Time Bomb. Johan Marais
to have some knowledge of hand grenades, so we decided to test them. We walked down to the farm dam, where seagulls nested on the floating islands. Because they were a nuisance when we shot guinea fowl or pheasants, flying low and chasing off the birds, we decided to throw a grenade among their nests.
We were completely unprepared for the ear-splitting noise, so we headed back home very quickly. That evening my dad mentioned that some factory workers had heard an explosion at the dam and the security department of the factory was investigating. We kept mum.
A week later we took the four remaining grenades to a mine dump some distance from our house. About four hundred metres from the dump there was a railway track. We waited until a goods train came past and threw a grenade at the train from the top of the mine dump. Again there was an enormous explosion. The grenade fell somewhere near the foot of the dump, very far from the train.
For a while we hid on top of the mine dump, before deciding to throw the remaining three grenades over a mound of earth quite near us to see the result of the explosion at closer quarters. We threw all three at the same time and waited, but nothing happened. After a minute or two we cautiously peered over the mound.
The levers lay pointing away from the grenades but they hadn’t exploded. We decided to take the .22 rifle we were carrying and shoot at the grenades. Perhaps that would set them off, we argued.
After a number of shots, the metal on the grenades were already shiny, but nothing had happened. What to do next? My brother’s friend picked up the grenades and noticed that they had no detonators. We took them back home and hid them in a manhole in my dad’s garage. Two weeks later the drain was blocked. The plumber who was called in found the grenades in the sewerage system. Within an hour the Security Police, explosive experts, detectives, fingerprint experts and about three cars belonging to the Uniform Branch were at our house. Everyone was subjected to prolonged questioning. We boys stuck to our story: we didn’t know a thing.
I was the only one of the five siblings who worked in the garden. I had green fingers and made my own vegetable garden, dug over the beds, planted the seedlings, watered them, staked them when necessary and controlled the weeds. My garden was so successful that my dad sold some of my tomatoes, green beans and pumpkins at work.
We had about twenty sheep that I regarded as my personal flock. My saddest moment as a farm boy was when my entire flock disappeared one day. In the late afternoon the flock would start grazing closer to the kraal. Every afternoon I would go out to fetch them. Like a shepherd of old, I would call them by their names – not all of them, of course, but I had hand-reared a number of them with a bottle and teat as lambs. The moment they caught sight of me, they would come up to me for a game of head-butting or a pat on the head. I would lead the way, with the flock following me into the kraal.
Then, one day, the flock was simply gone.
The farm workers came to help, and we followed their tracks to a spot where the entire flock had been herded through a boundary fence. In the bushes we found skins and heads – a number of the sheep had been slaughtered there. It began to grow dark and we returned home. The next morning I accompanied the detectives to the place where the sheep had been loaded onto bakkies. More of my sheep were lying on the railway tracks some distance ahead. They must have ended up in front of a train. It was just before the lambing season, and the tracks lay strewn with unborn lambs, many of them twins.
That was the end of our sheep farming. It had been an enormous financial loss for my dad, and a terrible shock to me. For weeks on end I cried myself to sleep about my sheep. Needless to say, there was no counselling for me.
Next, my dad and I ventured into bee-keeping. At night we transported sixty hives to places where food was plentiful. In winter we put out a solution of sugar and water as a supplement. I was stung so often that I became immune to bee stings. Our enterprise had just begun to flourish when one day, at the request of a farmer, we left our hives on top of a mine dump so that our bees could pollinate his beans. The next day all our hives were missing. They, too, had been stolen overnight. That put an end to our bee-keeping enterprise.
Shortly after this setback, my dad decided to give up farming. The farm with everything on it was to be sold: the horses, cattle, chickens, pigs; even our pets – the dogs, cats, everything – had to go. It all went up for auction, and to me it felt as if part of my life was being sold.
We moved to a big house in town, which was a great adjustment. I found some consolation at the library, which was only a few blocks away. Reading was the new passion in my life. I got through three storybooks per week. Still, I missed my life on the farm badly. I realise today that nothing makes a child independent more quickly than life on a farm, where you have to learn to think for yourself at an early age, and if something goes wrong, find a solution yourself.
Farm children are different. During my career in the police force, especially as an instructor, I could immediately distinguish the farm boys from the city boys in a group of young policemen.
Though life on the farm was in some ways idyllic, it was not always easy. Both my parents had a drinking problem, and they would regularly come to blows. Occasionally one of them would leave, and they would live apart for a while. On top of that I sensed from an early age that I was somehow different from my brothers and sisters, but I didn’t know exactly why.
When I was in standard four, I was taking a bath one evening when I heard my mom screaming on the porch. The screaming grew louder and I didn’t know what to do. My mom and dad had been drinking and fighting all day. I jumped out of the bath and opened the bathroom door a chink. My mom was on the floor and my dad was sitting astride her, with both hands around her throat.
For a moment I stood trembling with fear. What could a child do in a situation like that? I spotted a broom and, without giving a thought to the fact that I was stark naked, I dashed out, grabbed the broom and struck my dad across his back with all my might.
My dad let go of my mom and turned in my direction; I threw down the broom and ran back to the bathroom, locking the door. I got dressed and left through the other door, which led to my sister’s room. She hid me in her wardrobe. I didn’t know what my dad would do to me if he found me.
After a while my sister let me out of the wardrobe; I was crying inconsolably. She tried her best to comfort me and allowed me to spend the night in her bed.
The next morning my mom came to fetch me. She told me not to worry, as my dad had sobered up and wouldn’t do me any harm. For the next few weeks he gave me a wide berth.
We carried on as if nothing had happened, but incidents like that one made it more and more difficult for me at home. After my two older brothers and sister had left school, only Len and I remained. When he decided to leave school during his matric year to join the police force, I couldn’t stand the idea of remaining behind on my own.
Two years later I was back in Springs, but this time as a constable at the Springs police station, and no longer as a boy in my dad’s home.
[1] Fictitious name
[2] Fictitious name
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