Saturday Snippet: Situational awareness can save your life

Last month Gary Quesenberry published his new book, "Spotting Danger Before It Spots You: Build Situational Awareness To Stay Safe".

In today's troubled times, situational awareness is more important than ever.  I'm astonished to see so many people (particularly younger people) walking down the street, heads lowered over their smartphones as they text back and forth, totally ignoring the world around them.  They even step off sidewalks and cross streets like that, never lifting their heads to check for oncoming traffic!  I've had a couple of close encounters with such idiots while driving.  When you honk your horn at them, they jump in fright, then look at you as if it's all your fault - and if you'd been unfortunate enough to hit them, that's what their lawyers would claim when they sued you, even if the fault was all their clients'.

In a situation where urban unrest, riots, demonstrations and the like may occur nearby, we need to be on the lookout for them, and prepared to take evasive action when necessary.  This book is a useful tool in learning how to do that.  I've excerpted some of the first two chapters as a sampler.

Situational awareness is the ability to identify and process environmental cues to accurately predict the actions of others. This requires us to be familiar with what is known as baseline behaviors (those actions that are considered normal in any given environment). By knowing what is deemed to be reasonable and appropriate, we can more easily spot the people that seem out of place and raise our suspicion. Then we can evaluate that person’s actions, and with practice, accurately predict their behaviors. This is how situational awareness works, and it allows us to get the jump on dangerous situations so that we can respond appropriately. We’re going to go into greater detail about these things later on, but there are a few points I’d like you to keep in mind as you read.

• Situational awareness always increases your level of personal security. This stands true whether you’re concerned about violent predators, or the guy in aisle three who refuses to cover his cough.

• Before COVID-19, if you were standing in line at the bank and someone walked in wearing a mask, you would have probably panicked, now it’s perfectly normal. The baseline for normal behaviors has shifted dramatically. Because of that, we each need to reconsider how we define danger. My definition may be much different than yours, but neither of us is wrong. If you spot something that you judge to be threatening, avoid it. The techniques you’ll learn in this book will help you to do that.

• You are your own last line of defense. You must stay focused on the things that matter most when you’re out and about. Although the COVID-19 virus requires us to practice specific protective measures, your personal safety extends well beyond the threat of getting sick. Whatever you do, don’t allow yourself to become so focused on whether or not the person behind you in the checkout line is wearing a mask that you miss the fact he’s holding a knife.

These are trying times, but in the end, we’ll all get through it. Keep in mind that as we progress along the road to situational awareness, the next threat to our safety could be just over the horizon, and no one knows what shape that threat may take. No matter what other people may throw at you, be it a criminal or Mother Nature, you must maintain your concentration and keep focused on the end goal, ensuring the security of yourself and those you love. It’s a big crazy world out there, and things are always changing. Stay safe, and always keep your head up.

. . .

My goal here is to take what’s relevant in the world of situational awareness and personal safety and boil that information down to its simplest terms, which can then be easily implemented in your daily life. The techniques and exercises I’ll have you practice work for everyone—parents, small children walking to school, teenagers going off to college, and whole families headed out on summer vacation. It works universally. When properly applied, this system of situational awareness will help improve your general understanding of how, when, and where violence occurs. It will also increase your chances of successfully detecting and avoiding danger no matter where in the world you may find yourself.

. . .

Real situational awareness requires a shift in perspective. It’s not enough to just walk around in a state of hypervigilance, thinking that nothing within your line of sight will go unnoticed. You have to be able to see yourself and others from the perspective of a predator. This isn’t easy for a lot of people. For the most part, we all want to see the best in others, and the fact that someone else could possibly view us as a target of opportunity is hard to imagine. The unfortunate truth is that there are predators among us, and unless we can change the way we think, we may look like easy prey without even knowing it.

To better understand predatory behaviors, let’s start by breaking down and categorizing the different types of predators and their basic motivations. In his book, Facing Violence: Preparing for the Unexpected, Sgt. Rory Miller breaks down predators into two groups: resource predators and process predators.

A resource predator is looking for tangible items, be it cash, jewelry, or even your shoes. They’ve decided they need something and they’re going to take it from you. Predators in this category include your basic mugger, pickpocket, or burglar. In some cases, if a resource predator confronts you and you just give them the thing they want, they go away.

Process predators, on the other hand, are much different. Process predators aren’t interested in your watch or wallet; they get off on the act of violence itself. This category of predator includes the likes of rapists and murderers.

Motivations of the two categories of predators can vary, but violent behavior is primarily driven by one of four things: money, ego, territory, and emotion. Let’s take a closer look at each.

1. Money: Like it or not, money is a consideration in almost every aspect of our lives. If you want a roof over your head, food in your stomach, and clothes on your back, you’re going to need money, plain and simple. Money is also a consistent factor in the commission of crimes. Some people have plenty of money, but they want more, and they’ll do whatever it takes, legal or illegal, to get it. This is where you get your white-collar criminals who end up in jail for tax evasion, fraud, or embezzlement. In those cases, victims may have lost money, but they were seldom harmed physically. More commonly, it’s the lack of money that drives people to commit irrational acts. Desperation can creep in, and people will go to any length to satisfy their needs. A friend of mine just sat as a juror on a capital murder case where a twenty-five-year-old man murdered his drug dealer over a forty-dollar debt. Most of us can’t even fathom such an act over that amount of money, but money is just the beginning of the problem; the real issue starts when the need for money is fueled by addiction. According to the Bureau of Justice, more than 18 percent of inmates in federal prisons committed their crimes to get money for drugs. In addition, drug addicts committed 26 percent of violent crimes as defined by the UCR. Alcohol, drugs, sex, you name it; if there’s a need for it, you can guarantee that money is what gets it. For some people, when money is unavailable, crime is a reasonable alternative.
   
2. Ego: On the surface, this one seems to be a little less common, but we all have egos; it’s the part of us that feels the need to be special. People will go to extremes to protect that feeling because it feeds their self-image, which can lead them into some pretty dangerous situations. We’ve all seen this play out either on television or in real life. Guy number one at the bar backs up and spills his drink on a lady’s dress. The lady’s boyfriend (guy number two) rushes to her defense and verbally attacks guy number one. Guy number one now has to save face in front of his friends and the other patrons of the bar, so he puffs out his chest and starts talking trash. Guy number two isn’t about to back down in front of his girlfriend, so things escalate and become physical. Both guys end up bloody, broken, and kicked out on the street looking like fools. Overinflated egos often lead to bad decision-making. If you ever find yourself in a predicament where egos are taking over and it looks like confrontation is eminent, it’s best to simply swallow your pride and remove yourself from the situation.
   
3. Territory: Humans are territorial creatures and will fight to protect what they consider to be theirs. An entirely peaceful, law-abiding citizen can become incredibly violent when they feel something within their territory has been threatened. A person’s home is their territory. When a mother takes her children to the park, that area becomes an extension of her territory, and she will protect it viciously from anyone she feels poses a danger to her children. The same goes for criminals. They survey their surroundings and stake claims on everything from street corners to door stoops. They become aggressive and often violent when they feel their territory is being encroached upon. To avoid this, it’s important that you become familiar with the places you frequent and be aware of any areas where your presence may cause problems.
   
4. Emotion: Violence is frequently driven by emotion. From jealous spouses to disgruntled employees and bullied teenagers, violent crimes such as mass shootings are often triggered by emotional responses. The level of emotion attached to religious beliefs has served as the primary influence behind acts of terrorism and the recruitment of others to extremist causes. Emotion is an incredibly powerful force, and it can be very unpredictable. Violence compelled by emotion tends to be excessively punishing.

That's a small sample of the sort of things you can learn from this book.  It's all useful stuff, and important in today's world.  It's particularly important because the system of justice in many states and cities of our nation has become politicized.  Those with certain political views and/or skin colors are likely to be treated a lot more harshly than those with others, and if the "wrong" color or politics is involved in a violent incident - no matter how justified their self-defense may be in terms of the letter of the law - they're likely to face a very vengeful prosecutor, out to prove that "his" or "her" people couldn't possibly be the guilty party(ies).

Given that legal fees may run into the tens of thousands of dollars, plus all the aggravation in having to defend oneself against charges that may be baseless, but will nevertheless be splashed all over the news media, we can see that avoiding this post-conflict conundrum may be even more important than recognizing potential conflict itself, in time to avoid it.


*Sigh*


Peter

Saturday Snippet: what you believe is what you do, not what you say

I've said for years (to the discomfort of many of my listeners) that I'm not interested in hearing what you believe.  Words are cheap.  One can profess almost anything, but be lying.  No, I want to see what you believe:  and that means I want to see what you do, how you live, how you behave.  The old truism that "actions speak louder than words" remains as valid today as it ever was.

Rudyard Kipling wrote a long poem about that sort of thing.  It speaks volumes to our society today, where faith is honored far more in the breach than in the observance, but those breaching it will still argue hotly that they belong to this, or that, or the other faith, because they say they do.  The reality is, their actions (or, sometimes, the lack thereof) demonstrate clearly that they have no faith at all.

Here's "Tomlinson", from 1892.

Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square,
And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair -
A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away,
Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the roar of the Milky Way:
Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way die down and drone and cease,
And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys.
"Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high
The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die -
The good that ye did for the sake of men in little earth so lone!"
And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain-washed bone.
"O I have a friend on earth," he said, "that was my priest and guide,
And well would he answer all for me if he were by my side."
"For that ye strove in neighbour-love it shall be written fair,
But now ye wait at Heaven's Gate and not in Berkeley Square:
Though we called your friend from his bed this night, he could not speak for you,
For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two."
Then Tomlinson looked up and down, and little gain was there,
For the naked stars grinned overhead, and he saw that his soul was bare:
The Wind that blows between the worlds, it cut him like a knife,
And Tomlinson took up his tale and spoke of his good in life.
"This I have read in a book," he said, "and that was told to me,
And this I have thought that another man thought of a Prince in Muscovy."
The good souls flocked like homing doves and bade him clear the path,
And Peter twirled the jangling keys in weariness and wrath.
"Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought," he said, "and the tale is yet to run:
By the worth of the body that once ye had, give answer - what ha' ye done?"
Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and little good it bore,
For the Darkness stayed at his shoulder-blade and Heaven's Gate before:
"O this I have felt, and this I have guessed, and this I have heard men say,
And this they wrote that another man wrote of a carl in Norroway."
- "Ye have read, ye have felt, ye have guessed, good lack! Ye have hampered Heaven's Gate;
There's little room between the stars in idleness to prate!
O none may reach by hired speech of neighbour, priest, and kin
Through borrowed deed to God's good meed that lies so fair within;
Get hence, get hence to the Lord of Wrong, for doom has yet to run,
And...the faith that ye share with Berkeley Square uphold you, Tomlinson!"

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Spirit gripped him by the hair, and sun by sun they fell
Till they came to the belt of Naughty Stars that rim the mouth of Hell:
The first are red with pride and wrath, the next are white with pain,
But the third are black with clinkered sin that cannot burn again:
They may hold their path, they may leave their path, with never a soul to mark,
They may burn or freeze, but they must not cease in the Scorn of the Outer Dark.
The Wind that blows between the worlds, it nipped him to the bone,
And he yearned to the flare of Hell-Gate there as the light of his own hearth-stone.
The Devil he sat behind the bars, where the desperate legions drew,
But he caught the hasting Tomlinson and would not let him through.
"Wot ye the price of good pit-coal that I must pay?" said he,
"That ye rank yoursel' so fit for Hell and ask no leave of me?
I am all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that ye should give me scorn,
For I strove with God for your First Father the day that he was born.
Sit down, sit down upon the slag, and answer loud and high
The harm that ye did to the Sons of Men or ever you came to die."
And Tomlinson looked up and up, and saw against the night
The belly of a tortured star blood-red in Hell-Mouth light;
And Tomlinson looked down and down, and saw beneath his feet
The frontlet of a tortured star milk-white in Hell-Mouth heat.
"O I had a love on earth," said he, "that kissed me to my fall,
And if ye would call my love to me I know she would answer all."
- "All that ye did in love forbid it shall be written fair,
But now ye wait at Hell-Mouth Gate and not in Berkeley Square:
Though we whistled your love from her bed to-night, I trow she would not run,
For the sin ye do by two and two ye must pay for one by one!"
The Wind that blows between the worlds, it cut him like a knife,
And Tomlinson took up the tale and spoke of his sin in life:
"Once I ha' laughed at the power of Love and twice at the grip of the Grave,
And thrice I ha' patted my God on the head that men might call me brave."
The Devil he blew on a brandered soul and set it aside to cool:
"Do ye think I would waste my good pit-coal on the hide of a brain-sick fool?
I see no worth in the hobnailed mirth or the jolthead jest ye did
That I should waken my gentlemen that are sleeping three on a grid."
Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and there was little grace,
For Hell-Gate filled the houseless Soul with the Fear of Naked Space.
"Nay, this I ha' heard," quo' Tomlinson, "and this was noised abroad,
And this I ha' got from a Belgian book on the word of a dead French lord."
- "Ye ha' heard, ye ha' read, ye ha' got, good lack! and the tale begins afresh -
Have ye sinned one sin for the pride o' the eye or the sinful lust of the flesh?"
Then Tomlinson he gripped the bars and yammered, "Let me in -
For I mind that I borrowed my neighbour's wife to sin the deadly sin."
The Devil he grinned behind the bars, and banked the fires high:
"Did ye read of that sin in a book?" said he; and Tomlinson said, "Ay!"
The Devil he blew upon his nails, and the little devils ran,
And he said: "Go husk this whimpering thief that comes in the guise of a man:
Winnow him out 'twixt star and star, and sieve his proper worth:
There's sore decline in Adam's line if this be spawn of earth."
Empusa's crew, so naked-new they may not face the fire,
But weep that they bin too small to sin to the height of their desire,
Over the coal they chased the Soul, and racked it all abroad,
As children rifle a caddis-case or the raven's foolish hoard.
And back they came with the tattered Thing, as children after play,
And they said: "The soul that he got from God he has bartered clean away.
We have threshed a stook of print and book, and winnowed a chattering wind
And many a soul wherefrom he stole, but his we cannot find:
We have handled him, we have dandled him, we have seared him to the bone,
And sure if tooth and nail show truth he has no soul of his own."
The Devil he bowed his head on his breast and rumbled deep and low:
"I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should bid him go.
Yet close we lie, and deep we lie, and if I gave him place,
My gentlemen that are so proud would flout me to my face;
They'd call my house a common stews and me a careless host,
And - I would not anger my gentlemen for the sake of a shiftless ghost."
The Devil he looked at the mangled Soul that prayed to feel the flame,
And he thought of Holy Charity, but he thought of his own good name:
"Now ye could haste my coal to waste, and sit ye down to fry:
Did ye think of that theft for yourself?" said he; and Tomlinson said, "Ay!"
The Devil he blew an outward breath, for his heart was free from care: -
"Ye have scarce the soul of a louse," he said, "but the roots of sin are there,
And for that sin should ye come in were I the lord alone.
But sinful pride has rule inside - and mightier than my own.
Honour and Wit, fore-damned they sit, to each his priest and whore:
Nay, scarce I dare myself go there, and you they'd torture sore.
Ye are neither spirit nor spirk," he said; "ye are neither book nor brute -
Go, get ye back to the flesh again for the sake of Man's repute.
I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should mock your pain,
But look that ye win to worthier sin ere ye come back again.
Get hence, the hearse is at your door - the grim black stallions wait -
They bear your clay to place to-day. Speed, lest ye come too late!
Go back to Earth with a lip unsealed - go back with an open eye,
And carry my word to the Sons of Men or ever ye come to die:
That the sin they do by two and two they must pay for one by one -
And. . .the God that you took from a printed book be with you, Tomlinson!"

According to the Kipling Society:

On his arrival in England in October 1889 Kipling took an instant dislike to the followers of the so-called Aesthetic Movement, who tended to go in for long hair, affectation of speech and manner, and eccentricity of dress. In a poem ("In Partibus") which he sent to the Civil and Military Gazette in the following month he wrote -

"But I consort with long-haired things
In velvet collar-rolls
Who talk about the Aims of Art
And 'theories' and 'goals',
And moo and coo with womenfolk
About their blessed souls."

Tomlinson is one of these.

I'm obliged to the New Zealand blogger at Bright Darkness for reminding me of this poem.  Food for thought, isn't it?

Peter

Saturday Snippet: The weaker sex (hippopotamus version)

We've encountered the late naturalist Gerald Durrell on more than one occasion in these pages.  I thought it was time for another extract from one of his many books.  This one's from "A Zoo in my Luggage", an account of his second visit to Bafut in what was then British Cameroon (today part of the modern state of Cameroon), to collect animals for what would become his own zoo, dedicated to the conservation and preservation of threatened and endangered species.

On its way to Bafut, the expedition stopped over in the town of Mamfe to collect animals.  A trip to investigate a report of a very large python turned into a riverine adventure.

To reach the area of country in which our quarry was waiting, we had to go down the hill and cross the river by the ferry, a large, banana-shaped canoe which appeared to have been constructed about three centuries ago, and to have been deteriorating slowly ever since. It was paddled by a very old man who looked in immediate danger of dying of a heart attack, and he was accompanied by a small boy whose job it was to bale out. This was something of an unequal struggle, for the boy had a small rusty tin for the job, while the sides of the canoe were as watertight as a colander. Inevitably, by the time one reached the opposite bank one was sitting in about six inches of water. When we arrived with our equipment on the water-worn steps in the granite cliff that formed the landing-stage, we found the ferry was at the opposite shore, so while Ben, Agustine and the enormous African (whom we had christened Gargantua) lifted their voices and roared at the ferryman to return with all speed, Bob and I squatted in the shade and watched the usual crowd of Mamfe people bathing and washing in the brown waters below.

Swarms of small boys leapt shrieking off the cliffs and splashed into the water, and then shot to the surface again, their palms and the soles of their feet gleaming shell pink, their bodies like polished chocolate. The girls, more demure, bathed in their sarongs, only to emerge from the water with the cloth clinging to their bodies so tightly that it left nothing to the imagination. One small toddler, who could not have been more than five or six, made his way carefully down the cliff, his tongue protruding with concentration, carrying on his head an enormous water-jar. On reaching the edge of the water he did not pause to remove the jar from his head, or to take off his sarong. He walked straight into the water and waded slowly and determinedly out into the river until he completely disappeared; only the jar could be seen moving mysteriously along the surface of the water. At length this too vanished. There was a moment’s pause, and then the jar reappeared, this time moving shorewards, and eventually, beneath it, the boy’s head bobbed up. He gave a tremendous snort to expel the air from his lungs, and then struggled grimly towards the beach, the now brimming jar on his head. When he reached the shore he edged the jar carefully on to a ledge of rock, and then re-entered the water, still wearing his sarong. From some intricate fold in his garment he produced a small fragment of Lifebuoy soap, and proceeded to rub it all over himself and the sarong with complete impartiality. Presently, when he had worked up such a lather all over himself that he looked like an animated pink snowman, he ducked beneath the surface to wash off the soap, waded ashore, settled the jar once more on his head and slowly climbed the cliff and disappeared. It was the perfect example of the African application of time-and-motion study.

By this time the ferry had arrived, and Ben and Agustine were arguing hotly with its aged occupant. Instead of taking us straight across the river, they wanted him to paddle us about half a mile upstream to a large sandbank. This would save us having to walk about a mile along the bank to reach the path that led to the forest. The old man appeared to be singularly obstinate about the proposal.

‘What’s the matter with him, Ben?’ I inquired.

‘Eh! Dis na foolish man, sah,’ said Ben, turning to me in exasperation, ‘’e no agree for take us for up de river.’

‘Why you no agree, my friend?’ I asked the old man. ‘If you go take us I go pay you more money and I go dash [tip] you.’

‘Masa,’ said the old man firmly, ‘dis na my boat, and if I go lose um I no fit catch money again … I no get chop for my belly … I no get one-one penny.’

‘But how you go lose you boat?’ I asked in amazement, for I knew this strip of river and there were no rapids or bad currents along it.

‘Ipopo, Masa,’ explained the old man.

I stared at the ferryman, wondering what on earth he was talking about. Was Ipopo perhaps some powerful local juju I had not come across before?

‘Dis Ipopo,’ I asked soothingly, ‘which side ’e live?’

‘Wah! Masa never see um?’ asked the old man in astonishment. ‘’E dere dere for water close to D.O.’s [District Officer's] house … ’e big like so-so motor … ’e de holla … ’e de get power too much.’

‘What’s he talking about?’ asked Bob in bewilderment.

And suddenly it dawned on me. ‘He’s talking about the hippo herd in the river below the D.O.’s house,’ I explained, ‘but it’s such a novel abbreviation of the word that he had me foxed for a moment.’

‘Does he think they’re dangerous?’

‘Apparently, though I can’t think why. They were perfectly placid last time I was here.’

‘Well, I hope they’re still placid,’ said Bob.

I turned to the old man again. ‘Listen, my friend. If you go take us for up dis water, I go pay you six shilling and I go dash you cigarette, eh? And if sometime dis ipopo go damage dis your boat I go pay for new one, you hear?’

‘I hear, sah.’

‘You agree?’

‘I agree, sah,’ said the old man, avarice struggling with caution. We progressed slowly upstream, squatting in half an inch of water in the belly of the canoe.

‘I suppose they can’t really be dangerous,’ said Bob casually, trailing his hand nonchalantly in the water.

‘When I was here last I used to go up to within thirty feet of them in a canoe and take photographs,’ I said.

‘Dis ipopo get strong head now, sah,’ said Ben tactlessly. ‘Two months pass dey kill three men and break two boats.’

‘That’s a comforting thought,’ said Bob.

Ahead of us the brown waters were broken in many places by rocks. At any other time they would have looked exactly like rocks but now each one looked exactly like the head of a hippo, a cunning, maniacal hippo, lurking in the dark waters, awaiting our approach. Ben, presumably remembering his tale of daring with the bush-cow, attempted to whistle, but it was a feeble effort, and I noticed that he scanned the waters ahead anxiously. After all, a hippo that has developed the habit of attacking canoes gets a taste for it, like a man-eating tiger, and will go out of his way to be unpleasant, apparently regarding it as a sport. I was not feeling in the mood for gambolling in twenty feet of murky water with half a ton of sadistic hippo.

The old man, I noticed, was keeping our craft well into the bank, twisting and turning so that we were, as far as possible, always in shallow water. The cliff here was steep, but well supplied with footholds in case of emergency, for the rocks lay folded in great layers like untidy piles of fossilized magazines, overgrown with greenery. The trees that grew on top of the cliffs spread their branches well out over the water, so that we travelled in a series of fish-like jerks up a tunnel of shade, startling the occasional kingfisher that whizzed across our bows like a vivid blue shooting-star, or a black-and-white wattled plover that flapped away upstream, tittering imbecilically to itself, with its feet grazing the water, and long yellow wattles flapping absurdly on each side of its beak.

Gradually we rounded the bend of the river, and there, about three hundred yards ahead of us on the opposite shore, lay the white bulk of the sandbank, frilled with ripples. The old man gave a grunt of relief at the sight, and started to paddle more swiftly.

‘Nearly there,’ I said gaily, ‘and not a hippo in sight.’

The words were hardly out of my mouth when a rock we were passing some fifteen feet away suddenly rose out of the water and gazed at us with bulbous astonished eyes, snorting out two slender fountains of spray, like a miniature whale.

Fortunately, our gallant crew resisted the impulse to leap out of the canoe en masse and swim for the bank. The old man drew in his breath with a sharp hiss, and dug his paddle deep into the water, so that the canoe pulled up short in a swirl and clop of bubbles. Then we sat and stared at the hippo, and the hippo sat and stared at us. Of the two, the hippo seemed the more astonished. The chubby, pink-grey face floated on the surface of the water like a disembodied head at a séance. The great eyes stared at us with the innocent appraisal of a baby. The ears flicked back and forth, as if waving to us. The hippo sighed deeply and moved a few feet nearer, still looking at us with wide-eyed innocence. Then, suddenly, Agustine let out a shrill whoop that made us all jump and nearly upset the canoe. We shushed him furiously, while the hippo continued its scrutiny of us unabashed.

‘No de fear,’ said Agustine in a loud voice, ‘na woman.’

He seized the paddle from the old man’s reluctant grasp, and proceeded to beat on the water with the blade, sending up a shower of spray. The hippo opened its mouth in a gigantic yawn to display a length of tooth that had to be seen to be believed. Then, suddenly, and with apparently no muscular effort, the great head sank beneath the surface. There was a moment’s pause, during which we were all convinced that the beast was ploughing through the water somewhere directly beneath us, then the head rose to the surface again, this time, to our relief, about twenty yards up-river. It snorted out two more jets of spray, waggled its ears seductively and sank again, only to reappear in a moment or so still farther upstream. The old man grunted and retrieved his paddle from Agustine.

‘Agustine, why you do dat foolish ting?’ I asked in what I hoped was a steady and trenchant tone of voice.

‘Sah, dat ipopo no be man … na woman dat,’ Agustine explained, hurt by my lack of faith in him.

‘How you know?’ I demanded.

‘Masa, I savvay all dis ipopo for dis water,’ he explained, ‘dis one na woman. Ef na man ipopo ’e go chop us one time. But dis woman one no get strong head like ’e husband.’

‘Well, thank God for the weaker sex,’ I said to Bob, as the old man, galvanized into activity, sent the canoe shooting diagonally across the river, so that it ground on to the sandbank in a shower of pebbles.

Lest you think the boatman's caution was unwarranted, consider that hippo are among the most dangerous animals on the African continent.  They routinely kill hundreds of people every year.  Here's a brief video of a hippo charging a boat on the Chobe River in Botswana (an area I used to know) in 2015.  He wasn't bluffing, either!

Far too many people have a mental image of hippos as the miniskirt-wearing dancers in Disney's Fantasia.

That image couldn't be further from the truth!  As I've noted before, if you see a hippo "yawning" . . . that's not a yawn!

Peter

Saturday Snippet: Marriage proposals, noble and ignoble

Back in 1984, English author Rosalind Miles published a book titled "Modest Proposals:  or, May I Call You Mine?"

It's a light-hearted look at marriage proposals, real and fictional, down the ages.  My mother bought it when it came out, and had a good laugh over it:  and, when I was next at home, I did the same.  When I immigrated to America, I brought it with me as part of my library, so my copy is particularly well-traveled - from England, where it was printed and published, to South Africa, to the USA.

Here are a few excerpts.

The ideal proposal is a magical moment, a peak of ecstasy amid a whirl of impressions of beauty - ballgowns and roses, passion and palm trees, with the strains of heavenly music wafting in the distance.  But many people's experience falls far short of this ideal - they get the strains without the music.

Alida Baxter, for instance, found that her marriage proposal could hardly have occurred at a less propitious time and place.  As she ruefully confesses in her autobiography, "Flat On My Back":

I wouldn't be married at all if it weren't for that stomach upset I had in 1969.  I was run down, and being proposed to through the lavatory door caught me off guard.

Yes, well, it would, wouldn't it?  In fairness the Baxter swain had been doing sterling work nursing his inamorata through a combination of Montezuma's Revenge and the Black Death, on what was supposed to be a jolly holiday in Spain.  When language broke down with the Mediterranean medico, he even carried devotion to the extreme of miming her complaint for the doctor's better understanding - which was, in fact, diarrhea!

Now a man who'll mime diarrhea for you in front of a grinning foreigner is clearly a man of many parts, but a sense of timing was not among them.  He waited until his true love was philosophizing from the depths of the bathroom about the division of the Spanish nation into sadists and masochists - 'the sadists manufacture the toilet paper, and the masochists use it' - and chose this tender moment to pop the question.  As she says herself:

There can't be all that many people who've received a proposal of marriage through a lavatory door and I sometimes consider ringing up the Guinness Book of Records, but perhaps an ex-nurse friend of mine has the edge on me.  Her husband proposed to her after she'd given him an enema.

. . .

Of all prospective fathers-in-law, the most sorely tried must have been the father of Olivia Langdon, the best beloved of Samuel Clemens ('Mark Twain').  Clemens was a great admirer of women and by common consent at his best in their company:  'he loved the minds of women, their wit, their agile cleverness, their sensitive perception, their humorous appreciation, the saucy things they would say, and their pretty defiances', recalled one of his friends.  But he fell in love deeply only once, with the beautiful Olivia, as he confessed to his clergyman's wife:

I am in love beyond all telling with the dearest and best girl in the world.  I don't suppose she will marry me.  I can't think it possible.  She ought not to.  But if she doesn't I shall still be sure that the best thing I ever did was to fall in love with her, and be proud to have it known that I tried to win her.

There were tremendous obstacles in the way.  Although now so admired as a leading American writer and humorist, Clemens had had a rough life working and tramping in the Mississippi region, and traces of it survived in his manner ever after.  He was casual and irreverent;  he didn't give a fig for parlor protocol, and would make himself a terror to maiden ladies by putting his feet up on their tables and draping his loose-jointed legs over their chairs.  He was also an incorrigible prankster, and nothing was safe from his sense of the ridiculous.  More seriously, he had no position and poor prospects.  Stern Mr. Langdon was not about to entrust his daisy-flower to such an unpromising reprobate.

But Clemens was a smart man.  As soon as his feelings for Olivia were noticed on a visit, he was asked to leave.  But someone had removed the bolts from the back seat of the family station wagon - so when the horse moved off, the passenger was tumbled out of the back.  His resulting 'concussion' meant that he had to be carried back into the house, and nursed back to health - by Olivia!

Olivia herself was soon won.  But her father was unconvinced.  Finally he proposed that Clemens should provide some character references to establish his suitability as a husband.  Clemens wrote at once to half a dozen worthy citizens who had been on good terms with him earlier in his life.

Naturally any friend of Clemens would share his roistering sense of humor.  All his references obliged with outrageous replies stressing his rambunctious history and claiming that he would make about the worst husband since Blackbeard.  Clemens was summoned to the Langdon house to hear the verdict passed on him by his 'supporters'.  In his own words:

I couldn't think of anything to say.  Mr. Langdon was apparently in the same condition.  Finally he raised his handsome head, fixed his clear and candid eye upon me, and said, "What kind of people are these?  Haven't you a friend in the world?"

I said, "Apparently not."

Then he said, "I'll be your friend myself.  Take the girl.  I know you better than they do."

And so the day was won.

. . .

A proposal is a paradox - just as it can be the liberation of a woman, it can also be the clanging of the trap door for a man.  The state matrimonial has not always had a good press.  Marriage is an institution, said Oscar Wilde, and who wants to live in an institution?  His view received some support from Ogden Nash in a wry poem called "I Do, I Will, I Have":

How wise I am to have instructed the butler
to instruct the first footman to instruct the second
footman to instruct the doorman to order my carriage;
I am about to volunteer a definition of marriage.
Just as I know that there are two Hagens, Walter and Copen,
I know that marriage is a legal and religious alliance entered
into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut and a
woman who can't sleep with the window open.
Moreover, just as I am unsure of the difference between
flora and fauna and flotsam and jetsam,
I am quite sure that marriage is the alliance of two people
one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other
never forgetsam,
And he refuses to believe there is a leak in the water pipe or
the gas pipe and she is convinced she is about to asphyxiate
or drown,
And she says Quick get up and get my hairbrushes off the
windowsill, it's raining in, and he replies Oh they're all right,

it's only raining straight down.
That is why marriage is so much more interesting than divorce,
Because it's the only known example of the happy meeting of
the immovable object and the irresistible force.
So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and
combat over everything debatable and combatable,
Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life,
particularly if he has income and she is pattable.

. . .

A very human story of a man's ambivalence, hesitating on the threshold of this great moment and undecided whether to go forward or back, is Jack Benny's courtship.  His girl loved him and had given him every sign of her feelings.  When he told her that he was leaving town, she blurted out, "If you were a gentleman, you'd ask me to go along with you!"

The effect that this simple line produced was devastating.  The great comedian, who had this effect on so many other people, himself literally fell on the floor and rolled about, laughing his head off.  Naturally somewhat miffed, our heroine lost no time in getting herself engaged to another man.  But as soon as her engagement was made public, she says:

... the phone rang.  It was Jack. "I hear you're getting married."

"Yes, I am," I replied.

"Well... the last month or so, I've been thinking about you... And if ever I WANTED to get married, I'd like to marry you... but I DON'T want to get married..."

"Well, that's fine for YOU," I said sarcastically, "but I'M getting married."

"Look," Jack went on, "... I really do think you're much too young to get married... But if you ARE going to get married, why don't you marry me?"

Without missing a beat, I said, "Fine."

"Well then," Jack said, "let's get married this Friday - BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND!"

There are plenty more stories in the book, many of them highly amusing.  It's long out of print, but used copies are freely available.

Peter

Saturday Snippet: A dog of war (sort of)

As most readers know, I served in the armed forces of South Africa for several years during the period known as the Border War.  I also spent time in Rhodesia during that period, when it was allied with South Africa against terrorism, before demographics produced the inevitable result and it became Zimbabwe.

Rhodesian helicopter pilots were renowned throughout the region for their skill and courage.  Flying small French Alouette III's (and, in the final years, obtained in defiance of international sanctions, a few old, worn-out Bell UH-1's that threatened to fall apart in mid-air if you looked at them funny), they established a combat record second to none.

Rhodesian Air Force Alouette III helicopter

Fireforce operations were ferociously effective against internal terrorist groups.  For an excellent account of them, see the book of the same name by Chris Cocks.  It's an outstanding description by a participant of what was almost certainly the most effective counter-insurgency unit in the world at the time.

A pro-Rhodesian photo-journalist essay about the counter-insurgency war there, published in 1976, may be found here.  It's one-sided, but reasonably accurate if you allow for that.  (I was there from time to time during and after the same period, so I should know!)

As well as internal counter-insurgency warfare, external operations against terrorist bases in neighboring countries wrought havoc, and reduced local and regional economies to smoldering ruin.  In terms of military skill and effectiveness, there was no doubt that the Rhodesian forces were the best in the region (including South Africa).  What doomed the country was the inexorable tide of demographics.  A tiny white minority simply could not compete against being outnumbered better than 20-to-1 by indigenous tribes, who hated the minority for keeping them in suppression and denying them many basic human rights.  Also, in the context of the Cold War, the support of the Soviet Union and communist China for the so-called "liberation movements" meant that while they could be (and were) tactically defeated almost at will, they could never be strategically eliminated, in the absence of any support from the West.  Thus, in the end, white-ruled Rhodesia became majority-ruled Zimbabwe.

Numerous international volunteers served in the Rhodesian armed forces.  I've mentioned some in these pages before.  One of them was British pilot Mike Borlace, who flew Alouette III helicopters in 7 Squadron of the Rhodesian Air Force.  He's written a no-holds-barred, and at times extremely funny, account of his combat flying experiences in that country called "Spider Zero Seven" (his radio callsign during the war).

Borlace saw a great deal of action during the war, being shot down five times and wounded twice.  In July 1976, he wrote off this helicopter while trying to land troops in thick bush - fortunately causing only minor injuries.  The image is courtesy of a collection of 7 Squadron photographs on the Web.  The figure in the photograph is his technician/gunner at the time, "Butch" Graydon.

Borlace went on to join the world-renowned Selous Scouts, and served undercover outside Rhodesia's borders, enduring torture in captivity before the end of the war.  He's one of only five pilots to be awarded the Silver Cross of Rhodesia.

He owned an Old English Sheepdog named Doris (male, despite its moniker).  It seems to have had a mind of its own, and many of his stories about Doris are very funny.  I thought you might enjoy some of them this morning.  I've linked to explanations of some of the terms and locations that may not be familiar to American readers.

Doris is my Old English sheepdog. He picked me out for special treatment, gambolling and sprawling over the length of a room to deliberately crap on my foot when I went to see the litter, the first of that breed born in Rhodesia. He’s been flying since he was eight weeks old, and has more hours in helicopters than most of the air force. However, as I keep telling him, no one in the old dogs’ home will ever believe him. He thinks I’m his mother, and there is obviously some Oedipus problem judging by the uncommon interest he shows in my leg on the odd occasions I get to shark in on one of the farmers’ daughters or other odd bits of stray that turn up in the bush sometimes.

He travels everywhere with me. Initially I used to zip him up in a holdall with just his head sticking out, but now his chopper drills are immaculate. He loves flying, but has learned that when the siren goes for a fireforce callout he’s not invited and doesn’t even bother to come to the helipad, although he’s invariably there to meet me when I land, and dutifully sits outside the rotor disc until the blades stop, to the delight of the troops.

There are other dogs around in the bush. Benji – or, more correctly, Sergeant Benji – has been a camp follower since Centenary days. He is mustered on strength, and earns his rations and the odd bonus for ‘service above and beyond’ by despatching rats and snakes around the gun pits and bunkers wherever he is posted. I think it is 2 Commando who have a dog that has been fitted with a harness and completed a parachute jump, and Ken Blain acquires a Red Setter, which also comes to the bush. Due to having been all over the country, however, Doris is a freer spirit, and more widely known these days, not least because he is a unique and quite astonishing sight on first meeting. He is a huge dog, and having no tail at one end and covered eyes at the other earns him the memorable description of being ‘a two-way dog’ by one of the goffals in a protection company.

There has been the odd problem. Some mining company executives were delayed for several hours until the fireforce returned, as nobody had the balls to drag the hairy apparition out of their aircraft, where he had settled in to the air conditioning for an afternoon siesta. If they had waved a stick of biltong, he’d have followed them to Bulawayo.

At Buffalo Range, Chiredzi, there is a daily Air Rhodesia flight and the aircraft stays for an hour or two before returning to Salisbury. Most of the airline’s pilots do voluntary call-ups with the air force, and the girls are pretty good about bringing down mail and the odd goodies, so if we are not flying we generally wander over for tea and biccies whilst they are on the ground. If we are flying, Doris wanders over for his elevenses on his own.

We are just returning from a lemon one day as the Viscount is taking off. Ops call me and ask me to contact the Viscount captain direct. I call for a formation fuel check and switch frequencies, thinking that he has probably just been shot at and we can be overhead the scene in about three minutes. The captain is Robin Hood and he tells me not to worry about my dog, which up to that moment I hadn’t. It transpires that he’d stretched out under some seats at the back of the aircraft and was only discovered after they were airborne. They are going to take him to Salisbury, he’ll spend the night with one of the girls and they’ll bring him down on the service tomorrow. He’s started organising his own night stops! I’m jealous; I wouldn’t mind a night with Mary-Ann either.

In general he gets on pretty well with the troops. On arriving at an FAF he does a quick recce and locates the kitchen first and the radio room next – the radio room generally being air conditioned. Third on his list is the bar – he knows if he hangs around there long enough I’ll eventually turn up. He amazes everybody at Darwin one evening. The fireforce is out late and the bar is already open. He always hears the helicopters long before we’ve even made our joining call, and trots off to the pad to meet me. This time, however, the choppers are on finals and he is still stretched out on the deck. The troops try to throw him out and down to the pad, but he’s having none of it and settles back down with his crisps. He’s right, the K-Car isn’t with the rest of them – apparently he can actually distinguish between the respective aircraft noises.

For some reason a lot of the techs and guards enjoy washing him when they’re not working. I’ve never really understood engineers’ preoccupations; maybe they are just compulsive about keeping things clean. They have a full-time job on their hands; he normally very quickly finds some mud to roll in. They are not so keen on his enthusiastic joining of their volleyball games but, as it is ‘bush rules’ and his indiscriminate chasing after the ball hampers both sides equally, he is accepted as a local hazard.

His chopper enplaning and deplaning drills take a while to hone. Not long after he outgrows his bag and is trusted to stay lying on the cabin floor, I have to fly from Vic Falls to Fort Victoria, which is right on the extreme range of the helicopter and takes about three and a half hours. As I taxi in, Doris is out of the aircraft before it stops. He makes directly for an angle-iron post next to the refuelling point and gets a leg in the air fast. It takes several minutes to cool the engine down and the blades stopped, but when they are he is still at it. There is a lake of ginormous proportions around the post, and he is desperately hopping around trying to keep his other three paws dry. If he’d let that loose in the aircraft we’d have been drowned. He doesn’t make that mistake again and learns to go before we take off.

Some years later, when I am sailing on Lake Kariba, I notice him eyeing the mast thoughtfully, and remembering the capacity of his bladder quickly rig up a sling and use the boom as a derrick to hoist him into the water – there’s no fear of flat dogs [crocodiles], he’ll poison them.

We arrive at Mtoko and are treated to a live Tom and Jerry cartoon. Doris debusses and starts on his tour of inspection. One of the camp cats has recently had a litter and they are all out sunning themselves. Unfortunately, she is several yards away from them when an image from her worst nightmare comes prancing around the corner of the ops room and straight through the litter, which he doesn’t even actually notice. Instinct takes over; there’s spitting and snarling and she launches herself forwards to give him a good solid wallop on the nose, claws fully extended. The kittens wake up fast and disappear; there is a mighty roar from Doris, half pain and half rage. Apart from the odd paw being trodden on, he has never been hurt in his life. The cat realises that maybe she has acted a bit hastily and streaks away towards the mess hall at warp factor five with Doris about ten yards in line astern and accelerating fast. It is lunch time and perhaps she knows that, for him, the mess hall is off limits. As she gets inside, the concrete floor has a damp sheen on it and she can’t get a grip. The legs are going like aircraft propellers, but she is hardly making any forward progress as the horizontal abominable snowman crashes through the door in hot pursuit. He has the red rage and has forgotten about the mess hall being out of bounds; the cat is going to die. He hits the greasy floor and is leaned over too far, loses his footing and momentum slides him into a collision with the cat. There is a scrabbling of paws never seen outside of a cartoon; the cat has hit the siren button and there is a high-pitched two-tone wailing which is accompanied by a continuous guttural growling from Doris. She’s up first and off down the room with legs rotating at about 2000rpm and forward speed about six inches an hour, but Doris is, surprisingly, quickly back in the saddle and only a – bleeding – nose behind. He seems to have trained for the wet going better and is definitely gaining ground. People eating their lunch are in suspended animation, forkfuls of spaghetti poised halfway towards mouths.

Momma cat makes a lifesaving decision and leaps sideways, crashes over a table scattering ketchup, glasses, plates of bolognese and the rest, and hits the wall. The laws of gravity are suspended and somehow she sticks there. She has instinctively exploited one of the primary rules of combat – know your enemy’s weaknesses. Doris is not equipped for a high-speed turning chase; he has no tail to balance out sudden changes of direction, and his fringe isn’t conducive to pinpoint targeting. Not quite as bad as a super tanker, but it takes him a while to stop, reorganise himself, get turned around and relocate the cat.

Newton, however, has got fed up with the cat wasting her chance. The laws of gravity resume and the cat falls off the wall, knocks whatever was left on the table onto the floor and starts the high-speed moonwalk back towards the entrance. She gets there marginally ahead, which gives her a good start on the grass. She’s at the top of the only tree in the vicinity in milliseconds. Doris gets up to about ten feet before he remembers he is a dog and crashes back to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Subsequently, the cat becomes a nervous wreck. The kittens have reached that difficult age where they do the exact opposite of whatever they’re told. They actually enjoy Doris, and he is quite happy for them to clamber all over him. Momma cat is frantic and keeps trying to call them away, but she is fully aware that Doris wants to discuss the nose business in more detail and keeps a respectful distance. It is several days before an uneasy truce develops and they come to some animal agreement that face will be saved all round if they ignore each other and go about their own business.

He has the dubious distinction of being one of the few dogs, if not the only one, to have been in aerial combat. As I said, they’ll never believe his stories at the rest kennels. He doesn’t come out of it well. We’ve spent a lot of time on fireforce duty with 3 Commando – nicknamed ‘The Lovers’, and he has obviously decided he is a lover not a fighter.

We are at Rutenga as a singleton helicopter on liaison duties with the army unit there. There is no war going on in this area at the moment – oh yeah – and the flying is ‘routine’. What this really means is that our meagre resources are being penny-packeted around the country. The fireforces would be far more effective with more aircraft, and these detachments invariably turn into major dramas where you are involved in trying to control inexperienced troops engaged in a major punch-up with a new group of bad boys who are fresh, keen, rearmed and resupplied and have infiltrated the area whilst the SF have had their eye off the ball.

I have to take some signallers to the top of a big brick to repair a rebro [rebroadcast, i.e. repeater] station. Their task will take a couple of hours and I plan our day out so that I can wait at a girlfriend’s nearby ranch, maintaining a listening watch on the radio. Alan Shields is my gunner, and Doris comes along for the ride. We drop the guys, have a very civilised lunch and siesta – or I do, Alan amuses himself polishing the gearbox or whatever – and eventually we go and uplift the team off the mountain.

It is late afternoon and we are cruising home pretty soporifically. About fifteen minutes out the day starts to go wrong.

The major problem from the air on arrival at a scene is determining if the gooks are there or not. We do not have the resources for keeping aircraft on station for long periods, and the fireforces quite often have other dramas to go to if things do not develop quickly at a callout. Once the aircraft are overhead, if the gooks are in cover they can make two big mistakes. Unless they move, it is extremely difficult to see them. But the biggest mistake of all is for them to open fire first, for then we know they are there. Our problem is not eliminating them, that is relatively straightforward once we are in contact. The problem is always locating them, and bringing them to contact.

There is a massive crash of rounds going through the cockpit and hitting the aircraft. We have flown over a base camp at about a thousand feet and presumably they thought an attack was imminent. It wasn’t, but it certainly is now.

There is pandemonium in the aircraft. These are signallers, not combat troops, and they are just discovering that there is very little natural cover in a helicopter. Alan is cocking the twin brownings. I am turning hard left to get the guns to bear, and calling for the fireforce, which by good fortune is close by returning from a lemon, fat on fuel, fully armed and chomping at the bit. We are also in a fast descent as Doris has tried to jump on my lap. We have coincidentally solved the ‘pulling excess power syndrome’: with a hundred pounds of petrified dog sprawled across your left arm it is impossible to keep straight and level power, never mind any extra.

Alan opens up with the brownings, producing a tremendous banging and clattering which is really getting Doris’ attention. He starts making for my lap in a big way. I wasn’t expecting to bat so I am not wearing a box and the left paw in the testicles produces enough incentive for my collective arm to throw him off. The collector bag on the gun has fallen off and hot ejected cartridge cases are flying around the cabin. One catches Doris in the ear and he changes tack, sees a small gap between the two signallers cowering on the front bench seat and goes for a fast climb across their shoulders and through to the very nose of the cockpit. A hundred pounds of dog arriving in a rush at the very front of the aircraft causes a fairly significant centre of gravity change but, for anybody compiling manuals on the subject, it is easier to deal with than the same weight cavorting around on your lap.

We manage to contain this three-ring circus until the fireforce arrives and takes over. There is a continual high-pitched whimpering; I can’t make out if it’s from Doris or the signallers.

When we land at Rutenga, Doris makes a reappearance, scrabbles frantically back over the two poor sods in the front and hits the ground running before we have come to a stop. I make a mental note to have a word with him about his deplaning drills but we have to refuel and rearm and get back to the fight, so leave him to it. The signallers are marginally slower, but only by a smidgen.

Amazingly we get a good result: eighteen out of twenty! The fireforce decide to stay for the night. Much beer is drunk and war stories tidied up. The only injuries on our side are bruising and claw marks on the cheeks of the two kids mauled by the demented dog. Doris eventually reappears in the bar. I tell him he’s a disgrace, and in any case, nobody will believe him at Kozy Kennels, but he has that superior ‘who is ever going to know the real truth’ look and has obviously adjusted the details of his version of the battle and his part in it. The siggies are definitely going to have to modify their stories; who on earth is ever going to believe how they got their war wounds?

. . .

I’ve been to Wankie once before, but this is Doris’ first visit, so he has never met Harvey, the resident hornbill. Harvey struts around the camp as befits his self-imposed rank of sergeant-major, and is understandably miffed when Doris doesn’t recognise his position and perceives him as a resident plaything for him to chase. Ground hornbills are a bit like pilots a year or so out of training – they don’t like getting airborne more often than is absolutely necessary to draw their flying pay. To escape this great hairy beast galumphing around, however, Harvey puts in more flying time than he has in the last year and takes to strutting around on the ops room roof, with the odd sortie onto one of the rotor blades and an occasional trip to the ground to spear a snack, after a good look around to make sure the coast is clear. He re-establishes authority on the fourth day. Doris is surprised to see him perched by the pond and breaks into a half-hearted trot, knowing Harvey is not going to play, and will quickly flap off.

But Harvey shows no sign of moving and the dog speeds up. Eventually, as Doris is getting really close, Harvey languidly gets airborne, but instead of climbing fast for the roof he stays low and slow, positioning himself tantalisingly out of reach a little above Doris’ nose and a yard or so in front and leads him across the camp. Doris has to raise his nose to keep his quarry visual from under his shaggy brows, so the low wall across the grassy area is out of his vision. The bird skims over the wall, but of course it takes Doris’ legs out from under him and he ends up in a great tumbling mass of hair and dust. Harvey lands and struts triumphantly past, not too close, and from then on they keep their distance from each other, but the sergeant-major resumes his strutting on the ground, rather than the sulking presence on the roof of the last few days.

. . .

On the inaugural night of the pub’s opening, I am there with both Henry Jarvie and Phil Tubbs, and of course Doris. Henry and Phil are performing a number of their routines, and have reached the one where Henry has got most of his kit off and is adopting a classic Greek superhero pose ... He has acquired a string of sausages and the pose is arranged so that his sports kit is out of sight of the audience, but the sausages have been positioned so that the end is just visible an inch or so above the knee. In the dim light it looks as though there has been an inadvertent slip in the arranging of his anatomy, and there is a lot of covert interest from the wives and daughters, as it seems he is hung like a donkey. Everybody is pretending not to notice, of course, but this is given the lie when Doris comes trotting by, gets a sniff of the meat and turns back and wolfs them in one gulp, causing a collective gasp from the crowd.

A dog of war indeed!




Peter

Saturday Snippet: a remarkable woman who lived, loved, traveled and wrote widely

So far in this series of posts I've put up excerpts from a book by a particular author.  Today, I'd like to vary that format by putting up excerpts of reviews and newspaper articles dealing with the late Lesley Blanch.  She was unique, with a personality and outlook on life that defied convention and drove her to wander the East with a gimlet eye for adventure and history.  She lived to the ripe old age of 103, and was still writing her autobiography when she died.  (It was later completed by her goddaughter.)

One of her best-known books is "The Sabres of Paradise", a life of 19th-century Caucasian leader Imam Shamil, the so-called "Lion of Dagestan", and a history of his people's decades-long resistance to the eventual Russian domination of their land.  Much of the recent history of terrorism in Chechnya, Dagestan and nearby areas can be traced back to the events she described.

A little-known fact is that this book provided much of the inspiration (and the language) for Frank Herbert's famed SF novel "Dune", the first winner of the then-new Nebula Award (and joint winner of a Hugo Award, back when that prize actually meant something in literary and science fiction terms, before it was corrupted by social-justice-warrior political correctness).

Let's begin with excerpts from a couple of lengthy discussions of her life.  The first is from the Guardian, written a couple of years before her death.  It's titled "Time Traveler".  In it, the man who shaped and formed the rest of her life is described.  She never divulged his name.

The delights of an Edwardian child's London paled ... beside the world opened up for her by a periodic visitor to the household, the mysterious Traveller. This never-named character, a part-Russian, part-Central-Asian friend of her parents (and possibly a former lover of her mother's) brought magic lantern slides of troikas in the snow and told tales of "Tarbagan Bator, the marmot hero of Mongol legend". He brought gifts to the nursery: "a chunk of malachite, or a Kazakh fox-skin cap (which smelt rather rank) and once a 'bunchuk', or standard, decorated with the dangling horse-tails of a Mongol chieftain". Journey Into The Mind's Eye describes how the Traveller enraptured her, how she became obsessed with the Trans-Siberian railroad, how he promised to take her on it one day and how that dream came to dominate her life.

The Traveller also took her back in time. He told of the Decembrists, aristocratic Russians who entered Paris in triumph after Waterloo. Ten years later they shattered the leaden calm of absolutist Russia with demands for reform and democracy. Tsar Nicholas crushed the revolt, and in so doing began the cruel century-and-a-half procession of internal exiles to the remotest regions of Russia's wild east. The church offered to facilitate annulments for the plotters' wives, but they chose to follow their husbands and suffered privation and exile with their men. These women and their journeys became Blanch's girlhood touchstone, leaving her out of step with the concerns of contemporaries and the agenda of schoolmistresses: "Oddly lacking in team spirit"; "moody and secretive" read the reports.

Blanch began reading Russian intellectual and diarist Alexander Herzen; to this day, she is never parted from a volume of his memoirs. Other favourites included Carlyle: "His treatment of the French revolution was extraordinary. The pace made you breathless."

The Traveller's silence during the war ended in 1921 with his reappearance at the Gare du Nord to meet 17-year-old Blanch, arriving in Paris for an educational break with a French governess. The two adults vied for control of the teenager's agenda: churches and royal monuments from one; Russian tea-shops, Cossack battalions camping in railway yards and a private recital by Rachmaninov from the other. Easter brought the dénouement. The Catholic governess refused to enter an Orthodox church, so Traveller and ingénue attended the midnight service unchaperoned. "Seeing the way the men spoke to him, and the manner in which the women looked at him, I now became aware of him as a stranger - as a man. It was most disturbing." A serenade by gypsy musicians at an after-hours restaurant, a kiss in the street and a tracks-covering note left at the hotel preceded Blanch's eager "ruin" in a Dijon-bound sleeping car as dawn came up over the French countryside.

After she had spent a year at convent school in Italy, Blanch and the Traveller convinced her parents to approve a "family" holiday in Corsica and the south of France "chaperoned" by the Traveller's Montenegran aunt and his two 20-something sons by different Silk Road mothers. This two-month idyll during which the boys referred to Blanch as "Mamasha" was, although she didn't know it, to be her last sight of the man who shaped her life.

There's more at the link.

Will Collins described her influence on Frank Herbert and his world-famous novel in a 2017 article titled "The Secret History of Dune".

Islamic theology, mysticism, and the history of the Arab world clearly influenced Dune, but part of Herbert’s genius lay in his willingness to reach for more idiosyncratic sources of inspiration. The Sabres of Paradise (1960) served as one of those sources, a half-forgotten masterpiece of narrative history recounting a mid-19th century Islamic holy war against Russian imperialism in the Caucasus.

Lesley Blanch, the book’s author, has a memorable biography. A British travel writer of some renown, she is perhaps best known for On the Wilder Shores of Love (1954), an account of the romantic adventures of four British women in the Middle East.

She was also a seasoned traveler, a keen observer of Middle Eastern politics and culture, and a passionate Russophile. She called The Sabres of Paradise “the book I was meant to do in my life,” and the novel offers the magnificent, overstuffed account of Imam Shamyl, “The Lion of Dagestan,” and his decades-long struggle against Russian encroachment.

Anyone who has obsessed over the mythology of Dune will immediately recognize the language Herbert borrowed from Blanch’s work. Chakobsa, a Caucasian hunting language, becomes the language of a galactic diaspora in Herbert’s universe. Kanly, from a word for blood feud among the Islamic tribes of the Caucasus, signifies a vendetta between Dune’s great spacefaring dynasties. Kindjal, the personal weapon of the region’s Islamic warriors, becomes a knife favored by Herbert’s techno-aristocrats. As Blanch writes, “No Caucasian man was properly dressed without his kindjal.”

Herbert is ecumenical with his borrowing, lifting terminology and rituals from both sides of this obscure Central Asian conflict. When Paul Atreides, Dune’s youthful protagonist, is adopted by a desert tribe whose rituals and feuds bear a marked resemblance to the warrior culture of the Islamic Caucasus, he lives at the exotically named Sietch Tabr. Sietch and tabr are both words for camp borrowed from the Cossacks, the Czarist warrior caste who would become the great Christian antagonists of Shamyl’s Islamic holy warriors.

. . .

Dune’s narrative, however, owes more to The Sabres of Paradise than just terminology and customs. The story of a fiercely independent, religiously inspired people resisting an outside power is certainly not unique to the Caucasus, but Blanch’s influence can be found here, too. The name of Herbert’s major villain, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, is redolent of Russian imperialism. Meanwhile, Imam Shamyl, the charismatic leader of Islamic resistance in the Caucasus, describes the Russian Czar as “Padishah” and his provincial governor as “Siridar,” titles that Herbert would later borrow for Dune’s galactic emperor and his military underlings.

Again, more at the link.

Her goddaughter, Georgia de Chamberet, helped write her autobiography, "On the Wilder Shores of Love: A Bohemian Life", and completed it after her death.

de Chamberet also edited a selection of Blanch's reminiscences in a second volume, "Far to Go and Many to Love: People and Places".

In a 2017 article, de Chamberet described her impressions of Lesley Blanch.

Lesley and my artist-writer mother, Gael Elton Mayo, met in New York in 1951 through their Polish-Russian husbands. Both were exceedingly pretty and precocious. They remained close despite their gypsy lifestyles. When my mother died of cancer in 1992, my godmother became home from home.

Her little pink house in Garavan, on the French-Italian border, was surrounded by an aromatic Mediterranean jungle. It was filled with treasures from Lesley's travels: Russian icons, samovars, Qajar paintings and rugs from Persia and Turkey, exotica from India. Divans and the scent of incense and jasmine enhanced the atmosphere.

. . .

Lesley wrote longhand at a desk strewn with books and papers in the living room. On a visit in June 2001, she was fretting about the late delivery of an introduction for a reprint of Isabelle Eberhardt's Journals. So I deciphered her graceful writing and typed it up on my laptop.

For years she had spoken of writing her memoirs, and hopeful biographers hovered, but got nowhere. Lesley began to jot down fragments of reminiscences: working as features editor at British Vogue during World War Two with Lee Miller and Cecil Beaton; 1950s New York and Leo Lerman, Carson McCullers and Simenon; the golden age of Hollywood and Marlene Dietrich; traveller's tales about Mexico, Turkey and Afghanistan. I did not indulge in flattery, having observed what happened to people who "gushed". I occasionally made comments and asked questions, initially received with sharp-edged reserve. Then we began to look forward to our time together.

Lesley wrote and rewrote obsessively late into the night; hauling books out of the shelves to check names or places. She taught me a great deal about writing. I regret not asking probing questions: I was too respectful. But she had begun to open up: to push her meant she might snap shut.

. . .

Writing is an act of seduction. A writer and an editor working together on a book is like an affair, involving intimacy and trust. The editor is totally committed to the book, does everything possible to help the writer make it the best they can; and then they do everything possible to give the book and its author the greatest chance of success when published. After Lesley died, I was determined to complete the work we had started, and carry out her vision - made a little easier by her making me her literary executor.

More at the link.

Lesley Blanch died in 2007 at the age of 103.  You can read her obituary in the Guardian to learn more about her.  There's also more information in a Web site set up to celebrate her life and books.

I have several of Blanch's books in my library.  I particularly recommend the first two mentioned above (see the links provided).  You'll find a list of her books at Wikipedia, some of which are out of print, but all of which are interesting.

Peter

Saturday Snippet: a hero who outraged the military establishment

Michael Calvert is one of the greatest figures in military special operations history in any nation.  He rose from obscurity to Brigadier's rank in the British Army during World War II, twice being awarded the Distinguished Service Order (the equivalent of the US Army's Distinguished Service Cross), as well as the US Silver Star and other medals.  He led his forces from the front with courage and drive, in some of the most vicious fighting of the Burma campaign;  yet he continually outraged the military "establishment" because he rejected, and refused to adhere to, their long-standing customs and prejudices.  They had their revenge after World War II, bringing about his court-martial and dismissal from the service on charges that may well have been trumped-up.  The situation was made worse by his public exposure as a homosexual in an age when that was simply impermissible in both the military, and civil society at large.  Distraught and troubled, he sank into alcoholism and poverty, a tragic fate for such a man.  He died in 1998.

I can offer Brigadier Calvert no higher recognition than to say that I'm seriously considering his life as the pattern for a protagonist in a novel, that may grow into a series of novels.  He was an extraordinary person, with conflicting and contradictory elements of personality that defied convention, but were instrumental in forging him into a warrior in the classic style.  He would have been right at home, one feels, standing with Horatius Cocles on the bridge at Rome, or with Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae.  He was a hero who helped define that term by his life, and his men followed (and almost venerated) him as such.

In his 1962 autobiography "Fighting Mad" (long out of print, but available at reasonable prices as a used book), he described some of the events of his career.

This morning I'd like to concentrate on some of his earlier exploits, showing how they helped forge the warrior and inspirational military leader he became.

Calvert first ran afoul of the "establishment mentality" while serving as a very junior Lieutenant in the British garrison at Hong Kong before World War II, where he was tasked with raising a force of local Chinese to serve with the Royal Engineers.

Our local paymaster was a rather peppery major nearing retirement, the sort of officer that young subalterns normally tried to avoid.  But I had to see him once or twice about general pay matters for the unit and when a special problem arose over one of my men I plucked up courage and asked for another interview.

"Well, what is it?" he barked, after I had saluted as if he were the Governor himself.

"It's about one of my men, sir."  I hesitated.  The night before I had rehearsed exactly what to say and how to say it, brisk and to the point, but now I funked it and played for time.  "About... about his marriage allowance, sir."

"Well, what about it, man?  He gets one, doesn't he?  If not there's a perfectly simple form you can fill in for him.  Can't you write?"

"Yes, sir," I said hastily.  "The trouble is... I was wondering... I mean, can a man have two marriage allowances?"

"Two marriage allowances?"  The major turned red, then purple and for a moment seemed incapable of further speech.

I carried on quickly, "You see, sir, one of my chaps has two wives and he finds it very difficult to keep them on one allowance, so I wondered if there was some special regulation..."

"Get out."  The major had found his tongue again but was using it with difficulty, judging from the strangled way he was speaking.  "If you think I have nothing better to do than worry about one of your over-sexed coolies then you must be more stupid than you look, which is difficult to believe."  He waved his hand in angry dismissal.  "I shall report this to your commanding officer."

Luckily my C.O. was a different type altogether and in the end I managed to get the man with two wives some sort of extra pay, though it was not recorded as a double marriage allowance!

Pre-war Hong Kong had a fair smattering of awkward Regulars like the old paymaster, but there were plenty of really good officers too, the sort who considered their men's welfare first and their own last.  They were firm disciplinarians but they were fair and even kindly, when kindness was needed, and the troops would have followed them anywhere.  These were the men I tried to emulate and many of them went out of their way to help me along.

. . .

I was in Colonel Barchard's office one day when Jones came up on yet another charge.  This time he had laid out three military policemen.

"Now look, Jones, there's got to be an end to this," the colonel said severely.

"Yes, sir."

"It's no good just saying 'Yes, sir'.  That's what you say every time.  I give you twenty-eight days [i.e. in punishment barracks] and as soon as you finish that you're back here again.  Something has to be done to stop it."

"Yes, sir."

The colonel looked at him grimly.  "I should have you court martialled as an incurable troublemaker.  But I'll give you one more chance.  Are you willing to accept my award?"

Jones, whose big frame had stiffened at the mention of a court martial, managed to look relieved without moving a muscle of his rather battered face as he stood to attention.

"Sir."

"Right," said Colonel Barchard.  "From now on you'll be my batman.  I'm always getting into trouble myself and it'll be your job to keep me out of it."

"Yes, sir."

. . .

I learned much about my profession from these colonels and other officers of the same type who were ready to throw the rule book out of the window when their judgment told them it was wrong.  I tried to put into practice the methods they used.  Getting to know men who are naturally suspicious because of the pips on your shoulder is hard work.  As in everything else, there are times when it just doesn't work out and that can be depressing.  But at the other end of the scale an officer gets a tremendous feeling of satisfaction and pride in knowing that he has the confidence and loyalty of the men serving under him.

Calvert witnessed the Battle of Shanghai and the aftermath of the so-called Rape of Nanking, which made him one of the very few officers in any Western army to understand and appreciate Imperial Japan's military abilities.  He was to put that early knowledge to good use during the Second World War.

Because I could speak Cantonese I was chosen on occasions to go out with the Chinese forces as an observer.  I did not realize it at the time but, looking back, I consider that was when World War II started for me.  I saw as much fighting in the few months that the Shanghai battle lasted as I saw throughout the rest of my army career.  It was a continuous and bloody struggle between two enemies with a plentiful supply of the main essential for a land battle:  troops.  The number of casualties was fantastic.  The Japs lost about 200,000 men and the Chinese a great deal more than that.  As a baptism of fire the slaughter of Shanghai was all that the hungriest adventure-seeker could want and a lot more besides.

I also learned much about the Japs that stood me in good stead later on in Burma.  Not the least of the lessons was that a well-trained Japanese soldier was a man to be reckoned with - cunning, tenacious and often very brave.  I have made my share of mistakes, and probably more, but after Shanghai I never made the fatal error of underestimating the Japs;  too many men who did are now dead.

. . .

I watched the Japanese invade Hangchow Bay, using a fleet of boats of a type that I had never seen before.  They appeared to be flat-bottomed, because they could get almost out of the water on to the beach.  Their sides were high and presumably armor-plated or protected from bullets in some other way.  But the most interesting point of all was that, when they could get no nearer the shore, their flat bows opened downwards like a drawbridge over a moat and the troops poured out of them on to the beaches.

These were landing craft, and as far as I knew the British Army had nothing like them.  The Japanese took them close inshore in a whaling ship, then dropped them from the stern;  their value was obvious and I could hardly contain myself.  I wanted to leap out from my protective covering ... and run all the way back to camp to tell my superiors what I had seen.  As it was I stayed watching these marvellous new craft and made copious notes about how they worked, how many troops they carried and so on.  My report on this outing would make the staff boys sit up!

There was plenty of enthusiastic reaction among my immediate superiors in Shanghai and my report went through to Major-General Telfer-Smollet, the Shanghai area Commander.  I was told that he had sent it on to London and we waited for the reaction;  perhaps there would be a request for more information or for clarification on one or two points.  We heard nothing ... In fact that was the last I heard about landing craft until three years later, after the war had started.  We were beginning to build them then, but for another year or two they were in short supply.  We could so easily have been well stocked if a few staff officers had taken more interest in 1937.

During the Norwegian campaign in 1940, Calvert was assigned to blow up installations and facilities to slow down the German advance.  The only explosives available were naval mines and depth-charges.

One day a German fighter patrol came over while we were fusing some of our mines and depth-charges in a culvert on a road about halfway up the Romsdal Gorge ... we heard the rapid clatter of machine-guns, and I remember putting my arms around my head in an automatic gesture of protection ... In a moment or two the German fighters had zoomed over our heads and the ear-shattering clatter of guns stopped ...

I was furious at being the helpless victim of attack, unable to strike back.  As I cursed out loud at the German race in general and these pilots in particular I suddenly had an idea.  It seemed crazy, but it was better than doing nothing.  I grabbed the sergeant by the arm.  "We'll try and bring one down with a depth charge." ...

Quickly we fused the charge and I sent the sergeant away to shelter below the level of the road.  Then, as I heard the German planes beginning their dive, I lit the fuse and raced for cover myself.  Just as I flung myself down I heard the stutter of machine-guns again and almost at once the depth charge went off with a heavy crrrump.  The machine-guns stopped abruptly and for one wonderful moment I thought we had got one of the fighters.  But then I heard his engine as he throttled up to climb away and I could see as I lifted my head that he was undamaged.  However, the Germans flew off and did not return.

We were pretty pleased with ourselves ... I have often wondered since what that particular pilot would have said if he had known what had gone off under his tail that day in Norway.  He probably thought one of his bullets had hit a mine we had laid under the road and set it off.  In fact he was almost certainly the only fighter pilot ever to be attacked from the ground by an anti-submarine depth charge!

During the British retreat from Burma in 1942 after the Japanese invasion, Calvert led a small team in fighting delaying actions against their advance.  One day, while swimming in a river, he had a lethal encounter.

On the beach, as naked as I was, stood a Jap.  A pile of clothes lay near his feet and in my first startled glance I took in the insignia of an officer on his bush shirt ... I was baffled.  If I yelled for help the Jap patrol would hear me, as well as my own.  There were twelve of us but there might be twenty or thirty of them;  in that case their superior numbers would give them an advantage if it came to an open fight in the confined cove.

While I was still thinking hard the Jap officer stepped into the river and came towards me. I think his mind must have been working much like mine;  he could see that I was unarmed but if he used his gun it would bring both patrols running and he did not know our strength ... he wasn't taking any chances on an open fight which would needlessly risk his men's lives.  He preferred to tackle me with his bare hands.

He knew his ju-jitsu and the water on his body made him as slippery as an eel, but I was the bigger and stronger.  We fought in silence except for an occasional grunt, and struggled and slipped and thrashed around until we were at times waist deep in the swirling river ...

I had come to admire this game little Jap.  He had all the guts in the world.  He could so easily have called up his men and let them fight it out but he had chosen to protect them by taking me on alone.

Now he was putting up a tremendous show and I was hard put to it to hold him.  I pulled myself together.  Brave or not, I had to kill him.  Or he would kill me ...

I managed to grab the Jap's right wrist and force his arm behind his back.  And I buried my face in his chest to stop him clawing my eyes out.  Then, as he lashed out with his left arm and both feet, I forced him gradually under water.  My boots gave me a firm grip and I shut my eyes and held him under the surface.  His struggles grew weaker and weaker, flared again in frantic despair and then he went limp.  I held on for a few seconds longer before releasing my grip.  Slowly I opened my eyes and for a moment could see nothing except the eddies of water caused by his final efforts to break free.  Then his body emerged on the surface a couple of yards away and floated gently off downstream.

. . .

Some sensational Press reports have said that I killed more Japanese single-handed during the war than any other British or American soldier.  I don't know if this is true;  but I do know that I felt like a murderer that afternoon over that particular Jap.

Even now, so many years afterwards, the memory of it is too clear and comes back to me too often.

Calvert went on to a stellar war career, only to fall afoul of the military "establishment" during peacetime.  They never accepted him, because he would never conform to their expectations.  He's hardly alone in that, of course.  Throughout military history, the "fightingest" of fighting men have seldom gotten along with the chair-warmers, bureaucrats and administrators.

All I can say is, to those who served under him, Calvert was always an inspiration and a hero.  You can read more about him in his own words in his autobiography, or in a later biography by David Rooney (still in print) titled "Mad Mike: A Life of Brigadier Michael Calvert".

Calvert died in 1998.  You'll find his obituary here, and an article about a memorial service for him here, including more details of his court-martial and dismissal from the British Army - a tragic episode, in the light of our more tolerant times.  He deserved much better from the nation he had served so well.

Peter