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Enemy © by Shona 1997
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THE ENEMY IN ANGOLA
by: Shona aka WoodWitch
We had quite a few hairy moments out there in Angola, and most of them never came to anything, but they were still terrifying at the time. One particular incident keeps me awake at night, and haunts the sleepless dark hours until the sun and sanity return.
It was a searingly hot day and our platoon was sweeping this stretch of shonas forty kilometres into Angola, and we had been picking up signs of terrs for the last few days. There were 26 of us, walking through the knee high tinder-dry grass, sweating and swatting away the flies. Mike, my buddy and MAG2, was behind me, complaining volubly as we hefted H-frames and weapons through the veld. The only sounds were the susurrus of the grass we waded through, the buzzing of the flies and the monotone of Mike's cussing voice.
Considering we'd been in Angola for four months without a pass, cussing in our platoon was frequent and universal. My T-shirt was drenched with sweat, and my browns chafed against my damp thighs, rubbing uncomfortably. "Look over there," Mike spat through his clenched teeth, and motioned with his hand to our Section Leader, stocky little Botha of the Orange Free State, casanova and scourge of the mothers of Bloemfontein, who was talking to the Lieut. He wasn't looking too happy. If he wasn't happy, neither were we, because whatever affected him directly affected us, too. He was coming over to us, and Mike, Albino and I closed ranks and waited for the word. Botha was red in the face, and his piggy little brown eyes angry. "The Lieut wants us to recce those shonas" he said with a vague sweep of his hand to the North. We all groaned. "You three, come with me."
We set out on the long, hard walk through thick bush to the next set of clearings, four kilometres away. Midday was beckoning and the sun climbed higher as we moved through the dense bush. We came to the edge of the shona, an area about two kilometres wide by six across, surrounded by dense brown bush, a huge expanse of khaki grass in the middle of the jungle. We moved into single file formation and manoeuvred through the thick bush on the edge of the shona. Mike and I shared a cigarette, and it was very peaceful and quiet and the air was benevolent in the midday sun. It was just as that warm sense of well being came over me, that feeling of being free and unfettered, that Albino spotted three local pop. women walking away = from us across the shona with pots on their heads. Next thing, they spotted us and took off, running like ungainly chickens through the grass, still balancing their precious beer pots on their heads. "Look at that!" I exclaimed.
"Let's go!" Botha yelled as we took off after them. Well, I thought, that's all the confirmation we need that there are terrs about - the local pop. are behaving nervously again. The women disappeared down a path in the wall of bush, and we came to a halt. "Wait!" said Botha. "I'll radio the Lieut." As usual, there were no comms when you need them most - just a dry static crackle. "Fuck it," Botha yelled, "We're going in!" By now all our hearts were thumping like drums. We were four kilometres from our platoon, without radio. And we were going in. The feeling was not cool, and the sweat on my brow could've been heat or nerves. Every nerve in my body was standing to attention, as we moved in single file down the little path in the bush.
We found the beer pots, still half full, lying on the path, and a way from that we came to the clearing. We crouched on the outskirts and checked it out. A wall of interwoven branches, which contained three thatched huts, surrounded the kraal. Chickens scraped the barren earth, but they were the only things that were moving. In the central clearing stood the entire population of this kraal - six women ranging in age from about 20 to 60 - and gathered around their feet a group of young children, big eyed and silent. My skin crawled. They stood, absolutely motionless in the searing sunlight, staring. Botha told me and Mike to go in slowly, and search the huts, while he and Albino took cover to give supporting fire and try to raise the platoon on the radio. My stomach was doing flick-flacks and I was bent almost double as we moved towards the kraal. I froze and a lump of ice formed in my heart when I saw the terr tackie prints in the soft sand on the path.
I looked questioningly at Mike, and his eyes reflected the fear in mine. We were both thinking "I wasn't meant to die in this place." We moved in fast, and ducked behind the shelter of the kraal wall. The women stood there, staring at us, and we crouched in the boundary of their kraal, staring back at them. I checked that the MAG was on fire. First thing we both noticed were the tracks of tackie prints inside the kraal. Albino and Botha came in at a run, and the next thing the place was a madhouse.
Botha grabbed one of the women and Albino and I tackled the two older ones, and we hustled them into a hut. The smoky darkness inside only magnified their silent, sweaty, scared faces, as we yelled questions at them. How many terrs? When? They said not a word. Botha was perspiring, and his face was red with excitement. He advanced on the women, yelling, and swung his fist into their midst, hooking one on the jaw. It cracked. He went a bit crazy, after that, kicking pots and people, breaking everything he could see. We all did. After the horror wore off, there was an anger, a terrible hot white rage that we had been so afraid, and that it was all in vain - we weren't going to get any information from the women, and we weren't going to find any terrs. Not here. Mike caught a chicken and chopped off its head, and stuffed it, still bleeding, into his H-frame. Then we moved out, fast, and still mad as hell.
We got back to the beer pots on the path and each of us drank long and deep, which calmed our breathing, but the bitter flavour did not assuage our thirst. Botha smashed the calabashes with the butt of his rifle. When we got back to the shona we were still very jumpy. I was totally numb with fear and anger.
An hour later we were still patrolling the edge of the shona, looking for more terr tracks, when out of nowhere this girl appeared on the path, and when she saw us she jumped and shrieked, and hid her face behind her little black hands. She was wearing an old, red Mother Hubbard, torn and dirty and barely covering her budding breasts. Her lips and chin were quivering with terror, and she held her arms protectively across her abdomen. Botha pointed his rifle at her, and began asking the usual questions. She was really scared, and trembling, but she didn't say a word. The longer she kept quiet, the madder Botha got. She was about my sister's age, just a kid still, and you could see she didn't know what to do. "Leave her alone, man" I said to Botha. "If you don't like it, then leave." He shouted. "I'm going to get some info from this girl." Albino, Mike and I looked at each other, and started to walk away. We could hear Botha shouting at her, and then the sound of heavy fists falling on flesh. We walked on.
About ten minutes later, Botha joined us, tucking in his shirt and grinning ruefully. "Taught her a lesson." He said. I felt pretty bad about the whole thing, but you could tell that Botha was preoccupied about the incident, because he came back to it again and again, and you could tell that he was excited. We were all feeling a lot calmer now, like the incident with the girl had helped to break the tension, and we were all quite jokey, the way you get when you are feeling relieved. We sat down for a smoke break, and I was still thanking God I was alive and out in the sun, not thinking about the people we had encountered at all, when I spotted the smears of blood on Botha's rifle butt.
When I got home on pass that time, my sister couldn't understand why I had trouble meeting her eyes, and why at the same time I seemed suddenly so protective of her. And I never could tell her. I guess I never will, but it still keeps me awake at night.
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