The Soldier who Said No

by Chris Marnewick

  They heard the helicopter first and readied themselves for evacuation, but it flew straight up the river towards Vila Nova Armada. Its underbelly had given the game away. It was a Russian gunship, an MI25, known as a Hind according to its NATO codename, with rockets and heavy machine guns hanging below its fuselage, used for ground support. The Hind had been followed minutes later by two light SADF choppers. The Alouettes were French-built attack gunships and were not designed for evacuating troops.

  Verster and De Villiers kept their heads down and waited in an uneasy silence. By early evening they had been ready to return to their kayak to start making their way down-river when De Villiers heard the distinctive whirr of a Puma helicopter. It was the agreed evacuation chopper, he assumed, and when it landed near the designated rendezvous, he felt sure enough to initiate radio contact.

  The Puma landed on the river bank. They waited for a call on the radio, but there was none. The Puma remained ready for a fast takeoff, the blades whirring at speed but at flat pitch. A radio cackled in the background and Afrikaans voices filtered down to Verster and De Villiers.

  ‘Let’s show ourselves,’ Verster suggested.

  ‘Better call them on the radio first.’

  Verster fiddled with the controls of his radio and found Channel 17. He spoke clearly but in hardly more than a whisper. ‘Lieutenant Verster and Captain de Villiers at the RV ready for evac, come in please.’

  There was a long silence before the radio operator answered. ‘Why are you whispering?’

  ‘We’re below your position. Hold your fire so we can come out.’

  A different voice took over. ‘We’re holding fire.’ The voice was different, authoritative, rasping, the voice of a heavy smoker.

  De Villiers and Verster could hear that the speaker was a few metres away, above their heads. They slowly stepped out from behind their cover and made their way up the bank, AKs held above their heads. Halfway up they were accosted by a soldier with an R4. ‘I’ve got them, Captain,’ the troop shouted to someone behind him.

  ‘Bring them up. Tell them to put their hands up.’

  The captain was waiting for them at the top of the bank. He stopped them with a hand signal. They could see his outline against the sky, but none of his features. He stood with his legs apart and his arms folded across his chest.

  ‘They’re UNITA, keep your rifle on them!’ he shouted.

  They quickly surrendered their AK47s.

  ‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’ the captain demanded.

  De Villiers spoke for the two of them. ‘We are 4 Recce and we are here for evacuation to Rundu.’

  ‘Name and rank,’ the raspy voice demanded.

  ‘De Villiers, Captain, 4 Recce, and Verster, Lieutenant, also 4 Recce,’ De Villiers answered.

  ‘Can you speak?’ The officer above them pointed at Verster.

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ said Verster, and anticipating the next instruction, added, ‘Verster, Lieutenant, 4 Recce.’

  ‘Don’t bullshit me, gentlemen. 4 Recce only does water-borne operations, and you’re a long way from the sea.’

  I hold the same rank as you, De Villiers silently admonished the captain, and he had difficulty hiding his irritation. An officer would have introduced himself under ordinary circumstances, asked if they needed food or water. Hell, De Villiers thought, a professional soldier would have asked if our mission had been successful or if they could offer any assistance to complete it. ‘The water is a few metres behind us,’ he said, indicating with his thumb across his shoulder.

  ‘Are you our evac?’ De Villiers asked. Next to him Verster stood at ease.

  ‘Shut up,’ the captain said.

  ‘Keep them in your sights,’ he ordered the soldier. ‘I’m going to make a radio call.’

  The captain disappeared into the dark higher up the bank.

  ‘From which unit are you?’ De Villiers asked the soldier aiming his R4 at them.

  ‘32 Battalion,’ the soldier said curtly.

  His commander appeared behind him at the top of the bank. ‘I told you to keep them covered, not to talk to them!’

  ‘Sorry, Captain.’

  ‘What operation is this? How come I don’t know anything about it?’ the captain demanded.

  ‘It’s an MI operation, Captain,’ De Villiers explained.

  ‘What operation exactly? Keep your rifle up, Troop!’ he shouted at his soldier.

  De Villiers hesitated. ‘We’re not at liberty to disclose that, Captain. We’re here at the agreed RV for immediate evacuation.’

  The captain hesitated. ‘Wait here, don’t move,’ he ordered and disappeared into the dark again. This time the soldier kept De Villiers squarely in the sights of his R4.

  Out of earshot, the captain was engaged in an odd conversation with Pretoria. ‘I need confirmation of my orders. The two soldiers are our men, I’ve established that, Captain de Villiers and Lieutenant Verster of 4 Recce. Can you confirm my orders?’

  The static crackled on the radio, but the message was clear.

  ‘I want to be sure that I understand my orders,’ the captain said nevertheless. ‘I want absolute assurance.’

  A different voice came on the air. ‘You heard the orders, Captain. You were specially selected for this evac. Now do your duty.’

  The captain acknowledged the order and slowly walked down to the river bank.

  He suddenly spoke above them. ‘Do you have your backpacks?’

  ‘They’re below the tree behind us, on our kayak.’

  ‘One of you can go down with the troop here and bring them up. Troop, leave their AKs here and go down with the lieutenant and bring the backpacks up, on the double. And bring the kayak too.’

  The soldier stood the AKs against a shrub and Verster followed him to the river. They returned within minutes.

  ‘Troop, take the packs and AKs with you and put them in the chopper. Come back for the kayak, immediately. You two stay here with me,’ the captain said, pointing at De Villiers and Verster.

  The soldier strained under the weight of the rifles and the two backpacks containing the heavy sniper’s rifle. De Villiers felt relief, no longer having a rifle aimed at him and his spotter. They stood in the dark. Behind the captain the rotors started accelerating and a voice shouted, ‘Ready to go, Captain!’

  The soldier returned and dragged the kayak up the bank and into the dark behind the captain.

  The rotors picked up speed. Take-off was imminent, De Villiers could judge from experience. Without warning the captain raised a pistol from his side and shot Verster in the chest at point blank range, the sound of the shot drowned by the ear-splitting noise from the helicopter’s rotors. When he saw the flash of the muzzle, De Villiers hesitated, but realising that he was next to be shot, he sprang into action and took a sideways step, tripping over the exposed roots of a shrub. He saw another muzzle flash and simultaneously felt a heavy blow as the bullet grazed the side of his head and knocked him over backwards. He tumbled down the bank and rolled into the water. He must have lost consciousness for a few seconds, but the cold water brought him to his senses immediately. He slowly rose to the surface and floated downstream. He swam in slow strokes that caused no ripples and made no sound. He edged to overhanging branches and quietly made his way downstream along the bank.

  The Puma took off and the night became quiet again, but the quiet was not to last long. Within minutes two more Pumas arrived and De Villiers could hear them setting down behind him, upstream, in the vicinity where Verster had been shot. He could hear the shouts of a search party and could see their torches lighting up the river bank.

  He continued to paddle downstream, not swimming as that might attract the crocodiles. When he felt it was safe, he left the water and moved inland, away from the searchers who concentrated on the river. He had no rifle, no backpack and no rations. And his water bottles had been tied to the backpack.

  He ran and ran, checking the luminescent dial of the compass
on his wrist at regular intervals to make sure that he would be able to find his way back to the river later. It was near midnight when he finally lay down to sleep under the rain tree. He checked his pockets. He had a map encased in a waterproof plastic sleeve in his shirt pocket and a Leatherman multitool in its pouch strapped to his ankle. It had been a gift from his brother-in-law after a business trip to America. De Villiers preferred it to the standard issue K-Bar knife with the survival kit stored in the pouches on its scabbard. That would have identified him as a member of the SADF. A helio mirror and the compass completed his escape and evasion kit. He realised that he was thirsty, a condition to be expected after all the running.

  Half an hour south of where he had woken under the rain tree, De Villiers spotted a rocky outcrop and changed direction slightly towards it. When he reached it, he realised that it would not serve his purpose and circled it quickly before crossing it, making sure that he was leaving good tracks and many clues to his direction of flight. He had no water and knew that he would be forced to make his way back to the river if he was to survive, that he would have to find water before his dehydration became so severe that rational thought would become impossible.

  De Villiers shortened his stride to conserve energy. After twenty minutes, he found just the right arrangement of koppies, little more than small assemblies of rock, to suit his plan. He headed directly for the nearest rocks and started climbing. Halfway up, he took off his canvas boots and tied their laces together. With his boots hanging around his neck, he slowly hopped from rock to rock, making sure that he left no marks on the rough, weathered surfaces. He went up and down each of the three koppies, carefully wiping his tracks with a broom made of a few tufts of grass.

  A kilometre or so from the last set of rocks he had scaled, De Villiers put his canvas boots back on and doubled back towards the apple-leaf tree, keeping a hundred yards or so downwind of his earlier route, in a parallel line where he made no effort to conceal his tracks, banking on the assumption that his pursuers would take some time to pick up his spoor. By 08:00 he could see the apple-leaf in the distance and gave it a wide berth at first. Then he decided that he might as well hide there, to allow his pursuers to overrun his position and to allow him to evade them to the north. He crept closer to the tree, still downwind from it, and found a suitable spot where he dug himself into the shrubbery and sand, covering himself as best he could with dry sticks and dead branches. He melted into the terrain, a mound of dirt and debris. Nothing moved, except for a few dead mopane leaves in the very slight breeze. Then he waited.

  The sun had risen in a clear sky and soon the temperature would be in the high twenties. Above the Tropic of Capricorn even winter couldn’t tame the sun, and out of the rainy season, the respite of a watercourse or a pan would not be available away from the main rivers. There would be water in the major rivers, but those were heavily patrolled by all the combatants, the Angolan factions fighting amongst themselves, the Russians and the Cubans siding with FAPLA and, of course, the South African 32 Battalion, ostensibly hunting SWAPO fighters in hot-pursuit operations, but in truth supporting the UNITA faction of Savimbi.

  De Villiers feared 32 Battalion most. It consisted of highly trained and well-motivated troops of different nationalities and races and included a large contingent of Angolan Portuguese opposed to communist rule. They were, in essence, a guerrilla force operating on foreign soil, beyond the reach of the SADF’s standard disciplinary codes.

  De Villiers dozed off two or three times, dehydration contributing to hallucinatory dreams which crossed the boundaries between sleep and wakefulness. He woke up fully at the sound of an approaching helicopter, another troop carrier, this time a heavy Super Frelon in the khaki-green camouflage and markings of the SADF. He kept his head down, confident that his own camouflage would protect him from detection from the air and that the Super Frelon would not be equipped with infrared or heat-seeking search equipment. It was a troop carrier, and unless it was to land and drop off ground troops, he would be safe.

  The Super Frelon made a deafening noise as it thundered directly overhead and moved slowly north, but De Villiers’s peace of mind was shattered when he heard a voice nearby, its owner not visible to him.

  ‘Chopper, chopper, take me home.’

  The voice was to his left, about twenty yards away. He turned his head slowly. The radio operator was sitting bolt upright, twisting the dials of his field radio. He was a mere boy, no more than eighteen or nineteen, a freckled face full of mischief in infantry fatigues, the common browns everyone involved in the bush war wore, an R4 rifle strapped across his back.

  The answer came back on the soldier’s radio.

  ‘Fuck off, Troop. Get off my channel!’

  Radio channel 17 was for the choppers. Channel 16 was the infantrymen’s patrol channel. The radio operator had obviously disobeyed his orders, breaking radio silence on the choppers’ channel.

  The throbbing sounds of the Super Frelon faded towards the north. De Villiers maintained his position, watching the radio operator through narrowed eyelids. The radio operator pulled a ration pack from his backpack and opened the box. De Villiers could smell every item as the soldier opened each container in turn and ate his breakfast. ProNutro, banana flavour, with water and milkpowder, bullybeef, a tube of soft cheddar cheese, an energy bar, vanilla flavour, condensed milk and coffee. There would also be a roll of tangerine-or orange-flavoured glucose sweets and some chewing gum, De Villiers knew. He realised he had last eaten more than twenty-four hours earlier.

  That had been with Verster. They had eaten breakfast together from their unusual ration packs and had joked about all the labels on the food items having been removed. They had had to guess what some of the unmarked plastic sachets contained.

  Now Verster was dead. He had seen the flash of the muzzle and he had seen him fall.

  De Villiers lay very still in his hide, moderating his breathing to ensure that there was no sound or movement. He knew that making his presence known was not an option. He had to get behind the events of the previous day first. Had the general given an order for them to be eliminated? He could think of no other reason for Verster’s shooting.

  ‘Hey, Peter,’ the radio operator said in a loud whisper, ‘I’ll swap you my coffee for your chocolate.’

  ‘Fucking no,’ hissed a voice from beyond the radio operator, ‘and shut the fuck up. If the captain hears you, we’ll both be in the shit.’

  ‘Ag, it’s a load of crap,’ said the radio operator in a more muted voice. ‘There’s only one of them left, and the captain says we’ll catch him before long.’

  ‘If you don’t shut up, all you will catch is a week in DB doing pushups and rifle drills in the sun.’

  The smell of the food reminded De Villiers of his hunger. His stomach rumbled and the radio operator looked around in an arc of a hundred and eighty degrees.

  ‘Peter, stop farting, I’m downwind from you!’

  ‘It wasn’t me!’

  ‘I heard you, idiot,’ the radio operator muttered.

  Pierre de Villiers allowed his back muscles to relax. He remained on guard, all his senses acutely vigilant, taking in every sound, every smell, every movement, even the tremors of the soil. Birds and cicadas provided the white noise of the bush. The absence of their chirps and squawks would have meant that a predator was afoot. He lay completely still, at one with the earth, as the early morning sun brought the bright colours of the landscape back to life, from the brown soil to the many shades of green and the amber of the mopanes in their autumn dress.

  Breakfast was soon over and the troop was called to order by the voice of an officer, the captain with the raspy voice, the man who had shot Jacques Verster.

  ‘Fall in!’

  Pierre de Villiers pulled his head deeper into his shoulders and watched through narrowed eyelids as the radio operator scrambled to his feet and gathered his equipment. The radio fitted into a special pack on the radio operator’s chest
. He had a second pack on his back, no doubt for carrying his rations and ammunition. On top of his duty as communications officer, he had to do duty like everyone else, as a rifleman, to shoot when required and to be shot at if he were stupid enough to show himself to the enemy.

  ‘Have you buried your ratpacks?’ the officer demanded.

  ‘Yes, Captain,’ the troops responded in unison.

  ‘Well, you know what we have to do. We have one man to catch, but he’s dangerous and it may take all day. I want the trackers ahead in relays, each tracker with two men, understood?’

  ‘Yes, Captain,’ they answered again.

  ‘Okay, Boesak and Ruiz, you go first. Take a walkie-talkie from Steinberg and keep in touch with him. Take one of the trackers with you. You know the drill.’

  ‘Yes, Captain.’

  ‘Steinberg, you stay with me.’

  ‘Yes, Captain,’ said the radio operator.

  ‘We’d better catch him quickly, or we’ll all be in trouble,’ said the officer.

  Only Steinberg answered. ‘We know, Captain.’

  De Villiers resisted the temptation to sneak a look at the officer. He knew that there would be no insignia on his browns, a nondescript bush uniform so that he would present to the enemy as no different from the men under his command. To wear an officer’s uniform in this war was an invitation to the enemy’s snipers.

  Pierre de Villiers listened to the sounds of the platoon getting ready, backpacks, rifles and equipment rubbing against cotton uniforms and canvas boots shuffling through the grass. He lay still until long after their sounds and smells had disappeared south. Unusual for a captain to lead a foot patrol on a special mission, he thought. SpesOps is our function, the job of the specially trained Special Forces Unit, his subconscious countered.

  I would look silly if they were to catch me, he thought, these plodders who can’t even maintain radio silence.

  You’d also be dead, the sober voice of reason in his head warned him.