White Army Blues

Goodbye Gillian,
The army's come to take me,
So I'm leaving on a train.

We'll meet again,
Two years from now,
I won't be a long-haired lout,
I will be a man no doubt...
No doubt?

There goes the good life,
Farewell to the drinks and curls,
Farewell motorbikes and girls.
Bye-bye, so long...
How long?

MAlfaRK ©
Wednesday, July 4, 1979


I started writing this piece on the military troop-train from Pretoria, South Africa to the 7th SA Infantry Battalion at Bourke's Luck. Two years of conscription and carnage lay ahead. I remember finishing it while "naaing beat" (standing guard duty) in the early hours of the morning of that hellishly cold winter. The cloying aroma of military greatcoat still makes me sick. Gillian refers to Gillian Michael, my girlfriend at the time.