“The sound of the gunshots was deafening. Deadly thuds of bullets smashing into Ouma Roos Cloete's head, a ricocheting madness of cordite, flying glass from smashed booze bottles, a downpour of brandy, vodka and whisky. I was awakened by my own screams. I turned on the bedside lamp with clammy, trembling hands. The calendar read April 2012. I sighed with relief, touching my pounding heart. The nightmare slowly receded into the past. In 1989, I started my second book, by following a circular route around southern Africa. In around September of that year, I found myself driving into Rundu, northern Namibia. The country was going through a process of stabilisation, overseen by the United Nations or UNTAG troops. South African forces were pulling outconfined to their barracks as a general demobilisation process. The height of stupidity is to walk into a caged lion's den. I was so witless that I even drove up to the entrance guards, leant out my window and said, ‘Show me to your leader.’ In retrospect, it was like entering a prime evil place surrounded by a double razor-wire fence (little did I know then, apartheid's biggest killer, Eugene de Kock – also known as ‘Prime Evil’ – co-founded ‘Koevoet’). I was shown to a camouflaged tent, which was actually an enormous bar. Soldiers invited me for drinks at the bar. Behind the counter was an enormous rack of liquor. I listened to a sergeant, called ‘Terminator,’ jokingly expanding on one particular contact with terrorists. Elow could it have been rumoured that these friendly young men were killers? The party became more raucous as the night deepened. Unfortunately, everything froze when I made another insane mistake, by showing my ANC membership card to some soldiers. (Having this card made it easier when confronted at roadblocks in many African states.) I was called a traitor and marched up in front of the bar. I stammered out that instead of executing me, I would hold my first book up above my head for target practice. Pulling out their 9mm handguns, a group of soldiers fired from 10 metres. Madness had broken its banks. As the racks of bottles and wooden racks behind me exploded, glass and booze rained down on me, the bullets smashed into Ouma Roos Cloete, pulling the book downwards towards my head. This was my own personal apocalypse; I let out screams of pure terror. Suddenly, there was silence – it all just stopped. A broken whisky bottle came to rest at my feet. I was shaking and standing in an ocean of booze. ‘Terminator’ walked up to me and said, ‘We kill and then we drink. Come on you Commie, open your eyes. Let's have another drink’.”
