Having been warned to behave themselves at the Aloe Ball, all squadron members were on their best behaviour. I crowned the Aloe Queen, everyone enjoyed a great meal and good music had brought most people onto the dance floor when Henry Jarvie started an impromptu act that stopped everyone in their tracks. I knew Henry would be the instigator of something unusual because of his naughty nature, but I had no need to worry about him being crude or destructive.
The band was playing ‘Hey Girl’ when Henry climbed onto the stage with a pint of beer in his hand. He placed the beer on a stool at one end of the stage and, moving his lanky body to the rhythm of the music, proceeded across stage sliding off his jacket, which he then twirled above his head on one finger. At stage end he placed the jacket neatly on the floor and, mincing to the music, returned slowly to his beer. He took a great swig, turned about and repeating the first act, this time removing his wristwatch, again twirling it over his head before placing it on the jacket. The band clicked with Henry from the outset and just kept repeating the very catchy theme of ‘Hey Girl’. All eyes remained on Henry as he made pass after pass, never once using the same style of dance and always removing one item of clothing. It took two passes just to remove cuff links. Ripples of laughter passed through the crowd who loved Henry’s facial expressions and lanky body movement, everyone wondering just how far he would go. I knew he would not push the limits.
Following the removal of his shirt with Superman poses to show off scrawny muscles, Henry was left with slacks and socks. The removal of the second sock gave Henry opportunity to demonstrate his sleight of hand by giving the distinct impression of filling the sock with beer and straining it into his mouth as he crossed the stage to lift his clothing and disappear as women yelled, “Encore! Encore! You haven’t finished yet!”
The next day, Sunday, the squadron was invited to join the mayor and senior town counsellors for tea at Leopard Rock Hotel in the Vumba mountains. Beryl and I, together with other officers and wives, were having tea with the mayor and mayoress on the hotel lawn when Henry Jarvie appeared at the top of the hotel stairway high above us. He was resplendent in full chef’s regalia, high cap and all.
On the open palm of his left hand he held a silver salver with a serving towel perfectly draped over his forearm. Down the steps he came, stiff as a board, looking straight ahead with a fixed expression. He came directly to our table and placed the salver in front of me, bowed and turned towards hotel guests seated under umbrellas. As he moved away we spotted the full beer glass held behind his back.
The silver tray contained a note and a sandwich. The note read, “Boss PB is in need of nourishment”. The sandwich consisted of two tomato toppings between very dry crusts of butter-less bread.
Facial expressions of hotel guests to whom Henry moved showed he was up to no good. Initially they thought he was the hotel’s senior chef. At one table Henry warned that there would be a slight delay in serving lunch because all meat stocks had “gone off slightly due to refrigeration failure but a good soaking in vinegar will solve this problem”. To others he told of stale bread rolls that only needed a good soaking and re-baking to make them good and fresh. One group learned that the speciality of the day, crayfish, was giving the entire kitchen staff a major headache following their escape from the refrigerator. They had run off into flowerbeds and the fishpond but all would be rounded up soon, and lunch should be served on time.
I intercepted Henry on his return to the stairway. I thanked him for the sandwich and instructed him to eat it on my behalf. Not saying a word, he took the silver tray, bowed and climbed the stairs, beer still behind back. When he reached the balcony he placed the tray and his beer on the serving towel spread neatly on the balcony wall.
With much ceremony he broke the sandwich in two and summoned John Britton to assist him. Looking straight-faced at the distant Himalaya mountain range, he commenced eating. Next to him John Britton attempted to follow Henry’s act but, as with others who tried to emulate our squadron clown, John failed; he was just too big and clumsy next to his slim nimble friend.
As he ate, Henry’s cheeks started to fill like a monkey’s pouches. When he had the entire sandwich in his mouth with cheeks fully extended, he commenced a violent choking and sneezing act. Each time he sneezed, with right forefinger held horizontally under his nose, a small stream of bread pieces flew vertically downwards from his mouth giving the distinct impression of muck flying from his nose, which he then wiped on his sleeve in long exaggerated strokes. Few comedians could bring an audience to such fits of laughter as Henry Jarvie. The hotel guests, now realising he was no hotel chef, enjoyed the act even more than we did.
Opportunity was taken to fly the squadron from Umtali to Centenary to link up with crews who had missed out on the Aloe Festival. The purpose of gathering the whole squadron was to have a squadron photograph taken, as this might not be possible for ages to come.
Early FAC to jets
MY FIRST CALL FOR STRIKES by Hunters occurred inside Rhodesia, though much work had been done before I gained sufficient confidence to do this. Air recce inside Rhodesia was much more difficult than in Mozambique. Within the country the locals had no reason to hide from ZANLA and any stresses that existed within the population could not be detected from height; all path systems appeared quite normal.
Because terrorists were known to move position continuously and reside at night in different kraals in ones and twos, their presence within the TTLs was impossible to detect. It was only within the boundaries of white-owned farms that terrorists based up in the bush, but never for more than two nights at a time.
For years the African nationalists had complained that white farmers had the best land and the African folk had been allocated those regions with poor soil. From the air one could see that there was no truth in this allegation. The Centenary farmlands bordering the Kandeya TTL typified most boundaries between organised commercial farmland and the subsistence farming areas inhabited by tribesmen.
Except for patches of bush on hills and rocky ground, Kandeya was substantially overgrazed and all maize fields were so over-utilised that the TTL exhibited a near desert-like appearance. Across the cattle fence that separated the TTL from adjoining white-owned farms, lush bush and grass cover contrasted as chalk with cheese, even though soil types were identical. Crop rotation and the use of fertilisers made white farmlands look rich and neat. This was why fresh pathways inside these areas stood out strongly. Although I was finding temporary bases in the farming areas, which were all confirmed by co-operative ground forces, I was gaining nothing more than an idea of what a temporary base looked like. I visited a couple of these places with ground forces to see for myself.
It perplexed me to learn from Special Branch who had interrogated captured terrorists that bases I judged to be for twenty terrorists were in fact for only ten. I could not reconcile this until Special Branch established that there had also been ten women in residence to provide female comforts to ‘their boys in the bush’. The lesson was clear—divide estimates by two.