The Sunday News
Short Story Cuthbert Mavheko
THE scale of devastation was mind-boggling. What had once been a compact, well-built homestead had, within a few minutes, been reduced to heaps of burning rubble. The two huts that were still standing were slowly being razed to the ground by fires ignited by napalm bombs that had been dropped by Rhodesian Air Force jet-fighters.
Some of the napalm bombs had landed in the bush, igniting a ferocious bush fire that now swept across the countryside, destroying both plant and animal life. After the warplanes had dropped their cargo of death and destruction, they streaked away with a thunderous roar.
A short while later, the clattering roar of helicopter gunships rent the air. Flying at tree top level, the giant war machines swooped low over the gutted homestead. Scores of camouflaged black and white soldiers, with belts of ammunition draped around their shoulders, jumped out of the hovering war machines.
Their machine guns stuttered, bringing instant death to legions of villagers, who were sprinting for cover.
The soldiers had been ordered to shoot every man, woman and child they found at the homestead.
They were not to take any prisoners. Only a few villagers survived the horrific air and ground assault. Among these was a five–year-old-boy, who squatted near the bullet riddled body of his heavily pregnant mother.
The boy nudged his mother’s body, again and again, imploring her to get up. But there was no response from her.
The little boy could not understand why she was refusing to get up and again he began to cry.
Not far away, a prowling hyena cocked its ears as the wind brought the sound of the boy’s piteous crying. The hyena had not eaten anything in more than a week and hunger was driving it crazy, it sniffed hungrily at the air for a moment and then set off in the direction of the sound. A few minutes later the hyena spotted the boy and the dead woman, who lay spread-eagled in a pool of blood on the ground.
Saliva dripping from the side of its jaws, the predator surveyed the scene before it dispassionately.
The boy saw the hyena and stopped crying. Thinking it was a dog, he stood up and tottered towards the famished hyena. A deadly snap from the hyena’s powerful jaws broke the boy’s neck. With the boy’s lifeless body clamped in its jaws, the hyena retreated into the bush to feed on the carcass.
This happened on 15 August 1977. The previous day, three guerillas, who were dressed as ordinary peasants had arrived at Chief Chimedu’s homestead in Hurungwe communal lands.
The three Cdes Buyani, Nherera and Mandla, met the chief and introduced themselves to him. Thereafter mujibhas were sent to summon all the people in the area to a pungwe that was to be held at the homestead that night.
Hundreds of men, women and children soon gathered at Chief Chimedu’s homestead to hear the gospel of independence being preached to them by one of the three freedom fighters.
Cde Buyani, the leader of the guerillas, climbed onto a drum and greeted the crowd: “Comrades and friends, the march to our freedom and independence is long, tortuous and fraught with peril. A lot of blood will be shed and many sacrifices made. But that is the prize that we have to pay to liberate our people from the clutches of colonial enslavement.”
Cde Buyani then chronicled the history of the liberation struggle from the time of Lobengula, Mbuya Nehanda, Sekuru Kaguvi and others to the present day.
A short while later, the guerillas burst into revolutionary song. It was a song of war and desecration of the land by greedy, murderous white settlers and how the freedom fighters would fight to the bitter end to reclaim the stolen land.
The song had been adapted from a church hymn and lyrics had been changed to suit its political message.
The echoes of the song reverberated in the surrounding hills and valleys, making the blood rush evoking the dancing instinct in the crowd. Women cooed, leapt into the air with light majestic steps. Men whistled and pounded the hard ground until their feet developed blisters.
While this was going on, Chief Chimedu’s second wife, who was an informer of the Rhodesians, slipped into the bush unnoticed and using a walkie-talkie – given to her by Rhodesian soldiers, called General Riversand, commander of the Rhodesian soldiers, and informed him about the pungwe.
As dawn broke over the land, the guerrillas sang their last revolutionary song and dismissed the crowd. At that moment, eight fighter jets dived from the sky and attacked the chief’s homestead with rockets and napalm bombs. Only one freedom fighter, Cde Buyani, survived the horrific air and ground assault. She had run out of ammunition and had escaped certain death by hiding in an empty granary.
When she crawled out of the granary, several hours later, it was sunset. The shadows were lengthening and the western horizon was tinged grey and pink. The shooting had stopped and an ominous, all-pervading
