Flight

Suddenly the vast space was echoing to Klaxon alarms, the walls flashing in reflected crimson light.  

“Up There!” someone had shouted above the general row and, with the first bullets ripping and pinging about them, the boys abandoned their rucksacks and scurried after Ginsbergbear as he disappeared back down the ventilation duct.   They were scuttling awkwardly in the confined space, but the bumping and scraping behind them told of their pursuit by Chats Souterrains far more comfortable in the claustrophobic darkness.   After an eternity of blind shoving, shouting, scrabbling they fell, sweating and wheezing, into the main tunnel and continued their mad dash without any attempt at concealment.   As they ran there were distant shouts and explosions behind them.   Then they became aware of a throbbing whine rapidly growing in volume.

“Take cover!” shouted Boz, and they pressed against the dark walls as the saucer, the craft they had seen on its railway truck, whooshed past.   It veered towards the tunnel wall and directed a static discharge, ionising the air ahead, the electromagnetic crackling mingling with a booming sound beam howl, like an amateur brass band attempting a Charles Ives composition.   The wall dissolved into tatters akin to a moth eaten lace curtain and the gaping maw of the Devil’s Arse appeared ahead.    Boz and Slasher broke cover, the others following close on their heels, and rushed through the shimmering gap before the rock wall could reform and the overlapping universes part company once more.   The saucer, silhouetted against the sky, zoomed out and up, scattering jackdaws, its mission unknown and its crew’s attention far from the fleeing group that followed in its wake.   Slasher broke his step momentarily to fire his Mauser, once, into the blackness behind them.   The shot echoed around the cavern like a fusillade; the others flinched, but the relentless pounding of their commando-booted pursuers did not faulter.   They fled past the ropewalk and workers hovels out into the winding back alleys of Castleton – ducking, weaving, bouncing off walls in their wild flight.

Flight of the Sore Afraid

                                    Out of the Devil’s Arse we blundered

                                    Into the street where Emos chundered

                                    Scattering Goths

                                    And Punks who wondered

                                    “What the f..?”

                                    We did not make reply

                                    Theirs was not to wonder why

                                    Theirs was but to duck or die

                                    Les Chats’ Sten guns thundered

                                    Bullets to the left of us

                                    Bullets to the right of us

                                    Bullets from behind us

                                    Buzzed and whined

                                    Blasted with shot and shell

                                    Swiftly we ran… ah well

                                    Out of that mouth of Hell

                                    Nought could our terror quell

                                    I wish we could catch a bus

                                    We must be mad as bats

                                    Taking on the pallid Chats

                                    Rounds ripping through our hats

                                    Gasping teddy wheezing cats

                                    Tottering Dodo

                                    Legs all spent

                                    Relentlessly pursued by Paras

                                    Tough old vets of Mons and Arras

                                    Battle hardened bold as brass

                                    Armed to the teeth they’ll kick our ass

                                    Our future looks like diddly squats

                                    A miracle’s our only chance

                                    A cavalry with sword and lance

                                    On mighty steeds that rear and prance

                                    Slasher chucks t’ward me a glance

                                    “Is that Plan B?”

                                    “There’s no Plan B”

                                    Grovelling upon all fours

                                    Hammering on shuttered doors

                                    Mourning for our last lost cause

                                    Doomed Amigos of El Boz

                                    Is this really our last dance?

Ginsbergbear,

Convalescing

- A four pipe recovery.

Into the Bowels of the Earth They Venture.

With Boz in the lead and Slasher McGoogs bringing up the rear the adventurers wriggled and crawled down the narrow flu.   Slasher checked regularly over his shoulder for any sign that they were followed and surreptitiously fingered his Mauser Red Nine, his security blanket; the rest of them would be furious if they knew he was toting a real and loaded weapon.   The atmosphere was oppressive and damp, the hum grew louder as they descended and there was a definite breeze coming up from below.   Soon the tunnel widened slightly and Bozzy stopped.

“There is a large extractor fan fixed into the tunnel, blocking our way.   Can I have that Swiss Army Knife of yours, please Ferdy?”

Using the Philips screwdriver attachment, Boz removed a small service cover and with the insulated wire cutting attachment snipped a brown insulated wire.   The fan stopped.   The sudden silence was not comforting.   He next undid the wire safety cage with the flat bladed screwdriver attachment and then used the adjustable spanner attachment to unscrew a large nut on the hub.   With the fan taken out and a large hole snipped out of the far safety cover, using the heavy-duty wire cutter attachment, the gang were able to squeeze through.   Phoebles got a bit stuck due to an excessively generous breakfast, but a firm push from behind by Ferdy soon freed him.   Slasher was the last cat through.

“We’d best press on.   Someone might come to investigate why the fan’s not working,” he whispered.

The tunnel was still descending steeply, but from that point on it had been chiselled out to a reasonable diameter and it was paved.   Moving quickly downwards they eventually came to an almost vertical shaft with iron rungs set into the wall.   At the bottom they were in a sizeable cave chamber, part of the Peak Cavern system.   There were stalactites hanging down and dripping, and rounder orange or yellow topped stalagmites reaching up.   Occasionally mite met tite to form a thin column of gothic tracery.   From oozing cracks in the wall green fingers of limestone deposit had dribbled over millennia, forming grotesque gargoyle guardians to terrorise the feint of heart.   A narrow path wove through the natural hypostyle, between petrified forests of sculpted rock, a fast-running stream carved deep into the cave floor.   They were in the dark - a creeping, all encompassing darkness that seeped into the soul; a darkness broken only by the narrow beams of their headlamps which cast menacing shadows about the interior, shadows of hideous beings that could only exist in such blackness.   Not helping their disquiet, the silence was total and they were entirely alone.   The Peak Cavern had been closed to visitors since inexplicable, phantom, will o’ the wisp lights and unnatural humming sounds had terrified the tourists.   Not that weirdness was unknown within the cave system.   Toilet odours bubbling up from the bowels and moans and farts amplified and echoing about the antediluvian orifice had led the pious, medieval serfs of Castleton to christen this The Devil’s Arse – a name which stuck until a visit by the Queen Empress had required a less graphic appellation.   The improved address was more than welcomed by the cord winders who lived and worked within the vast cave mouth.

Approaching the back of the chamber the gang found that the stream issued from a low culvert.   The pathway had originally terminated at a small quay alongside which lay coffin-like barges in which recumbent adventurers were, in times gone by, pulled one at a time under the rocky vault and into the chamber beyond.   Luckily, nineteenth century etiquette could not allow such demeaning transport for a visiting monarch and a relief tunnel had been dynamited through to the next stage of the tour.   It is a low passage, for Queen Victoria was short.

The second chamber was even larger than the first, fewer stalactites, but the path mounted the rock wall to clamber over a tumbling mass of hardened mineral sediment that cascaded down to the stream in terraces filled with crescent moons of still, black water.    Twenty yards further and the path veered to cross, high above the stream on an iron footbridge supported on slim, fluted, floriform columns.   In a side gallery they could make out a derelict narrow gauge railway track to nowhere and a derailed, rusted and battered wagon.   Beyond this their path descended through a straight, well-constructed tunnel with a brick floor, rust-red plumbing ran along the foot of the passage wall, old iron pipes, repainted many times, new aluminium pipes silver-gleaming in the light of the headlamps.   The companions could hear rushing water ahead and at the bottom of the decline the track ended with a handrail, they were overlooking a wide, fast running underground river; the tourist trail ended here.   However, the pipes turned to disappear into holes drilled through the rock wall and next to them was an old, weathered wooden door, blue-grey paint flaking, something indecipherable and worn stencilled in no-longer white letters.   There was a latch, but no lock.

The little group of nervous adventurers entered what was apparently a service tunnel.   The pipes, now running along wall and ceiling, were joined by many others.   Thick and thin, new and old, the pipes congregated, merged and parted, danced around each other.   There were valves and junctions, U-bends and Z-bends, a labyrinthine tangle dreamed up by a plumber spaced out on something stronger than catnip.   Heavy-duty cables sheathed in lead festooned the walls, fed steel boxes that buzzed and tiny coloured lamps that flickered.   A socket, corroded by the damp, beside one such box, was joined by an outdated, frayed a twisted flex to a faintly glowing glass orb which seemed to hang in the air by its own will power.   A large riveted iron tank, with a brass tap that dripped, almost filled the chamber.   Our intrepid gang had to remove their rucksacks in order to squeeze past.   The tunnel was not straight – it snaked inexplicably; plant life thrived on the dank walls and the odours of rot and decay hung around every unscrubbed nook and neglected cranny.

“Great God!   This is an awful place…” quoted Ginsbergbear.

“We are very near the end, but have not and will not lose our good cheer,” responded Ferdy.

“I think the end may be in sight,” chipped in Boz.

 The large hatch that faced them was battleship grey.   It had a porthole, which was painted over.   It had steel clamps at the corners, which Boz undid.   It had a maroon wheel handle, which Boz turned.   The heavy door swung back and Boz found himself teetering above an impenetrably gloomy void.   Ahead was a polished, lightly greased, bronze pole.   Without thinking too hard he wrapped his arms tightly around it and jumped.

“Shi…!”

And the others followed.

“Geronimo!”

“Mother!”

“Timothy Leary!”

As the pile of bodies at the base of the pole grew, they heard the steady clunk clunk clunk of hobnailed hiking boots on iron rungs.   The voice from above belonged to Slasher McGoogs.

“Perhaps another time you may wish to give some consideration to your actions before leaping… and maybe have a look around for a less thrilling alternative.”   He completed his descent of the cast-iron spiral staircase and began to help the boys pick themselves up and dust themselves off.   Ferdy had friction burns on some of his wing-stub feathers, Phoebles had grazed his knee, Ginsbergbear had snapped his favourite pencil and they had all landed on top of Boz.   There were no other injuries.   Once composed they began to look around.   They had arrived in one of the main linking shafts of Les Chats Souterrains – wide, arched and concrete lined.   It carried a tarmacadam roadway and twin narrow gauge railway tracks.   The artery and its subsidiary systems existed parallel to or even confluent with the cave system, just a tiny dimensional twist away, kept apart by a micron thin membrane of warped space-time.   It was but a miniscule section of the Atlantian world-wide tunnel system, disused for eons and now usurped by the Lizard Kings, which honeycombs the earth’s crust, linking natural cave systems, accessible only under mystic circumstances from every mine, cavern, metro and catacomb; normally undetectable and gateway, some maintain, to the inner world of our hollow earth.

“Wow!” exclaimed Phoebles.

“Just come on!” insisted McGoogs.   But they had not gone far when they heard the purr of a combustion engine.   Scrambling quickly as they could up a fall of rock and scree the boys gained a wide ledge, well above eye height, and cautiously peeped down.   What they saw was the arrival of a dazzle-camouflage painted Mini Moke Twinny, which halted whilst four characters, uniformly dressed in light-grey one-piece overalls, got out.   They had pallid, narrow faces, tiny pink eyes and overly large ears.   They were armed and they were searching.

“I’ve never seen them without their goggles before,” said Phoebles, “Ugly looking bunch.”

“I don’t think we should hang around here,” said Slasher, wrenching a grill off the wall behind them.   “Boz, you come through last, and pull this grating back in place.”

They were in a small, square cross-sectioned shaft that carried a steady draft of warm air.   It inclined gently and branched off at regular intervals.   At length their somewhat randomly chosen route emerged into a gallery that overlooked a truly vast cavern.   Ginsbergbear threw himself back from the edge and pressed into the cave wall.   Ferdy and Phoebles gave out simultaneous gasps.   This was Titan, the belly of Behemoth – one hundred foot of vault above them and an eighty-foot drop to the floor below.   They were looking down into the mother of all chambers - and it swarmed with industry.

Mass tangles of wiring hung between flickering screens and bays of valves, beam tetrodes glowing violet or lime-green.   Rainbow lights pulsed along ionized gasses in glass tubes and flasks.   Heavy-duty High Tension cables hung from ceramic insulators and harsh strip lighting dangled precariously from chains and improvised scaffolding.   High on one wall a huge screen showed:

Project Deadline

[] [] / [] [] / [] [] [] [] 

Don’t let the Mayans down

“We can’t use the water pistols with all this electricity about –remove your magazines and pass them to Ferdy,” ordered Boz.  

They could make out several assembly lines trundling inwards towards the centre of the floor.   One carried copper tanks like oversize water heaters.   Another line was doing pipe cots, with robot arms sewing canvas covers and welding joints.   Yet another bore printed circuit boards, technical bits and electronic pieces, between robots that soldered and snipped, towards half-finished, splayed-bell shaped craft, like bizarre giant hub caps, their shell plates being welded, riveted and spray-painted by beavering robots on the outside, whilst metal mechanics rushed in and out with the fittings as they arrived on the lines.   One completed craft, developed from a German, Nationalsozialismus prototype design of the 1940s sat on a flatbed railway truck receiving the finishing touches to its paint job.   A Chat Souterrain in a silver radiation suit and fish-bowl helmet was stencilling alien symbols around the hull:

 µƒß  ç¬ø∂^øñ  +       

 “Looks a bit like Sanskrit to me,” said Phoebles, to everyone else’s surprise.

The pals grouped and squatted in a circle to discuss a plan of action while an apparently uninterested Ginsbergbear opened a nearby junction box that had caught his attention, marked as it was with the inscription ‘DON’T!’ on the door in large, red letters.   Once inside he snipped through some of the wiring, mostly blue wires, and a fat bunch of filaments that had all been taped together.   He unscrewed a connector block and began swapping connections, yellow wires for green wires, brown wires for the pretty little striped ones.   Finally he took two red wires and shorted them together with a crack and a spark.    Down below some of the banks of valves flickered and went out.   Some of the valves began to glow brighter and brighter.   Then they all began to strobe neurotically.   The robots lost control, mechanical arms waved and jerked, welding arms lanced and riveting arms sewed.   The humming and crackling of barely harnessed alternating current soared orgasmically.   White coated overseer Chats looked uncertain, worried, panicked.   Bolts of lightening began to arc over the insulators and a maniacally frenzied laser arm sliced a ruby pencil of lethal light through a dangling power cable.   The severed conduit swung down till its exposed core shorted against one of the bays, sprayed sparks above the growing pandemonium.

“RUN!”  cried Ginsbergbear as he rushed past his comrades, and a small explosion shook the stalactites.

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.