Shooting Butterflies (4 page)

The gooks were wrong. The Rhodesian forces were there to take it down, which was nothing out of the ordinary, but the big difference was having a PSYOPS captain with them.

Shilo smelled a rat. They were being lied to.

He looked at Buffel. The man was huge, even as white man standards went. His shorts were cut shorter than regulation, the pockets sticking out below the hems, hanging against his hairy legs that he'd covered in blotchy patterns with camo cream. He wore
veldskoene
and no socks. His shirt was camo, like his pants, and bore no insignia. His green combat vest wasn't like any Shilo had seen before. It sat tight around him and had more pockets than army issue. He carried an oversized cargo bag, which wasn't usual for someone to jump with, and the bag was attached to him at all times, as if he couldn't bear to be without it. His beard, wiry and wild, covered most of his face and only beady brown eyes could be seen between the blackness smeared onto his skin and his jungle hat. But it was Buffel's hands that attracted Shilo's attention the most. The last two fingers were missing on his left hand and thick scar tissue covered the place where they should have been.

Shilo wondered what had happened to make this man into one who could live with himself and operate within the PSYOPS unit. The rumours of these men always involved mutilated bodies and unnecessary killings.

Sergeant Riley tapped Shilo on the shoulder to get his attention and made a thumbs-up sign. Shilo returned the gesture, and Sergeant Riley moved up to the next trooper, Kwazi, and repeated the same procedure. The men moved quietly through the thick bush, each trained by the top SAS officers that the army had, and each man, both black and white, fighting for a cause he believed in.

Silently, like leopards stalking at night, they carefully made their way through the darkness towards the target. Shilo held his AK-47 loosely to his right. The Russian-supplied weapons were not standard Rhodesian issue – they had been reconditioned in the armoury after they were captured from gooks. The standard-issue FN was more accurate and had better hitting power, and he wished he had one in his hands instead.

He stepped onto a large fallen tree branch and took a wide stride off the other side to avoid a bite by a puff adder should it be lying in wait. His eyes skimmed the bush around them. Although it was dark, he could make out the areas of trees and shadows.

The target, a whitewashed school building, quickly came into view. Behind a broken fence the camp looked deserted. Except that there were sentries posted on the corners of the wire fence, and the camp itself made noise that didn't belong in the night. A man coughed, and someone smoked a cigarette next to the building, the red tip glowing.

Schools were supposed to be deserted at night.

Shilo could see the equipment they had in the yard. A tall swing claimed prize place in the centre of the playground. Rope hung from the crossbeam at the top, knotted in strategic places so that children could climb, testing their strength or plummeting downwards if they didn't measure up, but not too far.

There was something about this camp that looked different from the other ones they had seen before, those run by Chinese and Cuban trainers. Always, in those camps, they had found the soldiers inside were barely men. Boys taken from their homes and forced into combat. The camps always reflected that they trained killers though. Human-shaped targets, and modified playground
equipment. This school looked like any other school in a rural society. Its soccer field with goalposts. Tyres hung like curled-up black shongololos on ropes under the trees, which had obviously been planted to provide shade around the playground. These were children's toys, not military training equipment.

Questions flew around Shilo's brain.

Why was a school protected by a guard?

If this was in fact still a school, then why were they attacking it?

An uneasy feeling washed over him. He crossed his chest in the sign of the Holy Cross as he'd been taught by his mother, who had learnt it from the nuns at the mission station so many years before. Shilo Mission, after which his mother had named him.

Before those same missionaries, who had helped deliver him, had become victims of war.

Before the mission and church had been burnt to the ground by the terrorists.

Before he volunteered to become a soldier in the Rhodesian War of Independence, to fight the communists who were trying to take over his country.

He was a solider, it was not his place to question his superiors.

Carefully he made his way after Kwazi who walked just in front of him.

The signal to leopard crawl was passed from Sergeant Riley through the men. Shilo signalled to the next trooper and immediately dropped to his belly. He dug his elbows into the ground and kept his AK-47 ready while maintaining the same pace forwards. They broke through the bush and crawled across the patch of cut grass towards the outline of the fence.

Sergeant Riley held a section of fence open as Shilo slithered through and broke to the right. He wiped the sweat off his face with the sleeve of his camo smock and cleared the dust from under his nose as he continued to slither further along.

The sky was beginning to lighten and he could see better now. His eyes still straining in the half-light, he passed near the guard, who was smoking another cigarette.

The guard was dressed in overalls like a farm worker, except he carried an AK-47 assault rifle. Shilo strained to see if he had access to any of the other Soviet Bloc weapons they knew the ZANLA guerrillas were in possession of. They might not all be dressed in any type of standard uniform, but they were infamous for their access to Soviet and Chinese weapons. Like the RPG-2 and RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and RPK light machine guns. Lately there had even been reports that the gooks had access to the larger weapons like 122mm multiple rocket launchers and 14.5mm heavy machine guns.

Shilo held his breath for a moment as he flattened himself into the ground. The lightening sky silhouetted Kwazi about one metre from him, and he dug down into attack position, low on his stomach, his weapon on the ground as he waited. A mosquito buzzed around and he silently lifted his hand to it, and crushed it between thick fingers, making no sound.

The guard coughed, blew his nose and continued to stare into space. He sat down on the small wall that ran along the few steps up into the building and turned his back on the unknown danger that lurked in the lengthening shadows of the schoolyard.

The sky lightened to a bright blue with purple overtones just as Shilo received the command to advance. The paratroopers struck at full assault. Within moments, a sharpshooter had taken out the guards on both corners of the building, and the troopers ran over the bare ground within the fence line, towards the building, their weapons ready.

Shilo breathed deeply as he rushed up the three steps, jumped over the downed guard and into the school, Sergeant Riley only milliseconds behind him. He ran through the open door and immediately dropped to one knee and searched for anyone inside. Kwazi was already on the right-hand side of the door, and signalled for him to move forward towards the next room.

Shilo shifted quickly and with purpose.

Soon he was ready at the next entry to the connecting room.

‘Shilo, cover me,' Sergeant Riley said. Shilo adjusted his AK-47 at his hip and scanned the room. He kicked the door open. When
no movement was detected Sergeant Riley stepped inside. Nothing attacked them. They could hear weeping. A boy cowered in the corner, almost hidden from view by an upturned kitchen table. He couldn't have been more than ten years old.

‘Got a survivor,' Sergeant Riley said as he pulled the boy's arm.

The child was unarmed.

‘Continue to clear the room,' Sergeant Riley said as he held the sobbing youngster.

Kwazi poked around the room and soon shook his head. ‘Clear.'

Sergeant Riley passed the boy to another trooper. ‘Buffel's instructions are to take survivors to the sports field, make sure this kid gets there.'

The trooper left back the way they had just come. Shilo watched as he exited, his AK-47 ready all the time.

‘Shilo, cover me,' Sergeant Riley repeated as they came across a door at the back of the kitchen.

Shilo squared his shoulders, ready for impact as Sergeant Riley opened it.

The small room was obviously used as a janitor's room to store mops and brooms. Sergeant Riley shone his torch into the room and a young girl cowering in a corner raised her hands in the air, even as she ducked her head down between her knees.

‘Come on, child, time to go,' Sergeant Riley said as he reached for her. She jumped up and brushed past him. Shilo caught her by the arm and quickly restrained her.

‘Put her with the others,' Sergeant Riley said. ‘Kwazi, you and I continue. Shilo, join us when you are done.'

‘Yes, Captain!' Shilo said as he gently pushed the girl forwards while holding onto her arm.

Shilo frowned. Neither of the two survivors had been armed. The fight the troopers had just engaged in had been against light weapons, and scattered, not the heavy weapon fire they had expected. Something else was going on, and he suspected they had not been briefed on what their true mission was. This was not a training school at all. It seemed like a normal farm school where families
were simply living together as a group to deter attacks from passing gooks.

He swallowed the panic that threatened him as he recalled the stories he'd heard about what the soldiers in the PSYOPS units did and exactly how they instilled fear into the people. If the PSYOPS trooper was here to create havoc, he'd just turned their unit from patriotic paratroopers into killers.

Shilo walked the young hostage onto the playing field. He should have bound the kid's hands at least or put a short rope between her legs to minimise her ability to run away, but it went against everything he believed in to treat a child that way.

‘Put her with the others,' Buffel instructed. ‘And tie her up.'

‘I don't have rope,' Shilo lied.

Buffel yanked the child away from Shilo and tied her hands together with a thin cord. Once he was finished, he shoved her towards the other children.

The child quickly ran to her friends, sobbing. They huddled together, as if by touching they could share strength in their fear.

Shilo watched. Unable to move.

Sergeant Riley and Kwazi joined them with yet another hostage moments later.

There were ten survivors of the attack. Ten kids. Children. They had attacked a school filled with school children. Not terrorists. Shilo fought to keep the nausea back.

‘Go now,' Buffel dismissed the paratroopers who had gathered around, looking at the children. ‘There is work I need to complete here.'

He turned his back on them, expecting his instruction to be instantly obeyed. The paratroopers turned and ran together. Sergeant Riley signalled to his troopies to run for the fence, and the safety of the tree line after that.

Shilo's feet were leaden as he ran the five hundred metres across the bare sports field area, hating to leave the children with the unpredictable Buffel, but having to obey instructions given by a superior commanding officer. Forcing his feet to move he passed
the fence line and the slashed area beyond. But just as they got into the tree line, Sergeant Riley tapped Shilo and Kwazi on the shoulder. He signalled to turn back.

Shilo smiled. Their sergeant didn't trust the PSYOPS captain either.

Sergeant Riley dropped to his belly and began to crawl through the bush, and Shilo and Kwazi followed as they crept back towards the school building. They lay as close as they could get in the bush cover, just beyond the cleared area where the bush had been cut short near the fence line, where they had a clear view. The sun had risen into a full dawn while they had executed their raid. No longer able to use the cover of darkness, they relied on their camouflaged clothes instead.

‘Tell me your ages!' Buffel demanded in Portuguese. He had moved the children and they were now lined up against the wall of the school. Ranging from eight to about fourteen years old, the troopers saw the kids shake in fear. One had pissed in his pants and the strong smell of urine wafted towards where they hid, the scent sharp on the morning breeze.

Two answered in French and two in Portuguese, the others in Swahili.

He took one of the French boys and one of the Portuguese-speaking girls, then selected four of the younger Swahili children: four boys and two girls in all. He walked them over to the tree that held the tyre swings.

He took something out of his backpack and tossed it in front of the children standing at the wall. Shilo couldn't see what it was, but the children cowered away from it.

One child threw up.

Kwazi tapped his arm and brought his attention back to Buffel, who had drawn his handgun.

‘No!' Shilo began to protest and he drew his legs up into a position to stand, to run to stop Buffel.

Sergeant Riley moved his arm over Shilo, his elbow digging deep between Shilo's shoulder blade to hold him down. ‘He'll kill us too. We can't interfere. He's PSYOPS. They outrank us.'

Shilo watched in horror as Buffel executed the six children. Wasting no time, and as if this was a practised procedure, he looped six thick ropes over the lower branch of the tree.

He cut each boy's face with marks of a warrior from an older time, a time when Zulus ruled the bottom half of the African continent, when the Shona people lived in fear of the intruding Impis and when thousands died under the rule of a dictator. Buffel shredded their clothes with sickening confidence and slashed at their chests. They watched him strap an AK-47 to each boy's side with a single strand of rope. From the cargo bag he carried with him, he took traditional small shields made of cowhide, fashioned in the Ndebele style for fighting but the perfect size for the children. He fitted a shield to each child's left arm and bound more rope around the body, so that the shield was clearly visible once he was done. Then he hung the boys by their ankles, winching them up into the tree with the rope and fastening each one off securely. Just far enough off the ground to safeguard against predator animals, but low enough that a person could clearly see what had been done and look at the mutilated body at eye height.