Border Christmas
Important note
This a story of gay fiction for a mature audience. It contains consenting sex between men. If this offends you, leave or is illegal where you live, leave now. If you enjoy the stories on the site, consider a donation to Nifty to keep the site going.
Conscription in South Africa was established in 1967 and abolished in 1994. At its peak, conscription in South Africa consisted of two years of mandatory military service, followed by camps at intervals. Under apartheid, the call-up applied to all white men after completing their schooling or further studies. Around 600,000 males were conscripted between 1968 and 1993.
I am David Cohen, and I am a medical doctor who spent a year in the `80s on the border' in a place near the northern South West African (now Namibian) border called Oshakati. I am just short of six feet. I have brown hair, and don't look that Jewish. Having grown up in a rural town I am fluent in Afrikaans and speak Setswana. Oh yes, I'm also gay. I have told this story before in Nifty, and I tell it again now with a Christmas twist.
I lived in the Protea Officers' Quarters. It was a long-prefabricated bungalow, containing many small two-bedded rooms. Another author described the place like this: "There was probably the width of a bed between the beds, and probably the width of another bed between the foot of each bed and the cupboard. There was a corridor wide enough for two people to walk side by side along the length of the building, with bedrooms opening off on each side. There were larger rooms at each end; one was a lounge with a television set, and the other was a bedroom for transient visitors. In the middle of the building were the showers, washbasins, and toilets. There were three showers, only one of which was fitted with a nozzle to break the jet of water up into a comfortable spray. The hot water was limited and would often run out."
A friend described the rooms very well: "The walls between our rooms were so thin you could hear your neighbour breathe. Separated by half an inch of prefabricated wall from my bed was a room shared by two engineers who were national service Lieutenants."
We slept under mosquito nets which were suspended with hooks from the ceiling over each bed. They collected dust, and many had holes in them, which previous officers had tried to sew closed with varying degrees of success.
There was a sandy parking lot, and to the right was the Officers' Dining Hall and the Officers' Bar where drinks were cheap. Drinks cost the same as they did in South African army bars. The dress code in the dining hall was a button-up shirt, and trousers with which you can wear a belt. Denim jeans were allowed if they were worn with a belt, which was not the case in South Africa.
You don't want to be in Oshakati before the rains come in January. The temperatures are around 35 degrees and it can be very dry. There was a swimming pool in the camp, but the water was green a lot of the time and it wasn't that inviting.
I was lucky enough to have a room to myself when I arrived, and I enjoyed the private retreat after a hard day's work in the sick bay. We mainly saw military personnel and their families in the sickbay. Oshakati was dusty and I spent a lot of my day treating patients with respiratory problems. I also saw a lot of young national servicemen who were depressed and missing their families. Within a week of arriving, I had gained a reputation for being too sympathetic to the conscripts who were only a few years younger than me. I was called in by the commandant who told me to toughen up, and I agreed with him and continued doing what I was doing.
A month later I was joined in my room by another conscript Lieutenant, Hennie Swart, who had been deployed from the services regiment to sort out administration. His military uniform looked like it had been tailored for him and was impressive, his boots were always polished to a shine. His uniform showed off his little bubble butt and his chest muscles. His beret was worn with pride. He was light blond, had a light blonde trimmed moustache, and tried to look very masculine. Some hints made me suspect that he might just be gay. His English was very good, but I preferred speaking Afrikaans to him.
Hennie and I had a quick walk around the base, and I bought him a beer at the pub. Hennie was incredibly neat and kept the room tidy, a quality which I appreciated. He was about six years younger than me and slightly taller, and he had a good body and was fit. He just finished school the year before and had done the officer's course.
We only got to see each other at night and on weekends. I must confess that I didn't think that I would get on with him when we first met, but we soon became good friends. He had attended the famous Drakensberg Boys Choir School as a boy and a large Afrikaans High School in Pretoria later. Our big connection was that we both played the violin, I had brought my violin with me, and it was stored at the top of my cupboard. Hennie had a beautiful voice and we performed together one night in a talent evening at the pub. Our act was a great success and the crowd shouted for more.
My life was full of ethical dilemmas as an army doctor and I ended up sending several conscripts back to Pretoria who were suffering from trauma. I didn't appreciate the commandant's (a dentist) way of dealing with young men who were identified as homosexual. He believed in aversion therapy and would send them off to 1 Military Hospital in Pretoria. I dealt with a few family abuse cases with military families, and this was difficult to sort out in the toxic environment we were in.
At night Hennie and I would discuss some of these cases and he would share some of the challenges he was facing. We got on well and became regular entertainers in the bar as we both were relatively good on the piano.
One morning Hennie got news that his father died of a heart attack in Pretoria, and he was given a week's compassionate leave. I missed him and would lie and masturbate at night thinking of him.
The camp dog, an old Alsatian, called Corporal took a liking to me and followed me around. She wasn't allowed into the sickbay but would lie on the veranda and wait for me to give her a treat. At night she would lie outside the officer's quarters on the veranda. I had put two blankets down to make her more comfortable. Now and then I would bathe Corporal in tick shampoo to keep the ticks off her.
We didn't have mobile phones in those days, and you had to use a payphone to call home. We did receive mail from family and loved ones. I called Hennie one night to hear how he was coping.
On some nights I was summoned to the sickbay at night when serious casualties came in. I mainly assisted as we had some very experienced surgeons who were conscripted for short-term camps. I wasn't at all religious, but did have my bar mitsvah kippa with me, and this allowed me to get time off on Jewish holidays.
I was excited to see Hennie when he returned, and I met him at the airfield. I had persuaded one of the ambulance drivers to take the jeep there. Planes had to make a rapid descent into the airfield to avoid being shot down by enemy missiles. He was the first off the Hercules transporter. We hugged and I carried his bag and other parcels to the vehicle. He had brought back some delights and he had even gone to a kosher bakery to get me some of my favourite eats.
We never had any private conversations in our room because of the thin walls, so we would walk outside under a spectacular canopy of stars to find privacy. Lights were put out early in the camp to avoid enemy bombardment. That night I told him how much I had missed him, and he told me that he felt the same way. When we were far from the other soldiers, in the dark, and behind some trees we embraced and kissed. I had longed to kiss Hennie; he explored my mouth and me his. I felt his erection pressing against mine and I slipped my hands onto his arse cheeks and squeezed them. We had to be discreet, after all, we didn't want to be shipped off to aversion therapy!
We would have loved to shower together, but there was no private space. When we got back to our room we stripped down and wrestled quietly on his bed. We kissed and felt each other's bodies. I sucked his nipples, his ears, his fingers, everything. I was in love with his entire body. His penis was beautiful, uncut, and magnificent when erect. He was very virile! We sucked each other and came quickly. We stayed on his bed and played with each other's hair. I suggested that I get some lube from the pharmacy the next day.
The next morning, we kissed again and wanked each other off before showering separately. There was a parade scheduled at eight and I made sure that I missed it while I did a round in the sickbay. I was a terrible soldier and didn't wear my uniform with any pride. Fortunately, I could hide things under my medical coat.
The hospital staff were very deferential towards doctors, especially if they thought you were any good, and I got on well with the other doctors doing national service. Two other Jewish doctors were very orthodox and tended to avoid me.
The guys in the pub wanted Hennie and me to perform again when they heard he was back. We put a Christmas repertoire together, not that I was an expert on Christmas! We planned to end with Silent Night. Hennie told me that the carol was famously used in other war situations.
Stille nag, heilige nag
Jesus kind lank verwag
Lig uit lig uit die Vader se ryk
word uit liefde aan mense gelyk
Loof die hemelse Kind !
Loof die hemelse Kind !
Stille nag, heilige nag
Hemelvors, ons gee ag
op die lied van die engelekoor
Herders het dit die eerste gehoor
Silent night, holy night
Shepherds quake at the sight
Glories stream from heaven afar
Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia
Christ the Savior is born
Christ the Savior is born
Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus Lord, at Thy birth
Hennie sang it to me, and I played the tune on the piano. We started with a couple of popular Afrikaans carols. My piano skills weren't that brilliant, and I accompanied him as best I could, and besides in a smoke-filled darkened room, it didn't matter if you played the wrong note. The guys kept bringing beers to our table, and we never spent a cent. We were tipsy and enjoyed the atmosphere.
That night Hennie and I showered and cleaned up before going to bed. I took out the lube from my medical bag and put it on the bedside table. We had to be quiet, and Hennie told me in whispers what he had got up to at choir school and asked me to fuck him first.
The chaplain, who was also known as the `dominee', summoned Hennie and me to his office, the next day and complained that we had sung carols in the pub. He thought that it was inappropriate. He also asked me what a Jew knew about Christmas carols anyway. We ate humble pie and apologised.
There was little to do in the camp and there were different cliques that formed, mainly based along language lines. Groups would go to parties, get drunk, and come back noisily in the early hours and disturb those who had already gone to bed. Sometimes there were reprisals against these groups.
On weekends, when the swimming pool was clean, we would be there. There was a lot of homoerotic horseplay in the pool. We would often braai (have barbecues) eat a lot and drink a lot of cheap beer at army prices. With so little to do many of these twenty-year-olds got up to mischief. There were even times when some of the Lieutenants chased each other through our building.
My year at Oshakati went by relatively quickly. I was very busy and worked hard and Hennie made my time much more bearable. I loved his sense of humour and `can do' attitude, and I was certain that I would miss him when I was discharged.
Hennie studied in Pretoria when he completed his national service, and I found a position at a Pretoria hospital. We got married when the laws in South Africa changed. Hennie and are still together and you can hear us sing at family Christmas parties.