Zambia World Wide

During the 60's Congo crisis my Battalion, 3RRR, was sent to patrol the border. We were dumped in the Bundu along the Great West Road near Solwezi/Kansanshi & told to establish a base. No.1 priority of course was to dig long drop latrines. (The Battalion was full of it!)

My Company, Mufulira D, being an ingenious, lateral thinking, lazy bunch of buggers, managed to locate & lay claim to an abandoned geologist's mineral exploration sample pit. ( probably dug by Gordon Garlick's emminent Grandfather many years before our bush soiree.) It was of more than adequate depth & after installing a couple of tree trunks across the pit to form a comfortable throne, we opened the facility, satisfied that it would more than cope with what could be a long stay.

After about two weeks we received the good news that the Congo emergency had abated & we would be shipping out the following morning. The Battalion was stood down & issued with a large quantity of beer to celebrate the tidings & that, with typical Copperbelt gusto, we did. We pooled our dry rations – tins of bully, baked beans, vienna sausages, spaghetti & meatballs, curry powder, condensed milk,rice & dog biscuits, all into a Mega Stew Pot.

My brother Ron, after the meal, & after polishing off his issue of beer as well as that of his entire platoon's abstaining members, felt an urgent need to visit the Chimbuzi. He made his unsteady way in the darkness to the appointed place, straddled the chasm, manoeuvred into a comfortable position & concentrated on the business at hand. In the midst of this critical process, a centipede, who happened to share one of the logs, crawled onto Ron's bare leg. During his frantic attempts to get rid of the creepy crawly, Ron lost his seating & plunged into the abyss. He somehow managed to avoid ending up in the 2 weeks accumulation of mire that lay at the bottom of the pit by wedging himself with his body, arms & legs against the sticky sidewalls of the excavation. The latrine was some distance from where the partying was, so Ron's desperate pleas for assistance went unheard.

It came to pass, after what seemed an age, that someone else had to answer nature's call & Ron was able to attract this person's attention, thereby preventing more woe being heaped upon his head! Some very unwilling volunteers eventually hauled Ron out.

As he bitterly complained later: "It's on an occasion like this that one finds out who one's true friends are!"

Water was a scarce commodity in this area of bundu & Ron had to cleanse himself as best he could with the limited quantity of water from jerry cans & the Company water tanker.

The trip back to the Kitwe showgrounds next morning in the back of a Bedford truck was very lonely for Ron. His companions insisted that he sat alone at the tailgate in the breeze to dissipate the terrible pong!

My Brother, who has since passed on, will be looking for Gordon's Grandad in that big Coppermine in the sky!