Whitethorn (78 page)

‘Prevari-something, Sir.'

‘Sergeant, not Sir, you cretin!
Sergeant
!' Bolton roared, making me jump inwardly. ‘It means instantly, at the double, and don't argue!' I told myself that I had serious doubts that Vermaak would know the meaning of cretin.

‘Yes, thank you, Sergeant.'

Sergeant Bolton shook his head despairingly. ‘Don't thank me! Just say, “Yes, Sergeant!” I can promise you will never have any reason to thank me for
anything
, Rifleman Vermaak. Now stand at ease and pay attention.'

I wasn't game to push my head forward to glance at Vermaak. It was, of course, a name that brought back several earlier traumatic memories from The Boys Farm. Vermaak is a fairly common Afrikaner surname and I had no reason to suppose the guy Sergeant Bolton was taking apart was the infamous and epileptic Pissy Vermaak of my childhood. I quickly told myself that they would never allow an epileptic into the army so it simply couldn't be. But I was nevertheless aware that I was trembling slightly at the recall of the name.

‘Righto, now listen carefully,' Sergeant Bolton said, raising his voice slightly. ‘The DC-3 hasn't any seats, that's because you're not entitled to them, not being gentlemen. So you will sit on your arses on the deck. You will note that there is a webbing wall across the back of the plane and a door that opens up at the arse-end. You will stow your suitcases in the back and then enter,' he pointed to the hatchway in the centre of the plane, ‘by the centre hatchway. The walls of the plane are also covered with webbing so you will sit against the wall, one man next to the other, holding onto the webbing if this proves necessary. You will do this on either side of the aircraft, leaving a corridor down the centre. Do I make myself understood?'

‘Yes, Sergeant!' we all yelled like a bunch of schoolkids, the Vermaak lesson having been suitably absorbed.

‘Right then, I will hand you a brown-paper bag when you enter the aircraft and this is to be used in case of turbulence.' He turned to Vermaak. ‘That means in case you are airsick, Rifleman Vermaak. Now, if any one of you is sick on the floor of the aircraft, I will make you clean up the mess when we land using your own shirt, and you will be placed on report. Do you understand me?'

‘Yes, Sergeant!' we chorused again.

‘Your brown bags will be retained by all of you until we find a suitable place to dispose of them. Righto, now there are two webbing seats available, one for myself and one . . .' He looked around and then pointed to Vermaak. ‘And one for Rifleman Vermaak. We will now do a final rollcall before we board the aircraft. When I call your name you reply, “Sergeant,” that's all.' He then proceeded to call out our names and at the conclusion paused, looked us over slowly and shook his head. ‘You're a pretty ordinary-looking lot! May Gawd help the defence of Rhodesia!' Then, in the middle of the grin this evoked from us, he suddenly barked ‘Attention!' We all came to the same ragged and mistimed attention as on the previous occasion. ‘At the double, load your suitcase and board the aircraft. Dismissed!' he shouted.

Seated against the starboard wall of the DC-3, a couple of guys from the front, was when my big shock occurred. There against one side of the door leading to the pilot's cockpit was Pissy Vermaak. Even after all these years there was no mistaking him. My heart began to beat faster for a second time, why, I can't say because I had never feared him. But it nevertheless did, while at the same time I found myself wondering if he still smelled of piss.

I had never been in an aeroplane before and was fortunate enough to be placed beside a window. Although taking off was a bit hairy, with the engines straining and the wings arocking and ashuddering, and a definite feeling that we weren't going to get airborne, suddenly we were in the air and I heard a thump as the undercarriage withdrew into the wheel-well. Once in the air I was able to rest on my knees in order to see out of the plane window and I must say it was a wonderful experience, like playing God and looking at the tiny world of man below. Here and there I spotted a native village, just a few huts and a
kraal
made of whitethorn bush to keep the cattle safe at night, and the usual patches of maize and vegetable gardens where the women worked. Sometimes there'd be a few cattle or goats, with a small child acting as herd boy, everywhere else to the furthermost horizon was covered in the amazing spring colours of the Northern Rhodesian woodland forest, with an occasional rise of rocky hills to break the appearance of a large randomly coloured quilt that appeared to be covering the earth.

While we met with turbulence from time to time when I was required to sit tight and when several of the guys were sick, I think I was too enchanted with the prospect of watching the landscape below to think about feeling queasy. All I wanted to do was get back on my knees to look out of the window. At one stage I glanced up to see Vermaak with his face buried in his brown-paper bag. ‘Nothing trivial I hope,' I heard myself saying under my breath. I was surprised at the sharp sting to my memory that his reappearance in my life had caused. I guess your childhood is never quite over and the early hurts are the ones you're most likely to take to your grave unhealed.

Almost three hours later we flew over Bulawayo, a small city with the usual outlying African shanty town with higgledy-piggledy dirt roads and without trees, known in white-man-speak as the native location. Neat, leafy European suburbs with manicured subtropical gardens followed, and finally we flew over the centre of the city's broad tree-lined avenues with three or four blocks of square buildings five or six storeys high. A central square of palm trees and lawn contained an imposing courthouse of granite, built in the Victorian era, with the Union Jack flying imperiously from a flagpost at the front of the building.

At the airport we were told to deposit our sick bags in a bin placed on the tarmac, and after retrieving our suitcases, we were lined up into our platoon and marched off to a waiting bus to take us to the military camp.

Llewellyn Barracks, left over from World War II, was situated about 15 miles from the city and appeared somewhat weary-looking, the usual creosote-splashed rows of wooden barracks with a few new buildings added. It contained all the expected infrastructure: guardhouse, company headquarters, gymnasium, various storage sheds, obstacle course, dusty parade ground and rifle range. This parade ground was shared by the King's African Rifles, an African battalion with a separate set of barracks at the far end. My home for the next three months was altogether dreary-looking and seemed to speak clearly of a difficult time ahead for all of us. Still, whatever they dished up, it was going to be better than working a grizzly and no worse than The Boys Farm or the School of Mines. I comforted myself with the thought that I was being paid my full copper bonus while being trained to fire a rifle or a mortar, leopard-crawl under a tangle of barbed wire and scramble over wooden walls or swing from ropes across pretend crocodile-infested rivers.

I guess preparing a young man for the army is a universal procedure. If you've done any army training or read about it you'll have a fair idea of what it's all about, square-bashing, route-marching, rifle and machine-gun practice being the major component. Sergeant Minnaar, the sergeant-in-charge of our barracks, or those who drilled us or taught us how to defend ourselves, forcefully possessed exactly the same mindset and vernacular and attitude to abuse as Gareth Jones. To go over our military training in detail would be much the same as repeating the experience of the School of Mines, though this time in the sunlight or under the stars. That is, the singular purpose seemed to be to reduce the recruits to instant and unquestioning obedience with repetition and exacting standards involving spit and polish, and the immaculate condition at all times of the barracks room seeming to be the major objective. So much so that our bunks, the blanket and sheets, were made to a precise formula by using a ruler, and when pronounced perfect by Sergeant Minnaar, we used needle and cotton to carefully sew them into a permanently fixed position. At night we would lie on top of the bed so as never to disturb them. This continued for the entire three months, so that while in training we never once crawled between the sheets.

Punishment, like at the School of Mines, was usually collective, with individual punishment involving extra guard duty during the weekends known as CB, meaning that you were confined to barracks and had to report in full kit to the guardhouse every hour. Or
jankers
, which was less severe, lugging a full pack and with a rifle held above your head at the double around the parade ground for twenty minutes or so, or marching around it for two hours after the training day was over. Most of it was mindless and seemingly meaningless, and even activity such as bayonet practice seemed like acquiring a skill we were never likely to need. No group of soldiers had been required to fix bayonets and charge the enemy since the Kaffir Wars in the latter part of the nineteenth century when, even then, it had proved a senseless way to fight this type of enemy.

The lectures we attended proved more interesting as, by contrast, they clearly served a purpose. It wasn't hard to see, in theory anyway, that we were being trained to combat an African insurrection. In East Africa, in Kenya in particular, the Kikuyu tribe had risen up and several outlying farms and coffee estates had been attacked and ransacked, with the white farmers and their families murdered. What had at first appeared to be a small and localised uprising had quickly gathered momentum to escalate into a full-scale state of emergency. Britain responded to Governor Evelyn Baring's request for help by sending several battalions of troops to Kenya.

This small, cruel and often barbaric uprising became known as the Mau Mau rebellion, and involved a new kind of guerilla warfare where witchcraft and ritual murder gave the enemy its fanatical strength and determination, while cruelty and draconian measures armed the resolve of the white settlers and the British Government protecting them. The terrorists hiding within the almost impenetrable forests on the slopes of Mount Kenya and the Aberdare Mountains were a clever and resourceful enemy who would emerge, mostly at night, to launch an attack. Conventional tactics and weaponry were proving ineffective and the enemy very difficult to capture or contain.

Rhodesia was coming to realise that the same thing could happen with the Matabele, the largest and most sophisticated of the local tribes, and historically warlike by nature. Like the Kikuyu, they were possessed of many of the same deeply felt resentments against the colonial government that had caused the Kenya uprising. If they were to take note of the Mau Mau successes to the east they might similarly rise up to demand their independence.

The more interesting of these lectures were conducted by Captain Mike Finger, who had been seconded from the Kenya Regiment via the King's African Rifles and had a previous connection with Rhodesia where he had done his basic military training. Kenya, prior to the outbreak of the Mau Mau rebellion, lacked the military infrastructure to train its young men and they were sent to do their basic training at the George VI Barracks in Salisbury, the capital of Rhodesia. Mike, it seemed, had enjoyed army life and had decided to take a commission with the King's African Rifles there. Then, with the declaration of the state of emergency, he'd requested a transfer to the King's African Rifles Kenya Regiment in Tanganyika, Kenya at the time lacking their own native regiment. From here he was seconded to train mounted counter-insurgency units known as the Kenya Police Reserve (KPR) made up of resident farmers and members of the Kipsigis and Nandi tribes. Their task was to mount roadblocks, lay ambushes, guard the farms of members who were on duty and make the Mau Mau wary of entering the north-eastern area of the Aberdare mountain range.

He'd laugh. ‘With the Mau Mau operating from within the forests on the slope of the Aberdares, the farmers in the North-Eastern District became pretty jittery. While we never really managed to make serious contact with the Mau Mau, who were rather too slippery for us, we at least managed to give the farmers and their wives an occasional good night's sleep.'

Mike Finger had a great, though quiet, sense of humour and told me of a time in the Molo District where he'd arranged for members of the KPR to guard several of the outlying farms because the male owners were on patrol. He'd noted that several of the men and women in the district had divorced, and then paired with other men and women in the district. By careful matching and rostering over several weeks he'd managed ‘thoughtfully' to pair several of the ex-husbands to guard the homes of their ex-wives, all of them on the same night. This had become known in Molo history as ‘The Night of the Wrong Wives'.

However, Mike felt that he wasn't being used to the greatest benefit commanding the Molo and North-Eastern District of the KPR. He requested a transfer to the Kenya Regiment and became a special branch officer in Nyeri Province, deep in the heart of the Kikuyu tribal lands. He spoke fluent Kikuyu and had been brought up to deeply understand their culture. I would later learn that the Kikuyu regarded him as one of their own tribesmen, and a white man who could read their secret thoughts. Among the Kikuyu tribe there was a legend that he was a great medicine man, who had turned inside-out to be white on the outside and black on the inside. He was often employed by the army and government authorities to negotiate with the Kikuyu people. Prior to doing so he would dye one half of his tongue black to confirm the legend, while being careful to never talk about it and so give the impression that he was unaware of this physical aberration. This simple visual manifestation was confirmation enough to the Kikuyu people that he could speak on their behalf to the white man, and that if the Mau Mau should attempt to kill him this would bring a great disaster to the Kikuyu people as a tribe. Mike seemed to have a high regard for the Kikuyu people and would openly admit that the Mau Mau insurrection was not entirely without just cause. He would privately talk about the issues involved.