In a land as torn by violence as South Africa, border guards weren’t sleepy policemen checking for insects in contraband fruit. They were soldiers.
The commander of the Komatipoort Border Post, grayhaired Sgt. Uwe Boshof, laid his shovel aside and breathing heavily, plopped down on the edge of his shallow, hastily dug foxhole. Sweat stains soaked his short- sleeved khaki shirt-black patches of wetness spreading from under his armpits and across his broad back. The sergeant was a tall, big-boned man, and he carried a lot of meat on those bones. Too much, perhaps.
If so, he thought with weary amusement, he’d undoubtedly worked some of that excess weight off during the past several hours.
Boshof mopped his brow with a handkerchief and squinted east into the rising sun-an enormous orange-and- red orb flattened and distorted by the lowlying haze. Despite the clinging, sticky heat it was sure to bring, he was glad to see the day proper begin.
His night had been long on confusion and wild rumor and short on needed steep.
First, that idiot Private Krom had woken him up after hearing what he claimed were radio reports of some big guerrilla attack way up north along the Limpopo. When the story wasn’t repeated in the SABC’s next hourly broadcast, Boshof vaguely remembered going back to bed-but only after chewing Krom out for being a blithering, gutless moron.
He’d scarcely had time to drift off again before the first phone call came in-from the Army’s Eastern Transvaal Command, no less. Some staff flunkie wanting to know if they’d spotted any “unusual activity.” For a second, he’d been tempted to mention the pair of blesbok, or antelope,
he’d seen wander by earlier that evening. But only for a second. Staff officers had a notoriously poor sense of humor.
After that, he’d only been able to grab one fitful, restless hour of shut-eye before the kak, the shit, really started to hit the fan.
At two in the morning, reinforcements arrived-six more men dropped off from a truck making the rounds of every guard post along this stretch of the border. A hurried phone call to Battalion revealed only that both his captain and lieutenant were “unavailable.” They’d probably been comfortably asleep, he thought irritably.
His new men had been full of tales, though: blab bering all over creation about the whole base being put on alert, all leaves being canceled, and frantic quartermasters rushing around issuing field rations and a basic load of ammunition to every combat soldier. They were sure something big was happening.
Right. The Afrikaner noncom snorted at the memory. God save him from raw recruits who couldn’t tell the difference between real war and a blery drill.
Still, nobody was going to watch the grass grow under Sgt. Uwe Boshof’s feet. Drills were always followed by inspections. And who could tell?
This alert might even be real. Maybe the higher-ups had warning of an imminent ANC raid. Or maybe some farmer had spotted a rebel commando moving into the area.
Whatever. Even though nothing much was likely to happen at Komatipoort, he always believed that preparation for the worst was a wise precaution.
That was why he’d ordered his small twelve-man garrison to stand to. And that was why he’d ordered them to dig fighting positions around the border post itself.
If any of those murdering ANC bastards do come sniffing around here,
Boshof swore silently, they’ll feel as if they’ve tried to bite into a buzz saw. It was a promise he felt sure he could keep. Besides their R-4 assault rifles, his men had a heavy caliber Vickers machine gun, grenades, and even a hand-held 60mm patrol mortar. His garrison would be more than a match for any kaffir raiding force.
And if there were white rebels out and about recruiting, the traitorous swine would get short shrift from him. He’d spent twenty-five years in the
SADF-long enough to know how to take orders, even if they did mostly come from a pack of fools.
He yawned once. And a second time. Then his stomach growled, an unwelcome reminder they weren’t likely to eat anytime soon. Meal trucks wouldn’t make the rounds during an alert. Should he tell the boys to open some of their canned rations? Or was Battalion likely to call this whole thing off soon?
Boshof shrugged. Maybe his erstwhile superiors would tell him what the devil was going on when they bothered to get out of bed. He looked toward the guard shack, silently willing the phone to ring.
“Sergeant!”
Boshof turned toward the shout. He saw a slender, youthful figure climbing down out of a tree overlooking the border fence. As punishment for all his assorted sins and radio antics, Private Krom had spent the night in that tree, watching the Mozambican side of the frontier through a nightvision scope. Now he was scrambling down, waving one arm to attract his sergeant’s attention.
Christ on a plate, now what? He stood up and brushed the dirt off his trousers. Then he slung his assault rifle and ambled toward the border.
Krom ran to meet him.
“Sergeant! I can see vehicles on the highway! Dozens of them!”
Boshof groaned inwardly. Another pile of bullshit from the young idiot.
“Nonsense.”
“No, really, I swear it!” The younger man pointed back in the direction he’d just come from.
“I’m telling you, I could see them passing between those two hills there. Moving in convoy. They can’t be more than five klicks away.”
What? Privately, Boshof thought the young recruit was out of his tiny mind.
Still, it might be better to make absolutely sure of that before putting him up on a charge.
He focused his own binoculars on the spot Krom had indicated and grimaced.
The sun’s glare made it tough to make
anything out. If I go blind, he thought, I’ll kill the little son of a
.
His hands tightened around the binoculars. He’d just seen sunlight glinting off glass or polished metal. Krom hadn’t been hallucinating.
There were vehicles on the highway out there. Vehicles headed this way.
And that might mean trouble-big trouble. One thing was sure, Uwe Boshof hadn’t made it to sergeant by taking unnecessary chances.
He grabbed Private Krom by the arm and ordered, “Get on the phone to headquarters. Report ‘many vehicles approaching.” Go! “
Krom nodded and ran off.
Boshof swung round and bellowed, “Listen up, boys! I want everybody down in those fucking holes! Now!”
For a split second his squad stood frozen, shocked into immobility by the sudden order.
“Move!” Boshof was already lumbering back toward his own foxhole.
His men threw their shovels and pickaxes to one side, grabbed their weapons, and dropped flat in half-dug fighting positions. Boshof followed suit seconds later.
And not a second too soon.
Crouched low, with his binoculars glued to his face, the Afrikaner sergeant heard the clattering, howling roar of twin rotors and twin gas turbine engines an instant before he saw them-a pair of helicopters darting around the side of a low hill, racing westward just over the treetops.
At first they were just oval specks, black dots against the rising sun, but they quickly grew in size and shape until he could identify them as
Soviet-made Mi-24 helicopter gunships. Big ugly monsters, he thought.
He’d never seen a Hind up close before, but he’d seen enough photos and drawings to know what they were. Odd. Mozambique’s armed forces weren’t supposed to have any gear that sophisticated.
What were these gunships doing so near the border? No, strike that. What were they going to do, now that they were here?
His own orders from headquarters were clear. As long as the Mozambicans stayed on their own side of the line, they could do as they pleased. He did note, however, his men were tracking the two helicopters with every
