The sixteen of us who had been chosen stood in a circle as the skinny SWAPO turncoat crouched on his haunches and began drawing marks in the dirt. He drew trees by poking his finger into the sand a dozen times and smoothed out the sand with the palm of his hand to indicate a chana. Then he drew short lines in the sand indicating how his comrades slept in a sort of triangle. He talked quickly and with new vigour, sensing his moment of importance to the Boere, all attention fixed on him.
The black tracker from 101 Battalion interpreted equally as quickly in Afrikaans. “This one has the RPG-7 and the other one on this side has an RPD machine gun. This one is an officer. The documents are hidden in the trees all around here… and here.”
“Ask him if they stand watch at night,” snapped Lieutenant Doep at the tracker, who rattled off in Owambo to the skinny figure still crouching, staring up at us with wide eyes.
“He says that they do not stand good watch; they feel safe so far in Angola.”
We were told to eat and get ready to leave by 21:00. We went back to our kit, and John and I cooked up a small meal and brewed some tea. I was getting into the tea habit from John Glover who drank tea avidly, good Englishman that he was. We said little, helping each other completely cover our faces and arms with the ghastly camo grease, until all that could be seen was our eyes; not a speck of our tell-tale white skin could give us away under the almost full moon that would bathe the bush.
Then we tried to catch some sleep before the long walk ahead of us but sleep was elusive and my mind raced through a hundred scenarios. Why a night attack? Why not just surround them, wait until morning and then hit them? How will we see who is who in the dark… might end up shooting ourselves! What if this fucker is leading us into an ambush… sacrificing himself for the cause and there are actually 50 of them waiting for us… or perhaps he could just run for it at the last minute. Has anybody checked out this information of his?
I lay on my back, looking at the bright three-quarter moon that was just breaking over the treetops. It looked clean, clear and friendly; it seemed to have an extra shine this evening. I had always wondered about the moon, ever since I was a child. I was fascinated that every living soul who has walked the earth since the beginning of time had looked up at this very same moon and wondered. This is the very same moon that Jesus Christ looked at. Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte… how many men have lain unable to sleep on the eve of battle and looked at this same moon, wondering if it might be their last night alive? I thought I might write a poem about it one day. I wondered if the moon was going to be our ally tonight and reveal our targets for us, or would she be on the side of the terrorists and betray us?
I told myself to stop thinking such bullshit and to try and get some sleep. After some forced deep breathing I actually dozed for what seemed like a minute, before the rustling of kit woke me and I quickly rose and kitted up.
There were hushed calls of “Good luck” from the others as we moved out in single file, with only water bottles and battle webbing. The moon shone bright as a torch as we picked our way through the quiet bush, handing each branch to the guy behind so as not to cause a rustle.
Presently we got into some lighter brush; we were able to move quite quickly for a few clicks and dashed across the chanas in twos and threes, regrouping on the other side. We passed a couple of dark kraals, the neighbourhood mongrels picking up our faint noise and letting go with a barrage of barking that in this war-torn countryside the locals knew better than to investigate. I was about third or fourth from the front behind Lieutenant Doep. We stopped a couple of times for a rest. Doep inquired through the 101 Battalion interpreter how much farther it was, and the SWAPO would indicate with a hand motion as if to say “Just a little”. We walked and walked and walked, till way past midnight. There were grumbles and hushed curses from behind me, as the slow and careful pace started to take its toll on our energy. A cold midnight chill had set in and we had only our shirts and webbing.
Two hours later Lieutenant Doep, cursing in hushed Afrikaans, grabbed our worthy guide murderously by the throat and slammed him into the dirt, putting his full weight behind his grip. After prising him off, the interpreter said that the SWAPO said he had got lost but that now he knew where he was again and that we were very close.
The line had grown noisy behind. We passed the word down to shut up and that we were close. Suddenly, after about another half an hour, the SWAPO sat down and frantically motioned with his hand just ahead. Doep looked at him viciously but the skinny figure pointed, more precisely now, at a tree line to our front, nodding his head furiously. He whispered something in the interpreter’s ear and the interpreter indicated to Doep that SWAPO were in the trees just ahead.
Doep shoved the skinny traitor aside, indicating that he should ‘fuck off’, then turned to us and pointed to the trees. The moon seemed to blaze like a living thing. It bathed the small open chana between us and the tree line that was our target in a silver light, illuminating it like an open beach. The leaves on the trees of the target 40 metres ahead were bathed in silver—just the shadows under the trees were as black as tar. We grouped together in the shadows at the edge of our trees and looked across. We would have to cross about 40 metres of completely open, moonlit chana to get to the other side. Then we had to enter the black tree line.
My mind thought uncomfortably what a perfect fucking ambush this was. There could be 50 AKs trained on us right now, waiting for us to start across that chana. I pushed the thought aside and replaced it with the now-familiar cold numbness. Let’s get it over with. Let’s just do it.
Doep hurriedly signalled for us to form up in a line and to start moving forward across the chana. No one reacted right away; it all seemed too fast and unplanned. No one had discussed any details or come up with a clever plan; we had just been told that we were going to hit them in a night attack and to take no prisoners. Everything hung on the word of the skinny SWAPO deserter who looked like a cunning bastard to me.
Sixteen of us unenthusiastically formed up into a close line that was more like a group. I was one of the first to start moving across the chana, with John Glover a step behind me, our rifles pressed hard into our shoulders and trained on the shadows of the tree line now 30 metres ahead of us. I just wanted to get it over with, either way. Halfway across the chana our line had become a V, with me at the apex. Not that I was braver in any way, but I was gripped by a strong and single-mindedly emotionless feeling of ‘we have to do this, so let’s get on with it’.
We moved like ghosts. I was now ten metres from the tree line and still expecting a volley of AK-47 bullets to rip through me at any second. When I reached the trees and the shadows I hesitated for a second, surprised that I had made it to the other side. I paused, moved into the shadows and then froze immediately as I saw the soft glow of an almost-burned-out fire just two metres in front of me. I turned to the sweep line that was now in a bunch behind me, held my hand very precisely above my head and pointed up and down in front of me, silently mouthing “They’re here! They’re here!” at the same time.
I moved completely into the shadows, expecting my head to be blown off at any second. My eyes got accustomed to the light and a whole world jumped out at me. There was a dug-out with bedding to my right, with cans of food stacked next to it. Ahead of me were more remains of a fire, whose coals were glowing brightly now, brought back to life by the cold pre-dawn breeze that had suddenly come up. There were racks made from cut branches and what looked like benches made in the same way.