NGLND XPX

by Ian Hutson

  ‘These annals. This annal. Exactly which name will be passed down through it? My nickname Mothballs or my real name Sir? I think my mother would prefer it if there was any way that my real name could be used.’

  The Brigadier looked pained. ‘Well I don’t think we’ll be instituting some sort of “Mothballs’ Day” in your honour, should you succeed. Let’s stick to Cholmondeley Day shall we? It’ll look better on the school sports cups and certificates. First Place on the Cholmondeley High Jump, that sort of thing. Couldn’t have the little buggers being Runner Up on Mothballs Day. Doesn’t sound right. Tell your mother it will have to be your real name and she’ll just have to get used to the idea.’

  ‘Splendid.’ Cholmondeley felt a knot form in his guts and drifted off into a reverie. He could see his name painted high among those of his fellow Englishmen on the old school achievement board: Saint George; Henry VIII; Elizabeth I (a bloke of course in reality; clothing consisted of lots and lots of layers in those days, even when stark bollock royally naked); Sir Francis Drake; Sir Walter Raleigh; Sir Winston Churchill; Brunel; Shakespeare; Darwin; Newton; Nelson; Cromwell; Julie Andrews; Diana Rigg; David Beckham; Babbage; Bader; Cook; Dr Who; Dickens; Elgar; Faraday; Lieutenant Chard; Hawking; Montgomery; Morcambe; Scott; Stephenson; Savery; Newcomen; Ned Ludd; Joanna Lumley (post-op); Blackadder (pre-op); Scrooge; Turing; Wallis; Wilberforce; Whittle; Dame Kenny Everett; Lord Frankie Howerd; Sir Margaret Rutherford; Captain Hornblower; Captain Scarlet; Joe 90; Biggles, God... and soon enough, Reginald Eugene Emeline Charlotte “Mothballs” Cholmondeley.

  He came back down to earth, patted his pistol holster and said ‘Well, if you put it that way Sir...’

  ‘Splendid, splendid – we’ll leave you to sort out all of the details then. Toodle-pip.’

  With that Cholmondeley suddenly found himself alone among a whirlwind of technical blueprints, blackboards full of heat-gradient formulae and bewildering phrases such as “thermal unit” and “ballcock backflow”, all chalked in capitals. There were also two dozen white-coated practical scientists beaming proudly through coke-bottle spectacles and waving joke false hands poked from the sleeves of their lab-coats. Some of them were waving in entirely the wrong direction and one or two were chewing on the joke hands. Cholmondeley unbuttoned his holster and moved slowly towards them.

  A bare twenty-four hours and just eight square meals later all of the necessary icky science stuff had been hammered out. All that remained was for a man of the world, someone trustworthy, someone fearless and a born leader of men to put it into action.

  In lieu of such a man to whom to delegate the task Cholmondeley continued in the role himself. He drove himself, and his dog, in his MGB GT to RAF Mothbawlls.

  Always with the mothballs. His life was dominated by mothballs. His crib had been scattered with them, his cot had been scattered with them, puberty had left him with a pair of them in his rugby shorts and all through his professional life he’d been taunted by them and haunted by them. He’d telegraphed the Ministry of Defence to request use of RAF Chocksaway or RAF Wherethehellareyousimon, but to no avail.

  Still, in the final analysis, is there anything more comfortable than a battered leather club chair in an Officers Mess? Cholmondeley didn’t think so and nor did the Labrador at his feet. The Labrador was called “Shakespeare” and, like his namesake, he didn’t think much at all really, except “food” and “wow, sexy leg or what?” and “this cushion will be the mother of my puppies” and “food” and “pee” and “walkies” and “food”. Cholmondeley and Shakespeare were well-matched psychologically. There were days – even whole months – when Cholmondeley’s thoughts remained at a simple Shakespearean level. This evening though, even as the Hendricks in his glass slowly, portentously melted the ice-cubes, he was a worried man. The task at hand task loomed large.

  Even the amber glow from the wireless cabinet’s display could do nothing to pull his eyes away from the painted-metal framed window that overlooked the airfield. Standing out there, and tended only by three nesting woodpigeons and a weekly drive-by check from the Military Police, stood two of the Ministry of Defence’s scant dozen or so serviceable Morris Space-Travellers. Various vapours that he had never quite fully understood settled from the various wholly misunderstood vents on the little-understood casings. High on the noses of the rockets the last rays of the English sun glinted on the chrome-finish radiator grills. Had the craft been the newer, more expensive Wolseley Six models there would have been a little badges on the noses that lit up when the sidelights were turned on. However, the transverse rocket engines of the new, more expensive Wolseleys gave grave concern to the quartermaster, and so the success of this mission was entrusted rather to the timber-framed Moggies with the funny exhaust note on the over-run.

  Cholmondeley was disturbed in his reverie by Higginbotham. Everyone was disturbed in their reverie at some time by Higginbotham, but he was the English space industry’s leading expert on the use of Yorkshire-mined small-lump carbon as a propellant and thus was accorded a certain flexibility in regards to his dress and mannerisms. In short, Higginbotham was ruddy weird but rather unfortunately essential.

  ‘Magnificent sight, aren’t they?’ he said, scratching the family jewels absentmindedly and leading Cholmondeley thus to an initial misunderstanding.

  Higginbotham settled into a club chair – Cholmondeley was relieved that it was not the one he was occupying but another, quite separate one. Higginbotham wasn’t quite married, do you see? One couldn’t entirely be certain of a chap who had reached his mid-thirties without providin’ an heir to someone of a feminine, family bent. There had been... rumours. Cholmondeley knew this for a fact, since he’d started the rumours himself.

  Shakespeare considered Higginbotham’s legs but decided against romantic congress in favour of passing wind, followed by more sleep, and dreaming about better legs than Higginbotham’s.

  ‘Magnificent, yes. Will they get the job done, do you think?’ said Cholmondeley, hoping upon hope that Higginbotham didn’t suffer a similar misunderstanding to his own from a few moments ago and take his comments as a compliment.

  ‘Oh absolutely. Solidly built, sufficient turn of speed – they’ll get us there alright.’

  ‘What about back again?’

  ‘Probably back again too, so long as we keep an eye on the oil levels. Another G&T?’

  ‘Thank you, yes.’

  The voice on the wireless announced that it was time for the national news. Cholmondeley signalled to a small portable (possibly potable, in national nutritional extremis) mess steward to turn the “volume” potentiometer towards the upper extremis, and the whole mess went quiet as they all listened.

  Prime Minister Boris Johnson dominated the slot with yet another interminably long speech. Perhaps the most disquieting thing was that the longer Boris stayed in office the more he sounded like a very camp, slightly inebriated and low-IQ version of Winston Churchill.

  ... ‘Ooh 'ello. I am shpeaking to you today from the Cabinet Room of Number 10 Dining Street in order to relay to you, the English peoples of the world, further details of what is being done on your behalf by your government, and by others, to ameliorate the effects of the enormous chuffing space-thingy that is rushing towards our country. That is to say, in specifically, the hurtling Comet bearing the designation LooksLikeABigBuggerToMeCyril. The combined forces of the world super-powers: China; Germany; India and The Vatican have today issued a communique via the Foxx-Reuters Bad-News Agency to the effect that they are pooling their nuclear missile capabilities and assuring the world that they will soon “shoot that mother heifer out of the sky, ooh yeah, go to defcon one Angela mein lovely frau mit großen political brusten”. The peoples of the United States of Northern America, and those of the Union of Soviet Capitalist Russian Republics, continue to assist by taking every opportunity to fire at the comet with hand-guns. The Chinese peoples have responded bravely with several hundreds of thousands of tons of fire-crackers an
d rockets, and our Indian allies are also busying themselves in meditation, and in the Ganges. The Church of England is preparing a special sermon to be read later in the year.’

  ‘In the international arena of super-powers, England is taking her modern place by making the tea and coffee as only we know how, and by very neatly taking the minutes of the meetings in cursive writing and in blue-black fountain-pen ink. In-between, your Ambassadors and Cabinet Ministers are doing absolutely all that may be done, by tidying the chairs and making sure that when the powers that be reconvene in the World Government Chamber, absolutely everyone important has a fresh notepad and at least two sharp pencils. The rest of Europe, we are told, that which is not Germany, is taking care of re-filling the water decanters and straightening the blotting pads and the name-plates. During the meetings, we are standing quietly, but resolutely, on your behalf, by the door, soaking in this intelligence.’

  ‘The panic and riots in Abroad continue unabated, hampering our combined global efforts to meet this challenge, and I must thank the English people for your continued forbearance and restraint. Your trust in your government is not misplaced, and although we may need to levy several extra taxes of course, we shall prevail.’

  ‘Although we have offered our fullest co-operation to the international super-powers, your government is, of course, also pursuing a solution by independent English means. To that end our armed services are working tirelessly on your behalf in combination with our top scientists and great thinkers, and I can tell you today that within the next twenty-hour hours a sure and certain solution to the whole problem will be launched from our Space Centre deep in the heart of the shires.’

  ‘Two brave chaps and true will be launched into space using the latest English orbital and extra-orbital technology from Austin-Morris. More than that I dare not say except to wish them well and to assure you, the English peoples of the world, that when we have news, as I hope we shall soon have news, it will be relayed to you as fast as may be, using every means at our disposal. In the meantime I ask of you this. Use whatever means you have at hand to prepare to meet the hour of our testing. Dig bunkers on the beaches, dig bunkers in the streets, dig bunkers in the fields and in the schoolyards. Share essential supplies among your community and among your neighbours, keep a weather ear to your wireless sets and, above all, maintain your dignity and reserve.’ ...

  There then followed a summary of the shipping forecast for the following day and a commercial inducement to drink the new bed-time wonder health-drink Horlicks whenever possible. The steward stepped forward and manipulated the “volume” potentiometer again to a more comfortable background level suited to light entertainment. Shakespeare farted, although not close enough to the glowing orange element on the electric fire to have any pyrotechnic effect. He had a most uncomfortable-looking erection and even though he was asleep his hind end appeared to be engaged in the business of making Labrador leg babies with something not entirely consenting.

  The following evening, somewhere in the heart of the picturesque, en-wolded, folded northern shire of Lincoln, Cholmondeley’s mother looked out of the casement window of her small fourteen-bedroom, sixteen-bathroom, three-kitchen and stables dowager cottage and watched as a half-timbered shooting star travelled across the night sky in entirely a most unusual direction. The tail-lights of a Morris rushed to meet the single headlight of the nasty extinction-level comet. Her son was off, and running.

  She pushed back a lock of greying hair (on her head, not her chest), dabbed at an emotional tear and whispered a message to her beloved and only son who was well on his way into space. ‘Just don’t cock this up like everything else you touch, you inadequate little wanker.’ Then she went back to her indoor hydroponics garden in the attic. She was still installing additional anti-surveillance-helicopter insulation when Cholmondeley-san landed on the comet’s icy surface and began un-strapping vital equipment from the roof-rack of the expedition Morris (like sheep, Morris are their own plural).

  It took them virtually the whole day to build the necessary timber expedition huts, scout the lie of the land and then lay out the system of cunning pre-fabricated exothermic devices. It took even longer to get a fire started for, while both men had been either a Boy Scout or a Girl Guide, or in Cholmondeley’s case, both a Boy Scout and a Girl Guide for six glorious weeks one summer in Mablethorpe, neither of them had qualified for any of the more practical field-craft badges such as “Basic Arson”. Cholmondeley could sew a large button on a man’s bathing suit at a pinch. Higginbotham’s raison de not getting beaten up as often as he might otherwise was that he could tie a knot in a cherry-stalk with his tongue. Other than that they were entirely formally unqualified.

  Since he was the more muscular of the pair Cholmondeley set about unpacking the furniture while Higginbotham tackled making egg, chips and beans in some very uncertain gravity. It’s difficult frying an egg when it won’t lie flat and keeps drifting off and, quite frankly, cooking chips bordered on the terrifying despite the assurances of his copy of Delia. It’s quite difficult heating oil to three hundred and ninety-two of the fahrengezundheits when it seemed keen to wander out of the pan and gather in odd corners of the makeshift kitchen.

  Still, was there anything more comfortable than a battered leather club chair in a creaking old wooden shack on an extinction-level comet speeding towards planet Earth? Cholmondeley didn’t think so and nor did the Labrador at his feet. Shakespeare didn’t think much at all really, even now and in space, except perhaps “tubes of dog-food paste” and “wow, sexy pressurisation leg-brace or what?” and “this travel-cushion will be the mother of my space-puppies” and “how the hell do I get this goldfish-bowl off my head so that I can lick my genitals?” There were days, even whole months, when Cholmondeley’s thoughts remained at a similar level even though he knew how to get the goldfish-bowl off his head (although, having left puberty far behind, he no longer tried to lick his own genitals). This evening though, as the Hendricks’s in his glass slowly melted the comet-ice cubes in his glass, he was a worried man.

  Even the amber glow from the small wireless set’s display could do nothing to pull his eyes away from the rough wood-framed window that overlooked the Field of Operations. Out there, covered in a thick frost that would be a real bit of a bugger to scrape off when they were leaving, stood two of the Ministry of Defence’s finest relatively low-mileage Morris Space-Travellers. They were both gently dripping oil from their engine sumps.

  Cholmondeley opened the little square hatch on the front of his goldfish-bowl helmet, stuck in a match and re-lit his Calabash of Aromatic Bishop’s Gusset. Seconds after he closed the hatch again he resembled nothing more than a humanoid body in airtight space-tweeds, magnetic brogues and with a goldfish-bowl full of swirling grey-blue smoke where the human head would more ordinarily be. Periodically he re-opened the hatch and poured in a little gin (a keen observer would have noted that there were eight “littles” to the bottle). Whenever he took a draw on the Calabash pipe the embers glowed amid the tobacco smoke, looking rather disturbingly like some walnut-sized alien brain pulsating as it formulated plans to invade the Earth at the obvious entry points of either Dover or Folkestone.

  In lieu of licking his (own) testicles Shakespeare launched himself lazily across the room in three semi-weightless four-legged ba-dungs in order to make sudden love to the hitherto unsuspecting coal-scuttle. Action and equal and opposite re-action having more than the usual sway in this environment he simply succeeded in becoming a kind of floating pinwheel with a more-than-usually vacant expression on his face. The dog’s bath-water that evening would not be fit for sharing with man nor beast so Higginbotham would have to run fresh for himself when his turn came. If the dreadful truth be known, the coal was of the opinion that its first shag in three hundred million years had not been worth the wait.

  Cholmondeley was less disturbed by Higginbotham on the comet than he had been disturbed by Higginbotham on Earth. This was possibly due
to the fact that on the comet Higginbotham had an “off” switch – all it took to silence him was to remove the battery from one’s wireless intercom and he was converted from a crashing vocal boor into a sort of crashing Marcel Marceau (but with even less intellectual credibility). The flat surfaces in every hut at Rorke’s Drift (as the camp had been named) were covered in hastily discarded wireless intercom batteries. Higginbotham hadn’t noticed. He just assumed that either his IQ had jumped up the scale again or that Cholmondeley’s had fallen once more. It was like talking to a brick wall.

  The rhythmic Morse Code fires of Cholmondeley’s glowing pipe communicated “worried man” to Higginbotham and he concluded that he must try talking at least once more.

  ‘I say old chap, you seem preoccupied – anything I can help with?’

  ‘Not at the moment old darling, no. I’m calculating the biting point of the clutch for our return take-off trajectory, and rather worrying whether it was wise of me to have left the hand-brakes on. I think perhaps a brick under the landing struts might have been safer – we’ll be in a right royal pickle if the damned things are frozen up when it’s time to leave.’

  Higginbotham went to the window to look out at the Morris and admire their curvaceous but dumpy lines and the craftsmanship of the woodwork in the rear frames. ‘Oh the old girls will get us away safely or my name’s not pronounced “Higginbome” by polite society. Perhaps we should rock them backwards and forwards a little tomorrow? Remind me and I’ll lend a hand if you like.’

  Shakespeare finished his romantic nutty-slack endeavours and retired to the Velcro post-coital snuggles of his specially-engineered basket. A light cloud of very confused, weightless fleas floated around the wickerwork and the stained tartan rug. Half of the fleas were suffering from debilitating space-sickness and the other half were delighting in their new-found ability to leap incredibly vast distances. That is to say different fleas were reacting wholly differently to others, this wasn’t some sort of fore and aft or one side of a flea versus the other thing. Either all of a flea was bounding around like Super-Flea or all of a flea was bracing itself against uprights and making long-distance calls to the flea god on the great white flea telephone. Sheesh, are you thick or what? I really shouldn’t have to explain this sort of thing.