Spring Has Definitely Sprung!

Most people watch for buds and things – for me, the clocks go forward, then it’s Spring – when I lose an hours sleep and find the lawn mower’s back from hibernation; parked on the grass with a newly filled can of two-stroke mix alongside. Reckon there’s just a hint of a message in there. Then the fun starts...

Should have, but didn’t clean and sharpen the cutters so they’re all gunked up with last year’s old grass and dog-grunge. Meant to take out the spark plug and give it a de-carb, but didn’t. Hoping that the fairies have done it for me, I take a firm grip on the pull-start and with grim determination set up a first visit to my osteopath. The devilish machine grunts like a pig, coughs like a sixty-a-day smoker and gives me the finger. The kids are watching from their bedroom window; snorting like peevish leprechauns.

I try again; determined to deny my upstairs audience the pleasures of ‘I told you so’. Prime the carburettor, set the choke lever to max, glower at the maker’s nameplate just in case he’s watching. The kids are still at the window; I can hear them giggling. My wife is stood on the front step; arms folded and ready to take the mick.

With macho-inflated courage, again I reach for the pull-start, flex my bingo-wings and rip at the rope from hell.

Just before I hit the deck I saw the nylon cord, minus its handle, whip away inside the engine...

Back on the road...

From Bulawayo, took our little Morris three hours plus to reach Mashaba. First impressions were not good; Rhodesia’s Wild West. Mother stared through the window in abject horror, for the first time that day she was totally speechless.

‘I’ll find us something cold to drink,’ said Dad and parked in front of Mashaba’s hillbilly version of the Co-op. Had a big sign above the door; Gruber & Sager. Couple more cars parked alongside ours and the people stared; we were something new to look at – outsiders. Reckon they were sizing us up as stand-ins for their local ‘hoe-down pig-on-a-spit fest’.

‘You’re new here?’

Mother wound her window down; ‘Yes,’ she said, then, like some recumbent tortoise, drew in her head. The woman climbed out from her pick-up truck and the springs rejoiced. Twenty stone of small town woman took up the space between the cars.

‘You’ll like it here.’

‘We hope so.’

‘One big happy family. Lived here myself for five years now.’

‘That’s nice,’ Mother whimpered and reached for her cigarettes. I watched from my unreachable back seat. As long as the doors held I was safe. The woman’s head was wrapped inside a scarf; those curler things stuck out the front – end-on like spiky plastic pipes.

Mother opened the box and offered her cigarettes.

‘Thank you,’ the woman nodded. Four fat fingers scrabbled for a grip on a filter. ‘Got a match?’

Mother lit it for her. Dad came back with bottles of Coca-Cola and Mother breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Hello,’ the woman said to my Dad. She was bigger than him; broader across the shoulders. Her dress had red flowers on it. A bit like splatters of blood; when she smiled her teeth looked really big. I can remember thinking; ‘maybe she’s eaten her kids’.

My Dad nodded and smiled politely. ‘Is that the road to Gath’s Mine? I’m looking for the General Office.’

‘About four miles,’ the woman nodded, ‘the offices are on the right. Can’t miss them.’ Her eyeballs bulged with obsessive need-to-know right now syndrome. ‘Are you looking for a job?’

‘Got one,’ Dad said. ‘I start next Monday.’

She seemed disappointed, ‘I could have told you who to see. What do you do?’

‘Carpenter.’

‘That’s nice.’

Dad handed out the cokes and climbed inside. Mother pleaded with her eyes for him to start the engine.

‘We’ll be seeing you then,’ said Mother.

‘Friday night at the mine club,’ the woman held on to the door. ‘The company does a free draw for ten pounds, but you have to be there to win it.’

‘We’ll try to remember.’

Dad let out the clutch and the woman let go of our car...

Sons of Africa; an extract:

... Catherine wrenched back the lids. The boxes were filled to the brim with brass cartridges for the Mauser and paper-covered Peters buck-shot for Magdel’s big twelve bore double. She tore her eyes from them and ran for her own wagon; the fear that Mhlangana had left her with now scurried rat-like for her throat.

‘Kom nou, Katarina!’ Magdel shouted after her. ‘We must hurry. Bring out your guns or the kaffirs will kill us all!’

Catherine stripped the Mannlicher out from its scabbard. She struggled to hold her grip steady – her heart now a powerful beating drum inside her chest.

‘You can do this – stay calm, stay calm!’ She steadied the rifle across her legs and reached for ammunition – the five-round clips were all filled and ready for loading. She dropped the first clip into the Mannlicher’s breech and slammed the bolt forward. ‘Now we shall see how well you fight,’ she goaded, and she was no longer so afraid. For her son and for the others who had travelled with her she would fight with all her being, with all her soul.

‘Nathan’s twelve bore double,’ she remembered and reached between the wagon’s outer wall and her own cot – again, Mathew had oiled the weapon and wrapped it with calico. She tore back the covering, opened the breech and dropped in two fat, brass-cased cartridges. ‘Buckshot.’ Nathan had warned her. ‘At ten paces a single load will cut out a man’s stomach – at three it will take off his head.’ She left both hammers un-cocked and carried the shotgun forwards to where Magdel was waiting.

‘I have this surprise for the duiwels,’ Magdel gloated, and handed an ancient flintlock to Catherine. ‘Hold it steady while I make ready the powder and shot.’ A readiness to fight had stripped all fear from her face. God Himself was with them. ‘It was my father’s,’ she exulted, ‘and his father before him fought the Zulu savages at Inkanyana and Ulundi with this same Donderbus.’

Magdel took back the weapon from Catherine, half-cocked the striker then gripped a paper envelope with her teeth and tore it open. She ran a tiny pinch of black powder into the open flash-pan then re-seated the striker to hold the flash-pan closed. With the weapon pointing skywards, Magdel poured the rest of the powder down inside the barrel.

Catherine watched her labour. A nimble fingered armourer could not have done it better. With a quick and practiced eye, Magdel primed her evil flintlock blunderbuss for battle.

‘And now these,’ said Magdel, ‘as you English would say – the parts that do the business.’ A measured handful of shot – each separate piece of lead had been cast in her gang-mould and was the size of a single pea.  Finally, to hold the charge as a firm plug inside the barrel she drove in a strip of greased wadding with the flintlock’s ramrod.

‘Now it is ready,’ Magdel breathed, and sweat from her hairline ran as rivers across her brow. ‘Save only to draw the striker fully back and then pull the trigger.’ She leaned the weapon against the wagon and looked to the ashen faced woman standing next to her. ‘All we can do now is pray that Mhlangana will be the first to find our children...’