A Second Battle in Cable Street

The front ranks of the Nationalist marchers were staring into Hell.   Ahead smoke curled and flames crackled.   Shadowy wraith-like figures scurried across the crimson haze.   A roar of defiance filled the air and chilled the blood.
Boz was on the barricade waiting for the exact moment to signal to Phoebles.   He was proudly wearing his best telnyashka under a flamboyant Makhnovist Cossack, bum-freezer jacket and his little Kronstadt sailor hat was perched on his head.   He felt that he looked pretty good.
Michael Winner was at the head of the advancing column, waving  a large flag of St George,  when the first salvo of bombs hit.   He was floored by a wobbly, water-filled condom and stepped on by a Royal Marine Trombonist.   A wavy, jiggling line of riot police rushed forward, making chuff chuff train noises, and formed a defensive barrier between those who had fallen and the looming presence of the barricade, they banged their shields in time to each other and muttered a deep throated, tuneful 'Whoa-whoooooooo, whooooooooa-ha!   
And then pandemonium errupted.   There was yelling and screaming and clattering and clashing.   Everyone opened up with every weapon they had, at anything they could see.   Firing short accurate bursts with the X Ranger 1075 from the Town Hall roof Ginsbergbear was having a devastating effect on the Nationalists, but down below in the thick of the melée water was flying everywhere, there was the steady pop, pop, pop of Burp® guns and flour and water were combining into a dreadful paste.   Some tear gas had been deployed in the early stages of the conflict, but it had clung to the fog, refusing to spread and lingering in intense isolated pockets.   Hurling their bombs over the heads of the front line combatants the Kronstadt sailors could have no idea of the havoc they wrought, every so often Boz gave them a reassuring thumbs up from his vantage point on the defences. 
For the moment the Women's Institute Anarcha-Feminists were manning (a term that I am sure they would object to) the field hospitals. but they were armed to the teeth and eager to join the fray on the flimsiest of excuses .   The essential tea urns had been set up  on a conveniently located trestle table by two pacifist Quakers and a jewish transvestite named Manny who had not wanted to endanger her expensively manicured nails in battle.   They also serve who only serve the tea.
La Columna were engaging Metropolitan Snatch Squads and a detachment of Eton school boys in nearby side streets.   The boys' Saturator SIG SAUER 556’s and La Columna's STR80-AK47 Aquafires were pretty much equally matched, but experience was to win out and the toffs were soon routed.   One snatch squad was captured and, with no provision for restraining prisoners, was released on a promise that they would go straight home.   Elsewhere the conflict was confused and messy.

Locked in a stale mate at the barricade the Nationalists deployed their secret weapon, two mounted police vans.   The  vans were lashed howdah-like to the backs of elephants, blue lights flashing and sirens 'nee-nawing', but the elephants proved as ineffectual as they were ridiculous.   They quickly faltered under the Kronstadt sailors' artillery bombardment and were rendered skittish by tear gas stinging their eyes and trunks.   At this opportune moment Ferdy arrived on the scene in the Cierva C.19, screaming out of the sky, bonksie-like in a steep dive, to unleash a stick of flour bombs with devastating accuracy.   Jumbo ran amuck, charging back through scattering ranks of riot police.
Sadly, autogyros do not do dive bombing, or if they do, they do it but the once.   Trailing smoke and oil and popping rivets all the way, Ferdy just managed to hold it together long enough to ditch in the chill waters of Shadwell Basin.

Meanwhile, back in Cable Street, the cobbles were drenched and slippery, gutters running with those fluid residues that are the byproduct of armed conflict.   The Anarcho-Surrealists had regrouped and united with the Situationist and were holding their own.   Scary clowns were recklessly hurling pails of confetti.   Boz was just checking the last few magazines for his AK47 Aquafire, water was running low, when Phoebles pointed to a young lad with a severe limp approaching them urgently from the rear.   He was being held up by one of the Anarcha-Feminists.

"Talk to him.   He's gone to a lot of trouble getting here."   She left the lad with Phoebles, picked up an abandoned Burp® gun and clambered onto the barricade.
The youngster had come up from the sewers and was the son of one of the Yorkshire miners.   His Kier Hardie cap was awry and dried blood stained his left cheek.   
"T' Cats Sootrins 'as been guidin' t' Met Snatch Squads through 'tunnels.   We'n bin overrun int' sewers.   Thou's gonna be cut off an' surrounded.   Me da' says I gorra warn yer."
"Good lad." said Boz, "Phoebles, take him to the rear and get him a cupper... make it a mug, strong and sweet.   And tell everyone back there it's time to go; we'll hold on here for a bit longer."  
Phoebles returned just as the howling Snatch Squads and Chats Souterrains emerged from the sewers.   Once on the the surface they assumed a cuneum formation, several wedges in fact, so probably cuneii or something like that... and charged. 
Boz raised one eyebrow. "I meant you to go too."
"I know, but..."
Heavily out numbered now the defenders battled on, periodically releasing small groups from their number to escape through the surrounding, winding alleys and passages.   One catapult crew remained with a fast dwindling supply of bombs.   Whilst unsuccessfully urging others to follow, a ski-masked mob of Anarcho-Syndicalists rushed on to the barricade crying "No retreat - stand firm!"   They planted a Confederación Nacional del Trabajo banner securely into the rubble, "Rally to the flag!"
Ginsbergbear could see the circle of Nationalists tightening on his comrades.   Riot Police were hammering on the doors of the Town Hall.   It was time to go.   He picked up the X Ranger 1075 and headed for the stairs.
Phoebles and Boz were standing back to back, one magazine left in Bozzy's AK47 Aquafire and the last two ping pong balls in Phoebles' Burp® gun.
"Not exactly going to plan, eh, y'old bugger." muttered Phoebles.
"Ah, but you've not heard my Plan B yet, pal." 
Softly the distant, tinkling notes of Die Walküre drifted on the gentle breeze that was just beginning to clear the day long fog.
"That'll be the Plan B where we're unexpectedly rescued at the eleventh hour?"
Headlamps and ice-cream cones flashed as the Vicecream van, with a newly fitted Audi turbocharged V12 diesel engine grumbling under its bonnet, careered westwards along Cable Street and burst in on the scene.
"That's the one!" replied Boz.
With the Kittens of Chaos balanced precariously on the roof-rack lobbing a fusillade of smoking baked potatoes down onto their hapless victims Aunty Stella gunned the Vicecream van through the rear ranks of besiegers and slewed round to halt within inches of the lucky pair.

"More spuds, more spuds We're running low on ammo up here!"
"Get in... Now!"
They piled through the open serving hatch.
Nationalists were all round the van and advancing up the lower levels of the barricade.
"We'll never reach anyone else."


Consuella Starcluster dominated the highest point on the pile.   With bodice bursting to reveal her ample and heaving  breasts and waving a republican flag with a single red star centred on its golden stripe, she was totally surrounded by warring Anarcho-Syndicalists and Metropolitan Riot Police.   And she was screeching defiance...

 "¡Vare a la mierda!"  

"¡A hacer puñetas!"   

"¡A tomar por el culo!"   

"¡Descojonarse, mearse de risa!"   

Turning to look down at the euphonically wagnerian vehicle she produced a fully loaded Saturator STR100 Lightning Strike super hand cannon from under her full skirts and proceeded to carve a swathe thro her would be captors.   Springing gazelle-like down the rubble she reached the vicecream van, vaulted through the hatch and spun round to continue firing on anyone who had been stupid enough to pursue her.   Aunty Stella jabbed the accelerator pedal, wheelied the van through a tyre smoking handbrake turn and was gone.   
For a while the remaining defenders atop the barricade fought on, but they were quickly subdued and bundled into waiting black marias.