Read Online 19 With a Bullet by Granger Korff - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Granger Korff
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the Recce bush base in the operational area.
The showers felt glorious after so long. We laughed at how much weight we had lost. We looked like the prisoners of war in photos I had seen in history books. Hans’s oncemuscular 1.94-metre body was now skin and bone. He had lost at least 12 kilograms, and had lost all his buttock cheeks. His ever-intense stare, with bulging eyes in his thin face, made him look like a mad man
After the showers we had peanut butter and honey sandwiches on fresh bread with lots of butter. For many years afterward, I could still taste that sandwich every time I thought of it. There was an air of relief as we lay around the camp, all cleaned up and in torn —but washed—clothes, smoking and drinking icecold Cokes. The following day the instructors shot a huge buffalo and we had a braai , a barbecue, with buffalo steaks bigger than even our bellies could think of eating.
Out of the 200 hopefuls, only 17 troops had made the course to become Reconnaissance operators and who would get to wear the springbok head on the maroon beret; to do HALO oxygen jumps hundreds of miles inside Angola. Hans was one of them. John and I were told we should not have quit because we had been really close to the end of the course and had come in 27th out of the two hundred. So about 170 had quit before us. Some consolation!
“At least one paratrooper made it,” I said, patting Hans on his oncemuscular shoulder. John and I hadn’t done that badly. Most of the 200, we found out, had long since been RTU’d, dropping out in the first couple of weeks.
“I suppose it’s back to 1 Para for us,” I said, staring at Hans, who seemed to have changed and didn’t have much to say. Perhaps the last week was the one that really killed you, I thought. We had got to rest under the big tree for five days and we were already feeling better.
NOW WHAT?
Last train to London—Electric Light Orchestra
It was the first time I had thought in terms of going back to 1 Parachute Battalion since I had started the Recce course, and it caught me by surprise. Now we were probably going to be shipped back—ignominiously RTU’d.
In my fatigued and depleted state it made me sick to think of going back to the battalion and being a roofie again—to run all over the base singing bullshit songs, hair shaven in #4 style, corporals and stupid fucking lieutenants shouting at the tops of their voices. Since we had been on the Reconnaissance course we had been walking side by side with majors, lieutenants and captains. We had slept and suffered together and all been treated as equals and as men—not as raw green recruits, which is what we were going back to at 1 Para. Nothing worse than being a a roofie , a scab
The thought was not a good one. John and I asked around if anyone knew where we would be sent and they told us that we would perhaps be sent to 32 Battalion reconnaissance that was also based on the border and with a good reputation as a fighting unit. We were relieved that we might not have to return to 1 Para and saw ourselves staying in the bush. We hung around the base for a couple of days getting our meagre kit together and listening to the Recce instructors’ war stories.
The reason they were instructors on the selection course was that they were all no longer fit for operational duty, and they all eagerly showed us the bullet wounds they had received on Recce missions-gone-wrong in Angola. I came across an acquaintance I knew from back home; he too had a pretty recent AK-47 bullet hole in him. He enthusiastically told me to come back on the next course; he said a lot of guys made it the second time around because they knew what they were going to be dealing with. I agreed with him and said that I would, but inside I felt mentally numb and had no inclination to do it all again. Actually I had no inclination for anything much and just wanted to rest. I was deep in thought when John came walking across the small
The showers felt glorious after so long. We laughed at how much weight we had lost. We looked like the prisoners of war in photos I had seen in history books. Hans’s oncemuscular 1.94-metre body was now skin and bone. He had lost at least 12 kilograms, and had lost all his buttock cheeks. His ever-intense stare, with bulging eyes in his thin face, made him look like a mad man
After the showers we had peanut butter and honey sandwiches on fresh bread with lots of butter. For many years afterward, I could still taste that sandwich every time I thought of it. There was an air of relief as we lay around the camp, all cleaned up and in torn —but washed—clothes, smoking and drinking icecold Cokes. The following day the instructors shot a huge buffalo and we had a braai , a barbecue, with buffalo steaks bigger than even our bellies could think of eating.
Out of the 200 hopefuls, only 17 troops had made the course to become Reconnaissance operators and who would get to wear the springbok head on the maroon beret; to do HALO oxygen jumps hundreds of miles inside Angola. Hans was one of them. John and I were told we should not have quit because we had been really close to the end of the course and had come in 27th out of the two hundred. So about 170 had quit before us. Some consolation!
“At least one paratrooper made it,” I said, patting Hans on his oncemuscular shoulder. John and I hadn’t done that badly. Most of the 200, we found out, had long since been RTU’d, dropping out in the first couple of weeks.
“I suppose it’s back to 1 Para for us,” I said, staring at Hans, who seemed to have changed and didn’t have much to say. Perhaps the last week was the one that really killed you, I thought. We had got to rest under the big tree for five days and we were already feeling better.
NOW WHAT?
Last train to London—Electric Light Orchestra
It was the first time I had thought in terms of going back to 1 Parachute Battalion since I had started the Recce course, and it caught me by surprise. Now we were probably going to be shipped back—ignominiously RTU’d.
In my fatigued and depleted state it made me sick to think of going back to the battalion and being a roofie again—to run all over the base singing bullshit songs, hair shaven in #4 style, corporals and stupid fucking lieutenants shouting at the tops of their voices. Since we had been on the Reconnaissance course we had been walking side by side with majors, lieutenants and captains. We had slept and suffered together and all been treated as equals and as men—not as raw green recruits, which is what we were going back to at 1 Para. Nothing worse than being a a roofie , a scab
The thought was not a good one. John and I asked around if anyone knew where we would be sent and they told us that we would perhaps be sent to 32 Battalion reconnaissance that was also based on the border and with a good reputation as a fighting unit. We were relieved that we might not have to return to 1 Para and saw ourselves staying in the bush. We hung around the base for a couple of days getting our meagre kit together and listening to the Recce instructors’ war stories.
The reason they were instructors on the selection course was that they were all no longer fit for operational duty, and they all eagerly showed us the bullet wounds they had received on Recce missions-gone-wrong in Angola. I came across an acquaintance I knew from back home; he too had a pretty recent AK-47 bullet hole in him. He enthusiastically told me to come back on the next course; he said a lot of guys made it the second time around because they knew what they were going to be dealing with. I agreed with him and said that I would, but inside I felt mentally numb and had no inclination to do it all again. Actually I had no inclination for anything much and just wanted to rest. I was deep in thought when John came walking across the small
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