by Hatchett
“We’ve agreed to get back in touch in a couple of days once things have calmed down a bit,” Jack advised, “so we’ll keep you posted on any developments.”
“Have you heard from anyone else?” Travis asked.
“We’ve been in brief contact with the Navy down in Portsmouth, but everyone seems to be busy looking after themselves at the moment so there’s not much going on. Of course, there’s plenty of individuals and small groups calling out for help, but we haven’t got involved because there’s nothing we can do for them at the moment. Tom has been talking to them and logging their position and situation, and we’ll get back to them if we can, assuming they are able to stay alive that long. Any other questions?”
There were none so Dave, Bear, Irish, Joel and Sean stood up and went to join the groups of people already up at the bar.
“I fancy a swim,” Gina advised as she stood up. “Anyone else up for it?”
“Not for me,” replied the Major, shaking his head.
“I’ll come,” Travis said and stood up eagerly. “Let’s go!” Gina smiled, and they headed off together. There were a few raised eyebrows around the table before Jack, the Major and Sarah also got up and moved across to the bar to mingle.
“I guess that just leaves you and me, Cowboy,” Issy said with a smile, putting her feet up on the table in front of her.
“I guess so,” Andy replied looking at her with a smirk on his face. “Do you think they all left us on purpose?”
“Who cares? You want another drink or is it likely to affect your performance?”
Andy laughed. “You do have a way with words, don’t you? I’d love another drink, and no, it won’t affect my performance!”
“Go and get them then!” Issy ordered.
“God, I love a bossy woman,” Andy grinned as he got up and moved towards the bar. He didn’t see the wide smile on Issy’s face.
*****
At the bar, Bear had spotted a ‘yard of ale’ glass and was cajoling everyone within sight to have a go. He was trying to convince Joel to have a go when Kelly turned up with Paul, Milt and Kacey.
“Hi guys, how’s it going?” Milt asked before noting, “it looks like it’s going ok!”
“What are you doing?” Kelly asked, and Bear explained that the ‘yard of ale’ was a challenge only taken on by those who could drink two and a half pints in one go without spilling any. The glass was a yard long, hence the name, and had a wide opening which narrowed down to a bulb at the bottom. He added that there was also a technique for getting the last of the beer out of the bulb, but he wasn’t prepared to divulge that secret.
“Come on Joel, this was made for you,” Bear challenged him.
“Go on then,” Joel capitulated with mock indignation, “I’ll have a go.” He had seen the glasses before but had had no idea what they were for. He was soon presented with his yard of bitter and Bear got ready to start his stopwatch. “Go!” he shouted, clicking the button. Joel started gulping the drink, slowly tilting the yard to bring more and more bitter to his gaping mouth. By the time Joel was nearing the end and looking to drink the last of the bitter from the bulb, the yard was closer to being vertical than it was to the horizontal. Suddenly, the remaining bitter came shooting out of the bulb in a rush and Joel didn’t have the time to react before it hit him square in the face and dripped down onto his chest.
“What the fuck?” Joel spluttered as everyone watching started laughing.
“I told you there was a technique,” Bear teased, wiping away the tears streaming down his face. “Who’s next?”
Kacey stepped forward. “I’ll give it a go.” There were loud cheers and ‘go on girl!’ shouted by the surrounding spectators; the last thing they expected was one of the women to have a go when the room was packed full of mouthy squaddies.
The yard was refilled and passed to Kacey, who held it to her lips. “Ready, steady, go!” shouted Bear as he again clicked the stopwatch button. Kacey set off, steadily pouring the liquid down her throat, a little spilling over the rim onto her cheeks and dripping off her jaw. As she neared the bulb she started rotating the yard so that the liquid swirled before travelling down the tube to her waiting mouth. A few seconds later, the bitter was gone and Kacey lowered the yard, to cheers all around. Bear clicked his stopwatch and was looking at it with a frown on his face.
“Well?” Kacey asked.
“It’s the fastest time I think I have ever seen,” Bear muttered, still stunned. There were more cheers and under the cover of the noise Milt tapped Kelly on the arm before whispering in her ear, “Kacey omitted to tell them that she can open her throat and just pour rather than having to swallow!” Kelly laughed and moved to go and congratulate Kacey.
*****
“Dave and Sean had seen the ‘Yard of Ale’ many times so had moved along the bar to where it was a little quieter and they could hear themselves think. They were in the middle of discussing holidays.
“The best holiday I ever went on was to Barbados a few years back,” Dave advised.
“I’d love to go there,” Sean replied.
“Yeah, it was great. I was there with a group of people; my brother was getting married and I was the best man.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“It was. I had to organise the stag do while we were out there and one of the guys at the hotel recommended ‘The Boatyard.’ Apparently, the place has been covered on various TV programmes featuring rich young yuppies, so we thought, why not? So, we got ourselves a taxi from the hotel at about 21:00, after a few warm up beers in the hotel bar. The driver, his name, would you believe it, was Elmer, as in Elmer Fudd! Well, there’s seven of us in Elmer’s crappy old car, all sitting on top of each other when Elmer tells us there’s a cop car behind us and that he was only supposed to carry four passengers. Everyone was ducking down and laughing and making jokes along the lines of ‘while you’re down there….” Anyway, we weren’t stopped, and we arrived at The Boatyard. Looked well dodgy, but it was too late to do anything else, so we paid the ‘all inclusive’ price and made our way straight to the bar. A couple of lads needed the bog, so they sloped off while we got the drinks in; when they came back they told us they were offered various types of weed ‘or something stronger’ by a couple of scary looking dudes with big machetes in their belts so they suggested that we should only go for a leak in pairs!
“So, what exactly was this place?” Sean asked.
“It’s like an open-air bar on the beach which turns into a sort of nightclub. Lots of loud reggae music, lots of dirty dancing, lots of beer, I’m sure you get the picture. As the night wore on, couples were disappearing off down the beach for a bit of privacy, if you know what I mean!
So, we’re standing a couple of yards from this big square bar in the middle of the place when the guy from the hotel – he arrived a bit later and acted as our ‘chaperone’ for the night, a right good lad, he was – anyway, he whispers in my ear ‘you see that girl with the metal teeth at the bar?’ Yes, I replied, as you couldn’t really miss her; she looked like an ugly female version of ‘Jaws’ from the James Bond films. He says, ‘she’ll give you a blowjob for ten US dollars’. So what? I say. She should be the one paying the ten dollars as danger money. Then he says, ‘and you see that guy standing very close to your brother?’ Yes, I say, and he goes ‘well, he’ll do it for free!’ I nearly choked on my beer I can tell you! And when we left at some point in the morning after a good few hours, well good old Elmer was waiting for us, sat on his car bonnet eating a burger from a stand nearby. Well, we all had the munchies by that time so we all got a burger and joined him.”
*****
Travis was already in the pool when Gina stepped out of the changing room onto the poolside in a one-piece swimsuit leaving little to the imagination. He stared in stunned silence, his mouth slightly open.
Gina spotted him and walked over before sitting down on the side of the pool with her legs dangling in the water. Travis still hadn�
�t said anything.
“Is everything all right?” Gina asked.
“Great!” Travis spluttered. “You look great!”
“Thanks. I’d ask you if you fancied a race but there’s too many people in here.”
Travis hadn’t noticed.
*****
Jack, Sarah, and the Major were standing at the bar and had been watching the yard of ale challenge. Bear had seemed a bit crestfallen after Kacey had completed the task with ease, and the group had now moved on to other things.
“That’s ruined his party trick,” Sarah noted to smiles from Jack and the Major.
They replenished their drinks and moved over to a table a few feet away.
“It’s good to see people starting to relax and enjoy themselves,” the Major observed.
“Yes, it is,” Jack replied. He was pleased by what they had already accomplished, but he knew there was a long, hard road ahead. He just hoped that they were all up to the task.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Sarah asked. “You were miles away,”
“Just thinking about the future,” Jack replied with a bittersweet smile on his face.
The End
Z – London
1
Saturday 1st September
Day 1 –10:30
Stepney, East London
Zak Appiah sat in a pair of dark blue FCB Barcelona shorts on a threadbare sofa in the living room of his mum’s two bedroom flat on the fourth floor of the Green Park Estate in Stepney. He was eating a bowl of cornflakes and watching the news on a newish forty-five-inch LCD television; said TV had just happened to fall off the back of a Curry’s / PC World truck a few weeks earlier into the welcoming hands of a well-known local fence called Jeremiah, often referred to as ‘Fagin’ by the locals, but not to his face, and who made a living selling a vast array of ‘recycled’ items from the local public house at the edge of the Estate, the Dog and Bone.
Zak was sixteen years old, five feet six inches tall and growing at a rapid rate, devouring food like it was going out of fashion. Of African descent, he was slim, almost gangly, with black curly hair and deep brown eyes. His single mum, Samata, struggled with three different jobs to make ends meet, most of her money going to keep a roof above their heads and pay for the endless supply of food for two growing teenagers.
Zak heard some bumps and groans coming through the paper-thin walls of the bedroom he shared with his half-brother Isaac. Zak had been shepherded quick smart out of the bedroom as soon as his mum had left for work that morning, just so his brother could shag some girl called Grace who he’d supposedly been seeing for the past week or two. Zak only just had time to get his shorts on before the pretty half-caste girl entered the room; stiletto heels, leather mini-skirt with a slit up the side, breasts squashed together inside a tiny pink halter neck top and enough make-up to rake in a fortune at the local Boot’s cosmetics counter. He’d never seen her before and couldn’t tell if she was young or old; he hadn’t studied her face that closely. She did appear to have a knockout body, he thought to himself, feeling himself becoming aroused before turning his attention back to the TV and turning up the volume to drown out the noise. He just hoped that she didn’t start screaming.
A few minutes later Isaac appeared, wearing a pair of baggy tracksuit bottoms and a wide smile, just like a cat that had gotten the cream. Sweat was glistening on his brow and, if his skin hadn’t been coloured, you’d have seen a pair of bright red cheeks. Isaac was eighteen, six feet tall and devilishly handsome. In this respect he took after his father, a man who had run as far and as fast as possible when he heard the ‘P’ word, especially as Samata was only fifteen at the time and he didn’t fancy getting nicked, never mind the constraints of fatherhood. Still, Zak was no different to Isaac; his father had also magically disappeared before he was born. His poor mum did pick them!
“Wassup bro?” Isaac asked as he sat down next to Zak.
“Fuck all, just borin’ TV,” Zak replied as he looked at the TV screen and took another mouthful of flakes. “Where’s the totty?”
“Why? You fancy her?” Isaac asked, nudging his brother’s arm hard enough to spill some of the milk from his bowl.
“Nah man!” Zak shot back looking aghast, bits of cornflake spraying from his mouth, although he had to admit to himself that she was a looker.
As Isaac was about to get up to go and get his own breakfast, some aerial shots of the aftermath of a plane crash at London Heathrow airport appeared on the TV. The bottom of the screen was suddenly filled with the constantly streaming words ‘Breaking News: Lufthansa plane crash at Heathrow, no survivors.’ All the boys could see on the screen was a large plane engulfed in flames.
Isaac sat back down and called out, “Grace, get in here babes, you wanna see this!”
Grace shuffled into the room wrapped in Isaac’s duvet. Zak couldn’t help but look at her; she appeared to be around Isaac’s age and although her ‘straightened’ hair was all over the place and her make-up was now all smudged, he could see that she had a very pretty face and piercing green eyes.
“Shove over boys,” Grace ordered as she wiggled her way between Isaac and Zak on the sofa. “What’s goin’ on?”
Zak continued to stare at Grace and noted that the duvet had gaped a little giving him a glimpse of the top of her breasts. Grace turned to him and he quickly averted his eyes back to the TV.
“Plane crash,” Isaac replied.
The cameraman began to pan around the surrounding area of the plane crash and zoomed in on groups of workers milling around by the airport fence before moving on to a major pile up on the road the other side of the fence. Despite some wobbling of the picture, it wasn’t long before the cameraman zoomed in on what looked like people eating others.
“What the fuck?” Isaac asked in bewilderment as Zak’s spoon stopped halfway between his bowl and his gaping mouth. “Are you seein’ it, bro?”
“Yeah man,” Zak confirmed slowly. “Unreal!”
Grace wrinkled her nose in disgust before ducking her head beneath the duvet. A muffled ‘they shouldn’t be showin’ that shit at this time of day’ came from beneath the material.
The boys were now fully focused on the TV screen and Zak had put his bowl down on a side table, all thoughts of a naked Grace sitting under a duvet next to him long forgotten. The news anchor stated that they were switching to a live broadcast from Earl’s Court.
“This is Scott Adamson coming to you live from Earls Court. Around fifteen minutes ago, there was a serious attack at the underground station behind me. There have been a number of injuries and we understand that there have also been casualties.” Scott put his finger to his ear, trying to hear what he was being told through his earpiece. “It’s just come in that there has been a similar riot at Paddington main line station. We don’t know at this stage if these are terrorist related incidents nor whether they are connected. We’ll provide an update as soon we know more.”
As he concluded his speech, the camera was suddenly knocked sideways, the cameraman falling to the ground with a scream. The camera landed on its side pointing at the feet of the correspondent who had turned and could now be seen running in the opposite direction. After a few metres it looked like someone rugby-tackled him and brought him to the ground. As the camera showed him being attacked, blood started pooling at the edge of the picture and began to run downhill, away from the camera. This was followed by what looked like spurts of blood coming from the correspondent, lying on the ground a few metres away.
“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’ me!” Isaac erupted. “Is this some kinda joke?”
“It don’t look like no joke bro,” Zak replied, eyes still fixed on the screen as the picture rapidly changed to that of the anchor-man, who now looked visibly shaken.
Isaac looked at his watch, saw it was 11.30 and decided it was time to get a shower and changed. As he stood up, his phone beeped indicating that a message had arrived. Zak’s phone beeped a few second
s later. Isaac pulled his phone from his pocket and read the message, ‘meeting, dog, yesterday, tools, judge’ was written on the screen.
“The Judge wants us in the pub ASAP,” Isaac explained for the benefit of his brother.
“I know,” replied Zak as he read his own message, “Got the same intel bro.”
“Says ‘tools’ so it must be serious! Better get movin’. Grace, time to disappear!” Isaac ordered as he patted her through the quilt. “Chop-chop!”
Grace’s head popped out of the duvet like a tortoise’s head popping out from under its shell before she stood up and headed back in the direction of the bedroom, sashaying her bare backside from side to side as she went.
Both boys stared at Grace’s fine form before Isaac got up and headed to the bathroom. Zak picked up his half-eaten cornflakes and headed towards the kitchen.
Once Grace had finished in the bedroom, Zak ducked in and put on some tracksuit bottoms, socks, a baseball top, hoodie, and body warmer. To this he added his New York Yankees cap, pulled his hoody over the top of it and put on some Nike high-top trainers. Isaac joined him and within minutes was similarly attired. They went to the front door where Grace was waiting.
“Can I come with you?” she asked innocently. The boys looked at each other before Isaac shrugged and told her she could.
“You’re gonna have to park yourself, we’ve got business to discuss,” he told her.
Zak slammed the door shut on the way out and followed Isaac and Grace along the slippery fourth-floor balcony-walkway, a light drizzle from overcast clouds was being blown into them as they walked along. They reached the sheltered area at the end of the walkway and the smell of piss assaulted their senses as they passed one of the broken lifts and headed to the staircase, all the walls carrying graffiti, mostly gang-related. The lifts rarely worked and were always being used as a public convenience by the pissheads who lived on the estate. Fuckin’ animals.