Buried deep

Chapter five

Two days we have retreated. Running like scared deer from a wild fire. The enemy chasing us filled with hatred just would not let up. Who could blame them for it? Surely not us? Considering what our forefathers did to them...took their land, gave them no rights, treated them like animals. Sure, here and now, I have done them no wrong, nor my father who actually fought alongside them in secret during the struggle against aparthied. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth how we were forced to fight for what we did not believe in. Told you have no right to not want to defend the homeland from the black dogs.

It makes me so angry now knowing that I am told that I must defend the mother country from the black scourge. The mother country that is now home to Whites, Blacks, Couloureds, Indians...even Asians! A land big enough for all of us to live in peace, side by side, working together to make a great country even greater. Alas, the Afrikaaner White man wanted everything for himself and denied equality to all who were of different race.

Here I find myself killing my fellow man, yes of a different colour but my fellow man none the less, for no other reason than I have no choice. I want to live and to live is for me to kill them and survive the year of service I owe to a country I do not even love!

My father taught me to respect all, he made me believe a non racial country was a reality fast approaching and that I should do all I could to help speed on its arrival. I failed. My father was disappointed I did not run away and dodge conscription but I could not let my friends go to war without me. I know my to friends felt the same as I, that apartheid must fall, but it was only a year. The border was quite, there was not fighting. We were at peace...were we wrong. So wrong.

I have so many souls I must atone for. They were fighting for equality, to be recognised and allowed to vote for a government along side us, but greed, hate and fear stopped our leaders from seeing that. They tried feeding us hate and on some it worked but on others it did not. It did not work on me and my friends.

Every time I kill someone it takes me back to the morning when I got the phone call from Shirley's mother. Pleading to know if she was with me at my home. I remember how cold I went when I said no. Shirley had been home and then up and vanished some time in the early morning hours.

I will never forget the frantic way I got dressed and rushed over to Shirley's house, where I was met by Roger and Slash. How we joined the search party. It was like the entire town turned up that day to search. There was food, coffee, cool drinks,  you name it, you were given it. We wanted for nothing that day.

I remember the horror of the night, not even an hour dark, when they discovered the horror in the back yard. I will never forget...never. I will never forget the cop who stumbled into the kitchen tears streaming down his face, how he gasped out the grizzly find. Those horrid words he uttered, about what kind of a monster could have done this. Dumped a young girls bloody body, naked into a manhole drain.

In the back yard of her own house!

I know I blacked out, I know I came by with Roger and Slash holding me up. I saw and hear the howling pain of her mother and saw the calm look on her father's face. At that moment I could not read the look on his face. I did not understand it then...but I do now. I have seen that look in the mirror many times looking back at me. I have even seen it on my friends faces.

I now know it as the face of a killer. There is a difference though, I see remorse in my eyes and that of my friends but I did not see it on his. I saw no remorse, just the look of an animal who is cornered with no escape.

It took the police three days to get the true story. How the father abused and eventually raped his own daughter and then in guilt...he killed her and dumped her in a manhole and hoped they would not find her. A sick Bastard who would never get the death penalty. Worst was when it was found out that his youngest son had seen and done nothing to stop his father. I know my heart died that day. It would be years before it felt anything again.

I can see now why a year later it was so easy to kill when the border wars erupted and we were serving time in the army. How instead of lowering my gun and going to jail, I fought for something I did not believe. I betrayed my own beliefs so I could understand why he did what he did. I took a destructive course and never realised it was wrong.

I know I shall pay one day, but maybe I can make amends. Maybe.

First I must lead the few men in my command to safety. Low on ammo, low on provisions but worst of all...low on morale.

If there is one thing I have learnt. Killing brings no closure, it just rips you to pieces and leaves you bleeding...to die with your wounds, to hate yourself, doomed to repeat the same mistake over and over. An unending circle of wrong that no matter how you try to make it right...you just cannot.

Watching the sun sink below the mountain range, I could not help feeling hope was leaving as well. Each day we did not reach safety, was another day we would have to face the horrors of war. My mind was already made up. When we were safe...no more would I fight. I will rot in jail rather.