ARTIFICIAL RESPIRATION
The Audhali and Yafai tribesmen of the Western Aden¨ Protectorate had been enemies for centuries and having members¨ of both tribes working on the same plant in our refinery was a pretty risky business. However, we had got away with it for something like two years on the Platformer and had reached the stage where Abdul Thabit Yafai and Mohamed Nasser Audhali could¨ actually squat in the mess to dinner together without diving at each other's throats.This tenuous camaradarie was blown sky high one afternoon when a young doctor,new to the country and it's foibles,¨ came to the plant to give some of the men training in artificial respiration and external cardiac massage.Where the heart was known to have stopped,the technique¨ called for a hefty thump to get it going again, and the selected victim ¨on this occasion was Mohamed Nasser.He lay on the¨ ground face down and eyes closed, feigning a man close to death.I groaned in despair as the doctor signalled to Abdul Thabit¨ to do what was necessary and, with a look of deep satisfaction,¨ he knelt beside Mohamed and turned him over roughly onto his back. Mohamed, acting his part to perfection, kept his eyes tightly shut whilst Abdul knelt and felt at his neck for a pulse¨ - apparently failing to find one.I instantly sensed what was going through his head but was powerless to do anything about it. He got up, and spinning like¨ a discus thrower with his arm extended outwards, he suddenly¨ dropped on Mohamed, his clenched fist hitting him with four¨ times the necessary force in the middle of his breastbone.The vicious punch caused the corpse to bounce a foot in the¨ air, and open one of it's eyes. The resuscitator/assailant was¨ immediately recognised, and Mohamed jumped to his feet. With a¨ Blood curdling yell, he was seen to chase Abdul Thabit through and off the plant towards the refinery gates and the “C” Class Housing Estate,a nasty looking¨ wheel spanner in his hand. The victim was gaining ground and Abdul was just about to¨ have the spanner buried in his skull when a little stone got into one of Mohamed's flip flops bringing him to a rapid halt with a¨ bad limp. It took us another three years to get to the point where we¨ were able to sufficiently inculcate a sense of British type humour into our Arabs¨ so that Abdul and Mohamed could sit down together again and laugh uproariously¨ whenever one or the other looked over at his fellow countryman and swung a clenched fist in a circle in the air.
I.Simms