Each man held grimly to his own thoughts as we trudged on. I had taken up near the back of the line. I was still rushing from adrenaline. I had completely recovered from the weird asthma attack. Once again my mind had flipped into some primal one-track high gear and I felt like an animal running on immediate, basic instinct. My mind was clear and sharp with no thought, no clutter, no bullshit. I felt neither fear or courage. I felt an almost animal absence of emotion. I kept turning to look back, expecting to see runners on our trail, but the only thing to be seen was our African tracker (who had now abandoned his efforts at anti-tracking) and Doogy, whose face was contorted and focused as he concentrated on the business of carrying the heavy LMG at such a furious pace.
I noticed by the body language of the troops ahead that the bravado had left them. They hurried along and suddenly looked every bit as young as they were. We had walked south for about 20 minutes when the first 82-millimetre mortar boomed behind us and, after a long minute, another exploded a kilometre or so away to our right. More of them came quickly, exploding loudly in the still dusk, closer and haphazardly around us, but never closer than about 300 metres.
“They don’t know where we are! They’re throwing a circle of mortar bombs and hoping for the best!” I said to myself. The realization struck me with a gush of hope. We pushed on into the fading twilight that enveloped us like a mother’s arms.
And we crashed on.
“Put on some speed!” the word came down the line and we hitched our heavy kit higher on our backs and put our heads down, unconcerned about the thorn trees and dry branches that ripped at our forearms and faces as we plunged forward. The crump of mortars had stopped and started again a couple of times but now, after 30 minutes, they were still and all that could be heard was our boots crunching, heavy breathing and the occasional sick hushed joke that was tossed down the line and quickly followed by a chorus of sssshhhh!
We began to breathe a little more easily as it became clear that they didn’t know exactly where we were and may have even run out of mortar bombs. After about an hour of hard walking we stopped, bumping into each other in the dark.
“Make a TB and dig in,” Lieutenant Doep whispered loudly.
Doep, for some stupid reason, had decided to TB. The ‘herd instinct’ made us dig a tight circle far too close to one another and we sat down wearily. The radio crackled and hissed in the dark as Doep, calmly but desperately, tried again to reach South Africa.
“Tango Lima, Tango Lima, do you read me?” Nothing. Then again: “Tango Lima, Tango Lima, do you read?”
The radio had fucked us again. We quietly handed all our 60-millimetre mortar bombs, of which we were still well stocked, to Kleingeld, who set up his pipe and laid all the bombs neatly in a row next to his hole. I took my two M27 grenades out of my Fireforce vest, stuffed them into my pants pockets and lay on my stomach, staring into the dark and taking stock of the position we were in. I had blown out two magazines at the ambush three days ago and two and a half in this contact. I had one and a half magazines left. That was about 40 rounds and at least half the platoon was in the same boat. If we had any contact now, we would literally run out of ammunition.
Horn had blown away most of his RPG-7 rockets shooting at who-the-fuck-knows-what and now all of a sudden tells us that he has just the one rocket left! I felt the first flutter of real fear. This was a fuck-up of the first order, standing alone as a prince among complete and utter cock-ups! We lay in our holes and listened to Doep trying to make contact on the radio.
“He’s trying to get some choppers to pull us out,” John Glover said, staring quietly into the dark.
“We shouldn’t stop… we should keep moving,” I whispered slowly.
“Yeah… it’s a fuck-up.”
We lay quiet for a couple more hours in the still darkness. A light reckless mood had swept through the platoon and we were whispering and grinning to each other in the dark, making stupid comments and jokes.
The almost full moon broke dramatically above the trees as if gleeful to see us and shone with a luminous, malignant brilliance that exposed us at once, lighting up our dark hideaway in a silver bath.
“I love these full-moon nights,” some idiot piped up and was greeted by nervous, muffled sniggers. I looked around at the still night and started to relax a bit. It looked as if we might have got away… once again victorious. The night birds shrilled in the trees and a chorus of bugs and insects kept up a constant hum.
We could not move our TB and dig in again, so we sat in the moonlight with our TB partially lit and waited as Lieutenant Doep whispered into the radio. “Tango Lima, do you read… over?”
At about midnight a sound broke through the still bush that made my blood run cold. It sounded like a huge beast roaring in the night but it was the roar of a huge diesel engine that suddenly seemed very close, gunning its engine as if it was stuck in something and trying to get out. Shock ran through the platoon; everyone was up and looking at each other.
“What the fuck? This is it… they’ve been tracking us in the dark and are nearly on us. How the fuck did they get so close without us hearing?”
The small TB became a newly disturbed ants’ nest of troops standing bolt upright, looking at each other in shock, not knowing what to do next. I stood up too and hurriedly joined one of the small groups huddled together in urgent discussion.
“Maybe they’ve just sent a vehicle to come and pick up the bodies and it’s back at the chana. Sound travels far at night.”
“No way, man, we’ve walked pretty far. There’s no way that BTR or T-55, or whatever the fuck it is, is that far away, believe me!”
I agreed. “No way is it at the chana. They’re tracking us and they’re close.”
“This is it, boys— nou gaan ons kak,” Paul Greef said in a low voice.
I smiled a sick smile. We were indeed going to shit.
The engine bellowed again and then tapered off to a low rumble that was barely audible. We all stood quiet and looked at Lieutenant Doep who was on one knee, desperately and hoarsely calling on the radio but to no avail. He got up. “Horn, get ready with that RPG! Move your kit to that hole,” he said, pointing at the closest hole facing our retreat.
Horn, who looked more like a sad office clerk than a paratrooper, slowly picked up his kit and moved into position. All eyes were on him as he moved deliberately, lay down in the shallow hole, loaded the RPG rocket into the launcher and pulled the silver safety pin from the rocket, arming it. He braced his loaded weapon against his kit bag and pointed it towards the sound of the growling engine. He had a little crooked smile on his face as he acknowledged that he held the fate of the platoon in his hands. If that BTR or tank came breaking through the moonlit bush it was up to him to stop it… or we would all piss blood.
“Horn, you had better make sure of that rocket, boy,” I said with a nervous laugh. A string of warped humour and encouragement followed as we watched Horn slowly settle in on his belly and fiddle with his sights in a slow ritual.
“If that T-55 comes through those bushes, I’ll have him,” he looked back and assured us in his slow Cape way, still smiling his wry half-smile. “But you better clear the way for back-blast behind me!”
“Get to your holes!” Doep barked, and went back to the radio in the centre of the small circle.
I lay in my shallow hole, fidgeting with my rifle, checking my one-and-only full magazine and placing the half-used one next to me in the hole. I pulled the two M27 grenades from my pants pocket and laid them next to me too.