by Tony Park
At her feet was a rubber mat. Natalie dropped to her knees. She could smell cool, clean air coming in a draught from under the door. Behind her, the hallway was filling up with choking smoke. She lifted the mat, thinking Grandma would have left the key under it. There was nothing.
Boom!
Natalie rocked back on her haunches. The door had just shuddered as though someone had kicked it. ‘Grandpa Paul! I'm in here!’
Boom!
The door rocked again. ‘Hurry!’
A paling splintered and a black hand reached inside.
Natalie screamed.
*
Comrade Moto froze and raised his AK-47 to his shoulder. The sky was brightening by the minute and the long shadows gave the boy's movement away. The boy was running down the path towards them. ‘Halt!’ Moto called out.
The boy wore a grubby white singlet and baggy shorts. He was barefoot, skinny and looked to be in his early teens. He stopped and raised his hands. ‘Don't shoot!’ he called back in Ndebele.
‘Bring him here,’ Beria said. He stopped and held the girl still. She was becoming more compliant as she learned that disobedience would be dealt with immediately. She was sobbing. Beria was annoyed by the presence of the boy. He was one more witness to the fact that they had taken the white child. He would have to be dealt with.
Moto shoved the boy in the small of his back with the tip of his AK's barrel.
‘What do you want?’ Comrade Beria asked him.
‘I come from the kraal, where you stayed last night, comrade … sah …’
‘What of it?’
‘My father, the headman, he says there are more comrades in the village. They wish to meet up with you.’
Beria knew of no other freedom fighters operating in the area, but then again, why would he? This band of intruders could be genuine comrades or, of course, they could be the dreaded Skuz'apo.
Beria's choice was simple. Now that he knew there was another group of armed men in the kraal, he could link up with them, or he could deliberately head off in a different direction and disappear. He could kill the messenger to ensure no one followed them or knew which way they had headed.
They all looked up at the drone of aero engines above.
Moto raised a hand to his eyes to shield them from the glare of the rising sun. ‘Ma-brooka.’
The nickname for the white soldiers came from the word for little girls' underpants, brookies, a reference to the Rhodesian Light Infantry's bush uniform, which usually included short camouflaged shorts. Beria followed the Dakota's track and, along with the others, counted the four parachutes that blossomed in its wake. They were too far away to fire on, and doing so would simply give away their position. The arrival of the RLI airborne troops changed things.
Beria bit his lip and held up a palm as Comrade Moto started to say something. He needed to think. There were only four men in the RLI fireforce stick, but it was not only them they had to be concerned about. If the stick made contact with them, they would call in the spotter aircraft and the K-Cars – the killing cars, as the air force's helicopter gunships were known.
The girl complicated things as well. On one hand, she was slowing them down. Beria could kill her now – releasing her was out of the question as she might be able to identify them at some time in the future. However, as long as they held her – and her tiny bare feet would give her away to even the most inexperienced tracker – the kanka would be less likely to drop bombs or spray the bush with 20mm cannon fire. The Botswana border was only about twenty kilometres away. If he could lure the Ma-brooka into an ambush and dispatch them quickly, he might gain enough time to slip across the border before the security forces could get organised to send more soldiers or police. His chances of eliminating the RLI stick before they could get word to an orbiting command and control plane would be greatly enhanced if they had more firepower. With Jesus dead he was down to five men.
‘We move back to the kraal,’ Beria told his men. ‘If these other comrades seem in any way suspicious, we kill them all. Understood?’
He looked at all their faces and each man nodded. The little girl started to cry again. Beria grabbed her by the throat. ‘Shut up … one word and I kill you.’ She blinked away her tears and nodded. Yes, she slowed them down, but she would be their prize once this day was done. And if they were cornered and faced death, then she might be their ticket across the border as a hostage.
*
Winston roused those of his men who had not been woken by the far-off sound of the mortar explosions and gathered them outside the headman's hut. ‘We can't wait,’ he whispered to them. ‘It sounds like the terrs are revving a farm. We have to go find them and get them before they kill more innocent people.’ Each nodded his assent. They were good men, good warriors.
The headman emerged from his hut, wringing his hands. ‘My son is not yet back.’
‘I know this area,’ Winston said to him. ‘There is a farm over that way.’ He pointed to the east, from where the noise had come.
The headman nodded. ‘Will you go join them, in their fight?’
Winston was dressed and ready to kill and he wanted nothing more than to follow the sounds and take the fight to the real terrs. Unless it had changed hands, it would be the Bryant farm – the parents of his friend, George, who had shown him and his family nothing but kindness.
He needed time to think. ‘What do you say, old man? Should we join in the killing of the settlers who live over there?’
The headman stared at him for a long second while he worked up the courage to speak his mind. ‘Those are good people. I know them. To kill them would be a sin.’
‘I could beat or kill you for saying something so traitorous, old man, for siding with the settlers.’
The headman nodded slowly. ‘Yes, but you will not.’
‘Come,’ Winston said to his men. The headman had been cannier than Winston had given him credit for. ‘We will find our comrades and join them in their fight,’ he said loud enough for the few villagers who were poking their heads out of their huts to hear him.
He turned and the headman grabbed hold of the sleeve of his shirt. ‘Please remember, my son is out there somewhere.’
Winston gently freed his arm from the bony fingers. ‘I know. He will be safe. You have my word.’
Winston gave the signal for his men to move out, with Obert, his best tracker, moving ahead of them to scout the way. Once they were well clear of the village, Winston called a halt. He took off his Russian-made pack and opened it. He pulled out a torch with a red filter, and a topographical map of the area. He knew where they were, and what the problem was, but he needed to explain it to his men.
‘Gather around,’ he said, calling Obert and the others in. ‘We are here,’ he said, pointing to the cluster of black dots that represented the kraal, between the farming district of Plumtree and the Botswana border. ‘The farm the terrorists are attacking is here,’ he moved his finger across two grid squares – two kilometres to the east of their current position, ‘but we cannot go there now, because it is outside the boundary of our frozen area, by one kilometre. The boundary runs north–south, halfway between us and the farm.’
He looked at the faces of his men to see if they understood the predicament. Each of the three men nodded. A frozen area was a no-go area, marked on the map, which ensured that no other Rhodesian security forces would enter on foot while a Selous Scouts group was operating in that area. No air force aircraft would bomb or strafe the area either.
Obert cocked his head and raised a hand. They all listened, and heard the gunshots. ‘FN, but far,’ Obert said.
Winston nodded his concurrence. ‘We go no further. If the magandanga come this way, we kill them. We don't want to go any closer to the boundary of the frozen area. There will be PATU farmers looking for black men to kill, and maybe –’
They all looked up at the lightening sky. They watched the Rhodesian Air Force Dakota pass overhead. ‘An RLI
fireforce,’ Winston said. ‘That settles it. We must wait here.’
In the distance they heard the crackle of more gunfire. The farmers – perhaps the people he knew – were putting up a fight.
‘Bright,’ Winston said to his radio operator. ‘Send a sitrep. Let headquarters know where we are.’
*
Wally Collins held up a hand, signalling Braedan and the others in the stick to stop.
Braedan dropped to one knee, raising the barrel of his FN. His heart started beating faster and he watched Wally slowly turn his hand so that his thumb was pointing down. Braedan crawled forward, to where Collins had taken up a fire position behind a stout mopane tree. Braedan looked to where Collins was pointing and, after staring hard through the shroud of butterfly-shaped leaves, he made out the pointed crown of an East German bush hat and the muzzle brake of an AK-47.
The man wasn't moving. If he was a sentry, he was either very calm or he was asleep. ‘Cover me,’ Braedan whispered. ‘Put two in him if he starts to move.’
Collins nodded and peered through the rear sight of his FN.
Braedan eased himself up, skirted right and started circling slowly towards the man. He, too, had his rifle up and ready. He watched the terr over the top of his FN, his finger curled through the trigger guard. He stopped when he trod on a dry twig and it snapped. The man, Braedan could see now, had his back to a tree trunk and his hat pulled low down over his eyes.
Braedan straightened. ‘Dead,’ he called out to Collins. He looked around as the rest of the stick moved up. He saw the scuffed leaves of the terrorists' spoor.
Andy knelt by the body and raised a hand to the dead man's throat. ‘Still warm. They were here just now.’
‘Check his pockets quickly,’ Braedan said to the medic. ‘Wally, Al, scout ahead a bit, hey, into the shateen. They're leaving spoor like maningi jumbo.’
‘Girl's still with them,’ Collins said. He picked up a leaf and examined it. His thumb and forefinger came away red and sticky. ‘The poor little thing's feet are bleeding.’
‘Bastards. Come on, let's go,’ Al said.
‘Ja.’ Braedan looked back and saw Andy had stopped rifling through the dead terrorist's pockets and was now unbuttoning his bush shirt. ‘Andy, leave it …’
‘Check, they knifed this gandanga,’ Andy said. ‘He was dying and instead of leaving him for us to look after him, his bloody Chinas slotted him.’
‘These bastards need sorting, one time,’ Wally said.
Braedan nodded, but he was impatient to keep moving. The fact they'd abducted a white child told him this bunch of gooks would fight to the death.
‘Braedan, check,’ Andy said, pointing.
Andy was young, a conscript who'd opted to join the RLI and get his national service over and done with quicker than if he'd signed on to one of the part-time territorial battalions of the Rhodesia Regiment. He was new to the troop and had proved himself a competent medic on the three occasions they'd needed him so far. But he didn't know what he was doing now. He was reaching under the terr's body for something.
‘Andy, no!’ Braedan yelled, seeing, too late, the topographical map that had attracted the young soldier's attention. No one sat on a map, even if they were dying. ‘Down!’
Braedan hit the ground and rolled away, catching a glimpse of Andy crouching there, frozen at first as he heard the spoon fly off the grenade that had been lying under the dead man's backside, along with the tempting prize of the map. Andy started to stand and tried to run, but he tripped over his own feet. The grenade exploded.
‘Shit,’ Braedan said. He dragged himself to his feet and patted himself down as he ran. His head was ringing and the explosion had sandblasted him with grit, sticks and small rocks, but he was unhurt. Andy, however, was screaming. He was lying face down and clawing at the dirt with his hands, and scrabbling with his feet as though he was trying to crawl away from the pain.
*
Bright Mpofu double-checked the grid reference on the map and read it out to Winston.
‘Yes, that is correct,’ Winston said to his radioman, unable to keep the alarm out of his voice. ‘What do you mean they say we are not in the frozen area?’
Bright looked worried, and he had good cause to be. ‘HQ says we are outside the boundary, and that it is five kilometres to the west, closer to Botswana.’
Winston shook his head. ‘This can't be. We radioed the sitrep two days ago, telling them we were moving into this area.’
The Joint Operations Command would be informed by a signal every time a frozen area was proclaimed or changed by the scouts. There was the inherent risk for the scouts, operating as they did dressed as enemy combatants, that they would be shot by mistake by other Rhodesian security force troops. Such catastrophes had happened before, in the early days of these unconventional operations, and the frozen area concept had been introduced to keep other units well away. Winston realised that if headquarters had miscalculated the boundaries of the frozen zone, then any security force units responding to the attack on the farm would also be unaware that there were other friendly troops in their vicinity.
Winston took the radio handset and told the operations officer, a white captain, on the other end of the radio to check the logs because Bright had told the young lieutenant on duty two days previously about their intended move to the kraal in pursuit of a band of ZIPRA terrorists.
‘Well, it's not on the log, and not on the map, over,’ the captain said. The man sounded defensive, Winston thought. If it were him, he would have been calling for the lieutenant who had failed to note the change in boundaries and demanding an answer.
‘Well, get the boundary changed now and signal JOC,’ Winston insisted. He knew the captain by name, and he was a good man. Despite their differences in rank, he knew he was on firm ground.
‘Affirmative. Will do, over.’
‘Do it now, now,’ Winston added. ‘There's a farm being revved not two k's from my position and a Dak just flew over. I suspect the enemy group may be heading my way and for all I know half the RLI will be coming along for the party as well.’
There was a pause on the other end of the radio as the captain grasped the seriousness of the situation. ‘OK. I'm contacting JOC right now. Don't worry. We'll sort this thing and deal with whoever stuffed up later. Just as well you contacted us when you did. Suggest you pull back west, just in case, over.’
Winston was just thinking the same thing. It angered him even more to know that if Bright's last message had been received and acted on they could have been ordered to the farm to help. Instead, an RLI fireforce had been activated as soon as the farm was attacked and could very well be heading towards them right now. Winston looked up and saw the Dakota orbiting above them. He didn't have its frequency, but he had to assume that the captain would contact JOC, who would then relay the warning to the RLI troopies on the ground to stop at the border of the frozen area.
‘Affirmative,’ Winston said to the captain. ‘We'll pull back five hundred metres so we're even further inside our boundary. Tell JOC to leave the terrs to us. I strongly suspect they're coming my way, over.’
Bright exhaled a long breath and Winston clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Good work. And don't worry, I know you sent the right coordinates in your other message. Thank God they're going to let JOC know where we are; otherwise we might have found ourselves in a contact with our own people.’
*
The man in charge shoved Natalie in the back and she fell again. Couldn't he see that she could barely walk, let alone run? This time she crashed into a tree and its rough bark tore down the side of her arm.
‘Get up!’ He grabbed her other arm, but his hands were slippery with sweat. She fell from his grasp and this time her head banged against the tree. A small branch slid painfully between the gag tied around her mouth and the soft skin of her cheek. For a moment she was left hanging there, hooked on the limb.
The man grabbed her again and tried yanking her aw
ay from the tree, and in doing so he ripped the gag from her mouth. Natalie felt as though he was going to dislocate her jaw, but all of a sudden her screams were no longer muffled.
‘Aaaargh! HELP ME!’
*
‘Stuff something in his fucking mouth,’ Braedan said.
Wally looked up at him, his hands red with Andy's blood as he cut the smoking remains of Andy's camouflage shirt and trousers away from his writhing body.
‘Shut him up! I thought I heard something else.’
Andy dragged a hand through the dirt and leaves and shoved two of his fingers in his mouth and bit down on them. Braedan instantly regretted the harsh words he'd used. Andy had heard and understood. Wally tipped a water bottle over the scores of holes that peppered Andy's back and legs, then started shaking antibiotic powder over them. It must have stung because Andy kicked and convulsed and moaned into his fingers.
Braedan looked to where he thought he had heard the noise, his mouth half-open. ‘Listen, ek se,’ he said to Al. ‘There. It's the girl! Check the radio, Al.’
Braedan, impatient to get moving, took a few steps towards where he'd heard the scream, rifle up and ready. He looked back at Platt, who had dragged the blood-spattered radio away from Andy and now had the headphones on.
*
The Dakota that had dropped Braedan and his men had returned to Bulawayo and been replaced by a Lynx, the Rhodesian Air Force's version of a twin-boomed Cessna push-pull aircraft. The Lynx was doubling as a command and control aircraft for the rapidly escalating mission to catch the terrorists, and as a forward air controller for the other air support that was on its way.
‘Echo one, echo one, echo one, this is bravo one, radio check, over,’ the frustrated pilot said for the fifth time.
The pilot banked and brought his little aircraft down for another low-level pass over the farmhouse and the lands to the west, hoping to spot the soldiers on the ground. He saw an ambulance and three police vehicles, two cars and a truck, pulling up the long gravel driveway. A fair-haired woman was running to meet them. The house was still burning and his prop wash spun the black smoke into a corkscrew as he passed over. The pilot was about to try the RLI men again when he heard another voice using his call sign.