The vacancy for cartoonist remains, no pun intended, unfilled. I’m still looking for a pen and ink cartoonist to illustrate the book.
As per, all comments and suggestions are welcome and are helpful for me in editing the final draft.
Part 10
The rosy-tinged fingers of dawn reached into the fastness of the British Resistance Officers' barracks causing Captain Boris de Stauffenberg Johnson to awake with a start. He tried to recall a particularly vivid dream he'd been having. He'd been in a big room with six women, three of whom were screaming at him like unhinged harpies, two of them gazing upon him protectively, whilst the sixth had viewed him with an aloof, yet alluring sort of charm. There'd been girl-on-girl action, lights and a roaring crowd. He hadn't felt so alive since he and the chaps in the Bullingdon had smuggled half a dozen strippers into the Senior Common Room at Balliol and watched 30 dons choke on their port with mass apoplexies.
Had it been a dream? Could life still offer so much entertainment in these dark days of war, so soon after Project Fear? A quick look at the first editions littering his quarters assured him that he had indeed had a bloody good night. He still had his trousers on, which dampened his spirits somewhat, until he noticed they were on backwards. Things were a bit of a blur after the show, and he steeled himself for the inevitable reckoning but, Christ! It had been jolly good fun, and all in the cause of duty.
Meanwhile, over at the Remainian HQ, for Captain ‘Call-me-Dave’ Cameron the new day seemed unlikely to offer much in the way of happy memories, or indeed, happiness in any shape or form. Summoned from his bunk by the field telephone before his batman had time to prepare his morning toilette, he'd suffered a prolonged earbashing from the German Chancellor who'd forsaken her bunker in Berlin for the more salubrious surroundings of General Juncker's mobile bar.
With no small amount of asperity, she'd demanded to know what the hell he was up to, and why were the Poles going the wrong way? It had taken him a little while to decipher this and plead for more time. What, in the name of Satan’s sizzling sphincter had the bloody Poles got to do with this?
Pleading was somewhat against his nature, but he knew what piano wire looked like, and he rather preferred to have it confined to the mahogany case of the Bechstein at home.
With her shrill pronouncements still ringing in his ears, he set about the eggs and b. which a nervous, and incomplete, Sergeant ‘Mad Dog’ Osborne had placed on his dinner table.
Sparing Sergeant Osborne's life after his last cock-up may yet prove wise, although he still questioned the wisdom of having a squad of the Remainian forces going into action under the command of Corporal Corbyn. The man seemed confused, to say the least, and going about the country spreading confusion and apathy seemed to be a dubious and highly unoriginal strategy.
The alternative had been to promote that stupid boy, Private Farron, and put him in charge, but he honestly doubted whether this would be any improvement as the boy looked as if he were about to burst into tears if anybody gave him an order.
‘Coalitions! Pah! Bloody stupid things!’ muttered Captain Cameron darkly to himself through grinding molars.
'Right! George! Pay attention. I have new orders from Supreme HQ. The Chancellor has deployed a crack parachute regiment under the command of General Schauble, or Goebbels or whatever, and they're due to land tomorrow. This is big stuff George, big stuff indeed!'.
Sergeant Osborne quivered like an aspen. He'd become a more than infrequent quiverer of late, and he wasn't sure whether this was because of shellshock, gin, or the fact that his new prosthetic limbs hadn’t been properly glued on.
The news that German crack troops were in the offing filled him with dismay.
"Sir! Are you sure this is the right tactic? I mean, you know what our lot and the British Resistance think about heavyweight German troops. Isn't it likely that we might get the opposite to the desired result by bringing in mercenaries from the European Empire?
I mean, it worked OK for Wellington in 1815, but we were stuffing over the French back then, and everybody else was on our side.'.
Cameron was undeterred. ' Orders are orders Osborne. The Germans have issued clear instructions that rebels, deserters, democrats, Morris Dancers, the whole bloody lot of them, are to be shot on sight. Resistance will be futile.'.
Sergeant Osborne, with the heavy heart of one who knows that the cup of plenty had been dashed from his lips and replaced by a bucket of pig's excrement, hobbled off to brief the Remainian troops.
Coincidentally, another officer of the British Resistance was broaching the new day with some ambivalence. Captain Nigel 'Bonkers' Farage was definitely feeling less than the full quid.
He'd had a bizarre experience the previous night in a bar somewhere or other in the provinces whilst sat next to a fairly substantial wench, Suzy or Edie Izzy, something or other, wearing black stockings, heavy make-up and a jaunty pink beret. A coquette of the first water, he'd thought.
It wasn't like him to mistake playful courtship banter for something completely different. He'd been sure that he was on a promise and had been totally unprepared for the vitriolic attacks which this floozy had rained down upon his head with her handbag. A stilettoed heel aimed, uncannily accurately, at his surviving testicle had removed any doubt as to the prospects for the relationship.
Ah well! Better luck next time, always provided what was left of his anatomy could keep up with the pace.
Part 11
Colonel Iain 'Quietly' Duncan Smith and Private 'Speccy' Gove of the British Resistance had spent some time, and not inconsiderable effort, over their plans to subvert the Remainian forces, and they weren't completely happy that they were now obliged to share these with Captain Boris de Stauffenberg Johnson.
They'd long harboured doubts that the 'Blonde Bombshell' had been a plant in some part of a covert and nefarious 'Bullingdon' plot which Captain Cameron had somehow guided into their camp, knowing that it would blow up in their faces and, irretrievably doom the British Resistance to humiliating defeat, ignominy and the offer of fewer directorships in the City once the dust had settled.
Boris had, however, for the most part, been a model of restraint and they'd finally decided to take him into their confidence before the last big push.
'OK Boris, it's like this,' said Colonel Iain 'Quietly' Duncan Smith, 'we didn't entirely trust you and I think you'll understand why, but you've done a sterling job and we're all pretty happy with your unstinting efforts and all the flak you've taken from those awful women. Anyway, it's time you knew about our secret weapons.'
Boris yawned and prepared to catch up on some sleep as Duncan Smith droned on. His recollections of the women in q. weren't necessarily the same as his commanding officer's and he'd rather it was kept that way. His memories caused a slight tremble in the popping crease, but he bent his mind to the matters in hand.
'I've picked up a few things from our adversaries over the years and, what with one thing and another, a tweak here and there, and lashings of spondulicks from a few chums in the City, we've now got a range of weapons, all set to go off in the next few days.'
As Private 'Speccy' Gove, unveiled a blackboard nailed to the wall, he went on.
'Up here you can see our V1 - the Junckers device. This is expensive to run, fuelled on Martell VSOP, but is guaranteed to go off in front of undecided citizens and berate them for desertion, treachery, cowardice, bestiality, and Morris Dancing, in a general unguided sort of rant which will make their toes curl and arouse a visceral contempt for foreigners, especially unelected overpaid bureaucrats, who are always bossing people around when they’re not completely stocious by 3.00 pm every day. Can't fail to pull 5%.
Next we have the V2 - the Brown weapon. We trialled this a couple of years ago and found it remarkably successful at insulting and alienating, hitherto loyal, Remainian troops who'd nurtured doubts about sharing trenches with anybody they hadn't been to school with. A little like the Remainian leadership come to think of it. That’s got to be worth another 5%.’.
He permitted himself a gurgled, high-pitched sort of laugh, at the expense of his former colleagues.
'Our piece de British Resistance, however,' and at this point he almost screamed with mirth, '....our most fiendish weapon of all is the V3 - the Jeremy Corbyn!'. By this time Colonel Iain 'Quietly' Duncan Smith had given the lie to his sobriquet and was rolling around the floor, howling with laughter.
Private 'Speccy' Gove stepped delicately around his hysterical colleague and took over the briefing.
'We spent lots of money on the V3 and managed to get it into a position of power in the Remainian Army some six months ago. A cocktail of hallucinogenic drugs were used to disable the superficial 'anti-leadership responsibility' mechanism for a while. The natural tendency to revert to belief in his hard-wired creed is being unleashed as we speak. In short, Corporal Corbyn, who leads a large chunk of the Remainian Forces, is our man. His instinctive loathing for all things capitalistic and hegemonistic like the European Empire is about to erupt. We reckon that he’ll swing another 5% our way.’….
Captain Boris de Stauffenberg looked on with a quizzical expression, thought about all this remarkable stuff, belched, and trooped off to the Officer's Mess for a sharpener.
Bumping into Captain Nigel 'Bonkers' Farage at the bar he asked him, 'Did you know that Corbyn was on our side?'. Farage took a large swig of 'Syriza Socialist Special Retsina', gargled and spat it on the floor in disgust. 'I bloody hope so! We spent thousands on registering Labour Party memberships to vote for him.'.
Meanwhile, in the Remainian HQ, a rather morose, less than shiny-faced, Captain Cameron stared blankly at the latest briefings from the front as he stuffed cotton wool in his ears to dull the noise of Private Brown, who was back to his extremely annoying habit of wailing 'We're all doomed! Ah tell ye! Doomed!’.
Things looked grim. Very, very grim indeed. Project Fear had failed and, short of some sort of apocalyptic intervention from a higher force, the British Resistance were going to thwart his plan to deliver them all to the German Chancellor's tender mercies.
At this point Private Mandelson appeared, as if from nowhere, like some malignant spirit of the sort that Nanny had persuaded him lurked under his bed and would come after him if she caught him playing with the contents of his Y-fronts again.
'You called for me Sir?'. Captain Cameron had no recollection of having done so.
Private Mandelson had taken root in his armchair, poured himself a generous peg of Clan Cameron finest single malt and lit a cigar before Cameron had fully registered his presence. The next ten minutes, or it could have been an hour, passed in a haze and when he came to, Private Mandelson was no more than a whiff of cigar smoke and a rather cloying scent of eau de toilette.
He'd left a plan though. But, would it work?