The Blockade Runners

by Peter Vollmer

  He planned to mine the main road from Salisbury to Centenary. This was an asphalt road but the last fifteen miles to Centenary were still untarred, with a gravel surface. He proposed to lay the mines early at night and, with many hours of darkness left, walk the few miles to the Mentz farmstead and attack it, using his superior firepower to kill as many as possible.

  As they neared Centenary, the going became tougher. They were forced to thread their way carefully through numerous black homesteads each with a two-and-a-half acre plot, usually cultivated with maize. Most homesteads also owned a few head of cattle, belonging to the local blacks. The whites lived in the town in suburban houses. The town was typical of a rural community, the hub of a farming district. It took nine days to reach the hills that overlooked Centenary. They finally sought out a high kopje overlooking the town. The business centre was small and consisted of two banks, a post office, a few department stores, a farmer’s cooperative and other small shops and businesses.

  These nights, the moon’s phase was nearing full. He believed it would rain, in keeping with such a phase during the rainy season. This would provide excellent cover. The thunderstorms usually built up during the late afternoon and evening. He decided to wait it out for a day or two, which would allow his men time to recuperate from their long trek from Zambia.

  CHAPTER 62

  Bernd took the yacht due west into the Mediterranean, wanting to put as much distance between them and the Lebanese coast, not that he believed that they would be pursued, but it just made him feel that more comfortable. It was clear that the couple had been through a rough ordeal. David’s nerves were as taut as a bowstring. He was not up for conversation. She seemed to fare better. It was as if she were better conditioned, obviously having received some training in this type of undercover operation. The first two nights, they both drank heavily and only after they had consumed a fair number of drinks did they unwind and become more talkative and a lot friendlier.

  He did not want to set course for Larnaca, Cyprus. Better to let the hubbub die down. The situation between the Lebanese and British governments had to be tense. The Lebanese were certain to object to a British operation resulting in death and the sinking of a Lebanese cabin cruiser being launched from their shores. The police docket mentioned that the cruiser had blown up for unknown reasons, possibly due to a fuel leak. This was also considered as the cause of death, save one man lost at sea attempting to rescue survivors from the cabin cruiser. The Lebanese government never believed the story. They knew that the survivors and the dead were British operatives.

  By the third day, fresh air, sufficient sleep, and just lazing in the sun had worked wonders. Both David and Gisela were now more approachable and easier to live with on a small boat. Bernd change course for Larnaca.

  The deaths of the men initially weighed heavily on David’s conscience. This war of subterfuge and cunning was very different from tactical combat of flying aircraft, with its strafing ground troops and dropping bombs. Certainly, many more had probably died because of his actions but then they were on the ground and he was in the air, never seeing his victims close up. This had been different. He did not want to fight the British and, probably, they did not wish to fight him. Both had been pawns in a conflict about race and supremacy. Gisela’s attitude was different. She had taken this in stride. She didn’t seem to care – it happened; too bad. He had once remarked that had she been born earlier, she would probably have been a senior officer of the Third Reich administering the women’s section of a Nazi death camp. She hadn’t spoken to him for two days after that. He was forced to apologise.

  On the yacht’s arrival in Larnaca, they produced well-worn Austrian passports revealing arrival and departure stamps from various European places and the Mediterranean. David remained baffled as to how Gisela had obtained them, but knew better than to ask. They were now Mr and Mrs Grubner from Vienna. He was an executive of a well-known musical instruments manufacturer, a family business. Such a company did exist, as did the Grubner family. They had merely taken on their identity.

  They bade farewell to the Hackers and travelled by road to Nicosia where they boarded a British European Airways Viscount for Frankfurt, where they never left the confines of the international airport, connecting with an Air Afrique flight to Lusaka in Zambia.

  CHAPTER 63

  It was a cold winter morning when the taxi dropped Seymour at the entrance to Century House in London. Now that he had recovered, he had been summoned by Sir Henry. He dreaded the meeting and the consequences that were sure to follow.

  Although he had recovered from his burns, most of these merely superficial, his face was still blotched, those places now a distinct bright pink.

  He had to wait twenty minutes before he was asked to enter Sir Henry’s office. He entered with a sense of foreboding. He thought it extraordinary that his boss rose from his seat behind the desk and came round to shake his hand. What was more surprising that he was offered a drink, considering the early hour.

  Sir Henry carefully studied Seymour’s face. ‘That’s an occupational hazard, I’m afraid,’ he said, pointing to his burnt face. He walked to a cabinet, withdrew two glasses, and poured a generous tot in each. He handed Seymour a glass.

  ‘This is a unique single malt whisky, I’m sure you will appreciate it,’ Sir Henry said, not returning to his chair but coming to stand next to Seymour in front of his desk, displaying more than his usual friendliness.

  Sir Henry raised his glass.

  ‘Here’s to the British, Bartlett, and the others. What a tragedy, a waste of good men. May we never fight our own again.’ With that, he took a sip and sat in a chair in front of his desk, gesturing to Seymour to do the same.

  ‘Well, Seymour, to put it mildly, that was a fuck-up, wouldn’t you say?’

  Seymour didn’t know how to reply, after all this had been his operation.

  ‘Yes’ was all he said.

  Sir Henry took another sip. ‘Between you and me and these four walls I must confess that I’m not disappointed. Yes, the loss of life I truly regret. Those men should still be with us. This conflict with Rhodesia could have been avoided.’ He threw the rest of the whisky down his throat, ‘Quite frankly, my attitude is: “Fuck the party and fuck the Prime Minster.” Don’t blame yourself. Not like us, the Rhodesians are fighting for their very existence, how do you expect them to react?’

  He rose from his chair indicating that the meeting was over. ‘Incidentally, there will be no enquiry and no blame. Your record is clean.’

  He held out his hand, ‘Seymour, good day.’

  CHAPTER 64

  They had to ditch their weapons before boarding the flight from Larnaca. They felt naked without them although they did not believe the British had any idea where they currently were. It would be a while yet before they traced them.

  The aircraft landed in Lusaka in the early hour of the morning. They remained in the terminal waiting for a connecting flight to Livingstone, a border town with Rhodesia, a tourist haven for all those visiting the Victoria Falls.

  Since Ian Smith’s UDI declaration, the relationship between Zambia and Rhodesia had deteriorated. It was difficult to travel between the two countries and hiring a rental car in Livingstone to drive through to Salisbury was out of the question. Gisela had telegraphed her farm manager who had arranged a small charter plane to collect them from Victoria Falls, the town adjoining Livingstone on the Rhodesian side of the border. By two that afternoon, they landed in Salisbury where Kallie Botha, the farmer manager, collected them and drove them back to the farm.

  David had decided that he needed time to adjust and would take an unauthorised one-week’s leave of absence. Considering the success of the mission, he did not believe that the bank or Rhodesian Government would object. Of course, he would meet with Taylor or Butler in the next few days for a debriefing and update.

  They sat on the veranda, he nursing a whisky and she a glass of wine. They had been on the farm for four
days now.

  ‘It’s a full moon tonight,’ he said, glancing up from the newspaper he was reading.

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but I doubt whether you will see much of it, maybe in the early hours of the morning.’ She pointed to the north from where a grey band of cloud advanced, already displaying the typical anvil development of a thunderstorm. ‘It’s going to rain tonight.’

  He looked. She was probably right. At least it would break the oppressive heat they were experiencing.

  The attack on the farmstead had galvanised everyone into action. A closed-mesh security fence was in the process of being erected but it would still require a week or so. It was eight feet high and strung with razor wire on top. Electric cable had been laid below the ground for security lights to be situated at intervals along the fence. They would be activated from the house in the event of an emergency. David didn’t think the terrorists would be fool enough to attack the same farm so soon after the last attack. Nonetheless, he would feel a lot more comfortable once the fence was completed. Like the rest of the white population, nobody went anywhere without a firearm at hand. Every week one heard of sporadic terrorist attacks. Word had it that they could not shoot straight, but he knew that this would soon change as they became better trained. They had also heard that the small police contingent at Centenary had been boosted since the attack.

  At times Gisela displayed a cruel and uncompromising attitude, which he had experienced on a number of occasions. Unable to explain it, he related this to the fact that her star sign was Gemini. They were fickle and had split personalities, or so he had read. While he did not consider Geminis cruel, he found them to be difficult. Once, they had light-heartedly discussed personality traits, including their own, and she reluctantly admitted that he had point. However, it was her ability to kill without conscience which he feared.

  CHAPTER 65

  Sizwe decided tonight would be the right time to attack. The rapid cloud build-up to the north promised rain, exactly what he needed. He decided to change his plan. He would split his troop. He would send three men to the road leading from Salisbury to Centenary. There, they were to mine the road from Centenary to the Mentz farm. Sizwe himself would attack the farm. The owner would call for the BSAP for help and, hopefully, their vehicles would detonate the landmines laid in the road. He would achieve the best kill rate and weaken their ability to pursue him. Yes, the farmstead’s defences would be better organised, but the rain would work in his favour.

  Already, jagged lightning flashes lit up the sky, the thunder rolling through the hills, as he and his men started their descent from the kopje. They left nothing behind except for two satchels, one with first-aid packs and the other with rations. The lightning allowed them to move briskly in the dark. Soon the first drops fell, splattering on the surroundings rocks. At the hill’s base, the troop split. Three moved off to the road while the rest went towards the farm. It took them no more than an hour and half to reach the homestead, now a hundred yards in front of them. The house still showed signs of activity. The generator was running and the lights were on. Not that he could hear the generator with the falling rain.

  As they approached the farmstead, he saw that a section of the security fence had still to be erected. He led his troop towards the gap that remained. The man behind him carried the rocket-propelled grenade. The rain fell in waves driven by the wind, drumming on his bush hat. Their feet sloshed through the water as puddles formed. The house had a corrugated iron roof. He knew that the sound of rain would drown out any noises they might make. Seeing the security fence, he realised that they probably had installed motion sensors to trigger the security lights. He hoped that none had been placed around the break in the fence.

  They took cover behind a few garden bushes fifty yards from the gap.

  He needed to destroy the generator. He knew that it was housed in an outer building behind the house. Hopefully, the rain had forced any dogs either indoors or to take shelter on the veranda. He could not imagine them anywhere outside in the rain.

  The three men who had mined the road had now rejoined the group. He gestured to two men and told them that they should penetrate the gap while he and his men would give them covering fire if necessary. They slunk off into the darkness, one carrying a small satchel of WWII surplus explosives. The other two men dropped to the ground at the end of the bushes, ready to open fire while the others advanced.

  He estimated the distance to the house to be about eighty yards.

  ‘Remember, the main front door,’ he said to the RPG-man. ‘Fire when I say so.’

  Two or three minutes passed.

  A massive explosion rent the air, the ensuing fire lighting up the house. ‘Fire!’ he shouted.

  They stood up as one and ran towards the house. His two men who destroyed the generator plant now concentrated their automatic rifles on the rear entrance to the house, gunfire filling the air. The RPG had penetrated the front door and exploded inside, blasting the entrance and all the glass out of the windows, the curtains all billowing outwards. Two men plunged through the entrance as they fired their rifles. There was a fusillade of bullets and both men crumpled to the floor. Sizwe and the rest of his men threw themselves behind the quarter-wall that surrounded the porch. Gunfire from the rear of the house could still be heard.

  ****

  With the previous attack still foremost in her mind and the security fence still to be completed, Gisela thought it prudent not to sleep in any rooms that bordered on the outer wall of the house. She was well-acquainted with Russian rocket-propelled grenades and the damage these could do. It was the Communist bloc’s chosen weapon for house-to-house combat. An armour-piercing round could penetrate an American T14 tank. She had taken the mattress from the master bedroom and placed this on the floor in an anteroom of the house, surrounded by other rooms. They had just retired to bed, both reading.

  The generator blast plunged the house into darkness. They scrambled for their clothes and weapons. The RPG attack caught them unawares. The concussion blew out windows and blasted doors open, its shock wave washing over and momentarily stunning them. Strange though it may seem, they quickly collected their wits, having experienced this before. David figured they would attempt to enter through either the front or the back doors. He chose the front, she the back. With his machine pistol in hand, he flung open the door leading to the main entrance hall. He made out the gaping hole where the entrance had been, it now faintly backlit. The hall smelt strongly of cordite but the smoke was rapidly dissipating.

  He discerned two crouched shadows approaching and squeezed the trigger. The machine pistol spewed out fire and death, jumping in his hands as they absorbed the recoil. He saw both shadows crumble. At the same time, he heard the unmistakable sound of Gisela’s rifle magazine emptying near the kitchen. He sprinted for the emergency two-way radio mounted on a small table in the corner of the anteroom.

  ‘Centenary, Centenary, this is Woodbrook Farm. We are under attack. Urgently request help.’ He repeated this again.

  The BSAP must have had somebody operating the radios around the clock. Within seconds they confirmed help was on its way. They requested further details but he ignored them, returning to his previous position, keeping an eye on the entrance.

  The front entrance faced in the direction of the management compound. He saw two sets of headlights approaching in the distance. Kallie Botha and his men must be on their way to assist. As they neared, he noticed Kallie wisely had extinguished the pickup’s lights, the other doing the same. There was a volley of AK fire followed by a loud noise of wrenching metal. He knew that one of the vehicles must have been hit and crashed. He realised that they were about to be overrun.

  ‘Gisela, grab some ammo and come here quickly!’

  Within in seconds she was crouched down next to him, clutching three magazines in her hand.

  ‘Quickly, put on whatever clothes and shoes you have here. We’ve got to get out now!’ He grabbed clothing f
or himself. ‘Come on, Come on!’

  He was frantic. He knew that their final charge on the house could only be minutes away. It took no more than minute for both to dress. He led her by the hand down the darkened passage towards the window at the end.

  ‘Wait!’ he said and retraced his steps, feeling along the wall in the anteroom for where the keys to the gate hung. His fingers closed over them.

  ‘What happened in the kitchen?’

  ‘There were two, I’m sure one of them is down,’ she said with open contempt and unbridled hatred, ‘I hope they’re both dead. ‘

  He quietly opened the window. They both clambered through and dropped to the lawn below. They crouched low looking out for any movement. Still bent over, he slowly led her along the wall towards the rear gate in the fence. As he peered round the corner of the house, an AK sent concrete splinters flying from the wall. He saw the muzzle flashes. They were no more than twenty yards away. He stepped out and fired a long burst at where he thought the shots emanated. A short scream pierced the air and a body sank to the ground from behind the huge tree which shaded the rear entrance during the day.

  ‘Come on, run!’

  They sprinted for the rear gate and slipped through for the maize fields beyond, hoping to lose themselves in the dense rows of corn. A few parting shots whizzed in their direction but in the dark they were not easy targets. Soon they were drenched to the skin. Amongst the corn, they dropped to the ground and stared in the direction of the house. They heard further shots and assumed that Kallie must have arrived on the scene.

  ****

  Sizwe was concerned. Things had not worked out as planned. The reaction of the residents to the attack had been unusually rapid. They were obviously not affected by the RPG blast. Three of his men were dead and one was wounded, whom he doubted would survive. They would have to leave him behind, though he dare not let him be captured alive.