Deon Meyer - Dead at Daybreak

Q: When last did you see them?

A: Last year.

Q: But you said you were with them in ’seventy-six?

A: That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You must understand the whole thing. The whole story.

Q: Tell us, Mr. Vergottini.

A: I don’t know what you know. Where shall I start?

Q: Assume that we know nothing.

A: It was in 1976. That’s where it all started…

∨ Dead at Daybreak ∧

58

There were eight of us in the squad and Bushy was squad sergeant…”

“A total of nine?”

“No, eight, with Bushy. We had a – ”

“What year are you talking about?”

“’Seventy-six.”

“You were all Recces?”

“Yes. Bushy had already completed a year and then he signed for another two. He wanted to turn PF, but he said he’d have to see first because they took a stripe away in ’seventy-five because he was in a fight in a bar…”

“PF?” Petersen asked.

“Permanent Force.”

“And the rest of you?”

“We were only troops, doing our military service. We were the first intake to do two years. Clinton Manley complained about it – he wanted to go to university, he already had a rugby scholarship to the University of Stellenbosch. We had – ”

“Who were the other members of the squad?”

“Bushy, Manley, Rupert, Speckle, Red, Gerry de – ”

“Red?”

“Verster, he came from Johannesburg…”

“Did he have another name?”

“Yes…um…um…I can’t remember, he was just Red.”

“Carry on.”

“Gerry de Beer, have I mentioned him? Koos van Rensburg – wait, let me count, Bushy, Speckle, Rupert, Clinton, Red, Koos, Gerry. And me. Eight.”

“Good.”

“We had a supply route, in the north, between Mavinga and wherever the Unita bases were – ammunition, food, sometimes a few documents in an attaché case. Every six weeks or so we were back in Katima Mulilo. It was hot and dry and we walked or rode at night. It was rough, in the dark, you couldn’t see a thing, and when the moon shone everything was gray and then suddenly shots rang out or you saw something coming and you lay in ambush and then it was LPs or goats…”

“LPs?”

“Local populace…or even Portuguese from the mines in the north who were still trying to get through. Sometimes it was Swapos and contact and then you wondered if you were going to die when the bullets hit the ground next to you or sang over your head and you lay behind a shrub. But the Swapos avoided us, they were on their way to South West, they lay low. It was only when we met virtually face-to-face…

“Our nerves were shot. I didn’t realize it then, only later, after weeks in the bush. The whole time you knew anything could happen in that darkness, later land mines as well, and you slept badly during the day and you ate badly, and sometimes the water holes were dry and it was only tension all day, all night, even if Bushy and Speckle pretended they liked it. They never stopped saying they wanted to shoot more Swapos, they were looking for more contact, but the tension got to them as well in the end. It was tension that caused the whole mess with the Parabats.”

“The Parabats?”

“We were two weeks away from fourteen days’ leave when we came back from a drop in Angola at night, on foot, and Bushy indicated that we should fall flat. We saw them coming through a dry riverbed – only the shadows and the rifle barrels, you couldn’t see much more than that – twelve of them, spread out, the way Swapos did, and Bushy told us to form an ambush. We took up our positions – we had practiced it over and over again, each one knew what to do, where to lie. We knew we had to wait for Bushy to shoot first. They came up, not even knowing about us. Then Bushy shot and we all fired and they fell and screamed and I knew this was what Bushy had been waiting for, a dozen kaffirs. You must forgive me, but that’s all they spoke about – they were the biggest racists I’ve ever known, Bushy and Speckle. We all were, at that time. They taught us…”

“Carry on,” said Leon Petersen.

“We mowed them down, they didn’t stand a chance, and when everything was quiet we heard one of them calling, in Afrikaans, ‘Help me, Ma, help me,’ and then I heard Clinton Manley saying, ‘Oh, my God,’ and we knew something was wrong. Bushy got up and signed to us and we crept closer, and when we came to the first one we saw the dog tags, and he was a Parabat from Bloemfontein. No one had told us they would be there. Ten were dead, fucked-up dead, shot to pieces. One was dying – he was the one who shouted – and one was still alive, shot through both legs, but he would’ve made it.”

“ Would’ve made it?”

“Speckle shot him. But it wasn’t that simple. You can imagine. We stood next to the Parabat and he knew we were Recces and he asked, over and over again, ‘Why did you shoot us?’ And then he moaned with pain and we were shit-scared because it was a major fuckup, jeez, we had killed our own people – do you know what it feels like? We were all panicky. I think it was Red who asked what we were going to do now, but no one answered him, we were in such deep trouble, and the guy on the ground was hysterical: ‘Why did you shoot us?’ And he moaned, and on and on. Jeez, all I wanted to do was run, I wanted to get away, and Bushy simply stood there, as white as a sheet, he didn’t know what to do, either, and then Speckle came up and he shot the guy in the head and Gerry de Beer said, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ and Speckle said, ‘What the fuck do you want us to do?’ He wasn’t calm, Speckle, he was just as scared as the rest of us, you could hear it, you could see it, Christ, it was bad, but then it was quiet, dead quiet, and Red threw up and so did Clinton Manley, and the rest of us stood there among ten dead Parabats and we all knew no one would ever talk about it. We all knew before I said it – I mean, it was an accident, it was genuinely a helluva accident, what could we do? – and then I said we’d never talk about it.”

Silence.

“Mr. Vergottini?”

“I’m okay.”

“Take your time, Mr. Vergottini.”

“I’d rather you called me Peter. It’s the name I’m used to.”

“Take your time.”

“I’m okay. We buried them. The ground was hard and we didn’t want to bury them in the riverbed because in the rainy season…We worked until two o’clock the following afternoon, covering their heads first. I don’t think we could handle the eyes and the faces. They were our guys. Our people. We picked up every cartridge case, covered every spot of blood, buried everyone. And then we went on. Without speaking. Speckle in the lead. I’ll never forget it: suddenly Speckle was in the lead, Bushy behind him. Speckle was the new leader without a word being said. For two days we walked, night and day, without a word being said, everyone’s head busy with only one thing, and when we reached the camp, Lieutenant Brits was waiting and he wanted to see us…”

“Bester Brits?”

“Yes.”

“Go on.”

“He wanted to see us and we thought someone knew something because we knew he was Intelligence, and we were scared and Speckle said that he would talk, that we must just keep our traps shut, but then it was another story altogether, a completely new story.

“Every day for the past twenty-three years I’ve thought about it. Coincidence. If Brits had asked for another squad. If the Parabats had followed another route. If we could’ve distinguished an R1 from an AK in the dark…Coincidence. The Parabats. And then Orion.”

“Orion?”

“Operation Orion, Brits’s operation. He said he knew we were tired but it was just one night’s work and then we would get fourteen days, immediately, get onto a Hercules and go home, but we were the only experienced squad that was available and the operation was the following night. All we had to do was to ride shotgun on a Dak…that’s a Dakota, a DC 10, an aircraft…all we had to do was see that two parcels were exchanged, and he was going along. He wanted us for peace of mind – that was his phrase, ‘peace of mind.’ And then he organized a helluva meal for us from the officers’ mess and said we weren’t sleeping in tents, he had organized a prefab for us, and we could sleep as late as we liked – he would make sure no one bothered us. We had to be fresh the following afternoon, one night’s work and then we’d be going home.