The Eagle and The Cross

He woke up with a sudden start. The atmosphere tingled with warning. The darkness was pitch-black. He blinked his eyes, but could see absolutely nothing. He leaned over and parted the hessian that covered the window. The African night was crisp and clean, but the sky was thickly clouded; there was not even a hint of starlight. He was alert and ready, but for what? He had been dreaming something. What was it? What strange sensation had disturbed him? Something was definitely amiss, but what? His mind was now in a whirl of thoughts. Here he was, trapped on his way back; stopped by a swollen river again; the wide stretch of brown water had been frothing and raging as it tumbled menacingly across his track through the bush. It flowed much stronger and more dangerously than any of the rivers in which he had swum in Germany. How long before the river would go down? He wanted to get back; the new roof sheets had to be put on quickly; he needed to get these roofing nails to them; he was also on his way to give catechism classes; would the people come back after the rains, or must he start all over again? Would the river subside tonight, or would he have to wait for days? “Stop this,” he said to himself, almost out aloud. “You must either get back to sleep, or you must halt this cycle of pointless thinking.” But it didn’t work. His usual self-discipline was not enough. The coldness of the sandveld forest was giving him goose bumps, and he pulled the rough, smoke-filled blankets around himself. He simply could not snuggle up and get back to sleep. Suddenly, there was a humming blaze of fierce light. The electric-blue aura was all around him in an instant. An eerie force pervaded all his surroundings. His hairs bristled, and he felt a peculiar sensation of being stung, just as he experienced the sharp crack of the lightning strike. The chrome and black of his bicycle lit up as if a powder-flash had gone off for a photo. Almost immediately, there was a deafening, thunderous roar. The walls of his mud hut shook and trembled. Bits of plaster dropped to the floor around him, and a fierce tearing sound came from the dark forest. Everything shook menacingly, and the shaking went right through him. But he knew he had not been hit. “That was close! Too close! Somebody was certainly looking after me!” The air had a crisp sweet smell. He remembered that smell now; he had experienced the same electric odour many years ago, when a bolt of lightning had just missed him and his sister. He remembered the comforting feel of her hand, walking home that day, when they were young children. Now, though, he was completely alone. He was already out of the blankets, standing looking through the unsealed window, opening out under the overhanging grass roof. He pulled on all the clothes he could manage, and stepped outside. Another flash of lightning lit up the sky, but the sound came at least a second after. “Thank God,” he calculated, “the worst must have passed.” He thought gratefully of his guardian angel, and recalling the life story of Saint Thomas Aquinas, he thanked this patron saint for protecting him. ‘How often would he have to confront lightning and storms in his own life?’, he wondered. Saint Thomas had escaped unscathed, but his baby sister had been killed by lightning in their bedroom. In the lightning glow he had seen the huge tree next to his hut with half of its rounded top dropped down like the jib of a derrick crane. He looked towards the nearby hut and wondered, “How do the Dube family all sleep through this?” He certainly could not see any movement, even with the occasional glow of the receding lightning flashes. “Did they sleep? Perhaps they had been hit! No,” he realised; they were further than he was from the strike. They might be cowering there in terror, at this new warning from their dark forest. The light rain was gently ticking away on the leaves and dripping rhythmically off the roof around his hut. He went back inside and rekindled the fire to make some coffee. He coughed to clear the smoke in his lungs, and watched with satisfaction as the water in the little tin pot started to bubble. Just a month ago today, he had enjoyed a birthday supper with his colleagues. Birthdays were not very important events now, but still the thought brought back flashes of the past; more things to stop him sleeping. He drew the blankets closer around him, as he squatted on the dirt floor. He poured some hot water onto the coffee in his waiting tin cup, and stirred in three spoons of sugar. The first sip nearly burnt his lips, but he took a small and fast suck, and let it cool in his mouth. It tasted good, and now he was fully awake anyhow. He had come far from home, but God was with him as always.