down and whispered in Rex’s ear, “
After the briefing we strolled through the camp to an open patch of ground where over 1,500 armed men stood five lines deep along three sides of a box formation. We positioned at the centre of the fourth side and Rex Nhongo moved to the centre of the square to give the gathering the same message he gave at every assembly point. This was to say the war was over and everyone had to work together to establish the new Zimbabwe. He had brought two senior RSF ‘comrades’ with him to prove that he was already working with his previous enemies. He said nothing about the Brits.
Having completed his talk he signalled me forward to address the gathering and introduced me in Shona. “This is Comrade Group Captain PB, once our enemy in the sky but now my friend. He will tell you why he has come to see you.” I asked Rex if I should speak in the vernacular. “Certainly not,” he said, “I do not want these people to know you understand their language. I will interpret what you say.” So I made a series of short statements in English and Rex passed these on in Shona.
At one point Rex misinterpreted what I had just said, deliberately I think, so I asked him to correct this. He immediately told the men that I was not satisfied with his interpretation and corrected the error. I nodded in agreement and completed what I had to say in mediocre Shona. Only in Africa could such anomalies pass without fuss. Rex then led the gathering in song, as was ZANLA’s custom at the conclusion of every meeting.
Only people who have experienced massed African voices in the open will understand the power, richness and purity of sound that comes from a people who harmonise perfectly without training or effort. I hated the
Having left our position, every head was turned to watch us passing behind one echelon when I spotted a face I recognised. I immediately broke away from the official party and strode through five lines of perplexed men, mostly armed mujibas. The man I was moving towards turned away abruptly.
When I reached him, I asked, “Hey Timothy, what are you doing here?” There was no reply and he remained facing away from me looking down at his own feet. Accepting this rejection, I said, “Behave yourself Timothy. Visit me when you get to Salisbury.”
The official party had come to a halt to see what I was doing. As I returned to Rex’s side, he asked me who it was I had spoken to. I said I knew him as Timothy. Our servants in Salisbury had told Beryl and me about a youngster who was sleeping in a toilet in the suburb of Hatfield where we lived. He had lost his parents in the Mtoko area and, though tended by an uncle, was living a miserable existence. We decided to take him on as an assistant to Obert, our gardener. Timothy was given a warm comfortable bed, clothing, food and spending money. He was fine for many months and we were about to send him for schooling at our expense when he began to give Sarah and Obert a hard time. He had been warned to behave himself, but this did not work so we got rid of him. A year had passed since last I saw him.
Rex listened to my story then expressed his mirth with his typical deep belly laugh rolled into his rough smoker’s voice as he said, “He will be in for a tough time now! Everyone here has seen you and heard you talk. First they may wonder why you went to Timothy, but will then come to the conclusion he was passing information on ZANLA’s activities to you in Salisbury.”
The implications of this were frightening, so I asked Rex to make sure no harm came to the young man. “Do not worry,” said Rex, “he will not be hurt too badly. After what you did for him he deserves a bit of rough treatment for letting you down.” (In July 1980 Timothy was disbanded and visited us in Salisbury. He was well and confirmed that he had been severely harassed, “but not too badly hurt.”)
Of all the Commonwealth Monitoring Force teams in the ZANLA bases, only the Fijian team at AP Hotel appeared to be popular with the inmates where there was a modicum of order and discipline. This probably had a lot to do with the colour of the Fijian’s skin. Otherwise all ZANLA APs were packed with scruffy, ill-disciplined mujibas who scowled andslouched about. As already mentioned, there was very little evidence of men possessing the calibre and looks that typified the ZANLA operators we had either killed or captured in operations. Other than the Swiss sniper rifles, weapons were old and dilapidated. The operational weapons inside Rhodesia were very obviously still in the field with many hundreds of ZANLA’s regulars involved in electioneering work.
Unlike General Barnard and me, General Acland and Brigadier Gurdon seemed impressed with what they saw, whereas Lookout Masuku and Dumiso Dabengwa were horrified and their disdain for ZANLA showed clearly in their facial expressions.
No notice whatsoever was taken of our comments about the types and state of weapons until these Brits saw how ZIPRA’s men were armed.
Visits to ZIPRA APs
AFTER ZANLA, ZIPRA LOCATIONS WERE like a breath of fresh air. It certainly opened the eyes of the Brits and might even have made them realise why we insisted that all ZANLA APs were full of
It was possible to walk around without an escort, which I enjoyed. Wherever I went I was saluted and greeted in a friendly manner and also drew men who wanted to walk and talk with a Rhodesian Air Force pilot. It was only at AP Romeo, the very last Assembly Point to be visited, where Lookout Masuku had unusual events planned.
As our helicopter was making its long descending approach to Rukomechi Mission, one could not help but notice, from about five kilometres out, that many anti-aircraft guns were tracking the Puma helicopter. Lookout Masuku had forewarned the RAF crew of the guns so the helicopter captain was perfectly happy to maintain direction and descent.
Because nothing had been said to any of us in the rear cabin, the sight of those tracking guns put fear in the eyes of Simon Muzenda, Rex Nhongo and Tungamirai’s deputy. I was also feeling uncomfortable until I saw the smile on Lookout’s face as he winked at me.
When we alighted from the helicopter, the bush that surrounded the small LZ came alive as hundreds of armed ZIPRA men rose from the cover they had used to camouflage their presence. The Brits seemed impressed and ZANLA shrugged it of as unnecessary bravado.
A guard of honour awaited our arrival and General Barnard was invited to inspect the men dressed in East German fleckcamouflage uniforms. Their goose-step march-past made my skin crawl, but one could not miss the fact that we were watching trained soldiers.
This style of marching, both fascist and communist, made my skin crawl.
After the usual briefing, this time by ZIPRA officers, we were invited to a parade to be followed by a weapons demonstration. Some 2,000 ZIPRA soldiers were formed up in tiered lines from ground level to the top of the long earth embankment that served as a grandstand for the mission’s football field. The visiting party formed
