Outback Weather (4)

 “The Safe Bomb”  

JIM SLADE’S ONLY nephew is a chemist.  Not the drug pusher variety but the type who concocts chemical compounds for commercial companies.       

‘Young Andrew’ as Jim continues to refer to him had been visiting the farm since he was a boy, and the pair enjoyed each other’s company in a way that made that made the so-called generation gap seem a myth.   They took delight in ribbing each other, yet the elder always came out on top. 

This visit however, seemed to be different.  On collecting him from the bus depot, Jim remarked on the unusual amount of luggage, which was hesitantly passed off as ‘just a bit of homework’. 

Now winding their way back to the farm, he also sensed an air of seriousness, and decided it was time to brighten up the conversation.                             

“I’m sure you must be a clever fellow these days, having a diploma of what ever, and a good position with a big company, but just be careful that all this success doesn’t take priority over a good life style.   Keep an eye on the lighter side of life,” Jim advised as he leaned across to remove a tennis ball from the glove box.     “I suppose you could tell me how to work out the volume of this?” he asked with a smirk.

  “Yes, it’s   4/3 p R³” came the quick response, but why would you want to know that?”  

Inwardly Jim was smiling.   His passenger had taken the bait.   

 “Well if I ever wanted to fill a soccer ball with water, I could calculate exactly how much I needed!” 

“B. . .. but why would you fill a soccer ball with water?”

 Jim looked over, “Have you ever seen somebody kick one full of water?”

“No.”  The word came out very hesitantly.

“Well,” he grinned, “there you go!  That’s the lighter side of life.”  

A silence reigned for some minutes before Jim tackled him afresh.  “You’ve spent a fair amount of time on the farm, but have you ever had a good look at such a simple thing as a packet of seeds?”

“Er. . .yes.”

“Then let us suppose you prepared a patch of ground, sprinkled those seeds over it, covered them with more soil and kept it watered”.  This time Jim was smiling outwardly, “In a few days an amazing thing happens, and clever as you may be, I’ll bet you don’t know what it is.”

 Andrew knew he was being led and wasn’t sure how to reply. “I reckon you want me to say they germinate, and knowing you, I also reckon that is not the right answer.”

“You’re right, it’s not!  Yet what happens, happens right under your nose.  You think about this; no matter how you plant those seeds, every one of them, tiny as they are, knows which way is up.  You never once see the roots pop out instead . . .  and they don’t need a diploma!”

 A bemused nephew, unable to muster a suitable retort, simply remained silent as they crossed the cattle grid and on to the homestead. 

The warm huggy welcome he received from Aunt Jane restored some sanity setting the atmosphere for the evening.  “Your room is ready,” (and had been for a week) “Jim will bring in the luggage; you grab a towel and have a good freshen up.” She hinted with as much tact as a nightclub bouncer!

A couple of lazy beers later, lots of newsy conversation, followed by a farmer’s feast ate away the evening.. Andrew refrained from revealing the true reason for his visit until an opportune time in the morning. 

It was only after a belly busting breakfast when he and Jim were seated on the verandah that the chemist opened up. “Uncle Jim, yesterday I mentioned bringing some homework with me.  Well it’s a bit more than that --- I want to conduct an experiment to test an invention of mine.”

 “That sounds interesting.” Jim leaned closer, and in a faked secretive hush said “What is this thing?”

 “It’s a bomb uncle.”

 “A bomb!” he blurted, and then in a more controlled voice,” Y.. You’ve invented a   bomb?  Do you mean to say we had a bomb bouncing around the back of my ’ute all the way home?  You’re a maniac – a menace to society.” 

“No no uncle – only the ingredients.  There was no danger.”

 “I see,” he paused for thought.  “You’ve invented a bomb!  Well I’m sure you must be a clever chap, but you just happen to be a few hundred years too late my boy.  It’s already been invented.  You sure have had a sheltered life indeed!”

 “No again uncle.  Hear me out.  This is a different bomb, a very different one.  I call it a safe bomb because it doesn’t explode, it . . . “

 “A safe bomb?  Safe?”  Jim cut him short, to the point of exploding himself.  “You’ve been working too hard lad, you need a break, and you have come to the right place.  A few weeks resting on the farm will put you back together.  Now you just settle back there and relax.”

 “Please let me explain; you have got it all wrong.”

 “Listen to me,” Jim insisted, “Bombs are meant to be as nasty as possible.  They are meant to destroy things.  A bomb that is safe is called a dud, it’s useless and you will never sell it.  Give the idea away now before someone locks you up!”

 “Uncle, just listen?  Normal bombs explode; that is, they send a shock wave and debris outward.       

My bomb implodes, or put another way, it creates a vacuum drawing debris into itself.”

Jim had a think about this by rubbing his chin with thumb and forefinger.  “OK,” he muttered, “I think I’ve got it, but all I can say is ‘so what, why bother?’”

“Well, every year hundreds if not thousands of buildings are demolished around the country, and it is very labour intensive.  Put a bomb or two of mine inside one and the whole thing will cave in on itself in moments.  It’s quick, safe, pollution free and I get to make a packet!”       

 “Then tell me how it works ----- preferably in English.”

 “That’s a secret,” Andrew teased.  Jim remained silent.  “But I’ll tell you anyway.  I use a small explosion to atomise my invented concoction, called a catalyst, to disperse it into the surrounding air space.  Almost immediately the air and catalyst unite to form a liquid, which doesn’t take up much space, causing an almost total vacuum.  Can you follow that?”

 “O K, that’s understandable, but what happens to this liquid?”

 “It’s deliberately made to be unstable, and in a minute or so everything returns to the original state except the catalyst, which by this time has neutralised itself to a harmless powder and mixes well with soil.  Enough of it spread about would make a reasonable fertilizer.”

 “I’ve always hated clever kids.” Jim jested.                              

 “I just need an old shed on a forty hectare paddock to test and assess my idea.”

 “Ah  Ha!   Ah  Ha!!”  Jim exclaimed, his eyes wide open, “Now I’m beginning to understand.  You’ve got your sights on my old donga in the bottom river flat.  Well the answer’s  NO!”

 “Uncle, you have been saying for years that you wanted to get rid of it.  I thought you might be glad to have someone do it for you.”

 “Yes I did say that, but dismantle it, not demolish it.  I want to be able to re-use the material”

 Andrew persisted. “Well if I get the mixture right you should be able to salvage it all. I reckon, when the bomb goes off, the walls will be sucked inwards and then the roof will simply fall down on top of them.”

 Scepticism shadowed Jim’s face. “The key to your theory is ‘...if I get the mixture right...’ Now that doesn’t seem too far removed from Guy Fawks to me!”

“Come on,” the lad pleaded, “It’s the ideal way for me to prove the calculations I’ve done are right.”  Then as a further persuader, added “I’ll pay for any damage I do.”

 “I’ll say you will.  Look, I might chew it over for a while, just be patient.”

 And he did just that by waiting until after lunch to give the OK, and with the proviso “…not a word to Aunt Jane until I say so.  One day,” he added “you’ll understand that women don’t understand!”

 “Gee, thanks unc.” and then with a serious face, “Can I borrow the ’ute?”

 The farmer dipped his hand into his shirt pocket, tossed over the keys and without further comment, sauntered off in the direction of the workshop.  

 All the afternoon with youthful enthusiasm he worked to prepare the shed.  Using carefully timed glances, Jim watched as Andrew travelled back and forth from shed to workshop gathering bits of timber and utensils.  It was late in the day when he made the final trip, returning the tools he had borrowed to their rightful place.  “Well” he grinned, “I’ve finished, and I reckon you are busting to know what I’ve been doing, so what about we both go down and eye it over?”

As they approached the shed Jim remarked that the windows had been boarded up.

 “Yes, I had to do that because the glass would not have stood the pressure.  Also the doors had to be strengthened a lot -- they were nearly off their hinges as it was.”

 Jim inspected the work before commenting.  “Yes, you seem to have done a good job.  I just hope it all goes to plan, for both of us!”

“I thought we’d test it out first thing in the morning, if that’s OK?”

“I suppose so, but not too much of this ‘we’ stunt, you’re on your own with this one. If anything goes wrong, I was on a fishing trip in the Bahamas!”  

“Ooooh.”

 “And I also think it would be a whole lot more fun if the donga was on Sam Giles side of the fence, and you did the job in the middle of the night!”

 A cool tranquility was settling in the valley as the day dwindled into evening.  There was no further mention of the event to come.  Aunt Jane had assumed the pair were finally dismantling the shed, and Jim left her to her assumption.

 Next day, after another banger of a breakfast, they strolled in silence to the workshop to load the ’ute with all the necessities  In time,  they could think of nothing more that may be needed, short of an ambulance, and drove the lot slowly back to the river flat.

 Andrew spent a good deal of time in preparing his chemicals, carefully weighing each in turn until the bomb was assembled, while Jim watched with interest  from a prudent vantage point.

Finally, the device was in position with a couple of wires running up from the donga to a safe position where Jim was waiting beside a high voltage battery fitted with the mandatory red button.  The younger connected the wires, breathed a sigh of relief, and the elder checked his pulse rate!

 “How do I know this thing won’t explode instead of implode?” Jim muttered, airing his thoughts aloud.

 “I guess you will just have to trust me and my qualifications!”

 Jim looked at his nephew eye to eye.  “I don’t trust the accountant, I don’t trust the solicitor, I don’t trust the doctor, why do I trust you?”

 “I’m your nephew!”

“Self recommendation is no substitute for wisdom.  Go on, press the button and I’ll hope you inherited the right genes.”

 Before Jim had time to change his mind, Andrew did just that.  The response was a sudden thump, followed by dull rumbling sounds in the shed and the hissing of air.  For one awful moment, nothing else happened.  Andrew’s heart stalled.  But then came a grating sound followed by one almighty crack as both back and front walls burst free to fall inward, forcing the side walls askew as they went, to finish flat on top of one another.

 Alas, the side walls had moved only slightly, leaving the roof as it was, but supported on only two diagonal corners.   Then, . . . silence!

 A pair of motionless figures stood gaping at the scene, each with very different thoughts; Andrew wishing he had made the mixture a little stronger, and Jim wondering what to do with half a donga.

 Yet while they watched, a puff of wind enticed a creak out of the roof.  In slow motion it rotated, still balanced on two points, until, with a sudden thud buried a free corner into the soft soil, recoiled, broke away from the sides and fell to earth.  Now, with no means of support the two remaining sides tilted inwards to rest against the roof, forming a relatively neat pile of material. 

“A dismantled shed if ever there was one.” Andrew exaggerated, jumping about joyously in youthful enthusiasm.

 “A sheer flaming fluke if ever there was one.” Jim corrected him. “You couldn’t do that again if you lived to be a hundred.”

 “Ooooo yes I can!  With the knowledge from this experiment, I can repeat it, bigger and better as often as I choose.” 

  Driving back to the workshop Jim couldn’t help but share the chemist’s elation.  He had succeeded at the first attempt, albeit with a dab of luck, and nobody, he told himself, could do better than that, nor take it away from him.

 “I suppose, uncle the compensation clause we agreed to is now null and void?”

 “Not at all,” Jim refuted, shocking his nephew back to reality.  “In fact I’m going to exercise it this very day.”

 Even this rebuff could not totally wipe the smile from Andrew’s face.

 Jim smiled back. “We are going into town and you will keep buying me glasses of ale until I say enough, and you will buy a nice bottle of wine for Aunt Jane to enjoy at dinner, after all, I did provide the shed. Would you call that fair recompense?”

 “Absolutely, agreed, I owe you, you are the best uncle I’ve got!”

 “Careful, I might put the price up.”

 “Will Sam be there?”

 “Will the sun come up tomorrow?  Its mail day,” Jim laughed.

 And so it was, by late afternoon, that the farmer tasted his first glass of reward.  At that same moment, Sam Giles entered, approached the bar and acquired a beer by conning Mine Host that it was Jim’s shout.

 “Afternoon Jim and young Andrew,” he drawled, giving the chemist a hearty slap on the back that he could well have done without. ”I just popped into town to collect the mail when I seen you two walkin’ in to swell the numbers.”  

 Each paused for a sip of amber before Sam started afresh.  “I was checkin’ out our boundary again today Jim and I noticed you finally got around to pullin’ down that eyesore of a donga. Seein’ your nephew’s here it’s not too hard to work out who would be doin’ most of the work either.”

 “Sam your nose is way faster than your hand,” came Jim’s quick retort as a subtle reference to his free beer. “We only did it this morning.  And you are more than right, because the nephew did all the work!”  He went on to boast the talents of his relative by describing in detail the events leading to the deconstruction.

 Never one for even moderate praise, Sam listened with interest and without expression, and then said “Well I’m glad to see you’re at least shoutin’him a beer or two for all his efforts.  I’ll go and get another round on your behalf while you sit and boast some more.”  

So boast he did, to anyone who was willing to listen.  Each retelling of course, adding a little more embellishment.  One farmer even put in a request for Andrew to demolish an old barn before he left.

 And why, one might ask, shouldn’t he boast?  After all, Jim Slade’s only nephew is a chemist.   

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© F. L. Kemsley 2006      

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