Dan's Adventure in Africa E-Book

Raginmund

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 172

Beschreibung

A children's story about a European boy in colonial Africa. With fun and anti-racism, funny tricks, fun for young and old.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Dan's adventure in Africa

Arrival at the fort

A horrible sight

The first days in the jungle

The hunt for an injured lion

A new trek

Dan's homecoming

A medicinal plant

Burning air

Part 2: The search for the Phoenician travel parchments

The arrangements

First days in Africa's jungle

Strange townsfolk

attack in the dark

The Homecoming

Afterword

Dan's adventure in Africa

Arrival at the fort

Shadows flew through the evening light, bizarre, devoured, threateningly deep, over the dry, glowing prairie. Bats. The steppe begins the second life. A hyena, with her gruesome laughing concert and a vulture fought in the distance for her dead prey.

Drums shake the whole Ground, so that even a pack of lions force themselves to leave. As unsuspectingly a trek where pushed through the African nightlife. Disempowered by the journey, the whole miserable looking crowd of people is struggling to still reach there goal.

Suddenly the vultures appear in their horizon of vision and even the last ones become restless without seeing it first.

"That's why the drums," said Fernandes called Fed, one of the riders patrol.

"Yes," assessing for a moment, "it's the fort," came it further from the Leader.

"We're too late. If they where more, they might have changed their minds," Fed.

Silently the two blond broad-shouldered rode down the trek to show the people safety again. But the fear was there. They knew it was somewhere on the target. None of them knew exactly what to expect. They wondered if it was in the fort or how the others would welcome them.

They had given up everything and now?

Maybe the end of the line? Tom the trekking guide rode, with Fed a little ahead. Actually Fernandes is also one of the trek people, a Spaniard who married an Englishwoman and went with an 8 year old son only to Africa, because of the already 100 years long tensions of the naval forces.

Tom was English who lived in Africa for 20 years and was politically completely uninterested, he just kept scolding the Queen.

Because she's not sending troops to protect the settler for political reasons. It wasn't really bearable yet.

"There are actually only two enemies here, great ones you can't learn anything against, death and again death". Tom raised after long silence.

It was now long since they became friends, Fed asked surprised. "How so"?

"There's nothing you can do about the drought and the `black people´." Tom.

- Silence. -

"If the drought hasn't gotten rid of, the 'blacks' will get." Tom.

"Why do the 'blacks' take the dead into there camp?" Fed.

Slightly smiling at his friend's frightenedness Tom responded .

"No don't worry they don't do what its said of them, eating people, but they don't even keep a dog alive. They are afraid that the spirit will enter in any living being influenced by 'whites' and bring in new 'whites'. Because they kept coming back".

They laughed for a moment, then they got serious again.

Since the sun had already set so far, torches were lit.

Dan the son of Fernandes brought them two torches.

Shocked, the father asked, "You're not asleep yet, but now you go - and thank you", and stroked his light-blond hair.

When the boy was gone again, Fed raised again. "And they don't realize that the stream won't stop?"

"Yes - now it's "tradition," we would call it."

Tom.

"Awful." Fed.

"This is how every people does it, here it is called barbarism, elsewhere more civilized 'war'". Tom.

"And you?" asked Fed.

"I call it a pointless waste of time, with the side effects, of no overpopulation of the earth," Tom.

"Tom how did you survived 20 years here," Fed.

"In the summer I am on the coast, in winter I sometimes lead people into the country or work as a trader to secure my life. Are you smarter now"? Tom.

He didn't like saying it, like he wasn't comfortable with it.

Then they only talked with individual sentences thrown into the silence. Tom said hard,

"Fernandes you have become my friend with your family. I tell you, your wife knows, it's not staying with the others until it's too late.

They themselves have become like beasts on the ship when something happens it becomes dangerous, especially when they start to regret it, - because you led them with me.

Believe me."

Meanwhile a few hours had passed and the two riders recognized already the first dead on which the vultures raged, even the hyenas, seemed to have found their victims without fight.

Tom signaled to stop and rode with Fernandes ahead.

After a few shots, the vultures screamed and fled, the hyenas they shot death.

"What now," asks Fed.

In front of them was a fort littered with corpses, none of which could be identified, so they looked.

"Well, what now, we can't go in today," Tom

"Let's keep them resting there till tomorrow"?

- said Fed questioning.

"Yeah, but someone got to keep a watch here over night"- Tom

"I'll do it you have to get back to the trek," Fed.

"Thanks i´ll be with your family," Tom.

"OK", Fed

"Start a fire, and if you shoot, some one of us will come. Keep the fire up! - Do you still have coffee?" Tom asked, explaining, showing that he didn't really like it.

"Yes, thanks." They hugged each other and Tom rode back.

Back he was already surrounded by everyone, because everyone had heard the shots and asked confusedly what was going on in the fort and where was Fernandes. Tom told everything, had let build a wagon circle and set up guardians.

The night passed without further incidents, accompanied by the drums of the natives.

A horrible sight

The next morning the trek started with the first rays of sunlight. The drumming sounded and there was a stiff silence if it hadn't been disturbed by some returning night hunters.

But after half an hour they stopped and realized that the dead had to be buried first.

Since it was felt better for the children, they did not yet drive in.

Welcoming the others and shake hands with Tom, Fed went into his cart and fell asleep next to Dan.

In the fort, some of the people were busy collecting the dead on a barrow. Another part of the men started digging a big pit. And the women, instructing the big children to take care of the little ones outside, prepared a few sleeping places. Then they gathered everything edible and prepared it together.

By evening the grave had been closed and rocked. Everyone gathered around it. The guide prayed, then they observed a few minute's of silence and went out for dinner.

After they agreed to sleep at the fort and to have a meeting.

Around 8 pm the meeting was opened and Tom was the first to speak.

"You have chosen me to lead this meeting as your trek leader. Thanks! First of all, I would like to say that all of present are of 21 years of age. I have gathered all the concerns and read them right away. I'll answer a question that I've been asked a lot before.

Yeah, I'm staying, but only two months, and I'll tell you what we have to reach till then.

Now to the agenda of the meeting. First of all, who should continue to be 'in charge'.

Secondly, what needs to be done in terms of construction and cultivation.

Thirdly, the development of a school and legislative plan.

Fourth plan on...

During the meeting, Dan went through the house systematically, by his way. The central point was, a so-called middle room in which everything took place during the day. Of course, this had to be examined first.

Dan is as already mentioned 8 years, emaciated from the exertions of the journey, a thin white linen shirt and blue trousers dresses him. He has straight, light blond hair, star-blue eyes and sun-tanned skin.

As a precaution, he's got a knife in his hand that he traded from Tom with irresistible child - looking eyes. A custom-made path knife.

Dan could have held it with three hands. It was so long that when he put it in the side of his snake leather belt that his father made him, it tapped him with the tip to his knee while running.

The knife firmly raised, jerking the corners, Dan paced through the house. Since nothing of the things had been cleared out yet, he thought nothing had been looked through yet.

For these reasons he put all his expedition treasures on the table in the middle room.

It became a chaotic heap from silver cutlery to a botanical collection with maps of the area.

After he had looked through everything, it looked like a hurricane went through, on the table and all around.

When he tried to sort the whole thing, he fell asleep.

When the parents came home, they were slightly frightened until they saw Dan sleeping in the pile. So they had to be careful not to wake him up by laughing.

"I'll put him to bed first," said his mother.

When they came back, they locked each other and the chaos. Started laughing again.

"Now he knows everything we have." Fed.

"Yeah, more than me and I already had a lot sorted in a certain place.- But I didn't know the maps and plant boxes here." Jenny

"In this case, he's ahead of us. But to be smarter then, he can help you clean up tomorrow." Fed.

"He'll be glad." Jenny

"Nothing can help him to escape." Fed.

Suddenly Tom comes in and looks at Fed and Jenny, Dan's mother, and burst out laughing.

"Ah, here some one has made you trouble, job, Jenny," says Tom.

Since Jenny did not answer right away, Fed said with a slight smile, "Dan is more thorough than we are, nothing remains unexamined.

Actually, I'm proud that Dan is so bright and well inquisitive. We're just scared here in the wild. It's certainly not appropriate."

"I'll give you the advice to teach Dan early how to shoot. On his first trip, he should be able to. Stopping it would be wrong "that'll break Dan for sure.

I'll take him as long as I'm here, if you don't mind." Tom suggested.

"No, it would certainly be the best," said the father.

"If there really is no other way, teach him everything, and if it takes longer, I beg you, I'm afraid something will happen to Dan."

Fed.

-

" I'll take him to the gunsmith tomorrow to measure," Tom said, "then we'll see."

With the arrangement they went, smiling once more to the pile, then to sleep.

The next morning Tom went with Dan, after he had heard of his clean-up fate, from his father, early to the gunsmith's shop, who was already equipping himself to offer something else.

"Hello Tom, what can I do for you," he asked immediately putting down a box and sitting on it.

"I need a rifle..." Tom.

Without letting Tom say, "Yours was so good, isn't there anything more you can do?"

"I want it for Fed's son, I brought him to measure." Tom.

"Well, come on Dan, it's not my money that goes out through the window, I'm just picking it up." The blacksmith said After a while they came back to the shop section.

"What should your wish look like in particular, he will fall if he just touches the tap."

"That is your job, it should sit comfortable in his hand, shoot like any rifle, you only have to reduce the recoil." Tom.

"You have nerves you know exactly that the clout is about to wane", Blacksmith.

"When can I pick it up? 3 days are enough for you. " Tom.

"Tom."

He didn't answer any more and was already leaving.

"Then at least send the boy over to me every morning." Smith.

"That's OK," came from afar.

"Why do you do that?"asked Dan - Tom.

"To ensure the safety of your life." Tom.

"Nobody does anything to me." Dan.

"Not here, but can you promise to stay in the fort forever?" Tom asked, glancing at Dan from the side.

They were silent the rest of the way.

It was only in front of the house that Dan said, "But I can't shoot at all and what if the recoil is really too big?"

"Then we have to see that we can deal with it. Now go in, we both still have something to do. " Tom.

"Yes Sir," replied Dan and went inside. He didn't like tidying up at all, but he did understand it.

The construction turmoil had already begun in the fort. The noise of saws and hammers filled the air. Instructions were shouted through the air, which when carried out and led to a really satisfied result. They used what was already there and tried to redesign it according to their taste according to all the rules of art and craftsmanship.

In the evening the men examined with the women and children what they had not cleaned up during the day. Mainly there were things that were already in the house, but not part of everyday use. For example the botanist collection. Finally, the children were already asleep and an agreement was reached on the whereabouts of the men's work materials.

For many this was also new, many were also sons of lords or fathers who had a job that was of no use to them here and wanted to try their chances as farmers on the promised land.

In the next few days, the work went on easier and they got used to it. Sometimes the children were scolded if they got too close to where the building was going.

Dan, on the other hand, learned to read traces from Tom and, through the luck of having a botanical collection, got to know some poisonous and some edible plants. In addition, 3 plants whose sap is good for wounds, which he himself learned from the "blacks".

Since Dan spent the whole day with Tom, he first took up the task of expanding his tasks in combination with other things, letting him read the names from the collection himself and the explanation of the dead botanist.

He was just wondering what he wrote about the plants and had Dan write down the text on one plant every day.

In the meantime they went to pick up the rifle. It was a >> lady's rifle << that was shortened once more and was padded with cotton and metal spring sheet on the back.

In this way, the kickback should be absorbed by at least to a half.

Now Dan also learned to shoot, first of all he went down and everyone laughed.

If Tom hadn't held him, he would have had run away.

"Let me, he said it right away already," shouted Dan at him and wanted to free himself. But the hands that held him were like screw clamps. The hands of a hunter, those of the guide, held him like a merciless trap. It wasn't until Dan calmed down again that Tom said, "You can't stand stiffly, straight like a board behind it. You are not a tree, you can be moved. Be glad a tree that bothers some one is simply felled, or are there several just pathetically burned or blown up. A hunter needs the trees as protection from the weather, rain or other - or support.

In some trees you can also find certain animals and if you have read the botanist's texts correctly, you will know that some plants can also be found predominantly on certain trees. So think twice about cutting down a tree, otherwise you will soon find nothing at all.

Check it out in the fort, just sand.

But now come so you can learn how to shoot, I'll help you. " Tom.

So he showed him how to stand and shoot at standing objects.

Over time, these increased in distance and decreased in size.

Tom got him to the point that Dan also managed a so-called blind shooting.

It looked like that the bottles with threads were hung up until the thread could no longer be seen. Dan should >> calculate << on the slope where the thread is and then shoot it through.

Later they were rocking and flying, then rolling, ending with several movements.

For this purpose Tom had built strips of bushes, twigs, which he could change in a flash with different strings of thread.

Doses were rolled onto it, which Dan should shoot at the same moment if Tom wanted to.

In order to increase the reaction speed, and to train for the startle reaction, cans were thrown at him directly from the front, or from behind in some direction, which he should then hit.

So that Dan didn't get trigger-happy, the distance between the shooting practice was extended from time to time so that he wouldn't shoot anything that was moving. In the meantime, Dan had learned other things as well.

Now he also knew how to pack the back-bag in a certain order, including his bags and the reason why what should be packed when. Or how to build a safe shelter, determine the direction and determine the weather in advance through the animals. In addition, how to break open his prey, that is, how to remove the organs.

He learned to make a campfire, to prepare something to eat from it, to make useful things from the skin of the animals and to keep the fire at a certain height. They both sewed a Back-bag and new clothes for him, but Jenny also sewed with them.

A year had passed and Tom would have liked to have been gone a long time, but he wasn't a man who started something and didn't finish it. Besides, he didn't let anyone down and on the other hand, he also enjoyed it, because Dan was a good student. Dan didn't bother reading and writing either because the readings were interesting. So the very much reduced playing time didn't bother him.

In the evening he still walked and ran a little because Tom said that someone in the jungle often had to walk for days and sometimes very quickly. If he could not shoot then, he would run in vain.

The first days in the jungle

In the evening Tom was still sitting outside on the stairs in front of the door.

Since it was long past midnight, Fed went out, he knew that Tom would only do something like this if he had something important to do for him the next day. Fed sat quietly next to him and took in the evening air with relish.

For a long time they sat there in silence, as if they both suspected something and watched the last memories like a film covered with a veil.

"I've been expecting you," said Tom, breaking the silence.

But there was only silence following.

Fed had let himself be carried away by the silence, heard the sentence but did not answer it.

"You entrusted your son to me, I'll take him with me," Tom broke the silence for good.

Fed just asked "when?"

“With the sun is coming up?” Tom.

"Does Dan know"? Fed.

"No, - he should sleep peacefully, I sent him early and let him run really tired before. So that he sleeps. " Tom.

"And Jenny?" Fed.

"No, I knew you were coming." Tom.

There was another short silence.

"How is he doing except when shooting, we've all seen that." Fed.

"Well, he's a very good student, you can leave him alone soon. - If I had a son like that, I would be proud of him, I did love to be his teacher. " Tom.

"He also had a good teacher." Fed.

"He still has." Tom.

The silence continued.

When the nautical twilight began, so the sky began to turn red, Tom got up, touched Fed by the shoulder and said, "Let's go wake Jenny and Dan. Jenny should see Dan again before. " So they went in.