Читать книгу Seize the Reckless Wind - John Davis Gordon - Страница 8

It is always hot in the Zambesi Valley. From the hard escarpments the valley rolls away, descending through many hills, stretching on and on, mauve, fading into haze, like an ocean, so vast you cannot see the escarpments on the other side. It is a wonderful, wild valley, with elephant and lion and all the buck, and the river is hundreds of yards wide, with sandy banks and islands, and hippo, vundu fish as big as a man, big striped fighting tiger fish, and many crocodiles. The mighty river flows for thousands of miles, from the vast bushland of Angola in the west, over the Victoria Falls – the Smoke that Thunders – through Rhodesia, and Mozambique, and out into the Indian Ocean in the east. The river flows through many narrow rock gorges on this long journey, and where it twists and roars through the one called Kariba it is the home of Nyamayimini, the river god. It was at the entrance to this god’s den that the white man built a mighty wall across the river, to flood a huge valley to the west and create an inland sea.

For those were the days of the ‘winds of change’ that swept through Kenya to the rest of Africa, and the big brave days of Federation and Partnership between white go-ahead Rhodesia, black copper-rich Zambia and poor little Malawi; partnership between the races, equal rights for all civilized men, big white brother going to help little black brother, economic and political partnership, white hand clasped with black hand across the Zambesi. And the white man built the wall across the mighty river to create electricity for the industries that were going to boom, and the inland sea was a symbol of this new partnership. There were the political ones, black men in city clothes who came to the valley and told the Batonka people that the story of the flood was a white man’s trick to steal their land, and that they must make war; but the wall slowly went up and the great valley slowly, slowly drowned and died. And with it a whole world of primitive wonder. It was heartbreakingly sad. One day all of Africa would die like that, under the rising tides of the winds of change.

And very soon the partnership died as well, because by the nature of things it was a partnership between the white rider and the black horse, and because the winds of change moaned that there must be One Man One Vote and that the rider must be black. And the political ones, who had been to Moscow and Peking, swaggered through the bush calling the people to meetings, telling them that they must join the Party and take action. Action, boys, action! Burn the schools and burn the missions, burn the diptanks in which the government makes you dip your cattle, stone the policemen and stone the people who are going to work in the factories, burn the huts of the people who do not take Action, maim their cattle and beat their wives and children – and when we rule the country every man will have a white man’s house and a bicycle and a transistor radio. And great mother Britain had lost her will; she dissolved the partnership and gave independence to black Zambia and black Malawi because it was easier and cheaper to give away countries than to govern. But she refused independence to white Rhodesia, because that too was easier than to shout again st the winds. And the white men in Rhodesia were angry, for they had governed themselves for forty years and they feared that if they were not independent Great Britain would give them away too, and so they declared themselves independent, as the American colonies had done two hundred years before. Thus the white men made themselves outlaws, and the winds of change howled for their blood, and began to make war.

In the third year of that Rhodesian war, when a new election was coming up, Lieutenant Joe Mahoney, who was a lawyer when he was not soldiering, almost won a medal for valour, but do not be too impressed by that because it happened like this:

The truck carrying his troopers was trundling along the escarpment of the Zambesi valley when suddenly there was a burst of gunfire, the truck lurched and Mahoney, who was standing at that moment, fell off the back. He landed with a crash on the dirt road, but still clutching his rifle. For a bone-jarred moment all he knew was the shocked terror of being left in a hail of gunfire; then he collected his wits, scrambled up and fled. He fled doubled-up across the road, and leapt into the bush, desperately looking for cover, when suddenly he saw terrible terrorists leaping up in front of him.

Leaping up and running away, terrorists to left of him, terrorists to right of him, all running for their lives instead of blowing the living shit out of him. For Mahoney, in his shock, had run into their gunfire instead of away from it; all the terrorists saw was the angriest white man in the world charging at them with murder in his heart, and all Mahoney knew was the absolute terror of running straight into the enemy and the desperate necessity of killing them before they killed him, and he wildly opened fire. Firing blindly from the hip, sweeping the bush with his shattering gun, the desperate instinct to kill kill kill the bastards before they kill me, and all he saw was men lurching and crashing in full flight – he went crashing on through the bush after them, God knows why, gasping, Joe Mahoney single-handedly taking on the fleeing buttocks of the Liberation Army – he ran and ran, rasping, stumbling, and through the trees he saw a man, fired and saw the blood splat as the man contorted; then Mahoney threw himself behind a tree and slithered to the ground, on to his gasping belly; then his own boys were coming running through the trees; and he sank his head, heart pounding, sick in his guts.

He had just killed seven men all by himself, and he was a hero. Maybe the whole thing had taken one minute.

For the next two days they tracked the rest of the terrorists. The tracker walked ahead, flanked by two men to watch for the enemy while his eyes were on the ground; the troopers followed behind, eyes constantly darting over the bush, every muscle tensed for the sudden shattering gunfire, ready to fling themselves flat. For two days it was like that, stalking through the endless bush under the merciless sun, slogging, sweating, and all the time every nerve tensed to kill and die – and oh God, God, Mahoney hated the war, and hated himself.

Because Joe Mahoney, QC, Africa-lover, African lover, just wanted to kill kill kill and get it over, with all his stretched-tight nerves he longed for contact, so that he could go charging in there and get it over with … But for what?

Because the enemy were murderous bastards who brutalized their own tribesmen, burned their huts and crops and schools and maimed their cattle, terrorizing everybody into submission because that is the only law Africa respects? Because they were smash-and-grab communists, their heads stuffed with the nihilism of Moscow and Peking who are dedicated to the destruction of the West, to the wars they were waging and winning in the rest of Africa and Central America and Asia and the Middle East, winning by default because the West was now so pusillanimous and gutless? Ah yes, when he reminded himself of these matters Joe Mahoney did not feel so bad. ‘What are you fighting for, lad?’ he sometimes asked round the fire at night, when the theory is you should be a father-figure to your men, though he really asked it because he wanted to ease his conscience.

‘For my country, sir.’

‘Against the communists, sir.’

‘Anything else?’

(And, God knows, was that not enough?) There always ensued a rag-bag discussion in which half-digested evidence steamrollered itself into gospel truth, tales of barbarity mixed with contempt. How the fucking hell can they rule the fucking country, sir? Usually Mahoney just listened like the magistrate he used to be when large tracts of the world were still governed by the impeccable Victorian standards of the old school tie, a good grasp of Latin verbs and the ability to bowl a good cricket ball. Sometimes he interrupted them with something like: ‘Gentlemen, I know we’re all in the bush getting our arses shot off without the comfort and society of our womenfolk, but do you think we can uphold some of these standards we cherish by not making every adjective a four-letter word?’

But usually he just sat there and listened, his dulled heart aching, for Africa. Because Africa was dying, bleeding to death from self-inflicted wounds. And his heart ached for his troopers too, because Africa was all they had and they were going to lose it, and they did not realise that it was really a black man’s war they were fighting and dying for. ‘For my country, sir, because how the hell can they run the country, sir?’ Oh, it was true. But they thought they were fighting a white man’s war, for the white man’s status quo. And, if so, was it a just war? Had the white man given the black man his fair share of the sun? And, if not, could this war be won? To win, must not the army be the fish swimming in the waters of the people? Was not the real battle for hearts and minds?

The next afternoon the spoor led to a kraal of five huts. The troopers silently surrounded the kraal, while the tracker did a big three-sixty through the surrounding bush, looking for the terrorists’ spoor leading out. After fifteen minutes he found it.

‘How old?’

‘A few hours,’ the tracker said. ‘They left about noon.’

Mahoney turned and ran back to the kraal, while his men kept him covered. ‘Where is the headman?’ he shouted.

The African woman looked up, astonished. An infant with flies round his nostrils stared, then burst into tears. People came creeping out of the huts, wide-eyed, young and old, in white man’s tatters. ‘Are you the headman, old gentleman?’ Mahoney demanded.

The man was grey-haired. ‘Yes, Nkosi.’

‘Some terrorists have been to your kraal today. How many?’

The old man was trembling. ‘I have seen nobody, Nkosi.’ Everybody was staring, frightened.

Mahoney took him by the elbow and led him aside.

‘Their spoor leads into your kraal. Where were they going?’

The old man was shaking. ‘They did not say, Nkosi.’

‘What did they want from you?’

The old man trembled. ‘They ordered my wives to cook food.’

‘How many men?’

‘I think there were ten.’

Mahoney took a big, sweating breath. ‘If anymore come, you have not seen me. When I leave now, you will obliterate my spoor in your kraal. Understand?’

Mahoney turned and left. The soldiers started following the spoor again, hard.

When darkness fell they were less than two hours behind the terrorists. With the first light they started again.

After an hour the spoor split into two groups.

‘They’re looking for more kraals. For more food.’

Mahoney divided his men. After an hour the spoor he was following turned. It headed back towards the old man’s kraal.

When the terrorists got back to the kraal they ordered the women to cook more food and they sat down to wait.

‘Have you seen any soldiers?’

‘No,’ the old man mumbled.

Everybody had their eyes averted. Then a child spoke up boastfully: ‘Yesterday a white soldier came.’

First they beat up everybody, with fists and boots and rifle butts, and the air was filled with the screaming and the wailing. Then they threw the old man on his back. They lashed his hands and feet to stakes. They staked his senior wife beside him. Then the commander thrust an axe at the eldest son: ‘This is how we treat traitors to the Party! Chop your father’s legs off!’

And the women began to wail and the youth cowered and wept and so they threw him to the ground and kicked him, and then the commander picked up a big stone and he held it over his mother’s face: ‘This is how we treat people who do not obey!’

He dropped the stone on to the old woman’s face. And her nose broke and she cried out, spluttering blood, half-fainted; he picked up the stone and held it over her again, and dropped it again. Her forehead gashed open and she fainted, gurgling blood. The commander shouted: ‘Now chop your father’s legs off!’

And the boy wept and cowered, so they beat him again. And the commander held up the stone again: the old woman had revived, her face a mass of blood and contusion, breathing in gurgling gasps, and when she saw the stone poised again she cried out, cringing; and the man dropped the stone again. There was a big splat of blood and she fainted. The commander shouted: ‘Tie wire around his testicles!’

They pulled the boy’s trousers off and tied a long wire tight around his scrotum so he screamed, then they yanked him to his feet in front of his father and thrust the axe in his hand.

‘Chop well! For each chop we will pull your balls and drop the stone on your mother’s face! Now chop!’ And the wire was wrenched.

The boy screamed, and the wire was wrenched again, and he lurched the axe above his head, his tears streaming, and the old man wrenched at his bonds, and the commander slammed his boot down on his throat. ‘Chop!’ he roared and the wire was wrenched and the boy screamed again, and they wrenched the wire again and his face screwed up in agony, and he swung the axe down with all his horrified might. There was a crack of shin-bone and the leg burst open, sinews splayed, and the old man screamed and bucked and the commander bellowed.

‘One!’

And he dropped the stone on the woman’s face and the wire was wrenched so the boy screamed through his hysterical sobbing, and he swung the axe on high again and swiped it down on the other shin, and there was another crack of bone, and another gaping wound in the glaring sunshine, white shattered bone and sinews and blood, and the commander shouted.

‘Two!’

And he dropped the stone again and the wire wrenched and the boy screamed, reeling, and he swung the axe again at his father’s legs.

‘Three!’

And another crash of the stone, and another wrench of the wire. ‘Four!’ And again. ‘Five!’ And now the boy was hysterically swinging the axe, out of his mind with the horror and the agony, and there was nothing in the world but the screaming and the blood and stink of sweat under the African sun. Altogether it took the boy nine swipes to chop his father’s legs right off, but his mother was dead before then, suffocated in her own blood.

The troopers heard the screams a quarter of a mile away. They came running, spread out. Mahoney saw the old man writhing, the youth reeling over him with an axe, the terrorists, and he thought the youth was one of them – and he fired; then his men opened up, and there was pandemonium. The cracking of guns and the stench of cordite and the screaming and the scrambling and the running.

A minute later it was almost over. The women had fled into a hut. Three terrorists lay dead, three others had dived into a hut, but they had been flushed out by the threat of a hand-grenade. Mahoney knelt beside the groaning old man in the bloody mud, aghast, holding two tourniquets while the sergeant gave the man a morphine injection. He could not bear to look at the two stumps, the splintered bones sticking out, the severed feet. After a minute the man fell mercifully silent. Beside him lay his wife, her head twice its normal size, her lacerated eyes and nostrils swollen tight shut, her split lips swollen shut in death.

Then Mahoney got the story from the weeping women. He stared at the youth he had shot, and he felt ringing in his ears and the vomit rise in his gut. He walked to the back of the hut, and he retched, and retched.

When he came back the sergeant had lined up the terrorists. They were trembling, glistening with sweat. Mahoney could feel his men’s seething fury for revenge.

‘Shoot them, sir?’

Mahoney stopped in front of the three.

‘Or let the women shoot them, sir?’

‘Chop their legs off too, sir?’ a trooper shouted theatrically.

Mahoney looked at the three. One had his eyes closed in trembling prayer.

‘You savages,’ Mahoney hissed.

Silence. He could feel his men seething behind him. The commander said, ‘I demand the Geneva Convention.’

Mahoney blinked. ‘The Geneva Convention?’ he whispered. Then his mind reeled red-black in fury. ‘The Geneva Convention?’ – he roared and he bounded at the man and seized him by the neck and wrenched him across the kraal to the corpses. He rammed the man’s head down over the stumps of legs: ‘Did the Russians teach you this Geneva Convention? And this?’ He rammed the head over the woman’s pulped face. He seized up the bloody axe and shook it under the man’s face: ‘Is this your Geneva Convention?’

For a long hate-filled moment he held the cowering man by his collar, and with all his vicious fury he just wanted to ram the axe into the gibbering face. Then he threw it down furiously. The sergeant grabbed the man. ‘Shoot them, sir?’

The three terrorists stood there, terrified. Mahoney stared at them. Oh God, to shoot them and give them their just deserts. Oh, to shoot them so that the weeping kraal members could see that justice had been done. Oh, to shoot them so that all the people in the area would know that the white man’s justice was swift and dire.

‘They’re going to be tried for murder and hanged. Radio for a helicopter.’

And oh God, God, he knew why Rhodesia could not win this war. Not because these bastards outnumbered them, not because Russia and China were pouring military hardware into them, and certainly not because they were better soldiers; but because the likes of Joe Mahoney could not bring themselves to fight the bastards by their own savage rules; Joe Mahoney could not even shoot the bastards who chopped people’s legs off. Instead he had to hand them over to the decorous procedures of the courts, where they would be assigned competent counsel at the public’s expense, presumed innocent until proved guilty. They would have a lengthy appeal and thereafter their sentences would be considered by the President for the exercise of the Prerogative of Mercy.

And Joe Mahoney knew that he would soldier no more, that he was not much longer for God-forsaken Africa.