For this deployment we thought it best to wear civilian clothing and Afro wigs that we had trimmed short to more or less resemble an African hairstyle. Putty bought a set of brand-new khaki longs, while I donned my soft grey flannels from school. As the khaki trousers only arrived at Omega on the day we deployed, we did not have time to rehearse with them. Mistake number one.
Putty’s new khakis made their presence known whenever he moved, because the chafing of the material between his legs created a sweesh-sweesh sound. I was walking in front and had to listen for enemy activity and did not particularly welcome this addition to the audible night life. But the more I told him to keep quiet, the more irritated he got. That whole night we were accompanied by the nagging sweesh-sweesh of Putty’s pants, which enticed every single dog in southern Zambia to join in the choir of barking dogs as we moved through the villages along the river’s edge. Eventually my buddy was walking with his legs spread apart, which must have been uncomfortable and tiring.
During the deployment we mostly walked barefoot to minimise the number of boot prints left behind. On the second morning, after we had walked with our boots tied to our packs for most of the night, we moved into our hide just before first light. Suddenly I realised one of my boots was missing. It must have come undone during the night and fallen from my pack. I had to rush back in almost full daylight and was relieved to find the boot at the point where we had our last break. I made it back to Putty just as the first children started using the path on their way to school.
On the last night of the deployment we still had one more target to do – a platoon guard post and weapon position at the end of the Sesheke airfield runway, just north of the tar road. Not knowing any better, Putty and I stashed our packs and AK-47s a few hundred metres from the target. Clever and eager as we were, we decided to penetrate the base area with pistols only. I crawled in front, Putty following some distance behind. Then, out of nowhere, a guard appeared and started shining a weak torch all over me.
I froze, not knowing whether he had recognised this foreign crawling object as a human being or not. I watched him fumbling around in the dark, apparently uncertain and hesitant to open fire on something he could not identify. The next moment he let go, and a fair-sized stone, presumably from a catapult, hit me on the upper leg – not on the bum, as my Special Forces comrades have alleged for years!
We ran, trying to keep direction in order to find the weapons and packs in the dark. Eventually we sat down to decide on a plan of action, as the packs were now in the wrong direction, too close to the enemy base. Before we could manage to find any sensible solution, we realised that we were being cut off from the tar road and the river. Vehicles were moving down in our direction from the base area, while people were talking excitedly all along our escape route to the south. We ran for it, shooting wildly into the bush with our pistols, and broke through the line of soldiers that were encircling us.
In the chaos, Putty and I were separated and each of us had to make it to the river on our own. Eventually, however, as a result of the many hours of rehearsals, we managed to locate each other again in the darkness by means of a special whistling signal that we had perfected exactly for emergencies like this.
The boat was ready for the pick-up and we made the RV safely and in time, much relieved that we were unhurt. On the banks of the Zambezi, waiting for the boat to come, Putty, who had not been particularly religious at the time, pulled me by the shirt and said: “Let’s say a prayer to thank the Boss…”
My second small team deployment followed not long after that. Kobus “Kloppies” Klopper and I moved to the area of my first deployment, the lush bush between the Zambezi and Kwando rivers. Our mission was to plant a mine on the road stretching north–south along the western bank of the Zambezi River. To avoid the mine detonating indiscriminately and injuring civilians, we had to master-detonate an explosive charge under a military vehicle, preferable one belonging to SWAPO.
We made our way across the border at night, and meticulously anti-tracked the roughly 30 km to the target area. Since it was winter and large areas of grassland had been burnt, the going was extremely slow. At the road, during the third night, Kloppies planted the mine while I kept a listening watch. To conceal his tracks and remove the soil from the hole he was digging, Kloppies used his sleeping bag, dragging it across the road surface as he moved along. Before first light I moved 100 m up the road to act as early warning for vehicles coming from the north, while he found a spot from where he could watch the road dipping through a valley to the south and wait for the right target.
Daylight found us dug in on the side of the road and covered with dry grass and leaves. I was lucky enough to have found an anteater’s hole, into which I crawled, having to cover only my head and shoulders and my AK with the dry leaves lying around. Then the long wait began.
Throughout the day we had to remain vigilant, as people were constantly using the road and we were lying barely three metres away. At one point I thought my cover was blown when a troop of baboons started mocking me from the bush behind me. A group of women walked past and started shouting and pointing straight over my head at the baboons. Had they seen me? Should I take action? I decided to remain dead still and eventually the women turned around and strolled off, still laughing at the agitated baboons. They had no idea I was lying right there under their noses. I have never been so happy to be flatly ignored!
Kloppies had to endure a similar ordeal, as the same group of women stopped to study the drag marks of his sleeping bag on the road. Miraculously, they did not notice him lying three metres away, under a thorn bush, covered with dry leaves.
At the time every action we took and every idea we implemented were done on a trial-and-error basis, as we did not have any “small team” manual to learn from or any other experience to tap into. Little did we even understand, during those deployments, that we were actually conducting small team operations, at a time when the concept was considered quite revolutionary in the Reconnaissance Commandos.
The technique Kloppies and I used to sustain ourselves and still remain undetected was to cache the backpacks about 200 m away from the road, at an easily identifiable position that also served as the crash RV. We would then move forward to our positions before first light, with only webbing and a small pack (a “SWAPO bag”, as we used to call it) containing a day’s food and water. Come daylight, we would both be dug in and as comfortable as possible in a position where the slightest movement could expose us.
Meals consisted of cold food, with packaging that would not make any noise when opened, and that would not smell once opened. We took water through a plastic tube from a water bottle in the SWAPO bag, which was well concealed with the rest of the webbing on our bodies. Relieving oneself would be out of the question, although I managed to let it out bit by bit into the hole that served as my hideaway, not entirely without messing up my trousers and boots.
At last light we would both withdraw to the RV, establish comms with the Tac HQ, have a quick meal, relieve ourselves and move into a hide for the night, just to be ready before first light to repeat the previous day’s routine.
The operation was a success, as Kloppies detonated the mine at exactly the right moment under the nose of a vehicle approaching from the south. The targeted vehicle turned out to be the Land Rover of a senior SWAPO official. During this trip I learned the importance of patience. And I discovered how easy it was to conceal your body with a bit of creative deception.