Electrifying fences

Engelberg, Switzerland

I have caught them out. Easy really. Caught the Swiss red handed. I can only hope the nation handles its finances more honestly than their cattle control.

You see it is all to do with electric fences. There’s me, sauntering down a Sound of Music slope fit, almost, to burst into song. Mind you, you have not heard me singing; it is not something I would recommend. Meanwhile from the field beside me drifts the dainty tinkle, occasional clang, of cow bells. I cannot see the animals as it is misty but when I draw near, the shadow of a munching cow looms. Isn’t it odd how everything seems larger in the mist?

The beast looks up as I begin to stride past, puzzlement in its expression. I recognise that look instantly as it matches mine exactly. You see, I am puzzled too. Perplexed, mystified, searching…searching for an answer. Because as I draw nearer the cow begins to look a little strange, less cow-like, perhaps more mean, its lower jaw definitely squarer. Then it tears at the ground before it with an aggressive right foot and it is then I realise…whoops... this is not a cow at all, this is a bloody great bull. There is not an udder in sight but something far more masculine. The animal starts to snort, it lowers its head and sways from side to side almost as if it is dancing. As it snorts I see tiny jets of steam shooting from each nostril. This is one angry beast and all I have done to upset him is to arrive from nowhere. An alien emerging from the mist.

I look closer. I peer hard. Phew! Thank Heaven. All is fine as the efficient Swiss have placed a strand of electrified fencing between me and my Nemesis. That’s OK then. For a brief moment, terribly brief, I relax. “Good morning,” I say to the angered beast as I doff an imaginary hat.

Stupid, oh so stupid. Never doff a hat, imaginary or otherwise, to a bull. The animal’s right foot starts tearing at the ground more rapidly, great sods of earth fly into the air, the snorting becomes louder and the jaw is looking squarer still. I’ve blown it. This is no time to make a bull get angry and certainly no time to make an angry beast go mad. I have just failed on all counts. At least I would have done had it not been for the strand of electrified fencing that separates us. One side the quadrupedal beefsteak, the other the careless Brit. I am more than aware that there is a greater chance of being killed by a bull or cow than by a shark, even if the deadliest life form on the planet still remains the mosquito. But right now, at this very moment, there is a testosterone-laden bull before me and I had better start respecting it, and quickly.

I am unsure what makes me do it but for some reason I stretch out my hand. Well actually a bare forefinger. Perhaps it is the scientist in me, or maybe it is just a natural inquisitiveness, but I want to see how an electrified fence feels when I touch it. Will it spark? Will I be blown off my feet? Is this the Swiss equivalent of a policeman’s taser? I have no idea so, what the Hell, why not give it a go? So I do. Anyway I am alone so there is only me to make a fool of myself. Only me to laugh at my own idea. Hesitantly I reach out, for a moment allowing my forefinger to hover over the naked, twisted wire. The pawing, snorting animal is, in my mind, way distant, even if in reality it is all of two metres away and making an almost perfect simulation of a boiling kettle, a hair’s breadth from bubbling.

Slowly I let my finger approach the wire. Five millimetres, four millimetres, three, two, one…wait…wait…no…no…I can’t…don’t be pathetic…OK...go! I allow bare flesh to touch naked copper, or steel. Whatever it is, it is clearly metallic. Instantly I pull my finger away, inhaling briefly in anticipation of the pain I am about to feel. But there is no spark, no agony, not even a tingle. Just my brief gasp, a snorting, pawing, steaming animal, and mist that refuses to disperse.

So I try again, once more ignoring my opponent. For some strange reason I am feeling relaxed as I see the animal making its moves, like an All Black before a game of rugby, but I see also that it is coming no closer. It is simply pawing and snorting and steaming and rumbling and all other noises a bull can make before tackling its quarry. Yet right now the beast is keeping its distance and I am most definitely keeping mine. Again I lower my forefinger to the wire, this time far quicker, almost with confidence. Gone is the worry and suspicion of a few seconds ago.

So my finger touches the wire, I feel the cold metal, damp too thanks to the fine drizzle that is pervading anything and everything on the mountain. I touch the wire…nothing…I let my finger rest…nothing…I slide it left…nothing…I slide it right…nothing. The Swiss, how could they? The bloody wire is dead, not a volt, not an amp, not the faintest sign of activity. All that separates me from a would-be assailant, from the beast that wishes me harm, is a thin piece of wire, so thin it is almost invisible. It is barely thicker than a spider’s thread and, what is more, in this circumstance it is no more effective.

As I let my forefinger rest on the inactive, inert, ineffective wire I look up at the bull. For a moment he stops pawing the ground and I see him glance at my finger. His swaying ceases, too. Instantly I realise that the animal is more intelligent that I thought. He has spotted the problem, or at least he thinks he has. I see him glance away from my forefinger and stare back at me. His eyes are bloodshot. He comes a tiny bit closer, so close I can see the shape of his eyes and what look to be slit-like pupils. Are those eyelashes I see? Do bulls have eyelashes? This one looks as though he might but this is not the moment to peer closer in order to find out. I realise I have nanoseconds to act. The pawing starts again, the snorting, the swaying, the steam, the head is down.

“Ouch!” I cry at the top of my voice, so loud I can hear myself echo up and down the mountain valley. I withdraw my hand fast from this imaginary electrocution. I exaggerate my move enormously, throwing myself backwards and doubling over in seemingly obviously pain.

“Aaah!” I yell, and thrust my so-called injured hand firmly into my opposite armpit. As I make this move I see the animal cease its pawing, stop its snorting, and the swaying and steaming subside. I see puzzlement once again in its face. It looks at the wire, it looks back at me and then it quietens, turns on its bull heels and lopes off into the mist its bell clanging noisily.

So the Swiss? Trust them for everything, trust them for anything but when it comes to electrifying fences, spare them no mercy as you cannot trust them at all.