Spring 2003, and the jackboot of rugby tramps unchecked across five continents. The World Cup has ground into its eighth week, and still there is no sign of a second front.
The Australians and New Zealanders, stretched to their capacity in the East, are on their last legs, malnourishment and lice-infested dreadlocks taking a heavy toll.
The Inglisch — blonde, muscular, murderous — have swept all before them from Calais to Moscow. The forces of civilisation need a miracle.
And so does Private Rudolph.
A handsome man with a mercurial sense of humour and a magnetic personality, he is fighting a lone battle with himself — deep in uncharted territory. The news has not yet reached him that he has lost not only the Cup, but his entire team as well.
Back home in the cornfields of Klerksdorp, a Department of Defence car pulls up at the home of South African rugby, a chaplain bearing the fateful telegram: ”Dear Mrs Springbok, I regret to inform you that…”
”Ou koeie, pellie,” says the old lady and goes back to watching Egoli.
In the Oval Office President Nkanunu chews his cigar into smithereens and pounds on the desk that fetches him almost up to his chin.
”I’ll be damned if we’re going to stand back and do nothing. I hereby order a task-team to evaluate the possibility of establishing a committee to research the likely outcomes of a trans-oceanic rescue mission!”
A thousand doves are released into the air and a public holiday is declared.
It’s 5am and we’re two miles off Bondi Beach. Captain Krige, a schoolteacher from Pennsylvania, tells his men to conserve ammunition and get over the game line as soon as possible.
The backline, all farm boys with an average age of 17 thanks to the 40-year-old Sergeant Van der Westhuizen, nod nervously and try to remember what they’ve learned in boot camp: the Inglisch haven’t got a kicker; their handling always goes to pieces after half-time; game-plans are for moffies; don’t shoot a chicken until you see the whites of its eyes.
Meanwhile in the Inglisch camp, über-lieutenant Yonni Vilkinson is practising his marksmanship, drop-kicking landmines at a large map of Australia. General Voodvard brings him another glass of chardonnay, and the two compare duelling scars to the melodious chiming of Maartin Jonsön, who is down in the storeroom beating his nose against a steel girder.
Half a mile out, and Energade bottles slosh around in the bilges of the landing craft. Somebody throws up over the side, but food-poisoning is not suspected. Ashwin Willemse begins to panic, shouting into Sergeant Van’s good ear.
”Tell it to me straight, Sarge! I’m not going to make it. The black guys always die first in these things, and Larry Sephaka isn’t even here. There’s a high ball with my name on it out there. I can feel it in my bones…”
”Shuddup, troep. God is on my side, so I suppose that extends to you as well.”
There is the crunch of metal on sand, the gate drops, and Bondi stretches away into the murk before them, strewn with heavily mined life-guard towers and diversionary models in bikinis.
Almost at once the squad is pinned down by long-range punts and Sergeant Van’s men fall like flies: cruciate ligaments pop like post-toasties, hamstrings are strained and fingernails broken. Willemse steps on a rolling maul and has his leg blown off.
”I think they’re on the other side of our 22,” yells Krige, picking up his severed ear and flinging it at a Samoan sniper. ”I need someone who can pass a ball forward.”
Thirteen men raise their hands, but Sergeant Van’s experience cannot be ignored and he skips a grenade out wide. It is forward but misdirected, exploding harmlessly against the armoured thighs of Inglisch centre Wilhelm Grienvud.
In the end it is useless. Sergeant Van is captured, tortured and retires, while Krige is made to wear a kilt before being publicly hanged, drawn and quartered.
He bellows ”Freedom!” and expires in a burst of publicity, having sold the picture rights to Huisgenoot.
Back at the South African Rugby Football Union President Nkanunu approaches Rudolph’s old office door, a ceremonial flag folded in his arms. But the door is ajar … someone is at Rudolph’s desk … someone is playing solitaire on the computer. Can it be…?
”Rudy! How did you get back?”
”Well shucks,” says Rudolph, ”I just sort of wandered home and here I am, alive and well.”
Alive? How does one tell?