Taylor stared from Reitz to the broken and bleeding bodies littering the trampled green grass and back again. Incredibly, the Afrikaner wore a small, pleased smile. Enough!
He moved in front of Reitz and yelled, “Cease fire!” Hastings immediately echoed him.
“These poor people are no further threat to us or anyone,
Colonel. ” Taylor ground the man’s rank out between clenched teeth.
“I’ll order the men to move in and start making arrests.” Taylor turned to issue
Hastings new orders and felt himself spun back round.
the colonel’s face was red, almost purple with rage.
“Rooinek swine! I will not have one of my orders countermanded. You and Hastings are both under arrest! Report to headquarters at once and stay there until I have time to deal with you!”
Then, his voice rising, he shouted, “Since you love these people so much, you can join them in prison! I’m taking personal command of this company, and I’ll do what you are apparently unable and unwilling to do-put an end to this lawbreaking! “
Taylor stared at Reitz in amazement. Had the man gone utterly mad?
“What lawbreaking?” He pointed toward the bloodsoaked lawns and gravel paths outside the stadium.
“It’s over! Finished! My God, can’t you see that?”
Reitz was still in a rage.
“Major, I don’t want to hear any more from you! You don’t know how to deal with these criminals, and you don’t want to learn. Get out of my sight-and take that weakling Hastings with you!
By the time I’m through, you’ll both be lucky if you’re not hanged!”
Taylor stared at his colonel a moment longer before trained reflexes and ingrained discipline took over. He stiffened to attention, turned, and started walking back to the command post with Hastings trudging silently at his side. He felt strangely empty of emotion, unsure of whether he should feel shock at the slaughter he had just witnessed, anger at Reitz, or shame at his relief. No, not shame. He’d done nothing wrong.
Behind him, the demonstrators were beginning to stir. Many knelt weeping by dead or dying friends. Others sat shaking, unable to move. A few were crawling away in a futile search for better cover or escape. People were still trying to get out of the gas-filled stadium, but those in front, who saw the horror before them, were trying to turn around. Being choked and blinded by tear gas must have seemed preferrable to being butchered on the open ground.
The long, thin line of South African soldiers looked numbly at the carnage in front of them, each obviously trying to reconcile his own actions with his conscience. Murder was not a part of the soldier’s code, and this had been a kind of murder. Their lieutenants and noncoms glanced uneasily at each other-shocked by the open break between their colonel and the battalion’s secondin-command. Taylor was one of them-a fellow reservist and a peacetime neighbor.
Reitz swept the formation with an ice-cold glare, and they all turned to face forward, Deliberately, he called out, “A Company, at the rioters, fire!”
Taylor turned in horror. Reitz was not satisfied. He intended to kill and go on killing.
Obedient under orders, most of the men raised their rifles, aiming at the crowd. But when only one of the company’s lieutenants echoed the colonel’s order, instead of all three as was customary, they lowered their weapons again and looked back at their officers in confusion.
Reitz walked closer to the line. He drew his pistol, worked the slide, and held it in front of him, muzzle pointing up.
“Damn it, I gave an order, and I’ll shoot the next man who doesn’t obey instantly! Now fire!”
“No!” Taylor shouted. He sprinted toward the colonel. The personal consequences and discipline be damned. Discipline meant following lawful orders, not committing coldblooded murder at the whim of a madman.
He was still ten meters away when Reitz turned and saw him coming.
Pure hatred on his face, the Afrikaner swung his pistol in Taylor’s direction. Without thinking, he fumbled for his own sidearm as Reitz aimed and fired.
Automatically, he threw himself to the ground, thumb cocking the hammer of his own weapon. The pistol’s blinding flash and the crack of a bullet racing close overhead reached Taylor at almost the same instant. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hastings charging forward, and Reitz turned, drawing down on the running officer.
No! Taylor squeezed the trigger, something inside him seeming to leap out along with the bullet.
Reitz staggered back, agony on his face as bright-red blood spread across the chest of his uniform jacket. He tried to hold his aim on Hastings and failed. Then his legs folded and he crumpled to the grass. One hand clawed briefly at the sky and then fell back.
Hastings skidded to a stop and knelt beside the fallen Afrikaner.
Taylor rose to one knee, stunned by the speed with which he’d moved from officer to prisoner to mutineer. He wanted to stop and think, to understand what he had done, but there wasn’t time. He levered himself to his feet and ran toward Reitz, shouting, “Get an ambulance!”
It struck him as odd that nobody was calling for help for all the protestors who’d been shot, but that the colonel’s wounding brought an instant reaction from him.
Hastings laid the colonel’s head down on the ground.
“We don’t need an ambulance, Major.”
Taylor could see Reitz’s unseeing, open eyes and shuddered. But he didn’t feel ashamed, or even sorry. He’d killed before, in battle, and this felt no different. Reitz had been bent on murdering unarmed civilians, not because of what they had done, but because of who they were.
He looked from the corpse to find many of Hastings’s soldiers and all of
A Company’s officers surrounding him. One of the lieutenants, Kenhardt, said, “You’re in command now, Major. What are your orders?”
The other officers and noncoms nodded eagerly.
Again, Taylor had the sensation of being pulled along by events instead of shaping them. Was he in command? Despite shooting his own colonel? He shook his head, trying to clear it. Someone had to take charge. In the circumstances, the battalion’s senior captain would be a better choice-but that was Kloof. The crackle of automatic weapons fire drew his attention to the far side of the stadium. Kloof and his men were still shooting unarmed protestors.
Right, first things first. He grabbed the nearest enlisted man and ordered, “Tell Captain Kloof to cease fire and report back here on the double. Nothing more than that, understand?”
The private nodded and ran off.
Hastings looked troubled.
“Chris, that damned Afrikaner will just order you, me, and everyone else in reach arrested. We’d probably be shot after the kind of trial these people would give us. ” His junior officers nodded their agreement.
Taylor’s mind raced. These people, Hastings had said contemptuously. As though the men in Pretoria weren’t worth obeying. Well, was that so far off? Vorster, his cabinet cronies, and pet generals certainly weren’t the
Army and the government he’d sworn to serve. Everyone in authority seemed to have gone mad.
He shook his head. Hastings was right. Vorster’s Afrikaner fanatics would kill him, they’d kill Hastings, and anyone else who crossed their path.
And they would just keep on killing.
All right. He’d stopped Reitz from killing. Now he’d see how much more killing he could stop. Or start, he reminded himself. Crossing the line from personal disobedience to armed rebellion could not possibly be a bloodless journey. But perhaps it was a journey that should have been begun long ago, he thought, remembering all the wasteful violence and death he’d seen these past few months.