26
BATTLE AT THE MWENEZI RIVER
Dusk settled on the CF encampment near the Mwenezi River. Many of the men—exhausted from having built the huge rafts to transport the tanks across this and other barely navigable rivers—had fallen asleep on the very ground where they had been working. A few others tarried about aimlessly.
Then, all at once, seemingly from out of nowhere, the thunderous sound of rifles firing spread throughout the camp. Patrol Guardsmen stood over the bodies of the CF soldiers as they slept and emptied their magazines into them until, pierced with a myriad of bullets, thirty-nine of the two hundred men were dead, and an untold number wounded and many others—very nearly dead.
CF Agent Bernhardt was reading over some documents when the gunshots blasted through his tent. A bu
