The dunes rushed up to meet him, sculpted walls of red-and-gold sand as high as Johannesburg’s tallest buildings. The sea breeze was carrying him inland fast, across the long, crested peaks, the light and shadow of afternoon casting the troughs in darkness. He could feel the reflected heat of the crests rise up to meet him in pulses between the coolness of the troughs. And then he was down, his feet piercing the lit, upwind side of a steep, red dune just beyond the line of shadow, sand billowing all around him as the chute carried him forward. He held tight to the boy, trying to protect his head as they tumbled over the rippled surface in which it was entirely probable that no human had ever before stood. He jammed his boots into the sand, grabbed the chute’s cords, collapsed the canopy and finally ploughed to a halt.
He lay a moment, breathing hard, looking up at the sky. Through the din still filling his head – the shouts of men, the mechanical drone of aircraft engines, the sheared fluid scream of the slipstream, the rush of thickening atmosphere past his ears as he fell to earth – now, another sound: the wind’s whispered caress of the dunes, the feathering of sand grains, too many to ever be counted.
Clay looked at the boy. His eyes were closed. Sand crusted his lashes, patched his face, his torso and his smooth, hairless arms. He reached for the boy’s wrist, felt for a pulse, but his own heart was beating so fast he could distinguish nothing. He reached a hand under the back of the boy’s head and lifted his face to his own, listening. But there was just the breeze sighing along the spine of the dune, the sand shivering like skin on its back and naked flanks.
Clay shed his harness and put his ear to the boy’s chest. Nothing. God damn it, after everything. He kicked out a ledge on the flank of the dune, put the boy on his back, pulled off his R4, laid it cross-slope on the sand, pulled the kid’s head back and opened his mouth, making sure the air passage was open. Then he pinched the boy’s nose, placed his mouth over the boy’s and exhaled. He watched the chest expand, counted three. Again, pushing air into the boy’s lungs, watching the response, the inflation, the collapse. Still no pulse. Again and again he flooded the boy’s lungs with air, to no avail.
Clay jammed the heel of his hand down hard onto the boy’s chest, leaning in with as much weight as he dared. He’d seen men crack the ribs of casualties they were trying to revive, so hard did they push. Three, four sharp thrusts, and back to the artificial respiration, alternating now, three and three. How long had the boy been gone? In basic training they’d been told that the onset of brain damage was three minutes without oxygen. With all of the shit they’d pumped into him, who knew? Perhaps his brain was gone before they’d jumped. Almost surely.
They were in shadow now, the sun still in the sky but hidden behind the next dune.
Let him go now, he said aloud. Let him go. Clay put his lips to the boy’s mouth for the last time, watched the chest rise, fall. And then he sat back on his heels and looked up at the sky.
And it was clear to him, at that moment, that he had been put on this earth not for the giving of life, but for the taking of it. He had already killed three men that he knew of definitively. Probably more. They had all been strangers – men who in another time he would have passed in the street without a glance or thought. And much later he would realise that everything he had done – refusing to dump the boy into the sea and jumping with him – had not been because he was intrinsically good, but because he was selfish. He’d done it for himself, to somehow even up the scorecard. But at that moment, at that point in his life, he had neither the time nor the self-awareness to reach such an understanding. All he knew was that, when he looked back down, the boy’s chest rose, then fell. Once. Almost imperceptibly.
In fact, no, it was just the light.
He reached for the boy’s wrist, closed his eyes. There it was, the faintest of pulses, a rumour. Another rise of the chest, stronger now, no trick of shadow. And then the boy opened his eyes.
Darkness came.
Clay dug a ledge in the side of the dune. Then he cut away some of the parachute silk, wrapped it around the boy and laid him on the ledge as the air cooled. The first stars appeared, strobing in the heavy sea air. Clay opened his canteen and dribbled water into the boy’s mouth, but the boy could not move his lips or tongue. Clay took a swig himself, felt the water lave over his mouth, almost painful. He didn’t have much left.
Alone, without water, carrying the boy, his chances of finding his way out of the dunes and reaching help were small. As he’d fallen from the Hercules, he’d been tumbling so violently he hadn’t had time to examine the territory. By the time he’d deployed his chute, he’d been too low to see much except a corded landscape of dune crests stretching away in every direction. He knew the dunes ranged parallel to the shore, roughly north–south, but not much more. Travelling across the dunes would be extremely hard work, especially carrying an extra thirty kilos. Much better to strike north or south, follow a crest, and find a draw or drainage that would lead inland. It could mean a hundred kilometres or more, on foot, with little water and no food. And in a few hours it would start getting hot.
He sat a long time and watched the stars brighten, felt the dune’s heat radiating back into him. He looked at his watch. Ten hours until sunrise. He needed to find Eben. He knew that Eben would have been looking out for his chute, would have tried to land as close to them as possible. He was half surprised that Eben hadn’t already found them. Clay looked up to the crest of their dune. In the darkness he guessed about fifty metres of climbing. He’d get to the crest, pop a flare. Eben would see it. Clay ran his hands across the pouches of his Fireforce vest. One flare. Two smoke grenades. A couple of M27 frags. Lots of ammo for the R4. But heavy. He picked up his R4 and started up the slope, feet ploughing through the loose sand.
Halfway up he stopped, realising his mistake. What if that wasn’t Eben who’d followed him out of the C-130? What if they’d killed him, or captured him, and the chute he’d seen was one of Cobra’s men, sent to track them? Dispose of them. That was the word the doctor had used. Dispose. Jesus. Clearly they didn’t want the boy around as evidence. Otherwise why would they have gone to all that trouble to dump the bodies at sea? As soon as he popped the flare, he’d be as good as dead. But, at the same time, he was sure that Cobra had recognised him, there on the deck of the Herc, just before he’d jumped. Had Cobra nodded to him? Or had Clay imagined that? What he was sure of was that Cobra had let him jump. But had Eben followed? And if Cobra had decided to send someone after him, would he have sent a man alone? The rule was you always sent men in teams. Pairs at least. Only assassins worked alone. Would Cobra really have sent a lone hyena to hunt him down, kill him and dispose of the boy? Clay sat on the slope, laid his R4 across his knees and caught his breath, looking out into the darkness. Somewhere out there, close by, was either his best friend or a deadly enemy.
South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission Transcripts.
Johannesburg, 14th September 1995
Commissioner Barbour: Mister Straker, welcome back. I must inform you, before we begin, that yesterday, ah, yesterday evening, Commissioner Rotzenburg tabled a motion to end your testimony and disallow what has already been committed to record. The commission has considered the matter, and, ah, despite the misgivings of some of our members, has decided to allow you to continue your testimony.
Witness does not answer.
Commissioner Barbour: Do you understand, son?
Witness: Yes, sir. I … Thank you, sir.
Commissioner Barbour: On the condition that you please stick to answering the questions asked of you, and refrain from any more outbursts or invective.
Witness: I understand.
Commissioner Barbour: Good. Now, yesterday, you told us that this … this doctor, the one on the plane, claimed that FAPLA was deploying biological weapons against its own people.
Witness: Yes. That’s what he said.
Commissioner Barbour: And you also told us that he was in Angola, working with our allies to protect them against this weaponised disease.
Witness: That’s what he said. Cholera.
Commissioner Lacy: These are extremely serious allegations, Mister Straker. I am sure you understand that.
Witness: I am not making any allegations, ma’am. I’m just telling you what happened.
Commissioner Rotzenburg: This was fifteen years ago. How sure are you that you have recalled these details accurately?
Witness: How am I supposed to answer that?
Commissioner Ksole: Truthfully, Mister Straker.
Witness: Why would I come here, of my own volition, and do anything else?
Commissioner Barbour: Please, Mister Straker. Restrict yourself to answering the questions posed by the commission.
Witness: Sorry. Yes. I am sure that I have recalled the events accurately.
Commissioner Ksole: And did the boy – the one who you jumped from the plane with – did he show symptoms of cholera?
Witness: He was sick, that’s for sure. He almost died. But I would say no; no he didn’t have cholera.
Commissioner Rotzenburg: Are you a doctor, Mister Straker?
Witness. No, I’m not.
Commissioner Rotzenburg: And can you describe the symptoms of cholera?
Witness: No, I can’t.
Commissioner Ksole: And did you contract the disease at any point after these events?
Witness: No, sir. I did not.