“A Bank in Battledress” lists a similarly named soldier but I really have no idea if it was Alex or not. My apologies if it was him.
I did only a few branches with him, starting with Nelspruit and when we met at the Shonalonga Hotel on a steamy January afternoon, I was confronted by a tall man with broad shoulders, a slightly intimidating manner and the most piercing blues eyes since Paul Newman. His wife Baby, a charming, gentle lady, was with him and we settled down in the hotel garden after work every day, for a drink. He drank whisky I think while I had Red Heart rum. If you’re familiar with rum, you’ll know Jamaican Red Heart has a strong and unique aroma, which no locally made rum has and was much more expensive than any other rum as well. It was a favourite trick of barmen to supply you with cheap rum and charge you for Red Heart, so I used to sniff my glass before adding anything to it, to make sure it was Red Heart. Alex soon cottoned on and could sniff out the real stuff as well as I could. He’d grab my glass the moment the waiter placed it and if the drink was ersatz, that waiter would be pinned down with those twin blue laser beams and browbeaten to the edge of his sanity. One poor old grey-haired man, attending us one day, was close to tears as he said to Alex, “Oubaas, samblief, vandag ons moenie baklei nie”. Then it was Alex’s turn to look sheepish when his wife berated him and said, “Alexander, kyk nou wat het jy gedoen, die arme man is in trane”.
Alex just liked to play a bully – he had the manner and eyes to get away with it but he really wasn’t as fierce as he pretended to be. I think it was fun for him to make unsuspecting people squirm and boy, did it keep branches on their toes.
But when we stayed at the Impala Hotel in Potchefstroom, I had reason to appreciate his ability to intimidate people. We were at breakfast and waiting to be served when Alex carefully unfurled his fancy, starched serviette and studied it from all angles. Suddenly he threw it on the floor and grabbed the next one and did the same again. By the time he got to unwinding the third one, a waiter who had been looking on aghast, ran off to fetch the hotel Madam in the kitchen. I’m sure, dear reader you’ve seen pictures of the old clipper sailing ships under full and billowing sail, charging along – well, that large lady who came storming out of that kitchen looked much like that. Everything about her billowed and her face was simply furious. As she got to the pile of serviettes on the floor, she demanded in a voice like thunder, “MENEER, WAT GAAN HIER AAN??” I was intimidated, even though I was innocent and tried to look as small as possible in case I came under fire. But not Alex. He took his time and turned round to fix her with those Paul Newman baby blues and retorted, “MEVROU, DIE SERVETTE IS VIESLIK VUIL. ONS WIL DIT NIE OP ONS TAFEL HE NIE” What happened next was unbelievable – that large lady seemed to deflate before our eyes and stammered out a pathetic little apology before disappearing back into the kitchen with tears in her eyes. I breathed again for the first time in a minute and decided that Alex le Roux was a leader I would follow into hell!
When we finally parted I was genuinely sorry. I told him that he had done me the world of good because if there were any stressful confrontations at the branch or hotel, I knew he would step in and demolish the opposition with his laser-eyes and macho manner and I would be able to just sit back and enjoy it. I never ran into the Le Roux couple again which is such a pity because I had grown fond of them both.
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