SHOT IN THE DARK

Hugh Russell on the story of a Zambian

farmer who killed three gangsters with three bullets. . . to the delight of the local police

Lusaka THEY came for Robert at midnight. They came to rob him, to shoot him, to rape and shoot his wife Jane and his adult daughter Sarah, and to kill his granddaughter. And they very nearly succeeded.

They had come for him once before, in daylight, about four weeks previously. They had tied him up, placed the barrel of his own .22 rifle against his head, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, because they didn't know how to cock the gun.

They locked his wife in her bedroom, then two of them took his daughter outside to rape her. But, Modesty Blaise-style, she disabled both of them with karate kicks learnt at evening classes in London. Then one of them found some money and they ran — or, in the case of the two would-be rapists, limped — away.

Now they were back, and armed with a weapon they knew how to work.

Robert's home was a farm in the depths of the Zambian bush. It was ten kilometres up a track to the road, and another 20 kilometres into town; it had no phone, and no neighbours.

Robert is a tall, upright and dignified figure of a man. He is a 'coloured' — the product of a white father from Scotland and a black mother from Malawi, who were married for 52 years and rarely spent a day apart. Robert is particularly proud of both of them.

Aged 70, and with bad feet and a dodgy heart, Robert ran an efficient farm: cattle, pigs, poultry, and some crops, mostly for home consumption. Also — and this is important — he owned a small electric grinding mill. This produced a steady if modest cash income from local villagers, who brought their maize for him to grind.

The local Bemba chief, still an important figure in rural Zambian life, also had a grinding mill. But he charged too much, and it frequently broke down because of lack of maintenance. The village people preferred to go to Robert. The chief was not happy. Robert had to go.

On the second occasion, when the men came at midnight, their weapon was an AK47 — a semi-automatic rifle easily available in southern Africa, where the local military tend to hire them out to bandits on an overnight basis.

In a sense. Robert was ready for them. He knew that he had a problem with the chief, and he expected trouble. Friends urged him to sell up and move, but, as I said, he was a proud man; or stubborn, if you like.

However, he was taking some precautions. He had moved his daughter, who was on an extended holiday from her British home, into the main bedroom with her child. The two slept in the double bed with his wife. Robert slept on a camp-bed in the same room. There was an en-suite bathroom.

When his attackers ran away, on that first occasion, they took with them his .22. But — and this won't surprise those who know Africa — Robert had recovered it by offering a reward of 50,000 kwacha (about ten pounds) for its return. Now the loaded rifle lay by the camp-bed every night.

The men announced their return by shooting down the front door with the AK47. They marched into the living-room, firing into the ceiling. Then they ransacked the place. They passed through it with bundles of burning paper, torn from Robert's magazines, tied to poles. They shouted and screamed Robert's name and, in due course, they found their way to his locked bedroom door. Here they paused.

By then Robert had persuaded his wife and his daughter to take the child, go into the bathroom and lie down in the bath, reputed to be the safest place in any fire fight. Then he sat on the side of the double bed with the .22 in his hands. One of the attackers, some sort of leader, called his name.

'What do you want?' Robert asked him. We want you,' was the unequivocal answer.

Again someone fired the AK47 into the ceiling immediately outside the bedroom door. Robert decided not to wait for death. He fired two swift shots through the bedroom door. He heard multiple cries and screams, then scuffling. . . then nothing.

Jane and Sarah joined him in the bedroom, and they listened. They heard one more shot from the AK47 — somewhere out in the vegetable garden at the side of the house — then silence.

Robert told his family that the sensible thing to do was to remain where they were for the night, but he soon realised that was impossible. One of the makeshift torches carried by the attackers had clearly fallen to the floor; the carpet outside was smouldering, and smoke was coming in under the bedroom door. The old wooden farmhouse would soon go up in flames.

Robert opened the door. One man lay on the floor, shot through the head and covered in blood. Jane told her husband to shoot the man again to make sure that he was dead. Robert put a bullet between the man's eyes. Then he extinguished the fire, and the family stepped over the body and made their way carefully into the livingroom. A trail of blood led to the shattered front door and out into the darkness.

Robert decided that discretion was now definitely the better part of valour. He piled his family into his Land Cruiser, which the attackers had left untouched, and drove through the darkness to the nearest farm, and from there on to the police headquarters in town.

The next day the police returned with Robert to the farm. They found the body outside the bedroom and congratulated Robert on his efficient action. In the vegetable garden they found a second body. This man had been fatally wounded in the chest, Robert believes, from his second shot. The AK47 lay beside the man. Presumably it had discharged by accident when the man finally fell.

Several days later, local women gathering firewood saw a mass of flies hovering above something in the undergrowth. It was a third body. This man had been shot in the neck by a .22. Robert believes that he was also a victim of the second shot, the bullet having passed through the second man's chest. The police again congratulated Robert; three shots; three dead bandits.

But Robert and his family had had enough. To the relief of their friends and relatives, they sold the farm, and bought a place in town. Robert took his grinding mill with him, and still grinds maize for his neighbours for a small charge. Out in the bush, the chiefs grinding mill has broken down again.