And the Lion and the Lamb lie down together - 13. Chapter 12

AND THE LION AND THE LAMB LIE DOWN TOGETHER

Chapter 12:

“Come in, Guys, come in. They are in Ward Two”, came André Jordaan’s voice from outside. Peleton forty-four had finally come to visit their sick friends.

“At long last”, exclaimed Vaatjie. “We thought you had forgotten all about us. Some friends you lot turned out to be.”

“Nahh,” Wouter smiled. “Who wants to visit you bunch of pansies in any case?”

The recruits crowded around Johan’s bed. He was propped up against the wall with Riaan sitting on the foot of his bed.

“Good grief, guys! Did the MPs do this to you?” exclaimed Wouter. “You look as if a train hit you.”

“You should have seen the other guy”, said Riaan. “Johan choked the shit out of him.”

“Yeah, I hear the fucking bastard is still in 1 Mil”, replied Wouter. “They really fucked you two up badly. Can you breathe with that thing on you, Riaan? You really look like shit on toast.

Riaan chuckled. “It’s not as bad as it seems. It itches a bit, but the doctor says it can come off soon.”

The others oohed and aahed at Johan and Riaan’s injuries. Vaatjie felt a bit let down, as he had no visible scars to exhibit.

Visitors may not sit on hospital beds. This rule has been cast in stone since time immemorial. Peleton 44 cheerfully ignored it and spread out amongst the eight beds in the ward. André, like a good host, disappeared to the sick bay kitchen to organise tea and dog biscuits for the visitors.

“So, what’s cooking?” Riaan asked. “Are we in trouble or what?”

“I really don’t know”, said Jannie, from where he sat on the foot of Vaatjie’s bed. “We’re not confined to barracks anymore and we got a new corporal.”

“He’s English!” interjected Pieter Jooste with wonder on his face. “He can’t even speak Afrikaans properly!”

“And you bunch of retards can’t put two English words together in a row. How do you communicate? By drawing pictures?”

“He knows only a bit of Afrikaans and he sounds funny when he speaks”, Pieter chortled. “And by the way, my English is not bad at all. I got a B on my Matric certificate. We understand each other just fine.”

“Is he as bad as old Pizza Face?” asked Riaan, from where he sat on Johan’s bed.

“No, he seems sort of decent”, said Jannie. “He hasn’t made us run once and we only did 50 pushups this afternoon.”

“And what is this Superman’s name?” inquired Vaatjie.

“Corporal Campbell”, answered Wouter. “He even organised us new kaste. Old Pizza Face had destroyed almost all of them”.

“Kind of the man”, replied Vaatjie with majestic irony. “We’ll see how he turns out”.

“The rumour is that you’ll find out tomorrow morning”, said Wouter heartlessly. “Apparently your stay in Sickbay Hotel has been terminated.”

“It is so typical of the fucking army”, sighed Vaatjie. “Just as things take a turn for the better, they have to fuck it all up for you.”

“What is going to happen to us?” Johan interrupted Vaatjie’s musing.

“I don’t really know”, replied Wouter seriously. “Everything is still very confusing. After the fight at the gate, the MPs chased us to the bungalow. They actually put guards around it, would you believe. I suppose it was to prevent us from running away. Where we would run to, God only knows. Not one of us knows our way around Pretoria in any case.”

“They even brought our meals to the bungalow”, interrupted Jannie. “It was creepy. We kept on asking about you guys and nobody would tell us anything.”

Wouter resumed his story. “The colonel turned up yesterday morning and told us that we were not allowed to leave the bungalow for any reason. He said we started a mutiny and that they were investigating it.”

Jannie interrupted once more. “The cunt wouldn’t even listen to our explanation. He told us we could explain ourselves at our court marshal. We shat ourselves!”

“Hey, do you want to tell the story, or what?” Wouter did not appreciate relinquishing the limelight to Jannie. Jannie retorted with a rude finger in the air.

“Anyway, normal training resumes tomorrow morning, Corporal Campbell told us”, resumed Wouter, “Just in time for the baby elephant to join us.” Vaatjie snorted disgustedly at Wouter’s heartless comment.

André appeared with a trolley laden with an urn of boiling water, several packets of dog biscuits, tea bags, milk powder, sugar and a pile of polystyrene cups and plastic spoons. “You will have to make your own tea”, he announced. “The sick bay only provides room service to patients”.

The recruits fell on the trolley in a ravenous horde. Soon everyone had a cup of tea in one hand and a dog biscuit in the other. All talk ceased while the recruits dunked the dog biscuits in the tea and appreciatively wolfed down the soggy mess.

When they had finished, Johan finally asked the question uppermost on everyone’s mind. “So, what are we going to do now?”

“Dunno”, replied Wouter. “We are in major shit. How we are going to get out of it is anybody’s guess”.

This comment effectively broke up the tea party. Worried faces contemplated their fate in silence.

“Oh, well”, said Wouter. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

A very subdued Peleton 44 left the ward a few minutes later. They did not even rag Vaatjie too much about his imminent return to basic training.

As soon as the coast was clear, Riaan boldly lay down on Johan’s bed, cradling Johan in his arm. The back brace and bandages, as well as the narrow hospital bed, did not make for a very comfortable position, but Riaan gladly suffered the inconvenience, just to be next to Johan. Johan’s headache had mercifully subsided to a dull throb.

Johan’s mind started working. “What’s this with you and Jannie playing with each other?” he asked Vaatjie.

Vaatjie’s face turned a bit more rosy than normal. “We, uh, helped each other out. Ag, you know, man, when you need relief. It’s nicer having someone else do it for you.”

“No shit – and you never told me about it. How long has it been going on?”

“Hey, first of all, it’s none of your business. Secondly, we knew you would react like a prick, so we just kept it quiet.”

“What do you mean, act like a prick? We’re supposed to be friends. I would never split on you or anything.”

“No you wouldn’t. However, you would be carrying on and on about what a big sin we are committing, and all that other religious shit. I know you, Johan. You have never had a good word for someone that strays from the straight and narrow. Now you are in the same boat as us. How does your precious Christianity deal with this? How do you plan to escape the fires of hell this time? How can you possibly justify your little indiscretion? You with your holier-than-thou attitude make me want to puke.”

Johan felt as if Vaatjie had kicked him in the stomach. The guilt he had been suppressing squeezed the air from his lungs. He twisted violently, nearly dislodging Riaan from the narrow hospital bed. He buried his face in his pillow.

Riaan glared balefully at Vaatjie. “Are you satisfied now?” he rasped at Vaatjie. “Do you get a kick out of devastating your friends?”

“As if our best friend never got his jollies out of pointing our shortcomings out to us,” Vaatjie replied venomously. “The high and mighty Mr Lubbe could never do anything wrong. We, pitiful sinners, on the other hand, had to put up with his constant bitching about our inadequacies. What makes you better than us, Johan? Who gave you the right to judge us pitiful mortals?”

Guilt constricted Johan’s throat. Vaatjie was right. He always tried to do the right thing and was never ashamed to speak his mind on his friends’ failings. Now he was exposed for what he really was – judgemental, petty and hypocritical. He was as big a sinner as Vaatjie and Jannie, but worse, he saw the splinter in their eye, but never realised there was a beam in his own.

“I am sorry,” he choked.

“It is a bit late for that, don’t you think,” replied Vaatjie. “We could never aspire to your bloody moral values. But, now, when the boot is on the other foot, you snivel that you are sorry. How the mighty have fallen.”

Vaatjie turned over onto his side, facing away from Johan and Riaan. Johan stifled his sobs in his pillow. Riaan hugged him closer.

“No matter what he says,” Riaan whispered in Johan’s ear. “You are a good person and our love is not wrong!”

Despair and a throbbing headache kept Johan from sleeping that night. He had made his choice between his Christian values and his heart. He was losing his friends with his so-called superior attitude. The army was on the brink of court marshalling him. The only glimmer of hope in this deep dark hole was his love for Riaan.

The next morning the atmosphere could be cut with a knife. Vaatjie ignored Johan and Riaan completely. They ate breakfast in silence. Riaan’s attempts at starting up a conversation met with failure.

Doctor Swart appeared just after nine that morning. He prodded at Riaan’s chest and shone his little flashlight in Johan’s eyes. “You two should be discharged by tomorrow. Both of you should be on light duty for a couple of days at least. Just to make sure there’s no lasting damage,” he said.

Vaatjie did not even try to weasel his way out of his discharge. He seemed to be relieved to return to the bungalow. This, of course, made Johan feel even more guilty.

After Vaatjie left, the orderly remade his bed. He readily swopped Riaan’s bed with Vaatjie’s when Riaan asked him to. Apparently, André’s next shift was only the following day. Because they did not know the orderly well, Riaan did not attempt to get into bed with Johan. They were afraid of the repercussions should Riaan be discovered in Johan’s bed. They however, did sneak a couple of kisses, feeling like naughty schoolchildren. Johan’s mood lifted considerably.

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