Blood Safari

41

In the first ten months of 1986 Jacobus le Roux became a man. To be passionate about the wonder world of nature, to be inspired and captivated by the million fine gears of God’s Timepiece, to innocently and with fixed determination believe that you could protect it all, these were the things of a child.

In practice, it was an adult world of unpleasant reality: night patrols on foot in an environment where the natural predators were just as dangerous as the predators of the human species; exhausting days of lying up under cover while the mercury climbed to 45 degrees Celsius, sleep evading you, the taste of your own half-cooked food and the tepid brackish liquid in your water bottle lingering in your mouth. After five days in the veld, you and your camp fellow stank of campfire smoke, sweat and excreta. You lived in a lonely, limited, dangerous world far removed from the ease and security of your wealthy suburb.

You killed people. You told yourself it was war and you fought on the side of good, but in the searing heat of noon, as you tossed and turned on your groundsheet, searching for sleep, you saw them fall, you remembered your terrible, stunned numbness when you knelt beside the body after the firefight. You realised that you were not a natural soldier, and that something died inside you with each enemy, although it did get a little easier every time.

When Jacobus was telling his story, I became aware of the difference between us. But there was no time or desire to linger over it. But now, driving down the plantation roads below the escarpment with the air conditioning on, the prosecutor in my head was eager to point an accusatory finger. I had beaten a man to death and my greatest anguish was how I could be capable of that. Jacobus le Roux, brother of Emma, born of the Afrikaner elite – however humble their background might be – agonised over why he could not do it.

None of this was relevant.

He told me that he was certain that he had shot dead seven people in the reserve in 1986.

In July of that year he got a fourteen-day pass and went home. For the first week he could not sleep on his soft bed and the big plates of food his mother dished up made him nauseous. His father noticed how much quieter he was, but he couldn’t talk about it. His sister detected nothing amiss; she worshipped him, as always.

Physically he was in the city, but his psyche was somewhere else. His mother introduced him to a girl, Petro. She was studying Communications at RAU. She was pretty in a summer dress and he would remember her pink lipstick. She talked of things he knew nothing about. The campus, music and politics. He nodded but he wasn’t listening. ‘What do you do in the game reserve?’ she asked, as if his mother hadn’t already told her everything.

‘We patrol,’ he said. ‘What are you going to do when you’ve finished swotting?’

She talked about her dreams, but he wasn’t really listening, the things in his head distracted him. Like a man in a torn red shirt lying dead and somewhere people waited for him to come home.

His father took a photo of him and Emma in the sitting room of their house in Linden. They were sitting side by side, his sister had her arms around his neck and her head half bent to his chest. The lens caught them perfectly – his face was blank, she laughed in joy. His father had mailed the photo to him and he carried it with him in the little army Bible in his breast pocket. Through all that lay ahead, through all those years, until one day he put it into a photo album and hid it in the ceiling of his Mogale house where he could take it out and look at it from time to time. To remind himself that it was real.

But in those fourteen days the world his family lived in felt unreal. Literally. Like a dream. He felt like a stranger in his family home. He knew why, but there was nothing he could do. Month and years later he would blame himself for not trying harder, for not bursting the bubble and embracing them.

Because soon, his family would be destroyed.

On the back roads and through the plantations it was easier to spot anyone following. I drove past unfamiliar names on the map, Dunottar, Versailles and Tswafeng, nothing more than a few huts or a farm shop. At the Boelang tribal lands I turned left. The road deteriorated and the plantations were densely forested. There were no signboards at the road forks. I took one wrong turn and couldn’t make the U, the pine trees stood right up to the road. I had to reverse for a kilometre. At eleven I finally arrived. Heat waves rose up from the plain to the right and made the horizon shimmer.

I turned left here, up the mountain to the Mariepskop forestry station. I drove past the entrance to my rented property. The gate was closed. All was quiet. They were there, somewhere in the forest or the house.

There were two officers on duty at the forestry station. They wouldn’t allow me to continue without a permit. There was a radar station on top and I needed permission.

Where could I get permission?

In Polokwane or Pretoria.

I just wanted to walk. Down the mountain.

I needed a permit for that too.

Could I buy one here?

Maybe.

What would it cost?

About three hundred rand, but they had no receipt book.

‘No, it’s four hundred,’ said the other one. ‘Three hundred was last year. It’s the second of January today.’

‘Oh, yes. That’s right. Four hundred.’

I fetched my wallet from the Nissan. I went around to the passenger side so they wouldn’t see me push the Glock and the hunting knife into the back of my belt under my shirt.

Before handing over the notes, I questioned them. Where were the footpaths that led down the mountain? The paths that the maPulana had followed in 1864, when they attacked King Mswati’s impis.

‘Impi is a Zulu word,’ said one with disapproval.

‘Sorry.’

‘Mohlabani. One soldier. Bahlabani. Soldiers. These are sePedi words. The maPulana defeated the Swazi’s bahlabani.’

‘I’ll remember.’

Then, friendlier: ‘You know the story of Motlasedi?’

‘A little.’

‘Not many whites know it. Come. I’ll show you the paths.’

‘Can I leave the car here when I walk down the paths?’

‘We’ll look after your car nicely.’

‘I might only fetch it tomorrow.’

‘Go lokile. No problem.’

He went ahead, around the building, past an open fire where a large pot simmered, through a garden that was neatly maintained, to the edge of the indigenous forest. He pointed a finger. ‘Go in here and keep on straight. You will reach the other path that comes down the mountain. Turn right and follow the path down to the bottom of the mountain.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Lookout for the sepoko. The ghosts.’ He laughed.

‘I will.’

‘Sepela gabotse. Go well.’

‘Stay well.’

‘Sala gabotse, that’s how you say it.’

‘Sala gabotse,’ I said, and walked into the cool leafy tunnel.

At a clear stream running over a rock I sat and drank deeply and let the ice-cold water trickle over my head and neck and run down my back until it made me gasp for breath.

I was going down this mountain alone.

I needed to define myself. For ten years I had called myself a bodyguard. It was the government’s name for my job, an empty, meaningless shell. Was Koos Taljaard a doctor before he healed someone? Was Jack Phatudi a policeman before he made his first arrest?

Ten years and never once was there any real danger to the person I had to protect. Political meetings, public appearances, social events, car trips and openings of buildings and schools. I had nothing to do. Nothing but keep myself ready, keep my body honed, skills polished, sharp as a knife that would never be used to cut anything. I had watched, oh, I had watched and observed tens, hundreds, even thousands of people with an eagle eye.

Nothing had ever happened.

The concept of being a bodyguard saved me, because after school there weren’t many forks in my road – and all the others led to a bad end. I was young, violent and looking for trouble. I bore a hatred for my parents and my world and was saved only by the discipline of training and the fatherly calm and true wisdom of the Minister of Transport. The man who had once made us stop in the Eastern Transvaal so we could help a minibus-taxi change a flat tyre. He chatted with the driver and the black passengers about their lives, their hardships and troubles. As we drove off he shook his head and said the country couldn’t go on like this.

But despite the fact that I had direction in those years, it was ten years of being a spectator. Ten years on the periphery, a decade of being on the edge of nothing.

An unimpressive bystander, despite my genes. My English rose of a mother was a colourless bloom, as I am. My father was dark, virile and strong, but I inherited her pale skin and red-blonde hair and skinny body. Her breasts made her body look sensational. She could colour in her face, and she did, with lipstick, mascara, powder and rouge, she could metamorphose every morning. With skill she had turned her delicate features into a sensual siren, a honeypot that the men of Seapoint swarmed around.

I once nurtured a beard for four months without Mona noticing. I had to ask her whether she saw something new. It took her five minutes to say, oh, you’ve a beard.

Invisible.

Defined by one incident in my life. The road-rage murder. That’s what the media called it. In the single photo that appeared in the papers I was between my legal representatives, and Gus Kemp mercifully hid my face with his file. Invisible.

Forty-two years old and what am I?

My head complained: you’re tired. It was the lack of sleep talking.

It wasn’t important.

Today I was going down there alone because I wanted to be something.

Like what?

Something. Anything. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to stop the injustice. For once I wanted to gallop on the white horse of righteousness.

I stood up, not wanting to argue with myself any more. I took out the Glock and checked it. Then I went carefully down the mountain in the deep afternoon shadows.

On Sunday, 5 October 1986, Jacobus le Roux’s commanding officer called the teams together and told them they must all be out of the bush and back at base on Monday, 13 October. They were due a week of R…R, no passes would be issued, but they could relax at base.

That was all. No explanation. As though it was something to look forward to.

They suspected a snake in the grass, because all around them the recces of Five Reconnaissance Battalion were abuzz over a possible operation. Rumours were rife. Renamo, the pro-Western faction in the civil war, was apparently advancing on Frelimo in two northern provinces of Mozambique. The recces might be sent to assist them. There was also something going on with the 7 SAI, judging by the traffic of Bedford trucks in and out of base.

The Environmental Services Unit didn’t really care about whatever was going on. It didn’t affect them, and in the army if something doesn’t affect you, you ignore it.

But on Monday, 13 October, he and Pego were not back at base. To tell the truth, they never saw the inside of the base again.

The trouble began on the twelfth, a Sunday. They planned to be back in time. They had completed the last leg of their patrol, beside the two-wheel track that ran parallel to the Mozambique border in the south-eastern corner of the reserve. At one in the afternoon they were trying to sleep deep in the reeds of the Kangadjane stream, four kilometres from the border between the Lindanda-Wolhuter Memorial and the Shishengedzim guard post. They woke at the sound of a small aeroplane. They crawled out of the reeds and looked up. The plane circled west of them around the hill called Ka-Nwamuri. Very odd, because civilian planes hadn’t been allowed here for over a year. They weren’t even allowed to fly over it at altitude. This one was low, scarcely five hundred metres, and only a hundred metres above the koppie, a hill towards the west.

It made a wide turn and came their way and they crept back into the reeds. Jacobus took out his binoculars to have a look. There were no identifying letters or marks on the wings. Just a plain white aeroplane. It descended as it approached and then suddenly swung north. Jacobus saw two or three faces looking down and one of them seemed familiar, but he thought he must be mistaken.

It looked like one of the government ministers. A well-known one. But the plane turned again and he couldn’t see the people any more as it droned away to the north-west, dwindling in the distance until they could no longer see it.

He and Pego looked at each other and shook their heads. What was it doing here? Why had it flown over Ka-Nwamuri? They ought to take a look tonight, so they could report back the next day.

They waited till sundown, cleared up their camp and made preparations. It was just over five kilometres to the koppie. They wouldn’t make quick time through the thickets, but the cover was good.

Two hours later they saw the lights for the first time, halfway up Ka-Nwamuri hill, moving lights, which blinked like fireflies in the night.

Poachers didn’t behave like this. What was going on?

Jacobus tried to raise the base over the radio, but there was just the hiss of static over the ether. Pego and he whispered about the best route to take to the lights.

The area directly east of Ka-Nwamuri was too flat and open. But close by ran the Nwaswitsonstso stream, the one that made a wide curve from the west around the Ka-Nwamuri koppie. It formed the Eileen Orpen Dam before carving out a small canyon that ran towards the border. They could follow the stream to the rear of the hill – and then climb over to see what was happening on the eastern side.

It took more than an hour. At the Orpen Dam they ran into to a pride of angry lions roaring their hunger and frustration into the night after a failed zebra hunt. At last, after nine o’clock they peeped over the edge of the crest of Ka-Nwamuri koppie and saw the people below.

The lights were off, but a large campfire burned at the foot of the hill. A group of people sat around the fire. Behind them, camouflage nets covered bulky shapes.

Pego hissed softly through his teeth and said befa, this is bad. Jacobus directed his binoculars at the group beside the fire. They were white. In civilian clothes.

He saw the carcass hanging from the tree near the fire. Impala ram.

He and Pego whispered. They must get closer. No, said Pego, he would go, he was as dark as the night and they wouldn’t see him. There was a moshuta, a thicket, near their camp, he would crawl into the cover of that and take a look and come back. Jacobus should stay here and try the radio again. It might work better on the koppie.

‘But you will come back to me?’

‘Of course, because I’m leaving the bushwa with you,’ and Pego grinned in the dark at their old joke. He would come back because Jacobus was the one carrying the food.

‘Tshetshisa,’ said Jacobus, one of the few words he knew in Mapuleng. Hurry.

Pego disappeared into the darkness and Jacobus shifted below the crest and tried the radio again. He pressed the knob and whispered, ‘Bravo One, come in, this is Juliet Papa.’ He listened and suddenly there was a voice, loud and clear, so that he had to turn the volume down quickly.

‘Juliet Papa, identify yourself,’ but it was an unfamiliar voice, not one of the ESU radio operators.

He hesitated, because this was new. There was no procedure for this. ‘Bravo One, this is Juliet Papa.’

‘I hear you, Juliet Papa, but identify yourself. What are you doing on this frequency?’

That gave him a fright. Had he made a mistake? He checked the radio again, set it back on the frequency they were supposed to use and repeated, ‘Bravo One, this is Juliet Papa, come in.’

The same voice replied clear as day, ‘Juliet Papa, this is a reserved frequency. Identify yourself.’

He felt like throwing the radio down the hill. It worked only when it wanted to and now it was confused. He switched it off and crept back to the crest. He focused the binoculars on the thicket Pego had indicated and waited.

He saw a light moving at the bottom of the slope. They were barely three hundred metres from him. Two men with a torch. They were inspecting something on the ground. They picked it up. A rope? No, through the binoculars he could see that it was a smooth black cable.

Then he heard shouts below and he swung the binoculars towards the fire and saw figures running, armed men, uniformed men. Where had they been? Where had they come from?

Shots cracked, he jerked the binoculars away from his face, searching for the flashes of the shots in the night, but he couldn’t see any.

Pego, where are you?

Down there people scurried around, away from the fire. He used the binoculars again. Everything was suddenly quiet, nobody in sight. He swung back to where the two men with the torch had been. The torch was off.

Minutes ticked past.

He keep watching the fire and trying to see something in the thicket where Pego was planning to hide, but it was too dark.

There was movement at the fire. He focused the binoculars. Two soldiers with someone between them that they were half carrying, half dragging. Others crowded around. He saw the man they had was Pego and his heart leapt in his chest because there was blood on his friend’s leg, at the knee.

They dropped Pego on the ground and stood around him. Someone kicked the black man and Jacobus’s heart thumped in his throat. This was trouble, big trouble, he wanted to charge down the slope and shout, ‘What are you doing, what are you doing? Leave him, he’s my buddy,’ but he lay frozen and not knowing what to do.