Moffie

by Andre Carl van der Merwe

  Looking into the shrub, it seems ominous, dark with mystery, and dense. Strange to think that killing takes place in there . . . all this is so bizarre. In bush like this I will walk, with my rifle, with full magazines and a live round in the chamber.

  ‘So, Nick . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How did you deal with your G-ness? I mean you are a believ­er and all, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, I had this mentor . . .’

  ‘Yeah, the guy who was accused of being G?’ We now no long­er use the word ‘gay’—it’s G, with H for homosexual and M for moffie.

  ‘Yes, and he taught me to just have blind faith, against all odds, blind faith. So, over time I have developed this totally honest re­lationship with God. I reckon that is the most positive thing that ever came out of my “affliction.” I decided that if God knows everything, well then He must know I didn’t choose the way I am, or He must change me if it’s so terrible. I just told God every­thing: my fantasies, infatuations, everything.’

  ‘Even your fantasies?’

  ‘Yep, every single thing. I trusted God completely with every­thing. And over time I just thought, bugger what the church peo­ple say, God is quite cool with it, and He understands.’

  ‘Well, you should have got some help, ’cos you sure as hell don’t seem well to me!’ he laughs.

  ‘Yeah, and you? You would need an army of psychologists, Blondie.’

  We stop for ‘lunch’ or smoke break or piss break, whatever we need to do.

  Mal and I sit in the shade of the Buffel, against a tyre, sharing our rat packs.

  First, we lay out the contents to see what this unlucky dip holds: biscuits (which we call dog biscuits), instant porridge, coffee, tea and sugar. For the main meal, we have three small tins (mince and noodles; steak, onion and potato ‘salad’; and a compressed meat spread) plus an energy ‘milk shake,’ and an energy orange drink we mix with lukewarm water from the wa­ter car that is towed by a Buffel. For dessert, there are sweets and the only worthwhile thing in the whole pack: condensed milk. Our cutlery is our piksteel or fokken knife and spoon, as it’s called.

  Not far from us, Corporal Smith joins a group of men, and we overhear their conversation.

  ‘So, when an instructor gives troops a hard time, I believe they put a shined-up bullet on his pillow, which means he’s a marked man.’

  ‘Yep, if we don’t like you, we can kill you here.’

  ‘You can shoot one of your own buddies if you have some beef with him, like if he stole your chick or something, and you’ll never get into trouble. “Killed in action,” is what they’ll say.’

  ‘Ja, why do you think there are so many casualties up here. Guys get shot by their own tjommies, ek sê.’

  ‘No shit,’ someone says, and I hear Dorman say, ‘But remem­ber, it also works the other way round.’

  ‘What do you mean, Sarge?’

  ‘Well, if I get fed up with one of you little cunts, I can take you out.’ Then he turns around and looks at me. I hold his stare until he turns back to the group.

  ‘I think you should talk to the captain, Nick. Dorman has it in for you big time.’

  ‘He’s just trying to scare me.’

  ‘No, Nick! You don’t mess around with shit like that . . . fuck it, man.’

  ‘What can I tell the captain that won’t make me look like a fool?’

  ‘Well, if you don’t do something, I will.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I’m so gatvol of this Buffel. How much longer before we get there?

  ‘No one knows.’

  ‘Tell me a story, will you?’

  ‘OK, I’ll tell you something I thought of when we were talking about our sisters.’

  ‘Is it a true story?’

  ‘Yes, now listen. I have this uncle—my mother’s brother. Uncle Ben lives in the southern part of Namibia, on a beautiful farm. Well, I like it, it’s real desert. He had a problem with baboons, so he speared them to death by hand.’

  ‘Bullshit. I thought it was a true story.’

  ‘No, it is. He trapped them in cages first, but that’s not my story. He had captured this cheetah on the farm and kept it in a cage behind the shed where he fixed the trucks, and there were some pigsties and storerooms and trash. Anyway, this cheetah fascinated me. I tell you, Mal, this animal was so unbelievably beautiful, you know, up close. I couldn’t bear to see it in a cage. So I decided to free it.’

  ‘What? You crazy fuck!’

  ‘Well, I reckoned if I attached a long cord to the latch I could wangle it loose from a distance. In fact, I could do it from a win­dow in the shed. But I didn’t think the plan through properly, because when I pulled the latch, I thought I’d be able to pull the gate as well. But there wasn’t enough leverage. So the latch opened but the gate wouldn’t budge. Eventually I plucked up the courage to go outside, and just as I get to the cage, the chee­tah flies at the fence. Shit, my heart stopped. So I thought bug­ger this, I’m not dying for this cause. But the cheetah flies at me again and this time it hits the unlocked gate, and it opens. And I’m standing this far away from it.’ I point out a distance quite a bit shorter than it really was, of course.

  ‘So?’

  ‘The cheetah slowly pushes past, scampers out and runs off in the opposite direction. I nearly shat myself. A few minutes later, I hear this moer of a commotion behind the house, dogs yelping and screams and shouts—huge drama. I managed to get back to the room unnoticed, but just as I slip into bed, Bronwyn asks, “What have you done now, Nicholas?” Not “Where have you been?” but “What have you done?”’

  ‘Go on!’

  ‘I gave her some bullshit story and swore her to secrecy. But shit, Mal, I was shitting myself. The next day I find out that the cheetah has mauled uncle Ben’s staffie. Man, he loved that dog like a child. But the best was that he thought it was some guy who worked for him who was pissed off and wanted revenge, so I was off the hook. What does the Bron bitch do? She goes and tells my folks.’

  ‘You must have been in deep, deep sheila!’

  ‘My father beat the crap out of me. Eventually my mother came into the bathroom and begged my father. “Why don’t you just shoot him if you want to kill him,” she said.’ Malcolm finds this highly amusing.

  By this time, the sun has moved behind the trees, changing to a deep red. Suddenly I’m overwhelmed with a desire to hold on to it. Up to now it has always been ‘before.’ But tomorrow it’s the real thing. If only I could hold on to this day. But through this bush of death, the sun just carries on sinking and the convoy seems to gain urgency as darkness starts to fall around us. Or is it simply the uncertainty that dusk brings? Why we go on travel­ling at night and when we will arrive at our destination, is not for us to know. Not that I think anybody really cares in this state of fatigue and with the noise of the demons in our heads.

  Just after eleven, we stop at a base, where we are instructed in muted tones to line up. We march into an area surrounded by high ‘walls’ made out of sand. There is no light. In the walls are guard bunkers, and I also notice a lookout and water tower sil­houetted against the inky-blue sky. This is where we will spend the night, amidst the smell of unwashed men and diesel—diesel from a spill, which penetrates every fibre of my kit and will for­ever remind me of my time with Koevoet.

  Where the base now stands was probably once a prosperous cat­tle farm. Parts of the buildings are blown away, and others dam­aged by shrapnel. What is left of the buildings is for the officers and a sickbay; out of bounds for us.

  There is a baobab tree with a trunk that splits into two close to the ground. I find it the most beautiful of plants. The Bushmen believe it has mystical powers and medicinal properties, but this poor tree has chosen such a bad place to grow. Now, hundreds of years into its life, man has decided to have a war here, and it will bear huge scars of this short time in history. Three quarters of the way up the tree, the two thick trunks have been cut off to be used as a
base for a lookout post and to house a machine gun.

  At times discipline can furnish one with a sense of security, es­pecially when it feels as if the world around you has gone mad. But in Koevoet there is no such sense. There seems to be no discipline, and the men are completely wild. They have estab­lished their own methods and seem to be accountable to nobody. When we ride in the vehicles, we have ways of climbing on and strapping ourselves in that are rehearsed so many times that we can do it in our sleep. Not Koevoet. They ride on the sides or on the roofs, anyway they care to. Our vehicles are all exactly the same, always parked as if in a platoon, ready for parade. Their vehicles are left haphazardly wherever they have stopped. The cars are dirty, painted and personalised, with parts missing and crude modifications, like machine guns fastened to the tops of the Hippo APC’s.

  Their personal appearance entails whatever makes them feel comfortable—long hair, torn clothing and a scruffy craziness.

  Towards the evening we are told to go and look at the ‘kill’ of the day in a roofless, battered building. There isn’t always a kill, but today there are five.

  ***

  The Hippo comes to a screeching halt in a cloud of dust. Shout­ing soldiers waving their rifles hang over the top rim of the ve­hicle, and along the sides are hanging what look like half-filled sacks, but they are in fact bodies dangling awkwardly, doubled over. Then the bodies get thrown from the vehicle like trophies, as uncle Hendrik’s workers used to do with the springbok after a hunt.

  Parts of the bodies are missing where machine guns have eat­en away at them like chainsaws through soft timber. One terror­ist’s head is completely crushed, with varying shades of yellow pulp squeezed out where bone has torn the skin. A twisted jaw pushes teeth through the one cheek. His face is held together only by skin, covered in dirt from being dragged through the sand.

  How resilient God has made human skin. But where is He now? I wonder. Why is He looking the other way?

  Here I see a new kind of death. Not a family shattered by the loss of a loved one, not the pain and guilt of a suicide, but a death flirted with, scoffed at, celebrated. I am not observing something from some other civilisation, but one I am trapped in. My subconscious sprays it into me—this colour of brutality.

  It is critical that I guard against this with all my might, be­cause I’m dealing with a force that is staring at me. And I’m star­ing back, knowing I’ve been changed by it, and I sense it smil­ing. I feel my brain shaking me, telling me to take note.

  The corruption is swift as I notice how many of the boys start joining in the perverse rejoicing. There is a quiver in their laugh, which is like a taut cable binding the hate inside them.

  Two of the victims lying at our feet are teenagers. We have heard stories about the terrible conditions in which they live in Angola. I’ve dismissed it as propaganda, but here are the exam­ples—wasted bodies, dressed in rags.

  ***

  It is our third day at the Koevoet base, and our platoon leaves early for the first patrol. It would have been tedious if it hadn’t been that we were hunting people and they were hunting us. Even so, during the long hours on patrol the initial fear of find­ing a terrorist behind every bush starts eroding.

  At midday we dismount and start walking. The vehicles wait for us as we make our way through the thicker vegetation. There is a Koevoet tracker in front and we follow in a V-formation. We are following a spoor none of us can see. The tracker, we are told, can tell everything about the person he is following, what he is carrying, as well as his physical stature and condition.

  At first, as with everything in the army, I question this, but in the weeks that follow I am astonished at the abilities of these trackers. Not only are they good at tracking a person walking, but they can also track people who are equally skilled, for the insurgents are just as accomplished in anti-tracking tactics. For example, they put the treads of their shoes on backwards, or keep to hard ground, or walk in shonas (pans often filled with water in the wet season).

  Koevoet tracks with vehicles in small manoeuvrable groups and hunt until they kill, going for a week at a time into the bush, searching for spoor, which is pursued even if it takes them deep into Angola. Our platoon is used mainly as decoys or stopper groups for Koevoet’s manoeuvres. We lie in ambush as part of their strategy, or form part of a group that chases the enemy into Koevoet’s hands; but we seem to me to be of little help.

  On our way back to base, at nineteen hours twenty, our convoy is stopped. We hear the corporal repeat the instruction into the radio handset—stay in this position to defend a line; Koevoet is chasing terrs towards us. But even before the order is given, we hear gunfire in the bush north-northwest of us, and almost simultaneously, the crackling static of the radio, ‘Contact! Con­tact! Wait out!’

  It takes a split second for reality to hit and drive us through the drills. Corporal Smith shouts, ‘Circular defence! Circular de­fence!’ This means we have to dismount by opening the sides of the Buffel. The person sitting opposite the handle must open it. Malcolm’s handle won’t budge. The corporal goes on shout­ing, ‘Circular defence! Circular defence! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON THERE? GET OUT! GET OUT!’ Behind us, the other half of the section is already on the ground, but we’re still inside. It feels comical—almost as if we have decided not to play along—sitting in a neat row, while around us everybody is frantically scurrying and leopard crawling for cover.

  Someone starts swearing at Malcolm, and then the corporal shouts, ‘Go over the side, go over the side!’ He sounds hysteri­cal. It is too high to jump, but most of us do, because climbing down the side, with our backs to the enemy, would make us even more vulnerable. We hit the ground, with rifle, webbing and full magazines, take up our positions and lie in wait.

  In my mind, I see black men running towards me, and I strug­gle with the concept of taking aim at them. I am lying on my stomach with my R1 rifle in front of me. Remember now, Nick . . . two shots, pop­pop, pop­pop. For the fourth time my thumb slides over the safety catch, making sure it is disarmed.

  I start analysing my position. Is it good enough? I leopard crawl towards a tree stump in front of me and take aim. Plotting a V in front of me, I determine my parameters and watch for movement within them. Again I hear the pop-pop sound and the reverberation of machine guns in the distance. The sounds are further away, which is heartening.

  We wait. There is no more rifle fire, but I can hear the labour­ing of engines. Then behind us, Corporal Smith and Dorman shout, ‘Get on, get on! Fucking run and get on, GET ON!’ We scramble up the side, pushing one another for position. Before we are seated, the motor is running and the Buffel lurches for­ward.

  Between talking on the radio and the overwrought sounds of the engine, Corporal Smith spits at Malcolm that he has put the whole section in danger and that he will go on orders.

  ‘This fucking thing.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know, Nick, I guess I pushed it down too far.’

  Some of the troops shout that he is a derrick—an airhead—but others are more threatening, accusing him of wanting to get them killed.

  The Buffel in front of us veers off to the right and drives straight at a small group of huts surrounded by a fence of rough branch­es. Our driver follows suit, and the troops start cheering. All I can think of is that there might be people behind the fence.

  The vehicle bursts through the branches. It hits a large clay pot used for making beer, and it explodes on impact. But the destruction is futile, for the insurgents have fled, and they will keep on running all night.

  There is much excitement in the vehicle. The soldiers vow to cut off the terrorists’ ears and balls and dry them for jewellery, as they have seen Koevoet do. The boy next to Oscar has a grenade over the end of his rifle barrel, and he is playing with the nipple­shaped trigger on the one end of the device. It looks like an art deco spacecraft, with an arrow that can be set to LIVE or SAFE. If the arrow is on LIVE,
the knob is depressed and the rifle is fired, the grenade will explode.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ I lean over Oscar. ‘If that thing goes off, the shrapnel will ricochet inside this vehicle and we’ll be in fuck­ing shreds!’ He looks at me, smiles and holds his thumb over the nipple, fondling it and then pressing it down. When it can’t go any further, he pushes harder, releases it slightly and then presses it down again.

  ‘Bang, bang, bang,’ he says. ‘Hey, Van,’ I try not to react, as he no doubt wants me to. ‘Hey, Van!’ I glance over and watch him. He is twisting the head of the grenade from Safe to Live. He does this slowly, looking at me with a half smile. After arming the grenade again, he starts fondling the trigger with his thumb. In my head I rerun the words I’ve so often heard on the news: ‘An entire section was killed in an accident when a grenade exploded inside an anti­landmine vehicle. The names of the deceased will be released as soon as the next of kin . . .’

  ‘Fuck, are you crazy? I didn’t come to the border to be killed in a grenade accident!’ I turn to Oscar, ‘Tell him to stop, man, help me here.’ I am aware that my reaction is exactly what he wants, but I can’t ignore what’s happening. Before Oscar can react, he depresses the nipple again. The grenade doesn’t go off. Oscar rips the thing from the barrel of his rifle and disarms it.

  On the next patrol we follow spoor with a vehicle following us, carrying our kit and towing a water trailer. Into the first day they radio us to say the water is contaminated. We carry on, not even allowed to drink water from our water bottles. The trailer’s wa­ter is poisoned. Even though we use purification tablets, it’s not safe. When we get tired, we lie down in a shady spot, with two men on guard, waiting for water.

  My every thought revolves around water. I tell myself stories, but they twist towards water like an addict’s urge, frightening in magnitude and persistence. I have no control over it. Every moment drags by like thick glue. After two days, they bring us water.