A Snake In The Sugar Cane

You hear the best stories in the bar of a small town or golf club – useful to know if you’re a young reporter. Anna Kemp recalls an evening of endless and terrifying tales about snakes.

- Anna Kemp

When I started working as a young reporter in the former Natal, it didn’t take me long to understand the advice my older colleagues had shared: in a small town, the bar at the local golf club is an endless source of myths, dramas and stories – with, on the odd occasion, a smattering of wisdom thrown in. So I proceeded to join a golf club, where I was welcomed into the fold straight away.

After finishing work late one evening, I arrived at the club and took up my position at the corner of the bar counter with a beer in front of me. Andries and Koedoe immediately beckoned me closer. Their group had clearly been at the 19th hole for a long time already and, with great bravado, they began to share stories about their experiences with black mambas – and there were many of those in the area.

Koedoe said that very afternoon he had spotted an olive-colored snake – three metres long, and thick – at the 16th hole. He’d shouted at his caddie to throw him his two-iron before delivering a hard blow across the monster’s back that sent it slithering away in the rough. Koedoe and the caddy then followed in hot pursuit, each wielding a club (well, the caddy was armed with a stick, because golf clubs are expensive, you know) and managed to deliver a few decent blows while shouting at each other to beware of the deadly backward strike of a black mamba in forwarding motion. The snake had eventually made for the sugar-cane field adjacent to the golf course.