The Soldier who Said No by Chris Marnewick Page B

position and to allow him to evade them to the north. He crept closer to the tree, still downwind from it, and found a suitable spot where he dug himself into the shrubbery and sand, covering himself as best he could with dry sticks and dead branches. He melted into the terrain, a mound of dirt and debris. Nothing moved, except for a few dead mopane leaves in the very slight breeze. Then he waited.
    The sun had risen in a clear sky and soon the temperature would be in the high twenties. Above the Tropic of Capricorn even winter couldn’t tame the sun, and out of the rainy season, the respite of a watercourse or a pan would not be available away from the main rivers. There would be water in the major rivers, but those were heavily patrolled by all the combatants, the Angolan factions fighting amongst themselves, the Russians and the Cubans siding with FAPLA and, of course, the South African 32 Battalion, ostensibly hunting SWAPO fighters in hot-pursuit operations, but in truth supporting the UNITA faction of Savimbi.
    De Villiers feared 32 Battalion most. It consisted of highly trained and well-motivated troops of different nationalities and races and included a large contingent of Angolan Portuguese opposed to communist rule. They were, in essence, a guerrilla force operating on foreign soil, beyond the reach of the SADF ’s standard disciplinary codes.
    De Villiers dozed off two or three times, dehydration contributing to hallucinatory dreams which crossed the boundaries between sleep and wakefulness. He woke up fully at the sound of an approaching helicopter, another troop carrier, this time a heavy Super Frelon in the khaki-green camouflage and markings of the SADF . He kept his head down, confident that his own camouflage would protect him from detection from the air and that the Super Frelon would not be equipped with infrared or heat-seeking search equipment. It was a troop carrier, and unless it was to land and drop off ground troops, he would be safe.
    The Super Frelon made a deafening noise as it thundered directly overhead and moved slowly north, but De Villiers’s peace of mind was shattered when he heard a voice nearby, its owner not visible to him.
    ‘Chopper, chopper, take me home.’
    The voice was to his left, about twenty yards away. He turned his head slowly. The radio operator was sitting bolt upright, twisting the dials of his field radio. He was a mere boy, no more than eighteen or nineteen, a freckled face full of mischief in infantry fatigues, the common browns everyone involved in the bush war wore, an R 4 rifle strapped across his back.
    The answer came back on the soldier’s radio.
    ‘Fuck off, Troop. Get off my channel!’
    Radio channel 17 was for the choppers. Channel 16 was the infantrymen’s patrol channel. The radio operator had obviously disobeyed his orders, breaking radio silence on the choppers’ channel.
    The throbbing sounds of the Super Frelon faded towards the north. De Villiers maintained his position, watching the radio operator through narrowed eyelids. The radio operator pulled a ration pack from his backpack and opened the box. De Villiers could smell every item as the soldier opened each container in turn and ate his breakfast. ProNutro, banana flavour, with water and milkpowder, bullybeef, a tube of soft cheddar cheese, an energy bar, vanilla flavour, condensed milk and coffee. There would also be a roll of tangerine-or orange-flavoured glucose sweets and some chewing gum, De Villiers knew. He realised he had last eaten more than twenty-four hours earlier.
    That had been with Verster. They had eaten breakfast together from their unusual ration packs and had joked about all the labels on the food items having been removed. They had had to guess what some of the unmarked plastic sachets contained.
    Now Verster was dead. He had seen the flash of the muzzle and he had seen him fall.
    De Villiers lay very still in his hide, moderating his breathing to ensure that there was no