I stood up and felt a rage flood through me as I looked around towards the kitchen. Kurt, who had stood beside me in a few fist fights, knew that look and smiled slowly.
“Kill our fucking cats… where’s this cook of yours?”
“Easy, Gungie. He’s the fucking RSM and sergeant-major of this camp, man. Cool it!”
The cook was chopping a side of beef with a huge knife, stained up to his elbows in watery blood. “Yeah, he stood on the little grey one right here in the mess while we were having supper—didn’t even say anything—then left it lying there while the troops ate.
He put down his huge knife and walked up to us, frowning, wiping his bloody hands on his apron. “Then the next day he caught the other one right here and smashed it against that wall and threw it over there and it lay there and cried while it died.” He demonstrated how the poor animal had been killed.
“He’s a fucking poes, this guy. Total cunt, everyone hates him. The cunt runs the camp with an iron fist and these infantry troops are fucking petrified of him. He stomps around here like he’s chief of the army or something. He had all us cooks go for PT with full kit because some of the glasses had stains on them, but it’s the shit water here that stains them.”
I felt murder in my veins. Without a shadow of a doubt, I knew I was going to kill this motherfucker.
“What’s his rank?” I asked, not that it mattered.
“He’s a staff sergeant, but he’s acting sergeant-major of the base.”
“Well, he’s a fucking dead sergeant-major!” I walked calmly out of the kitchen and stood outside. Kurt and the cook exchanged looks. I caught sight of an infantry troop walking past and called him over. He ran up nervously, almost coming to attention in front of me. I asked him where I could find his sergeant-major.
“He’s in the HQ. They’re having a debriefing with your officers.”
I asked him about the cats and he verified the story the cook had told. He relaxed when he saw where I was coming from.
“He’s a real mean bastard,” he ventured in Afrikaans.
“Tell your sergeant-fucking-major there is someone in his tent who wants to speak to him,” I said evenly.
He hesitated, not relishing the thought of having to face the man but when he realized he could play a part in this prick’s demise he smiled slightly and tried without much success to hide a twinkle his eyes. “Okay, okay… I’ll go and try and get him.” He shot off towards the HQ building at a brisk walk.
I walked casually into the sergeant-major’s tent which had been pointed out to me. It was close to the kitchens and I sat down on a high stool next to a table laden with an assortment of what looked like carburettors and takenapart radio sets. There was also a metre-long truck screwdriver with a big red hand-grip about 20 centimetres long and a shaft thicker than my thumb. I sat looking out in the opposite direction towards the chopper pad. Through the tent flaps I watched the rest of the company laughing and heading to the showers in twos and threes.
“What are you going to do, Gungie?” Kurt finally asked in his low monotone. We had not spoken since I had sent the infantry troop off to look for the sergeant-major. Kurt sat on the other stool and faced the tent door, with a clear view of the small camp.
“I’m going to teach him a fucking lesson, Kurt. While we are out fighting and getting shot, this asshole is killing our pets. I’ll show him what a big man he is, killing two kittens.”
I felt cold and calm. It was a dangerous feeling. I had only felt it a few times in my life and had quickly learned to stay away from it at all costs. I would force myself to snap out of it immediately on the few occasions that I felt it rise because I knew it would surely destroy me. It was a feeling of following through with absolute destruction, without the slightest thought of any consequences. It was very dangerous but this time I had opened the door and had let it in. It now coldly and furiously rushed through my veins, overjoyed to have been allowed in for only the second time in my life.
I sat and coolly inspected the many pieces of dismantled equipment on the fold-out table, lifting one up to examine it.
“Here he comes, Gungie! Jesus, he looks like he’s about to take off and fly his arms are out so wide.”
I didn’t bother turning around and continued inspecting the piece of radio equipment in my hand, turning it around and peering at the dozens of little wires and tubes that were now exposed. It took him half a minute to strut across the tent square.
I felt detached from my body and casually watched Kurt’s chubby, deadpan face for a signal. As he lifted his eyebrow I put down the radio I was idly inspecting and turned around to face a short, mean-looking acting sergeant-major glaring at us as he entered the tent.
He was stocky and powerfully built. Kurt was not lying; he stood with his arms out like fucking Popeye the sailor man. He looked at both of us but composed himself quickly and glared at me as I stood up. He had the face of a pit bull with the square, jutting jaw of a fighter that he thrust out at me under a thick moustache drooping over his top lip. He had small, beady, dark eyes set deep in his head, with a nose that looked to have been broken a few times and small scars around his eyes that must have come from boxing. He glared at us with his little black eyes and was just about to open his mouth to roar at us when I turned to fully face him.
I got straight to the point. “Are you the guy that killed the cats?” I asked quietly, in English.
He stopped for a second, not sure what he had heard but he quickly got the message and emphatically snapped back in Afrikaans. “Ja… en wat daarvan?”{Yes… and what of it?} He glared at me defiantly, his black pit bull eyes locked on mine, sparkling in anticipation.
The three weeks in the bush living on dry rat packs had made me skinny and light; at that very moment I actually felt as weak as a kitten. In a microsecond I realized that if I punched this man he would probably laugh at my weakness and then turn on me and fuck me up. He looked very powerful with his legs planted firmly on the ground and his arms puffed out wide, with the broad stripes of a staff sergeant clean and new on his sleeve. He glared at me. Nevertheless, as he finished his sentence, I threw a right-hand punch that came all the way from Angola and as fast as an RPG-7. It hit him square in the mouth. He fell back onto his haunches into the tent flaps. I remember being surprised that he went down so easily. I charged forward, blind with white rage and punched him three or four more times in his unprotected face as he struggled to get up. I was digging in my knuckles as I landed, and already I saw a flash of blood from his mouth. Suddenly I was as strong as a leopard and he as weak as a kitten and I wanted to see his blood run and feel his bones break under my boot. He fell forward onto his hands and knees and I slammed my knee as hard as I could into the side of his face, then grabbed hold of his head with my hand and slammed my knee into his face again and again and again. I felt my knee strike home and he collapsed to the ground in a foetal position, covering his face with his hands as he howled a muffled scream of genuine terror.
“You kill my cats, you motherfucker, I’ll kill you!” I roared as I stomped hard into his face with the heel of my boot. My senses lost, I looked around and snatched up the heavy metre-long screwdriver that was lying on the table and in an instant of madness held it high above my head like a dagger, preparing to run him through like the knights of old.
“Gungie, no!” Kurt shouted sharply.
I looked at Kurt’s shocked face for a split second. In one fluid movement I flipped the big screwdriver around in mid air and snatched the shaft, bringing the heavy handle crashing down on his back and shoulders as hard as I could, three or four times. He screamed, high-pitched like a girl, as he held his arms tightly over his face, still crouched in a foetal position. I tossed the club across the table and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and, for some reason, dragged him out of the tent like a sack of maize.