Gunship Over Angola

The skipper of the Dak, Trevor Watkins, had been doing a tour of the operational area with a bunch of States-based schoolteachers, all male, as part of the SADF’s border awareness programme. In theory, the teachers were looking over various bases, courtesy of the South African taxpayer, to see the conditions prevailing for the soldiers stationed there. The idea was that they would return to their schools in the new term better informed and able to dispel some of the untruths, fears and legends about military life for schoolboys entering national service in the following year.

The Dak’s engines had already been started when Douw and I clambered aboard the aircraft. We could see that it was full, not just because the 20 or so teachers were occupying every available seat along either side of the fuselage, but also because there was an enormous pile of beer secured under a cargo net in the middle of the floor.

With a paucity of space available to plant our backsides, Douw and I retired to the very rear of the aircraft and sat on the floor near the rear door.

We got airborne at about 15h00 for the three-hour flight. The outside air temperature was at least 38ºC. It was even hotter inside the aircraft.

It quickly became apparent that the teachers had imbibed copious amounts of the amber nectar prior to take-off. However, the quaffing of the brewer’s best quickly tapered off once we were in the air, due to the extreme turbulence as the Dak flew at low level to avoid the threat of missiles.

We stopped briefly at Grootfontein to drop off some urgent correspondence and took off again into the late afternoon heat haze and unceasing turbulence. Although the crew tried manfully to climb above it, their efforts were to no avail.

The interior of an airborne Dakota is not a quiet place. Douw and I sat in the back, minding our own business, dozing a little and enjoying the odd bit of amber nectar ourselves. At one point, I looked up at the educators and noticed that, to a man, they were all sweating profusely. Their colour had changed dramatically, and some of them were swallowing faster than a wild dog at an impala kill.

I had recently read Pat Conroy’s The Great Santini, a book about US Marine pilots and their antics around the world in the 1960s. Drawing directly on an anecdote in the book, and to relieve the boredom of the flight, a plan formed in my head and I quietly briefed Douw.

First, I concealed an opened bottle of Colt 45 lager in the breast pocket of my flying overall. Then I got to my feet and staggered through the passenger cabin towards the forward bulkhead where the barf bags were stowed in stacks, held in place by two leather straps. These receptacles were in full view of all needy passengers. Along the way, I kept apologising to the wide-eyed teachers, while gulping furiously and saying, ‘Sorry chaps, but… I fly every… day and I… am feeling… very, very ill right now. I don’t know…. how you… are keeping it in!’

Then I dashed to the barf bag holder, frantically grabbed one of the semi-opaque plastic packets and stuck my upper body into the passageway leading to the cockpit so that the teachers couldn’t see my face. All they could make out in the fading light was my back and shoulders and my heaving spasmodically and theatrically at regular intervals as I pretended to vomit, loudly and continuously, into the barf bag.

While carrying on this gut-churning pretence, I slipped the bottle of beer out of my pocket and poured the contents into the barf bag, hiding the empty bottle under the navigator’s table when the bag was sufficiently full. Then I turned around and lurched towards the rear of the aircraft carrying the bag, with the partially visible contents frothing and sloshing around for everyone to see.

The shell-shocked teachers were stunned motionless by the spectacle of an SAAF pilot, a frequent flyer, a man who made his living in the air, carrying a bag of vomit. Just when the shock and horror were reaching fever pitch, Douw shouted from the back of the cabin with all the contempt he could muster, ‘Bliksem, Loot, you can’t waste good beer like that!’ He then ran up to me, snatched the bag like it was a prized family possession… and emptied the contents into his mouth.