He sneaked another quick glance toward the police post.
The South African riot troops were still looking the wrong way. It was time to move, before one of them grew wary or bored and decided to scan the rest of the local scenery.
Ian rolled onto his back and pulled himself through the gap. Knowles wriggled through the fence after first passing the camera through the narrow opening.
They were inside.
Without stopping, Ian rose to his feet and raced forward into a narrow alley between two of Nyanga’s small, aluminum-sided houses. Knowles followed, unslinging his camera as he ran.
Both men paused to get their bearings and then moved on-walking toward the noise of the riot spreading fast through the township. As they felt their way gingerly ahead, stepping wide over trash littering the alley, Ian took a deep breath, trying to suck air into his heaving lungs. It was a mistake.
Piles of rotting, uncollected garbage, the sewage backing up from inadequate sanitation systems, and now, stray wisps of tear gas, all came together to create a single, gut-wrenching odor. He clenched his teeth, fighting down a wave of nausea.
The alley they were in ran straight north between rows of dilapidated, windowless homes, paralleling one of Nyanga’s unpaved main streets. Nothing moved, except for a few scrawny rats that scampered quickly out of their path.
After a few minutes of hard walking, Knowles stopped short of what looked like a major cross street. He looked up at Ian.
“Where to now, kimosabe?”
Ian cocked his head, listening to the continuing sounds of chaos. They seemed louder ahead and to the left. He stepped out of the alley and turned in that direction.
Almost immediately they started seeing people streaming south, fleeing what now sounded more like a pitched street battle than a routine, if brutal, door-to-door police sweep. Most were women and children-some carrying hastily snatched bundles of their household belongings, while others, weeping, ran empty-handed.
Ian saw Knowles raise his camera and start panning from side to side. He moved forward again, with the short, stocky
cameraman tagging along by his side. The pictures of panic stricken flight would be dramatic, but they had to get closer to the action. People back home needed to see just what Nyanga’s inhabitants were running away from.
The two Americans pushed their way north up one of the refugee-choked streets, dodging frightened men, women, and children carrying what they could of their furnishings away from the fighting. The mixed smells of smoke and tear gas grew stronger, and Ian could see orange and red flames leaping from rooftopt farther down the street.
There were more men in the crowd hurrying past. Many had been shot or badly beaten and were being half- carried, half-dragged away by their friends or relatives. Ian had a dizzying impression of a whirl of torn, bloodstained shirts, fearful eyes, and angry, shaking fists, some aimed in his direction.
Their undisguised hatred shocked him until he remembered his white skin.
For all Nyanga’s inhabitants could know, he and Knowles might be members of the state security services- taking pictures for later use both in criminal prosecutions and covert retaliation. Ian felt sweat trickling down his back and beading on his forehead. The fact that they could be in as much danger from the township’s people as they were from the police hadn’t really sunk in before. It wasn’t a reassuring thought.
Ian slipped a hand into his pants pocket, unconsciously fingering his plastic-cased press card as if it were some kind of religious talisman. But he knew it would be a singularly ineffective protection if the township’s angry young men turned on anyone trapped in the wrong-colored skin.
Knowles’s hand touched his arm and he started, instantly ashamed that he’d shown his nervousness so openly.
The cameraman pointed farther up the street.
“I think that’s where we want to be. Whatever bastards are driving these people back are going to have to come through that.”
Ian’s eyes followed his friend’s pointing finger and he nodded. Knowles was right, as usual. The locals had built a barricade of flaming truck and car tires, old furniture, and boxes of canned foods dragged from a nearby grocery. Greasy black smoke from the burning tires hung over the whole street, cutting off the sun and throwing everything into a kind of gray, gloomy half-light.
The two men jogged closer to the barricade, looking for a sheltered vantage point.
They could see the barricade’s defenders clearly now. Young men. Teenagers.
Even a few boys who couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven years old.
None of them were running, and all clutched a rock, chair leg, or tire iron. Any kind of improvised weapon that would give them a chance to hit back at those responsible for this unwarranted attack on their homes and families.
“Here!” Ian pulled Knowles down beside a rust-eaten car stripped of its tires, doors, and engine. They were within twenty yards of the barricade.
Knowles knelt upright and propped his camera up on the edge of the car’s crumpled hood. Ian crouched beside him, feeling calmer now that they were in cover.
An eerie stillness settled over the street. Smoke from the burning tires and houses made it impossible to see far beyond the barricade. But no shapes moved in the oily mist, and fewer shots and screams could be heard.
For an instant Ian wondered if the police raid was over, either called off or beaten back. Had Nyanga’s people put up enough resistance to discourage
South Africa’s hardened riot troops?
A roaring, thundering, grinding crash jarred him back to reality, and he stared in shock as an enormous Hippo armored personnel carrier smashed into the barricade at high speed, sending tires, furniture, and boxes flying apart in what seemed slow motion. Rocks clanged harmlessly off the APC’s metal hide as it lumbered on down the street-leaving a trail of crushed, still-burning debris behind itself.
Riot police appeared suddenly out of the smoke, charging through the gap left them by the Hippo. Gas masks with clear plastic visors and bulbous filters gave them a strangely alien appearance. One went down in a tangle of equipment, hit hard in the head by a thrown rock. The black teenager who’d thrown it cried out in triumph and knelt to pick up another. Both he and his joy were short-lived.
Ian winced as a point-blank shotgun blast ripped the young rock-thrower into a ragged, bleeding mess. He swallowed hard against the bitter taste in his mouth.
The police seemed to take that first shot as a signal, and they began firing wildly, indiscriminately-spraying shotgun blasts into the street and houses around the barricade. Splinters whined through the air, blown off buildings by hundreds of pellets concentrated into narrow, killing arcs.
Ian felt something whip crack past his head and ducked. Jesus. He’d never been shot at before.
He poked his head back above the car, noticing that Knowles had never stopped filming. My God, nothing seemed to faze the man.
The street looked like a slaughterhouse. Patches of its hard packed dirt surface were stained, soaked in blood. There were bodies all around-some lying motionless, others thrashing or twitching uncontrollably in agony. A few of Nyanga’s young men still stood their ground, flailing desperately away at the policemen pouring through their shattered barricade. But most were running. Riot troops chased after them, firing from the hip or swinging whips and truncheons in vicious, bone-crunching blows.
Ian jogged Knowles’s elbow and jerked his head toward one of the tiny alleys opening onto the street. They had all the videotape they needed to make a damned good story out of this blood bath. No useful purpose would be served by hanging around until the police spotted them. It was time to get out.
Knowles slung the camera over his back and followed Ian into the alley.
They ran hard, jumping piles of untended garbage and forcing their way through patches where weeds had grown waist high. Behind them, the police gunfire rose to a higher-pitched, rattling crescendo, spreading rapidly to all sides. At the sound of it, both men ran faster still, trying to escape what seemed like a quickly closing net.
Ian’s lungs felt as though they were on fire, and every breath burned going down. His legs seemed to weigh a ton apiece. Knowles wasn’t in much better shape as he stumbled panting along behind. But he kept running,
