We watched the front troops get out and walk around, looking at the ground. They seemed to be chattering excitedly, so after a few minutes we also hopped down and walked over to see what was going on. In front of the Buffel’s front tyres was a patch of churned-up sand about a metre and a half wide and about 20 centimetres deep. I didn’t understand what it was for a while, until I saw a lone, clear, chevron-shaped boot spoor on the side of the path… and then another… and another. This was a huge fucking terr spoor! There must be hundreds of them!
“SWAPO!” said the black tracker, chewing a green stick to clean his teeth. “Indji! Many!”
Lieutenant Doep was on the radio. His voice crackled with excitement as he reported that we were on the spoor of somewhere between 100 and 150 SWAPO, walking in single file. The tracker with the stick said that it was about a day old; he indicated happily that we must start to run on it fast and leave immediately. I bent down to inspect the trail. There were so many walking in single file that they had actually ploughed a small furrow in the soft Owamboland sand. It looked like a giant snake winding through the bush. The only trouble was that it was heading north, back to Angola.
“They’ve already been in here for weeks—probably planted hundreds of mines. They regrouped and they’re high-tailing it back to Angola,” John said, looking down at the thick snake.
Everyone spoke slowly and softly as if in a dream. I ran my fingers through the sand that was riven by hundreds of SWAPO boots and felt a strange feeling run through me. For a long time SWAPO hadn’t really meant much more than situation reports in the morning and elusive ghosts in the bush, the only sign of their presence being the bent and burned-out wreckage of a vehicle that had fallen victim to a ‘double cheese’ landmine or a murdered village headman. Now we were starting to see them and no ghost left a spoor this wide!
These fuckers were heading for Angola—we would have to move fast to get them. I tried to imagine 150 SWAPO walking in single file, all wearing tiger stripes, carrying AK-47s and RPG rocket launchers. Fuck! We wouldn’t be able to handle them!
I felt a twinge of panic but quickly relaxed when I realized that we would surely get some aerial support on such a clear spoor. I looked around. The one black tracker was stealing the show, so happy to find the spoor that he was smiling and lying on the spoor, making as if he was fucking it. Our troops laughed. He was beside himself and got up and danced a jig on the spoor. We would joke about this display of glee for a long time to come.
Then, without warning, as if the bush gods were looking down on the hundreds of SWAPO fleeing back to safety across the border, the grey clouds that had been building for a week finally opened up, first a drizzle patting down on the leaves and then a soft, steady rain that came falling through the trees. It was the first fall of the rainy season and SWAPO’s most active time of the year.
“We’re on our own… let’s chase it.” Lieutenant Doep came from the radio. He had a deep frown on his brow and seemed pissed off.
He chose the front Buffel to run dog, with two men on the ground. One man to run looking down and staying next to the spoor; the second running behind him looking ahead into the bush, with the support Buffel keeping up behind. Many times the vehicles would get hung up in bush and the guys running dog would find themselves far ahead of the support vehicles. The running dogs always ran the risk of an ambush, or a POMZ anti-personnel mine laid on or next to the spoor, or an anti-tank ‘cheese’ mine laid on a likely vehicle route next to the spoor… or all three at the same time. All of us being around 20 and gung-ho, these seemed like minor details. We whooped like hunting dogs as our Buffels turned onto the spoor and crashed through the undergrowth, following the thick snake that wound silently through the bush, heading steadily north. We were in the rear Buffel, so for the time being did not have to run. We just sat strapped in, bouncing in our seats, trying to keep dry by covering ourselves with our plastic liners. Every time we bumped or clipped a tree, water would come pouring down on us from the wet foliage.
There were only a couple of hours of daylight left. I sat, quite content, under my plastic liner and opened a can of corned beef that I ate cold and then mixed up one of my powdered milkshakes with water and condensed milk. This was it. What more did I need? I was driving in a vehicle, not walking, dry, I had food and a milkshake and cigarettes and was driving on the biggest terr spoor in fucking history. My needs had become very simple in the last couple of months. Shit, you don’t need all that bullshit back in Civvy Street. The army takes good care of you; you don’t even need to think.
My brief spell of contentment was broken by a flutter of panic. Lieutenant Doep had said that we were on our own. Did that mean no support? We were not much more than a platoon; the enemy had more than a company, maybe two. It didn’t make sense.
“Hey… you think we’ll catch them before they go over?”
John Delaney, who had become the Buffel’s new bush expert, paused and looked around thoughtfully before answering. “Ja, I dunno. They don’t seem to be headed directly north. Maybe they want to hook up with another group before they cross back into Angola.”
We had about an hour left until sundown, made premature by the low ominous clouds that had enveloped the world. Just before the light faded, Lieutenant Doep called a halt to the chase and we built lean-tos around the Buffels with our plastic liners and settled down. It was a long, cold, miserable wet night. Then, to top it all, early in the morning the heavens opened with a bombardment of thunder, sheet lightning and an hour of driving rain that rendered our lean-tos useless, sending us scurrying under the Buffels, wrapped in our plastic liners, shivering and waiting for daylight.
First light revealed a miserable grey, overcast dawn. We packed up and a scowling Lieutenant Doep put our Buffel second in the chase. We set off on the spoor in the dawn light, our teeth chattering from the cold and wet. The night’s rain had destroyed much of the spoor but the deep furrow remained—smudged but clear—winding like a snake in and out of thickets, through muhangu fields and straight across long open chanas. These terrs weren’t worrying about trying to hide. They were pushing hard and probably felt they were home and dry, almost back in Angola. We found dozens of large blue and white cans of sardines and a sort of corned beef discarded next to the spoor with ‘Product of Denmark’ on the labels. We also found a number of broken glass vials scattered around the spoor.
“Hey, look at this! They’re shooting it up. That’s why they’re moving so fast!” I picked up one of the smoky brown vials, sniffed at it and looked to see if there was a lable on it. There wasn’t.
We had been told that SWAPO would sometimes inject themselves with adrenaline when on long speed-marches or hot pursuits and were capable of covering incredible distances. I had thought that half the things we had heard were bullshit but here was the proof right before my eyes. These guys were probably as high as kites and moving at twice the speed of normal marching men. By mid-morning the sun had broken through the clouds and we ran shirtless, drenched in sweat. By noon they had started to bombshell.
Here and there a group of ten or 15 would break off on their own, disappear into thick bush, then break off again in ones or twos. Somehow they either knew we were on them, or it was just a standard precautionary tactic. This was a proven last-line defence tactic that had saved many a guerrilla’s life in South West Africa, the former Portuguese territories and Rhodesia. After splitting up into ones or twos each man would fend for himself, making his own way, then regroup when they reached their prearranged rendezvous point.