Granger Korff - 19 with a Bullet

I cracked up with laughter when my mother (who was also a corporal in the reserve force) told me how she had single-handedly protested the fact that lately there had been so many young troops dying while serving time in DB. There had been a spate of deaths reported in the newspapers. She had been on parade with her unit in Johannesburg; the parade was dismissed and the two companies turned to march off the parade ground but my mother had stood her ground and refused to move. Troops walked around her, cussing in her ear to “Get out the way, you silly bitch!” Pretty soon my mother was standing, at ease, alone on the parade ground. The RSM had a fit and told her to fuck off his parade ground immediately and what was her fucking problem. She told him that she was a mother with sons on the border and that she was protesting the deaths of young soldiers in DB. He threatened and cursed and shouted in her face that if she did not remove herself from his parade ground at once she would be charged and put in DB herself. But no threat could budge my mother. She stood alone on the empty parade ground for half an hour while various officers tried in vain to get her to leave, all getting the same response. Finally, to her relief, an army chaplain came to her and asked if she wanted a cup of tea and to talk about it. To which she replied “Yes, please” and walked off with the chaplain. She had made her point. My mother—the original rebel. Now I knew where my streak came from.

We went to the famous Kyalami race track for the Formula One Grand Prix in Darryl’s brand-new AlfaSud sports car which he had just bought. His first new car. He clucked and pecked like a old mother hen over his new piece of tin. I laughed when he fussily said that I shouldn’t lean against it. Knowing me as being heavy handed, he instructed me carefully on the correct way to slowly close the door and, though we were both dying for a cigarette, he said we couldn’t smoke in the car. The new sound system with graphic equalizer blasted out the Police’s ‘Walking on the moon’ that drowned the horn blasts of the racing enthusiasts behind us as Darryl crawled at a snail’s pace over the speed bumps leading into Kyalami.

As Mario Andretti and his mates roared past us in their Formula One rockets, we sat in the front seats of the AlfaSud and did some serious damage to a bottle of good South African brandy. Shouting above the roar of the engines, I told Darryl about the last three months in the bush. Thick with brandy and emotion, I emphasized the point by slamming my right fist into the windscreen of Darryl’s brand-new Alfa. The emotion of the moment was bigger than the shattered windscreen in front of us that splintered instantly from corner to corner into a spiderweb of shiny cracks as I carried on with the story, without pausing, still punctuating it with occasional punches. Darryl showed the true colours of our long friendship as he sat silent for half a minute and let me finish my story before we both took in the damage to the brand-new car’s windscreen, my bleeding knuckle and then roared with laughter. By chance I met Badenhorst who was in my platoon. He was also wandering among the crowds with a friend, drunk out of his mind mumbling about shooting SWAPO. I poured him a stiff three-finger brandy. Soon afterwards he and I both passed out on the ground. I was drunker than I could ever remember being in my life.

Stan hitchhiked from Cape Town up to Johannesburg and spent a couple of days with me. Lance, my old friend from high school, was also on leave from the border; the old gang was together again. Lance had made it to second lieutenant with a Bushman tracker unit and had been close to the area where we had pushed vehicle patrol. I had often asked after him but had not bumped into him on the border. We swapped war stories.

He was bummed that he had just missed the two ops. “We were securing the area for you guys so that you could get into Angola without a contact. If it hadn’t been for us the whole operation would have been compromised!”

“We had a 16-click mechanized convoy with us going in… I don’t think we would have had a problem.”

We argued inter-unit politics and pride and drank. Stan got on well with my old gang and we partied at all the old haunts. We swaggered into the discotheque in Boksburg and danced to Bananarama’s ‘Cruel Summer’ then smoked doobies at the dam.

At a roadhouse that served late-night chow, a notorious Lebanese gang pulled in en masse. They were punks with long reputations of ganging up and kicking the crap out of anyone they decided needed an ass-whipping. They had also been involved in a few stabbings and shootings. One of the well-known Lebanese brothers sauntered by and muttered something to Stan who was glaring at him like a Nazi stormtrooper. The little prick sneered and made a hand gesture. Before Stan or anyone could react I had smashed my plate of burger and fries into his face and followed up with a punch that did not catch him flush. He whirled to run with his face full of ketchup, blood and gravy and I gave chase but ran into two of his delightful ‘cousins’. It turned into a free-for-all with everyone involved. I ended up doing pretty well, with two punks in a head-lock under each arm like in a Bud Spencer movie. I was starting to jump up and down, shaking them around. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Stan reel back as he got caught by a good punch. Derek Worthy floored a skinny Lebanese with a long right-hand. I was just starting to have fun when some off-duty cop sneaked up and sprayed a canister of tear gas into my face from 30 centimetres away. I dropped like I had been shot as did the two Lebs I was holding, who also got the benefit of the blast, and, in agony, unable to breathe, the three of us crawled blindly on our hands and knees with our eyes burning like fire. I ended up leaning against the prick cop who had blasted me.

Finally Taina and I took off together and spent a week in Cape Town. We drove down through the flat, hot Karoo semi-desert and swam naked in one of the wind-whipped, remarkably ice-cold reservoirs that lined the side of the desert road. In Cape Town we went on long drives through the old wine routes. We went for long walks, disappearing off the paths to make love in fields of tall grass and wild flowers.

“Look at it from their side. All they’re doing is fighting for the right to govern themselves in South West Africa. Wouldn’t you be doing that if you were born black, Granger?”

I felt frustrated and out of place among the idiot university crowd. They all seemed like dipshits with their long hair and bullshit. Stupid motherfuckers. What did these jerk-offs know about a T-55 coming out and chasing you, or running the whole night without ammunition, or clearing bunkers while anti-aircraft fire made you almost shit in your pants, praying that the next one wouldn’t turn you into a heap of guts and bone?

One morning I was woken by a loud knock on the front door of the flat where Taina and I were staying. Sleepily I got up and opened it to find Stan standing in full step-out uniform, maroon beret and balsak at his side.

“What the fuck’s going on with you?” I inquired, still half-asleep and with a dreadful, throbbing hangover.

“We’ve all been called up. We have to go back to 1 Para… there’s big shit going on. They called my dad’s house.”

I stared at Stan through misty vision, not able to believe my ears, or the sight of Stan standing in uniform in front of me, telling me to get dressed immediately and get back to 1 Parachute Battalion.

“What? Bullshit. You’re kidding?”

“No, I’m not kidding. They called my dad’s house, man!”

“Bullshit. I don’t believe you.”

“I’m telling you, Gungie, I’m not kidding! I’m leaving right now and hitchhiking to Bloem! Come with me.”