2. Long Train Running
There are lots of cars parked outside the rugby stadium. Young boys are saying goodbye to their families. Mothers and girlfriends are crying as soldiers in brown uniforms watch on amused from behind a barricade. There’s a small stage and a man dressed in an army uniform walks up to a lectern to talk into a microphone. I know this man. He came to our high school to give us a talk about the army. He’s a Major in the citizen force. His name is Breytenbach. When he starts to speak again I know what he’s going to say before he even says it.
Mothers, your sons are going to have stiff muscles in places where they didn’t even know they had muscles. They are going to have short hair for two years, but they are going to come back to you as men.
I run a hand through my hair which is already short, cut the day before by Mom because Wayne had said that they pick on guys who arrive with long hair. It would be better to not stand out because my hair had been kind of long.
The Major wraps up his speech and tells us to say our final goodbyes to our families and walk through to the rugby pitch where we will have an inspection. Mom is trying very hard not to cry. Dad has a steely look in his eyes. He’s done this himself before I was born. He knows what it’s all about. He tells me to stand tall and be strong. I just want this moment to be over. As I’m about to pick up my heavy bag and walk into the stadium a tall, pretty girl with long strawberry blonde hair comes up to me and gives me a hug and a kiss. It’s Kylie. I know her from the Technikon. She is super hot and she liked me, but I was too shy and sober to do anything about it when I was still studying there. Her brother is also going to the army today, but not to Diskobolos. He is going to infantry in Ladysmith. 5SAI. All the guys I knew who have been there say it’s the worst. I don’t tell her this.
We say our final goodbyes to Mom’s and Dad’s, walk into the stadium and they tell us to line up on the field with our bags in front of us and to leave two meters of space between each of us. There’s a lot of soldiers wearing red berets and other flashy bits walking around. They have MP emblazoned on their sleeves. Military Police. None of them look friendly. None of them look English. There are a lot of us on the field. An MP with a sniffer dog comes along the line of bags talking to the dog as he goes. Soek-soek-mooi-soek-soek-soek-mooi-soek.
The dog is sniffing for drugs. It stops at the guy in front of me and pisses on his bag. The guy shouts at the dog, Hey! The MP tells the dog to carry on sniffing. Soek-soek-mooi-soek-soek-soek-mooi-soek. The guy in front is telling the MP to control his dog. The MP ignores him.
The inspection is over and they tell us to pick up our bags and head back out the way we came in. The train for Diskobolos Kimberley is on the tracks right next to the stadium. We form a group outside of it and another MP starts shouting through a bullhorn.
Men! This is the train for Kimberley. When I call your name you say present and get on the train. You must keep the window blinds closed at all times when we are travelling through the city so that nobody knows who is travelling in this train. Do you understand me?
Yes.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!!!
YES!!!
Good.
Abrahams?
Present!
Archer?
Present!
Botha?
Present!
He calls off all the A’s, B’s and C’s. Then there is a pregnant pause. he scratches the side of his head with his pen and says
Dames? Duh-hamas? Dams?
It’s Dahms sir. Like Brahms, but with a D.
Get on the fucking train.
Yes sir.
This will become a pattern over the next few months.
Inside the train the compartments smell musty. Each one has three folding bunks on either side. Six to a compartment. We have to sit in alphabetical order, and I am the first one in the compartment. I get the window seat and a top bunk. I’m surprised to see the son of one of Mom’s friends, Clinton, enter the compartment. I didn’t even know he was here. A friend at this time was a good omen. It looks like I am the oldest in the compartment of six. I’m already 19 because I got a deferment from the call-up so I could go and study. The other guys are all 18 and just out of school. I feel like the proverbial wise owl amongst these chickens.
We’re all English in the compartment. We’re talking about the weekend before this and what we got up to. How drunk did we get? Totally ripped, man. Who got laid? Nah. Nobody. Who has a girlfriend? I say, I do. They all look at me admiringly. Dahms is the man. He even went to Tech.
Are you going to do JL’s, they ask me?
I say yes. Junior Leaders is the course for those recruits who want to obtain rank. I want to be the rankiest soldier that ever lived. Just like I wanted to have the highest degree when I was at tech. Clinton says no ways, man. I just want to lie low. Ambition. That’s what makes me different from these guys. And I have a girlfriend.
The train starts to move and there’s a cheer that rises along the carriages. It’s followed by screams from the MP’s telling us to shut up. Don’t we know that the ANC could have snipers trained on us right now? What are they talking about? This is Durban. No ANC snipers here. Bombers yes, but surely they would have checked the tracks for bombs? I am beginning to wonder about the thinking behind the uniforms.
I’ve never been on a train before. Dad said he loved being on a train. So far I’m not sharing that enthusiasm. Nobody knows how long the trip is going to be. At the rate this one is moving we might not ever get there. Clinton says,
Well at least if it takes a year we’ll only have one left to serve. Another voice says,
Then we’ll have to spend the second year riding the train back home. This thought brings a lot of cheer. I still don’t like the train.
It’s already late in the afternoon when we finally leave our home town and they let us open the blinds. The sun is going down early as it does in winter time in this province. By 5.30pm it will be totally dark. The train pulls into another city. Pietermaritzburg. More 18 year olds get onto different carriages. The blinds are down again.
The MP guarding our carriage announces that it’s dinner time. We line up in the corridor pressed shoulder to shoulder before he tells us to turn around and walk through to the next carriage. Then the next and the next and the next until finally we reach the dining carriage. This one smells even stranger. We’re given plastic cutlery, paper plates and a paper cup. Surly Indian men are spooning some vile looking concoction onto the plates. There’s a big tray full of sliced dry bread and tubs of margarine next to it. At the end of the line there’s a big steel decanter filled with Oros juice. I take 2 slices of bread and smear margarine across one of them. This is my dinner. The other stuff not only looks vile, but it smells weird too. Clinton also passes. I’ve got some chow in my bag, he says. I also have some biltong and snacks from my Mom.
We are not allowed to eat in the sleeping compartment and we must all return to the carriage at the same time. Not too many of the boys are keen on the concoction so dinner is over soon. It’s dark outside now and it’s getting cold too. The train is approaching Mooi River, one of the coldest towns in the country. More 18 year olds get on. We move on to Ladysmith. Then Newcastle.
The top bunk is alright, but all they have given us is a single blanket each and a pillow. It’s freezing cold inside the compartment. There is a small heater in the middle up against the window under the fold-up table. The heat rises up about 30 centimetres and dissipates into nothing. Our bags are stowed away underneath the bottom bunks. I have a jersey in mine so I climb down from the top and put it on but it doesn’t help much.
It’s 3am and the train has stopped. Where are we? Are we there? Wayne told me that as soon as the train stops in Kimberley the shouting starts. I don’t hear anything. Clinton asks the MP where we are. He tells him,
We’re in Kroonstad.
Where the hell is that?
It’s in the Orange Free State.
Oh jeez. How much longer do we have to go?
Not sure.
I’m freezing. I’m hungry. I’m thinking about kissing Michelle on the pavement outside Monks. There’s a song by The Waterboys looping over and over in my head.
Seven O’Clock in the morning and I’m riding the overnight train.
I’ve got ten tons of luggage but I left it behind when I came.
I look at my watch, says September seventeen.
We’re riding past some place where I’ve never been.
And I’m waving through the window as we go.
Somebody says well hey, what are you waving at?
Well what do I have to lose somebody might wave back.
Nobody is outside my window. Nobody is waving. There’s this sense of displacement and sorrow building in my soul. I try to go to sleep but there’s a hammering sound coming from outside. Somebody is tapping the wheels of the train. Dad called them tapiologists. They check the wheels of the train for cracks. I thought it was a joke, but here they are tapping the wheels at 3am. What will they do if they find a crack? Stop the train? How do they change the wheel?
My mind is tired but there’s no sleep. The events of the preceding weeks and months of my journey to this point are pulling me back to where they were made. I don’t belong here. I belong at home in Addington. I wish this train would move again.
It starts to move in the direction it came from. What’s going on? Are we going back to Durban? There’s a muffled yay from under one of the blanketed bunks. Clinton asks the MP why we’re going backwards.
They changed the engine and turned the train around to go to Kimberley. Go back to sleep.
Clinton is looking morose.
Day breaks. Outside the train a different looking world passes by. It’s flat and brown with scraggly bushes interspersed with grey rocks. It looks miserable and inhospitable. I hope that Kimberley looks a little greener, but I don’t think it will. It’s still very cold inside the compartment. The six of us are all sitting in our original positions on the bottom seat. Not much is being said as we draw closer to our destiny with the corporals and lieutenants of Diskobolos.
The MP calls for us to get ready for breakfast. We line up and move through the carriages. The Indian men are pouring porridge into plastic bowls. There is coffee and tea but it tastes like shit. Toast is all I have. I’m starving but the porridge is revolting so I won’t eat it. I am hoping against hope that the food at 1 Maintenance Unit isn’t as bad as Wayne told me it was.
We’re back in the compartment and the train moves along steadily. Clack-clack, clack-clack. A nameless boy in our compartment asks if we heard about the guy a few carriages up who cracked and was taken off the train in the night?
Really? What happened?
He was crying for his Mommy and threatened to jump out of the window.
What a spush. I suppose he will get off doing the two years then?
No, they’ll take him to 1 Mil for psych treatment.
1 Mil? What’s that?
Military hospital in Pretoria.
Oh. Jeez.
I don’t want to know about 1 Mil. I just want to get off this train and get this stupid army shit out of the way. Do my best. No regrets.
It’s 11 o’clock and the MP tells us to close the blinds. We’re pulling into Kimberley station soon. This can’t be it, can it? The world outside is flat, barren, brown. It doesn’t look anything Iike I had imagined it would. It’s cold and dry. My nose feels like it has rocks in it. All I want to do is pick them out, but that will cause a rumpus amongst the 18 year olds.
The train stops. The MP tells us to gather our things and get ready to get off.
Good luck, guys. I’ve got min dae til I klaar out. Enjoy! Defend us against the swart gevaar!
I can’t tell if he is being genuinely concerned or if he’s just glad to be rid of us and all Clinton’s questions.
