I finally got around to reading the Catholic Orangemen of Togo, Craig Murray's most recent book, and came across the following, as incongruous as John Perkins, the Economic Hitman, announcing his believe in bizarre hallucinogenic lizard healing. Or E Howard Hunt writing books about the occult. Anyways, here it be:
We stayed the night in the mine’s guest house. Built in 1950’s colonial style, with Crittall aluminium windows, it was built on a steep hill so that the ground floor entrance on one side led to the first floor balcony on the next. We had eaten a roast chicken dinner and the cook had just gone home. The living room led on to the balcony and we decided to go and sit outside. I had to put my shoulder to the metal door to get it open, with great difficulty and a nasty scraping noise. The hinges appeared to have dropped and there was a gouged arc in the concrete floor of the balcony. I pushed the door back closed again to keep out the mosquitoes. We sat on the balcony to enjoy our wine in the night. Being so isolated, a dense canopy of stars spread above us with astonishing clarity. I have never known the sky look so full.
As we sat, rather awed, suddenly there was a hideous shriek from the garden. It sounded almost, but not quite, human. It sounded like some-body in extreme pain. It seemed to come from very close, from the garden just below the balcony. We both got up to look; there was a Stygian darkness down there, and no sign of movement. Then more shrieks, unnervingly close and very human. I looked at Adrienne:
“Baboons?”
“No, thank you” she replied.
Suddenly, the whole garden seemed filled with wailing, so loud we had to shout above it.
“It really does sound like a lot of... things”– I didn’t like to say people.
“And it sounds exactly as if it is coming from just down there.”
“Weird, isn’t it?” said Adrienne, “must be a trick of the hills.”
The suddenly, the noise stopped, with no prior abatement, just as if someone flicked a switch. The silence was extraordinary, and it was a good thirty seconds before the cicadas whirred into life again and the nor- mal thrum of an African evening reached our ears.
We both agreed that evidently there had been some noisy birds in the garden which had been suddenly frightened off by something. I refilled our wine glasses and we tried to get back to normal conversation, when suddenly there came an angry scream, undoubtedly a human yelling at the top of his lungs, and it came from right beside us on the balcony – but there was no-one there.
“OK, now I am scared” I said.
Adrienne just nodded, wide-eyed. Then suddenly the balcony door slammed open with a great crash.
I tried to appear calm: “That’s strange, I didn’t feel any wind.”
“That was really difficult to open earlier” said Adrienne.
“Yes, it was. Perhaps something fell back into place.”
“Can we go inside now?”
“Good idea.”
Sticking together, we walked to the door. It had opened with force and really wedged itself against the concrete at the end of its gouged arc, so as we entered the house it took both of us to wrench it back closed again. I then opened it once more to see if it could now swing freely outwards. No, it still took a great deal of effort to get it open.
“Look, don’t worry. In this climate you easily get freak gusts of wind” I said, unconvincingly.
Adrienne curled up in an armchair with a book, while I closed the balcony door again. It had a hinged metal bar as a locking device. When you swung it into position two closed metal loops, one attached to the balcony door and one to the frame, passed through a slit in the metal bar. You then passed the hasp of the padlock through both metal loops and locked it, securing the bar in position. It felt very comfortable to have that door firmly locked against whatever was outside, even if it only was unnervingly noisy birds.
I got out a book myself and took another armchair. After a few minutes Adrienne said:
“Did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Did you organise that performance to try to scare me into your bed?”
“Certainly bloody not! I’m sorry, of course I mean I’d love to have you in my bed, but I didn’t organise – whatever it was that happened. How could I? I don’t really know what happened myself.”
“Well, it nearly worked.”
Suddenly there was a metallic clang, then the balcony door flew open again with an almighty crash. Adrienne looked at me accusingly.
“I thought you locked that.”
“I did. I mean I was sure that I did.”
Now I really was feeling scared; that cold, clammy feeling when all your skin starts to sweat and the hairs stand up all over your body, and you feel uncertain if you want to go to the loo or to run. With a huge effort I stood up and walked calmly to the balcony. I looked out; there was no sign of anything or anybody. I must just have not closed the padlock properly. It was lying on the floor – I bent down and picked it up. It was firmly locked! This was impossible. The locked hasp had somehow passed through the two closed metal loops of the door and frame. I checked these and found them undamaged. What on Earth had just happened?
I was shaken and confused. Again it took a great deal of effort to scrape the door back over the floor and close it. I fetched the key of the padlock, opened it, and went through the locking process again. I could figure out nothing which I might have done the first time which could have that result. Adrienne and I, by some unspoken agreement, did not talk about it further. We both resumed reading our books, and after a little desultory conversation, went to our respective bedrooms. I lay awake for quite some time, alert to every sound and moving shadow, but eventually tiredness overtook me. The rest of the night was uneventful for both of us.
Kind friends have urged me not to publish this story. I offer no explanation, I saw the impossible. If we shy away from recording events we cannot explain for fear of ridicule, we will not help to advance the cause of human understanding.
