Bayou Renaissance Man

I was astonished - and pleased, of course - to learn that the final resting place of the submarine USS Harder, sunk in 1944, and of her legendary commanding officer, Sam Dealy, has been discovered.  Here's an extended video report.

Cdr. Dealey became famous in the Submarine Service (and probably equally notorious to the Japanese) for his deliberate attacks on escort vessels, taunting or luring them into approaching his submarine and then firing a "down the throat" attack right at their bows.  He sank at least five, and possibly six, Japanese destroyers in this manner, as well as his other victims.  His posthumous Medal of Honor citation attests to his success.

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of the U.S.S. Harder during her 5th war patrol in Japanese-controlled waters. Floodlighted by a bright moon and disclosed to an enemy destroyer escort which bore down with intent to attack. Comdr. Dealey quickly dived to periscope depth and waited for the pursuer to close range, then opened fire, sending the target and all aboard down in flames with his third torpedo. Plunging deep to avoid fierce depth charges, he again surfaced and, within nine minutes after sighting another destroyer, had sent the enemy down tail first with a hit directly amidship. Evading detection, he penetrated the confined waters off Tawi Tawi with the Japanese Fleet base six miles away and scored death blows on two patrolling destroyers in quick succession. With his ship heeled over by concussion from the first exploding target and the second vessel nose-diving in a blinding detonation, he cleared the area at high speed. Sighted by a large hostile fleet force on the following day, he swung his bow toward the lead destroyer for another "down-the-throat" shot, fired three bow tubes, and promptly crash-dived to be terrifically rocked seconds later by the exploding ship as the Harder passed beneath. This remarkable record of five vital Japanese destroyers sunk in five short-range torpedo attacks attests the valiant fighting spirit of Comdr. Dealey and his indomitable command.

Cdr. Dealey was one of the star performers in the Submarine Service, and his loss - and that of his submarine and crew - was a severe blow.  They were commemorated with the launch of the Tang class submarine USS Harder in 1951.  I hope the discovery of the wreck of the USS Harder will be an opportunity to remember their deeds anew.

Peter

Yesterday, reading Larry Lambert's "Virtual Mirage" blog, I came across this quotation from World War II Army nurse June Wandrey.

An eighteen-year-old boy is carried into the shock ward, and he looks up at me trustingly, asking, “How am I doing, nurse?” I kiss his forehead and say, “You are doing just fine, soldier.” He smiles sweetly and says, “I was just checking,” Then he dies. We all cry in private. But not in front of the boys. Never in front of the boys.

That's genuine heroism on the part of those nurses:  to keep going, day in and day out, knowing ahead of time that they're going to lose patients - a lot of patients - yet doing their jobs regardless, being compassionate carers.

That quotation reminded me of an experience I had in southern Africa.  AIDS was (and still is) a major problem in that part of the world, with tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands infected every year.  It's even more tragic because of the warped, twisted, completely inaccurate myths and beliefs of that culture.  For example, a man with AIDS or a venereal disease may believe (and thousands do) that if he has sex with a virgin, the disease will leave him and transfer to her.  However, very few eligible African women are virgins;  so he'll kidnap a child and have sex with her.  Since so many children have been raped, the "targets" of such men have grown younger and younger.  It's no longer unusual to find three- and four-year-old girls (and some boys) who've been abused like that.

I visited a place most people avoided like the plague (a very apt simile, in this case).  It was an orphanage, run by religious sisters, that cared for orphan children infected with AIDS.  In most cases, their mothers had been infected by their husbands or partners, so that the child was born with the disease.  The mother would usually die before the child, having been infected earlier, and the child would be abandoned (sometimes literally, in the bush) to die alone.  These nuns passed the word to the communities nearby that any such baby should be brought to them, rather than be abandoned.  They took them in, fed and cared for them, knowing they were undoubtedly going to lose them.  They believed it was God's work for them to at least let the child die in the midst of a caring community, knowing that it was loved and cherished.

I vividly remember standing on the front porch of their building, watching a nun cradling a two-year-old girl in her arms, tears running down her face as the kid reached up weakly to touch her face.  As I watched, the girl's arm flopped back down, and she took a last, gasping breath, and died.  The nun stood there until it was over, then headed back inside to take the little body to their makeshift morgue . . . and then turn to the next baby or child, and do it all over again.

I've never seen courage like that, before or since.  I certainly don't have it.  To do that, day in, day out, knowing that it will never change, never improve . . . that all your patients are going to die, no matter how cute and lovable they may be . . . and yet being willing to do that, over and over again, so that they can die in whatever peace and love they may find - that you can give - in a world that doesn't give a damn.  That's heroism of the highest possible order, IMHO.

We think too little about the real courage required of our health workers on the front lines, wherever they may be, whatever their circumstances.  In the old days, the Catholic Church used to say that normally, doctors could not be ordained as priests, and priests could not serve as doctors, because both professions were God-given vocations, not just jobs.  They were different and distinct callings, both important enough to warrant being singled out as a lifelong ministry rather than just a career.  I don't know whether that distinction is still made, but it always made a lot of sense to me.

Peter

One of my heroes was Jack Malloch, a World War II Spitfire pilot from Rhodesia who went on to dabble in all sorts of shadowy aviation corners for the next thirty years or more.  He had the reputation of being a "pirate of the air", very much in the mold of Sidney Cotton or Jan Zumbach.  I don't know if they ever met, but I'm sure the three would have recognized kindred spirits in each other, and probably in the buccaneers of the Spanish Main a few centuries earlier.

Jack was involved in sanctions-busting on behalf of Rhodesia and South Africa for many years, and also undertook clandestine flights in support of military and intelligence operations for both countries.  I first met him when he flew a group of people, including yours truly, in a clapped-out old Douglas DC-7 freighter to a place we never were to do something about which we know nothing, if you get my drift.  He was truly a character, and somewhat awe-inspiring in real life to a young wet-behind-the-ears type like myself.  I never knew him well, of course, only in passing:  but I count myself privileged to have met him.

Jack was killed in an air crash in 1982 while test-flying a Spitfire Mk. 22 that he'd restored (one of a squadron's worth that he and others had ferried to Rhodesia from Britain back in the 1950's).  A documentary movie was filmed describing the restoration and the aircraft's first flight, which I've embedded below.  Aviation enthusiasts will enjoy it.

Jack was pretty much unique in my (admittedly limited) experience.  I've never met anyone else quite like him.  I was therefore very pleased to find that a biography had been written about him, published a couple of years ago.  It's titled "Jack Malloch:  Legend of the African Skies".

It was difficult to decide on which excerpt to bring you today.  I settled on some of his military missions during the Rhodesian war, these using very old, worn-out aircraft that no self-respecting airline would have touched with a bargepole.  Nevertheless, he made a success of it, and his efforts helped keep Rhodesia alive for longer than anyone would have expected.

With the upsurge in fighting along all three of Rhodesia’s hostile frontiers, the war was putting a heavy strain on the military. In a move to boost its manpower, in January 1977 it was announced that conscription would be increased by three months and men over the age of thirty-eight needed to register for training and service.

As part of this militarisation Jack, at the age of fifty-seven was called up as a reservist to the Rhodesian Air Force. He was given the rank of Flight Lieutenant and was seconded to Number Three (Transport) Squadron. Although the authority and respect he was given far exceeded his lowly ‘official’ rank. Jack quickly realised that the Air Force, which were limited to a collection of old Second World War-vintage Dakotas, had a critical need for larger transport aircraft. As he now had the CL-44, Jack offered to loan one of his old DC-7s to the Air Force. This arrangement became more or less permanent from early April 1977.

On these military missions the DC-7 was given the Air Force registration number 7230. Interestingly it was also given a South African Defence Force registration number, TLT 907, for exclusively South African military missions. On these assignments Jack would usually fly with George Alexander who was the Commanding Officer of Number Three Squadron.

To begin with much of this flying was shuttling planeloads of Rhodesian soldiers down to Bloemfontein in South Africa to undertake parachute training as Rhodesia focused on building up its airborne assault capability. With these crack paratroops Rhodesia began to make ever larger and more ambitious raids into neighbouring countries to cripple the insurgents’ training, and supply facilities. But with this strategy economies of scale started to came into play and the Air Force needed to be able to deploy an ever higher volume of paratroopers. But in the face of modern anti-aircraft weapons, the slow DC-3s were just no longer sufficient.

Jack wondered if the DC-7 could be up for the job. The first challenge was that the DC-7 manufacturer categorically stated that the aircraft was impossible to fly with the side door open which would be a necessity for parachutists. But Jack wasn’t too concerned about operating regulations. He had the door removed and took the aircraft for a test flight. It was certainly more challenging to fly, but it wasn’t long before he got used to the handling.

Next, he needed some particularly brave soldiers to try jumping out of the DC-7 to see what would happen. There were some terrifying learnings to begin with as Charlie Buchan recalls, “With the DC-3 we jumped using a roof cable, but with the DC-7 the parachutes flipped round the edge of the wing and caught the tail piece, so we moved the cable from the roof to the floor. The first time we used the floor cable we got the full blast of the engines up our arses as we came out. We then ran the cable down to the corner of the doorway with a longer static line so that the parachute opened well beneath the tail.”

This was reiterated by one of the Parachute Jumping Instructors who later recalled, “The door was huge compared with the Dak. Drop speed for the Dak was ninety-five knots but the DC-7 would run in at about one hundred and fifteen knots. When we jumped we really felt the blast. Exit position had to be good or you would finish up turning in the slipstream which would cause twisting of the rigging lines during the parachute deployment. This meant wasted time kicking out the twists on the way down, and you had little enough time anyway from the operational drop height of just five hundred feet.”

Once these issues had been resolved a training exercise involving a planeload of sixty SAS commandos was organised. After ten run-ins dropping six men at a time the door dispatchers were well versed in how to work within the cargo-configured interior and confirmed they were ready for combat. Jack now just needed an actual operation to test the concept under real battlefield conditions.

Then, suddenly the war became very personal for Jack and the Malloch family.

In June 1977 Blythe’s eldest son Dave Kruger was killed along with three other young soldiers when their vehicle hit a landmine in the Binga area. He had been serving with 3 Independent Company of the Rhodesian Regiment. It was the second child that Blythe and Ted had lost so tragically. Then in early August urban terrorism hit Salisbury when a bomb exploded in Woolworth’s department store. There were almost one hundred casualties, mostly women and children. With the death of his nephew and the blast in the heart of Salisbury’s shopping centre, Jack realised that they were all now on the frontline. Although he was never one for revenge, after this Jack took a much darker view of the war and the need to not just defend themselves, but to start really fighting back.

. . .

With the success of his parachuting experiment, a couple of the military planners asked Jack for his opinion on an ambitious plan they were working on. The challenge was that once communist terrorists had infiltrated into the country they spread death and destruction and had to be hunted down individually. It was a classic ‘war of attrition’ tactic that was grinding down Rhodesia’s military resources. Just to sustain themselves Rhodesia needed to maintain a kill ratio of ten to one, but this was difficult. Rhodesia needed to cut the insurgents off at their source where they were concentrated and vulnerable.

The two largest Zanla training and ‘staging’ camps in Mozambique were Chimoio, ninety kilometres inside Mozambique and Tembue, which was another one hundred kilometres beyond it. These distances made an attack almost impossible and from the outset the decision-makers at Combined Operations rejected the idea as being far too risky. But Jack strongly believed in the SAS slogan ‘who dares wins’ and, along with the planning committee felt that with the right deployment of their air assets and a good dose of courage, a successful raid could be made. The distance and audacity of the plan also meant that neither Zanla nor Frelimo, Mozambique’s national army, would seriously expect an attack so far from Rhodesia’s border. As a result the enemy forces were concentrated in a very tempting target zone.

Eventually, after numerous persuasive presentations the operational plans for both Chimoio and Tembue were finally approved. Jack’s role in this was pivotal and according to one of the planners, “…without Jack’s personal interest and participation Operation Dingo could not have been undertaken. He was a key player.” This is high praise indeed considering the attack on Chimoio and Tembue would end up being one of the most successful cross-border raids of not just the Rhodesian War, but, of any war.

By late October 1977 intelligence reports estimated that the number of fighters at Chimoio had risen to eleven thousand with another four thousand at Tembue. This was five times the number of CTs (communist terrorists) already operating within Rhodesia. If this army of eager insurgents were all to make it across the border there was a real likelihood that the onslaught would overwhelm the country. Jack started work on the intricate logistics and started stockpiling extra munitions. The bombs, missiles and rockets for the air force were brought up from South Africa in the DC-8. These flights were off-loaded at the bottom of the runway by a small team of trusted senior ground staff and taken directly into New Sarum via the ‘bottom gate’ far away from prying eyes.

The attack had to be made quickly – and before the start of the summer rains as low cloud or stormy weather would compromise visibility and potentially ground the aircraft. Due to sanctions, Rhodesia didn’t have access to satellite imagery of the regional weather patterns. These images were beamed down to the Intelsat receiver in Europe and was then transmitted to a network of official receiver stations. Someone in Salisbury, using his own home-made equipment, was able to access this coded signal and download the images, dramatically enhancing the ability of the planners to predict the weather. How Rhodesia was able to pull off this early hacking back in 1977 is unknown, but desperation certainly led to innovation.

. . .

While Jack’s attention was being divided between the war and the commercial needs of the business, the Rhodesian Special Air Service were having remarkable success in the northern Tete Province of Mozambique. In light of this, Rhodesia’s military planners decided to redeploy them into the volatile southern Gaza Province, where, according to US Intelligence, Zanla were being trained by more than a thousand Cuban, Soviet and East German military advisors. This accounted for the area having been given the nickname, ‘The Russian Front’. The challenge was getting the special forces into the area. It was exactly the type of mission Jack had been waiting for. He suggested a free-fall HALO drop out of the doorless DC-7.

Once again there were reservations. It would be the biggest free-fall operation that the Rhodesians had attempted and just being able to find the right location for the drop was deemed to be almost impossible. That was Jack’s role. He had to find the Landing Zone and drop twenty-four men and their heavy equipment in exactly the right spot deep over enemy territory at the dead of night with no moon. Jack, who had an incredible intuition when it came to flying, knew he could do it. At three o’clock in the morning of October 11th, 1977 the twelve-thousand-foot jump was made. The men landed within a few kilometres of the LZ which was described as “an incredible achievement on the part of the pilot.” The undercover SAS teams remained in the Russian Front, effectively harassing the enemy until the end of the war. According to Kevin Milligan who was on most of these dangerous parachute deployments, “all the times I worked with Jack I found him to be a terrific character and a privilege to work with. The more challenging the mission, the more he seemed to enjoy it!”

. . .

With the success of his first SAS mission the commanders started taking Jack’s plans for Operation Dingo more seriously. To inflict the maximum number of casualties the Rhodesians wanted to strike the main training camp when all the recruits were lined up on the parade-ground. But the high-pitched whine of the approaching jets would compromise the element of surprise. They needed something to mask the sound. Jack suggested a slight change to the DC-8’s incoming flight path, timing it to overfly the camp just a few minutes before the strafing jets were scheduled to hit. Over time the residents in the camp “had become accustomed to the sound of the high-flying aircraft because this had been going on for weeks. All homeward bound Air Trans Africa flights had been specifically routed over the Chimoio base in a deliberate move to lull its inhabitants into accepting the sound as routine.”

The eventual attack was launched early on November 23rd, 1977. It involved almost every single Air Force aircraft, and almost every single member of the elite Special Air Service, along with almost one hundred hand-picked Rhodesian Light Infantry soldiers. Soon after midnight the helicopters began to assemble. The coordinated attack was due to start at seven minutes past eight, five minutes after Jack’s DC-8, to give time for the soldiers to reform in their tightly packed parade ground standing order. At about quarter past seven the massed armada of helicopters, weighted down with shock-troops and extra ammunition, took off. They crossed the border and headed down into the Mozambican plain via a steep-sided river valley.

According to one of the men, “All the helicopters descended to the low ground, initially over abandoned Portuguese farmlands, for the run to target. With helicopters all around and flying low over exquisite countryside, it was hard to fully comprehend that all hell was about to break loose. Halfway to target I saw the DC-7 cruise past on our port side looking quite splendid against the African background. Almost immediately it turned to commence orbits behind the formation of helicopters.”

Meanwhile, “The idea of using one noise to cover another worked perfectly. The Zanla men were taking up their places on the parade ground as the Hunters dropped down to release their golf bombs and the Canberras came in fast and low with their Alpha bombs. The helicopter gunships arrived on the scene just as this first wave of attack aircraft had gone through the target.” Seconds after the first wave of strikes the Hunters and old Vampire jets followed behind the Canberras attacking with their front-guns, rockets and frantan [napalm], devastating buildings as the circling helicopter gunships raked the kill zone.

According to Group Captain Peter Petter-Bowyer, “We did not see the air strikes going in southeast of us but landed to prepare to receive the DC-7 drops. The rotors had not yet stopped turning when I spotted the big aircraft already running in from the east. It was two minutes too early, yet the Admin Base protection troops were already peeling out of the huge cargo door before I had chance to call Squadron Leader George Alexander, who was flying second pilot for Captain Jack Malloch. The DC-7 lumbered past and rolled into a slow starboard turn to re-position for its second drop being the fuel drums and palettes of ammunition. On the ground and out of sight five hundred metres away, the troops were gathering up their parachutes.”

Meanwhile the first jets, refueled and rearmed, returned to start taking on the growing list of targets. At times there were as many as four targets lined up for near-simultaneous attention and the whole area was rocked by continual bomb blasts, cannon and anti-aircraft gunfire. The attack went on for a full eight hours.

By the end of it even the Rhodesians themselves could hardly comprehend the extent of their victory. By the Zanla High Command’s own admission, for the two Rhodesian soldiers killed in the attack the final kill ratio was one thousand to one, while the ratio of injured was about seven hundred to one. For the loss of just one Vampire jet, the devastating attack established the Rhodesian’s reputation of near invincibility on the battlefield. With this success, over the next two and a half years thirty more cross-border raids were made by the Rhodesians as they desperately tried to hold back the swelling tide of invasion.

But Jack’s role was not over. Twenty-four hours later, after quick repairs to their battle-damaged aircraft, the Rhodesians struck Tembue, codenamed ‘Zulu 2’ this time two hundred kilometres into enemy territory. During this phase of the attack soldiers were dropped from Jack’s DC-7 and retrieved by the Air Force helicopters. But they were right at the limit of the helicopters’ range and several couldn’t make it home so had to land wherever they could. One ran out of fuel while trying to cross the expanse of Lake Cahora Bassa and landed on a small remote island. Jack was back in the air an hour before first light the next morning. He dropped sixteen more RLI paratroopers to defend some of the scattered helicopters and dropped drums of fuel down to the helicopter that was stranded in the middle of the Mozambican lake.

Through this action Jack had firmly established his reputation as not just a fearless combat pilot, but also as a remarkable military tactician. He was now firmly entrenched into the military establishment, as Nick Meikle so eloquently describes, “ATA was at the forefront of Rhodesian sanctions-busting activities. Even though it was essentially a civilian airline, it displayed a military efficiency in the performance of a strategic role enacted with sublime tactical flexibility. It was rather like Rhodesia’s Strategic Air Transport Command.”

For these clandestine missions Jack’s ground-crews would repaint the DC-7 in dark olive green and black camouflage. “We painted the DC-7 with ordinary black-board paint, and it quite unexpectedly turned out to be excellent for anti-strela.” As they had to use large industrial brooms as brushes, the efforts were very rudimentary. Yet they always ensured that the first big black patch just behind the cockpit was in the distinctive shape of the local dark brown ‘dumpie’ beer-bottle.

. . .

At the end of July the Rhodesians launched another attack against Zanla’s Tembue base in northern Mozambique which had been rebuilt after the devastating attacks of Operation Dingo a year earlier. This attack involved both Jack and his nephew Mike Kruger. Mike was piloting his Alouette III helicopter, attacking targets and deploying ground troops, while Jack was captaining the DC-7, flying in fuel and supplies. The battle had included not just Zanla, but a large contingent of Frelimo soldiers who joined the fray firing a steady barrage of RPG-7 and Strela warheads at whatever aircraft they could see.

Those heat-seeking missiles were particularly dangerous for Jack’s big slow DC-7 which was certainly not designed for war. According to Group Captain Peter Petter-Bowyer who was the Admin Base Commander coordinating the attack, “What horrified everyone each time the DC-7 passed two hundred feet above us was the bright flaming of its ringed exhaust system that could not possibly be missed by a Strela in the fast-fading light.”

. . .

In late 1978 [Jack] had another challenging ‘live’ consignment – a huge pack of Irish foxhounds which the Selous Scouts wanted to try out for tracking terrorists. According to the Scout’s commanding officer, “I had a vet and he had connections in Ireland so Special Branch gave him a forged passport and off he went to find us some dogs. In the end he got seventy-six, all for free. The Irish donated them to us. Of course, it was Jack Malloch who flew them back for us in the back of his DC-8.”

. . .

In addition to developing an alternate source for weapons imports through the Comoros and securing a haul of critical fighter and bomber parts out of the Middle East, Jack had also become very involved in fighting the war itself. He personally participated in cross-border raids and had become a highly respected military strategist who, from late 1977, was involved in many of the High Command’s most audacious plans and proposals. In recognition of this in mid-September Jack was informed that he had earned the Independence Commemorative Decoration ‘for rendering valuable service to Rhodesia.’ Less than a month later he was recommended to become a Commander of the Order of the Legion of Merit. Although Jack appreciated these awards he was completely distracted by the next big cross-border raid that was being planned.

It was Operation Gatling and it was launched on the morning of October 19th, 1978 with simultaneous attacks against three large ZIPRA terrorist training camps in Zambia. This raid was a reprisal for the downing of the civilian Viscount six weeks earlier. Every single member of the Special Air Service took part, as did Jack’s nephew Mike Kruger, several members of Affretair’s flying crew, including Captain Chris Dixon who gained international fame as ‘Green Leader,’ and of course Jack himself who was at the controls of the DC-7 deploying special forces. As two of the three camps were within just twelve miles of the centre of the Zambian capital, the Rhodesians were worried that the Zambian Air Force, who now also had MiGs, would intercede. To make sure this didn’t happen ‘Green Leader’ in a fully loaded Canberra bomber circled the main control tower at Lusaka airport, thus commandeering Zambian air space for the duration of the battle.

By the time Jack got back from his four-hour trip to Lusaka and back, news of the attack was breaking. He quickly changed into his ‘civvies’ in preparation for the inevitable visitors. As Nori Mann explained, “To illustrate just how much of a hub we had become in the military circles, when the aircraft landed at New Sarum after the Green Leader raid, everyone, including the pilots, came straight to Jack’s office. They then played the audio recording of what had happened to everyone who gathered there. There was Norman Walsh who was the Director General of Combined Operations, Peter Walls who was Head of the Armed Forces and Air Vice-Marshal Hugh Slatter amongst others. That was the first time anyone had heard the details of the raid. There was a lot of swearing on the tape though and halfway through Jack apologised to me and said that I did not have to stay. He was such an old-school gentleman.”

The final tally for Operation Gatling was fifteen hundred ZIPRA combatants killed and thirteen hundred injured. This, for the loss of one SAS soldier killed and three airmen wounded when a helicopter was hit by cannon fire and downed. Although Rhodesia couldn’t afford to lose neither man nor machine, on balance it had been a good day.

. . .

[In 1979 South Africa] reinstated almost unlimited military support and the military planners in Salisbury readily took anything they could get, even integrating the South Africans into their next cross-border raid. This ended up being a joint attack against the Gaza Province of Mozambique. Designated as Operation Uric by the Zimbabwe-Rhodesians and as Operation Bootlace by the South Africans, the aim of the operation was to sever key transport bridges in the province and destroy a major staging point for the Zanla insurgents.

. . .

The Rhodesians launched Operation Uric on September 1st and the battle lasted almost a full week. It was one of the largest external operations of the war and it significantly changed the dimension of the conflict. With the Zimbabwe-Rhodesian and South African armies on one side and Zanla and the Mozambican army and police on the other, Uric internationalised the Rhodesian War. The deep incursion inflicted a high number of FRELIMO casualties and significant infrastructure damage which dramatically impacted the Mozambican economy. Although the Zimbabwe-Rhodesian negotiators at Lancaster House did not realise it at the time, Mozambique could not sustain this degree of punishment and Samora Machel insisted that Mugabe either negotiate a settlement or vacate Mozambique.

In total Jack flew three DC-7 missions in support of Uric, starting the day before launch when he flew twenty-five South African ‘Recce’ special forces (designated as ‘D Squadron SAS’ to disguise their origin) to their staging post at Buffalo Range near the eastern border. By the time the operation was wrapping up Jack was already into the detailed planning of his next daring mission. This time it was Operation Cheese and the plan was to down the longest road and rail bridge in Africa. It was located in northern Zambia and was being used to transport military supplies down from Tanzania. This ‘Tan-Zam’ rail link was also crucial to the Zambian economy as the only other option was the southern trade route through Rhodesia, and that would only be made available if Zambia stopped providing sanctuary to Nkomo’s insurgents. It was hoped this attack would force Kaunda and Nkomo to the negotiating table.

The logistics for this audacious attack were tricky though as the rail bridge was almost eight hundred kilometres north of Salisbury, well beyond helicopter range. This Chambeshi Bridge had been identified as a strategic target since 1976, but it was considered too far away and too complex to be achievable. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

While there was no way of getting the team of saboteurs out of the target area, a HALO drop from the DC-7 was the ideal way of getting them in. In early September while the battles of Uric were still raging Jack did a couple of night reconnaissance flights over the bridge to find a suitable drop zone. Once he confirmed the DZ the training for the jump began. The first team of four men were due to be dropped on the night of September 12th, just two days after the start of the Lancaster House talks. Kevin Milligan takes up the story, “As the owner of the DC-7, Jack could make sure he was on all the important missions with it. He thrived on it. He had been on the crew for the training jumps and we were in very good hands. Jack, a well-built man, oozing a quiet confidence, was a legend in his own right and had carried out many daring exploits in his time. Nothing phased him and the men found him considerate and amusing.” Unfortunately by the time they got over the target zone after midnight it was obliterated by heavy haze and they were forced to abort the mission. As they needed a clear full moon they had to wait almost a full month for the next suitable opportunity.

. . .

On September 27th Jack’s nephew Mike Kruger was called upon to evacuate an operational casualty. It was a hazardous operation requiring the casevac to be done right in the midst of an ongoing firefight. As Mike managed it successfully with no regard for his own safety he was awarded the Bronze Cross of Rhodesia. A week later with the full moon on October 3rd, 1979 Jack again flew the four-man SAS ‘freefall’ team back to the Chambeshi bridge.

According to Kevin, “I was very aware that the DC-7 must have sounded very noisy at eight thousand feet. We were already pushing our luck. I frantically peered out for any sign of the river and the crucial bend, but to my great disappointment, again, nothing. With a very heavy heart I told George to abort. I was so angry and frustrated, but had a final look out of the door. It was like something out of a movie. At just the right time and the right angle, I saw the moon glinting on the river bend that I was looking for, just as it was on the reconnaissance photo. There was little time for the normal flat turn corrections on run-in as I called to George “Come left, come left, harder – steady” then “Go! Go! Go!” and off they went. Straight into the storm. Full flap and undercarriage down to slow the aircraft.” It was one thirty in the morning on October 4th.

Paul French, who was leading the initial recce team remembers, because of his heavy kit, just flopping into the slipstream, the brief smell of the engines and then the silence of the free fall. As he turned to face the box of canoes and equipment he could clearly see the reflection of the moon and the dark shapes of the other men. He followed them down to ‘pull height’ and opened the parachute at two thousand feet as he wanted to be close to the box. Strangely the box was never found and the team, with their reduced kit had to improvise. When considering Jack Paul recalled that “Jack Malloch wasn’t young anymore. He was slightly overweight and seemed slow to move, but he exuded a calm confidence born of experience, risk-taking and success. He was a motivated man who appeared to be accustomed to getting his own way.”

. . .

Five nights later, a South African C-130 Hercules dropped the full twelve-man team of SAS commandos and all their equipment over the Chambeshi DZ. According to Kevin, “Someone in high places had obviously pulled strings and it was in South Africa’s interests too to have Kaunda reined in.” At two o’clock in the morning of October 12th the bridge was successfully severed and all sixteen commandos were able to hijack a couple of trucks and drive their way to a designated pick-up spot where the helicopters could reach them.

. . .

[At the end of the war] Along with the Commonwealth Monitoring Force the world’s news media also flooded into Rhodesia, each trying to find a unique newsworthy story from within the closed, war-torn little country. Remarkably the Daily Express chose to tell the story of “Captain Jack – Hero without a medal.” In their editorial they said, “Captain Jack Malloch was the doyen of the Rhodesian sanctions busters, the link man of the intricate spider’s web of commercial cross-deals which somehow kept Rhodesia alive for 14 years of economic isolation. Many believe that without Jack Malloch, Rhodesia would not have survived. Until now, Malloch, cloaked his usual life in silence. A small airline venture was the beginning of a career that was to turn him into perhaps the most notorious adventurer in the rugged world of African aviation.”

There you have it.  A remarkable record of achievement by a remarkable man.  Those who knew him, no matter how fleetingly, will not forget him.

Peter

Details have emerged of a Druze woman who helped capture five Hamas terrorists and aided Israeli forces to kill or capture more than a hundred others during the terrorist attack on October 7th.  In the process, she fooled another Hamas terrorist over the phone into revealing where his forces were entering Israel and where they planned to attack next.

I'm not going to steal her thunder by trying to summarize the story here.  Instead, click over to one or both of these links for the details:

A remarkable story.  I hope those in her community who lived through the attack have shown, and continue to show, their gratitude.  Now, how about giving her a medal for heroism?  It took tremendous guts to do what she did, in the face of certain (and probably very slow and very painful) death if she hadn't been able to convince the terrorists that she was on their side.

Peter

The BBC reports:

A bride with a rare disorder affecting her mobility surprised her husband-to-be by walking down the aisle on their wedding day in East Yorkshire.

Carrie Redhead, 27, was born with the digestive condition intestinal lymphangiectasia, or Waldmann's disease, which causes the loss of special proteins from sufferers' intestines.

Two years ago her condition deteriorated, leaving her having to use a wheelchair.

But at their wedding ceremony in Faxfleet in October, her fiance, Joel Redhead, had no idea she was determined to walk down the aisle.

With a video of Mrs Redhead's walk having now been viewed online millions of times, she says she wants to inspire and empower people facing similar situations.

The BBC's own video is at the link, but I can't embed it here.  Here's another news report that I found on YouTube, including an interview with the newlyweds.

Amazing courage and determination from the bride.  You can see for yourself in the wedding sequence how her husband had to wipe tears from his eyes as she hobbled towards him on her father's arm.

God bless them both.  May their example help many other people who are facing similar challenges.

Peter

Heading homeward today, via another town for a halfway stop.  I won't be posting on the blog, obviously, but we'd appreciate the usual prayers for traveling mercies.  Thanks!

To give you something to think about, here's the tale of an Israeli couple who hid their two infant children in a hardened "safe room" in their home, then took up arms to defend them.  They killed seven Hamas terrorists who were trying to get in, but tragically they didn't survive the firefight.  Rescuers found their bodies, and the corpses of their enemies, and their (safe, living) children, hours later.

May their courage be an example to their country, and their memory a blessing to their children as they grow up.

Peter

It's from the Indian movie "Baahubali 2: The Conclusion", which has an incredibly convoluted plot that I won't attempt to describe here.  You can read more about it at the link.

One doesn't necessarily have to understand the movie to marvel at this extended fight scene.  Suffice it to say that sacred cows on fire aren't the least of its special effects!  Watch it in full-screen mode to get the most out of it.

Spectacular, wasn't it?  Unbelievable, too, of course - but then, that's the way with most Bollywood productions of this sort.

Peter

Twenty-two years ago today:

I've never forgotten where I was, and what I was doing, when I first heard the news of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001.  I'm sure many of my readers can say the same.

We remember those who were murdered on that day, and those who gave their lives trying to save them.  We remember all those who responded to the tragedy so selflessly, particularly the New York Fire Department, which lost 343 of its members.  Tragically, almost as many firefighters - 341 to date - have since died from 9/11-related illnesses as those who died on the day itself.

Today, when a large part of our own people are trying to destroy the USA and everything it stands for, let's not be afraid to point out that they are as much terrorists, and are doing as much damage to our country, as those who flew the aircraft that attacked us twenty-two years ago.

It's going to take as much effort and sacrifice, if not more, to respond to them today as it did to respond to the terrorists back then.

If that's the way they want it, then so be it.  Whatever it takes.

Peter

American poet Alan Seeger was well-known in literary circles before his death in battle in 1916.  A contemporary of and fellow student with such luminaries as T. S. Eliot, Stephen Crane, John Butler Yeats and others, he moved from New York to Paris shortly before the outbreak of World War I.  When the war broke out, he volunteered to serve in the French Foreign Legion, and argued for American involvement on the Allied side in that war.  His service led to his most famous poem, and to his death, of which more later.

I'd like to look at three of his poems this morning.  The first, "The Deserted Garden", is based on his stay in Mexico as a child between 1900-1902.  It's been praised for its classical vision, and derided for being florid and overblown.  Personally, I can make allowance for the language and tone;  I think it's still a remarkable poetic vision.

I know a village in a far-off land
    Where from a sunny, mountain-girdled plain
With tinted walls a space on either hand
    And fed by many an olive-darkened lane
The high-road mounts, and thence a silver band
    Through vineyard slopes above and rolling grain,
Winds off to that dim corner of the skies
Where behind sunset hills a stately city lies.

Here, among trees whose overhanging shade
    Strews petals on the little droves below,
Pattering townward in the morning weighed
    With greens from many an upland garden-row,
Runs an old wall; long centuries have frayed
    Its scalloped edge, and passers to and fro
Heard never from beyond its crumbling height
Sweet laughter ring at noon or plaintive song at night.

But here where little lizards bask and blink
    The tendrils of the trumpet-vine have run,
At whose red bells the humming bird to drink
    Stops oft before his garden feast is done;
And rose-geraniums, with that tender pink
    That cloud-banks borrow from the setting sun,
Have covered part of this old wall, entwined
With fair plumbago, blue as evening heavens behind.

And crowning other parts the wild white rose
    Rivals the honey-suckle with the bees.
Above the old abandoned orchard shows
    And all within beneath the dense-set trees,
Tall and luxuriant the rank grass grows,
    That settled in its wavy depth one sees
Grass melt in leaves, the mossy trunks between,
Down fading avenues of implicated green;

Wherein no lack of flowers the verdurous night
    With stars and pearly nebula o'erlay;
Azalea-boughs half rosy and half white
    Shine through the green and clustering apple-spray,
Such as the fairy-queen before her knight
    Waved in old story, luring him away
Where round lost isles Hesperian billows break
Or towers loom up beneath the clear, translucent lake;

And under the deep grass blue hare-bells hide,
    And myrtle plots with dew-fall ever wet,
Gay tiger-lilies flammulate and pied,
    Sometime on pathway borders neatly set,
Now blossom through the brake on either side,
    Where heliotrope and weedy mignonette,
With vines in bloom and flower-bearing trees,
Mingle their incense all to swell the perfumed breeze,

That sprung like Hermes from his natal cave
    In some blue rampart of the curving West,
Comes up the valleys where green cornfields wave,
    Ravels the cloud about the mountain crest,
Breathes on the lake till gentle ripples pave
    Its placid floor; at length a long-loved guest,
He steals across this plot of pleasant ground,
Waking the vocal leaves to a sweet vernal sound.

Here many a day right gladly have I sped,
    Content amid the wavy plumes to lie,
And through the woven branches overhead
    Watch the white, ever-wandering clouds go by,
And soaring birds make their dissolving bed
    Far in the azure depths of summer sky,
Or nearer that small huntsman of the air,
The fly-catcher, dart nimbly from his leafy lair;

Pillowed at ease to hear the merry tune
    Of mating warblers in the boughs above
And shrill cicadas whom the hottest noon
    Keeps not from drowsy song; the mourning dove
Pours down the murmuring grove his plaintive croon
    That like the voice of visionary love
Oft have I risen to seek through this green maze
(Even as my feet thread now the great world's garden-ways);

And, parting tangled bushes as I passed
    Down beechen alleys beautiful and dim,
Perhaps by some deep-shaded pool at last
    My feet would pause, where goldfish poise and swim,
And snowy callas' velvet cups are massed
    Around the mossy, fern-encircled brim.
Here, then, that magic summoning would cease,
Or sound far off again among the orchard trees.

And here where the blanched lilies of the vale
    And violets and yellow star-flowers teem,
And pink and purple hyacinths exhale
    Their heavy fume, once more to drowse and dream
My head would sink, from many an olden tale
    Drawing imagination's fervid theme,
Or haply peopling this enchanting spot
Only with fair creations of fantastic thought.

For oft I think, in years long since gone by,
    That gentle hearts dwelt here and gentle hands
Stored all this bowery bliss to beautify
    The paradise of some unsung romance;
Here, safe from all except the loved one's eye,
    'Tis sweet to think white limbs were wont to glance,
Well pleased to wanton like the flowers and share
Their simple loveliness with the enamored air.

Thrice dear to them whose votive fingers decked
    The altars of First Love were these green ways, —
These lawns and verdurous brakes forever flecked
    With the warm sunshine of midsummer days;
Oft where the long straight allies intersect
    And marble seats surround the open space,
Where a tiled pool and sculptured fountain stand,
Hath Evening found them seated, silent, hand in hand.

When twilight deepened, in the gathering shade
    Beneath that old titanic cypress row,
Whose sombre vault and towering colonnade
    Dwarfed the enfolded forms that moved below,
Oft with close steps these happy lovers strayed,
    Till down its darkening aisle the sunset glow
Grew less and patterning the garden floor
Faint flakes of filtering moonlight mantled more and more.

And the strange tempest that a touch imparts
    Through the mid fibre of the molten frame,
When the sweet flesh in early youth asserts
    Its heyday verve and little hints enflame,
Disturbed them as they walked; from their full hearts
    Welled the soft word, and many a tender name
Strove on their lips as breast to breast they strained
And the deep joy they drank seemed never, never drained.

Love's soul that is the depth of starry skies
    Set in the splendor of one upturned face
To beam adorably through half-closed eyes;
    Love's body where the breadth of summer days
And all the beauty earth and air comprise
    Come to the compass of an arm's embrace,
To burn a moment on impassioned lips
And yield intemperate joy to quivering finger-tips,

They knew; and here where morning-glories cling
    Round carven forms of carefullest artifice,
They made a bower where every outward thing
    Should comment on the cause of their own bliss;
With flowers of liveliest hue encompassing
    That flower that the beloved body is —
That rose that for the banquet of Love's bee
Has budded all the aeons of past eternity.

But their choice seat was where the garden wall,
    Crowning a little summit, far and near,
Looks over tufted treetops onto all
    The pleasant outer country; rising here
From rustling foliage where cuckoos call
    On summer evenings, stands a belvedere,
Buff-hued, of antique plaster, overrun
With flowering vines and weatherworn by rain and sun.

Still round the turrets of this antique tower
    The bougainvillea hangs a crimson crown,
Wistaria-vines and clematis in flower,
    Wreathing the lower surface further down,
Hide the old plaster in a very shower
    Of motley blossoms like a broidered gown.
Outside, ascending from the garden grove,
A crumbling stairway winds to the one room above.

And whoso mounts by this dismantled stair
    Finds the old pleasure-hall, long disarrayed,
Brick-tiled and raftered, and the walls foursquare
    Ringed all about with a twofold arcade.
Backward dense branches intercept the glare
    Of afternoon with eucalyptus shade;
Eastward the level valley-plains expand,
Sweet as a queen's survey of her own Fairyland.

For through that frame the ivied arches make,
    Wide tracts of sunny midland charm the eye,
Frequent with hamlet, grove, and lucent lake
    Where the blue hills' inverted contours lie;
Far to the east where billowy mountains break
    In surf of snow against a sapphire sky,
Huge thunderheads loom up behind the ranges,
Changing from gold to pink as deepening sunset changes;

And over plain and far sierra spread
    The fulgent rays of fading afternoon,
Showing each utmost peak and watershed
    All clarified, each tassel and festoon
Of floating cloud embroidered overhead,
    Like lotus-leaves on bluest waters strewn,
Flushing with rose, while all breathes fresh and free
In peace and amplitude and bland tranquillity.

Dear were such evenings to this gentle pair;
    Love's tide that launched on with a blast too strong
Sweeps toward the foaming reef, the hidden snare,
    Baffling with fond illusion's siren-song,
Too faint, on idle shoals, to linger there
    Far from Youth's glowing dream, bore them along,
With purple sail and steered by seraph hands
To isles resplendent in the sunset of romance.

And out of this old house a flowery fane,
    A bridal bower, a pearly pleasure-dome,
They built, and furnished it with gold and grain,
    And bade all spirits of beauty hither come,
And winged Love to enter with his train
    And bless their pillow, and in this his home
Make them his priests as Hero was of yore
In her sweet girlhood by the blue Dardanian shore.

Tree-ferns, therefore, and potted palms they brought,
    Tripods and urns in rare and curious taste,
Polychrome chests and cabinets inwrought
    With pearl and ivory etched and interlaced;
Pendant brocades with massive braid were caught,
    And chain-slung, oriental lamps so placed
To light the lounger on some low divan,
Sunken in swelling down and silks from Hindustan.

And there was spread, upon the ample floors,
    Work of the Levantine's laborious loom,
Such as by Euxine or Ionian shores
    Carpets the dim seraglio's scented gloom.
Each morn renewed, the garden's flowery stores
    Blushed in fair vases, ochre and peach-bloom,
And little birds through wicker doors left wide
Flew in to trill a space from the green world outside.

And there was many a dainty attitude,
    Bronze and eburnean. All but disarrayed,
Here in eternal doubt sweet Psyche stood
    Fain of the bath's delight, yet still afraid
Lest aught in that palatial solitude
    Lurked of most menace to a helpless maid.
Therefore forever faltering she stands,
Nor yet the last loose fold slips rippling from her hands.

Close by upon a beryl column, clad
    In the fresh flower of adolescent grace,
They set the dear Bithynian shepherd lad,
    The nude Antinous. That gentle face,
Forever beautiful, forever sad,
    Shows but one aspect, moon-like, to our gaze,
Yet Fancy pictures how those lips could smile
At revelries in Rome, and banquets on the Nile.

And there were shapes of Beauty myriads more,
    Clustering their rosy bridal bed around,
Whose scented breadth a silken fabric wore
    Broidered with peacock hues on creamiest ground,
Fit to have graced the barge that Cydnus bore
    Or Venus' bed in her enchanted mound,
While pillows swelled in stuffs of Orient dyes,
All broidered with strange fruits and birds of Paradise.

'Twas such a bower as Youth has visions of,
    Thither with one fair spirit to retire,
Lie upon rose-leaves, sleep and wake with Love
    And feast on kisses to the heart's desire;
Where by a casement opening on a grove,
    Wide to the wood-winds and the sweet birds' choir,
A girl might stand and gaze into green boughs,
Like Credhe at the window of her golden house.

Or most like Vivien, the enchanting fay,
    Where with her friend, in the strange tower they planned,
She lies and dreams eternity away,
    Above the treetops in Broceliande,
Sometimes at twilight when the woods are gray
    And wolf-packs howl far out across the lande,
Waking to love, while up behind the trees
The large midsummer moon lifts—even so loved these.

For here, their pleasure was to come and sit
    Oft when the sun sloped midway to the west,
Watching with sweet enjoyment interknit
    The long light slant across the green earth's breast,
And clouds upon the ranges opposite,
    Rolled up into a gleaming thundercrest,
Topple and break and fall in purple rain,
And mist of summer showers trail out across the plain.

Whereon the shafts of ardent light, far-flung
    Across the luminous azure overhead,
Ofttimes in arcs of transient beauty hung
    The fragmentary rainbow's green and red.
Joy it was here to love and to be young,
    To watch the sun sink to his western bed,
And streaming back out of their flaming core
The vesperal aurora's glorious banners soar.

Tinging each altitude of heaven in turn,
    Those fiery rays would sweep. The cumuli
That peeped above the mountain-tops would burn
    Carmine a space; the cirrus-whorls on high,
More delicate than sprays of maiden fern,
    Streak with pale rose the peacock-breasted sky,
Then blanch. As water-lilies fold at night,
Sank back into themselves those plumes of fervid light.

And they would watch the first faint stars appear,
    The blue East blend with the blue hills below,
As lovers when their shuddering bliss draws near
    Into one pulse of fluid rapture grow.
New fragrance on the freshening atmosphere
    Would steal with evening, and the sunset glow
Draw deeper down into the wondrous west
Round vales of Proserpine and islands of the blest.

So dusk would come and mingle lake and shore,
    The snow-peaks fade to frosty opaline,
To pearl the domed clouds the mountains bore,
    Where late the sun's effulgent fire had been —
Showing as darkness deepened more and more
    The incandescent lightnings flare within,
And Night that furls the lily in the glen
And twines impatient arms would fall, and then—and then...

Sometimes the peasant, coming late from town
    With empty panniers on his little drove
Past the old lookout when the Northern Crown
    Glittered with Cygnus through the scented grove,
Would hear soft noise of lute-strings wafted down
    And voices singing through the leaves above
Those songs that well from the warm heart that woos
At balconies in Merida or Vera Cruz.

And he would pause under the garden wall,
    Caught in the spell of that voluptuous strain,
With all the sultry South in it, and all
    Its importunity of love and pain;
And he would wait till the last passionate fall
    Died on the night, and all was still again, —
Then to his upland village wander home,
Marvelling whence that flood of elfin song might come.

O lyre that Love's white holy hands caress,
    Youth, from thy bosom welled their passionate lays —
Sweet opportunity for happiness
    So brief, so passing beautiful—O days,
When to the heart's divine indulgences
    All earth in smiling ministration pays —
Thine was the source whose plenitude, past over,
What prize shall rest to pluck, what secret to discover!

The wake of color that follows her when May
    Walks on the hills loose-haired and daisy-crowned,
The deep horizons of a summer's day,
    Fair cities, and the pleasures that abound
Where music calls, and crowds in bright array
    Gather by night to find and to be found;
What were these worth or all delightful things
Without thine eyes to read their true interpretings!

For thee the mountains open glorious gates,
    To thee white arms put out from orient skies,
Earth, like a jewelled bride for one she waits,
    Decks but to be delicious in thine eyes,
Thou guest of honor for one day, whose fetes
    Eternity has travailed to devise;
Ah, grace them well in the brief hour they last!
Another's turn prepares, another follows fast.

Yet not without one fond memorial
    Let my sun set who found the world so fair!
Frail verse, when Time the singer's coronal
    Has rent, and stripped the rose-leaves from his hair,
Be thou my tablet on the temple wall!
    Among the pious testimonials there,
Witness how sweetly on my heart as well
The miracles of dawn and starry evening fell!

Speak of one then who had the lust to feel,
    And, from the hues that far horizons take,
And cloud and sunset, drank the wild appeal,
    Too deep to live for aught but life's sweet sake,
Whose only motive was the will to kneel
    Where Beauty's purest benediction spake,
Who only coveted what grove and field
And sunshine and green Earth and tender arms could yield —

A nympholept, through pleasant days and drear
    Seeking his faultless adolescent dream,
A pilgrim down the paths that disappear
    In mist and rainbows on the world's extreme,
A helpless voyager who all too near
    The mouth of Life's fair flower-bordered stream,
Clutched at Love's single respite in his need
More than the drowning swimmer clutches at a reed —

That coming one whose feet in other days
    Shall bleed like mine for ever having, more
Than any purpose, felt the need to praise
    And seek the angelic image to adore,
In love with Love, its wonderful, sweet ways
    Counting what most makes life worth living for,
That so some relic may be his to see
How I loved these things too and they were dear to me.

I sometimes think a conscious happiness
    Mantles through all the rose's sentient vine
When summer winds with myriad calyces
    Of bloom its clambering height incarnadine;
I sometimes think that cleaving lips, no less,
    And limbs that crowned desires at length entwine
Are nerves through which that being drinks delight,
Whose frame is the green Earth robed round with day and night.

And such were theirs: the traveller without,
    Pausing at night under the orchard trees,
Wondered and crossed himself in holy doubt,
    For through their song and in the murmuring breeze
It seemed angelic choirs were all about
    Mingling in universal harmonies,
As though, responsive to the chords they woke,
All Nature into sweet epithalamium broke.

And still they think a spirit haunts the place:
    'Tis said, when Night has drawn her jewelled pall
And through the branches twinkling fireflies trace
    Their mimic constellations, if it fall
That one should see the moon rise through the lace
    Of blossomy boughs above the garden wall,
That surely would he take great ill thereof
And famish in a fit of unexpressive love.

But this I know not, for what time the wain
    Was loosened and the lily's petal furled,
Then I would rise, climb the old wall again,
    And pausing look forth on the sundown world,
Scan the wide reaches of the wondrous plain,
    The hamlet sites where settling smoke lay curled,
The poplar-bordered roads, and far away
Fair snowpeaks colored with the sun's last ray.

Waves of faint sound would pulsate from afar —
    Faint song and preludes of the summer night;
Deep in the cloudless west the evening star
    Hung 'twixt the orange and the emerald light;
From the dark vale where shades crepuscular
    Dimmed the old grove-girt belfry glimmering white,
Throbbing, as gentlest breezes rose or fell,
Came the sweet invocation of the evening bell.

While serving in the Foreign Legion, Seeger penned "Champagne, 1914-15", describing the area where he was stationed and his comrades in arms.

His most famous poem, "I have a Rendezvous with Death", is thought to have been written during the winter of 1916.  It was published after his death in battle on July 4th that year, during an attack on German positions at Belloy-en-Santerre as part of the bloody, disastrous Battle of the Somme.

He did not fail.

Peter

H. Rider Haggard was a stereotypically Victorian writer of adventure novels, particularly in the "lost city" genre.  He was enormously popular in the British Empire, and his influence continues to this day.  He's derided by many modern critics as jingoist and colonialist, and those are probably fair criticisms, but his books still stand the test of time as rollicking good adventures with a strong moral backbone.

For this morning's Snippet, I've chosen the rescue of Queen Nyleptha from his 1887 novel "Allan Quatermain", the climax of 15 books involving that character.  Briefly, following a climactic battle, the titular character has learned of a plot to murder the Queen of a fictional African nation.  Despite his wounds, and taking with him his friend Umslopogaas, a Zulu warrior, they ride a hundred miles overnight to reach the Royal Palace as dawn is breaking, in an attempt to save the Queen from the treachery of her rebellious followers.  On arrival, they find her safe, but the Palace guards have vanished, and a side door giving access to the Palace has been thrown down to allow access to the assassins.

We looked at one another. 

'Thou seest,' I said, 'they have taken away the door. Is there aught with which we may fill the place? Speak quickly for they will be on us ere the daylight.' I spoke thus, because I knew that we must hold this place or none, as there were no inner doors in the palace, the rooms being separated one from another by curtains. I also knew that if we could by any means defend this doorway the murderers could get in nowhere else; for the palace is absolutely impregnable, that is, since the secret door by which Sorais had entered on that memorable night of attempted murder had, by Nyleptha's order, been closed up with masonry. 

'I have it,' said Nyleptha, who, as usual with her, rose to the emergency in a wonderful way. 'On the farther side of the courtyard are blocks of cut marble—the workmen brought them there for the bed of the new statue of Incubu, my lord; let us block the door with them.' 

I jumped at the idea; and having despatched one of the remaining maidens down the great stair to see if she could obtain assistance from the docks below, where her father, who was a great merchant employing many men, had his dwelling-place, and set another to watch through the doorway, we made our way back across the courtyard to where the hewn marble lay; and here we met Kara returning from despatching the first two messengers. There were the marble blocks, sure enough, broad, massive lumps, some six inches thick, and weighing about eighty pounds each, and there, too, were a couple of implements like small stretchers, that the workmen used to carry them on. Without delay we got some of the blocks on to the stretchers, and four of the girls carried them to the doorway. 

'Listen, Macumazahn,' said Umslopogaas, 'if those low fellows come, it is I who will hold the stair against them till the door is built up. Nay, nay, it will be a man's death: gainsay me not, old friend. It has been a good day, let it now be good night. See, I throw myself down to rest on the marble there; when their footsteps are nigh, wake thou me, not before, for I need my strength,' and without a word he went outside and flung himself down on the marble, and was instantly asleep. 

At this time, I too was overcome, and was forced to sit down by the doorway, and content myself with directing operations. The girls brought the block, while Kara and Nyleptha built them up across the six-foot-wide doorway, a triple row of them, for less would be useless. But the marble had to be brought forty yards and then there were forty yards to run back, and though the girls laboured gloriously, even staggering along alone, each with a block in her arms, it was slow work, dreadfully slow. 

The light was growing now, and presently, in the silence, we heard a commotion at the far-bottom of the stair, and the faint clinking of armed men. As yet the wall was only two feet high, and we had been eight minutes at the building of it. So they had come. Alphonse had heard aright. 

The clanking sound came nearer, and in the ghostly grey of the dawning we could make out long files of men, some fifty or so in all, slowly creeping up the stair. They were now at the half-way standing place that rested on the great flying arch; and here, perceiving that something was going on above, they, to our great gain, halted for three or four minutes and consulted, then slowly and cautiously advanced again. 

We had been nearly a quarter of an hour at the work now, and it was almost three feet high. 

Then I woke Umslopogaas. The great man rose, stretched himself, and swung Inkosi-kaas round his head. 

'It is well,' he said. 'I feel as a young man once more. My strength has come back to me, ay, even as a lamp flares up before it dies. Fear not, I shall fight a good fight; the wine and the sleep have put a new heart into me. 

'Macumazahn, I have dreamed a dream. I dreamed that thou and I stood together on a star, and looked down on the world, and thou wast as a spirit, Macumazahn, for light flamed through thy flesh, but I could not see what was the fashion of mine own face. The hour has come for us, old hunter. So be it: we have had our time, but I would that in it I had seen some more such fights as yesterday's. 

'Let them bury me after the fashion of my people, Macumazahn, and set my eyes towards Zululand;' and he took my hand and shook it, and then turned to face the advancing foe. 

Just then, to my astonishment, the Zu-Vendi officer Kara clambered over our improvised wall in his quiet, determined sort of way, and took his stand by the Zulu, unsheathing his sword as he did so. 

'What, comest thou too?' laughed out the old warrior. 'Welcome—a welcome to thee, brave heart! Ow! for the man who can die like a man; ow! for the death grip and the ringing of steel. Ow! we are ready. We wet our beaks like eagles, our spears flash in the sun; we shake our assegais, and are hungry to fight. Who comes to give greeting to the Chieftainess [Inkosi-kaas]? Who would taste her kiss, whereof the fruit is death? I, the Woodpecker, I, the Slaughterer, I the Swiftfooted! I, Umslopogaas, of the tribe of the Maquilisini, of the people of Amazulu, a captain of the regiment of the Nkomabakosi: I, Umslopogaas, the son of Indabazimbi, the son of Arpi the son of Mosilikaatze, I of the royal blood of T'Chaka, I of the King's House, I the Ringed Man, I the Induna, I call to them as a buck calls, I challenge them, I await them. Ow! it is thou, it is thou!' 

As he spake, or rather chanted, his wild war-song, the armed men, among whom in the growing light I recognized both Nasta and Agon, came streaming up the stair with a rush, and one big fellow, armed with a heavy spear, dashed up the ten semicircular steps ahead of his comrades and struck at the great Zulu with the spear. Umslopogaas moved his body but not his legs, so that the blow missed him, and next instant Inkosi-kaas crashed through headpiece, hair and skull, and the man's corpse was rattling down the steps. As he dropped, his round hippopotamus-hide shield fell from his hand on to the marble, and the Zulu stooped down and seized it, still chanting as he did so. 

In another second the sturdy Kara had also slain a man, and then began a scene the like of which has not been known to me. 

Up rushed the assailants, one, two, three at a time, and as fast as they came, the axe crashed and the sword swung, and down they rolled again, dead or dying. And ever as the fight thickened, the old Zulu's eye seemed to get quicker and his arm stronger. He shouted out his war-cries and the names of chiefs whom he had slain, and the blows of his awful axe rained straight and true, shearing through everything they fell on. There was none of the scientific method he was so fond of about this last immortal fight of his; he had no time for it, but struck with his full strength, and at every stroke a man sank in his tracks, and went rattling down the marble steps. 

They hacked and hewed at him with swords and spears, wounding him in a dozen places till he streamed red with blood; but the shield protected his head and the chain-shirt his vitals, and for minute after minute, aided by the gallant Zu-Vendi, he still held the stair. 

At last Kara's sword broke, and he grappled with a foe, and they rolled down together, and he was cut to pieces, dying like the brave man that he was. 

Umslopogaas was alone now, but he never blenched or turned. Shouting out some wild Zulu battle-cry, he beat down a foe, ay, and another, and another, till at last they drew back from the slippery blood-stained steps, and stared at him with amazement, thinking that he was no mortal man. 

The wall of marble block was four feet six high now, and hope rose in my teeth as I leaned there against it a miserable helpless log, and ground my teeth, and watched that glorious struggle. I could do no more for I had lost my revolver in the battle. 

And old Umslopogaas, he leaned too on his good axe, and, faint as he was with wounds, he mocked them, he called them 'women'—the grand old warrior, standing there one against so many! And for a breathing space none would come against him, notwithstanding Nasta's exhortations, till at last old Agon, who, to do him justice, was a brave man, mad with baffled rage, and seeing that the wall would soon be built and his plans defeated, shook the great spear he held, and rushed up the dripping steps. 

'Ah, ah!' shouted the Zulu, as he recognized the priest's flowing white beard, 'it is thou, old "witch-finder"! Come on! I await thee, white "medicine man"; come on! come on! I have sworn to slay thee, and I ever keep my faith.' 

On he came, taking him at his word, and drave the big spear with such force at Umslopogaas that it sunk right through the tough shield and pierced him in the neck. The Zulu cast down the transfixed shield, and that moment was Agon's last, for before he could free his spear and strike again, with a shout of 'There's for thee, Rain-maker!' Umslopogaas gripped Inkosi-kaas with both hands and whirled on high and drave her right on to his venerable head, so that Agon rolled down dead among the corpses of his fellow-murderers, and there was an end to him and his plots altogether. And even as he fell, a great cry rose from the foot of the stair, and looking out through the portion of the doorway that was yet unclosed, we saw armed men rushing up to the rescue, and called an answer to their shouts. Then the would-be murderers who yet remained on the stairway, and amongst whom I saw several priests, turned to fly, but, having nowhere to go, were butchered as they fled. Only one man stayed, and he was the great lord Nasta, Nyleptha's suitor, and the father of the plot. For a moment the black-bearded Nasta stood with bowed face leaning on his long sword as though in despair, and then, with a dreadful shout, he too rushed up at the Zulu, and, swinging the glittering sword around his head, dealt him such a mighty blow beneath his guard, that the keen steel of the heavy blade bit right through the chain armour and deep into Umslopogaas' side, for a moment paralysing him and causing him to drop his axe. 

Raising the sword again, Nasta sprang forward to make an end of him, but little he knew his foe. With a shake and a yell of fury, the Zulu gathered himself together and sprang straight at Nasta's throat, as I have sometimes seen a wounded lion spring. He struck him full as his foot was on the topmost stair, and his long arms closing round him like iron bands, down they rolled together struggling furiously. Nasta was a strong man and a desperate, but he could not match the strongest man in Zululand, sore wounded though he was, whose strength was as the strength of a bull. In a minute the end came. I saw old Umslopogaas stagger to his feet—ay, and saw him by a single gigantic effort swing up the struggling Nasta and with a shout of triumph hurl him straight over the parapet of the bridge, to be crushed to powder on the rocks two hundred feet below. 

The succour which had been summoned by the girl who had passed down the stair before the assassins passed up was at hand, and the loud shouts which reached us from the outer gates told us that the town was also aroused, and the men awakened by the women were calling to be admitted. Some of Nyleptha's brave ladies, who in their night-shifts and with their long hair streaming down their backs, just as they had been aroused from rest, went off to admit them at the side entrance, whilst others, assisted by the rescuing party outside, pushed and pulled down the marble blocks they had placed there with so much labour. 

Soon the wall was down again, and through the doorway, followed by a crowd of rescuers, staggered old Umslopogaas, an awful and, in a way, a glorious figure. The man was a mass of wounds, and a glance at his wild eye told me that he was dying. The 'keshla' gum-ring upon his head was severed in two places by sword-cuts, one just over the curious hole in his skull, and the blood poured down his face from the gashes. Also on the right side of his neck was a stab from a spear, inflicted by Agon; there was a deep cut on his left arm just below where the mail shirt-sleeve stopped, and on the right side of his body the armour was severed by a gash six inches long, where Nasta's mighty sword had bitten through it and deep into its wearer's vitals. 

On, axe in hand, he staggered, that dreadful-looking, splendid savage, and the ladies forgot to turn faint at the scene of blood, and cheered him, as well they might, but he never stayed or heeded. With outstretched arms and tottering gait he pursued his way, followed by us all along the broad shell-strewn walk that ran through the courtyard, past the spot where the blocks of marble lay, through the round arched doorway and the thick curtains that hung within it, down the short passage and into the great hall, which was now filling with hastily-armed men, who poured through the side entrance. Straight up the hall he went, leaving behind him a track of blood on the marble pavement, till at last he reached the sacred stone, which stood in the centre of it, and here his strength seemed to fail him, for he stopped and leaned upon his axe. Then suddenly he lifted up his voice and cried aloud— 

'I die, I die—but it was a kingly fray. Where are they who came up the great stair? I see them not. Art thou there, Macumazahn, or art thou gone before to wait for me in the dark whither I go? The blood blinds me—the place turns round—I hear the voice of waters.' 

Next, as though a new thought had struck him, he lifted the red axe and kissed the blade. 

'Farewell, Inkosi-kaas,' he cried. 'Nay, nay, we will go together; we cannot part, thou and I. We have lived too long one with another, thou and I. 

'One more stroke, only one! A good stroke! a straight stroke! a strong stroke!' and, drawing himself to his full height, with a wild heart-shaking shout, he with both hands began to whirl the axe round his head till it looked like a circle of flaming steel. Then, suddenly, with awful force he brought it down straight on to the crown of the mass of sacred stone. A shower of sparks flew up, and such was the almost superhuman strength of the blow, that the massive marble split with a rending sound into a score of pieces, whilst of Inkosi-kaas there remained but some fragments of steel and a fibrous rope of shattered horn that had been the handle. Down with a crash on to the pavement fell the fragments of the holy stone, and down with a crash on to them, still grasping the knob of Inkosi-kaas, fell the brave old Zulu—dead. 

And thus the hero died. 

A gasp of wonder and astonishment rose from all those who witnessed the extraordinary sight, and then somebody cried, 'The prophecy! the prophecy! He has shattered the sacred stone!' and at once a murmuring arose. 

'Ay,' said Nyleptha, with that quick wit which distinguishes her. 'Ay, my people, he has shattered the stone, and behold the prophecy is fulfilled, for a stranger king rules in Zu-Vendis. Incubu, my lord, hath beat Sorais back, and I fear her no more, and to him who hath saved the Crown it shall surely be. And this man,' she said, turning to me and laying her hand upon my shoulder, 'wot ye that, though wounded in the fight of yesterday, he rode with that old warrior who lies there, one hundred miles 'twixt sun set and rise to save me from the plots of cruel men. Ay, and he has saved me, by a very little, and therefore because of the deeds that they have done—deeds of glory such as our history cannot show the like—therefore I say that the name of Macumazahn and the name of dead Umslopogaas, ay, and the name of Kara, my servant, who aided him to hold the stair, shall be blazoned in letters of gold above my throne, and shall be glorious for ever while the land endures. I, the Queen, have said it.'

. . .

Sir Henry [told] me that the artists had taken a cast of the dead body of old Umslopogaas, and that a great statue in black marble was to be erected of him in the act of splitting the sacred stone, which was to be matched by another statue in white marble of myself and the horse Daylight as he appeared when, at the termination of that wild ride, he sank beneath me in the courtyard of the palace. I have since seen these statues, which at the time of writing this, six months after the battle, are nearly finished; and very beautiful they are, especially that of Umslopogaas, which is exactly like him. As for that of myself, it is good, but they have idealized my ugly face a little, which is perhaps as well, seeing that thousands of people will probably look at it in the centuries to come, and it is not pleasant to look at ugly things.

Then they told me that Umslopogaas' last wish had been carried out, and that, instead of being cremated, as I shall be, after the usual custom here, he had been tied up, Zulu fashion, with his knees beneath his chin, and, having been wrapped in a thin sheet of beaten gold, entombed in a hole hollowed out of the masonry of the semicircular space at the top of the stair he defended so splendidly, which faces, as far as we can judge, almost exactly towards Zululand. There he sits, and will sit for ever, for they embalmed him with spices, and put him in an air-tight stone coffer, keeping his grim watch beneath the spot he held alone against a multitude; and the people say that at night his ghost rises and stands shaking the phantom of Inkosi-kaas at phantom foes. Certainly they fear during the dark hours to pass the place where the hero is buried.

Oddly enough, too, a new legend or prophecy has arisen in the land in that unaccountable way in which such things to arise among barbarous and semi-civilized people, blowing, like the wind, no man knows whence. According to this saying, so long as the old Zulu sits there, looking down the stairway he defended when alive, so long will the New House of the Stairway, springing from the union of the Englishman and Nyleptha, endure and flourish; but when he is taken from thence, or when, ages after, his bones at last crumble into dust, the House will fall, and the Stairway shall fall, and the Nation of the Zu-Vendi shall cease to be a Nation.

If you'd like to read more of Rider Haggard's work, it's long out of copyright, so collected e-book editions of his books are available at very low cost on Amazon (I have this one).  Highly recommended for those who like old-fashioned, classic adventure tales.

Peter