The Mockers Mend a Puncture

We come out the other side. None of us has seen a goblin. However, Alan Fenton in the back is convinced there are golliwogs on the other side of the hill.

Mike is convinced that Alan is pissed.

We get safely thru the wood. We even get safely over the hill and turn into a farmyard, drive across a pile of mud and pull into a barn. There was hay all over the place, "Looks like a hay barn," says Alan. He knows about these things. He is, in fact, an expert.

We get out. "Jack her up then," says Alan. "I'll go and get the gear."

I hunt about in the back of the van for the jack. Of course it's pretty dark in the back of the van, so I go round to the front and open the door. "Oh, that's funny," I mutter as the door opens and no light comes on. I shut the door and re-open it. Still no light comes on.

I go round to the other door and open that, but nothing happens (except of course that the door opens). "Hell, what's the matter with it?"

"What are you pissing about at Clare? This isn't a comedy film. Get the ruddy van jacked up."

"The light won't come on when I open the door."

"You twit." He comes up to me, brushes past, leans in and throws a switch on the plastic light shield on the ceiling, and the light comes on. Then he slams the door. "That's funny."

"What?"

"That's very odd, it should go out again when I shut the door." He opens the door again and re-shuts it. The light stays resolutely on. He goes round to the other door and opens it. Then he slams it shut. The light stays on. "That's funny."

He opens the door again and slams it shut again.

Alan is standing right behind him with a bag full of tyre levers. "What the bloody hell are you doing? Why haven't you jacked up the van?"

"The light won't go out."

"What light?"

"The light in the cab."

"You twit." He brushed past Michael, leaned in and threw a switch on the plastic light shield and the light went out. Then he slammed the door. "There you are." He grinned.

"Right," said Michael. "Shall we jack this thing up now and get the tyres sorted out." He went round to the back of the van and looked in. "Bit dark in here isn't it. Could we have the light on."

I opened the side door and the light came on. "Oh, I didn't expect that."

Mike handed me the jack and turned to get the spare tyre. The van door swung to, and the light went out. "Bloody hell!" he bellowed.

"Now what?"

"I've tripped over that......"

"Well, why don't you look where you're going?"

There was a foul, bellowing reply from inside, which seemed to indicate that all was not well, and something was said about the light. I didn't quite catch it.

"Look, haven't you buggers got the jack ready yet. I've undone the nuts on both the back wheels?"

"There seems to be a problem." I opened the van door. "There you are."

"What d'ya mean?"

"Oh sorry," I thought the light would come on when I opened the door. I slammed the door shut again, and re-opened it. "It's no good I'll have to get in and switch it on." I leaned onto the seat and tried to switch on the light, but the plastic split and fell onto the floor. "Um, Mike."

"Now what?"

"I've broken the light."

"Oh hell! Look, hasn't anybody got a torch?"

"I'll go and borrow one," said Alan.

I got out of the van, slammed the door and bulb fell out of the central light socket. I picked up the jack and crawled under the van. "Where do I put this jack?"

"I can think of several good places to put it," said a disgruntled voice from inside.

I felt about under the van and found something solid, and set the jack in position, inserted the crank handle, and wriggled back out from under the dirty, oily beast.

I started cranking the lever, and the jack fell over.

"Bugger!" I muttered and crawled back under the van to right the jack, and a shower of mud fell in my face.

"Oh to hell with it."

"Now what?"

"Will you stop clanking around up there like a herd of buffalo."

"What?"

"I said 'shut up'!"

"But I wasn't saying anything."

I felt around, but couldn't seem to find the jack. "Where's Fenton with that wretched torch?"

I found the jack, righted it, and tried to twist the ratchet around with my fingers till it was almost tight on the chassis, then I backed out again and put in the crank handle.

I started pressing the lever and the thing fell over again.

By this time Michael was standing beside me, rubbing his shins. "How's it coming?"

"Look, you hold the dratted thing while I twist, O.K.?"

"Why?"

"Because it keeps falling over."

"It shouldn't do that."

"Look, never mind whether it should effing well fall over or shouldn't effing well fall over, it does effing well fall over. Right?"

"Oh."

"Yeah, so get down there and hang on to it so it doesn't effing well fall over."

"All right, all right, keep your hair on." And he got down, crawled under the van, and held the jack while I twisted the crank. "It's catching."

The van creaked a little, gave a sudden judder, and started going up in the air. Mike crawled back out again. "There you go then."

"What's happening? It doesn't seem to be going up," said Alan, back with a torch.

We peered under the van. The jack had buried itself up to its neck in mud and hay.

"What do we do now?"

"Put the jack on a lump of wood."

Alan turned round to look for a lump of wood, and Mike went off in the other direction and fell over a lump of wood that someone had left lying on the floor.

"Can't see any wood anywhere," said Alan, waving the torch around merrily.

There was a stream of abuse from the darkness.

"What's up?"

"I fell over this.....this.....this....."

Alan came over with the torch. "Oh." He picked up a piece of wood that was lying on the floor. "Just the thing. You missed this."

There was another oath from the darkness. Alan was meanwhile under the van with the wood. "We've got to get the jack down again," he said. I started twisting the crank the other way.

"Fine." He fiddled about for a few minutes. "O.K., twist again."

"We don't have a car radio," said Mike bitterly.

I twisted the crank. Alan got out from under the van which gave a creak and a lurch, and went up a couple of millimetres.

"Hooray!" shouted Alan. "Whey-hey and up she rises, whey-hey..." There was a sickening sound of ripping metal, and the van banged down again with a grunt.

"What was that?"

"You idiot, what did you put the jack on?" Mike got under the van. "Ouch! Shine that ruddy torch here will you." He dragged the jack back out from a ragged rusty hole under the van. "You realise you just missed the brake cables by about a millimeter."

It was quarter past eight before the van actually started going up for real. "We've been here for an hour already and all that's happened is..." As he spoke the two back wheels fell off.

Alan grabbed the tyre levers. "I'll start on this one, you start on that one."

He let down the tyre and then started levering away like mad at the outer casing. "Wow, this is tough."

"I know," said Mike, "there's an easy way to loosen them. I've seen how they do it. You drive over the casing and that loosens it. It comes off easily then."

I jumped into the cab, started the engine, jammed the thing into reverse and leaned out of the window.

"Stop you fool! You haven't any back wheels."

I got out of the cab and we all stood around again, staring at the tyres on the floor. "Wait a minute. These aren't the tyres you're supposed to be mending. These are the back tyres. It's the spare tyres in the back that have the punctures."

There was a two minute silence while the cogwheels in various brains went forwards, backwards, then did a little skid, got themselves into gear again, and then Mike burst out laughing. "O.K., let's pump the buggers up again."

"Where's the pump?"

"Oh,' said Alan, "I'll go and borrow one."

He was back in five minutes. Meanwhile we were sitting in the cab. It was bitterly cold. We had the engine running, and the heater was full on, blowing cold air all over our hands and legs.

"Oi!" screamed Alan as he rushed across the barn. "You haven't any back wheels."

"Well?"

"But...."

"What's the matter?"

"Oh, I thought you were trying to drive somewhere."

"What, with no back wheels?"

"Only, the wheels are going round, you see."

"Don't be an ass Fenton, the wheels are on the floor, how can they be going round?"

"I mean the...the...hubs."

I switched off the engine. "Are they? Wow." We got out and inspected the hubs. "This one isn't going round, is the other one Mike?"

"No, this one isn't," came the reply from the other side of the van. "You're going potty Fenton, where's that pump?

He fitted the nozzle onto the valve and leaned against the van. One foot was going up and down, up and down, up and.... "Bugger this for a lark," said Mike. "You have a go."

I had a go. My foot was going up and down, up and down, up and... "Bugger this for a lark, you have a go Alan."

"I'll show you how to do it." He leaned both arms against the back of the van and pumped like he was demented. Up down, up down, up down, up down.

I tested the tyre. "It's not going up."

"What d'ya mean it's not going up? Of course it's going up."

Mike felt the tyre. Alan was pumping twice as fast now. "It's not going up," said Mike.

"Of course it's not going up," I said. "The connector isn't in properly."

We made a slight adjustment to the connector, and the tyre gradually filled.

"You put this one on, and I'll pump up the next one," I said.

Alan rolled the tyre away and balanced it on the hub. I started pumping up the next one.

"Where are the nuts?"

"Get on with the tyre, you're not supposed to be stopping for nuts and biscuits now. Next thing you'll be wanting a beer."

"The nuts to hold the wheel on you fool."

"I dunno, you took them off."

"Oh yes, well, er.....I.....um. I put them down here....I think. Yes....I put them down...." He walked about a bit. "Here." He got down on his hands and knees searching in amongst the hay. "Where's the light?"

"Hold on." And Mike joined him on the floor. "Here's one. They scratched around in the hay and found two more.

"There should be four."

"Oh hell, put on three, that'll do, won't it? The damn thing isn't going to fall off if it's only got three nuts on."

"How hard should these tyres be?"

"Twentysix pounds."

"And how do you measure that?"

"Er...you don't, we don't have a gauge."

"Then how hard do I pump it up?"

"Oh hell, just pump it till it's hard."

We fitted the second tyre. We could only find two nuts for that one. "It'll do for the time being," Mike waved his hand airily. "We can always get some more tomorrow."

We got the two spare tyres out from the back of the van. Alan was fiddling with the valve. We stood and waited.

"Look, what are you pissing about at Fenton?"

"Trying to let the air out."

"But you great twerp there isn't any air in it, it's got a puncture."

"Oh yes, sorry." He stood up.

We stood staring at the two tyres. "They're different sizes."

"That doesn't matter, so long as you have two the same size at the front, and two the same size at the back, but the front and back don't have to be....well, you know... in fact I don't think the back ones have to be the same size anyway."

"Well, what about this left hand side front tyre? I said, pointing into the dark.

"What's wrong with it? Hasn't got a puncture has it?"

"It's smaller than the rest. Look."

Mike came up with the torch. We squinted at it. "Good lord, so it is. It had better come off and we'll put it at the back."

"What are we going to put at the front?"

"One of these."

"Which one? They're different sizes."

We went round to the other front wheel and looked at it. "It's got lots of numbers on it. Do any of these correspond to the ones on the other tyres?"

"I should doubt it."

"What do we do then?"

"Take the two back wheels off and put them on the front, and take the front two wheels off and put them on the back."

"And what do we do about the spares?"

"Put them in the back of the van."

"No, you fool, when we get a puncture."

"Put it on the wheel that's got the puncture."

"But then we'll have odd wheels."

"Look, let's mend the ruddy punctures first or we won't have any spare wheels."

Alan got out the tyre levers and started in at one of the wheels on the floor. "This tyre is stiff. I can't get it to come free at all." Alan was wrenching at the tyre with three or four tyre levers.

"Give it here," said Mike, who jumped up and down on the levers, which suddenly pinged loose and shot off into the darkness.

"You idiot Adams. Now we've got no tyre levers."

"Sorry about that."

Alan flashed the torch around. "They went off in that direction."

We started pulling apart the hay rick. There was hay to the left of us, hay to the right of us, hay down my shirt, and hay up my trousers. There was hay in my hair and hay up my nose, but we couldn't find any tyre levers.

"You really are a pain Adams, fancy doing a stupid thing like that."

"Don't blame me, I was only trying to help."

"Look, for god's sake, it's nearly half past nine and we haven't achieved anything yet. All we've managed to do is take off the back wheels, let the air out, put the air back in, and put the tyres back on again, and lose half the nuts. We've bust the inside light, banged a great hole thru the bottom of the chassis with the jack, and now we've lost this guy's tyre levers."

"And wrecked his hay Rick We'll have to put all this hay back again, we can't leave it all over the floor of the barn."

"What was that? I heard a metallic sound. Who just trod on a tyre lever?"

We got down on our hands and knees and swept the floor with our hands. "Found one," bellowed Mike. It took us twenty minutes to find the other two.

"Look, we aren't going to get the tyres off like this. Let's do what Mike suggested before. Let's run over the damn things with the van, that'll loosen them."

Mike put one tyre in front of the left front wheel. Alan put the other tyre under the right front wheel, and I got into the cab and put the van into first gear. Nothing happened.

"The back wheels are skidding," shouted Alan. "We'll give you a push."

They went round to the back and heaved like hell. Suddenly the whole van lurched forward with a horrible grinding, wrenching sound, shot over the tyres and rammed the hayrick. Mike and Alan fell over, the van stalled and I fell out thru the open cab door, and great piles of hay tumbled down on top of me.

"Wow!" said Mike, picking himself up. "That should have done it."

"Hasn't done the torch much good," said Alan. There was a chunk of glass missing from it.

"What happened?" I asked, brushing hay out of my ears, nose and throat. I felt like an out-patient.

"We skidded," said Alan.

"Oh dear," said Mike in a solemn way. "The van was still on the jack, wasn't it?"

"Oh," said Alan. "Where is it?"

We hunted around on the floor till we found the jack. The shaft was bent like a crank handle. "We won't be using that again."

"How are we going to jack up the van to change the tyres?"

There was a silence. "We use a bit of wood. You get a beam, or a plank, and stick it under the side of the vehicle and heave." Alan looked round. We were staring at him with blank faces. "It's easy. I've done it before." And we left it at that. It was easy. He'd done it before.

I reversed the van out of the hayrick. More hay fell onto the floor as the van moved back. I put the brake on.

The tyres were easy to get off now. Actually, what I meant to say was that the tyres were now loosened from the rims, and with a certain amount of struggling we managed to get the inner tubes out. We also managed to put a couple of small (well, sort of small; well, one was quite large actually) holes in the inner tubes as we were getting them out. They snagged on something or other.

"Never mind, we can mend those punctures with the others," said Mike.

"How do we tell where the original puncture was?"

"You blow up the tyre and stick it in water, then watch for the bubbles."

"Where do we get the water?"

"There's a tap outside."

"What do we put the water in?"

"Oh, for god's sake, a bowl man."

"Got a bowl?"

"There must be one about."

"Let's have the torch then, and I'll go and look for one."

"I need the torch to put on the patches."

"But how can you put on the patches when you don't know where the holes are."

"But I can see two of them."

"Yes, but they're the two we made. There must have been at least another one we didn't make."

"Oh right. Let's go look for a bowl."

It took us about fifteen minutes not to find a bowl.

"Look, we can just blow up the tyre and stick it under the tap," said Michael.

Alan held the tyre under the tap, Michael turned it on, but nothing happened. "The water's frozen I suppose."

"Give it a kick," said Alan. So I kicked it, and ended up hopping around on one foot clutching the other. "Great dance, man, but no water."

"Get the spanner, and take the tap off," said Alan. I hobbled into the barn and rummaged around for the spanner.

As I took off the tap a great spurt of water came out and soaked all of us. A good shower of water ran down the outside of the tube and we thought we could see where there was a hole, so we made a mark and took the tyre back into the barn.

"Shouldn't we turn off the tap?"

"No, net yet, let's do the other tyre first."

"Where's the mark?"

Michael turned the tyre round and round. "It's about here....er....oh...." Mike picked up the tyre, and we all went outside again and stuck it back under the tap.

"I swear there was a stream of bubbles coming up before."

"I don't think there's enough air in the tyre."

"What can you expect with two ruddy great rents in the thing." Mike and I were squinting down at the tyre under the stream of water while Alan was busily pumping away with the foot pump to keep the pressure from dropping to absolute zero.

"This is bloody ridiculous. The tyre is filling up with water. Let's go back inside, empty it out, and patch these two big holes, then look for the others."

Back inside we got out the repair kit. I read the instructions by the light of the torch. "It says the surface has to be dry."

"Then dry it."

"What with?"

Mike picked up an armful of hay from the floor. "Use this."

We dried the tyre as best we could, put the glue on, then rammed on a patch. It kept slipping about, and despite much pushing did not seem to want to stay put. We ended up putting the tyre on the floor and Michael stood on the patched area for three minutes. He then removed his foot and we all peered down to see if it had stuck properly, but there was no sign of the patch at all.

"Did you remember to put the patch on?"

"Of course I put it on, you saw me trying to get it to stick."

"Well, where is it then?"

Mike lifted his boot and looked at the sole. "There it is." He peeled it off and threw it away. "Where are those instructions?" And he grabbed the tube from me.

Alan shone the torch on the tube, and we tried to read the minute writing, which was all wrinkled up where we had squeezed the tube. "We put on too much glue," said Alan with great confidence. "I'll do it this time."

He put on a smidgen of glue, pushed it around with his finger, then put on the patch, pressed it down and then stood on it again.

When he lifted his boot there was the patch, squarely stuck to the tube. "Wow, amazing. Let's do the other one."

When we'd finished we blew up both tyres and took them back out to the gushing water tap. Mike thought he saw a puncture. I said it was just the water breaking up into bubbles. Alan said he wasn't sure. I thought I knew where the actual puncture was, but Mike wasn't convinced.

"Look, let's mark them both, and we'll look for more. If we put patches on everything we think is a puncture we can't go wrong. I'd rather put a patch on something that isn't a puncture instead of.... well you know what I mean. If we miss one that we aren't sure of and we get the wretched thing back on and it still leaks, then we shall feel bloody fools, won't we?"

"I feel a bloody fool already," I said. "I'm soaking wet, freezing cold, I can't see what we're doing, and we've totally wrecked the barn, the tools, the water tap, and everything else...." I trailed into silence.

We marked out eight possible punctures in the two tyres and then went back into the barn. I found the spanner and tried to put the tap back on, but I couldn't get the thing to thread properly, and I was getting drenched in the trying. When I got back they were stuffing the inner tube back into the tyre. "How's it going?"

"We ran out of patches so we only did some of them."

"Well, that's a fat lot of good."

"Don't worry, we thought of a better way of testing for leaks."

"How?"

"We blew up the tube then ran our fingers over the surface to see if we could feel a draught."

"You're joking. There are forty million draughts in this damn barn."

"Well, we thought we found two holes."

"We'd better hurry up, it's getting late. That guy'll be wanting his gear back. It's already ten past eleven."

We chucked both tyres into the back of the van. "Right, now let's swop over the wheels. The two on the front go on the back, and the back ones go to the front."

We hunted for a sturdy beam to jack up the van. The only ones we could find were those that seemed to be busy already, so we heaved at one of them that was holding up a rack of fodder. The rack sagged a little but there were other beams on the job. We thought the rack ought to survive with one beam less.

We put one end of the beam under the side of the van and heaved. There was an almighty sound of buckling tin.

"Wow, what was that?":

We inspected the damage. The whole of the base of the van near where we had lifted had disappeared. The tin had been completely rusted away.

"We'll have to do this differently," said Michael. So we got a bale of hay and used that as a wedge, and levered against it. All that happened was that we flattened the bale.

"Look Alan, how well to you know this farmer guy?"

"Well..."

Mike laughed. "How well did you know him?"

"Actually I know him quite well, but....em..."

"Look. Shall we just leave things as they are and leave the country, sort of now?" I suggested.

"Can't stop now. After all, we managed to do the punctures. We should be able to change the wheels. Any old fool can do that."

"Yes Mike, but I don't think that van can handle another lift."

We drove it out of the barn, shut the doors, and drove homewards back thru the goblin wood. All the way back there was a curious clanking sound, and the left rear side of the vehicle seemed to be limping. When we got to my house we noticed that the two lutes holding on the wheel were really loose.

"We'll tighten them in the morning when we get a jack," said Michael.

"I'll just get my bag from the back," said Alan, and he opened the back doors.

A moment later he was back. "I say chaps," he said, laughing. "You know those punctures we mended?"

"Oh no, don't say we left the tyres back at the barn?"

"Nope. They're in the back alright."

"Well, what about them?"

"They're flat."

It was ten to two when I finally got to bed. I was cold, and I had bruises all over me. My clothes were soaked and covered in oil. Outside in the street the van was unlocked. In fact one of the doors was wide open. Where we had tried to lift the van with the beam we had bent all the bottom runner of the door, and we had had to drive home with it jammed open.

In the morning we drove the van down to the tyre place and they mended three punctures while we waited, and the bill was so small we paid it out of our pocket money.

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