Somewhere Near The Lomba River Poem by Gert Strydom

The guns of enemy tanks are flashing
like bolts of thunder while I am glancing,
the night air is full of the smell of cordite
and luckily those shots are passing

while the armoured car draws to a sudden halt
for its gun to take aim and on my lips I taste salt
before the armour piercing shell is fired
and at a direct hit around me the crew exalt

before at speed we move on
and some more enemy Cuban soldiers are gone,
are burnt in the fiery hell
while my heart, my brain feels like stone.

An enemy shell strikes another armoured car
like a exploding flaming star
and I can smell torched human flesh,
while I wish to be away very far,

to be away from killing
and this chilling
kind of machination of machines and men
who at each other are firing

but to survive we battle on right through the night,
are still trying to find some more enemies in the broad daylight,
find two abounded stationary pristine enemy battle tanks
from which the enemy had run in fright.