The Soldier who Said No (21 page)

In the morning the whole family would wake up late, slowly, as if they were suffering from a common hangover or were still under the influence of a powerful soporific.

Each dance was a ritual that mirrored the cycle of the Bushmen’s struggle for survival and the importance of the hunt. It started with the dance of hunger, enacted with immense emotion and sorrow, followed as the events unfolded by the dance of the tracking, the dancers mimicking their following of the spoor, and then the shot, when they would aim imaginary arrows into the dark of the night. The pace quickened in the dance of the chase, the hunters tracking the wounded animal. The dance of the kill was slow, the dancers circling the dying animal, until one of them would plunge a spear into its throat to end its suffering. The final dance was the dance of the return, when the successful hunters returned to their encampment to share the meat with the women and children. The dance was a dance of great joy and celebration.

De Villiers often thought of Jacques Verster and the manner of his death as he shuffled along in the line of dancers, as he stomped his feet to the rhythm of the dance and gestured with his hands, with one arm for an ostrich or giraffe, and two arms with index fingers pointed upwards for a gemsbok.

Their trek south continued, and although De Villiers was beginning to contribute to their food supplies, he was consuming more than he was contributing. Day by day he learnt more about the bush, about which plants were edible and where to look for grubs. At night they sat under the stars while !Xau explained which star represented which animal.

‘Why did you join the army?’ he asked !Xau one night.

!Xau turned his gaze downwards to the sand between his feet. ‘They said the
SWAPO
s were going to take the land and stop us hunting. And they promised us food and water and clothes. And they gave us money for tobacco.’

That’s what they told us about the communists, and the Cubans, and everybody else, De Villiers thought.

By the time they reached the Cubango River, De Villiers had lost a good deal of weight, but he felt strong and fit. His companion looked none the worse for wear and now carried a near-complete complement of weapons: a bow with a quiver of poisoned arrows, a sharpened digging stick and, of course, his Best. All he needed was a spear with an iron blade and he would be fully equipped to kill even the largest animal.

The Tsodilo Hills Bushmen had turned east the day before they reached the river. There were no goodbyes. When De Villiers had woken up that last morning, there was no sign of them.

The moment De Villiers and !Xau set foot on the southern bank of the river, they were in South West Africa. The Katima Mulilo–Grootfontein road was tarred and carried civilian traffic under the watchful eye of the military base at Rundu.

De Villiers knew that he had to start planning for his reception at Rundu.

Zoë opened the door when they knocked and, with the candour of a six-year-old, invited them in.

‘Mum’s in the bath and Dad’s in the bush. I’ll make tea.’

She led them into the television lounge and disappeared behind the kitchen nook. They watched as she filled the kettle and turned it on. Henderson and Kupenga took seats on the barstools.

‘You’d better tell your mum you have visitors,’ Henderson said, sensitive to De Villiers’s complaint that Kupenga had pushed Emma around. He didn’t want to imagine the fallout should Emma de Villiers come down to the television lounge half dressed or in a bathrobe.

Zoë ran upstairs and they heard her talking. Henderson decided that discretion was the better part of valour and called Kupenga to follow him outside. They waited outside the open front door on the steps.

That was where Pierre de Villiers found them. He was slightly out of breath from the uphill walk, but not surprised to see them. The absence of any mention of the assassination attempt in the media meant that there had been no significant progress in the investigation.

Once inside, they sat down at the kitchen nook. ‘Coffee?’ De Villiers asked. When they nodded, he allowed Zoë to serve them. They made small talk until she left.

‘You know quite a bit about bows and arrows, it seems,’ Henderson said, holding the mug.

De Villiers could see no reason for evasion. ‘But no more than others who grew up on a farm,’ he said.

‘Maybe so,’ Henderson conceded, ‘but I couldn’t help noticing that you were quite proficient with the bow and arrows at the shooting range at the Hotel du Vin, and when I showed you the Bushman arrow, you knew in advance that the front part would pull out of the shaft. That’s not something I imagine many people would know.’

When De Villiers didn’t answer, Henderson prodded him. ‘Well?’

‘Well, we grow up with bows and arrows there. And we learn about the Bushmen from primary school,’ De Villiers said. ‘You must remember,’ he explained, ‘that an African boy who grows up on a farm is introduced to all sorts of weapons from an early age. We walked about the veld with catapults, bows and arrows and air rifles before we went to school. And we often went hunting with small-bore rifles before we reached high-school age.’

Kupenga snorted, and then loudly blew his nose.

‘I’m sure your parents would only have allowed that under the supervision of an adult,’ Henderson postulated.

De Villiers shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you, Sir. There wasn’t any supervision. And every boy carried a pocket knife, even to school,’ he added with a glance in Kupenga’s direction.

It was Henderson’s turn to shake his head.

‘Let’s get back to business,’ he said. ‘What sort of bow would one need to cast this arrow thirty metres?’ he asked. He put a set of photographs of the arrow on the breakfast counter.

De Villiers spread the photographs like a hand of cards, face up. They had been taken by a professional photographer and numbered with a ruler in the photo, standard for exhibits to be used in a trial. The arrow was so slight that just about any bow would do, but De Villiers was tactful for once.

‘I would say a proper Bushman bow would fire this arrow up to sixty or seventy metres, but it wouldn’t be accurate beyond thirty to thirty-five, perhaps even less.’

He rearranged the photographs. Henderson watched him intently.

‘How long is a Bushman bow?’ Henderson asked.

It was an odd question, De Villiers thought. ‘About a metre, no more than one-ten or so,’ he said.

Henderson held his hands apart and frowned. ‘Could a bow half that size or smaller be used?’

De Villiers contemplated the physics. ‘I can’t see how you can make that work with a self bow or a bow made of the traditional materials. And, with a very short bow, you can’t be accurate.’

‘Can you make a Bushman bow?’

It was another odd question, but De Villiers nodded. Any schoolboy could, he thought, but maybe not here.

‘How?’

De Villiers looked at Henderson. ‘You cut a suitable sapling to length, you shape the stave to taper towards the nock at each end, you add a gradual bend to the bow over an open fire, and you’re ready to fit the string.’

Kupenga spoke for the first time. ‘Where would you find a suitable sapling?’

De Villiers answered without looking at Kupenga. ‘Anywhere. In the reserve behind the house, for example.’ He indicated with his thumb over his shoulder. ‘I’ve just taken a walk through it.’

‘You’ve seen this arrow before,’ Kupenga said. It was an accusation, not a question.

De Villiers looked Henderson in the eye. ‘I’ve seen many arrows like this one.’ He diverted their attention to the Macleans Reserve and pointed. ‘You could also find a suitable sapling or branch down there.’

‘We’ve established this one comes from Botswana,’ Kupenga stated, not distracted by De Villiers’s attempted evasion.

Angola, De Villiers thought, but kept his opinion to himself.

‘You’ve seen how it’s made,’ Kupenga said. His tone suggested that it was a question.

De Villiers chose his words carefully. He didn’t want to be accused of lying or of withholding information. Since the arrow had been used in an attempt on the Prime Minister’s life, the case was serious, not the run-of-the-mill investigation. ‘I’ve seen Bushmen making their arrows, arrows just like this one.’

Henderson took over from Kupenga and changed the subject. ‘Can you make a bow that can fit into a backpack no more than forty centimetres deep?’

The answer was in De Villiers’s eyes.

‘Can you show me?’ Henderson asked.

De Villiers shook his head, not in denial but in surprise. Why should a bow have to be made to fit into a small backpack? He thought immediately of Angola and his struggle for survival without his regular backpack. His own bow can do that, fit into a backpack.

De Villiers asked, ‘Why does it have to fit into a backpack?’

Henderson took his time before he answered. ‘A man was seen riding a bicycle away from the Prime Minister’s house at the time of the assassination attempt and all he carried with him was a small backpack. We have several witnesses and we also picked him up on the
CCTV
cameras in the city. He abandoned the bike in the Victoria Car Park on the corner of Victoria and High Streets and then went off-camera towards Albert Park.’

‘Bring your coffee with you,’ De Villiers said and led the detectives to his garage.

There was a small workbench with some basic tools. They watched as De Villiers scratched around and produced a multitool from a pouch. It was a Leatherman Charge and had a variety of blades and tools, including pliers. He went out onto the deck at the back of the house and returned with a bamboo garden torch.

They made small talk while De Villiers shaped the bow and talked them through the manufacturing process.

‘Because this bow has to be no longer than forty centimetres but still cast the arrow with some accuracy over a distance of thirty metres, it would have to be a combination bow, a bow consisting of more than one piece. By contrast, a self bow consists of only one piece, usually wood.

‘I’m going to make this bow out of bamboo. I need a forty centimetre section for the two staves or limbs and a shorter section for the grip or handle. The staves will be shaped so that they taper towards the ends and fit into the handle. The ends are called nocks. That’s where the string is fixed to the bow.’

De Villiers measured the pieces on the bamboo and marked the positions with a pencil. Then, using the Leatherman, he sawed the sections to length.

‘Next you split the bamboo for the limbs like this: you stand the bamboo on the floor and hold the blade of the knife at the top, well centred. Then you tap the blade with a hammer – tap, tap – and the bamboo splits into two, each half forty centimetres long, like this. These now have to be shaped so that they taper towards the nock.’

De Villiers cut strips off the limbs with long strokes of the knife. In minutes he had two tapered limbs.

‘Now comes the time-consuming part. You have to shape the two limbs so that their inner ends fit snugly into the handle. You’ll see that I’ve cut the handle so that there’s an open section of bamboo at each end. The staves have to be made to fit into those openings.’

Henderson and Kupenga watched as De Villiers shaped the ends to fit. He put the three pieces of the bow together.

‘There, you now have the bow ready for the string to be fitted. But first, you need to reinforce the ends of the handle with insulation tape to prevent the bamboo from splitting when the string is pulled back and the bow is placed in tension.’

De Villiers wound black insulation tape around the ends of the handle. He looked around the workbench and turned to face Henderson and Kupenga.

‘I don’t have any string, so my shoelaces will have to do.’

He leaned down and removed the shoelaces from his shoes.

‘The bow is about ninety centimetres when assembled, and I’ll have to tie the shoelaces together, like this, and bend the bow while I fit the string into the slits in the nocks, like this, and there you have a bow.’

It had taken De Villiers forty-five minutes to produce a small bow in three pieces that fit together as a combination bow. None of the pieces was longer than forty centimetres.

‘May I keep it?’ Henderson asked. ‘I think the Commissioner would be interested to see this,’ he added.

They returned to the house and sat in the study. Henderson caught De Villiers looking furtively at the backpack on the wall.

On impulse Henderson stood up and lifted the backpack from its hook. He slowly turned the backpack over in his hands. A rusty knife fell out.

The straps of the backpack were stiff, reinforced with some kind of batten. When he turned the backpack over, Henderson saw the end of one of the battens protruding from the canvas strap. The batten was of black steel and had a slit in the exposed end, in what Henderson now knew to be the nock of a bow.

Henderson pulled the batten out of the strap and found its companion in the second strap. Looking De Villiers in the eye, he slowly unwound the sisal rope holding the two halves of the handle of the backpack together. The guitar string was in one of the side pockets.

It took Henderson less than five minutes to put the bow together. It was identical in its parts and shape to the combination bow De Villiers had manufactured under their eyes, except that it was made of blackened stainless steel, not bamboo. De Villiers remained silent throughout. Kupenga sat with his mouth agape.

‘I think I’ll have this backpack too,’ Henderson said.

!Xau’s Best lay where it had fallen on the desk.

Henderson looked at De Villiers for a long time before he spoke. ‘I think you know more than you’re telling us.’ When there was no denial, he continued. ‘You are now a suspect. In fact, you’re the only suspect.’

De Villiers felt inclined to argue, to explain the bow concealed in the straps of his Recce backpack, but Henderson was already heading for the door.

On their way out they found Emma in the lounge. She accompanied them to the front door.