Part Fourteen of The Sensational Shrimpleton Saga: What Soldier Jay did Next…

Freddy “Fearless” Fazackerly – crusading editor of Cumberside Island’s daily paper The Shrimpleton Bugle – had just returned to his office/bedroom from the Shrimpleton Arms in the wee small hours of the morning. There, he had forensically interviewed witnesses to the abduction of leading member of the mysterious Khalistan Warriors, Baban Singh Chopra.

Now, the time had arrived for FFF to seize his opportunity to announce the blockbuster story he had always been praying for to a waiting world.

Freddy was back in his office stroke bedroom by midnight, careful not to make enough noise to wake his mother – with whom he still lived after how many years? She was snoring gently in the adjacent bedroom but was known to be a very light sleeper.

He sat himself in front of his Electric Pencil electronic typewriter. 

Sorry – we need to pause at this point. Is an Electric Pencil an electronic typewriter in the first place? Or is it actually a word processor? We’re talking about the original from 1979 here…

This is important to certain types of nerds, geeks and even retired salesmen who tried to flog this thing way back when. They can get quite – engaged – about it.  Was it really better than any of the modern `rubbish’ we are palmed-off with now? 

Think about your answer before committing yourself: computer geeks like these can find out where you live in the blink of an eye – or the push of a button…

Anyway – whatever it was he was using to produce it, what follows is the copy Freddy `Fearless’ Fazackerley `wired’ to several tabloids and broadsheets later in the day. He liked the term `wired’ – he thought it made him sound more professional, particularly among the people he saw as peasants who populated Cumberside Island. In reality, he just emailed his thoughts – as you and me and anyone else can – to some generic `News’ email address which all newspapers and other news outlets worth their salt encourage the public to use.

The `copy’ which he thought could mark his breakthrough into serious mainstream journalism didn’t turn-out to be as easy to compile as he had hoped, though. But – given the potentially global significance of what had happened earlier in the Shrimpleton Arms and the concomitantly (`concomitantly’ was a word he liked to use whenever possible because he thought it gave his scribbling a veneer of sophistication – even though he wasn’t entirely sure what it meant). Where were we? Oh – the massive importance of the characters involved. The incredible story they had told – to say nothing of the sheer and very urgent need of the locals who had witnessed it to have their stories told – gave him a profound sense of responsibility to portray what he had been told earlier both accurately and authentically.

But the scrawl in his notebook which Skip had mistaken for shorthand was actually not even that: Freddy’s writing was so bad that even he couldn’t decipher it. This was not good. Thank goodness that he was a professional…

He fell back onto his back-up option – the voice recorder on his phone. Therein lay the indisputable truth of the eye-witness accounts of what had happened in the pub earlier on.

He pressed the `play’ button on the relevant app on his phone to reveal this extraordinary – and potentially very lucrative – money-spinning testimony. Only to discover that he’d inadvertently pressed the video record button instead.

Well, that might do, mightn’t it? – it had audio, after all…

Sadly, though, the phone had run out of charge just at the end of the dinosaur discussion. Which was probably just as well as his Mother was already banging on his bedroom wall and yelling “Can that racket! Some of us need our beauty sleep, tha’ knoz!”

But he was a trained newsman – and that’s what he told himself.  He had a certificate from an American college of the Internet to prove it, after all…

“Doctor” (he’d had to pay another hundred dollars for that upgrade) Freddy F Fazackerlydidn’t need taped conversations, notes or any other prompts to create a strictly accurate record of what had gone on in the pub earlier.

All he had to do was rely on his highly-trained memory!  That’s what his colleagues in the publishing industry had done for years before videos or even voice recording itself had become a possibility, wasn’t it?

He mustn‘t let down that legacy which his fearless forebears had suffered and sometimes died for in their relentless search for the truth!

Must he?

So, by three o’clock the next morning, this is what Freddy `Fearless’ Fazackerley came up with:

“Dinosaur Exclusive from the Island of Cumberside.

Brian the milk – an ordinary resident of the quiet, law-abiding community of Cumberside Island – was doing his rounds, as usual, early this morning. Brian has been doing this job for seventeen years since retiring from his role as a Mole in the Kremlin on behalf of M.I.6. Everything seemed normal to Brian – just an ordinary working day on the Jewel of the Atlantic as the locals fondly refer to their island paradise. But – just as he’d left Lady Diana’s usual two semi-skimmed on the doorstep of the hideaway cottage the King once bought for her in this idyllic location, he noted something amiss.

His intense training as a secret sleuth kicked-in as he noted what seemed to be a new feature in the perfect panorama.  It was – apparently – a grassy knoll which had appeared near the southern tip of the island and which he was sure hadn’t been there before. So – his spy-der senses all atremble – Brian went to fearlessly investigate. The grassy knoll appeared to be breathing. Could such a thing be possible? He rapidly glanced through his Observer Book of Dinosaurs – which he carries on the milk float at all times in case of unexpected contingencies like these – and identified the green hillock as a Stegosaurus. His guide book had correctly described this prehistoric creature as a harmless vegetarian. But before going any further, Brian shinned up an adjacent telegraph poll and used a special implement to send a coded message to Mr Amos De Rowlocks in the local pub, warning of a possible earth-shattering event in the locality. Imminently. He finished the transmission with an un-decryptable coded message with the digits SFH 10 INFN PSNAMSM – RT: Send for Help in 10 minutes If No Further News. P.S. Need Any More Skimmed Milk – Red Top?

Local publican Amos duly phoned for back-up to the mainland ten minutes later. Unbeknown to him, Brian had woken the Stegosaurus by then with the simple expedient of repeatedly kicking its rump. The dinosaur was not best pleased: and after a 65 million year kip, it was feeling quite peckish. But it ignored Brian’s thoughtful gesture of a saucer of milk – full-cream at that – and demonstrated to the bemused milkman that it wasn’t actually a Stegosaurus and therefore vegetarian after all: by swallowing him whole. (Mistaking a Stegosaurus for an Allosaurus is a very basic error for which Brian’s membership of the Dinosaur Devotees Society has been cancelled in the hope that he will do better in the future.)

As a result of Amos’ Mayday call, nuclear submarines were immediately dispatched from the adjacent shipyards in Barrow-in-Furness and the Ministry of Defence sent a crack squad of Special Forces parachutists to deal with the ancient reptile.

But their puny Bren CZ 805 G Mark One grenade launchers were no match for the huge, angry lizard. It snatched-up the leader of the platoon, shapely Lieutenant Ann Barrow (a local girl) and climbed to the top of the television tower of the largest building on the Island of Cumberside – the Gothic edifice designed by Sir Edward Lutyens as the massive sandstone Town Hall but actually built by Clegg & Son of the island to their own design from local brick instead – where it was hit by a stray Excocet missile that has been circling the earth in an ever lower orbit ever since the Falklands war. Lieutenant Barrow was unhurt; the explosion catapulting her into the open hatch of an adjacent submarine and the remains of the creature being immediately gathered-up by the grateful islanders to make celebratory Prehistoric Pukka Pies which will be on sale at various outlets including the local football club in the next few days.

Meanwhile, the natives celebrated in Amos’ pub that evening. And a reet good time was had by everyone, despite the abduction of a visiting Sikh by masked gunmen followed by the sudden and unexplained disappearance of an exotic female visitor and a member of the local football team. Asked for comment, Landlord Amos said:

“I’ve managed to acquire my own supplies of Prehistoric Pukka Pies and these can be sampled for a modest fee as from tonight. Why not pay me a visit at the Shrimpleton Arms? Rates and menu available by request!””

—-

Despite FFF’s best efforts though, from Bengal to Bradford and from Beijing to Baltimore, the mystery of what had happened to Mr B. S. Chopra was sometimes front-page news, however briefly.

If this development had not occurred to Lady Shrimpleton herself, she was not much of an operator. Or – alternatively – not very bright. 

That is at least what Soldier Jay initially thought as he lay in bed in Fishguard after a brief sleep once he had escaped from her clutches and planned what to do next.

Instinctively, he knew that this particular woman was not stupid – on the contrary, all his instincts told him that she possessed hidden depths; possibly impenetrably deep hidden depths.

The questions for him were: how hidden; how deep?What worried him most was why she had gone from being an apparently implacable enemy with an iron fist (almost literally as his swollen lip still testified) to apparently pliant and keen potential lover in the space of less than an hour?

He was very flattered by her attention but, he wondered: what was she really up to? What game was this beguiling but very beautiful woman actually playing?

By thinking in this way, Jay realised much later that he had made a cardinal error, though.

Although his suspicions were only too valid, he should have thought a little more deeply personally about the situation he had found himself in. With the benefit of hindsight, he recognised much later that he had allowed himself to deviate from his basic military training – to be forever vigilant – by this point. Eternal vigilance was supposed to be his central role as a soldier – a role which had sometimes literally been hammered into him as a Special Forces Operative.

Usually – simply by the habit of years – he followed this practice to the letter. Everything he did was defined by it. Which is why it had been to the forefront of his mind throughout the previous day – until he left Cumberside Island with the sole purpose of clambering aboard Lady Lynne’s yacht.

What had possessed him to do this?

Vigilance by definition means looking for the bigger picture. To resist being dragged down a cul-de-sac in one’s thinking in exactly the same way he would avoid a dead-end in physical terms in a live combat situation for fear of being trapped in it by an ambush by the enemy.

Jay belatedly realised that if he had thought more deeply at the time about his own role in what had just happened, he just might not have found himself with his current dilemma in the first place.

First of all, the same locals who had witnessed the kidnapping of Baban Singh Chopra knew who he was – or at least recognised him. Indeed – although he didn’t realise it – Jay was a virtual celebrity on Cumberside Island. His sudden disappearance would not go unnoticed. Or lamented by many of the female population – and a handful of men, too: particularly those who ran the local football team.

He should have wondered what anyone interested enough to enquire might have made of the fact that he had disappeared without trace on the night of the abduction. 

He should have foreseen and planned in advance for the inevitable discovery of his abandoned kit-bag and – eventually – his carefully hidden dingy as well. All these things would set tongues wagging. But he hadn’t. Instead, he had reacted.  He had broken every Golden Rule instilled in him by the Army and followed his instincts instead. Followed the abducted Sikh. Hidden his phone. Swum to the yacht. Boarded it.

But in doing all this he had no plan: no Plan A; Plan B or any other for that matter.

His trainers in the Special Forces would go beserk if they knew what he had done: this was an absolutely primary failure of purpose. What had they drilled into him countless times?

No Plan equals No Purpose equals No Mission.

No mission means no submission of the enemy and thus no victory. It ensures Total Failure.

“Failure is not an option, Soldier!” – that wasn’t some slick line from an American movie as far as Jay was concerned – it was a Mantra that was more familiar to him than his own name at one time.

So he needed to recover the situation.

Tonight was football training at The Black Pool. He must show up for it and think of a convincing way to explain his absence from the island last night.

He realised all this – potentially too late – as he lay on his bed in his Fishguard hideaway. He had also realised that there was a good chance in this internet age that reports of his absence – and actual photographs of the emptied-out contents of his bag – would attract far more attention across the globe than anyone wanting to remain anonymous would really welcome. All he needed, if this were to happen, was just one person of the wrong sort to see an image like this. In his mind, he could already visualise some nosey parker looking at these images and recognising a state-of-the-Art British Ministry of Defence set of Night Vision binoculars among other potentially incriminating items which might start all sort of Alarm bells ringing loud and clearly in their ears. If they were also to notice what was clearly a front line Tracker on a bed in some god-forsaken pub on an even more god-forsaken island nobody had ever heard of, the ringing would immediately increase in intensity to clanging. He needed to make sure this didn’t happen – and do so quickly.

Finding a pay-phone that actually works in this day and age is easier said than done. But Jay finally found one at the ferry terminal in Fishguard. Getting through to whatever Directory Enquiries is called these days wasn’t easy – or cheap – either. But finally, he found the number for the Shrimpleton Arms on Cumberside Island – and rang it.

It was still relatively early – ten to eight in the morning – when he did this. He feared that Seth would be in no fit state to answer the phone because of the incident with the ash tray which he had been responsible for last night. Or that Amos De Rowlocks would still be asleep following what would have inevitably been a very late night for him indeed.

But he needn’t have worried. Amos had been up all night and even seemed to be pleased to hear from him for whatever reason.

So Jay decided to tell the landlord a version of the truth of what had happened to him since the previous evening. He told Amos that he had followed the kidnappers out of the pub and attempted to chase them in his own inflatable dingy as they escaped from the island. He hoped to catch up with them sooner or later and at one point was actually gaining on them in the dark. But once they opened-up their powerful engines in deeper water and started to make proper headway, they were simply too quick for him and he was powerless to stop them gradually pulling ever further and further away before finally disappearing over the horizon into the darkness of a Winter night.

He went on to tell Mine Host that these people were Chinese secret agents and that Baroness Blighty of Brighton was a spy who was in cahoots with them. There was a discernible quiver of excitement from the other end of the line when he mentioned her name.

“So what happened then?

To Jay, what he said next was literally too far-fetched to be believable – but he couldn’t think of anything better:

“I went ashore and realised I was in Wales. And remembered that me and the Shrimpies will soon be facing the Straits Men…”

“`Straight Men’? Are they homophobic, Jay?” asked Amos without allowing the soldier to finish the sentence.

“No! – the Strait Men-ais: the team from an island in the Menai Strait near Anglesey!”

“So you’ve been to Anglesey?”

“No – I’ve been to the St Tudwal’s islands just south of the Strait: that’s where they play their home games! I’ve inspected their pitch.”

“In the dark?”

“I might be spotted if I was seen doing it during daylight hours! Spying on the opposition is not a good idea these days, Amos – just ask your average Southampton Supporter!”

This explanation sounded really lame even to Jay himself and it was all lies anyway. But when Amos didn’t ask any further questions, he continued:

“I will be back for football training tonight. If my room isn’t locked, please do that now. Don’t let anyone go in there Amos! I want to book another week’s stay – I can pay over the phone now if you want!”

But the landlord was happy to wait.

Ironically, he would be relieved to have the man he didn’t realise had pole-axed his son with an ashtray the previous night back under his roof once more. Amos found something… reassuring – no; more than that: something he couldn’t quite put his finger on – about this big man. Besides which, Shrimpleton Town were playing Flookburgh Flounders on Saturday and they would need the services of their new Centre Half….

Oh – and the takings at the bar on Saturday night would be worth it as soon as Jay returned from the game and his female admirers from all over the island decided to call by…

“Settle up when you get here, Lad! If you’re planning on staying for a while, I can give you a discount. I’ll keep your dinner warm – it’s Prehistoric Pukka Pie with all the trimmings: mushy peas and gravy! On the house for thee!”

So Jay made his way to the railway station. As luck would have it, there was a train to Cardiff Central just about to leave. From there, he could travel to Crewe and then take another train to Lancaster and from there to Barrow. It was a circuitous route but it would get him to within striking distance of Cumberside Island by about half past four. And then it would be a long swim in the darkness and freezing cold water – but it would be worth it to be back on the island with all the stuff he needed next.

Provided the drivel he had told Amos over the phone had not unravelled. All it needed was for someone to stumble across the black dingy he had left hidden in bushes close to the sea and mention it at the pub for him to be caught in a lie. Unless he told people it was his spare and he had abandoned the other one in Wales. Or…

“No” he told himself. “Don’t ruin a habit of a lifetime. Tell the truth. Lies get complicated. They trip you up. People can live with the truth; it’s the lies they can’t handle.”

Besides which, Jay realised, he had already broken that Golden Rule more than enough today…

Blimey – that’s profound.

Has Soldier `J’ read too many Xmas Cracker inserts?

Or were the people who wrote these things in the Chinese People’s Republic making a vain attempt at interpreting Confucius to Western minds?

Read the next episode of

The Sensational Shrimpleton Saga

to become de-Confucius. Sorry – I am beginning to sound like Jim Proudfoot – to become de-confused.