LIONS and OTHER THINGS

TIME DOES NOT WAIT: Army, the lioness, and a thought ...

Time does not wait - lll

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Time and tide waits for no man. I wonder who took the time to notice that phenomena, sure it was someone with a lot of spare time on his or her hands.

The pinnacle of any soldier’s paltry existence, is a ‘pass’.

A pass is a piece of paper which says that, Soldier So-‘n-So has permission to be running around outside of the confines of his training area, he has norms to obey, rules to keep, instructions to keep in mind, all pertaining to the good things of life - wine, women and song - the centre of all of mankind. His main aim is to break all of those rules, disobey the norms and ignore as many of those instructions as he can, in the short time at his disposal.

On a Monday morning, on the holy ground of the parade ground, every now and then, a name or more are called to the fore. These belong to the culprits that were caught in the act of breaking a LAW. Punishment was meted out sometimes with swiftness, extra duties, extra drill parade (with or without packs), or at times the culprit was marched away by the uniforms with the red bands on their arms, the Military Police, fondly referred to as MPs. There were many more variants of the LAW being applied.

One particular instance we were all paraded in a single line. The army doctor then proceeded with what is politely called ‘small arm inspection’. After a few soldiers were marched away, we were treated, again, to the sermon of the ‘loose women’ and other things called STD’s. Well… all sports have their injuries.

Many of my ‘passes’ were spent visiting the museums, art galleries, botanical gardens, historical places and zoos. The city where the army was close too, had all these facilities and places and one thing about going to the army, almost as the same as the sailors; say - “Join the army and see your country, join the navy and see the sea.” This was one of the benefits which I was very grateful for, I saw more of my own country, places I would otherwise have never seen.

On one of my visits to the zoo, I saw on an open area, there was a large circular diamond mesh enclosure, about 4 foot high and 20 feet in diameter. Inside was a young, almost fully grown lioness. I assumed that she was a pet that was donated to the zoo. This was a temporarily enclosure till a more permanent arrangement was made.

Standing next to the enclosure, the lioness came up to me and she started rubbing herself against the fence, quite clearly asking for a scratch as a housecat would. Now the enclosure was not of the best workmanship and there was a fair sized hole where my hand fitted through easily, and the lioness was treated to a good scratch, which she enjoyed very much by rubbing and stretching to and fro.

I was so busy with this scratching and as she again turned, she took my arm in her mouth at the wrist.

Rule number one, panic later, not now…..

The most amazing thing I noticed, while she had her mouth over my wrist is that, it was like being in a vice-grip, yet, the skin was not dented anywhere, soft as a lion-mother’s touch, her mouth was over my arm. The lip was drawn up, exposing those magnificent teeth, teeth that could sever my arm in one bite. The one side of my mind was in awe of this wonder of softness and the other side was telling me that she was beginning to ask me to join her inside the enclosure for a romp. She started walking to the centre of this cage and I could see my arm joining her and me looking on, as I could not fit through this small hole in the fence.

Time for action! The free arm shot through the fence and I started a scratch session that was very, very effective, as she enjoyed it so much, she let go of my arm. There I was standing, both my arms behind my back and in no uncertain terms I told her where she could go for her next scratching.

Stupid lioness! What do you mean? I was only being nice.

The army taught me many things, most of them never came in useful or was of no real value. There was the leopard crawl, the drinking, swearing, other unmentionable things, things we talk about when we get together round a bbq or meet for a few drinks, or we bore our kids with.

Always - “I remember …” or “in my day…” even “You kids of today…”

Every generation writes its own history, fortunately, mine was in a time of uneasy peace.
The cold war followed onto the Korean-war, the world took a breather, there was a small little war going on in Vietnam, nothing serious mind you, nothing the French could not sort out, other colonial colonies were making freedom noises and the ANC was flexing its muscles. Uhuru was a new word in Africa.

There was almost peace for a while. Time went on, written in the annals of men.

Time and tide waited, man did not see, there was a moment, only a moment mind you, when time and tide did wait. Only, man was looking to the East and the East was looking at the West, sharpening the new tools for a new form of war – terrorism.

No one was you your enemy, they all were your enemy, the words of the MOTHS forgotten – Lest we forget - what did we forget?

That we may differ, may speak different languages, we may have skin color that differ, even pray in different ways. On this we agree, we agree to differ, for surely, all people should agree on one thing, and one thing only. There is no honor in the death of a child by anybody's hand for whatever reason.