Vega smiled sardonically. According to the reports he’d seen, the
Afrikaner conscripts had fled Swakopmund without firing a shot. A sensible decision, he thought, eyeing one of the two long-gunned tanks left by Colonel Pellervo to protect the Cuban Army’s hold on the former
German colonial town.
After its bloodless victory, Pellervo’s 21st Motor Rifle
Battalion had spent the night resting and refitting for its push south against the operation’s primary objective-Walvis Bay. It was a pause Vega regretted but knew to be necessary. The two-hundred-icilometer road march from Karibib had left the battalion’s officers and men short of sleep, fresh food, and water. More importantly, it had pushed many of their vehicles to the edge of mechanical breakdown. Longdistance travel was always hard on tank treads and engines.
Fortunately, ten hours of rest and frantic repair in a campsite on the south side of Swakopmund had worked miracles on the motor rifle unit’s combat readiness. It had also given Pellervo a chance to secure the town fully. Under his martial law decrees, the black residents who’d welcomed the Cubans as liberators were free to go about their daily business. The surly, suspicious white descendants of Swakopmund’s German colonists weren’t so lucky. They’d been confined to their homes to prevent them from passing information about the Cuban battalion’s movements and strength to the South Africans still holding Walvis Bay. They’d also been warned that anyone caught outside could look forward to a short trial and a speedy execution amid the sand dunes surrounding the town.
Vega and his forward headquarters staff had arrived at dawn and immediately occupied the Strand Hotel, picked because it offered the best food and accommodations available in this small resort town. He was detached enough to appreciate the irony of a Cuban general eating a meal of bratwurst and sauerkraut while fighting a war in Africa.
Finished, he rose from his early lunch. It was past time to get back to the business at hand.
The forward headquarters itself had been set up in one of the hotel’s larger meeting rooms, and Vega was pleased to see it busy but quiet as he walked in. Following his standing orders, only the two sentries by the door saluted and snapped to attention, but almost everyone else nodded in his direction. Generals always had a magnetic effect on those under their command.
Acknowledging his staff’s various greetings, he walked briskly over to the situation map tacked to one wall. It showed both Swakopmund and Walvis Bay, thirty kilometers to the south. A half hour’s ride in a good car, but a full morning’s travel for a motorized battalion deployed for combat.
The two towns sat like islands surrounded by a desert sea. Two-lane highways spanned out north, south, and east, linking them with other towns hundreds of kilometers away. The real sea, the Atlantic Ocean, lay to the west.
Pellervo’s battalion had started for Walvis Bay at dawn, but was only now nearing the South African port. It wasn’t a large city. In fact, it was just a small, ugly town, more famous for its fish processing plant than anything else. But Walvis Bay possessed the only deepwater harbor on the
Namibian coast.
And that made Walvis Bay worth fighting for.
The port had remained in South Africa’s hands when the rest of Namibia gained its independence on a simple technicality. Occupied by the British before World War I, Walvis Bay had been handed over to South Africa directly instead of being included as part of the old League of Nations mandate over the SouthWest Africa Territory. As a result, the 1989 UN agreement that gave the rest of the ex-German colony its freedom from
Pretoria hadn’t covered Walvis Bay’s vital port facilities.
And that is how the West divides up its spoils, and how South Africa keeps its stranglehold on what is supposed to be a sovereign country,
Vega thought, frowning.
A more cheerful thought wiped away his frown. In attacking Walvis Bay, his troops were invading South African territory, undoing some of the harm done to Namibia by the West. And capturing the port would not only deprive Pretoria of a vital naval base and supply center, it would also give Cuba and its socialist allies the facilities they needed to pour in shiploads of heavy tanks and guns, troops, and equipment. The men and material needed to crush South Africa’s imperial ambitions once and for all.
Vega studied the situation map closely. Markers showed Pellervo’s 2 1 st
Motor Rifle approaching the outskirts of Walvis Bay. Other markers depicted the likely defensive positions of the two companies of enemy infantry holding the port.
Vega mused again, calculating the odds. Two companies, dug in, against a reinforced battalion. The South Africans knew the area better, but his air bases were closer. The general smiled. An even match for a strategic goal.
A discreet cough drew his attention to the expectant face of one of his operations officers.
“Yes?”
“Sir, Colonel Pellervo reports receiving some small-arms fire. Probably from enemy outposts. He requests artillery support. “
Vega shook his head impatiently.
“Tell him to press on. The South African outposts will fall back. The Twentyfirst has to keep moving or the timing of our air strike will be off. “
He glanced at his air officer, who saw his expression and automatically confirmed that.
“The MiGs are on schedule, Comrade General. ETA in ten minutes.”
Vega checked the map one more time. Good. Very good. The battle for Walvis
Bay would open with one hell of an airborne bang.
5TH MECHANIZED INFANTRY Ha OUTSIDE WALVIS BAY
Col. George von Brandis lay prone, hugging the cold, stony ground. Through binoculars, he watched the enemy’s dust cloud approaching.
He hated being outside the cover offered by the port’s houses, aluminum-sided canneries, and entrenchments, but there hadn’t been time to get the battalion inside before first light, and he couldn’t risk being caught unprepared in the open. His vehicles were down to their last few liters of fuel, and the men were exhausted.
The 5th Mechanized had spent the dark, predawn hours finding hides and defilades along the road between Swakopmund and Walvis Bay. The best defensive position lay close to the port itself where a railroad line paralleled the road-its raised embankment offering perfect cover for his infantry, jeep-mounted antitank missiles, and cannon-armed Elands.
Von Brandis adjusted the focus on his binoculars and saw squat shapes emerging from the hazy, yellow dust cloud. The Cubans couldn’t be farther than five kilometers away. Come on, you bastards. Keep coming.
With so little fuel left and only its basic load of ammunition available, his battalion had only one viable option-a devastating short-range attack aimed at the Cuban flank. Hit them hard enough with a surprise attack and those Latin bastards will samba their way back to Luanda, he thought.
And the attack should damn well be a surprise. Two volunteers had stayed behind in Hougaard’s abandoned command Ratel, They were continuing to transmit status reports and requests for aid. His own force had maintained radio silence while speeding westward through the night to minimize the chance of being spotted by enemy air reconnaissance.
Not even the defenders in Walvis Bay knew they were here. He had considered sending in a runner, but two kilometers of open terrain separated his nearest positions from the town. Too far. Whomever he sent would almost certainly be captured or killed.
Von Brandis grinned mirthlessly. The reservists holding Walvis Bay must be feeling a lot like the British soldiers who’d defended Rorke’s Drift against the Zulus a century before-outnumbered and all alone. They will be a happy bunch when we show ourselves, he thought.