“What are you doing that you’re going down there?” he asked, thrusting an open pack of Camels at me. I gladly took one and pulled my own red lighter out and lit it, enjoying the strong smoke. It had been a while since I’d had a Camel.
“I was in hospital for some check-ups, but I’m medically okay and now I have to get back to my company,” I lied.
He puffed on his Camel, pleased to have the company. “You a paratrooper, eh?” he said, glancing at my maroon beret. “I saw your guys training at the grounds. Looks like it’s going to be a big operation. I heard they’re going to hit all the FAPLA bases and the Cubans at the same time and sort them out once and for all. About time.”
“Yeah, it’s about time, alright,” I agreed, puffing on the smoke. Shit, I hadn’t heard about the Cubans bit. That was news to me.
“Are you guys going to jump in? Don’t you get scared jumping out a plane?”
“Naw, you get used to it… it’s like falling out of a tree… you just let go.”
“You’d never catch me jumping from a plane. I’ve been up here six months straight. I usually drive a honeysucker but I’ve been taking water up to the training grounds for the last three weeks. It’s pretty shit out there, all fine red sand, you’ll see. All the guys are sleeping in holes and they’ve been at it for three weeks now. It must be a big operation if you have to train for three weeks!”
“Yeah, must be,” I puffed on the Camel.
He changed down and the heavy truck shuddered so hard I thought it would fall apart, the gear knob rattling like a Ginger Baker drum solo.
“Does this truck always ride this smoothly?”
“Ja, it’s a piece of junk. This is its third engine.”
We settled down for the ride and I stared out the window at the passing bush and contemplated my situation. Since I had made up my mind to leave I had felt as happy and excited as a runaway kid, but now a flutter of worry lay in my gut.
I had just been court martialed that morning, not even three hours ago, and told not to put a foot wrong for the rest of my service and beyond or I would go to DB for a year. Yet here I was, not three hours later, defying the camp CO’s orders and going AWOL out of camp. And I wondered why I was always in the shit?
I studied the thick thorn trees next to the road and automatically started scanning the bush. Our senior company had killed six terrs walking on this same road just eight months ago. It had happened the first hour we had arrived at Ondangwa as juniors and we had been impressed no end.
I pulled my rifle closer to my leg and slipped off into a fantasy of us running into a group of terrs walking casually next to the road. I knew exactly what to do—shout at the truck driver to drive his truck at them as far as he could as they scattered into the bush, and then to give cover with his R1. As they scattered I would jump from the truck and calmly pour fire into them as they ran. They would be green troops on their first infiltration, and panicking. I would take two or three of them out before they could react and run away. Having no radio contact, we would load the dead terrs onto the side of the water truck and carry on with our journey to the training grounds, rolling to a stop in front of the boys of D Company. As they’d gather around the truck, dripping with SWAPO, I’d hop out of the cab and casually tell them I’d run into some trouble on the way.
I laughed at myself, closed my eyes and tried to catch a snooze but it was impossible in the rock-and-roll water truck.
“It’s not to much further… I can’t take you into your guys. I’m going on a bit further, but I’ll show you where to go.”
A while later he brought the heavy truck to a stop and pointed through the cloud of red dust. “Just go straight through the bush about two clicks in. You’ll come on them.”
I followed his finger and saw no road or path, nothing but virgin bush. “Where? Through there?”
He laughed, seeing my doubt. “Yes, this is a shortcut, otherwise you’ll have to go all the way around.”
“Okay…”
“Go straight, I’m telling you. You’re going to come right onto your guys.”
I heaved out my kit and thanked him. He waved a beefy hand as he pulled the heavy truck back onto the road, billowing black smoke. I watched him go and stood enjoying the sudden silence and solitude of standing alone next to the hot tar road in the quiet bush. When the truck was a speck in the distance I hauled up my kit and cheerfully broke into the bush in the direction he had pointed.
Immediately my boots sank into the fine red dust, scuffing up small puffs as I plodded along, pushing branches out of my way. He wasn’t kidding about the fucking red sand! I struggled through the bush with my load and was soon breathing hard and swearing as the awkward balsak kept slipping off my shoulder. A beautiful-looking bird with a half-metre-long black tail sat on a thorny dead branch and shrilled at me as I walked past. The truck driver must be mad—there is no one out here! The bush was still, except for the bird that now followed me in a slow manic flight, with its long tail seemingly too heavy for his body. It found a tree in front of me and shrilled incessantly; it seemed to be cursing me for disturbing it. I put my head down and pushed on for a few hundred metres and, as I came out of a thicket and was just about to start cursing the driver, I saw a couple of water bowsers some distance ahead. They were hardly visible and blended into the bush with their matt-brown colouring, but a couple of shirtless troops bent over and washing huge pots caught my eye. I walked towards the trucks.
“Hey, you guys know where the Bats are staying out here?”
One troop pointed casually straight ahead and went back to his chores. I plodded on breathlessly through another thicket, and then literally walked into D Company. I didn’t recognize them for a second because they all looked like hell. They were sitting around in small groups, fiddling with kit and rifles. They were long-haired, unshaven and grimy with red dust. I walked into the midst of them, beaming from ear to ear.
“Hey, hey… look who’s here!”
“Oh no, look what’s come out of the bush… better warn the sergeant-major!”
“Hey Korff, what happened to you?”
I walked through the small groups of guys, grinning like a Cheshire cat and answering their questions with witty chirps. I saw Valk 4 over by some tents and trudged over to them, dumping my kit down against a thorn tree.
“Hey, Gungie!” John Delaney looked up. He was sitting cross-legged in the sand, filling his magazines from a pile of shiny new 5.56 cartridges piled in his bush hat, and laying them out on an army towel. He looked sullen.
Stan came zipping out of a tent, looking equally as dirty and worn, but with a big smile. “Hey, braa, what’s it? Tell me the news!”
I smiled and lit up the extra Camel that the truck driver had given me. “Aww, I got a suspended sentence. No big deal… it was worth it. What’s going on here?” I glanced at the sullen faces around me who barely gave me a cursory nod. The platoon carried on with its seemingly urgent rifle-cleaning and packing the big H-frame backpacks, unexcited about my homecoming.
Stan seemed to be the only one smiling. “We’re going on a big op, Gungie. We’ve been fucking training here in this dump for three weeks. We’re going to hit FAPLA’s main base, boy. It’s fucking huge—there must be a thousand troops involved as back-up and stopper groups. Artillery, Mirages, Ratels… the works, and guess what? They’re all behind us. We’re going in front and will be doing fire and movement into their trenches.”