The Saga of the Coconut Tree

A hundred years and several lifetimes ago before the age of global warming and mobile telephones, we had feet and guns and things that go bang when lit.

We were headed back to base in the Army lorry but, instead of going south, as was normal, we headed east until we arrived at the coast.

The east was a land of beautiful sandy beaches and wide blue sea. It was also a land where the lorry dropped us off and the officer, who had arrived shortly before we left, carried on, somewhere, with the driver.

We, of course, were not privy to the secret meanderings of the Officer-Class mind so we made ourselves comfortable on the smooth sand to wait until the Officer, and our truck, returned.

Perhaps an hour had passed before one of our group, an Army lad, mentioned to me that he was thirsty.

“This is a country that is heavily adorned—festooned, even, with food stalls where one can obtain all manner of sustenance including, no doubt, thirst quenching beverages. These stalls abound; we shall, even now, go in search of one such of these bountiful constructions so that you, poor sufferer, shall be able to soothe the constriction in your throat created by dehydration in extremis.” I told him.

“Huh?” he responded eloquently. Then, a slow smile spreading gradually over his bovine features, he burst into spontaneous eloquence, “Oh, buy one, you mean. Right.”

‘That,’ I thought, ‘seems to cover it.’

Leaving the kit with two of our party, the rest of us split up and walked up and down the road that ran parallel to the beach in search of succour.

Miles we walked. Miles and miles.

Nothing.

Eventually we all re-assembled at the beach and flopped down, exhausted.

“I’m even thirstier now,” our comrade moaned. Justifiably so, I believe.

Then I had what can only be rationalised as a brilliant idea. There are, of course, those amongst us who are thinkers and those who are doers. I classify myself as one of the former.

Having analysed the problem I was able, with consummate ease, to synthesise a solution. I do, on occasion, have to step back and admire myself for this ability.

I turned to our dry colleague and pointed upwards, “There,” I informed him, “Is the answer to your prayers. The manner in which you may slake your thirst.”

“Coconuts,” he spluttered. Hardly gratefully, it seemed to me, “How in God’s name do we get them down? You going to climb up there?”

I may have mentioned that I am a thinker and certainly not given to ape-like—or even monkey-like antics. I left that part of the team’s repertoire to those that wear the brown uniforms.

“So you want me to solve this dilemma for you,” I enquired, in a quite kindly manner, I felt.

“Yeah. Right!” he sneered.

Once again I put my masterful cerebrations to their task. I asked him, “Do you have any ‘Cordtex’ in your pack?”

“Think so,” he informed me.

“How jolly. Do give it to me,” I instructed him.

Firstly we must realise that ‘Cordtex’ is a type of detonating cord generally used in mining. It uses an explosive core of pentaerythritol tetranitrate, which is inside a plastic coating or a braided nylon ‘rope’. We were not there to do any mining and any requests for further information will be emphatically ignored!

Secondly, do you have any idea how huge a coconut tree trunk is? When you drool over photos of Mauritius and Curaçao that depict white, sandy beaches, blue seas and... coconut trees; do you ever pause to wonder how far around a coconut tree trunk is?

They are really big. Really big. It is, after all, only grass!!

We strung the ‘Cordtex’ around the trunk and applied a detonator. Remember (safety tip): a ten second detonator only lasts seven seconds!

Loud crack and down comes tree complete with cargo of coconuts. It was as if we had sliced the trunk through with a razor blade.

Success.

Now comes the problems!

We had all seen the locals use a parang (machete) to lop the sides from a coconut and then slash to the top off. Easy, no? Hah! We were hacking and sawing...

At which point a little brown fellow appears. He is, clearly, irate. He is jumping up and down and all but frothing at the mouth at us.

We just stood and observed him since we had no clue as to whatever it was that he was attempting to communicate to us.

Eventually a group of people appeared one of whom spoke some English.

It appeared that this little fellow owned the tree.

We tried to explain that it was on the beach and, therefore, a wild tree. Feral, even, you might say.

No good. It seems that all coconut trees are owned by someone irrespective of their location.

I did enquire as to where these people had come from since we had walked the length and breadth of the Kingdom and found nobody. Seemingly there was, about a hundred and fifty metres inland from the beach, a small village. Had we asked them for a drink...

The upshot was that he got lots and lots of compensation from the British military and I got a hefty fine for ‘unauthorised use of military ordnance’.

The military definitely do not like ‘thinkers’!