The Blockade Runners

by Peter Vollmer

  CHAPTER 60

  David lay prone on the deck, Gisela next to him as gunfire raked the fishing boat, showering them in wood splinters from the wheelhouse above.

  As soon as the shooting stopped, they all rose from the deck with their AKs and fired at the departing cruiser, still well within range of the automatic rifles. They all emptied their magazines.

  He tried to ascertain whether anybody had been hit. Miraculously, other than a few cuts from splinters, no one had been killed or injured.

  ‘Ask the skipper if he hasn’t got anything else in terms of firepower,’ he said to Gisela.

  She spoke to Gamal. His face broke into a wide grin and once again he disappeared into the cabin. He soon reappeared with a wooden olive-green crate fitted with two rope handles on each end. He lifted the lid. David stared at the contents. In the box were nestled six hand grenades.

  ‘Jesus wept,’ he said, ‘Where the hell did he get these from and for what?’

  Without giving David’s exclamation a thought, she promptly translated. Gamal roared with laughter and started talking.

  ‘You should know, there’s forever trouble in Lebanon. Christian, Muslim, Syrian; they can’t live together without fighting, so it’s good to be prepared. Rest assured the whole population arms itself. I’ve always been ready. These things are so easy to find in my country,’ Gamal replied, gesturing at the box of grenades.

  David took one of the grenades and hefted it in his hand.

  ‘Somehow we’ve got to lure them into a trap. We have to do it soon before they realise that capturing the yacht is the easier option. Without the yacht we’re buggered. It would be back to Lebanon for us,’ David said.

  Again, she translated.

  ‘Let’s hope they make another pass,’ Gamal said. ‘We then slow down and tell them we submit and wish to hand you both over, also that we have injured on board requiring urgent medical attention. As soon as we are in range we open fire and toss two grenades.’ He paused and then frowned. Lowering his voice, he continued, ‘The only thing is that this time we may have real casualties, but it is the only option.’

  ‘I agree. How are we going to do this?’ David asked.

  Gamal removed a hip flask from his back pocket and took a generous swig and then held the flask out to David. David gulped down a mouthful. It was ouzo. The strong aniseed spirit burnt his mouth and throat, he gagged.

  Gamal laughed. ‘Strong, eh?’ he said in broken English. David’s eyes watered.

  A serious expression returned to Gamal’s face. ‘We wait until the cruiser comes alongside. When it’s about twenty yards from us, we open fire and you and I toss the grenades on deck,’ he said.

  ‘Jesus, for us to do that we’ll have to expose ourselves completely to their fire,’ David retorted, unhappy with the proposal.

  Gamal shrugged. ‘We must just be sure my people give us covering fire forcing those on the cruiser to take cover.’

  The man has a death wish, David thought. He obviously thought nothing of it and really left David no choice but to agree or reveal his anxiety. God, he was terrified! This could go horribly wrong.

  Gamal produced a torch and pointed it in the direction of the cruiser, flashing on-off repeatedly.

  ‘I hope this will entice them to return,’ he said.

  ****

  ‘Look at the boat, they’re flashing lights at us. What do they want? I wouldn’t trust those bastards as far I could throw them,’ Bartlett said, sucking on his wrist where a shard of plastic window had cut him.

  ‘Stop the boat,’ Seymour shouted.

  With the engines now idling, the cruiser gradually slowed until it pitched in the swell.

  Seymour fetched a pair of binoculars from the cabin and proceeded to study the now-stationary fishing boat, its crew standing openly on deck staring in the cruiser’s direction.

  ‘Let’s just watch for a while. I wonder what they are up to,’ Seymour mused. ‘Somebody’s waving. I think they want us to go back.’

  ‘You must be bloody crazy to do that. Never trust a damn Arab,’ Bartlett said vehemently.

  ‘I don’t agree with you. What can they do? We are just about evenly matched. Let’s get nearer so that I can use the hailer. Christ, we can’t report another failure to Sir Henry.’

  The cruiser started to move, making a wide circle approaching the fishing boat’s stern on its port side, stopping about a hundred yards away. All the crew on the fishing boat stood openly on deck, showing no weapons.

  A megaphoned voice was heard. ‘Ahoy, we have wounded, we require assistance.’

  Seymour and Bartlett looked at each other, astounded.

  ‘What the hell?’ Seymour uttered.

  ‘Careful, it’s a bloody trap!’

  Seymour grabbed the bullhorn. ‘What about the couple you have aboard?’

  ‘If you come alongside we will hand them over to you but you must undertake to take our wounded. Our engine is misfiring. It was damaged in the attack.’

  Bartlett was adamant. It would be foolhardy to get too near to the fishing boat. He reckoned they had half a dozen AK rifles. Seymour heard what Bartlett said, but could not come up with an alternative plan.

  ‘Listen, what if we forced them to stand on deck in full view without weapons, their hands in view as we came alongside. By the time they can make a grab for their weapons, if they planned to do so, we’d have already opened fire with the MATs. They wouldn’t stand a chance,’ Seymour suggested.

  Bartlett reluctantly agreed.

  Using the bullhorn the skipper of the fishing boat was told precisely what was expected and that if anyone made a false move, Seymour’s men would open fire. The skipper agreed.

  ‘All right, bring the boat slowly alongside. Bartlett, you ensure that the men are ready with the MATs. You open fire at the slightest sign of provocation. You got that?’ Seymour asked.

  ‘Yes sir,’ he replied, cocking the machine pistol.

  ****

  The fishing boat’s engine idled, appearing stationary, its forward motion only sufficient to give it steerage and keep its bow pointed at the incoming swell.

  The skipper pointed to the fishing net, a huge rolled-up sausage, which stretched the length of the boat on the port side of the gunwale. This was nearly three feet in diameter.

  ‘No bullet can penetrate that. They come alongside on our port side and, as we said, when five to ten yards away, two of my crew who are concealed below the gunwales, throw the grenades. The moment they do that, everybody on deck drops to the floor behind the net. We don’t attempt to shoot back. We let the grenades do their work,’ the skipper said to David.

  He had to agree. The plan could work and what alternative did they have other than being handed over to the British? He looked at Gisela and shook his head. He still didn’t like the idea.

  ‘We’re placing all these men’s lives in danger. Is that right?’ he asked.

  ‘David, you don’t have a choice. Besides that, they accepted the payment Bernd offered. If they’re all right with it, just leave it, okay?’ she whispered.

  He never failed to amaze her. He was courageous man but he had this streak of compassion, which could jump to the fore at a moment’s notice, at the most inappropriate moment.

  ‘For God’s sake, just think of something else,’ she muttered.

  The AK rifles lay at their feet on the deck. As the cruiser approached and came within range, the crew raised one arm above their heads in a show of surrender, the other also visible, but grasping onto something to steady them against the pitch of the boat.

  The cruiser approached slowly. The fishing boat’s crew could see the three men with their MAT machine pistols trained on them. Both boats lit each other with their deck lights. The two men with the grenades crouched below the level of the net, ready to extract the pin when the time came. These were shrapnel grenades.

  The helmsman on the cruiser expertly approached the fishing boat, it hardly making headway against the s
well. This was crunch time. David knew people would die, this could not go smoothly as the firepower involved was enormous. The cruiser was now no more than fifteen yards away. He could see the men on board and the weapons they held.

  ‘Bas!’ Gamal shouted.

  In unison, everybody dropped below the height of the net. The two crew members stood up and threw the grenades, this movement triggering a volley of fire from the cruiser, the three machine pistols traversing the length of the boat with a fusillade of gunfire. One of the grenade men was struck twice in the chest, he falling back with a scream which cut off as he dropped to the deck. The net shook as it absorbed multiple shots, wood splinters flew, and ricochets zinged off into the darkness.

  Suddenly there was a loud explosion. Seconds later, pieces of the boat rained down on the sea and fishing boat. An orange fireball erupted on board the cruiser followed by pall of black smoke.

  David looked over the top of the net and was horror-struck by the scene of destruction he beheld. The cruiser was on fire, the flames fed by fuel and burning fibreglass. A figure ran across the foredeck with clothes aflame, jumping overboard into the sea. Another floated in the water. David realised that he must have been blown overboard by the blast. The starboard side of the cruiser had a huge hole in it right down to the waterline. He watched the sea pouring in. Part of the main cabin had disappeared.

  Everyone had risen from behind the net, the crew members cheering and slapping each other on the back. The skipper bent over his prone crew member, the man hardly bleeding, the only blood being where the bullets had struck him.

  Gamal stood up and made the sign of the cross, the others doing the same. ‘He’s dead, he died instantly it seems.’

  All were silent for a moment.

  ‘Get any survivors out of the water,’ Gamal ordered. The men sprang to the task, subdued, the shock of what had occurred still with them. Using boathooks, they helped the two survivors alongside and then hoisted them aboard. Both were burnt, their faces scarred with black and red patches, their hair singed. The one’s hands were burnt as well. Both were barely conscious.

  The stern of the cruiser was already submerged. It was clear that it would sink within minutes. Gisela demanded the first-aid box and attended to the two injured men, not that there was much she could do except to apply some ointment. She had the men carried inside the cabin and placed on bunks.

  David was devastated. This was a catastrophe, something he had never envisaged. Men had died. He did not want to know any names, all because kith was fighting kin. A mad world, he thought. When this was eventually leaked to the press, there would a political uproar.

  ‘Stop standing around! Look for other survivors,’ Gamal shouted at his men.

  They found no others, only the bodies that they brought aboard which now lay covered on deck by a tarpaulin.

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ David asked Gamal.

  ‘What do you mean, “What are we going to do?” We’re going to find the yacht, you’re going to pay the balance you owe me and you board the yacht. We then say goodbye.’

  ‘But, what about the injured men and your dead crew member? What are you going to tell the police?’

  ‘Leave that to me. I’ll dump my dead crew member.’ Gamal made the sign of the cross. ‘I’ll say we saw the cruiser blow up, these two were the only survivors and that my crew member drowned during the rescue attempts. My crew will back me up. I don’t think these two Englishman will say anything else. I’m sure they don’t want to mention a gun battle.’

  ‘The bullet holes in the boat?’

  ‘Now, that’s a problem, but I’ll deal with it. Don’t forget this is Lebanon, bullet holes are commonplace,’ he said, with a sarcastic smile.

  David entered the cabin and approached the bunks. Both men were conscious. Gisela was attending to the one whose clothes had been on fire, his arm appearing to be badly burnt. He turned to the other who had been blown overboard. He didn’t know what to say.

  ‘That was a bloody mess, wasn’t it?’ he eventually said.

  The man on the bunk looked up at him. ‘Mr Tusk, I presume?’ he asked, a faint smile on his face.

  David nodded.

  ‘This is truly tragic. Like many of my colleagues I would have preferred a more amicable solution, but then I’m not a politician,’ the man said.

  ‘I know, neither am I. ‘

  ‘You’re a South African banker, aren’t you?’

  David did not reply.

  ‘Well, for a banker you’re quite a formidable foe and probably will cause me to be transferred to the archives for the rest of my working life.’ The man smiled again. ‘You bloody Rhodesians are all the same, a bunch of fuckin’ diehards.’

  David took the man’s hand. ‘I’m sorry.’ He turned round and left the cabin.

  Within an hour, they found the yacht, drifting in the sea waiting for them. David paid Gamal the balance, the total amount of four thousand dollars, a small but fair fee for what he and his crew had endured.

  They clambered aboard the yacht. Both he and Gisela waved to the crew on the fishing boat as the yacht drew away.

  David put his arm round Gisela’s waist. ‘Christ, I hope I never see Lebanon again.’

  She laid her head on his shoulder.

  CHAPTER 61

  Twelve weeks had passed since Sizwe Sybonga’s miraculous escape from Rhodesia. He had adjusted well to the daily rigours of the new training program which he had been subjected.

  His instructors were North Koreans who relentlessly drilled and instructed the dozen trainee officers who had been assigned to them, subjecting them to a merciless training schedule. The mornings started at five, driven from their beds onto the parade ground clad only in shorts. Six laps at a fast jog were mandatory. This was followed by gruelling callisthenics, then another four laps. Thereafter, only forty-five minutes were allowed in which to shower, dress, and clean their quarters. Breakfast consisted of maize meal porridge with milk, sugar, and two slices of bread, washed down with coffee.

  Classes followed until three in the afternoon, their studies devoted to ambush and battle tactics, incoming intelligence reports, clandestine operational procedures and communist ideology. The rest of the afternoon until seven concentrated on practical weapons and radio training.

  He was fortunate. He, because of his escape from Rhodesia, had acquired a degree of respect that bordered on hero-worship. In addition, his academic marks were of the best and no one was in doubt that he would qualify top of his class. In fact, in private, it was rumoured that he was a protégé of Nkomo himself, the self-proclaimed leader of the ZANU movement. He was now proficient in the use of all weapons supplied by the Communist bloc. His marksmanship was excellent. In physical combat, he excelled so that even his instructor was wary to take him on.

  ****

  After fourteen weeks, they held a passing out parade. This may have been low-key and an unpublicised event, but it did much to raise his self-esteem. He never forgot how his brother and the others were killed. Revenge was his ultimate goal. The instructors were right: the whites had taken his land, his freedom, and his family. It was time to take it back.

  They promoted him to squad commander and assigned a troop of twelve men to him. The squad practised manœuvres for two weeks in the Zambian bush, fifty miles from Lusaka, until Sizwe had welded them into a well-coordinated team. He was ready to go back to Rhodesia.

  ZANU command decided that his squad should again infiltrate the Centenary area because he was familiar with the district and it was close to Salisbury, the capital. They were convinced that any terror attacks on the capital’s doorstep would have a profound effect on the population. A wave of fear rippling through the whites was what they wanted.

  Different tactics were to be applied. The last consignment of weapons from the communists included PMN landmines and anti-tank mines. They proposed to lay these beneath the civilian roads in use in Rhodesia and so disrupt civilian traffic. The mines we
re easy to bury as most roads were gravel. Sizwe’s squad was also issued with two RPG-70 rocket launchers to use against large trucks and military vehicles.

  Weighed down with all their equipment, they crossed the Mpata Gorge on the Zambezi River below the Kariba Dam at night during a heavy thunderstorm, which they hoped would wash away their tracks. The Rhodesian Security Forces regularly patrolled the riverbank for precisely that reason.

  They were a motley band of men. They wore no uniforms but were dressed in an assortment of civilian clothes chosen to camouflage them in the bush – green, beige, and grey – some with hats and others not. If need be, they would be able to assume the disguise of civilians, which was necessary in order to reconnoitre ahead.

  Once in Rhodesia and penetrating the initial stages of the Zambezi Escarpment, it was possible to move during the day, the area comprised of virgin bush, wild animals and few humans. The heat was intense. They were plagued by insects and were continuously watchful lest they encounter wild animals. Once beyond the mountains, which were eighty miles from the river where the land was more densely populated, they moved only during the night and then only after the moon had risen. Where possible, they chose to walk on dirt roads. Every time vehicle lights appeared, they hid in the bush that thronged the roads. It was reckoned that vehicles using the road would wipe out any tracks they may leave and that the road was the last place the enemy would look. That was not entirely true. Roads were patrolled but usually any tracks left were obliterated by vehicles before a security patrol happened by.

  He made no effort to make contact with the black civilian population. The Rhodesian Security Forces had persuaded many to be informants. Making contact with the locals was just too risky. As long as their supplies held out, this would be the plan he would follow.

  Detection by an informant or any other enemy force would be disastrous. The BSAP and the armed forces would descend on the area, supported by helicopters, and track them down until they were annihilated in a firefight. Those who escaped would remain on the run, forced to abandon equipment, weapons and food to lighten their packs. They would be unable to carry out their assigned tasks.