War, women and dogs

Who suffers most in a war?  The commanders, who fight with coloured pins stabbed in a map?  The soldiers, trained to the weapons and the glory?  Or the women, the children, the old and the helpless, who want none of it – and the animals, who do not understand?

The women

Men don’t have to “adjust to a war situation.”  They cause it!  But ever since one dumbfool man threw a rock at another, women have had to bear with their men going off to fight, all too often taking their sons with them.

Behind me I sense centuries of women, dressed in the fashions of their time – skins, bustles, mid-calf skirts – nodding and saying, “Oh yes, we know.  We too!”  It has happened to every generation.  Did we think we would be spared?

Those women must have coped somehow.  I mean, if all the men went to war and all the women went to pieces the problem of adjusting would have fallen away, along with mankind.

How did early women manage?  Did she sit like this, staring down into a beautiful valley turned suddenly hostile, worrying and wondering when , if ever, her Early Man would come back?  Did she force herself up from her despondency and get along with minding the kids and tending the fire?  Even taking advantage of the situation and going on a crash diet and redecorating the cave walls while the old man was out from underfoot?

Did everything go wrong as soon as he left?  Sure, she didn’t have a fridge whose handle would fall off leaving the door in the locked position ten minutes before breakfast on a school day.    And she didn’t have a car whose torque, whatever that is, wouldn’t torque to her any more because of something to do with the engine turning which won’t.

But I bet the moment her he-man hitched his haunch over hump of the hill the dog threw a fit that looked suspiciously like rabies and there weren’t any vets in those days, and an out-of-season landslide brought the cave down.

Today’s Man gets called out at half an hour’s notice and Today’s Woman spins through the kitchen looking for something substantial to feed him before he goes because the roast isn’t done yet; sifts desperately through the sand pit for the camp cutlery set and tin mug the kids were playing with; frantically sews buttons back on his pants while he’s stepping into them already.

Perhaps it’s no worse than trying to get a decent design in war paint on him while he’s sweating and won’t keep still, sharpening the spikes on his mace, or clanking him into his armour.

Today’s Son wallows in war tales, talks weapons and tactics with his father beyond his mother’s understanding.  She purrs with pride to see him grow so fine and strong and wishes he was a baby she could cradle away from harm.  All too soon he will be off too, a man with a boy’s light laughter.  And they’ll come back (dear Lord, let them come back), brother warriors the pair of them, thumping each others’ shoulders and leaving the dreadful language men talk among themselves outside like dirty boots.  And she’ll pretend she wasn’t miserable without them and send them off to wash as if they were children.

Love and worry are worn together, the warp and the weave of the heart’s homespun mantle.

We tread the same path through the centuries, we women, in our skins and bustles and mid-calf skirts, minis and denims and all.  And while our men fight to stop the fighting and dare not stop themselves or be over-run, we must leave for a moment our dismal valley-watching and go in and feed the kids and the cats and tell the war to wait while we finish the chores.

Men who go to war: the husband

 

The dogs

When you are just a little puppy, loving only your mother in all the world, they take you away, from her, from your brothers and sisters.

You don’t understand.  You just don’t understand why.

But they are good to you and soon the hurt eases.  You are a child with their children and life is good.  For some reason, time goes faster for you than for them.  The children are still children when you are grown.  And you are a parent with their parents.  They are all you want and all you need and life is good, loving only them in all the world.

In the night strangers come, wet with rain, reeking of hate and danger.  You challenge them but they are many.  They drag your people from their beds, the parents and the children.  Drag them shrieking out into the rain.

You fight.  You bite.  You scream for help.  But the strangers are many and no help comes.  The clothes are torn from your people.  Struggling and praying they are apassed from man to man.

Guns bark.  Pangas flash.  And at last the screams are stopped with blood.

And the strangers walk away, laughing.

All night you stay with them.  With their blood and their silence in the rain.  You call to them and lick their faces, loving only them in all the world.  But they grow cold in the rain.  All night you cry for help and no help comes.

You don’t understand.  You just don’t understand why.

The 'beautiful valley'; Umtali (Mutare) in the distance

                                       ***

In the pre-dawn of Wednesday, August 11th 1971, Umtali came under mortar attack.  In a few moments everyone in the suburb of Greenside realised what was happening – everyone except the animals.  Without the reassurance and control few owners had time or thought to give them, they fled in panic into other suburbs, to the distant industrial sites, up Christmas Pass on the other side of town, into the hills, anywhere to escape the awful noise. 

All that day our phones rang incessantly as frantic owners enquired after lost pets and other reported dogs cowering in dark corners or staggering around exhausted, lost and blank-eyed with shock.

Some dogs ran until their pads were bleeding and they were virtually crawling on their elbows.  Some normally friendly dogs turned so vicious in their fear they attacked those trying to help them.  One very old dog was found an incredible distance from his home, hiding in a lumber yard.  A ridgeback puppy was not found until five days later.  Few had any form of identification on them and afterwards an appeal was launched for people to put licence discs or address tags on their dogs because this sort of thing could happen again.  How much quicker it would have been to have called the owner to come to the dog instead of spending twenty precious minutes coaxing it out of some inaccessible place while all those others were crying for help.  Those dogs needed their owners that day far more than they needed us.

The cats in the affected areas vanished, then turned up later ready to forgive everyone the way cats do.  There was only one report of a missing cat.  This Siamese belonged to the house whose roof was hit and after a long and desperate search was found unharmed beneath the rubble.

Over a month later another casualty came to light – a small black dog belonging to a man who worked at Forbes Border Post.  This dog was found after the raid with paralyzed hindquarters and taken to a vet, who advised the owner to let him put him to sleep.  The owner did not want to do this and hid the dog illegally in one of the townships in a chicken coop under a wheelbarrow.

Because the dragging legs became raw, he made “socks” from bicycle inner tube and wired them on.  The lack of circulation and air caused the hind feet to rot and it was a mercy that the dog could not feel anything.  The genuinely concerned owner had done his best in his ignorance.

Following a report, this pathetic little casualty was discovered and taken again to a vet.  As he was removing the rubber and wire from the putrid feet, the vet noticed a pronounced difference in the size, shape and expression in each of the dog’s eyes.  A few simple tests showed positive brain damage.  This time the sad owner agreed to have his put out of its long misery.

***