifted at such an angle I thought we would surely topple over, but bounced back onto all four wheels. Bits of branches and leaves showered down on our heads and shoulders from crashing through low-hanging foliage. It would be pure suicide to try and stand up.

“Here we go … here we go … fucking SWAPO … here we go!”

We crashed onward on the haywire ride for about another five clicks, when suddenly I could hear the hammering of the gunships’ 20-millimetre explosive rounds not far away.

Lieutenant Doep was at the radio with an authority I had not seen before. His hair blew in the wind as he barked orders to the helicopter, which had to return several times to find us because we lost sight of him when we got caught up in the trees. John Delaney, too, seemed confident and ready. He had his peaked bush hat turned around back-to-front for better vision, and was talking to no one in particular.

“Here we go … here we go …”

I could hear the gunships’ cannon shells exploding in bursts of two and three, close by now.
Doof doof ... doof doof doof.

I risked a knockout shot from a passing branch and raised my head but could see nothing except thick high bush. We rode over a long
chana
and at the thick tree line could see an Alouette gunship orbiting and pounding away with its cannon.

“This is it!”

John had undone his safety belt, was hopping around and had already shouldered his rifle. We all followed suit and unbuckled. We came off the
chana
and into the thick tree line where the SWAPO were trapped.

“Go around! The last two Buffels break right! Go around the trees as stopper groups,” Lieutenant Doep shouted into the radio. We were under the canopy of trees now and couldn’t see the gunship, but it sounded as if he was just above us—the explosive heads hammered down, hidden by foliage, just 20 metres to our right. I loosened my chest webbing for a quick magazine change and flipped the safety off as I shoved the rifle tightly into my shoulder. Thorns scraped my forearms as we edged further into the thicket. The gunship was directly above us now and had stopped shooting.

“They’re here, they’re here!” Doep shouted hoarsely in Afrikaans.

I peered into the bush. I had my cap turned backwards as well. All I could see was the thick, dry, tangled bush and scrub that formed a solid wall in front of me. Once again the thought flashed through me that I might not recognize a terr if he was standing right in front of me. All of a sudden John Delaney started to shoot into the thicket.

“Come on ... come on … come on!”

“What the fuck is he shooting at?”

For a split second I thought John had lost his mind as he blasted into the trees. Maybe he’s trying to show us how it’s done, seeing he and Lieutenant Doep were the only ones on the Buffel who had already been in a contact. I held my fire and tried to stay calm. I looked to see what John was shooting at. I could see nothing. What the fuck’s he shooting at, then? He could hit one of our guys on the other side of the thicket!

The other Buffels were somewhere abreast of us, riding into the thicket, but we could not see them. There was the crackle of rifle fire about 30 metres away to our right. Suddenly, right in front of us and coming out the dry bush, was a small figure wearing a dirty brown uniform. He didn’t even see us, his arms flaying at the thorn bushes that cluthced at him. He had an AK-47 grasped in his right hand. I started shooting at him, as did Fourie and John next to me, not even aiming. It seemed to be happening in slow motion; the only reality was the kick of the R4 rifle against my shoulder. I fired about five or six rapid shots, then everyone opened up. The small figure fell back into the thorns but kept thrashing about wildly. The earth around him came alive as our bullets kicked up sand in high spurts and I could see his clothes tug as they struck him.

He rolled over onto his belly and lay still, half-concealed by the thick thorn bush. Instantly I looked around for more targets. I flinched as bullets cracked and buzzed over our heads, probably from our own guys in the Buffel opposite us, who sounded like they were having a party. Then there was a shout from the other side of the Buffel and they all opened up at a target that we couldn’t see. I scanned the wall of bush in front of me. The veil had been lifted from my eyes now that I knew exactly what I was looking for. C’mon … bring on some more!