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Grasping the Nettle

by Gordon Thomas Orr

348 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-0001; ISBN 1-4120-2077-8; US$27.50, C$30.48, EUR23.00, £16.00

Bush pilot James Hacking is preoccupied juggling several women and a rocky marriage, until Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is deposed, drawing James inexorably back into a ruthless African power-struggle.

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about the book      about the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book GOOD INTENTIONS PAVED THE WAY TO HELL... And despite his best intentions to stay faithful to Eve in their turbulent marriage, charismatic pilot James Hacking is constantly drawn to beautiful women and they to him. Outwardly easy-going, his philandering nature usually gives in to temptation. A veteran bush-fighter of several bloody African conflicts, James served in the Rhodesian war which saw the former British colony become Zimbabwe. He is reluctantly drawn back into the muddy waters of African politics when Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is deposed by James's hated adversary from the bitter Rhodesian battle-zones, General Spencer Katsiru. Under the new dictator savage repression worsens, and the policy of 'Land Reform,' the seizing of productive white-owned farms, turns the former 'bread-basket' of Africa into a crippled economic basket-case. Millions face starvation as James tries to avoid getting too involved, and his flying skills take him from the southern tip of Africa to the north, flying in Libya as one of Colonel Gadaffi's 'Technical Mercenaries.' A guilty conscience about Zimbabwe's predicament and strong personal friendships finally lure him back, and as the country faces the threat of all-out civil war James is forced to make a dreadful choice. About the Author Gordon Orr is a keen mountaineer who has climbed in Africa, Britain, Europe, Canada and the Himalayas. He served during the Rhodesian conflict in the B.S.A.P. and in Britain, Germany and Northern Ireland in the R.E.M.E. He is an active pilot and holds a British PPL.

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Excerpts

Zimbabwean football captain Elias Mpofu was drawing to the end of his speech. "I stand here today as a Zimbabwean, not a Matabele or a Mashona, though the blood of both tribes runs in my veins. The colonizing Europeans drew our borders arbitrarily, lines on the ground that took no notice of geography, heritage or ethnic grouping. We were oppressed but uniting together we threw off our foreign masters, then fell immediately to tribal squabbling. Having come so close to greatness, in the ten years since we have dissipated our national strength in political and military skirmishing.

Yet within our borders lies a natural paradise unmatched anywhere, benign in climate, rich in natural resources, full of beauty and capable of sustaining us all in comfort. What we have to grasp is that to live within these borders is a tremendous privilege, that to be a Zimbabwean, is a tremendous privilege, against which petty differences of tribe or race pale into insignificance.

Mashona, Manica, Shangaan, Matabele, Portuguese, Afrikaans, English, Indian, it doesn't matter. If you make your home here you are Zimbabwean. Let us grow up, grow together and start showing the world that Zimbabwe is a great Nation, not just a great football team!"

General Spencer Katsiru pushed himself angrily up off the couch, snapping off the television to silence the sound of euphoric applause.

"He did nothing to throw off our 'foreign masters!' I knew him at school and afterwards, while I was living in the bush like a dog and fighting Ian Smith's regime, he was studying at University and poncing about on the football field. This guy is really beginning to annoy me, I must do something about him Isaac. I didn't get rid of Mugabe just to be sidelined by some clown who can kick a football, especially a Matabele Hyena. I've earned my place at the top and I intend to keep it."

The Police Commissioner stirred uneasily on the sofa. "You could win the election despite what the polls imply. After all, you rescued the country from Mugabe when he insisted on retaining power and you're a hero from the Rhodesian war."

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The Cessna touched down, bouncing and rocking, then turned and taxied quickly back towards Simon.

Elias and Primrose stood nervously a few yards behind him, along with two other adults. James couldn't see any of Simon's dissidents but he assumed they were there, guarding the field. It was very hazy and the sun was a red descending orb beyond the gum trees.

James cut the engine, climbed out and ran round the nose of the aircraft.

The heavily-built Police Inspector shook his hand. "Good to see you again James, there are four packs, can you take them all?

"Yes Simon." He looked at the passengers. "Hello again, Elias. Give us a minute to refuel, we need to hurry! Deon, pass me up the first drum will you?"

He clambered onto the wing and knelt beside the port filler with a funnel, as Deon hefted a plastic container up, grunting under the weight. James began glugging the Avgas in, and as he poured the last drops from the first plastic barrel, his ear caught the faint thud of rotors. He caste the container down into the dust and stood up on the wing.

"Simon, Deon, choppers! There's no time to refuel, get the packs in, get them in."

James jumped down and saw Deon leaning into the cabin, undoing the ropes tying down the remaining fuel, the passengers hovering worriedly behind him.

"James, I'm going to dump these drums to save weight!"

"Leave it, there's no time and I think we'll make it. I'm cranking her now, get everybody in, and tell them to sit as close behind our seats as they can get, she'll be well tail-heavy otherwise."

The engine started, blowing straw and dust about. The frightened African fugitives climbed in onto the bare aluminium floor and huddled up against the front seats as Deon slammed the door, struggling with his harness. Simon doubled round the back to James's side and the pilot cracked the door open, lifting his earphones so he could hear.

"You might need this" shouted Simon, passing in a folding-butt Kalashnikov and a webbing pouch of magazines. "I'll radio my men, they'll switch on two torches to mark the end of the runway when you start to roll."

"Thanks. You better get out of here yourself Simon, before that fire-force arrives."

James made a saluting gesture to the Inspector, selected ten degrees of flap for a short-field take-off, poured on full power and set the Cessna 182 rolling, it's constant-speed prop snarling powerfully in take-off pitch. Simon was as good as his word and two lights flicked on, faint in the darkness several hundred yards ahead.

"Engine t's and p's look good" called Deon who sat tensely, willing the airspeed to rise.

"We're not going to make it!" he muttered several seconds later as the Cessna careered along the bumpy field towards the wall of black trees in the gathering darkness.

James pulled back on the yoke as they drew abreast the torches and hefted the Cessna into the air, the aircraft feeling heavy and unresponsive. He lowered the nose slightly and made for a gap in the trees ahead. They cleared them with a few feet to spare as the dark shape of a helicopter hurtled past in the opposite direction, flame sparkling from the twin 7.62 machine guns in the door. There was an odd sort of plunking noise as the Cessna took hits but she kept flying. There was a sudden strong smell of fuel.

"Shit, where's it coming from?" James shouted as he and Deon craned their necks round, looking for damage.

"There!" shouted Deon. "They've punctured the starboard wing-tank, there's fuel pissing out!"

James reached down and turned the tank select lever from 'both' to 'left', looking round frantically for the other aircraft. It had turned and was pursuing, out to one side and slightly higher to bring the door gun to bear but their speeds were matched once the Cessna hit full wack at a hundred and forty knots. The helicopter was two hundred yards behind but it wasn't gaining.

James kept the Cessna suicidally low, pulling up over obstructions but keeping as close to the dark earth as possible, both for concealment and so he would see the thin and deadly strands of the power line against the remaining light in the sky. He spotted the lines ahead and steered between the pylons and below the high tension wires. The helicopter tore right into them and exploded before it hit the ground. The yellow flash illuminated the cockpit briefly.

"Nice one Cyril!" whooped Deon.

"Don't get too happy yet, take the controls while I work out where the hell we are."

James checked their position on a radial from the VOR at Bulawayo airport and found they were almost on top of it, he could see the runway lights twinkling so he decided to go southeast to skirt the city and then turn back west for Botswana. He began to fret about the fuel available in their remaining tank. The aircraft was loaded beyond it's max all-up weight and required high throttle-settings.

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The pilot of a Zimbabwean Air Force jet-fighter interceptor, call-sign Amber-two, was patrolling inside the border near Plumtree. The aircraft was a Chinese-manufactured F-7, a copy of the Russian MIG-21, capable of 1,175 knots.

The glint of moonlight from something far below caught his eye. Turning towards it he saw the pale crucifix form of the Cessna showing up clearly in the moonlight against the dark backdrop of the bush beneath it. He pushed the nose over into a steep dive and checked his two thirty millimetre cannons, angling the airplane to remain out of the Cessna's field of view, coming up from behind on the starboard side. The pilot's orders were to carry out a standard intercept of any suspicious aircraft, attempt to turn it back and force a landing, failing which it should be destroyed.

The F-7 fired a burst and James jerked his head to the right, noticing the dark sinister shape for the first time. "Oh shit, guys, looks like our luck finally ran out. Jesus that thing's big, and it's got missiles on the pylons!"

There was a cockpit light on in the big jet. Deon was peering across at the fighter pilot who made a circling motion with his finger, pointed back into Zimbabwe and then at the ground.

Elias crouched awkwardly upright, half-squatting behind them, bracing himself against their seat-backs and peering out at the moonlit sky.

"What shall we do James?"

"We'll keep going; fly slower Deon and descend, we're not far from the border. He'll have to accelerate or stall, and by the time he can turn and come back we should be in Botswana. I'll call Francistown."

James didn't believe it himself but anything was worth trying.

Five thousand feet above them the pilot of another F-7, Amber Lead, was patrolling north towards Plumtree and watching the situation develop.

North of Bulawayo, the fire-fight at Pampoenpoort had come to nothing, the Matabele dissidents escaping, under cover of darkness, as the Cessna departed. General Katsiru paced in the Nkomo Barracks control room outside Bulawayo.

"Still nothing on radar?" he barked.

An Air Force officer spoke into a phone and shook his head.

"Well what about the fighters patrolling the border, any report from them?"

"Standby Sir."

Amber-lead heard Amber-Two begin a call to base. He pushed his transmit button and jammed the airwave. Amber-Two tried calling three times and hearing no reply, circled ahead of the Cessna, which had ignored his instructions. He prepared to engage and destroy it.

In Francistown, the duty Air Traffic Controller was smoking a fag on the balcony outside the control room and looking forward to knocking off. The radio crackled. He flicked the butt into the night and went inside.

"Aircraft calling Francistown, say again."

"S-GYAV is a Cessna 182 inbound from Tutume to yourselves," replied James "currently forty miles north, request joining instructions please."

"Copied. Continue approach and report abeam Siviya."

"Wilco" replied James, pulling a face at Deon.

"At least I bloody well hope I will. What's our friend doing? Shit, this doesn't look good!"

The Fighter was boring in from their two 'o' clock and as they watched, blue fire winked at the leading edges of the wings. Tracer rounds appeared to arc lazily towards them before flashing wide at enormous speed.

Back in Bulawayo General Katsiru's irritation was growing fast. "Well? What the hell's going on? Have they seen anything or not?" he thundered impatiently.

The other officer screwed up his face in a pained way, straining to hear the voice on the phone, covering his other ear and turning away from the General.

"Holy shit!" shouted James as a second F-7 screamed over the top of them, firing a rocket which blew the first apart in a thunderous detonation of fire, black smoke and flying debris. "The stupid bastard has hit his mate!"

Deon's voice was hoarse as the Cessna wallowed through the turbulence. "He's turning and coming back, we've had it, he won't miss twice."

The bigger aircraft banked steeply and tucked in beside them, cockpit light on. The pilot dropped his mask aside so they could see smiling white teeth in his black face. He produced a torch and began flashing it into their cockpit.

"It's morse code" said James, turning to a blank sheet of paper on his kneepad, writing awkwardly, without looking, while he watched and decoded the flashes.

"What the hell's that nonsense?" asked Elias, peering over his shoulder at the untidy message.

James grinned up at him. Scrawled on the paper were the letters LIASFORPRESIDENT. "I missed the first letter out, but I think you've just received your first vote Elias. Congratulations!"

They waved vigorously as the Fighter pilot rocked his wings, gave an ironic salute and peeled away.

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Elias had been quietly cremated in Bulawayo but Primrose held a memorial service for him after the elections, in a nondescript Midlands town called Kwekwe.

People travelled to the dusty little place all day, arriving on trains and buses, in cars, ox-carts, bicycles and on foot, the crowd swelling with every passing hour. In the afternoon as the sun was sinking red towards the west, Primrose mounted a rickety, makeshift podium. Looking down at the silent audience, numbering tens of thousands, she began.

"Thank you all for coming. I have chosen to bring my husband's ashes here because Kwekwe is closest to the very centre of our country, equally accessible to all tribes and races. I am going to speak in English because it is a language most of us understand, and I do not want to be accused of tribal bias. I want to be heard by all Zimbabweans."

Her clear voice carried well and she raised it slightly.

"In South Africa Nelson Mandela is free at last, and his country is closer to liberation. Throughout the dark years of his imprisonment, his wife Winnie stood by him, and I pledge, following in her shoes, to take up the mantle of my husband, to fight for you, the people of this wonderful country, until we are also truly free. Able to sleep in our homes and walk in the streets without fear.

Elias Mpofu was Africa's latest Patrice Lumumba, whose valiant, defiant, immortal words to his manipulating Belgian oppressors I would like to remind you of now."

Primrose paused briefly before continuing.

"Lumumba said, 'We have known harassing work, exacted in exchange for salaries which did not permit us to eat enough to drive away hunger, to clothe ourselves decently, or to raise our children as dear to us. We have known ironies, insults, blows that we have endured morning, noon and night, because we are negros. We have seen our lands seized in the name of allegedly legal laws, which in fact recognized only that might is right. We will never forget the massacres where so many perished, the cells into which those who refused to submit to a regime of oppression and exploitation were thrown.'"

Primrose paused again, a long silence during which not a breath disturbed the silence. She finally exhaled herself, a gasping lungful of air.

"And look at us now, thirty years later. Land is being seized and people are being beaten, imprisoned and massacred. Millions have insufficient to eat as a result. Those words could have been spoken today, by my husband, and the only difference would be that our oppressors are now black! We can't blame the Europeans any more, this is the doing of our own kind! The hope that Elias, a fair, kind and honest man would be elected and help us to throw off our chains is stillborn, strangled at birth by deceitful, malicious men who care only about themselves.

Surrounded on all sides by treachery and envy Elias, like Lumumba, has passed away in a grubby act of bloodshed. A government is unjustly in power because people were so frightened by violence and threats that they voted against their hearts or not at all.

Let us never cease to demand the very right that our brothers fought for against white Rhodesia during all those long years, and which has been stolen again. The right to a genuine, unequivocal, one man one vote. Let us pull together steadily, without flinching, to uproot once and for all the evil nettles of greed, self-interest and fear which blight our Land."

There was a stirring, a low growl of anger and assent from the massive crowd as Primrose continued. She was talking to herself, as much as to them.

"I studied the work of William Shakespeare at school and since my husband was killed, lines from Shakespearean plays run endlessly through my head.

In one of them, a Roman called Mark Anthony spoke on a similar occasion to this, the murder of Julius Caesar, his country's Leader.

Mark Anthony said 'The evil men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.'

I say to you, let Elias's good not be buried, and let not the evil of his murderers live after him. Elias Mpofu told us that to be a Zimbabwean is a tremendous privilege, against which petty differences of tribe or race pale into insignificance. Mashona, Manica, Shangaan, Matabele, Portuguese, Afrikaans, English, Indian, it doesn't matter. If you make your home here you are Zimbabwean. Let us remember that, and start showing the world that Zimbabwe truly is a great Nation before we bury any more of our husbands, sons, wives or daughters. If someone tells you with a sneer, 'so and so is a Makaranga from Gowke,' say no, he is my brother, from Zimbabwe.

Don't let evil people divide us, pitting tribe against tribe and white against black. Don't behave badly just because it seems to give you a small advantage. Don't drag someone from their home, beat them or force them to say something they don't believe. Don't invade people's homes or farms just because they happen to be white, or black but richer than you. The government has already seized more land than it knows what to do with, and many farms were bought ten years after independence, by people who actually helped us in our struggle against the Smith Regime.

Like Elias, I will fight for justice and to improve the standard of living for all. Land for the landless, jobs for the unemployed, education for the illiterate, food for the hungry.

However it is vital that we obey the law for without it we will be like a pack of savage dogs, which is what some people in government want. While we are so occupied they can do whatever they like.

In another famous Shakespearean play, a warrior called Macbeth was tricked by three witches into believing that if he killed certain people, he would become King, unless a number of impossible things happened, including a whole forest called Birnan Wood moving to a great castle called Dunsinane.

The witches also told him that he could never be killed by a man of woman born.

Accordingly he committed many murders and gradually the guilt drove him mad. One by one the 'impossible' things happened.

An army opposed to Macbeth cut the trees of Birnan Wood and carried them to Dunsinane. A man called Macduff who had been cut from his mother's womb, therefore not of woman born, killed Macbeth.

Sooner or later we must all answer for our actions, no matter how the witches of our conceit attempt to lead us astray.

Zimbabweans, together we are as a great forest and we too can move, onwards and upwards to a great future. We are all here to mourn and bury my husband. Rest in peace Elias Mpofu. Live in fear and madness you guilty murderers. Like Shakespeare's Macbeth you have been tricked by witches onto an evil path and you will have a terrible end. God bless Zimbabwe. God bless Africa!"

Primrose began to sing the African anthem Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika and the vast crowd instantly joined in. The deep bass rumble of thousands of black male voices mingled with the tenors and sopranos of the women, to make a sound so powerful, so typically African and so hauntingly beautiful that people around the world wept as they watched.

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Catalogue Information

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