England Away

by John King

  From what I’ve seen and heard about Carter in the past he’s the one who’s usually sniffing, so I don’t know what he’s wound up about.

  – At home he never bothers. I don’t know what he’s up to. He should get his priorities sorted out. His mates should come first.

  We order some food and have a feed. Other England start coming over. Harris and Brighty roll in with a load of Chelsea and a mix of strays. I look twice and Facelift is standing there with High Street and Biggs. They shake our hands and I can see Facelift is buzzing. Says they got a flight over and beat the system. That they weren’t going to miss today for anything. Everyone’s steaming. Excited as kids, knowing there’s going to be a major row in a few hours’ time.

  After our breakfast we walk ten minutes to this bar tucked down a side street, away from the main bars. We line up the lager and kick back, killing time. We’re trying to be relaxed about things but there’s this feeling in the air. It’s always like this when it’s going to go off against some tasty opposition. Everyone’s trying to act calm, but inside they’re boiling away. The excitement is there because it’s what you live for. It’s international level this, another step along. I can feel the buzz sitting with Dave Harris and this Chelsea crew tucked out of the way in Berlin while the rest of the English gather on the main street. I can feel the pride come through and it’s starting to replace everything else. It’s like Chelsea, but with a bonus track. Today is all about England, and our place in the pecking order is obvious. The patriotism comes through and it’s a case of keeping everything under control. Maintaining discipline. All the other bollocks goes out the window and you stop thinking about all the ifs and buts. We strip it all down. That’s what patriotism is really, stripping the machine down and getting rid of the accessories. This is the stripped-down England coming through, putting all the soft options on hold. We’re England, united, we’ll never be defeated.

  We kill time in the bar swapping stories and rumours, then move back to the bigger bars filling with English. Fuck knows how many are down here now. Seems like thousands. It’s going to be a big one. A rerun of the war. Tapping into the spirit of the Blitz. Firming up as the spirit takes over. Some of the England boys are knocking back the drink, others staying sober, most blokes somewhere in the middle. Depends who you are and what your angle is.

  There’s this bloke with a telephoto camera across the road and he snaps off a couple of shots. The England boys start cheering. He thinks this is the go-ahead and comes nearer inviting some sieg-heils. Bottles fly his way and one hits him on the head. There isn’t any blood but it does the job. He staggers back rubbing his skull. Looks dazed. Two men leg it across the road and get hold of the wanker’s camera. He tries to struggle so one of them smacks him. Down the photographer goes. Flat out on the pavement. The other bloke holds the camera in the air and exposes the film. Smashes the camera on the pavement. Everyone cheers louder than before, and as the photographer starts to haul himself up the same man kicks him in the face. Tells him he’s a slimy paparazzi slag, that this one’s for Diana. Everyone hates the press, and everyone cheers again.

  – I didn’t tell you, Carter says. There were these two journalists hanging about last night trying to be friendly. We got talking and that and they invited us for a drink round the corner. Wanted to know what was going on. Me, Gary and some others. We went to this bar for half an hour and the main one, David Morgan he said his name was, gave us five hundred marks, so Gary fed them this line about the leader of the English being this geezer Cromwell from Chelsea. Said there was a paramilitary mob called the New Model Army and that Cromwell had his boys tooled-up and was going to do the Germans on the steps of the Reichstag. He said Cromwell has links with the Loyalists. Then he says there’s another firm called The Dam Busters, who were going to steam in first, to soften the Germans up.

  We’re all pissing ourselves thinking of the journalists feeding the names through to London, because usually they get all that stuff wrong, but a name like Cromwell is going to stick in even the smallest brain. I try to imagine Gary Davison’s face as he tells the cunts what they want to hear, Carter and the others trying not to laugh in their faces.

  – Should’ve seen the cunts lapping it up, Gary says, sitting down. Almost as good as that story about Emu and the Kamikaze Kids. Talk about a wind up. I’m surprised they didn’t work it out, but when you think about it Cromwell’s a good name for a general. It’s in the paper this morning, all over the front page, three extra pages inside.

  Facelift passes the paper round and it’s hard to believe those cunts are so dopey. It’s a classic moment. One to remember.

  – There was another journalist trying to get English skinheads to do sieg-heils and there was this trendy wanker from a radio station who asked us to make some threats in his microphone, Gary continues. You know, playground stuff. They’re a bunch of wankers desperate for a story. They’ve got no souls. They weren’t offering to pay either. I’d have done a sieg-heil for twenty quid, if the cunt had asked nicely. Would’ve sung the Red Flag for forty.

  – Kevin poured his lager down the microphone, Carter says. The radio wanker was almost crying.

  – It was nothing to do with me, Kev insists. It was Cromwell.

  Everyone’s cracking up. We start singing CROMWELL WHERE ARE YOU? and enough of the English already know the story and join in. The press will be over in big mobs for this game. Enjoying the expenses and pissing it up the wall. Shagging the bell boys and turning in some primary school essays. The blokes last night and that one today are the cunts who bother to come out of their four-star hotels. Usually they make it up, while there’s always enough slags at home ready to claim some column inches. Makes you laugh. Gary says it’s a shame more of them don’t get out and about because it’s easy money, good publicity and a chance to take the piss. They’re a bunch of hypocrites and everyone here knows the score.

  Funny thing is, when we’re at home we’re thinking about the surveillance cameras the whole time. The way the old bill have got things now you have to be smart. The tougher the police get the further underground it goes. Here in Europe we just don’t give a fuck. We know the European old bill aren’t going to bother tracking us down. Unless you do something major they’ll just move the problem on. If you get nicked you’ll probably get deported. So people like Gary Davison don’t care if they’re in the papers back home posing for the cameras. He’s younger and coming through the ranks. None of us give a toss. It’s all a laugh and this kind of publicity is a joke. A lot of the blokes love the attention and the media wankers get some action in their dull little lives. It’s another collection of holiday snapshots. We’re living without laws. We can do what we want. We haven’t had respect for foreigners drilled into us. The way football is at home, Europe gives us more freedom, especially for those blokes who face long sentences if they get done again back in England.

  The time’s passing quickly and there’s still no old bill around. Probably tucked down a street somewhere keeping out of sight so as not to stir things up. Small mobs of England are walking around having a look, but everything’s sweet. The old bill will have their plan and the paper reckons all police leave has been cancelled. There’s flags draped along the bars and enough noise, so they’re not going to have any trouble finding us. It’s not as hot as yesterday, but nice and sunny. A good proportion of the Expeditionary Force are having a drink, people like Harris making do with fizzy water. The army did the same thing. Gave the boys a drink before they went over the top. Poor cunts wiped out by the officer class then executed if the nerve gas and shell-shock got too much. Fucking wankers, and there’s no officer core here, just a few blokes who earn respect and people follow, but overall we’re bad-tempered Englishmen who do our own thing most of the time then come together when the occasion demands. Doesn’t matter now if we’re from London or Liverpool or anywhere else in between, because there’s a common enemy and England’s bigger than all the local rivalries.

 
It’s moving on from family. You start with family and that’s the core. Family is blood and you stick together. Nobody takes liberties with family. The closer the better. Your mum and dad and brothers and sisters, then cousins and aunts and uncles and all that. Your mates are next up. Close mates leading down to acquaintances. Then I suppose it’s the area you grow up in with football fitting in somehow, and then the city and the country and so on. Probably gets into race or the bigger tribe, whatever you want to call it. That’s what was wrong about last night. It was too far down the road. For a start me and Mark didn’t have much interest, but bigger than that it felt wrong because today the Germans are going to get a kicking. Nice people who you can have a drink with any other time, but today it’s different.

  The singing dips and we drink up. Start moving. Chelsea and the London mobs start strolling. So do the Northerners and Midlanders and everyone else. It happens without much talk. The time’s come and we cross the road and take a smaller side street. We move comfortably and silently. There’s no old bill to be seen, which is suspicious. We take a few turns following the leaders, a mile or so from our meet with the Germans. We turn another corner and keep going. A missile cruising towards its target. Silent and controlled. Going back to silent films. Wanting to move faster but keeping ourselves together.

  We turn a corner and it looks like the old bill are holding a fucking rally. They’re waiting for us in full riot gear with a line of vans behind the ranks. It had to be expected somewhere because no way can this many blokes move without being seen. We stall with the surprise and several of the English start throwing bottles. Doesn’t seem like a good move because the Germans don’t hang about like the Dutch, and here they come with the batons and shields and every riot accessory money can buy. There’s a split second when I wonder if this volunteer army is going to stand and fight, because this is the old bill. Should have more confidence. The English don’t move and the police are getting pelted with bottles and bricks from a small building site and have to stop. There’s one bloke down on the floor. With so many England here I reckon they’ve misjudged things. Played their cards early. It’s not chance they’re here, but maybe they didn’t expect the numbers. Thought it was an invitation-only private party. Fifty a side or something. Dozy cunts. Because the shock wears off and this is a new battle. Adding to the day out.

  The older blokes in their late thirties and forties are to one side, trying to get the English organised, and because there’s so many different clubs and crews involved it’s that bit harder, but there’s some well-known faces here and we turn down another street. Skirting the authorities. Taking advantage of natural obstacles, concrete blocks. Piece of piss. We’re trotting around the old bill and we’re together and sussed and moving well. The old bill have fucked it up and the blokes at the front have been doing this sort of thing for donkey’s years. England are in control, making sure we keep the appointment. Two decades of causing chaos across the Continent – France, Italy, Hungary, Norway, France, Luxembourg, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Spain, Greece, Finland. Everywhere we go, people want to know, who we are, shall we tell them? We’re England, putting the Europeans in their place.

  We keep going, knowing the Germans will be waiting. Fucking hope so. We slow down. The old bill will be tracking us, but right now we’ve left them behind. Can’t believe they were out-manoeuvred so easy. Shows why we won the war. A classic mix of bollocks and tactics. Slowing right down now, because the Germans should be here. No coppers to hide behind, the fucking slags. We’re near a square with flats to one side. Things look quiet. Where the fuck are they? There’s a shopping precinct to the left and I can’t see it lasting if the cunts don’t show. You don’t expect the Germans to bottle out. Harris is shouting and going red in the face, where the fuck are they? Fucking German wankers. England fanning out and moving across the square.

  After getting back to the Kasbah, Harry had a shower, changed his shirt and hurried to the bars where the English had been drinking since arriving in Berlin, but only found a hundred or so still there. The soldiers were on the move. He swore and kicked a wall. The sex had got in the way of the aggro and he was well fucked off, because apart from spending time seeing the sights he wanted to be there when it went off with the krauts. He couldn’t fucking believe it and knew he was never going to live this down. He was a fucking mug, thinking with his knob instead of his brain. He didn’t want the others thinking he’d bottled out, because it didn’t look good, though they knew him well enough. More important, he wanted to be involved. You didn’t want to miss the big dates. No fucking way.

  He didn’t know what to do next. He went in the bar where Carter and the rest of the boys had been drinking and looked around, but couldn’t see anyone he recognised. The familiar faces had vanished and he didn’t have a clue where they’d gone. He asked around, but these blokes weren’t interested. He swore again and bought himself a bottle of lager and some schnapps, stood outside hoping someone would turn up. The England mob were out on the prowl and he was standing there like a fucking tart. He’d passed the same bar last night with that nutter Ingrid and he should’ve got out there and then, made sure of today. He really was a cunt sometimes. A right fucking donut. Fucking hell.

  Harry’s head was still wired from last night, and it just went to show you never knew what was waiting inside the wrapping, with Ingrid dripping by the time they got back to her place, and nothing was a bigger turn-on than knowing a bird wanted the business, and better than that, wanted it off you. Ingrid was a nice girl with white pants, but once indoors she turned into a nympho. She was a fucking raver and Harry made the most of the chance, lifting Ingrid onto a glass coffee table and banging her right there, pumping away till he dumped his load and slipped forward, crashing down through the table and smashing the glass. He looked at Ingrid and her eyes were glazed, and for a second he thought she was dead, skewered by a broken shard of glass, like a fucking vampire.

  – Don’t stop, she said. Don’t finish yet. Come on you pig.

  But Harry was over and done and the first thing he wanted after a bit of sex like that, after a bellyful of drink, was to crash out for a while. He pulled back and said sorry about the table, and Ingrid stood up with this dark look on her face, all psycho-like. She said she hadn’t climaxed yet and what was the matter with men? Look what he’d done to the table. She stormed into the kitchen, but then came back with a couple of bottles and sat next to him on the couch. Harry took the drink. Who was she calling a pig, the fucking slag.

  – Never mind, Ingrid said, fiddling with his cock. We can try again in a few minutes. We have got all night to get it right. My boyfriend won’t be back for a couple of days.

  Harry wished she’d keep her hands to herself.

  – Where’s he gone then? Harry asked, wondering about the all-night bit. He was knackered.

  – He is visiting his family, Ingrid said. We went to England to sort out some problems we had. He was having sex with my sister and I caught them together. I walked in and they were on the sofa, right where we are sitting now. They did not expect me to come home. It is a hard thing to forget. I want him to know what it feels like.

  Ingrid drank half her bottle in one go, and Harry couldn’t say he minded filling in for that dozy German cunt, though he reckoned it was a bit iffy being used like some rent-a-dildo party filler, but still, it was decent fanny and he wasn’t going to turn Ingrid down. If the girl wanted a portion then Harry was the man for the job, but he didn’t want any grief. That was the English for you, get in, do the business, then piss off before the post-mortem starts. He should get going really, but he was fucked.

  – Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I like you Harry. You don’t care about anything and you have no manners.

  He almost choked on his lager, the stroppy fucking cunt. They sat in silence drinking, Harry narked, and then Ingrid stood up and said she had something that would make him happier.

  The night picked up speed, with Ingri
d going like a train. After the glass table, they moved to the bed, her mouth, and finally she was greasing her arse and Harry was being forced to run a bombing raid up the Rhine. By this time she’d fed him a Gulf Boy, and once the chemicals took effect he was doing what he was told, right open to suggestion, obeying orders with Ingrid taking on the role of controller. His head was on fire and he had the vague idea he should be using a rubber, but didn’t connect. He was doing what he was told and the Gulf pill made him invincible.

  Harry was dead by five in the morning and drifted off to sleep, the next thing he felt a sharp pain under his gut. He sat up and found Ingrid chewing his cock, not sucking but digging her teeth in. It was fucking agony and he tried to get her off, pulling away, but the vampire was hanging on, razor teeth behind his helmet. It was murder and the bed was a war zone, Harry trying to coax the girl off, but she was out of her head and the Gulf Boy had turned their session into a blockbuster video where a soldier forcing a peasant woman to suck him off had his cock bit off and bled to death. It was the perfect revenge but Harry hadn’t done anything wrong. The film and the reality merged and Harry was shitting it. He punched Ingrid in the head to get her off, and she went straight to sleep, running on automatic. Harry laid there for a while knowing he should get out, but he couldn’t move.

  Harry didn’t wake up till after two and Ingrid had already gone to work, leaving a note telling him to come and see her later. He left the flat and took a taxi back to the Kasbah, going straight to the shower and washing the blood, shit and spunk from his cock, gritting his teeth as the soap stung cut skin. He stayed under the water a long time and cleaned well, scrubbing away the memory, looking forward to a fresh start.

  Now Harry was sipping his lager, more concerned with missing the others than almost losing his knob. The Expeditionary Force was out on patrol and he’d been left behind. He finished his drink and left the bar, went for a wander. His brain was running through old videos chopping at a dead image, thinking of Balti, surprisingly okay knowing the man who was more than a brother was dead and gone, his face blown away by a sad old cunt who’d lost his grandson to leukaemia, and now old McDonald was doing twenty years in another sort of farm, banged up sending his shit through the bars. It was bad news, but what could you do? Nothing at all. You were powerless.