The Tales of Jim Murray, The Last Cowboy of the Spergebiedt!

[Michael Alexander]

We stuck a fire hydrant under the toilet door and let it loose, it was the chemical type that eats up the oxygen and blows out a big plume of smoke.....you shoulda seen that boy running down the hallway with kakpaper hanging out his 

[Chris Macpherson]

mike i know someone who let off a fire extuinguisher in the rec club and was nearly murdered for it.

[Michael Alexander]

Yes, I'm sure you do.... and were'nt you lucky that they never caught you....

[Michael Alexander]

For those of you who think I am talking tosh about Jim Murray, here is a photo of him from the 60's up at the GM"s house in  EBAY...

[Chris Macpherson]

i had to go practically tee totol for a year though....... anyway the woman involved and me r best mates till this day!!

[Rhona]

Mike - is that the 'mad' house?

[Chris Macpherson]

hi rhona. that is the gms' house , i have also been there.

[Michael Alexander]

That is indeed the GM's house up at Ebay, the one that the story is on about.....

Here's another pic of Jim on one of the Landrovers......

[Rhona]

Doesn't look like he scares easily....

[Michael Alexander]

Here's a recent photo of Jim and GLoria ......

[Bev Coates (Now Walker)]

I too have a Nostradamus book..paperback..... bought it about 14 years ago.... according to him...the moslems should be ruling Europe by now....... kinda late are'nt they?



no mike where you been .....they took over years ago.....them and every other religion.......we dont have our own country anymore.....they do....im not colour predujdice at all i have friends of all colours and races, but it makes my blood boil when were stopped from doing things of our own culture because the asians find it offensive.....well let them go live back in asia.......but no.....our goverment is only to please the non british people...or thats how it seems........

[Carl Wrbka]

Would that be Grobberlaar, Carl, or had he left by then?

Hi Diana, no it was Kallie Fourie at the time. He was there untill about a year before I left, and was followed up by Mr Crossman, who was also the headmaster of Centaurus then. I can't remember the girls hostel master's name right now, only remember he was the Geography teacher at Centaurus at the time as well.

[Diana Rudd (Boehme)]

In my time it was Mr.Genis

[Michael Alexander]

Ok, here's that Ghost story that was relayed to me by phone from Jim Murray in Jhb. Before I start, I think it would help if I told you about Jim Murray briefly.

Jim Murray is a pensioner, who now lives in Alberton, South Africa, and telephoned me one day out of the blue after hearing about the website. He explained to me that he worked up in the Spergebiedt in the early 60's but did not work for CDM, but rather for a company that had a contract with CDM.

He went on to tell me that he was a qualified diver and that he was part of a six man (European) crew that were involved in a multitude of tasks up at Elizabeth Bay. The reason why I stated that they were European was that they were the only white people up in that section of the Spergebiedt. The nearest other white people were in Luderitz. They also had a small contingent of 8 ovambo workers to help with the more manual work.

Now just to bring a few of you up to speed about Elizabeth Bay. This town is a ghost town. It was last in operation sometime in the early 1900's and was run by the Colonial Germans. There is a link on the main site at (http://www.oranjemundonline.com/ElizabethbayandBogenfels/index.htm). This gives you a better idea of the area.

Now Jim and the others were almost like the original pioneers of that end of the deserted Spergebiedt. One chap was a geologist, the other a blaster..... they all had various skills and worked together as a team. They did a lot of survey work, measuring tides, movements of the sands, prospecting and my favourite, exploring in their free time.

The only place they could live at while up in Elizabeth Bay, was the abandoned General Mangers house, which had been rigged up with a generator for power. This house, if you look at the photos on the main site, looks imposing with a panoramic view over the ghost town and the actual bay of Elizabeth.
They also had a house allocated to them back in Oranjemund. This house was used for when the team would finish work on a Friday , all jump into the land rovers and head to Oranjemund for the dance and song, which was the infamous CDM off weekend. One of the Europeans would always have to stay behind to keep an eye on the Ovambo Workers. The Ovambo workers did not reside with the Europeans, but lived in a small compound which was situated at the bottom of the hill on which the General Manager's house stood.

It was on one of these off weekends, that our story actually begins......



It was sometime in the early 60's and it had been one of those long dry weeks up at the old abandoned settlement of Elizabeth Bay, but Friday had arrived and five members of the team were clambering onto the Landover, in preparation for the dusty drive south through the Spergebiedt's never ending sand dunes. In a few hours, they would all be sitting in the famous Casey's bar of Oranjemund, knocking back a few well deserved beers.

This time around, Jim Murray had drawn the short straw, it was his turn to stay alone in the old double story house. It looked out of place, this German style building of brick and mortar, with wooden roofing, perched on a desolate rocky outcrop, overlooking the sand covered mining town of Elizabeth Bay. Jim waved and turned his back, as the Landrover merged into one with the shimmering afternoon desert. Looking up at the building, he wondered what he would be doing with the rest of his solitary weekend.

The rest of the late afternoon faded as the sun disappeared behind the rolling Atlantic waves to the West. The Ovambo helper, Sam, said Good Night to Jim as he picked up his paraffin lantern and headed down the rocky track to the compound at the foot of the hill. Jim glanced up as the first crystal clear stars broke through the ever darkening skies. For a change the mist had not rolled in off the Atlantic. He took another sip of the beer that he had been nursing since his companions had departed. Nobody to play darts against, too dark to go out and explore.... only thing left would be to head upstairs to his room, perhaps a good book might do the trick.

The big wooden windows that looked out from Jim's room had one of the best views out towards the bay to the west, the only downside was the fact that the icy cold prevailing wind would often against the window, causing many a sleepless night. In order to prevent the incessant banging of the window, Jim had taken it upon himself to nails through the aging wooden window frames, thus securing the windows from opening. As a further good measure, he pushed the dressing table against the window.

Jim removed his heavy, damp boots and swung his tall muscular frame onto the bed, book in hand, facing the wall, he removed the bookmark.

Somewhere up on the roof, a piece of wood had kept up it's constant knocking against a support beam, the cold wind , in unison with the distant waves added to the late night symphony. Jim lifted his unfocused eyes from the pages, he glanced over his right shoulder, wondering if it had been the book that had planted the seed of suspicion in his tired mind? He reckoned it must have been about the fourth time that evening, that he had to avert his eyes from the book, just to pacify his mind, perhaps to ensure himself, that there was indeed, nobody else in that cluttered room with him.

Slowly sliding the bookmark between the pages, his eyes focused on the window, "This is stupid, I'm in the middle of the desert, a restricted part of the desert at that, there can't be anyone out there", he thought to himself.

With a thundering crash, the stack of yellow books that had been sitting on the left hand corner of the table, tumbled to the wooden floor, causing Jim to sit upright on the bed. Almost as if the window had burst open, an unseen gust had picked up the remaining diverse articles from the table and quickly threw them into an all consuming circular motion in the centre of the room. As the vortex picked up speed, a hairbrush narrowly shot passed Jim's head, smashing against the wall....Jim sat, staring, motionless in a state of pure shock, his mind unable to comprehend the unexplainable, that chaotic scene in front of him.....books, papers and clothes tumbling in an uncontrollable flight in the middle of his dimly lit room.......

"This cannot be happening.....It's impossible!", Jim thought to himself, regaining his senses glancing towards the window, as a two hundred page novel managed to extract itself from the ever spinning vortex, slamming itself against the old, unvarnished door.

Deep down, Jim was hoping that the rustic wooden window had somehow managed to be blown open by the desert winds, thus to an extent helping to explain the unnatural events occurring before his widened eyes., Jim's disheartened eyes fell upon the still sealed window, firmly shuttered by the bent nails he had impaled into the aging timber frames when they had first arrived at this abandoned colonial building.

Surrendering the little courage he had left, he spun himself back onto the bed as the book he had just been reading was extracted from his white knuckled fingers and absorbed into the ever widening vortex.

He did the only sensible thing he could think of, a kind of child like mentality, perhaps a memory that had been instantly rekindled, a memory he had forgotten, from when in his childhood, he had reason to feel fear... a time to hide, turn away from the threat and with his hands covering his ears, he turned his back, pressing down onto his creaking bed, he pressed his face and body flat against the bare wall, hoping his exposed and shaking back would protect him from the unexplainable.

No matter how hard he pressed his hands over his ears, no matter how much he endeavored to push his body into the wall, that sound would not subside. It was a sound that he would later describe as that of being attached to the roof of a Skymaster plane, with every wind in the world hurtling around you in an unorganized and extremely dangerous fashion. The only noise that needed to be added, was that of a screeching steam train rushing through the middle of the vortex to compliment the swirling winds.

Almost as suddenly as it had started, as black and white differ, the cacophony of noise ceased, silence returned to the littered room. Jim heard the last book collapse to the wooden floor, but still could not bear to draw up enough courage to turn around to see what scene might greet him.

It is a well known fact, that the human mind is more than capable of creating entities, when there is in actual fact nothing there.. As a child we all remember the monster under the bed scenario. At times, when we are uncertain, confused, perhaps in the dark, alone, we conjure up all these images. This was the immediate thought that Jim had been thinking to himself.

He could feel the presence, a something, perhaps another being, standing just behind his shivering back. "Where has my courage gone?", he thought to himself, "For God's sake, I swim with the sharks and killer whales down in the rocky bay, all I have to do is turn around, all I have...". It was then that he realized to himself that he was not shaking because of fear, but the room's temperature had dropped dramatically. "sh*t, it felt like I was diving in the Southern Atlantic without my wetsuit." he would recount later to his mates in the bar at Oranjemund.

The chilling coldness felt unnatural, a coldness that seemed threatening, together with the feeling that somebody was standing directly behind him, intensified as the lingering dampness caused his teeth to start chattering......"Just turn around, just do it!", he repeated to himself....

After a brief mental battle with his inner conscience, he eventually brought his courage to the fore, he started to slowly turn his body towards the presence in the room, when like a bullet shooting through his leg, he felt an ice cold hand grip his left exposed calf. He instinctively turned to look at his leg, at the same time realizing that even though the sensation that his leg was being held, there was nobody there.... The suffocating fear was overwhelming, he never remembered it happening, but every muscle in his sweating body, had enough pure adrenalin saturating through them to catapult his body, headfirst off the damp bed and through the electric air into the direction of the partially opened door.

Like an escaping rabbit trying to burrow into it's warren, he clawed on all trembling fours for the safety of  the wooden door, gasping he squeezed through into the hallway as an ear piercing screech emanated from behind him. He raised himself up and started to descend the rickety staircase. As water would thunder down a wild waterfall, he crashed down onto the ground floor and headed for the front door. Turning the brass doorknob, he opened the creaking door....he exited that disturbed building and entered into the cool desert night,  celestial stars spread out in every direction, the night sky ever absorbing his rancid fear. He stumbled to a stop barely fifteen meters from the luminated house, turning around he looked back..... the bedroom window still sealed closed, radiated a yellowish hue as the generator spluttered and then caught it's breath, continuing to play it's familiar diesel tune to the barren silent night

The heat that had smothered the barren desert during the day had by now evaporated into the darkened heavens. Cold Atlantic sea air rapidly moved in from the west. Jim shivered, down towards the beach a lone strandwolf let out a menacing howl. "I can't stay out here the whole night!" , he thought to himself... The building seemed at peace with itself once again. Nothing appeared to be moving inside.

It was a good two hours later and with the motivation of  the strandwolf, that had now appeared within view of Jim, that he eventually decided to enter the warm, illuminated building. Slowly he stepped through the wooden front door. Glancing up at the staircase, he knew that there was no way that he would be heading upstairs that weekend. He would just have to wait until the rest of the crew returned from their party weekend down in Oranjemund. He felt tired, very tired and to an extent nausea's too. He went cautiously through to the tidy kitchen  and proceeded to boil some water on the gas stove. He good cup of hot coffee with a generous drop of highland whisky would warm him up and to an extent help calm his racing mind.
The coffee was stronger than normal, but this was understandable. As he sipped each sweet drop, he kept glancing towards the ceiling, reassuring himself that there was no noise upstairs. The solitary light in the centre of the kitchen dimmed as the the generator, out in the yard sounded it's familiar splutter and then continued to reverberate in it's normal manner.

The whisky in the coffee started to numb Jim's exhausted body, his thoughts began to cloud over as he poured another triple tot of whisky into the next cup of coffee. He added a spoonful of milk powder, stirred the alcoholic beverage and slouched through to the lounge.

[georg ruf jr.]

 swim