Eric the Brave, by Johan Vlok Louw

Eric the Brave, by Johan Vlok Louw. Random House Struik Umuzi. Cape Town, South Africa 2012. ISBN 9781415200759 / ISBN 978-1-4152-0075-9

The war novel Eric the Brave is about the bush war on the border between Namibia and Angola in 1983. A platoon of conscripts at a remote outpost spend their time smoking, drinking, tearing each other’s nerves, until the war finds them.

Johan Vlok Louw  

[...] Flat open country. Fuel drum full o' holes spinning wide and slow. That old sun so bright it's like being alive in an overexposed photo. Later an old Land Rover arrives driven by an unshaven lance corporal. Getting out, he still reeks of last night's rum. "So you're the bunch up for Charlie?" he says. This small guy called Mario says we don't know anybody called Charlie. The lance corporal laughs, he just stands there with his hands on his hips laughing. "Get on then," he says. "Freaking admin I tell you, signal probably got lost; hi, major." - "Hi, Giddy - what's on tonight?" - "Don't know yet, sir, lieutenant's not back yet." - "Gimme a call, will ya?" - "Sure, major, have a good one." - "Always, Giddy." - "Tell the flight he's tough on guys with hangovers with that freaking cannon of his." - "I'll tell him, man." Smiling. "Sure." - "So you're all on then. Bunch those kitbags up against the cab, man - like this - ag hell, whatever." On the Land Rover they sit three to a bunk facing each other. Some knees are touching, there's kit all over; they're nobody to each other yet. Eric stares at the sky. Some guy is looking at him. Nothing's established. Funny how you can feel it - how you know the bogeyman. They shoot over the taxiway and onto a sandy track next to a barbed-wire fence; there are tall security lights up. The corporal sits working the thinly rimmed wheel up front - this way, that way. That 20-mill's going again. Dud-dud-dud-dud-dud-dud-dud! Off to the left they pass a bunkered pimple underneath a stubby watch-tower, some tents there pitched in behind a sandbag wall. A couple of very relaxed-looking guys in black pt shorts about, waving. The corporal waves back. "Bravo," he shouts, "that's Bravo bunker!" The Alo whines past overhead, it's all shot out pulling backward in a sharp descent standing there in the air in front the hangar before landing. Freewheeling closer. They go fishtailing up the perimeter road a good ways, climbing slightly, then Charlie rises up out of the sand to meet them. It's got a tall watchtower up, metal supports criss-crossing a pale-blue sky. Sandbags anchored at offish angles in a red desert floor, barbed wire, camouflage netting - that old runway stretching away to either side in a noonday-heat haze. She's a real freaking palace. "So that's it then," says the corporal. "Old Charlie. Welcome to the Nam." He doesn't get out this time - just leaves the Land Rover idling and talks to them through the window while they offload their kit. "There's water over there," he says, pointing to a knobbly, tired water tank standing under a haphazard wood-and-canvas awning. There's this weird funnellike brown plastic pipe some ways off sticking waist high up out of the sand. "And that pipe, corporal?" - "Oh, that's what you piss into," he says, smiling, "right into it you do." - "Oh yes, of course ..." - "And there's a long drop out back in the bush that way." You can't see anything; it's a dense thicket, just a footpath going in. "They bring food in once a day in the evenings - a smoke, rookie. No, a Camel - ja, jy ou grote." He has his head back in the cab squinting against the smoke. It's a very old Land Rover. [...]

This is an excpert from the war novel: Eric the Brave, by Johan Vlok Louw.

Title: Eric the Brave
Author: Johan Vlok Louw
Genre: Fiktion
Publisher: Random House Struik
Imprint: Umuzi
Cape Town, South Africa 2012
ISBN 9781415200759 / ISBN 978-1-4152-0075-9
Softcover, 15 x 22 cm, 176 pages