by Danny Bent
You've Gone Too Far
This Time, Sir!
by
Danny Bent
ISBN 1456550306
EAN 978-1456550301
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
'You've Gone Too Far This Time, Sir' was first published by Night Publishing, a trading name of Valley Strategies Ltd., a UK-registered private limited-liability company, registration number 5796186. Night Publishing can be contacted at: http://www.nightpublishing.com.
'You've Gone Too Far This Time, Sir' is the copyright of the author, Danny Bent, 2011. All rights are reserved.
All illustrations and the cover design are the copyright of the artist, Sandra Rivaud, 2011. All rights are reserved.
Danny Bent's website can be found at: http://www.dannybent.com/
Chapter 1
The rhythmic hum of wings beating as birds fly overhead fills my ears. I can hear the sea breeze blowing up the valley, playing with the leaves on the trees, and the pounding of the waves beneath me slowly eating away at the rock formations. I can hear the terrified screams of my friends echoing around the mountainside and I can see their tear-stained faces peering over the thirty foot vertical cliff.
I’m at the bottom of the cliff. I can’t speak and I can’t feel my body.
Thirty seconds ago I had been cycling with friends on the Côte d'Azur in France, climbing from turquoise blue sea to snow capped peak repeatedly to train both legs and lungs to cope with the pain during the racing season. My cleanly shaven, white, freckled legs were becoming honed machines, pistons that fired without the slightest effort. My lungs were able to suck in and process litres of the thin mountain air with each gasp. I was feeling strong, pushing harder with thoughts of glory in the back of my mind.
Suddenly, my super light carbon wheel clipped a rider in front, my best friend and arch-enemy on the bike, Stephen Bell. If ever there was a man built for cycling it was Steve. Arched back, narrow piercing eyes, thighs like tree trunks and a competitive edge that could slice diamonds. We had been rivals since my introduction to cycling with the advantage switching from one to the other as the years passed by. We had crossed the finish line with exactly the same time in our previous race and I was starting to feel the balance tipping in my favour again.
The contact flipped my bike, throwing it to the right, towards the cliff edge, catapulting me and the bike clear off the road, down the vertical face of the abyss.
I remember the fall in slow motion. The first moment as I left the road, the faintest smell of burning rubber, the floating sensation, reaching to grab a lone, straggly weed growing between the cracks in the limestone rocks, the sight of it coming free in my hand with only the tiniest amount of force, the sensation of falling forever. And then nothing.
There are more eyes looking down on me now. Some I recognise, some I don’t. The screams are still ringing in my ears. A single tear falls through the air. The sun reflects off the shimmering surface as it falls to earth like a tear from heaven. It lands on my left shoe, triggering a tingling in my big toe. Initially the sensation just sits in my toe wondering what to do next, contemplating its options, then it spreads up my right leg and down the left. I can move my legs again! It rushes up my spine, splits and zips down both my arms. My fingers are wiggling. With an almighty bang this sensation explodes in my brain and voice box. My mouth opens and I shout back at the onlookers “I THINK I’M ALIVE”.
* * *
This is a story about love and adventure. It is also a true story. Our main character is a boy born in the Peak District amongst the bubbling Buxton springs. Nestled in a green and thriving valley, he was born into a simple household where his cot lies. Two pairs of eyes look on him from above, one set blue, the other hazel brown.
The eyes belong to his parents, two people who formed a bond and gave their genetic structure to our boy and then their lives. Struggling to afford to furnish their flat, they yet lavished him with undivided love, attention and care. Albino blonde, spattered with freckles, ears that his head will eventually grow into, his mother's blue eyes and a strong jaw line adorned with a cheeky grin, he lays quietly like a bomb waiting to detonate.
Placing him in a backpack, his Dad - an international athlete - would take him orienteering before he could walk. Running from point to point, through rivers, over fells, climbing rocks, how could our boy not pick up a bit of this adventurous spirit along the way? An attitude was shaped that no experience was a bad experience. His mum found him drinking from the toilet bowl at the age of one. Rather than tell him off, she asked what it tasted like, whilst reassuring him that the water from the taps was nicer.
As soon as he could walk, he would climb tables, leap off sofas, clamber into streams, chase frogs. He’d run up and down the almost vertical steps outside their house. When he was two years old his family finally had the money to see what was outside of Great Britain, and they all went camping in France. On a ferry crossing a wise man in a dark overcoat with a fashionable moustache watched him running around, overexcited and without a care in the world, and stated “He’s like an accident waiting to happen.”
At four years old he undertook his first adventure on his bicycle. Having just removed his stabilisers he decided this was it; no more help. He opened the front door, sat on the stairs that led from the hallway, and mounted his bike. He wobbled at first but then cheered wildly as he managed to stay on, gripping the handle bars so that his knuckles were as white as his legs were shaky. He passed the dressing table and the chest of drawers containing all the muddy shoes and maps. The coat stand whizzed by as he picked up speed, passing through the front door. He didn’t want to stop and proceeded to cycle down the steep steps before flying over the handlebars.
The 'poorlies' on his knees and the lump on his head did nothing to deaden his adventurous spirit which was nurtured and allowed to grow with time. The scars that remained were treasured - he was the first boy in his class to ride a bike without stabilisers. He was back on in no time and he was fast, the fastest kid in the street. But he couldn’t turn corners and wasn’t much good at stopping.
When the family moved to a house just up the road from their flat, a cycle workshop was created in the cellar. His dad would use parts of wrecked old bicycles to fix his wrecked new ones.
At eleven, during a junior school leavers' assembly in front of all the mums and dads, his headmistress asked his classmates what they wanted to do when they left school. Footballer, doctor, film star, politician they replied one by one. His answer was no surprise to the audience who had grown used to his quirky optimism and spirit. "I want to cycle round the world and raise money for charity". A big 'Ahhhhh' resounded around the school hall, “so sweet.”
However, before he could start realising dreams, he had a few more lessons to learn.
He graduated and left Southampton University with the highest honours in tomfoolery, indulgent buffoonery and mathematics. Educational establishments had rapped him in cotton wool for the past fifteen years, protected him from growing up and armed him with a solitary piece of paper rolled and tied with a ribbon - a degree certificate - and told him to get out there in the real world, find a job, build a life, start a pension, acquire life insurance, get married and start a family.
“What?” he remembers thinking, “I didn’t sign up for this!”
He was lost in the big grown-up world. Friends’ values and opinions changed overnight, about turns were made but he didn’t hear the sergeant give the ord
er. No one wanted to be silly any more. Trips to Toys R Us to check out the cool toys Geoffrey the Giraffe had released this month seemed to be over. Cycling to work in the same clothes you went out in the previous night was deemed a no-no. Protesting against the violation of human rights was out the window. Trying to outdo each other with bad taste outfits from the local Oxfam shop no longer added to your street credentials. It was all designer frocks, Chelsea tractors, mobile phones, 2.4 children and that inevitable second house in the country. Under friends' arms he saw briefcases not surf boards. Suits were the new shorts, Consumerism the new Marxism.
Lost and disorientated, he was like a child ripped from its mother’s bosom and left in the heat of the savannah. Out there he was easy prey for the predators, those that stop at nothing until you are between their jaws as they tear the life from you. Financial institution after financial institution snapped, gulped and dived - he had to leap high to keep out of their reach. He did his best but was no match for their craftiness, their cunning. In the end his world became part of their world, the trading floor. He was told to 'get up to speed fast' so that they could start ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’. Moving at speed and singing were things he enjoyed; working in an office was not.
Without the slightest interest in what he was doing, and without a single care for the money that was mounting up in his bank account, he was promoted to supervisor and then manager. With his tie slung low, shirt untucked and blonde shaggy hair resting on his shoulders, he would fly all over Europe telling people how they should perform, what his firm expected and the results which were fundamental to the business, when it was clear to see that he wasn’t following his own advice.
Walking like a Zombie from bed, to train, to work, and then back again, he was miserable, his energy lost. His one release was his bike – taking it away on holiday and flying up and down mountains without a care in the world.
The boy in question is me, Danny Bent. Not exceptional, but not what you would call normal either.
* * *
At that exact moment, as I was falling to what should have been my certain death in the Alps, I was more alive than I’d been the past five years.
Instead of closing them for eternity, it opened my eyes. How could I have been given so much and not give something back? I didn't need to think of me - enough people were doing that already. I wanted to think of someone else, something else
Back in the office one week after my fall I packed my things into a small box, told my boss I wouldn’t be coming back and within another twenty-four hours was sitting in a classroom surrounded by happy smiling faces. I was taking the next pedal rotation on my journey through life….
Chapter 2
My heart races. There is no way on earth I’d have thought I would be here, not now, not ever. A trickle of sweat sweeps down my cheek, winding in and out of the red bristles that come from days without a mirror or razor. Pakistan is laid out before me in all its splendour.
A country at war on two fronts. I didn’t think this was a trip for this lifetime. The question was whether it might be the end of it.
To the west lies the border with Afghanistan where staying alive isn’t easy. Residents can be ousted from their homes at breakfast by the Pakistani army which then proceeds to blow up their dwellings in search of targets. At midday they may have to dive for cover, narrowly avoiding misguided US missiles falling the wrong side of the Afghan border, only to be blown up at tea time by a suicide bomber.
To the east is India. Ever since partition sixty years ago, military conflicts and territorial disputes have been rife. A country brutally cut in two by Britain, the scar is yet to heal and blood still weeps from the wound.
Looking past all this is a country shrouded in a Burka of beauty. In the south, miles of golden beaches meet hot dry deserts etched with flowing rivers of life. The rich alluvial plains of the Punjab are joined by aquamarine rivers flowing from glaciers enveloped by the three highest mountain ranges in the world. Symbolising the war, violence and the power struggle taking place in Pakistan, the Himalayas, the Karakoram, and the Hindu Kush all collide in a monstrosity of power and grace. Pakistan has so many mountains soaring above the clouds at over six thousand metres that many of them haven’t been given so much as a name.
I’m balanced on two square inch pieces of rubber. My legs are spinning at one hundred revolutions per minute. The wind is tearing at the clothes that cover all my body except my face which is decorated with sparkling crystals of frost and ice.
The mountains fill my field of vision, in front, behind, left and right. They fill my every thought, my consciousness and my subconscious. If it wasn’t for a rough road following the valley I’d be lost and, without shelter, would be dead by nightfall. One lapse in concentration on the way down could see me repeating my fall in France, but this time the drop is going to be at least three hundred foot. Jagged rocks protruding from the valley floor wait to impale and smash my body to pulp. My remains would be fought over by the numerous brown bears, wolves and the rare snow leopards that frequent these mountain passes. They are my only company. Otherwise I’m alone.
How on earth did I find myself travelling alone on a bicycle in what the national press, media and travel organisations describe as the most dangerous country in the world? What possesses a man to enter such a country, to put his life on the line, to pit his wits against murderous conditions and men? Can one solitary man survive?
To start answering these questions I need, without the help of a DeLorean DMC-12 and the Doc, to take you back in time….
* * *
I became a Junior School teacher in the leafy suburbs of West London. I cycled the Thames towpath to school where I’d be greeted by thirty happy smiling faces all longing for the education I had been graced to give them. I guess I wasn’t your stereotypical teacher. I didn’t tell the kids off, I didn’t use a marker pen and a whiteboard, didn’t dress in tweed with arm pads. I drank juice not tea, hung out in the playground not the staff room, ran in corridors and played pranks on other teachers. I was affectionately known as the naughtiest kid in the school.
Consequently I would always get allocated the box classroom farthest away from everyone else to avoid disruption. Encouraging the children to throw paint at Teacher in art, dressing in helmets and harnesses and climbing trees in maths, or creating Plasticine stop frame animations in science, I wanted my classroom to be alive. Not just a buzz or a heart beat. I liked the tiles on the roof to be vibrating. Some days I was tempted to try and blow the roof clean off. (I got into trouble for that one). I was one of the pupils and they were all teachers. Their knowledge and ideas were as valuable as mine.
A particularly confident nine year old, Lucy, used to put her hand up and say “You’ve gone too far this time, Sir,” before the head teacher bustled in looking fraught and agitated wondering what all the commotion was about. I loved it.
So when in Geography I was struggling to make the subject of Chembakolli, a rural village in India, as exciting for the kids as it was for me, I was troubled. How could I bring this topic to life? I hoped to find a solution in my friend Louisa, a teacher who danced her way through class with smiles, laughter and enthusiasm - the perfect person to consult.
In a world of home computers, DVDs, MP3 players, the latest video games, and interactive TV, we agreed the children needed something they could relate to. After a bit of thinking and a few too many beers, she stated that kids needed to see a figure they could relate to out there - a figure they knew, respected - living in a mud hut in the village, collecting water and washing in the local stream, hunting for food with a bow and arrow, taking the long journey to school each day through the jungle, avoiding the local wildlife.
As tequila hit the back of my throat and more brain cells evaporated, an idea suddenly emerged through the dulling cloud of alcohol: “I could go out there.”
Lou gave me her very best disapproving teacher face. “You’d have to be stark raving bonkers to do
that…….. no shower, no hot water, no X Factor, teaching at a village school with no books, no boards, no pens. Eating brains, maggots and chicken feet.” She stopped her tirade. “You’re right!! You’d be perfect.”
* * *
“You are what?” It was Lucy again. I was telling my class I was leaving to go and live and teach in Chembakolli. “Oh, you’ve gone too far this time, Sir.”
The next moment will stay with me for the rest of my life, a memory burnt into my retinas. The problem with giving children an open playing field in which to work, where they are confident to speak their mind without the fear of retribution or teasing, is that sometimes they can really catch you off guard.
Jasper, a boy normally with his head in the clouds but with an amazing aptitude to relate subjects to real life, pops up his hand and asks “How will you get there?”
In my head I’m thinking “I’ll fly, how else would I get there, silly bean?” until following his gaze I see where he is looking. My eyes fix on the back of the classroom. Our Green Awareness poster. I look back at his eager face waiting for an answer. The rest of the class turn in anticipation. I take two steps forward and then one back towards my desk. There’s a big red cross next to the plane partnered with a sad face and a fact card written in my own hand telling the children that air travel pollutes the world more than all the power plants in China, that it produces more CO2 than any other business. Another smaller cross sits next to a picture of a train and a bus. The next on the list is a child on a bicycle with a big happy face and a big tick.