Gunship Over Angola

Fearing that he would be decapitated by the whirling rotor blades, I thrust out my gloved left hand aggressively at his advancing figure in the universal gesture to halt. My prompt action, which probably saved the unappreciative officer’s life, formed the basis for the first of 14 counts under the Military Discipline Code (MDC) that he would later charge me with, namely, ‘Insubordination, count 1’.

As soon as the blades had stopped spinning, he charged into the aircraft and began to curse me for my tardiness. From the way he was ranting and raving, I don’t think that the boys in blue were his favourite arm of the service. He had almost certainly experienced a delay or two at the hands of some of my less time-aware colleagues in the SAAF.

However, I was not late and I told him so.

‘I had arranged for a 06h00 take-off and it’s already past 07h00!’ he shouted.

Thus, the first count of Absent Without Leave was born and the tally of charges rose to two.

‘Well, General, I was told that the take-off time was 07h00,’ I said, perhaps not as subserviently as I could have (but then again he was shouting at me), ‘and it’s 07h00 now. Also, I asked the Movements Control personnel to advise you that we may be a little late and to take care of you, but it seems that you did not avail yourself of the Movements Control facilities?’

This statement resulted in ‘Insubordination, count 2’.

‘Get this chopper into the air now and make sure I am in Amsterdam on time!’ he demanded.

‘I must first complete the paperwork at Movements before we can leave, General,’ I said, and strolled off into the building while he was still shouting. This resulted in ‘Insubordination, count 3’ and ‘Disobeying a Lawful Command, count 1’.

The charge tally was now up to five, and we hadn’t even left the ground.

After completing the relevant paperwork in record time, I got back into the Alo and started up but realised quickly that I couldn’t hear the radio chatter because the general was still bellowing at me into the microphone of his headset at full volume. So, I disconnected him by (not completely) pulling out his headset plug. This resulted in ‘Insubordination, count 4’.

Eventually the general stopped spitting and spluttering and we proceeded on our way, but goodness me, was it freezing. Johnny and I were okay because we’d dressed for the occasion, but the general and his aide had only pongo step-outs on and they were freezing!

‘Put the heater on!’ came the order from behind.

Now, anyone who flew Alos at 17 Squadron will know that the heater controls in the cockpits of our choppers were not connected to the hot-air bleed on the engines, as they were in Bloemfontein, for instance, as this adversely affected the total power output of the engines (or so I was told). It was no use switching them to the ‘on’ position as they simply wouldn’t feed hot air into a freezing-cold passenger cabin.

‘I am so sorry, General,’ I replied (with just a touch of smugness), ‘this aircraft doesn’t have a heater.’

With the wisdom of hindsight, perhaps I should have said that the heater ‘wasn’t connected’, as the ‘heater’ control lever, located in a control panel in the centre of the Alo III’s roof, was in full view of the general.

‘I said switch it on! I am freezing to death!’

‘It won’t work.’

‘Switch the fucking thing on!’

So, I obliged him, knowing full well that it would not make an iota of difference to the polar conditions prevailing in the cabin, but I was striving desperately to establish a toehold of cordiality and to keep what little peace there was left among the occupants of my aircraft. The cockpit immediately started to heat up.

Alo 513 just happened to be the only Alo III at 17 Squadron with the heater control connected to the hot air bleed on the engine. ‘Disobeying a Lawful Command, count 2’ and ‘Malicious Damage to State Property, count 1’ stemmed from this altercation.

The charge score moved up to eight.

About two hours after leaving Pretoria, we landed at the army base at Amsterdam. Without a word to me, the fuming but warmer general stormed off with the base commanding officer to attend to whatever visiting brass do before important parades.

At lunch in the pongo officers’ mess, I suggested to the general’s aide, the colonel, that because the general parade was being held at the local rugby stadium and not at the base (I had been told that the crowd would number in the thousands, far too many to be accommodated at the base itself), perhaps I should collect the general from the rugby stadium and prevent any further wasting of time by waiting for him to return to the base.

Agreeing with me that this seemed like a fine fence-mending idea, the aide chatted to the general, who agreed wholeheartedly. I overheard him say to the colonel, ‘That is the first decent suggestion that the blue-job shithead has made all day!’ or words to that effect. ‘Just make sure that he doesn’t fuck up the parade in the process!’