The Blockade Runners by Peter Vollmer

Author:Peter Vollmer [Vollmer, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-08-16T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 25

The black man cowered beneath the blackened canopy of the stunted thorn bush. Around him, the ground was burnt black, still smouldering in places. Only the trees revealed any green. Their canopies were out of reach of the flames and too wet to catch fire. As the wall of flame approached, he had been able to find a piece of open ground. He had tried to protect himself, bending over and wrapping his arms around himself. Still, his hands and face were blistered where the flames had touched those parts of his skin that had not been covered.

He still clutched his AK-47 rifle. Two taped-together magazines hung round his neck on a leather thong. Patches of his black hair were singed and a long gash on his forehead showed pink flesh, a bloodied fluid seeping from the wound. He was bewildered, terrified and witless.

When still across the Zambezi River in Zambia at the training camp, it had all sounded so easy. The black Communist instructor, the Komissar, had been adamant that the whites were not expecting any attack. They could literally cross and walk into the country undetected.

The black Rhodesians were relative newcomers to the emerging nationalistic movements and only recently had this begun to take on the form of an armed struggle. Military training was a new concept, the level of which was mediocre or virtually non-existent. Weapons were still difficult to come by and any training with live ammunition was not possible, as there simply was not enough ammunition to go round. Every day, they had simulated battle conditions using wooden rifles or those with rifles would do so without ammunition.

The battle plan was ill-conceived. The whites would not be expecting an attack so near to Salisbury. The farm was not guarded at night. They had crossed the border from Zambia four days ago, moving only at night and sleeping hidden in the densest bush during the day. He, his brother and seventeen others. Some had never even fired their rifles before they set out. In Mozambique at the training camp, no more than a clearing in the bush with a few huts situated in the remotest area of the country’s western border, the Komissar had told them that this was their land, not the white man’s, and that they needed to take it back. All Africa had awoken and it was just the Boers and the Rhodesians who refused to change.

The Komissar said that many other countries in Africa had been given back to the blacks and that most whites had left. They needed to show the Rhodesians that they could not ignore the black man and continue to treat them no better than slaves.

Jeremiah, his youngest brother, had found a job as a houseboy on the Mentz’s farm a few months ago. Over time, he reconnoitred the area and provided them with the necessary information, which enabled them to approach the farm without detection.

He was overcome with grief. He had now lost two brothers, both killed by the whites.

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