I grabbed her by the arm, pushed her into her flat and told her to fuck off. I walked off down the corridor. She followed a few paces behind me, screaming abuse. Colin was awake when I got in. He said he'd heard a row, but hadn't realised I was involved. I warned him that if the Portuguese man ended up in hospital, we'd probably get a visit from the police. And, whether or not he made it to hospital, we'd probably get a visit at some point from him and his mates.
I washed and cleaned the wound in my chest, then put the knife I'd picked up from the floor, and my torn shirt, into a bag and went to bed.
I slept uneasily with the guns by my side. I was expecting either the police or the Portuguese to burst through the door, but no one came. Early next morning, the company telephoned to say they needed every available body to attend an incident near the black township of Soweto.
An hour or so later, I was picked up in a company van which drove at speed out of the city to Soweto. I hadn't realised we had customers out there. I couldn't imagine how we'd recruited them. Perhaps we'd scared them with stories about the white police ('Flimsy shack, Madam? That's not going to stop a determined Boer in uniform, is it?').
In fact, I discovered our customers were the South African police. They called occasionally on freelance help for 'non-political' incidents when they were overstretched. I was told in the van, which contained around ten other heavily armed colleagues, that two black factions had been fighting over ownership of a 'shebeen', that is, an illegal drinking den, often a venue for gambling and prostitution. (When I first heard the word 'shebeen', I thought it was native South African. Only years later did I discover it comes from an Irish Gaelic word for 'bad ale'.)
By the time we got there, a gang fight had already taken place. One young man of about 20 had been trapped by rivals, put against a wall and stoned. He lay there motionless, blood spattered all over his broken body. I thought he was dead. Another man had been stabbed in the head. He was reeling around the street, clutching his head and screaming in pain. After a while, he collapsed.
A police pick-up truck arrived. A few policemen got out, grabbed hold of the two men and dumped them both into the back of the truck, like sacks of rubbish. They drove off, leaving us standing in a cloud of dust.
When I got back to the flat, I found an anxious-looking Colin waiting for me. He said that armed police had raided the flat. Apparently, the Portuguese woman had alleged I'd assaulted her. Colin said the police had made plain they planned to arrest me. I decided to seek legal advice. As I left the building, two policemen suddenly stood up, guns drawn, from behind a car near the entrance. Pointing their guns at me, they shouted, 'Raise your hands and turn around.' I wasn't going to argue. They came over, searched me, handcuffed me, then asked me where my guns were. I said, 'In the flat.'
They told me to get into their car. As we drove off, one of them said they were taking me to John Foster Square police station. It had a worse reputation than my bikers' club. Numerous prisoners had died after supposedly 'jumping' from windows on the upper floors during interrogations.
They brought me into a detention room. Sweating - and not just from the heat - I waited on my own for a few minutes before a detective entered the room. He asked me about the events of the night before. I told him the truth and added that I still had the knife and torn clothing at home. He produced a statement made by the Portuguese woman. She claimed that, for no reason, I'd grabbed her by the arm, pushed her about, threatened her with a gun and even sexually assaulted her (although she'd given no explanation of how).
I was furious. I said, 'Why the fuck would I attack someone who lives on the same fucking landing as me, without reason? I'm not fucking stupid, mate.'
I needn't have worried. The detective said he didn't believe the woman and he wasn't going to look into the matter any further. He said she was known to the police and added, 'Be careful of these people. They're trouble.' He wrote out a statement for me, asked me to sign it, then told me to go home and forget about it. Less than 30 minutes after being arrested, I was released. I thought that was the end of the matter. In fact, it was only the beginning.
The company heard about my arrest. The boss didn't like having any bother with the police. He decided I needed a break from the nightclub. He thought that, between us, me and the manager were causing more trouble than we were preventing. He said he wanted to transfer me temporarily to 'patrol work', that is, patrolling the suburbs of Johannesburg in a pick-up truck.
I was owed a few days, which I took before starting my new duties. During this time, I spoke a lot with Colin about moving on to Cape Town. At that time, a luxury train called 'The Blue Train' connected the two cities. We agreed we'd travel on it if and when we left Jo'burg, although it was becoming a case of 'when' rather than 'if'. It was now December. Debra missed her family, as she'd been away now for almost a year. They'd thought she'd only be gone for a month or two. She said she'd travel with us on The Blue Train, but first she wanted to spend Christmas in England.
We booked three tickets for The Blue Train, due to depart Jo'burg on 14 January 1986. I don't know why, but something told me I wouldn't be on it. I just couldn't look forward to the journey (and the new 'new start'), because I knew it wasn't going to happen.
Debra planned to leave for England in the second week of December. I told myself I'd ask her out for a meal the night before she left, but I bottled out of it. I thought she'd make some excuse and hand me the basket. She planned a final drink with her friends. They did invite me and Colin, but I said I had to work. I hoped to pop in to the club at some stage, but I never did. I don't know why.
The following morning, Debra came round to say goodbye. I was surprised at how sorry I felt to see her go, even though she'd only be gone for a month. But thoughts of romance soon receded when I started my new duties patrolling the suburbs. Until then, I'd foolishly regarded myself as unshockable.
CHAPTER 9
BLACK MAN'S HELL
'Let's get this straight, Bernie. Kaffirs are fucking vermin. They're not human, OK?'
Dougie, my senior colleague in the pick-up truck, was explaining the cornerstone of his world view as we drove around the tidy and well-tended suburbs of white Johannesburg and the less tidy and less well-tended suburbs of coloured Johannesburg.
Most of the blacks we encountered were either domestic servants or - at least in Dougie's eyes - potential criminals. Our job was to answer emergency calls from Community Policing Services customers. We had white and coloured householders on our books, but calls from whites tended to be treated with the greatest urgency. These white callers were usually reporting suspicious people near, on, or in their properties.
Dougie was in his mid-30s. Slightly built and not very tall, he bolstered his otherwise unimposing presence with an arsenal of weapons strapped to his body. I don't know if he was an Afrikaner or an Anglo, because we didn't have the sort of conversations in which I could have asked a question like that. Any details about his background emerged incidentally through anecdotes he'd tell about his past.
These tended to describe his beating, shooting and humiliating 'kaffirs'. He said he'd shot his 'first kaffir' as a teenager. He'd been cleaning a handgun in his house when he'd heard his sister screaming in the garden. He'd run out with the gun, seen a black man standing over her and fired twice. The first bullet hit the man in the shoulder; the second slammed into his head, killing him instantly. He'd told the police the man had been attacking his sister. That was the end of the matter. No charges, no inquest, no nothing. I didn't really believe him. Naively, I thought he had to be lying or, at the very least, exaggerating. After a few shifts with him, I changed my mind.
On one shift, I discovered in the truck's glove compartment a photo of a black man with his face covered in blood. Dougie said he'd taken it as a souvenir after attacking the man during a raid on a shebeen. He told me to keep it as a 'memento'. I didn't really want to, but he urged me to take it, so I put it in my jacket pocket to shut him up.
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On one of my first shifts, we were called out to a coloured person's house in the west of the city. The householder had reported five black youths trying to smash their way in. Apparently, they'd smashed his windows with sticks and were now trying to break down the front door.
We pulled up leisurely at the address. The youths were still there, throwing rocks against the door and trying to shoulder it open. Dougie didn't say anything. He just jumped out of the truck and started shooting. The youths skedaddled. Dougie ran up the path towards the house, firing his pistol wildly at the fleeing figures. He wasn't just shooting in the air for effect: he seemed to be aiming his shots. Luckily for his targets, he couldn't shoot well on the move and, anyway, the juveniles were probably running faster than his bullets. I'd jumped out of the truck and was running behind him. His behaviour left me speechless. Everything was happening too quickly for me to say or do anything. We started chasing the only youth still visible. He was streaking down the road with the velocity of an Olympic sprinter.
Dougie fired again. As he did so, a police car came round the corner. The terrified youth ran straight up to it. Without even stopping to talk to the policemen inside, he opened the rear door and jumped in. It must have seemed a better option than summary execution. For the second time in a week, I found myself back in John Foster Square police station. The fact that shots had been fired meant a bit of paperwork needed completion.
I expected a hard time from police keen to discover why a security guard had been shooting at a member of the public in a residential area. But, apart from a few unprobing questions from a bored sergeant, no one seemed too concerned. We could have been reporting a stolen bike. I told the police I'd been talking on the radio when the shooting started. I'd only just got out of the vehicle as the police arrived, so I couldn't throw much light on the events. However, Dougie not only told the full truth, he also exaggerated the more illegal aspects.
I knew security guards could get away with a lot, but I'd also been told the law was crystal clear about self-defence. You could shoot if you considered your life in danger, but not if that danger had passed. Someone whizzing gazelle-like down the road away from you could not be regarded as a threat.
They released me. Dougie stayed to make a statement. I thought he'd be charged with something, and perhaps suspended, but next day he was waiting for me as usual at work. He said the police considered the matter closed.
I now guessed they wouldn't have done anything even if he'd shot someone dead - so long as that someone was black. Dougie had obviously learnt early what he could get away with. What I'd thought were his tall tales had probably been faithful depictions of reality.
One day, Colin and I found the lamp-posts outside our block of flats posted with flyers decorated with swastika-type symbols. They advertised a meeting for the far-right Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB). Its leader, Eugene Terre'Blanche, would be present. I didn't know that much about him, but I'd seen him described in the British media as a would-be South African Hitler.
Colin and I decided to go along. Outside the venue, khaki-clad paramilitary types sat on horseback or stood holding flags decorated with the swastika-type symbols we'd seen on the flyers. Inside the packed hall, I spoke to Colin. A few people nearby moved away from us, muttering in Afrikaans. A few minutes later, a group of six guards stormed over and ordered us to leave immediately.
Taken aback by their hostility, we asked why. An aggressive paramilitary with a beard said the British weren't welcome there - or anywhere in South Africa. He and his mates all carried firearms, so we decided not to protest at their racism. We made our way to the door, followed by the guards, who looked like they wanted to bash us. I think they were still bitter about the Boer War.
I began to feel very uncomfortable working with Dougie. He had a spitting aggressiveness fuelled by paranoia, suspicion and hatred. I knew a lot of violent people, and I wasn't particularly gentle myself, but Dougie was different. I could never feel at ease with him. Not only would he start waving a gun about for little or no reason, he'd also threaten and beat blacks just for fun. His brutality would astonish me. I'd often tell him to ease off, but he'd just look at me as if I were mad. I think he regarded me as some sort of humanitarian goody-goody.
Over the next few weeks, I came to realise the law didn't exist as something blacks could call on for help. I witnessed officialdom's contempt for black lives every hour of every day. I saw a policeman kung-fu kick a black man in the chest on a crowded street for no reason; I attended an incident where a white man who'd knocked down a black man in his car was asked by the policeman if the victim had caused the vehicle any damage. It was an odd, brutal world that seemed on the brink of boiling over into a bloodbath. For the first time since my arrival, I started thinking about leaving Africa altogether. I just couldn't stomach the misery and injustice I was witnessing. I saw a black family living in an abandoned car surrounded by corrugated iron. I watched black women and children sharing a meal of thin gruel from the paint tin they'd cooked it in. Yet only a few miles away, white families lived in bloated luxury. I was beginning to think like a Guardian reader. I thought I was cracking up.
One night, Dougie and I were on duty, but had been whiling away our shift drinking outside The Moulin Rouge. We should have been patrolling the streets in our truck. We had pagers, with which the company contacted us in emergencies. Claire was sitting with us. Normally, she tended to avoid me when I was drinking. But she'd arranged to meet someone, had arrived early and didn't want to wait on her own. My pager started bleeping. We were being called to a reported burglary. The address was just round the corner. We got up to leave. I told Claire we wouldn't be long. She asked if she could come along, because she didn't fancy sitting on her own. Foolishly, I let her jump in with us.
We arrived quickly at the address. A young white woman told us the offender had only just run out of the house. She gave a brief description of a black man wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Dougie ran one way; I the other. I bolted down the street and round the block, but couldn't see anyone. After a few minutes, I made my way back to the house. A few hundred yards away, I could see Dougie frogmarching someone towards me. Before long, the two of them reached me. On Dougie's face was a smirk; on his black prisoner's, was blood. Then Dougie suddenly belted the man across the back of the head with his pistol. He crumpled to his knees. Dougie started pistol-whipping him. I said, 'Leave it out, Dougie. Leave it out, man.' But he was in a real frenzy.
'Dirty kaffir, dirty fucking kaffir,' he spat as he booted the man, who by now had curled up into a defensive ball. I heard the sound of pounding on a window. I looked up. It was Claire. She'd been watching everything from the truck. She looked distraught. Banging on the window with both hands, she was crying her eyes out, shouting at Dougie to stop.
Dougie eventually tired, and stopped. He pulled his blood-smeared victim to his feet and forced him up the path to the house he'd allegedly burgled. Dougie rang the bell. The young woman opened the door - and let out a scream. She didn't scream because she recognised the quivering man. She screamed because his face was a mask of blood. Dougie told her to call the police.
In a few minutes, they arrived in a van. Dougie said, 'I've got a burglar for you.' The police didn't ask how the alleged burglar had ended up in such a state. Trivial points like that didn't interest them. Dougie said he'd attend the station to make a statement. The police pushed the man into the van and drove off.
We drove Claire back to The Moulin Rouge. She was still upset, but had stopped crying. She asked Dougie why he'd had to hit the man like that. He said, 'He was a burglar.' We dropped her off and drove on.
I didn't feel well. It struck me that the man hadn't been wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He didn't fit the householder's original description. I asked Dougie if he could be sure he'd got the right man. I said, 'Do you really think he's the burglar?'
Dougie laughed, 'Don't be stupid. Of course he isn't.'
He said he'd seen the man
walking up the road with his girlfriend. He'd asked him where he'd been and he'd 'got lippy'. Dougie had then pistol-whipped him on the spot. He added, 'Fucking kaffir. His black bitch got a kicking too.' He claimed that as he was kicking her, she'd wet herself. Her urine had gone all over his boots and trousers. 'That's why he got what he got.'
I felt sick, just sick, and dirty. I asked myself what I was doing with such an animal. I was holding the shotgun in my hands. I felt like smashing the butt into the side of his head. I really wanted to damage him, but I didn't. He was white. The law would have punished me severely for harming even a hair on his head.
I felt like going to the police and telling them the man was innocent. But I guessed my intervention wouldn't have made any difference. The man was black: he was already guilty. It seemed to me that so long as some black man was in custody for an offence, it didn't matter to the police if he was the wrong one. Dougie would make his statement and 'the burglar' would probably receive a lengthy prison sentence. The next day, I went into the office and told them I didn't want to work on patrols any more.
Some people might think I'm exaggerating the way things were for blacks. I'm not. The more independent papers were full of stories of astonishing official cruelty. One story in particular has stuck in my mind. It involves the so-called 'Pabello 26'.
Pabello is a black township. A policeman had been murdered outside his home by demonstrators who'd just been dispersed from a nearby football pitch with tear gas. He'd been struck on the head with his own rifle after he'd shot indiscriminately, paralysing an 11 -year-old boy. The courts convicted 26 blacks of having played a part in the murder. Six received community service, six were sent to prison and fourteen were sentenced to death. The controversial law of common purpose had been used to convict all of them, but the trials never established who'd actually struck the policeman.
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