Granger Korff - 19 with a Bullet

I spent the rest of the trip scheming how I could get transferred to a service unit close to home, where the guys got to go home every weekend. I would be close to Taina and there’d be no more walking, heavy kit, shouting instructors or sleeping in the dirt. I would drive a food truck or work as an office clerk and maybe even get to go home during the week. My dad was quite a big knob in the Reserves and could possibly pull some strings.

We landed at Durban just in time to see the sun slip away and darkness envelop the high-rise holiday city. We were quickly piled into Bedford trucks and peered out as we drove through the city with its flashing neon lights, rushing cars and busy sidewalks. At the Bluff we dragged our kit upstairs to the empty two-storey barracks overlooking the sea and wolfed down the sandwiches and strong hot coffee that were waiting for us in the kitchen. The Recce camp seemed deserted. We were casually told that we were free to go to town if we felt like it. Eagerly we pulled our borrowed, wrinkled civvy clothes that we had arrived in from the bottom of the kit we had left at the Bluff. John, Hans and I wasted no time scooting out the base and catching the ferry that took us across the bay to the twinkling lights of downtown Durban. It was the eve of my 20th birthday, so there was added cause for celebration.

“Hey, here, this one looks good,” said Johnny as we dodged cars crossing the busy main road and headed toward the little pub squashed in between two restaurants.

He looked hilarious, dressed in too-short borrowed jeans with a belt pulled tight around his skinny waist.

It was great to sit at a bar and taste a beer again. I had dreamed of this moment countless times while walking in the sun.

Hans was guzzling his third Castle lager and getting feisty.

“Ever tried walking 700 kilometres with no food?” Hans was loudly challenging the few patrons around us. Sensing trouble, I suggested that we move on. Pretty soon we were walking down Marine Parade, loaded to the gills, wild-eyed and looking for some girls to talk to. But with our looks we had no chance. We crossed the busy road to the beach and ran into a kid who said he had some marijuana to sell, and did we want to buy some? Loaded as we were, we said “Why not?”, bought enough for a couple of joints and started walking, looking for a place down at the beach to smoke the stuff.

But Lady Luck had other ideas.

Just before the beach, I saw a car driving past us with its lights off.

“Hey, your lights are off!” Johnny yelled without hesitation, and I walked up to the car as it pulled to a stop. Inside were five burly men who any street kid even a mile away would instantly have known were cops—but perhaps my judgment was off, just coming out of the bush.

“Where’s the action around here?” I inquired, leaning into the car window.

They looked at me and casually told me that they were on their way to pick up a load of marijuana, and did I want to come along?

I replied that we had already scored our own and opened my fingers to show them the small quantity I had in my right hand. I realized too late that it was the wrong answer and that they were cops. The doors swung open and they sprang out of the car like a Natal rugby forward front row and tried to grab me. In a split second I realized that it was the same time, almost to the hour, that I had been arrested the year before, on the eve of my birthday, and I had no intention of it happening again.

I stood my ground and started throwing punches as hard and fast as I could. I caught a beefy, fat-faced cop full in the mouth and he staggered. The others tried to grab my clothes and pull me down, but I kept moving, trying to break up the weed and toss it away at the same time. One tall cop got a good hold of my collar, tearing my T-shirt to the sleeve. I turned and slammed my fist into his ear, hurting my knuckle. They weren’t having much luck; I was catching them with combinations that still came easily to me, even after being in the bush with no food!

I was just starting to think that I was going to get away with fighting them off.

“Get on the fucking ground or I’ll shoot you,” one of them finally yelled desperately in Afrikaans. It was the chubby one I had caught in the mouth. He was standing a couple of yards back with his gun drawn. He was standing, legs apart, breathing hard with both hands holding his revolver and pointing it directly at me.

I had no choice but to sit on the ground. John and Hans had wisely split during the fight, so I was alone. It was a bad situation. I couldn’t believe I had been arrested again. I had only been back in Civvy Street for three hours and already I was busted and on my way to jail.

In the cell I pulled up an old grey blanket and fell into a deep untroubled sleep. I woke in the morning feeling like puking, with a dull headache and a blue eye from where I’d taken a knock the night before. I was moved to a holding cell with about 20 other unfortunates, and waited my turn to see the judge, who was in the same building but on a different floor.

I kept to myself and sat quietly on the floor, thinking over the recent events in my life and weighing up my situation. I had received a two-year sentence the year before, which had been suspended. Those two years were not yet up, so I was probably going to be in the shit; I would get a jail sentence. I wondered how they would react at 1 Reconnaissance and if I did time whether it would be in a civilian jail or in Detention Barracks, DB.

I also wondered what kind of jinx was on me that I was in jail on my birthday, twice in a row. In court I had no counsel; I stood abjectly in the dock and pleaded guilty to possession. I was fully expecting the full brunt of the law and thought I would probably be in the right frame of mind for jail after living like a dog for the last month and more.

“Are you the guy from 1 Reconnaissance Commando?” the judge said, shuffling through a stack of papers on the bench in front of him.

“Yes, sir,” I said, standing at ease with my hands behind my back and looking straight ahead with my best Special Forces look. I told him that I had just come from the operational area and had been in the bush for seven weeks straight, that I had got carried away buying the marijuana—a thing that I did not usually do and would certainly never do again.

He shuffled his notes again and told me that I could end up in serious trouble, that a man of my calibre from 1 Recce should know better. He seemed impressed by my serious demeanour and clearly thought I was a Special Forces operator.

“And how are things going up at the border?” he asked by the way, without lifting his head.

“Where I’ve just come from it’s been pretty busy, sir,” I answered in an over-serious voice.

He wrote for a minute, then looked at me and paused. “Well, Mr Korff, from your record it looks like you are always looking for trouble—and in this case, it looks like you have found it. However, I’m informed that you have important work to do and that you need to get back to your unit as soon as possible. You’ll receive four strokes of the cane, and let’s not see you here again.”

Four strokes! What luck!

I walked out of the dock and was led downstairs down two long corridors, to a small room. I was chuffed. Someone must have pulled some strings for me to get off with just a caning. I was no stranger to a good caning; although I had heard about these police canings—they were supposed to be pretty harsh. A stocky constable pulled two benches together and indicated that I should lie on my belly. He then put two grey jail blankets over me, one across the small of my back and the other across the back of my thighs, leaving my arse exposed for the cane.

He pulled out a cylinder of long plastic canes, made a show of selecting one and bent it, touching it from tip to tip, testing its flexibility. At high school the headmaster or teacher was only allowed to use a rigid cane, and could not lift the cane above the level of his shoulder. This was a little different. This guy pulled the ‘whip’ back as far as he could and brought it slamming down on my arse with all his might as if he was trying to cut me in half. I was determined not to show any pain. The first two were so hard that I did not feel anything. It was too much pain too quickly for my brain to register. Only when he brought the third and fourth ones slamming down on the same spot did the pain shoot waves through me like an electric current, and I felt as though the top of my head would blow off.