Michael Graham, right, cools down at a Zimbabwean river with close friend Professor John Hargrove. Photo / Supplied
Michael Graham, right, cools down at a Zimbabwean river with close friend Professor John Hargrove. Photo / Supplied
Along the Zambesi River, Michael Graham and his fellow members of the Rhodesian Special Air Service were tasked with tracking rhino poachers trading ivory and horns.
He also took action against Mozambique's Frelimo guerillas on the border with Malawi.
The detail from the heart of Africa - highly classified - has been revealed in Graham's new book, SAS Action in Africa, published almost two months after his death.
Graham was part of C Squadron in the Rhodesian SAS before he left, at the rank of Major, and emigrated to New Zealand in 1980. They operated against ruthless guerilla groups, trained and equipped by the Chinese and Russians between 1968 and 1980.
Graham went on to work as the head of security at Foodstuffs HQ in Mt Roskill and last year wrote his first book, Secret SAS Missions in Africa, thought to be the first to tell the story of the little-known C Squadron.
Frelimo guerilla fighters in Mozambique. Photo / Supplied
His sequel tells of guerillas, poachers and civil war.
In an extract below, Graham tells of a mission to kill poachers in the Mupata Gorge – one of the most remote and inhospitable parts of the Zambezi Valley, near where the borders of Zambia, Rhodesia and Mozambique all meet.
We scanned the area for some time, looking for movement, but could see nothing.
"They know we are coming and are waiting for us," whispered Rex.
"They are down there and close. We have to flush them out."
"Agreed," I replied.
"We will all move down together towards the vulture tree. There we'll start the show with the white phosphorous grenades. While there is smoke and fire we'll split into two groups. Fish and I will stay higher up with the RPG, while you and the others go left and drop down into the target area to deal with anything flushed out by the fire."
"Sounds good," said Rex and he called the others forward. While I briefed them on the plan, Rex was again picking a route over the final 150 metres that would take us to the vulture tree.
We stayed close together on that final descent: hearts pounding; every sense on high alert; eyes looking for the slightest hostile movement; fingers caressing the triggers of our weapons that were now "safety catch off". We were closing in for contact.
The very large, black vulture had the size, strength and beak to rip through the thickest of skins on a carcass, but the armour-plated rhino was still a challenge and often it took hours of struggle to eventually open up the belly. Once they had done that it allowed access to the carcass by the smaller, but much more common, white-backed vultures.
The cover of Michael Graham's new book. Photo / Supplied
They could not penetrate the hide, but once the belly was opened they would consume the animal from the inside out in a piranha-like feeding frenzy.
These smaller vultures were the ones we had seen sitting in the mountain acacia tree, waiting for access to the carcass, and their attention on it was such that we managed to arrive beneath the tree without them taking flight in alarm.
We spread out, each of us clutching the olive green cylinder of a WP grenade. I was in the middle. Looking left and right, I held up my hands and pulled the pin from the grenade, still clutching the spring-loaded handle that would trigger the four-second fuse. When I saw everyone else had done the same, I held up three fingers. Two fingers. One finger.
Then I hurled my grenade as high and as far forward as I could. The others followed suit. There followed a scene as bizarre as anything I had ever witnessed.
Phosphorous pieces from the five grenades sizzled into the air and dazzling white smoke erupted as if from a rampant volcano. The bush caught fire immediately and through a haze of white and black smoke, flames and the crackle of burning dry grass, there were the vultures.
Vultures waiting to access a carcass. Their attention on the carcass was such SAS soldiers managed to arrive beneath the tree without them taking flight in alarm. Photo / Supplied
Some were already flying and wheeled desperately trying to get airborne ahead of the flames and some were still on the ground and flapping, injured by our attack. Two jackals that had also been at the carcass fled yelping as phosphorous splinters burnt through the thick, black hair on their backs and reached the skin.
Ignoring the mayhem Rex, Pig Dog and Horse leapt down the slope and into the smoke. Fish and I stayed where we were, watching in amazement.
We heard the cries of anguish as the phosphorous and flames reached Moses Ncube, the leader of the Zapu poacher group.
Crying out in anger and pain, he prised himself up and blindly fired his AK into the smoke. I saw Rex and Horse respond with a sustained burst of fire. Moses danced for the last time as the bullets ripped through his body and with the impact, his AK was thrown into the air away from him.
We all sat and watched as the fire we had started spread up through the gully, hoping it would force the other two out of their hiding place. We knew by then they would have the RPD that had done so much damage to the animals they hunted, so we could not take chances.
I signalled to Fish that we should move forward and get in closer. We covered each other and took it in turns to advance. We were still above where Rex had made contact, and he responded with a nod as he saw us move higher and forward of his position.
We waited again. Watching. Reluctant to reveal our positions. Knowing a terrorist with an RPD was waiting for us to make a mistake and show ourselves.
Rex signalled to Pig Dog that he was moving forward. There was a pause then Rex leapt forward, and crouching low, weaved his way towards a shallow depression behind a small mound with a young tree that would give cover. He was within two metres when the RPD opened up.
Rex dived down and rolled behind the tree. From above, I watched in horror as the machine gun bullets stitched the ground on one side of him then, as the fire switched to the opposite side of the mound, I saw Rex roll away and hug the ground.
There followed a period of sustained fire aimed at Rex and the flimsy tree he lay behind. I could see the bullets ripping into the ground around him and the bark spinning away from the tree that sheltered his head. And at that stage I was sure we had lost Rex. My right-hand man, my team, my friend.
The Zambezi River, between the hills of the Mupata Gorge. Photo / Supplied
We had to do something and quickly, but I could not see where the firing was coming from. I moved forward but still could see nothing. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fish get up and kneel, aiming the bamboo bazooka on his shoulder.
Whoosh! Then a massive explosion as the rocket exploded into a thicket below us. An AK spiralled through the air, thrown from a body hurled back by the blast. I still couldn't see a target, but as the machine gun continued firing at Rex, I threw my last WP grenade into the general area, as Fish reloaded the RPG. It was a long throw and I gave it plenty of height so the grenade detonated in a spectacular airburst and a shower of deadly phosphorous rained down.
I heard a scream. Then there was a whoosh as Fish fired again, and this time we saw the bipod of the RPD fly up as the rocket hit the target. It was over.
I jumped up and ran down the slope to where I had seen Rex enveloped in a hail of bullets before Fish had found the target. I had no religion but as I ran, I prayed: "My God, let him be alive."
I found him sitting with his back against the tree he'd hidden behind, with a boot off, examining the damage to the heel that had been hit by the RPD.
He was furious. "'F*** them, Mick," he said as I approached.
Washing-line wires strung with elephant meat at a Zimbabwean camp. Photo / Supplied
"These moulded soles cost me a fortune and now that bastard has blown the heel off."
He'd also lost his cap in the action; with tears of emotion welling, I ruffled his curly, black hair and as gruffly as I could muster, told him to go and find his cap while I sorted out what we had just done.
Rex had been saved by a slight hollow in the ground and the sturdy blackwood tree - also known as ebony - that had not yielded in spite of multiple hits by the RPD. He had somehow compressed his 105 kilograms into the narrow hollow behind the tree as the machine gun stitched the ground on either side of him.
I took pictures of the faces with the Minox and searched the bodies without finding anything of interest. Pig Dog collected up all the weapons and ammunition. Apart from the AKM that Ncube had fired they were too badly damaged to salvage, so we stuffed them down an old antbear hole.
The bodies we left where they were. We hoped the vultures would move in on them once they had finished the rhino carcass we found nearby. Like the elephant, it too had suffered multiple gunshot wounds. We counted twenty-six bullet holes. The front horn and the stumpy rear horn had been severed.
A huge bull elephant that lumbered into the SAS campground to feed on the nutrient-rich seed pods of the tamarind acacias. Photo / Supplied
We made our way back to the camp, where Karate and Mack had everything organised, including a big pile of logs under the shelter and on top of the six bodies. We were all keen to move on, but I was desperately tired and I knew the others would be too.
We had done our job and now there was plenty of time for a rest. Apart from the company of six dead bodies this was as good a place as any, so we filled up our water bottles, made a brew and as Jonny watched over us with his machine gun, I slept and dreamed of vultures flying through white clouds of deadly ash from erupting volcanoes.
Graham's first book.
Michael Graham in recent years.
SAS Action in Africa Published by Pen & Sword UK Out now RRP: $36.99
