Forget the Fish!

“There’s stuff going on we don’t know about.” observed Boz.   “Now, what about those poor coleyfish?”

“Forget the fish.” Snapped McGoogs, “You heard; our Derbyshire venture is officially sanctioned.   We’re doing the caves.”

 Ferdy called up the Silvertown Airways control tower, situated in the Royal Docks, on his smart-phone and asked to speak to his chief pilot, Beryl Clutterbuck.   She was mid-channel, returning a Handley Page H.P. 42 from their aerodrome on Guernsey, but was able to be put through via the radio.

“Beryl, we need the flying boat for a trip up north.”

 Once Ferdinand was off the phone they finalised some of the minor details and Phoebles voiced the reservation of the majority.

“Well, I suppose that’s settled then, but...”

To toast the venture they all downed their tots of single malt and took long draughts from their pints.   Slasher performed an obscure ritual with his salt and lemon before slugging back the shot of tequila.   “I’ll be going up to Derbyshire in the Pontiac.   See you up there”

The 1938 Pontiac Silver Streak Sports Coupé, vibrant GPO red, upholstered in light tan mohair, white walled tyres, was parked, half on the pavement, opposite the Den.   It glistened colourfully against the backdrop of monochrome bonded warehouses and depositories along the narrow highway.   Slasher sauntered unnoticed, as if his Lycra one-piece rendered him invisible, through the growing crowd, drawn by the antics of Larry’s dirigible and its stunning tortoise-shell chauffeur.   Phoebles’ yellow, Multi spotted pantaloons, conversely, were drawing less than favourable remarks from pointing urchins with their noses pressed to the Catnip Den bay window.   A burbling roar of supercharged Pontiac echoed off the surrounding walls; the 8 cylinder flat-head bored out, souped-up and the tank full of jet fuel.

“That thing’s a bomb on wheels!”

 There was a grinding of gears, a high-pitched whine from under the bonnet and the Pontiac sprang forward.   McGoogs was away through the narrow, cobbled lanes of Limehousesailortown.

The remaining foursome returned to the bedsit to pack their kitbags whilst Dark Flo prepared sandwiches of Herrings In, nautically known as HITS, on white bread, piled on a blue and white Staffordshire Ironstone plate decorated with a Flying P windjammer under full sail.   She wrapped the lot – plate and all - in cling film and placed them in a small hamper along with a bottle of Pusser’s Rum and a packet of Russian Caravan tea.

As the boys came down she was adding a sealed tin of Soma Catnip to the supplies.

“How did you get that?” gasped Ginsbergbear, “That stuff’s rarer than rocking horse dung.   Never leaves India”

“The bell-hop in the Eden Hotel in Kathmandu bunged me a bit from under the counter in gratitude for a particular favour.   Cut it with your Black Alamout Catnip Shag or Phoebles’ stash of White Goddess.   There’s not much of it and it’s expensive.”

At this they became aware of the rhythmic thrub of a dozen unsynchronised piston engines.   The Dornier Do X was doing a circuit over Bozzy’s Catnip Den and the gang rushed out onto the balcony to watch it landing on the London River in a shower of spray like an obese drake on an oily duck pond.

The gigantic silver flugschiff had had the clapped out air-cooled Jupiter engines replaced with six pairs of only slightly second hand 610 hp Curtiss Conqueror water-cooled 12-cylinder inline engines and now sported an art deco Silvertown Airways logo below the portholes along the length of the hull.

Beryl’s voice crackled over the Marconi Marine Nautilus transceiver that sat behind the bar.

“Come aboard, when you are ready”

Waving goodbye to Dark Flo they dropped the kitbags into a dumpy clinker build skiff that was tied to a ladder at back of den.   The hamper and crew followed and an invigorating five minutes was spent tugging on a cord wound round the head of a recalcitrant Seagull outboard.   In a sudden cloud of blue smoke and with a tuc… tuc… hick, tuc… tuc-tuc-tuc-tuc-tuc the motor sprang into life and they were weaving their way out into the river, trailing a rainbow scar of two-stroke across the surface of the water.

Beryl met them at the starboard stub and deftly caught the thrown painter.   She was tall, slender and clad, somewhat incongruously, in a sheepskin-flying jacket over her flowered cotton frock.   Neither matched her sky blue fur-lined ankle-boots.   Inside the hull a small crew of Kronstadt sailors was lined up for inspection.   They saluted Boz as he came aboard and their  Starshina (Chief Petty Officer) piped a high-pitched whistle that hurt Phoebles’ ears.

“Commodore Desai, would you like to pilot the old girl for the first part of the trip?   I will operate the throttles in the machine centre,” suggested Beryl, addressing Ferdy, “And we can swap round once we’re over Rugby.”

Rise of the Lizard Kings

England was not yet an anarchist utopia, but under Larry’s random and light pawed guidance it was becoming co-operative.   Its people were quietly becoming self reliant, involved and innovative – and in some small way, happy.  

Superficially Limehousesailortown was unchanged.   Steamers, clippers and tramps still jostled for a place at the quayside; bars, stews and music halls still spewed rowdy, boisterous, swaying parties of intoxicated matelots out onto the narrow streets; ships’ cats still slunk in and out of dingy catnip dens.   Homesick seafarers still sought temporary solace in companionable, rentable substitutes for their dimly remembered mothers and sweethearts; but somewhere along the line the claustrophobic alleyways had lost their edginess.

The penthousebedsit was pretty much the same as well.   A kettle whistled on the range, the little black and white TV set was showing Land and Freedom – its brown Bakelite case had become loose and an eerie mauve glow escaped around the cathode ray tube.   Monochrome posters of Ernesto Guevara and Albert Camus eyed each other from opposing walls.   Ginsbergbear was lounging in an old armchair, feet up on the mantelpiece and catnip shag dangling from an as yet unlit Peterson briar, Boz was trying to concentrate on the latest, slightly crumpled, copy of International Catnip Times whilst Phoebles pointed out good bits that he had written and Ferdy, having warmed the teapot, was toasting pikelets under a small gas grill.  The pals were relaxing between adventures when…

There came a coded rap on the door.   Phoebles opened it and Slasher McGoogs was standing before him.   He was wearing a pair of St Michael’s aertex Y-fronts over a cerise spandex hooded one-piece.   The hood formed a close fitting mask over his upper face and a serpentine gilded S was emblazoned on his chest.

“B****r me!” expleted Boz.

Ferdy raised an eyebrow, “I know the nation’s dress code is somewhat more relaxed under Larry’s leadership,” He glanced pointedly at Phoebles’ voluminous Smarty-spotted trousers and rainbow bracers, “but surely there are still limits.”

“It’s not easy, suddenly finding you’re a superhero after all those years of covert operating.”   Slasher stalked into the room and perched on the edge of the dining table.

“Er, I’m not sure the table is all that sturdy.” Boz warned, but Slash ignored him.

“Turn up the sound on the telly, I don’t want to be overheard.”   He could barely be heard at all as the film climaxed in a crescendo of gunfire and Spanish shouting.

“My contacts within the Aldershot Ghurkha Community warn of rumours from their homeland that the Merovingian Lizard Kings are on the move and strange discs have been seen in the sky above the mountain peaks.   Agents in the north report of Reivers raiding south of the wall, and Les Chats Souterrains have been seen mingling amongst the revellers at the Castleton Goth Festival – Speedwell Cavern has been closed to the public.   Corsairs aboard black whale hunters with 40mm Bofors or twin 12.7mm DShK’s mounted on the prow have been hi-jacking Arctic Coleyfishtrawlers and holding their cargo’s to ransom!”  

Boz gasped.  “Coleyfish pirates?   Destitute fishmongers?   A coleyfish famine?   This is a disaster!”   Ferdy tried to calm him.

 Ginsbergbear had not really been paying attention during the exchange and was idly flicking channels on the old TV.   Up popped the DOG CHANNEL.

“In lill ole England during the terrible insurgency against democracy their prime minister and some of his aids were cut off and surrounded by drug crazed and heathen anarchists.   Knowing that if they were captured they would be tortured horribly, in ways I cannot describe on television, they determined to take their own lives rather than be captured.   As the screaming demons closed in yelling their blood curdling war cry and the English Gentlemen prepared to meet their end, the baying horde suddenly stopped, stunned into silence, and knelt in prayer.   The astounded British ministers looked about and over them stood DOG in Glory, glowing pink and gold.

And DOG spake, ‘Let my people be!’

“Needless to say, the terrorists fled.

“Although the forces of Anarchy and Atheism are currently in the ascendant, DOG and Democracy will one day prevail.   The Army of DOG is being assembled and we need your donations.   For every $ we receive an amount will be put towards armbands, stickers and Boneos.   Contribute today.   Support the cause.”

“More trouble.” Mused Ginsbergbear.

“Don’t worry about them,” said Slasher, “They’re too busy fleecing their own to really bother us.   The true danger lurks in the caves of Derbyshire.” 

 Phoebles was aghast.   “You expect us to take on the Merovingian Lizard Kings, the Dark Lords of myth, the shades behind all that is twisted in the world?   Isn’t that a bit ambitious?”

“Just a little nibble at the trouser cuffs of their ambition, a tentative toe into the custard bowl of Machiavellian malevolence.   See what we can stir up.”   McGoogs’ eyes blazed behind the mask.   Ginsbergbear had begun to pay attention and Boz swallowed, “We can’t just sit back and do nothing – the coleyfish.”

Downstairs, the lounge-bar was all but empty – two worn out Kittens of Chaos were recovering along a red plush chaise longue over hookahs and tiny cups of treacle-black Monsoon Malabar, Sam was mangling a boogie-woogie improv, flat fingered across the tobacco stained ivories of an aging upright, smoke-grey derby pushed to the back of his head, striped shirt with white collar and cuffs folded back from the bony wrists, breakfast stained flannel waistcoat ruckling as he played.

“Your usual, boys?”

Dark Flo was doing service behind the bar.   She was slight and pallid with sunken eyes and raven hair that hung about her face like dead crows on barbed wire; waif-like, vulnerable and yet hard as black-iron nails.   She could pull a perfect pint, Yorkshire head judged to the millimetre, with one hand tied behind her back and the other skewered to the bar by a Bowie knife.   She might dispense or relish pain with equal measure, quell a riot with her contortions at the pole, or empty the bar with a single, gentle command.   For now she pulled pints of tawny London Porter and served them up with Talisker chasers.   Before Slasher McGoogs she assembled a shot glass of Tres Amigos Anejos, saltcellar and a half lemon on a cracked white bone china saucer.

Phoebles and Boz moved over to their favoured table in the bay that looked out onto Narrow Street and sat on the window bench.   Ferdy and Ginsbergbear pulled up bentwood cane-bottomed chairs and McGoogs perched on a leatherette-padded stool.   They huddled conspiratorially.

 “My plan is that we explore the caves south of Mam Tor and discover what is going on.” began Slasher McGoogs, producing a dog-eared copy of The Potholer’s Handbook for Derbyshire, IIIrd Pocket Edition, 1956; printed on storm resistant paper.   Within the chapter headed Castleton Caverns it included a handy sketch map of the Speedwell and Peak cave system.   It did not show Titan, which at the time of printing was still to be discovered, but Slasher had roughly pencilled in the location of the gigantic chamber.

“Have you cleared any of this with Larry?” asked Boz.

“I have told Larry nothing.   I despise despots and Larry is Gato Número Uno.”

“That’s hardly fair,” chipped in Phoebles, “We and the Revolutionary Committee did all agree he should be PM.”

“And it’s not as if he’s done any harm since taking office.   In fact he’s done sweet FA.   I’m amazed he doesn’t get bored.” Added Ginsbergbear.

“If I may interject at this point.” interjected Ferdy, “Mr Larry can in no way have ‘done sweet Fanny Adams’ despite the accusations in Mr Fluffy’s Chicken News on US telly.   Firstly she was not all that sweet – she was a grubby little tyke.   Secondly, she was ‘done’ many decades ago and her story has passed into myth.   And thirdl…”

The tail end of a steel wire ladder dropped past their window into the street outside.   It was followed by the descent of a pair of improbably long legs and finally by the top half, only, of a bottle-green chauffer’s uniform.   As the door to the catnip den opened and Barrymore, Larry’s indispensable factotum, entered the inmates could hear the Vwwshsh of the twin VW vectored screw engines of the incumbent Prime Minister’s personal dirigible.   She lifted her goggles and perched them above the peak of her cap as the wire ladder began to drift slowly down Narrow Street.

“Stay!” commanded Barrymore into the discreet mouthpiece that curved elegantly out from under her headgear.   The drifting ceased instantly.

“Blimey!” exclaimed Boz, “Is the Den bugged?”

“Certainly not, Mr Boris.   I just happened to be passing and am graced with unusually acute hearing.   Larry wanted you to know that he has despatched the Coleyfishspytrawler Lord Ancaster towards Antarctica to investigate the rumours.”

“What rumours?” asked a slightly ruffled Slasher.

“Ah, Mr McGoogs, a pie without your sticky paw in it?   Makes a refreshing change.   There’s reports of unusual activity at the US airbase – UFO under the ice – that sort of thing.   Leave it with us.   You have Larry’s full approval for your own little enterprise.”  

“Man… Larry knows of our enterprise?” Ginsbergbear spoke, “I’m not sure even we know about our enterprise yet.”

Sashaying over to the door Barrymore looked back over a coquettishly inclined shoulder, pinned them with her golden, kohl lined eyes  and said, “Carry on.”

Wrapping one leg around the wire ladder with the sensuality of a trapeze artist, she ascended into the heavens.

The Barricade

That evening the Prime Minister appeared in a simultaneous transmission on all major television channels.   He was flanked by union flags, and Mr Fluffy stood behind him, one paw on his shoulder.   There was, he announced, to be a rally in Parliament Square the following morning.   He urged all right minded patriots to be there as it was to be followed by a march to Tower Hill.   There they would regroup before  proceeding down Royal Mint Street, along Cable Street and on into Limehouse and Poplar.   They would retake the docks, by force if absolutely necessary, restoring normality and stability to the nation.   The broadcast ended with him standing, hand on heart whilst the National Anthem played out under slow mixes to old footage of Battle of Britain Spitfires and selected clips from Sink the Bismark.


A council of war was convened in an upstairs room in Charlie Brown's.   This legendary dockland public house, legendary at least amongst the world wide maritime community, is  more properly named the Railway Tavern, it sits on the corner of Garford Street close to the gates of the West India Dock and is always referred to by the name of its renowned, broken nosed, ex-pugilist landlord, the self proclaimed 'uncrowned king of Limehouse'.   The building had been commissioned by Charrington and Company, it is some five storeys high, over a basement, is crowned by a copper-covered cupola and aspires to a bastardised Baroque style.   The interior is a museum of curiosities gathered from all parts of the world, gifted by seaman sailing into the docks of East London. The majority of the souvenirs and nick-nacks in the collection, hanging from ceilings, nailed to walls, crowded on shelves, are from the Far East and Polynesia.      
Boz was (sort of) chairing the meeting, which was degenerating into something of a buffet; cheese sandwiches and beer had been provided, on the house, by the proprietor, Charlie Brown.   Ginsbergbear coughed and Phoebles banged a beer mug, freshly drained, on the table.   The ships' cats and a small contingent of Kronstadt sailors, being more inclined to action than the rest, shushed the disparate anarchist and communist factions and eventually gained their attention.   Boz recounted what he could remember of his one sided conversation with Slasher McGoogs.   Much of his concentration had been taken up at the time by the ugly automatic pistol that was being pointed his way and he was still a bit shaky. 
It was agreed that the march must be stopped and that it would be halted in Cable Street near to St George's Town Hall.
The Brick Lane Zapatistas were put in charge of constructing and manning a series of sturdy barricades, whilst La Columna  would help to secure the side streets and alleys.
Those Marxist-Leninists, Trots and Maoists present put aside their doctrinal differences and, declaring that the time was not yet right  for action, retired to The Prospect of Whitby on Wapping Wall to wait out the coming events.
With time of the essence the company then downed their beers, polished off the sandwiches, made use of the tavern's urinals and litter trays and proceeded down Cable Street to make their preparations.


Fuelled by strikers’ braziers and the smoke from burning police cars an old fashioned London fog had descended on the East End.   A red glow from bonfires and torches coloured the smog and suffused the shadowy buildings that lined the street with a crimson light.   Curling smoke constructed sinuous dragons which twisted through the air above the scene.
The anarcho-surrealists in panto costumes were dispatched to form a redoubt at the junction of Cable Street with Dock Street.   Much in evidence, as with most of the irregulars, was their weapon of choice, the Classic Burp® Gun manufactured by Ack-Ack Inc of East Detroit Michigan.   They had strict instructions that theirs was to be a delaying action only, there was to be no last ditch stand.   When overrun they were to fall back and melt away, their job then would be to harry and slow the marchers.   They were joined at the redoubt by Snowdrop in ballet tutu and Red Army budionovka pixy hat, on her unicycle, juggling flaming brands and assuming tenuous command. 


In Parliament square the Royal Marines' Regimental Brass Band played a medley of Elgar's more stirring tunes before a high podium and lectern that bristled with microphones.   From here the Prime Minister gave yet another rousing speech,  though it transpired that he would not himself be on the march - prevented by an unfortunate prior engagement.
Rank upon rank of black clad riot policemen in visored helmets, already rhythmically tapping their truncheons against their shields, formed up behind the band; then came paramilitary cadre units of fundamentalist Young Conservatives and public school boy volunteer brigades, uniformly equiped with Saturator SIG SAUER 556’s; finally the massed irregulars with Burp® guns and assorted cheap water pistols bought, en route, from a branch of Lidl Stiftung and Co. KG.
On arriving at Tower Hill, their ranks swollen by thousands of patriotic peasants with pitchforks, flaming torches and of course, Burp® guns, they encountered the East End fog.   The column was also joined by the dark shape of a Metropolitan Police medium range pursuit airship which, forced to fly too high above the fog bank, was to play no significant part in the day's events.   The band struck up once more and the advance into the alien maze of streets that lay beyond the walls of the great city began.


The primary barricade spanning Cable Street, constructed from iron bedsteads, pallets, up turned carts, assorted furniture and the occasional shell of a motor vehicle, being completed and topped with red flags, black flags, red and black flags, the Brick Lane Zapatistas took up their positions.   Silhouetted figures armed with STR80-AK47 Aquafire combat water weapons mounted the barricades and presented clenched fisted salutes to the featureless mist.   They shall not pass!  ¡No pasaran!   Consuella Starcluster with the republican flag draped across her bodice and wearing a profondo rosso frigian cap with the blood, puss and scab rosette of her spiritual homeland, topped the highest pinnacle.   

Kronstadt Sailors under the command of Phoebles, who was wearing a saucepan on his head and which he feared may well be stuck, manned giant rubber catapults (three man bomb launchers), in a line behind the barricade, with a plentiful supply of water bombs and flour bombs.
Track had been removed for some distance north and south of Shadwell station to prevent the Government  from deploying its armoured trains.   Ex-miners from Wales and Yorkshire had come in via the backroads to avoid police road blocks and they were to guard the sewers and underground tunnels against surprise attack.
Slates were removed from the roof of the Italianate Vestry Hall so that  Ginsbergbear could take up a commanding position above the cornice with his powerful Exploderz X Ranger 1075 water machine gun.   The defences were ready.


There followed a nervous pause in the proceedings until, far in the distance, could be heard a marching band playing Colonel Bogey.   It faltered and was drowned out by the cries and clamour of conflict.   The anarcho-surrealists had gone into action.
To the rear, amidst the reserve troops and baggage an ex-colliery brass band responded with the Marseilles and Internationale and a small Welsh choir sang out a baritone rendition of Lloyd George Knew My Father.

Limehousesailortown

Limehousesailortown does not do politics - sailortown exists for the sailor.   Whilst the ships are in dock unloading their cargo their mariners and ships cats scurry ashore.   After weeks at sea battling with the elements, cooped together in small, over-familiar groups they come onto land, where ever they may be in the world, with a little money in their pockets and a desire to be entertained.   Just beyond the dock gates they find dance halls and music halls, ale houses and catnip dens, brothels and night clubs.   They are enticed by ice-cream vans, burger bars, winkle stalls and pie-'n-mash tents.   Juke-boxes blare, fish and chips sizzle and dour missionaries fret after their souls.
Westwards along Ratcliff Highway the stews and doss houses peter out to be replaced by wholesale warehouses stuffed with pepper and cinnamon, teas and coffees,  wines, spirits, carpets and beds, monkeys, macaws and the contraband wares of smuggler and river pirate - produce not fanfared on the signs above the doors.   At the Highway's western end, dingy curiosity shops, junk shops proclaiming themselves to be antique emporia, ships' chandlers and the tagareen stores of the bum-boat men huddle together between the river and the soup kitchens and meeting halls of Whitechapel.   Whitechapel does do politics.


Boz and Phoebles stopped for a light lunch in the catnip den that occupies the four floors downstairs from their bedsit.   Snowdrop was singing a selection of songs from  Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny and should probably have stuck to juggling, but she was accompanied by Sam on upright and Mouse Jackson on tenor sax, they were really quite good, as was the eel pie and mustard ice-cream.   Once fortified, the ginger pair set off towards Wapping and beyond to Whitechapel - for a little under-cover detective work.
Toynbee Hall, that vicarage-gothic edifice which might well have seen William Morris and Peter Kropotkin pass through its doors in times gone by was, this day, hosting a debate on Unity, Co-operation and World Solutions to World Problems.   A degree of disagreement was beginning to emerge.   Old Labour was present with a Yorkshire ex-colliery brass band; Marxists and Leninists and Trotskyists and Maoists were in dispute over the subjects for discussion, procedural details and fillings for the sandwiches; La Columna, in red neckerchiefs were acting as unofficial bouncers.   Huddled in small yet noisy groups and eyeing each other suspiciously were collectivist-anarchists, mutualist-anarchists, communist-anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists, anarcho-surrealists, Situationists and The Brick Lane Zapatistas.   Consuella Starcluster was there with her tambourine, and the Kittens of Chaos had brought along a breakaway anarcha-feminist chapter of the WI who were starting to heckle.    Boz and Phoebles, thinly disguised in matching 'Red Ed' t-shirts, cloth caps and mufflers, slipped unobtrusively into the hall and, with backs to the wall, quietly observed.   The discord was beginning to spread to a gathering crowd outside in Commercial Street and scuffles were breaking out.


Round the corner in Angel Alley a soap box had been set up outside the offices of the Freedom Press.   White cats in very dark glasses guarded its corners like Trafalgar Square lions and Slasher McGoogs had mounted it to address an unenthusiastic crowd.
"Yet, to be just to these poor men of pelf,
Each does but HATE HIS NEIGHBOUR AS HIMSELF:
Damned to the mines, an equal fate betides
The slave that digs it, and the slave that hides."
There was silence until one of the sinister white cats began to clap pointedly.   There was a ripple from the audience followed by a Whoop and a couple of Yeahs.   The front two rows of uncomprehending felinity were made up of feckless alley cats of assorted shapes, sizes and colours, but behind them was a press of black and white ships' cats and their docker cousins.   These toms were politically aware and wanted to be roused.   Slasher stepped up the rhetoric.


Early next morning began the first ever mass strike of ships' cats.   Vessels without cats could not sail, the docks clogged up with stranded shipping and new arrivals rusted at anchor in the roads; cargos rotted and rats ran wild.   Dockland fell eerily silent.

Slasher McGoogs

The back room was windowless, dimly lit and untidy.   A large, ageing, cast-iron printing press dominated the space, bottles of ink and turpentine, sheaves of fresh paper and tied bundles of newly printed pamphlets littered shelves and benches around the slightly grubby walls; wallpaper lifted at its edges, moss green paint cracked and pealed.   Ink-blots stained the bare boards and wads of cotton waste lay undisturbed where they had been dropped.      The short and balding owner of the establishment, the frayed cuffs of his faded flannelette shirt turned back, had been discussing a layout for the latest Broadside when Slasher McGoogs' ears pricked to a sharp scraping sound that may have come from the street.   He gave no other indication that his concentration had been disturbed.
"Your toilet through here?" he asked as he picked up his homburg and moved to a door at the rear.   Without switching on the light, and standing on the lavatory seat he opened a small window, screwed his hat firmly on his head, turned up the collar of his pinstriped drape jacket and slipped effortlessly out onto a drainpipe that was positioned close by.   He was ascending towards the roof as the shop door burst in.
The printer had barely had time to kill the lights and wonder why he had never preplanned an escape strategy when he was transfixed in the beams of several flash lights.   The room filled with black uniformed officers in body armour.
Peering over the roof ridge, close to a chimney stack so as not to present a silhouette against the night sky McGoogs could see the unlucky proprietor being bundled into the back of a dark van; policemen followed carrying clear bin-bags containing large quantities of impounded printed material, a desk top pc and back-up hard drive.   He moved cautiously over half a dozen of the roofs that made up the terrace and slipped through a half open sky-light.   Moments later he emerged from a shop door down the street.   Weaving through the shadows between the pools of jaundiced street lighting he crossed the road and  turned sharply towards the police van, striding out briskly.   Passing close to one of the burly characters who were playfully abusing their hapless, handcuffed prisoner he tipped his hat, innocently obscuring his face with an arm as he spoke.
"Good evening constable, nice night for it." and he was gone.

Barely a mile away at the far end of Ratcliff Highway in their Limehousesailortown penthouse bed-sit, Boz and Phoebles were deep in contemplation.   They were perusing two inflammatory pamphlets that they had picked up in the Charing Cross Road earlier that day.
"I'm convinced these are both the work of Slasher McGoogs." declared Boz, waving one of the handbills aggressively towards Phoebles.

WAKE FROM YOUR SLUMBER

Scrutinise the world about you.

Think on the

Widow in her hovel,

The infant in its pram,

The prisoner in his shackles,

The lonely little lamb.

The MOGUL in his mansion

Cares nothing for these wretches.

In thrall to the Merovingian Dark Lords,

Manipulating the guardians of State and Law,

Hypnotising you with media pap,

With Capitalist trinkets and baubles

He revels in his wealth and power.

Open wide your sleep clouded eyes

And be ready 

The days of retribution come!

A Metropolitan Police dirigible passed slowly by the window.   It was following the London River, moving down stream, a search light panning across the water, sparkling off ripples and eddies.   A steam whistle piped shrilly.

"But if this is his too, what is he playing at?"   Phoebles jabbed at the second sheet of paper.

RALLY TO THE FLAG BOYS

Rally to the cause

This land of hope and glory

This septic isle

At this point in the text Phoebles had smudged a bit of a paw print across the type and in attempting to clean it up had made a hole in the paper.   However he was fairly sure that he remembered what it had originally said and had pencilled 'septic' in above the blemish.

The enemy is without your gates

The vandal at your door

Your country needs you

Be ready to defend those treasured institutions

That are forever

ENGLAND!

"Hm..."   Boz frowned.   "He's up to something again - and it's probably going to end in tears."

YOWL

"let's go fly the kite."

a single bare lightbulb hangs above a plain oilcloth covered table...

P sits near the sink deftly rolling catnip spliffs in his left hand and stashing them in an old bacci tin...

FD looks up mid gingerbiscuit... and i slouch in a corner taking notes...

Kazan's on the waterfront is showing on a tv... the sound turned down.

we vacate the bedsit and take the stairs to the whorehouse below.   Sam the piano player in shirtsleeves is labouring over a challenging rendition of some Captain Beefheart number... bashing it out on a honkytonk upright.   as we pass the bar P picks up a bottle of spirytus polish vodka.

out on the street P cracks the seal and we each take a swig against the cutting wind.   glass filament rainstreaks sparkle in the street-lamplight... pewter puddles on dark cobbles downhill to the riverside quays... black-eyed warehouses lean inwards above us.

at the river stairs we board a dinghy...   the Dornier DO-X is a dark shape moored out on the river...   a cabin lamp illuminates the cockpit windows...   shorelights reflect off the silver hull.

B is pulling on a string wound round an ancient seagull.   it coughs and splutters, throws out puthers of bluegrey exhaust, limps into life...   drips cooling water.

phut   phut   phut   phut   phut

as the little craft approaches the flyingboat B swings her round into the tide and she bumps gently against the starboard stub.   we clamber aboard.

P goes forward to cast off the mooring buoy... FD eases into the pilot's seat... B flicks switches and taps dials... i smooth out a chart, hit on a route and return to my writing.
"we'll pick up Mary-Lou first and then on to the land of green ginger." says FD.
("Mary-Lou?   who is May-Lou?" still FD.   "names have been changed.   Jack always changed everyone's names." i reply.   "you've not changed our names." B has joined the conversation.   "you all have initials.   what'd be the point of changing your initials?   anyway it's my story and that's the way it is.")
"home of Hairy-Moo it is then." FD pulls up the collar of his flyingjacket. "chocks away... fire her up.


B flicks more and more switches... engines wheeze, chuck-chuck-chuck and purr.   the craft bucks as she is taxied into the main channel, into the wind, and roars forward in an accelerating dash.   spray.   the nose lifts and is pushed down to drag the stern free of the river's grip.   we trail river-lets.

she flies!

climbing and banking...   scribing an elegant silver arc across the midnight sky.

THE VOID IS FULL OF STARS...

                                              ...STARS EVERYWHERE.

Ginsbergbear

Limehousesailortown

2010