“They’re making contact again with a second group of terrs!”
We were ready to mount up, so this time we all stood around the radio and listened. The voice was now calmly directing the gunships to the positions, telling them they should look for the red smoke and to watch out, because our troops were almost hand to hand with the terrs who were making a stand.
“A second contact… fucking hell, way to go!”
I could not contain my excitement and was now really pissed off that I had not been with the other group. Well, at least our platoon got to have the first contact out of both H and D companies. We listened silently and intently for about five minutes to what sounded like some fierce fighting and then, by the sound of the communication, it died down as the gunships picked off fleeing SWAPO. We sullenly boarded the Buffels and headed slowly back into the cut-line to continue our fruitless patrol.
It was getting late in the afternoon and the lieutenant, sensing our frustration at days of riding around in a dead area, called a halt as we came across a herd of black and brown cattle lazily grazing not quite in the forbidden green grass of the cut-line. He shouldered his South West African-issue G3 7.62-millimetre rifle, took a slow aim and loosed a shot that shattered the stillness and collapsed a young bull to his knees in the long grass, 150 metres away.
The black 101 troops whooped and yelled in excitement and anticipation of fresh meat. They jumped off the Buffel and ran to the young bull that was still in his death throes. The usually surly lieutenant grinned like a schoolboy and quickly told us all to say nothing. His action would be safe with us.
The gunshot was a release for everyone’s energy. We were thankful for the change in activity and watched as the 101 troops expertly and quickly skinned and gutted the young bull. They happily chatted with each other as they cut prime slabs of meat from the loins, neck and rump and fought over the liver and kidneys. They hooted with laughter when the lieutenant, who was a white South West African, told them in fluent Owambo not to forget that we also wanted some good pieces.
They danced a jig which I took as the ‘fresh meat’ jig and rolled the skinless carcass off the hide and onto the grass for the hyenas and jackals. Then they piled the heaps of cut meat into the soft hide of the bull and wrapped it closed in a neat bundle, which we hoisted onto the Buffel. The rest of the herd of cattle had gathered around and stood and watched us dumbly. As we rode off they slowly assembled around their fallen comrade, but bolted when they got too close and caught the smell of his slaughter.
We would also have a celebration tonight. We rode off in the direction of Charlie water tower about 20 clicks away, close to Oom Willie se Pad. Charlie water tower was a big concrete water reservoir that was enclosed by a high fence. It had a small, constant guard of infantry who lived in tents behind a mountain of sandbags with twin MAGs pointing out from behind a tall watchtower.
The sun was dipping behind the thorn trees when we pulled into the area. It had once been a small border post but now only the big reservoir stood surrounded by a dozen empty and broken-down small buildings. Old political slogans in Portuguese were faded and barely visible on the crumbling walls that were riddled with hundreds of bullet holes.
That night, safe in the compound, we lit big fires and feasted on fresh steak which we shared with the infantry who were happy to have some company and fresh meat. They told us that there had been no action in this area for many months and confirmed that the new infiltration point was farther east in the thick bush. We casually bragged about our company who had made two contacts that afternoon. They were impressed and we put on our ‘paratrooper bush fighter’ act, even though all we had shot was a poor young bull who had been grazing away peacefully.
At dawn the following morning we received a radio dispatch to join the rest of the platoon as soon as we could at Oshikango, a base camp that was smack in the middle of the dense, high-treed bush close to where the previous day’s contacts had been made. We wasted no time and loaded the Buffels, bade our infantry buddies goodbye and headed east, shivering in the chilly dawn. We reached Oshikango that afternoon. Kevin Green and John Delaney were sitting with the others in the shade of their Buffels on the far side of the camp. They could not stop talking about the contact. They quickly took Stan and I over to the chopper pad, where they gleefully pointed out 13 green body bags that lay propped up against the sand embankment. Kevin unceremoniously unzipped the first bag a few centimetres and revealed a two-day-dead, grey-faced SWAPO who had had his half his jaw shot away, the corpse now crawling with maggots. John had his wide-eyed John Travolta look and took over the story.
“Lieutenant Doep and I were running dog with some Koevoet on the spoor of about 30 terrs. We had been on them the whole morning; fresh spoor. All of a sudden, as we come out of a chana and cross a muhangu field, boom! boom! Fucking RPGs just over our heads; just miss the vehicles behind us.” John bopped up and down, as was his fashion. “All fucking hell breaks loose. We hit the dirt and I start shooting fast as I can pull the trigger. Couldn’t see what I was shooting at.”
John Delaney put his arm up and moved his finger as if he was shooting in rapid fire and keeping his head down.
Kevin took over. “Yeah the moment they started shooting the Koevoet charged the ambush with their Casspirs and we followed them. We crashed right into their ambush positions and were right in on top of them and shooting down at them. Bardie, the driver, rode right over one guy laying on the ground with an RPD machine gun.” He demonstrated how the unfortunate terr had curled up and died under the huge tyres of the Buffel.
John Delaney was now hopping and dancing, his blue eyes wide with excitement as he took up the story. “Soon as the Buffels rushed past us into the ambush, we went in after them and were the only ones on the ground. This terr turns around and makes a run for it through our Buffels and runs straight into us. All of us open up on him from ten metres. He had no chance!”
They described how, 20 minutes later, while giving chase to the surviving terrs who had bombshelled from the failed ambush, they ran into a group of 20 terrs on the run, heading for thick bush, who stopped to make a fight of it when they saw that they were trapped. Because of the terrain our troops had to disembark and were almost hand-to-hand combat, shooting from ten metres apart, and less. Point-blank stuff.
“They stood to fight,” John repeated uncharacteristically, looking solemnly down at the dead terr’s grey face who, despite his missing chin, looked relaxed in death and almost at peace. Then, back again to the John we knew as he grinned broadly: “You should have seen them dance when those gunship cannons ripped them up!”
That night we had a small party, with free access to the infantry pub and Castle lager. We sat in the recreational area and hooted with laughter at the ten-year-old black piccanin who was mimicking South African troops shooting SWAPO. He would charge into an imaginary contact, taking giant steps and look from side to side with his eyes bulging wide. When he spotted his enemy he would stop suddenly, hunch over and creep up on them and then jump up, pointing and shouting loudly, “Hey… hey!” Chasing his enemy he would close one eye, cock his head to the side and shoot a volley of shots from his outstretched finger. He would then become the dying SWAPO, push his tongue out and roll his eyes in his head and collapse in a heap. He wore a brown army shirt that had been cut to size, sleeves rolled up and old worn—but clean—grey flannel school shorts. His parents, as well as almost everybody in his small village, had been cold-bloodedly gunned down in front of his eyes by a SWAPO patrol which had wandered into the kraal. He had been adopted by infantry and had been living in the camp ever since, doing small chores for his keep. He had a wide, mischievous face that would light up with a big grin, but a scowl would cross his young brow when we asked him about SWAPO.