Border war
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.
About 600,000 males were conscripted from South African society between 1968 and 1993. There was a complicated relationship with conscription, which was bolstered by an oppressive political and military regime in the country. This story is set in the early 1980s.
I am David Cohen, and I am a medical doctor who spent a year `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 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.
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. There were some hints that 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 bar. 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. The 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 bar. Our act was a great success and the crowd shouted for more.
My life was full of ethical dilemmas as an army doctor. I ended up sending some 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 - difficult to sort out in the toxic environment we were in.
At night Hennie and I would discuss these issues 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 reasonably 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 really 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 treats from me. At night she would lie outside the officer's quarters on the veranda there. I had put two blankets down to make her more comfortable. Every 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.
I was sometimes 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 again, and I met him at the airfield. I had managed to persuade 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 to get 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 had to do a round in the sickbay to miss it. I was a terrible soldier and couldn't manage to wear my uniform with any style. 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. There were two other Jewish doctors who were very orthodox and seemed to avoid me.
The guys in the pub wanted Hennie and me to perform again when they heard he was back. He had brought the music and lyrics of a Dubliner's song back with him for an occasion like this. Here's an extract
Don't get married girls
You'll sign away your life
You may start off as a woman
But you'll end up as the wife
You could be a vestal virgin
Take the veil and be a nun
But don't get married girls
For marriage isn't fun
Oh it's fine when you're romancing
And he plays the lover's part
You're the roses in his garden
You're the flame that warms his heart
And his love will last forever
And he'll promise you the moon
But just wait until you're wedded
Then he'll sing a different tune
You're his tapioca pudding
You're the dumplings in his stew
But he'll soon begin to wonder
What he ever saw in you
Still he takes without complaining
All the dishes you provide
For you see he's got to have
His bit of jam tart on the side
So don't get married girls
It's very badly paid
You may start off as the mistress
But you'll end up as the maid
Be a daring deep sea diver
Be a polished polyglot
But don't get married girls
For marriage is a plot
Have you seen him in the morning
With a face that looks like death
With dandruff on his pillow
And tobacco on his breath
And he needs some reassurance
With his cup of tea in bed
For he's worried by the mortgage
And the bald patch on his head
And he's sure that you're his mother
Lays his head upon your breast
So you try to boost his ego
Iron his shirt and warm his vest
Then you get him off to work
The mighty hunter is restored
And he leaves you there with nothing
But the dreams you can't afford
So don't get married girls
Men are all the same
They just use you when you need you
You'd do better on the game
Be a call girl, be a stripper
Be a hostess, be a whore
But don't get married girls
For marriage is a bore
Hennie sang it to me, and I tried to knock out the tune on the piano. An Irish song in the middle of nowhere! We got it sounding right but decided to only sing it at the end of the evening when the guys were inebriated. We started with a couple of popular tunes and some Afrikaans standards. My piano skills weren't that grand, but I accompanied him as best could, and besides in a smoke-filled darkened room it didn't really matter. The guys kept bringing beers to our table, and we never had to spend a cent. We were tipsy and enjoyed the atmosphere. In fact, I was in the clouds as an entertainer.
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. I sucked him until he almost came, and then played with his hole and smeared the lube in. I massaged his hole using two fingers.
He lubed up my cock and wanked me. I approached him from the front and slowly stuck my mushroom head into his hole. His cock bounced around as I began to thrust. He was good at it and was very relaxed. My heart pounded and I was breathing fast. I was not an anal expert, but I was enjoying the feeling. Hennie squirmed as my cock rubbed against his prostate. I came when Hennie shot his cum onto my stomach and licked a lot of the cum off him stomach and kissed him. He used a military-issue brown towel to clean up.
There was little to do in the camp and there were different cliques that formed, mainly based on language. Some of these 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 was planning to study at a university in Pretoria when he completed his national service, so I found a position at a Pretoria hospital. We did get married (no thank you Dubliners!) when the laws in South Africa eventually changed. Hennie and are still together and you can hear us perform at family functions.