'My son lay dying, cradled in my arms'

How could a student be blown up by a land-mine in Zimbabwe and then left to die for 18 hours? Esther Oxford reports

The eyes of David Pearson, 18, noticed things. Head boy at an independent school in Berkshire, he prided himself on his ability to spot unusual words, moving passages in poems, how people talked, how faces changed. He was the communicator: a link between the boys and the masters.

David didn't change when he was taken out of his home environment. On a walking holiday with his parents in Zimbabwe, he was the boy to be found at the front of the bus chatting to the local children; he was the one who relished the flowers (spiky fireballs, fragile jasmines) and the rolling hills in Chimanimani National Park: Dombe, shaped like a giant breast; Binga, a melting blancmange.

David was jogging along the Skeleton Pass between Dombe and Binga before sundown when he stepped on the land-mine. His father, Dr Andrew Pearson, now 51, was walking 25ft behind him. He saw his son rocket into the air "like a blur", bits of shoe tumbling down. Then he saw him land heavily, half a leg gone, blood bursting like lava from his thigh. He scrambled across and put a tourniquet on him.

In the ensuing chaos and after erecting a makeshift tent around his son, Dr Pearson, a consultant at the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre, London, made a decision that he will regret for the rest of his life. He decided it would not be "medically desirable" to carry David down from the mountain plateau without intravenous fluids and morphine. A helicopter was needed - and he would go and arrange for one. For 16 hours Dr Pearson jumped through a succession of hoops in his efforts to co-ordinate a rescue. It wasn't enough. David died 18 hours later, cradled in his father's arms. It was the anniversary of Rhodesia's illegal Unilateral Declaration of Independence, 12 November 1989.

Sitting on the plane back to London two days later, Andrew Pearson thought of his son: how he had planned to teach in Toronto; how he loathed Chaucer; how, when he talked about Thomas Hardy's novels, the characters came to life. Then he thought back to those last few hours with his son, how he had wrapped David in his arms, held his hand and stroked his hair tenderly as he gradually stopped breathing. How he had watched his son's body being zipped into a sleeping bag by army officials, tied to a make-shift stretcher made of broken beds, then bumped and jiggled along a dirt track to the hospital mortuary in Chipinge.

On that plane, safe on the nylon seats, with running water coming out of the taps, and reassuring voices on the Tannoy, Dr Pearson, decided that important questions needed to be answered. What were the real reasons behind the failure of the three helicopters to arrive? Why hadn't the British High Commission helped to co-ordinate a rescue? And what about the risk of walking in the area? The military attache knew about the cross- border guerrilla activity in the park. He knew about the slaying of a bread delivery man only the week before. Why hadn't the British High Commission warned tourists about the dangers?

Six years later, those questions have still not been answered, despite an inquest held last week. The Reading coroner, Dr Joe Pim, decided that there was not enough evidence to record a verdict of unlawful killing. "I would have to be certain beyond all reasonable doubt that somebody planted the mine recently," he said. Instead he gave an open verdict, even though he felt "fairly sure of how it went".

The walking holiday was David's treat. He had just passed his A-levels with three A grades. The first two weeks passed without hitch. The crashing water at Victoria Falls, the game parks and Nyamgami, in the Eastern Highlands. Then they arrived at Chimanimani.

The intention was to climb for a few hours, then stay overnight in a chalet. There were two family friends with them, Don and Jill McMaster, both members of the Canadian High Commission in Zimbabwe. They parked the car, which had a diplomat's number plate, alongside a car belonging to a World Health Organisation official - also with a diplomat's number plate. Then they signed the guest book - using their full titles.

"They told us that the park was a safe and very beautiful place to go," Dr Pearson says. "But it was a booby-trap."

The party arrived at the chalet in time for lunch, then set off along the Skeleton Pass - said to have stunning views of Mozambique. The plan was to be back before dusk. But before they left the chalet Dr Pearson noticed something peculiar. One of the three park wardens left the group, then walked with a backpack on the path towards Skeleton Pass before "disappearing". It seemed strange, but Dr Pearson put it to the back of his mind.

David was jogging back to the chalet, ahead of the others in the group, at 5.30 in the evening when he stepped on the landmine. "I was blown off my feet, too," remembers Dr Pearson. "I grabbed my shirt, tied it round his thigh put my hand over his artery in the groin. The blood stopped quickly. My other hand was on his head to comfort him."

It was decided that Gil would treat David and comfort him; Dr Pearson and Mr McMaster would go and get help. It took two hours to climb down the mountain. Then the endless telephone calls: to the British and the Canadian High Commissions in Harare, the air force commander and several hospitals. Dr Pearson wanted medical supplies, but most of all he wanted a helicopter. After four hours of arguing, he was told that helicopters were not taken out at night. One would come at dawn. Desperate, he drove to an army encampment close by. A medical orderly, a signal man and five soldiers were sent to help David. But still no helicopter.

Dr Pearson returned to the tent between 4.30am and 5am. "When I went in Gil was lying beside David to keep him warm. David had very low blood pressure which meant his brain was not working very well. I gave him lots of hugs and held his hand while Gil put in an intravenous drip.

"I suppose he was worried that he might die before help arrived, but he didn't want to talk about it. Instead we talked about what he would do when he got back to England, and how the helicopter would soon be here to pick him up. We decided that sailing would be OK with one leg, but that rowing might be a bit difficult. He agreed that he would still be able to teach schoolchildren with one leg.

"The sky got lighter and lighter. Dawn came. Then it warmed up. Still no helicopter. Then at about 10.30 in the morning David's breathing began to deteriorate. It was the breathing of someone who is going to die. It was a rattle in his chest - a rattle and a grunt - muscle spasms. I went outside and re-doubled my efforts to get things moving. But it was frustrating. I couldn't understand anything the soldiers were saying.

"David's pulse just got weaker. We gave him cardiac massage and mouth- to-mouth resuscitation. But when the blood came up in his mouth we realised that was it. It was incredibly quiet. All you could hear was the clink of rifles and rounds of ammunition clinking as the soldiers walked by outside the tent."

The Zimbabwean authorities claimed it was a "freak accident". It must have been an old mine which had remained hidden since the country's war of liberation in the Seventies, they said.

But Dr Pearson insists it was a recent mine. He thinks exploding land- mines are more common than the authorities would have tourists believe. "The feeling I got was that lots of people have had their legs blown off by land-mines. There was no sense of emergency."

The British High Commission should have made it their duty to warn tourists about the risks of going into Chimanimani National Park. "When we visited the British High Commission afterwards," says Dr Pearson, "to ask why they had not told us about possible risks, they said, 'It is not our policy to make that information public'."

Dr Pearson believes that the park visitors that day were targeted by Mozambique guerrilla terrorists. It was the anniversary of Rhodesian Independence Day. They wanted high-profile white victims to bring attention to their cause. The "surly" park warden who disappeared that afternoon probably planted the mine. He would have been aware of the party's diplomatic status, Dr Pearson says.

"The spot where he disappeared was the spot where David was hit. He must have buried it after we left for the walk along Skeleton Pass in preparation for when we came back."

In some ways Dr Pearson blames himself. It was a mistake to try to get a helicopter airlift. "If I had known that the helicopters did not fly at night, I would have carried David down the hill myself, put him in the back of the car and driven him to hospital."

In the end it was the army soldiers who carried the body down the mountain. Dr Pearson followed with David's green rucksack. "We are so sorry. We are so terribly sorry," the soldiers kept saying. "Thank you for your trouble," was Dr Pearson's reply.