At an army base close to Voortrekkerhoogte in Pretoria, at the height of summer and South Africa’s Border War, 18-year-old recruits endure an appalling drill sergeant bent on turning them into killing machines for the SADF. They are sleep deprived, and tension mounts in this group of disparate individuals – boys from all walks of life – expected to function as a unit. Written in staccato, pointillist prose, Sons of Mud is deeply poetic and original, and a powerful anti-war manifesto.
Day one. Witwatersrand, close to midnight.
The cross-country Durban train and the cross-country Cape Town train to one side, cooling off.
Guess the clever SADF has amalgamated us here for the last jaunt into Pretoria Central Station, thinks Andrew Howard-Smythe. He stands there in black sneakers, tight blue jeans, kiss t-shirt and red windbreaker.
Eighteen years old, just.
That old Gene Simmons tongue flicks at Afrikanerdom from his chest.
Yaa-ah, bru, what was I thinking? We’re all of us assembled, bleary-eyed in long-haired, civilian-clothed squads with carry bags on a dimly lit platform. There are railway tracks everywhere, and travel-weary, faded red Suid-Afrikaanse-freaking-Spoorweg carriages parked.
We’re peering out from within a hastily assembled dullness.
Army.
There are Military Police and officers on patrol.
A very shocking moment, I tell you, a realisation. Came like a big shit, too.
A large Boer towers in the mayhem.
Better zoom in and try to keep him close, I reckon. Guy reminds me of an about-to-be-caged animal. I’m looking round wondering why no one else notices. What in me spots him that easily? But what in me spots anything, anybody? Self-preservation, probably. Maybe I learned it on the waves, bru, out on the Golden Mile.
Or are we simply to be recognised immediately among ourselves as the somewhat off? The fruity kids of Cain? Huh?
They’re having a roll call right here on the platform. Some doffel with rank and a clipboard calls out names. The giant answers to the name Jurgens, R. Me to the name Howard-Smythe, A.
Each to his own DNA, I guess.
Some didn’t take easily to their first taste of army, so a couple of names are followed by deadly silence. Got on the train, but got off again. God knows where, God knows how.
A Military Policeman comes over and receives instruction.
Where the hell do you run to, bru? Not even I’m that dumb.
Still, I’m standing here and I’m wondering if they’ll shoot at you if you pull an action and make a duck for those carriages: in, under and gone.
What I do know is that they’ll never stop looking for you. Not until this apartheid hell freezes over. Could be a long time, too.
Too long, bru.
Anyway, this old Andrew Howard-Smythe feels like a Jew boy heading for Auschwitz, I tell you.
“Yaa-ah, just as I thought, a giant freaking fruitcake.”
The inner-city train arrives in a snake of brightly lit window squares and we get bundled onto it. I manoeuvre myself in next to the Boer. We might get separated and put together a few more times tonight, but maybe I’ll be lucky, hey? This is a place of alliances. Let’s try and buddy up with Mister Big. No one’s going to be giving me kak with Mister Big in tow.
‘I’m Andrew Howard-Smythe, bru, from Durbs,’ I say.
The Boer does not take my outstretched hand. He stares at it as if at a dead thing. Okey-dokey then.
A soldier in full nutria gear comes in the connecting door and sits down opposite us with an assault rifle. He unfolds two little steel feet on the gun and places the piece down on the floor in between. It checks all menacing. It’s like you can feel everyone’s eyes on it.
Reckon no one’s been this close to military-issue hardware before, huh? Here, on a civilian train between cities, it hits hard. You’re in the freaking army, that’s for sure.
‘Israeli-designed Galil semi-automatic,’ whispers the giant.
I look over at his reflection in that window square. The dude has his hands tight between knees.
‘Huh?’
‘Made here in SA under licence by Krygkor, as the r4.’
‘Oh?’
‘Five point five six millimetre,’ he says. ‘Thirty-five round magazine, muscle velocity 980 metres per second.’
Yaa-ah, just as I thought, a giant freaking fruitcake. The train shudders, pulls hard, and we head off to Pretoria.
01:30. So, we’re having another roll call at Pretoria Central. No one lost this time round. Wonder why?
A whole squad of guards stands at ease to one side having a smoke break and a young lieutenant lights a pipe. Seems they had a man in every carriage now.
Go figure.
The lights are very bright in the main hall. We get bundled, semi-marched, through it. No real group discipline yet. There are too many of us, I decide, and it’s early days.
Up high, our sound essence reverberates from ceiling domes. It’s sad, I tell you.
Above it all is the unreadable face of the Boer.
We get ordered onto high Bedfords. The trucks reek of canvas and ingrained diesel fumes.
A city sleeps as if there’s absolutely nothing wrong, bru. Streetlights and neon. Traffic lights flashing. Green. Amber. Red. Green. Amber. Red.
Those circles below appearing wet on dry tarmac. I’m surprised at how acute it all has become.
The trucks start up, and we move away in convoy.
‘Rofie ride,’ rough ride someone says. ‘Hold on.’
Extracted from Sons of Mud by Johan Vlok Louw, out now.
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