The Commando had taken on a menagerie of pets by the time they withdrew from Bumba, and those pets were also going south. There were some small Capuchin monkeys, with red and round faces fringed with white hair, and a number of African grey and other parrots. It seems to be in the nature of man to collect animals to make pets whenever they can. There was no chance of these pets ever being allowed across the border into South Africa and yet the collection grew, and later on nearly every mercenary had a pet. The monkeys adapted quickly to any room in which they were put as long as they had food and water. The apes could easily be left alone in the room for a day while the owners were away. The parrots had been trained by the hunters who had captured them to come at a whistle, each bird had its own. The parrots usually stayed in nearby trees during the day when the new owners were away and came to the whistler when called. The local tribesmen showed us if a bird was fed on a pawpaw it would come to sit on the owners arm when called. Apparently pawpaw seeds were much sought-after by the birds. The magic pawpaw worked as a sort of invisible leash keeping the birds nearby.
That Air Sabena DC-6 passenger plane taking us south was fitted as a civilian plane and so the Commando was in relative luxury in the plush seats and air conditioning. It was mid-summer over tropical Africa. One moment the plane was droning along and the next a massive turbulence of a gathering tropical storm hit. The plane fell over a thousand metres in a massive air pocket and was tossed about so that it was flying wing down and then wing up, the nose rising and falling, and more air pockets produced sudden falls that ended with a sickening thump. The monkeys and parrots did not have anything to hold on to and the air above the seats was dotted with airborne pets each time the plane hit an air pocket. The massive turbulence ended as suddenly as it had started; a very worried co-pilot came down the aisle and inspected each wing through the windows. It was later learnt that the wings had cracked where they joined the fuselage. That plane never flew again but was left to rot at the Kamina airport.
There was plenty of time to sit and think on that flight, and once the frightening turbulence was over, my mind went back over the last months. I still could not decide how many men I had killed. This enormous question occupied a lot of my quiet time. Certainly there had been many in the heat of battle and they were, if only feebly, trying to kill me. I was unable to count them in my mind, even by concentrating and thinking carefully. There had been so many ambushes and quick firefights in the jungle I had lost count of those as well; it all melded together in one time and space. Many times the enemy had been killed without even being in sight. The Simba, except for the pitched battles on the roads to town, always hid away in the undergrowth. The vegetation did not provide cover from bullets and many of them died there unseen. At the major battles on the road my rifle had been fired until it was too hot to hold, and the men I aimed at went down, but with all the other mercenaries firing at the same time it was hard to tell for certain if the rebel who fell was not cut down by another’s bullet. That long line of running men who fell under the tracer fire. Don’t think about that.
While pondering on my score my mind dragged up an incident I had tried hard to forget, and yet it had often taken me by surprise before I could blank it off. Boeta and I were alone in the Jeep out buying eggs. The native village was on the outskirts of Bumba and the women were called to from the Jeep to bring eggs. Old regime coins were used, and at each stop we garnered one or two eggs. It was a warm day and a light breeze was blowing, which made for ease and relaxation. Then a sniper shot cracked the stillness from a cluster of houses to the right of the road. We both stood up in the Jeep and searched the houses with our rifles up and ready. It was fairly easy to tell which house the shots were coming from. The shooter’s bullets did not come close; they cracked far overhead without the whistle of a near miss.
The sniper had to be killed, the fighting rage boiled hot, and we began to walk towards the house, rifles at the port hoping for a glimpse of the sniper. When fifty metres from the house, a young man dressed in tattered shorts and shirt ran out the door and galloped away. Boeta shouted for him to “come here” in Lingala; “Oye awa” but he did not stop and my FN lifted and fired in a reflex action. A running target needs to be led and I’d had plenty of practice on running buck. The man was frantically running past a cattle kraal of thin, hard upright poles and the bullet went through a pole before hitting him in the mid-section. The bullet had expanded and splintered and cut the man in half, the top half of his torso fell backwards, his stomach organs came out, his legs remained upright so he was folded in half backwards, his head by his bare feet. Butterflies began to gather and the cloying smell of fresh blood mingled with that of body fluids from the stomach, the smell of a slaughtered cow. The butterflies flitted out of nowhere and the blue flies buzzed, all in seconds.
The sight was horrifying and grizzly, but Boeta grinned widely and gave the thumbs up. “Fucking good shot, Smiler. Teach the little shit to shoot at us. Fuck that bullet must have mushroomed, look at that. Never seen anything like. Wish we had a camera.”
During those days that stretched back like a lifetime since Kamina, many men had died by my hand and many others had been executed in my sight. The screams of those being tortured and raped by the black troops had filled days and nights. Yet that man was one of those who stuck in my mind although I made an effort to blank it out. Those shot in the heat of a firefight left no mental scar. That man who was so badly mauled by a freak shot behind the cattle pen, and the naked one in the door of the hut outside Lisala were vividly remembered. They both haunted me, those two and some others as well. At the time of the kill there was little emotion; maybe there was too much to fear and there was no room for any other emotion. Only years later did all the killing begin to prick me. Killing is not a slight, nothing thing to do; human instinct eventually punishes those who do so and think they don’t care.
By the time the plane landed at Kamina my mind had blanked it out and I fell into a doze. It was a massive relief to be out of the rainforest and tangled jungle. Here in Katanga the country was open with scattered trees and grasslands. Soon after landing the Commando straggled back to the old semi-ruined army barracks. It almost felt like returning home for some reason. At the barracks we found there were many new recruits waiting to be sent north. The recruits looked 51 Commando over warily and in silent awe. The Commando were hardened veterans to them and the newspaper-manufactured fame preceded it. We were dirty and armed, and must have looked very dangerous, which in fact we were.
The room I found for myself in the derelict building had a fairly good bed. At least all the springs were there and the dirty rubber mattress covers were only slightly torn. The plumbing had been fixed since we went away and the showers were working, albeit only cold water, and the seat-less toilets flushed. A mess room had opened and food was available. Food which was not of the ration pack variety had to be paid for as the cooks were running the kitchen as a private enterprise. The cooks had not been to the interior, however, and were not experienced in the ways of the Congo yet, so were quiet happy to accept ten thousand Congolese franc notes, of which the 51 Commando still had trunks full. There was also the usual semi-permanent Crown and Anchor game on the go in another room, and the large, ornate notes were gladly accepted there as well. In normal times the place would be barely liveable but the relief of getting away from the dark heart of Africa made it feel luxurious. It felt strange not have to listen to constant screams and the thump of guns firing in the distance. It took several days to relax to a reasonable level. Even then it felt unsafe to walk anywhere without a rifle slung.
Hoare and his senior staff were at the Kamina barracks. A day came when a parade in front of the buildings was ordered and everyone fell in in ranks of three. Hoare came out to address the assembled men. There was a swagger stick gripped under his arm and he was neatly dressed in camouflage uniform and polished black boots. On his head was a beret correctly cocked over the forehead, and on the front of the beret were two brass badges. I did not recognize what unit the badges were from. Something nudged my memory to recall photographs of Field Marshal Montgomery during his Desert campaign. The two men looked a lot alike, both small in stature with bony, hooked noses. The twin badges were worn on the beret in an identical fashion. Hoare was trying deliberately to emulate Montgomery; that was my sudden thought.
There was a strong aura of command about him, a certain strength that was apparent even from a distance by the arrogant way he carried himself. When Hoare talked everyone listened. But listening to him that day gave the impression his address was mostly an act, a carefully rehearsed and studied act. He had cultivated the air of an officer in command and carried it off well, but to me it was all an act. The more I thought it was a performance the more apparent it became to me that it was so. My first feelings of that day later turned out to be correct. When it came to combat, he, like so many other senior army officers everywhere, fell far short of the image they cultivated. The invincible warrior air fell away when the bullets began to sing their stuttering song. In that, of course, he was no different from all the men in the 5 Commando Group, but at least the majority of them did not try to appear fearless.
The few times I saw Hoare was when he had gathered the men together to give a speech. He was invisible at other times. Not once during the contract did I hear him give a direct order, and certainly never heard Wilson or those who replaced him relay any orders from him. We went into combat without orders from anyone senior, and the entire war, of several years, seems to have been fought without any tactical oversight. After a pep speech Hoare gave us information.
Our Commando along with one other had been in the field for some months and had been specifically recalled in order to join the combined push on Stanleyville. 51 Commando were considered by the headquarters to be experienced and hard core after less than three months of combat. Two newly formed 5 Commando Group Commandos would join in the big push as would the entire 6 Commando Group under ‘Black Jack’ Schramme. 6 Commando Group were men recruited mainly in Europe and many of them were Belgians. New transport was to be issued to all units and armoured vehicles would be at the van of the convoy. For a few days while the convoy was built 51 Commando idled in the tatty barracks, and as it usually does idleness brought irritation.
Congo Jack was a round-faced, jug-eared man who claimed to have fought in the previous campaign against the UN. His voice was penetrating and insistent and at every chance he got he told everyone what a veteran and hero he was. Bouncer was a tall, bony, marshmallow white and pink Cockney and a bully, as are most men who were big for their age at school. Large boys find the smaller boys are scared by their body size and get in the habit of pushing others around using that body size as a threat. The two of them had been at Kamina when we first arrived in the country and were still there after months. Both had landed cushy, dubious headquarter jobs and so never left base. They naturally attracted each other, though every army has the same sort of men.
One morning some of the precious stack of spare rifle magazines vanished from the table in my room. Congo Jack and Bouncer both habitually wore strong aftershave and antiperspirant. The scent, which my hunter’s nose at once picked up, lingering in the room pointed to them as the culprits. Everyone, especially those who had been in the fighting, set a very high value on spare magazines. The cache in my room had taken time to gather. Later in the mess, in a blind rage, my suspicions were vented to all who would listen. There were still ten or so spare magazines in my webbing, more than enough, so the theft was not crucial, but the affrontery of it rankled deeply. Men had been killed for less heinous crimes than stealing spare magazines. If I had found the offenders then there would have been violence; I was itching to punch them down. The strength of my rage took me by surprise; normally I would not have been so vocal or reckless in accusations. Clearly the previous months of violence were still affecting me.
That afternoon found me lying on the tattered bed trying to cool down out of the humid heat beating down from the equatorial sun outside. Congo Jack and Bouncer burst through the door. Both carried automatic pistols, hands hanging at their sides and almost behind their backs, to partially conceal the weapons. My own rifle was against the wall and out of reach. The Colt .357 Magnum was in a drawer of a battered table in its webbing holster. The experience gained in the copper mine bars kept me very calm and unworried and so I made sure I put on an unconcerned front. Once a man shows fear in a fight, his opponent has the advantage.
“Whotcha saying, mate? That I stole from yous? Yous looking for troubles?” Bouncer demanded.
“We veterans have ways of dealing with those who cause us trouble,” said Congo Jack shrilly.
“Well hello, nice of you to show up,” I said, sitting up and measuring the distance to the weapons and to each man. It would be best to attack them physically and fast. The weapons were too far away. If I fumbled for the weapons they might get off a few shots before me. Punching hard and fast was the way to go, first, fast and hard. Why was my pistol not on my belt? Stupid, stupid.
“Got any ting ta say, mate? Wots up, cat got yer tongue?” Bouncer queried, enjoying his obvious advantage.
“Was you guys, I would fuck off while you still can,” I said, as quietly and calmly as I could.
“Ha, fucking, ha.”
“Who do you think you are talking to, do you know who I am?” shrilled Congo Jack.
So the stupid violence had caught up with me here at the barracks where there had been little violence. The danger that plagued the mercenary life, being shot by fellow soldiers, had walked in through an open door unexpectedly. Well, I swore to myself, they were going to find it very hard to take me down, and my muscles tensed ready to jump them and begin punching.
A movement showed at the periphery of my vision and Boeta came silently through the open door behind Bouncer. The rifle in his hands lifted and the butt smashed Bouncer between the shoulders propelling him, stumbling painfully across the room. Bouncer stuck out a hand to stop himself hitting hard against the wall, snot and tears on his face. Bouncer’s pistol clattered loudly on the floor. Congo Jack gave a frightened little squeak and began to back away. There was a metallic knocking on the door frame and Harry looked round the jamb. His pipe was clenched in his back teeth, slow eyes narrowed. His rifle barrel had made the knocking.
“Hey man, do you mind if I pay a visit unannounced?” Harry drawled.
“Kill the fuckers,” Boeta grated, cold eyes holding Bouncer pinned against the wall with fear.
“Sorry, sorry,” Congo Jack squeaked. “Wait, wait, hold on, I’ll go get the magazines. Wait, please.”
“Go quickly, you got ten seconds.”
A few seconds later Congo Jack ran back into the room and offered the stolen magazines to me. Bouncer was still frozen against the wall, not even daring to wipe the fluids from his white, shocked and pained face. The butt between the shoulders had been hard enough to break bones. Word of the incident was spread quickly by the men watching from the corridor, and it gave the three of us immunity at Kamina from the plague of stupidity which had killed men in other places. After the scare Bouncer and Congo Jack got that day, they left others’ goods alone. They had had a profitable sideline, stealing and reselling goods for which there was a demand. The two of them were lucky to live through that event. If I had not restrained Boeta that afternoon they would have been dead on the floor of my room. The pair of them managed to draw out their stay at Kamina barracks for many more months before leaving the Congo. No doubt they boasted to the gullible about the hell of the Congo.
A large number of white people had been taken hostage by the Simba in Stanleyville and a rescue plan needed a fast advance over long distance if they were to be saved from execution. The little commanding officer treated the campaign he was orchestrating as if it was the invasion of Europe. 51 Commando had their own opinion; a massive column and firepower was not necessary. Experience had shown 51 Commando that this was true, but it would have been hard to convince anyone who had not been there with us, that a headlong reckless charge by a few fast vehicles was needed. Wilson, who had been very much the nominal head of 51 Commando for weeks, disappeared. So he was not the one to discuss it with Hoare. His English gentleman’s sensibilities had taken a battering and he had opted out. His replacement was one Forbes, a tall dark man with oiled, slicked-back hair, who spoke with a pseudo-American accent but farmed maize in South Africa. Forbes, after the Congo, was rumoured to have gone to America to marry a very rich woman he met through a dating service.
It really did not matter who had nominal command of the unit. The men were used to doing as they pleased. The men on a vehicle decided what was to be done by that particular vehicle. This came about because there were seldom any orders given, and those men with pips and stripes on their shirts stayed out of the fighting and away from the front line whenever they could. What was urgently required from the new commanding officer of 51 Commando was information of the status of our pay. Some men had letters from home delivered to the Kamina barracks and no one had seen any pay. A committee was eventually sent to Hoare which came back with more promises. In the end each Commando sent more men to the pay office to watch over the paymaster. The missing pay had all been stolen, as usual, by replacement paymasters but also by the men sent to watch that it did not happen. Hoare and the senior men had been paid, the thieves made sure of that, so they justly claimed to be unaware of what was going on. The promise made to the committee was closer supervision and all backpay soon. Now more men were put in the pay office watching the men watching the paymaster.
Brand-new Ford 250 trucks with 7 ton open backs were issued. Delivery had been made by the Americans via Hercules C-130 aircraft. One of the brand new Fords became my drive. It was at once stocked with all the ammunition and food that could be scrounged or stolen. Sandbags were tied down on the roof of the cab and a newly acquired .50 Browning belt-fed machine gun mounted. As normal with our belt-fed guns, a box that swivelled with the gun was rigged so a second man was not needed to feed the belt into the gun when it was fired. The .50 was a heavy machine gun and very powerful; little could hide an enemy from its bullets.
The convoy formed up slowly over some days. By the time it was complete and ready for the road it stretched two kilometres or more. Ferret scout cars, six of them in the van, were followed by Belgian-made armoured troop carriers nicknamed “bathtubs”. Then came 5 Commando Group units; with their newly issued transport, including some newly delivered armoured Land Rovers. These vehicles were Italian Army design and had an armour-plated front and back and armoured glass screens, one in front of the driver. There was also a similar MAG on a pintle at the back for defence against aircraft. A lever near the driver closed louvers of steel in front of the radiator when needed. The entire floor had compartments in which boxes of machine-gun ammunition in two-hundred-round belts fitted. Four men manned each Land Rover and all of them carried automatic rifles and pistols. One vehicle in action could deliver the firepower of an entire Second World War infantry company, probably more. 51 Commando was issued four new Land Rovers and two of the new Ford 250 trucks. The Americans were spending big money but their objective remained secret. Maybe the American public was in the dark but certainly not the Congolese.
The two mounted machine guns pointed forward through the armoured glass and had a swivelling mount. Cross hairs to aim with were etched on the swivelling glass screen. The guns came with shoulder butts that were removable and could be replaced with pistol grips. The preferred way to fire them was with the pistol grips fitted. With them in place the target was centred in cross hairs and one gun triggered. The recoil turned the guns on the centre mount sweeping towards the side of the fired gun, and then the other gun was fired and the sight swept back with the recoil across the target again. Firing alternate guns with the pistols grips in place had the guns sweep back and forth across the targets. Spray and pray: modern warfare.
All the different mercenary units began to fall in line, with 5 Commando Group’s Jeeps leading the trucks that came at the rear after the armour and Jeeps. The only other Commando on the convoy beside our own to have seen any fighting was 53 Commando. It was hard to say how many other 5 Commando Group men there were on that convoy, but at a guess a hundred or so. There was also the Belgian 6 Commando Group under Schramme, who added perhaps another hundred men. 6 Commando Group were mostly in the armoured vanguard where some of them led the convoy in Ferret Scout cars and others drove the armoured personnel carriers, the ‘bathtubs’, which mounted a turreted machine gun up front. There were maybe over one hundred vehicles, but no one counted them and that is my guess.
There was a smattering of black troops, not as a separate unit but attached to one or other of the mercenary units. As usual no definite orders or instructions were given to us. One morning the men moved out of the barracks and boarded the transport and the front of the convoy began to move slowly down the road. 51 Commando was about half way down from the front, maybe a kilometre behind the leading armoured cars. When the convoy began to move the truck ahead of mine moved, giving the only signal for our truck to go. When the truck ahead stopped we did likewise. That went on day and night without end, in a blur of distorted time with only too-brief stops to eat and sleep. Time lost meaning after the first two days, hours blending into days. It was all long, long hours of driving with only the rear of the truck ahead in sight.
The convoy went north towards the Lualaba River, and the town of Kindu. From there it would follow the Lualaba north towards the Congo River, of which it was a tributary. The route was to be along that river, then across and on towards Stanleyville through the dense, tropical rainforests. Boeta and Harry gleaned this information by visiting other vehicles when the convoy stopped. Our small unit of mutual protection formed at Lisala remained intact. Our previous experience ensured the truck had been fully stocked with ration packs and ammunition. There were fuel tankers in the convoy but we also carried as may extra jerrycans of fuel as we could find place for.
The officers and NCOs had given no battle orders. So the main campaign of the contract started without any orders from those in charge. Stanleyville, the main objective at that time was many days’ drive away, a lot of which was through rebel-held territory. Harry took over the front seat next to me in the cab. He had looted a large stock of Dutch pipe tobacco and soon the entire cab reeked of rum and herbs. Boeta had chosen to man the .50 Browning on the roof because he believed there would be more action from there. On the second day, when this proved not to be the case, he went off on his own to join a vehicle nearer the front, impatient as always for action. Three others of the Commando rode in the back, which we had covered in canvas. Whenever a short rest break was called Boeta came back to brew tea with us and give us news of any action up front a kilometre ahead.
The convoy drove for 18 to 20 hours at a stretch, with a few short stops for food and stopped for the night long after midnight. By first light we had moved on. Progress was very slow and cumbersome with so many vehicles. After two nights, and with almost no sleep, the number of days and nights on the road blurred into one unending journey. Driving became instinctive, follow the truck ahead; that was all that mattered. Once out of the Katanga savannah the familiar rainforests lined the road and ran through the well-known green tunnel. The damp heat of the nearby equator filled the cab. All that was visible was the truck ahead and the green walls each side. When night fell it was still only the red tail lights of the truck ahead that were visible in the blackness.
At times there were rebel ambushes on that long, long road and the Simba must have been delighted with the massed target. At irregular intervals the distant sound of gunfire came back to us from the van, the sound of heavy machine gun fire and grenades exploding. When the distant firing began the truck ahead would stop and the men would jump out and stretch. The visible road would be filled with men urinating. Then, when the firing stopped after a short delay, the convoy moved again. On and on it went, day after day and night after night, with only three or four hours to sleep.
In the dark hours of one night when all sense of time and place had been blurred, a fairly large settlement showed each side of the road in the headlights. Someone at the roadside waved, directing us to pull into an open yard where there was a large white building marked with a red cross on the white wall. Killing the truck engine and headlights, I at once fell into an exhausted asleep on the front seat, slumped against the door. Where we had stopped did not matter; only sleep was of any importance.
Something woke me a few hours later to find there was a vehicle facing ours with headlights full on. Still stunned from lack of sleep and intending to tell the driver to kill his lights as they were keeping me awake I got out of my nest. Only then, outside and on the ground, did I become aware of gunfire and shouting all around me. With pistol in hand I yanked open the offending truck’s door to switch off the lights; it had now become dangerous to be lit up. As the door opened a body fell out almost on top of me. It was the driver and bullet holes in the windscreen slowly came into focus. Slowly shaking off the sleep with an effort I became more aware of what was going on. By then the shooting had died to sporadic shots in the dark. The machine gunner on my truck shouted down to me standing stupidly with pistol in hand, looking confusedly around, that the offending truck was a rebel one attempting to bring wounded Simba to the clinic. We were parked in the clinic grounds.
The rebels being transported to the clinic had been wounded by fire from the convoy earlier in the day at one of the road blocks when they idiotically fired on the massed armoured cars in the van instead of picking on the soft skinned vehicles further back. It had been the .50 machine gun firing from the cab roof which woke me, although it had not fully penetrated my befuddled mind. I was so stunned by lack of sleep that the loud sound a short way over my head did not register. It was all over now and fumbling off the lights in the rebel truck; I once again got back in the cab and immediately fell asleep. Sleep mattered more than anything else. What happened outside the cab was not my concern. Sleep was impossible to deny, and all that mattered. Let someone else deal with those things outside, there in the dark.
The next afternoon the convoy reached the fairly large riverside town of Kindu. There we would wait for two days for another Commando to join the convoy. That other Commando unit from 5 Commando Group had been fighting in the Kindu region for some months by then. I think they were unhappy that they had not been allowed to take Kindu as they had been fighting towards it. We had no contact with them from the town. The Lualaba River at Kindu was about two hundred metres wide and slow flowing. When the armoured head of our convoy swept into town we were expected, but not just then and the rebels were only just beginning to leave; several hundred were fleeing on a lumbering ferry crossing the river. The talking drums had been too slow with the news. The ferry was not yet a hundred metres off shore.
The armour raged along the road on the riverbank very soon after the ferry had left shore. The carnage was indescribably terrible as multiple machines guns swept the open steel decks of the barge in a deadly, sustained chattering roar. The riverbank road was straight and high and most of the guns of the convoy could be turned on the ferry. My head turned away of its own volition; I could not watch the slaughter, but the acrid smell of fountains of blood rose above the clean smell of the water. The smell was as bad as the sight. Corpses floated in the river for several days. The bodies quickly bloated like grotesque balloons, their trousers and shirts split by swollen flesh, and arms curved stiffly. The currant was slow at this wide stretch, hardly moving and the edges were lined with hyacinth.
Most of the time waiting was passed with sleep. Some men, bored with the delay, took to shooting the bloated corpses which released the gas and sank them. Wide beds of floating weeds trapped the dead. The convoy water wagon went far upstream to refill. The town had been looted by several waves, but late one afternoon our small unit went on the prowl. Odds and ends of tinned food were found, mostly abandoned by the Simba and were added to the stock in the truck. The morning sun came bright and clear with the stench of rotting bodies spoiling it. The awaited Commando had arrived in the night and the convoy again moved northwards towards the major target, Stanleyville.
It rained one night just as the convoy stopped for a brief food break. One of the truck drivers, some distance ahead, struggled to light a wood cooking fire. As all the wood was wet he siphoned petrol from the truck. The container he used was leaking and left a trail of petrol from the truck tank to the intended fire. Petrol went on the wood and a match was struck, the spilt petrol ignited the truck’s fuel tank. The transport each side of the blazing truck could only move when those in front or behind them had done so. It was some time before the convoy reversed and went forward enough for the closest to move. By the time those jammed vehicles managed to get on the move it was too late for some; three other trucks caught alight and burnt out totally. Once ammunition stopped exploding the wrecks were pushed off the road. The men from them joined other trucks. It was accepted as a normal event.
In the dark of another night, in that endless drive, the convoy stopped and word came down that a regular Belgian Army General had joined up with Hoare and his staff. The information was that Belgian Army detachments from Europe, some of them paratroopers, had been deployed to attack Stanleyville. The reason given was that the mercenaries were not up to the task of freeing the white hostages and airborne troops would do a better job. It was still before midnight and the convoy could have been in town and scattering the rebels before dawn. There in the jungle in the endless night a conference was held by the unknown senior staff. Word then passed down that the convoy would not move for twenty-four hours. The European paratroopers would strike at dawn and were to handle the hostage matter. My doubts of Hoare deepened.
The disappointment also influenced my judgement of him. Stanleyville still had functional businesses in it and a lot of loot was to be had. That was the scuttlebutt anyway and it turned out to be wrong; little was still working. The idea of the Belgian Army having first crack did not go down well. It did not occur to any mercenary that the Belgian Army would not loot. The mood that night was such that if it had been physically possible, 51 Commando would have gone off alone and done the cavalry charge. It was not physically possible as we were stuck in the middle of scores of trucks in the rainforest tunnel. There was nothing left to do except sleep and wait. It was that delay, ordered by Hoare and the Belgian officer, which was directly responsible for the death of many hostages. They did not have the experience of the conditions on the ground, as we had. They were trained in conventional warfare.
The following morning word came that the Belgian paratroopers were in the city and then suddenly the convoy began to move. The outskirts of Stanleyville were reached in less than three hours. The paratroopers had dropped at the commercial airport, a good ten kilometres out of the centre of the city and had mounted a classic street-fighting offensive, with small troop carriers and heavy machine guns to back them. That unavoidable delay, the wrong tactic, had also cost the hostages lives. As the convoy drove by at speed, sections of the paratroopers in fox holes at the side of the road waved, indicating and shouting that there were enemy ahead. They were visibly amazed when the mercenaries just waved back and drove on. As they had not been opposed during the advance, the paratroopers had no way of judging the Simba inability to conduct modern warfare or street fighting. They had to assume opposition in house-to-house fighting would be stiff. The speed of the convoy entering the city that morning was as a result of greed overcoming fear. But it was the right tactic, as we would have told anyone who asked.
The massive convoy ended up in a central square in the main commercial district of the town. Hoare then issued direct orders for the first time that I was aware of. Everyone was ordered to parade in the town square and eventually formed up in their units. Sporadic gunfire could be heard from all around but it was not in the close vicinity of the paraded men. Hoare looked haggard and worn, as we all did, but his modulated voice still had the authority that marked him. He gave a stirring speech about superb fighting units and how proud he was of all. He went on to order that there was to be no looting. When we formed up there were many men and vehicles of 5 Commando Group absent. They had peeled off down side roads. As Hoare ordered that there was to be no looting there came the crash of glass windows breaking and a dull explosion from a nearby bank. He pretended not to hear, ignored it and went on talking.
The delay caused by the paratroopers’ conventional tactics had given the Simba rebels plenty of time. They’d had time to line up the hostages in the street outside the hotel where they had been kept under guard. When the sounds of fighting came closer to the hotel, the Simba had turned their guns on the hostages and then run away in panic. Another score of whites were dead and many wounded. The survivors were located by the paratroopers no more than an hour after the massacre; much, much too late for the dead. The terrified survivors were rushed under guard to the airport for evacuation. By then the mercenaries were in control of the city. It took days for the Belgian Army to accept this; it was beyond their training.
We did not visit the hostage killing ground until sometime later and then nothing was to be seen but blood stains and oddments of abandoned shoes. As there were blood stains on pavements all over the city it was not an unusual sight. 5 Commando Group later made the Hotel Stanleyville, where the massacre had taken place, their mess. Excellent meals were eaten there until the kitchen ran out of supplies. The bar was drunk dry very soon, yet we always managed to find more stocks of beer. Hoare and his head quarter officers moved in for the duration of the stay in Stanleyville. The hotel was a fine old colonial building with a tin roof and a wide wraparound veranda.