Reconciliation for the Dead

by Paul E. Hardisty

  ‘Did you see that?’ Kruger yelled over the roar. ‘Fokken nailed the kaffir.’

  Clay banged off the last three rounds of his mag, changed out. ‘Shut up and focus,’ he yelled, the new kid so like Clay had been when he’d first gone over, so eager to please, so committed to the cause they were fighting for, to everything their fathers and politicians had told them this was about. It was the difference between believing – as Kruger did now – and no longer knowing what you believed.

  And now they were up and moving through the grass, forwards through the smoke: Liutenant Van Boxmeer – Crowbar as everyone called him – their platoon commander, shouting them ahead, leading as always, almost to the trees; Kruger on Clay’s left; Eben on his right, sprinting across the open ground towards the trees.

  They’d been choppered into Angola early that morning; three platoons of parabats – South African paratroopers – sent to rescue a UNITA detachment that had been surrounded and was under threat of being wiped out. A call had come in from the very top, and they’d been scrambled to help. UNITA, União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola – South Africa’s ally in the struggle against communism in Southern Africa – were fighting the rival MPLA, the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola, and its military wing FAPLA, Forças Armadas Populares de Libertação de Angola, for control of the country. UNITA and MPLA were once united in their struggle to liberate Angola from Portugal. But when that was achieved in 1975, they split along ideological lines: MPLA supported by the Soviet Union and its allies; UNITA by South Africa and, some said, America. That was what they had been told by the Colonel of the battalion, anyway. The Soviets were pouring weapons and equipment into FAPLA, bolstering it with tens of thousands of troops from Cuba, East Germany and the Soviet Union itself, transforming FAPLA from a lightly armed guerrilla force into a legitimate army. As a consequence, things were not going well for UNITA, and it was up to them to do everything they could to help. South Africa was in mortal danger of being overrun by the communists; their whole way of life was threatened. This was the front line; this was where they had to make their stand. Everything they held dear – their families, their womenfolk, their homes and farms – all would be taken, enslaved, destroyed if they were not successful. It was life or death.

  Clay remembered the day he left for active service, waiting at the train station, his duffel bag over his shoulder, his mother in tears on the platform, his father strong, proud. That was the word he’d used. Proud. He’d taken Clay’s hand in his, looked him in the eyes, and said it: I’m proud of you, son. Do your duty. It was just like in the books he’d read about the Second World War. And he had felt proud, righteous too, excited. He couldn’t quite believe it was happening to him. That he could be so lucky. He was going to war.

  That was the way he remembered it, anyway.

  Clay reached the trees – scrub mopane – Kruger and Eben still right and left, on line. They stopped, dropped to one knee. It was the middle of the dry season, everything withered and brown. Crowbar was about twenty metres ahead, standing beside the body of a dead FAPLA fighter, the radio handset pushed up to his ear, Steyn, his radio operator, crouching next to him. By now the shooting had stopped.

  ‘What’s happening?’ said Kruger.

  Eben smiled at him. ‘That, young private, is a question for which there is no answer, now or ever.’

  The kid frowned.

  Eben took off his bush hat, ran his hand through the straw of his hair. ‘And the reason, kid, is that no one knows. The sooner you accept that, the better it will be. For all of us. Read Descartes.’

  Clay glanced over at Eben and smiled. Another dose of the clean truth from Eben Barstow, philosopher. That’s what he called it. The clean truth.

  Kruger looked at Eben with eyes wide. ‘Read?’ he said.

  Eben shook his head.

  Crowbar was up now, facing them. He looked left and right a moment, as if connecting with each of them individually. And then quick, precise hand signals: hostiles ahead, this way, through the trees, two hundred metres. And then he was off, moving through the scrub, the radio operator scrambling to keep up.

  Kruger looked like he was going to shit himself. Maybe he already had.

  ‘Here we go, kid,’ said Eben, pulling his hat back on. ‘Stay with us. Keep low. You’ll be fine.’

  And then they were moving through the trees, everything underfoot snapping and cracking so loud as to be heard a hundred miles away, a herd of buffalo crashing towards the guns.

  The first mortar round hurtled in before they’d gone fifty metres.

  It landed long, the concussion wave pushing them forwards like a shove in the back. They upped the pace, crashing through the underbrush, half blind, mortar rounds falling closer behind, the wind at their backs, smoke drifting over them. Clay’s foot hit something: a log, a root. Something smashed into his stomach, doubling him over, collapsing his diaphragm. He fell crashing into a tangle of bush, rolled over, gasped for breath. And then, moments later, a flash, a kick in the side of the head, clumps of earth and bits of wood raining down on him. Muffled sounds coming to him now, dull thuds deep in his chest, felt rather than heard, and then scattered pops, like the sound of summer raindrops on a steel roof, fat and sporadic; and something else – was it voices?

  He tried to breathe. Sand and dead leaves choked his mouth, covered his face. He spat, tearing the dirt from his eyes. A dull ache crept through his chest. He moved his hands over his body, checking the most important places first. But he was intact, unhurt. Jesus. He lay there a moment, a strange symphony warbling in his head. He opened his eyes. Slowly, his vision cleared. He was alone.

  Smoke enveloped him, the smell of burning vegetation, cordite. He pushed himself to his knees and groped for his R4. He found it half buried, pulled it free and staggered to his feet. The sounds of gunfire came clearer now, somewhere up ahead. He checked the R4’s action, released the mag, blew the dust free, reinserted it, sighted. The foresight was covered in a tangle of roots. Shit. He flipped on the safety, inspected the muzzle. The barrel was clogged with dirt. He must have spiked the muzzle into the ground when he fell, driven the butt into his stomach. Stupid. Unacceptable.

  Ahead, the grind of Valk 2’s MAG somewhere on the right, the bitter crack of AK47s. Smoke swirling around him, a flicker of orange flame. The bush was alight. He stumbled away from the flames, moved towards the sounds of battle, staggering half blind through the smoke. There was no way his R4 could be fired without disassembling and cleaning it. He felt like a rookie. Crowbar would have a fit.

  By the time he reached Eben and the others, the fight was over. It hadn’t lasted long. Valk 3 had caught most of the FAPLA fighters in enfilade at the far end of the airstrip, turned their flank and rolled them up against Valk 5. It was a good kill, Crowbar said. And Valk 5 had taken no casualties. One man wounded in Valk 3, pretty seriously they said: AK round through the chest, collapsed lung. Casevac on the way. They counted sixteen enemy bodies.

  Crowbar told them to dig in, prepare for a counterattack, while he went to meet up with the UNITA doffs they’d just rescued. The platoon formed a wide perimeter around the northern length of the airstrip and linked in on both flanks with Valk 3 and Valk 2. Their holes were farther apart than they would have liked, but it would have to do. After all, they were parabats – South African paratroopers – the best of the best. That’s what they’d been taught. Here, platoons were called Valk; Afrikaans for hawk. Death from above. Best body count ratio in Angola.

  Once the holes were dug and the OPs set, they collected the FAPLA dead, piling the bodies in a heap at the end of the airstrip. A few of the parabats sliced off ears and fingers as trophies, took photos. Behind them, the trees blazed, grey anvils of smoke billowing skywards. Clay stood a long time and watched the forest burn.

  ‘Once more ejected from the breach,’ said Eben, staring out at the blaze.

  Clay looked at his friend, at the streaks of dirt on his face, the sweat
beading his bare chest. ‘Where’s Kruger?’

  Eben glanced left and right. ‘I thought he was with you.’

  ‘I got knocked down before we got fifty metres. Never saw anyone till it was all over. Never fired a shot.’ He showed Eben his R4.

  ‘I never took you for a pacifist, bru.’ Eben jutted his chin towards the pile of corpses. ‘You must be very disappointed to have missed out.’

  Clay gazed at the bodies, the way the limbs entwined, embraced, the way the mouths gaped, dark with flies. This was their work, the accounting of it. He wondered what he felt about it. ‘I better get this cleaned, or the old man will kill me,’ he said.

  Eben nodded. ‘I’ll go find Kruger. No telling what trouble that kid will get himself into.’

  Clay nodded and went back to his hole. All down the line, the other members of the platoon were digging in, sweating under the Ovamboland sun. He dug for a while and was fishing in his pack for his cleaning kit when Eben jogged up, out of breath.

  ‘Can’t find Kruger anywhere, bru. No one’s seen him.’

  ‘He’s got to be around somewhere. Crowbar said no casualties. Did you check the other Valk?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Clay shouldered his R4. ‘Let’s go find Crowbar. Maybe he’s with him.’

  They found Liutenant Van Boxmeer towards the western end of the airstrip, radioman at his side. He was arguing with a black Angolan UNITA officer dressed in a green jungle-pattern uniform and a tan beret. The officer wore reflective aviator Ray-Bans and carried a pair of nickel-plated .45 calibre 1911s strapped across his chest. Beyond, a couple of dozen UNITA fighters, ragged and stunned, slouched around a complex of sandbagged bunkers. As Clay and Eben approached, the two men lowered their voices.

  Clay and Eben saluted.

  Crowbar looked them both square in the eyes, nodded.

  ‘Kruger’s missing, my Liutenant,’ said Eben in Afrikaans.

  Crowbar looked up at the sky. ‘When was he seen last?’

  ‘Just before the advance through the trees,’ said Clay.

  Crowbar’s gaze drifted to the muzzle of Clay’s R4. Clay could feel himself burn.

  ‘Find him,’ said Crowbar. ‘But do it fast. FAPLA pulled back, but they’re still out there. Mister Mbdele here figures we can expect a counterattack before nightfall.’

  ‘Colonel,’ said the UNITA officer.

  ‘What?’ said Crowbar.

  ‘I am Colonel Mbdele.’ He spoke Afrikaans with a strong Portuguese accent. His voice was stretched, shaky.

  ‘Your mam must be so proud,’ said Crowbar.

  Eben smirked.

  The Colonel whipped off his sunglasses and glared at Eben. The thyroid domes of his eyes bulged out from his face, the cornea flexing out over fully dilated pupils so that the blood-veined whites seemed to pulse with each beat of his heart. ‘Control your … your men, Liutenant,’ he shouted, reaching for the grip of one of his handguns. A huge diamond solitaire sparked in his right earlobe. His face shone with sweat. ‘We have work here. Important work.’

  Crowbar glanced down at the man’s hand, shaking on the grip of his still-holstered pistol. ‘What work would that be, exactly, Colonel?’ he said, jutting his chin towards the FAPLA men lounging outside the bunker.

  As the Colonel turned his head to look, Crowbar slipped his fighting knife from its point-up sheath behind his right hip.

  Mbdele was facing them again, his nickel-plated handgun now halfway out of its holster, trembling in his sweat-soaked hand. The metal gleamed in the sun. Crowbar had closed the gap between them and now stood within striking distance of the UNITA officer, knife blade up against his wrist, where Mbdele couldn’t see it.

  ‘FAPLA will attack soon,’ shouted Mbdele, his voice cracking, his eyes pivoting in their sockets. He waved his free hand back towards the bunker. ‘This position must be defended. At all costs.’

  Crowbar was poised, free hand up in front of him now, palm open, inches from Mbdele’s pistol hand, the knife at his side, still hidden. Clay held his breath.

  ‘And what’s so fokken important that you brought us all this way, meu amigo?’ said Crowbar in a half-whisper.

  Mbdele took a step back, but Crowbar followed him like a dance partner, still just inches away.

  ‘I said, what’s so fokken important?’

  ‘Classified. Not your business,’ shouted Mbdele, spittle flying. ‘These are your orders. Your orders. Check. Call your commanders on the radio.’

  Crowbar stood a moment, shaking his head and muttering something under his breath. ‘And here are your orders, Colonel,’ he said. ‘You and your men get the fok out there and cover our left flank, in case FAPLA tries to come in along the river.’

  Sweat poured from the Colonel’s face, beaded on his forearms. ‘Não, Liutenant,’ he gasped as if short of breath. ‘No. We stay here. Aqui.’ He pointed towards the bunker complex. ‘My orders are to guard this. And your orders are to protect us.’

  Clay glanced over at Eben. It was very unusual for a UNITA officer to question their South African allies. The Colonel was treading a dangerous path with the old man. Just as odd was UNITA clinging to a fixed position. They were a guerrilla force, fighting a much larger and more heavily armed opponent. They depended on movement and camouflage to survive.

  Eben frowned, clearly thinking the same thing: whatever was in that bunker, it must be pretty important.

  ‘Our orders are to assist,’ said Crowbar. Clay could hear the growing impatience in his voice. ‘That means we help each other.’

  The Colonel glanced back at his men. ‘I am the ranking officer here, Liutenant.’

  Crowbar’s face spread in a wide grin. ‘Not in my army, you ain’t.’ Then, without taking his eyes from Mbdele, he said: ‘Straker, tell the men to get ready to move out.’

  Clay snapped off a salute.

  ‘What are you doing?’ blurted the Colonel. ‘You … You have orders.’

  ‘Help us, Colonel, and we’ll help you,’ said Crowbar, calm, even. ‘We’re short-handed here. Outnumbered. Get your men out onto our flank or we ontrek. Your choice, meu amigo.’

  The Colonel tightened his hand on his pistol grip. ‘This is unacceptable,’ he shouted. ‘Inaceitável.’ He rattled off a tirade in Portuguese.

  Crowbar stayed as he was, feet planted, knife still concealed at his side. ‘Try me, asshole.’

  The UNITA Colonel puffed out his cheeks, glaring at Crowbar, trying to stare him down.

  Crowbar jerked his head towards Clay and Eben. ‘Move out in ten. Get going.’

  Clay and Eben hesitated.

  ‘Now,’ said Crowbar.

  Clay and Eben turned and started back to the lines at the double.

  They’d gone about ten meters when they heard the Colonel shout: ‘Wait.’

  Clay and Eben kept going.

  Then Crowbar’s command. ‘Halt.’ They stopped, faced the two officers.

  ‘I will send half my men to the left flank,’ said the Colonel.

  Crowbar muttered something under his breath. ‘Tell them to report to Liutenant DeVries.’ He pointed towards the bush beyond the bunker. ‘Over there.’

  For a moment the Colonel looked as if he was going to speak, but then he swallowed it down.

  It happened so fast Clay almost missed it. Mbdele was down on the ground, his gun hand in an armlock, the point of Crowbar’s knife at his throat, his 1911 in the dirt under Crowbar’s boot heel. Mbdele wailed in pain as Crowbar wrenched his arm in a direction it was not designed to go.

  ‘You ever think of pulling a weapon on me again, meu amigo,’ said Crowbar, loud enough so that Clay and Eben could hear, ‘and it will be the last thing that goes through that fucked-up up brain of yours.’

  And then it was over and Crowbar was walking away, leaving Mbdele sitting in the dirt rubbing his arm.

  ‘Fokken UNITA bliksem,’ muttered Crowbar, falling in beside Clay and Eben. ‘I trust those fokkers about as much as I trust the whores in t
he Transkei.’

  Eben grinned at Clay. ‘Quite the get-up. Those twin forty-fives.’

  Crowbar glanced at Eben, but said nothing.

  ‘Did you see his eyes?’ said Eben. ‘He was wired up tight.’

  ‘Fokken vrot,’ said Crowbar, slinging his R4. ‘Fokken pack of drugged-up jackals.’

  ‘What’s so important about this place, my Liutenant?’ said Clay.

  Crowbar stopped and squared up to Clay. ‘What’s it to you, troop?’

  Clay stood to attention. ‘I just meant, those bunkers…’

  ‘They’re important because I say they’re important, Straker.’

  ‘They don’t seem like much.’

  Crowbar leaned in until his mouth was only a few inches from Clay’s face. ‘The only thing you need to know is right there in your hands. Understood?’

  ‘Ja, my Liutenant,’ said Clay, rigid.

  ‘And that goes for you too, Barstow. Couple of fokken smart-arse soutpiele.’ Salt-dicks. English South Africans. ‘Now get out there and find Kruger. Take that black bastard from 32-Bat with you.’

  ‘Brigade,’ said Clay. ‘His name is Brigade, sir.’

  ‘I don’t give a kak what his name is,’ said Crowbar. ‘He’s our scout, he knows the country. Take him with you.’

  Clay nodded.

  ‘And do it quick, Straker. Cherry like Kruger, you don’t find him by nightfall, he’s as good as dead.’

  Clay and Eben started moving away.

  ‘And Straker,’ Crowbar called after them.

  Clay turned, stood at attention.

  ‘I catch you again with your weapon in that state, and the commies’ll be the last thing you have to worry about. I’ll shoot you myself.’

  South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission Transcripts.

  Central Methodist Mission, Johannesburg, 13th September 1996

  Commissioner Ksole: And you are here, why, Mister Straker?

  Witness: To tell the truth, sir.