The Soldier who Said No

by Chris Marnewick

  ‘Hold it like that, take it easy,’ the nurse said. She smelled of disinfectant.

  She waited for him to recover. ‘Are we ready to stand on our own?’

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘Good, now stay like that while I get the drip.’ She wheeled the drip-stand with the morphine dispenser to the foot of the bed. With one hand on the stand and the other on his upper arm, she guided him to the door.

  It was slow going, one small step at a time, holding on to the bed at first, but finding the confidence to let go. They emerged from the room like a pair of chameleons, in slow motion, with exaggerated movements of the limbs.

  ‘Hold it here,’ said the nurse. ‘We’ve forgotten our gown.’

  De Villiers felt a breeze on his back where the surgical gown was open. He looked over his shoulder. The woman in the pink nightgown was behind him, her head inclined with the sympathetic smile of someone in the same predicament.

  The nurse draped the gown over his shoulders. They walked slowly up and down the passage, followed by the Indian woman, a solemn procession of invalids, until De Villiers called for a break. He was surprised by his lack of energy. There was a time when I could walk all day, he reminded himself. I could run for an hour or more with a heavy pack on my shoulders and a rifle in my hand.

  The nurse led him back to his bed.

  De Villiers lay down. He had not slept well the previous night. Each time he felt like sleeping, a nurse would come in and ask him if he needed anything. He thought of his brother’s joke that a hospital was a place where they wake you up to ask if you are sleeping well.

  The night had been clear and he could see the stars through the lace curtains. There would be a full moon on Christmas Eve, he calculated, and here he was connected to a series of containers and contraptions with rubber tubes.

  The exertion had brought back the pain. With two clicks of morphine De Villiers dispatched it and launched himself into a dreamless sleep.

  They woke him early in the morning to ask him to sign the consent – an informed consent – form, warning of the dire consequences of Hepatitis C and HIV – to receive a blood transfusion. ‘You need two pints of blood,’ the nurse said, pointing at the level of blood in the drainage container on the floor.

  A-negative, the drop of blood obtained by a sharp prick to his finger revealed.

  I could have told you that, he said to himself. It’s on my dog tags. But the dog tags were in a drawer at home.

  ‘We’ll send for the blood right away,’ said the sister in charge as she opened the curtains, ‘but it won’t be here for another hour or so. So try to get some sleep, okay?’ He thought he heard a trace of the Cape Flats in her voice.

  The small television screen behind her took De Villiers back to the past with a familiar face, that of Robert Mugabe. A white family was being evicted from their farm. A crying woman held her baby close to her chest. Two boys hid behind their father. Some farm workers looked on, their meagre possessions wrapped in sheets. Mugabe supporters stood waiting for their share of the spoils. They celebrated in anticipation, waving rifles in the air.

  The taste of bile rose in De Villiers’s throat.

  In the breeze the curtains whispered against the Venetian blinds: Why me? Why me?

  A red tunic under a mop of blond hair flashed across the screen of his mind. He closed his eyes and drew the curtains of sleep across the image.

  THE HUNGER

  Auckland

  Monday 24 December 2007 7

  From the breakfast nook separating her kitchen from the television lounge, Emma de Villiers watched them park their car across the street. She had seen them drive past, checking the street number on the letter box before they turned at the roundabout near the school and came back. The two policemen stood looking out to sea across Macleans Reserve to the islands of the Hauraki Gulf in the distance, from Rangitoto, almost due north, in a sweep to the east, first Browns Island in the foreground, then Motutapu and Motuihe and the western corner of Waiheke.

  Rangitoto means Red Sky she had been told, so named by the Maori who had witnessed its eruption when it rose up from the sea like a flame-spitting monster to dominate the Auckland landscape. In the blue of the gulf the Waiheke ferry was speeding towards Musick Point.

  She watched as they came to her door, marching as if they owned the place. When they knocked a second time, she opened the door.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I am Detective Inspector Henderson and this is Detective Sergeant Kupenga. May we speak to your partner, please?’

  ‘I don’t have a partner.’

  The two policemen looked at each other.

  Henderson tried again. ‘May we speak to Detective de Villiers, please?’

  ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘His car is here. We saw it,’ Kupenga said.

  ‘I said he isn’t here,’ she said, holding the door.

  ‘May we come in?’ Henderson enquired politely.

  ‘No.’

  Henderson was not used to being opposed and his annoyance was beginning to show. ‘Why not?’

  ‘You didn’t say please, and once you are inside my house, I’d have to be polite.’

  They didn’t know what to make of the answer.

  Henderson tried another angle. ‘May we leave a message for him, please?’

  After a pause, she nodded.

  ‘Please ask him to contact me urgently. He knows my number.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I’m not going to give him that message.’

  ‘Well, why not? He works for me, you know.’ The irritation was now evident in every word Henderson spoke.

  Emma de Villiers stood her ground. ‘You insulted him,’ she inclined her head towards Kupenga, ‘and you suspended him without any reason,’ she said, pointing at Henderson. ‘I told you, he’s not here.’

  Henderson tried again. ‘Do you know where he is or how we can get hold of him?’

  ‘I do, but I’m not going to tell you. He no longer works for you. Please leave.’

  She tried to close the door, but Kupenga put his weight behind his hand on the door and pushed. Emma de Villiers stumbled backwards and lost her grip on the door handle. The door swung wide open and slammed against the wall. For a moment it looked as if she was going to fall over and Henderson pushed past Kupenga to steady her, but she regained her balance at the last moment. Henderson stopped in mid-motion, his arm outstretched towards her.

  ‘Are you going to beat me up too, then?’ she asked.

  Before they could speak, she turned on her heel and walked deeper into the house, leaving the detectives at the door.

  They didn’t follow her, but closed the door behind them and walked slowly to their car.

  Clouds were coming in from the Pacific and the wind was picking up. The tide was low and the Waiheke Ferry had not yet reached Musick Point when they got to the car.

  They looked back at the house. They could see her at her kitchen nook. She had her head on her arms on the counter.

  ‘Jesus, Boss, what was that about?’ Kupenga asked. ‘Surely that wasn’t enough to make her cry?’

  They stood on either side of their car and looked back towards the city. Mount Wellington was prominent in the foreground with One Tree Hill and the Waitakeres in the background. The highrises of the city, dwarfed beneath the Sky Tower, basked in direct sunlight. Henderson turned northwards as he took in the sights. The North Shore was visible in the haze behind Rangitoto. He unlocked the car and they got in.

  They sat in the car looking across the street at the house. It was a small biscuit-coloured house with green aluminium windows and Roman blinds. The garden was small but tidy. It was fenced with timber slats, for privacy rather than protection.

  ‘There’s something going on here,’ Henderson belatedly answered Kupenga’s question, ‘and I think we’re going to have to come back to find out what it is.’

  Neither of them looked forward to it.

  In the Urewera forests
the training continued. The police raids in October had resulted in the arrest and detention of the wrong people, political activists who had never been anywhere near the forest and pig hunters with no political ambitions. The public outcry had been such that the FBI-trained police Anti-Terror Unit had ceased all operations in the Ureweras. Their elaborate raid had captured only one rifle, which had been in the same family for decades, a pig gun, as its owner described it. The police declared that they were looking for a sawn-off shotgun and an AK47. Those who knew terrorists and their weapons sniggered behind their Brandies and Coke. The AK, maybe, but not the gangster’s sawn-off shotgun used to intimidate competitors in the hunt for scarce methamphetamine or to rob the local dairy.

  Of the nineteen people arrested in the Urewera raids, only three were Tuhoe. The tribe’s anger intensified. Free of the police presence on their lands, the training moved to the more inaccessible valleys, where no white man had yet set foot, and increased in both frequency and intensity. The recruits got stronger and fitter. The training moved from basic drills to advanced techniques. Dummy wooden rifles were exchanged for real ones and blank ammunition for live rounds. Their training had started long before the October raids, and by the end of the year the recruits had the look of soldiers. A passing-out parade was organised and prizes awarded for the best performances in a variety of skills: tracking, marksmanship and logistics. Every prize winner was immediately allocated a role as an instructor for the new intake. The other graduates from the course went deeper into the forest for specialist training in urban guerrilla operations, intelligence gathering and evaluation as well as the manufacture of explosives from commonly available goods like household bleach, diesel and fertiliser.

  It was planned that each class of twenty-four would be involved in the training of the next class.

  Henderson and Kupenga followed Emma de Villiers from her house to the hospital. They kept their distance to avoid detection, but in the last-minute Christmas rush, there was little danger of her becoming aware of their unmarked car, unless, of course, she was expecting to be followed. They watched her enter the hospital before parking their car. Emma led her daughter, a little girl about six or seven years old, by the hand.

  The hospital, a nondescript two-storied building, was at the upper end of Brightside Road, at the foot of Mount Eden, in the wealthy suburb of Epsom. The two detectives sneaked into the hospital, trying to be inconspicuous. Henderson leaned across the desk and flashed his warrant card at the nurse at the reception desk. ‘I need to speak to you in private. Where can we go?’

  The nurse was used to authority and pointed to a door behind the counter. ‘Let’s go into the office.’

  ‘The woman and the little girl who came in just ahead of us, who are they visiting?’

  ‘The patient in Room 6. His name is De Villiers.’

  Henderson and Kupenga exchanged a glance.

  ‘Where can we wait?’ Henderson asked. ‘We need to see him.’

  ‘But we don’t want his partner to see us,’ Kupenga added.

  ‘There’s a bench outside the women’s general ward around that corner over there.’ The nurse pointed. ‘I’ll call you when they’ve left,’ she said.

  Henderson and Kupenga made themselves comfortable outside the women’s ward. It had eight beds and there were visitors around every one of them. An hour later the visitors had left, but the nurse hadn’t called them. They slowly approached the door of Room 6. They heard voices inside. They stood on either side of the door, not knowing what to do.

  ‘What’s this button for?’ they heard a small child asking.

  There was a pause before they recognised De Villiers’s voice. ‘To raise the backrest of the bed.’ His voice sounded tired, like he was in pain.

  ‘Oh,’ said the little voice. ‘Let me see.’

  ‘No, Zoë, Dad can show you next time we come to visit.’ They recognised Emma de Villiers’s voice. They would have preferred to speak to De Villiers in her absence, but the Prime Minister wanted results and the media were beginning to ask questions. They had to speak to De Villiers within the hour.

  ‘No, it’s okay,’ they heard him say. His voice was followed by the whirring of an electrical motor.

  ‘Do it again.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You didn’t say please.’

  There was a small pause.

  ‘And what is this thing for?’ It was the child again.

  ‘It’s medicine,’ Emma de Villiers said.

  ‘It’s a blood transfusion,’ Pierre de Villiers said, a subtle rebuke in his voice. ‘They are giving me some blood to help me get better quickly so that I can be home for your birthday party.’

  Henderson gestured to Kupenga to follow him. They went for a walk around the hospital. There was a garden under tall trees on the eastern side and parking behind. They took their time, but when they returned to Room 6, they were just in time to hear the girl ask, ‘Tell me another story, please.’

  Henderson rolled his eyes. Enough was enough. He was about to barge in when Emma de Villiers said, ‘No Zoë, that’s enough. We have to go now. Daddy needs to rest.’

  The girl started to complain, but her mother held firm.

  Henderson and Kupenga took positions on either side of the hospital bed. De Villiers appeared to be asleep. He was very pale.

  ‘Are you awake, De Villiers?’ Henderson started tentatively.

  Pierre de Villiers opened his eyes slowly and sighed.

  ‘I need to talk to you about a new case.’

  De Villiers mustered the strength to speak. ‘I’ve been suspended.’

  ‘That has nothing to do with the case we are investigating. I can have your suspension reversed any time I want,’ Henderson said.

  ‘No, you can’t,’ said De Villiers. ‘Wellington sent me a letter saying I’ll remain suspended until a disciplinary enquiry has been finalised.’

  Henderson cleared his throat. ‘Your suspension and the new case have nothing to do with each other. And you remain a member of the unit until the enquiry has been finalised.’

  They looked at De Villiers. He had closed his eyes and gave no sign that he was listening.

  Kupenga looked at the prone figure. ‘You will have to talk to us, you know. Eventually you will have to cooperate.’

  ‘Up yours,’ De Villiers said without opening his eyes. ‘I don’t have to listen to you.’

  Henderson was surprised at the vehemence.

  ‘And if you ever push my wife around again, I’ll kill you.’

  Kupenga took a step closer to the bed. ‘What did you say?’

  De Villiers ignored him.

  ‘I’m going to lay a charge against you,’ Kupenga said, ‘for threatening to kill.’

  Henderson pulled Kupenga aside and whispered in his ear. ‘Stop making a fool of yourself. He’s lying here connected to machines and high on drugs. You shouldn’t have pushed the door.’

  De Villiers surreptitiously pressed the alarm button under the sheet. Seconds later a nurse and the ward sister walked in.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ she demanded. ‘Visiting hours ended an hour ago. What are you still doing here?’ Her name badge said Staff Sister Florette Appollus and Henderson took her to be Fijian Indian or Filipina, but she was Malay, from the other side of the world.

  ‘Hierdie ouens pla my,’ De Villiers said. These fellows are bugging me.

  Henderson presented his warrant card but Sister Appollus ignored it. ‘Toemaar,’ she said to De Villiers. ‘Ek sal hulle regsien.’ Not to worry. I’ll see to them.

  ‘We’re here on a police investigation,’ Henderson said. ‘And it’s a very serious case, so don’t even think of intervening.’

  Sister Appollus was unmoved. ‘You’re a detective, I see, and you can’t work out for yourself that this man is too sick to be bothered?’ She had read his warrant card after all. ‘You see this stuff here?’ she didn’t wait for their response. ‘It’s blo
od. We’re giving him a blood transfusion, and you want to interrogate him?’

  De Villiers suppressed a smile.

  ‘Get out,’ she ordered.

  ‘When can we see him?’ Henderson asked.

  ‘Leave your details at Reception and I’ll ask his doctor when next I see him.’

  Henderson remembered that it was Christmas Eve and turned at the door. ‘And when will that be?’

  ‘The day after tomorrow, or perhaps the day after that,’ she said with her back to them.

  Kupenga followed Henderson to their car while Sister Appollus fussed around De Villiers’s bed. ‘The blood is nearly finished. We’ll take that line out in half an hour or so. You look a lot better today, not so pale any more. We’ll have you up and walking around in a day or so. Merry Christmas!’

  Before Sister Appollus left him in the care of the nurse, she wiped his forehead and whispered, ‘Druk nettie knoppie assie dieners jou wee’ pla.’ Just press the button if the cops bother you again.

  Southern Angola

  May 1985 8

  In the hour before first light, the clouds had passed. After a glance at the stars, Pierre de Villiers set off in a southerly direction. He formulated a plan as he jogged, putting more ground between him and his pursuers. He knew they would come for him. He would need rocky terrain or a stream with running water to perfect his scheme, but in an area something between savannah and bushveld, he might have to travel some distance before he would find any koppies. He knew he could not return to the river, not immediately anyway. Soon his breathing took on a rhythm matching his stride, two strides in, three strides out, two strides in, three strides out.

  While he had expected some disciplinary action when he returned to base, De Villiers was unable to make sense of the events on the bank of the Cuito River.

  They had reached the river bank within minutes. Their kayak was where they had left it, tied to the roots of a tree under its overhanging branches. Verster called Pretoria on the radio. This time there was no acknowledgement of the signal. He tried again. No response.