gets it into her little head to go off to Chile!
The Recce's estimate more than ten thousand Cuban infantry soldiers in south-western Angola alone. We've been instructed not to divulge the enemy's logistical and numerical superiority to our troops. Hourly their morale drops deeper into the dust. The conscripts are more nafi than ever. As usual, HQ is most concerned about any-
The Smell of Apples
thing happening to them. If another conscript is killed, the press at home will go crazy.
If the press finds out.
I remember Xangongo, New Year '84. We were two hundred kilometres inside Angola, listening to the Voice of America. Then Dad's voice came over the airwaves, and everyone looked at me. He was telling the world that there wasn 't a single South African soldier inside Angola. The rest of the interview was lost as everyone around the radio roared with laughter.
The little Englishman in my platoon, a conscript from Durban, has only two months to go. He's forever moping about his family and his girlfriend. Sometimes he forgets that I'm around - at least from what he says. This morning he was telling everyone around him that he hadn V wanted to do National Service. I walked over to the group, and said:
1 You had a choice, you little fuck-head. You had a choice. '
He answered: 'But I'm not PF like you, Lieutenant -I'm National Service and we don't have a choice, we have to come, whether we want to or not. If we don't, we go to jail for six years.' He gave me a sarcastic smile. They hate PFs.
'Exactly,' I said, you had a choice - like me - and you made the easier one.'
Then he was quiet.
East of us, in the direction ofXangongo, Cuban T-55 and T-64 tanks roar around as if Africa is their playground.
It's a struggle to get out of bed this morning. I have to hold the alarm-clock against Frikkie's ear before he gets up
Mark Behr
with his eyes puffy from too little sleep. In the kitchen we put the pack of bait, some fruit, our bread and a flask of coffee into Dad's fishing bag. The street-lamps are still burning in Main Road. Except for the sea, everything is quiet. There aren't cars this early in the morning, so we stroll down the middle of the road. From behind the Hottentots-Holland, the sky has started to turn grey. In an hour's time the sun's going to peep through the mountains and turn the whole of False Bay all kinds of colours.
The sea is like a big animal breathing on the other side of the tracks. When we're close to the Carrisbrooke stairs that go up to Boyes Drive, three old Coloureds come towards us. They've also got their fishing rods over their shoulders.
'More Baas" they greet me as they pass in the opposite direction. They know me from Jan Bandjies' team.
Jan Bandjies' oupa-grootjie also used to fish in the bay. Back then they were allowed to use bigger nets. He says it's been eight or nine generations that have lived off the catch. But now, like everywhere, I suppose, the fish are becoming scarcer and only certain smaller nets are allowed. Jan Bandjies says it's I & J that's chased the fish from False Bay, and one by one the fishermen are dying of old age. And Jan doesn't want his sons to become fishermen either. He has warned them all to stay clear of the boats. If they come down from Retreat for a day, he doesn't allow them to go further than the Kalk Bay quay. He says there's no life left in the sea anyway, and it's getting more and more difficult to believe the old stories of how many whales were caught in False Bay every year, long ago, when Kalk Bay's harbour was still a child. He says we hardly see whales these days because the English killed off all the mother-whales and their babies every year.
Jan Bandjies and his family used to live in Kalk Bay.
The Smell of Apples
But they had to move because all the visitors from overseas complained about the Coloureds' dirty houses. So the government built them nice homes somewhere else. Only the fishermen who could find places in the council flats
The Recce's estimate more than ten thousand Cuban infantry soldiers in south-western Angola alone. We've been instructed not to divulge the enemy's logistical and numerical superiority to our troops. Hourly their morale drops deeper into the dust. The conscripts are more nafi than ever. As usual, HQ is most concerned about any-
The Smell of Apples
thing happening to them. If another conscript is killed, the press at home will go crazy.
If the press finds out.
I remember Xangongo, New Year '84. We were two hundred kilometres inside Angola, listening to the Voice of America. Then Dad's voice came over the airwaves, and everyone looked at me. He was telling the world that there wasn 't a single South African soldier inside Angola. The rest of the interview was lost as everyone around the radio roared with laughter.
The little Englishman in my platoon, a conscript from Durban, has only two months to go. He's forever moping about his family and his girlfriend. Sometimes he forgets that I'm around - at least from what he says. This morning he was telling everyone around him that he hadn V wanted to do National Service. I walked over to the group, and said:
1 You had a choice, you little fuck-head. You had a choice. '
He answered: 'But I'm not PF like you, Lieutenant -I'm National Service and we don't have a choice, we have to come, whether we want to or not. If we don't, we go to jail for six years.' He gave me a sarcastic smile. They hate PFs.
'Exactly,' I said, you had a choice - like me - and you made the easier one.'
Then he was quiet.
East of us, in the direction ofXangongo, Cuban T-55 and T-64 tanks roar around as if Africa is their playground.
It's a struggle to get out of bed this morning. I have to hold the alarm-clock against Frikkie's ear before he gets up
Mark Behr
with his eyes puffy from too little sleep. In the kitchen we put the pack of bait, some fruit, our bread and a flask of coffee into Dad's fishing bag. The street-lamps are still burning in Main Road. Except for the sea, everything is quiet. There aren't cars this early in the morning, so we stroll down the middle of the road. From behind the Hottentots-Holland, the sky has started to turn grey. In an hour's time the sun's going to peep through the mountains and turn the whole of False Bay all kinds of colours.
The sea is like a big animal breathing on the other side of the tracks. When we're close to the Carrisbrooke stairs that go up to Boyes Drive, three old Coloureds come towards us. They've also got their fishing rods over their shoulders.
'More Baas" they greet me as they pass in the opposite direction. They know me from Jan Bandjies' team.
Jan Bandjies' oupa-grootjie also used to fish in the bay. Back then they were allowed to use bigger nets. He says it's been eight or nine generations that have lived off the catch. But now, like everywhere, I suppose, the fish are becoming scarcer and only certain smaller nets are allowed. Jan Bandjies says it's I & J that's chased the fish from False Bay, and one by one the fishermen are dying of old age. And Jan doesn't want his sons to become fishermen either. He has warned them all to stay clear of the boats. If they come down from Retreat for a day, he doesn't allow them to go further than the Kalk Bay quay. He says there's no life left in the sea anyway, and it's getting more and more difficult to believe the old stories of how many whales were caught in False Bay every year, long ago, when Kalk Bay's harbour was still a child. He says we hardly see whales these days because the English killed off all the mother-whales and their babies every year.
Jan Bandjies and his family used to live in Kalk Bay.
The Smell of Apples
But they had to move because all the visitors from overseas complained about the Coloureds' dirty houses. So the government built them nice homes somewhere else. Only the fishermen who could find places in the council flats
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