Ill at Ease

Synosis Set in what is not called Zimbabwe.

1978. Maj. Richard Harrison leads a platoon of Rhodesian Army SAS men deep into the valleys of Manicaland on a punitive mission that sees the elimination of the Foot Angels, a gang of communist guerrillas led by Cde. Muchapera, which is linked to the death of many white families in the area. The SAS platoon wipes out the Foot Angels to a man--Jairos Madzore nom de guerre Cde. Muchapera. Maj. Harrison receives honors for his part in putting an end to the Foot Angels' reign of terror while Cde. Muchapera recovers from his wounds. When independence comes, Maj. Harrison goes back to farming while Cde. Muchapera is recruited into the new Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA)

1999. It's a few months before the turn of the new millennium and Richard Harrison, a successful tobacco and dairy cattle farmer living a sedentary life in the vicinity of Marondera north of the Little Otter River, struggles with a marriage falling apart, restive farm workers, falling tobacco prices, and cattle theft-which the farmers believe is perpetrated by the villagers living in Svosve, a former Tribal trust Land (TTL) village south of the Little Otter River. Jairos Madzore , retires from the army after almost two decades of service and takes his family back to his homeland of Svosve. Jairos Madzore, using the $50000 the government gave him as compensation for his part in the war, purchases a duo of heifers which turn out to be the ones farmer Richard Harrison lost a few weeks previously. The two enemies square up and their mutual hatred for each other is stoked. A few of the farm hands, under Richard Harrison's, cross the Little Otter River under cover of darkness and slaughter Jairos Madzore's two heifers, ones he had vowed to defend to death.

2000. As the peasants, goaded by the government, invade commercial farms across the country following the defeat of the manipulated draft constitution referendum, Jairos Madzore is caught up in the furore and leads a motley army of Svosve villagers across the Little Otter River. In as many months, Jairos Madzore comes face to face with Richard Harrison, his arch enemy. At the same time Jairos Madzore remembers that Richard Harrison was the Rhodesian soldier that threw the grenade that almost killed him two decades before.

• • • Below, the first five chapters.

Ill at Ease a novel by MacVivo, Trymore

Most of young men [from Britain] were brought up with vague ideas about equality. They were shocked [when they reached Rhodesia], for the first week or so, by the way natives were treated [by the white farmers]… When it came to the point, one [white people] never had contact with natives, except in the master-servant relationship. –The grass is singing, Doris Lessing.

Dedication This book is for my grandmother, Ambuya Neteke. May her soul rest in peace.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Alex Reed, Micheen Thornycroft, Gen Tozer and Rahul Desai all graduates of Peterhouse boys and girls high schools whose insight into the workings of their old school made it possible for me to write this book.

Ill at Ease~ 1 “Gentlemen, we can start, now,” Lt. Col. T. M. Kietzmann announced primly, quickly took his seat at the head of the long table and brought the hastily arranged meeting in the briefing room to order. He was an old sly a fox, who had proved his worthy in the fever-stricken tropical jungles of South East-Asia battling communists guerillas in Vietnam. His heavy jawed face was weathered and creased with cold steely blue eyes that set alert in their sockets. He had forsaken his native Pennsylvania and had been graciously welcomed by the Rhodesian Army with open arms as a soldier of fortune three years prior. Like any German, he had an Achilles heel for uniforms. This day, in February 1977, he was immaculately dressed in his familiar Rhodesian SAS navy green full dress uniform, complete with all the shining medals he had won during Ho Chi Mi’s long internecine war. Lt. Col. Kietzmann was a natural good-natured leader who treated his subordinates kindly but firmly and fairly. Typically, you would find him in a jovial mood, laughing and chatting, but on this particular day his face was stone-cold and grave. He bristled with irritation and his upper lip trembled with impatience. His blue eyes were reptilian cold and expressionless like those of a boa. The tense and edgy elite SAS troopers in the expansive room complied with his wishes and swiftly lined up on either side of the long teak operations table that dominated the room. The erubescent security light above the steel door of the operations room was ablaze, indicating that the room was safe and secure. “The informant’s report indicated that the terrs have been encamped here,” he told them, involuntarily jabbing his omnipresent swagger stick, made from cured rattan with a handle of tanned rhino hide, onto a large meticulous multihued relief map of Manicaland, the easternmost province of Rhodesia, that was spread out on the genteel table, “for the past twelve hours, coordinates 18°58′S 32°38′E,” he said and moved his piercing gaze from one side of the table to the other, his eyes burning on each of the troopers’ faces like hot cattle branding iron fleetingly before passing on. The room was quiet, very still except for the breathing sound of the men, as they waited anxiously for him to continue his brief. He looked down on the map again and said, “That sets your ETA at twenty minutes. We believe that it’s the Foot Angles, the signs are all there,” he paused again. The army had named this plundering and pillaging gang the ‘Foot Angles’ because the group liked to amputate the feet of its ill-fated victims before killing them. Terr was one of a repertoire of derogatory names the Rhodesians used to describe black communist fighters fighting the government. Lt. Col. Kietzmann subscribed to the school of thought that imitated the fighting model exploited by Erwin Rommel, which had earned him the respect not only of his troops but his enemies also. Lt. Col. Kietzmann firmly believed in using disproportionate force irregardless of loses he might encounter. In this, the Rhodesian little war, he deployed soldiers under his command into the war zones like pieces of a chessboard, sacrificing a few here and there to achieve his objectives. “We have reason to believe that they are still in this same location. It’s not merely enough to be on their tail this time around, we need to get them. You are required to go in and close the net on them...and ah, exterminate those communist terrorists,” his voice suddenly had a strident edge. The soldiers listened to him with impassive faces yet deep down they were uncertain, riven with trepidation.

The high flying Foot Angles, a group of terrorists or freedom fighters, had been linked into the callous cudgeling to death of at least five white families on their farms in the valleys in the shadow of the high mountains in the previous two months and the army had been on their tail since then. If you were privileged to be born with white skin, had white flesh, you called this notorious gang a terrorist entity. However, if you were unlucky to be born with black skin, had black flesh, as were the majority of the country’s population, you naturally and keenly viewed this same gang heaven-sent freedom fighters.

At this very juncture, the marauding Foot Angles had the nerves of farmers from Melsetter all the way north to Cashel Valley stretched raw, shell-shocked, and living in dread. The army had been searching for the Foot Angles ever since the attacks began, without success, hence Lt. Col. Kietzmann’s anger and impatience. He wanted this vermin which had slipped through his fingers for so long exterminated, wiped out from the face of the earth. Today was his first solid and genuine big break. He hoped to teach them a lesson, to crush them as coldly as though he were stepping on a cockroach.

The lieutenant-colonel straightened up from the map where he had been stooped, stood up from the leather chair and crossed his calloused hands behind his back, a gesture that invited the men to ask their burning questions. “Yes, Maj. Harrison?” he pointed at the leader of the platoon sitting at the far end of the table with his swagger stick. Maj. Harrison was every inch a soldier, gorilla built like a prize fighter. He was tall, thick-necked and broad shouldered with a flat stomach. “What’s the rating of this intelligence report, sir?” Maj. Harrison asked his voice shaky. He shifted awkwardly where he sat, clenching his jaws in anxiety. Questioning the highly decorated lieutenant-colonel on intelligence matters was not in his best interests since such an act inadvertently implied that the lieutenant-colonel was sending his platoon on a mission borne of frivolous intelligence. The lieutenant-colonel ran the tip of his pink tongue over his thin lips, from one corner of his mouth to the other, taking into view the major’s question delicately. He was considering whether to censure Maj. Harrison or let him off the hook this time around. He gently bit the hill of his pink palm with the swagger stick, and made up his mind. He decided to let him go, for now. “The intelligence department gave it a rating of ninety six percent, Maj. Harrison. I hope that is to your inclination?” The major stared back at the lieutenant-colonel with a blank face which belied his covert relief. The rating referred to the level of confidence the military placed in the report. Hundred was perfect while zero percent meant the report was considered fallacious and unreliable. “If that’s all then, Maj. Harrison, take your team out of my sight,” he adjourned the meeting with a slight curt of his swagger stick, exactly two and half minutes after it had began.

Maj. Harrison, adrenaline rushing through his veins in anticipation of battle, led his platoon of fifteen troopers, dressed in their complete battle regalia-steel helmets painted green, glinting FN assault rifles with fixed bayonets, camouflaged fatigues and webbing-out of the room. They hastened to the waiting ancient DC-3 military plane, colloquially known then as a Dakota. She had seen action out in the deserts of North Africa in the war against Hitler. Conversely, she had been fully serviced and now she was coated with a dull grey color, painted to evade the heat seeking surface-to-air missiles that were supplied to the communist guerrillas fighting Ian Smith’s indictable government by Deng Xiaoping’s China. The men rushed into her belly in Indian file like meercats streaming into their dark subterranean lairs.

It was a clear day and the lumbering Dakota taxied quickly and rose into the warm noon air arduously. The air force pilot immediately gained attitude to clear the high chain of mountains that encircled the small city of Mutare. Once high and clear of the towering jagged mountains, he settled the Dakota on a south by west bearing and brought her up to her cruising speed of 309km/h. The Rhodesian SAS were a ruthless, wily and effective killing machine that the Rhodesian Army unleashed on numerous occasions to do away with communist guerillas streaming in across the border from Mozambique. One reason why the SAS were so efficient and successful was their ability to act, fast. It had taken them only five minutes to receive the intelligent report and act on it.

Not all of these responses to intelligence reports bore fruit, however. In fact, some were actually a guise to lure the SAS men into ambushes cultivated by the communist terrorists. Maj. Harrison was very aware of that as he studied his men, settling in for the ride into the gapping jaws of his adversary. The men chatted with each other above the din of the Dakota’s engines, young Peterson, one of the NCOs, was showing Sgt. Gamba a picture of his girlfriend, ostensible at ease. To Maj. Harrison, it was obvious that they were all nervous, nerves stretched raw tight. Who knowingly flew into a danger zone without fear? Maj. Harrison could taste his fear on his tongue, so he swallowed. At least the rating is very high, he consoled himself. I hope we find them this time around please God let us find them. The major had seen many good men die in firefights with the Chinese trained forces. He was not religious, but as a kid growing up in an orphanage in Edinburgh, he had learnt to ask for favors and blessings from God in his times of uncertainty and when he faced hazards.

The unadulterated lust to kill the guerillas used to flood Maj. Harrison’s mind during the early years of the war, compelling him to forget the real reasons why he was fighting the war. These days, even in the thick of battle, his mind remained clear and lucid. The fact that he was fighting to preserve the very core, the soul of the way of life the minority white community had enjoyed since the pioneer days never escaped his mind. Like everyone around him, the consequences of losing the war were indescribable. If the status quo was not preserved but was shattered to pieces, what would become of his children? How would they survive in a country ruled by a black man? Would the black keep the country the way it is, the jewel of Africa? What of the land on which his family currently lived on, would they have it if the blacks took over power? No, there was no place for the white man in the country once the blacks took over, he knew this as fact. The basics of survival in the land between the two rivers, Zambezi and Limpopo, were simple; eat or lest you be eaten yourself. This reality goaded the major to untold excesses of cruelty in his treatment of the black peasant farmers condemned of feeding and sheltering communist guerillas.

Over the past few weeks, the SAS platoons based out of Mutare had had a flurry of reports about the Foot Angles, but most of the reports had turned out to be bogus. The bulky of the reports came from native black peasant informants, who were derided and marked as sell-outs by the terrorists. They supplied the army with the valuable information regarding the whereabouts of the terrorists in spite of the dangers involved, lusting for the reward money they were given, $500. This was equivalent to two years’ wages for most of the peasants in the country.

Jairos Madzore, communist guerilla nom de guerre Comrade Muchapera, sat comfortably in the shade thrown up by an overhang of some balancing rocks that formed part of Ndarumwa, a kopje covered with tall fig and Msasa trees. Under the wide African blue sky, it was nice to relax, especially after holding a night long pungwe, a meeting where the local civilian population was indoctrinated, as Mao had perfected. At least the masses have accepted us and are cooperating fully, Cde. Muchapera reflected gladly. Just off sentry duty, he was cleaning and oiling his beloved AK-47 automatic assault rifle. The rifle fired about seven hundred rounds of the 7.62 mm slugs per minute, its accuracy deadly at 400 yards. The butt and stock of the rifle were made of laminated wood and the banana shaped magazine carried a sortie of thirty rounds. The sturdy gun was the apparatus of choice for the communist guerillas, reliable and easy to use, which the Rhodesian forces scorned as the only Kaffir-proof weapon.

There was a large yawning cave on the eastern approaches of the kopje, ten meters left and behind his position. The cave was a mere ten meters above the lush green grass of the savannah rolling plain but below the upper reaches of the Msasa tree. Cde. Muchapera’s colleagues were resident in the cave’s interior which was nice and cool in the heat of the day. They chatted gaily, eating juicy and scrumptious fried chicken and sadza and drinking cool opaque home brewed beer, all delicacies that had been brought a few minutes prior by a bevy of young women from the villages in the distance, around Ndarumwa.

The semi-dark chamber of the cave smelt of tobacco, unwashed bodies and carbolic soap. A shortwave wireless radio, which had blared South African Smanjemanje (now) music earlier, sat in the corner of the cave. Now, a familiar voice was speaking through it from a secret base over the bluish mountains in the east in Mozambique. “We will never surrender. I say, hit the nail on the head. Hit it hard. Kill those white racists. Zimbabwe can only be won through the barrel of a gun, Ambyua Nehada said so. It is the only one way for us to reclaim our land, our heritage by birth which the white men from Britain took from us. As the whole knows, land is the only true form of wealth and—,” the voice continued to extort them in a barrage of hate and anger. Even coming through the radio, the men could hear that the voice was livid and agitated. The voice represented power and they were all afraid and in awe of it. They sat on the dusty floor of the cave with neutral expressions, but furtively in the pit of their stomachs, they shuddered, cringing in fear of the voice. The voice belonged to the new learned leader of their movement, a man married to a woman from Ghana.

This platoon of twenty men had spent the past month trudging through the mountains passes east of their current position that formed the border between Rhodesia and Mozambique, carrying heavy packs. Each one of them had carried his lions’ share of grenades, AK-47 and AP landmines and thousands of rounds of ammunition. They had carried no food, their Chinese trainers having told them to live off the land. This was their first incursion into the country. Neither the mud nor the relentless rain and swollen rivers could have stopped them from coming into the country, to liberate their country from the British. They were eager to draw first blood from the white men, whom they hated with a frenzied passion. The first of their many victims was an old white farm owner out in Silverstream, just outside Melseter. However, in all their hate and anger, their inexperience showed. They had chosen as a hideout a kopje with no avenues of escape. The surroundings were open grasslands and fields brimming with ripe crops, which provided no cover if they were to be attacked.

“Which one are you going to take, ah…choose I mean?” Cde. Doubletrouble asked a lascivious smile on his black thick lips. He puffed on a cigarette, part of the large consignment of merchandise the Foot Angles had borrowed from a shop owner at Karirwi Shopping Center nearby down the valley. The good thing about being a freedom fighter was that you were your own man, free to spend time relaxing or pillaging. You could rob anybody without fear of prosecution because you operated outside the laws of the country. Like pirates, the communist fighters robbed shops, vandalized farms, killed anybody they suspected of cooperating with the government, in fact, they pretty much did whatever they liked, including choosing girls from villages they came by and using them as sex slaves. “I like Shamiso,” Cde. Muchapera said without hesitation. This Shamiso, when the girls had brought the food, she had walked with a cataleptic push and sway of her buttocks and breasts that Cde. Muchapera had watched with uninhibited pleasure. As the platoon leader, he had first choice when it came to choosing among the prime young ladies living in the villages around. Cde. Muchapera counted himself fortunate that he was born in time for him to go to war. Of course, on the surface he was fighting the war, like all the other cadres, for those liberal and utopian lofty ideals like freedom and equality for all men irregardless of skin color. In reality for him the war was an avenue for adventure and a passport to untold riches. How else would he have gone to distant Ethiopia? Tanzania? How else could he get his hands on the white man’s expensive and luxurious goods? The war was a blessing for it was the key to things he never knew existed. Cde. Doubletrouble chuckled, sitting on the hard granite surface close to Cde. Muchapera. He wore a floppy hat, rugged shirt and denim jeans and filthy cotton tennis. His hair was twisted and grimy. A scruffy beard bejeweled his flat chin. “Why, if I may be allowed to ask? Don’t tell me you like her because she,” he cocked his head accusatively his eyes rolling, “eh, has big, juicy breasts and large smooth, round, soft hips?” They both laughed loudly. “You have me figured out, Cde. Doubletrouble,” Cde. Muchapera conceded guilty, assembling his AK-47 with scrupulous care, scrutinizing each part before attaching it. “I like them too you know, they have pneumatic comfort when I ride them,” he added with relish. Cde. Doubletrouble was the comedian of the platoon. Wherever he was, there was laughter. “I have something else to tell you boss,” his expression was suddenly serious and brusque. “What is it?” “Cde. Muchapera, not to doubt your skills or anything, but I feel that we have been in this one place for too long. We better be-,” his voice was choked out. The characteristic report of an FN rifle in full automatic power shattered their casual and hilarious banter. A heavy soft nosed lead bullet punctured Cde. Doubletrouble’s thorax, traveling through his lungs and coming out at his back. He tried to cry, but blood sputtered from his wide open mouth, frothing and bubbling like an erupting geyser. Cde. Muchapera, stunned, remained frozen terror-stricken like a bird mesmerized by the dance of cobra. He only managed to bolt away to take cover when Cde. Doubletrouble’s still warm body slumped forward beside him, dead.

On the reverse side of the cave, Cde. Mhepo was firing at the swarming SAS men who seemed to have come out of nowhere. His was heroic but futile courage, like a man trying to move a mountain with his bare hands. Like most of the men, his platoon had never come in contact with a tried and tested SAS unity hankering after blood, black man’s blood. All the training he had received forgotten, Cde. Mhepo was firing in circles with his eye lids closed shut. His response was too late and ineffectual. He had fallen asleep when he was supposed to be on sentry duty. The SAS men had made their approach already and it was too late for the green freedom fighters. The asset of surprise was on the SAS soldiers’ side and the trap had been sprung and was on.

Inside the semi-dark cave, it was pandemonium as frenzied and terror-stricken men ran helter skelter blindly. Maj. Harrison had made sure to fire a rocket from a man-portable rocket launcher into the cave right at the start of the firefight. Six men died from the potent explosion inside that confided space. Of the survivors, with ears ringing from the explosion and eyes stinging from the cordite smoke, many couldn’t find their weapons in the gloomy cave. Those fortunate enough to have their AK-47s in their hands fired blindly and indiscriminately through the stinging smoke, shooting their comrades in the process. Others started running around in wild circles knocking down the pots of beer and stepping in to the plates still full with sadza. Somewhere, somebody started howling inside the cave, probably wounded.

The Dakota, nearing its chosen destination, had climbed to 7500 ft and the SAS men had parachuted from its belly, floating down on the wind like jelly fish in the azure waters of the Indian Ocean to make a silent approach to their prey’s position. They had touched ground less than two miles away from the kopje where their quarry was ostensibly residing. Maj. Harrison, using hand signals, had effectually deployed his troops to fan out around to cover all avenues of escape from the kopje.

Maj. Harrison rushed up the kopje and midway, he saw the prostrate figure of a man hiding on his left side, a few yards away, behind a small rock. He retrieved a grenade from his back pack, removed the pin and lobbed it at the figure. The camouflage paint on the white man’s face couldn’t prevent Cde. Muchapera from seeing it, the face of his assailant and killer, for it was very close to him. Through the billowing smoke, Cde. Muchapera saw the hand grenade soaring and whistling through the warm noon air towards him. It seemed to hang and hover momentarily in the air, to have a life of its own, as if flying on invisible wings. Panicky, afraid, and shocked with the savagery of the white men’s soldiers, he tried to jump away from the grenade, but his legs refused to respond, keeping him rooted to the same spot as if to make it easy for the grenade to finish him off. So this is how I die, Cde. Muchapera thought morosely. God, forgive me for all my sins, especially those of the flesh that I have committed in recent weeks, he prayed desperately. He couldn’t fire his AK-47 because he hadn’t finished assembling it and his hands were shaking violently for him to put it together. Under normal circumstances, he could have assembled the rifle in seconds, blind folded. The grenade exploded before hitting the ground, and Cde. Muchapera was thrown into the air, his right leg dangling at an awkward angel below him.

The men inside the cave, listening to the confusion outside, were afraid to come out, terrified of running into the gapping muzzles of their enemy’s rifles. Maj. Harrison signaled Sgt. Gamba to send grenades into the cave. Sgt. Gamba grinned ardently. So, now that he has stuck in the knife, he is twisting it, he thought. He could hear the noise of the men trapped inside and he knew Maj. Harrison wanted to finish them all. Squatted behind a boulder for cover, Maj. Harrison watched the black sergeant and two NCOs throw three grenades into the cave. The grenades popped in quick succession and suddenly there was silence in the cave, broken only by a man groaning in agony.

Calling it a battle is an understatement. It was an utter massacre. The Maj. Harrison’s SAS men behaved like a pack of wolves let loose in a chicken coop. The SAS entertained no luxuries such as prisoners of war. They butchered every communist guerilla that they encircled. Maj. Harrison and Sgt. Gamba stooped into the cave, their hand guns drown. They moved meticulously from one enfeebled man to the other, finishing them off with bullets right between the eyes. Once that was done, the other troopers moved in and they stripped the dead corpses of everything.

“Where am I? Where are my comrades?” Cde. Muchapera asked in a hoarse quivery voice, struggling to kick away the heavy blankets that covered him. He woke up to the clatter of Shamiso’s cooking. He groaned in pain as he tried to sit up. The flesh had wasted away from his long limbs. “Careful, careful, brother,” Shamiso cautioned him, making sounds of sympathy and concern deep in her throat. “Nobody else survived from your group. They were all slaughtered out by the white men in cold blood,” she told him the bad news regretfully, tears welling up in her large eyes. She made it sound like the communist guerrillas were defenseless civilians. During the next many minutes, Cde. Muchapera listened as Shamiso told him how the villagers had gone to Ndarumwa kopje to bury the dead three days after the soldiers had left in their helicopter. The villagers were horrified but relieved to find Cde. Muchapera alive, barely, with a big flesh wound on his thigh. “You were unconscious and I have been taking care of you since then,” she finished her narrative, dabbing her eyes with a white handkerchief. Heavy bosomed and gay, she was a lovely and the paragon of young Mashona womanhood. A look came over Cde. Muchapera after she finished her narration. It was a look of a man finished. A man who had just seen all that he had cherished and believed in destroyed in the blink of the eye. He looked over at Shamiso. He was surprise to detect the gleam in her teary eyes that a woman gets before she falls in love. The discovery, strangely, didn’t perturb him even at this insalubrious point in his life.

Cde. Muchapera survived the war and when independence came in 1980, he joined the Zimbabwe National Army. The end of the war disillusioned him, for he had wanted it to continue. The war was a gift, a blessing to his generation. His was the lucky and blessed generation that had been given a war by God to fight in, to prove themselves worthy of something. The war had provided him with an escape, a chance for an uneducated man like him with nothing in his civilian life to be noble, gallant. It had been his only way to acquire respect and eulogy from his fellow men. It had given him something to rally around, something to believe in, a sense of purpose. The war, this war in which many of his friends had perished, had been the common denominator between him and many strangers from around the country. The war, it had cut out all their differences to make them strangers no more. It was sad, indeed an execrable day for the war to end.

“Twenty one confirmed kills,” Lt. Col. Kietzmann said with a tone of approval, closed and pushed away the folder in front of him. He picked up his swagger stick, and started tapping it on his mahogany desk. It was a month after Maj. Harrison, the man who stood in front of desk, had led his troops to victory. “I have to give it to you Harrison,” he said and looked at him with pale blue eyes in a weather and heavily lined ruddy face. Maj. Harrison remained mum, waiting for the lieutenant-colonel to continue. “I suppose you are wondering why I called you here.” “Yes, sir,” Maj. Harrison agreed readily. “I wanted you to be the first to know. You are up for promotion,” he told him the good tidings. Maj. Harrison’s manner underwent a profound change and he bared his straight teeth as his hard jawed face broke into an instant smile, so widely that Lt. Col. Kietzmann could see the pink gum of his teeth. All soldiers fought for one and one thing only; so that they could be promoted and rise up the ranks. Maj. Harrison was no different. “That is not all. I have also recommended that you be awarded a medal for your bravery. Good job, son.” The war, the Second Chimurenga as it is known now, drew to a close, the SAS got disbanded unceremoniously by the new black government and Maj. Richard Harrison returned to his old job of farming tobacco and raising beef cattle outside Marandellas, soon to be renamed Marondera.