The gunships’ big 20-millimetre cannons opened up, like music to our ears. The second gunship was orbiting and shooting almost behind us to our left, where the other fire fight had taken place. We charged forward toward the fight in front of us, into bush and trees. I flipped over my magazine before it was empty, paranoid about the empty ‘click’ of two days before in the ambush. A terr dashed from cover 30 metres in front of us like a bat out of hell, tearing across our field of fire with long strides. He seemed to have forgotten about us while making a break from the gunship whose blades hammered and guns boomed all about him. He stumbled and fell as nine rifles opened up on him almost simultaneously.
I saw a huge white explosion that looked like one of Horn’s RPG-7s going off in some trees. It had become a running battle and we had to dive for cover a few more times as we took fire and moved away from the gunship, which seemed to be having its own party. We ran farther into the trees, alive with figures dashing about like rabbits, but still stopping to take occasional potshots. The running fire fight had been going on now for about five minutes. I reached a mound and a thicket and was breathing hard, with sweat stinging my eyes, making it almost impossible to see. I had become the end troop at the far right of the sweep line and had strayed a bit on my own. (It was a position I had grown accustomed to from the days when I’d carried the MAG. I usually sought it as it gave me opportunity to flank around the side if the shit hit the fan.) I searched the trees ahead of me as best I could but saw nothing.
For the last couple of minutes I had been fighting back a retching, tightening sensation in my chest. Now it was building into dry heaves. This time, too powerful to control, I bent over as my stomach and chest convulsed in a spasm. My chest had closed up completely and long globs of saliva drooled from my mouth as I retched and heaved and my eyes filled with water and sweat.
What the fuck’s going on?
I was bent over, paralyzed by convulsions. I had always had trouble with my lungs and on and off for years had been plagued with these dry convulsions that sometimes came on if I suddenly overexerted myself. I blamed it on too many cigarettes and smoking pot. I could not believe it was nailing me in the middle of a fucking fire fight. I stood bent, fighting for control for what must have been a minute but seemed like an age, trying to get my vision and breath.
In the middle of a heave I heard “Gungie! Gungie!”
Voices on my left were shouting my nickname in a tone that meant unmistakable and imminent danger! Blindly, with my mouth still open and holding my rifle at my hip, dripping with puke and saliva, I shot seven or eight rapid shots in a half circle in front of me. A dozen bullets cracked past me, so close I could feel them. When my eyes cleared I could just make out a terr rolling over, dead, not more than six metres away from my right, his head coming to rest on his outstretched arm and his old, worn AK-47 lying untidily next to him.
“Jy moet wakker word, Gungie… hy het jou amper uitgevat!”{Wake up, Gungie… he almost took you out! (Afrikaans)} Paul Greef shouted, pointing to the figure lying in camo on the ground in front of me. Paul’s eyes were wide. John Glover, a few yards past Paul, was also glaring at me, his eyes ablaze with reprimand. He shook his head at me, a small white cloud of smoke still hanging above him.
I could not explain to them what had happened. I stared foolishly at them, blinking my eyes which were now clearing of tears and sweat. We carried on into the trees but I hung back, still recovering from my attack and trying to calm the occasional spasm that racked my chest.
“These are FAPLA! Not SWAPO! Can’t you see?”
We had slowly returned to the open chana and were still sweating and catching our breath while we dragged seven or so dead bodies in camouflage uniform and laid them in a row close to the tree line, leaving the ones that the gunships had got deeper in the bush. SWAPO had a khaki or tiger stripe uniform—not camo! It was obvious now that no one had even noticed the different uniform in the fire fight.
The one gunship landed on the chana and the blades swung lazily in idle as the flight crew in their green coveralls came over to inspect the kills. They confirmed that these were indeed FAPLA soldiers.
We stood around looking at the seven camouflaged bodies lying in a row. It didn’t make much difference to us that they were FAPLA. No consequences really sank in because we were still high on adrenaline from the contact.
FAPLA, SWAPO… same thing, I thought, They’ve got uniforms and they’ve got AKs.
The pilot, an older, beefy man with thinning hair and a walrus moustache, took off his helmet off, indicating the bodies. “This is a fuck-up of note… we knew as we flew over you, but it was too late. You guys were already into them. There’s a FAPLA base camp, complete with BTRs and tanks about ten clicks north of here. This is probably some sort of OP that you hit. I don’t know… but I think you better get the hell out of here very quickly before they come running down here after you… in battalion strength. What are you doing so far north, anyway?”
The lieutenant quickly told him about the old man we had shanghaied who had said that there were SWAPO close by and about the radio that was not working properly.
“Well, he led you right into a hornet’s nest, lieutenant. You had better get your troops out of here… and quickly. This might start a fucking war. We don’t have a beef with FAPLA at this time and they sure aren’t going to appreciate us killing half a platoon of their finest.”
It still did not fully sink in. We stood around, had a smoke and took some photographs. I posed like a deer hunter with my rifle, kneeling in front of the nine dead FAPLA, my bush cap pushed high on my head.
Lieutenant Doep told the chopper crew to let Commandant Lindsay know what had happened, that we were having radio trouble and were heading south right away at stink spoed, at high speed. They agreed and turbines whined as they took off, blowing a small hurricane of dust down the chana that covered us and the dead FAPLA cadres.
“We have to move out of here and fast. We shot the wrong people. These are FAPLA… kit up and let’s go!” Doep spoke in an almost panicky voice that could not hide his concern.
We had all heard bits of the conversation and needed no second urging. We kitted up and took off in single file, heading immediately south into bush across the way that we had come, leaving the nine dead FAPLA lying on the far side of the chana.
“Put on a draffie, a trot,” Doep shouted. “Do anti-tracking!”
The black tracker ran last, trying to do a quick job of clearing out our spoor with a branch of leaves but he wasn’t having much success. We switched to a slow run that was too taxing to maintain with our full kit. We were still exhausted from the running battle we had just fought and soon slowed to a fast, purposeful walk, crashing through the bush in single file.
The sun was dipping into the trees, casting long welcome shadows when the reality of our position struck me as Valk 4 crashed hastily south.
FAPLA was regular army, not some SWAPO terrorist outfit with only AKs and RPG-7s. These guys had big Soviet-built T-55 tanks and BTR armoured troop carriers with mounted 14.5-millimetre guns. There was probably a battalion of them heading our way right this fucking minute!