This story takes us back to a small Kiwi country town in 1942. New Zealand was heavily involved with the war effort. Most able bodied men were off fighting for King and country in Europe while those people who remained were facing hard times.
Percival Potter was a veteran of WWI. While considered to be too old for active duty overseas he had been seconded to Home Guard duties, based at Army HQ in town. A widower, his 6-year old son and recently married daughter Muriel were living with her mother-in-law about a kilometre from the barracks. Once a week or so he would walk over to have lunch with his family at Mrs Cavelli's house.
Mrs Cavelli had a cat. Not a great cat. A tom with little to recommend it. You could even say it was a surly, miserable flea-bitten louse-bound mongrel with no talent for much except piddling everywhere. Only Mrs Cavelli loved it. Possibly it was her closest "family", since she was a widow whose son was away fighting overseas.
One week Percival was leaving the house and spied the tom cocking a leg about to relieve itself on a pot plant on the front balcony. He never did have much time for useless animals, and on a spur of the moment whim swung his size nine boot fair up its backside. The cat must have seen it coming, started to jump, but this only had the effect of propelling said cat over a 2-metre high trellis. The cat was not happy, and disappeared rapidly from sight. Wilson, the young son, was the only witness. His father made it clear that to tell Mrs Cavelli would be a big mistake.
The next week rolled around and Percival once again called in for lunch. Mrs Cavelli and his children were all in the lounge room as he called from the front door. She replied that he should come on in. The cat was peacefully curled up on her lap. As he came out of the hallway and into the doorway the cat took one look at the visitor and panicked. It tried to leave with alacrity but Percival blocked the doorway. This gave the cat only one other possiblility to evacuate - via the chimney. Luckily it was summer and the fireplace was not in use.
Like a scalded cat it shot up the chimney. It failed to gain enough altitude to escape but in its frantic efforts it dislodged a huge amount of soot. A black cloud billowed out of the fireplace, quickly filling the room with blackened, coughing humans. On arrival back to the launching pad (gravity having brought it back to the grate), the cat spied a gap in the traffic and bolted out of the house, leaving in its wake utter bedlam.
When comparative calm was restored Mrs Cavelli said, "Oh Mr Potter, it must have been your uniform that startled him." Little did she know, the only thing that startled her cat was the unpleasant memory of the last time it saw that size nine army boot.