POWER #English story

From the gum tree at the corner looked out over, well - nothing. There was nothing more after his fathers place, only the veld, so flat anbunchanging that the single shadowy Koppie away off towards the skulino made it look more empty still. t was a lonely koppie like himself. The one thing that made a difterence was the powerline. High above the earth on its giant steel lattice towets, the powerline strode across the veld until it disappeared beyond the koppie. It passed close to his father s place and one of the great pylons was on their ground in a square patch fenced off with barbed wire, a forbidden place. Andre used to look through the wire at the pylon. Around the steelwork itself were more screens of barbed wire and, on all four sides of it, enamel warning plates with a red skull-and-crossbones said in three languages, DANGER! and there was a huge figure of volts, millions of volts. Andre was ten and he knew volts were electricity and the line took power by a short cut far across country. It worked gold mines, it lit towns, and hauled trains and drove machinery somewhere out beyond. The power station was in the town ten miles on the other side of his father's place and the great line simply jumped right over them without stopping.

Andre filled the empty spaces in his life by imagining things. He saw an Everest film once and for a long time he was Hilary or Tensing, or both, conquering a mountain. There were no mountains so he conquered the roof of the house which wasn't very high and was made of
red-painted tin. But he reached the summit" and planted a flag on the lightning-conductor. When he got down his mother hit his legs with a quince switch for being naughty. Another time he conquered the koppie. It took him the whole afternoon to get there and back and it was not as exciting as he expected, being less steep than it looked from a distance, so he did not need his rope and pick. Also, he found a cow had beaten him to the summit. He thought of conquering one of the powerline towers. It had everything, the danger especially, and studying it from all sides, he guessed he could make the summit without touching a live wire. But he was not as disobedient as all that, and he knew if he so much as went inside the barbed-wire fence his mother would skin him with the switch, not to mention his father. There were peaks which had to remain unconquered. He used to lie and listen to the marvellous hum of the powerline, the millions of volts flowing invisible and beyond all one's ideas along the copper wires that hung so smooth and light from ties of crinkled white
china looking likeChinese lanterns up against the sky. Faint cracklings and murmurs and rushes of sound would sometimes come from the powerline, and at night he was sure he saw soft blue flames lapping and trembling on the wires as it they were only half peeping out of that fierce river of volts. The flames danced and their voices chattered to him of a mystery. In the early morning when the mist was rising and the first sun's rays were shooting underneath it, the powerline sparkled like a tremendous spiderweb. It took his thoughts away into a magical distance, far far off among gigantic machines and busy factories. That was where the world opened up. So he loved the powerline dearly. It made a door through the distance for this thoughts. It was like him except that it never slept, and while he was dreaming it went on without stopping, cracking faintly and murmuring. Its electricity hauled up the mine skips trom the heart of the earth, hurtled huge green rail units along their shining lines, and thundered day and night in the factories.

Now that the veld's green was darkening and gathering black-and-gold tints from the ripe seeds and withering qrass blades, now that the clear warm autumn days were coming after the summer thunderstorms, the birds began gathering on the powerline. At evening he would see the wires like necklaces of blue-and-black glass beads when the swallows gathered. It took them days and days, it seemed, to make up their minds. He did not know whether the same swallows collected each evening in growing numbers or whether a batch went off each day to be replaced by others. He did not know enough about them. He loved to hear them making  excited twittering sounds, he loved to see
how they simply fell off the copper wire into space and their perfect curved wings lifted them on the air. They were going not merely beyond the skyline, like the power, they were flying thousands of miles over land and sea and mountains and forests to countries he had never dreamt of. They would fly over Everest, perhaps they would see ships beneath them on blue seas among islands. They would build nests under bridges and on chimneys where other boys in funny clothes would catch them. The birds opened another door for him and he liked them too, very much.

He watched the swallows one morning as they took off from their perch. Suddenly, as if they had a secret signal, a whole stretch of them along a
wire would start together. They dropped forward into the air and their blue-and-white wings flicked out. Flying seemed to be the easiest thing in the world. They swooped and flew up, criss-crossing in flight and chirping crazily, so pleased to be awake in the morning. Then another flight of them winged oft, and another. There was standing room only on those wires. Close to the lofty pylon and the gleaming china ties another flight took off. But one of the swallows stayed behind, quite close to the tie. Andre watched them fall for ward, but it alone did not leave the line. It hung there flapping its wings and he saw it was caught by its leg.

He should have been going to school but he stood watching the swallow his cap pulled over his white hair and eyes wrinkled up against the light. After a minute the swallow stopped flapping and hung there. He wondered how it could have got caught, maybe in the wire binding or at a join. Swallows had short legs and long black claws; he had caught one once in it's  nest and held it in his hands before it struggled free and was gone in a flash. He thought the bird on the powerline would get free soon., but looking at it there he had a tingling kind of pain in his chest and in one leg as if he, too, were caught by the foot. Andre wanted to rush back and tell his mother, only she would scold him for being late for school. So he climbed on his bike, and with one more look up at the helpless bird there against the sky and the steel framework of the tower, he rode off to the bus. At school he thought once or twice about the swallow, but mostly he torgot about it and that made him feel bad. Anyway, he thought, it would be free by the time he got home. Twisting and flapping a few times, it was sure to work its foot out; and there was no need for him to worry about it hanging there. Coming back from the crossroads he felt anxious, but he did not like to look up until he was quite near. Then he shot one glance at the top of the pylon - the swallow was still there, its wings spread but not moving. It was dead, he guessed, as he stopped and put down one foot.Then he saw it flutter and fold up its wings. He felt awful to think it had hung there all day, trapped. The boy went in and called his mother and they stood off some distance below the powerline and looked at the bird. The mother shaded her eyes with her hand. It was a pity, she said, but really she was sure it would free itself somehow. Nothing could be done about it.

"Couldnt -?" he began.
"Couldn't nothing, dear," she said quite firmly so that he knew she meant business. "Now stop thinking about it, and tomorrow you'll see.' His father came home at six  and had tea, and afterwards there was a little time to work in his patch of vegetables out at the back. Andre followed him and he soon got round to the swallow on the powerline. "I know" his father said, "Mama told me. It's still there." "Well" his father tilted up his old working hat and looked at him hard with his shap blue eyes well, "we can't do anything about it, can we, now?"
"No, Papa, but -"
"But what?" He kicked at a stone but said nothing more. He could see his father was kind of stiff about it; that he meant he didn't want to hear any more. They had been talking about it, and maybe - yes, that was it. They were afraid he would try to climb up the pylon. At supper, none of them talked about the swallow, but Andre felt it all right. He felt as if it was hanging above their heads and his mother and father felt it and they all had a load on them. Going to bed his mother said he mustn't worry himself about the poor bird. "Not a sparrow falls without our Good Lord knowing." "It's not a sparrow, it's a swallow," he said. "Its going to hang there all night, by its foot." His mother sighed and put out the light. She was worried.

The next day was a Saturday and he did not have to go to school. First thing, he looked out and the bird was still there. The other swallows were with it, and when they took off it fluttered and made little thin calls but could not get free. He would rather have been at school instead of knowing all day that it was hanging up there on the cruel wire. It was strange how the electricity did nothing to it. He knew, of course, that the wires were quite safe as long as you didn't touch anything else. The morning was very long, though he did forget about the swallow quite often. He was building a mud fort under the gum tree, and he had to carry water and dig up the red earth and mix it into a stiff clay. When he was coming in at midday with his khaki hat flapping around his face he had one more look, and what he saw kept him standing there a long time with his mouth open. Other swallows were fluttering and hovering around the trapped bird trying to help it. He rushed inside and dragged his mother out by her hand and she stood, too, shading her eyes
"Yes, they're feeding it. Isn't that strange," she said. again and looking up.
"Ssh! Don't frighten them," he whispered. the afternoon he lay in the grass and twice again he saw the other fIuttering around the fastened bird with short quivering strokes their wings and opening their beaks wide. Swallows had pouches in their throats where they made small mud bricks to build their nests, and that was how they brought food to it. They knew how to feed their Fledglings and when the trapped bird squeaked and cried out they brought it food. Andre felt choked thinking how they helped it and nobody else would do anything . His parents would not even talk about it. With his keen eyes he traced the way a climber could get up the tower. Most difficult would be to get round the barbed-wire screens about a quarter of the way up. After that there were footholds in the steel lattice supports. He had studied it before. But if you did get up, what then? How could you touch the swallow Just putting your hand near the wire, wouldn't those millions of volts flame out and jump at you? The only thing to do was to get somebody to turn off the power for a minute, then he could whip up the tower like a monkey. At supper that night he suggested it, and his father was as grim and angry as ever seen.

"Gee!" Andre said to himself. "Gee! they were both white-hot about it."
"Listen, son," his father said. He never said 'son' unless he was mad about something. "Listen, I don't want you to get all worked up about that bird. I'll see what can be done. But you leave it alone. Don't get any ideas into your head, and don't go near that accursed pylon."
"What ideas, Papa?" he asked, trembling inside himself.
"Any ideas at all." "The other birds are feeding it, but it may die."
"Well, I'm sorry; try not to think about it." When his mother came to say good night to him he turned his face over into his pillow and would not kiss her. It was something he had never done before and it was because he was angry with them both. They let the swallow swing there in the night and did nothing. His mother patted his back and ruffled his white hair and said, "Good
night, darling." But he gritted his teeth and did not answer. Ages seemed to him to have passed. The bird was still hanging on the lofty powerline, fluttering feebly. He could not bear to look up at it. After breakfast he went out and tried to carry on building his fort under the gum tree. The birds were chattering in the tree above him and in the watties at the back of the house. Through the corner of his eye he saw a handsome black-and-white bird fly out in swinging loops from the tree and it settled on the powerline some distance from the tower. It was a butcher-olra, Jackey-hangman, a terrible pirate of a bird. His heart fell like a stone - he just guessed what it was up to. It sat there on the wire impudently" copying the calls of the other birds It could imitate a toppie or a robin or a finch as it liked. It stole their naked little kickers from their nests and spiked them on the barbed wire to eat at pleasure, as it stole their songs too. The butcher-bird flew oft and settled higher up the wire near the pylon. Andre rushed up the path and then took a swing from the house to come under the powerline. Stopping, he saw the other birds were making a whirl and a flutter round the cannibal. Swallows darted and skimmed and made him duck his head, but he went on sitting there. Then some starlings came screaming out of the gum tree and flew in a menacing bunch at the butcher-bird. They all hated him.. He made the mistake of losing his balance and fluttered out into the air and all the birds were round him at once, darting and pecking and screaming The butcher-bird pulled off one of his typical tricks - he fell plumb down and, when near the ground, spread his wings, sailed low over the shrubs, and came up to the house where he settled on the lightning-conductor. Andre stood panting and felt his heart beating fast. He wanted to throw a stone at the butcher-bird but he reckoned the stone would land on the roof and get him into trouble. So he ran towards the house waving his arms and shouting. The bird cocked it's head and watched him. His mother came out. "Darling, what's the matter?"
"That Jackey, he's on the roof. He wanted to kill the swallow" "Oh, darling!"' his mother said softly. lt was Sunday night and he said to his mother, "I'ts only the other birds keeping him alive. They were feeding him again today."
"I saw them."
"He can't live much longer, Mama. And now the Jackey knows he's there. Why can't Papa get them to switch off the electricity?"
"They wouldn't do it for a bird, darling. Now try and go to sleep."
Leaving for school, he tried not to look up. But he couldn't help it, and there was the swallow spreading and closing its wings. He quickiy got on his bike and rode as fast as he could. He could not think of anything but the trapped bird on the powerline.

After school, Andre did not catch the bus home Instead he took the other way, into town. He got out in a busy street and threading down into the factory area, he kept his bearings on the four huge smokestacks of the power station. Out of two of the smokestacks white plumes Were calmly into the clear sky. When he got to the power station he was faced by an enormous high fence of iron with spiked tops and a tall steel gate, locked fast.
Andre peered through the gate and saw some black men off duty, sitting in the sun on upturned boxes playing some kind of draughts game. He called to them, and a big slow-moving man in brown overalls and a wide leather belt came over to talk.
Andre explained very carefully what he wanted. If they would switch off the current then he or somebody good at climbing could go up and save the swallow.
The man smiled broadly and clicked his tongue. He shouted something at the others and they laughed. His name, he said, was Gas. . . Gas Makabeni. He was just a maintenance man and he couldnt switch off the Current. But he unlocked a steel frame door in the gate and let Andre in.
"Ask them in there," he said, grinning. Andre liked Gas very much. He had in big cloth letters 'ESCOM' done on his back and he was friendly.
opening the door like that.
Andre went with Gas through a high arched entrance and at once he seemed to be surrounded with the vast awesome hum of the power station. It made him feel jumpy. Gas took him to a door and pushed him in.

A white engineer in overalls questioned him, and he smiled too. "Well," he said, "let's see what can be done." He led down a long corridor and up a short cut of steel zig-zag steps. Another corridor came to an enormous panelled hall with banks of dials and glowing lights and men in long white Coats sitting in raised chairs or moving about silently. Andre's heart was pounding good and fast.
He could hear the humming sound strongly and it seemed to be coming from everywhere, not so much a sound as a feeling under his feet.
The engineer in overalls handed him over to one of the men at the control panels and he was so nervous by this time he took a long time to explain about the swallow. The man had to ask him a lot of questions and he got tongue-tied and could not give clear answers. The man did not smile at all. He went off and a minute later came and fetched Andre to a big office. A black-haired man with glasses was sitting at a desk. On both sides of the desk were telephones and panels of push-buttons. There was a carpet on the floor and huge leather easy chairs.

Andre did not say five words before his lips began trembling and two tears rolled out of his eyes. The man told him, "Sit down, son, and don't
be scared." Then the man tried to explain. How could they cut off the power when thousands and thousands of machines were running off electricity? The trains would stop, hospitals would go dark in the middle of an operation, the mine skips would suddenly halt eight thousand feet down. He knew Andre was concerned about the swallow, only things like that just happened and that was life.
"Life?" Andre said, thinking it was more like death. The big man smiled. He took down Andre's name and address, and he said, "You've done your best, Andre. I'm sorry I can't promise you anything." Downstairs again, Gas Makabeni let him out at the gate. "Are they Switching off the power?" Gas asked. "No."  "Mayi babo!" Gas shook his head and clicked. But he did not smile this time. He could see that the boy was very unhappy. Andre got home hours late and his mother was trantic. He lied to her too, saying he had been detained after school. He kept his eyes away from the powerline and did not have the stomach to look for the swallow he felt so bad about, because they were letting it die. Except for the other swallows that brought it food, it would be dead already And that was life, the man had said It must have been the middle of the night when he woke up. His mother was in the room in her kimono and the light was on. "There's a man come to see you," she said. "Did you ask anyone to come here?" ''No, Mama," he said, dazed. "Get up and come." She sounded cross and he was scared stiff. He went out on to the stoep and there he saw his father in his pyjamas and the back of a big man in brown overalls with ESCOM on them: a black man. It was Gas Makabeni.
"Gas!" he shouted. "Are they going to do it?"
"They're doing it," Gas said. A linesman and a truckdriver came up the steps on the stoep. The linesman explained to Andre's father that a maintenance switchdown had been ordered at minimum load hour. He wanted to be shown where the bird was. Andre glanced, frightened, at his father, who nodded and said, "Show him." It took them only five minutes to get the truck in position under the tower. The maintenance man checked the time and they began running up the extension ladder. Gas hooked a chain in his broad belt and pulled on his flashlight helmet. He swung up on the ladder and began running up it as if he had no weight at all. Up level with the pylon insulators, his flashlight picked up the swallow hanging on the dead wire. He leaned over and carefully worked the bird's tiny claw loose from the wire binding and then he put the swallow in the breastpocket of his overalls. In a minute he was down again and he took the bird out and handed it to the boy. Andre could see even in the light of the flashlamp that the Swallow had faint grey fringes round the edges of its shining blue-black feathers and that meant it was a young bird. This was its first year. He was almost speechless, holding the swallow in his hands and feeling its slight quiver.

"Thanks," he said. "Thanks, Gas. Thanks, mister." His father took the swallow from him at the house and went off to find a box to keep it out of reach of the cats. "Off you go to bed now," the mother said. "You've had quite enough excitement for one day."
The swallow drank thirstily but would not eat anything they could think of, so the parents thought it best to let it go as soon as it would fly. Andre took the box to his fort near the gum tree looking out towards the koppie and the powerline. He held the swallow in his cupped hands and it lay there quiet with the tips of its wings crossed. Then it suddenly took two little jumps with its tiny claws and spread its slender wings. Frantically its wings beat the air and it seemed to be dropping to the ground. Then it skimmed forward only a foot above the grass and he remembered long afterwards how, when it really took wing and began to gain height, it gave a little shiver of happiness as if it knew it was free.

Power questions

1. Compare the different attitudes towards the trapped swallow shown by Andre and his parents. Why were they different?
2. What were his parents most afraid of?
3. Andre was quite a lonely boy living far away from the city. Why was the powerline so important to him?
4. How do you think he felt when he went into the power station to speak to the engineers?
5. Why was it too much to expect that they would switch off the power to save one bird?
6. What made them change their minds again?
7. Find out and write about the migration habits of swallows.
8. You are travelling in a crowded lift in a high building when there is a power cut and the lift stops between floors. Write a story about what happens in the half hour before the electricity is switched on again.

Follow our IG for answers special thanks **Jack Cope**

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