Someone Wishes to Speak to You (42 page)

Inside the hut, the lieutenant found Mathew gagged, unshaven and tied to a chair, with blood stains on his face, his torn
shirt and his trousers. After the bindings were untied, Mathew attempted to stand, but immediately collapsed. The SAS team were prepared for this and had a canvas stretcher on which to carry Mathew back to the bush landing strip, with their securely handcuffed ZANLA prisoner being dragged behind them. Chris Falla had his Beaver aircraft in full readiness and after they managed to carefully load Mathew’s stretcher on to it, the overloaded aircraft managed to taxi along the bush clearing, make a perfect take-off and fly low over the border to the safety of Umtali’s RhAF base.

As far as Mathew’s rescue was concerned, Operation Primate proved to be a highly successful operation. If the rescue attempt had failed, he would undoubtedly have ended up being murdered by his ZANLA captors. But the ultimate irony was the bittersweet ending of the whole operation, which culminated in the tragic death of Major Paddy Bushney. After his task force had successfully blown up the road bridge to draw FRELIMO and ZANLA military operatives away from where Mathew was being held, he had been killed when he went back to rescue one of his badly injured African Selous Scouts. A counter attack by his men had managed to retrieve the wounded soldier, as well as the body of their leader. At much the same time that Bushney had been shot and killed, Falla landed his DHC-2 Beaver at the RhAF base in Umtali.

After an army doctor had climbed on board the aircraft to examine Mathew, he found him to be suffering from chronic dehydration and due to the condition of both of his feet, as he was unable to place any weight on them, the stretcher had to be carried to a military ambulance that was waiting for him. Once transferred to a small military hospital for treatment, Mathew was immediately put on a saline/glucose drip, after which the doctor was able to carry out a thorough examination. He found that the soles of his feet had been quite badly lacerated, which as Mathew later told both the
doctor and Special Branch was due to frequent beatings by one of his ZANLA captors, using a bamboo stick. This was because he repeatedly refused to sign a document that his captors had presented to him in order to incriminate Chief Chidzikwee as being a long-term informer for the security forces, reporting on ZANU/PF activities. By doing so, they wanted to portray the chief to his people as a traitor to his Manyika/Shona tribe, and to ZANLA’s fight for freedom from the yoke of the Europeans.

The torture went further than the soles of his feet and the many cigarette burns on his chest. Mathew told a senior Special Branch officer that on one occasion he was blindfolded, tied to a tree, and told that unless he put his signature to the document he would be shot. The person who they had referred to as their leader, General Nhongo, told them that he would have all three of the interrogators severely punished should they fail in their attempt to get their captive to sign the document concerned. Although Mathew had been left out in the scorching sun for some time, and occasionally punched in the stomach, he had steadfastly refused to sign the incriminating notice and, having fainted, he had only come round again when a bucket of water was thrown over him after being returned to the hut.

Perhaps the stoic way that Mathew had managed to deal with the extreme pain that the interrogator had inflicted upon him had, to some degree, resulted from his time at Wellington College. For in those days, whenever a boy received a caning and no matter how severe it had been, it was considered ‘bad form’ to betray either the person administering the beating, or afterwards to his peers how much the experience had hurt.

Soon after the news of the death of Major Paddy Bushney had been released to the press, and his body taken to the small chapel at Inkomo Barracks, P.K. Van der Byl announced that the major was to be the second person to be posthumously
awarded Rhodesia’s Grand Cross of Valour, the country’s highest military decoration for conspicuous bravery by a member of the security forces. Ten days later, a memorial service was held at Salisbury’s Anglican Cathedral of St Mary Magdalene. This was attended by Ian Smith, senior politicians, the majority of the senior officers connected with ComOps, Lieutenant Colonel Reid-Daly and other members of his Selous Scout regiment, including European and African soldiers who had served under his command.

Jan was dressed in a smart, well-tailored black suit, with a matching hat fitted with a thin veil, from which a lock of blond hair had escaped to fall over the collar of her outfit. As she walked slowly behind the pall-bearers carrying her husband’s coffin, all eyes were upon her and those sitting on either side of the aisle could see that she had been weeping. It was not, as they would have assumed, due to the sudden loss of her husband but rather because she was burdened by an intense feeling of guilt.

The coffin was draped with the regimental flag, and on either side of a large wreath of white lilies had been placed the khaki jungle hat that Bushney had been wearing at the time of his death and his array of dress medals, including the scarlet-ribboned Grand Cross of Valour. Piet Erasmus was seated at the back of the congregation when Colonel Reid-Daly gave the eulogy. He couldn’t help feeling a degree of responsibility. If he had not insisted that Mathew, under the pressure of blackmail, must return to the Vumba region to meet Chief Chidzikwee again, his kidnap would not have taken place. Without him, Mathew wouldn’t have experienced such harsh brutality from his ZANLA interrogators and one of Rhodesia’s Bush War heroes would not have been killed.

Mathew was unable to attend the service as he was still hospitalised, recovering from the severity of the wounds to the soles of his feet, which took some time to heal before he could place any weight on them. Due to the severity of
the dehydration he had been suffering from at the time of his rescue, he remained in quite a weak condition, as well as frequently experiencing nightmares about his time in terrorist hands. When Reid-Daly referred to Mathew in his eulogy, Jan was relieved to consider that the tears which had started to trickle over her cheeks would have been seen by her parents, sitting on either side of her, to be a sign that she was no longer able to control her grief over the death of her husband.

At the beginning of September, just before the start of the Lancaster House Conference in London, Mathew and Jan started to be seen together in public. Soon afterwards they told the Vaughan-Joneses and the Kinlochs that they intended to get married. In late October, six months after Paddy’s death, Jan and Mathew’s wedding took place at the Dutch Reformed Church in Marandellas, followed by a reception of family and close friends at the Ruwa Country Club. Sebastian had flown out from England to be his younger brother’s best man and Mariette was the maid of honour. Other guests at the small reception included Jan’s parents, the Labuschagnes; Willie Smoelke; the Kinlochs; the Vaughan-Joneses; Jim Prior; David Montgomery; Angus Whitton; Tom Martin, who had been accompanied by three of Mathew’s university colleagues and a number of Jan’s friends from her school days and the time that she had worked in tourism before her first marriage.

After a short honeymoon in the Moremi Game Reserve in the Okavango Swamps, northern Botswana, they returned from Maun on a morning flight to Salisbury. After a farewell luncheon party at Simon and Anna’s home, at which Jan’s parents and sister had joined them, they all accompanied the newlyweds to the airport in time for them to catch the SAA overnight flight to the UK. It was a very emotional farewell for all concerned, in particular for Jan who was not only
leaving Rhodesia and going overseas for the first time to live in a foreign country, but also saying goodbye to her parents and to her closest friends, Mariette and Anna.

To some degree, Mathew was also sad to be leaving his friends and the country where he had spent so many constructive, meaningful and enjoyable years. At the same time, he couldn’t help reflecting on how fortunate he was to have been rescued before his ZANLA kidnappers murdered him. In spite of the tragic death of Paddy Bushney, an irony that doubtless would haunt him for the rest of his life, he knew how very lucky he was to have married a person whom he loved so profoundly, a woman for whose companionship he had yearned for so long.

After clearing customs and immigration, a SAA steward approached them. ‘Dr and Mrs Duncan, would you like to come with me?’ he said, leading them towards the executive lounge. Jan gripped tightly to Mathew’s arm, wondering what was coming next. When they entered the lounge, the airline staff and the other passengers began to clap.

‘SAA would like to say how proud we are to have you flying with us today,’ said the steward, ‘and also that we wish you both every possible future happiness. Please ask if there’s anything at all we can do for you.’ Most of them had read about Mathew’s much-publicised rescue by the SAS and some were aware of his recent marriage to the widow of Major Paddy Bushney, one of Rhodesia’s most highly respected Bush War heroes and the recipient of the Grand Cross of Valour. As a token of goodwill, SAA had upgraded them to premier class for their overnight flight to London Heathrow and once on board, the couple were treated with every possible courtesy. ‘This is wonderful, Mathew,’ said Jan, reclining in her spacious seat and accepting a glass of champagne from the passing hostess. ‘I could get used to this, let’s hope it’s a sign of things to come.’

They landed at Heathrow, enveloped in the fog of an
autumnal day, and soon caught the onward British Midland Airways flight to Leeds-Bradford Airport.

Mathew explained that he had arranged for a car to take them to his parents’ house, though he was careful not to tell her that the driver, Sid Stockdale, had been a family retainer for many years. For, from the start, he had wanted to keep everything about Hartington Hall as a surprise. He had sent a message via his parents to Stockdale to ask that he act as if they were total strangers. Addie Kinloch had always been aware that he was the son of a baronet, but he had asked her to keep it to herself. During his time in Rhodesia, Mathew had managed to keep his ‘landed gentry’ background secret from both Simon and Anna and, most importantly, from his new bride.

As Stockdale loaded their luggage into Sir Colin’s black Daimler, he acted his role as a hired limousine chauffeur most professionally.

‘Welcome to Yorkshire, Mrs Duncan – have you ever visited the county before?’ said Stockdale, holding the rear door open for Jan.

‘Thank you. No, I’ve never been to Britain, although my husband has told me that Yorkshire is particularly beautiful, of course.’

On their way through the Dales into Wharfedale, through Ilkley to Bolton Abbey, Mathew said, ‘There’s a hunting lodge close to the abbey that belongs to a Duke. I’ll show you when we get near it.’

‘I suppose hunting on the Yorkshire moors is rather different to the big game shooting in the Zambezi Valley. . . Is that the abbey?’ Jan was startled by the sight of the sombre ruins. She found it difficult to understand how such a one-time stately edifice could have been allowed to fall into such a sad state of disrepair.

‘I ought to explain that in England, you will see many such ruins. In the sixteenth century, many significant buildings
were destroyed for no other reason than that King Henry VIII was unable to persuade the Pope to sanction an annulment of his first marriage to Catherine of Aragon. It was called the Dissolution of the Monasteries – Henry was destroying the might of the church to exert his own power.’

‘I see I have a lot to learn.’

‘After severing his links with the Catholic Church, destroying the monasteries and founding the Church of England, he made the most of it by marrying another four wives.’ He thought it prudent to leave out the more gruesome fact that Henry had some of them beheaded for supposedly conducting extramarital affairs. It may have been a little too close to home.

The greenness of the fields, the late autumnal colours of the trees on the banks of the slow-running River Wharfe and the carpets of heather that blanketed the surrounding moors could not have formed more of a contrast to the environment Jan had been brought up in and had always felt so much at home in, during her formative years in the Northern Transvaal and the bushveldt. As the Daimler passed over the attractively arched five-span bridge at Burnsall and they drew close to Hartington Hall, Mathew couldn’t help feeling a strong sense of excitement, although at the same time he had a degree of apprehension as to how Jan would react to seeing the magnificence of her new home.

Prior to the Daimler reaching the ornate gates of one of the hall’s four drives, as Mathew was anxious to give Jan as much of a surprise as possible, he had pre-planned with Stockdale to carry out a detour of deception. ‘I’ve asked the driver to take the turning into the drive by the lodge here, as I want to show you an excellent example of Britain’s glorious heritage before we meet my parents. It’s an eighteenth-century Queen Anne mansion.’ As they drove slowly up Hartington Hall’s mile-long south drive, between the metal railings to the north of the Home Park, Jan was completely
mesmerised by the overall beauty and tranquility of the surroundings. The peaceful environment could not have been a more welcome contrast to all the horrors, tragedies and traumas that they both had to experience over the course of the last six months.

‘This is just so beautiful. It’s better than I could ever have imagined. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be Mrs Duncan and to be here, to start a new life together.’ Just as Mathew was about to respond, Stockdale drove slowly around the small copse of beech trees, and brought the Daimler to a halt in order for Jan to gain her first view of the fine south elevation of Hartington Hall, bathed in golden sunshine.

Jan was almost spellbound by being for the first time in such close proximity to the grandeur of one of England’s stately homes. ‘Is this a National Trust mansion? I’ve seen pictures of places like this in
Country Life
, back in Rhodesia.’

Mathew simply leant over to gently kiss her lips and said, ‘Darling, let’s just call it home.’