‘Consequences,’ Eben said. ‘I am only what I believe and what I do. Nothing more.’
Clay shook his head. ‘Promise me, bru.’
Eben glanced at him, at the woman, back at the soldiers. ‘Fuck me, Straker. Okay. Fine. Whatever you want. Just go.’
They were out of time. All of them. ‘Okay, Eben. Okay. No shooting.’
Eben sighed, as if letting go of something. ‘Okay.’
Clay turned, swung the tarpaulin aside and emerged into the star-lit clarity of night, some strange kind of threshold just crossed.
He ran as fast as he could, this stranger’s naked body heavy and close in his arms. Her eyes were closed but she was breathing. After a few steps she raised her arms, wrapped them around his neck, held on tight. Halfway across the airfield he stopped, turned back towards the bunker, listened, peered into the darkness. No sound. No Eben. What the hell was he doing?
It took Clay a few minutes to find his hole. As he approached, a voice rang out in the darkness.
‘Password.’ Afrikaans.
Clay stopped. ‘Fokken rool gevdar,’ he shouted back. The red danger. The reason they were all here. ‘It’s Straker.’
‘God verdoem, Straker, what are you doing out there?’ It sounded like de Koch.
‘Went for a kak. Eben’s following.’
De Koch muttered something.
Clay jumped down into his hole. Holding the woman with one arm, the weight of her on his knee, her arms tight around his neck, he fumbled with his groundsheet, spread it over the sand. He tried to lay her down, but she wouldn’t let go of his neck.
They stayed holding each other in the cold for a long time. He listened for Eben, to her breathing, felt the warmth of her, the smell of tears and sweat and dirt and sex and blood coming to him as catalysts, reactants bonding with his own damaged neurochemistry. She was shivering.
After a while her clench loosened. Clay whispered to her, gently laid her down. He grabbed his field blanket, wrapped it around her. She was awake now, eyes open.
‘Está certo,’ he said. It’s okay.
She nodded. Sat up. Brushed her hair from her face. He handed her his canteen. She took it in a trembling hand and drank. He gave her a biscuit from his rat pack. She took it and sniffed at it. He fired up Eben’s stove and boiled some water, made tea. She wrapped her hands around the steaming dixie and sipped.
A few minutes later, Eben jumped into the hole. He stood a moment catching his breath. ‘Jesus,’ he said.
‘Jesus,’ repeated Clay, handing him a dixie of hot tea.
Eben sipped. ‘That was close.’
Clay said nothing. There had been no shooting.
‘How is she?’
‘Alive.’
‘Like us.’
‘For now.’
‘Do you think he’ll tell Crowbar?’
‘No idea. Maybe.’ Clay looked at his watch: 0345. ‘Now what, bru? We have to be at the LP at 0400.’
Eben sank down in his hole, drank his tea. ‘We go out on LP. Towards dawn, we fire a few shots. Come back, say we captured her.’
‘What, naked?’
‘I’ll go get a uniform from one of those FAPLA dead.’
‘Jesus, Eben. You’ve gone bossie, bru. I swear it.’
‘“No promise has been given you for this night”.’
‘What?’
‘Seneca.’ Eben shot off a smile, clambered back out of his hole, slung his R4. ‘Back in a bit,’ he said, and disappeared into the starlit darkness.
Clay hunched down in his hole and glanced at the woman.
‘Obrigado,’ she whispered.
He nodded, wondering if she’d try for his gun; try to kill him, escape. The thought turned confused and uncomfortable inside him, at odds with everything he’d been taught growing up: a woman something sacred, to be protected always. And now she was so close, him having just carried her, as naked and vulnerable as ever a creature was. So to think of her as an enemy … He swallowed hard. The UNITA Colonel had said she was a political officer, whatever that meant.
‘O que você vai fazer?’ she said, handing him back the empty dixie. What will you do?
Clay hunched his shoulders. They could just let her go. Let her run off into the bush. No one would ever know. But she could be important, could have information that might save lives. And if Colonel Mbdele did tell Crowbar about what had just happened, they’d have to explain what they’d done with the prisoner.
‘Que está fazendo aqui?’ said Clay, his Portuguese poor. ‘What are you doing here?’ he repeated in Afrikaans.
‘Fighting for my people,’ she replied in Afrikaans.
‘Me too.’ That’s what they tell me, anyway.
She pulled the blanket around her shoulders. ‘I am not a soldier.’
‘MPLA?’
She looked down for a moment, then back up at him, her face now just visible in the pre-dawn retreat of constellations. Bruises, a cut on her swollen lower lip, big, dark eyes. ‘No.’
‘FAPLA?’
‘I said no.’
‘SWAPO?’ The South West Africa People’s Organisation, Namibia’s left-leaning independence movement, aligned with the MPLA.
The woman shook her head. ‘My name is Zulaika. I am from a small village near Rito.’
Rito, an Angolan town not too far from here, about 180 kilometres from the border. ‘What are you doing here, Zulaika? Tell me.’
She grabbed his sleeve. ‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘Let me go. I am not a soldier.’
‘You said you were fighting for your people.’
Slowly, she reached her hand towards Clay’s R4.
He pulled it away.
‘Not with this,’ she whispered.
Clay checked his watch. Eben had already been gone ten minutes. If they didn’t relieve Cooper and Bluey in the LP at 0400, they’d be screwed, put up on charges.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
‘Those men…’ she stopped, hid her face in the blanket.
‘UNITA.’
‘These are not soldiers,’ she hissed. ‘They are criminals.’
Clay said nothing.
‘And you help them. Give them weapons and money. Protect them.’
Clay shook his head. ‘Not me.’
‘South Africa. You.’
Clay looked down at the ground. ‘What they did was wrong.’ He could barely hear himself say it.
‘You must help me,’ she said.
Clay straightened, shook his head. ‘You’re a prisoner of war. We’ll hand you over to military intelligence. You’ll be well treated.’
The woman shook her head, wrapped her arms around herself.
Minutes passed. Eben was still not back. Clay scanned the length of the airstrip, the dull hulk of the UNITA bunkers just visible in the distance.
‘They are using drug weapons,’ the woman whispered.
‘What did you say?’
‘Drogas,’ she said. ‘Catalisadores. For killing people. Black people.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You must let me go. Please.’
‘Drugs for killing? Chemical weapons? Is that what you mean?’ There had been persistent rumours over the past several months that FAPLA had acquired mustard gas from the Cubans and Russians, and intended to use it against UNITA, and, if necessary, South African forces.
She shook her head quickly, two, three times. ‘No. Not that. Drugs. O Médico de Morte, he gives them.’
‘What?’ She was still in shock from what had happened. She wasn’t making sense.
She repeated it in Portuguese. ‘That’s what we call him. The Doctor of Death.’
Clay shuddered. ‘Who?’
The woman swivelled her head, put her finger to her lips. ‘Please. They will kill me. You must let me go.’
Clay was about to ask her what the hell she was babbling about when Eben jumped back into the hole. He was breathing heavily. Sweat poured from his face. He dropped
a blood-stained uniform jacket and trousers on the woman’s lap. A cap with a bullet hole through the side.
‘Put those on,’ Eben said. ‘We’ve got to get going.’
The woman held up the trousers, looked at them both.
Clay and Eben turned their backs as she dressed.
‘What took you?’ said Clay.
‘Ever try undressing someone suffering from rigor mortis?’
Clay said nothing.
‘I’ll go and relieve Cooper and Bluey,’ Eben said, clambering out of the hole. ‘Hang back out of sight. Join me at the LP when they’re clear.’
A few minutes later Clay and Zulaika followed in the darkness, Clay leading her along by the wrist. He found the LP and pushed her inside. A shallow depression scraped in the sand, a double row of sandbags out front, the thing covered over with mopane branches. Eben said that Bluey had reported no activity overnight. The woman cowered in the corner, knees pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped around her shins. Clay stood to next to Eben and gazed out into the night, watching the sky lighten. Somewhere out there, a battalion of FAPLA soldiers was intent on killing them.
‘We should let her go,’ said Clay after a while.
‘She’s a prisoner.’
‘She told me she’s not MPLA. Or anything else for that matter. Just a villager.’
Eben shook his head. ‘What’s she doing out here, then?’
‘If we let her go, now, no one will ever know. No rondfok. Like nothing ever happened.’
‘What if she is MPLA, gives away our position? No. It’s too risky.’
The woman was listening to all of this, silent there in the back of the hole.
‘She speaks Afrikaans,’ said Clay. ‘Well.’
‘Just a villager?’ said Eben. ‘Not a chance.’
‘That’s what she said.’
‘Crowbar will know what to do.’
‘And that UNITA Colonel,’ said Clay. ‘What about him? What if he comes out and starts bitching to Crowbar? If we have the woman, it proves the Colonel’s story. We’ll be so deep in the shit we’ll drown.’
‘We’ll say we captured her. Tell Crowbar the UNITA Colonel is a lying sonofabitch. Who’s he going to believe?’
Clay looked down the length of his R4, out into the bush as the sun’s edge bled into the morning sky, torching the horizon.
‘Listen, bru,’ said Eben, playing his R4 back and forth as he scanned the bush. ‘We did what we did out of principle. This place is so fucked up I’m surprised I even remember what that looks like. She’s a prisoner. We turn her in. It’s the right thing to do.’
And before Clay could answer, Eben fired off three quick rounds.
Clay hung his head. The woman sobbed.
Seconds later, the radio crackled. It was Crowbar.
Eben tagged the handset. ‘Wait one,’ he said in Afrikaans.
Time slipped away. The sun rose red and angry over the Angolan bush. The heat came, and with it the flies.
Eben looked at Clay a moment, raised his eyebrows, keyed the handset. ‘Contact,’ he said. ‘One prisoner. Appears to be a lone scout.’
5
Toronto Maple Leafs
By the time Clay and Eben reported to Crowbar’s command post – a hole scraped into the sand at the northern end of the airfield – the sound of gunfire filled the morning stillness. Crowbar was standing in the open, radio handset to his ear, turning left and right as he gauged the sounds of battle surging across their front. He glanced at Clay, pointed to the ground near his feet, turned away, talking calmly in Afrikaans even as the first mortar rounds started to land.
Clay and Eben put a knee to ground where Crowbar had indicated they do so. The woman crouched between them in her bloody FAPLA uniform and cap. Stray rounds cracked over their heads.
Crowbar passed the handset to his radioman, stood looking down at them. ‘This your prisoner, Barstow?’
Eben stood to attention. ‘Yes, my Liutenant. A scout. She stumbled into our position.’
Above the sound of rifle fire and the scattered thump of grenades came a drone of engines, still far-off, to the south. Helicopters? Their extraction? It would be a good time to clear out. Clay searched the already too-blue sky.
Crowbar once-overed the woman, humphed. ‘Weapon?’
‘Forty-seven,’ said Eben. ‘Back in my hole. I was thinking of keeping it, if that’s okay, my Liutenant.’
A surge of gunfire to the left: Valk 3 pouring on the fire. The whump of a mortar round exploding near the UNITA bunker.
‘Probes on the right flank,’ said Crowbar. ‘FAPLA is hitting us hard on the left. We may be next. Barstow, get back to your position. Straker, stay here with the prisoner.’
Eben glanced at Clay, doubled away towards the firing.
‘Kak,’ said Steyn, the radioman, pointing across the airfield. ‘Fokken look at that.’
The UNITA Colonel, Ray-Bans glinting in the low-angle morning light, was striding towards them through the smoke.
Clay’s insides twisted to a new level of anxiety. The woman reached up for his hand but he pushed her away.
‘What the fok does he want?’ said Crowbar.
Colonel Mbdele was still thirty metres away but he was already shouting, pointing at Clay and the woman. Clay couldn’t make out his words over the roar of the firefight, but he knew the meaning.
Clay grabbed the woman by the arm and started back towards his hole.
‘Where the fok are you going?’ said Crowbar.
‘I should be up on the line, sir. The attack’s coming.’
Crowbar pointed at the ground next to him. No words. Your father indicating precisely where you were to stand. Clay obeyed.
The Colonel was with them now, cheeks puffing in and out, his face running with sweat, white dust covering his uniform. He was about to speak when the sky flashed, exploding in a roar. Burned kerosene settled over them as a big silver Hercules banked away over the trees, wingtip close, turboprops screaming.
The Colonel glanced up at the aircraft, across at the woman, at Clay. He squared up to Crowbar, handgun pointing at the ground, and puffed out his chest. ‘You must attack,’ he said. ‘Now. Tell your men to advance.’
Crowbar looked at the Colonel as if he’d come trying to sell him bibles or copies of the Koran.
‘You must secure the airfield so the plane can land,’ the Colonel continued. ‘FAPLA is too close. You must push them back.’
As if to prove his point a mortar bomb sailed in over their heads, an 82 mm round. They could see it arcing through the air, dark and finned, a wingless bird. It seemed to hang there a moment at its apex, then fell and exploded harmlessly in the middle of the chana. Smoke and dust drifted over them.
Crowbar’s previous calm was gone. He stepped to within a pace of the black man’s face, jabbing him in the solar plexus. ‘What the fok do you mean, coming in here in the middle of a firefight and telling me my job?’
The Colonel rocked back on his heels. ‘I am telling you to secure this landing strip. Get on your radio, Liutenant. Check with your superiors, if you need confirmation.’
‘Get me battalion,’ Crowbar shouted to his radioman. ‘Now. I’ve had enough of this fokken idiot.’
‘And that is my prisoner,’ the Colonel hissed, pointing at the woman. ‘Hand her over to me now.’
The C-130 circled away to the south, a speck above the trees.
‘This is our prisoner,’ said Crowbar.
The Colonel reached into his pocket and pulled out a document. ‘Here are her identity papers, Liutenant. This man,’ he pointed his pistol at Clay, ‘came into our position last night and took her from us at gunpoint.’
Crowbar grabbed the paper, stared down at it a moment, then at the woman, comparing the photograph to the dishevelled, bruised, dust-covered reality. He jammed the paper back into the Colonel’s hand and wheeled on Clay, eyes wide. ‘Ridiculous. Tell him, Straker.’
Clay looked down at his boots. Either the woma
n had been lying, or the Colonel was bluffing, was using some other person’s papers. If he had to choose who to trust, he’d go with Zulaika. ‘We captured her at dawn, sir, like Eben said, outside our LP. She must have been probing before this attack.’
The radioman passed Crowbar the handset. ‘Battalion, sir.’
Crowbar keyed the handset, spoke, listened, looking off towards where his men were fighting for their lives. He kicked the dirt a couple of times, paced, talking again, the veins in his neck straining, the radioman following, twisting and turning as Crowbar wandered.
The Colonel glared at Clay then smiled at the woman. Clay could feel her shudder.
Finally, Crowbar thrust the handset back towards the radioman. ‘Straker,’ he said, eyes flashing high-altitude blue. ‘Get back to Valk 5. Tell Sergeant DuPlessis to get ready to attack. Manoeuver left. Roll up the bastards’ left flank. Wait for my command. Leave the woman here.’
Clay hesitated, Zulaika holding tight to his arm.
‘I said get going, Straker,’ Crowbar raising the handset to his ear.
‘Don’t hand her over to those bastards,’ Clay said over a surge in gunfire from the left. ‘Please, sir. They’ll kill her.’
Crowbar stopped mid-sentence. ‘Get back to DuPlessis with my message,’ he said, as if meeting on the street, in a corridor somewhere. ‘Now.’
The Colonel smirked.
Clay shrugged off the woman’s hand and doubled back towards the line. There was nothing more he could do. That’s what he told himself.
It didn’t take long.
FAPLA had concentrated their attack on the paras’ left flank. When Valk 5 surged up the middle and wheeled left, they caught FAPLA’s main attacking force in enfilade, started rolling up their flank, just as Crowbar had planned. When it was over, what remained of the FAPLA battalion was in full retreat. They counted twelve FAPLA dead scattered in the bush, as many blood trails. De Koch had been clipped by an AK round when his MAG jammed, and Wessels had been hit in the arse by some shrapnel, but otherwise there had been no casualties. This time Clay hadn’t fallen over, hadn’t jammed his barrel into the ground. His R4 was clean, well-oiled and functioning perfectly, and for the third time in his life he’d used it to kill a human being. No doubt this time: the FAPLA soldier close, front on. Clay had sent two rounds into the man’s torso, watched the bullets shred through the tissue, the explosion of red mist, the body crumpling lifeless to the ground, limbs twisted awkwardly beneath the weight of chest and head and shoulders. It had been a clean kill. He’d felt good. Excited. And alive, so alive.
Reconciliation for the Dead Page 5