Honorary Mention

Bertram stands nervously before the king of France, frantically trying to argue his way out of having to marry Helena, a mere physician’s daughter. It isn’t going well. The king has the upper hand: ‘honours thrive, when rather from our acts we them derive’, he says.

All’s Well That Ends Well, and Bertram eventually does the honourable thing, but only after Helena tricks him into making her ‘with child’. Did two dishonours make an honour? Shakespeare clearly thought so, but I think it would be hard to pull off in real life.

In real life, too, ‘honourable’ isn’t the same as ‘honorary’. I mention this only by way of clarification, since I noticed a while back one of the Monk’s Cowl’s honorary officers being referred to as an ‘honourable’ officer. I know him, and I think even he winced, so let’s set the record straight.

We are ‘honorary’ only in the sense that we are unpaid. Call us grown-up boy scouts, if you like, but none of us is a Bertram (or a Helena, for that matter). In my own dib-dab-dob experience, no one would ever have called us honourable, particularly the girl guides.

Take away the woggles, the psychedelic neckerchiefs, and the keeping-a-fire-going-all-night badges, replace them with thinning hair, beer bellies, and eclectic tastes in whisky, and there you have us.

The leader of this rabble is Roy Strydom (you know: the short oke who always laughs at his own jokes, just in case no one else does). His second-in-command, Guy Widdecombe, by contrast and despite years of extreme effort, still can’t remember punch lines, so no one gets his jokes anyway. Greg Strydom and Brett Tungay are the reason I wasn’t able to call us Dads’ Army, but Graham Barry, from Wits End, is very definitely old. Peter Small, restaurateur and barkeeper extraordinaire, brings obvious benefits with his membership, while Roland Luke, maintenance manager at the Drakensberg Sun, does most of the actual work. Gappy Smythe knows more about our work than the rest of us combined, so, technically, I bring up the rear, but, for the purposes of this article, he agreed to keep me company.

You might have witnessed our meetings in the bar at Dragon Peaks. Don’t be fooled. ‘Conserve nature: pickle a squirrel,’ said the graffiti I saw once in London, and so it is that we engage in our purpose of nature conservation by getting seriously pickled on the first Tuesday of each month.

My favourite part is the vulture-protection programme. Vultures’ Retreat (above Gray’s Pass) is a good day’s walk, so it’s just as well that the South African Air Force fly us willingly up and down several times a year to monitor and count the vultures, their eggs, and their chicks.

For those of you who’ve never flown in an Oryx helicopter, especially piloted by fearless madmen with no pity for their passengers’ stomachs and advanced age, imagine an oversized biscuit tin hurtling and juddering in the void. If you think the noise at ground level is loud, you must hear the din inside.

This is nothing, however, compared to the ordeal of a young vulture’s maiden flight. Under the watchful tutelage of Mummy and Daddy gently cruising nearby, it peeks out of the nest to see the five-hundred metre drop just a step away. It then spread its wings, gulps, closes its eyes, and launches itself into the sky. Moments later, it opens its eyes. ‘I’m flying! I’m flying!’

The difficult bit, however, is landing back on the nest. This is the reason, I suspect, that baby vultures fly with their undercarriage down. This makes the series of crash landings, before they finally get the hang of it, even funnier.

Not so funny is catching these creatures. One day, when he or she insists on a romantic day out, take your loved one to a vulture restaurant, for a pleasant change, you understand. We have one at the top of Bergview.

It’s bad enough dumping a cow/horse/zebra/mother-in-law carcass on site, which is always ripe. Even worse, the first thing that a vulture does when caught is puke all over you. It pongs, let me tell you, and the time needed to carry the bird to the hide, tag it or fit a harness to it, and release it, make holding one’s breath physically impossible.

Much of our work takes place in the valley, however, and our little group forms an important link between Monk’s Cowl management and our residents. Usually in response to distress calls from landowners, we’ve caught and relocated crocodiles, dassies, yellowfish, and even the occasional motorbike.

In the park, we burn firebreaks, hunt Bushman paintings, identify indigenous trees and flowers, eradicate invasive aliens, and monitor the wildlife.

Then there is the Didima Challenge. Since this starts at an ungodly hour at Culfargie, we set up our bases, at various points along the route, the night before. I don’t know why Roy and I always get the Stable Cave assignment, but there it is. After too much pickling practice the night before, the two of us invariably look in worse shape than the arriving runners, who’ve already covered ten kilometres.

Spare us a thought, then, when you see us assiduously applying ourselves to the tasks at hand in the pub. We work hard for no reward, apart from the privilege of serving: scout’s honour.