Reconciliation for the Dead

by Paul E. Hardisty

  Heads dropped around the fire. Coetzee was a favourite with the men.

  They fight on until nightfall, when again they put distance between themselves and the relentlessly pursuing communists. By now they have been fighting and running for fifty hours without a break. Men fall asleep standing up. An armoured relief column has been organised to relieve them, but they are still at least a day away.

  Eben paused, drained his beer, threw the empty into the fire, everyone waiting for him to continue. Dressed in a FAPLA-zippered jumper and SWAPO short-peaked cap, he stared out at them with those madman’s eyes, held them there, hanging. Cock tease, someone shouted. Laughter. Eben put his finger to his lips. All you could hear was the crackle of the flames and the hum of the big camp generators.

  Then Crowbar does something unexpected. He tells de Vries to take Valk 2 and 3, drop their heavy gear, mortars and machine guns, extra ammo, and make for the border as fast as they can go. Valk 5 picks up whatever they need, blows the rest. Right, says Crowbar, the twenty-odd remaining members of his platoon clustered around him.

  Eben stood with his hands on hips, chest thrust out, imitating the old man. Now we attack. Now, he said, Eben doing Crowbar’s thick Boer accent. This is our time. Ours.

  The men roared into the night, clapping each other on the back. So many smiles. Someone threw a near-empty bottle of vodka into the fire. It exploded with a blue flame. The men cheered, whistled. Clay, just two days back from 1-Mil, thought: I am happier than I have ever been in my life.

  The rest of it everyone knew.

  Valk 5 turns 180 degrees and closes on the communists in the night. They catch FAPLA sleeping, the Cubans, too, exhausted after two days of fighting pursuit, their vehicles being serviced, dealing with scores of wounded, never imagining that the small force of South Africans would turn and attack. They hit hard and fast, just before dawn, penetrating the FAPLA perimeter in seconds. They cut through the camp, scything down everything that moves, demolition parties following up, destroying vehicles and equipment with C4 charges.

  And as Eben told the story, Clay saw it all as if it were now, the images sharp and clean, not as they would later become in his dreams – looping back in incomplete shards, a jumbled kaleidoscope of death. Now he was there, step by step with Eben. He remembered the little FAPLA soldier standing before him, bare chested, seconds awake, blinking in the light from the burning vehicles, and how he doubled over as the bullets from Clay’s R4 ripped through his lower abdomen. He remembered the sounds, too, the screaming, the gunfire, the concussions as the first charges went up, the terrified shouts of those surprised, Eben whooping like a Confederate as he blazed away on full auto, his eyes like now, crazed firelight dancing on his retinae. And Clay remembered his surprise at seeing his friend like this and wanting to ask him of what philosophy this insanity was born.

  It doesn’t take long. They are in and out in less than half an hour. That’s when Straker and Cooper are hit by the same rocket.

  Eben said it in a whisper. Faces swivelled towards Clay in the firelight, nodded in acknowledgement.

  The morning sky burns red as they pull Cooper – what’s left of him – along the ground by his webbing. They can’t find his legs. They wait for him to die, then start back towards the border, a towering pillar of black smoke testament to their night’s work. Dozens lie dead; more. The communists have no idea of the size of the force that has hit them. Crowbar calls in an airstrike. Can’t miss it, he says into the radio handset. We’ve popped smoke for you. Big smoke.

  The men around the fire roared with laughter, Eben swooping his free hand again, bombing run after bombing run. Vlammies, Impalas. Shine on You Crazy Diamond.

  The next day air recon estimate more than a hundred enemy dead, at least as many wounded, four tanks knocked out. All three platoons make it back safely. But de Jager, one of Valk 5’s new privates, is killed after the link up with the relief column. He steps on a SWAPO mine along the cut, dies instantly. He is nineteen.

  The next day, Valk 5 was back on Fireforce standby. They lounged shirtless in the sun by the plastic-lined pool, drinking cold Cokes from the canteen, always in boots and trousers, webbing and weapons and Fireforce vests close to hand, ready to jump onto the helicopters at a moment’s notice. The other platoons, meanwhile, conducted foot and vehicle patrols along the cutline.

  Clay lay in his bunk in the four-man tent he shared with Eben, de Koch and the new rofie, Cronje. The sound of jets taking off and landing, the occasional helicopter hammering past, the canvas rippling in the hot dry breeze. The smells of burned avgas and sweat and woodsmoke mingled with the dry-season burnishing of umbrella thorn, bushwillow and moringa. Clay closed his eyes, let these chemicals dance through his brain and cut incisions whose scars, a decade and a half later – back in Africa for the first time since he’d left the war – would transport him instantly and specifically back to this very moment when, lying on his bunk, the book the doctor had given him open face down on his chest, Crowbar walked in.

  Clay jumped to his feet, stood to attention. The book fell to the floor, lay cover up on the plywood floor.

  Crowbar glanced down at the book, harrumphed. ‘How’s your arm, Straker?’

  ‘Good as new, my Liutenant.’

  Crowbar reached into his pocket, withdrew a small, black case about the size of a pack of playing cards. ‘For you,’ he said, tossing it onto Clay’s bunk.

  Clay stood, said nothing.

  ‘And mail.’ Crowbar stuffed two letters into Clay’s hand.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Crowbar scanned the tent. ‘You lied to me, Straker.’

  Shame burned through Clay, as if it were his father standing there.

  ‘You think I’m stupid, Straker?’

  ‘No, sir.’ No.

  ‘You’re lying to me now.’

  ‘No, sir.’ Absolutely not.

  ‘It was her, Straker – in the identity-card photo that UNITA Colonel showed me. It was that woman you said you’d taken prisoner out on LP.’

  Clay stared straight ahead. He’d been expecting this, was surprised it had taken so long.

  Crowbar raised his arms, clasped his hands behind his head, and exhaled. ‘What the fok were you two doing? Tell me.’

  ‘It was me, Oom. Just me.’

  ‘Don’t fokken oom me, Straker.’

  ‘They were raping her, sir. All of them.’

  ‘I don’t give a God damn what they were doing.’

  Clay stared into his commander’s eyes. ‘Then why did you let her go, sir?’

  Crowbar stared right back, didn’t answer. His eyes were like a spring-morning sky, when everything is clean and the sun prisms through the moisture in the air. ‘You’re messing in things that aren’t our business, Straker; you and that dreamer, Barstow. Our job is to kill commies. Nothing else.’ He ran his hand through his thinning hair. ‘Do you understand me?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Full pack and weapons, Straker. You will march the base perimeter until I tell you to stop, or until we get called out on Fireforce.’

  Clay nodded.

  Then Crowbar leaned in towards him. Clay could feel his commander’s breath hot and wet under his chin. ‘Lie to me again, Straker, and I’ll transfer you out of this unit so fast you’ll be gone before you know I’ve done it. Understand me?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Clay knew he meant it, too.

  Crowbar stormed out.

  Clay threw on his vest, hefted his pack and helmet, grabbed his R4 and started towards the eighteen-kilometre-long perimeter fence.

  He’d gone a hundred metres when Eben, similarly loaded, fell in next to him. ‘Think I’m going to let you have all the fun?’ he said.

  ‘Koevoet nail you, too, broer?’

  ‘Volunteered.’

  Clay smiled. This was why he’d wanted to come back. ‘I thought it’d be a lot worse.’

  ‘Such a pussy, our Koevoet.’

  ‘No telling when he’ll let
us stop, broer.’

  ‘All night.’

  ‘Wonder if they’ll bring us breakfast.’

  Eben grinned. ‘So how was 1-Mil? Get anywhere with those pretty nurses?’

  ‘I got a book.’

  ‘Always good.’

  ‘Hemingway.’

  ‘Not so good.’

  ‘I like it.’

  ‘Try Tolstoy.’

  ‘Next time I get hit maybe.’

  Eben smiled. ‘You get mail?’

  Clay nodded, pulling the letters from his shirt pocket. One from Sara: proper stationery, perfumed, still unopened; the other stamped Pretoria, four days ago, his name and unit scrawled longhand with a ballpoint, no return address. He opened the Pretoria letter, staring at the page as he walked. ‘Jesus,’ he said.

  ‘What is it?’

  He passed the letter to Eben.

  ‘What the hell?’ said Eben, looking up from the paper. ‘Who’s it from?’

  ‘Someone I met at 1-Mil.’

  Eben read: ‘“If you want to know more about what we talked about, read the book.” A bunch of numbers. “Your woman friend told you about a doctor. This is his operation. Observe. Come see me if you can.”’

  Eben replaced the letter in its envelope and handed it back to Clay. ‘What the hell did you tell her, bru?’

  Clay marched on, in time with his friend. With each step his sense of dread, of having made a serious error, deepened.

  After a while he said: ‘I told her everything.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘I don’t know why I did it. I shouldn’t have. There was something about her.’

  ‘I hope she was worth it.’

  ‘It’s not that. Nothing happened.’

  ‘That’s too bad.’ Eben flashed him a smile.

  ‘Do you think the censors read it?’

  ‘They don’t usually read the incoming mail, but you never know these days, broer.’

  Clay shook his head. He’d been stupid.

  After a while Eben said: ‘What’s in the book?’

  ‘It’s a story about the Spanish Civil War. You know, 1935.’

  ‘I know when it was. I mean, is there a message inside, an inscription, anything like that?’

  ‘Nothing that I can see.’

  Eben considered this a while. ‘Be careful with this, bru.’

  It took them just under four hours to complete the first circuit of the sprawling, twenty-square-kilometre airbase, encircled with earth berms and barbed wire. As they approached the canteen, the sky was fading to that particular shade of pink that, for Clay, would always be Ovamboland. Valk 5 was waiting for them, lining both sides of the road as they passed. De Koch handed him an ice-cold Coke, told him to suck it up, smiled. Slaps on the back, laughter, the usual comments: we’ll keep dinner for you; time you did something useful; Bluey, destined to die a few short days later, saying: I was going to chuck a couple of grenades over the wire so they’d think we were under attack and we’d have to go out on Fireforce.

  Clay grabbed Bluey by the arm. ‘Do me a favour, Blue. There’s a book on my bunk. Get it for me, would you?’

  Bluey nodded and smiled. He had a great smile, a mouth that stretched and then stretched wider again, and a laugh to go with it.

  They kept walking, started their second lap, chucked the empty Coke tins back at their platoon mates. Soon they were passing the officer’s bivouac area. A lone figure stood outside one of the tents, smoking a cigarette. Clay and Eben straightened their backs, saluted. Crowbar watched them go without acknowledging them.

  A few minutes later Bluey ran up and handed Clay the book. ‘Did you see the old man back there?’ he said.

  Clay nodded.

  ‘He sure is pissed at you, my broers. What the fok did you do?’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ said Clay.

  Bluey clapped him on the back and started back to the platoon.

  ‘I know what it is,’ said Clay, handing Eben the letter. ‘It’s a cipher.’

  Eben laughed. ‘A cipher. Sure, broer. Sunstroke, that’s what it is. I’ll tell Koevoet to put you in the infirmary.’

  ‘What else could it be?’ said Clay. ‘This doctor, I’ll tell you broer she was saying some seditious things. About the war being a sham, about us all being manipulated. She sounded like some kind of revolutionary. She sounded like you, actually.’

  ‘Sounds like a smart bokkie.’ Eben opened the letter and read the first set of numbers: ‘One: forty-nine.’

  Clay leafed through to the first chapter, counted out the first forty-nine words. ‘The.’

  ‘Three: ten.’

  ‘It’s okay, I’ve got it,’ Clay said, the sequence already locked in his head, a photograph of the page that he could read as plainly as if it were in his hand now. He’d always been able to do it, especially with numbers. At school it was his best party trick, his best smile-getter from the girls.

  ‘Carefully,’ he said aloud.

  He flipped through the book, found the chapters and counted out words from the start of each. Night had fallen quickly and it was almost too dark to read.

  ‘“The carefully girl said head”. Makes no sense.’

  ‘Was she your “carefully girl”, the person you met in 1-Mil?’

  Clay smiled.

  ‘Did she say head? Did she give it, perhaps?’ Eben smiled. ‘Maybe I should get hit next time.’

  ‘What? No. I wish. She’s married.’

  ‘Try backwards, from the end of each chapter.’

  Clay did it, quickly, as the light faded. ‘Makes even less sense.’

  ‘Try letters instead of words,’ said Eben.

  Clay leafed through the pages, counted out the letters.

  ‘“C-O-A-S-T”. That’s what you get. “Coast”.’

  ‘I like the other meaning better.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Maybe it’s her way of giving you her phone number,’ said Eben.

  They grinned at each other in the dark, adjusted their packs, kept walking..

  They tried other combinations, but none produced anything intelligible. Even so, her words kept spinning through Clay’s brain. Hundreds of sick and wounded men passed through the hospital each month; why give him the book? Why the letter? It was clearly from her. Was it really a cipher? What else could it be? Some kind of elaborate joke: an experienced woman having some fun with a naive young soldier? Or was it something more sinister? He’d heard the stories of BOSS operatives approaching unsuspecting soldiers, fishing for evidence of anti-regime sentiment. Could this be a trap? Could the oke on the Hercules, Cobra, have reported him, denounced him to the Bureau of State Security as a troublemaker, a communist sympathiser? And what about the fat man in the suit, Botha – the one who was haunting his dreams? You’re dead men, he’d said straight-faced to three combat-hardened paratroopers. Clay’s stomach tightened. What had Zulaika said? Doctor Death. Drugs for killing? Was Zulaika the woman the doctor’s note referred to? Clay shook his head. Something seriously screwed up was going on. Besides the war. He folded the envelope and thrust it deep into his trouser pocket. He was going to do exactly as Crowbar had said and stay as far as he possibly could from whatever it all meant.

  They were halfway through their second circuit, not far from the main gates, along a stretch of the perimeter berm where scrub acacia grew in a dark thicket, screening the road from the rest of the base, when a lone figure appeared ahead of them.

  Clay raised his rifle. The man put up his hands, approaching them at a slow walk, a cigarette burning between his lips. It was Brigade, the black 32-Bat scout.

  Clay lowered his weapon. ‘Sorry, broer,’ he said. ‘Didn’t recognise you. What are you doing in Ondangwa?’

  Brigade exhaled a lungful of smoke, nodding to them both. ‘Come with me,’ he said, pointing towards the main gate. ‘There is someone wants to talk to you.’

  Clay looked over at Eben, back at Brigade, smiled. ‘Sure thing, broer. Just walk off base. I’m in enou
gh trouble as it is.’

  Brigade handed them each a piece of paper, flipped on a small torch and played the beam across the documents. Official orders, naming each of them specifically, attaching them to someone called Captain Blakely, 32-Battalion. Legitimate.

  ‘What the hell?’ said Eben.

  ‘We’ll have to check with our CO,’ said Clay.

  ‘Already done,’ said Brigade, poking the paper with a long, bony index finger. The orders were countersigned by Captain Wade, their company commander. ‘You must come now.’

  ‘No way, bru,’ said Clay planting his feet. ‘I don’t care what this says, I’m not going anywhere unless Koevoet tells me to.’

  ‘Who is it wants to talk to us?’ said Eben.

  Brigade looked over his shoulder, checked his watch and shuffled his feet in the sand. ‘Zulaika.’

  ‘Jesus Christ Almighty.’

  ‘Carefully, girl,’ said Eben.

  Commissioner Lacy: Was this the first time you became aware of the Bureau of State Security’s interest in you?

  Witness: No. That wasn’t until later.

  Commissioner Ksole: After the Roodeplaat break-in?

  Witness: How do you know about that?

  Commissioner Ksole: Please answer.

  Witness: Before that.

  Commissioner Barbour: And did it not strike you as … strange, the orders coming this way?

  Witness: Yes, sir. It did.

  Commissioner Barbour: But you went all the same?

  Witness: I was a twenty-year-old soldier, sir. With respect, what else was I going to do? They were written orders. I did as I was told. We all did. It was a long time ago.

  Commissioner Barbour: But that changed, didn’t it?

  Witness: Later on it did, yes, sir.

  Commissioner Ksole: When did you first realise the connection with Torch Commando?

  Witness: Not until after.

  Commissioner Ksole: After what?