Part 12
Escape to Victory!
An otherwise gloomy afternoon in the Remainian forces shell-pocked HQ was relieved by a mass of studio lighting and camera flashes. The cause of this was a gathering such as had never been witnessed before, and of such overwhelming excellence and naked aggression that it brought a lump of sheer pride to Captain ‘Call-me-Dave’ Cameron's throat. Wiping a tear from his shiny cheeks, he gulped.
Following Private Mandelson's splendid advice, he'd decided to put all the weapons still available in his arsenal into the front line. And here they were, joining in a triumphal chorus of 'Ode to Joy', his crack team - the world beating First XI which would crush the proletarian minor league, third-raters of the British Resistance.
He was playing an unorthodox game with a 5-4-3+2 = 14 formation. His team sheet was simply stiff with world class talent:
Goal:
Private Clark and his sister Dolly (Courtesy of the Bide-a-Wee Home for Distressed Gentlefolk)
Defence:
Marshall Hollande (Good at dealing with strikers)
General Juncker (125% Proof)
Private Clegg (On loan from Real Politik FaceBook – Prop. M. Gonzalez Inc.)
Midfield:
Major John ‘Johnnie’ Major (Scarred veteran of the Maastricht Campaign)
Sergeant ‘Mad Dog’ Osborne (Mutilated, but still wielding his axe)
Private Neil ‘Windy’ Kinnock (EC All Stars Pensioners FC)
Sir Mark ‘Banker’ Carney (Transfer from Goldman Sachs FC)
Forwards:
(Captain) Captain Cameron (Old Etonian Walled-In Club)
Generalissimo ACL Blair (Wanted by Baghdad Wanderers FC and Chilcot United)
Two Milibands (Cain and Abel FC)
Sir Stuart 'Liability' Rose (Just released after 60 days of solitary confinement)
And on the touchline:
Corporal Corbyn (Kindly supplying half-time apples from his allotment)
Private Brown – (Just to keep an eye on things)
Matron May (Chief Physio – (On loan from Whip, Lash, and Tremble, Soho)
Manager: Chancellor Angela 'No Prisoners' Merkel (Late of the Armoured Euro Korps - Athens Campaign)
Referee: Commander in Chief Barack ‘Bazza’ Obama (AC/DC Multinational Irregulars)
Linespersons: Christine 'Speedo' Lagarde (IMF and Bernard Tapie Memorial Formation Team) and Hilary 'Stains-Free' Clinton (Wall Street Spongers NFL).
As he led his team from the tunnel onto the perfect green sward of the newly built Momentum Varoufakis Stadium, he knew that he was, at last, a man meeting his destiny.
A man who had triumphed against the foul slings and arrows of outrageous whatsit. A man of unequalled....He paused and looked about for the British Resistance team.
The armed guards surrounded the pitch as Sid and Doris, the crowd, waved their flag and cheered, but, of opposition, there was none.
Gazing around the pitch he noticed half a dozen man-sized molehills which hadn't been there earlier.
'The bastards! They think it's all over!' he howled.
Part 13
Adieu to all that!
Dragging nervously on a Silk Cut purloined from his wife's handbag, Captain Cameron completed his recce of the Remainian HQ, sat at his desk and contemplated the objects which lay on the blotter in front of him - a cyanide capsule and a loaded Luger pistol, gifts from the German Chancellor.
There were more holes than brickwork in the buildings surrounding him, and he could see an ironically bright sunlight piercing the dusty atmosphere. Sunlight, ironic or otherwise, failed to raise his spirits.
That it had come to this! Captain 'Call-me-Dave’ Cameron, ‘Lucky Dave’ as he’d been known in earlier times, reduced to abject defeat and humiliation. This had, most definitely, not been in the script and he cast his mind around to find excuses and scapegoats for the ghastly turn of events which had left him so completely trouser-less and exposed to the world.
It occurred to him that the cretinous Corporal Corbyn may have had a hand in this debacle, but he hadn't got time to deal with him right now. He fervently hoped that some higher power might mete out a suitable dose of unmitigated hell to that person in due course.
In the meantime, he resolved to find Sergeant 'Mad Dog' Osborne and give him his pill and handgun. With a twisted grimace playing around his thin lips, he marched off to find his ill-fated companion and give him the bad news.
Some distance away, in the newly established British Resistance Army 'Victory' Bar, Captain Nigel 'Bonkers' Farage was honking with derision over his 10th pint of British Bulldog Extra Special and haranguing his erstwhile colleagues.
'If you bastards think that you can give this away and rest easy in your beds, I've got over 17.40 million reasons why you aren't going to get away with it.' he spluttered.
Fighting over the spoils had already broken out amongst the victors, and it was looking like some sort of underhand deal was being brokered.
'Yes, we know what you think Farage,' said Captain Boris de Stauffenberg Johnson, 'and thanks a lot for your help and all that, but we're resuming normal service here and now – so it's best if you just toddle along and irritate somebody else. We have a new government to form and you're not in it.'.
Farage shot him a glance of pure distilled, and corrosive, malevolence, burped, and made for the door, which he very nearly missed.
Meanwhile Corporal Corbyn was having another one of those god-awful nightmares which had plagued him since his 96th birthday last September, only this one was even more ghastly than the other ones he'd had. He was trying to work out why everybody was being so unpleasant to him, and not just a little unpleasant but downright bloody rude.
As far as he could make out, after 40 years of campaigning against the hegemonistic tool of world capitalism that was Brussels HQ, the People had won a famous victory and celebrations were in order. He'd worked out that he must have got a few pages stuck together when he'd woken up yesterday and found an angry crowd at his door gesturing him towards a tumbril and raining abuse on his grizzled pate.
They'd wheeled him into a yard and placed him on a platform surrounded by hundreds of angry people all shouting 'Traitor! Silly old fool! Resign!'. Realising that this wasn't a victory celebration, he'd gazed sullenly at his sandals and wished, once again, that he could wake up and find himself back behind the counter of his little shop selling old socialist nostrums to cure the ills of the world. With this comforting image in mind, he let his head fall forward and dozed off.
Private Mandelson, noting that there was a lot of fuss going on outside, slithered quietly back to his warm nest, curled up, and began to work out how he might make himself some more money over the next ten years by leveraging the new status quo. Something with a bit of real prestige, befitting his stature, would be sure to come along once he’d worked out who he could get to start running things his way again.
The bumbling idiot Corbyn couldn’t last much longer, and he’d pretty well seen to that. He cast around for a suitably biddable candidate who might suit his requirements. The new chap who’d been Director of Public Prosecutions knew how to toe the line and might fit the bill nicely, and it wouldn’t take much effort to manipulate him into position.
Hmm….Oh! Goody! A new project!