HARBINGER OF WAR
January 1987
Excerpted from Beneath the Visiting Moon
Copyright © Jim Hooper 2009
Ovamboland
South West Africa/Namibia
It's raining. For days now, the skies to the north have been grey and threatening, the
grey moving a little farther south each day. And last night the first of it finally arrived,
rain heralded by sudden wind and the dim clash of muted thunder. Tonight again,
harder: glistening, thrashing trees caught in the blue-white - fst! - of lightning, the
sudden crack! shaking the air, the rumbling aftermath drowned by the roaring
downpour.
There's been frustration, a tenseness here, waiting for the real rains, the harbinger
of war. And now they've come, carrying with them the sounds of destruction.
*
After six weeks on ops the days had begun to take on a sameness, one blurring into
another. You awoke under the wet bivi before dawn to unzip the clammy sleeping bag
and dress by feel, swearing silently if you'd forgotten to draw socks and canvas boots
well inside the cover and found them soaked with the night's rain. You crawled out,
brushing sand from your hands and stumbling over tent pegs in the dark. Goddammit,
as you tripped over something else you didn't remember being there and barked a shin,
leaning down to rub it. Regaining your balance, you stood, imprisoned by the black
vegetation that spread outward to a hidden horizon.
Here and there inside the perimeter others were beginning to move. A brief, racking
cough broke the thick silence. Orange glows flickered as fuel tablets were lit, and piles
of damp twigs grudgingly took fire. You sleepily took in the familiar scene, yawning and
forgetting that only weeks before it would have been beyond imagining. This was your
world - closer to the bone than anything you'd ever encountered.
Going down on one knee, you reached under the edge of the poncho, patting the
sand in search of the roll, then stood and tried to remember the layout of the new
camp from the afternoon before. Making your way through the wet bush outside the
perimeter, you bumped into one of the Ovambos returning.
'Goeiemôre, meneer.'
'Môre, tati.'
By the time you returned, more men were moving around the camp. Water was
drawn from the spigot at the back of a Casspir and the encrusted kettle balanced atop a
struggling fire. There was the squeak of a tin provision box opening and the hollow
clatter of enameled mugs before the top squeaked shut again. Sleepy sighs were the
extent of the conversation as you untied your make-shift tent from its two trees and
rolled up the sleeping bag, shoving it all into a diesel-stained duffel bag. As the sky
lightened imperceptibly, the armored cars slowly took form around the camp, bulking
silently like scarred war horses patiently awaiting battle.
Someone set the stained collection of chipped mugs in the sand. A piece of
cardboard torn from a ration pack was wrapped around the handle of the kettle and the
mugs filled with scalding coffee. They were passed from hand to hand and slowly
sipped as sleep drained from exhausted bodies. A toe was pushed into the formless
lump of someone still in his sleeping bag. There was another persistent jab, and a tired
voice growled a muffled oath. The cocoon stirred. The stubbled and dirt-streaked face
of a twenty-one-year-old emerged to the quiet laughter of the coffee drinkers. A filthy
arm worked its way out of the bag and took an offered cup, drawing it unsteadily
toward sun-blistered lips.
The group leader stepped away and climbed into his Casspir. Switching on the
radios, he sipped his coffee and keyed the microphone.
'Zulu Two, Zulu Two, Zulu Quebec.'
'Zulu Quebec, Zulu Two. Morning, Toit. How's it?'
Zulu Two, the ops room at Eenhana, was advised in which direction we'd be moving
and in return passed on the latest intelligence about insurgent activity. As Toit jotted
down the information, fires were scattered and killed while bedding and stores were
thrown into the back of the Blesbok supply vehicle. Guns were checked and sprayed
with lubricant, ammunition belts examined. Finally, a loose parade was formed. Bush
hats were removed at a barked command and heads lowered as the senior black
warrant officer led the group in prayer. On the back of a T-shirt worn by one of the
most devout black constables, chin tucked down in close communion with his Maker,
were the words Kill Them All. Another crisp command and hats were returned to heads,
the parade formation dissolving as men moved to their cars. The sun had almost
reached the tops of the trees when Toit’s car belched dark smoke and bucked forward.
Another day had begun.
Less than five miles away, other young men had also awakened. Of the seven, only
two had undertaken previous infiltrations. Both were skilled anti-trackers, as evidenced
by their continued survival. The others, in their teens and early twenties, were fresh
from the Cuban training camps in Angola. Their group of forty had been at the Angolan
army base at Namakunde for the last two weeks, waiting for the rains to begin.
The group had received its orders and set out the day before, separating into
smaller units of five to ten men each before reaching the border. As they split off from
the others, the two veterans began badgering the unblooded boys about using the antitracking techniques they'd been taught. Better and safer not to leave spoor the racist
South Africans and their black lackeys might see, they harped, than have to anti-track
to escape. Further, they must never again approach any kraals others than those
already known to the two older men. For the youngsters, the warnings from the
veterans did little to quell their excitement. Why should they be concerned? Hadn't their
Cuban instructors told them that the South African soldiers and their few Ovambo
puppets were no match for them? Not even the Ovambo traitors and white racists of
Koevoet stood a chance against them.
The scolding two had received for taking a goat was accepted with good humor.
What had been wrong? As soon as the farmer had realized who they were, he had
made no attempt to stop them. As an oppressed Namibian, surely he must support their
fight against the Boers. It was for him and others like him that the struggle went on.
No, he would not inform on them, they confidently told the two older men.
The ashes of last night's fire were carefully scattered. The men stripped the last bits
of cold undercooked meat from the blackened remains and tossed the bones into the
bush. Wiping hands on damp trousers, they buckled on their uncomfortable web gear.
The leader waved his men forward, and the group began making its way through the
wet undergrowth. The stiffness they felt from sleeping on the wet ground would soon
be worked out as they continued their infiltration deeper into Namibia.
I had deployed two days before with combat groups Zulu Quebec and Zulu Uniform.
Sergeant Stephanus du Toit, Zulu Quebec's group leader, came across at first meeting
as quietly self assured. Six foot, blond and muscular, his outward calm was deceptive.
Under the surface, this twenty-five-year-old was an unpredictable and dangerous man
with a hair-trigger temper and lightning-fast fists. Toit's opposite number in Zulu
Uniform was Warrant Officer Attie Hattingh. Short, dark-haired and well-built, his
masculine good looks were complemented by a quick intellect and infectious laugh.
Attie's younger brother Adriaan commanded one of Zulu Uniform's four Casspirs.
Though quieter than his older brother, Adriaan was otherwise almost a carbon copy of
Attie. In a private moment, Attie confided how much he hated sending Adriaan
sweeping ahead to pick up tracks during a chase, knowing that he would invariably be a
first target for the desperate insurgents. When I pressed him about it, Attie paused for
a moment to look across the camp at Adriaan. 'We both understand the risks,' he said
quietly. 'This is where we belong.'
The day had started like all the others, stopping at one kraal after another, questioning
the Ovambo farmers about the presence of Swapo insurgents, back into the Casspirs
and on to the next. Everyone knew that with the beginning of the rains small units of
heavily armed insurgents were crossing the border. Digging them out was the hard
part.
We had stopped at one more kraal. The trackers walked to the log palisade and
began questioning the head of the family. The conversation became animated, the
farmer gesturing angrily from inside the enclosure. One of the trackers shouted to Toit.
Two insurgents had come the night before and taken a goat. The farmer wasn't sure
which way they had gone, but he thought to the east, pointing and snapping his
fingers.
Attie's voice crackled over the radio. His trackers had found seven spoor less than a
mile east of us. The tracks were only two or three hours old. The change in everyone
was immediate, an electric energy sparking through the group. Minutes later we
rendezvoused with Zulu Uniform. The trackers jumped off the cars with their stubby
assault rifles, paused to chamber rounds, then ran to join those already on the trail.
The hunt had started.
Two hours later, the footprints were down to five, but these five, the trackers said
grimly, didn't know their anti-tracking techniques. Even on difficult terrain, we followed
at a fast walk, Casspirs flanking us.
Zulu Uniform disappeared into the bush. Within minutes they had picked up the trail
a few hundred meters ahead. We scrambled into the cars and raced to the position
Attie had marked with a smoke grenade, leaping out to take the trail again while Zulu
Uniform fanned out and drove forward again to find it further on. Voorsny, they called
it.
Reports from other Koevoet groups began coming in over the radios. 'Zulu
November has at least ten spoor south of us,' Toit said as we kept pace with the
trackers. 'They think they're about an hour behind them. Zulu Poppa has four more east
of Nkongo!'
There was another radio call from Attie, again billowing smoke marked the location
of fresher spoor. The trackers, excited and sweating, dived back into the Casspirs, and
again we accelerated, crashing through the bush to where the smoke lingered. We
were closing faster and faster. By now the insurgents could surely hear the growls of
diesel engines growing louder. Their tracks showed they had turned toward the border
and Angola. But for the pursuers the 100-metre-wide strip between the two countries
was irrelevant. The insurgents had crossed the cutline to kill; their flight back into
Angola would ensure neither escape nor sanctuary.
Then it was a running spoor, the trackers sprinting through the thick bush, slowing
only when they lost the tracks for a moment, milling, then taking off again at a dead
run. Somewhere ahead, the insurgents were running flat out and desperately.
Toit ordered me into his car. Knowing we were behind them, chances were good the
insurgents would start setting POM-Z antipersonnel mines along the trail. The squat,
pineapple-sectioned mines seldom killed, but the shrapnel could inflict terrible wounds.
In a fast-moving chase like this, an exploding 'pom-zed' invariably slowed the trackers
as they began looking cautiously for trip wires. Neither Toit nor any of his men could
trust my experience in spotting one.
Climbing into the car, I heard 'casevac' on the radio. 'Zulu November's just had a
contact,' Toit shouted at me from the ground. 'They took out seven terrs, but one of
their cars was hit with an RPG. They've got six wounded and at least one dead. They're
scrambling the Pumas!'
I dropped into a seat and quickly checked the cameras. One had only a dozen shots
left. I rewound it and loaded a fresh roll, swearing as the film tail kept slipping out with
each jarring bump and sway of the car. I finally threaded it, shook out the debris and
snapped the back closed as we hit the border, roaring across the cleared strip into
Angola. Toit immediately advised Zulu Two that we had gone 'external' and put the
Alouette gunships on standby.
When the Casspirs and running policemen started going over their own tracks it was
clear we had to be right on top of the insurgents. But they had bomb-shelled, each
taking off in a separate direction and circling, hoping their spoor would be lost in the
torn up bush and sand behind the cars. Toit, sweating heavily through a layer of grime,
swung into the Casspir and dropped into the hatch behind the .50 calibre Browning.
'They're here!' he yelled, quickly checking the gun and pulling the locking pin from
the mount. 'They're right here!' Cutting along the edge of a kraal complex, we heard a
deep explosion off to the side.
'What the hell was that?' I shouted.
'Pom-zed!'
A chill went through me. People had to be hurt; people I knew.
The radio crackled with an urgent voice speaking Afrikaans. 'Jack says he's got five
wounded from the pom-zed!' Toit said. 'He's scrambling the choppers to casevac them
out! We can't get gunships till they're finished!'
From somewhere ahead of us I heard a sudden burst of machine gun fire. Over the
radio came the inevitable, 'Contact! Contact!' and the driver automatically turned
toward the firing. Toit drew his pistol, eased the slide back to check a round was
chambered and reholstered it. With the opening shots, the trackers on the ground had
pulled back or taken cover. Now it was up to the cars.
I suddenly wondered what the insurgents were carrying. Anti-Armour rifle grenades?
RPG-7s or the new RPG-75s? Who had been killed in the other contact? How badly
wounded were the others? Is this the day it happens to you? Another explosion of
gunfire broke out to our left front, and we swung toward it, Toit gripping the spade
handles of the Browning, eyes darting back and forth. The two trackers still with us
were down inside now, the muzzles of their assault rifles jammed through the gunports.
The radio was screeching, crackling, 'Contact! Contact!' I stood at the back of the
Casspir, eyes trying to penetrate the bush, ears assailed by engine, guns and radios,
nose absorbing dust and cordite. Two cars appeared, disappeared, in and out of bush
and shadow forty meters to our left, angling toward us. Heavy firing again, the shadows
ahead filled with the blue-grey haze of gun smoke. Tracers blazed through the trees,
cutting split-second, red-orange streaks through the haze to disappear abruptly or
ricochet into the air. Toit was firing, aiming to the right of the two converging cars, the
heavy Browning chopping down bush and raising exploding geysers of sand.
Where are they? I can't see them!
Camera poised, others swinging around my neck in the shaking, swaying Casspir, I
held tight while dodging branches that scraped over the top of the car. I jumped to the
left just in time to avoid one, only to be hit by another that caught me solidly across the
side of the head, knocking my glasses askew and numbing my ear. I quickly resettled
them and saw the two cars had swung further toward us, firing, firing, dust from the
impact of the bullets ahead adding to the thickening haze.
There was a sudden, bass-like explosion and one of the cars stumbled twenty
meters away, hit with something, then swerved and shuddered to a stop. The firing
reached another crescendo, overwhelming even the sounds of racing engines and
screeching radios. Toit dropped inside and I followed suit, ducking below the protective
Armour as bullets ricocheted off the side of the Casspir. Then he was up again and
firing into the gloom of shadows, gun smoke and dust.
There! I saw one running and diving to disappear into a thicket. We drove directly at
the spot, Toit screaming at the driver, 'Right! Right!,' then 'Stop! Stop! Don't run over
him! Fuck, man, stop!'
We braked to a shuddering halt alongside the thicket, dust rolling over us from
behind. Toit went over the side of the Casspir, and I dove through the rear doors,
hitting the ground hard, boots tangling in broken saplings to send me sprawling full
length into the sand. Scrambling to my feet, I turned to follow, then saw the insurgent
roll over, trying to cock his SKS assault rifle. Bent low, Toit ran at him, pistol held
forward, everything happening in slow motion: one running, the other jerking at the
rifle in his hands; one sprinting slowly through the bush; the other looking up, then
down, struggling to draw back the bolt on the rifle; the pistol in the hand coming up,
only feet away ...
Move! For fuck sake, move!
A shot, the muzzle jumping; another shot, and then a third. The weapon slipped
from fingers that slowly opened. Then Toit, eyes bulging and lips drawn back from dirtblackened teeth, was standing over him, the pistol at his side.
Attie and Adriaan came running from their cars, both wide-eyed and stoked to their
fingertips on adrenaline. Attie's car had been hit with a rifle grenade; Adriaan's
windscreen and gun shield were starred and dented from AK-47 fire.
'There are more over there that we took out!' Attie pointed, talking in quick bursts.
'One of them hit us with a heatstrim! Shit! I didn't see them until just before we were
hit!'
From the bush around us the trackers began to emerge. A medic supported a black
warrant officer, his back lacerated by a dozen or more pieces of shrapnel from the antiArmour rifle grenade. Toit radioed for a chopper and sent the cars to clear a landing
zone by knocking the bush down. As soon as the helicopter appeared Toit and Attie
carried the man to it, settled him next to the pilot and waved him off.
Rifle grenades and RPG warheads were piled together. Toit kneaded a handful of
Soviet plastic explosive found on one of the bodies, laid it across the pile, then crimped
a detonator onto a five-minute fuse with his teeth. Pushing it into the oily explosive, he
lit the fuse and we trotted to the idling cars. We were a few hundred meters away
when it went off, the explosion muffled by the dense bush.
I imagined the debris settling over the bodies lying where they had fallen,
wondering what dreams and futures had been abruptly ended for the sake of this
backward and little-known land. Of what or whom were their last thoughts? Would
anyone cry for them? Would anyone even care?
Another day finished as we rumbled back across the border.
***