In essence this is a story set against the backdrop of the tragic shooting down of two civilian airliners and subsequent massacre of survivors from one of them. These incidents had a significant impact on both the politics (internal and regional) and particularly on the minority white population of Rhodesia. Nell provides an interesting and entertaining insight into the lives of insurgent and counter-insurgent.

In the case of the former group, he concentrates on a ‘turned-terr’ known as Martin, whom Nell trains (along with a number of other ‘poachers turned gamekeepers’) to engage and kill those terrorists making the lives of the unprotected Africans in the Tribal Trust Lands more than just a misery.

The author recounts his early rough and ready pre-Army years in often hilarious detail, and more than occasionally during the course of his story, with disarming honesty. His early military career, one he enters into comparatively late (he successfully completes the Rhodesian SAS selection course at the ripe age of 37 years) is similarly dealt with. Clearly and continually demonstrating a real and deep understanding of the lot and life of the rural black African, Nell also resists the temptation of attempting to avoid pointing a critical finger at whites, farmers and others, where appropriate.

Above all perhaps, Nell’s engaging narrative provides his reader with a top drawer largely personal account of the latter stages of the Rhodesian bush war against Robert Mugabe’s ZANLA and Joshua Nkomo’s ZIPRA guerrillas, and he does so with an unusual degree of balance and indeed wit.

Peter Macdonald.
Formerly tutor to and programme supervisor for War Studies at the Centre for Lifelong Learning; and now Honorary Research Fellow in Modern History, University of Birmingham.