TAKING THE GAP is a rugby term meaning "to dart nimbly through a hole in the opposition defence." In Southern African bush-wars it came to mean running away
Ian and Connie Hacking are white settlers in the British colony of Rhodesia. They have built a good life alongside the black indigenous inhabitants.
Social life is hectic, boozy and sport-orientated. They call nearby Mozambique the “Rhodesian Riviera” and frequent continental-style Portuguese restaurants across the border and sandy beaches on the coast.
Gradually and reluctantly the tractable black population are dragged into full-scale armed insurrection by militant leaders hungry for political power. Their children are press-ganged to war and those of the white settlers are conscripted to meet the threat.
An escalating conflict ensues that lasts twenty years and tramples individual aspirations. In this first book of a trilogy, greed, treachery and the pursuit of power see goodwill collapse, lives torn apart, lovers separated but hope always resurgent.
In Southern African bush-wars, TAKING THE GAP came to mean running away, but it is derived from a rugby term meaning "to dart nimbly through a hole in the opposition defence.
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SOME BACKGROUND TO THE BOOKS
Following WW2, optimistic white British settlers left over-crowded dreary post-war Britain with its shortages and dismal climate in their droves, to try their luck in warmer, less populated Rhodesia, a British colony in Southern Africa, and initially succeeded in building a small modestly opulent empire. Then, against a backdrop of the violent transition from white Rhodesia to black Zimbabwe, they lost it, and a nasty colonial war. Politically marginalised and no longer feeling welcome or comfortable either in Africa or abroad some went, some stayed and some ricocheted, backwards and forwards to Britain or other commonwealth countries.
The fortunes of Ian and Connie Hacking’s family depict this rise and disintegration in standards, along with that of their black African neighbours, who having suffered in expectation of a bright future, found the wealth and freedom for which they fought restricted to a brutal selfish elite.
James Hacking inherits his father's best qualities of strength tolerance kindness and generosity, but also his bloody-mindedness and weakness for women. They are the qualities which cause him the most happiness, sadness and trouble. Ian is a liberal and sends his sons and daughter to multiracial schools so they will know their black countrymen not just as servants. He doesn’t acknowledge any laws that don’t suit him either. They are attitudes that make him both enemies and friends. Cast into a war in which former classmates become enemies James fights to the line for a civilized settlement, in the pay of a minority white regime desperate to survive at all costs, and which is simultaneously persecuting his father for offences he does not even acknowledge as unlawful.
BOOK 2: TENDER-HANDED STROKE A NETTLE AND IT STINGS YOU FOR YOUR PAINS: GRASP IT LIKE A MAN OF METTLE, AND IT SOFT AS SILK REMAINS
In “Taking The Gap” James Hacking had a bad time. A disastrous first love affair went bad with ramifications that keep recurring. His wife and child were killed in a landmine explosion. His family disintegrated emotionally and financially. And he lost his country.
For a while he fought in Namibia and Angola for the South Africans but his heart wasn’t in it. In Britain he found some tranquility and an English wife but the climate and perhaps an unacknowledged longing called him back to Southern Africa.
Now he has a comfortable home and stable flying job in South Africa and Botswana but things are going seriously wrong in his old homeland. When good companions from Rhodesian days are pursued into Botswana by a Zimbabwean President intent on annihilating all opposition, he is not left with much choice but to assist them.
The decision leads him to new places, new women and new perilous situations.
BOOK 3: In LOSING THE SPOON, Zimbabwe has known peace and growing prosperity for eight years under President Primrose Mpofu. But she and her advisor Simon Ndhlovu have become aware of a shadow looming that threatens to bring back another ruthless power disguising friendship as neo-colonialism. Elsewhere white africans are learning about life without a silver spoon. What would you do to earn a buck when the wolf is at the door…..?
It is 2011. Almost a decade on from “Grasping The Nettle” James Hacking thinks he has finally got Africa out of his system and is still trying new and difficult ventures: operating a continental transport company and not enjoying the British weather or the stress; re-opening a contentious disused airfield for private and commercial use, and at the same time bidding for a lucerative fuel-delivery contract in Iraq.
They are all risky either physically or financially but James is up for them; his beautiful fiery partner Loretta isn’t so sure.
And if that isn’t enough old comrade Denzil Harcourt is in hot water again and expects James to rescue him, while completely unexpected but joyful news drags him into a confrontation with the most vicious organised crime gang in South Africa and an old enemy who once again threatens Zimbabwe’s sovereignty. As well as someone very dear to him. Strap in tightly and check your ammo……!
“This is a genuine war wound Colinda and any lesser man would be using it as an excuse to avoid his duty! Listen, the other Yanks have been telling me of an ancient remedy for serious injuries like this; you have to rub your fingers between the naked legs of a Cajun Princess until she floods them with healing maiden’s water…..”
Colinda Lasserre swatted Scouse Hughes’ head, smiling as they strolled towards their big articulated fuel tankers at Baghdad Airport.
“Rude boy! Je vais frotter ta langue avec une brique!”
“Ow! What does that mean James? Did she volunteer?”
“I said I will scrub your tongue with a brick Hughes. And there is no such thing as a Cajun princess!”
Adjusting her body armour, Colinda leant across to James’s ear and whispered “But for you I could easily become one!”