Gunship Over Angola

For all intents and purposes the legal officer was the SAAF’s local prosecutor in what were called ‘summary trials’ (comparable to misdemeanour trials in a magistrate’s court). He was a gravely serious chap who wore the insignia of a captain, an unusual rank for a national serviceman, and he seemed new to the post, as I’d never met him before.

But, belying his undertaker-like demeanour, he introduced himself, shook my hand warmly and invited me into his office.

The next moment he said, ‘Tut, tut, tut, tut. What in devil’s name are we going to do about these charges, Lieutenant?’

‘What charge… I mean, charges?’ I stammered.

Dispensing with any further informality and friendliness, he suddenly barked, like a Gestapo interrogator, ‘Are you the Lieutenant Stephen Pierre Joubert, force number 74257684PE, who was tasked with flying General H and his aide to and from Amsterdam, Transvaal, in an Alouette III helicopter, serial number 519, on 14 June 1981?’

‘That sounds like me. Yes,’ I replied hesitantly.

‘Do you deny or accept that on said day, with said passengers, in and around said aircraft, you wilfully and with malice aforethought committed a series of offences, 14 in total, that combined to jeopardise the integrity, credibility and standing of the aforementioned general and his aide, caused malicious damage to property belonging to the South African state and that you behaved in a manner unbefitting an officer and gentleman in the South African Air Force?’

‘Fourteen charges! Fourteen fucking charges? Are you out of your mind?’ I screamed before panic closed my throat and stopped me from breathing.

‘Yes, 14 charges have been filed against you by General Hanekom, and I have been personally appointed by him to prosecute you to the full extent of military law. The charges are as follows.’

I sat down and listened as he went through each and every charge. At one stage, I think it was the point at which the general had demanded that I put on the heater and I’d refused (Disobeying a Lawful Command, count 2), I chuckled nervously, which brought an angry response.

‘Do you think that this is a laughing matter, Lieutenant? With me prosecuting your sorry ass, you will be lucky to get out of this with your scrotum still attached to your torso!’ he said sternly.

By the time he had read out the final charge, I had traversed the full range of emotions from hysteria and maniacal mirth to denial and panic before finally settling on fury. I had also decided that the SAAF could kiss my lily-white backside goodbye and that I’d go directly to my bank manager (I didn’t actually have one, having only a building society account into which my wealth, or lack of it, was concentrated) and borrow the R20 000 or so I’d need to buy myself out of what remained of my ten-year short-service contract and resign my commission.

I was beside myself with anger at the 17 Squadron hierarchy, all Border War colleagues, who’d made not the slightest attempt to insert themselves between me and the general, nor to offer me moral support, nor even to ask me what had happened.

‘Fuck it,’ I thought, ‘these are guys that I have trusted to keep me alive, who have been able to totally depend on me to reciprocate whenever required, who have lived with me and got drunk with me and who I thought would always have my back, and me theirs, and this is how quickly they disappear when I need them?’

So, when he’d spelt out in the finest detail, as he’d done with the other 13 charges, the last count under which I’d been charged, the legal officer asked, ‘How will you plead to these charges, Lieutenant?’

I replied with an impulsivity born of blind rage, youthful indignation and bitter disappointment.

‘Find me guilty on all counts and… and… fuck the lot of you!’

I stormed out of his office.

*

My appointment with the manager of a Barclays Bank branch didn’t go as well as I’d hoped. He laughed out loud when I told him that I wanted to borrow R20 000 from the bank to pay the SAAF back for the millions (even in those days it cost millions to train an Air Force pilot) spent on training me.

‘Get over it,’ he said, before urging me, in a fatherly way, to think very, very carefully about trashing my career while in a state of such aggravation.

Two days passed before I’d calmed down enough to objectively contemplate my predicament and take the long walk down to the legal office to change my plea and put on record a more balanced version of events than that offered by the general.

‘Sorry, no can do,’ said the legal officer brightly, when I eventually got an audience with him. ‘In military law, once you have pleaded guilty to the charges, you may not retract your plea, but don’t worry, at the summary trial itself, you will have plenty of opportunity to offer evidence in mitigation of sentence.’

I never checked whether this was actually the case or whether he was just disinclined to redo all the paperwork – probably the latter – but I left his office and started to work on my mitigation arguments.