None of the stories below have been professionally edited. Nevertheless i trust that they are relatively free of disabling errors. Unfortunately, professional editing charges and free content don't comfortably share the same bed. I always intend to write in British English, (Non-American) English. I apologise -ize-  for any inconsistencies. I will always be grateful to receive suggested grammatical improvements.


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After Irma and Elizabeth II- My Little Islands
​Barbuda in the Caribbean and Canary Wharf London- 2077AD

I was a young man then, born at the dawn of the millennium, and now nearing my own day of reckoning. I was a teenager when Barbuda, a mound of sand, coral and volcanic debris just about withstood Hurricane Irma’s terrifying gale and lashing high seas. Between midnight and 2 am on the morning of Wednesday 6th of September, 2017, the then most powerful ever recorded hurricane destroyed that tranquil 62 square miles of my childhood. After helping with the immediate recovery I left on the ferry across 26 miles of ocean for St.Johns, Antigua, for the very last time. From there I departed for a new life in what I still thought of as the mother country, Great Britain, the home of my island's distant Queen. Well, Britain still is great compared to Antigua and Barbuda, but truly great even in 2017, that is a matter of some conjecture. A few months after arrival I even saw my Queen, Elizabeth II, before she went to make her peace with God.
 
What a life I’ve had, as the worsening climate has slowly ravished the world of my childhood. Now, as I sit in a freezing, unheated tower block in Tower Hamlets, I wish I had never left my home. The little township of Codrington must be a relative paradise nowadays, though the ground water is salted, and even the donkeys struggle to survive around the brackish pools of spring water. And what a heaven might Barbuda still be if the capitalists hadn’t sold millions of tons of sand from my island, to line their greedy pockets.
 
Barbuda had the fat sold off its body, stripping the island to its bones, it's golden sands exported, to pay the bills of forty short years. What was left of the island was always going to be too weak to withstand Irma.
 
We on Barbuda never wanted to be independent of Britain, that was forced on us by our big sister, Antigua, a not so much bigger blip on the map, but then desperate to be an independent sovereign nation. Perhaps now even I sympathize with the grab for independence which was completed in 1981. But still, I like to think that the British would have put a stop to the sand mining well before the environment was so critically damaged if we had stayed attached like the Virgin Islands. But would the Queen's government have stopped the raping of our lands? Looking at the way Britain has treated its own green pastures, polluted by leaking radiation from the power reactors, by industrial and household chemicals, by the shit of an ever expanding population, now 93 million plus the millions of illegal immigrants that never get counted in official statistics. I live in an abandoned office block on Canary Wharf, surrounded by a few other islands in the historic Isle of Dogs. The Dog Isles, as we now call, them are in a sea extending to Whitehall in the north-west and Greenwich to the south-east.
 
From what I can glean from the little events from overseas are reported, Barbuda is now and island of only 20 something square miles, being that part of Barbuda we once called the Highlands. Codrington, has been rebuilt a mile inland. Mind you even the shrunken remnant of what it once was, Barbuda is big compared to the any of the Dog Isles.
The world has changed, but I find it increasingly unforgivable, knowing now what I do of life, that Britain did so little for us in our hour of need. I and several other families lost relatives fighting for our old colonial power, not to mention the debt that Britain owed us all for over a hundred years of slavery on the Codrington family plantations. The irony of it, that now I’m on a little island in the Thames Estuary, when I worked so hard to get away from ravaged Barbuda, even now a jewel. She hangs on the very rim of the Caribbean Sea, looking out over the Atlantic Ocean, the wide waters that were Britain’s lame excuse for not coming to our rescue. In the end it was help from China, then impoverished Venezuela, and the USA that sustained Barbuda through those rough years after Irma.
 
Of course, God didn’t let Britain long escape the ravages of pollution and climate change. But that is another story, one that came many years after my islands betrayal. In my childhood, Mama proudly hung a portrait of Queen Elizabeth on our wall. Now, my only picture I had of the King joined the fire fed by my last, once optimistically called, ‘coffee-table’ book. That kept me warm for a hour or so last winter, or was it the one before?
 
Richard Bunning © 2017 (780 words)



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A Day Off School for Adolf ​(fiction)
Richard Bunning © 2016 (Words 747 without title) 
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    I’ve a busy day tomorrow. It’s two in the morning; I’m typically, wide awake. Am I light on magnesium, or physical exhaustion, or heavy on stress and caffeine? I really don’t know why I don’t sleep. I’ll read my Kindle… yawn…
The sky is light, time for breakfast, I guess… Close eyes!
   Eyes open… eyes close… open… Where the…?
     A woman speaks, “Calm down darling, you’ve had another nightmare. You’ve been calling for Edmund. You know he has measles. he is very poorly, but Jesus is watching over him.” Okay I hear you, I’m doing my best to be calm, but you are most definitely not my wife… God in heaven, this is a nightmare… Clothes, so old-fashioned.
    “Um. I don’t understand…”
    “You’ve had a fever, Adolf. You’ll stay off school. Anyway, I think many children from the farmlands will struggle to get in with the snow.”
    “But I don’t know who I am. I don’t know where I am.” Jesus! This nightmare is so real, and I’m in the body of a young boy. What has happened… Wake up damn you.
    “Don’t worry darling, are you still fretting about going to senior school in September? Oh look, here comes Edmund, you should be in bed dear, quickly Adolf, make room for your brother. He mustn’t get cold.”
    What the heck… Oh my God, is this woman meant to be my mother? That’s is my brother… I’m sixty, not what? “How old am I?”
    “Why Adolf, have you still a fever like Edmund? Here let me feel. You turn eleven in April, only a couple of months. Daft boy!”
    “But… ”Well, either I’m dead and born again, or else I’m on something strong. ”But I don’t belong here. I’m frightened.”
    “You’ve got nothing to be frightened about sweetie. Things should be better now that we are settled back in Leonding and we again have a good Catholic Church to support us. I must go and warm some milk for Edmund. You can get up and dressed, but stay, keep Edmund company.”
   He looks to be dosing… I tiptoe down the stairs. In the hall hangs a calendar. I stare amazed, the days are crossed off until Thursday the First of February 1900. It’s gloomy and I can’t help but notice that there’s no electric lighting. Hearing footsteps, I scurry back upstairs. I look at ‘my’ cloths on a chair and decide I’d rather snuggle back in bed with the Edmund. What is the worst that can happen, he only has measles…?
   But this is 1900. Measles was then a killer… Oh God- I understand… holly shit… Somehow…today I’m only bloody Adolf Hitler. Yes, that’s it… I have been put here to do a job, to save the life of Edmund and so perhaps save Adolf’s soul. I think I meant to change history… What do I know… Hitler was crippled by many things, and one of those was his childhood… yes, I remember, his cherished brother died when Hitler was... do I know that history for a reason?
This is bloody scary. Do I get to wake up as me, or am I to actually be Hitler…? Think, logic where there isn’t any… Adolf is off school with a fever; I could be an actor in his dreams. Perhaps I get a chance to change the future… will I then never be born… Whatever, there is a purpose. I’m no doctor, far from it, but perhaps I can save Edmund’s life, so taking some of the horror out of young Adolf’s mind. Save Edmund, jig history. Or restructure it by killing myself… Jig it!
What do I know? Measles is a virus, so even if I had modern medicine? Well, Edmund certainly looks feverish. Aspirin… When was that invented? I know that, the turn of the century, I’m sure. That’s it.
    “How’s Edmund, sweetie?”
    Mama, if I said God told me that Edmund needs a new medicine called Aspirin, would you believe me? I could look after Edmund, while you go and see a pharmacist.
    Adolf! Yes… I saw that in the paper, an advert for a wonder medicine. You’ve often told me that you want to be a priest… and well, God talks to me and... I’m going downtown… Our secret, don’t you ever tell you father that I spent money on medicine.
    “Our secret.”
   The door bangs… I lie on top of the blanket next to Edmund, staring at the ceiling. I’m so tired…



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For King and Country
Richard Bunning © 2016 (750 words) 

Getting into the ‘Central Territories’ had proved much easier than John expected. The fake passport would never have passed electronic scrutiny, so necessitating careful planning but nothing deeply clandestine or sophisticated. Given his third-tier citizenship he could never have legitimately travelled. The chosen airport required the picking up of luggage and customs checks before passport control, and just as Father Blair had promised the planned ruse had worked like clockwork. In the middle of John’s case was a gold watch, placed to appear crudely hidden, still with a price tag from its purchase in England. He'd flown in with the woman set up to play his wife, and their apparent argument about whether to go through the red or green zone had played out perfectly. Security personnel couldn’t possibly have failed to see the drama. The woman was gone now, apparently upset, alone, straight on to passport control. In a few hours she would be dead, when the plastic bags of what she had believed was only pure heroin burst in her bowels. The authorities would never test for ‘gastric acids’ in the bowel leaked from inside the compromised plastic. They had arrived together under the same name, and by the time they found her estranged husband on a gifted holiday in Thailand the mission would be history.

Looking as much like a scared rabbit as he could, John walked into the red zone. With eyes caste on a customs officer’s pocket badge, he murmured that he had something to declare. As assumed, a cursory check of his passport was made, and his vacation number, critical for all non-official or business sanctioned travel, was recorded. John waited an hour to pay the fine, and then acted through his heart attack routine. The first-aid course had taught him well…

Now in outpatients, John waiting for his contact to come playing the role she had understudied from the new heroin overdose victim, he reflected on all that had led him to this moment. Ever since his people had voted to get out of the then called EEC, fifty years before, and had subsequently been frightened, tricked and bribed into staying in the EF by a combination of their own toady career politicians, global business leaders, and bankers his group had been diligently working to correct the injustice. The people had at first acquiesced to the deceit. However, when the vengeful Federation went as far as suppressing their national language, centralising education, and cutting local government institutions the St. George Brigades had been formed. Now was the time to take out the Eurocracy, destroying the bunkers of the ‘Underground City’. The Chancellor herself would be the first to die, sitting so close to the bomb. He reflected that he’d never even laid eyes on more than her ‘public-space hologram’. Even when John had waited for hours in the wet, cold streets of Birmingham, as the Chancellor made a September tour of the second-tier countries he’d never even got a glimpse of flesh and blood.

Tomorrow would be ‘a walk in the park’. Well, a train journey through the tunnels closest to the New Presidium Building, followed by a hike and eventual crawl through sewers and service ducts. His phone would tell him when he was in place and the old Elizabethan fibre-optic cabling would even let him watch the Chancellor’s annual broadcast to all 800 million citizens.

John spotted his latest temporary wife approaching, with a big smile and outstretched arms. He stood; they embraced long and convincingly. She was not only exceedingly attractive but passionate, as his instinctive responses let him know. John couldn’t help but wonder how far she might be persuaded to play here role before tomorrow evening.

Of course John was worried about how things would go, as he worked towards sending the phone number that would result in three square kilometres of the ‘Underground City’ flashing to smouldering rubble. The bomb might be dirty, but it would work, and just perhaps his country would soon be free. Perhaps even the Monarchy could be restored, through a distant bloodline. The Eurocrates had promised the people they could keep the Royal Family, whom were soon imprisoned, and whom he believed had faced a firing squad in woodlands at Balmoral.

“What would you like to do now, darling? Mind, I feel you’re telling me.”

“Are you staying with me to the end.”

“Yes… I've lived to be part of our ultimate message. For King and Country.”




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Mein Kampf, (An Extract) [​I remind my readers that I write fiction)
Richard Bunning © 2016 (737 words, excluding title)

   My father, Alois, [was simply incapable of imagining that I might reject what had meant everything in life to him. My father’s decision was simple, definite, clear and, in his eyes, it was something to be taken for granted. A man of such a nature who had become an autocrat by reason of his own hard struggle for existence, could not think of allowing ‘inexperienced’ and irresponsible young fellows to choose their own careers. To act in such a way, where the future of his own son was concerned, would have been a grave and reprehensible weakness in the exercise of parental authority and responsibility, something utterly incompatible with his characteristic sense of duty.
And yet it had to be otherwise.
   For the first time in my life – I was then eleven years old – I felt myself forced into open opposition. No matter how hard and determined my father might be about putting his own plans and opinions into action, his son was no less obstinate in refusing to accept ideas on which he set little or no value.
   I would not become a civil servant.] Though I lived in terror of my father’s wroth I would not be bowed.
 [No amount of persuasion and no amount of ‘grave’ warnings could break down that opposition. I would not become a State official, not on any account. All the attempts which my father made to arouse in me a love or liking for that profession, by picturing his own career for me, had only the opposite effect. It nauseated me to think that one day I might be fettered to an office stool, that I could not dispose of my own time but would be forced to spend the whole of my life filling out forms…
   The ridiculously easy school tasks which we were given made it possible for me to spend far more time in the open air than at home… I thank heaven that I can look back to those happy days and find the memory of them helpful. The fields and the woods were then the terrain on which all disputes were fought out.]
   In 1900 my brother, Edmund, had been very sick with the measles. I experienced such deep depression, as a thunderstorm of worry threatened our whole family. Luckily, thanks to the new medicine Aspirin he survived. I was proud that I’d given my dear mother the idea of acquiring this pharmaceutical wonder. I was, like most of those around me, deeply anti-Semitic and as regards their influence on the German lands I always will be. I have always blamed the Jew for many of the problems of the modern world. But I admit that I was greatly moved on discovering that it was the Jew Eichengrün who synthesized Aspirin, though Hoffmann, a true Arian claimed it’s invention. The truth is that Bayer would have been nothing without Jewish invention, and that applies to many of Germany’s great industry. I will always hate certain characteristics of the Jew, and especially when they are over influential in the institutions of finance. However, as you will see in later chapters, I did much to advance the cause of the Zionist State. The mass transportation of the Jews from our lands to the Holy Land became an important part of my life.
   Fortunately for me Edmund was soon to become the main focus of my father’s attention. They were very alike in many ways. My father died of a lung haemorrhage in 1903, so never saw my brother go on to the Realschule and to eventually become the honoured state official he’d always wanted me to be.
   As a young boy I sang in the choir and dreamed of one day becoming a priest. That was never to happen. But my interest in the Catholic Church given to me by my dear mother, Klara, did mean me taking a Christian view to the containment of the Jew. While many called for extermination I rallied for ‘exportation’. So it was that I persuaded Edmund to push the National Socialist movement in that direction.
   Painting was always my first love, but not unfortunately my talent. Drawing ability, and a technical eye inevitably led me to architecture. And so it was that many years later I designed the rest-stops on the autobahns. Hence it was only natural for me to become Minister of Transport in Edmund’s National Socialist Government…



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Bone Story: Pan Sapiens (750 words)
Copyright © 2016 by Richard Bunning 

    Enlightenment is nothing without scientific evidence. I have evidence, but I know that in this period of religious and cultural conflict no one is ready to listen. Enlightenment isn’t for my generation. I took the hard decision to hide the truth away for now, preserved for what, I pray, will be better times after my death. If mankind wants to discover, wants to understand, why he is a weak naked ape that only survived on Earth because he is also the most intelligent of all the Pan species, then he will have the chance, but not now. My private enlightenment took place between Lake Turkana and Mount Kulal, in Kenya.
   I have worked as a field anthropologist for many years. This last year I’d already spent months near dying Lake Turkana when a sudden and strong quake had the ground below me give way. I fell a metre or so, not far, but far enough to reveal the formed frame of an obvious once doorway. As the dust settled I got a strong sense of staring into a long buried tomb. That proved to be crudely accurate.
   Lacking useful equipment, and certainly a torch, I quickly decided to leave and return with suitable equipment and help. As much as anything, I feared being trapped by an after-shock. I headed back to the town of Loiyangalani for the night.
   Overnight I decided that I must keep my discovery secret. This is a dangerous area since the almost disappearance of Lake Turkana. The Gibe III dam on the Omo River in Ethiopia has sealed its fate. What is left of the lake is dead, as rising salt levels have killed off the once abundant fish. The people are starving, and local towns only sustained by food aid. I sense that my discovery is too important to risk to the machinations of local ‘administrators’ in this desperately poor part of Kenya.
   I returned with what I could carry on my back, including enough explosives to rebury my find. Torch in hand I entered what I could now see was the strangest of spaces. It soon became apparent despite the decays and depositions of great ages that I was inside a built structure. The walls were not of volcanic rock, but rather of once worked metals streaked with multi-coloured oxidants. I felt as though I was inside a ship of some sort rather than a building. I passed through two additional doorways, before being blocked by solid sediments.
   Further investigation made me think that this whole chamber was until recently flooded. I set to investigating what I could. The second room I’d entered proved to be totally intriguing.
   Three raised daises, tables, alters, I really didn’t then know, occupied the centre of the room. On each were variably fossilised bones. I chipped away at the accumulated cementing deposits, surprised how cleanly and easily a skeleton appeared. I guessed from other debris that the bones where long protected by glassed frames, or domes; as though this was an ancient museum, shrine, or science lab. I soon decided on the later. Before long I was sure I’d revealed the bones of an adult bonobo ape, though a very large one to be sure. The next table revealed what to all intents and purposes is the skeleton of a modern human. But this doesn’t prepare me for what I found on the next table. This skeleton was very different, not even mammalian, completely unrecognisable. I soon conclude the only theory open to me, I was scraping the bones of an alien.
   A shiver ran through me. Something immediately told me that I was staring at the results of some eugenic experiment. It dawned on me, that I wasn’t investigating evolutionary anthropology at all.
   This wasn’t the discovery of the ‘evolution’ of man, but of mankind’s scientific creation. I collapsed down exhausted by hours of concentrated, exacting, work and stared into the roof of the ca… of the craft. I looked onward searching for God, but he as usual wasn’t going to help. Why are we naked apes, creature so unsuited to Earth’s harsh environments? Why because, we didn’t evolve, we were created from our Pan ancestors and from some part of an alien race.
As I walk away I heard the explosion behind me.
   I know seal this paper with necessary map co-ordinates in this safe-box in the USB, Zurich, this day, 1st August, 2026. The key will be willed to my children.

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©

 War Beneath the Stonecutters' Dams Copyright © 2015 by Richard Bunning (8200 words)

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An Animal Fantasy

© Richard Bunning 2015

    Between the characteristic single pairs of feet of the Stonecutters there is another world that those 'advanced' animals almost never see; though just occasionally, under the influence of some exotic mushroom or intoxicating beverage, they may get a brief glimpse. Famously Louis Carrol spying the White Rabbit, or Kenneth Grahame messing about in boats along the river bank, but usually cutters are not psychologically enabled to peer into the parallel dimensions of life on Earth. In what is for cutter a blinkered off sidebar of life the badgers and other animals conduct their real affairs. Deeply affected though they are by the concrete and tarmac world of the Earth's dominant creatures, they have little choice but to suffer and adapt as best they can.

    I would love to be able to report that existence in this parallel dimension of four-legged creatures is utopian, but of course it isn't. Utopia only exists in dreams.
   
    In one area of this 'Switzerland' that cutters recognise, the beautiful Jogne Gorge, the badgers' everyday lives are currently upset by rumbles of war. Two of the oldest Badger settlements in the whole world rest on adjacent banks of the little River Jogne. This waterway is usually just a lively rippling ribbon of water that tumbles down the foothills of the Pre-Alps and across meadowland between the lakes of Montsalvens and Gruyère in the Canton of Fribourg. That is, unless the cutters lower the sluices of their dams. Eventually the waters continue down the mighty River Sarine having flowed through Lake Gruyère.

    Lake Gruyère is a modern construction of the Stonecutter creatures, formed from the damming of the Sarine itself; while the smaller Lake Montsalvens is formed by the damming of the Jogne. Under the deep waters of these artificially lakes two native clans of badgers, the Armille and Graevling lost some of their finest territories and most beautiful setts. Of the two local clans the Armille suffered the most with the flooding behind the cutters' dams, being pushed back to lands close to their ancient capital Sett of Broc. But life must go on, and so the badgers had little choice but to dig new towns and fortify their defences along the banks of the Jogne.

    The Graevlings came south from the northern lands many centuries ago, whilst the Armilles have been on the lands of Fribourg since time immemorial. The Graevlings have steadily pushed south over time, forcing back the less aggressive Armilles. But overriding all the historic and political relationships of the Badgers are the activities of the cutters, which act on the civilisations they can't see almost as indiscriminately and often as unconsciously as do the geological rhythms of the Earth. This impact on other dimensional life has exponentially increased as the biped creatures' technologies have advanced, especially in recent centuries. For now, and probably still as you read this in your time, Stonecutters more or less control the destinies of all lifeforms across entire world. At least nocturnal creatures like the badger benefit from being most active when Stonecutters are least so. However, that seldom leaves the creatures free from interference for very long. If you are a cutter, dear reader, I just bet you never saw a badger with a book or a glass of elderberry wine. Rather, you just saw the poor badger squashed by the side of the road with nothing more than was provided by his 'Maker'.
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    The Badgers' way of life in was established long before the Stonecutters arrived from their 'cradle' in Africa. In fact all the creatures in this story lived on Fribourg's lands thousands of years before cutters first chipped flint into points and knives to more easily slaughter them. Then no time at all later, these monsters learnt to purposely strike one flint against another to make fire, to cook the meats of those butchered. And yes, badgers have long been eaten by Stonecutters though this practice has waned at the time of this story. The populations of fenced in, enslaved, animals indicate that the bipeds preferred meats are provided by cattle and sheep. In recent centuries, badgers have been often been forced to fight dogs for the entertainment of cutters, but precisely because they are still free animals. Badgers are proud to say that they've never been 'tamed' by the cutter dominion.

    It isn't known exactly when the Armille badgers established their ancient capital of Broc, but their legends about that destroyed ancient sett go back at least a million years into what is now known as the Gelasian Age of the Pleistocene. The Badgers may have actually followed the retreating glaciers of the last Ice Age as the Fribourg lands burst back into life, so being amongst the first mammals to recolonise the land.

    The Kingdom of Bruck, as the badgers now call their home, in respectful recognition of the land lost as the cutters built their own town of Broc, was for five hundred years a southern stronghold of the once great Dach Empire that extended from the Black Forest to the banks of Lake Léman and from the Jura Mountains to the Dolomites. As well as being forced away from their original capital with the building of Stonecutter Broc the continuous activities of the biped giants still cause the setts to be irregularly abandoned and rebuilt elsewhere. Bruck has become a symbolic bridge to better times, continuously shifting to avoid the territorial excavations of Stonecutters as they consume the landscape, a treasured connection between the ancient heart of Armille civilisation and present realities. Bruck is more than a temporary settlement, it is the spiritual heartland that connects the past and the future and defines the very essence of what it is to be Armille.

    During the moments of this story, the main tunnels of Bruck are below the pastures and woodlands around the Stonecutters chocolate factory of Cailler and from there strung along the Jogne to the east. The first sustained intrusion of Stonecutters into the Gruyère region was around a thousand years ago, when the Vandal Gruérius arrived to start building the Castle of Gruyère. The Dach Emperor did what he could to resist the cutters, but in truth the cutters almost effortlessly fragmented the ordered existence of the Empire, without even once becoming aware of the beavers complex civilisation. Killing a few of the cutters' vicious dogs and scaring the horses was never going to hold their ambitions at bay, and a badger defeating a man is as rare as a David defeating a Goliath. Worst of all, cutters brought the plague of tuberculosis to the Empire. That was enough to destroy what their developments missed.
***

    I include the following aside to the story, as it may be of interest of some astute readers. The fact that the cutters use the badger name Broc seems strange until one considers a few facts. How did this come about without there being any common language or even vague comprehension of the badger world? There is at least one perfectly logical reason. Broc is actually a very old name for the badger in cutter speak, derived it seems from the defensive barks of the boar when badger safety is threatened. To the badger, broc, is a call of retreat to the inner defences, to the stronghold of the sett. The call is a long deep BROOuu with a silent C. It is a sound that travels far through the ether, often striking terror even to the Dachshund, Jagdterrier and other canine bred by cutters to hunt and 'bait' badger.

    There is also another possible explanation, and perhaps the two both led to the cutter's use of Broc. It is true that they can't normally see the world of other mammals except when under the influence of intoxicants, but a few deep-sighted individuals, wizards and clairvoyants, are better able to see 'spiritual dimensions. Quite possibly it is the tales they told that brought the word Broc to cutter tongues.
***

    The Armille settlements on the southern bank have recently had to deal with renewed attacks from their neighbouring clan, the Graevling. On the face of things, one would think that all populations of badgers are closely enough genetically connected that they would be allies against the greater enemy. Actually badgers behaviour mirrors the murderous behaviour of cutters. Clans of badgers are equally likely enemies as the culturally different tribes of two-footed animals. The warmongering Graevling are particularly known for their evil practice of eating the newborn cubs of vanquished setts. Armille have never followed such evil cannibalistic practices; at least not according to any official histories I have read.

    At the time of this story Bruck is particularly vulnerable, having barely recovered from the loses of the most recent terrible plague. The tuberculosis, periodically returns, usually spread to the badgers by the cattle of the cutters, especially in areas like the Sarine valley where cows are corralled in great numbers. The plague takes badgers, both high born and low, no one is so mighty as to be immune from disease. The Clan Leader of Bruck is the very wise and very old Orlando Blaireau. His only surviving cub is his youngest daughter Tess, by his second wife Pateri. Tess is still too young to take over as Leader and her mother Pateri doesn't carry the blood of dynasty, being from a neighbouring settlement in the Meadowlands of Les Marches. Blaireau prays long to Mochyn Daear, the mystical one, asking for the wherewithal to keep Bruck safe. He also prays that he can maintain his strong leadership until Tess has the maturity and resilience to take his place as Clan Leader. She will need every bit of wisdom and courage that she can muster.

    Blaireau knows that the latest attempted invasion across the Jogne from the northern banks could come any night and likely soon. He is particularly fearful for the survival of his clan since the forming of the recent alliance between the Graevling badgers and the Castorian beavers from the distant Avau. The Castorians greatly add to the versatility of the northern forces with their water engineering skills. They could easily deliver a Graevling army onto the southern shores before the Armille ever have time to draw their thinly spread forces from along the frontier to the spearhead of any invasion. Short of seeding discord between the Castorians and the Graevlings, which could be a near impossible task, Orlando Blaireau knows that his people's only real chance of defending themselves is by having early warning of the timing and location of any attempted incursions. The best way of gathering such information is, as always, through good spies. Blaireau ponders the question of who to send to augment those few agents currently active.
***

    Orlando Blaireau is far away with his thoughts when an insistent knocking starts on his door. This rudely drags him back into alert consciousness. Reluctantly he pulls his bulk up from the easy comfort of his favourite fireside chair. Grunting with every step he makes his reluctant way along his hall. Looking through a regularly used spyhole, a flared split in the oak-round of the door, he sees the familiar sight of a particularly persistent travelling salesman, the marmot Meltier. Immediately it comes to Orlando's mind that if any creature can regularly pass unchallenged through Graevling territory it is the portly Meltier. Even in an atmosphere of secrecy and suspicion as the Graevlings prepare for war, the familiar figure of Meltier would likely go unchallenged. But could the marmot be persuaded, or more accurately bribed, to cooperate?

    Orlando opens his door. "How can I help you, Monsieur Meltier?"

    "My humble apologies for my late and, judging by your attire, inopportune arrival, Lord Blaireau I'm here as by your own ordinances I need permission for the trade I so desperately need. I have fine wines from the territories of Lavaux. Naturally, I have a free crate for your household. I ask directly, rather than more formally through your offices, because time threatens to be short for me, curtailed by a dagger or swinging axe. I apologise for the insistent urgency of my application, but it is vital that I trade quickly in order to find the funds that may keep creditors off my back."

    "Simple creditors, or possibly, clients more severely aggrieved?"

    "Well, um… yes. There seems to be a certain level of unjustified private angst rather than mere financial disaffection."

    "Come in. As it happens I require something of a cunning creature of the world such as you. Come, come. You are in need of money, and I am in need of information; let us sample your wine together."

    They chat for a while about the wider problems in the territories of Fribourg and the terrors inflicted by the Graevling and other goblin-like activities of various species; Orlando tries to hide his desperation to gain Meltier's help. He knows he can buy some short-term loyalty, but only until such a similar offer is bid by another. As Orlando ponders the problem of Meltier's lack of adherence to any cause other than an entertaining life, he realises that the key is in offering something that the marmot wants more than anything else in the world. Orlando thinks deeply as he stares into Meltier's shifty, worried, eyes. "Money will be part of it, but there is always something more."

    Finally deciding on how to advance the conversation, Orlando speaks. "I have a job that, should you take it, won't be short of reward, though it is also not without risk. I need a spy. In particular, a spy that is free to pass through the territories of the Graevling. In return, I am willing to protect you from your creditors with both money and sanctuary when you return. I will give you a few hours to consider my proposal." Orlando takes a purse from his desk. "Here, take these coins to buy your supper…"

    Orlando knows that, having been given a couple of hours, Meltier will be found in the bar of the Hotel Edelweiss, leaning over a glass or two of liquid supper. When Orlando arrives the marmot is indeed there, propped up by the bar with paw rapped tightly around a glass of elderberry wine. Their earlier conversation continues, with most of the listening and ongoing liquid consumption being by Meltier, while Orlando talks and regularly summons the server to their corner table money with more wine. Fortunately the considerable financial investment in hospitality soon turns out to be profitable. Eventually a point is reached when Meltier's tongue is liberated by happy juice to such a degree that his private concerns begin to submerge. Meltier now rambles on about his stalled plans to extend his high-alpine winter home. As is invariably the case amongst marmots, home is a very special place. Marmots are accustomed to spending 'winter', which they consider to last for anything up to nine months, sitting comfortably around a toasty warm, log-burning, hearth. Meltier is only typical, relying on just the short summers in which to carry out his trade. Orlando is quick to exploit the raising of this topic. Before the evening is out, an agreement is reached, whereby in exchange for information on Graevling troop movements Meltier will receive help in building the planned extension to his villa, in addition to other inducements already offered. In the autumn, a couple of Bruck's best tunnelling engineers will travel back with Meltier to the mountains. There they'll help him excavate the boulders that have been preventing substantive progress. If anything was ever going to ensure the Marmot wouldn't double cross in some way, in order to draw income from both sides, it would be fear of losing the opportunity to extend his precious home.
***

    Even as preparation for war is driving Orlando to distraction, the other surviving Blaireau, his daughter Tess, has fallen in love. Her deepening interest is in a handsome but dirt-poor gardener to the Blaireau Estate. Her infatuation is deep enough that she is often literally, head over back paws for the dashing young gardener. She's forever contriving to spend as much time as possible in his seductive company. So far, Tess has managed to keep her affair with Jasavec a secret, well, at least from her father. She knows very well how badly Orlando will take the news when he eventually finds out. She has long been aware of how important to the clan a powerful political marriage might be. Her father's current number one choice as her husband is Bursuc, Royal Prince of the Bourgo Clan. Tess is extremely underwhelmed by that prospect.

    Tess is on one of her regular assignations in the bluebell fields with Jasavec. Presently, the courting couple are in close liaison in one of their favourite hidden places, under the shade of a large cherry tree. Tess, normally a model of focused endeavour around the estate is now very often less focused after the lunch break. The warmest part of warm summer nights are adding to the general abandon in their energetic impassioned moments. As the relationship looks unlikely to burn itself out it's inevitable that soon every tongue will be wagging so that even Orlando is bound to hear.
***

    As the summer days lengthen, the shortening nights inevitably mean that both sides prepare for war under harsh sunlight. Where possible, work is carried out underground so generally free from prying eyes. However, the tell-tale trails of smoke from blacksmiths' chimneys and the necessary over-ground troop movements leave little doubt that the armies are busy preparing for battle. Many birds fly sorties for both sides, both to spy and bomb targets. There are many aerial combats with birds weaving and soaring overhead. Occasionally a crippled bird tumbles and crashes into the ground. Under thickening clouds of both physical weather and psychologically terror Meltier takes the ferry across to the north bank. He is unusually keen to do business in every corner of Graevling territory, so hopefully gathering enough information to win him the grandest of homes. Meltier smiles contentedly as he imagines entertaining the wealthiest and most influential marmot families in the new halls of his dreams.
***

    Meltier has hardly stepped onto the northern shore as on the battlements of Bruck Orlando receives an unsettling dispatch. On balance the news is definitely negative, despite affirmation that some seasoned troops will soon be arriving from Bourgo. Unfortunately, they won't be led by heroic prince Bursuc, but rather by his competent but less inspirational brother-in-law, Borsa. Orlando sees himself having to provide the charismatic leadership role for the Bourgois troops as well as his own, while his plan for territorial union through the marriage of Tess to Bursuc seems likely to go unfulfilled. When the scouts arrive ahead of the column, the news they deliver on the health of Bursuc is less than encouraging. He is suffering with pneumonia and all the indications are that this severe episode may very well prove fatal.

    Meanwhile, in her deep and secure quarters Tess is unaware of these tidings. She is considering circumventing her father's wishes by running away so avoiding being forced into Bursuc's hot embrace. If only she was aware of just how hot and sweaty he presently is, and how cold he could easily soon become! Feeling desperately guilty about her growing determination to upset her father's plan, she briefly emerges from her deep chambers to watch the distant rise of dust from what she knows must be the reinforcing regiments from Bourgo. That moving vista is enough to solidify her determination to leave.

    Tess feels sure that her only hope of avoiding the planned marriage is to immediately elope with her beau into the wilderness. First she has to persuade Jasavec that such a course of action is in both their best interests. If caught, she'll risk a mere scolding, but her lover could easily be relieved of the weight of his head. Common gardeners don't fair well from eloping with the cherished daughters of powerful leaders.

    Another problem nagging at Tess's mind is how she'll cope with a swift journey away to freedom, a run that is sure to face many obstacles, when she's recently so plagued by evening sickness. She hopes her uncharacteristic desire to vomit will soon pass. Tess also wonders why she has a sudden passion for eating midday feasts of dark chocolate, liberated from the cutters' giant factory. Her mind settles on the thought that perhaps they should restrict themselves to merely getting as far as Jasavec's home village, a few kilometres away along the river Sarine.
***

    As soon as Orlando discovers that his daughter isn't to be found he is beside himself with worry. The household and then the home territories are searched high and low, to no avail. Soon it is discovered that a certain gardener is also absent without leave; the very same young boar whom many now declare as having been regularly seen in Tess's company. Almost within the space of an hour Orlando is reduced from being a still powerful and domineering presence to a shadowy ineffectiveness more common of his chronological age. His decline is so fast that a further couple of hours on he's actually bedridden, rendered low by the worst of expectations that his mind can conjure. He makes the assumption that Jasavec has either raped and murdered his daughter or dragged her away to sell to the Graevlings. With Orlando's declining health seems to go any hope of his people resisting invasion. The most senior commander in Orlando's absence, General Das, does what he can to keep Bruck's war preparations going, even reluctantly giving Borsa direct command of his best troops so that he may have more time to cover the King's now overlooked duties.

    As the short nights of summer pass, weapons drills and claw to claw fight exercises are intensified and become more frequent. The air-force, what there is of it, is put on highest alert, in the vain hope that it can delay the inevitable. The force consisted of one tatty flight of pigeons and a motely collection of crows, under the command of Raven Branwen. He is much older than even Orlando, being reputed to have been born before the dams forming the cutters' lakes were built, though this is surely fantasy. Branwen is particularly responsible for keeping in touch with Meltier and the few other friends that Bruck has active in the Graevling territories. It is many years since the old raven has flown far himself, though he could still remember every significant feature of Fribourg land without reference to any map. Already the ravens are hard pressed deflecting heavy bombing raids by squadrons of buzzards and kites. These massive airframes dive to drop heavy stones indiscriminately on any target they see, even sows struggling to get their young cubs the fresh air and outdoor exercise they so desperately crave.
***

    Jasavec is determined to do his very best to keep his true love safe by staying as close to her as he can. Together they are taking the only course that satisfies both their risk assessments. They are to flee and take shelter in the Marches, in Jasavec's parents' sett in Yonlé. Jasavec is very relieved and somewhat surprised that his lover accepts such modest travel plans, while Tess is coming to the conclusion that she isn't so much ill as with cub. She hasn't yet the confidence to declare this possibility to Jasavec. For now, Jasavec is left confused that the usually so bold princess is content to settle for his relatively timid goal.

    As dusk falls around their coalescing plans they sneak out of Bruck and head south. After a couple of hour's walk and an hour of pauses for Tess to try and get on top of her sickness, they are approaching Yonlé. A farmer, busy out collecting wild strawberries from his field borders, is soon rushing back to Yonlé to announce their approach.
On arrival the lovers are greeted in customary badger style. Jasavec enjoys the welcoming feast and the flamboyant entertainments that his mother always seem to conjure from nowhere, while Tess can only pick away at her food trying her best not to look rude.

   Tess is sensitive enough to spot fear as well as joy in her hosts' eyes. They are clearly scared by the idea of harbouring Jasavec's well connected sweetheart. He has been very evasive in fielding questions, but it doesn't take much to read between the lines and realise that the couple have eloped. How indeed could these simple, country badgers avoid fearing what would befall them if it were to be discovered that Tess is sheltering under one of their roofs?

    Over the following days Tess does her level best to behave like the locals, so blending into village life. In the evenings she learns how to make the local worm paté, a delicacy known throughout the district, under the guidance of Jasavec's mother Maya, while he spent his days helping his father with the bluebell bulb harvest.

   Feeling a mix of uncertainty, and deceitfulness Tess worries a great deal about when and where to break her life changing news to her lover. She is only too aware that he has the right to know. As time passes she is starting to feel more and more broody. She sits quietly and thinks her unfamiliar feelings through. "I wonder if I'll have twins, as do most of the sows in our family, and will my precious cubs be boar or sow? It is too late to take a royal lover and pretend the newborn are his? Anyway, I love Jas, and shouldn't everyone be free to love whoever they wish?"
***

    One day becomes two and two becomes a week and still Tess hasn't tried to relieve the worries of her father or come clean to her lover. For everyone both in Bruck and Yonlé, life continues at a fast pace. As the summer grows hotter so does the heat of impending war. For the folks of Yonlé there are really only the options of fleeing towards the Pre-Alps or staying and risking massacre. But even such limited choice isn't as easy to call as it might seem. Flight requires extensive planning if it is to enable the survival of young, old and infirm. As in Bruck and presumably in just about ever other Armille community, the dawn regularly witnesses all able bodied adults gathering to practise sword craft and archery. Tess helps instruct in the use of the foil, a sword craft suitable for those with dexterity rather than brawn, even though every jerky movement has her wanting to heave. Fencing has long been a passion of the princess, only rivalled in recent years by her interest in weighing up the qualities of every young boar that crossed her path. Meanwhile, Jazavec lends his talents to the bow maker. He also finds the time to renew his acquaintance with his childhood friend, Waldo the Long-eared Owl. They had been brought up together by Maya, when Waldo's own mother was murdered by a sly weasel. That is a tragic story of kindness being rewarded by treachery. Always hospitable people, the Yonlé badgers had offered the weasel Erma sanctuary when a cutter shot her husband in cold blood, when caught in the act of stealing chicken eggs. Unfortunately the sneaky Erma had cruelly repaid the badgers kindness by shedding the blood of their companion, Owl Winnie, and right in front of her fledgling Waldo on the sweet meadows of Yonlé. If equal levels of natural justice were applied in all directions, then there would be fewer foxes and even fewer dangerous Stonecutter creatures on the blood soaked lands of the Earth.
***

    A fortnight after the couple fled Bruck, Waldo and Jasavec are out together enjoying the pleasant evening air, talking over old times as they hunt for voles for Waldo's dinner. Unlike certain foxes, Waldo is always very careful not to hunt friends of the Yonlé badgers. This is particularly difficult at times as his night time employment is as a hunter, one of those responsible for keeping the larders of the sett well stocked. The badgers have more friends than enemies in the meadows around Yonlé, so Waldo is often forced to hunt in very distant lands. Waldo is also employed to give support to the early warning system of Yonlé, spending at least a couple of hours a night on patrol. All badgers and kindred creatures have to work for a living, at least until they are exceedingly old. Even the royal family Blaireau are expected to work for the community in some way or another. Tess regularly helps with sword skills and teaching health and safety whether peace or war prevails. Until recently, even Orlando regularly taught , helping Meljina run her school of magic arts. It is to Melijina that everyone in Bruck goes for advice on herbs, spices and fungi, paranormal activities and even the interpretation of dreams. Melijina is also guardian of the Library of Lore, where she is often to be found checking some detail of one rare substance or another.

    As the two friends hunt progresses, Waldo lands in the high branches of a tall coniferous tree and stares down into the wide vista of grassland and cows below, looking for scurrying creatures going about their daily chores. Glancing back up for a moment to get a navigational fix Waldo sees some distant flashes of light, along the course of the Sarine. The reflections spark against the background of the river bank vegetation, so logically can't be from the sparkling movements of water or jumping fish. He can't help but think that he might be seeing reflected light bouncing off armour or unsheathed swords. He signals his concerns to Jasavec before heading off to investigate. Waldo circles high into the clouds to try and avoid drawing the attention of whoever might just be on a bloody mission.

    Emerging from the clouds Waldo's worst fears are quickly confirmed. He spies a great armada of tree logs and on every one is perched a full compliment of heavily armed badgers. Beavers are powering the massive 'boats' up river. This can only mean one thing, invasion in progress. Waldo wastes no time in reporting back to Jasavec before speeding away to sound the alarm in Yonlé.

    The creatures of the Marches are packed and beginning to flee even before the invaders can be physically seen from Yonlé's docks. The sows with young cubs leave first with an escort of archers to defend the convoy from dive bombing eagles. The rest of the troops are fully engaged in works aimed at delaying the landing, hopeless though any defences seem against such a large force. Jasavec is only half way back to Yonlé when he realises there can only be one result in the coming battle. He flicks his mirror glass to signal Waldo in and soon has the owl dispatched at full speed to warn Bruck that invasion will almost certainly be coming across land from the south. He knows full well that Bruck will have few if any valuable eyes watching the southern approaches, so that a two pronged pincer attack is sure to take the defenders by surprise. That is unless Waldo can get through to warn them.

    Immediately the owl's flight is being tracked by the eagles of the northern forces. At least that draws a few of them away from harassing the fleeing convoy of sows and cubs. If the eagles catch up with Waldo he will have no chance whatsoever, and as those killing machines fly higher and faster than the desperate owl without employing even half the expenditure of precious energy the dice of fate is stacked heavily against the owl. "I'm a peregrine, I am a peregrine," chants Waldo as he flies flat out at not much over sixty kilometres an hour, imagining himself doing three hundred. The eagles above, really can fly that fast. Despite his attempt at self-deception the reality of his relative speed wins over any brief overconfidence, so before the inevitable happens he dives down and swoops under the roof of a Stonecutter's shed.

    As he plots his next move Waldo is still hooting desperately to himself, trying to fortify his courage. If there is to be a solution the main tactic is obvious, and logic thankfully finds room in his scared mind. Stealth will see my job done, not dreams of speed I do not have. So it is that with great bravery and fortitude Waldo silently swoops from the shed and flits under the covered back of a farm truck that fortunately happens to be departing in the direction of Broc. Frustrated by Waldo's cunning the eagles circle overhead, waiting for their opportunity. Under the shield of the vehicle Waldo rests his already tired wings.
***

    Meanwhile, blood flows on the banks of the Sarine, as the defences are quickly overwhelmed. Fortunately for the fleeing residents the invaders have the bigger goal of Bruck already in their sights, so that almost before the settlement has fallen a column of troops is heading north. The feared rape and pillaging won't happen, at least for now. Jasavec and Tess fight on with the steadily diminishing band of those fit enough to resist the still overwhelming number of troops left to mop-up the defences, until Jasavec is eventually felled by a blow that had him tumbling unconscious into the river. Immediately he is being swept out into the middle of the flow. Tess, on seeing her lover being swept away dives into the water, only to feel the stabbing agony of an arrow skimming her flank. At least the current is carrying both of the lovers swiftly away from the one-sided battle and towards Bruck.
***

    A distance away, the truck carrying Waldo has come to a halt. Waldo glances out of the back, searching for a way out of his now trap. He is deep in thought.

   I spy sheds, and Cutters, and trees, yes trees. They will be my safe passage- twisting and weaving as only I can, below the canopy. The eagles won't dive to catch me if I stay amongst the tangled branches. I'll head through the woods for as long as I can.

     As soon as there is a moment when no eagles could be seen overhead, Waldo dashes out and across the open terrain towards the nearest trees. An eagle dives, but is forced off line as the owl starts to weave. The eagles certainly won't give up, but for now at least the landscape favours weaving Waldo. His soundless flight with eyes and ears attuned to every twist of passage and the variably dense canopy are keeping him safe. He skims over the ground so as to make use of every bit of dark shadow and every protective bower. The trees gave way to buildings, but still Waldo weaves at every opportunity until at last there is just one wide strip of open ground to be crossed before he reaches Bruck. The owl doesn't hesitate even though he knows he has little chance. He is three parts of the way across the last stretch of open ground when an eagle strike hits him. Waldo is slammed hard into the grass, but somehow escaping the bird's talons he desperately flaps towards the nearest tunnel door. The brave owl is only twenty metres from safety but he feels that could be twenty kilometres. All seems lost.
***

    In the water Tess is swimming for all she is worth to catch up with the unconscious form of Jasavec. He's being swept along in the middle of the stream, snout deep in the water. Badger paddle isn't the fastest of strokes but Tess is gaining on her lover. Jasavec tumbles over a little waterfall after temporarily being caught against a boulder. Tess held her breath as she is swept through the same shoot, bobbing up to find herself close enough to Jasavec to grab a hold of his fur. She pulls herself past his body and rolls him onto his back. Clearly her mate is drowning, if he isn't already dead. Desperately she kicks out for the shore, until after several tries she got a paw around a tree branch sticking out of the bank. It takes all her strength to clamber up onto dry land hauling the dead weight of Jasavec with her. As his bulk comes clear of the water, she feels her own legs slipping back across the grass and mud. A desperate swing of one forelimb allowed her to grip a tuft of coarser grass, and then steadily centimetre by centimetre she heaves them both back away from the slippery bank.

    Without a moment to draw breath Tess starts pumping away on Jasavec's chest as she has seen medics do. On the point of collapse from exhaustion, she is rewarded with a heaving cough and a flow of regurgitated water. She collapsed exhausted staring up into the sky, and thanking Mochyn Daear for having given her the strength to save them both. Only now is she aware of the burning pain from her side, where the arrow skimmed her flesh.
***

    As Tess is saying her prayer the massed troops of the Graevling army are heading both north from Yonlé and south towards the northern bank of the Jonge. A flight of eagles provided information to General Lohvec, commander of the attacking forces, enabling him to co-ordinate movements. He smiles to himself as he sees victory tumbling into his grasp, expectant that Bruck will be his even before the sun rises to replace the moon in the very next dawn. His force is so overwhelming that he can't now see failure under any circumstances.
***

    The chilling cry of an overexcited Red Kite circling over head, as an eagle pins down Waldo, alerts a young cub naughtily playing by an open back door. Hilda has been desperately hoping for a chance to get outdoors to play. She now peers nervously out to witness the owl's desperate last seconds. Hilda looks in horror as the eagle half misses but still manages to smash the owl into the hard ground. She hears the word invasion in Waldo's desperate last scream. Even as the eagles alight on the grass, Hilda is quickly pulling the door to and rushing away to sound the alarm. Sadly, Waldo couldn't know that his sacrifice hadn't been in vain.

     In floods of tears Hilda rushed down the passage into the embrace of her surprised mother. "Whatever's the matter dear, have you seen the devil?"

     Heidi, wasn't sure that she understood her daughter, but she did allow herself to be dragged back to peek out of the door's spyhole. The vision of carnage and the garbled words of her daughter told the story well enough. She hurried off to get a message to Orlando.

     The news is enough to persuade the Leader to dispatch his thin rank of troops still held in reserve. These mostly over old and tender young soldiers are soon barricading the southern alleys and by-ways.

     Orlando feels that they are now as prepared as they can be. He is pleased to know the possible time of attack from Meltier, and extremely relieved that he has been alerted to the pincer movement orchestrated by the Graevling's commander-in-chief, General Lohvec. Orlando dispatches his last almost intact squadron of ravens south to get a measure of the forces arriving from that direction. Bruck would not now fall without at least giving the attackers a severe test of their resolve.
***

     Tess makes Jasavec as comfortable as she can. It doesn't take any medical skills to see that he is in no condition to travel. She also realises that his life may be in danger without medical intervention, but her priority must be reaching the clan as soon as possible. Tess gives Jasavec a lingering kiss and then heads off on what she hopes will be the fastest route to Bruck. She is so desperate to make fast progress that she risks running along the Stonecutters metalled roads. Her recklessness might have been tempered if she'd known that Waldo got his message through, but then again, knowing her desperation to join her father, probably not. Twice in as many minutes Tess had to throw herself into a ditch as vehicles blasted past her, yet undeterred by the risk each time she she immediately resumed her charge up the hot tarmac. Each rapid movement is accompanied by a jabbing pain from her arrow wound, though she is never deterred by it.

    By the time she reaches Bruck the clamour of battle is so loud that it is hard for her to think. If she could raise a logical thought her action may well have been different. As it is Tess only pauses to desperately search for a weapon. Against a gate she spots a cutter's huge three pronged garden fork that normally she would have struggled to even lift. Today her anger gave her so much strength that she seized it and hardly breaks stride as she heads into battle. Screaming like a banshee she falls upon the rear of the Graevlings' army. The fork runs through the first badger that confronts her, and leaving that weapon impaled Tess immediately grabs the soldier's falling sword and charges on into the melee. The previously dispatched ravens are still returning, and on seeing her spirited attack immediately joining in, swooping and stabbing at those badgers that threatened to take down the heroic princess. Troops at the front heard the attack coming in from their rear, and assuming the racket could only be coming from an army, they started to panic. Within a minute panic turned to flight, as the encouraged defenders took the opportunity to push back the suddenly less determined attackers. Old defenders that were already exhausted and steadily backing suddenly manage to lift their flagging spirit. Wily as foxes they don't risk a second's rest for fear of losing the help of this small reversal. Soon the Graevlings are throwing down the weapons and fleeing back the way they had come, with youngest defenders in fast pursuit. The battle on the southern front has turned, as Tess's fresh wounds and exhaustion now overwhelm her. She collapses face first into the blood stained grass.
***

    The invaders that had crossed the Jogne were still doing very much better, Orlando is himself surrounded and rapidly losing the last of his age-diminished strength. As he falls, an arrow through the eye, the defence wavers. All seems lost.
Then suddenly screaming soldiers began to reinforce them from the southern front. Soon the story of Tess brave attack is circulating and buoying up flagging spirits. But the battle is still the Graevlings to lose as the magician Meljina, who had slipped away from Bruck before the attack, plays a game changing trump card. She is way up on the Stonecutters' dam of Montsalvens, timing her spectacular with the help of messenger pigeons dashing back and forth from the battlefield. Melijina creeps through the pipe that has given her access before to the dam's control room. After saying a few words of magic and a quick prayer to Mochyn Daear, just to cover all bases, she presses the magical green buttons. The magician has been a visitor to the control-building, overlooking the wide waters of the dam many times before, and so having been witness to many of the cutters' work activities. She wonders whether such simple actions as pressing green discs will really be sufficient, but only for a moment.

    The fates are smiling on the Armille as the water started to spill ever faster over the dam. Soon a huge tide of water is plunging down along the river's rocky course. Only minutes later, the attacking troops close to the river are aware of water rising around them, when with sudden shock they are hit by a crushing tide. Seeing their comrades swept away, the Graevlings now isolated by the torrent are soon throwing up their paws in desperate surrender. General Lohvec looks on in dismay as even those troops safe around him on the northern shore suddenly seemed to lose their collective nerve. Soon he watches despondently as his troops began to flee back past his command post.
***

    There are many mixed emotions in the tunnels and private quarters of Bruck. A great victory has been won through a mix of cunning, strategy, intelligence gathering and heroic bravery. But as is the way of war, the end has come at a terrible cost to both sides. Hundreds of badgers and allied creatures have died, for what history suggests might only be a short period of peace, and certainly not an end to hostilities.
***

    News had come even as the battle ended of the death of prince Bursuc. For a second Tess hadn't been able to supress a smile, relieved that she might now be with her lover without going against the wishes of her dear departed father. However, to be a princess is one thing but to be Clan Leader is another. Tess didn't dream for long as the realities of her new responsibilities quickly force their way in. Yes, she had the power to decide to marry a commoner, but can she in all conscience do so when her people so need the strongest alliances she can possibly instigate. Tess bowed by responsibility of leadership quickly comes to the brave conclusion that a political marriage is vital if the Armilles are to be strong enough to guard the peace. Tess calls the just returned Melijina and Borsa aside into earnest discussion.

    All those that died defending Bruck are celebrated at the collective funeral, as is the custom amongst badgers. Each brave soul gets an honourable mention and a public eulogy. Tess, already elected Leader, reads every single one, though the very first, for her father and the very last for brave Waldo takes every bit of her newfound fortitude. Heavily bandaged Jasavec is by her side, as was General Borsa. As soon as Tess finishes talking Melijina steps forward to make a stunning announcement.

    "Prince Borsa, heir to the throne of Bourgo and Queen Tess, Leader of Bruck, are to be married before this summer is out. Our Leader is already with child, the treasure of our Queen's love for her Cavalier, Jasavec of Yonlé, will be a full member of the royal household."

    A loud cheer and the traditional stamping of paws echoes from the crowd. There excitement is undoubtedly fired by their regard for their warrior queen and her new husband, but more than anything it is inspired by the hope that the new alliance of territories will make them strong enough to evermore deter the hated Graevling. Even the publicly slighted Jasavec manages a weak smile. This broadens when with already left paw in Borsa's Tess extends her right one behind her to grasp hold his.
***

    On the last day of July Tasso is born, and in three weeks, before Tasso will have even opened her eyes, the planned betrothal of Prince Borsa of Bourgo and the Leader of Bruck will officially takes place.
   As I write Melijina is looking into her crystal ball. She sees that the marriage will always be official rather than passionate. But what is good for the Armille, rather than good for Tess, is sure to now always be the Queen's first consideration. However, she and the other royals will live happily ever after, as Jasavec will settle to accepting the role of Master of the Gardens of Bruck, Master of Yonlé and privately as Cavalier to his Queen. Meanwhile Borsa will always cherish his childhood love, Madelina, the Mistress of the King's Wardrobe. So it is that a queen, a gardener, a king and a blacksmith's daughter will be best friends despite tangled social arrangements. Badgers are by any standards more egalitarian than cutters, foxes, weasels and other devious self-serving creatures. Social norms are usually far more pragmatic, and less governed by strict rules. In time Tasso, always acknowledged as first born of the Warrior Queen, will became Leader in her turn. I hope that Meljina's mystical foresight is accurate. Future historians will probably come to assume that the official royal marriage was never consummated. But then again whoever knows what goes on behind closed doors, especially in this modern world.
***

    As for me the narrator, who might I be? Well, I'm the cutter that my pet badger saw pressing the green buttons. Or had you guessed that bit? A few of us can see into the dimensions of other animals.
    Well, I say the friendly creature is my pet, though to be truthful it is more that I'm her occasional companion if and when she chooses to visit. Then she comes scurrying up the pipe I leave open for her, mainly interested in my sandwiches. They are a fair trade for her wonderful stories.
    THE END

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Making a living from art is a luxury. Only appreciation matters, whether art be created of stone or word. Money is the only mere commodity.- Richard Bunning © 2016
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The King of Koitiata   (Copyright © 2014 by Richard Bunning) --3300 words

<The Earth had been shaking for a thousand days, as the Brunhes Chron of stable magnetic polarity ended. After a period of 750,000 years, during which time compass needles pointing to almost exactly the same magnetic north, alignment had suddenly reversed. The disruptive change happened far more quickly and violently than most seismologists had predicted. What started as a steady build-up of volcanic activity in 2025 became a three year period of massive geological upheaval. The start may or may not have been triggered by excessively violent solar flare activity. Scientists never reached a consensus as to whether it was magnetic flux in the Sun that triggered the changes deep in the Earth’s mantle, or just the natural rhythms of the Earth itself. They argued for months as civilisation started to fall apart. Now it will probably be hundreds of years before wise men again build the skills to even begin to understand such things. In 2025, human civilization took a giant leap back into a less technologically advanced time.

On the North Island of New Zealand, one of the previously most active volcanic zones on Earth, seismic activity had been predictably bad. However, if anything volcanic activity actually had less of a catastrophic effect on human life here than in many previously more stable geological areas of the planet. New Zealand had always needed to be prepared for major geological activity. Nevertheless, fully half the population was lost to just one cataclysmic event, the Taupo explosion of Dec 21st 2025. Devastating as it was, geological records showed this to have been a mere seismic hiccup by Taupo’s standards. Mild or not, what had long been the centre of a large lake became the peak of a new mountain. Geologically close volcanoes, particularly Ruapehu and Taranaki, had been consistently very active for over three years. Sunshine hadn’t regularly penetrated the skies of North Island for over two of those freezing cold years, until just a few weeks ago. Now, for the first time since The Great Shake there'd been two days of glorious clear blue sky.>

-----

'Today I saw the new mountain that has grown out of the central plateau really clearly. It protrudes like a new Everest above the old horizon.

As you read above, I am trying to write a short summary of our cataclysmic times. I am not sure why I am bothering, except that I’m probably one of very few survivors who can. I sit at an antique bureau in one of the few remaining undamaged homes in the small town of Koitiata, the date is the 2nd August 2029. I am an old man compared to most survivors. Youth didn’t do much to improve one’s odds in the indiscriminate way catastrophe works, but has proved very important to chances of survival since. Of course, once life began to settle down my maturity helped me gain first influence and then power. There are about five hundred of us here, surviving on this west coast. Our 2024 population of about 120 souls has been swelled by survivors from Wanganui, and regions to the South. From the few that have reached us from south of Levin we know that there are significant numbers of survivors down that way, or at least that there were.

Just north of here lava flows from the volcanoes actually reached as far as the sea. This means that the lava travelled some hundred kilometres from Ruapehu before freezing. Survivors from Wanganui suggest that the lava flows came from the east rather than from the direction of Taranaki. We believe that all the forests of Waitotara and all the best farmland to the north and east have been buried, along with almost every single trace of civilisation. We must hope that the worst has past; that the few days of normal daylight are harbingers of millions to come. We can’t even hear the familiar deep rumblings from what was the Tongariro plateau, as they have steadily quietened over the eighteen months. Quakes are still common, but then they always were. Has the planet calmed for more than a brief respite? I assume so.

I have imposed governance over our community. Only discipline can save us; only a single minded focus can marshal enough forces to make the most of our opportunities. The single mind is mine. I had to hang another renegade yesterday. He was caught pinching rations from the storehouse. Now he is much needed meat for our dogs. Our inventory shows, three horses, twenty-three sheep, five cows, two of which are in milk, and a single bull calf we are relying on to mature. Our old bull died from eating something unwholesome. We have large numbers of possums and rabbits, which are our main source of meat, and roughly forty dogs. Most of our energy goes into growing fodder, gathering the, until recently ever scarcer, seaweeds, and growing kumara, and silver beet. There just hasn't been sufficient light to grow much else. Rhubarb would like the sulphur, if only we had some. Our remaining stocks of wheat and barley have been preserved as best we can. Come what may, we must plant those seeds this spring or risk a sharp loss of already failing potency.

We need to work land some distant from the town, which means we will have a far larger area of territory to defend. No one is likely to threaten from the North, but from the South we may be visited at any time. Longer periods of better light are sure to bring starving scavengers from as far afield as Wellington. I imagine the canned goods that would have been initially plentiful in the major towns are now scarce. We have plenty of guns, but lack ammunition. Many attackers may have more weaponry than us, having gained supplies from military bases. Waiouru is under lava. However, survivors from the Palmerston North area may well have had access to arms from Ohakea Air Base and Linton Camp. The neighbourhood out as far as 10 km south needs extra patrols, so that we can protect enough farmland, and to provide a buffer zone between potential enemies and our township. How many men have I that I know will always shoot to kill? I can only be sure of five or six and they would all happily kill me. I’ve given them our best hunting rifles, and put them in charge of patrols. I prefer to keep Hemi and Alec at a distance, nutcases the pair of them. It is time to rebuild, to think about more than mere day to day survival. There are definite signs that our long volcanic winter is ending.

The wanderers we capture either swear allegiance or are drowned in the Turakina basin. Any that run are hunted down by the dog men. Theoretically I’ve 300 that could fight to a fashion, men, strong women and older children. Hardly an army, but hopefully we can hold our territory. Tomorrow I move south with fifty of the strongest, in order to clear out any vagrants holed up within a couple of hours walk from here. I will be on my horse, Copenhagen, so as to reinforce my status, but more importantly, to provide a high perch from which to spy the ground ahead. None that stand against us must be allowed to escape our sight. I need to be particularly careful about properly clearing the woodlands, as they give dangerously good cover to close trespassers. During recently clearer nights I have seen glowing camp fires. It is difficult to know how far away they actually are. Too close though, of that I'm sure.

Bread and beer, are what we need. With them I can secure loyalty, and so safeguard my kingdom. I must address the people at evening Assembly, and get that so called priest, that woman of God, to say a few words begging favourable weather for a good harvest. So many still follow the Church. I must use that misguided institution to boost my authority, and not let bloody Ms Pious become a centre of alternative authority. She will agree that it is my divine right to rule, or else I’ll cut her throat. She is too much of a hag for me to bother tying to my bed, so a quick blade will render no waste. As for my personal needs, that orphan, Amelia, serves me well enough for now.

---

This bloody horse is little more than skin and bone. It had better stand my weight, or else my axe will split its cranium. What a rabble of an army!

“Spread out into line, each ten metres apart. In five minutes we start out. Any that fail to keep in line will go hungry. I don’t care if you are in bush, plantation or bog, keep you spacing. Aron, watch our backs. Jordan, you take the right point, along the beach.”

The bloody sand-flies are another reason to be grateful for my horse. They seem to have multiplied since the Shake. As always, the ‘namu’ prefer to fly close to the ground, attacking any creature’s legs. We need to set up a defensive line somewhere south of Lake Koitiata, up against the Beamish Road. Perhaps even as far as the Santoft junction. It is always going to be a slow job searching the bush. What we could do with is having a vehicle, an old ute, to get men quickly from one end of our territory to the other. Well, okay, we have a sound vehicle but not a drop of fuel.

Am I being over ambitious? Santoft is half-way to Ohakea Air base, and though I haven’t heard of any activity there, certainly not from aircraft, however, it is possible that someone has got some sort of outfit working. I should send a couple of men on a long recon, at least as far as Bull. I have to know what we are up against. Can I control thirty square kilometres of land? Whatever I do I mustn’t be seen as weak. My people mustn’t know that I fear the future every bit as much as they do.

If things look too dangerous I will flee north. At least I can be sure not to run into many survivors that way. With my stash of old emergency rations I can hide out in the wastelands until any pursuers lose interest. Being the power in the land is great, but as any ruler knows there is always yet another potential usurper in the crowd.

Who to send on recky? The last I know there was cholera in Bull. That was last summer. I heard it from a particularly vocal prisoner. I cut his throat once he had told me what he could and kept most of his story to myself. Information is power. If it wasn’t for that knowledge I won’t be planning to control territory so far in that direction. I am gambling on the idea that those not dead are now too weak to threaten us. My source made it clear that the disease was rampant and that all supplies of drugs had long since been depleted. The need to take more land seems bigger than any risk . . . Five minutes must be about up.

“Forward”.

---

A lot of these trees are dead. At least the lack of canopy enables enough of the weak light to get to most corners of the forest. Jesus, it’s still cold this morning, cold for the middle of summer that is. The weather is improving though. Last winter was nothing like the one before, which took over seventy lives. Well at least it cleared out a few old and useless mouths. Apart from us crashing about these woods are eerily quiet. It is the absence of the birdsong that is most apparent. "Move on" you stupid horse. Sod it! I’m going to have to walk for at least a while through this tangle of half-dead timber, but I won't until I have to.

I remember the last time we advanced like this, when we overran the township of Ratana. Those that resisted us kept our dogs in meat for months. That is how Amelia came my way. We burnt the little that was left of the settlement. There were complaints from some of our people about our violent excesses, but none dared to really question my authority. It was a good strategy, because many were blooded for the first time. Killing always comes easier with practice. It also helped me identify those most likely to rebel against me.

That bloody Silvia bitch approaches me, the one bloody female that still dares to question my will.

“We have found a wounded man, I think he is dying. He murmured something about been mauled by a wild pig. If we can get him to Koitiata, I think we just might be able to save him. Should I do something about organizing a stretcher?”

“No. Show me that gun. It was his, right? Hand it up then get back in line.” That is a NZ forces LMT .308. That’s interesting. “Hand it over.”

I suspect he's a survivor from an army outfit. That is worrying. We can’t fight properly trained units. However, perhaps the fact that he was alone is a good indication of their weakness. All the same, this is a real concern. Should we turn for home now? I am beginning to wish I never started this. I long-ago decided that I would give up my Koitiata to any stronger forces we encounter. I’m not suicidal. Perhaps I should find a white flag, just in case. With the assets we have in the settlement I may even be able to negotiate myself a position of power. Why is that bloody woman still standing here?

“How many times do I have to tell you? Hand over the gun and get back in line.”

“I have no gun of my own, yet I can shoot as well as most men. It should be finders, keepers.”

“Hand over that gun before I have you flogged, I’ll see you get a shotgun from the armoury when we return.” The bitch, but now that I’ve my pistol pointed at her head.

“Fuck you Silas!” Silvia shouts as she passes up the rifle.

“I will consider that request. You have denied my will too long. Now get back in line.”

She is one dangerous bitch. Worse, I know she has many friends in the community. I must deal with her permanently. But first I have another job to do. “Show me to your prisoner!”

___

I stare into the wounded man’s blood drained face. “So then, where are you from, are you alone?” That leg looks broken. “Can you speak?”

“I was hunting. I’m part of a unit pushing north looking for survivors. I have been stationed in Bull by the Palmerston Council.”

“Are any of your friends close?”

“I can’t say. I have been out here all night. I was hoping you could tell me.”

“Lack of info, lack of use.” BANG. His face disappears.

“You bastard Silas.”

“He was dying you bitch. I just helped him out. Now get back in line before I do the same to you.”

___

I don’t think it’s wise to push on any further south. “Halt the line. All deploy left across Forestry Road to the lake. We will rest for a while before beginning a sweep back. Keep you guard up.”

I will establish a forward base here, with just three of four of the most useless, as an early warning of coming trouble. Well more like a sacrifice. Silvia can lead it, with the old shotgun I promised her. That bitch isn’t having this LMT, no way. I’m still troubled by that now fresh dog meat. However, if he was really part of a strong unit would he have been left to rot? Sod it! I have enough people with me to deal with all but a properly organised army unit.

That is what I’ll do. Put Silvia in charge of a couple of boys, establishing them in one of those abandoned farms up on the Beamish Road. Then I’ll place another unit half way back to the township, in the woods. I will leave that pervert, Cavendish, with Silvia. With any luck he will kill her, saving me the trouble.

What the bloody hell is that noise. It sounds like a fast moving truck. Shit! it’s an armoured vehicle. We can’t fight that. The bloody thing must have been hidden by the trees.

“All of you, put your guns down and your hands up. I’m Captain Jacks, of the NZ Defence Force. I am here with the authority of provisional government in Palmerston North. Who is in charge? Step forward out into the open, all of you . . . Whose is the horse I hear galloping away?”

Silvia steps forward and replies. “I believe our brave leader flees. Well I never, Captain Will Jacks . . . Silvia Brown, you don’t recognise me in these rags? It seems a long time since we were at Massey togehter.” Silvia walks towards the Captain with a broad grin on her face and her hand out. Jack is dismounting from the armoured car.

“Silvia, I wasn’t sure ‘til you smiled. So good to see you, but first . . . So who will speak for you all?”

Silvia replies, “Well it isn't going to be that arsehole Silas! I’m no boss but I’ll speak for us. We are 50 of 500 survivors, living just north of here around Koitiata. I'm sure I represent most when I say we will be happy to be under the rule of any provisional government rather than that fleeing self-styled King.”

“Well Silvia, all of you- I trust youse join us in Santoft. Our captain will want to hear every detail firsthand. We’ll worry about your King later. Tell me, we are looking for a young soldier. He came out here two days ago, hunting alone, ahead of us.”

“We found him an hour back. He had been mauled by a wounded boar. He was well crook but might have made it. Silas shot him.”

“That must have been the gunfire that alerted us. Well your self-styled King has just signed his death warrant.”

Jack gives Silvia a hug as his troops deploy from the LAV. She replies, “Not many of his subjects will shed a tear?”

“They won’t fight for him?”

“Not when I’ve had a word . . . It is so nice to see you again Will. You know I always . . . despite . . .”

“I know Silvia. We have a lot of catching up to do. But first we need to do the formal introductions and get your people sorted. Wow, five hundred more survivors!”

**********

 

[For a time before The Great Shake I lived close to the places in this history. I hope the few facts I use are plausible.

Whether caused by nature or human forces, this massive catastrophe was mathematically inevitable. Unfortunately good and the evil souls survive in equal measures. We have to face the terrible truth that the meek and good don’t usually grab any crowns.

I often wonder what sort of character I would be in these dystopian times. I hope I wouldn't be a Silas, and I'm pretty certain I wouldn't have ever be the noble knight in ‘heavy armour’ that the Captain may well proved to be. I guess I would've be just another frightened creature, conditioned to behave as some sort of weak mixture of those two phenotypes. Most of us are a near average mix of good and bad qualities. Of course, statistically I died in The Great Shake even though this story appears to have been written after the event.]

The Senior School Days of Arthur Callum
(Copyright © 2015 by Richard Bunning) --3300 words
Originally written by Arthur Callum

Picture of Arthur Callum and his sister, Winnifred, circa 1904

My fourteenth Birthday was just before me when my dear and highly respected Father and Mother decided that their son would benefit if given a Public School education. So, at no little financial sacrifice to themselves and after selective exploration, they delivered this rather contradictory son of theirs to face the rigours of a Public School*. This was in 1915.

Thus, one wet and dismal day, in company with my esteemed parents, I was entrained at London Bridge Station, Sussex bound, a small boy with a large lump in his throat! My father noticed a young man, wearing the school cap, sitting in a compartment, and without ado asked him to be good enough to see that I arrived safely at my destination. An immediate reply was forthcoming. “Sir, it will be my pleasure, I’ll look after him.” Whistles blew, kisses exchanged and the train pulled out leaving a part of my heart behind.

“Have a sweet,” my newly found friend said and produced from one of his voluminous pockets various odds and ends, such as a piece of string, a broken pencil and a pen-knife, and after a search, a chunk of toffee, which having cleansed with his handkerchief, he handed to me. “Jolly decent Chap”, I said to myself. He was very kind to me, talking of sports, of running, swimming, fives etc., and it was not long before I was all smiles once again. Little did I know that he was one of the mighty- a PREFECT! I soon learned.

In due time the train pulled up through lashing rain at our destination and out of the train poured what seemed to be hundreds of noisy, shouting boys. I stuck to my friend, until almost immediately a voice bellowed, “Hallo, Stinky” and, on noticing me, “what on Earth is that with you?”

My friend replied, “Hallo George, it’s a beastly new boy”, and turning to me, he said, “Go away, ‘New Boy’, I’ve got you here God forgive me!” adding as an afterthought, “now go away”. As he walked away I heard him saying, “I promised the little beast’s father . . . “

I looked round and noticed some dozen other bewildered little boys- obviously new boys- so I joined them. It was still raining and could not have been more depressing. We followed behind for the three-quarters of a mile up to the School, a dozen frightened little souls. So it was that we eventually arrived at what appeared to be a fortress. (Little did I think at the time that I would come to love that school.) A Prefect met us, remarked, “Dear, dear, dear”, and directed us to ‘Call-over’. We were then sent to our respective Houses and ultimately to dormitories.

Each ‘Dorm’- as they were termed- comprised some 40 boys, controlled by three prefects whose word was law indeed! Beds were of wood, with a hair mattress and, of course, blankets and sheets. I thought I would never sleep, at least not in comfort, but the time came when we slept like the proverbial top and all my life, as a result of this ‘wooden bed’ treatment, I have been able to sleep anywhere.

The next day, all New Boys were tested by a brief exam, and appointed to their appropriate forms. We were all ushered into the presence of the Headmaster- the ‘Head’- and, for the first time treated as human beings. We were told quite clearly that we were expected to obey the rules of the School and, at all times, to uphold its honour. Each new boy was then received by his housemaster, who usually produced a chocolate or two along with sound words of advice. All our masters were ordained men and great men they were. We came to love them in a ’Brotherly’ (Christian) way. Religious belief was not the option it has become in democratic society.

Central to Public School life in those days was the O.T.C.* (Officers’ Training Corps). The awful 1914/1918 War was at its height and we had to be trained. “All new boys will report on the Chapel Quad” announced the Head Prefect, a fearsome person we thought. I remember getting to the Quad to find a Sergeant, (a school prefect), waiting for us. “Fall in”, he bellowed, “Tallest on the right, shortest on the left . . . come on, come on, the term’s nearly over”. We all having done so, he viewed us for a very long minute and, looking Heavenwards said, “This isn’t fair- I’ve never seen so many idiots in all of my life- damn good mind to throw in my stripes”. However, he didn’t. Instead he said, “Anyone here know anything about arms drill?” Standing to attention, as we were, I took one step forward and boldly said, “Yes, Sergeant, I do.” He looked at me with one eye, “So”, he said, “we have one idiot here who knows it all have we?”

“No, Sergeant”, I replied, “but I have had two years in my last school’s cadet force. He seemed to go blue in the face. “Cadet corps, CADET corps” he yelled, “This gets worse and worse.” He gave me an old Boar War Carbine, and then drill, ‘Slope’, ‘Order’, ‘Port’, etc., until he realised I did know something about it.

“Never seen anything so bad in all my life- thank God I can get rid of you out of the ‘Recru-its Squad’. You will report to No. 4 Platoon.” He got out his little book and said, “What’s your name house and dorm.”

“Callum, Sergeant.”

This brought forth a shouted, “What a horrible name.” When I quoted my house and dorm he said, “Well, thank God you’re not in my house. At least that is something to be thankful for- I really don’t know what the School’s coming to- gone to pieces it has.” I was dismissed, knowing that I had got on to the first rung of the ladder. He, poor fellow, was killed some three months later at the Battle of the Somme.

War was a constant background then. Senior School, some two hundred boys, dined together in the Hall; if dining it could be called. Some mornings, too many alas, after breakfast, the Head had a dreadful ritual to perform. In cap and gown he would march up to the top table, turn to face us all, and say, “Let us stand in loving memory, of the following old boys who have given their lives for their Country. “ He would read the casualty list and, with tears rolling down his face, retire from the Hall midst silence befitting so sad a moment. Time after time this sad ceremony! We youngsters were left stunned, but with a peculiar feeling of pride and love for those who had fallen, for our School, our Country and, perhaps above all, our Head. He was a wonderful man, a Gentleman.

One’s first term at a Public School was grim to say the least. It did teach us to ‘take it’ like a man. Tough though it was, the rule was generally fair. I cannot remember a single boy ‘running-away’ in his first term. As was normal in most schools there were some tough traditions. For us, there was that awful ‘New Boys Concert’. Each dorm assembled in its own common room and all new boys had to perform; either sing, act, dance, recite or something. Whatever any individual did, however good, he would finish amid shouts of “horrible”, “beastly”, “caddish” etc. etc., augmented with showers of books hurled at him. My turn came. I said I couldn’t do anything but offered to fight anyone present. I think this was a crass reaction to home sickness. “Like that, is it?” said someone. “Well, you’ve asked for it. Go into the next room. You will see a hen in a cage. Let it free into the Quad.”

I could hardly refuse. Little did I know that this bird was a price specimen, brought especially by our house prefect and intended as a present to the School Farmer. I went to the next room, released the hen and returned to our common room. About two minutes later, the door burst open and a senior prefect, very red faced, shouted, “Who let my hen go?” I admitted doing so. “Follow me”, he said and took me to his study. “Bend over”, I got three of the best. “But for the fact that you are a beastly little new boy, I’d give you six.” Three was enough! My shine of newness was being rubbed off.

Food was grim in those days. We had enough bread and a bit of butter, 'grease', but only one egg a week. But for our tuckboxes, I cannot think how we would have survived. But there was a war and this we knew only too well. Nobody really grumbled. Long route marches in the O.T.C. and school runs (once a week in the winter and spring terms over a distance of no less than 6 miles), made us very hungry. Bread and the inevitable plum jam, and potatoes soon filled our tummies. Anyway there was nothing else!

We had a lot of Chapel- a bit too much for me. We went twice a day, with two long services on Sundays. The Wednesday Communion was always very well attended, because any boy attending this extra service was excused Wednesday ‘prep’. This abbreviated word, was short for preparation, being the equivalent of homework for day school children.

Parents were permitted to visit us during term. One visit was welcome, but a second was rather frowned upon. We had to get a pass from the Housemaster, if we wished to meet our parents at the Station, which was out of bounds. And of course, except on Sundays, we had to get written permission to be excused class. Having made ourselves presentable we reported to the Housemaster. He having inspected us, produced the necessary pass, and wished us a happy day, or, rather afternoon. Off we went to the Station, as fast as our little legs would carry us. Happy indeed were those brief days; to see our parents again, and to enjoy a few hours of freedom, including a ‘bumper’ tea of ‘x’ buttered buns and cakes. Time flew by. Then back to school- to the Housemaster, “Please, Sir, thank you, Sir.”

Our parents always left us with parcels of food for our tuckboxes, which we would share with our immediate friends.

I remember our O.T.C. – in accordance with War Office instructions, I believe, provided a guard each night for the School Gates. This was, of course, to train us for “things to come” in France! It was very formal. Each night, a corporal and four other ranks formed the Guard, thus providing a total of 35 ‘men’ per week. We were given specific instructions not to admit anyone without the password. One night, or rather one morning, at perhaps 01:30 hours, our French master, who was in fact, French, had been up to London and returned on the last train. He had to walk to the school and, on arriving at the Gates, was duly challenged. “Halt, who goes there?” cried a sentry.

“Friend” was the reply.

“Advance friend and give the password.” The dear old chap couldn’t remember it, so we arrested him and kept him in the Guard Room all night!

The next day the Head called an enquiry. “You boys knew very well that Mr. ‘X’ did not present a security risk, so why did you arrest him?”

“It was our duty, Sir, as he did not give the password.”

The Head turned away; I’m sure he was grinning. The French master, perhaps glad that he hadn’t got treatment that we may well have metered out to the Bosch, gave us a large pot of jam.

On another occasion, in Hall, the Head came in and announced, “I wish to see all members of the School Guard in the Armoury, immediately after breakfast.” We paraded in single file, some 35 ‘men’. The Head came in. “I have reason to believe that certain members of the Guard have been smoking wretched cigarettes whilst on duty- all those who have offended will take one step forward.” All thirty five took that pace forward immediately. The Head’s cheeks reddened. He looked as proud as taken aback. There followed a long pause, and then he said, “Please do not smoke again”, and marched out. We didn’t smoke again, at least not during duty. We were “honour bound”, and in those days that was enough. In fact, of the thirty-five, possibly as few as a dozen had smoked.

We had grand field days with the O.T.C. Two platoons would be marched some few miles away to protect, say, a farm. The other two platoons would attack in an attempt to “take the objective”. We were provided with a dozen rounds of “blank” ammunition. We smaller boys realised and seized the opportunity this provided. Skilfully, we plugged the top of our barrels with mud. Then at the appropriate moment, when espying a sergeant, we took careful aim and fired! The usual result was “six of the best!” Fair enough.

Of course we worked too. The school curriculum was very comprehensive for those far off days based as it was on “Maths”, Geography, History, Divinity, French and Latin. I was usually “top” in Maths- thanks to my sister who, years before, had managed to explain and get into my rather thick head, the intricacies of simple fractions. She managed this with apples and a knife, cutting them into physical sections. Knowledge, my Prep School masters had tried to instil by screaming at me. (‘Prep’, officially preparatory, schools are the primer institutions for the public schools. Both of these are fee paying schools independent of the State school system). As it happened Maths was the subject taught by my later Housemaster, which many of us were so anxious to please. One is encouraged to work harder for fine and honourable men.

One day he was taking Maths and did a rather complicated sum on the blackboard, explaining a problem previously set for us. “Has anyone got this correct?” he asked.

“Yes, Sir,” answered a boy, “I have”. His paper was examined revealing that he had cheated by altering a figure.

“Cheating?” said my Housemaster.

“Yes, Sir.”

Without a word more, the ‘Old Bird’, as we affectionately called our Housemaster, left the classroom and, a few minutes later returned with his ‘bargepole’, his cane, and there and then gave the offender the inevitable ‘six’. Some two weeks later, much the same thing happened. The Old Bird set a problem; we did it as best we could. He in turn did it on the blackboard. His final figure differed from mine. I hastily altered my figure. “Has a boy obtained this result?”

“Yes, Sir.” I said. Then our teacher noticed he had made an error, then altering his total, which, to my consternation agreed with my original result. He looked at my paper.

“Cheating?”

“Yes, Sir.” He did not retire to get his bargepole but carried on with the lesson. I thought, being in his house, he would call me to his study at evening prep. The evening came, I was not called. The next day I passed him in the Cloisters, just before breakfast time. He ignored me completely. I was totally ignored for the whole day and so went to his study in the evening and knocked on his door. “Come in”, said his sing-song voice. I entered. “Get out”, he said. I don’t think I have ever felt so low in all of my subsequent life. Suffice it to say that I could stand it no longer, so I went to his study again. I was bid to enter. “What do you want?” he said.

“ Sir, you caught me cheating two days ago and I cannot stand being ignored.” He realised I was very upset.

“You know”, he said, “you’ve no need to cheat, but I think I know why you did. Now you want me to give you six and thus pay your debt don’t you?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Well, I’m not going to. Instead I want you to promise never to cheat again- now shake hands.” He gave me a chocolate. I never did cheat from that moment. How he knew our characters. I now began to understand what Public School education was all about.

I didn’t shine at games, although I was in the School Shooting VIII, pretty good at swimming, and quite useful with the ‘gloves’. Now, during our  ‘long runs’ I was getting a severe searing pain in my lower abdomen- possibly the start of an appendicitis which blew up years later, bursting and leading to serious complications that were to last me, I can now be certain, for the rest of my life.

Now came winter term of 1917. It was three weeks before ‘Break-up’ for Christmas. One Sunday the Head came into Hall and called for me to attend his study immediately. I naturally wondered what I had done. When I arrived the Head said to me, “Sit down, my boy, have a chocolate”. I sensed what was coming then, for my dear father had been ill for some time. “I want you to go to your dorm and pack, you’re father isn’t very well and has asked that I send you home.” He put his hand on my shoulder- that was enough. I burst into tears.

“Is he . . .” I asked.

“No no,” said the Head, “but he is very ill. A car will be ready for you in an hour”. Then, after a pause he added, ”God be with you.” I returned to pack- all my dormitory friends waiting to help me. My dear Housemaster came up and I was escorted to the Cloisters where the school car, an old “T” Ford, was waiting for me. I left my school, looking through the rear window of that car, to see the Old Bird and my friends waving me away. I was very sad at this moment, but deeply grateful for their kindnesses.

My dear father died some four weeks later.

The Head wrote what I can describe as a wonderful letter to my mother, offering a school exhibition in my favour to help with the school fees. But, alas, family circumstances did not permit acceptance.

How grateful I am for my time at the School, to my Head and Housemaster- to all my alma mater. They were happy, happy days. Tough though life in boarding schools was in those days they only reflected tough life in general. Occasional upset aside, I really was extremely happy there and immensely respected most of my then betters. So how should this essay end?

How about, Arthur Callum lived happy school days, whilst those born just before him died on the Somme.

 

(Found in my mother's bottom draw. The author, my grandmother's brother, lived long enough to help me grow up. I have lightly edited the story, fully respecting his words. The understatement of difficulty common to his now passed generation shines through, a hundred years from the depicted events and I guess at least fifty since the writing. This story is first published here.

*The school was then commonly known as St. Saviours School, Ardingly, though it quickly became known, as it is to this day, as Ardingly College. 
** The OTC, became the College's Combined Cadet Force. The school provided many infantry in WWI, about 1,200 old boys going on to fight. Of these 146 were killed, along with two former members of staff.

Written by Arthur Callum, edited by Richard Bunning).
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An Appendix to Electric Hot Plates-
The Working life of Arthur Callum, 1918-1965. (Origionally penned by Arthur)
(Copyright © 2015 by Richard Bunning) --3300 words

Calcott Car 1916

The death of my father had made it necessary for me to leave school, with effect from Christmas 1917. With the War still raging, my age meant that I would be served with my ‘call-up’ in a few months. In the meantime, I entered a famous bank in the City of London as a junior clerk at the handsome salary of 15/4d. per week. This job lasted 4 days. To my abject horror, my immediate chief was what we termed a ‘conchy’, a conscientious objector, who, I was given to understand, would not even contemplate joining the stretcher-bearers. From that I could only conclude he was a coward. This was related to me on what would then inevitably be my last day. My patriotic upbringing could not be reconciled with his character.

It was about 11am., and there I was, sitting on a high stool, doing some already routine work. A voice said “Boy!” I took no notice. “Boy” he repeated, “I’m talking to you”.

I said, “You know my name and it’s not ‘Boy’.

“Don’t be cheeky, come here”, was his reply. I remained seated. “Do you want me to come over and smack your head?”

“You’d better not try”, was my reply.

He came over and took a swing at my head. This I easily avoided and followed with a quick jab to his possibly 25 year old jaw, which knocked him out completely. I recollect shouting and people rushing about. Within a few minutes, I was escorted off the premises by two large porters and cast into Threadneedle Street. I asked for my hat, which a minute later, was thrown out to me. A day or two later, I received a cheque for £.-.15/4d., which foolishly, I cashed. It should have been framed. Thus ended my banking career!

That same afternoon, I walked all the way to The Mall, and secured a position in the Ministry of Shipping. This was then a temporary building over the Lake in Green Park. I was placed in the Register department where I was to be very happy. The War came to an end shortly thereafter, the 11th November, when everybody went mad, including me.

For the next few years I drifted from job to job, interrupted by my appendix ‘bursting’. I had had occasional pains, right back to my time at school, but this time I was very sick. My doctor made a house-call and diagnosed a ‘chilled stomach’. He promptly applied a mustard plaster. Within two hours I was unconscious and woke up in hospital. I found myself to be sitting upright with three ghastly tubes sticking out of my stomach. It was many weeks before I was discharged.

As the World’s economy started to slowdown jobs became few and far between. Unemployment was soon rife. However, I was apprenticed to a shipping line and had a brief life at sea. Brief it was because in my very first encounter with a hurricane in the South Atlantic, I had to assist in securing a tarpaulin, which proved to be too much work for my abdomen. Down I went with a strangulated hernia. Fortunately the bad weather had ensured that I hadn’t eaten for 24 hours, this allowing me to survive to get back to G.B., to be taken into hospital for another serious operation. How I cursed that doctor who had applied the mustard plaster and thus exposed me to a life of continual surgery.

I could not continue my life in shipping, at least not as junior navigation officer. I hoped, however, to find a position with some company in their purser’s department. Shipping was ‘dead’ at this time and I knew it was essential, if one was to get a position, to seek influence. Consequently I called upon an old friend of my parents, who knew me of course. He was a Swiss born gentleman and a very clever one at that. He had, although Swiss, compiled an English Dictionary! He knew lots of influential people, and was therefore a good chance of help in my endeavour. He was very kind, and made enquires, without success. He did, however, explain that he was thinking of starting a ‘new line’ in what he termed “Kochplatten”. These were translated as hotplates. I had to ask as to their nature, naturally enough. He was forced to admit that he actually didn’t really know, save to say that they were iron discs which were heated by electricity for use on electric rather than the then familiar gas cookers. He did add that he knew they were very safe as compared with the existing electric hotplates- which had exposed live coils. These earlier devices were extremely dangerous, especially in the inevitable presence of a good deal of water.

I explained that I knew little about electricity, but that I could learn. He then said that he was looking for a young man, one he could trust, and that if I was interested, he would offer me the job at £2 per week. He would require me to go to Switzerland, to the factory manufacturing these Kochplatten, to be trained.

I accepted the position, and thus started my 46 years, happy years, in the electrical industry. I steadily progressed from representative to sales manager, to sales director and finally, in my semi-retirement, to liaison officer. It is my continuing hope that some benefit may be derived by the younger elements in this industry by perusal of my experiences.

I started out with three hard-working weeks in the Swiss Factory. We worked from 07:30 to 17:00 hours daily with two breaks of half-an-hour. I wrote up my notes each evening, relaxing with a game of chess whenever possible. It seems that the directors of the Swiss company approved of me for they wrote in this strain to my esteemed Chief in London, giving him the sole agency for G.B. I returned to England bearing, by hand, the first Solid Type Electric Hotplate ever to be manufactured in Great Britain.

I was sensible enough to realise that whilst I knew how hotplates were made, how to test them etc., etc., I was not an engineer and that, since I was to meet qualified engineers in my job, this must be a predominant thought in my mind at all times. As I was to travel the length of Great Britain, my Chief said I must have a motor-car. He had an old Calcott, a lovely little two-seater touring car, beautifully appointed for those days. I could already drive, having practiced and been registered for some years. However, he insisted on giving me a lesson. So one Sunday morning we met in Regents Park. “Good morning, Arthur, pray step in and I shall proceed to instruct you in the proper manipulation of a motor-car.” I stepped in beside him. “We shall now proceed.” A sort of scraping noise, a severe jerk, which nearly dislocated my neck and we were off.

“We will know change our gears”, he said, “in to what is termed ‘second gear’.” Again an awful scraping noise, crash, crash crash and off we went in a series of short leaps. He did not attempt to get into ‘top gear’! “We will now apply our hand-brake in order to bring the vehicle to a stand-still.” This he did by ending with the two near-side wheels on the footpath. (This was against the law, of course). “Let us know exchange places in order that you may take control of the motor-car.” We changed. Poor fellow, he hadn’t heard of double declutching! We went a further half-way round the Park before he decided that further instruction was unnecessary.

Now I was all set to start my long and happy career, in a great young industry, which alas has ended all too quickly. This was in the year 1925. Cars were few and far between. It is odd to think that in those days locks were not fitted to the doors, nor, indeed, to the Engine Bonnet. On one ‘running board’ there was the battery and the tool box, on the other the spare wheel. Luggage could normally be left, even overnight, in the expectation that nothing would be touched, far less stolen. O tempora o mores.

One day my Chief called for me. “Arthur”, he said, “I require you to proceed post-haste to attend a prospective client in Scotland; who has expressed no little interest in my specialised product, namely my hotplates”. Thus it was that having got an appointment for the following Tuesday with the managing director of this honourable firm of ironfounders, who were already manufacturing electric cookers in their works near Edinburgh. I decided the distance and location made it expedient to travel by sea. I left London at noon on that Saturday, and the boat moored at Leith on the Monday morning. It was a delightful trip that I was to enjoy repeating for many years.

Came the Tuesday. I arrived dead on the appointed time, a most essential trait in those days. I presented my card and was received most royally by the Managing Director. This Captain **** R.N. (retired), was a tall dignified man that radiated the airs of the Royal Navy. He thanked me for coming so far on this mission. Throughout my career I have noted that the greater the gentleman the better the reception.

He looked at my card again before adding, “Your name is alright but your tongue is all wrong!” I explained that though I had 100% Scots blood in my veins, I had been educated in the South of England. “Pity”, he said. Suffice it to say, he examined the hotplate I had brought with me and, after some little time, suggested that he would put the plate to the test. If it worked well enough he would discuss a contract with my chief. In the meantime, he proposed asking me one or two questions for clarification. Looking over his glasses, he said, “Tell me, please, this plate is marked‘1800 watts’ but it is a double circuit plate. So why then isn’t it marked 3600 watts?”

I replied, “I don’t know, Sir.”

Then came the question, “Are the ceramic beads made of vulcanised rubber?”

I answered, “I’m sorry, Sir, I don’t know.”

He looked at me hard, “Do you know anything?”

“Yes Sir, I know I want you to buy them.” I had worked out the he was pulling my leg. Even I know the scarcity of ceramic rubber, but I also knew that the laughter had to be on me.

He asked excusal and retired from the room. Some minutes later he returned with a paper in his left hand. He said, “Stand up young man, you’ve told the truth, always do this in this profession”, and then handed me an order for no less than 2,500 plates. That was an unheard of initial order in those difficult days. I was quite overwhelmed and thanked him profusely. Fortunately my wits had not completely deserted me.

“Excuse me Captain ****, but we haven’t quoted prices.”

“I’m not interested in price”, he said, “because competition will materialise shortly. That is hopefully recognised by your Chief. It is up to him to charge these plates on a reasonable basis with a view to a long-term contract in mind.” He got a very keen price!! And contracts followed for many years.

We were still importing our hotplates from Switzerland. I was extremely worried about the ‘buy British’ campaign that was being waged in those days. So much so, that I did not fail to stress this threat on every possible occasion, not the least of which was in my sales reports. Eventually I brought my concerns to a head, following a visit to the City of Manchester.

I had been calling on a particular Renovation and Stores Department in this municipality for a couple of years, approximately every 8 weeks or so. Each time my card was handed in with a request for an interview with a certain Mr. G***. Each time the receptionist returned with a “Sorry, ‘e can’t see thee”. Every 8 weeks the same. This I duly reported. One day my chief called me and showed me a letter from the Swiss Directorate, which suggested that I was wasting time and money in calling in as I had been. It went on to request my chief to instruct me to stop visiting. I was then though what I thought about it. I said I thought the idea was shocking as we had a wonderful product, and I knew we’d be successful eventually. I added that my Scottish blood would not allow me to give up. My Chief, bless him, told me to carry on as usual. I did and my very next visit went very differently.

I sent my card in. Doors opened and slammed, and out rushed a very red-faced Mr. G**** who shouted, “What the ‘ell dost tha want? Keep coming ‘ere, bloody nuisance”. I explained as best I could. He interrupted with, “send me a ‘undred of them”. I was delighted. Victory!

I then told a ‘whopper’ in my report. I said that if our plates were manufactured in G.B. we could get most of Lancashire’s business. I claimed that the reason we hadn’t had business until now was because our plates were imported. I should add that by this time we had a competitor, a very large, world famous company.

My Chief went to the Swiss factory and, at a board meeting, he convinced them that the plates should be manufactured in G.B., under licence. This manufacture was commenced, in London, in the early thirties.

True to his word, the Municipal Engineer, Mr G**** having tested and approved the new British plate, gave us orders for many thousands of plates over the ensuing years. I am proud to say that he became a very good friend of mine. I was proud to know him, and sad was the day I attended to pay my last respects to him. He died ‘in-harness’ a comparatively young, too young.

The business slowed up a bit towards the end of the depression. One day my Chief said, “Arthur, I am giving you an increase in your annual salary, which is smaller than I would have desired, but I have made a loss of no less than £1,000 this year. “ I thanked him and assured him that I would keep my expenses to a minimum. A few days later I learned that his loss of £1,000 was actually a reduced profit on the previous year. He had made £5,000 instead of £6,000. Dear dear; that was still good money in the thirties.

I then had a bit of a physical break-down. Some of it must certainly have been from the long business days and 40,000 miles I was travelling each year. I developed shingles in the eyes, a most horrible complaint. I was away from work for some six weeks,  and when I returned my Chief suggested that I should have an assistant. I due course, I employed a young man, Frank D. T**** who not only worked for me for many years, but became a very good and trusted friend. I was instructed to teach him the art of salesmanship as applied to our specific appliance and to ask him to take on one of our toughest clients. I immediately thought of the Chief Engineer, a Colonel W****, of a nearby municipality. The Colonel, who I had known for some years, did considerable business with us but only once had he received me on a first visit. Most the presentation of my card would be answered by a roar, “No”. This was the man I thought.

I told my Assistant that I proposed taking him to meet a good client of ours, Colonel W**** who was a kind man who we’d probably ask us to take coffee. One morning, in July, a very hot and stormy day, in company with my assistant, we attended the Colonel’s department. I handed in my card to the lady receptionist, asking if I could see the Colonel. “The Colonel”, said the now trembling lady, “You do mean the Colonel”.

“Yes”, I said, “I want to introduce my assistant. The poor girl mounted the long flight of stairs, knocking on the Colonel’s door.

A bull voice shouted, “Come in, damn it, come in. Don’t just stand there. This is my busy day”. I felt pleased at this, a lesson for my assistant, I thought. Not so, for down came this poor girl, now pale in the face.

“Will you gentlemen kindly follow me, the Colonel will be pleased to see you.” My heart sank. I tapped on his door.

“Pray enter, dear Sir”, he said, “be seated.”

“May I have the pleasure of introducing my assistant? I said.

“Delighted to meet you sir, “ was his immediate response as he pushed a box of cigarettes across the table. “Now” he said after a minute of two, “What may I do for you?”

“Well Colonel, I want my assistant to have the pleasure of meeting you and also to thank you the business you have been good enough to place with us.”

” Business”, he said. “Business, what business?” He examined by business card. “Good God” he shouted, “I’ve been deceived. Had it been made known to me that it was you . . . I’ve wasted my time, I will thank you to leave.”

I repeated my appreciation for the business. “What”, he roared, “What, your plates, I won’t have one on my mains”. With a bow of the head we retired.

I was delighted. “Well, Frank”, I said, “It’s quite easy, isn’t it?” He looked as if he’d seen a ghost.

At that moment the pending thunderstorm broke with torrential rain. We hurridly got into my car, a Ford 10. At that moment, out came the Colonel, dressed in a complete cyclists outfit. This consisted of a yellow cape, yellow hat, wheeling his bike. “Colonel”, I shouted, “ May I give you a lift home in this dreadful storm”.

He looked over at me, “What”, he bellowed, “in that damn thing. Wouldn’t be seen dead in it.”

Two days later we received a very nice order from the Colonel.

The difficult mannered people are always the easiest. I have always maintained, and still do, that goodness comes even out of evil. A mistake, even a serious one, when delt with diplomatically, can be turned. Eventually the complainant apologises for the trouble he has caused. This is human.

There was also an engineer in North Lancashire who, on principle, would not receive representatives. I had to see him. I knew him by sight. Consequently, having presented my card at the Enquiry Office and having been told that Mr. F**** could not see me, as anticipated, I returned to my car, an open Morris Tourer. It was mid-Winter and snowing hard. I removed my glove, got out a large map, which I spread on the bonnet of the car. It was nearly 1pm., and I knew Mr. F**** would come out shortly, heading to lunch.

Sure enough, a few minutes later he came out. “Excuse me”, I said in a casual voice, “how do I get to York from her?” adding that I had come from London.

“Thee came on wrong road”, said Mr. F**** in a most kindly voice.

“Well, I said, “I had to come this way because I wanted to see the local engineer, unfortunately I can’t see me.”

“What,” he said, “I am the local engineer.”

The result was I had lunch with him. Years later I confessed to him and he roared with laughter. We were great friends for many a year to come. Until, he too, died.

 

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Grimpoteuthis Rising Copyright © 2014 by Richard Bunning (3000 words)

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(Part I – The Elevated Plans of Umbellata.)

   “Hey Tuftsi; I’ve been listening to some of the musical poetry coming from up on the Monkeys' Drilling Platform, as it floats up there on the skin of the world. Translated into Meremonic it goes something like this ... ‘I’d like to be, under the sea in an octopus’s garden in the shade’ ... Dead daft, if you ask me, when topside-creatures get crushed to paste down here. If it wasn't for their tethered elevators and motorised submersibles, they would never have even got to the ocean crust. Down here they’re crushed into high energy food pellets.”

   Tuftsi replies to Umbellata. “Giving us the perfect meat and veg dinner, when mixed with pulped bubble weed.”

   Umbellata continues, “I’ve been learning loads of stuff about the top, while searching for ways for our species to escape this planet. Monkeys are poisoning our water so quickly. Even our friends the squids, including giants like the Architeuthis, are dying. All we sea-creatures are health compromised by their effluents, or starved by their harvesting of our liquidosphere. We have to escape. Even the air-breathing Dolphins are beginning to admit that we are on borrowed time. They have been trying to ‘get through’ to the monkeys for years, you know the tune, ‘Like man, don’t you know you are killing our world’. Have they made any progress? Hardly! They just get their photos posted in female primates sleeping nests. Apparently Dolphins look appealing to human monkeys, unlike us.

   "We live happily at up to a 100 Konks of pressure. The monkeys can only survive at around 1 Konk, almost a vacuum to us. Despite that the only marginally lower pressures of space kill them. Yet they have got into space! Primates are even living on the Moon. If those weak creatures can survive in space, surely we can? I have been learning their counting system, so that I can understand monkey astrophysics. The liquid to gas atmosphere level is at one of their Atmospheres, 15 psi or 1 bar of pressure. 100 Konks is more than 8000psi, or 600 Bars. 100 Konks is at what they call 6000 metres of depth. Please understand that these figures are off the top of my arms.

   "We can’t possibly redirect mankind, so in order to survive we have little choice other than to leave. We have to start again somewhere else in what they call the Milky Way. Space will be a huge challenge. The positive is that from the top to the bottom of the atmospheric layer is only a pressure differential of I bar, about 0.166 konks. Zero gravity is also zero konks, and that is the pressure in 99.9% of space. For us to survive without any pressure we need to make the very best of the monkey engineering, technologies developed on the dry crust. If we can learn to cope with the surface we should find space to be only a minor additional challenge.”

   “Okay Umbellata, I understand all that. And you've previously lectured me about you plan to capture a drilling platform thingy, but you are very vague about what we are going to do when we secure one. I hope you have thought a bit further than that. I understand that we are going to use a submersible, as they call those metal cylinders, which is currently tethered to the platform.

   "You also pressure us for a decision by repeatedly saying that we have to go immediately because we don’t know how long a particularly suitable in-water vehicle will be available, or there space elevator will be 'anchored over this area. Your plan is so half-eaten. You say we are going to fill the metal vessel’s interior with water then put it under a balloon, which will draw us up to one of the monkeys’ space elevators. Have I got the gist of it?”

   “Yes that is basically correct. We will travel up as their cargo freight does into the sky above the rig, until seven leagues above the surface, lifted by helium balloon. Then we will take the fortuitously positioned space elevator up to 70 leagues. We will have the dubious privilege of being the first Grimpots in space. This is a unique opportunity while a space elevator is positioned over our sea rather than over land. The just passed huge atmospheric storm blew it over us.
"We have to get the submersible from the ocean, into the air and then onto the lifting cage that runs up their space tether. We are already electronically booked in as freight, as seafood destined for Neptune. The Dolphins did that for us, using telepathy to direct a susceptible human subject. Exciting isn’t it! No Grimpot has been far from our Hadel layer. In fact the highest anyone has been and lived for any time is to the gas layer’s base. We will maintain pressurise in the vehicle at 50 konks. Comfortable enough, and about the maximum pressure we dare build up on the inside of the vessel. Those things are designed to stand a pressure exerted from the outside of about 80 konks. Even at 50 konks internal we will have to quickly reverse engineer a lot of door seals and viewing panels. That will have to be done immediately we capture the vessel. On the platform, we will hide the vessel in one of their freight containers, so that the monkeys won’t wonder what they are doing exporting a watercraft to Neptune.”

   “Okay, I understand the theory, but what happens from there? How do we, enclosed in a sealed submarine, inside a sealed container, get to Neptune, wherever the heck that is?”

   “It’s the nearest planet that looks to have an environment we Grimpots can adapt to. It will take us eighty years to get there.”

   “So what are you saying? We have to live for that long in a tiny tank a couple of metres wide. I thought this was meant to be a great adventure?”

   “Oh it is, for our spawn and those of the creatures we feed on. Not us Tuftsi my dear. I thought you understood that. Our job is to ensure that our species travel across space. By the time the monkeys have developed craft that can travel at light-speed the seas are likely to be so polluted that they’ll be deserts. We can’t afford to wait that long. Don't you comprehend, dear chap, that we are offering our lives to save our kind. That is why the government worked so hard at getting volunteers. You really aren’t the even the brightest Dumbo Suptoco to have ever graced this continental floor, are you?”

   “You mean I volunteered for not so much an adventure as a suicide mission?”

   “Exactly! But don’t be too depressed. You will be, along with Wuelkeri and me, the first Grimpot in space. With us will be two giant squids, Hamiltoni and Dux. It is our honour to send the spawn of our species on their way. Frozen at the temperatures of deep space, the eggs will maintain fertility for a very long time.”

   “I don’t know about this. I mean I quite like living.”

   “Gads Tuftsi, get a grip! Meet me here at dawn. We are setting off as soon as possible, tomorrow morning. The first thing we have to do is climb the drilling arm of the platform. It will be a long, hard day. Go and say your goodbyes. If you need me I will be in the praying in the Wheke gardens. Have a good supper and get plenty of sleep.”
  

(Part II- Victory or Radiated Calamari)

   The years or debate were over; now was the time for action. The little group of soon to be heroes started climbing up to the rig. They didn’t fear death, even Tuftsi, not in the way Homo sapiens does, but they did fear the pain they all knew they were likely to suffer.

   Each of these pioneers, the three Grimpots , (Umbellata, Tuftsi and Wuelkeri,) and the two squids, Hamiltoni and Dux, carried backpacks full of the spawn of many deep-sea species. The squids were keen enough to go along with the Grimpot plan, lacking clever ideas of their own. It seemed to be a case of follow the Grimpot, or join the Caribbean Monk Seal and the Pilosaur into extinction.

   Progress was uneventful, until they neared the surface. All were feeling as sick as dogfish, except for Tuftsi who had stayed two thousand 'flippers' down with their backpacks and other equipment. At five hundred flippers from the surface, the two squids went on alone to fetch the monkeys’ submarine. The bathyscape was easy for the squids to suck onto and draw down from the surface? Dux opened the lid letting in water, as a snack of two gasping monkeys floated out‘. The tinned food was much appreciated.

   Planning was going well as a gas stream, released from the now sabotaged monkey drill hole in the crust, was soon rising from below. Meanwhile, the two Grimpots sealed themselves into the submersible, and immediately started work on reversing the seals. They let the submarine slowly sink down deeper into the sea to pick up Tuftsi. The squids jetted off to get clear of the rising gas. Tuftsi had sealed the backpacks in giant conch shells that had been strapped in place the day before. Each of these was so large that even the huge packs of the squids fitted comfortably inside.

   The poisonous gas from the monkeys’ own oil well would soon subdue all those on the rig. The obnoxious fumes passed the submersible, and shot up ever faster towards the surface. Hopefully no flying machines would bring more monkeys before phase two of operation they had named ‘Destiny’ was well underway. Umbellata listened by cable to the panic on-board the platform as the gas bubbled to the surface.  In three minutes it was all over, the cable picking up only the buzz of static.

   A short time after, the whole team were on-board the rig. The Grimpots remained in the submersible, and the giant squids were now in a diving decompression chamber, being re-pressurised to more bearable conditions. The squids had been able to cope with the atmosphere for the few minutes it took them to surface and reverse the switches in the chambers so that recompression could be achieved. All five of them re-emerged for short agonising spells in the unpressurized air, to load all the equipment into a freight box and to begin gassing up the lifting balloons. Wuelkera spent his time fixing-up the platform to make it look and sound as though it was operating as normal, with unconscious humans in variously busy poses and piped music now beating out from the deck speakers. He was very proud of his work.

   As predicted the rig was soon being buzzed by fixed wing aircraft, but by then the team were well on their way up into the clouds. It was just seven leagues up to the foot of the space-elevator, which was where today the solar winds placed the end of the bending tether. The planning from now on would be ‘on the tip of the tentacles’ stuff. Never had so much purely theoretical science had to be relied upon at once. Up next was the subduing of the elevators docking guards, so that the crew of the Felix Baumgartner Space Deck wouldn’t learn that anything was amiss too soon.
Jet gun at the ready Dux, the smaller of the giants squeezed into a human pressure suit, two tentacles where each human limb would have been placed, and prepared for action. Even as they docked Dux was shooting. The monkeys, unprepared as they were, died quickly. With a bit of heavy pushing and shoving from Hamiltoni, now encased in a suitably big monkey spacesuit, the freight container positioned in the elevator. Tuftsi stared down in awe as the world seemed to slowly shrink into a ball, as they shot up in the lift of the elevator. With the three Grimpots trying to move around together in just one monkey spacesuit they were all initially bubbling with laughter. However, danger was never far from their thoughts. Tuftsi, never the bravest, was soon particularly concerned. But even he hadn’t given up hope.
“What about, when we get our precious cargo underway we try and get back into the ocean. I mean, monkeys do it. They parachute back to Earth from space.”

   “That's true”, said Umbellata, “but it is all of us or none.” I’ve a vague escape plan, which requires a brilliant bit of judgement and a whole heap of luck. It also means us all squashing into the decompression chamber. It is just about possible if we could find a way of crashing the space platform into the sea. But I have never mentioned it as a possibility as all the matters is our mission.

   The progress of ‘Destiny’ has to be perfect, avoiding stars by as big a distance as possible, so keeping the danger of Solar Proton Events to a minimum. The last thing we want is for our precious cargo to arrive on our brave new world irradiated. If everything goes perfectly, then and only then will we worry about ourselves.”

   Wuelkeri replies, “If we haven’t still got the element of surprise we are bound to fail in defeating the deck's crew, and judging by the activity I sense below, surprise can’t be maintained for long.”

   “How long do you think we’ve got.”

   “A twentieth of a day tops. We effectively have as long as it takes for a military crew to arrive by space shuttle from another elevator. Well, I guess it’s feasible!”

   “A lot is going to depend on finding a spacecraft ready to go. We are relying heavily on radio messages that Ocean Command has been monitoring. The General Guisan is supposed to be fuelled and stocked. The crew of three will need to be overpowered, and our specially adapted monkey automatic pilot system, which we salvaged from a crashed space capsule, has to be fitted. God I hope you are correct in your belief Wuelkeri, that we can engineer it to do the job. We also rely on the fact, that a military weapons container is always on the deck. We just can’t be sure until we get there. Tuftsi, can you hear language communication on the elevator deck?”

   “Yes, I have a weak signal. It seems that all is well. They think our attack was a social-media joke.”

   “Right then, say your prayers, and prey that our squid friends aren’t so hampered by the monkey suits that they let us down.”
***
   The elevator was soon rising up through the floor of the elevator's platform. Even as the doors opened the team were moving. The squids had to hold off the crew until the crated weapons could be located. The crate was spotted two hundred flippers away across the deck, too far for the three Grimpot to manoeuvre their monkey suit, but luckily they were near a powered trolley. Space-guns were soon liberated and in the hands of the far more mobile squids. The monkeys, unprepared for attacks from any other life-forms, but especially sea-creatures, were in pandemonium. The unarmed crew of the General Guisan Spacecraft surrendered as soon as Hamiltoni started up its rear ramp.

   Plans briefly began to fall apart as Dux was hit by a laser. He recovered enough to keep shooting. Meanwhile Hamiltoni was using a tractor to drag the freight crate up the spacecraft’s ramp. As soon as the back of the container he pressed the door closing mechanism. The space craft was now sealed, and the on-board pressure system was kicked into action by Wuelkeri. If they could just get a few konks, then they would be able to work without the stupid suit. Tuftsi and Umbellata were about exhausted from moving the arms and legs around so that Wuelkeri could work. Dux having been shot again was lying still out on the platform, body fluids bubbling from the rents in the monkey suit. Pressure was taking time to build, but they couldn’t wait any longer. The three held their breath and escaped through the suit’s face mask. Immediately in agony, as their blood threatened to boil, Umbellato and Tuftsi concentrated on powering up the spacecraft. All was going well until they felt the craft pulling against a tether.

   “Sprats, I hadn’t thought of that,”Hamiltoni pipped up, “I'll have to go and free it. Open the cargo door just sufficiently for me to squeeze out, then seal up and get ready to get the hell out the moment I free the cable.”

   The others watched as he stormed across the deck, already doomed. He fired his plasma gun at the tether. By the time the cable snapped the still firing squid was already dead, from suffocation and the rapid expansion and rupturing of his cells. But the craft was free.

   “He gave his life, now we have to give ours. There is no way we can set this craft right and return to this deck. Without the squids we will never fight our way back. Wuelkeri get the pressure as high as you can without compromising the craft. Give us time. If we work in shifts, one of us resting in the compression chamber we can do this,” said Umbellata.
Wuelkeri speaks, “As we all guessed might be the case, the auto pilot is useless at the moment. But I sure I can fix that. Tuftsi, you must concentrate on getting the crafts pulse guns sorted, we will have monkeys on our tail. And for dolphins' sake, find us some well oxygenated water before we all suffocate.”

   Umbellata climbs into the pilot seat. “Now then Spacefish, let's begin our voyage to Neptune, Homo Sapiens' mythical god of the sea."
THE END