The war had suddenly become more real. This wasn’t an adventure or a philosophical debate—it was life and death. Pegi and I spent our evenings trying to reconcile the growing war between our beliefs and the warnings coming from our hearts. Of course, we tried to keep on a steady doctrinal path by listening to our bible lessons from Thieme each night. However, as soon as we would make application of his teaching to the very real war raging in the bush and our thought lives, . . . well, we weren’t sleeping very well.
About this same time, Pegi resigned from her position at Army HQ and took a civilian job as a legal secretary. The RWS (Rhodesian Women’s Services) was ready to institute rank. Now that I was no longer on a path that would lead to a commission, it wouldn’t be practical for her to be an officer with me as an NCO.
We were troubled by the political realities, Pegi wasn’t serving as a surgical nurse, and the chaplaincy didn’t match my military career aspirations. On the other hand, life in Rhodesia was idyllic. We awoke each morning with our cook/housekeeper, Wilson, bringing us hot tea in our bedroom. After we got dressed, Wilson would serve us a hot breakfast. Pegi would drive the Mini to her office and I would hop on my motorcycle and head to my office at HQ. We would both arrive back home at Kalanyoni about 4:30 to more tea followed by supper. As we were now in the cooler winter months (June-August), Wilson would have the fireplace lit as we sat down for tea.
Speaking of fires, we faced a very real threat of fire from the tall grass that grew on about 10 acres. Even though the thatch was treated with a fire retardant, it was still grass! In normal seasons, a farmer from down the road would harvest our fields for the feed and bedding of his livestock. This year his tractor was broken and he was unable to get spare parts to fix it. I had detailed Langton (who came with us from Alex Park), Adam (the permanent gardener at the property) and Langton’s 14 year old brother (who was now working for us since his school had been destroyed by terrorists), to cut as much of the tall grass as possible. They had to use hand instruments and were not making very good progress.
After a couple of small fires were stopped by Adam and Langton, I decided to do a controlled burn to eliminate the threat. This was not something that you wanted to do every year, but it didn’t hurt every few years. Most of the wild grass in Africa burns every few years and the blackened earth is quickly replaced by green new growth.
We picked a Sunday afternoon for the controlled burn and had cut a large swath of grass around the house just in case things got out of control. We filled our storage tank with water from our pump and I had Langton’s brother and Adam stationed with hoses to douse any sparks that jumped to the yard near the house.
The burn started just fine and as the last of section of the field was smoldering, suddenly a spark jumped to one of the pine trees on the border with our neighbor. In minutes we had lost three pines. We spent the rest of the afternoon frantically watering the area around the house while we prayed that the fire in the pines would not flare up again.
The local volunteer fire brigade members were on a call-up, so there was no help for us. Our neighbors on one side were out of town and our other neighbors didn’t offer assistance when we called them. As the last sparks died out, Langton, Adam and I shared a case of beer and Langton’s brother downed several bottles of Coca-Cola. A few days later, the neighbor who hadn’t move a finger to help us said, “You should not give your servants real beer—they should drink their own beer in the beer halls. And you know, you are spoiling them by paying them too much.”
We were paying each of them Rh$1.00 over the typical pay of $13.00/month for a cook, $11.00 for a gardener, and we were paying Langton’s younger brother $2.00 as a helper! But my neighbors were of no help when we fought the fire. It was the four of us out there fighting with all our strength and wits. The bond we had forged in that fire was not going to be impugned by some selfish white farmer. After all, we had come to fight for the freedom of all Rhodesians, black and white. If, after all of this conflict, white farmers were only concerned that they might have to pay their workers more or that blacks could eat and drink the same as they . . . . This added to our general sense of consternation. Thieme, of course, would tell me that the white Rhodesian farmers knew what was best for their African workers. Did they really? Thieme’s system of bible doctrine was failing us again.
By the end of the next week the new green grass sprouted to life in the blackened field. I smiled to myself as I rode my motorcycle down the eucalyptus-bordered driveway to my office. Another strange thing was happening. African workers from our neighbors were smiling and waving at me. Obviously, the word was out that I did not treat Africans with disdain. We fought fires and drank beer together. I was suddenly very popular and for the right reasons. Life was springing forth from death.
Col Wood was out of town for the week. When I arrived at HQ on Monday, I found a young woman waiting to speak with me in Col Wood’s office. She was in her early twenties and very pregnant—the wife of a soldier in SAS (Special Air Services).
As it turns out, she was ready to give birth at any time, but felt that she needed help from a chaplain. Her husband, a corporal in SAS, had just returned from a three month training stint with the South African SAS in Durban, South Africa. Typical of soldiers, especially in Rhodesia, he liked to drink. Unfortunately, the first night back home, he had drunk himself into a violent rage and had assaulted his pregnant spouse. She was sporting the black eye to prove it. She was scared for the safety of her unborn child.
This was going to be a real challenge for me. I now had to confront a soldier in the very unit in which I had originally hoped to serve. But here I was a chaplain, having only completed a few weeks of RLI training! And I would be confronting one of the best trained soldiers in Rhodesia. After offering my help should anything happen again, I assured her that I would speak with her husband.
The Rhodesian SAS was comprised of about 110 elite soldiers. As such, they were a tight-knit unit. I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this soldier if I didn’t clear it with his unit. I called his commanding officer, a captain.
It turned out that this officer was already displeased with his soldier’s behavior and told me that I could find him at a local bar. He also told me:
This soldier is a total “waster” (slang for someone useless). Tell him that if he so much as raises his voice much less his hand to his wife again, that I am authorizing you to throw him in” The Box” (jail).
Well, that was a relief knowing that I had his commander’s support, but there was still the matter of confronting him about his behavior. I signed out one of our camo-painted Land Rovers and drove downtown to the bar where he should be. I walked inside and saw a tough looking fellow in civilian dress at the bar. It was just after the Rhodesian lunch hour (1:00-2:00) and he was all alone, nursing a beer. Seeing my sergeant’s stripes, he sprung to attention when I addressed him.
The two of us went for a ride in the Land Rover where I asked him about his wife’s black eye. He admitted to having gotten drunk and assaulted her.
I told him, “Look, she could have your baby any day now and I am worried that you could lose your temper again and hurt her and the baby. I am going to have her moved into the maternity section of the hospital for the next couple of weeks. You can come see the baby after it is born, but that is all. You don’t go near her again until she comes home. And if you threaten her in any way, I will throw you in The Box and you won’t be coming out for a long time.”
My heart was in my throat as I tried to sound tough with this elite soldier. To my great relief and surprise, he responded with a meek “Yes Sergeant” and got out of the truck.
I met with his wife again later that afternoon and we had a frank discussion in which I found myself counseling her to get a divorce. I never thought that my first advice would be divorce! The Bible was totally opposed to divorce, or at least that was what Col Thieme had taught. Nevertheless, this was a time when divorce was the only way to insure the safety of mother and child. This soldier was not about to change his ways for long. The nature of his job and the specialized training he had received had developed violent skills in him that he could not control in his personal life.
A few weeks later, the young woman showed up at Kalanyoni. At tea with Pegi and me, she told us of the healthy birth of her daughter and how she had already initiated divorce proceedings which he was not contesting. It turns out that while he was in South Africa for training, he had also slept with another woman. That was the final straw for their relationship.
Yes, the Bible says that God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16), but God also cares for mothers and children (Psalm 10:17-18). We no longer live in a patriarchal society in which the male owns his spouse and children as property. Here was another case where the dogmatic application of Thieme’s bible doctrine just didn’t play out in real life.
In just a couple of weeks, I had experienced death and new life. This was what real life was about. And it didn’t fit into the neat system of doctrine that Thieme had designed. He may consider me to be unstable and unreliable. I now wondered about just how reliable he and his teaching were!
