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.
“We ate and showered and went to the bungalow, but no one could sleep. Red Verster said we would have to tell someone, suddenly, as if he’d decided. Speckle said no. Clinton said we must talk to someone, Rupert de Jager said what good would it do, they were dead, it wouldn’t bring them back, and Koos van Rensburg said no, we wouldn’t be able to live with it, and the guys began yelling at one another, Rupert and me at Clinton and Gerry and Red and Koos, until Speckle beat on a tin trunk and we all looked at him and he said we were tired, we were all tired and shocked, and it would only cause trouble if we fought about it now. We must wait. Until we came back from Orion. Then we would vote. And then we would do what the majority wanted.
“Bushy Schlebusch just lay there staring at the ceiling. And Speckle Venter was in control. And then we all lay down and I think we slept a little toward morning and then Bester arrived at eleven o’clock and said there was breakfast and were we okay, and he was all over us, trying to be one of the boys and we all ignored him because of the Parabats and because all intelligence officers were like that, shit-scared men who sat at the base and then tried to sound like old hands who had seen contact. But he was too much, kept saying, ‘Orion is big, guys, Orion is really big. You must be on your toes. One day you can tell your children you did a great thing.’
“And that evening he handed out live ammunition and hand grenades and we drove in a Bedford to the airfield and there the Dak stood and we got in, and before takeoff Brits said he wanted to brief us. He said it was top secret but we would see what was going on in any case, we weren’t idiots, and he knew he could trust us. We were going to a mine in Cuango to fetch stones, diamonds, and then we were crossing a border or two, flying over without permission, and we would exchange the diamonds for something Unita wanted very badly because they were struggling against the rest of Angola and the Cubans, but as far as we were concerned we had seen nothing. And then we would leave on our fourteen-day pass with a little extra in the pay packet, a little extra to make the fourteen days rich and enjoyable, and he tried to make his voice sound like some fancy radio announcer selling coffee creamer. He was a real joker, he so badly wanted to be one of the boys.
“Generally we slept on anything that flew, but not that night. We sat there with our hands on our rifles and our eyes on one another and I think we all wondered who would be the first to crack, the first to talk. Rupert de Jager and Speckle Venter and I, who thought we should keep quiet; Red and Clinton and Gerry and Koos, who wanted us to talk; and Bushy Schlebusch with nothing in his eyes. I didn’t know where he stood. Tension, hell, there was so much tension between us you could have cut it with a panga, but Brits had no clue, he was too busy with his maps and papers and his little flashlight, and every few minutes he would check whether we were staring at him.
“We landed at a godforsaken stretch somewhere in northern Angola. They’d lit fires to mark the runway. We climbed out and positioned ourselves on one knee, rifles facing outward as Brits had briefed us, while he spoke to two guys. And then first they brought petrol for the Dak in a tank on a small van and then a whole lorryload of Unitas arrived and Bester told us to relax, that it was part of the plan, as if he was our squad leader. They brought a wooden box that it took four men to carry and loaded it into the plane and Brits said we must get in and we took off, and I tried to keep my bearings, but in the air at night it’s impossible. I thought we were flying south or east, and we sat there again with our red eyes and memories of the Parabats in our heads, and Speckle got up and went to sit next to Bushy and spoke to him for a long time, right in his ear, and then he sat in his own seat again.
“After two hours in the air we descended again and Brits said now we had to be alert, that this was the sensitive part of Operation Orion, and we went in and landed, somewhere – it was an endless stretch of bushveld and grass and stones. This time there were flares next to the landing strip, and Brits was the first to get out and we followed again in V formation, and then two men came driving up in a Land Rover. They got out and Brits went over to them and chitchatted. Then he looked in the back of the Landy and came back and told Bushy we must take out the wooden box and bring it. Bushy pointed to Speckle and me and we climbed back in and brought it – it was heavy – and put it down. The two strangers came across and Brits opened it and there were uncut diamonds everywhere, wrapped in plastic bags. One guy whistled and said, ‘Will ya look at that,’ in a thick American accent.
“ ‘Shall we make the exchange?’ Brits asked, and the other Yank said, ‘You betcha,’ and Brits closed the box and told us to put it in the back of the Landy and load the stuff in the Landy onto the plane. Speckle and I took the box and carried it to the back of the Landy, the Americans and Brits with us. In the back of the Land Rover there were cartons, a whole load of them, with the names of tinned food on them, closed with masking tape, and I thought it was odd, diamonds for tinned food, until I picked one up and it wasn’t tinned food. I didn’t know what it was. We each carried one to the Dak, and when no one could see us in the aircraft, Speckle slit it open with his bayonet and made a long
“I said no. And he said if I wanted to get out of the thing, I had to keep my head because things were going to happen, and then we went out to fetch more cartons and I saw him giving Bushy a sign, covertly, with one hand, and when we reached the Landy he shot one American, and when he fell, he shot the other.”
“Mr. Vergottini – ”
“Peter. Or Miller. Just give me a chance. If I could get something to drink?”
“Of course. I’ll send for coffee.”
“Coffee would be good.”
“Sugar? Milk?”
