Walking down the good side of memory lane

[Chas Lotter]

Veterans do bring back bad memories - but they also bring back good memories.

There was the time when we were dog-tired but RHU would not let us sleep.....


QUIET, PLEASE!

Thirty-six sleepless hours
Later, mission complete,
We called in and asked the wheels
To come and get us.

Back at Bindura base, dead on our feet
We asked for a place to sleep in.
Food, beer, baths - all these could wait.
Sleep was what our bodies craved.

They gave us
Half a barrack, a long long room with
A shaky partition down the middle.
Half for us and half for RHU.

We cared not.
It had a roof and it had beds.
We dumped our kit and hit the sack. But
As glorious sleep began to fold around us -
The noise began.
RHU had passes. RHU was going to town.
And RHU was being damn noisy about getting ready.

We shouted, "Keep it down."
And they laughed at us.
We shouted, "We're trying to sleep."
And they laughed at us.
We shouted, "Cut the noise - or else"
And they laughed even louder.

Carlos snatched up his webbing and
Checked his grenades - frag, phos. and smoke - and
With great restraint
Selected smoke. Jim
Caught the plan and pulled his own.

The pins came out and two

Polite messages sailed
Over the wooden wall, followed
By one brief, frozen moment
When the levers popped off as they hit the floor;
Cries of "Grenade" and
The sound of breaking glass as those
Unable
To break the growing traffic jam around the door
Hit unopened windows and then rolled clear.
A few receding cries
Of "Mad bastards” echoed down the path
Followed by silence, sweet silence and, finally

Sleep.


---------- Post added at 13:13 ---------- Previous post was at 13:08 ----------

....and the memories of comradeship.


MEMORIES
In my white-haired years
When I look back
At all this. I think
One thing will stand proud
In my old man's anecdotes.

The many nights when I
And my friends
Gathered round the canteen truck
In a blacked-out camp
To renew the bond, flee the moment
In a crate of beer.

I will never forget
The strange, warm feeling
Of squatting in a circle
No lights but pulsing cigarette tips
No noise, bar the quiet thread of conversation.
Companionship. A strange companionship.

[gizmo16]

haha. I can only imagine what a scene that was.

[Chas Lotter]

... and to experience the wildlife in its natural environment


CHARGING RHINO
They looked good
Lying by the waterhole. And
They looked good
Standing by the waterhole, but
They did not look good
Charging straight at us with
A long, sharp horn and
Two tonnes of muscle thundering
Towards us at thirty kilometres an hour, so
We did not
Contest their right of way. Instead
We dove
Into the thornbushes
And hugged their tiny daggers to us
While the rhino thundered past.

Crawled out, after
Plucking each painful barb
Out from our lacerated flesh
While thanking this prickly vegetation for
Allowing us to embrace it
In this, the moment of our need.


---------- Post added at 13:22 ---------- Previous post was at 13:17 ----------

....and the time we awarded ourselves some well-earned but unoffical leave.


AWOL

Two
Hot, dirty, dangerous weeks later
Mozambique - finally
Lay behind and
Mount Darwin loomed ahead.

We dropped our kit; hit the bar
And sank a beer or twelve
Before Bright Lights beckoned as
The perfect cure for Recce blues.

We cut a pilot from the herd
And salved him with persuasion. So much so, that
Before the clock had ticked again, we
Were absent, airborne and awol.

And so,
Dirty, unshaven, loaded down
With all our uncouth accoutrements of war
We found ourselves in Salisbury town.
Well-oiled,
For we had worked our way through
Three crates of liberated Army beer.

Now
Girls dont like grenades. Filthy bodies
Make a lousy come-on line.
Drinking needs money. We needed
Wheels to get to town.
So.


Laundry lines lost their jeans.

Garden taps scoured our dirt. Silver tongues
Parted people from their money. We adopted
A 45 which stood
With tarpaulined ammo load and - keys, dangling
With temptation. A sentry,
Trapped on beat at the main camp gate,
Was gently persuaded; took charge
Of our weapons and webbing; grenades and guns.

Then, at last
Bright Lights beckoned ahead.

High Chaparral
Was our first port of call. We hungrily
Ran our eyes down the menu. Ordered,
Devoured
Our first good meal for weeks. Washed down
By beer, of course. Then back
To where the 45 stood
And off to Coq d'Or.

From then, the details
Become blurred, hazed by a fog
Of ouzo and coke. But when
We staggered out to our faithful 45,
Helped our chosen ladies aboard, while nursing bruised knuckles,
We believed
A good time was had by all.

A belief we still shared when, spent,
We woke in the cold, thudding dawnlight
At somebody's house. Pulled
Ourselves together and prepared
For our return to Darwin base. Only
To find that, somehow
We'd gotten the 45 into the yard
But could not get it out again.

We battled

With gates and fences as the 45's wheels
Tore up the lawn and
The neighbour's frenzied shouts
Knifed through our bleeding eyes. Until
All patience lost, we climbed aboard
And drove the 45 at the wall, leaving
Frenzied neighbour dwindling off, while
He danced upon the fragments of his wall.

Back at camp, we
Claimed our weapons; sneaked the 45 back
Cadged a lift and, back at Darwin base,
(With crazy smiles upon our faces)
Endured being shouted at, while
We packed -
For Mozambique, again.


---------- Post added at 13:25 ---------- Previous post was at 13:22 ----------

...and then, looking back and remembering those Zambezi dawns.


DAWN IN AN AFRICAN SKY

I have watched, many times, as
A sullen, glowing ball of fire rises, through
The fresh African dawn, throwing
Its fierce, new light upon
This boundless land of ours.

Sat, surrounding a steaming coffee cup
Seen my breath
Mist out slowly, while
A cold dawn=s growing glow covers
The Drakensberg=s peaks and crags.

Crouched, next
To a low, red fire
While the world springs
To urgent life around me, with
That sudden, early sun as
It leers and beats down upon
The parched, dry, Bosveld spaces.

Risen,
Rubbed the sleep out from my eyes, watched
The endless Indian Ocean give up its grip,
Release
A rising sun, which painted
Rich, red colours on
The rolling waters, as they ran
Headlong, for the beach.

But still, my greatest love for
The day=s first, fresh breath, is when
The fierce, Zambezi sun looms up
From deep beneath the river=s waters, calling
All the Valley=s creatures, back
To life again.


---------- Post added at 13:29 ---------- Previous post was at 13:25 ----------

...and thinking what golden experiences I had that my children will never have. (That's not quite true in this 2011 now since my son has grown into a bosman who hates the city.)


YOUNG GROWS THE MEMORY

I yearn to be
Alone - in the bush again, where
My ears can open
To the music of the doves; to the wild soft wind, caressing
The leaves of the trees.

Raise my eyes
To African hills, their sheer rock cliffs
Dropping, down, to drown
In muddy, deep rivers.
To kopjies, crowned with scattered boulders,
Their gullies filled with thornbush trees.

I want
To build a deadwood fire
On the lonely banks of a far-off river - which once I knew -
Grill fresh fish on red-eyed coals
Sip scalding, sweet, black coffee
From an old tin mug I used to own.

My memories cry out
For springbok leaping on an open veldt,
Rhino, standing like stone, alone, beneath a tree.
The elephant's ears laid flat, as he warns -
Stay back, stay back.

My children, my children,
How I want to share with you
The land I left behind - lost,
And gave to you, instead,
Tar, cement, computers and TV shows.

....Yup, I guess there are many things I miss about the war years, many things to make up for the bad memories.