We composed ourselves, quietened our nerves and emotions for a brief moment, and got to work. Matt set up the tripod with his camera and I started taking random footage of pastors – all neatly dressed in suits and ties. Footage of men, women and children in the congregation. Anything to keep myself occupied.

 

There was a band on stage with drums and electric guitars, just like the charismatic churches I had attended in Cape Town. I was surprised, however, to see so few people attend this Sunday service. Matt reminded me that the place was a whorehouse and a smugglers’ den, after all.

 

The service began with a warm up from the band. Then two pastors started preaching, one in French, the other repeating the words in Swahili.

 

Meanwhile, Pastor Enoch had arranged transport to Lubumbashi. Halfway through the service we were told to pack up our gear, and were escorted into the presence of the Office Pastor. We gathered in his little office where he prayed for our safe journey. The Office Pastor’s son was sent to accompany us, and to ensure our safe arrival in Lubumbashe.

 

The road to Lubumbashe is narrow, with no white lines in the middle, and just wide enough for a truck and car to pass each other. Looking forward, the road appeared like a thick slab of tar stuck to the earth, with a drop of about a half a metre on either side. The landscape was ominous. Dark, dense bush – unvarying in texture, colour and thickness – passed us by, kilometre after kilometre. Every here and there we would pass a small clearing with thatched mud huts, where the locals would be selling bags of charcoal, maize, sweet potatoes and the strangest looking tomatoes I had ever seen – they looked like wrinkled yams, or a strange cross between tomatoes and sweet potatoes. Some were dusty red, some tinged with orange, some an ochre-yellowish colour. No two were the same shape. They looked nothing like the round, almost identical supermarket reds that I was used to.

 

We stopped on two occasions, when Pastor Enoch bought bags of maize, potatoes and tomatoes. He had to remove some of our luggage from the boot to accommodate his wares. For the rest of the journey the luggage weighed heavily on our laps. I was about to ask him to stop so I could bury the crystal Steve Minaar had given me back in Cape Town, when a little voice suggested I hold on to it for a while.

 

We also stopped at a few military roadblocks on the way. Three, four? I wasn’t counting.

 

When I saw the first, my heart began to race and my mouth dried up with fear. The next few induced the same feelings. On each occasion the driver would climb out of the car, approach the soldiers, who were armed with a variety of weapons, some bearing more than one, sign a piece of official-looking paper, pay a toll or bribe and we would move on.

 

It was 120 kilometres to Lubumbashe.

 

As we neared the city, the first thing I noticed was a huge mining complex that stood on the outskirts like a colossus. By this stage the tar road had ended and we bumped along a pot-holed dirt road that wove through a maze of outer suburbs of the city. We sat patiently in the back of the car. After my experience at the border, I was struggling to stifle that terrible fear of the unknown and resign myself to fate.

 

Whatever it may be.

 

We drove around for what seemed an eternity, and then stopped outside a run-down group of houses, Pastor Enoch’s place. We helped him unload his goods. He briefly introduced us to his wife and father-in-law and then we set off through the maze of rough roads, down-trodden houses and the odd shack. Unlike the cities of South Africa, there were very few shacks about.

 

When we arrived at the Come and See Church, we entered the little driveway and parked. We unloaded our bags and were led into the church hall, where we laid our luggage on the floor and were shown to a wooden bench. Everything we heard was either in French or Swahili, but mostly French. Pastor Enoch tried to make us feel as welcome as he could, told us not to worry, and that he would look after all arrangements. About an hour later, we were confused and uncertain, not knowing what was happening, when a tallish, slimly-built man approached us with the bearing of a military officer – but in a splendid suit and tie. He introduced himself in English as Pastor Jeff and abruptly and unsmilingly informed us that he was the Office Pastor and the man who receives all visitors to the church. He used the word protocol a few times. He pulled up a white plastic chair and sat down facing the pair of us.

 

'We have a problem.' Just like that. Once again, my heart sank. The roller-coaster plunged. I glanced at Matt and saw amazement on his face. And then anger, reddening his cheeks. Mine had paled, even whitened, by then. Matt became adamant. 'But all the arrangements were made through Pastor Oscar in Johannesburg, there were emails informing you of our trip … we have come to make a documentary …'

 

Pastor Jeff cut him off in mid-sentence, looking at Matt coldly. 'We have a problem. I saw emails, but there was no specific time, and I am preparing for a trip to Cape Town. I was not informed.' I jumped into the debate and almost in unison, Matt and I insisted that we had been with Pastor John, from Zambia, the previous day and had heard him on his cell phone to Bishop Lamba Lamba, telling the bishop that we would be at the border when it opened at 8.00 am. Pastor Jeff ignored this and told us that we would have to wait for the bishop, who was in a meeting. He stood up abruptly and informed us that he would arrange refreshments. Pastor Enoch followed him out of the door, talking excitedly in French and waving his arms in the air. Meanwhile, we were offered a drink, Fanta or Coke, by a courteous young lady.

 

When Pastor Enoch returned a short while later I asked him what was going on. He explained the situation. 'Pastor Jeff is being very difficult. And I have told Pastor Jeff that, even if you were heathens and had no business with the church, you should be shown Christian compassion and given safe refuge.' Pastor Enoch was agitated, and concerned.

 

We did not know that the transport to Lubumbashe was a taxi. The driver, now caught in the middle of this conflict, was waiting for his money, and getting angrier by the minute. We only had R700 on us – meant to pay our way back to Lusaka.

 

Matt became really angry and told me that if they did not sort things out we’d go back to Zambia.

 

'How are we going to do that, Matt?'

 

'Walk. If we have to.'

 

Then things changed very quickly. Pastor Jeff returned, sat in the white plastic chair and shifted about uncomfortably. He ground his teeth. His cheeks seemed to swell as he did so. 'Welcome to the DRC. In a few moments we will meet the bishop and then we will eat.'

 

The roller-coaster reached upward.

 

The taxi driver was paid.

 

Pastor Enoch bade us farewell. Matt and I both hugged and thanked him. For the first time in a long time we breathed easily.

 

The bishop was a short, portly man with a gentle, open face. He welcomed us to the DRC in broken English, thanked us for coming, and wished us well during our stay. Food was served on a long table in the hall. Pastor Jeff introduced us to the eating customs of the Congo. We washed our hands in a big blue metal bowl of water, took a plate and helped ourselves from a selection of fatty pork knuckles, sadsa, little pieces of river fish – called Rouge – and Chinese cabbage. It was delicious, especially the fish. After eating, we washed our hands in the same bowl of water, this time, with a little liquid soap added. Almost immediately Pastor Jeff said to collect our luggage and follow him. He had just come out of the bishop’s office. He was also carrying a large pile of Congolese franks. They were brand new notes, neatly wrapped in plastic.

 

Parked outside was a dark green Toyota with RTIV Presse sign-written on the side doors and on the back of the car. Pastor Jeff explained that the church had their own radio and TV station, which was screened 24 hours in the Congo. We climbed into the car and the official driver took us not too far from the church, to what appeared to be the centre of Lubumbashe.

 

We parked outside the Hotel Babel. I thought immediately about the Tower of Babel.

 

As we were busy unloading our luggage we both noticed a youngish white man in shorts and hiking boots standing smoking beside a car, a few metres from the hotel entrance. Matt and I glanced at each other in amazement.

 

Pastor Jeff led us into the hotel foyer where we were greeted by a policeman in a blue uniform, with a 9mmm Uzi machine gun slung over his shoulders. Pastor Jeff spoke briefly to the concierge, took a key hanging on a wooden rack behind the front desk – as if he knew the place inside out – and led us up a stairway, then left down a dingy corridor, to room No 6. Walking down the corridor, he sniffed in disgust at the smell of stale tobacco. His voice filled with authority. 'As Christians you do not smoke or drink. And no women.' It was a command. If only he knew how desperate we were for a cigarette (the only other person I know who smokes as much as I do is Matt; we made a fine pair!) and a beer.

 

Pastor Jeff opened the door of our room. 'Welcome, here is your room, put your bags down while I pay downstairs.' And the roller-coaster plunged.

 

It was a small room with one three-quarter bed, no basin, no carpets, no furniture; just a rickety, dirty white table and a coat rack. A blue curtain hung sloppily from the wall to the right of the bed. I drew it open, hoping for a view. There was a closed window-frame, and behind it, a concrete wall. There was another hole in the wall. On the left side of the bed. It had jail-type bars, and behind these, a geyser.

 

Pastor Jeff returned a short while later. 'Bring your cameras and equipment and let’s go.' We went back to the church to film the evening service.

 

As we entered the church the service was about to begin. I looked in awe at the packed congregation seated on plastic chairs and benches. There must have been close on three thousand people. It was dark, and only the stage was lit. On a table on the stage there were vases full of plastic roses, lilies and other flowers. The bandsmen were tuning their instruments. People were praying, babbling in tongues and weeping; a few lay prostrate in the aisles.

 

The bishop stood on the stage with another pastor and the service began, led by the bishop in French, while the other pastor repeated his words in Swahili. Pastor Jeff gave us the freedom to film anywhere, anything, so long as it was inside the church only. Nobody outside must know we have cameras, he instructed. Matt had the camera mounted on the tripod for master shots. I roamed through the aisles, shooting at random.

 

There was an incredibly powerful energy in the place. I flowed with it, focusing on what I was doing. At times, looking through the viewfinder, I was mesmerised by the crowds. Then Pastor Jeff brought Matt and me together at one of the entrances and explained that we would be going on stage to be introduced to the congregation by the bishop himself. Now I knew why he had asked us earlier for our full names, which he had written down on a piece of paper. Pastor Jeff led us onto the stage and we were introduced to the congregation by the bishop, who shook our hands in turn. Neither of us could speak French, but we noted the words Journaliste and Afrique de Sud. We were applauded.

 

The service continued. The fervour of the congregation, the preachers and the band reached a crescendo. To me, it bordered on mayhem. I continued to film as calmly as I could. After a while the noise and the heat became unbearable. I stepped outside, placed my camera in the side pocket of my photographer’s jacket and stood and stared across the road, into the darkness.

 

I felt a terrible sense of déjà vu.

 

My body went cold. I turned my head and saw Matt approaching.

 

I told him what had happened.

 

Strange, he said, he himself had earlier felt a similar feeling. And then Matt said an eerie thing.

 

'Maybe your mother and great-grandmother lived in one of those houses across the road.'

 

My body iced-up. I had forgotten what I had told Matt, sometime ago, before we left home. Back in Cape Town, when Matt first invited me to the Congo, I looked up an old atlas I had at home and did a little research to familiarise myself with the region. When I saw the names Katanga and Elizabethville, my childhood flooded in.

 

* * *

 

When I was growing up, my mother often spoke to me about her own childhood. How she grew up happily with her grandparents, until she was eight or nine years old, in a charming little town called Elizabethville, in the Katanga province of the Belgian Congo. When I asked why she lived with her grandparents and not her parents she explained that her mother died while giving birth to her. And her father had drowned when her mother was just six months’ pregnant. She never saw her parents. Not once.

 

Her grandmother was a missionary and an ex-singer and dancer. Her grandfather was a wayward, red-bearded, red-haired Irishman. He captained a cargo boat on one of the many rivers in the region. She wasn’t sure which one. Her grandfather was a heavy drinker. For weeks at a time she would accompany him on the cargo boat.

 

Up and down the river, she said.

 

He often got her up on the bar counter and made her dance and sing Knees up Mother Brown to entertain the crew and passengers.

 

One night, he rested his head on his arms on the bar counter and died right there.

 

‘It must have been the whisky’, my mother said.

 

That was when she was about six years old. Two or three years later, her grandmother died of Blackwater fever. She was sent to the Langlaagte orphanage, south of Johannesburg. After the Belgian Congo gained its independence in 1960, Elizabethville was renamed Lubumbashe.

 

My mother led a colourful, but tough and tragic life.

 

When we discovered that we were only half sister and brother, Lillian and I were very sad and we sobbed for a while, holding each other. But we also comforted ourselves and reminded each other that we at least had the same mother and were still brother and sister, no matter what.

 

Alba and Leandro were my full siblings.

 

My mother had been married before and had five children, four boys and a girl. David, her first-born, then Wally, Eileen, Monty and Victor, in that order. When my mother met my father she was already a few months pregnant with Lillian. At this time, David, Wally and Eileen were living with their paternal grandparents in Cape Town. Victor and Monty were in children’s homes.

 

Their father's name was David Hemmings. His friends called him Sonny. My mother referred to him, scornfully, as Hemmings. She used to tell me how he frequently beat her up. And how violently jealous he was.

 

She told me of the time he took an axe to her and she had to run for her life. The neighbours, she said, called the cops who simply gave him yet another warning. The beatings didn't stop while they were together. His jealousy knew no bounds, and he frequently accused her of having secret affairs with his own friends, she said.

 

When they gathered in his home to drink and play cards, she was not allowed any contact with his friends. She had to stay in the kitchen and wait for him to bark orders.

 

‘Joyce, shut the kids up!’

 

‘Joyce, bitch, fetch more bloody drinks!’

 

‘Make more food, bring more bread, and clean these fucking ashtrays …!’

 

My mother was a very beautiful woman. It was only much, much later that I learnt she had an eye for the men and would flirt at any given opportunity. David Hemmings would make her meet him after work at his local. When she arrived at the pub, with the three elder kids in tow, and the younger two in a pram, she would have to wait outside until he was ready, no matter what the time or the weather. And, if he was not ready to leave when she arrived, she would simply have to wait. 'God help me if I didn’t,' she said. 'Come rain or bladdy South Easter, the bastard would make me wait for him, and sometimes the kids, especially the little ones in the pram, would yell their heads off.'

 

It was because of David Hemmimg's asthma, and serious tuberculosis, that the doctors in Cape Town suggested he move to a crisper, dryer climate for at least a few years to get better. He and my mother – without their children – arrived in Bloemfontein in 1948, where she met my father.

 

My father was a master builder and stonemason and had just been released as a prisoner of war. He had been part of a group of Italian prisoners who had been placed in the protective care of local farmers, as general labourers. David Hemmings had made enquiries for a good, cheap Italian prisoner, a skilled artisan to renovate his home.

 

My father had been recommended, and that's how my parents met. It wasn't long before my mother and he began an affair.

 

One day, while building an outside wall, my father heard screams from inside the house. David Hemmings was cursing drunkenly at the top of his voice. 'You fucking bitch, you've been messing around with that fucking eyetie … don't lie to me!' My father knew instinctively what was happening and, in a blind rage, stormed into the house, and beat up David Hemmings.

 

'Your father dragged Hemmings out of the house, lifted him up and threw him over the wall he was building and Hemmings landed there on his arse for the neighbours to see,’ my mother told me, with a sly smirk on her face.

 

My father was an extremely jealous man, with a volatile temper. He was also much more powerful than the sickly David Hemmings. Not too long after that incident my father and mother moved in together – into a room in a boarding house.

 

David Hemmings returned to Cape Town.

 

I only met him in Cape Town when I was fourteen, and by then he was a pastor in the Church of England, serving amongst the poor. He took me on as a son. I did not stay with him, but went for the occasional Sunday lunch when my mother was broke, and gardened for him for tea and cake and pocket money. I liked him very much and inwardly apologised for all the pain my mother and father had put him through. But he did not need apologies, or sympathy. He was a strong, powerful and resilient man who deeply cared about others.

 

This was also where and when I met my half-brothers, Victor and Monty, for the first time. I had met David, Wally and Eileen on a few occasions while I was growing up. David was an actor, who played many a role in Shakespearian plays, staged at the open-air theatre in Wynberg, Cape Town, and was a Western Province bodybuilding champion. In his early twenties – he is 14 years older than me – he wrote a play, Iron Bars, which protested the apartheid regime. He was living and working in Port Elizabeth at the time. On the first night of the play, during interval, security police swarmed backstage and closed the show down. Banned. David was detained for a while. On his release he left South Africa, spent some time in Rhodesia, then headed off to Spain, and then on to Canada, where he became a citizen.

 

Wally was my favourite brother. Whenever he visited my mother in Bloemfontein, he used to ride the 100 kilometers to Kimberley on his scooter to spend the day with us at Nazareth House. He was a printer, working for the Cape Argus daily newspaper in Cape Town.

 

Eileen, on her occasional visits from Cape Town, when we were home on holiday, would cuddle us, spoil us and buy us all sorts of treats.

 

I remember my mom telling me that Monty was named after a famous general from the Second World War.

When I did eventually meet him he was a policeman. And Victor was a male nurse.

 

I remember being very impressed by their uniforms.

 

* * *

 

When the service finally ended, Pastor Jeff again commanded 'Let’s go’.

 

He dropped us at the hotel and said he would see us about nine the next day. The policeman with the Uzi asked us for money. We pleaded poverty. We were both craving a cigarette. We went upstairs to the room, battled to open the faulty lock, entered, dropped our gear and sat at the edge of the bed. We looked at each other in silence.

 

We agreed not to smoke in the room just in case Pastor Jeff surprised us. We stepped out of the door and stood in the little toilet right next to our room, smoked, and, through the metal bars, looked down into the street. We smoked about three cigarettes each, one after the other. Back in the room, we sprawled on the bed and shared thoughts and feelings.

 

I knew the risks I had taken coming to this place. There was no time for regrets. Besides, I was secretly enjoying the adrenalin rush. Although we were pissed off at the treatment we had received, we laughed and joked. Welcome to the DRC! The Congo! Welcome to hell!

 

I then formally renamed Pastor Jeff Joseph Goebbels.

 

We were exhausted. Hungry. But happy we had got this far. We were preparing for bed when we heard footsteps in the passage approaching us. It was about 10.00 pm. Danger? The roller coaster started its plunge downwards, when suddenly a loud voice cursed. 'Die donderse, fokken bliksems!' Matt and I looked at each other in utter amazement. A South African. More than that, an Afrikaaner! We heard the door right next to ours open. We jumped up, Matt leading the way, and barged into the room. There, with a black woman, was the white man we had seen earlier in front of the hotel.

 

They were just as surprised as we were.

 

In our excitement and jubilation, we introduced ourselves. His name was Danny and she was Rauha. They were from Windhoek in Namibia. They invited us to sit on the floor and we smoked and talked into the early hours of the morning.

 

Their story is a book on its own. They were in the Congo on 'business'. They had been here three months earlier and had needed to leave in a hurry. They had left a brand new car with some Congolese connections and $3 5000 dollars in the bank. When they returned, just a few days before we arrived, they found their car had been used as a taxi, with 80 000 kilometres on the clock. It was badly damaged. And their bank account was completely empty.

 

Rauha, an Ovambo from Namibia, described the locals as primitive.I won’t use her exact words.

 

We left their room at about two in the morning, locked our door, placed the table by the door – trusting nobody – and tried to sleep. I mentioned to Matt that we had just met another pair of angels. A most unlikely pair, I added. He agreed. Over the next two days Danny and Rauha became comforting friends. And a mine of information: What to do. What not to do. Whom to be wary of.

 

The bed crawled with lice. The ground forces, we called them.

 

The mosquitoes attacked from the air. Every so often we would get up, switch the light on and splatter any mosquitoes we found clinging to the walls. I killed one on the wall above our bed. We were amazed at the amount of blood on my palm and on the wall. Matt grabbed his camera and took a photo. One for the scrapbook, he said.

 

Restless, we went back to the toilet. Had a smoke. Back to bed. Lights out.

 

Stretched out on our backs in the dark, we rewound the day, every moment we could recall, opened up the pressure valves and literally cried ourselves to sleep with laughter.

 

We awoke at about 6.00 am, after less than three hours’ sleep.

 

We had a few cigarettes in the toilet. Then back to the room. Read a little. Talked a little. More cigarettes. No worries, Goebbels will collect us at nine. Matt reminded me not to hold my breath. Goebbels would most certainly be a few hours late. We decided to take a stroll.

 

Wherever we went people begged for money. There were armed soldiers and police everywhere. Danny knew the place and told us that the police, soldiers and traffic police were all military. They just wore different uniforms. The soldiers were clad in olive-green battle dress. The police wore blue uniforms and the traffic police were dressed in blue trousers, bright yellow shirts and yellow helmets. The immigration officers – the Gestapo – wore black pants and white shirts. On each shoulder of their shirts was a black epaulette with a single white star embroidered on it.

 

Everywhere, on every street we walked, there were money-changers. They would sit beside their little tables piled with money, mostly Congolese francs. They only dealt in Congolese francs and American dollars. And nobody ever stole their money.

 

Danny had told us that there was no theft in Lubumbashe. A thief would be jumped by everybody within shouting distance and beaten to death.

 

Danny also told us what constituted a typical traffic fine. He once saw a car double-parked illegally. Four traffic police carrying pickaxe handles waded into the car, smashed the headlights, the rear lights and all the windows. Then they tore into the bodywork, the doors and the bonnet, leaving it wrecked. Danny said that when they had finished they simply wiped their brows, and, not even waiting for the driver, walked off as if nothing had happened.

 

We believed him. The very next day, Matt took a short stroll around the block and witnessed a similar incident. But this one was worse. They beat the driver senseless. Matt told me a traffic policeman standing in the middle of the road blew his whistle to stop a smart 4x4 approaching him. The driver did not stop immediately, at the exact spot the policeman had indicated. The policeman and three others dragged him from the vehicle, beat him to the ground with their pickaxe handles and put the boot in.

 

They turned to the vehicle and gave it similar treatment.

 

After hearing this, I suggested to Matt that we stay in the immediate environs of Hotel Babel. Like, just stand outside for a bit of sun. Not taking any chances. He agreed.

 

The armed forces were volatile and potentially explosive. After decades of war, they could not be trusted.

Besides, we were told that none of them received salaries, or any pay at all. They extracted money where they could, from whom they could.

 

Their power was also currency.

 

They were armed with a variety of weapons. Rifles, handguns, bayonets the length of swords, and even grenades. Matt has a degree in military science. He knows his weaponry. He identified Belgian FN’s, South African army issue R1s. Ak-47s. Even South African copies of Israeli Uzi’s.

 

'I wonder where they got those from?' he said.

 

There were also Tokarev pistols. Makarov pistols. Chinese stick grenades. And more.

 

The roller coaster plunged. Lower, because, at this time, just after midday, Goebbels had still not arrived.

 

He eventually arrived at 1.30 pm. We were in our room, stretched on our bed, reading, when he burst in without knocking. 'Entrée! Bonjour,' he said. 'Let’s go,' he said. He herded us downstairs, out of the front door and into the coffee shop cum restaurant adjacent to the hotel. It was called the Metro Babel. He told us to be seated and to order from the menu. We ordered chicken, sadsa and Chinese cabbage. He did not stay. He paid for the meal before we received it. 'I will meet you at 6pm,' he said, and left.

 

After lunch we stood outside the hotel and basked in the sun. Smoking, of course. Matt and I were both wearing shorts. An elderly man approached us. 'Bonjour,' he greeted us. We greeted him in French and explained that we only spoke English. He asked us our business in Lubumbashe. We told him we were missionaries. I had a cigarette stuck between my lips. He said that he would fine us for wearing shorts. He told us that he was a plainclothes policeman and demanded 10 dollars.

 

We pleaded poverty.

 

Matt also told him to fuck off in Afrikaans. He smiled and asked me to give him my packet of cigarettes. I said no and offered him one. He took two from the box. 'I will visit you later,' he smiled.

 

Danny joined us for a cigarette. Within minutes two Immigration Officials arrived, beckoned to Danny and escorted him up to his room. After a few minutes they returned with Danny and Rauha, climbed into a car and drove off.

 

Our friends returned a few hours later, alone. They told us that the officials hassled them almost every day for money. Every day they found something wrong with their passports. They were asking questions about us, Danny said. It would only be a matter of time before they paid us a visit.

 

'We have to get the fuck out of here, Matt.'

 

But of course we couldn’t. We both knew that. Not yet, in any case. We had a movie to shoot. We had only enough money – in rands – to get from the border to Lusaka.

 

We went up to Danny’s room and chatted for most of the afternoon. I imagined that if the room had been bugged we would have been shot on the spot for the content of our conversation. The three of us had spent time with the South African Defence Force in Angola. Matt had been in the permanent force, with the parabats. Danny had also served as a member of the permanent force with the infamous 32 Battalion. I had served as a conscript with a Cape Town regiment.

 

War stories. Matt also knew Danny’s elder brother, Boesman Van Ryn. Our war stories took me back three decades, to Angola in 1976. To the mosquitoes. The flies. The Cubans. The eternal wait for the enemy to manifest itself.

 

* * *

 

By the time we arrived there, Cahama had been almost totally demolished by battling armies who seemed to change sides at the drop of a beret. Cahama was a small town in southern Angola; about 200 kilometres northwest of Pereira de Eca, our first point of entry into Angola after crossing the Cunene River. It was completely deserted – except for flocks of goats, stray sheep, chickens and a few emaciated dogs. Only a handful of buildings, bomb-ravaged and bullet-ridden, stood precariously amongst the ruins.

 

It was scorching-hot when we arrived in Cahama to set up positions to block possible Cuban / MPLA advances southward. So we were told.

 

We were told that we were the first ‘civvy’ regiment to go on active duty in a war zone outside of South African borders since the Korean war of the early 1950’s. I was assigned to the 60mm mortar section of one of the infantry platoons in this regiment. Originally trained in our teens as riflemen, all of us, apart from our mortar sergeant, were suddenly enlisted in a week’s crash course in 60mm mortars at Grootfontein, the base in the then South West Africa, where South African troops were re-trained and equipped, and from where we moved into Angola.

 

We spent close on six weeks in and around Cahama.

 

Waiting for the MPLA.

 

Waiting for the Cubans.

 

Waiting for SWAPO.

 

The MPLA and the Cubans were our enemies. Unita were our allies. Nobody seemed to know exactly on whose side the FNLA stood.

 

On the way out, in late March of 1976, FNLA troops were our friends. We (their protectors?) accompanied them back to The States, as we referred to South Africa.

 

Unita became our enemy.

 

The Cubans and the MPLA remained our enemies.

 

It was all quite confusing.

 

To us, the rank and file, our real enemies were the flies and the mosquitoes. And they weren’t even commies. Although they were referred to often as ‘fucking little black bastards’. There was never a frontal or rear attack. They surrounded us totally, attacking with ease. We spent a good deal of our time planning ways to stop these monsters, against which there was little or no defence.

 

At the crack of dawn – referred to in military parlance as Stand To – there was perhaps a pause of a minute or so between the daily retreat of the mosquito hordes and the onslaught of the fly battalions. At dusk – Stand Down – there was the same brief pause between the withdrawal of the flies and the onslaught of the mosquitoes. At night, during the height of that blistering Angolan summer, we slept fully dressed, every millimetre of our bodies covered and wrapped in ponchos, balaclavas and tucked and zipped into sleeping bags.

 

And still the mossies attacked.

 

Breaking every rule of warfare (bush, conventional or other), we built huge log fires that would burn throughout the night, and slept beside these. Just far enough away so as not to be incinerated, yet close enough to keep the enemy at bay.

 

It worked, more or less. The odd special forces mossies got through and wreaked their bloody havoc on us. Then our platoon commander got cold feet and put a stop to it. Fire would give away our positions, he said. Fair enough.

 

But, because we were so bored, frustrated and angry with the waiting, the anxiety and anticipation of impending attacks by the other armies, terrified by thoughts of pitched battles, fire-fights, hand-to-hand combat, we told him we couldn’t give a fuck. Either way, we insisted, let’s get our part in this fucking war over so we can be dead or go back home. Where we actually belonged.

 

Letters from home – when we got them – informed us that we were actually in South West Africa, and nowhere near Angola. Letters home were handed in unsealed and rigorously censored. The powers that be did not want to alarm our families. And so they lied to our families.

 

One night, way after midnight, all hell broke loose.

 

A gunner manning one of the two Ratels assigned to our platoon went 'bossies', or 'bos-befok' (literally meaning 'bush fucked', the word describes the many white South African soldiers who lost their mental stability in the Angolan war) and opened fire on the mossies with a 7,62mm Browning machine gun. Most of us were dead asleep. We awoke, petrified, to the chilling, rocketing sounds of whistling rounds with an awesome display of tracer bullets pouring into the black sky, lighting it up in a fluorescence of green and pink.

 

‘YOU MOTHER-FUCKING MOSSIE BLACK BASTARDS …’ he screamed.

 

‘YOU MOTHER…’ And kept firing until a couple of troops close to the Ratel, who had quickly assessed the situation, clambered up onto the vehicle and pulled him down. He had to be forcibly restrained.

 

The rest of us thought that we were finally being attacked. Without any clear orders in the midst of the chaos, some froze where they were sleeping or standing guard, some fled from the scene far into the dark bush to take shelter and wait for the shit to subside and go away.

 

Just go away. Please.

Some were so pissed, they missed the fireworks. The adrenalin rush.

 

The next day the gunner was taken to a field hospital. We heard later that he had been sent back to The States and into a psychiatric ward at No 1 Military Hospital in Pretoria.

 

That’s how powerful the mossie army was.

 

The flies were no different. There was simply no defence against them – except for one little strategy that drew them off, for a few moments at least. Unfortunately you needed to have a crap. It worked like this: covered in flies and dying for a crap, you would go a little way into the bush, some distance away from your existing position, dig a hole, drop your webbing, drop your rods; do your thing. Then slowly lift the rods, fasten the webbing, buckle up, grab rifle and spade, and sprint as fast as you can away, away, from a pile of shit that’s now writhing in flies.

 

A few moments of bliss.

 

Until the next wave of attack.

 

Meanwhile, we waited in vain for the Cubans, the MPLA, SWAPO.

 

But they never arrived.

 

Apart from the foot patrols on which we were sent from time to time – out into the hinterland, scouting for possible enemy positions or movement – it was an excruciatingly boring existence.

 

Until one morning there was an urgent call to action.

 

The entire company was summoned to a parade. We were informed that a certain General would be inspecting our positions. We were ordered to clean our dirty selves up – some hadn’t washed for weeks – launder our browns, render our assortment of weapons spotless and in perfect working order, and generally clean and tidy up our trenches and positions. There was a lot of excitement; at least the troops could look forward to a little break from the monotony; the boredom; the inertia. Maybe even have a braai and some beer. The rest of that day, and half that night, we went about the business of carrying out our orders.

 

The next day, as promised, the General arrived with an entourage of officers. Our mortar section stood to attention beside our spotless positions. Everything was in perfect order. The General exchanged a few words with our mortar sergeant and proceeded with his inspection. Already the flies were probing and penetrating.

 

After the General and his officers had scrutinised our persons and our weapons – R5’s, mortar tubes, base-plates, crates of mortar bombs – a young, squeaky-clean lieutenant stopped and stood before me. In a lowered voice he asked, ‘Are you guys 60 mm mortars?’

 

'No lieutenant,' I answered with a straight face, and standing stiffly to attention. 'Rigor Mortis.'

 

He smiled wryly. And moved on, following the General, the other officers, and a fast-gathering army of flies.

 

Strangely, neither Matt nor I noticed a single fly anywhere during our stay in the Congo. Just hordes of bloodthirsty mosquitoes. Bigger and fatter than any I had ever encountered in Angola.

 

Sitting in the room, talking to Matt and Danny, I thought about Angola. It was like the Congo in many ways. The waiting. The anticipation. The uncertainty. The fear.

 

An uncomfortable, challenging, excruciating war of nerves.

 

I never really came close to action in Angola in the four months I was there. The only incoming fire I experienced was, while out on a manoeuvre in Grootfontein, in the then South West Africa. Our platoon was hit by the outer reaches of mortar fire from our own 90 mm mortars. Zing … Zing … we heard the familiar sounds of shrapnel scorching the earth and we scrambled aboard our vehicles and up surrounding trees, as high and as quickly as we could climb. That’s the drill when you come under mortar fire. Get off the ground, and as high as you can. I clutched the higher branches of a nearby tree, pissing involuntarily in my browns.

 

Both Danny and Matt had seen a lot more action. Some of it painful and horrific. After all, they were professional soldiers. I was a civilian conscript doing a compulsory four month camp.

 

Real man. Toy soldier.

 

* * *

 

My four days in the Congo made my Angola journey look like a walk in the park.

 

Every time we heard footsteps in the corridor we thought about the immigration officials. Chilling thoughts.

 

Throughout our stay in the Congo, I carried at least two one-litre water bottles with me. And wherever I could, I would fill them up with tap water; throw in a little water purification tablet, shake, and wait ten minutes before drinking. We had no money for coffee, cool drinks or bottled water. Danny and Rauha let us fill the bottles from their basin tap whenever they were around. The water was murky brown. Before we could drink it though, we would have to pour out some of the water. Little maggot-type insects always floated to the top. I, particularly, drank litres of water every day. My mouth was always parched and dry.

 

Dirty, purified water. We lived on the stuff.

 

That and nicotine.

 

Goebbels arrived at 6.30 pm. We were bundled into the RTIV staff car and taken to the main church where we interviewed personnel working for the church’s radio and TV station. There was a huge transmitter – about 30 metres high – right next to the church. We shot images of it from every angle. The shoot lasted less than two hours and we were bundled back into the car and taken to the hotel. When we arrived, Goebbels got out of the car with us. He looked at me strangely. 'I will accompany you to your room. We need to talk.'

 

We entered the room. He and Matt sat on the edge at the foot of the bed and I squatted on the floor, my back leaning against the wall.

 

'I am concerned about you as Christians.' He looked me in the eye. 'How is your faith, Mr. Mario?'

 

'I’m a Christian, but I am also a human and sometimes weak.'

 

He turned to Matt and asked the same question. I don’t remember Matt’s response. I was furious that Goebbels was questioning us. I tried to control my anger – one wrong move and we could be thrown to the wolves. Already we were having an unhappy time of it. One cup of coffee in the last two days, and two small meals. Stuck between our dungeon, Danny and Rauha’s room, the smoking-toilet and a bit of sunshine outside the front of the hotel. When Goebbels left we agreed. No more walking about the dangerous streets of Lubumbashe.