ICON OF THE FIGHT

Chapter 3

The truck slowed to an idling stop after driving for about fifteen minutes. I couldn't see outside but I guessed we were at the main entrance to the fort. It moved again a short distance before it halted completely, the sound of the engine cutting off.

One of the soldiers opened the tailgate and swung the ladder down before getting off the truck. Another walked down to the cuffed men and yanked one to his feet, marching him to open end, all the while calling the stoic and defiant helpless guy despicable names. The prisoner awkwardly descended, struggling for balance with his hands tied closely together. They repeated the procedure with the other man. "Get up, you dog! Walk! Walk, traitor! A firing squad for you! You killed many good men, motherfucker!"

It didn't require much intelligence to know that these were captured Resistance fighters, in for a lengthy stay at the Detention Centre. The rest of the occupants were, according to Chido, internal refugees : old men, and women with kids, of the Badara People's Republic who had found the going being tough, and were willing to live on government handouts. Fort Rhodes had a shelter for them, where they eked a pitiful existence, their presence at the fort being propagated as a sign of the goodness of the authorities.

We disembarked and I got a look around the famous army base.

The entrance through which we had come was immediately behind us, a double-lane wide and two-metre high gate of metal bars, with spikes at the top to bar any unwanted visitors from entry. A squat grey guard room, manned by at least six soldiers I could see, made for a non encouraging reception.

The barbed wire fence was equally high, with strands of razorwire clearly visible at the top. I could see two watchtowers further along the fence, apparently manned.

We were standing in a big driveway, facing the forbidding walls of the old fort. They went two storeys high, with  dull grey paint peeling off in huge patches, revealing the mouldy stone structure underneath. There were gun placements all over the wall, the menacing muzzles of which were slightly angled down to the fence.

A narrow doorway was directly ahead and Sergeant Gombwe led us through this. Rows of squat grey green buildings were arranged neatly inside the fort, all with narrow windows, some of which were visibly boarded up, while others were open.

We went into one of these buildings, whose interior was deceptively spacious, with scuffed floorboards which amplified every footfall like a stadium P.A system. Wooden benches were nailed to the floor of the ceiling-less hall, while huge life sized posters of Air Chief Marshall Sol Komari, the current president, dominated the four walls, effectively plastered over the age-dirtied walls.

A huge desk hogged one corner, a plaque on it announcing that this was the welfare reception, and behind it sat a middle aged woman who, judging by her pinched smile, was currently passing a prickly pear.

The fort had been built in the early nineteen hundreds by the Cecil Rhodes owned British South African Company, and had changed ownership after independence, but its origins still lurked through the smoky bulbs and antique brass door handles.

We were made to take seats on the benches facing the receptionist. A door at the far end opened, and in strolled - or rather, bounced - a neatly dressed officer, whose formal military attire fit his lean body like custom designed suit. He spotted a number of clinking medals on his chest, with his black shoes polished to a glossy shine. I guessed him to be in his mid twenties like me, with a neat short haircut and dark eyes which looked at the world with a calculating and analytical ease. The face was perfect, marred only by the mouth pulled down in a sneer, as if we were all a collective bad smell in his snobbish nose.

He stopped in front of the reception desk, whose occupant stood up hurriedly raised a stiff hand in a salute, her face more pinched than ever. Gombwe followed suit, then relaxed as the officer ignored the military ritual. The newcomer spoke in a strangely flat tone, as if he was reading a foreign language he did not understand.