by Glenn Wood
Saturday 12 September 1981. The third and final test of the Springbok tour. Also the anniversary of the death of the South African rights campaigner Steve Biko. His demise had been appalling. He had been trussed naked in a police van and beaten to death. Marks of torture were found on his body and the subsequent autopsy revealed extensive brain damage from blows to the head. The South African police offered the inadequate and insulting excuse that he had hit his head when the cuffs went on. No policeman was ever charged over the death. This was a tragic incident which no right-thinking person could condone.
Sadly, we chose to mark this sad anniversary by beating the crap out of each other. Both sides excelled in taunting the opposition to unprecedented levels of violence and it was a miracle no-one was killed.
The police were hyped to hell. We knew this was the big one and undercover intelligence confirmed that the protesters had a number of unpleasant surprises in store for us. We were told that specialist squads consisting entirely of heavily armed gang members had been formed and they planned to kill a cop under the guise of the protest movement. I have no idea if this was true or not. To make absolutely sure we were frightened out of our wits, we were informed that many of the protesters would be armed with containers filled with acid which they planned to throw in our faces. This threat was taken seriously and large barrels of fresh water were placed throughout the police lines. We were informed that should we become splashed with acid we were to immediately plunge our heads into the water. What a good idea, I thought. I’d been planning to stand around until my nose burned off.
I was stationed on the railway lines again. This time it was different. The protesters were out much earlier and from the sounds of it in greater numbers. The chanting was louder, the calls from the marshals more urgent and the aggression emanating from the rugby supporters much more tangible. It may sound melodramatic but there was violence in the air. There had been a huge march down Queen Street the night before the game and the protesters had turned out in force. It had been quite a display featuring coloured flags, giant puppets and a huge array of costumes. But beneath the theatrics there was an underlying tension. The protesters had failed to stop the tour and the final match was their last chance to show the world the depth of their feeling. It was also their final opportunity for payback. Some personal scores were going to be settled and it didn’t matter who the cop was that got hit as long as they were striking someone in blue.
The police riot squads were in a similar mood. Keeping the protesters from the pitch had become a matter of pride. A feeling that had festered since the Hamilton match. The ‘defeat’ that day was a deep scar running through the police psyche, an affront that had to be avenged. For many of our people it was personal as well. Retaliation for the years of abuse suffered as a cop. The exasperation of walking past a group of eight-year-old kids as one oinks at you and the others laugh. A chance to finally smack the guy who grins smugly at you as he walks from the dock with another pathetic periodic detention sentence. Everyone had personal demons to exorcise. It may not have been obvious or openly admitted but it was there.
For the second weekend in a row I stood between the steel lines of the railway track, bracing myself against the wind. This time I wasn’t bored. A forty four gallon drum full of water stood next to me, reminding me of the gravity of the situation. Before long the marches and clashes began for real and a small fixed-wing Cessna aircraft began buzzing Eden Park. The plane was running rings around the much slower police helicopters and I could see that the pilot was dropping objects out the doors.
I was horrified. I had no idea what kind of missiles were hurtling into the crowd but I hoped they were nothing lethal. We heard over the RT that the pilot was dropping leaflets and flour bombs. My horror turned to grudging admiration. This manoeuvre was a stroke of genius on the protesters' part. The flour bombs wouldn’t kill anyone but they would hold up the game and put everyone on edge. The real danger came, ironically, from a police helicopter which nearly collided with the plane while trying to cut it off.
The aerial bombardment of Eden Park was the signal for the protest to heat up. Phosphorous bombs exploded at points around the police perimeter and smoke drifted toward our ranks. Large, heavily shielded groups of protesters smashed into police lines once more, marking the beginning of violent pitched battles that were to continue for the rest of the afternoon.
My spot on the railway line was relatively quiet. Random groups of protesters appeared at the top of the embankment but they could see the vast barbed wire snake that lay between them and us and they left to seek less well defended areas. When it became obvious that the protesters weren’t going to take on the embankment we were pulled out and moved to areas around the park where the fighting was more intense. The Tartan with Green Spots Squad and the rest of our guys were loaded into a van and dropped off at the head of a side street towards which a large group of protesters was heading. Our instructions were to hold the street until one of the specialist riot squads arrived.
At first we couldn’t see anyone but we could hear the march approaching. Anti-tour chants drifted down the street but more frightening was the sound of the marchers beating their shields as they walked.
Bloody hell, I thought, this could get heavy.
Suddenly the group turned into the top of our street. There were a couple of hundred hard-core protesters, carrying shields, some wearing fearsome hockey masks. Most wore crash helmets and carried clubs of some kind. As soon as they saw us they yelled with a mixture of pleasure and anger and charged down the road. It was the most frightening thing I have ever seen. Their intention was clear. They had seen that we weren’t a riot group and they were going to destroy us. I watched in fear as the leaders of the group stooped to pick up rocks as they ran.
The other members of the squad could feel it too and I felt their bodies pressing into me, bracing for the impact. There were only about thirty of us. We were badly outnumbered. We had no shields so we snapped our batons out in front of our bodies as we’d been taught, though I doubt they would have given us much protection. The screaming group was ten metres from us now. I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the bite in my gut.
Eight metres: my fist clenched tightly around the short handle of my PR24. I could see the leaders, raising their shields sideways, ready to smash them into our helmets. Six metres: movement off to my right, panic as I think it is another group of protesters outflanking us, then relief as I see heavy blue greatcoats with red epaulettes. The Red Squad: I didn’t even see them arrive. They marched crisply into position placing themselves between us and the charging mob, shields up, batons at the ready. As soon as the squad formed the protesters wheeled away, pulled back then launched a hail of missiles. Red Squad’s shields came up. One sound, loud above the rest: the smash of rocks against Perspex. The squad marched forward chanting 'Move! Move!' as they proceeded up the street. The protesters split and pulled away, running off to find another weak link in the blue chain. The Red Squad left with them, not so much as a backwards glance at we ordinary cops, still grasping our batons before us, alone on the rock strewn street. It was the only time I saw the Red Squad during the tour.
The incident left us shaken. It had happened so quickly that we barely had time to reflect on what would have happened if they hadn’t turned up.
There was a lot of criticism after the tour about the excesses of the various squads, (I’m happy to report that the Tartan and Green Spots Squad’s behaviour never came into question) and I’m sure a lot of the criticism was justified. So, while I’m hesitant to paint the Red Squad as heroes, I have no doubt that if they hadn't appeared when they did, I and my colleagues would have sustained serious injuries. I was, and remain, grateful for their intervention.
One of our officers, a senior sergeant, told us to stay where we were and to hold our position, then he wandered off to find out what was going on. Just as we’d begun to relax, a second wave of protesters turned into our little street. It
was a smaller group of about eighty, which meant they still out-numbered us by more than two to one. This group was different; we could tell the instant they turned the corner. They didn’t run towards us, instead they marched forward slowly, chanting and singing. Most were padded and some wore helmets but the majority was bare headed and unarmed.
We formed up again into tight ranks, batons extended once more.
The group didn’t seem at all intimidated, they just kept walking toward our lines, unhurried, clumping together and singing. I found this just as unnerving as the first group’s charge, because right up until the last moment, we didn’t know whether they’d stop or not. They came to a halt centimetres before the tips of our batons, timing their advance perfectly. They looked us straight in the eyes, or where they thought our eyes were under the heavy shield of our riot helmets and stood silently glaring at us.
This was an effective tactic. We were so accustomed to abuse and chanting that the silence caught us off balance. I felt a couple of my comrades shuffle nervously. One even poked the man in front of him lightly with his baton to try and elicit some response. Long minutes went by with the only sound being the whistle of the wind and the shuffle of our feet. Then suddenly, as if by some unspoken signal, they began chanting again.
'Amandla, Bi-ko, Bi-ko. Two, four, six, eight, now we have a police state.'
Although I didn’t agree with the sentiment, it was a relief to hear them say it. We knew where we were again. Standing in the thin blue line, feeling the weight and reassurance of your colleagues around you, your breath misting up the visor of your riot helmet, PR24 an unconscious extension of your arm and an angry mob before you screaming abuse in your face. This was the tour I knew. Us versus them. Always a hair’s breadth away from violence. The protesters unshakeable in the righteousness of their cause. The police governed by duty and a steadfast belief in the law. The unstoppable force meeting the immovable object, time and time again.
We stood face to face for an hour, then after threatening to surge forward they backed off and drifted away.
In the distance the small Cessna finished its final approach to Eden Park, the pilot threatening to land on the playing field then pulling up at the last moment. One final flour bomb fell from the small plane almost as an epilogue, a perfect shot which hit All Black forward Gary Knight smack on the back of the head, momentarily stunning him and knocking him to the ground.
Then we all went home. I can’t remember who won the game. I just know it wasn’t New Zealand.
HELPLESS
Rob and my homecomings were less than spectacular. Upon arrival Rob found that his girlfriend, Carey, had become an innocent victim of the tour while he’d been away. She was getting off a bus at Massey University, when a woman behind her recognised that she was the partner of a cop. The woman yelled out ‘Pig lover!’ then pushed her hard in the small of the back causing her to tumble from the bus and fall face first onto the concrete footpath. As she lay shaken and sore on the side of the road, the coward who had shoved her slunk off. Carey was certain the incident was tour related but there was no way of knowing for sure. She never found out who pushed her, which was fortunate because Rob was ready to kill them.
Carey, on the other hand, had gone over to the dark side after having seen some biased media footage of cops beating the shit out of some protesters. She had sat on the fence on the issue of the tour but this tipped her off into the neighbour’s garden. It took several hours of heart-rending, police-being-clubbed-by-gang-members stories, to get her back up onto the fence. Even then she looked at me suspiciously every time I mentioned my recent experiences. Quentin and I were still unable to discuss the issue and I had now been officially blacklisted by the Womyn’s Collective. Thank God.
Many of my other friends were also students and were anti-tour, so for the sake of maintaining friendships anything to do with the Springbok tour was a banned subject.
It was weird going back to normal duty after the intensity of the tour. Things had definitely changed. Not in a day-to-day sense. We still attended the same burglaries, car thefts, assaults - but the line had moved. The police were less tolerant and trusting of the general public and they had lost some respect for us. So when it came time to report a crime or stand up and be counted as a witness there was a new reluctance to co-operate. It was sad to see.
All this was big-picture stuff and I was more concerned with my own personal little picture. The Springbok Tour had been a brief aside in the dwindling career of Constable Wood. I’d shown the requisite amount of teamwork and guts under fire, but my blatant nose thumbing at police systems and procedure by forming the Tartan with Green Spots Squad, had been duly noted.
It was head down, bum up time again and I was determined to carry on my programme of increased vigilance. Regardless of the mixed results it had so far garnered.
This time it wasn’t bad luck that let me down, it was bad health. My stomach problems were getting progressively worse, exacerbated by the day-to-day pressures of being a young cop, my increasingly bad diet, my flatting lifestyle and relationship stresses. I was still in love with Carey and she with me but it wasn’t the overpowering love we’d shared when I was in training (when she didn’t have to see so much of me). It was a warts-and-all relationship now and I had a lot more warts than she’d expected. I was hellishly messy, hardly ever around, clumsy, unreliable, a terrible dresser, and constantly wanted to be out with my mates. If she could overlook these minor flaws, I was a hell of a catch.
Then to top it off I got very, very sick.
I was playing rugby for a teacher’s college team at the time. Bruce (Jack 2) was also in the team and we spent a lot of time together training, which was great. However, when it came to playing for the team on Saturday, I hardly ever made it onto the field. All it took to stop me were a few pre-match nerves and bang, my stomach would churn, fill with acid, aggravate the ulcer I didn’t know I had and I’d end up vomiting either in the dressing room or on the field. I still hadn’t seen the doctor and was blaming my condition on everything from too much booze to not enough sleep.
After I threw up on Bruce’s boots for the third Saturday in a row, he decided something was badly wrong and made me seek medical advice. I went under protest and was flabbergasted when the doctor told me he thought I had an ulcer. I exclaimed that he must have been mistaken as only old people or stockbrokers got them. I wasn’t yet twenty and didn’t have any shares. The doctor said there was one way to find out for certain. He was going to send me for a barium meal. Cool I thought. I love Asian food.
Imagine my disappointment when I turned up at the lab and there wasn’t a spring roll in sight. Just some nasty brown liquid and internal X-Rays.
The results showed a small ulcer with a large Latin name in my stomach. I was prescribed antacid tablets and told I to relax and avoid stressful situations. Easier said than done.
I decided not to tell the police about my medical condition as I was sure they’d use it as a reason to get rid of me. I thought I’d be fine as long as I ate lots of antacids and took a few days leave for some much needed rest and relaxation.
To this end I decided to organise a boys' weekend with some friends including the Jacks. We were to stay at Dave’s parents' holiday home in Pukawa, a small holiday village nestled into a secluded corner of Lake Taupo.
Before leaving Dave and I were passing a toy store when we noticed something in the window we just had to have.
Sitting in a GI Joe display were several, army green, plastic World War Two helmets. A large gaudy sticker fixed to the front bore the words Action Hero. The perfect headgear for a boys' weekend. We bought five of them. They were worn by all the members of the weekend on the way down to Taupo and for every subsequent event until we returned home.
This weekend will be remembered for many things but one in particular. It marked the return of the famous Gonzo bad luck triple-header.
The first incident was fairly minor. I backed my car into a tree
stump upon arrival. Dave was already there, as were his parents. They had long since learned that it helped to keep their holiday home damage free if they were present during boys' weekends. Not that they crowded us. They were lovely people who prescribed to the charitable notion that we were grown lads who could take care of ourselves. A good theory but sadly not applicable on an Action Hero weekend.
Everyone was sitting in the living room when I crashed my car into the tree stump. Upon hearing the crunch Dave declared 'Gonzo’s arrived.' Bad luck/poor judgment incident number one.
Number two came soon afterwards during an enjoyable jaunt in Dave’s parents' boat, his father’s pride and joy. I was elected to secure the craft to its mooring. I did this by tripping over the anchor rope and plunging headfirst into the freezing water, catching my wrist on the edge of the boat and breaking my watch strap. I moaned helplessly as the wristwatch Carey had bought me for my birthday sank into the murky depths of the lake, never to be seen again.
This was unfortunate but I was determined not to let either of these incidents ruin my weekend. I was among the first to raise my hand when Dave’s dad asked who’d like to go waterskiing. I’d never skied before and I thought it would be fun. It was.
Dave was very good water-skier, having done it for most of his life. He was able to tear around on one ski while the rest of us were having a hard time on two. Bruce, a huge guy, standing at six four and weighing a well-muscled 100kg or more, made the outboard motor work overtime to pull him up. Once upright he rocketed around the lake with the finesse and control of a hurled brick. After Bruce had finished I treated the boat to a rare aerobatics skiing display by managing to waterski on my head. An unexpected downside of this manoeuvre being that the Action Hero helmet I was wearing almost garroted me. Its plastic strap dug into my neck as the main part of the helmet filled with water and dragged behind my bouncing head. You may be forgiven for thinking this was incident number three, but no, a little strangulation was nothing compared with what was to come.