African Dawn

by Tony Park

  Braedan could be a huge pain in the arse sometimes – most of the time – and had always been a hothead and a bully when they were growing up. But Tate had learned how to get on with him. All the same, Braedan's barbed taunts about Tate joining the national parks service because he was too scared to do his army service festered under his skin.

  A soldier in starched camouflage fatigues stopped him at the entry to Government House and Tate showed him the invitation to the awards ceremony. He was nodded through and directed to a car park.

  Tate could have come in his Parks and Wildlife service uniform – he probably should have for such a formal occasion – but he didn't want to give Braedan an easy opening for yet another jibe about him not being in the military. Instead, he wore a beige body shirt and blue tie, brown flared slacks and a second-hand sports jacket he'd bought from a charity shop. His civilian wardrobe was limited – his pay was abysmal and, besides, he rarely went out jolling when he was on leave. Most of his spare time was spent studying by correspondence for a Bachelor of Science in zoology. He was due to write exams in a month, so his social life had been curtailed even more than usual. He'd never had a steady girlfriend and was still a virgin. It seemed when he was around girls he never knew the right thing to say and few ever gave him a chance to try.

  A military band played an awkward cover of an old Beatles song as people dressed in far better clothes than Tate was made their way from the car park across the grass to where a big marquee was set up. Tate took a deep breath, closed his car door and set off.

  He found his mother and kissed her hello. He could see Braedan, in his dress greens uniform, standing in a knot of black and white soldiers, laughing out loud at something one of them had said, or more likely something he'd said himself.

  ‘I so wish your father was still alive. He would have loved all this palaver,’ his mother said. Even before Tate and Braedan's father had died of a heart attack, their parents had needed to scrimp and save to put the boys through boarding school. With Fred's death, there had been no money to send them to university. She led him to the second row of seating, which was reserved for families of medal recipients. People were taking their seats.

  In the first row, off to their right, was the little girl Braedan had saved. Tate recognised Natalie Bryant from her photos in the Herald. It had been front-page news when Braedan had rescued her and single-handedly annihilated a terrorist cell near her grandparents' farm. It was chilling, Tate thought, to realise that he and Braedan had been to that same farm, as children, for a party.

  Natalie looked sullen and withdrawn, as if she didn't want to be there. The poor thing was probably traumatised, Tate thought, and forced to relive the ordeal every time the news media wanted another crack at her story. Today's medal ceremony would force her to recall those events all over again. A newspaper photographer was already taking pictures, his camera flash bouncing off the bright white roof of the marquee.

  George Bryant put an arm around his daughter and whispered something, words of reassurance perhaps, then returned his gaze to where it had been a moment earlier, straight ahead and out into the middle distance. He wore the blue dress uniform and rank of a squadron leader in the air force. Tate recalled reading in the newspaper that the father was a helicopter pilot. A thin blonde woman sat on little Natalie's other side. That would be Susannah, her mother. Beside her were the grandparents, Paul and Philippa. He remembered Philippa – Pip, his mum called her – just as she was now, small, smiling and full of life. Paul was talking to a man in Tate's row, but further along, and the twang of his Australian accent was still evident.

  The band started to play the Rhodesian national anthem, ‘Rise O Voices of Rhodesia’ to the tune of Beethoven's ‘Ode to Joy’, and everyone stood. Tate was a terrible singer so he mouthed the words quietly.

  While they were singing a tall girl with long straight blonde hair that reached almost to the waistband of her blue jeans rushed up the centre aisle between the seats and slipped into a vacant spot next to Philippa Bryant. Pip paused in her singing long enough to grab the young woman's arm and kiss her on the cheek.

  Tate looked over at his brother and saw that he, too, had noticed the attractive late arrival. The young woman made no pretence of singing the national anthem, but just stood there with a neutral look on her face. She wore a flimsy cheesecloth top and when Tate checked her feet he saw she was wearing sandals. Most of the other women were aerating the lawn of Government House with high heels.

  As the music stopped, the young woman shuffled across in front of Pip and Paul to where Natalie sat. She leaned over and kissed her, then awkwardly regained her seat.

  An army colonel invited the crowd to sit and welcomed them to the awards presentation ceremony. He droned on for a few minutes – Tate wasn't interested in what the man had to say – and then introduced the Prime Minister, who was sitting on the podium near the people he was about to honour. Ian Smith, the erect, angular-faced former fighter pilot who was the leader of the ruling Rhodesian Front party and Prime Minister of Rhodesia, got up and moved to the microphone.

  ‘We live in trying times …’ he began.

  Tell us something we don't know, Tate thought, as he switched off again. He was too busy studying the lightly tanned, flawless skin of the girl in the first row. It must be the Bryants' daughter, Hope. He hadn't seen her in, what, ten years? He remembered the wedding, and the pieces started falling into place. That would have been George's wedding, and Hope was his younger sister. She had grown into a beauty.

  The Prime Minister was talking about challenges and sacrifice and the forces of good and evil and the need for resolve and courage … or something like that. When everyone else started applauding, Tate joined in half-heartedly. Hope sat there with her hands in her lap.

  The colonel stepped back up to the podium and started reading the citations for the awards that were to be presented today. There were three black soldiers and two white, a white air force officer and a civilian couple in their mid-sixties. It was a nice mix, Tate thought, and no doubt made a good photo opportunity.

  The civilians, it turned out, were farmers from Bindura who had fought off a terrorist attack and killed two terrs. As each citation was read the recipient stood, marched to the PM, saluted, received his award and then shook hands with Smith while a government photographer snapped two frames. The farming couple didn't salute, but they looked suitably humbled and at the same time impressed to be meeting the iron-willed leader of their country.

  Tate really only paid attention when the officer began reading Braedan's citation, and when his brother stood Tate returned his eyes to Hope Bryant and saw she was staring at Braedan. Insanely, Tate felt a stab of jealousy as Hope followed Braedan's movements on the podium. Braedan's citation was the last, perhaps because his award was the highest of those being presented today – the Silver Cross of Rhodesia. Winning the SCR, the country's third highest honour, was a big deal.

  The newspaper photographer joined the government snapper for the picture of Ian Smith pinning the medal on Braedan's chest, and when he was done, the audience burst into applause. A couple of people stood and, eventually, the whole crowd of guests was standing and clapping.

  Rhodesians, Tate thought, were a pretty reserved bunch and this spontaneity was out of the ordinary. Their country, their white way of life, was under real threat and people desperately needed to hear stories like that of Braedan rescuing the helpless child from the forces of evil.

  Tate didn't underestimate what Braedan had done, but in his own mind he questioned the morality of the war, if not the actions of individual soldiers. Hope, he saw, was applauding as loudly and enthusiastically as anyone else in the crowd, but when he glanced at Squadron Leader George Bryant he saw him put his palms together, then leave them like that, as if he were lost in his own silent prayer.

  After Braedan shook the Prime Minister's hand he and Smith exchanged a few words, which were drowned out by the rolling thunder of applause. Smit
h smiled and nodded and Braedan excused himself.

  Braedan strode towards little Natalie, knelt down in front of her, so that he was eye to eye with her, then reached to his left breast and unhooked the silver cross he had just been presented. He held it out to her.

  Little Natalie shook her head at first, but he said something to her that made her reach out, take it in her hand, then start crying. She wrapped her arms around his neck and the applause began anew as the photographers jostled each other to capture the moment.

  Tate looked at Hope. She was palming tears from her eyes and, if he was honest with himself, he also felt something welling up from his chest. His mother clasped his arm and held on tight.

  *

  Hope took a glass of champagne from a black waiter bearing a silver tray. She thanked him and he nodded then moved off silently.

  She'd never been in the grounds of Government House and she was impressed by the architecture of the official residence, which seemed to be at the same time both simple and imposing. Ian Smith was talking to a ring of acolytes and, to Hope's shame, her father was there too, hanging on the Prime Minister's every word.

  The manicured lawns, the ladies in big hats, the smiling but silent African waiters, the platters of fine food and chilled drinks … it was all too good to be true. Out there, beyond the walls topped with razor wire, was the real Africa, and it was encroaching closer by the minute.

  A raucous laugh caused heads to turn and Hope saw Braedan Quilter-Phipps holding his own court. More people crowded around him than Smith. There was nothing, in Hope's view, heroic about the struggle between the Rhodesian Security Forces and ZANLA and ZIPRA, but there was a real live hero over there, laughing in between the beers that were being foisted on him by his own entourage of worshippers. Hope had read the newspaper accounts, first in South Africa and then when she returned home to Rhodesia. Braedan, so the papers said, had killed no fewer than seven terrorists, single-handedly, and put two bullets into the heart of the man who held a knife to her niece's throat.

  Hope hated the war, and Ian Smith, and the Rhodesian Front, and her people's futile, tragic, costly attempts to hang on to a world that would soon be over and done with. She sipped her champagne and, despite her moralistic revulsion, shuddered when she remembered her first sight of the damage to her family home.

  Natalie had been kidnapped from Hope's bedroom. What would have happened, she asked herself yet again, if she had been home from varsity on the night the freedom fighters had attacked? They wouldn't have taken a twenty-year-old woman hostage, they would have killed her. Or worse.

  Hope let the cold bubbles fizzle on her tongue as she watched Braedan down a glass of beer. Her most vivid childhood memory of Braedan was of him chasing her and pulling her pigtails at George's wedding, and the business with Emmerson Ngwenya. She felt terrible about what had happened to Emmerson, but he had hurt her and the word was he had run off to join the freedom fighters as soon as he'd been released from the juvenile training centre.

  Braedan looked typical RLI. He was young and strong, and his hair was wavy and pushing the boundaries of a military cut. These men called themselves the invincibles. To Hope, they were just paid killers.

  ‘Hello there …’

  Hope turned and saw another Braedan Quilter-Phipps. One with slightly longer hair, sideburns and an ill-fitting, slightly scruffy sports coat and flared trousers. ‘Oh, hi …’

  ‘Tate.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Braedan's twin.’

  ‘Does it show?’

  She laughed. Except for the haircuts and the clothes, the boys were still almost identical. She remembered Tate as the smaller of the two, and while he had caught up to his brother in height, he was less stocky than Braedan. She hadn't noticed Tate during the speeches. ‘You're not in the army as well?’

  Tate sipped a Mazoe orange juice and shook his head. ‘No … um, parks and wildlife.’

  ‘Don't say it like you're embarrassed about it.’

  ‘No, no. I'm not, but …’

  The poor thing, Hope thought. He was practically stammering. ‘But when you come to something like this, surrounded by men and women in uniform, you start thinking that maybe you should have joined the police, or the army, or the air force or something. Maybe someone like me brings this to your attention and you start to feel the self-doubt, possibly self-loathing again …’

  ‘Sheesh.’

  She laughed. ‘I'm sorry. I'm studying psychology at UCT.’

  ‘Well, you're learning something,’ he said, taking another sip of his drink. ‘But I don't … loathe myself, that is. I just don't fit in.’

  Hope put a hand on his arm, surprising herself even as she did so. ‘I'm sorry, Tate. I wasn't poking fun at you. And I think it's much better, much more honourable for you to have joined the national parks service rather than the army.’

  ‘Why?’ He seemed genuinely puzzled.

  ‘Because I'm against the war. The sooner it's over, the sooner ZAPU and ZANU win, the better,’ Hope replied.

  Tate looked around, as though he thought there might be CIO agents in trench coats lurking in the bougainvillea. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don't think all us whites will be slaughtered in our beds, or that Mugabe and Nkomo are just stooges of the communists and that, if they win, those of us who survive the bloodbath will be press-ganged onto collective farms or locked up in gulags?’

  Hope laughed. ‘No. I think Robert Mugabe's a nationalist more than a communist. He's using the Chinese to back his armed struggle – which I also don't agree with – but he'll cut them loose when he takes over the country.’

  ‘I thought Bishop Muzorewa was taking over the country?’

  Hope scoffed. ‘He's a puppet, Tate. Everyone knows that Smith's hand is so far up the bishop's bum he can hardly say grace by himself.’

  Tate looked around again.

  ‘Stop looking for spies. What do you think? You opted out of the army, but do you agree with the war?’

  He finished his orange drink and handed it to a passing waiter. Hope had nearly finished her champagne, so Tate took a fresh drink for both of them from the proffered tray. It seemed to her that he was buying time, perhaps trying to think of the right answer, the one that would impress her. She was no stranger to guys coming on to her. There were those that charged at her like a bull at a gate, and those, like Tate, who stumbled over their words as they tried to say what they thought she wanted them to say. She didn't particularly like either type. She liked honesty.

  ‘I don't know of, can't think of, an ideology worth killing for.’

  She said nothing, and waited for more, but she was impressed by his opening line.

  ‘I live my life surrounded by the most amazing creatures in what must be the most beautiful surroundings in the world. Yet I often hear the sound of people killing each other. It's spread to the wildlife, too, this cancer. My scouts and I came across a dead rhino just the other day – people are even killing animals now for no good reason. I don't care who runs this country, or what colour they are, as long as they protect the only thing that's still good about it – the bush and the wildlife.’

  Hope took a sip of her champagne. That was a little disappointing, she thought. She'd wanted something more spirited.

  ‘I would kill to protect an animal from a poacher, but not for a cause,’ Tate said.

  That stopped her in her tracks. ‘Hang on … you're saying animals are more important than people? Would you have stood by and let the freedom fighters kidnap and kill my niece?’

  Tate shook his head. ‘She was helpless, like this country's animals and the environment they live in. I don't know if I'd be as brave as my brother, tracking those men and killing them to rescue Natalie, but I like to think I would have done anything in my power to stop them. I guess few of us ever get the chance to find out if we've got the guts to put our lives on the line for the things we love.’

  ‘Or people we love.’
<
br />   He shrugged and looked away from her, back to the sound of laughing. She followed Tate's eyes to the man of the moment, his twin brother.

  ‘Are you staying here long or going straight back to university?’

  Hope was distracted. She looked back, from the man with the military bearing, broad smile and muscle-filled uniform, to the slightly dishevelled version beside her. ‘A week or so. I can't go home – it's a mess, and Mom and Dad are staying with neighbours and there's not much room. I'm staying with my brother in Salisbury for a few days. I love little Nat and I want to spend as much time as possible with her after what she's been through. I'm planning on coming back as often as I can – maybe deferring a subject or two at varsity till next semester.’

  ‘I was wondering if you'd like to go to a movie or something while you're here? I have to get back to the valley next week, and I don't get to town that often. But it's all right if you have other things to do … I understand you've got family commitments and …’

  ‘I'll think about it.’ Hope hadn't picked Tate as such a fast mover. Perhaps the shyness and stammering were an act. She knew she really should spend as much time as possible with George and Natalie, but she found Susannah a bit of a pain. She had dressed in her ill-fitting uniform for the ceremony. While Natalie was at school and George away flying, Susannah was a volunteer ‘blue bird’ who packed parachutes for the military. Her mother, apparently, had done the same job during the Second World War. Susannah had remarked more than once that she thought Hope should have been contributing in some way to the war effort in her university holidays. Hope had given up trying to discuss the absurdity of the war with the conservative, sour-faced woman.

  Hope glanced back at where Braedan had been laughing and drinking and saw that he was now walking straight towards her. He had a crooked smile on his face, and he'd undone the top button of his uniform shirt. He fixed his eyes on hers and she found she couldn't look away.

  ‘OK, right,’ she registered Tate saying.