Shooting Butterflies (3 page)

‘Come, take me to this place,' his father said as he took Kirk's hand in his and ran towards the stables.

The horses were out in the field, and the groom was just putting new hay into the stalls, helped by his young son.

‘Saddle the horses. We need a search party to find Impendla,' Kirk's father instructed the groom. He turned to the child. ‘Tendai, quickly run to the church and ring the bell. Keep ringing it for a long time so that everyone comes in to the mission. There is bad trouble.'

Kirk watched as Tendai sprinted away to the church, the urgency in his father's voice clearly understood by the six-year-old. Moments later the dull clanging of the bell rang out, echoing across the valley and calling the people to the mission.

The reverend helped the groom to saddle up the mission's three horses and pull the two donkeys inside as well. Kirk stayed close as instructed and watched as the workers, worshippers, and people from the small kraals nearby gathered in the courtyard outside the church. He only ever saw so many people all together when his father handed out Christmas
bonsellas
in celebration of the birth of Jesus.

Tendai was still ringing the bell.

Clang-clang.

Clang-clang.

When the horses were ready, the groom passed the reverend the reins of his black stallion. Taking them, Kirk's father walked out of the stables and stopped in front of the crowd. A hush fell over the people. Someone had told Tendai to stop ringing the bell because it clanked once more before silence descended over the mission.

‘One of ours has been taken from us during the night. He is in trouble. I know about the custom of giving up one of your children for a plot of land, or to the
sangoma
in exchange for the marriage of another child into a wealthier family. But Impendla was not given to anyone for muti, he is our friend. We need to find him. Arm yourselves with anything you can find, bring your picks and
budzas
, there is trouble!
Huya pano
, we need to save him. I pray that God be with us today in our search, and that the Almighty will protect Impendla wherever he is.'

He mounted his horse, and then reached down to help as the groom lifted Kirk up to sit in front of the saddle. The people of the mission station hurried to do his bidding. One of their own was in real danger. With hushed voices, as if scared of what they would find, the men and women gathered together, armed with tools from around the mission and their own kraals, including shields and assegais.

‘Which way, Kirk?' his father asked.

Kirk pointed towards the bushes, to where he and Impendla had last seen the
sangoma.
They moved off slowly as a group, the reverend in front, his stallion's nostrils flaring as it tossed its head and played with the metal bit between its teeth, uneasy at the crowd that followed.

More people joined them, emerging from the bushes after they passed the fields, armed with their traditional shields, hunting
assegais
and knobkerries. Ready to fight.

Soon a soft church hymn began from within the mob. Men, women and children joined in, the song grew louder as people heard it and added their voices, so that the gathering was united in a song of prayer. The procession moved through the bush, not knowing
what they were heading into, but ready to help the reverend out of a deep respect for him, and face whatever they needed to.

Seated against his father, Kirk found the courage deep inside himself to save Impendla now that their secret was told. The seven remaining hunting dogs ran in front, yelping in excitement, as if knowing that something else other than hunting was happening.

Soon they came to the place where the foul bag of feathers and leaves had fallen to the ground. Only it had been removed. Kirk looked upwards. It was back in its original place, tied to the tree, but now there was a black marking carved deep into the tree branch underneath it. And new feathers. Blue and purple feathers, like that of the lilac-breasted roller, showed bright against the brown and green bark. The same feathers that had been tied around the bundle left with Impendla's mother.

A warning.

A promise.

The mission people refused to go any further. The women sat down and started wailing, the hymn forgotten. The strong realisation that they were dealing with a
Karoi
and the
tokoloshe
sat heavily upon the sombre crowd.

‘They are in there, Father. They hang on a tree.' Kirk pointed. Now that he had unburdened part of the story, it was easier to tell his father the rest.

‘Hunt!' his father commanded the dogs.

Released, the dogs streaked off into the bush and moments later the people heard their hunting call.

Something was still there.

The reverend addressed the crowd once more. ‘I know you believe in the
sangoma
, the
Karoi
and the
tokoloshe
, but God will help us at this crossroad. He is testing our strength, to see if we are ready to enter the kingdom of heaven. One of your own is in there. Those who follow me will be the ones who trust in the Lord Jesus, the Almighty God. I ask that those of you who will not come with us stay here and pray for us. Let us know that even if you can't be with us in body, that your hearts are with us as we go into the darkness and seek out Impendla.'

The reverend urged his horse further into the long grass. Kirk looked back over his shoulder to see who had followed them. The groom was closest on his horse, followed by a handful of men, their assegais ready. The two old men who rode the donkeys kicked at their ribs to hurry them along. A few women followed as well, including Impendla's mother, a pick held in her hands in a death grip as she walked hesitantly behind her husband.

Somewhere ahead the dogs were going mad, yipping, barking and baying, calling to their humans to hurry up and come and see what they had to show them.

The stallion cleared the grass and stepped into the clearing, and the reverend pulled him up in an abrupt halt. The stallion's nostrils flared and his skin shivered. His body twitched.

‘Impendla!' Kirk cried out and started to jump off the horse, but his father restrained him.

Impendla hung by his feet in the tree, the reverend's hunting gun and a warrior's shield tied to his body. His blood dripped from the fresh warrior wounds carved into his skin and onto the dry dust of the African continent.

Now there were six children's bodies hanging in the tree, and no sign of the Karoi.

‘Holy Father, help us. What have these savages done now?' The reverend began to pray.

2

The School Yard

Mozambique

1978

Shilo Jamison Khumalo breathed deeply. Seated on the bench running along the inside of the Dakota plane, he could feel the vibration of the engines. The jump light was still not illuminated. Opposite him Kwazi winked. Shilo smiled at his friend.

‘Stand up. Hook up!' the despatcher hollered.

The paratroopers stood up awkwardly, the drop bags at the front of their thighs making it hard to balance. Simultaneously they connected the static line snap hooks to the cables running the length of the cabin roof.

The two assistant despatchers moved quickly down the centre of the aircraft, checking all the hooks were properly connected and safely pinned. They gave the thumbs-up to the head despatcher standing near the door.

A terse acknowledgment to the pilots over the intercom, and they were ready.

Shilo rolled his head on his shoulders, easing the stress building there. Waiting for the drop was always the hardest part.

Finally the stand-by jump light illuminated the aircraft with its red glare.

‘Stand by the door!' yelled the head despatcher.

Clutching their drop bags with one hand and pulling their hooks along the cable with the other, they shuffle-marched as one towards the door. ‘One-two, one-two,' they shouted as they marched one foot forward then shuffled the other foot to catch up. It was a practised manoeuvre that helped the paratroopers to keep their balance. Just one of the moves Shilo had trained for and executed since the beginning of the war, when they had allowed black men to sign up and fight for the freedom of their Rhodesia, and he had become a paratrooper. Exiting the aircraft and leaping into the slipstream of the plane had become an addictive rush, an adrenaline high.

He stood opposite the dark chasm.

The drop light turned from red to green.

‘Go!' screamed the despatcher and slapped Shilo's thigh.

He took one last deep breath and crossed his arms across the reserve pack on his chest, then stepped out as far as he could into the abyss. He felt the icy-cold rush of air and then the incredible noise of the engines and the air around him. He knew that, behind him, other men tumbled into the darkness as they emptied the plane quickly and fell like hail from the sky. He reached his four count. He heard his olive-green canopy snap open above him, its release controlled by the static line that was still attached to the plane. As it was designed to do, it had unwrapped his chute perfectly when he came to the end of the webbing. Relief surged through him that he wouldn't need to use the reserve on his chest.

His fall slowed. He could breathe again.

Shilo could hear the plane's drone somewhere in the distance, and in the near silence he drifted down towards the target drop zone over five hundred metres below. He quickly released the Capewell releases to deploy his drop bag which contained his webbing, rucksack and the rest of his deployment kit. He felt the drop bag jerk to
a stop at the end of the two-metre lanyard, and mentally checked that off his list of how to execute a perfect drop.

The cold wind flapped at his jumpsuit and the familiar sensation of dread and anticipation sat low in his belly. The military parachutes had little sense of directional guidance. He was never under any illusion that he was in control of where he would land. He hoped that he would at least be within the vlei demarcated as the drop zone, and not drift into the trees along the edges. His adrenaline surged again with anticipation of his unpredictable landing.

Shilo watched the darkness beneath him change density and knew the ground was rushing up towards him. He felt his drop bag hit the ground and immediately braced for his para-roll. He hit the ground a second later.

Slightly winded, Shilo quickly opened the harness releases and rolled away from his gear. He glanced upwards to check no one was going to land on top of him, but the sky was too dark to see.

He unstrapped his weapon, cocked the action and made sure the safety catch was on. Despite not being his standard military issue, it was habit to collect his gear. Once he had packed it up he stood motionless and listened to the night sounds.

He could hear crickets and an owl hooted far in the distance. Other than that there was nothing. No sounds of animals stirring.

He removed his webbing and rucksack from the drop bag and strapped them on, then jumped up and down to make sure nothing rattled. Satisfied, he jogged towards the glow of a red flashlight where he knew Sergeant Riley had set up the rally point, and the other men from his platoon would all be gathering.

‘Weapons check?' Sergeant Riley queried. The company men quickly confirmed they had checked their weapons. Standard Soviet Bloc weapons, AK-47s with the signature curved magazine. Each man had plenty of extra ammunition in spare magazines along with grenades in his chest webbing, a bayonet, and a .9mm pistol holstered on his belt.

Shilo looked around. They were all dressed in East German ‘rice-flecked' pattern shirts and trousers, the standard issue of the
Mozambique People's Liberation Forces, so they looked exactly like any other Mozambique soldier would. Their disguise was perfect.

He knew his black skin shone at night, so he'd applied plenty of the camo cream the white men in his unit slathered over their faces to try to look as black as he did. But they failed. Their eyes always gave away that they were white men. Nothing would ever dim the blueness from Sergeant Riley's eyes. He noticed Sergeant Riley pull his bush hat lower over his eyes as if he was thinking the same thing.

The brief for their original mission had been a strike on a building that was being used as an ammunition depot. But on entering the plane, a new captain had joined them. He was from the Psychological Operations Unit – PSYOPS, as everyone referred to them, or, as they called themselves, POU.

Shilo knew they were in for a different mission now. It was common knowledge that the main emphasis of PSYOPS was to cause confusion in the black populations and undermine their morale so much that they would be unwilling to fight against the Rhodesians, and even further, be encouraged to defect from any communist groups they found themselves sympathetic towards.

He frowned as he listened to the changes to their original orders.

‘… they must never try to re-form here again,' Captain Kirchman Potgieter was saying.

‘Yes, sir,' the company said together, but Shilo had missed the beginning of his orders.

‘Anyone addressing me as captain or sir from now on gets his nose broken. You'll only address me as Buffel.'

The men remained silent. The reputation of the mad PSYOPS Unit had preceded him. They would obey.

‘Your final objective after the raid on the training camp is to round up the survivors. Then and only then do you assemble back at the vlei for helicopter retrieval. No one will stay at the school while I finish up. You will wait for me at the vlei before you take off and return to base. Understood?'

‘Yes, Buffel,' the company said. But that didn't mean they liked it.

Just having the PSYOPS captain along on the mission made Shilo's stomach lurch. The man was up to something, and it wasn't above board.

‘Remember ZANLA is using this school as a guerrilla training camp,' Buffel said.

Shilo had participated in previous cross-border raids into both Mozambique and Zambia. Many of those attacks had been on training camps such as this one. They were usually performed successfully. But judging by the coordinates of this school, the camp had been moved deep into Mozambique's interior in the hope the Rhodesian forces would not follow.