About 20 local farmers were having great fun using our colleagues as projectiles. I immediately volunteered to leave the bar and fetch reinforcements but didn’t get the chance to do so as I was scragged by a man-mountain quite used to throwing Brahman bulls over three-metre-high fences. He lifted all 75 kilograms of me up like a little lamb and hung me by my belt from a coat hook on the back of the door.
It is incredible how helpless and hopeless you feel when kept in suspense in this way.
I got off lightly, however, because the rest of our SAAF contingent were stripped to their undies by the farmers, then placed up on the bar counter and made to sing ‘Die Stem’. We were rescued from further embarrassment by the arrival of RSM Snyman, who had been alerted by a vigilant barman and who burst into the pub with a team of dog handlers and their faithful hounds.
As we were leaving, Klerksdorp Chris, true to his nature (I think he was a terrier of some sort in a past life), threatened to come back and teach the farmers a lesson when they next came to town. I don’t think he ever succeeded in his quest or managed to find the degree of support that such a mission would have required.
So, the Ellisras Hotel was out of bounds, and no one in his right mind would go near the school for fear of being shot or castrated, or both. That meant there wasn’t much nightlife. What to do?
By this time, we had ascertained that, excluding schoolgirls, there were only four or so unmarried females over 16 in the entire town. I think there may also have been a policy dictated by the Ellisras Town Fathers’ Council that, in order to ensure the future of the town, these four were not to be gathered in any one place at the same time. Needless to say, we set about to defy this policy.
The Mogol River, which flows through the town, on the odd occasion formed a number of clearish pools below the low-water bridge on the northern side of town. These pools were separated by reedbeds and white sandbanks, and the site was popular for the odd braai, particularly if one could convince any local damsels to participate in the festivities.
Hard work, a lot of charm and an extraordinary amount of luck came together one memorable evening when four of us radar operators convinced all four of the available beauties to join us for drinks at the low-water bridge on the Mogol River for a braai and… whatever.
After supper, only the Boytjie proved to be possessed of the wiles to get his date to disappear quietly into the reeds with him and find a secluded pool for a skinny dip. The rest of us were left to stoke the fire, dream of what could have been and listen intently to the sounds of the night while the remaining three young ladies threw up a laager to prevent our further advances.
Unbeknown to us, the Boytjie and his partner had stripped off, got into the water, clutched each other closely enough to merge into one and were just starting to enjoy the onset of carnal pleasure when he, like a wannabe Tarzan, lifted his ‘Jane’ up out of the water and placed her posterior gently onto a snow-white sandbank, ostensibly to gain better traction.
Suddenly a shrill and blood-curdling scream rent the air. Jane had just come into contact with the needle-sharp reed shoots sticking out of the sandbank.
A hundred metres away, we stood up, trying to make sense of what was happening. The three uncooperative, wide-eyed and startled girls huddled together, arms around each other as the shrieking continued: ‘Eina! Eina! My arse, my arse. There’s something sticking in my arse!’
In a flash, one of our trio, always the quickest of thinkers in a tight situation, shouted, ‘You’re doing it wrong. Turn her over, Boytjie, just like the book says!’
Not even the consummate skills of the Boytjie could rekindle the carnal passions after that.
One Sunday, a few weeks after the Mogol River escapade, a three-week camper (the name for conscripts who were called up for further military service, or camps, lasting either three weeks or three months, after completing their national service) and his wife or girlfriend decided to spend the day down at the same bridge. On the way back to town in his little Nissan 1200 bakkie, the camper ran over a large black mamba. When he looked in the rear-view mirror, he couldn’t see any sign of the snake and assumed that it had become entangled in his engine.
Returning to AFB Ellisras, where the rest of us were lounging around, he and his companion rapidly exited the car after parking it under a large flat-topped kameeldoring (camel thorn) acacia tree. With us at the time was a strange character we had nicknamed ‘Grensvegter’, (Border Fighter) after a character from the picture books that were popular at the time. Grensvegter had a collection of knives and weaponry that would have made his fictional namesake green with envy. He also boasted of capturing buffalo with his bare hands, and had once, it was rumoured, knocked a bull elephant lights out with a single punch. So, it was only logical that our three-week camper turn to him for help in ridding the Nissan of the lethal serpent.
Cutting a sturdy piece of bamboo from a nearby thicket, Grensvegter used a piece of stout bloudraad (heavy galvanised wire) to fashion a hook at the business end of the four-metre-long bamboo pole. He then told the camper to open the bonnet of the bakkie. While the camper was busy doing so, Grensvegter climbed up the kameeldoring. The next moment he swung down inverted, suspended from both his knees at a height of about five metres above the ground in a dead-man’s-drop, at a slight angle in front of, and well above, the vehicle.
The assembled spectators, by then about 20 strong, stood mesmerised by the unfolding action and watched as Grensvegter slowly lifted the bonnet. We gasped as it revealed a large mamba entwined in the engine bay.
Getting rid of the snake should prove quite easy for one as adept as the Grensvegter, we all thought. There was thick bush close by, and once the snake was given a good reason to depart the Nissan, it would almost certainly slither to the ground and away into the bush.
Grensvegter began to prod the snake with his bamboo pole and bloudraad hook until, suddenly, the mamba uncoiled. But, instead of going to ground, it must have sensed that its safest and quickest escape route lay in climbing the ‘branch’ leading directly into the upper reaches of the tree!
Like an ultra-slow-motion scene in a movie, we saw Grensvegter’s eyes grow to the size of dustbin lids and his face turn ashen.
‘Fok dit!’ roared our Grensvegter. In a flash, he let go of both the bamboo pole and the branch to which his knees were anchored, passing the mamba in mid-air and landing on his feet, all the while running at full speed.
Like a startled hadeda, Grensvegter ran to the closest armed person, snatched away his pump-action shotgun, returned to the tree and unleashed all 16 rounds at the unfortunate serpent.
Then, and only then, did Grensvegter turn to the admiring crowd and say, ‘Sjoe! But that were a close one!’
After that, life returned to a semblance of normality for a short while until some operations intelligence (Ops Int) guru determined that 2 Satellite Radar Station where we all worked – the Kop, as it was locally known – was likely to be the target of a terrorist attack.
The Kop was situated on an odd, flat-topped hill about 30 kilometres east of Ellisras. We needed to understand, said the Ops Int man to his gullible audience, that the Kop had been chosen as the focal point of the Soviet/Cuban/East German onslaught against South Africa and that we, the motley gaggle of eight radar operators and eight dog handlers, were all that stood between the marauders and continental domination by the forces of communism, or words to that effect. There may or may not have been a drum roll and a clash of cymbals when his inspiring pitch ended.