Bush Whispers

By Graham Riley

Doggan Rath (Doggs) is a young man who has an unusual talent...... Bush Whispers which he use to help his team with finding people all over the world while at the same time keeping them safe. Here is a small excerpt from the book which will more or less explain this 'talent' (he was 10 when the below happened)

**As I got to him his face lit up and he slowly put his hands on either side of my face and started a faint chanting sound in the back of his throat that got louder and louder. This went on for about a minute. Then he stopped, took his hands off my face, turned to his people behind him and went off ten to the dozen with clicks and clacks and telling them whatever. I had not understood a single thing he had said. When he had stopped, he turned and said something to the translator. The translator came up to me and my Dad who was by then standing close to me and told us what the medicine man had just told them.
“Xi has said that your son is to be a special man and hear messages from the world in the wind because he is at one with the bush.”
As old as I was, he then said something that hit me quite hard as I had already called these feelings, ‘my whispers’. He looked directly at me.
“He says, you must open your heart and mind, listen to the bush whispers, they are there to help you and those you wish to help.”
And Doggs lives up to that...... and then some!!!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Graham Riley
• Release date: Feb 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005181628

Graham Riley

I am a young 70 year old crazy petrol head who has been around (and then some). I fly hang gliders, microlights, ride motorbikes (road, ofroad and trails bikes), paddle ski, fish and do most 'guy' things........ BUT I also have a softer side that reads books, dances (Modern, Jazz, Latin American and Ballroom), does theatre (mostly pantos) and last but definitely not last........ love my wife (and dance partner) of 40 years more and more with each passing year........... just a regular 'good' guy (yeah right)!!!!

Book preview

Chapter 1 - (1971)

The first thing I felt was a slight throb in the side of my head, then came a bit of nausea so tried to open my eyes. When they did open, I wished they had not, as my whole world fell away and the nausea hit me big time.

I immediately closed my eyes and felt slightly better. What the hell was going on? I lay there just letting the feeling come back into my body, arms and legs and decided to keep my eyes shut a while longer and figure out what had happened. As my mind started to clear it all came back to me, very slowly and then only in dribs and drabs.

I was supposed to be on holiday in South Africa and here I was lying somewhere not feeling too good. I had left Manne my home in Botswana, on Thursday to travel with Josh to Francistown to catch the train to Johannesburg. I had never been on a train before and that was my reason for choosing to go by train. Then there was that cryptic message from the Swamp Spot, Colon had said that soon after I had left, there had been someone who had come looking for me but had left without any explanation. I remember feeling uneasy at the time but what the heck, I was on holiday so no need to freak about it.

Then on the trip down I had a weird sensation that everybody was watching me and when I got off the train there was that guy who came up to me and told me he was from BOSS the Bureau of State Security and he wanted me to go with him because they wanted me to do some work for them. Scary bloke that but in a quiet way, not good. They knew about my special ‘talents’ as he put it and they needed me to help them. I had told him I was on holiday and that I did not want to work for anybody for the next four weeks. I had just come from the bush, I had things to do, places to see, girls to chase and hell I was only twenty-two years old and that was what I was going to do. He had nodded and walked away leaving me feeling extremely wary. But being the young man I was, carrying some beef, I was about 220 pounds, fit and able to look after myself I was not too worried. All I knew at that point was that I was hungry and it was time for lunch so had wandered into the first restaurant I could find which just happened to be in the hotel where I had been booked for four days, the Imperial Hotel. Nothing had come up on my ‘whisper’ radar, so did not worry too much. It should have warned me but there had been nothing.

Reading through the menu was unbelievable, what they did not have on it was scary, especially being used to our little hotel and the Swamp Spots usual fare. Then I remember noticing the woman, a pretty good looking woman watching me but then she had turned away and was talking to some other guy. After my meal I wandered around Johannesburg and then took in a movie and was again blown away by how big the movie house was, huge, really big. I remember going back to the hotel, changing to go out on the town and walking around until I saw a little pub called ‘The Madd Irishman’ and knowing old Colon back home decided that was going to be the first stop. I was looking through their choice of pub grub when someone had walked up to me.

Fancy seeing you here.

As I looked up, there was the good looking lady from the hotel and my immediate thought had been, what does she want? Then she had said quietly.

What are you drinking? I know you are on holiday so would like to buy you a drink. Oh, I work at the Imperial Hotel as the Restaurant Manageress, so that is how I know.

A Lion lager, please.

Now I was feeling slightly chuffed that I was being offered a drink by this exceptional looking woman and this little interchange had dulled that funny feeling I had earlier when I saw her watching me. She sauntered over to the pub to get our beers and when she got back, I thanked her, we cheers’d all around and I had a good slug or two of my beer and do not remember anything after that, until now. Damn, where were my ‘so called’ bush whispers, they should have warned me but there had been nothing, not even a twitch.

I heard someone come into the room where I was lying and slowly opened my eyes to see the guy who had spoken to me at the station, the man from BOSS and my beautiful lady.

Oh, so you are awake said the man and walked over.

I tried to get up to confront him and came over all weird again.

Woah guy just take it easy said BOSS man sorry we had to do this to you but we had to talk to you as we have a particularly sensitive and critical issue on the go. We could not take the chance you would turn us down. We really need your special abilities to help us with this problem.

Feeling as mad as a snake I said

You drug me and then expect me to help you guys, what planet do you come from?

Then it was Miss Beauty South Africa’s turn to chip in.

Look we have said sorry but if you give us a chance to tell you the reason, I think you’ll understand.

Look Miss charming this is not the way and by now I was yelling to treat anybody and I don’t give a damn what your problem is....

I did not get to finish my sentence.

Oh, grow up, there is more than holidays and fun out there and our President’s wife has been kidnapped.

The BOSS guy had cut in very quickly.

"Margy are you nuts, what the hell are you doing. You can’t just tell him that. You have just told this unknown person a state secret that nobody but a few insiders know about. What happens now if this idiot here does not play ball with us, huh?

That jerked me back into reality.

One, who the hell is the idiot here and what the hell is that about your President’s wife being kidnapped?

Yeah, she has and that is why we needed your abilities to try and help us find her before anything else happens. He quietened down then continued We think it could be one of the radical groups, possibly the ANC, PAC or one of them but we are not sure. No damn idea who. We have used all our on the ground resources and come up with zilch, so that leaves you pointing at me.

My mind went quiet and realized that these people knew about the whispers and were hoping that I could use them to help find their President’s wife.

OK, OK but you need to know that it does not always just work like that, it is not something I can switch on and off, sometimes it’s there and sometimes zip.

Mr Rath, we do understand that but you, young man, are unfortunately our last option and we would not have done what we did, if time was not on our side and it was not in the interest of South Africa and not a state security matter. We will make it up to you but need to get onto this quickly.

Ok I’ll hold you to that but first I need to clear my head of whatever you fed me and that feels like it is going to take a while, so, some coffee and some alone time, please.

With mumbled apologies they left me trying to sort out what had just happened to me and went off to sort things out, me I just flopped back down.

I started thinking back to where this had all started and unknown to me then was that dreamland was going to run a full-length feature movie of my childhood past me and waiting in the wings was the Sandman who promptly chucked a truckload of sleepy sand into my eyes and the lights went out.

Chapter 2 - (1960)

My name is Doggan Rath (pronounced Do-gan), my friends call me Dogg’s, I’m 10 years old and boy, am I in big trouble. My friends Brinn, Helah and I were playing claylat (which is throwing clay balls at one another with the use of long whippy sticks) after school and I hit a passing truck. I think I broke a side window but we were not hanging around to find out, we ducked into the bush and ran. Hitting anything other than your friend or nothing was a total fluke because where we lived there was generally nobody around. You see we all lived in Bechuanaland in a small village group of about 18 to 20 people in a place called Manne, alongside the Thamalakane River in the Okavango Delta better known as the Okavango swamps. We were about 45 miles upriver from the town of Maun and the only time anyone came here, it was usually by boat or plane and that would be to go on safari but there it was, someone had come by truck and twit that I was, I had hit it.

I soon found out that yes, I had broken a side window of a Land Rover driven by the Maun Hotel owner Daphne Riley and sure that I was going to get my tail whipped for my troubles. That did not happen as Mrs Riley had said she hit a branch of an overhanging tree although I think my dad seeing my face knew what had happened and that I had a hand in Mrs Riley’s ‘accident.’ The visit was to bring us our new water pump that my dad had ordered through Riley’s store in Maun. She stayed for lunch and left shortly thereafter. She was really nice and I remembered the talk that she had lost her husband in the floods of ’55 and that she was maybe moving to South Africa. Pity, we needed more people like her in Bechuanaland.

Needless to say, Brinn and Helah had hightailed it to wherever but I now needed to wash the dishes, one of my ‘all of a sudden’ new tasks which I am sure was payment for the broken Landy window. As I came out of the kitchen, I found my Mom and Dad, Ann and John Rath, Josh Broom and Don Weskob sitting on the veranda drinking whatever and listening to the news on the radio, something about a plane that had disappeared on route from Johannesburg in South Africa to Maun in Bechuanaland and that the search parties had started to comb the areas between Gabarone, Mahalapye and the dried up, Lake Xua.

Josh the owner of Long Boat Swamp Safaris was an old hand at search and rescues in our area and was discussing the possibilities with Don an ex-policeman and now one of his crewmen about the time frame of where the aircraft could have come down given range and a whole lot of other stuff I did not understand. Mom was saying something about a woman being on board with a young child and was panicking about what could have happen to them I don’t know why but I said "They are not even in Bechuanaland, they are fine and next to some mountains and a river.

I had shrugged and went off to find Brinn and Helah. I did not hear what Mom said but what I did hear was not to be late as we were eating at Colon Swaze’s place tonight which was great news. Colon owned the Pub and Grub place ‘The Swamp Spot’ next door to my parents Eden Riverside Hotel and always cooked venison, spuds and mealies (corn), my kind of grub. The rest of the day went well with lots of fishing and later lots of eating. Remembered going to bed that night a real, happy chappy.

The sun was just coming up over the river and I had breakfast as quickly as I could because today was Saturday and I was going with Josh and a small party of people including two kids on a short five hour swamp safari where we would show the city folk elephants, hippos, crocs, zebra, all kinds of birds, hopefully some lions, buffalo and maybe even a leopard. Helah was also coming but Brinn was helping his mom. Five hours later, tired, sunburnt and starting to feel hungry, we got back after having seen just about everything and more, much to the delight of the townies. What they were also happy about was Helah pointing out animals and telling them what they were in Setswana, his native tongue

Tau he would say pointing out lions drinking or Tlou, elephants and even some podi, goats at a small village we passed.

As we walked up the small pier still talking ten to the dozen, my Dad called me over with a worried look on his face and walked me down the side of the river. He looked at me and asked a question that was going to change all our lives in the coming years although we did not know it at that time.

Son, when you said that those people in that plane were going to be OK and where they were, how did you know? Did you hear about it before we did?

No Dad I just sort of said that, don’t know why. Why? Were they found?

Yes, son they were and they were still in South Africa, near some mountains and next to a river just like you said. Their engine failed and they made an emergency landing but damaged their radio in the process.

I just shrugged and we both turned back towards the pier and started walking back but could see my Dad had something on his mind, so said nothing.

Two weeks later school broke up for the summer holidays, which meant spending hours fishing and getting up to all sorts of things. As we left our one classroom ‘school’ our teacher Miss Selman, told us she was very excited as she was going up to the Chobe by plane for two weeks and was flying with our local mad hatter bush pilot Feelan Roberts who owned Kavango Air Safaris. He flew a ‘self’ converted Super Cub that could take off and land on a sixpence and he could probably do it with his eyes closed. Yup, he was that good or so my folks and half the country would say. We all wished her well and that we would see her when she got back and not to frighten all the animals. Boy oh Boy, it was time to start the fun and so we did.

Being ten years old with crazy friends and living in the bush as we did with lion, leopards and the like, right next to a big river full of fish, legavaans (water monitor lizard) and crocs, it is a wonder more of us did not get eaten by one of them. Well, most of them but not the leggies, they just scared the heck out of you when you came up on them in the grass and they shot out from under your feet. We liked fishing at an old stump at the bottom of a high embankment, which gave us shade and was next to the reeds and this is where you could catch big bream, pike and occasionally a decent sized tiger fish. We were so engrossed with our endeavours of sitting quietly with our lines in the water we were not aware of the danger lurking slightly behind us.

He was old and battling to find easy prey but as he came up to the embankment he slowed and slowly approached the edge on his belly. He wormed his way up to an overhanging tree and peered over with a minimum of movement and saw three of the human things, small ones. He started gathering himself to pounce when he noticed a movement in the reeds and we sitting quietly below him also heard this movement in the reeds, so with bated breath sat very, very still. A young Letchwe moved out of the reeds stepping carefully in ankle deep water. She was wary for crocs and looking at the river and did not notice us. In a flash of tawny brown and black spots the leopard had changed its target and hit the unsuspecting small buck in a huge splash of water and squeals which stopped quickly. He then dragged it out of the water and quickly pulled it up the bank and disappeared into the bush behind us. Three young boys sat routed to the spot until the leopard disappeared from sight then yelling and performing, leaving our rods where they where, we took off as one for the Eden, which was about 400 yards from where we had been fishing. Seeing the commotion and total panic of three small boys running hell for leather towards the hotel, Hezi Sezwa, Helah’s Dad yelled for John my Dad and the two of them came running, Dad carrying his rifle. After blabbing to them what had happened, they had a look around and found the stealth marks made by the leopard while he was stalking us. Fishing at the stump became an almost no-go zone for us for the rest of the holidays. Hey there were other good fishing spots, right? Right and probably better ones too.

Chapter 3

With safaris coming in almost every day time went past too quickly. We helped show them around and fetched and carried suitcases for tips, which were coming in handy for the extra sweets and cool drinks but hey those were the necessities of all young boys. Feelan dropped some new passengers off at the airfield which we called the ‘flat spot’ and asked to be topped up with fuel as he was going up to the Chobe to get Miss Selman. He helped carry the new guest’s bags to the hotel (which by the way only housed about twelve people) and to have breakfast and then said I’m off the woods and added to fetch little Miss Red Riding and then he was gone.

Feelan and Demi (Miss Selman) were expected back around 4pm that afternoon and it was 5.30pm and they had not arrived yet. Budge Weskob, Don’s brother and local ranger for one of the big safari outfits ‘Dumela Afrika’ was waiting for them to get back so as to ask Feelan about a party that was to be picked up from the village of Maun the next morning and was starting to get edgy. My Dad was behind the pub and said he would radio Chobe to find out if and what time they had left. He disappeared into the office and came back a short while later looking worried.

They said that he and Demi left on time and should have been back at least an hour and half ago. Damn I hope nothing has happened.

Hell’s teeth said Budge and we don’t know if they had plans to go anywhere else before flying back here either.

I was just sitting on the steps and said.

Dad, Feelan said he was coming straight back and then added they not going to be back soon because they have crashed in the reeds but they are OK.

Dad jumped up off his stool and came round the side of the pub at me like a bulldozer in high gear

What did you say?

Budge jumped up and headed Dad off.

He was only buggering around, John, no need to take him out, OK?

No, you don’t understand Budge, Doggan knows things, can’t explain it but he knows stuff like that.

Budge turned slowly and looked at me kind of weird

So where are they then Mr all seeing eye?

Trying to explain how I knew or what I had in fact said was difficult but with two adults glaring at me I tried to explain.

Well dad I sort of just get a feeling, you know like a little breeze going around me and I sort of get an idea of what has happened but I don’t know if it’s real or not. It’s like I’m dreaming or something, you know?

The look on their faces was like looking at buck’s eyes in the headlights, big and surprised. Budge’s voice was quiet when he said to Dad

So this has happened before, huh?

Yup once before when that plane went down about four, five weeks ago, he said they were still in South Africa, near a river and some mountains and the next day that is exactly where they found them. Pretty weird huh?

A few minutes later Dad had contacted Maun and asked if Peter Flemming was there with his aircraft and was told yes, he was and they would find him and get him to radio back. Half an hour later with almost the whole of Manne now sitting in the lounge area talking about