by Deon Meyer
Apart from the Jeep track the Enemy had used, there was no other vehicle access route to the back of the reserve. Domingo and Teams Alpha and Bravo had to leave the Volvo and the ERF in the town and fetch the remaining horses. They didn’t know my shortcut, and had to gallop up the longer way, from beyond the main gate, behind most of the mountains, on to the western hill beside the canyon where the Enemy were launching their incursion. And from there, from the heights, Domingo and company began to shoot. They were right behind the wave of infantry that were attacking us, so that together with Alpha and Bravo we formed a pincer movement.
The Enemy’s foot soldiers and their big flanking manoeuvre were in full retreat. They retired to the shelter of the vehicles.
The Cessna made another bombing run. This time a few of the grenades fell on the vehicles, the long worm that was trapped on the Jeep track.
From there came their last, massive barrage.
For twenty minutes the battle was intense, they were shooting with everything they had – one remaining cannon, assault rifles, hunting rifles, handguns. They shot wildly, continuously, furiously, as though they meant to defeat us by sheer volume. The air was thick with noise and odours and smoke and lead. We lay low, only lifting our heads when the Cessna flew over, but we suffered losses. Of the forty-two members of Alpha, Bravo and Charlie we lost nineteen comrades, including three of our sergeants. They shot Domingo, first high up in the ribcage, just under his left arm. Then in his left hip, so that the bullet jerked and spun him around, brought him crashing to the ground. Alpha team members wanted to jump up and run to his aid, but the hail of bullets was too thick and deadly. Then, without warning, the Enemy’s ammunition ran out. Within six or seven minutes from when their fire began to decrease, it suddenly ceased. A deathly hush.
Until engines began growling down below, and the great retreat began. At first it was reasonably orderly, the furthest vehicles turning around and racing away over the plains, while the others had to wait patiently. But as we picked off more and more targets, they left more hastily and recklessly.
The sun broke free from the eastern horizon. It lit a scene that is burned in my memory for ever. The towering plumes of smoke from the burning vehicles, dust trails from fleeing pick-ups and motorbikes, cordite clouds hanging down the canyon, before a morning breeze gently nudged them away.
And in the north, clouds in the sky. The first rain clouds of that unbearably hot, dry summer.
Only in late afternoon did the last of the Enemy surrender on the reserve plateau, where the first fifty vehicles were stopped by the rock field and Delta. We took the twenty-one survivors captive. Drove them like cattle to Amanzi. Team Delta and us. I saw Sofia Bergman. She looked like the rest of us. Dog-tired. The exhaustion was paralysing, greater than anything I had ever experienced before. In my mind I knew it was the after-effect of adrenalin, but my body said, no more. We were filthy, our eyes dead; we had won but it didn’t feel like victory, so many people had perished. Too many of them, and too many of us.
And Domingo. We had no idea how Domingo was, he’d been taken away on a horse, and we didn’t think he was going to make it.
Without Domingo we were lost.
We walked back to the town. Sofia looked at me just once. I didn’t know what to read into that look. And then thunder rumbled over the mountain, and fat raindrops speckled the veld.
Sofia Bergman
I was so incredibly glad that Nico Storm was alive. Remember, it was my fault that he wasn’t with Alpha or Bravo any more. It would have been my fault if he had died. I know, I know, it’s not a logical argument, but that afternoon I don’t think any of us was capable of logic. In any case, when I saw him, I felt like going to him and throwing my arms around him and saying I’m so incredibly glad you’re alive.
If I hadn’t been so dead tired, I would have. I swear.
Chapter 86
March: I
Nero Dlamini
So, during the third Cabinet meeting in March, Nkosi drops the bombshell. Absolute bombshell.
Usually he spoke without notes. That day he read from a written speech . . .
Cabinet meeting, 24 March
Transcript by Willem Storm. The Amanzi History Project.
Pastor Nkosi Sebego, Minister of Internal Affairs: Mr President, thank you for this opportunity to make a special announcement.
Mr President, colleagues, friends, I must admit that I stand before you today with both great joy and great sadness in my heart.
Great joy, because the Good Lord spared me to take part in and to witness the great victory over our enemy, the devil’s spawn. Joy, because this was God’s will, this was his answer to our prayers, this was his sign, to show me and my fellow believers that we should take the road he had opened for us. Great joy, because now our world is safe enough to follow that road.
Great joy, my friends, because today, we faithful, we members of the Mighty Warrior Party, take the first step in the realisation of our future, our vision, our dream of a city and a community exclusively ruled by God. Joy, because I was chosen to lead my people to this Promised Land, to make this vision, this calling come true.
But let us not forget the great sadness. First of all, sadness for the brave men and women who gave their lives for our victory. Sadness for the loved ones left behind. Sadness for those who were wounded and whose lives will never be the same again.
Sadness for those who passed without knowing the love and the grace of God.
And lastly, sadness for the big goodbye. For today, Mr President, colleagues, friends, I have to announce that we will be leaving you, we will be leaving Amanzi. As from tomorrow we will start our migration to the place you know as Gariep, the great dam just one hundred kilometres east of here. But we will not call it Gariep. As from tomorrow, that place will be known as New Jerusalem.
Of course, our migration to New Jerusalem will not be complete in a day or a week or even a month, but our journey starts in earnest tomorrow.
Yes, we are leaving, but we will remain connected, my friends. We will be physically connected by the same great river. We will be connected, I hope, through our mutual travails and suffering, through our mutual history, our mutual desire for peace and goodwill, and our mutual hope to make this world a better place, each in our own way.
Now, as you may know, my followers and I have fought beside you against a common enemy. We have toiled beside you these past years, to build this community. Our blood and our sweat and our tears have run together, we have lived and died together. Despite our differences, despite our disputes. We are part-owners, we are partners, I would like to believe, in everything we have achieved here. In that spirit of cooperation and co-ownership, I am calling on you today to grant us our due. Nothing more than our due. We only ask for our share. Our share in the food stores, the seed banks, the herds, the weapons and ammunition, the fuel, the agricultural equipment and the know-how. We ask your support in the months and years ahead, as you have received our support in the years past.
In exchange, of course, you will always be able to count on our loyalty, our friendship and our support, whatever the future holds.
In conclusion, I want to extend my most heartfelt gratitude to you, Mr President, for your wise leadership and counsel. Thank you for dreaming of a better world, and a fine community. Thank you for starting it, and leading it. Thank you, too, to our friends and colleagues in the Cabinet, and to every person who will remain in Amanzi. Thank you for sharing our journey so far. Thank you for your love and generosity. And most of all, thank you for understanding that we now seek the right to govern ourselves with God as our President.
Nero Dlamini
And there we sat, absolutely stunned. I mean, looking back, you could see all the little clues and signs, we ought to have seen it coming, I suppose. But I always sort of thought his references to a new dawn and the night being darkest before this new dawn were, you know, religious.
So, astonished silence. Which was aw
kward, because he delivered his speech like a fire-and-brimstone sermon, all dramatic and magnanimous, ending on this high note, so you instinctively felt there should be applause or an amen, brother, or a hallelujah, praise Jesus, or something, but we just sat there. And he waited expectantly . . .
So finally, dear old Sarge X, our Minister of Safety and Security, he says, ‘But Pastor, Gariep, how are you going to defend Gariep?’
And Nkosi says, ‘Please, Sizwe, it is now called New Jerusalem.’ Like, he is totally into this whole new name thing, as if that is going to protect the place by itself. But I think it was an effort to deflect the question.
But then everybody piped up at once. Birdy says but that’s a fair question, and I say but surely, if you’re going to lead your people to this place, you must have given thought to how you are going to defend it. It’s your responsibility. And Ravi, and Beryl, and Nandi Mahlangu’s daughter, Qedani, and Frostie, that’s Abraham Frost, our engineer and Minister of Public Works, they all chip in, and take him on.
Nkosi gets really flippant, he says, ‘Defend it against what? We’ve won the war haven’t we?’
Then President Willem Storm stands up.
Cabinet meeting, 24 March
President Willem Storm: Mr Minister of Internal Affairs Pastor Sebego, thank you for your kind comments about me. And thank you for your candour.
As I’m sure you could deduce from the stunned silence, your announcement took us all by surprise. I knew we had our differences, but I never thought you viewed them as so insurmountable that you would choose to leave Amanzi.
I’m not sure that it will make any difference, but it is my desire and my duty to at least try to persuade you not to go ahead with this. I can list all the obvious benefits of our strength in unity, and of a single republic; from economic and military, to technological and social. But I’m sure you are aware of it all, and have considered every implication of secession. So allow me to plead with you, not from the head, but from the heart.
This country, before the Fever, was one of perpetual separation. We have always been divided, and in our separation we were always at odds with one another. Among so many things, we were separated by tribe and clan, by colour and race, by legislation and religion, by language and culture, by our divergent economic realities and by our ideologies. And the more we argued and fought about the differences, the more we focused on them, the more they divided us.
Today, I want to ask you to help this community, this Republic of Amanzi, to change all that. Of course, we are not all the same. Of course, there are so many things that could divide us, if we allow them to. If we focus on them alone. But, please, take a look at all the things that unite us. We all passionately believe in freedom and democracy. We all believe in human dignity, in basic human rights. We all want to live in peace and prosperity. And our children . . .
That man sitting over there, our honourable Minister of Health Nero Dlamini, came here four years ago, on a bicycle. He tells the story of his journey, and his reasons for coming, with so much self-deprecation, wit and charm. But I always believed there was more to it. Therefore, a few months after his arrival, we sat in the Orphanage lounge and I asked him, ‘Nero, what was the real reason for coming?’
And then he told me about John Bowlby, the British psychologist. Such a fascinating man, who did incredible research. But the bottom line was, Bowlby worked with war orphans after the Second World War. And he soon realised that the absence of good fathers, the absence of the fabric of caring families, had a huge and negative impact on people. And eventually on societies, I think. Nero told me that he thought that was the biggest problem in South Africa before the Fever. The damage done to the fabric of family in the disadvantaged communities was so great that society just wasn’t able to recover. And that’s why Nero took his bicycle, and rode it from Johannesburg to Amanzi. Because he wanted to make sure the children of this community, the children after the Fever, did not suffer the same fate.
Pastor, Mr Minister, surely this is something that unites us. This wish, this passion to create a singular, loving family for all our children?
Please, sir, reconsider. Please, I beg of you today. Don’t go.
Nero Dlamini
And you know what Nkosi’s reaction was?
He sat there, and he just shook his head, and said, ‘No.’
Chapter 87
March: II
Nero Dlamini
So Willem Storm called an emergency meeting of the Cabinet, the very next day. We took our seats, and the door opened, Domingo shuffled in. He was limping, that hip was pretty badly shot up, though we tried our best to fix it, but our knowledge and our resources were limited. Anyway, everybody was just so happy and relieved that he survived, he was our saviour, really. Everybody except the pastor, of course. So Domingo walked in without a cane, without anybody helping him, and we all stood up, we gave him a big round of applause. And he went and sat right across the table from Nkosi.
Our President said, very formal and dignified, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome our military leader Captain Domingo to this meeting. We have called on him many times before, for his help, expert opinion, for his support. Today, he has risen from his hospital bed against medical advice, and has asked to be a part of this special Cabinet meeting. May I assume that this is in order with everybody?
Of course we all said yes. Even Nkosi. After that applause, he really had no choice. And then Domingo turned those eyes of his on the pastor. You know, that Domingo look that scares the living daylights out of you.
Cabinet meeting, 25 March
Captain Domingo: Nkosi, on 5 January, when you conceded election defeat in the Forum, you told your people: ‘Don’t worry. The night is darkest before the dawn.’ Can you remember that?
Pastor Nkosi Sebego, Minister of Internal Affairs: A little respect for this Cabinet and what I represent might be in order, Captain. Please address me as Mr Minister.
Domingo: Can you remember what you said on 5 January?
Nkosi: I certainly can.
Domingo: Can you remember the emergency meeting on 3 February, after we intercepted the ham radio conversation?
Nkosi: I . . . What is this about, Mr President?
President Storm: May I ask you to indulge us, Mr Minister, and answer Domingo’s questions?
Nkosi: I will not be part of an inquisition. I will especially not be the victim of such a process.
President Storm: Mr Minister, we have tasked Captain Domingo with the responsibility of keeping this community safe. Part of that process, part of his job, is to ask strategic and sometimes difficult questions. This is not only about the security of Amanzi, it is also about the future of New Jerusalem. It would be wonderful if we could start out as neighbours who trust each other . . .
Nkosi: Mr President, you are manipulating me . . .
President Storm: No, please. We are asking for your cooperation. That is all.
Nkosi: Go ahead, Captain. Do your damnedest.
Domingo: Can you remember the 3 February meeting about the radio conversation?
Nkosi: Yes.
Domingo: Do you remember that you were very much in favour of Special Ops going to Maseru?
Nkosi: I thought we should go, yes. So did Ravi . . .
Domingo: And would you agree that the radio message was a trap? A diversion? A way to get our soldiers out of Amanzi?
Nkosi: Are you saying that I . . . This is an insult!
Domingo: Sit down, Pastor, I’m not saying anything. Yet.
Nkosi: I am done here.
Domingo: You want me to give you rifles and ammo, don’t you? For your new city.
Nkosi: We demand what is ours. Our share. And this Cabinet will not deny us.
Domingo: If you want your share, you have to answer my questions.
Nkosi: You don’t have the authority to withhold what is rightfully ours.
Domingo: You’re right. I don’t have the authority. But I have something tha
t is much better. I have some exclusive knowledge. You see, two years ago, the old Committee withheld permission to move a large part of our arsenal to a secret location. Problem is, I don’t trust anybody. So, let me make a confession, Pastor: I was a naughty boy. I was very disobedient. I went and moved 80 per cent of that arsenal anyway. Nobody in this Cabinet today knows where it’s stashed. If you want weapons, you’ll have to get my cooperation first. And if you want my cooperation, you have to answer my questions. Or do you have something to hide, Pastor?
President Storm: Domingo, this was never part of our . . . This is blackmail.
Domingo: Only if he has something to hide.
Nkosi: I have absolutely nothing to hide.
Domingo: Then answer the questions.
Nkosi: Do you think I’m stupid? I can see where you are going with this.
Domingo: Where am I going?
Nkosi: I know you suspect that there were spies in Amanzi . . .
Domingo: Suspect? No, Pastor. After Matthew Mbalo’s murder, I was suspicious. After we found that rubber duck on the opposite shore, I was suspicious. But now, I’m absolutely sure there were spies in Amanzi. Let me tell you why. One: because they attacked just when most of our people were harvesting all along the river, in the irrigation fields, and sleeping outside our walls. Two: because they attacked through the canyon, specifically. Three: because of the way they attacked through the canyon; with overwhelming numbers and force, all of it aimed at only that soft underbelly. Because our main gate is almost impenetrable. Four: they attacked only once I took my teams away to chase the Hopetown attackers. There’s absolutely no way an outsider, with no knowledge of our defences, can get that lucky. Five: what finally convinced me, was when we started interrogating our prisoners of war. They told me the attack was not about our food reserves, or our women. Although they did say they would have kidnapped them if they had the chance. The attack was about guns and ammo. They say Number One was aware of the fact that the De Aar weapons depot was stripped, and that we did the stripping. They say Number One knew we had all the weapons and ammo, and that we kept the bulk of them in the old nature reserve store. They did not want to get into Amanzi, Pastor, they only wanted to get as far as the warehouse. Because those are the most precious commodities out there at the moment: guns and ammo. The question remains, how did they know about the nature reserve warehouse? Only a few of my security team people knew, and the members of the old Committee knew. That’s why I am so sure we have spies in our midst.