machine guns from the hip. Squat, boxy shapes trundled out of the concealing smoke behind them-armored person el carriers armed with machine guns and 20mm semiautomatic cannon.
Mares stood motionless, shocked by the ferocity of the South African assault. His troops were being cut to pieces right before his eyes.
A BTR roared past him, sand spraying from under spinning tires. Hatches left open by its disembarked and abandoned infantry squad clanged to and fro. Other vehicles followed, fleeing the carnage spreading up and down the
Cuban front line.
The 8th Motor Rifle Battalion was collapsing.
FORWARD HEADQUARTERS, 20TH CAPE RIFLES
Henrik Kruger’s Ratel command vehicle lurched abruptly as its front wheels bounced over a rock the driver hadn’t seen. He braced himself against the open turret hatch and kept scanning the steep, brush-choked slope stretching before him.
Three Ratels were moving a hundred meters out in front
-spread wide in a wedge formation. More APCs were farther ahead, already down on the valley floor and vanishing into the smoky haze. Incandescent, split-second flashes from inside the smoke screen showed where vehicles were firing. Flickering, molten-orange glows marked the smoldering funeral pyres of their victims.
A blurred, static-distorted voice crackled over the radio
Kruger took one hand off the hatch coaming to press his headset closer.
The constant din created by barking tank cannon, chattering machine guns, mortars, and screaming men made it difficult to hear-let alone think.
“Say again, Echo Four. “
“The bastards are running, Tango Oscar One! Repeat, we have them running!” Maj. Daan Visser’s wild exhilaration came clearly over the airwaves.
“Am pursuing at full speed!”
What? Kruger suddenly felt cold. At full speed, Visser’s armored vehicles would soon outpace the rest of the battalion. And that meant his infantry companies wouldn’t have the armored support they needed. It would also leave the Rooikats; and Elands moving blind through enemy-held territory.
He squeezed the transmit switch on his mike.
“Negative, Echo Four. Wait for the infantry. Do not, repeat, do not pursue on your own!” He released the switch, listening for a reply.
He never got one.
ROOIKAT 101, ATTACHED RECON SQUADRON, 20TH CAPE RIFLES
Diesel engine roaring, the eight-wheeled Rooikat AFV bounced up and over the lip of a narrow gulley at high speed. Small trees and thorn bushes lining the gulley were either knocked aside or flattened and crushed by its big radial tires.
Maj. Daan Visser stood high in the Rooikat’s open commander’s cupola.
Dark, tinted goggles and a fluttering orange scarf protected his eyes and his mouth from the sand and acrid smoke. The long barrel of a cupola-mounted machine gun bounced and rolled beside him.
For the moment, Visser and his crew were effectively alone on the battlefield. Swirling smoke and dust had so cut visibility that the seven other Rooikats and Elands of his two troops were out of sight and out of command. And they’d left the supporting infantry far behind. From the sounds echoing through the haze, the foot sloggers were still busy mopping up scattered resistance.
Visser grinned beneath his scarf. Let Kruger’s poor, cautious sods worry about routing out every last sniper. He and his lads would show them the right way to win this war. Smash a hole in the Swapo lines, pour through, and then run the survivors into the ground. That was the road to victory.
And to glory.
Forty meters ahead, a fleeing BTR-60 blundered out of the smoke into the
Rooikat’s path.
“Gunner, target at one o’clock! “
The AFV’s overlarge turret whined, spinning thirty degrees to the right.
“Acquired!” The gunner’s voice reflected Visser’s own exultation. Nothing was easier than shooting at people unable or unwilling to shoot back.
“Fire!” The turret lurched backward as its main gun fired, easily absorbing the sudden shock. A 76mm armor-piercing shell ripped the enemy APC open from end to end in a spray of white-hot fragments and fuel.
Seconds later, the Rooikat raced by the BTR’s shattered, blazing hulk, passing so close that Visser could feel the heat of the flames on his face.
Another kill. Another trophy.
Something moved in a dense patch of brush off to his left. He spun round in the open cupola, eyes searching for the enemy vehicle that would be his
Rooikat’s next victim.
It wasn’t a vehicle. Just a lone infantryman who’d risen from the tangle of thorns and tall grass in a single, fluid motion-with an RPG-7 at the ready.
Time seemed to slow.
Visser noticed something odd. The man was light skinned, not a black. The grenade-tipped muzzle of the RPG swung left, tracking the still-moving
Rooikat.
Oh, my God. Visser clawed frantically for the machine gun mounted next to him, ice-cold fear surging upward to
replace elation. If he could just swing the MG around in time, he’d cut the swine in half…. The foot soldier fired his RPG at point-blank range. Trailing flame, the 85mm rocket-propelled antitank grenade flew straight into the side of the
Rooikat’s lightly armored turret and exploded.
In a strange sense, Maj. Daan Visser was lucky to the end. The blast killed him instantly. His three crewmen weren’t so fortunate. They burned to death in the fire that swept through the Rooikat’s mangled turret and hull.
20TH CAPE RIFLES
Commandant Kruger looked out across a valley unloved by nature and now ravaged by man.
Burning vehicles spewing smoke dotted the battlefield some alone, others in small clusters. Bodies littered the ground near each wrecked vehicle. Brush fires set by mortar rounds and exploding fuel tanks crackled merrily, punctuated by short, sharp popping sounds as the fires swept over dead or wounded men carrying ammunition.
Medical teams roamed the valley, searching for men who could still be saved. Overcrowded ambulances were already wending their way south from the battalion aid station transporting serious cases to the evac hospital set up in Rehoboth. Some were bound to die on the sixty-kilometer trip.
Technicians and mammoth tank recovery vehicles clustered around some of the wrecks-preparing to drag away any that could be repaired. Still more quartermaster corps units crisscrossed the battlefield, collecting the individual weapons rifles machine guns, and RPGs—dropped by both sides.
Other men stumbled or were prodded toward the rear with their arms raised high in surrender. Small groups of prisoners being driven south at bayonet point. Cuban prisoners.
Kruger frowned. The presence of Cuban. motor rifle units explained the stiff resistance his men had faced, but it raised another even more troubling issue. South Africa’s intelligence services had claimed that a shortage of strategic transport would make it impossible for Cuba to interfere with Operation Nimrod. It didn’t take a genius to see that they’d been dead wrong.
The question was, how many Cubans were already in Namibia and how fast were they arriving?
Footsteps crunched on the sand behind him. He turned slowly and saw the short, stocky, grim-faced officer who’d replaced Visser.
“Well, Captain?”
The other man swallowed hard, obviously still reluctant to believe what he had to report.
