Post by franklinmarsh on Feb 27, 2013 12:14:40 GMT
Here's some bosh I wrote for a chap I happen to admire. It's chock full of the usual balderdash in-jokes and incredibly libellious, but I thought I'd throw it up (bleurgh!) here to see if anyone else could get anything out of it....
Captain James ‘Biggles’ Bigglesworth strode into the officer’s mess and wrenched the 78 rpm disc from the gramophone, stopping the caterwauling in mid-flow and brought the record down smartly upon his raised knee, snapping it symmetrically in half. Algy and Ginger were caught in mid-vogue and were still lip-synching to Owner Of A Lonely Heart.
‘Must we fling this filth at our pop kids?’ growled Bigglesworth, consigning the ruptured recording to the wicker wastepaper basket, before turning to his shamefaced junior officers.
‘Come on chaps,’ he said, his tone softening, ‘ I could just about stand Roundabout, but this…’
‘It’s got a good beat,’ muttered Ginger, defiantly.
‘Would Don’t Kill The Whale be more appropriate, Sir?’ enquired Algy brightly, with a hopeful salute.
Biggles sighed, and jammed his pipe into his mouth. As he lit up he looked out of the window, watching the Tommies march by humming Sham 69’s Tell Us The Truth as they headed towards the trenches and certain death, he thought longingly of his Shadows albums back in Blighty, almost certainly being dusted lovingly by Mrs. Kensington, his housekeeper. If it were just a question of morale, he could perhaps relax his exacting musical attitude….
Biggles watched in horror as the Tommies’ rigid marching structure fell apart, and men crashed to the ground, clutching their ears. Groans of pain and screams of agony were drowned out by electronic blips and beeps.
‘It’s Baron Von Richtofen and the Kraftwerk Squadron!’ shrieked Ginger. ‘We’re doomed!’
Algy was ringing the bell furiously as Biggles led his men toward the biplanes. As he threw himself into the cockpit, he shot a glance skyward. The Baron waved dramatically and Biggles could have sworn he smiled as, flanked by Hutter and Schneider, he once more strafed the corner of France that was forever England with ghastly Teutonic cacophonies.
Sergeant Dury spun the prop as Costello and Lowe pulled the chocks from in front of the wheels, and Biggles was bouncing across the turf. As he left the earth, the Squadron Leader saw even more terror in the air. Kapitan Froese and his enormous tangerine dream of a zeppelin was blotting out the sunlight, huge speakers strapped to the gondola blaring out even more discordant synthesia.
Biggles soared aloft. A quick glance to either side revealed Ginger and Algy struggling to keep up, grim-faced in their Camels, so like that of poor Ollie Murs, still wet behind the ears, selected for the front with no training or experience, and gunned down mercilessly by the Red Baron, who even had time to strafe Commander Cowell and spray Cheryl Cole. War is hell!
As the ElektroBosch destroyed the airfield, Biggles pondered his options. Top British scientists like Dolby and Numan were working on similar hellish weapons of mass destruction, but this new-fangled warfare was no substitute for bullets, bayonets and, even better, fists. Rumours abounded that the Hun were developing even more terrible means of killing, with mysterious and sinister codenames such as Can and Faust and Neu.
Captain Calvert roared past in his silver machine, machine guns blazing. Corporal Kilminster, in the black painted Sopwith Motorhead, with its distinctive war-pig emblazoned upon the side, followed.
The noise was deafening. As Biggles swooped and dived between the smoke, clouds, burning aeroplanes, tracer fire and dogfights, he tapped his foot, thought once more of that wonderful land and began to close in on the Baron.
With an ear-splitting hiss and the trance like chant of ‘Trans-Europ Express’ the Red Baron wheeled his craft through the sky, calmly trying to avoid Biggles, dog-like upon his tail. Bigglesworth was close enough to see the small painted faces alongside the Baron’s cockpit – forgotten warriors Shayne Ward, Steve Brookstein, Andy Abrahams, One True Voice, talented amateurs not seasoned airmen…when he caught sight of the miniature oils of Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke, Biggles seethed. The swine even counted women amongst his kills! There were no gentlemen in war any more.
Biggles watched the Baron’s face tighten as the Englishman’s thumb caressed the firing button of his twin Galacia machine guns. The thumb stabbed downward. Dual pieces of wood protruded from the gun barrels and small white flags with the word BANG! in black over a yellow explosion fluttered in the breeze. Bastard defence cuts! There was nothing for it. Bigglesworth eased the more powerful Allied machine forward. The whirring Hodges propeller (manufactured in Walthamstow E17) began to tear apart the triplane’s tail.
As Von Richtofen plummeted earthwards, Biggles noticed that they had overshot the French coastline, and the German aristocrat was making for a small island. He also realised that they were alone in the blue yonder. Easing the joystick forward, and thinking of Mrs. Kensington’s buns, Biggles headed downward.
****************
The crimson triplane touched down on what looked suspiciously like a man-made airstrip. Biggles circled once, like a circle in a spiral ,like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning, before landing himself. No other figure had approached the grounded ‘plane and Von Richtofen had dashed for the cover of some rocks, no doubt to draw his Mauser and a bead on his nemesis’ heart.
The Webley .45 nestled comfortably in Biggles’ gauntleted hand, as he sprang from the cockpit and marched fearlessly to stand before the stony outcrop.
“Baron!” bellowed the staunch airman. “Come out of there! Let’s settle this like men! I would have said gentlemen, but your callous murder of womenfolk is a bestial sin, surmounted only by your glorying in this kind of maniacal bloodshed!”
“Piss off, Bigglesworth!” came the spirited reply.
That did it. Biggles sprinted for the cover of some nearby shrubs, hurling himself into the protective green, to discover some less than protective brown concealed within.
“Shit,” cursed Biggles accurately
***************
Bigglesworth wormed his way through the undergrowth into a dark wood, breathing through his mouth. He could detect no sound from behind him, and wondered about Von Richtofen’s plans and whereabouts. Once inside the forest, he crawled towards the sound of splashing water. A woodland glade containing a small waterfall, surrounded by stone roses, that tinkled into a deep pool was revealed to him. Every nerve end tingling, Biggles shed his clothes, washed himself then his garments to remove the ordure, hung his flying suit upon a convenient branch , and crouched on guard, pistol rampant. Realising that he was crouching over a small clump of stinging nettles, Bigglesworth writhed in silent agony for a few moments, then soothed his genitalia with a dock leaf.
Biggles waited.
Nothing happened.
Worry about appearing in a Morrissey solo single caused the squadron leader to reclothe himself in the still damp attire. Was it his imagination, or was it getting dark? Too dark to see? A loud thump made the ace pilot jump. It sounded like bone striking taut animal hide stretched over a hollow vessel. Biggles edged forward through the wood until he fell over a smashed crate. The shattered wood still had a small parachute attached. Supplies? But what? And for whom?
Bigglesworth examined the crate, and pulled out a red Stratocaster. His joy turned to horror as he surveyed the broken neck. Checking the Webley, he made his way toward the by now rhythmic thumping.
The sound was tremendous. In a clearing before a steep cliff, long-haired troglodyte figures clad in rough blue material decked in tin roundels and patches of cloth covered with mystic runes, banged their heads in time to the thumping. A large bearded fellow clad in white overalls and with what appeared incongruously to Biggles to be a bowler hat perched atop his flowing locks clutched two enormous dinosaurial shin bones and continued to pound the stretched skin. A large block of stone stood altar-like in front of the cliff, and before it capered a lunatic shaman, blue-tinted goggles shielding his eyes, his skin inked with appalling scenes of hell. Biggles struggled to make out his slurred speech. At first he thought it had a debauched LA twang, but there was something beneath it. Brummie? Bigglesworth glanced again. Could it be….?
A fug of scented vapour arose from the crowd. Biggles (against his better judgement) couldn’t help inhaling. Was that a fairy wearing boots? What the …?
An iron man approached him. No, a man of British steel, the light of fires glimmering upon his studs. Unlike the others, he was hairless. Aviator shades hid his eyes, but he too seemed familiar. Biggles leaned forward.
“Judas Priest! Halford?”
The metalled figure jumped and raised his sunglasses.
“Squadron Leader Bigglesworth? SAH!”
The tough but somehow camp figure sprang to attention.
“At ease, Halford. Tell me, what gives?”
“I’ll tell you sir, we….”
Halford paused then indicated a tall man with golden curled hair falling upon his shoulders, who shrieked in an unnaturally high-pitched tone about lemons. Biggles ears hurt, until Halford pulled him away rather over-familiarly. Biggles brushed his companion’s hands from his own intimate areas, and raised his eyebrows.
“Sorry, Sir. We fear that fellow may be a plant.”
“What are you all doing here, Halford?”
“Jerry’s working on some fiendish organ, Sir. We’re all Englishmen, our planes crashed upon this Godforsaken island…”
Biggles peered around an iron maiden and noticed what appeared to be a vampire, a nurse wearing a beret and a large ginger rodent furiously scratching itself.
“It’s the island of the Damned,” he breathed.
“Doomed,” replied the rat.
“Whatever,” sighed Biggles, turning back to his metallic comrade.
“We’ve no communication with the outside world, Sir. The British High Command have been parachuting in guitars, but Jerry has the lads hooked upon certain substances. Just look at their ‘air, Sir.”
“Disgraceful,” agreed Biggles. “Short backs and sides all round when we get out of this, and double Brylcreem rations. If their mothers could see them now…”
“I know ,Sir,” whimpered Halford, once more attempting to slide his hand into Biggles’ jumpsuit, “but now you’re here, perhaps you can whip them into shape.”
“Don’t be unsavoury, Halford. Do you have any intact guitars?”
“Any number, Sir. Gretsch, Les Paul, Flying Vs…”
“Good man! We’ll…”
“But Jerry has all the power, Sir!” Halford sounded desperate, in more ways than one. “They’ve got Fairlight tanks! They hunt us like dogs! We can’t win!”
Despite the hulking studded exterior, Halford fell sobbing to the floor. Biggles noticed unrest among the horde. The big man’s steady drumbeat faltered. Trees began crashing around them. An analog pulsing had the once proud warriors screaming and fleeing like lemmings.
‘********************************
The Fairlight CMI tank burst into the clearing scattering the long-haired former British airmen. Lights flickered across its façade and green laser beams strobed from the turret. Biggles had joined the hurly-burly and found himself crouching behind a large tree next to a bereted trooper whose hair and beard were of an almost acceptable length.
“Captain James Bigglesworth, RFC.”
“Lance-Corporal Thompson of the Tank Corps.”
The pair shook hands briefly in a non-Masonic way and turned back to the carnage in the clearing.
“Is there nothing we can do?” agonised Biggles as several saxon-looking fellows went down under the enormous tracks.
“Those chaps are up to something,” muttered Thompson, indicating a couple of shadowy figures who leapt from tree cover on to the back of the Fairlight. Biggles made out a swarthy looking cove wearing a headband over his African curls and sporting an anachronistic Hussar’s jacket. The other fellow had the worst face fuzz Biggles had ever seen.
“It’s Gibbons and Hendrix! Americans! Now we’ll see something!” Thompson’s morose monotone had soared several octaves and contained a hint of excitement.
To Biggles’ delight, he realised that the intrepid duo were clutching guitars and somehow wiring them into the tank’s outer structure. The two stood up and with Hendrix’ war cry of what sounded like ‘Turtle Craze!’, power chords sprayed the German machine. Flames shot out of portholes, rivets melted, the rhythmic pulsing stuttered. Gibbons was churning out a hybrid Tex-Mex hillbilly blues-rock (although Biggles wouldn’t have known that) when a cover flew back and a psychotic German called Schulze, keyboard slung from his shoulder, scrambled out and began to electronically arpeggio the American. Gibbons screamed as his beard caught fire (meanwhile, back in the forest, Frank Beard’s gibbon caught fire – Aieeee!). The intense German pounded the keys and Gibbons fell. As Schulze swung the 88 black and white death-dealers toward Hendrix, the bandana’d guitar slinger slashed away at his now smouldering once-white geetar. The German reeled back, and the tank seemed to pulse red from within.
“My God,”gasped a stunned Bigglesworth, “he’s playing the American national anthem!”
“Not one for the purists, Sir” muttered the taciturn Thompson, “but it’s far superior to that faceless German techno-bollocks.”
With a tremendous crump the tank, German ivory-tickler and American 101st Airborne axe-wielder went up in an orange-yellow fireball. Pieces of metal, keyboard keys, guitar strings and sizzling pieces of human flesh rained down upon the clearing and into the forest.
“An incredibly brave act of self-sacrifice,” intoned Thompson, making it sound sarcastic.
Biggles removed his flying helmet in tribute.
“They may always be late, those Yanks, but by golly they’ve got some pluck.”
**********************
Thompson walked over to a large rock and pulled up a concealed lid covered with earth. Biggles glanced into the once-hidden pit and gasped. Guitars! The lance-corporal leaned in and extracted a complete red Stratocaster. Biggles felt a lump in his throat as he strapped the magnificent instrument on. He ran through a quick acoustic Kon-tiki. Thompson had selected a 59 Sunburst and reeled off a quick, folky…erm…reel.
“What’s that, Thompson?”
“Just a little thing I started working on before the war, Sir. I was thinking of calling it….Crazy Man Jim.”
The multi-layered reference soared several air miles above Biggles’ noggin.
“If only we had some power…if only we knew where the German base was….”
“Over there, Sir.”
Biggles followed Thompson’s gesturing and, by the light of the still blazing Fairlight wreckage, saw a collection of square, concrete blocks in the Bauhaus style.
They crept towards the buildings. Typically characterless and humourless, thought the airman. There seemed no entrance. Biggles absent-mindedly began to strum Apache. Thompson joined in. Almost subconsciously they began to step in time. Just as the synchronised high kicks came in, a slab of wall moved back, releasing two German sentries who’s chins connected with the toes of Biggles’ and Thompson’s boots.
“By Jove, that’s a stroke of luck!” mused Bigglesworth. “Come on, Thompson. It’s time to beard the Red Baron in his lair!”
“Righto, Sir,” replied Thompson.
‘******************
Bigglesworth and Thompson crept down the dark, dank stone corridor. Biggles had attempted to provide some illumination with his pipe lighter. This had not only revealed some baroque silk tapestries covered in occult symbols, but also set fire to them, so after a desperate struggle and singed fingers, the intrepid brace had returned to pitch blackness.
After what seemed like hours but was in fact minutes, a faint glimmer appeared ahead. The two guitar would-be heroes crept forward. They slunk into a massive chamber. The occupants had obviously dug deep to create a massive pit which was not obvious from outside. Thompson and Biggles stared aghast at the enormous rocket that the pit contained.
They tiptoed down a stone stairway, hewn into the living rock. Halfway down, Biggles noticed an enormous window set into the circular side of the pit. He risked a peek inside. A monocled Von Richtofen, duelling scar livid against his pale cheek, stood above a quaking bound scientist. Biggles lip curled as he recognised another figure within the room ; none other than Commander Cowell, jodhpurs raised to his armpits, the filthy swine who’d sent so many callow, untrained youths out into the hell of war, to meet their ignominious ends at the hands of German technology. The long-maned airmen and spiky, phlegm-filled Tommies might be rough and ready, but they’d slogged their way up through years of training to be ready for this musical conflict.
The glass was too thick to hear what was being said, but Biggles saw the cad Von Richtofen strike the white-coated boffin. What had happened to the Teutonic aristocrat to make him lose all the trappings of a civilised gentleman adventurer? Modern warfare was too brutal, too coarse, too undignified. The airman knew he had to finish things. Thompson tapped him on the shoulder and indicated a door on the other side of the window. The duo crawled beneath the window and tried the door. It opened! Much more easily than they’d expected and they crashed into the room in a tangle of arms, legs, guitars and Webley.
“Bigglesworth!” screamed the Red Baron, pulling a luger from his waistband. Cowell attempted the same but it proved too high. The Webley spat flame, and the luger flew into a large machine covered in tape reels. Sparks flew. Von Richtofen dived for a stylophone on a table at the other side of the room as Thompson and Biggles plugged in.
“Don’t try it, Baron!” warned Biggles, donning a pair of horn rimmed glasses.
“Lawks a mercy, it’s ol’ Biggles.” Croaked the badly tortured (and written) scientist.
“Good heavens, if it isn’t top British propulsion expert Terence Harris MBE,” gasped Biggles in recognition. Thompson had darted forward, cut the ropes binding Harris and produced a hitherto concealed bass guitar, which he’d had the foresight to plug in alongside his own Stratocaster.
The three Brits stood as one before Von Richtofen and the still struggling fifth columnist.
A feeble beep emitted from the Red Baron’s even feebler instrument.
“Gentlemen,” said Biggles, “as a tribute to our fallen American comrades, I suggest FBI.”
The twanging began.
‘***********************
Cowell slumped back against the still fizzing computer as the glorious US-flavoured British instrumental rang out around the control room. Von Richtofen’s stylophone exploded with an anticlimactic pop and the German air ace crawled across the room, hands clasped to ears. Just as Biggles attempted a tricky frill, the Baron’s black-gloved hand reached up and pulled a lever. The computer swung outward crushing Cowell and released a small horde of squat, befurred, long-snouted beasts into the room. The Brits immaculate playing ended in jangling discord as the creatures seized the guitars and attemped their own cacophonous racket. Biggles had spotted the Baron sneaking through the new doorway after the things had invaded, so beckoned Thompson and Harris to follow him into the unknown.
“What a row!” groaned Thompson.
“Yes, Remember You’re A Vomble isn’t one of their best,” supplied Harris.
“You know about those….creatures?” croaked an astounded Bigglesworth.
“Yes, giant mutated voles, developed by the Germans to act as clear up squads for their rocket project.”
“Will those swine stop at nothing?” groaned the airman as he and his allies ran down yet another stone corridor. The horrific mutant wearing the shreds of what appeared to be a French maid’s outfit had given Biggles a flashback to a memorable weekend spent with Mrs Kensington at the Hotel Du Bonque in Paris in those balmy pre-War days. Her steaming baps passed before his eyes. What a baker she was!
The trio screeched to a halt as they rounded a corner and saw an exhausted Red Baron clutching the biggest lever any of them had ever seen. It was marked Do Not Pull. In German.
“Stay back, Britscher Schwein! Or ve all go up togezzer!”
“Come on, Baron. Admit it, the game’s up,” said Biggles, attempting to keep his voice steady, and work out how many bullets remained in his Webley.
“Never! D’you hear me, Bigglesworth! Never! If you think the world wants to hear your krap jingling guitars, and drink tea, and have their vimmen schmartly turned out, you couldn’t be more wrong. They want orderly, precise Deutsch elektonische bleeping, bier und Valkyries!”
Biggles fired, and Von Richtofen fell. The lever, seized in his death grip, was pulled. An ominous rumbling came from behind them and the corridor began to fill with steam. The faint echo of Vombling Vite Tie Und Tails could just be made out.
“Made a bit of a hash of that one, Sir,” muttered Thompson less than tactfully. The three men hurried up the corridor and burst out through an escape hatch by the forest’s edge, just ahead of the flames from the rocket’s jet mechanism. The concrete buildings scattered like children’s building blocks as the ground heaved upward and the huge, thrusting, glistening, phallic peni…er…rocket surged up into the air.
Harris sat down on a tree root.
“Bang goes London,” he said despondently, with an accusatory glance at Biggles.
Thompson whistled Crazy Man Jim and looked away.
All three jumped as the air was rent with a terrific explosion. Biggles looked up to see the remains of the rocket crashing to earth to blow up once again and burn down the forest. Two smouldering airmen swinging beneath two smouldering parachutes glided gently down in front of the Brits.
“Ginger! Algy!” bellowed Biggles heartily. “Thank goodness. Well done, chaps! You’ve saved the day!”
“Have we?” moaned a dazed Algy. “We commandeered the CO’s SE5A to come and look for you. We saw this island and then that flippin’ great rocket shot up from the earth and hit us. The COs going to be hopping mad.”
“You’re heroes, both. Wait! Don’t move, Ginger. What’s that grotesque metallic growth on your shoulder?”
Biggles aimed the Webley.
“Don’t worry, Skip. It’s a beatbox. Listen to this.”
Ginger pressed a button. Biggles closed his eyes as 90125 rang out. He fired, praising the Lord that he’d retained one bullet for just such an emergency. The .45 calibre slug shattered both Ginger’s music maker and his hopes of turning his commander onto shite eighties Yes.
The free world was safe once again.
END
Captain James ‘Biggles’ Bigglesworth strode into the officer’s mess and wrenched the 78 rpm disc from the gramophone, stopping the caterwauling in mid-flow and brought the record down smartly upon his raised knee, snapping it symmetrically in half. Algy and Ginger were caught in mid-vogue and were still lip-synching to Owner Of A Lonely Heart.
‘Must we fling this filth at our pop kids?’ growled Bigglesworth, consigning the ruptured recording to the wicker wastepaper basket, before turning to his shamefaced junior officers.
‘Come on chaps,’ he said, his tone softening, ‘ I could just about stand Roundabout, but this…’
‘It’s got a good beat,’ muttered Ginger, defiantly.
‘Would Don’t Kill The Whale be more appropriate, Sir?’ enquired Algy brightly, with a hopeful salute.
Biggles sighed, and jammed his pipe into his mouth. As he lit up he looked out of the window, watching the Tommies march by humming Sham 69’s Tell Us The Truth as they headed towards the trenches and certain death, he thought longingly of his Shadows albums back in Blighty, almost certainly being dusted lovingly by Mrs. Kensington, his housekeeper. If it were just a question of morale, he could perhaps relax his exacting musical attitude….
Biggles watched in horror as the Tommies’ rigid marching structure fell apart, and men crashed to the ground, clutching their ears. Groans of pain and screams of agony were drowned out by electronic blips and beeps.
‘It’s Baron Von Richtofen and the Kraftwerk Squadron!’ shrieked Ginger. ‘We’re doomed!’
Algy was ringing the bell furiously as Biggles led his men toward the biplanes. As he threw himself into the cockpit, he shot a glance skyward. The Baron waved dramatically and Biggles could have sworn he smiled as, flanked by Hutter and Schneider, he once more strafed the corner of France that was forever England with ghastly Teutonic cacophonies.
Sergeant Dury spun the prop as Costello and Lowe pulled the chocks from in front of the wheels, and Biggles was bouncing across the turf. As he left the earth, the Squadron Leader saw even more terror in the air. Kapitan Froese and his enormous tangerine dream of a zeppelin was blotting out the sunlight, huge speakers strapped to the gondola blaring out even more discordant synthesia.
Biggles soared aloft. A quick glance to either side revealed Ginger and Algy struggling to keep up, grim-faced in their Camels, so like that of poor Ollie Murs, still wet behind the ears, selected for the front with no training or experience, and gunned down mercilessly by the Red Baron, who even had time to strafe Commander Cowell and spray Cheryl Cole. War is hell!
As the ElektroBosch destroyed the airfield, Biggles pondered his options. Top British scientists like Dolby and Numan were working on similar hellish weapons of mass destruction, but this new-fangled warfare was no substitute for bullets, bayonets and, even better, fists. Rumours abounded that the Hun were developing even more terrible means of killing, with mysterious and sinister codenames such as Can and Faust and Neu.
Captain Calvert roared past in his silver machine, machine guns blazing. Corporal Kilminster, in the black painted Sopwith Motorhead, with its distinctive war-pig emblazoned upon the side, followed.
The noise was deafening. As Biggles swooped and dived between the smoke, clouds, burning aeroplanes, tracer fire and dogfights, he tapped his foot, thought once more of that wonderful land and began to close in on the Baron.
With an ear-splitting hiss and the trance like chant of ‘Trans-Europ Express’ the Red Baron wheeled his craft through the sky, calmly trying to avoid Biggles, dog-like upon his tail. Bigglesworth was close enough to see the small painted faces alongside the Baron’s cockpit – forgotten warriors Shayne Ward, Steve Brookstein, Andy Abrahams, One True Voice, talented amateurs not seasoned airmen…when he caught sight of the miniature oils of Leona Lewis and Alexandra Burke, Biggles seethed. The swine even counted women amongst his kills! There were no gentlemen in war any more.
Biggles watched the Baron’s face tighten as the Englishman’s thumb caressed the firing button of his twin Galacia machine guns. The thumb stabbed downward. Dual pieces of wood protruded from the gun barrels and small white flags with the word BANG! in black over a yellow explosion fluttered in the breeze. Bastard defence cuts! There was nothing for it. Bigglesworth eased the more powerful Allied machine forward. The whirring Hodges propeller (manufactured in Walthamstow E17) began to tear apart the triplane’s tail.
As Von Richtofen plummeted earthwards, Biggles noticed that they had overshot the French coastline, and the German aristocrat was making for a small island. He also realised that they were alone in the blue yonder. Easing the joystick forward, and thinking of Mrs. Kensington’s buns, Biggles headed downward.
****************
The crimson triplane touched down on what looked suspiciously like a man-made airstrip. Biggles circled once, like a circle in a spiral ,like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning, before landing himself. No other figure had approached the grounded ‘plane and Von Richtofen had dashed for the cover of some rocks, no doubt to draw his Mauser and a bead on his nemesis’ heart.
The Webley .45 nestled comfortably in Biggles’ gauntleted hand, as he sprang from the cockpit and marched fearlessly to stand before the stony outcrop.
“Baron!” bellowed the staunch airman. “Come out of there! Let’s settle this like men! I would have said gentlemen, but your callous murder of womenfolk is a bestial sin, surmounted only by your glorying in this kind of maniacal bloodshed!”
“Piss off, Bigglesworth!” came the spirited reply.
That did it. Biggles sprinted for the cover of some nearby shrubs, hurling himself into the protective green, to discover some less than protective brown concealed within.
“Shit,” cursed Biggles accurately
***************
Bigglesworth wormed his way through the undergrowth into a dark wood, breathing through his mouth. He could detect no sound from behind him, and wondered about Von Richtofen’s plans and whereabouts. Once inside the forest, he crawled towards the sound of splashing water. A woodland glade containing a small waterfall, surrounded by stone roses, that tinkled into a deep pool was revealed to him. Every nerve end tingling, Biggles shed his clothes, washed himself then his garments to remove the ordure, hung his flying suit upon a convenient branch , and crouched on guard, pistol rampant. Realising that he was crouching over a small clump of stinging nettles, Bigglesworth writhed in silent agony for a few moments, then soothed his genitalia with a dock leaf.
Biggles waited.
Nothing happened.
Worry about appearing in a Morrissey solo single caused the squadron leader to reclothe himself in the still damp attire. Was it his imagination, or was it getting dark? Too dark to see? A loud thump made the ace pilot jump. It sounded like bone striking taut animal hide stretched over a hollow vessel. Biggles edged forward through the wood until he fell over a smashed crate. The shattered wood still had a small parachute attached. Supplies? But what? And for whom?
Bigglesworth examined the crate, and pulled out a red Stratocaster. His joy turned to horror as he surveyed the broken neck. Checking the Webley, he made his way toward the by now rhythmic thumping.
The sound was tremendous. In a clearing before a steep cliff, long-haired troglodyte figures clad in rough blue material decked in tin roundels and patches of cloth covered with mystic runes, banged their heads in time to the thumping. A large bearded fellow clad in white overalls and with what appeared incongruously to Biggles to be a bowler hat perched atop his flowing locks clutched two enormous dinosaurial shin bones and continued to pound the stretched skin. A large block of stone stood altar-like in front of the cliff, and before it capered a lunatic shaman, blue-tinted goggles shielding his eyes, his skin inked with appalling scenes of hell. Biggles struggled to make out his slurred speech. At first he thought it had a debauched LA twang, but there was something beneath it. Brummie? Bigglesworth glanced again. Could it be….?
A fug of scented vapour arose from the crowd. Biggles (against his better judgement) couldn’t help inhaling. Was that a fairy wearing boots? What the …?
An iron man approached him. No, a man of British steel, the light of fires glimmering upon his studs. Unlike the others, he was hairless. Aviator shades hid his eyes, but he too seemed familiar. Biggles leaned forward.
“Judas Priest! Halford?”
The metalled figure jumped and raised his sunglasses.
“Squadron Leader Bigglesworth? SAH!”
The tough but somehow camp figure sprang to attention.
“At ease, Halford. Tell me, what gives?”
“I’ll tell you sir, we….”
Halford paused then indicated a tall man with golden curled hair falling upon his shoulders, who shrieked in an unnaturally high-pitched tone about lemons. Biggles ears hurt, until Halford pulled him away rather over-familiarly. Biggles brushed his companion’s hands from his own intimate areas, and raised his eyebrows.
“Sorry, Sir. We fear that fellow may be a plant.”
“What are you all doing here, Halford?”
“Jerry’s working on some fiendish organ, Sir. We’re all Englishmen, our planes crashed upon this Godforsaken island…”
Biggles peered around an iron maiden and noticed what appeared to be a vampire, a nurse wearing a beret and a large ginger rodent furiously scratching itself.
“It’s the island of the Damned,” he breathed.
“Doomed,” replied the rat.
“Whatever,” sighed Biggles, turning back to his metallic comrade.
“We’ve no communication with the outside world, Sir. The British High Command have been parachuting in guitars, but Jerry has the lads hooked upon certain substances. Just look at their ‘air, Sir.”
“Disgraceful,” agreed Biggles. “Short backs and sides all round when we get out of this, and double Brylcreem rations. If their mothers could see them now…”
“I know ,Sir,” whimpered Halford, once more attempting to slide his hand into Biggles’ jumpsuit, “but now you’re here, perhaps you can whip them into shape.”
“Don’t be unsavoury, Halford. Do you have any intact guitars?”
“Any number, Sir. Gretsch, Les Paul, Flying Vs…”
“Good man! We’ll…”
“But Jerry has all the power, Sir!” Halford sounded desperate, in more ways than one. “They’ve got Fairlight tanks! They hunt us like dogs! We can’t win!”
Despite the hulking studded exterior, Halford fell sobbing to the floor. Biggles noticed unrest among the horde. The big man’s steady drumbeat faltered. Trees began crashing around them. An analog pulsing had the once proud warriors screaming and fleeing like lemmings.
‘********************************
The Fairlight CMI tank burst into the clearing scattering the long-haired former British airmen. Lights flickered across its façade and green laser beams strobed from the turret. Biggles had joined the hurly-burly and found himself crouching behind a large tree next to a bereted trooper whose hair and beard were of an almost acceptable length.
“Captain James Bigglesworth, RFC.”
“Lance-Corporal Thompson of the Tank Corps.”
The pair shook hands briefly in a non-Masonic way and turned back to the carnage in the clearing.
“Is there nothing we can do?” agonised Biggles as several saxon-looking fellows went down under the enormous tracks.
“Those chaps are up to something,” muttered Thompson, indicating a couple of shadowy figures who leapt from tree cover on to the back of the Fairlight. Biggles made out a swarthy looking cove wearing a headband over his African curls and sporting an anachronistic Hussar’s jacket. The other fellow had the worst face fuzz Biggles had ever seen.
“It’s Gibbons and Hendrix! Americans! Now we’ll see something!” Thompson’s morose monotone had soared several octaves and contained a hint of excitement.
To Biggles’ delight, he realised that the intrepid duo were clutching guitars and somehow wiring them into the tank’s outer structure. The two stood up and with Hendrix’ war cry of what sounded like ‘Turtle Craze!’, power chords sprayed the German machine. Flames shot out of portholes, rivets melted, the rhythmic pulsing stuttered. Gibbons was churning out a hybrid Tex-Mex hillbilly blues-rock (although Biggles wouldn’t have known that) when a cover flew back and a psychotic German called Schulze, keyboard slung from his shoulder, scrambled out and began to electronically arpeggio the American. Gibbons screamed as his beard caught fire (meanwhile, back in the forest, Frank Beard’s gibbon caught fire – Aieeee!). The intense German pounded the keys and Gibbons fell. As Schulze swung the 88 black and white death-dealers toward Hendrix, the bandana’d guitar slinger slashed away at his now smouldering once-white geetar. The German reeled back, and the tank seemed to pulse red from within.
“My God,”gasped a stunned Bigglesworth, “he’s playing the American national anthem!”
“Not one for the purists, Sir” muttered the taciturn Thompson, “but it’s far superior to that faceless German techno-bollocks.”
With a tremendous crump the tank, German ivory-tickler and American 101st Airborne axe-wielder went up in an orange-yellow fireball. Pieces of metal, keyboard keys, guitar strings and sizzling pieces of human flesh rained down upon the clearing and into the forest.
“An incredibly brave act of self-sacrifice,” intoned Thompson, making it sound sarcastic.
Biggles removed his flying helmet in tribute.
“They may always be late, those Yanks, but by golly they’ve got some pluck.”
**********************
Thompson walked over to a large rock and pulled up a concealed lid covered with earth. Biggles glanced into the once-hidden pit and gasped. Guitars! The lance-corporal leaned in and extracted a complete red Stratocaster. Biggles felt a lump in his throat as he strapped the magnificent instrument on. He ran through a quick acoustic Kon-tiki. Thompson had selected a 59 Sunburst and reeled off a quick, folky…erm…reel.
“What’s that, Thompson?”
“Just a little thing I started working on before the war, Sir. I was thinking of calling it….Crazy Man Jim.”
The multi-layered reference soared several air miles above Biggles’ noggin.
“If only we had some power…if only we knew where the German base was….”
“Over there, Sir.”
Biggles followed Thompson’s gesturing and, by the light of the still blazing Fairlight wreckage, saw a collection of square, concrete blocks in the Bauhaus style.
They crept towards the buildings. Typically characterless and humourless, thought the airman. There seemed no entrance. Biggles absent-mindedly began to strum Apache. Thompson joined in. Almost subconsciously they began to step in time. Just as the synchronised high kicks came in, a slab of wall moved back, releasing two German sentries who’s chins connected with the toes of Biggles’ and Thompson’s boots.
“By Jove, that’s a stroke of luck!” mused Bigglesworth. “Come on, Thompson. It’s time to beard the Red Baron in his lair!”
“Righto, Sir,” replied Thompson.
‘******************
Bigglesworth and Thompson crept down the dark, dank stone corridor. Biggles had attempted to provide some illumination with his pipe lighter. This had not only revealed some baroque silk tapestries covered in occult symbols, but also set fire to them, so after a desperate struggle and singed fingers, the intrepid brace had returned to pitch blackness.
After what seemed like hours but was in fact minutes, a faint glimmer appeared ahead. The two guitar would-be heroes crept forward. They slunk into a massive chamber. The occupants had obviously dug deep to create a massive pit which was not obvious from outside. Thompson and Biggles stared aghast at the enormous rocket that the pit contained.
They tiptoed down a stone stairway, hewn into the living rock. Halfway down, Biggles noticed an enormous window set into the circular side of the pit. He risked a peek inside. A monocled Von Richtofen, duelling scar livid against his pale cheek, stood above a quaking bound scientist. Biggles lip curled as he recognised another figure within the room ; none other than Commander Cowell, jodhpurs raised to his armpits, the filthy swine who’d sent so many callow, untrained youths out into the hell of war, to meet their ignominious ends at the hands of German technology. The long-maned airmen and spiky, phlegm-filled Tommies might be rough and ready, but they’d slogged their way up through years of training to be ready for this musical conflict.
The glass was too thick to hear what was being said, but Biggles saw the cad Von Richtofen strike the white-coated boffin. What had happened to the Teutonic aristocrat to make him lose all the trappings of a civilised gentleman adventurer? Modern warfare was too brutal, too coarse, too undignified. The airman knew he had to finish things. Thompson tapped him on the shoulder and indicated a door on the other side of the window. The duo crawled beneath the window and tried the door. It opened! Much more easily than they’d expected and they crashed into the room in a tangle of arms, legs, guitars and Webley.
“Bigglesworth!” screamed the Red Baron, pulling a luger from his waistband. Cowell attempted the same but it proved too high. The Webley spat flame, and the luger flew into a large machine covered in tape reels. Sparks flew. Von Richtofen dived for a stylophone on a table at the other side of the room as Thompson and Biggles plugged in.
“Don’t try it, Baron!” warned Biggles, donning a pair of horn rimmed glasses.
“Lawks a mercy, it’s ol’ Biggles.” Croaked the badly tortured (and written) scientist.
“Good heavens, if it isn’t top British propulsion expert Terence Harris MBE,” gasped Biggles in recognition. Thompson had darted forward, cut the ropes binding Harris and produced a hitherto concealed bass guitar, which he’d had the foresight to plug in alongside his own Stratocaster.
The three Brits stood as one before Von Richtofen and the still struggling fifth columnist.
A feeble beep emitted from the Red Baron’s even feebler instrument.
“Gentlemen,” said Biggles, “as a tribute to our fallen American comrades, I suggest FBI.”
The twanging began.
‘***********************
Cowell slumped back against the still fizzing computer as the glorious US-flavoured British instrumental rang out around the control room. Von Richtofen’s stylophone exploded with an anticlimactic pop and the German air ace crawled across the room, hands clasped to ears. Just as Biggles attempted a tricky frill, the Baron’s black-gloved hand reached up and pulled a lever. The computer swung outward crushing Cowell and released a small horde of squat, befurred, long-snouted beasts into the room. The Brits immaculate playing ended in jangling discord as the creatures seized the guitars and attemped their own cacophonous racket. Biggles had spotted the Baron sneaking through the new doorway after the things had invaded, so beckoned Thompson and Harris to follow him into the unknown.
“What a row!” groaned Thompson.
“Yes, Remember You’re A Vomble isn’t one of their best,” supplied Harris.
“You know about those….creatures?” croaked an astounded Bigglesworth.
“Yes, giant mutated voles, developed by the Germans to act as clear up squads for their rocket project.”
“Will those swine stop at nothing?” groaned the airman as he and his allies ran down yet another stone corridor. The horrific mutant wearing the shreds of what appeared to be a French maid’s outfit had given Biggles a flashback to a memorable weekend spent with Mrs Kensington at the Hotel Du Bonque in Paris in those balmy pre-War days. Her steaming baps passed before his eyes. What a baker she was!
The trio screeched to a halt as they rounded a corner and saw an exhausted Red Baron clutching the biggest lever any of them had ever seen. It was marked Do Not Pull. In German.
“Stay back, Britscher Schwein! Or ve all go up togezzer!”
“Come on, Baron. Admit it, the game’s up,” said Biggles, attempting to keep his voice steady, and work out how many bullets remained in his Webley.
“Never! D’you hear me, Bigglesworth! Never! If you think the world wants to hear your krap jingling guitars, and drink tea, and have their vimmen schmartly turned out, you couldn’t be more wrong. They want orderly, precise Deutsch elektonische bleeping, bier und Valkyries!”
Biggles fired, and Von Richtofen fell. The lever, seized in his death grip, was pulled. An ominous rumbling came from behind them and the corridor began to fill with steam. The faint echo of Vombling Vite Tie Und Tails could just be made out.
“Made a bit of a hash of that one, Sir,” muttered Thompson less than tactfully. The three men hurried up the corridor and burst out through an escape hatch by the forest’s edge, just ahead of the flames from the rocket’s jet mechanism. The concrete buildings scattered like children’s building blocks as the ground heaved upward and the huge, thrusting, glistening, phallic peni…er…rocket surged up into the air.
Harris sat down on a tree root.
“Bang goes London,” he said despondently, with an accusatory glance at Biggles.
Thompson whistled Crazy Man Jim and looked away.
All three jumped as the air was rent with a terrific explosion. Biggles looked up to see the remains of the rocket crashing to earth to blow up once again and burn down the forest. Two smouldering airmen swinging beneath two smouldering parachutes glided gently down in front of the Brits.
“Ginger! Algy!” bellowed Biggles heartily. “Thank goodness. Well done, chaps! You’ve saved the day!”
“Have we?” moaned a dazed Algy. “We commandeered the CO’s SE5A to come and look for you. We saw this island and then that flippin’ great rocket shot up from the earth and hit us. The COs going to be hopping mad.”
“You’re heroes, both. Wait! Don’t move, Ginger. What’s that grotesque metallic growth on your shoulder?”
Biggles aimed the Webley.
“Don’t worry, Skip. It’s a beatbox. Listen to this.”
Ginger pressed a button. Biggles closed his eyes as 90125 rang out. He fired, praising the Lord that he’d retained one bullet for just such an emergency. The .45 calibre slug shattered both Ginger’s music maker and his hopes of turning his commander onto shite eighties Yes.
The free world was safe once again.
END