But they are the ones with the power, and that is what they use in this kangaroo court. My ‘sentence’ is sandbag PT with full kit in deep sand. During the sentencing, it is my anger that gives me the strength to face the fear—courage I know will be tested during the night that lies ahead.
The tent appears to breathe around me as I process the sentence.
Gerrie sits on his fold-up bed. This strikes me, because the rest of us sleep on the sand. He is cleaning his boots soundlessly, but his whole body is leaning towards what is taking place in this tent he has made his Judas home.
Dorman sits crouched over, legs crossed, his elbows resting on his knees. His right hand cups his chin while his fingers are stroking his nicotine-stained moustache. He says nothing but his eyes scar the space between us.
On his own bed sits Lieutenant Engel, bent forward, his legs open and firmly planted, his short torso awkward, too dumpy for the legs clawing over the side, like a vulture with exaggerated talons.
But it is next to me in the corner, the silent boot-cleaner that I feel most. Our history fills the space between us like smoke.
Corporal Smith, standing at attention next to me, marches me out, calls me to a halt and dismisses me. Before we separate, he looks at me for a brief moment, says nothing and turns. ‘So much over so little’ is what I like to believe I read in that expression, or ‘Fuck Gerrie, the little squealer.’
It’s the waiting I hate. The terror that prevents me from eating or drinking anything sits inside my stomach like a hard rubber ball. Some of the troops revel in reminding me how often people die from an opfok.
‘Hey, Van, you’re going to kak this afternoon. You got gyppo guts? Suffer, baby, suffer.’
I have a full day of training, then PT, after which I have to meet Dorman at the sandy road, dressed in my browns and boots, with rifle, webbing and grootsak.
I adjust and readjust my laces and the straps of my bag. I worry about the lack of fuel in my empty constitution. Malcolm mixes some Game and pours it into my water bottles. With all my kit on, I am very hot. Just the walk to the road is exhausting.
Dorman shouts at me to run. When I do, the weight displaces itself through my frame, and my feet sink deep into the sand. He shouts a constant flow of insults, and I hear Dylan’s name too, but today I can’t allow aggression into the space where I carry love. I have to use my all to get through the next few hours.
Nobody is allowed to watch, but they all do. A medic is placed on stand-by. I am allowed one bottle filled with tepid, plastic tasting water. Dorman pours out the Game Mal has mixed.
First I have to run to a pislelie and back. I know I must pace myself to last long enough for Dorman to feel that he has executed the sentence and that I have suffered enough.
Up and down I run, up and down . . . then push-ups, dips, more exercises and more running through the sand with my rifle and sandbags, not thinking of what I’m doing, only running the prerehearsed fantasies of revenge through my mind.
He lies under a bridge on a piece of disintegrating foam rubber, in vomit, faeces and urine. He has descended to this point on a stepladder of loss, and I have relished the collapse of each rung beneath him, the final tread having been the artificial support of the dark soul of drugs.
My visions are now just snippets of disjointed images. The pain of mind and body is too loud and consuming to allow me to be creative as I run back and forth over the same route.
‘If I fucking . . . for one fucking moment, see that you don’t give everything, Van der Swart, you will be on the first RTU when we get back, I swear it. But before we get back you first have to survive the border with me. I’m going to rip your balls off, you cunt-faced fuck.’
A dirty needle forces into a wasted arm full of welts and puss. He is searching among collapsed veins to inject the poison. Sickblue, under a transparent skin and seething with filth. Begging with craving . . . like my body is now begging for relief.
My rifle keeps on hitting my face where it swings clumsily on my shoulder. It’s impossible to push the strap higher up, because both arms are carrying sandbags. Then it falls from my shoulder, into the fold of my elbow, and hits my knees, swinging and snagging between my legs.
My lungs rasp, chafing as I suck in bits of air, and I taste blood. There is a noise in my head that drones at a monotonous pitch. Time has taken on a different dimension. Long, long seconds are delayed through sandpaper lungs, and then the next one strains into place.
My dragging foot falters. I try to move it, but it doesn’t obey. Dorman is shouting millimetres away from my face, spit flying at me. I don’t flinch. He hits me and I fall.
I get up, but my kit rides up over my head and overbalances me. I leave the sandbag at my feet. Dorman kicks my leg, it buckles, and I fall again. He is shouting, completely out of control, but the sound is blocked outside the coating of my exhaustion and the noise in my mind. I manage to get up on my haunches and pick the sandbag up. The rifle pivots and hits my face, but I’m on my feet and manage another run past the pislelies.
Dorman walks next to me, shouting, ‘Beg me to stop, beg me.’ Then, whispering, ‘I’ve got all night. Beg me, you poes!’
Two laps later, I fall again, and this time I know I will not get up. He knows it too. He puts his boot on my head and drives my face into the sand.
Then he stands back and kicks me in the stomach. There is a sharp pain, my stomach contracts, and I start vomiting. Bile burns my throat and into the back of my nose, and I gasp for air. Pain fights for recognition, but I can only compute some of it. I try to spit, but I can’t release the shiny gum from my lips. The vomit pools on the sand, too thick to drain away, frothing along the edges. I spit and spit, then vomit again.
I move into a kneeling position, with the kit on my back hanging to one side. As Dorman knocks me on the shoulder with the inside of his hand, the weight of the ill-fitting pack shifts forward and rides over my head again, but I manage to get up and stay on my feet. I am aware of the medic trying to give me water. Driven now by a kind of madness, I shuffle forward. Nothing works—my vision is obscured by sweat, sand and tears from the vomiting; my face is caked with puke and sand. Everything starts swimming before my eyes. I hear voices, but I can’t move. There is water running over my face, but I can’t react.
I spend the night in sickbay.
Dot is at the side of my bed in Jeffrey’s Bay. I motion to her and she jumps up and crawls in under the sheets. It’s our secret; she knows we are sharing disobedience. In her coat is captured the smell of the sea with the collected dog smell. When she gets too hot, she moves out from under the sheet.
I feel a deep ache of longing cutting through the headache and the throbbing in my bruised knee. I miss her so much—her simple, unconditional love. I think of how she waits for me when I’m swimming, and her relief when she sees me in the shallow water while she was still searching for me beyond the waves. The simple, uncomplicated honesty of it all . . . that is so much more important than this . . .
***
I lift up the canvas sheet that is hung at the door to stop the flies from getting into the toilet tent, and find the place empty, except for Gerrie sitting on a toilet in the corner. He is the last person I wanted to see here, but there is no way out now.
At first, we don’t talk, but the space becomes loud with what we’re not saying. I run through sentences in my mind, and by the time I start speaking, it is as if I am some way into a conversation already.
‘What has happened to you, Gerrie? You’re not the same person I knew in high school. Shit, man, you were my friend, remember?’
‘One has to do what one has to do to survive.’
‘But betray your friends?’
‘You were asking for it, Nick, and besides, you stopped being my friend when you got so friendly with that Malcolm moffie.’
‘Fuck you, Gerrie. Malcolm is an amazing guy. I’m lucky to be his friend. You’ve betrayed me, and you will al
ways carry that with you.’
‘This is the army and I’m going to survive at any cost, that you must know. In civvy street all this will be forgotten, but here it’s the survival of the fittest.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong. This is who you really are, here and in civvy street.’
He bends forward on the plastic go-cart. ‘I don’t care a shit what you think,’ he sneers and clicks his fingers when he hisses the word ‘shit.’
At this, a fly takes the opportunity to disappear into the hole behind him. I pray that it will stay inside and not come and sit on me after being on Gerrie’s arse.
‘You think you can walk away from this, but it will always stay with you, Gerrie, always. That’s the type of person you are, and you know it. You know it, and you will never get away from it.’
My words have struck a chord. He leans forward again, this time to take some toilet paper, and pushes his hand between his legs to wipe himself. He drops the paper into the hole without checking to see if he needs another wipe, gets up and pulls up his pants. As he gets up, I notice his cock—small and shaped like a little missile, with a long, taut foreskin sitting in a bush of dark hair. The ugliness of it gives me a delicious sense of victory.
At the tent flap he turns around and says, ‘It was me. I’m the one who split on you. And I’m glad I did it. I have more power than you think. Engel likes me. You will never be an officer, Van, I’ll see to it. NEVER. You will be a corporal at the end of this course; that is if you survive! I will see to it that you’re placed at the border for your next year, doing patrols and fucking getting killed. You mark my words, you fucking faggot.’
Then he is gone.
Fear and anger creep up inside me. He could really bad-mouth me sufficiently with Engel and Dorman and succeed in all his threats.
***
After the weeks of training at Oshivelo, we leave in open Magirus trucks, sitting on our kit. The first stop is Ondangwa. Here we sleep propped up against our kit in a demarcated area, before we are transported North in landmine-protected vehicles. Now we are soldiers; soldiers in the operational area.
In a twist of fate, of all the Infantry School companies, Golf Company is deployed with Koevoet.
Koevoet means crowbar. There are few South Africans who haven’t heard of Koevoet and its activities on the border. It is known as the most ruthless killing machine in the world.
‘They have by far the most successful kill rate,’ our captain says with a grimace. ‘They are a division of the South African Police and seem to have developed the most successful anti-insurgent tactics. Most of the members are Ovambos. We are going to work with them, to study their strategy. They have just started this technique of hunting terrs . . .’
We leave at first light. As we get into the Buffels, I feel as if I’m carrying some slender remnant of the dream I had the night before. All day I feel this presence; like dust I can’t shake off.
A Buffel is a smallish landmine-protected vehicle that sits high on its Mercedes Unimog chassis. It feels as if it wants to pounce—far more agile than the heavy Hippo. The driver sits in an armoured capsule next to the exposed engine. Behind him, two rows of troops sit back to back. In front of each one, a half circle is cut into the armoured sides for our rifles to rest in. During a contact or an ambush the sides can be let down, allowing the occupants to get off quickly.
We sit strapped into firmly moulded seats. If the vehicle detonates a land mine, this is what gives us our only chance of survival. We are told that the terrorists have started stacking multiple land mines on top of each other. When triggered, the explosion is fierce enough to somersault the vehicle and rip its chassis to threads.
In our row, Malcolm is first, then I, and to my right Oscar sits reading during most of the day’s journey. When we stop, he draws or writes.
I rub my index finger on the side of my nose to make it oily and draw an ‘E’ on the matt paint of the armoured wall in front of me. Malcolm sees it, whispers, ‘Ethan, Ethan, Ethan,’ and I smile. He does the same, but draws an ‘O’.
Above the steel side of the vehicle the immediate foreground blurs past—from time to time small settlements of huts can be seen, with bored people in makeshift doorways. A little girl, watching other children playing soccer, leans on a homemade crutch on the side where her leg was ripped off by a land mine. They don’t even glance up as our convoy passes.
Other pockets of existence float past, each little kraal pitted by war, with emaciated cattle scattered around the huts behind which the bush moves forebodingly past—further, slower, darker.
4
I celebrate my tenth birthday on the last day of our annual holiday in Jeffrey’s Bay. It is a beautifully warm evening, and after dinner my mother suggests we take a walk on the beach. On the cool sand, under a clear summer sky, she points out the Southern Cross to us—the two markers and how to determine south.
It all feels big and calm at the same time. I am happy. Lightspecked vastness above, and from the sea the white water of each disintegrating wave pushes cooler air in front of it, carrying the salt and the sound of the crashing waves. At the calm end of its journey a black sheet is spread for reflecting the stars, washing over our feet, before being called back to the deep.
Standing guard on the border, I will remember this night many a time, longing for my mother. I will watch for six hours as the Southern Cross moves like a watch around the celestial south.
At the end of the beach, where the fishing boats are launched, we turn back. The lights of the town are left behind as we approach the spot where we usually walk home through the dunes.
We are leaving tomorrow and we follow the familiar path for the last time. Between the milkwood trees we can see light from Storm and Tracy’s kombi.
Their cosiness, enhanced by the firelight and the soothing sound of Tracy’s guitar, attracts me, as always. When we get to the closest point of passing, I stop and ask my folks to wait for me. I walk over to them and Storm jumps up when he sees me. Tracy carries on playing, smiling up at me.
‘I’ve come to say goodbye. We’re leaving tomorrow,’ I say. Tracy stops playing, calls me closer, hugs and kisses me and says softly, ‘You will be loved by many; carry that love in your heart, Nicholas.’
I can’t think of anything appropriate to say. Storm takes my hand and leads me back to my family. Halfway there he lets go of my hand and rests his hand on my shoulder. When we reach them, he greets them politely.
He tells my parents that we have shared the waves together and that I have the ability to really see things sensitively. Again I don’t quite understand what he means and neither, I think, do they, but I am proud of his praise.
He wishes them a safe journey, goes down on his haunches and hugs me. With his hands on my shoulders he says, ‘Stay free, Nicholas . . . never stop searching.’ He looks at me, our faces the same height, but with the light of the fire behind him, I can’t see him clearly, only feel his presence. He smiles, gets up, turns and walks back to the fire. I burn the image of his silhouette into this parting, thankful for the dark, because I’m sure the glow I feel must be visible.
I never see Storm again.
5
My mother left us when we were very young.’
‘Mal?’ His bush hat is rolled up under his epaulette. The wind catches his hair, which jerks in sudden movement. He looks far ahead into the bush, not focussing. ‘I know I told you she had died, but she met someone else and left. She’s dead to me, so I guess I didn’t lie to you. I’ve never told anybody the truth; no friend, I mean. But I can’t keep secrets from you.’ I see the chain holding his dog tags below the top two buttons, which are undone, his skin sunburnt and young, his mouth firm.
‘In a way my father died the day she left; just opted out of life, started drinking. He was always too gentle . . . I hated her.’
‘Hell, that must have been shitty.’
‘It had its good side too. We had total freedom.
We raised ourselves, actually. My father didn’t even know whether we were at school or not. Don’t think he even knew which high school we went to. But he always gave us what he could.’
‘And your sister, Mal?’
‘My sister and I hardly see each other. She’s married to a chauvinist fuck-face and all she thinks about is him and the children. He hates me, calls me a moffie, so I don’t see her. Not that I want to in any case. They’re reborn hypocrites; think I’m evil.’ Then he is quiet.
‘Were you two close?’
‘Yes, very. We did everything together. I used to think that is why I’m G-A-Y.’ He spells the word soundlessly, glancing around to make sure that no one else sees it.
‘I also only had a sister after my brother died, but I know that’s not why I’m gay. I was born this way, no doubt. We were so different. She always split on me. It was like having three parents. Did you have many friends at school?’
‘Yep, but never really close ones. I was always hiding who I really was from them, so there was always a kind of barrier. Terrified of being identified, being called a moffie, you know.’
The drone of the engine and the buffeting of the hot air blend with our voices, with what we are sharing.
‘You are my best friend, Nick. I want you to know this. We must look out for each other.’
‘I will be there for you, Mal, I promise.’
‘Best friend.’ We do our two-finger greeting. To my right Oscar sees it, but says nothing and carries on reading amidst the shaking.
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