The East Anglian Bombardiers And Grenadiers

by Stephen Jennison-Smith

  “Sorry,” interrupted Sid, “is this one of those moments when we look into your back story as part of your character development?”

  “I think it must be, seeing as I don’t know what I was going to say next.”

  “Now they’ve been infiltrated by the giantish kingdoms they are like a) A pin prick in a teabag. b) a fruit from the useless tree, or, c) making bungee cords out of steel wire.”

  “None of those analogies really work.”

  “But they are quite funny though. Could you do better? Seeing as you didn’t know what you were going to say next.”

  “I suppose thinking that they’re funny depends on what kind of sense of humour you have.”

  “Just make up a humorous analogy, before I make you swab the deck.”

  “Like punch mixed with red.”

  “Breaking the metaphysical barrier there I see. Unless of course you mean Mr Punch, mixed with Raymond Reddington from The Blacklist.”

  “Is that funny?”

  “It will be when I punch you, you turn red then I swab the floor with you.”

  “You can’t do that, that’s bullying.”

  “But I can threaten it.”

  The colonel butted in as he walked back from the bridge, “Now now Sid, try to go a little easy on him will you, we’re supposed to be fleshing out his character development not scaring him into the metaphysical.”

  Just then [or something quite similar] the airship turned sharply to the left making them all lean to the right to try to keep from falling off.

  Arthur shouted, “What’s happening Chatteris?”

  “We’ve deviated from the plot Colonel, it’s creating havoc with the gyroscope.”

  “Deviated from the plot,” blustered Arthur, “how can that affect the gyroscope?”

  “I don’t know Sir,” shouted back the helmsman as he struggled with the wheel, “it just seemed to come to my mind as an explanation.”

  “A bit like how the Author writes most of the time,” Sid nudged Plattington.

  “Sorry,” usurped Plattington, “are you my friend again now?”

  Sid drew back a little, “I’m, er, still your friend? [Seeing as we only met at the beginning of this story.]”

  And now, to get back on track, the Tower of Tarrelo loomed ahead of them in the distance. As Chatteris headed towards it he commented to Plattington, “It’s a good job there hasn’t been a power cut. The street lights are leading me straight to the Tower.”

  Just then [though I shouldn’t really do it] there was a power cut.

  “Why did you have to mention a power cut,” mentioned Chatteris, “now look, the Author’s created one just at the wrong time.”

  “Only joking,” said I as the street lights started to flicker back on.

  “It must have been a brown out,” said Plattington.

  “Well that’s better than a brown bear.”

  “What’s a brown bear got to do with a power cut?”

  “Everything if it fell onto the power lines and shorted everything out.”

  “How is a brown bear going to get high enough, in a city, to fall on some power lines and bring them down?”

  “Well, if the Author thought of it, there could be a menagerie in the Tower and brown bears could be one of the exhibits. One of them could have escaped, climbed up on something really high then did a belly flop onto the power lines.”

  “So, a random zoo bear, escapes, knows how to do a belly flop and falls judiciously onto some nearby power lines?”

  “He could be a genetically enhanced bear, who knows how to swim, use a lock pick and is wise enough not to be killed by landing on power lines, so he was probably wearing rubber boots as well.”

  “I thought he’d belly flopped onto the power lines?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Well the boots would be completely useless.”

  “Oh, well he could have belly flopped onto it then as he bounced back up he could have landed on the lines, in his boots, and tightrope-walked along it.”

  “With an umbrella for balance?”

  “Yes, of course, and then, to top it all off, he managed to get to the end before the lines collapsed.”

  “So he got to the end.”

  “Yes.”

  “He got away with it and got out then?”

  “Yes.”

  “So it was a brown out.”

  Chatteris groaned.

  They were lucky, there were no lights pointing in their direction, no guards looking that particular way, no steam powered barrage balloons, no automatic defence robots. It was as though there was a helper of some kind aiding them in their mission [me!] So Chatteris guided the Talent over the tower and turned the engines off.

  “Ropes?” enquired Arthur of Tresham.

  “I think they’re in the hold.”

  “Well hurry up and get them man, we need to get shimmying as soon as possible.”

  Tresham turned, a little miffed, “It should be the lower orders doing this, not a sergeant!”

  “Too many chiefs,” murmured Gunby as Tresham passed him. He also followed his friend to help.

  Ruhtra peeped over the bow of the airship to make sure they were still safe and unnoticed. He spotted an Andacian guard blowing into his gloves and stamping his feet to try to keep away the cold. Not wanting to wait he turned himself into a rope, attached himself to a rail and flopped himself over the side, planning then to slurp to the ground.

  Arthur spotted the rope and used it to shimmy to the ground. This caused Ruhtra some discomfort and so he grew a mouth, right near Arthur’s head, and screamed out in pain. The colonel grabbed his own ears and nearly fell off of the rope.

  “What the blazes,” cried Arthur.

  Plattington saw what was happening and also saw the frozen guard begin to look up into their direction [no, not a guard from the film Frozen, I knew you would think that!]

  The guard (not from Frozen) lifted up his rifle and aimed it at the colonel.

  Looking about the deck Plattington saw a pole, picked it up and threw it at the guard’s rifle to spoil his aim.

  With a spoiled aim the guard could do nothing else but raise the alarm. The alarm had fallen down and needed raising.

  To stop the alarm being raised Arthur jumped from the rope and fell on it from above.

  “At last,” sighed Ruhtra, “fat lump.” He slurped to the floor just as Arthur was bashing the guard over the head with the now bent alarm.

  “Why did you scream in my ear like that?” asked Pendragon, “I think I’m now deaf in one ear.”

  “Better to be deaf than suffer death,” philosophised the shapechanger.

  There was now another problem though, the guard’s colleague had heard a noise and come to see what all the commotion was. Thinking quickly Ruhtra turned into the first guard and stopped his colleague from coming closer.

  “What’s all the racket Dinkins?” asked the real guard.

  “I bashed me toe on the wall,” replied Ruhtra.

  “But you said something like ‘We’re under att... argh.”

  “Yes, we’re under a dark sky tonight was what I was going to say.”

  “Well why did you have to shout it out, I thought we was under attack or something?”

  “It’s because it’s very cold, it affected my pharynx,”

  “You are an odd chap Dinkins, carry on and no more shouting. I was trying to get some sleep near the fire before you started playing the fool,” he turned and went whence he had where before wandered from.

  Ruhtra followed him with his eyes.

  “Eeew!” exclaimed Arthur, “do you have to follow him with your eyes like that?” He was perturbed because Ruhtra’s eyes had physically left his head and were bouncing down the steps after the guard.

  The shapechanger did a small whistle and the eyes bounded back to him like two puppies who had just been called to eat their dinner. They slurped back into Ruhtra’s face.

  Arthur was squinting and l
ooking at his double sideways to try to lessen the shock. Now if it was to lesson the shock then it would have something to do with being taught in school about the dangers of electricity. He whisper-shouted to Ruhtra, “Is he back in his den?”

  “At ten?”

  “What?”

  “It’s about ten o’clock so he’s back in his den at ten then.”

  The colonel looked above, back at the ship, to see Sid, Gunby and the others all sliding down the ropes towards his position, “At last,” he quipped, “now I don’t have to listen to your prattling banter.”

  Now Arthur realised that he should either be giving orders from the front or leading them somewhere so he said, “Right, let’s be off,” and set off in the direction of the guard room.

  “Er, excuse me your Colonelness,” whined Ruhtra, “but do we want to be captured so early on in the operation?”

  “Um, Operation,” blustered Arthur, “that’s a game for kids isn’t it?”

  Sid looked at him disparagingly, “The Author never increased your intelligence when he got you cloned on Reema V did he? If we walk through the guardroom we’ll be captured. We need to go another way.”

  “Oh,” replied Arthur, quite curtly, “I suppose I’d better ask for ideas then, seeing as I don’t know what to do next.”

  “He might have had your humility improved though. I think we should pick the lock on the door at the end of the wall and go down to the next floor.”

  “Right,” said Arthur as he looked around at the others, “any more ideas?”

  “I can get in easily, as a flea, or a fly or even a friendly dog,” explained Ruhtra.

  Chatteris hovered over to them in the Talent (he had been left aboard to guard it). “Why don’t you all get back aboard and I’ll drop you off in the courtyard instead?” he shouted down.

  “Why didn’t we do that in the first place?” asked Arthur.

  Sid interjected, “You ordered us all out of the airship as soon as we got over the walls!”

  “Ahh, so I did,” he thought a little, “will that plan work though, won’t they see us?”

  “I could turn into a cloud,” suggested Ruhtra.

  “Can you do that?” asked Arthur.

  “Well, I haven’t tried it before but I have heard stories of the grand mystic masters on Zathan doing it.”

  “Shouldn’t you see if you can do it before we begin? You know, practice a little first?”

  Shapechanging the shapechanger tried to turn himself in to a cloud but only managed a wisp of smoke.

  “You mist,” punned Sid.

  “No I didn’t!”

  “Mist as in the cloud formation not missed as in the point.”

  “Oo, I’ll try again,” he puffed up his cheeks and closed his eyes then, poof!

  The dwarfish small man looked around, “Where’s he gone?”

  A fine mist started to gather around the airship until it turned into a cloud.

  “By flubble, he’s done it,” remarked Arthur. He turned round, “Quick then everyone, shimmy back up the ropes.”

  So they all shimmied back up.

  The Talent now hovered down into the courtyard. The Ruhtra cloud was so big that one of the enemy guards it covered thought it was fast falling fog and so went in for a quick fag.

  “Thanks Ruhtra old boy,” thanked the colonel, “you’ve done a good job.”

  But Ruhtra said nothing in return

  “Maybe he’s misting?” suggested Tresham as he started to disembark.

  Arthur thought about the comment then, after all but Chatteris had got off, he ordered the helmsman to hide the airship in some nearby trees and, “...join us at the earliest opportunity.”  He then led his men, and others, into the main body of the Tower, through the door the missing guard had left open.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Deep, deep into the underbelly they did not go for we have only just started this chapter. No, what they did do, first, was come upon the guard smoking a fag, (though not of course the Eton schoolboy kind.)

  Arthur looked for Ruhtra to get them out of this situation but he was still misting. He decided to use his stun pistol instead. One fine shot and the fagged guard lay motionless on the floor. Looking at Sid he thought he would explain why he was taking this non-lethal approach, “Well, they are officially supposed to be our allies against the giants.”

  “Do you mean the football team?” asked the sergeant.

  “We are not supposed to use futuristic cultural references, stop it!”

  “Bossy boots.”

  Arthur bit his tongue at Sid’s obvious insubordination. He looked at Plattington, “Drag his body away somewhere and hide it will you, there’s a good man.”

  The corporal complied and hid the sleeping guard in a cupboard, though he had a little bother with the body and had to stand him up. When he closed the door he trapped the guard’s foot in it the first time.

  The Colonel shook his head then spoke to Scubbins, “Now if you were a real dwarf instead of a small human then you could see in the dark down that long passage to help us out.”

  “Or I could just switch the light on,” he said as he flicked the light switch on.

  “Oh,” ohed Arthur, “you can take point then.”

  “But you’re the leader, you lead.”

  “I am much too important to go ahead into the unknown.”

  “So you think.”

  They heard a noise. Tresham commented on it first, “What kind of creature makes that kind of noise?”

  “It could be ahead of us,” worried the colonel.

  But Sid looked behind, “Or behind us.” he strode over to the cupboard and opened the door. The guard’s arm fell out, he was snoring loudly.

  “Can’t you shut him up Biggs?” asked their glorious leader.

  “Biggs?” queried Sid as he flipped the guard’s limp arm back in, “I think you’re getting confused, he’s not in this book.”

  “Can’t you put some sticky tape over his nose?”

  “I thought you said you wanted this to be a non-lethal mission? If I do that he might suffocate.”

  “Well can’t you put him back outside so that anyone who sees him thinks he fell asleep on guard duty?”

  Sid then ordered Plattington, “Put him outside Corporal, and make it look like he fell asleep on guard duty.”

  Picking up the slumped body Plattington complied. As he got to the doorway he saw both Chatteris and Ruhtra coming towards him.

  “Here at last, right you two, help me pose the body as though he’s just fallen asleep on guard duty.” He plonked the body near the outside of the door.

  “That’s beneath me,” snooted Ruhtra who walked through the doorway to the others, but Chatteris began to help.

  “What do you think,” asked the private, “seated on a box, head resting on hand, fag ash sprinkled on the box?”

  “Very artistic Chatteris, I’ll leave you in charge of the tableaux, catch us up when you’ve finished.”

  So we continue to follow Plattington and leave Chatteris chattering and chattering in the cold as he set up the tableaux.

  When he got back to the others they weren’t there. “How can I get back to the others if they aren’t there,” he whispered to himself. But he did see Ruhtra ahead and ran to catch him up. “So where are the others then?” he asked.

  “Can’t you smell them?”

  “My sense of smell is not as highly attuned as yours.”

  “I suppose that’s how you can live with your own smell, or you’d have to chop your nose off.”

  “To spite your face?”

  “What a stupid saying, almost as stupid as a teardrop learning to fly in a rainstorm.”

  Plattington did not understand the Zathanian but before he got too confused they saw the others serving at tables.

  “What are you doing?” asked the shapechanger.

  “We were waiting,” punned Sid.

  Arthur finished sipping his cup of tea and wiped his li
ps with a napkin, “Nice tea break that Robo Sid.”

  “I didn’t know I had the parameters for such a thing, the Author must have had it programmed into me especially for this scene.” The metal man bowed slightly with a white towel over his arm in the place of a waiter’s cloth.

  The others all helped to pack up the camping equipment. They stored it back in the cupboard they had found it in.

  “Fortunate that,” commented Plattington at they heard Chatteris talking to himself behind them.

  “Let’s be off to the next stupid encounter,” said Sid, as grumpy as ever (well, for the six months of his short clone life so far.) ‘

  Looking at him the colonel reminded him, “It’s I that give the orders.” He turned to the others and said, “Let’s be off to the next stupid encounter.” He marched forward and, because his snooty nose was so far in the air he tripped over a sleeping policeman and went flying, (in a small aeroplane kept inside for such jokes as this.)

  “A sleeping policeman?” queried Sid, “not the dwarf policeman from Goblin Space Marines?”

  “Get me down from here,” wittered Arthur who had crashed the small aeroplane into a Christmas tree.

  “I suppose the Author had to mention Christmas somewhere..” Robo Sid said to Robo Arthur.

  “...as he is putting this whole shortish story on his blog as a Christmas present for the readers,” finished Sid, the clone.

  Robo Sid looked at Sid and shook his finger, “That was my punch line.”

  “I don’t actually have a funny character union card, but I still demand the funniest punch lines!”

  [So what is the next encounter? Maybe a friend turns up to help them, but who? Hang on a minute, there’s the dwarf policeman for a start.]

  Bloin, the dwarf policeman, woke up, after he had been tripped over by Arthur. Then he had to wait while Arthur flew around and crashed into the tree, and also while Sid got his puns in. He put his hands on his hips, “‘Ello, ello, ello, what do we ‘ave ‘ere then?”

  Arthur was just preparing to order the men to follow him again into an unknown area when he met Bloin’s gaze. “Um, are you the dwarf policeman from Hunting for Squink?”

  “Well done, the Author mistakenly described me as from Goblin Space Marines earlier. I think I’ve been put here to help you.”

  “Well you haven’t done a good job so far, it was you I tripped over to go flying into that Christmas tree.”

  “Do you want my help or not?”

  The colonel looked at Sid while he answered Bloin, “As long as you don’t gang up with your dwarf brethren against me.”