Bossiespruit se Bloubos

Bossiespruit is where we train

In the heat and in the rain..

Blou Bos. Its very simple really. 25kg. 10km. 1 hour. If all of you make it, you don't get fucked up. If you didn't? Day became night. Bossiespruit was like that. Black or White. You made it. Or you didn't. Most of the time they fucked you up.

The instructors knew to the last second how long it took a fit person to get anywhere at Bossiespruit. And they gave you one second less than that. So you ran like hell. And when you didn't make it, they fucked you up some more.

Blou Bos was the yardstick. It measured everything. If you were fit enough. If you mind was right. If you helped your buddies. If you could ignore the taunting of the instructors.

We were sitting in the menasie just after lunch doing a course on the rules of driving military vehicles. I still remember rooimoer talking about how long you have your indicator going before you change lanes. And whether dogs tend to change their minds halfway across a road. And then his voice tailed off, and he stared aimlessly outside.

Fullkitgeweerbakstenetreeandrieminutefokkenbloubos! Mad scramble for kit and geweer. Treen aan. Not enough time to fix everything tightly so your sleeping bag is hanging lopsided over your neck. Fuckity fuck, you'll just have to run like that. "Julle vier? Daai fokken tyre? Kry vir julle!" So it's fullkit geweer and tyre today... Fokkoffdaagaatdjulle!

The first time we did bloubos the last guys came in 6 minutes too late. The retraining stopped after ten that night. We made it a week later. By 15 seconds.

Bloubos was a small copse of Australian bluegum trees 5km away from Bossiespruit. Groot bloubos was further away. We never ran that one - althought the implied threat was always there. The pic of Bossiespruit was taken in 2005/6 by Danie.

Die groot dag the big day

What do you take with when you go to the army? Sports clothes. So I packet my tennis kit, including racket. Tennis shoes. Running shoes. The ones supplied by the army were World War 2 era technology. A swiss army knife. Underpants. The SADF ones were legendary. Rugby shorts and 2 tshirts. Brasso, polishing lappies, Kiwi boot polish. NOT Nugget. Only moffies used nugget. Shaving kit. Toiletries. Omo washing powder. Writing paper, envelopes, stamps. I can’t remember writing any letters, although I must’ve. Locks. I took the 3-pack of locks that used the same key. I remember they cost about 5 times the price of 3 separate locks. I also took a high tech lock with a keyless magnetic unlocking mechanism. It lasted two days. A chain to keep your washing from being stolen off the line. I never used it, never lost any washing either. Money - I seem to remember an amount of thirty rand was suggested. I took a hundred. Just in case. I spent most of that on chocolate and coke. And a camera - bought a relatively cheap 35mm. I know the boekie said no, but if it was confiscated it wasn’t a Hasselblad.

The amptelike information booklet also said that once we got there, we would get the opportunity to send our civvie clothes and bags back to our parents. This sounded like too much trouble, so I bought a really cheap plastic togbag from Mr Price in Empangeni, and decided to wear old clothes that I could throw away instead of mailing home. Then of course Moeder insists on a 1st aid kit the size of Alaska. I think the only things I ever used from that were the Disprins. I never got blisters in the army - I must’ve had perfectly average feet.

I have to pack all of this into one bag. After the third re-pack I throw out half of Alaska, and force the zip closed. Bag in the car, off to Durban. The groot good-bye. Mom is teary eyed, Dad gives me a stewige handruk. And a hug. Then all the new guys get herded to the train. The handle of my Mr Price bag breaks off. Fuckity. I carry it the rest of the way hugged to my chest. Find a compartment, put the bag down to introduce myself. The zip tears off the plastic material of Mr Price. Fuckity fuck.

In the compartment with me were Tony Barnes and Wimpie le Roux and John (Sorry, CRAFT disease, can’t remember his surname). John got sick at the start of JL’s and he got thrown off the course. Not sure what happened to him. Tony and I were in Echo Troop for basics and JL’s. Wimpie was in the same bungalow for JL’s.

The train took almost 24 hours to get to Kroonstad. I seem to remember we overnighted on the train at Harrismith station. No roofie ride, no rush. A very polite reception. It seems we had arrived at least five days before the rest of the diensplig inname, and they weren’t interested in us. Yet.

Herman

Why JL troepe were bussed all the way from Bossiespruit to look after Vegkop was never explained to us... or if they did explain it was something like fokkofkliminnielorriejullefokkenetters! Vegkop was where everyone did officers course – we never did, and for some odd reason I always felt a bit cheated for not having stayed in the old convent..

Albertus Erasmus and I were swerfwagte at Vegkop one evening. It must’ve been summer because we had our sleeping bags arranged on the top storey stoep that ran round most of the building. During our four-hour stint Bertus and I wandered up and down the garden area in front of the main building, talking quietly of politics and philosophy and music and the fact that we were outside in the middle of the night and didn’t have to wear jerseys. Both of us had Walkman’s – the old battery operated ones that played tapes and absolutely chewed batteries. Highly illegal of course, so they were cunningly concealed, with earpieces arranged that Rooimoer wouldn’t notice if he came and checked on us..

But that isn’t what I want to talk about. Bertus lent me a Koos du Plessis tape that night. The song that really stuck with me, lying on the stoep with a night breeze rustling through the tall bloekomboom next to the building was Herman...

Herman, jou skepe

le weer in die baai

hulle kom van ou oorde

waar ver winde waai

van Java en Malta

Beiroet en Bombaai

maar waar jy vanaand is

kan ons maar net raai

ons wou nog praat oor Leningrad

Khartoem en Zanzibar

toe laat jy vir my

alleen agterbly

met 'n droom en 'n gebreekte kitaar

A quarter of a century later I’ve been to most of those places. I learned my Swahili in Zanzibar. I can comfortably distinguish between the Arabic of Beirut and that of Khartoum. But when I hear the song, I think of the stoep at Vegkop, and the wind in the bloekomboom.

The pic was taken in Oman, in 2005

Diensplig - the preparation

My callup was for 1 July 1984. University had finished in December, so I managed to get a job at the University of Zululand, helping with rainfall research at the Dept of Hydrology. I lived in Mtunzini, a sleepy little village on the Zululand coast.

I had this little booklet on how to prepare yourself for diensplig. I cannot remember if it was sent with my oproep papers or whether it was a CNA special that my mother bought (mom’s did things like that).

One of the articles stressed that you needed to get fit before you went to the army, and gave a whole set of exercises that one needed to do. Having grown up with all the horrible stories of what happened in basics, I decided I’d better do something about this. What they didn’t tell you was that you only needed to be fitter than the fattest guy in your bungalow – but that of course you only find out in basics.
Every afternoon after work I’d head to the beach. I’d do about 30 pushups, 30 situps, and run up the tallest dune 10 times. Then I’d sit down and drink a 6-pack before going home. All pretty useless.

Dankie Tannies

The Suiderkruisvonds was everywhere. Also known as the dankietannies, they organised pakkies for the boeties on the border, usually stationery so you could write to your mom and your girlfriend (who was probably in the pub getting pissed).

I only once received anything from them. Kroonstad, 1984. Basics. We were treed aan without warning in the middle of the week, told to get clean and dressed in 10 minutes. The dankietannies had organised for Anneli van Rooyen to come and sing for us. Remember Seemeeu? Yes that one.

Oh and we had to pay twenty rand for the privilege. And don't worry, it has been taken off your pay packet. Fuckit I was only earning R4.75 a day.

War Memorials

This is not exactly PW & Sons material, but it does have relevance I think.

I recently had a chance to visit the "lost" British War Memorial south-east of Basra. In a somewhat bizarre act, Saddam moved it from Basra in 1997 and rebuilt it brick by brick in the middle of the desert.

It commemorates over 40,000 British & Indian troops that died in Mesopotamia around Basra in World War 1. One of the inscriptions that caught my eye was "Jemadar Khandikar and 1,277 other Indian soldiers" There are several similar inscription on the walls.

There are no monuments for our war that I'm aware of. Which is sad.

"The soldiers graves are greatest preachers of peace" - Written in a cemetery of German war dead in Kiev

Basics

Staanopsitstaanopsitstaanopfokkofommieboomdagatjulle!

Bushcraft lesson after lunch. The winter sun is warming the back of my neck where we’re sitting in veld. Very peaceful, if it wasn’t for the main highway leading out of Kroonstad right behind us. It's been busy since 3 in the morning, getting ready for inspection, quick opfok (you mustn't look to fucked up for morning parade), PT, the 2,4 and some more push-ups because one of your maatjies was too slow.

And now korporaal is telling us to look for kommuniste from right to left when you lying in the long grass.

Not too long and heads nodding. You’re so tired you fall asleep while you writing your notes. I still have my notebook where the writing becomes illegible and disappears in a scribble off the side of the page.

Jullewillfokkenslaap?! Fokkof ommie bos. Nee! Nie links om nie, regsom, dagatjulle weer! Etters!

Kroonstad

As part of our “training” as CO’s (Candidate Officers) we had to take over the guard duty at the School of Engineers. We would act as the officer on duty, while the real officer on duty went down to the pub for a beer or two. Well at least we didn't have to sit in a cage between two rows of barbed wire any more...

Besides the normal tasks of making sure the guards were properly dressed, sorting out the duty roster and handing out the shrink-wrapped rounds, we aslo had to answer the phone and deal with any emergencies the police of fire brigade might have to deal with.

Just before midnight I get a phone call from a very Afrikaans aunty from the police station. Someone handed in a hand grenade and she wanted to know what to do with it. Jeez, how was I supposed to know what the police did with hand grenades they picked up.

After a couple of question and answer sessions (she I think fell out of the stupid tree when she was small), we finally figured it wasn’t South African so it must be communist (her description, not mine).

Next question (were were on 1st name terms by this time). “Elsa, just a quick check, is the pin still in?” After a brief pause I get a “No man, there’s no pin”……. fuckity fuck.

“OK Elsa, is the handle still on this grenade?” By now she was getting the gist of the conversation. “Jissis, there no handle either. Fokkit, what now man?”..... double fuckity fuck.

“Listen Elsa, you may have a problem. Without the pin or the handle, it means the grenade was armed, but didn’t go off. I don’t know how stable it is, so be careful. Don’t bump it.”

Thunk. I could hear her drop it on the desk at the polisiekantoor. And thunk again as it rolled off the desk on to the floor. And amongst it all very rapid footsteps and lots of screaming…..

We did a follow up phone call in the morning but were told that “it’s all under control…”

A town called Alex - Part 2

Township duty was mostly boring, doing the daily patrol, playing soccer with the kids. Every so often thinks would get ugly, and then it's total confusion and fear for a few hours. Then it's the boredom routine again.

We were on one of our boredom patrols one Wednesday afternoon (which was a bummer because it means we missed sport parade)in the poorer part of Alex, the one with the tin shacks. The guys were talking about rugby, and teasing Dof Stoffel because his girlfriend wanted sex but he came from a farming community and he was worried what his friends would think..

Out of the blue two Ak's went of on full Afrikaans from one of the shacks. Most of the rounds hit the sides of the buffel, no-one was hurt. But there was some chaos and pandemonium. My radioman was screaming into the radio, the troops on the right side were firing back and the ones on the left managed to get off the Buffel onto the ground (for thos who don't know, lying under a Buffel when someone is shooting at you is not a good idea. The v-shape forces all the ricochets down on top of you).

Four troops had managed to get round the back of the shack, but no one was getting anywhere. They obviously had loads of ammo. I was trying to figure out the next move and swearing at myself because I only had my 9 mil with me, when the cavalry arrived in the form of a mellow yellow - one of the police casspirs.

He didn't even slow down, just turned and drove straight over the tin shack. End of story. Now why the fuck didn't I think of that?

Come to the dark side - we have cookies..

Kerkparade was a big event. The whole unit turned out. Even the Jewish kids (of course after the parade they were sent back to camp to clean dustbins). In basics it was simple. You picked the church that had the best cookies after the service. All the churches in Kroonstad vied with each other. And troepe are cheap. Cookies were enough to bribe them to listen to your particular version of religion. The NG Kerk, had it's church in the base, so if you were Afrikaans you weren't going to see town on a Sunday. And ince they felt they had a captive audience they dispensed with the cookie bribing system. Within weeks their numbers had dwindled to about half a dozen. A witch hunt was started to force the troepe back into the NG Kerk, but it was never very successful. No cookies, no church.

Bethlehem (not the one with three wise men and a virgin), 1985. I'd come back from a township late on Saturday night. Sunday morning there was a knock on my door and the mess cook popped his head in apologetically. "Sammajoor vra dat jy asseblief Kerkparade toe kom". I'd been in the army long enough to know that no matter what your rank, it's better to listen to Sammajoor. I didn't wear my uniform, but Rodney Green (I think) and myself presented ourselves at church parade in jeans and tshirts. The parade was done, and the troepe were getting into transports to be taken to the various churches around town.

Sammajoor looked at use and said "The army says you have to go to church - which one do you belong to?" He didn't comment on our lack of uniform. Rodney looked at him straight in the eye and said "St Agnostics, Sammajoor".

There was a moment of silence. "Luitenant, we don't have that church in Bethlehem. But the Methodists are similar" Daa gat jy!

Authority

I’d been sent to Pretoria for a month, to give a practical counter-insurgency course. To a bunch of office clerks. Yes, the army doesn’t always think. Ever tried teaching house-clearing to someone who gets asthma from using a pen? It was long month…

I left early one afternoon when my two instructors were busy with them on the finer art of pushups, and went to a mall in search of a bookshop and some decent coffee. Not in that order though. I went for some coffee first, and had barely sat down when a red-haired corporal and a whole entourage of troops with R5’s came up to me.

“Sir, do you have permission to be here?” he asks. What kind of a fuckwit question is that? Since when do I need permission to drink coffee? I’m allowed to shoot people without authorization, and now I need permission to drink coffee? This conversation was going downhill.

“Who’s your commanding officer, Sir? He asks. “Right now? I am” I tell him. The thing is, he knows, and I know the odd military rule that states that you may only be arrested by someone of equal or senior rank. So this whole thing is getting frustrating for both of us and going absolutely nowhere.

In the end I give him the Devil Eyes De Villiers direct line number. Devil Eyes is the Kommandant at my base in Bethlehem (not the one with three wise men and a virgin). One liner radios his head office, they phone Devil Eyes. Red head the one liner comes back to me, gives me a very reluctant salute, and fucks off.

I heard later from the adjudant at base that Devil Eyes had lost the plot when they asked him. Amongst other things I was evidently given strict instructions to shoot them if they didn’t piss off. The corporal never told me that though.

A pretty town called Alex

My mind is turning to sludge. I think it was Alexandria, the township just next to Sandton. How a cesspool could get a pretty name like that I dunno. We were doing a late afternoon patrol in our Buffel. There was supposed to be a poliesman with us, but he was busy, and we decided to take a drive, then go home. I’d been invited to a braai that night and there was a pretty girl I wanted to chat to.

We came around a corner into a open area of veld. And the first thing I saw were people scattering. A few people were still milling around. Lying at their feet was some poor sod with a tyre around his neck. He was soaked – I assumed it was petrol. He’d been beaten up pretty badly, and he was barely conscious. The driver (his name was Jannie and he came from Standerton, and I have no idea why I should remember that after 20 years) gunned the Buffel and headed straight for them, hooting.

It all happened in slow motion. The one shit looked me straight in the eye, bent down and lit the petrol. Then he stood up and gave me the middle finger. So I shot him. Another guy threw a brick at the burning man’s head. I shot him too.

Three of my guys peeled off the top of the Buffel with blankets and a fire extinguisher. They managed to removed the tyre with the barrels of their R4’s, sprayed the poor oke till he looked like a snowman, and threw two blankets over him. He was still moving, but he didn’t look too good.

The signals tiffie got hold of the cops while the rest of the guys made a hurried perimeter defence. Everyone was a bit shocked. There was no one in sight. Just as well, the troepe weren’t into winning hearts and minds right then.

I got shat out by some police captain for not doing things by the book while a medic tried to keep the poor man alive. The fuck wanted to know how many rounds I'd fired and wanted me to produce the empty doppies!! Spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening writing out my statement in longhand (no computers in those days). All the troepe were interviewed, and I was confined to quarters. A bokkop major popped into my room just before dinner and told me the cops had decided the shootings were legit and they wouldn’t press charges. But that the paperwork will still take some time.

The braai was good, but the pretty chick was there with a huge rugby forward. What a fucked up day.

Going home

This one didn’t happen to me, but it’s a story worth telling. Piet studied Geology with me. He’d just come out of the army when we met. He’d also been to Bossiespruit, and we got chatting. I asked him about adjusting to civvie life, and besides the normal things like insisting on walking in step with whoever was next to you, he told me this..

Although based in Sector 10, he’d spent 9 months in Angola before he managed to get some time off and visit his family. Now Piet came from the Karroo, from a Calvinistic, God-fearing Afrikaner family. And as Afrikaner families tend to do, the whole district was invited to Sunday lunch to welcome back the prodigal son.

Dad said prayers, and the Mom’s, girlfriends, wives started dishing up food for the twenty or so people sitting at the table. In the middle of this all, Piet leans over to his Mom and says “Ma, pass die fokken botter asseblief”.

There’s absolute silence at the table. Swearing just doesn’t happen in families like this. Definitely not with women and children present. Piet, completely mortified at what he’s just said, gets up and goes to his room. About 5 minutes later his Mom comes in, tells him it’s ok. They all understand, the army was tough, and there were no nice girls, and sometimes these things just happen. But it’s all ok.

Piet looks at his Mom, and before he can even think, blurts out “ Ja ok Ma, maar ek het so ‘n kont gevoel!”

Ja Sammajoor, Nee Sammajoor!

Officers plan, decide what needs to be done, eat nice meals, and do admin. Sergeant Majors get the job done. Never mind the fact that they salute you, or accept orders from you – if you piss them off your day will rapidly become miserable. No matter what rank you are. People are invariable polite to the Sammajoor.

The Sammajoor of the Army was at Bethlehem (not the one with three wise men and a virgin) on an inspection visit. I’d met him earlier in the day. A short, stocky, quietly spoken, polite and obviously competent individual.

He was standing at the entrance of the HK security area, talking to Blackie Swart when I came out of the office. All the troops were strekking, a couple of flustered one pips saluted him (he saluted them back with a small grin on his face) – all was peaceful.

Then out came “Pete” (I cant remember his real name). Pete was an English Lt from Durban doing one of his diensplig camps. He’d made a deal with devil eyes De Villiers. He’d be called up to Bethlehem (not the one with three wise men and a virgin) every year, and he’d audit the Regiment’s book during that time. Nice and cushy. He was neatly dressed, wearing his browns, but his long blonde surfer hair was almost at his shoulders.

Sammajoorvandieweermag was a patient man, but this was just too much. “Luitenant hoekomisjoufokkenharesolank!” It was a statement not a question. Pete did the totally unexpected - “Sergeant Major, if you don’t even have the decency to salute me before using such crass language, I’m afraid I don’t have time to talk to you” he said in his best poncy Durban accent. And off he walked. Sammajoor came to attention, gave him a perfect salute, and stayed at attention until Pete was at least 10 metres away.

The next day Pete wore civvies to work. Two days later he flew to Sector 10 to do some mine clearing… his hair was short.

Curiosity

A Captain (for the life of me I can’t remember his name) was in the mess with us in Bethlehem (not the one with three wise men and a virgin). He’d done the EOD course, and I talked him into giving a talk on bomb disposal, booby traps, and what not to do.

He set up his whole collection of landmines, bombs, timer switches, portable x-ray equipment, a box of clothes pegs (you won’t believe how handy they are if you want to make bombs), and some other odds and sods.

All the troepe came into the lecture room. “Ok guys, I’m going to coffee quickly, look but don’t touch. I’ll be back in 5 minutes” said the Cpt, and the two of us traipsed off in search of some coffee.

I don’t think we were more than 30 metres from the lecture room when there as a huge crash, followed by screaming and shouting, and a whole bunch of troepe fighting to get out the door – white smoke billowing after them.

The Captain had attached some of the exhibition to a flashbang or two, and even nastier, to a CS canister taped to the underside of the table. Tear gas really is horrible. It was probably an hour or two before the troepe were in a fit state to listen to lectures. But they learn’t the most important of lessons – don’t fucking touch stuff if you don’t know what it’s going to do…

How to blow yourself up

We did all our explosives training at the outside base. It was far away from town, so we usually made a whole day of it. Even got the base to send out food for us at lunch time. I used to take sandwiches with – cold army food really is gross.

We were doing the basics of explosives with a new intake, and after numerous lectures on PE4, detonators, fuses and safety procedures, we finally give every troop a piece of PE4, a length of fuse, a detonator and a crimper to join the det and fuse. And some matches (remember this is explosives 101 – the simple stuff).

Charles Bester was one of the instructors, sitting with the guys, going through the procedures with them. He was an excellent instructor, always calm – which was good because a surprising amount of people get nervous and shaky when handling explosives. For the non-army people, PE4 (plastic explosives) is very stable. We used to burn it to boil water for tea.

Four of the troops put their rigs together, crimped the detonator onto the fuse, inserted it into the plastic explosives and then walked about 25 metres forward and put it onto the ground to light it. Once you’ve lit it, you turn your back on it and walk back normally (very difficult to do). The fuse burns at a specific speed – so the time is set by the length of the fuse. One of the more nervous guys came back at a very fast walk. Charles had been watching him, and as he arrived back in the safe area, he asked the guy “En waar is jou fokken vuurhoutjies?” and turned round to grin at me. Before we could do a thing, the guy spun around, and ran straight back towards the burning fuse.

Fuckit. Charles and I legged it after the guy, and managed to tackle him before he reached the explosives, both of us crashing on top of him and knocking his wind out. We dragged him back, Charles hit him on top of his boshoed and told him to stop being an eedjit. The rest of the troops thought it was hilarious and teased him for days afterwards.

Route marches

Route marches are an integral part of training. Except at Bossies they were also part of the general fucking around. I think we did at least one route march a week, the times were arbitrary - but usually after 21:00, and of course with 5 minutes notice to "Fokkentreeaanvolkitstaaldakengeweer!!! Nou!"

Then it's off in the dark at a fast walk/slow jog sort of pace. Not sure if there's a name for it, I think the Brits call it tabbing. If the moon was up, it went quicker, but on a dark night the first 30 minutes was always characterized by stumbling, unexpected face plants and a fair amount of swearing. And of course there's the certainty that if your time is slower than last time, you get to do it again.

The photo shows Tony Barnes (left) and I just before a route march. Note the ancient webbing. I think the engineers were sucking on the hind tit when it came to equipment. The note on the back of the photo says our 20km time was 3 hours 20 minutes.

War School 101

I think it was late 1985 when we did our military maneuvers in the Eastern Free State. Lesotho had some internal strife, and it was probably also aimed as a show of force for the rebels in Maseru.

We left early in the morning, driving along the main roads toward Fouriesburg, and then on to Ficksburg, building temporary bridges across what seemed every single stream. In between it all we had ambushes along the road, minefields to clear, wounded people to casevac . The ambushes didn’t always work so well – the sergeant major would shoot at us with blanks from behind a tree, we shoot back, he declares us dead, we say not a fuck and drive off. I think he found it very frustrating.

I was assigned a driver for the Gharrie (the word Gharrie, usually assigned to any jeep-like vehicle, is actually a Swahili word, and is still used ubiquitously in East Africa) as I never got around to getting one. By the 1st afternoon I made him sit in the back and he became my radio operator. He was a useless driver – kept falling asleep at the wheel.

The vehicles in the pic were my part of war school 101, lined up next to the parade ground at 2 Field in Bethlehem (not the one with 3 wise men and a virgin).

Roadblocks and boredom

King Jonathan of Lesotho was in danger of being deposed, or he was deposing someone. One of the Squadrons from Bethlehem (not the one with 3 wise men and a virgin) had sent a troop to Bloemfontein as engineering support for a planned military invasion. We were patrolling the Lesotho/South Africa border from Ficksburg to Golden Gate.

We’d been manning a roadblock just outside Ficksburg for about 12 hours, checking cars and buses that were taking migrant workers back to Jozi. We’d caught teenager with a bag of shit quality dope. I was going to confiscate the dope and let the kid go, but some gung ho police sergeant insisted on taking him to the cop shop.

Tubby van Deventer (he’s dead now) was bored. He’d taken a rooikat (caracal for the non-Africans) off one of the farmers earlier the afternoon, and decided to play silly buggers. The cat was forced very unwillingly into an old battered suitcase, and the suitcase was placed next to the road, about 200 metres past the stopper group.

Within 5 minutes a very full Toyota taxi screamed to a halt, the suitcase was snatched and the taxi spun off. The rest was slow motion…. people started peeling out of the windows, the sliding door had opened and 3 guys just rolled out on to the tar. The driver just got out – he didn’t brake, didn’t stop. He just exited the vehicle, as the Americans would say. A rooikat probably weighs about 20 kg, but a pissed off caracal inside a minibus must’ve looked the size of a grizzly.

As for the cat, he got away. There was a farmhouse about 500m from the roadblock, and early the next morning the farmer brought us all some hot coffee and homemade rusks. He was bitching about a rondloper rooikat that ate his chickens the night before.

Tuit djou bek!

The mine warfare training in Ladysmith was at their training grounds outside of town. Also doing training there at the time was the Cape Coloured Corps – a delightful bunch of training. Although different to standard operating procedures, their training methods were novel and seemed to work.

They were working on 81mm mortars. Me, knowing absolutely nothing about them went to have a look, and tried to get a couple of freebie lessons on targeting these things. They’d spent the first few days firing practice rounds, then smoke and white phos. It amazed me just how far you could chuck a mortar round.

It was their last day on the mortars, we had just finished our course, and I went to watch them using HE. Boys never grow up – noisy things are always fascinating. I can’t remember, I think there was a battery of 8 or 9 mortars, all making a very satisfying “tonk” sounds as they threw the HE at a target way off in the distance.

Something had caught my eye. The troops manning the tube closest to me had thrown a mortar round into the tube. And it didn’t come out. And then he threw another one in. And another. The last didn’t even go all the way in – the point stuck out of the tube. And very calmly he turned around and announce “loop vol korporaal!”

I turned around to look for the corporal. There was no one within a 100 metres of me. People slowly started appearing, rather hesitantly I thought. The poor troop had by now realized that he’d done something he probably shouldn’t have. His corporal came up to him and quietly said “tuit djou bek”. The oke dutifully pouted his lips and “smack!”, he got klapped in the face. He didn’t even blink.

Everybody looked at me. Couldn’t understand why – until it dawned on me that I was the demolitions guy. And who better to sort out an 81 mil mortar tube full of rounds. Shit, I knew fuckall about mortars, don’t think they even showed us how they worked. Best thing I reasoned, was to get them out of the tube first. So I tipped the tube over, lifted the back end up and let them fall out the front of the tube. For some reason no one wanted to help me, and the bloody thing is heavy! None of them exploded. So far so good. The rest was easy – I destroyed them with some PE4.

The troop? He was single handedly carrying the base plate of the 81mm mortar to the target area and back..about 10km for the round trip