Reconciliation for the Dead

by Paul E. Hardisty

  Only much later would this same murder fill him with dread – nightly tremors carrying the sure knowledge of having done something so fundamentally wrong that good would forever escape him, and bad luck would thereafter be his shepherd. His best friend would die, as a result, after years in a coma. Others that he called friend would lose their lives. And so, too, the daughter he would never have.

  Once the position was secure, Clay found Sergeant DuPlessis and volunteered to report back to the CP. He’d raced back to the airfield, the world so quiet after the cacophony of battle, just the sound of his footfall in the long grass, his breathing, the beating of his heart, and now, the whine of four big turbines approaching from the west. Crowbar was at the far end of the chana, checking on de Kock and Wessels, talking to the medic. The big C-130 thunked down onto the grass not far from where they stood, careened along the makeshift airstrip in a tornado of dust, the reversed props sending a cloud of debris billowing skyward.

  The woman was gone. So was the UNITA Colonel. Clay’s battle glow faded. He stood before Crowbar, reported the success of the action and passed on DuPlessis’ message: low on ammo, water critical. Resupply or extraction needed soon. Crowbar nodded.

  The C-130 was at the far end of the chana now, pivoting, taxiing back towards them, the sound of the turboprops modulating on the breeze, landing lights blinking through the dust.

  ‘Our evac, sir?’ said Clay, already somehow anticipating all those future times, good and bad, when these big four-engine brutes would signal the beginning and the ending of things, bring him home, take those he had tried to love away.

  Crowbar didn’t answer. He started towards the UNITA bunker, striding quickly to where the Hercules was rolling to a stop. The big transport swung around in a tight 180 until it was head to wind, the take-off length of the chana before it, engines idling, props turning, ready to take off. The pilot would know how vulnerable they were here, would be itching to get airborne again.

  Clay followed Crowbar at a run.

  The Hercules’s rear ramp lowered. A man stepped out onto the grass and stood surveying the scene: the FAPLA bodies from yesterday’s assault stacked like cordwood, the UNITA bunker, sunlight angling in the swirling propwash, dust, leaves and chaff spinning in the air. He wore faded blue jeans and a tight black t-shirt, a blue American-style baseball cap and tinted aviator glasses. A sidearm was strapped to his right thigh. He started towards the bunker with long, sure strides. He wasn’t SAAF, that was sure.

  A moment later a second man appeared on the aircraft’s rear ramp. Shorter in stature, noticeably overweight, balding, with a thick black moustache, he wore a dark suit that looked a size too small and a white-collared shirt that bulged over his belt. The man hesitated at the edge of the ramp, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it over his nose and mouth, looking out at the trampled, battle-scored chana as if it were a pit of boiling sulphur.

  By now, Colonel Mbdele had emerged from the UNITA bunker and was walking out towards the plane. The man in the baseball cap waved to him and they met and shook hands. By now, the man in the suit had left the safety of the Hercules and was puffing his way across the browned grass towards Mbdele. He walked with a noticeable lurch, head down, as if suspicious of every square inch of this tortured country. With every step his dark suit seemed to lighten in colour as it accumulated a layer of fine, white dust.

  Mbdele stiffened as the man in the suit approached. They spoke a moment and then Mbdele handed him something – a small, fist-sized bundle. The man in the suit inspected its contents, closed the bag and thrust it into his pocket.

  Clay was beside Crowbar now, heard him mutter ‘What the fok’ as they approached Mbdele and the two white men. As they slowed to a walk, the man in the cap turned to face them, smiling through a short-trimmed fair beard, and thrust out his right hand. He was powerfully built, about six foot, taller than Crowbar. A tattoo of a coiled cobra flexed on his left bicep. ‘Good to see you,’ he said in Afrikaans. ‘Well done securing the LZ. Nice flanking manoeuver, too, ja.’ Strong Free State accent. Crowbar’s part of the world.

  By now, black UNITA soldiers had emerged from the bunker and were filing towards the plane. They struggled across the chana, each pair and trio loaded down under the weight of a thick, dark log. Some carried underhand, some with the logs hoisted onto their shoulders. The man in the suit stopped each pair, inspected the load, jotted something down in a small notebook, and then directed the men towards the Hercules’ rear ramp.

  Mbdele stood behind him, watching the process.

  Crowbar shook Cobra’s hand. ‘Van Boxmeer. First Parachute Battalion.’

  Cobra nodded. ‘Yes, I know. Your reputation precedes.’

  ‘And you are?’ said Crowbar.

  ‘That’s classified,’ said Cobra with another big smile.

  ‘How exciting for you,’ said Crowbar. ‘Well, Mister Classified, I have wounded. We’re low on ammo, water and food.’

  Cobra looked back over his shoulder at the UNITA soldiers filing past, disappearing into the Hercules, then straggling back out without their loads.

  ‘What the fok is going on here?’ said Crowbar.

  ‘Ebony,’ said Clay.

  ‘I know what the fok it is,’ said Crowbar. ‘And I didn’t ask you, Straker.’

  Now the tusks were being carried out of the bunker and onto the waiting plane. They were huge. By the wear at their tips, they’d been taken from big bull elephants, twenty, thirty years old. Some of them took four soldiers to carry. Clay had counted fifty-eight pairs so far.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ Crowbar took a step towards Cobra. ‘We have wounded. They need casevac. Now.’

  Cobra stood before them, implacable. The ivory kept coming. Seventy-two pairs now, including several tusks no more than half a metre long.

  ‘Is this what it looks like?’ said Crowbar.

  ‘What does it look like?’ said Cobra.

  ‘Like you have no intention of getting my men out of here.’

  ‘You’re smarter than you look.’

  ‘Just who the fok are you?’ Crowbar was angry now, his eyes flashing dangerous fire-blue.

  Cobra smiled again, that same distant cool, didn’t answer.

  They were almost finished the loading, now. The last of the UNITA fighters filed onto the Hercules then back out. Ninety-six pairs of tusks. The radio hissed.

  Steyn, Crowbar’s radioman, held out the handset. ‘Sir, you’d better take this.’

  Crowbar put the handset to his ear, listened a moment, spoke quickly, then passed it back to Steyn.

  ‘Counterattack coming,’ Crowbar said. ‘Tanks. Looks like half a dozen T55s.’

  Clay’s heart wobbled, spiked. He’d never been up against tanks before, but he’d heard the stories from some of the older okes.

  As if to prove the report correct, the tree line held by Valk 5 erupted in high explosive flame. The shock wave hit them a fraction of a second later, dissipated at that distance, but tangible, a push in the chest. Then the sound.

  ‘Jesus,’ muttered Steyn.

  The man in the suit dropped to his knees and covered his head with his arms as the smoke and debris from the explosions washed over them. His face was dripping with sweat and the folds of flesh stacked above his collar wobbled as he gasped for air. His suit was now almost the colour of the chana itself. Slowly he got to his feet, brushing the dust from his trousers.

  ‘Dit is alles hier,’ he said. It’s all here. The words shattered in his throat like broken masonry.

  A surge of gunfire broke along the tree line. Mbdele frowned, nodded. By now the last of his men had scrambled back to the bunkers.

  The man in the suit reached into his breast pocket and retrieved a small metal box about the size of a cigarette packet. He turned it over in his fingers a moment. ‘But there is something missing, no?’ he said in Afrikaans.

  Mbdele hunched his shoulders, puffed out his cheeks ‘No, it’s all here,’ he said, his eyes
focused on the box. ‘You counted.’

  The man in the suit closed his fist around the box and shook his head slowly from side to side.

  Mbdele looked like he was going to have a seizure. ‘Please,’ he cried. ‘It’s all there in the plane. You counted.’

  ‘No,’ shouted the man in the suit. ‘Something is missing.’

  ‘God damn you, Botha,’ the Colonel yelled above the roar of the engines and the rising din of battle.

  The man the Colonel had called Botha paused a moment, and then with a quickness that belied his bulk, turned and started walking back to the Hercules.

  Mbdele stumbled after him. ‘Por favor,’ he shouted. Please. ‘Ela está aqui.’ She is here. Please.

  Botha stopped and turned to face Mbdele. Mbdele signalled towards the bunker. Two UNITA fighters emerged from a trench and started across the open ground towards them. One carried a Belgian-made FN rifle slung across his shoulder, his right hand gripped hard around the other soldier’s upper arm. The other soldier was smaller, barefoot. He looked up from under a peaked FAPLA cap.

  Clay started. It was the woman, Zulaika. Fresh bruises blossomed on her cheekbones. Blood flowed from her nose and a cut on her upper lip.

  Mbdele looked Clay straight in the eyes, grinned and wiped the sweat from his eyes. Botha handed Mbdele the box. Mbdele opened it, stared a moment at its contents, then snapped the metal lid shut and thrust it into his trouser pocket.

  ‘Take her to the plane,’ said Botha.

  The UNITA soldier jerked her arm, started her towards the waiting C-130.

  Before they’d gone three steps, Zulaika screamed, went limp, fell to the ground. The soldier wrenched her arm, pulling her to her feet.

  Clay took a step forward, levelled his R4 at Mbdele. ‘You’re not taking her anywhere.’

  Even as he did it, Clay knew he had crossed a threshold. After, he would come to see it not as a distinct line, but as a broad no man’s land of decisions and circumstances, some within his control but most not, a boundary of shifting dimensions; time, space, circumstance, emotion and principle all swirling in an insoluble constellation. He watched it unfold as if disembodied, looking down at himself, rifle in hand.

  Cobra had unsheathed his sidearm and was pointing it at Clay’s head. It was a black Z88 Beretta 92: standard SADF issue. ‘Control your men, Liutenant,’ he said.

  Another explosion ripped through the tree line, the sound of small arms shivering along the line, Steyn’s radio going crazy now, sitreps coming in from every unit, Mbdele’s nickel-plated handgun out now, too, pointed at Clay’s face.

  ‘What the fok are you doing Straker?’ barked Crowbar.

  ‘They’ll kill her, Koevoet,’ said Clay. ‘Or worse.’

  Crowbar breathed a sigh, looked back over his shoulder, and then whipped his R4 around, levelling it at Cobra. ‘None of you are going anywhere until someone tells me what the fok is going on here.’

  Steyn and the other UNITA soldier stood face to face, rifles pointed muzzle to muzzle. No one moved. Botha, who, until now, had seemed to ignore the presence of the parabats, directed his dark gaze at each of the soldiers, as if taking photographs of them.

  The radio hissed, the word ‘tank’ coming across the frequency now, the voices stressed, insistent. Three deep lines creased Cobra’s forehead. He glanced over towards the sounds of battle, the din terrific now, decibels louder than the Herc’s engines, and then back at the plane. The pilot was waving frantically from the cockpit’s open side-window. The engines cycled up. The propwash blew Zulaika’s hair horizontal, sent Cobra’s cap spinning away across the grass.

  ‘Shit,’ Cobra said. ‘That was my favourite hat.’

  Crowbar and Clay glanced at each other.

  Cobra ran his hand through his hair. It was the colour of a Krugerrand, newly minted, four nines pure. He looked at Crowbar, at Clay, at the rifle pointed at his chest. ‘Got it in Toronto a few years ago,’ he said. ‘Maple Leafs. You know – ice hockey.’

  Clay could feel the 9 mm round in the chamber of the pistol now pointed at his head. Could see in everything about the man holding it that he was a marksman, a killer, some kind of Special Forces type, that he would have no hesitation in blowing Clay’s brains across the dust of the chana.

  The parabats were falling back, the tanks getting closer.

  ‘I don’t have time for this,’ said Cobra, exhaling. He said it as if he were filling in a form at a bank.

  ‘Make time,’ said Crowbar. ‘I’ve got all day.’

  A shell screamed over their heads, detonated beyond the Herc.

  ‘This mission comes from the top, Liutenant,’ said Cobra. ‘Radio your battalion commander if you like.’

  Crowbar exhaled long. He’d called HQ earlier, when Mbdele had challenged him, and had been rebuffed, told to do everything he could to assist UNITA. ‘My wounded,’ he barked. ‘Take them out.’

  Cobra shook his head. ‘No room.’

  ‘Assholes like you give this war a bad name,’ said Crowbar.

  Cobra smiled. ‘Dankie.’ Thanks.

  Crowbar lowered his weapon. ‘Go. I’ve got a real battle to fight.’

  Clay kept his rifle aimed at Cobra’s chest. ‘Please, Oom,’ – uncle, the Afrikaans word of respect – ‘you can’t let them take her.’

  Another shell screamed in close overhead, ploughed into the ground just beyond the C-130. Debris pelted the aircraft’s aluminium skin.

  A bead of sweat tracked down the bridge of Cobra’s nose.

  Crowbar glanced at Clay. It felt like a punch in the head.

  The Hercules’ engines were powering up. The plane started to move forward. Cobra and Mbdele looked at each other and then back towards the plane.

  As they did, Crowbar raised his rifle and fired. It happened so quickly no one had the chance to move, let alone register the action. The UNITA solider holding the woman spun to the ground screaming, his left thigh holed. Crowbar grabbed the woman, flung her towards Clay, flicked his R4 to auto, daring anyone move.

  ‘You’ve got what you came for,’ he shouted above the engines and the staccato of rifle fire. ‘Now, unless you want to miss your flight, I suggest you piss off and let me do my fokken job.’

  Mbdele and Cobra stood a moment, unsure what to do. The UNITA soldier lay whimpering, clutching his leg. Then Cobra shrugged, flashed a smile, and holstered his weapon.

  ‘What are you doing?’ screamed Botha. ‘That is my prisoner.’

  ‘Correction,’ said Crowbar. ‘This is my prisoner. Now, piss off before anyone else gets hurt.’

  Cobra reached into his satchel, pulled out a half-litre plastic bottle, tossed it to Crowbar. ‘Some water for you,’ he said. ‘See you around some time.’ Then he turned and jogged off towards the now-moving Hercules. Mbdele glared at Clay, holstered his pistol and ran after Cobra.

  Botha – if that really was his name – still hadn’t moved; he stood alone now with three rifles pointed at his chest. He stared at each of them in turn and then leaned forwards at the waist. ‘Jy dooie mense,’ he said above the noise of the battle. You’re dead men. Then he turned and lumbered towards the plane, struggling in the Herc’s propwash. He stumbled once, looked as if he wasn’t going to catch the plane, but scrambled back to his feet and closed the gap, stepping onto the aircraft’s rear ramp just as the pilots gunned the engines.

  Soon the Herc was accelerating down the length of the chana in a cloud of dust. Clay stood watching as it clawed its way into the sky, tracers arcing up green and pretty behind it.

  Commissioner Ksole: And this man, the one who appeared to be making the exchange with the UNITA Colonel, were you aware of his identity?

  Witness: At the time, I had no idea. Just the name, Botha. I … I only learned later who he was, who he worked for.

  Commissioner Ksole: This was Botha?

  Witness: Yes.

  Commissioner Ksole: Are you sure?

  Witness: I think that was his name, yes. One of his nam
es anyway. May I ask: have you heard this name before, in these enquiries?

  Commissioner Ksole: You may not.

  Witness: Thought I’d ask.

  Commissioner Ksole: So it was your commanding officer who initiated the confrontation with Botha?

  Witness: No, sir. It was me. Crowbar, Liutenant Van Boxmeer, took a big risk, not letting them have the prisoner. He paid for it later. We all did.

  Commissioner Lacy: And was this when you were wounded, Mister Straker, during this operation?

  Witness: For the first time, yes.

  Commissioner Lacy: Tell us about it, please, Mister Straker.

  Witness: I’d rather not. It’s not why I came here.

  Commissioner Lacy: Please, indulge us.

  Witness does not respond.

  Commissioner Lacy: Are you alright, Mister Straker?

  Witness does not respond.

  Commissioner Barbour: Mister Straker, are you unwell?

  Witness: Sorry? What was the question?

  Commissioner Lacy: Tell us what happened, when you were wounded. The commission would like to know, for the record.

  Witness: We had to fight our way back to the border. FAPLA was too close to airlift us out. They sent an armoured relief column instead. I was hit by a rocket fragment before we RV’d with the relief column. Cooper was killed. The guy from Valk 2 who was hit through the chest died, too.

  Commissioner Lacy: Your service record shows that you were decorated as a result of this action.

  Witness does not respond.

  Commissioner Lacy: Mister Straker?

  Witness: If that’s what it says.

  Commissioner Barbour: I think we should take a recess.

  Commissioner Lacy: Thank you, Mister Straker.

  Part II