He asked what I had been doing flying over his kraal, so I told him and said I had come to seek his help to confirm my assessment of his family’s routines. The pathways the family used to go to the river, the location of the women’s bathing place and that used by the men were correct. We walked along the paths to confirm all of this. Communication lines to drinking water, to maize fields, to the local store and the community school were all spot on. I was pleased and asked if we could turn to the toilet areas used by his family. Immediately he said this was not for men to discuss; his wife would have to help me with such delicate matters.
The mbuya (grandmother) came to us full of smiles. Her husband told her all about how this white man could fit into the small ndege they had seen flying above. He pointed to the parked car way off to prove his statement. He told of our walk along the paths, telling his wife how I had said what each path was used for even before we followed it. Exclamations emitted from the old lady with every statement her husband made. He then told her that she must help me with a matter I would explain before hurrying off to the safety of his hut.
The mbuya was amazed by what I wanted to know and even more so when I pointed to specific areas saying I judged these to be toilet area for five women, four men and a number of children. She wasted no time and led me down the path used by one of her daughters. At the end of its short run, I saw fresh evidence of a recent visit at one patch, one was clean and two showed that previous wastes were all but cleared by busy ants. With the old lady’s help, I learned why there were four positions.
Bowel movements for the average black person occurred at least twice a day because of their high-bulk maize diet. Two squat points used today would be cleaned by ants within twenty-four hours so only four points were needed. I asked her about the matter of urinating. She said this always occurred at the same time as the bowel movements. In-between needs were met on the previous day’s patches to “help the ants finish their cleaning-up act”. Having said this, the mbuya gave a very graphic demonstration of how women, standing with legs set wide apart, pulled their pants to one side then let their fluid flow. Screeching with laughter, she said how much easier this was for men.
I was taken down three more toilet paths used by two other daughters and a daughter-in-law. However, there was absolutely no question of going down the path she used. So I had been right; five women. The men’s lines, three of them, were checked out. Sure enough there were only three cleared patches for which the old lady had a simple explanation. Because the men were often away from the village during the day, three points sufficed and all in-between urinating occurred along the path, not at the squat points. The children’s toilet area was just as it had appeared from the air—a shambles requiring close attention to every step one made.
Now I had a fair idea of the basics but needed to know more about patterns that developed when humans occupied ground temporarily. Army bush camps, farm workers felling trees for tobacco barn boilers and grass cutters reaping thatching grass were some of the activities that helped build a picture of fresh human disturbances in open grassed and bush areas. Remembering how pigs had confused me during Op Cauldron there was need to find a way of distinguishing between game and human pathways. Wild pigs move about in an erratic manner often doubling back and crossing over their own tracks. Sharp kinks in their path lines were easily recognised and they seldom used a pathway twice.
Fresh elephant feeding paths and human transit lines through grassed areas gave me some difficulty until I passed the shadow of the aircraft along them. In doing this I noticed that human paths, and those made by wild pigs, left a continuous chevron pattern pointing in the direction of movement. Elephants on the other hand created a series of half-moon patches with undisturbed grass in between these patches. The explanation was simple. Humans hardly lift their feet when walking and draw grass blades forward, then bruise and flatten the stems under foot. In green grass a single human leaves a faint but detectable trail. When others follow in single file, the visible intensity magnifies rapidly until it stabilises when six or more men have passed along the same line.
On similar ground, elephants tended to move about individually in random patterns. They only follow each other in single file when the matriarch cow leads the herd from one area to another, in which case jumbos prefer their established pathways.
Rhino were seldom seen in numbers exceeding three. Their trails through green grass were indistinguishable from elephants but I could not see them presenting any difficulty to recce pilots. I found that the only barely discernible difference between established elephant pathways and those of humans was that those of elephants, over flat ground, exhibited smoother and longer curves than those made by humans. The width of elephant paths is greater than that of humans but this is impossible to judge from height.
On hillsides, human paths followed the most direct route, often ascending steeply, whereas elephants and all other game follow shallow inclines with sharp turn-abouts like hairpin bends on a mountain roadway. In flattish country it was obvious that humans used elephant routes wherever these coincided with their direction of travel. In fact it was for this reason that ZAPU and SAANC had used elephant paths before they were detected at the start of Op Cauldron.
These issues added together made it clear that, in remote areas populated by elephants, detection of terrorists would only be possible from the air wherever they set up bases. In such cases I expected that radiating toilet paths would be a give-away and since a base had to be close to water the areas to be recced should be relatively small, particularly in the dry season.
Buffalo herds created patterns identical to domestic cattle and most antelope used buffalo or elephant paths when commuting to water. Otherwise they left no visible trail whatsoever. Apart from elephants, rhino and to a lesser extent hippopotamus, I concluded that game paths should not mislead pilots searching for terrorists.
After two months I was ready to start teaching pilots and technicians but I realised that such training as I could give would have little impact unless it involved working over terrorist affected areas. It was obvious to me that what I had been doing would be far too boring for most men and their enthusiasm would soon wane. So, at the beginning of May, I approached Air HQ for permission to conduct recce training inside the Tete Province of Mozambique. This was eventually cleared with the Portuguese authorities with the proviso that all flights remained south of the Zambezi River and west of the Dague River.
This was a much smaller area than I had hoped for but it encompassed one sector that I believed ZANLA was likely to use in the future. For the time being I felt it would be a good training ground because FRELIMO was known to be operating in the block.