that Mr. Thomson was referring to his wife who had been standing off camera until that point. She replied with a simple “yeah you did Hun, out of nowhere you said.” Eric watched the video intently as Mr. Thomson came back into the shot and continued his tale. “Then there were a huge flash of lightning, POW! and then there was just silence, nothing.” He paused in his tale as he scrunched his shoulders up. “Then about 10 seconds later,” He leant forward as if imparting a secret. “There was another flash and I thought the house was exploding cus of a bomb going off, which was what I thought it was at first. I said that to everyone in the pub, didn’t I babe?” Mr. Thomson asked. “You did Hun. You said it was a bomb.” Mrs. Thomson replied, the camera staying on her husband as he chuckled. “I felt a right wally when it was just lightning, but the weird part was that there was no thunder, you know like no sound. Then I realised there was no rain as well.” He shook his head slowly. “Really strange, no rain and no thunder, well weird. It wasn’t like the lightning we get in Manchester” The camera pulled back to show a shot of the couple in front of the British bar, as Mr. Thomson continued his tale. “And then it just cleared as quickly as it came. All in all it was over and done with in about 30 seconds or so.” He shrugged and looked at his wife. His face saddened as he looked back at the camera. “We hadn’t realised that a boy had been hit by it till now though, tragic that it, just tragic.”
The video froze at that point, leaving the viewer with a picture of the sad-faced Mr & Mrs. Thomson
Eric was pleased that he’d had found such a clear and concise report, but was still eager to find out more. It sounded exactly the same as what had occurred at school earlier that day, and he quickly scanned the rest of the internet news story, a little frustrated when he found nothing else that was of interest.
Sitting back in his chair, he looked out of his bedroom window and thought about what he’d just read. Just lightning, no rain, no thunder, very weird; he could still hear Mr. Thomson’s words in his mind. Eric still felt drawn to the story, and the familiarity of the circumstances. Both today’s metrological events and the ones in Portugal had an unnerving similarity with what had occurred on the day his father had died, two years earlier. Something was making his senses tingle, and he knew he had to find out more. He took in a deep breath, wiggled his fingers and turned back to his computer as the only way was to trawl through the Portuguese news websites.
He opened up a new internet tab and called up a translation website. He typed in “Olhos d‘Agua teenager killed storm” in the large clear box. He then scrolled down the list in the field below and found “English to Portuguese”. He clicked enter, which brought the Portuguese translation into the box below. “O adolescente de Olhos d‘Agua matou a tempestade.” Cutting and pasting the answer into the search engine gave him a whole new set of hits, all of which were in Portuguese. He checked the dates of the top ones, and found the top three were all within the last 4 weeks. Eric methodically cut and pasted short sections of the first one into the translator website, swapped it to Portuguese to English, before cutting and pasting the answers into a document. This took a while, as he read each paragraph, one piece at a time. Once he knew that it would give him no more information than he’d already gleaned from Mr. Thomson’s account, he’d stop, deleted the document and started over again with the next news item.
The second, and then the third story hit a blank, and Eric rubbed his eyes. He’d been sat at his computer for nearly 2 hours piecing stories together, translating each piece, cutting and pasting. He smiled knowing he’d be adept as a researcher for a news team, or creating his own newspaper. He stretched, rolling his shoulders round a couple of times as he’d been sat hunched over, so intent on finding something. The day was drawing to a close outside of his window, the yellows and pinks of the retreating sun reflected across the edges of the sky. A few lights were coming on in the lounges of Steelgate drive and he wondered if it was worth it to keep going.
Eric could hear his father’s voice as if he was right behind him. “You’ve got to keep going, because you never know when you’ll sift through the dirt and find a nugget of gold.” These had been words his father had said on many occasions when wanted to give up, from doing his homework to bike rides with his father in the worst of the British weather. The last one made him smile even more as he remembered a jaunt near Lancaster, along a muddy wind swept track in early April. They’d struggled for miles, his father giving him the reassurances and pushes to keep going, after they’d been battered by hail and rain storms, waded through deep muddy puddles before it finally happened. They came over a rise, the rain eased off and the clouds started to lift. The sun peaked through, sending golden rays down through the gaps in the clouds. Ahead of them lay Morecambe Bay, and the snow-capped mountains of the Lake District in the distance. His father’s words rung out once more, “You’ve got to keep going, because you never know when you’ll sift through the dirt and find a nugget of gold.”
With renewed determination he went back to his computer and opened the next story. He cut, translated and pasted the first few sections before quickly scanning through the English version. Eric stopped as his eyes caught the phrase “blue flash.” He went back and read the story though again, carefully. His heart sank as he found that it was the local electricity board that mentioned the term while trying to restore the power to over 1000 houses and apartments, 4 hotels and several restaurants and cafés, as the local substation for a few villages had been burnt out.
Eric tensed again as another piece of information caught his eye. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t noticed it before now. He scanned back over the news reports, and then over the original one, and found the date of the storm. He remembered on their last day, the 2nd June, that he and his mother, had strolled along the beach round the headland from the Sheraton to have lunch in Olhos. They could only have salads as the power had blown somewhere in the village and there were no cooking facilities available. He re-read the dates on the news reports again, and the lightning storm had struck on the 2nd June.
He sat back in his chair as a thousand thoughts and fears raced around his head.
Status Quo.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’m 100% positive that he’s trying to give me an ulcer.” Colonel Gordon Kelsall had only read the heading of the report that had been placed on his desk by his Aide, moment earlier. “Have you seen what he’s asking to do now?” He asked Sergeant Hanes, his voice raised. Gordon took out his handkerchief, huffed on his glasses and then wiped them clean, as he took some deep, calming breaths. “Give me a few minutes to digest this one Sergeant, before I decide on what I’ll do.”
Sergeant Hanes had been dutifully standing at ease, awaiting the paperwork he’d brought in. A soldier with over 20 years’ experience in the Army, he’d been the Colonel’s aide for the past 4 years, since his last tour in Iraq. He’d left school at 16 with 3 qualifications and went into College to turn his hand at being a mechanic. Once he qualified he found that there were no jobs available, so an off chance comment from a friend had him marching into the recruiting office on Fishergate in Preston, where he was welcomed with open arms into the Royal Engineers.
He’d always spent time with his dad under a bonnet, or putting a car up on ramps for as long as he could remember. From about the age of 5 he’d be seen perched on the edge of the driver’s seat in a car, not able to see over the wheel, but he’d have his little leg stretched at full length, his foot resting on a 10 centimetre block of wood that was strapped with elastic bands to the brake pedal. Roger would wait for the go command off his dad and then would start pumping the pedal as hard and as fast as he could until told to stop, so his dad could bleed the air out of the fluid.
He enjoyed the smell of fresh oil, the complexity of an engine that was merely a bundle of castings, nuts and bolts, and a few wires. Sergeant Roger Hanes could strip a gearbox off a Mark 2 Ford Escort, replace a
clutch and have it all back together again in under an hour, and that was when he was only 15. Living close to the cosy and quant village of Chipping in the foothills of the Pennines gave him a few advantages over his peers. He had to work hard to make a living, and learnt the lesson at a very young age. He also had the freedom of the fells and farmland around him, and his pet project of a Mark 2 Escort 1300L could be seen sliding sideways through fields at weekends, and all of this was many years before he could apply for a provisional driving licence. Driving it so hard meant he had to repair it, and the replacement of the clutch was one thing he got very adept at. This was also quite a costly item for a 15 year old, so working hard on farms was a great way to learn the discipline and get the fitness levels he needed to see him do well in the army.
20 years on from those early memories, and the now 40 year old ran a private Rally team throughout the year, which kept him under the bonnet on every spare minute. His good lady had finally got her way, and asked that he stayed more at home than on duty around the world. She never realised