A true story from Angola, 1986–88

Corporal Kraai wasn’t scared of the Russian Cubans. He didn’t flinch at mortar attacks or a 30kg backpack. But if there was one thing that could make him scream like a tannie at a flea market, it was a snake.

It all started back in Basics, when someone threw a rope at him. He jumped like a ninja, screamed like an opera singer, and ran like a man late for a Friday morning bungalow inspection. By that afternoon, everyone knew: Don’t mess with Kraai when it comes to snakes.

But the troops didn’t laugh for long. The next guy who tried a joke dropped for 50 pushups and had to run nonstop all the way to the Klipdrift billboard and back. That’s when everyone learned: jokes are easy, but they cost you sweat and pain.

Then came that wet, muddy day in Angola. Rainy season. We were all lying low under our bivvies, soaked and starving. My team was about 2 kilometers from Kraai’s team when we heard it: a scream that froze your blood. Over the radio came the confirmation, a black snake had fallen out of a tree, straight onto Kraai’s chest!

Head on one side, tail on the other. But before that snake could say “ssssh*t”, Kraai was already upright, bivvy and all, launched out of the mud like a popcorn kernel in a hot pot. The rest of the guys caught the snake, and that’s when they saw: this wasn’t just any snake. It was a monster. They skinned it, and when we got back to Eenhana, they wrapped that hide around the center pole of their tent like a trophy.

And from that day on, no one laughed about Corporal Kraai and snakes ever again. Because he didn’t just face his fear, he clapped it from under a bivvy.