A gook comes for tea
Back at the Omauni base, it was at about this time that we had a gook come to tea. We were all sitting in the small lapa that was positioned at the centre of the camp, having afternoon tea at about 4 pm. For me, this was one of the highlights of the day. Everyone gathered round, relaxed and took the opportunity to ‘chew the fat’ over a cup of tea or coffee. A lot of laughs were had as the day’s events and jokes were shared. In the middle of this convivial atmosphere, someone said “Hey blokes, check that out … there’s a gook!” Looking round, we saw this black guy standing about ten metres away dressed in classic gook kit – AK 47 assault rifle, chest webbing magazines, khaki shirt and Chinese rice pattern trousers, complete with a tatty khaki cap and black chevron soled boots.
We all laughed, thinking it was one of our own troops as they all dressed like that when going into the bush anyway. The banter continued for a while, until everyone suddenly realised that there was a subtle difference with this guy. It suddenly dawned on us all that it was actually a real gook … pandemonium broke out as we all dived for cover, cups and saucers flying! Peering out from our meagre cover, we saw that the gook had quietly collapsed in a heap where he had been standing. Interestingly, the ‘big manne’ who had run the fastest, were the first to pop out of hiding and give him a few kicks and slaps around the head while he sat slumped on the ground, long past posing a threat to anyone. Relieving him of his weapon, we noticed that he was chronically dehydrated and that he hadn’t eaten for days.
After sending him off to the medics, we later learned that he was one of a large group of gooks that had tried to reach the farming area to the south. On getting hammered hard in a few contacts, they had started ‘bomb-shelling’ into smaller groups in an attempt to get back over the border into Angola. Down to just three in his group, they had split up when they ran out of food. He had walked for miles and miles hoping to give himself up before he starved or collapsed from lack of water. On arriving at our base, he had been stopped at the entrance by the engineers tasked with standing guard on top of the water tower. He was relieved only of his bayonet as a trophy, and then told to go on alone (still fully armed) to the middle of the base to surrender! Had he opened fire on us sitting around the tea lapa, he would have killed at least five, if not more, of us!