The Blockade Runners

by Peter Vollmer

  They stormed into the house. It was empty.

  ‘Torch the place,’ he shouted.

  They heard an enormous explosion, far away, the sound muffled by the rain. He realised that a landmine had exploded. He hoped it was a police vehicle.

  The first flames were licking at the curtains and other items that ignited easily. The fire spread rapidly, smoke filling the house.

  ‘Assemble outside at the back,’ he ordered, moving in that direction himself. ‘Did anyone see were the owners were heading?’ he asked.

  The one firing the departing shots at the pair raised his hand. ‘They went that way towards the maize field,’ he said.

  ‘Okay, after them. Be careful, they’re armed. We have a while before help arrives. The men’s landmines have done their work. The police won’t arrive tonight. Let’s just get the owners.’

  The survivors of his troop spread out and advanced slowly on the maize field. Behind them, the house was now a mass of flame, roaring and crackling, a shower of sparks rising into the sky.

  ****

  ‘Fuck! The bastards.’

  ‘Oh, my God! My house!’ her voice full of anguish.

  Silhouetted against the fire, he saw the insurgents advancing on the maize field.

  He dragged her to her feet. ‘Come on, we’ve got to get out of here. They’re looking for us!’

  Drenched from the collected water, they thrashed their way through the leaves from the edge of the field into the eight-foot-tall maize stalks. Their pursuers must have perceived movement as bullets were zipping through the plants. Some were damned close. He wondered whether their progress through the tall, dense maize would leave an easily-read broken path. The fire was casting an eerie yellow light for quite a distance, helping the terrorists.

  ‘We best are careful,’ she croaked between gasps, now breathless, ‘The next field is an alfalfa field and it’s less than a metre high.’

  ‘Let’s just get into the field. We can lie down. They’ll never find us in the dark,’ he replied between pants.

  They broke out of the maize, crossed a farm road, no more than a double-wheel track, and plunged into the knee-high alfalfa. This was bordered by a two-foot-wide irrigation ditch. He threw himself down dragging her with him.

  It didn’t take long before they heard thrashing as the men in the maize field worked their way through the plants to the perimeter. He knew that they would break out onto the road within seconds. He tentatively peered over the top of the alfalfa.

  The situation was getting progressively worse. The first man broke out of the maize field directly in front of him, no more than twenty yards away. He was soon followed by the others, quickly forming a line abreast along the road, spaced at intervals of about fifteen yards, their AKs at the ready. They knew that their targets had to be hiding nearby. David realised that the plan was to maintain the line alongside each other and so enter the alfalfa field, giving them the best chance of finding them. The rain had eased to no more than a drizzle. Other than the sound of drops falling on leaves, it was deathly quiet.

  An intense, near-paralysing fear gripped him. If the guerrillas stumbled on them, they were dead; they had no chance against five men. He knew the terrorists were desperate. Every second they delayed reduced their chance of escape. They had to be gone before the BSAP arrived. They needed to put as much distance between them and the security forces as soon as possible. If the guerillas did not find them within the next few minutes, they would have to abandon the search.

  The black men spoke amongst themselves. He did not understand the language but it seemed that two of them were arguing. Gisela brought her lips right close up to his ear.

  ‘Some don’t want to go on, they want to go back. One is saying that if they enter the alfalfa some will surely die. He says we must be hiding in it,’ she whispered.

  He didn’t blame them. They must have realised that in this type of situation he would open fire before they could. It would be foolhardy to wait until they stumbled on them in the dark.

  ‘We must shoot now!’ she whispered.

  ‘Okay, the moment any one of them steps forward, we fire. Okay – ready? Then on my mark.’

  She nodded her head.

  The man who seemed to be in charge shouted at another and then turned away from him. He saw him raise his arm and then with a forward motion indicate that the troop move forward.

  ‘Shoot!’ His voice was no more than a hiss.

  In unison they rose, pulling the triggers, he spraying shots from right to left and she from the opposite direction, the pattern of shot converging on the middle. Men fell on both sides, those in the middle dropping to the road, theirs AKs spurting flame. A bullet, sounding like a hornet, shot past no more than an inch from David’s head. Beside him, Gisela yelped loudly and spun like a top to face in the opposite direction. He knew she had been hit. She collapsed to the ground groaning loudly. He kept the trigger depressed spraying the road with bullets. He felt something tug at his left side, still he kept firing until there was a metallic click, the magazine empty. He looked intently at the road. Nothing moved, but he realised that there were only four shapes on the road. One was missing.

  He uttered an expletive and dropped to the ground next to Gisela, she still groaning. Down below the height of the alfalfa the light was particularly bad. He could barely make her out. He could not see where she had been hit.

  ‘Where? Where?’ he asked, anxious and concerned.

  She groaned again. ‘My left shoulder.’

  The situation left him terrified. The remaining guerrilla must have seen Gisela go down. What would he do, run for it? He thought not. It was now one on one. The man would come after him. He must be hiding nearby waiting for David to make a move.

  ‘Can you crawl?’ he asked, with unconcealed anxiety.

  ‘I think so,’ she replied, her voice quivering with suppressed pain.

  They crawled through the alfalfa until they had put thirty to forty yards between them and where they had originally lain.

  ‘Okay, we’ll stop here,’ he whispered.

  She did not reply. He knew she was bleeding but had no idea of how badly she was wounded. He let his hand rove over her upper body and soon felt the slick wetness of blood. She had been shot high in the left shoulder. If she did not move he would be able to minimise the blood loss, but first he had to deal with the one missing guerrilla.

  ****

  Sizwe was devastated and in shock. The plan had so drastically misfired. Most of his men were dead. He had been convinced that they would overrun the house and kill the occupants. He had lost virtually his whole troop. He had no idea if anyone survived and, if so, where they were. He was sure the police would have responded with more than one vehicle and twenty or more men. A major pursuit operation was sure to be mounted in the morning. The troop had agreed that if they were separated they would make their way back to the river and rendezvous where the boats were, but he would not leave this district until he avenged the loss of his brother. His killers were still alive and had killed even more.

  He knew the man and woman were still out there hiding in the alfalfa. If they had any sense, they would have changed their position, but he was sure the woman had been shot. Maybe they were unable to move far.

  As the gunfire had erupted from the alfalfa field and his men were struck down on both sides of him, he had dropped to the ground and returned fire. A bullet had struck him in the left side but it appeared not to have penetrated his ribcage, the slug entering on the edge of his body. He thought it might have ricocheted off a rib-bone, exiting at the back. It burnt like fire and it was excruciating when he moved. Blood trickled down his side into his trousers. The moment the shooting stopped, he rolled into the irrigation ditch, where the water was six inches deep, and crawled along its length until a good distance away. Only then, did he climb out and roll into the adjoining alfalfa field. He estimated that he was no more than seventy yards from where the shoot-out had began.
As quietly as he could, he replaced the magazine of his rifle and cocked it. It had begun to drizzle again. The house still burnt, the orange glow discernible against the sky.

  ****

  David racked his brains. He knew that stumbling around in the dark trying to find the lone guerrilla would give the man an advantage. He had to devise some plan which would force the man to reveal himself, hopefully inadvertently so. But what to do? The alternative was a waiting game for daybreak, which was still hours away. He dreaded leaving Gisela unattended until morning. He had no way of establishing how serious her wound was and how much blood she had lost.

  Gisela groaned softly next to him.

  ‘Don’t worry, you’re going to be okay. I’ll get you out of this.’

  She mumbled but he couldn’t understand her.

  ‘Listen, I want you to just stay here and lie still. I’m going to try and divert his attention. I’ve got to leave you alone for a while.’

  ‘Yes, it’s okay, but come back soon,’ she said, her voice barely audible.

  He had a plan. First, he replaced the spent magazine with his last and then, cradling the weapon in his arms, he crawled towards the irrigation ditch where he slowly lowered himself into the slow-flowing water. The water wasn’t cold at all. As quietly as possible, he wormed his way forward in the direction he thought the guerrilla to be. He didn’t want to look over the top and instead counted every time he moved an elbow forward, estimating each movement to be about a foot. He stopped on the count of two hundred and lay still for a few minutes, just listening.

  He lifted his head to peer over the lip of the ditch. It was slightly higher than the alfalfa field and afforded him better visual perception of the field despite the near darkness being a problem. He saw nothing suspicious. He realised he would have to stage some incident, something that would trigger a reaction from the man, but what?

  Over time, the ditch had accumulated a few small stones and rocks, none any larger than half a fist. Clearly, this was cleaned from time to time. Groping around, he soon found a small rock. He realised that he would have to raise his body if he were to throw it. He flung it at an angle into the field, dropping down so only his eyes peered over the top. He distinctly heard the rustle of leaves and a slight thump as the stone fell. He expected a reaction, yet there was none. Surely, the guerrilla must have heard that? The guy’s smart, David thought. If he threw another, he would know for sure that this was a ruse. Christ, what was he to do now? Periodically he peeked over the lip. Nothing moved.

  Then he heard the sound of a vehicle in the distance. Either it had to be from the management compound or the BSAP had arrived. Again, he looked. He saw headlights flickering through the trees in the distance, the vehicle on a farm road. He hoped they were circling the homestead looking for them. It approached slowly, at times disappearing completely where the bush was thick or it had disappeared behind the maize field. If it continued on this track, it would eventually come along this road.

  He still lay still in the ditch. From the sound of the vehicle, he knew it to be nearby, but his adversary would know this as well. What would the man do? David believed that the man would crawl through the alfalfa until he reached the bush and then disappear. To singularly take on those in the vehicle was suicidal. They were probably armed to the teeth just looking for a fight. Still, he chose not to rise but waited until they were close. He saw that those standing on the rear of the pickup had two hand-held hunting lights, with particularly powerful beams, playing them over the terrain to the left and right of the vehicle.

  Once the light swept over where he lay he slowly got to his feet, his hands in the air. ‘Don’t shoot! It’s me – Tusk.’

  He heard the sound of people jumping off the vehicle onto the road.

  ‘Be careful! There could still be a few of the bastards around,’ David shouted.

  The armed men who jumped off the vehicle quickly formed a perimeter. It was the chief supervisor, FN rifle in hand, who approached David. He was a large man of mixed blood, a coloured, his father white, his mother black. He was dressed in khaki and wore a slouch hat.

  ‘Boss, you’re bleeding,’ he said, staring at the blood that seeped through David’s wet shirt where the bullet had entered.

  ‘I know, but don’t worry about me. Mrs Mentz is wounded. She’s lying in the alfalfa. Go and find her. We need to get her medical attention urgently.’

  ‘The terrorists?’ the man asked.

  ‘Most are dead and I’m sure the rest have fled. I heard gunfire from the direction of the compound?’

  The man shook his head, his facing taking on a distressed expression.

  ‘They ambushed Boss Botha’s truck, killing them all. Boss Botha and three of the other workers. The truck smashed into a ditch and overturned, but all were shot. They’re all dead.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ He was appalled. ‘Where are the bodies?’

  ‘We took them to Centenary with one of the other pickups.’

  They strode into the field with another two armed men following, searching for Gisela, whom they quickly found. They shone a torch on her. She hadn’t moved. She was deathly pale, her left shoulder covered in blood glistening in the torchlight. The front and side of her T-shirt was a dark stain. She was hardly aware of them, but managed a weak smile.

  ‘Thank God,’ she whispered.

  ‘I don’t want to move her but we’ve got no choice. Let’s all join hands underneath her body, two at the front, two in the middle and the other at the feet and carry her to the truck. Just keep her body horizontal,’ he said, with evident concern.

  They carried her to the pickup and laid her flat on the loading area. All hopped aboard and they drove back to the farmstead where they found a BSAP vehicle waiting with eight men and a sergeant. They learnt that three vehicles had responded to their initial call for help, the leading vehicle triggering an anti-tank mine no more than three miles from the farm. The result was absolute carnage, a massive smoking hole in the road, bits of vehicle and body parts strewn around. It was like a slaughterhouse, the man said. The vehicle was a near-unrecognisable wreck and six of the nine men on the vehicle had been killed by the explosion. They took the three seriously injured men back to Centenary on the other police vehicle.

  ‘Can you take her back to Centenary?’ David asked, ‘She’s in a bad way. Please?’

  ‘Of course, boss. I’ll leave immediately.’

  ‘Thank you. Just hurry. I’ll follow a little later.’

  The supervisor departed with a promise to return in minutes with the pickup, leaving two men with David.

  The house was burnt to the ground. Just the walls stood; the corrugated iron roof had collapsed, the sheets now bent and twisted and lying on the floor amongst the walls. Embers still glowed and a few small fires still burnt. There was nothing to salvage. Fortunately, the outer buildings had escaped the inferno. They housed a multiple car garage, workshop, small dairy, laundry and two furnished cottages. The cottages were no more than a bedroom and bathroom each, used by guests or a visiting hunting party. He knew the workshop contained a portable petrol-driven electric welding plant on wheels. It could also serve as a standby generator with enough power for a small household. The men pulled it to where the generating plant had been. The workers traced the wiring and connected the welding machine to the interface that fed the outer building annex. They started the generator. They had light.

  He broke the lock on one of the rooms and went into the bathroom. The mirror was small but still enough for him to realise he was a mess. He lifted his shirt to look at the wound. The bullet had entered his left side above the hip. It seeped blood. He thought it might have nicked his kidney. The pain was excruciating whereas before he was unaware of even having been hit. He needed medical attention soon. As he urinated into the white toilet bowl, he saw signs of blood. This was serious. He went to the garage and painfully climbed into a Wolseley Westminster, Gisela’s best car, and beckoned one of the workers to bring hi
s rifle and join him. They drove to Centenary.

  CHAPTER 66

  His plan had fallen apart. He hoped that those who had set the mines had escaped unscathed. His ribcage was on fire and he thought he might have a broken rib or two. He needed medical attention, but from where? Blood still seeped from both the entry and exit wounds. He knew the white man was somewhere in the alfalfa field waiting for him to make a move. They were too close together. Both could easily die in an exchange of fire. Still, the operation had been a success. The farmhouse was destroyed, a BSAP vehicle blew up full of police officers, the farm vehicle ambushed and men shot and killed. It would make the headlines in Salisbury and Bulawayo.

  He had dozed off but something had woken him, his ears tuned to hear any strange sounds. What could it have been? If he was being stalked, he was not fool enough to raise his head. If the man nearly stumbled on him, he would shoot him from his prone position. The idiot would be silhouetted against the night sky. The clouds had disappeared and he could see the stars.

  He heard the approaching vehicle, realising that it was coming down the road next to the irrigation ditch. It was sure to have a number of armed men aboard. Probably BSAP, he thought. Best stay undercover. It stopped, a light sweeping over the alfalfa, probing the most likely places. He did not move, flattening himself to the ground. There were voices and movement in the field. He daren’t look. He was so close, he overheard their discussion. From it, he gathered that some had remained behind and that the vehicle would return.

  After fifteen minutes the vehicle returned, only to drive right off again. He waited another half hour, every now and then peeping over the top of the field. Nothing moved. Slowly he rose, taking in the surroundings. There was nothing suspicious. Dawn was not far away, he had to move. He filled his canteen from the water in the irrigation ditch and slowly walked along the road towards the kopje. As soon as he was beyond the fields, he changed direction cutting across the virgin bush.