A Sailor's Honour
BY THE SAME AUTHOR:
Shepherds and Butchers
, 2008
The Soldier Who Said No
, 2010
Chris Marnewick
A Sailor's Honour
is fiction. Names, characters, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. The words or actions in the book are not to be ascribed to any of the characters named in it.
Published in 2011 by Umuzi
an imprint of Random House Struik (Pty) Ltd
Company Reg No 1966/003153/07
80 McKenzie Street, Cape Town 8001, South Africa
PO Box 1144, Cape Town 8000, South Africa
[email protected]
www.randomstruik.co.za
© 2011 Chris Marnewick
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.
First edition, first printing 2011
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
ISBN
978-1-4152-0163-3 (Print)
ISBN
978-1-4152-0352-1 (ePub)
ISBN
978-1-4152-0353-8 (
PDF
)
Cover design by publicide
Text design by William Dicey
Set in Trump Mediaeval and Caecilia
Printed and bound in South Africa by
Paarlmedia, Jan van Riebeek Avenue, Paarl
To Layla, also known as Babyshoes.
When I write about a spring, that spring
is there and the water is good to drink.
LOUIS
L
'
AMOUR
Abduction
U-891
The Alicia May
St Katharinenkirche
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Also from Umuzi
ABDUCTION
PROLOGUE
Pretoria
September 1992
The day started like any other.
When everyone was ready, De Villiers drove, like he always did. The children had to get to school, and his wife had to be at work at 8 a.m. Jeandré was still in kindergarten and Annelise escorted her to the door exactly as the school rules demanded. De Villiers watched from the car as his daughter turned and blew him a kiss. School was a happy place for Jeandré and goodbyes had never been tearful. Her brother, on the other hand, was a different story altogether. Marcel hated school, and said so every day. De Villiers suspected bullying or an overly robust teacher, but Marcel's quarterly reports were good. A quiet boy at the head of his class, the teacher wrote. When De Villiers asked him, âWhy don't you like school?' the answer was an enigmatic shrug of the shoulders.
âIt's just a phase,' Annelise said. âIt'll pass.'
But it never had the chance to pass.
It happened on the way home.
De Villiers started the home run early. He went first to the army headquarters on the Johannesburg road to ask if they didn't have a position or a mission for him. The personnel man just shook his head with a knowing smile on his lips. A voice from behind the partition gave the reason. âAll recruitment is on hold, pending the elections. And then all the
MK
terrorists will be our new commanders.' Another voice added to the mirth. âNo, they'll all be generals, and we'll still be the ones to do the dirty work.' De Villiers left with their laughter ringing in his ears.
'n Lag met 'n traan,
his Afrikaans teacher might have said.
He picked them up in reverse order: Annelise first, then Marcel and Jeandré last. They had to return to Marcel's school because he had left some of his books in his desk. The dressing-down De Villiers had given Marcel left the car in silence as they turned the last corner and slowed to take the turn into their driveway.
He had seen the white minibus with its blackened windows parked on the verge opposite their house, but had thought nothing of it.
That was a big mistake, although it is doubtful whether the outcome would have been any different. At least, that's what De Villiers sometimes tried to believe.
Throughout his training as a Special Forces operator and during the planning phase of every mission he had undertaken, De Villiers had always been encouraged to think ahead, to identify potential dangers in order to avoid them or, if avoidance was not possible, to find ways of meeting them.
Preparation prevents poor performance, his instructors used to say. They said it so often that it became the voice in De Villiers's inner ear.
Preparation.
Prevents.
Poor.
Performance.
In time it would also become the nagging voice of his conscience.
This time he didn't see it coming. This time, Major (Ret'd) Pierre de Villiers, specialist in reconnaissance and risk avoidance, did not see it coming.
He had become complacent. The civil war was over. The soldiers who were fighting on foreign soil had been called home. His own last operation had been terminated unexpectedly, just before the final push, and he had been made to resign his commission and leave the army, albeit with a rise in rank to major. An uneasy truce had been arranged with the soldiers on both sides returning to their barracks to await further orders. The country calmed down as politicians met to talk and talk and talk. The national team went to the Olympics and the Wallabies and All Blacks came to play the Springboks. Things were back in equilibrium and the nation was at peace.
But on the street, weapons of war were now freely available at the gates of the army barracks or the local taxi rank:
R
500 for an
AK
-47 with a full clip and
R
750 for a hit. âYou point out the target, boss, and we take him out. Afterwards you pay us extra for the bullets we used.'
The mistake Pierre de Villiers made was to think that the streets would be safe and that there was nothing untoward in the presence of a minibus with blackened windows in his suburb.
But there was. De Villiers realised it as soon as he saw the man at his gate and a further two in the rear-view mirror, all three converging on the car. They carried their
AKS
openly, as if they owned the street, and in a way they did. For De Villiers and his family, the options were reduced to one: the Glock under the driver's seat of no use. Even if it had been ready to hand, there was too much to lose and too little to gain.
âLet them have the car,' De Villiers said in a low voice and raised his hands in surrender.
When he came to, he was in a hospital bed, strapped down with his right leg suspended in the air by a collection of wires and pulleys and a drip on a stand next to the bed feeding a yellowish liquid into a vein on the back of his hand.
He had smelled cordite, but had heard no gunshots. There had been screaming.
Children screaming.
His children.
His body was numb and he felt no pain except a stinging burn where the drip needle was taped to his hand. He was alone in a white room he recognised by the equipment and the furniture and the smells and noises as a hospital, a military hospital. He had been there before.
De Villiers had also been alone before, but when he looked around, he could not work out who was missing.
Their graves were in the Garsfontein Cemetery on the opposite side of the city, nestled against a koppie with rough rocks and acacia trees and low shrubs. Tall trees cast a shadow over the gravestones.
Jeandré, daughter of Major Pierre de Villiers and his wife, Annelise.
Marcel, brother and son.
Annelise, wife and mother. Sister of Advocate Johann Weber of Durban.
Weber was the family's spokesman at the funeral and had looked the camera in the eye when he gave his address in the cold, clinical tones of his profession. âThis family does not believe in the maxim that the law should be allowed to take its course. The law usually runs out of steam pretty quickly. No, we believe that the law is not enough when you need to deal with the killers of women and children. This family will not rest until we have had our revenge. That day will come, perhaps not tomorrow or next week or even next month or next year. But it will come. We shall wait as long as it takes.'
The newspaper headline echoed his words.
As long as it takes.
| Auckland Monday, 15 June 2009 | 1 |
Hop. Skip. Jump.
Hop. Skip. Jump.
Zoë's feet landed in a puddle and water splashed up against her shins. Her cross-trainers and tracksuit pants were soaked through, but she laughed with pleasure and jumped again and again.
Jump splash. Jump splash. Jump splash.
Each time she jumped, the seven-year-old girl's French braid rose up behind her like a whip and came down to slap her between the shoulder blades. The braid was as wet as the trainers. She knew she would be home in a few minutes.
Ahead of her, the boys and girls of Macleans Primary School were slowly making their way home, the boys in groups of two or three, pushing and shoving, and the girls in a slightly more sedate fashion.
Except for Zoë de Villiers. Zoë had fallen behind, but that was nothing unusual. She always played games in her head, even when her class teacher was talking. There were lines on the footpath only Zoë could see and she loved hopping, skipping and jumping to the dictates of the lines. She took no notice of her classmates ahead of her on the footpath and did not see the Range Rover Sport with its blackened windows. At first it kept pace with her, but then sped up a little and stopped a short distance ahead. Zoë also didn't take notice when two women dressed in black alighted from the
SUV
and came walking towards her.
Eyes cast down to watch the lines. Hop. Skip. Jump. Splash, splash, splash.
When Zoë looked up, there was darkness.
Anyone looking back towards the scene would have seen two athletic women dressed in identical dark jeans and thick jackets with hoodies walking side by side on the footpath towards the school. They would have thought that the hoodies were pulled over their faces to protect them from the rain. They would not have been able to see the dark glasses below the hoodies and might not have taken notice of the girl skipping towards the women in black. They might not have noticed the folded travel rug over the arm of the woman on the right, and they might not have believed their eyes when the two women separated for an instant and then, as they came together again, that the skipping girl had disappeared. They might at first have wondered why the Range Rover was reversing and why the two women were in such a hurry to get back in, but they would never have suspected that there was a little girl wrapped in the travel rug in the back seat between the women when the Range Rover sped off towards Pakuranga Road.