Greetings and may everlasting health be upon you. Please clean your teeth diligently. I am having to learn the hard way and believe me, it hurts like hell!
I have had to stop working on LOTR the last few days because another Open University, teacher marked assignment is due on the 4th. I am studying the course Creative Writing at the moment. The last TMA was quite cool because I used the opportunity to re do some of my memoirs (Death of A Stupid Cow), but this time I had to write a piece of fiction.
I thought of something along the lines of a man who goes mad with pain, pulls all his teeth out and goes on a murderous campaign blowing up all websites that promote toothpaste that stops cavities.
In the end I decided to settle on a story I did before (The Great Welsh Cockle Wars), but expand it to reach the word count required. Writing for the Blog is one thing, because people don’t have to pay to read it, but if I really want to get people to cough up bucks for a book, it has to be tip top. Thus the courses I am doing. I had to rewrite this new version 14 times before I think I got it almost right.
So here it is, renamed and hopefully entertaining enough for you to want to read till the end. All comments appreciated and I will also tell you later what my mark was.
I decided to add a few pictures for a laugh.
The War on Terror
Commander James Tea Jerk, Royal Navy, (Semi-Retired), absent mindlessly scratched at his high-tech wooden prosthesis (an exact replica of Long John Silver’s), protruding out of his immaculately ironed white uniform shorts. He swore loudly as a large splinter buried itself deep under the finger nail of his index finger. ‘Chippie, up on the bridge, now!’ he screamed into the intercom, ‘and bring some sandpaper.’
From the bridge of his latest command, he gazed out at the busy summer scene. Hoards of small leisure boats, full of excitable, shouting kids and parents were criss-crossing around him. The HMS Dump, a woodworm rotted, rat abandoned pontoon, fixed permanently into the silt of Mawddach estuary, North Wales since 1963, felt as solid as Custer’s last stand under his foot. The warm breeze caressed his flash-burnt shiny head and brought the scent of salt and suntan oil to his flattened nose. The Royal Navy and Union Jack flags could be heard flapping lazily from their masts on the bridge’s hole riddled roof.
Pulling the splinter out with his teeth, Jerk thought back to the time, two years ago, of the fierce battle for the Nigerian delta. During the engagement, whilst commanding the H.M.S. Sinkfast, he had lost half of his body parts, plus his genuine Star Trek logo embossed plastic wallet. The vessel had spectacularly exploded after he had made the decision to scuttle the £1.2 billion state of the art battleship. Rather that, than let the enemy, disguised as giant Golliwogs aboard five dug out canoes, enter the delta and sabotage the British owned oil refinery. Due to having a rather large piece of his frontal lobe incinerated during the explosion, Jerk had no recollection of the incident at all. However, he knew he had done his country proud. The resulting devastation had destroyed the enemy, but tragically, 800 hands had also gone up with the ship. Jerk knew that more sacrificial lambs could be expected today - oblivion for the few to save a safe haven for the many.
The remaining two digits on his right hand wandered almost instinctively to the well fingered MBA medal (Missing Bits in Action), that he wore with pride over his collapsed left breast. Shifting uncomfortably on his chair, the absent right buttock making sitting up straight difficult, he spoke to his second in command.
‘You look an absolute mess, Number 1. Any sign of the filthy terrorists yet?’
In the rumpled uniform, First Officer Simon Simpleton lowered the binoculars with tremulous hands from his exhausted bloodshot eyes. Simpleton replied to his commanding officer.
‘All I see are waves full of civilians and they have doubled. Sir, I do not feel very well. I need to go below for a moment – my bowels are playing up.’ His urge to drink himself to the oblivion had almost succeeded last night. The First Officer’s undernourished body shook violently as he vomited a thin stream of cheap vodka and Red Bull, his fear of what was soon to happen was palpably visible on his pasty face.
Simpleton was riddled with self-guilt. Too cowardly to kill himself, he had become obsessed with the thought that heavenly redemption would only be given if he stuck by Jerk and got blown up again; with some luck, this time with success.
When the H.M.S. Sinkfast had spectacularly self exploded, Simpleton had been the only other survivor. He had provided the testimony at the official inquiry, all of it a pack of hysterical lies coming out of his bony arse. From that load of shit, Jerk had been handsomely compensated and given the H.M.S. Dump as a retirement command. Simpleton rarely spoke to Jerk about that moment of truth. On that fateful night he had desperately struggled with his conscience. He had two choices; either to shoot his commanding officer and let the terrorists destroy Britain’s desperately needed fuel for the latest models of four wheel drives, or to sacrifice the ship and crew. This would send a message around the world (clutched in the hundreds of hands that went up with the ship), ‘help us, the Captain is mad!’…
Jerk’s shiny glass eye stared at the First Officer sympathetically,
‘Go ahead, Number One, I’ll keep my real eye on things.’
Simpleton headed towards the stairs, passing the pontoon’s live-in yob whom had now appeared clutching a roll of sandpaper.
Chippie had turned up from the below where he had been engrossed in filing his teeth into sharp triangles. A gruff, but gentle kid, he was intent to prove that his bight could be worse than his bark. He was also completely and utterly stoned out of his head. (Chippie’s home grown skunk was famed in the region.)
‘Give us ya leg Captain, I’ll sand the bugger good this time, got to keep ya on your toes if we gonna catch them sneaky slitzzies.’
Jerk hated Chippie talking like this. He had been trying to educate the boy ever since he had found out that Chippie came with the ship as its live-in security guard.
‘They are pretending to be illegal Chinese cockle poachers, Chippie, and please refrain from such racial inferences, otherwise it is my right to have you keel hauled, if we ever get afloat.’
As Chippie got to work on the splitting parts of his prosthesis, Jerk addressed the dopey youth,
‘What is our official duty here, Chippie?’ he asked.
‘To act as an unenforceable deterrent to Jet-Ski tourists disregarding the council’s boundary limits.’ Chippie replied helpfully, if not a tad incoherently, a half finished joint waggling between his thin lips. As he vigorously sanded at Jerks wooden leg, he continued, ‘but we now know, thanks to you Capt’n, they are really terrorists disguised as cockle thieves.’
‘Correct, my dear Chippie, and why the hell are you smoking that shit, you idiot?’
Suddenly he sat up shouting loudly ‘I smell gas. It is not the time yet.’ He jerked his leg from Chippie’s grasp and leapt up with the uncontained primeval shiver of hunter’s lust.
‘Sorry Capt’n,’ Chippie grinned his shark smile, as he flapped his palms vigorously behind him, ‘that was a really mean lamb vindaloo for lunch, Capt’n, and with all them Carlsberg’s Special Brew I had on top…’ he shrugged apologetically.
He adored Jerk as a father figure. He could listen to the Commander for hours, as he regaled every evening the tales of heroism by his ancestors. In those intimate shared moment he would lie on the pile of stinking, flea infested lifejackets, wishing he had been there.
For a fraction of a second, Jerk smiled at Chippie with a rare sign of affection, but then immediately again became the professional officer that he was.
‘Put that joint out! It will make you insane, you imbecile. Go and open all the stop cocks on the gas bottles – and Chippie,’ the red watery eyes of the 17 year old looked at him in pure adoration, ‘no more naked flames!’
Jerk took his eye away from the sparkling estuary, now filled with thousands of happy holiday makers. He stared with growing pride at the only decoration on the bridge; a gilt framed oil painting of his great, great grandfather, Lord Pussyfoot Jerk of Kent. The born again alcoholic had been massacred, along with another 1499 troops at Isandlwana, Natal, South Africa during the Zulu War. Rumours still went around that the man was so drunk on his watch that he fell off his perch and therefore neglected to send out a warning cry of, ‘Oh, I say, old chaps, but there appears to be thousands of those assegai armed black savages, approaching with the intent to disembowel us.’
The Commander allowed a small grin to cross his lips, ‘They were men of men,’ he muttered admirably to himself.
The sounds of gleeful shrieks of happy holiday laughter penetrated Jerk’s eardrum. For the last time, Jerk went mentally, once more, over the information that had been passed to him in The Last Dossers pub. According to a reliable source (carefully nurtured the last six months with free beers), at 3 pm today, as the tide came in, the terrorists would sneak up the estuary unnoticed. They would be cleverly disguised as tourists in black wet suits, riding rented Jet-Skis.
According to the informant, Albert Blackman, the terrorists will sabotage the local fish and chips shops, then go on to plunder one of Britain’s last cockle beds and sell them duty free to Chinese restaurants in Beijing. Jerk had no reason to distrust the information, as the man was a true patriot. Albert always struggled to get his words out, as his tongue had been partially amputated. This terrible tragedy had happened whilst holidaying in 1967, when Albert had stopped over in The Three Ks motel in Whitesville, Alabama.
. Covered in dark mud from having had to dig his car out of a ditch, he had announced to the White hooded and clad receptionist, ‘I am A. Blackman and I have a reservation here.’ They were to have been his last intelligible words…
Based on the top intelligence gathered from Albert, Jerk had tried to persuade the navy to install on the pontoon sixteen 22-inch battery guns. The navy had declined, quoting the local council’s Health and Safety regulations and a shrinking budget. The hero of the Nigerian Delta refused to be dissuaded. That experience from two years ago could now be put to good effect - if he could only recall any of it. For the last couple months, 126 giant bottles of household cooking gas had been purchased and stored below. All connected together, by the willing Chippie who had been supervised by a terrified Simpleton, they were only stopped from expelling their deadly fumes by the handle mounted on the commander’s chair.
Jerk looked at his wrist watch. Mickey Mouse’s white gloved minute hand showed three to, whilst the other hand pointed at three, too.
‘They will not get through on my watch. Not whilst there is still breath in my right lung left,’ he babbled, whilst cackling to himself. His team had worked tirelessly on the plan to stop the raiders and now everything was ready. It was time to eliminate the terrorist scum and send them to Allah and the 70 virgins.
Jerk gazed once more upon the tranquil scene, which at any moment now, he would turn into a holocaust. He had no illusions that when the pontoon exploded, hundreds would be blasted to oblivion, or torn to shreds from flying metal and wood fragments. Innocent civilians are always caught in the crossfire in the deadly war against terrorism. It’s a hard knock life!
‘They’re coming,’ Jerk shouted into the intercom, his only ear tuned to the sounds of the approaching roars of the Jet-Skis. Dozens of them, heavily loaded with the terrorists who were now heading his way, some waving arrogantly in his direction – oblivious to the fact that their evil attack would soon be stopped.
‘Chippie, Simpleton, report to the bridge and stand-by for action; RED ALERT!’ At the same time, Jerk pulled the bright red lever to ‘Open’ and the gas started to flood into the pontoon. Timing was critical. As he waited for his two shipmates, Jerk limped briefly out onto the deck. Throwing up his arm, he saluted the holiday makers.
‘You will not be forgotten!’
A few faces glanced in his direction. A sun burnt bright pink fat girl, could be heard to shout,
‘Hey everyone; look at the fucking freak on the shit-heap, doing his nutty navy stunt. What a wanker!’
Back on the bridge, Simpleton and Chippie gathered around their Captain. The hiss of the expelling gas was now drowned out by the noise of the bouncing Jet-Skis. Commander James T. Jerk MBA, took 3 Cuban cigars out his top right breast pocket. Handing them out, he winked and tugged his shirt down, smoothing out the wrinkles. As the stench of gas reached his nostrils, he said,
‘we are Men of Men! As Officers of the Realm, it is our duty to protect our sacred shores. Have any of you got any last words for this historic occasion?’
Chippie chirped up first, enthusiastically quoting the great Neil Armstrong.
‘Wicked! Like a giant kind man leaping and a small man stepping.’
‘Am I going to die now?’ the first officer asked hopefully.
‘Have you completely lost your marbles, Simpleton? (Actually he had.) I will detonate the gas with the Ferry pistol, once we have reached a safe distance in the escape dingy,’ Jerk replied to the dejected Simpleton. He then continued,
‘well done ship mates. Not since the Battle of Britain, have so few, done in so many. Our shores will once more be safe from terrorists. Let this be a warning to them all. God Save the Queen; may she live long and prosper! Now remember, don’t light the cigars till the fat lady sings! Okay?’
Chippie sniffed appreciatively at the cigar in his hand. ‘Isn’t that from the movie Independence Day?’, he asked sleepily, as he flicked the wheel on his newly stolen Zippo lighter.
