by Steve Reeder
Tanya blushed and Mrs Harris backhanded her husband playfully on his bot-belly.
“Behave yourself, you old rascal. Please come in,” she told Tanya. “Bomber is still in the shower but I’ll make you some tea quickly while he gets dressed.” She showed Tanya into the sitting-room and invited the girl to sit down. “We’re just getting ready to go out so I’m sorry that we can’t stay to get to know you a bit better, but Himself is always running late, I’m afraid,” she said. “But I’ll just get that tea and Bomber will be with you shortly. Come on, Dad - go tell your son that he has company.”
The older man winked at Tanya and went off to find his son. Bomber’s mother came back with a cup of strong tea minutes later and, saying goodbye, they hurried off together leaving Tanya nervously waiting on her own. She spotted a collection of photographs on the wall opposite and, putting the tea down, she went over to study them more closely. Two of them were of Robert ‘Bomber’ Harris, rifleman in the President’s Guard Regiment in full ceremonial dress uniform. She thought that he looked very dashing and handsome. The third picture was of a group of soldiers in brown bush uniform. They were standing in front of an armoured vehicle of some sort holding rifles while their chests were crisscrossed with webbing and items that she could not identify. Looking closer she saw that the vehicle was badly damaged with one wheel missing completely and a large puddle of liquid had formed around front. She gasped as she noticed that one of the young men had blood covering the right side of his face. Despite this they were all grinning at the camera.
“I see that you’ve found mum’s photo display?”
Tanya spun around in surprise. “Bomber! I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Those two are obviously me,” he said, pointing at the photographs of him in his ceremonial uniforms. “And that was an exciting time that we had on the border.”
Tanya stood, feeling uncertain, wanting him to kiss her, wanting to throw her arms around him. But although they had known each other for six months she had only seen him five times. Four of those had been on his last seven day pass.
Bomber stepped closer and reached for her, pulling her close and lowering his head to meet her. He kissed her slowly, sensually, for a long time.
“Hi. I’m glad you could come,” he finally told the breathless girl.
“There it is,” Cole said, pointing out of the window. “Dolphin Crescent.”
Reece stopped the car, then reversed and turned right into Dolphin Crescent. “What number are we looking for?”
“Thirty-two,” Cole told him. “It must be on your side; these are all odd numbers.”
Reece studied the elegant old houses as the car rolled sedately past. They were large with neat and constantly managed gardens. Almost every one of them had an African gardener digging flower-beds or manicuring lush lawns. “It must be nice to live in a suburb like this,” he said wistfully. “My mum’s place could probably fit on one of these lawns.”
“Yeah? And I’ll bet that every owner here is in debt up to his eyeballs trying to pay the mortgage,” Cole replied with distain.
“You live in a dump too, then, Charlie?” laughed Reece.
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“Number thirty-two,” Reece declared as he spotted the small and tactful numbers painted in green of the side of a sprawling Spanish-style house. “Young Bomber seems to be doing all right, doesn’t he?”
“You mean his parents are doing all right. He might just need a fist full of diamonds to afford something like this for himself.”
“I guess that’s true,” Reece said as he parked the car on the broad, paved driveway. “Let’s go ask him.”
“Wait a bit. If his folks are there then we’d better get him alone somewhere. Maybe invite him out for a drive and a lunch-time drink somewhere, okay?”
“Sounds like a plan. Come on.”
Tanya had not laughed so hard in a long time. When Bomber had first introduced Reece, who then introduced Cole to both of them, she had been annoyed. Not just for interrupting what had been turning out to be a day that she had been dreaming about for several months, but because the moment she felt Reece’s eyes on her she knew what he wanted and that he automatically expected to get it.
“Just ignore Sean,” Bomber had told her, “He’s just used to every girl in the room throwing herself into his bed.”
“Well, not this girl,” she told him.
He kissed her rigid mouth and said that she had better not.
Thirty minutes later, as they sat around the kitchen table, each with a mug of coffee in front of them, telling unlikely stories of their exploits in the bush, she was happy. Happy that Bomber was happy, and happy that the mood was so jovial. The only thing concerning her was Charlie Cole. She took it for granted that men looked at her with admiration, and often lust. She had once overheard a brother of a boyfriend telling another boy, ‘If you put Tanya in a room full of supermodels, eventually every guy there would be trying to bed her.’ She often looked at herself in the mirror and tried to see what it was that caused that reaction in men. She was pretty; that she conceded, and her eyes were a strong point, everyone said so, even her long dark hair the envy of all the girls, but still - ? Reece’s glances were what they were; he wanted her but it was just a physical thing. But Charlie was looking at her and the message she was getting from those looks was something completely different. His eyes smouldered and were filled with a longing that was not like that of Sean Reece. She looked up at him and caught him looking at her again. This time their eyes met and he blushed, looking away. His deep tan hid the redness but she could see it around his ears. She looked away too, back at Bomber who was regaling Charlie with an account of a river-crossing and crocodiles that he and Reece and others had undertaken. She felt confused, but then remembered the feeling of Bomber’s lips and the sensation of his tongue in her mouth and his hand pressing into the small of her back. She smiled joyfully at Bomber.
Cole waited until Tanya excused herself, asking where the little-girl’s room was. Once she had disappeared down the passage, he turned to Bomber. “Listen, Bomber, Sean and I have something that we need to talk to you about.”
“Oh yeah?” Bomber shrugged, “like what?”
“It’s something that you may not want Tanya to hear about. At least not yet,” Reece chipped in.
Bomber cocked an enquiring eye at them. “That sounds ominous. But go ahead, don’t worry about Tanya.”
“OK, if you say so. You remember that trip Sean and I took with the CO and the RSM from 31 Battalion?”
“Since it was only a few weeks ago, I’m sure I can recall it,” Bomber chuckled.
“Right, anyway, here is the thing in a nutshell. The reason the Colonel wanted to go on that little jaunt was to steal some diamonds from an Angolan government guy.”
“Shit, Charlie, don’t draw it out. Get right to it,” Reece said with a chuckle.
“Yeah, yeah, cut the sarcastic remarks. Listen, Bomber, we have a plan for us, the three of us and some of the others - ”
“Smitty, Freeman and so on,” Sean said.
“ - to go steal the diamonds for ourselves.”
Bomber looked at each of them in turn. “Are you nuts?”
“Bomber, I know, that was my first reaction when Charlie told me about it, but let him tell you the whole story.”
The clock in his dad’s jaguar read five past midnight. Bomber and Tanya had been sitting in the car outside of the fifteen-story block of flats where she lived, for an hour. He had told her about the diamond plan; she had overheard some of it anyway.
“I think that you should do,” she said after some thought.
“That’s not quite the reaction I was expecting from you,” he replied with some surprise.
“What I mean is that you should help them to, you know, think about it. Maybe it’s is possible. And think of the things that you could do with that much money?”
“We don’t actually know how much it is. Charli
e said that the Colonel said it was almost always a briefcase full. But that’s a lot of he said that he said that someone else told him and so on.” They were quiet for a while. “Beside,” Bomber continued, “How the hell do we sell a couple of million Rands worth of rough diamonds? It’s illegal to have them in most countries and here in South Africa it’s VERY illegal.”
“I know; my uncle is a jeweller here in Durban.”
“Does he handle diamonds?”
“Of course, most jewellers do. But I’m not sure about uncut diamonds.”
“But then again, this is Africa. If you can’t find someone to buy or sell illegal goods then you’re just not looking very hard.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“So I’ll think about it and talk to the others. Maybe there will be a way, but I doubt it.” Bomber slipped his arm around her shoulders and drew her close for a long and tender kiss.
“Will I see you tomorrow?” Tanya was finally able to ask.
“Of course you will! Sean and Charlie are coming with me out to the airport to talk to a pilot mate of mine about small planes. We need to find out more about planes and costs and so on. But I’ll pick you up at around five and we are all going to The Father’s Moustache for a bite to eat and some fun.”
Twelve
August. Durban.
It was two in the morning and Tanya lay gazing happily out of her bedroom window. She could see Durban harbour, as well as South Beach, since she had moved her bed last week. The moon was full and the night was perfect, made more so by the man who lay spooning her from behind. Bomber had been nervous the first time he had made love to her but the second time; just an hour later had been all that she had been dreaming of. Now he slept close to her, his manhood pressed against the small of her back and his right hand draped over her waist. Her thoughts returned to the evening they had spent with Reece and Cole at The Father’s Moustache, a licenced restaurant on the beach-front road. There had been much laughter and flirting with the waitresses who all tried so hard to be one to serve Sean. Charlie and Sean had drunk too much but Tanya had kept Bomber in restraint; she had wanted her boyfriend sober and able for later. When their two friends had finally found Charlie’s car and declared themselves fit to drive they had left immediately on the six hour drive back to Johannesburg. They all knew that Sean had been far too drunk to drive though. Tanya giggled at the memory of Sean’s half-hearted attempts to seduce her. This thought lead to another; she was sure that Sean Reece would be the best lover of the three young men. He would know all the right places to touch her, where to kiss her and his technique would undoubtedly be far more experienced than Bomber’s, but she also knew that Sean would have been in and out, so to speak, and gone onto the next girl by the time she woke the next morning. Charlie Cole was another matter. Somehow she found it hard to forget the intense and smouldering look his eyes had when she had caught him looking at her. She drifted off to sleep wondered what making love to Charlie Cole would be like.
“Come on, Bomber, you’ll miss the train,” his mother told him again.
Bomber pulled Tanya close for one last kiss. “I’ll write to you as soon as I’m back at Ruacana,” he told her.
“Please take care,” she replied and held back a tear that threatened to spill down her cheek.
“Don’t you worry, babes,” he replied, wiping away the tear, “nothing the gooks have can stop me from coming back to you!”
“Bomber,” his mother urged, “the train is leaving.”
Bomber planted a quick kiss on his mother’s cheek and ran for the train, catching the door that the conductor held open for him. He waved until the train left the station and the two women disappeared from his sight.
The conductor grinned at him, “Come on, young man, I’ve got an open compartment that you can have.”
When the train arrived at Johannesburg station the next day, Bomber found Sean Reece waiting for him; a tall redhead girl standing adoringly at his side while his left hand carelessly caressed her rear-end.
“Come on, old son,” Reece drawled in his best Oxford accent, “We’ve got time for a drink before the Pretoria train leaves.”
The redhead looked a bit putout; perhaps she had been expecting to be doing something else in the hour before Reece and Bomber had to catch the train back to Pretoria. From there they would be picked up and transported to Wonderboom airfield and a flight back to the Angolan border.
“Sounds good, Sean. I’m starving though, so maybe a bite to eat rather? Hi, I’m Bomber,” he said, introducing himself to the girl.
“Paula,” she cooed and then giggled. Reece rolled his eyes and patted her bum.
Two streets away they found a lunch-bar and Paula ordered a salad while the two men stuffed themselves with junk-food that they would not be able to get for the next three months. Paula fidgeted and made several hints to the effect that Sean should at least write to her several times a week. Sean Reece steered clear of any commitments and finally they had to run for the train again, leaving the weeping girl to find her own way home.
The C130 flew the returning troops from Pretoria to Ondangwa, an airbase outside the small town and military camp of Oshakati in South West Africa/Namibia. From there they boarded a Dakota for the much shorter flight to the Ruacana airbase. The Ruacana army camp was five minutes’ drive away just south of the Angolan boarder. The camp itself was within a protected area that included a BP fuel station, post office and the township of houses for the staff and families that operated the power utility company. There were only eleven men going all the way to Ruacana. Reece and Bomber only knew one of them, a corporal cook from the kitchens, but they ignored him.
“Let’s get the others together after dinner and find out what they think of the plan,” Bomber suggested.
“OK. Just leave Steffen until another time though,” Reece replied. “He’ll need some convincing. He’s not with our section, and as much as I like Steffen personally, I’m not that convinced that he’ll go for this.”
“You think the others will?”
“What? Smitty, Franz and Tommy Freeman? Damn right they will! We’ll have to give some thought to anyone else.”
Bomber chewed his bottom lip and gave it some thought. “I reckon that’ll be enough, don’t you think. I mean, there is a limit to how many we can take, isn’t there?”
“Probably. The plane that Charlie was thinking about has only six seats including the pilot’s seat. So I guess more than six could be a problem.”
“There’ll be kit as well.” Bomber did some more lip chewing. “I guess Steffen would know how much of a load the plane would take?”
“I bloody well hope so! He’ll be flying it - maybe.”
Ruacana was hot, dusty and sat in line-of-sight with two koppies across the border from where SWAPO often fired mortars and Red Eye missiles at the South Africans. None of this seemed to bother the troops, partly because they held the enemy in small regard and dismissed their ability to attack with any effect, but also because when they did attempt some aggression; it offered the South Africans an opportunity to retaliate, which, while dangerous, was regarded as a reason for fun and excitement.
However, on this day everything was calm as the enemy had been pushed back several hundred kilometres and didn’t seem too keen to venture back south. Reece waited until dinner was being served before trying to sell the idea to Steffen.
Dinner was served, if you can call helping yourself to the food in the over-sized pots being served at four in the afternoon dinner. The five friends took over one of the large tables and Bomber and Sean regaled the others with stories of drunkenness and debauchery that no-one quite believed. Once the tin plates had been rinsed off and the five friends were heading back to the platoon’s area Sean suggested that they meet somewhere private for a chat. Bomber suggested the power corporation’s swimming pool just outside the camp and five minutes later they gathered under the shade of the trees next to the pool. Sean Reece told the others e
verything including the whole story behind the disastrous diamond-snatch where Colonel Le Roux and the others had been killed.
There was a stunned silence until Smit gave a long slow whistle. “This is a joke, right? Something you and Bomber thought up on the flight back?”
“Nope,” Bomber replied. “I swear to God, guys, this is the truth.”
“And you seriously think that we can go up there and nick one of these diamond shipments?” Franz asked.
“Sure,” Reece said, “Why not?”
There was another prolonged silence until Tommy Freeman surprised the others by saying, “Yeah, why not? I think it’s a bloody good idea.”
“You do realise,” Franz asked him, “That the chances of one or more of us getting killed is fairly high, don’t you?”
“That’s maybe,” Smitty said, “But let’s face it, there’s a chance that one or more of us could get killed, or stand on a mine and loose our balls, on the next combat patrol, so why not take a bit more of a chance and make some real money out of it?”
“How would we get there? And how do we get away from here without getting into shit?”
“OK, that’s a good question - ”
“ - two questions,” Bomber said.
“ - Franz,” Sean replied. “And Charlie Cole and I, and Bomber, have a plan for that too. On the day that our little mission kicks off, I will have arranged for the duty clerk, that dickhead De Swart, to have us going on a seven day patrol southwards. We will just ‘lose contact’ for a few days. In the meantime Charlie will have the plane at Ondangwa where Steffen will go fetch it. We’ll have to work on how to get him there to meet Charlie. He flies the plane to Ruacana dressed as a businessman and we will be there, also dressed as business types, or engineers from the road construction firm, and then we’ll fly off from there to an abandoned farm in Zambia – Charlie knows where one is. The next day we fly from Zambia to this town in Angola and nick the stones.” He looked at the doubtful faces around him. “Unless anyone has an easier idea?”