We moved farther into the shadows, all 16 of us now in the black shadows of the trees.
“Where are they?”
We spread out now, creeping like killers through the shadows, rifles pointed at weird angles as we did the duck-walk thing, trying to shrink as low as possible, but still walking and ready. Nothing! They’re gone! It is a fucking ambush! Why don’t they fire?
I stood still in my crouched duck-walk position with my rifle tight in my shoulder, straining my eyes, staring into the shadows and willing my eyes to pick up any human form sleeping or hiding in the dark. I was holding my breath to hear better and to pick up any tell-tale sound that would save my life and make me quicker than him, the enemy. Up to now we had crept in on the soft sand, as still as death, and so they might still be soundly sleeping right under our noses. Seconds went by, then minutes, and still no bullets cracked. I breathed deeper again. After a couple more minutes of moving through the dark thicket and finding more bedding and more glowing embers it became clear that our terrs were not here—they had flown the coop. We had now passed through about 30 metres of their deserted base.
We looked at each other. Lieutenant Doep signalled with his hand for us to go forward to the next tree line and then get down and wait. John Fox and I sank quietly down next to each other. I was suddenly very cold and tired; I had a flash of feeling human again. I shoved my rifle disappointedly into the sand next to me and wrapped my arms around myself in an effort to keep warm from the cold, pre-dawn chill that was blowing in pretty strong and cutting through my thin shirt.
No one paratrooper made a sound. No one said “Aw fuck… we walked 20 clicks and missed them!” No one said “Aww… another fucking lemon!”
We lay just as quiet as we had crept in and waited for the sun to rise so that we could go back and get some hot coffee. The sky was just starting to get a blue tinge as the dawn started to creep in. Suddenly out of the darkness there came a short burst of laughter about 30 metres to our left. Then the sound of a can being kicked and a longer bout of laughter. John and I looked at each other wide-eyed and pointed in unison. All 16 of us had heard the laugh and we all rose as one man. I picked up the rifle that I had carelessly thrown down and shook the sand off it. Without instructions we moved forward as one, our eyes trained in the direction of the sound, moving quiet as assassins through the trees—each man on his own, yet together. The thicket of bush we were in came to an end after about 15 metres where there was a natural rise in the ground. Behind this mound was a small, flat chana and right there, right at the end of the chana, under a few trees not more than 30 metres in front of us, was SWAPO. They had lit a small fire and were joking with each other. I could make out about five figures under the tree. No, six or seven.
A couple of dark figures moved around calisthenically, maybe trying to keep warm, while others were joking and concentrating on the fire. All 16 of us Parabats crept to the edge of the mound at the tree line. It could not have been a more perfect ambush if it had come out of the army textbook from Pretoria. We lay with our rifles trained on the scene unfolding in front of us, not believing our luck. No one had said a word. John Glover was to my right. Horn with his RPG-7 was on my left. We lay for maybe ten minutes, maybe twenty. We watched as three more terrs came walking in down a path and joined them. It was almost light enough now to see details. Four or five of them sat around the now-blazing fire. I could smell porridge cooking. Their AKs were leaning against the tree behind them. Two now had a bicycle turned over on its handle bars and were fixing the chain. A group stood on the opposite side of the fire. I traversed my sights from figure to figure a dozen times, unable to settle on a target. I then decided it was between the group standing behind the fire rubbing their hands together and the man sitting at the fire cooking, with his back to me.
They were all bathed in the light blue-pink of the dawn. I had just changed my sights and had them trained on the two standing by the fire when Horn, next to me, with an almighty bang let loose with an RPG-7 rocket that exploded in a blinding white light right smack-bang into the cooking fire. With a deafening noise, all 16 of us opened up simultaneously. Instantly the breakfast party was covered in a cloud of smoke and dust. I was up on one knee. I shot as fast as my finger could pull the trigger, got a jam with a double-feed and cleared it, shooting into the sand a foot from my boot, and kept on shooting. I thought I was empty, flipped the magazine over and put in the one taped to it, pulled back the bolt and kept on shooting. I could hardly see through the cloud of smoke. Hot, ejected shells were hitting me in the face and leaves showered down on us.
“Are they shooting back?” I heard a shout as everybody stood up and charged across the chana through the thick clouds of dust and smoke into the killing zone. The three at the fire lay dead where they sat, killed by the RPG-7 or the dozens of bullets that had ripped through them. A terrorist in camo was lying on his belly a metre or two to my right, trying to get up. He looked for all the world as though he was doing a push-up. I shot him high, between the shoulder blades and he collapsed on his face, dead. On the other side of the fire a SWAPO sat on his backside motionless and dazed, like a bear sitting in a pool at the zoo. John Glover shot him through the head from a metre and a half as he too fell forward on his face. John, in an amazing combination of good soldiering and looting, scooped up the unfortunate SWAPO’s peaked camo cap and tossed it at me. I snatched it in mid-air feeling a messy goo still on the cap. I stuffed it into my pocket. All this was done in seconds.
John and I, almost choking on the dust and smoke, moved quickly to our immediate right into clearer air. Most of the Parabats had moved left looking for stragglers, or had stayed in the killing zone. John and I seemed alone. We moved fast and purposefully, rifles in our shoulders. About 20 metres away from the fire we came upon a SWAPO in camo uniform lying on his back with a gaping, bloody bullet wound through his throat. Critically wounded, he had managed to run a short distance from the kill zone but had collapsed just as we reached him. Somehow his torso was still raised off the ground and on his chest was something I had heard about but had not believed. His fist was clenched in a defiant ‘fuck you’ sign, his thumb between his fore and middle fingers.
I stopped, pulled my rifle into my shoulder, held my breath, aimed and fired twice. The first one missed and I saw the dust jump just under him, spraying him with sand but the second hit him somewhere low and he faltered, but amazingly still managing to keep his upper body raised, propped up on his elbows. I ran forward and stopped about five metres from him, took a wide stance, aimed at his head and pulled the trigger.
Click! Click, Click!
My mind froze. Empty.
I pulled at the Fireforce vest I had on, but it had become twisted around me and I would have had to use both hands to get at another magazine that was now twisted under my armpit. The terr turned and looked at me. I froze for a split second and, seemingly in slow motion, I thought of the knife at my side that I had discarded days before because it had been chafing me. Then, sensing that John was close by, I shouted. It all seemed in slow motion but was actually happening in seconds
“Johnny!” I barked out urgently. I looked quickly to see John Glover bursting from some bush to my right, his bright blue eyes locked on the wounded terrorist like a serpent. He flung the US-designed M79 ‘snot ball’ grenade launcher that he had in his hand over his shoulder, pulled his R4 off the other and slammed it into his shoulder as he walked in small, quick steps up to me and the terr. The SWAPO, still supporting his upper body with his arms, turned his head and looked at John for a moment. Knowing his fate, he let out a long, low moan that sounded like he was calling out someone’s name. It sounded like ‘Ma’.