Bullet!

I was narrowly missed by a bullet that came through the dining room window at my parents’ house once, leaving a small ragged hole; but most of the glass, although cracked, was still in place. The bullet went through my hair, or perhaps I just felt the draught as it passed, how can you tell? It left a dent in the matchboarding on the wall behind me – but just a dent, a bullet hitting wood? Puzzling.

We thought we’d heard the bullet tinkling against some glass somewhere, and guessed it might have been hitting the bottles of fruit under the stairs – following the line from the hole in the window to the dent in the matchboarding, that was roughly where you’d expect it to end up after ricocheting off the matchboarding.

None of the bottles were broken, and we couldn’t find a bullet. But there was a small pebble – roughly ellipsoidal, about 15mm x 10, with a tiny chip in the side.

Where had this bullet-pebble come from? Following the line from the dent in the matchboarding to the hole in the window led us to the old cast-iron signpost the opposite side of the road – and the paint on the signpost was chipped just below the line.

We thought the stone must have been shot out from under the motor mower mowing the grass at the side of the little car park the other side of the road, and ricocheted off the signpost. Couldn’t think of any other explanation.

Actually bloody dangerous!

1985