15. Truth or Dare

I thanked Bahla for telling me his story. It gave a fascinating insight into a rather murky period and, particularly, into the early career of Lomu. It also left me with a difficult question as to how I might be able to use the information. Indeed, I wasn’t sure that I would be able to use it at all, given Lomu’s eminence today. Even if I were to publish this, I realised that it would seem so ludicrously out of alignment with his public character that I would probably be a laughing stock.

Somehow, the histories written by American authors seemed so authoritative by comparison with my own pieced together account, with general agreement at least on the facts of what occurred. I wondered if I could ever complete my self-imposed task or whether what I was writing would have to remain secret until long after I (or at least Lomu) was dead.

Feeling quite disheartened by this thought, I decided that the best thing to do would be to change tack. I had not succeeded in gaining very much information about the shortage of fuel from Bahla and I thought back to my conversation with Langanipa, at the time, about what he had predicted. It was one lunch time that I had walked over to the Tractor shed to look for him.

I entered the Guardians' office and found one of the Sergeants at his desk. I asked him where Langanipa was. He sent me down to the river side and I soon found Langanipa at work, up to his waist in the water. He was being helped by a couple of younger Guardians and a few men from the Village, to erect an enormous water wheel.

When he saw me on the bank, he left his work and came over, a grizzled man of about fifty but sunburned, slim and fit.
“Hey, Tommu!” he greeted me. “You’re just in time to see the new wheel. We’ve set her up with a higher dam that doubles the fall of water. She’s not connected yet but we were about to check the bearings. Drive the wedge home,” he shouted down to his assistants, “and check there’s no play on the axle, then come up here.”
Once they were all out of the water, he walked up river to where a sluice gate diverted the water from the head race and raised a lever to let the flow rush and tumble down the channel. As the great wheel began to turn, a ragged cheer went up from the little group of men.

“Fantastic!” one of the men standing next to me said. “Only Langanipa could get something like that up and running.”
“Yes.” Another chimed in. “He is the greatest engineer we have ever had. We come down to learn everything we can from him.”

When it was clear that the wheel coped smoothly with the power of the stream, Langanipa closed the sluice and returned to stand beside us. “Come on,” he said enthusiastically. “While the boys get some lunch I’ll show you around. Over here we have the power off-take, with a belt drive to the master pulley.”

In a shed next to the wheel itself, he pointed to a steel drive-shaft passing through bearings fastened to balks of wood. A number of different pulleys were mounted on it. “This pulley will drive a belt to the bellows of a charcoal furnace for melting iron. This one drives a five hundred pound hammer that we will use for working iron bars and the last one will be connected to an electric generator when we get hold of one.” His explanation was long and complex so that I do not think it worth trying to recreate it here but as he described each development his eyes were alive with enthusiasm and energy.

“Good grief, Langanipa.” I stopped him in mid flow. “I had no idea that the Guardians were working on this. How did you persuade them to do something so adventurous?”
“It’s not entirely official.” He replied, glancing down. “But the Sergeant lets me get on with it and the boys are sort of helping me in their spare time. Of course they’re happy when we can cast spares for the tractor, so they will occasionally lend me some labour for the really heavy stuff. But come along and I’ll show you the foundry.”

He led the way to a stone structure with an open fireplace at the base. Joined to it were two large bellows.
“We build a charcoal fire in here, he said and blow air though it to raise the temperature until the iron melts. The bellows are still powered by the old waterwheel and it takes several days to heat up. This channel is where we draw off the molten iron and these,” He pointed to beds of fine sand in which the impressions of wooden models in the shapes of wheels and plates were visible, “These are the sand beds where we cast the finished ironwork.”

When we had seen the rest of the installation, we returned to the river and sat down. I asked him to tell me more about the fuel shortage he had discovered and the official reaction to what he had found.
“Ah yes, Tommu.” He replied. “I’d heard that you were writing things down. Well I’m afraid that fuel levels are one thing that I can’t really discuss. As you can see, they pretty much allow me to do as I please down here and I would definitely not want to put that at risk. You’ll have to find someone else to talk to if you want to talk about the fuel situation.”

“So you’ve changed your mind about there being limits on the amount of fuel?” I teased him gently.
“I didn’t say that. In fact I said that I couldn’t talk about it. You know very well that they don’t want Guardians speaking out of turn and I am still a Guardian after all. They can’t do anything about what people think or believe. But the official view is that there is enough fuel.”
“A lot of people think that you were right about the fuel, you know.” I told him.
“I can’t help that.” Langanipa smiled. “There was a time, before they sealed the tanks, when anyone who wanted to could go there and lower a rope into them. That doesn’t alter the facts. The official view is that there is enough fuel.”

“But, Langanipa,” I protested, “Do you not feel that you have a duty to make sure that the truth is known?”
“Not really. Everyone is at liberty to believe what they want to. I don’t choose what I believe. I just believe it. What other people believe is their own problem. What I believe does not matter. It is how I behave that counts. The facts are what they are and it would be very arrogant if I were to think that I could not be mistaken. I have the choice of behaving as if Our Granny’s view (as represented by our Gardeners) is correct and leading a comfortable life or of arguing and leading an extremely uncomfortable one. No matter what I might think, I behave as if Our Granny’s view is right.”

“So you’re not sure that the fuel will run out? Is that what you’re telling me?”
He smiled again. “Let’s not be naïve.” He said. “Two years ago the pump stopped working. They went to draw up the fuel one morning and there was nothing. Just air. Of course they called me. They never told anyone but it was me that they called.

I took a look at the pump and it was clear that the pipe didn’t reached down to the level of the gasoline any more. I extended it and they could pump again. It makes sense. It doesn’t matter how much gasoline is in the tank. If you pump out two cans of fuel every day then there is less gas in the tank now then there was a year ago or fifty years ago. You need to go down further to get it. That says nothing about how much there is left. The Gardeners say that there’s enough and there’s nothing I can do except accept that.

And, of course, concentrate on energy that doesn’t draw on resources that might or might not be finite. I need to go now, and see about connecting the new water wheel up to the drive shaft.”

I thanked Langanipa and turned to leave.
“You’re most welcome, Tommu. Come back any time you like. We’ll always have something new to show you.”

That evening, I cautiously broached the subject with my father.
“What else can Langanipa do?” he asked. “He has been punished twice already. Once for questioning Our Granny’s wisdom. Once for showing people how to measure how much fuel was in the tank. You had better be careful with whatever you are writing not to get him into trouble. They would not let him off so lightly again.”
“But if it is a real problem, then why doesn’t someone say so?” I wondered.

“Look, our leaders, the ones who talk directly to Our Granny, tell us that there is no fuel problem. Who are we to question the people whose job it is to manage these things. It’s nothing to do with ordinary people like you and me so you’d have a hard time finding anyone to come out and say openly that there is a problem.
And you need to be careful with all this writing. You have a good position up at the library. I’d be a lot happier if you weren’t raking up arguments that were settled and forgotten long ago. If you go around undermining the Gardeners, you know they won’t like it.”

Thinking overnight about this conversation, I concluded that my father who, like nearly all of his generation, knew very little of reading and writing had given me very sound advice. I needed to ensure that my records did not incriminate my friends and informants – or even myself.

I reread everything I had written in this light. On rereading the present section I found that Langanipa’s comments had been carefully calibrated to avoid dissent and I would reiterate here that he absolutely and consistently supported the official view on the subject of fuel shortages.

In the section before, the story of the return home after the attack required some slight adjustments. I thought of simply changing the text to accord with the prevailing view that it was Lomu rather than Haziki who had been instrumental in motivating the group and ensuring their safe return. In the end, however, I felt that would not be good enough and so decided to rewrite it stating explicitly that it was the general view that both Lomu and Haziki had brought the band home. I would finish with a pithy comment that some of the people involved felt that the public view substantially understated the role that Haziki had played.

I also decided that I needed to take a more detached position as I continued writing, emulating the American authors whose sober accounts gave an air of authority which, I thought, my work so far badly lacked.