FORTY-EIGHT HOUR PASS
Every family has interesting, sometimes profoundly sad, family dynamics. This story is anillustration that the bonds for those we love are very strong.
“Mom, Mom, let me in, it’s Eric”, accompanied by a loud knocking on the door. “Eric, Eric??”……
“Eric van Arnhem??” …
“Mom, it’s your son Eric, you won a prize of a trip from Johannesburg in the Million Dollar Baby
competition and you put my name on the ticket… Let me in!!”
Hearing this clever radio advertisement, I was reminded of the time my son David was doing his
Army Service, and was stationed at Tempe in Bloemfontein, at the big ‘parabat’ school. He was
training to become a paratrooper, and it was tough going. They boys were given a 48-hour pass,
and David decided to come down to Cape Town to see his mom and two sisters for the weekend.
The family had no warning that he was on his way, as this was before the era of electronic
communications. Cell-phones and other technological innovations had still to be invented.
In Cape Town our sedate lives jogged on in their quiet fashion; school for the girls every morning
at eight and work for mom from eight-thirty to five. Life was quieter then, nothing like the hectic,
stressful hurly-burly of today’s conditions, and the dangers and horrors we live with today were
unknown.
Saturday morning was always an occasion for a long lie-in. The household never really stirred until
about eight, and when an urgent voice accompanied by a loud knocking brought me out of my
slumbers with a jolt at six on that dark, winter’s morning, I had trouble coming back from reality
and gathering my wits about me.
“Mom, Mom, open the door! It’s David … let me in.” Hesitatingly I unlocked the door and peering
out, beheld an extraordinary figure. A blackened face with white panda eye-circles, his lacerated
and bruised hands clutched his bedraggled Army greatcoat. This was bunched around his grease-
stained and torn khaki army trousers, and red-rimmed eyes stared out at me from an exhausted,
tear and sweat stained face.
“David … Is that you??” … I asked, hardly able to recognise my own son.
“So tired … go to bed …” he mumbled, and staggered off to his bedroom without another word.
Twenty three hours later, he appeared for the first time, yawning and rubbing his eyes. “God! I’m
absolutely starving” he blurted.
“Go and have a hot bath, while I cook something. Then you can tell me what this is all about,” I
replied, thinking it was about time I read him the riot act.
Off he shambled, and when he re-appeared for the second time, he looked more like a human
being.
“Well?” I asked imperiously, hoping that I would finally get an explanation.
“I got a forty-eight hour pass and thought it would be easy to hitch a lift to Cape Town. I waited and
waited and nobody came. Eventually a black transport driver was filling up at the petrol station
after unhitching his trailer-load, going back to Cape Town. I went over and asked him if he could
give me ride in the cab, but he said it was against company regulations. But, he continued, there
was a stop-sign at the end of the road, and he wouldn’t notice if anybody climbed on to the “shoe”
at the back of the cab.
I climbed on board in the couple of seconds the powerful vehicle slowed down for the stop-street,
and thinking that this would only be for a mile or two until he stopped to let me into the cab, was
not too worried. However, we continued for mile after mile; it was absolutely freezing as we drove
through the Karoo winter night, and the speed he was travelling, combined with my fear of slipping
off the greasy “shoe” put me into a terribly dangerous position. The driver must have forgotten our
conversation, or perhaps he genuinely was not even aware that I was perched at the back. I
couldn’t get his attention or make him hear me, and he sped along at more than 70 miles an hour,
anxious to make Cape Town by morning and get home to his family. All I could do was to tie
myself onto the "shoe" with some long chains that were usually looped over the “frog” (the part
which engages with its counterpart on the front of the trailer) and hope against hope that I would
not fall asleep and topple off the dangerously speeding vehicle …
It was the most terrifying journey of my life…”
Nonplussed, I did not have a thing to say. What was the point of berating him for his foolishness?
What was the point of telling him how desperately dangerous his spontaneous action had been?
He already knew and had experienced the foolishness and danger, and managed to survive
something which few young men could ever have attempted, arriving at my door, sound in wind
and limb, although obviously shaken to the core. But, with the resilience of youth, he had slept off
the ghastly experience and was now proposing to don his cleaned and pressed uniform and return
to camp, to be “Present and Correct” in time for Monday morning parade!!
Amazing how strong the pull of home and family can be, after weeks of arduous training dished
out as only the Army knows how!!!