19 With a Bullet (52 page)

“This operation is fucking jinxed. They hit the main SWAPO base and only got 20 kills and a few of ours wounded.”

“Uh huh.”

I sat next to my bivvy and smoked as we watched from a distance. By the fourth day it was beginning to get boring.

“Hey … you guys, kit up!
Valk
4, c’mon, lets go!” The call came for us to move. We piled into the Puma choppers and shot off at high speed, just skimming the treetops. H Company was apparently in trouble and we were going to help them out. When we arrived at the front with the fighting group we hung around some armoured cars and Ratels for an hour, before we were told that we were not needed and that it was a false alarm. We got in the Pumas and flew back to Ionde.

We were deeper in Angola than we had ever been and the bush was very different to what we were used to. Gone were the desert features and scrubby, scattered trees of Owamboland. They had been replaced by sizable tropical koppies and small rocky mountains. The trees were thick, high and green. Beneath us a huge herd of 300 wildebeest scattered and galloped wildly, tossing their heads as our Pumas hammered low over them. I nudged John Delaney sitting next to me and pointed it out to him. It was a sight to see. I thought they looked happy that the noisy choppers had provided a break in the boredom of grazing in paradise. Some of them kicked up their back legs and pranced as they ran.

Back at Ionde we couldn’t believe it when Commandant Lindsay, who was a running buff, made us run up and down the airstrip early one morning.

“He’s fucking crazy, running in the middle of fucking Angola on an operation. He’s carrying this paratrooper thing too far. Just because he’s addicted to running, we have to follow?” Stan was pissed.

“Keeps you in shape, man. What you talking about? You want to be a top-notch paratrooper?”

“Don’t need to run to be a top-notch soldier. You think the German Wehrmacht had time to run on the Eastern Front?”

“No, but they did plenty of running at the end.”

“That’s bullshit ... but anyway, do you think then that the Russians had time to run in the middle of the winter?”

He had a good point.

We sat around smoking, arguing and debating over stupid things. I told Kevin McKee, who had boxed professionally as a club fighter before the army, that I wanted to maybe box seriously when I got out.

“Its a hard game, my
broer
. But you can do it if you get into it. You’ve got to stay focused. It’s like going on a operation—if you let your mind wander for a second you get nailed. It just takes one good punch to change the fight and turn it all around. You think that you’re doing all
lekker
and then,
boom
! You seeing fucking stars and the crowd’s shouting for your blood. It also takes a while to learn to be relaxed in the ring. You got to be relaxed, my
broer
. Your mind should be almost as relaxed in the ring as we are talking to each other now. But if you got a good punch, Gungie, it will help a lot and save you in tight spots.”

I pondered on it. I did have a punch. I could punch with both hands. I also had a cold, dead, unfamiliar anger that had recently come to light. The drizzle had set in and I spent more time lying in my hooch under the body bags. My mind was on Civvy Street which was only six weeks away but seemed like six months. I thought what it would feel like to get back into the real world. Or was this the real world? Which one was reality? This seemed pretty fucking real right here. I wondered if I would be able to hang with all the bullshit things that we used to do and talk about. I thought about the band and wondered if I would be able to get back into music again and sing. Get into a good rock band and hammer out some good hard rock and maybe make an album and play at some top Jo’burg clubs. But it felt as if I had no more music in me, that it had all been hammered out. All the dreams of doing things and flying high. I realized that most of my dreams had disappeared. I toyed with the idea of signing up short-term, even going back and trying for the Recces again. I would probably make the tough selection course now that I knew what to expect. (I spoke to an American SEAL in later years. He said they didn’t even do the long, gruelling selection that we did, although they had a few weeks of nonstop hell that they called ‘Buds’. Even my platoon buddies didn’t believe the shit we had gone through on Recce selection and how far we had walked with next to no food.)

I moped around moodily in my bivvy as the drizzle dripped off the body bags. The clouds had set in. The stink of shit was starting to permeate the area as we had been dug in for eight days now and the little tufts of white toilet paper half buried in the sand were getting closer. The word from the fighting group was that there were many small bases but they were having miss after miss—each time SWAPO slipped out just in time.

It was on one of these gloomy, drizzly days that we flew out, speeding over the treetops for the umpteenth time. We landed in a SWAPO base that had been hit by H Company and looked to have been cleared out. It always looked the same: the trenches cut the earth in between the bush in zigzag patterns and mounds of earth signified the many bunkers that were camouflaged with grass and branches. There had been some fighting but the talk was that they had got only about 15 kills in the whole base which, by the looks of it, seemed to be quite large. We stood under a tree feeling like outsiders and watched. It looked as though it was going to be another lemon but we were thankful for the break in the boredom of sitting as Fireforce at Ionde. We sat and watched the scene. A Buffel had pulled up close by and H Company paratroopers were loading a small mountain of captured SWAPO ammunition. Cases of RPG-7 rockets, landmines, AK ammunition boxes and food. The loaders laughed and worked with confident ease, handing the heavy boxes up into the Buffel. I watched them and smoked.

Derek Wood (aka Woody) was huddled over on top of the Buffel moving a heavy box when an explosion erupted inside the Buffel in a flash of white smoke and flame. He arched from the top of the high Buffel like a Mexican rock diver and landed flat on his back about ten metres away. A stunned silence followed as everyone stood and looked at Woody who was writhing on the ground in pain. Some H Company troops rushed to his aid. A fire had broken out in the Buffel next to him as the flames quickly licked up and reached the kit bags that were strapped to the roll bar. The Buffel, loaded with ammunition, RPGs and landmines burned for a minute, with no one really seeming to comprehend the danger. After a while we all began to edge away from the area and the burning vehicle, whose rear was almost fully engulfed in flame. Suddenly a skinny major leaped in and started the Buffel up. He drove the burning Buffel into an open
chana
100 metres away, calmly jumped out and trotted back. His quick action might or might not have saved some lives but he had unwittingly parked the now blazing and popping vehicle closer to the choppers. It was amusing watching the usually cool and drag-ass helicopter pilots sprinting across the
chana
to get to their choppers which they quickly lifted off out of the brown smoke.

We watched as hundreds of rounds now started popping off and explosions boomed in the blazing Buffel, realizing what a sharp move the major had pulled. I heard later that he was awarded the Honoris Crux, the top South African award for conspicuous bravery, for his action. Hey, if I had been on my toes and not thinking like a
dom troopie
,
I
could have got the Crux. I was right there.

It wasn’t half an hour later and we’d lost interest in the almost burned-out Buffel, when another loud explosion erupted 50 metres away. I turned to see a cloud of smoke and dust billow into the air. No one knew what had happened but we soon got word that a lieutenant had killed himself when he triggered a booby trap in one of the many bunkers in the SWAPO base.

Everyone was ordered not to touch anything and all loading was brought to a halt. We sat and watched as they carried the lieutenant’s body away on a stretcher in a clear body bag, like the one on the roof of my bivvy.

“What a fuck-up.”

“Yes.”

“Can you believe all the shit that has happened in front of our eyes ... just in the last half hour?”

“I know ... it’s been a fuck-up from the start.”

“Man, I’m glad we are Fireforce for this op. These guys have been chasing ghosts for weeks and all they’re doing is fucking themselves up.”

“Ja ... Shit … see that lootie get blown up, hey?”

After another hour of waiting we were told to head back to the choppers, that we would be going back to Ionde. Next to the choppers was a water truck with several dozen taps sticking out of the side. Mindful of the lack of water at Ionde, I took the opportunity for a quick wash. I put down my kit and stuck my head under one and opened it. The water was icecold and ran down my body, wetting my whole shirt. I gasped with surprise at the coldness.

“
Valk
4 and
Valk
3, are you the guys on Fireforce?” a chubby truck driver shouted, looking unsure as he came trotting breathlessly up to us.

“Yeah, we’re Fireforce …”

“You’ve got to get to the choppers right now. They need you.”

Moments later, Lieutenant Doep came running from the group of parked Pumas and Ratels. He was breathless, pulling on his chest webbing.

“
Valk
3 and 4, get kitted up, get your stuff and move to the choppers now. Quick!” His brown eyes darted from man to man urgently.

“Commandant Lindsay has located a group of terrs from the spotter plane.”

We all sprang to life as we heaved on webbing and tugged on jump helmets. I was one of the first to jog after Lieutenant Doep, my helmet bouncing up and down heavily on my head. There was excited activity at the choppers as the two Pumas’ turbines whined loudly and the big blades started to whip round and round till they were a blur. Some captain was waving his finger across a folded map. Lieutenant Doep stood looking on with the tight chinstrap of his jump helmet making his cheeks bulge out like a chipmunk. He nodded his head up and down in agreement while the captain spoke, then snatched the map as the captain made a beeline out of the building dust storm. Doep stuffed the map down the front of his shirt, turned and beckoned us to the choppers. I piled in first and had to move to the back of the chopper as
Valk
4 piled in behind me. My wet shirt was clingy and cold now. It stuck to my skin and I regretted doing the wash thing.

This was going to be no lemon. I could tell already.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Dreamer—Supertramp

The Pumas lifted out of the trees like dragonflies off a pond. We quickly straightened out and headed in goodness-knows-what direction; I hadn’t a clue. I looked out of the small window and watched the treetops flash by below us, almost within arms’ reach. Commandant Lindsay, flying in a spotter plane over the area, had pinpointed a group of 40 or 50 terrs who had escaped the earlier failed attack on the SWAPO base and who were now fleeing through some hilly terrain and making good their escape.

Luckily we had been on the spot and ready to go. Another ten minutes and we might have been on our way back to Ionde. I felt a tinge of apprehension flutter through me. I tried to dredge up the feeling of cold, numb, uncaring resignation that I had come to rely on, but it had become increasingly difficult to conjure up this strange, dead, necessary feeling on this last bush trip.

As had become my habit, I clenched the silver crucifix that hung round my neck in my teeth and bit down on it. It was silver and soft, already well-dented with the tooth marks of many such moments. I said a quick prayer, asking the Lord for safety. Why should He listen to me? I bet that the terrs were praying right now too, as they heard the choppers coming in on them. Who would the good Lord favour? Us or them?

We flew for what seemed no more than two minutes when the Pumas came down on a grassy patch of veld. We jumped from the chopper and ran crouched over through some tall grass flattened by the prop-wash and went down in a defensive circle. The first thing I heard was the loud noise of 20-millimetre cannons from what sounded like two Alouette gunships not more than 100 metres away, but I couldn’t see them. After the Pumas had lifted off and their hammering blades had faded into the distance, the loud silence of the bush took me by surprise again. Just the 20-millimetre fire boomed away. It sounded as though it was pretty earnest and not just speculative fire, which they sometimes used to flush terrs out of the bush. After a minute in the grass we stood up.

“Form up, spread out … let’s move,” Doep pointed in a direction that flanked the sounds of the fire fight.

After two years of training and living together and now as veterans of numerous actions, we formed automatically into our familiar sweep line and slowly picked our way through the scattered bush. First in and last out of the Puma, I was the last man on the right flank of the sweep line, again. To our left was a steep hill with large rocks, probably about three storeys high. The fire fight seemed to be on top of this hill, not much more than 100 metres in front of us.

My helmet kept slipping down over my eyes. I pushed it up. I hated the fucking thing. Why couldn’t we just wear our bush caps? I scanned the bush in front of me. It seemed peaceful except for the Alouette gunships and the hammering of their cannons. I searched through the bush around me. The line moved slowly and straight, wth the last man on the far left of the line walking on the slope of the unusual rocky hillside as we walked parallel to the hill.

Kevin McKee, the small ex-pro boxer with the thick scar that ran from eyebrow to chin (he had run slap-bang into an ambulance during PT course, cutting his face terribly, crying in pain and wailing that now he was going to be even uglier), was to my left, glaring into the bush with his small, beady brown eyes and holding his rifle high to his chest. Kevin Green moved cautiously next to him. Suddenly, up ahead of me, as plain as day, coming out from behind some bush and going into a small clearing, I saw a camouflageclad figure walking casually and carrying a rifle over his shoulder like a hobo carrying a stick. For a second I felt no concern because he was walking so nonchalantly. I thought for sure he must be one of our guys who was in camo for some reason. Either that, or he was Koevoet (the South African Police’s Koevoet also wore camo on the border).