In the voice of every man (and shortly this would be women too) who has fought in any war, or been near one, there is always that tone of regret for intense experiences. We are sensation junkies, predisposed to excitement, and if that means danger and death, we are ready for it. Every generation has been talked into war by the nostalgic voices of the one before.
– D
ORIS
L
ESSING
,
Under My Skin
When Herbie Fredman first read Lessing’s words, he’d thought they were nonsense. Regret for intense experiences? He’s no sensation junkie, he’s an obedient son who worked hard at school and most of the time followed the rituals of his faith. Ready for death? Hell, if he had thought that going to war would include wiping out in a burning aircraft and labour camp, he would never have joined up. Never.
You didn’t consider the details or the consequences when you were a schoolboy longing to be a man doing noble deeds. When your mates talked about thrilling adventures flying planes and driving tanks, scanning the sea with binoculars on a greyhound destroyer and gliding through the deeps in submarines, you joined the chorus of ‘Oh boy, let’s go!’ and marched off to fight for freedom and right.
After he put Lessing’s book down and thought about it a bit more, he had to admit that boys
were
predisposed to excitement. He remembered the adrenaline rush of looping through thunderhead canyons in the sky, the glorious ratatatat of machine guns on the range, the elation of hitting the bull’s-eye. He remembered the very day the photograph on his desk was taken, standing arms folded with his first (and last) air crew in front of their Liberator, grinning from ear to ear, nineteen years old and proud as punch to be serving his country.
But after he had been shot down and spent eight months clearing charred, dismembered, rotting bodies and rubble in bombed German cities, then learnt about Hitler’s final solution for the Jews, he wondered how they could all have been so bloody dumb. War was horror, not adventure. He had indoctrinated his sons against it, but only the Happy Wanderer took the caution to its extreme. He’d said, ‘Civilisation sucks so I’m opting right out, Dad. You’ll understand.’
That’s my regret, he thinks, looking along the row of Moth faces in his pew. I warned that boy of ours too damn effectively.
J J looked at the Kommandant. The man had a cruel beak like the spread-winged eagle on his belt buckle that had its claws on a swastika and the motto ‘Gott Mit Uns’ in a semicircle over its head. He raked the prisoners’ faces as if trying to gouge out the truth, settling on a haughty expression he recognised from his mirror when he checked the set of his cap in the mornings.
‘That one,’ he pointed.
B
ISHOP
C
HAUNCEY FORGES ON AFTER THE ANNOYING
skirmish in the pews: ‘There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars –’
That’s too beautiful, thinks Petronella. Like the Mantovani LP from Bobby, which she still plays on the radiogram that was their first luxury. She listens with a rapt expression that spurs the bishop on. But he has lost Reverend George, who spots an escape route in the exodus of Theodora and Lin. Giving the bishop a cursory bob to excuse himself, he ignores the answering frown and goes after them to the vestry.
By now, many in the congregation are watching the pigeons’ shenanigans and fanning themselves with the Order of Service. Newspaper editors itch to get back to their newsrooms. Women in flimsy sandals rub stone-chilled feet against their calves. The Breweries director hopes that the service won’t drag on too much longer or he’ll miss the early evening flight to Joburg. Other businessmen sit hoping the opposite: that the service ends late enough for them to justify slipping off to their clubs or pubs instead of returning to the office.
The rugby players togged up in blazers and ties itch in the heat. What did the dead old man do that was so amazing? Rugby then was for amateurs and the war he fought in is too remote for them to imagine. Look at those feeble old farts sitting in the two front pews on the other side, some of them dabbing at eyes that haven’t stopped watering since the old spaz read out all the names. You couldn’t imagine them climbing a step, let alone a ladder, up to a fighter plane and then flying it. Or even firing a water pistol.
Rick Savidge’s teammate nudges him and jerks his head at the Moths. ‘Check the cry-babies, Kaffir.’ He gets such a withering look that he stops grinning and says, ‘What?’
‘I
told
you not to call me that. Fuck off.’
The furious whisper reaches the Springbok captain who leans forward and skewers Rick with a frown that promises trouble. The team code does not allow swearing in public off the field, and most definitely not in church. This could mean he’s out of the squad. The stupid bastard next to him could have screwed his chances for good. Rick closes his eyes and prays harder than he has ever done in his life – not to God, but for the dead Springbok to intercede for him. J J Kitching would have recognised good intentions, he feels certain.
From across the aisle Ian Savidge notices his son’s fervent expression, and thinks, His creed seems to be that you can stay fit forever as long as you have a healthy lifestyle and exercise according to scientific principles. They believe they’re immortal at that age, just like the old Moths must have. Still, Kitchen Boy had a good innings. Eighty-one and now praised to the skies at a funeral service covered by TV news cameras. J J wasn’t as lacerated by that war as my poor dad was.
Ian’s eyes roam to the front pew where Shirley still clutches Sam’s arm. The rest of the family sit in the same pew with Hugh at the end – his young black wife looking a corker in her smart jacket and her hair in a bob. How did such an ordinary-looking guy land that beauty?
In the vestry where choir surplices hang on a row of hooks, Lin has sunk down into a chair. Theodora hovers over her saying, ‘What can I do?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I’ll find a glass of water.’
‘It wouldn’t help.’ Lin’s swollen eyelids leak tears like taps with worn washers. ‘It’s not just Dad going. My whole life is shit.’
‘Hayi-bo, Linnie. You’ve got a good job and a family who loves you.’
‘Half a family and a cat.’ She breaks down again.
There is a sudden thump on a door leading outside. Theodora looks up to see a bearded man in faded military camouflage fling it open so it bangs against a cupboard. ‘Who are you?’ she asks.
‘Darius Groth. Let me into the church.’
‘The man we heard shouting?’
‘Men. Ex-recces. I’m going to make a statement in there if it kills me.’
He stumbles towards them and Theodora backs towards the inner door to divert him from Lin.
‘Let me into the church.’ There are bulges in his pockets that could be handguns. He has the look of a man in a perilous rage, an unvented pressure-cooker about to blow.
She has no way of stopping him and says, ‘Okay,’ hoping the rugby players in the congregation will be able to tackle him.
He shoves her aside just as the door opens again and Reverend George sweeps in with a patronising ‘Can I help?’ followed by a surprised ‘Oh.’ A snarling mercenary is not what he expected on his mission of mercy.
‘Get out my way.’ Groth tries to shove him aside too.
Reverend George is a township priest with streetwise skills. He blocks the move, closing the door and holding down the latch behind his back. ‘No. There’s a service on. What do you want?’
‘Justice. Open up.’
‘I can’t. It’s being televised.’
‘Fuck that. We should be there. We suffered too, on the border.’
‘But these people aren’t responsible for –’
‘Government is responsible! We fought for our country, for what? To be treated like polecats? It’s wrong, man.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Reverend George seizes the opportunity to practise his mediation technique. ‘Absolutely wrong, I agree. You deserve a hearing. I will personally help you put your case to the mayor on Monday.’
‘You?’ Groth eyes the tunic embroidered with Zulu motifs, not bothering to disguise his scorn. He is twice the size and heft of the township priest.
‘I have the ear of the bishop too. We can help, I assure you.’ Rever end George sticks out a manly hand and adds, ‘My word of honour.’
‘You take me for a bloody fool? What’s honour? Shit! Life is shit. We’re tired of promises. Move, priest. I’m going in.’
Lin is startled to hear her despairing words repeated. Her focus changes to wide-angle as she lifts her head and says, ‘Who let you down?’
Groth swings round and sees a woman with swollen eyes that demand an answer. ‘Everybody. Angola veterans are treated like scum. Look at these.’ He holds out calloused hands with two missing fingers. ‘I have to work like a dog just to eat. And there are plenty of us. Some in loony bins. Some with buggered faces. Some in wheelchairs. Not even forty-five, and fucked. Jesus, that border stuff was ugly. The enemy was like shadows in the dry grass. Just kids, some of them.’
Reverend George says, ‘But you could have been a conscientious objector.’
‘I didn’t object! I wanted to defend my country against the communists. We didn’t know anything else. We just went and did our duty like we were told. Yet now we’re garbage. And that dead old man –’ he jerks his head towards the door into the church, ‘he gets hallelujahs for something he volunteered for sixty years ago. He wasn’t ordered. He volunteered. Asked for it.’
Lin says, ‘That dead old man was my father. He was a boy when he went to war. He didn’t ask for the horrors he had to live through.’
‘We were boys too.’
‘He was a good man. Worked hard and played Springbok rugby and gave to charities. He had friends of all –’
‘Colours? Do you believe all that rainbow-nation kak? Don’t make me laugh.’ He spits at her feet. ‘It’s a rubbish dump where the hamerkops pick out all the good things and leave nothing for us.’
‘Dad wasn’t like that. He was a good man,’ Lin insists.
Darius Groth folds his massive arms and plants army boots with a long hard history on the vestry flagstones. ‘So? He’s gone. We’re here. We’re suffering. Had enough.’
He’s gone. And I’m here, Dad’s representative. What would he have done in this situation? Lin asks, ‘What are you really saying? What do you need?’
‘Help. For God’s sake.’ The fury dissolves to sudden tears that spill from eyes as inconsolable as hers. ‘We’re desperate, man.’
This desolate invader is far worse off than she is, so wrapped up in her own sorrows. Buck up, girl, Dad used to say. Get your skates on. Do something constructive. She says, ‘I’ll try and help,’ and means it.
‘How?’
‘I’ll find a way. Dad was a Moth. They have funds.’
‘That lot? Forget it. We’re pariahs.’
‘You did what you thought was right at the time. Like they did.’
‘Only it wasn’t. We were tricked. Now we have to eat dirt.’
‘It doesn’t sound right. I’ll try and help,’ she says again.
He scans her face and when he nods acceptance, he means it. There is no more blustering as he wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. The stumps of his missing fingers are puckered white scars.
After Reverend George has ushered him outside to join his men, making reassuring promises about meetings with the bishop and the mayor and people from welfare, Lin says to Theodora, ‘We should go back inside.’
‘You sure, Linnie? Okay now?’
‘Sure, thanks. I need to rescue Sam.’
Boots were so precious that an otherwise placid man whose boots were stolen could be driven to violence.
– M
AXWELL
L
EIGH
,
Captives Courageous
January 1945.
In the icy jaws of that bitter winter, the monochrome kaleidoscope of prison greys and blacks shifted twice: once in Bankau bei Kreuzburg when the camp OC came stamping into the hut one morning and told them to pack up. ‘The Russians are coming and Jerry’s railing us to Stalag Luft III near Sagan. Wear everything you’ve got. It’s bloody cold out there.’
‘So it’s bye-bye Poland and Heil Hitler, sir?’
‘Out of the frying pan,’ he confirmed, and went on to inform the next hut.
‘At least we’re going in style,’ one of the tin-bashers said.
‘Fuck off, chirpy. It’ll be cattle trucks.’
‘Moo-hoo.’
The jokes didn’t last. They trudged through knee-deep snow to a railway siding and were herded into trucks with slatted sides to stand in a tight swaying pack for hours as the train jerked and shuddered forward. At the new camp, edgy guards expected instant obedience and punishments were frequent. In what was later called The Great Escape, seventy-six Allied airmen had escaped from Stalag Luft III through tunnels ten months earlier, though only three got away. Fifty of those caught were shot on Hitler’s orders, mostly in the back of the head on lonely roads, then cremated on the spot to erase the evidence.
Of the few weeks there, J Jß remembered little more than sentry boxes on tall poles along high barbed wire fences, and the dense conifers beyond. A rugby match was played on frozen gravel by men with the concentration of hyenas fighting over the remains of a kill. The reward for the winning team was an extra mug each of watery cabbage soup that stank of old socks. Endemic farting kept morale up and the hut in a noxious fug.
The bleak kaleidoscope shifted again in late January when camp guards burst into the barracks at first light and ordered the sleepy men out. ‘Raus! Raus! Schnell!’ In the scramble to pull on kit and grab belongings, J J mislaid his balaclava and Kenneth couldn’t find the flour bag of chess pieces he had spent weeks whittling out of a broom handle. When all the POWs had gathered, stamping and puffing in the piercing cold, the camp Kommandant announced on a loudhailer that they were being moved out. His voice was a tinny thread over the distant thump-thumpthumpa-thumpa-thump of heavy artillery.
‘Where to?’ the OC demanded.
‘You march west.’
With blows from their rifle butts, the guards drove them in a jostling mass towards the camp gate until the OC shouted, ‘Stop! We’re officers. We don’t march. Geneva Convention.’