Dam Diligent: Book Three

By Ian T. Walker

Dam was convinced he was a collection of tiny organisms that were being programmed to live a chosen life. Whether that life had been chosen by him was a question he often asked his organisms.
Nothing happened, they did not respond.
Maybe they have a different language? he thought.
As it will be noticed, these stories are not in any order. Though the collection did come chronologically from the same well, spring, they are not intended to have any logical sequence. They simply record the rambling devotions of an idiot. And as such should relay extreme caution to the reader so he or she may never step in the same shoes as Mr. Dam Diligent!
On the other hand, Dams okay. He is not worried about much, and he is still alive! I think . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Apr 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781482864861

Ian T. Walker

Ian T. Walker’s intensely imaginative parents fostered in him a profound sense of respect for the creative realms. He had his first exhibition of paintings at age thirteen and has written more than one hundred children’s stories and over twenty books.

Book preview

Dam and the Hill

When Dam was young he’d sleep in the afternoons. He would find a warm patch in the sun amongst the yellow flowers and curl up like a small animal and go to sleep.

The best part about sleeping under the flowers was waking up and looking at the sun beaming through the yellow petals as they happily bounced and swayed in front of a blue sky. Their green stems crossing and making lines as they swayed.

Dam rolled over and the leaves crunched. He was up high on a small embankment next to a steep hill. During the day many people walked up the hill very slowly as it was so steep. Most of the people were elderly. He lay still and watched as their heads passed close by, unaware that there was a little person hiding under the flowers watching them very closely.

When I grow old I will be so rich I won’t need to walk up hills! he said to himself.

One day Dam was helping his mother clean the house when she found an old wallet. She put a little money in it and gave it to Dam and said that when he grew up it would have lots of money in it.

Immediately Dam had a plan.

That afternoon as he lay in his special spot under the yellow flowers

he attached some fishing line to the wallet and threw it down onto the pavement.

Way down at the bottom of the hill he could see a little old man beginning to climb up. Dam lay in wait, his trap was set. Moments later he looked out and the man was still climbing slowly.

By the time the little old man drew near the wallet Dam was asleep.

Suddenly Dam’s hand was tugged hard and he woke up staring at the man who had picked up the wallet.

‘Oh! said the man. I saw the line first, ha ha ha!" Dam felt very embarrassed.

Is there something in it for me? asked the man. To which Dam replied,

No, but you could put something in it for me please.

The man looked rather shocked, almost like a victim. He opened the wallet and put a small coin in it.

You have a good day, he said as he continued slowly on his way.

Dam put the wallet back on the path. This time he hid the fishing line with some leaves. He looked down the hill and noticed an elderly lady with a walking stick at the bottom walking slowly up. Dam watched her all the way. When she approached the wallet she stopped and with great difficulty bent down to pick it up. At that moment Dam pulled in the line. The wallet jumped away from her hand and she jumped back with a cry but then tried to catch the wallet again.

The woman stood up quickly and looked amazed. Then she saw the fishing line. Suddenly Dam squealed with laughter but before he knew what was happening the walking stick came at him through the yellow flowers, poking this way and that. Dam jumped up. He soon stopped smiling.

The woman was angry! Dam had scared her. When he stood up she was even angrier and began to beat the yellow flowers.

You young devil! she cried. That’s my wallet. I lost it years ago!

Dam and she began pulling on the fishing line together.

It’s mine! cried Dam.

Where did you find it? asked the woman.

Its mine! cried Dam again.

The woman dropt her walking stick and braced herself. She gave a strong pull and Dam came flying out of the bushes and landed in her arms!

Argh! she cried as she realised Dam was only a young child.

He slid down to the ground and ran inside his house with the wallet bouncing along behind.

Several weeks later he was lying next to the road again. As he looked out he saw the little old lady with the walking stick coming up the hill. He threw the wallet down on the pavement this time without any fishing line attached.

As the woman drew slowly near, Dam hid very low. And as the woman bent down to pick up the wallet he held his breath. When she opened it she found it was full of yellow flowers.

She looked around and carefully placed it back on the pavement and kept walking.

Dam Joins the Fire Brigade

When Dam was young and before he worked for the railways, he was interested in having a career in the fire brigade. He would watch the firemen dashing down the street off to an emergency in their bright red fire truck with its lights flashing and siren screeching and wonder what it would be like to be on board.

He went to the local brigade and enlisted to do training. Over the next three months Dam went to training where he learnt to deal with petrol fires, gas fires all sorts of different fires. He had no idea it was so complicated.

Dam trained very hard and progressed well until one day he was given the job of cleaning the fire truck. This was a difficult task as he needed a ladder to reach up to the windows. Dam found climbing up the ladder with a hose in one hand and a brush in the other somewhat dangerous. So he devised a way of attaching the hose to the brush. This worked well until he slipped on the ladder and fell into a bucket where his foot became stuck.

To the other men Dam was somewhat of a comedian for he was smallish and seemed to always be bumping his head or getting his feet stuck in strange places. So when Dam came crashing down into the bucket he made sure he made a loud noise jumping around trying to get the bucket off his foot.

You’re lucky you didn’t land headfirst in that! said one of the men laughing.

It took three men to hold the bucket and Dam with his left leg outstretched had to hold onto the back of the truck. When the bucket came off Dam was propelled forwards and hit his head yet again on the back of the truck.

Damn! I’m going to wear my helmet all the time! He said, even though his helmet was a little small.

As it happened Dam the very next day was hit on the helmet by the bottom of the truck door as somebody opened it. He was knocked off his feet and luckily not hurt.

During Dam’s time training he was ever thoughtful about ways of improving the efficiency of the brigade and each new idea he had he wrote down and sent to his superiors. He even modified his helmet with a platypus visor which stuck out in front and lifted up and down.

Most of his ideas were improvements in firefighting techniques and one invention which he called a ‘Triple Reverse Spring Loaded Cycle Pump’ was to be used to pump water through a hose that completely surrounded the fire.

It could be installed by very few men and was to revolutionise the methods of fighting fires in low scrub and bushland. But it wasn’t much use in a city.

It wasn’t long before Dam was excelling at being a fireman even though he had never been to a real fire. When he was asked to do a job he did it three times more efficiently than anybody else because he was Dam Diligent.

One day he was sitting on the floor where he felt safer than in a chair with his helmet on when the fire chief’s secretary came up to him and handed him a letter.

The letter said the fire chief was going on an inspection and would be away for a few days and could Dam take control while he was away?

Dam jumped to his feet, he was off. This was his chance to become a real fire chief and get a new helmet and boots which fitted.

Dam then and there went shopping in his little yellow helmet. He needed a new fire coat and pants. He bought some long purple anti-inflammatory underwear to wear under his fireman’s clothes. But poor Dam had spent too much and didn’t have enough to buy a new helmet! The huge black boots were beautiful he thought and sounded like someone clapping as he walked.

However the laces were like uncontrollable electric cords and were far too long.

Dam emerged from the shop feeling like a polished fire truck. His eyes were sparkling and his gold buttons shining even though his helmet was a little small. He went everywhere in his helmet. He took it off and his hair looked like an octopus. He was becoming known as ‘the man with the helmet.’

Dam had a locker where he hung up his new coat, his new pants and long purple anti-inflammatory underwear. He placed the boots in a neat corner and threw his old shoes away. Dam was ready for any fire and tomorrow he would be in charge of the station while the fire chief was away. This meant Dam had to lock the station up at night and was responsible for the keys.

The next day Dam arrived at the station in his little yellow helmet. Today was a special day and he was determined to do a good job as the fire chief. The first job he gave himself was to tighten a loose screw at the top of the fireman’s pole.

Dam decided the screw was dangerous and needed fixing. He was on his way up the tall ladder to fix it when he thought of his next job and that was to ensure that another key was cut for the side door. Since he did not want to forget to do that he climbed back down and went and cut the key. He gave one to Fred who seemed to be an honest person.

Dam began to climb the tall ladder again when he thought of another job he had to do and that was to paint the big door of the fire station. It looked uninteresting white so he climbed quickly down and painted it pink! He had a lot of paint left over so he painted all the doors inside the building and the floor in the change room.

Then Dam had a great idea. He fetched some black paint and painted lots of dead trees on the big front door. People stopped to admire the painting and Dam never spoke to them as he was too absorbed in his work.

Dam went back to fixing the loose screw and was on top of the ladder when the telephone rang. It was a fire!

Dam lost his balance and missed a few rungs on the ladder. The remaining ones he hit with his bottom as he magically slid down. He could barely move when he reached the floor and quickly scrambled for the phone.

He began to undress as he was on the phone. He wrote the address down with the other hand and rang the fire bell. Suddenly the whole building erupted with loud clapping as everybody started to run. Dam couldn’t hear anything on the phone. One after another firemen came sliding down the pole all dressed and jumped into the fire truck. Others were running around with pink hands from opening doors!

Dam did a mad rush for the stairs and tripped over one leg of his pants as he tried to remove them and bumped his chin on the first step. He was thinking that the voice on the phone sounded awfully like the chief. He reached the change room where he noticed pink footprints everywhere and all the locker doors had pink hand prints on them!

Oh no! thought Dam as he dropped his locker keys. When he picked them up they had pink paint all over them.

Oh no! he cried as he realised he’d given Fred his keys. He fumbled in his pants for his pockets which he had trouble finding as his trousers weren’t in their usual place. He did find some long lost keys but they were the wrong ones! Dam went back to the old set of keys and found his locker key hiding amongst them!

Damn! said Dam as he heard the front door of the building open and the engine of the fire truck begin to roar.

He opened the locker door and grabbed his long purple anti-inflammatory underwear. These he tried to put on first, however he put his legs in the arm holes and couldn’t work out why he couldn’t get his head to come out of the hole! Next he grabbed his pants they were easy to put on though his foot became stuck at the knee! He put his coat on and did up the buttons but he did them up the wrong way. He undid them and did them up again but they were still done-up the wrong way! He gave up and sat down to put on his boots.

Only to find that he became stuck to the floor! Dam realised he had to go quickly so he picked up the rest of his gear and charged for the pole.

Oh no! he said as he heard the front door of the fire station being closed. His boots were half done up so he wrapped the rest of the laces around his ankles.

Running to the fire pole he jumped onto it and was reefed back like a bungy jumper as one of his shoe laces had tied itself to the ladder which he’d used to tighten the screw. Dam hung upside down for a while before he worked out where he was. He could hear the fire truck outside start its siren and rev its engine.

Dam struggled backwards up the pole and reached his boot but it was too difficult to undo and he had to let go. It took him three more goes before he managed to undo his boot and slide rapidly headfirst down the pole. He crashed headfirst on the floor and suddenly everything went dark. Dam had fallen on his helmet and being such a small helmet his head had become completely stuck. Not only that the visor had jammed shut and after a while he realised he was not getting enough air! He could not remember how many walls and doors he collided into when suddenly the phone rang. Now he knew where he was.

He was way down the other end of the building! The phone stopped ringing when Dam crashed into the desk it was on and knocked it to the floor.

Dam yelled out to it in the dark,

Chief is that you? I can’t see! I’m stuck in my helmet. The visors jammed and I can’t find the phone!

Outside the truck was waiting its siren blaring. Dam was shuffling on his knees heading for the side door when he realised he didn’t have a key to open the door! He was trapped inside the building!

It was no good he had to see where he was going. He rolled over and tried to push the helmet off his head. He heaved and he pushed. Somehow he managed to get his knees under the rim of it to push harder. It was then that he really became stuck for he couldn’t remove his knees!

That’s how they found him curled up on the floor several hours later, half-dressed in his purple anti-inflammatory underwear. He was blue from lack of oxygen and was covered in pink paint! The fire truck which had pink hand prints all over it, had gone off to the emergency without the address of where they were going so they had to come back after driving around looking for smoke! Luckily it turned out to be a false alarm they said.

Finally they unwound Dam. He was like a ball of wire and had to be put in warm water. They managed to cut his helmet off with an electric saw something Dam wasn’t too pleased about as it cut a bit close to his ears.

Dam thanked the fire brigade team as he peered at the two pieces of his little yellow helmet which had saved his life.

Unfortunately Dam’s enthusiasm to be a fireman went out of him at that moment and he decided to do something else with his life.

The Adventures of Dam Diligent

Danial Inglet used to do everything in threes. He had no respectable shoes, pants or shirt which was the correct way to dress. Rather he had three shoes, three rags which he called shirts and three other rags which he called pants.

He worked for the railways as a track repairer. He liked their clothes.

Before he joined the Railways he was a champion axeman and earned the name Dam Diligent.

One day Dam was instructed to cut a tall Cabbage Palm down which grew where the Railway people wanted to park their cars. Cabbage Palms are tall and straight with a massive bunch of large leaves at the top. This one was forty metres high and the leaf-bunch would have weighed close to two tonnes. It was growing there long before the rail line came through and was the last one remaining of the once great forest which had all been cut down.

Dam was assigned the task of chopping it down so that it fell in between the rail tracks and a large tin shed where all the men had lunch and kept all their work tools and clothes.

Dam took his axe out and tested its sharpness. It was early in the morning and all eight men were waiting for the axeman to begin his work.

Dam began to chop. At around mid-morning he took a break. The tree was half way through. The men took a break too, they had been standing around watching Dam. While they were sitting eating their biscuits one of the men piped up and said,

If the wind gets up it’ll make it fall over there, he said pointing with his finger across the tracks.

No, said another looking up, It’ll go over that way!

This started a debate as to which way the tree would fall.

Finally Dam spoke out and said he’d chopped more trees down than one hundred thousand termite’s nests and it was going to fall

Over there! he said pointing next to the tracks. The men looked up forty metres and watched the wind slightly lift the huge leaves so that the long graceful trunk swayed around and around till everybody began to feel quite giddy.

When you hear it crack everybody run! said Dam. Stand back now! he shouted as he began to chop.

Towards the centre of the tree the wood grew softer and more springy.

Dam found it difficult to cut. He retired from chopping to eat his lunch with everybody else. They all sat in the shade beneath the tree. It was the only shade for kilometres around.

Hard timber! said Dam as he sat back exhausted against the huge trunk.

The other men agreed as they wiped their eyes