“Steady, boys, steady,” Maurice shouts. “You can ’ave a punch-up all right, nothin’ I like better, only I’ve seen it all before, nothin’ else for six bleedin’ years. Why bother to go to Alamein when we’ve got Iwojima right ’ere in our own back garden? Go on, ’ave a scrap then.” And Maurice yawns elaborately.
“We don’t need to ask you, buddy,” a Yankee says, and there is an ugly eddy in the mass, which Maurice quickly counters.
“I’ve done me bit, too . . . and it was a nice bit . . . of tit. While you was away fightin’ to keep the ’Un out of British mothers and daughters, I was stayin’ at ’ome ’avin the fun of makin’ British mothers out of daughters.” There is a little chuckle. “Like the Grand Old Duke of Wellington said to me personal, Morrie me old, ’e said, Don’t fire till you see the whites of their thighs.” The chuckle swells into a roar of laughter and Maurice is away. “Look at all the lovely ladies in the room, only don’t call ’em ladies or they’ll slap you for sauce. And while you’ve been away a-fightin’ and a-dyin’, what’s they been doin’? Just sittin’ on their arses keepin’ the tea and the beds warm. So what I say is, you’ve all done your little bit for ’em, why don’t you let ’em do their little tit for you? You’d like to see a bit of boobs, wouldn’t you, lads? A free strip? Let’s see oo’s got the tarts with what nature distended. Don’t tell me the Yankees ’ave got a better lot of United Dairies than the Gorblimeys.”
“They probably have,” a tired Gorblimey voice drawls. “While we win the wars, they win the whores.”
“Ho no,” Maurice says. “You ain’t lost before you’re off. Where’s that old British never say die?”
“Dead,” the same voice says, “at Monte Cassino.”
“Nah, it’s up and doin’,” Maurice insists. “And I bet, underneath it all, the Gorblimey girls ’ave got a lot more to show for ’emselves than meets the eye. ’Aven’t you, girls?” A chorus of cheers greets him, with jeers coming from the Yankee ranks. “But the proof of the puddin’s what’s dished up on the plate, ain’t it? So I propose, lads, not a punch-up what’ll only bring in the M.P.s and put you all inside. I propose somethin’ to tickle your fancy, somethin’ for the sportin’ spirit of old England. A great Breast Match, the Yankees versus the Gorblimeys. And may the best span win.”
There is a shout for the rules and Maurice willingly obliges.
“Each mob to put up four ’ores, picked by a democratic vote, up the people. When you’ve fielded your top team by common consent, the ladies show what they’ve got above the navel.” There are a few female shrieks, but these are quickly suppressed by a great roar of male approval. “The referee’s that great big lug over there in the corner of the room . . . give ’im a big ’and, boys. ’E’s so neutral, ’e’s a bloody pacifist.” Gog finds himself picked up with all his goods and passed over the heads of the mob and hoisted onto the bar by the side of Maurice. “This ’ere is Gog, and ’e’ll treat you fair and square.” A great booing and catcalling shakes the room, while Maurice grabs all the goods from Gog’s arms and whispers fiercely in his ear, “That’ll teach you, lofty, to bury me in me own ’angar. If you get out of this in one piece, it’s no thanks to Morrie.” The yelling dies down and Maurice pipes up, “The ref, me old sport Gog, ’e’ll judge the titties of the lovely ladies, and ’e’ll score ’em. Ten points the pair for what providence put there.” A cheer rocks the rafters. “And ten points for what each lovely lady can do with what she’s got. So if you ain’t well stacked, me lovelies, you can always do a little shimmy and a shake and if the lads give you a big ’and, why, the ref’ll give you up to ten points for performance. So it’s ten for what you can do and ten for what you’ve got from nature and I bet she gave you ’andfuls. So it’s eighty points possible, four a side strip, best breast forward, and the winners take The Iron Duke. ’Ow’s that?”
The soldiers and sailors whistle and halloo and pull their tarts into a circle and nominate their favourites by a show of hands. And in the general ruckus, Maurice is off the bar and away with his loot clutched to his belly, he’s out of the frosted glass door and into the street. Gog also tries to scarper, but the press is too thick and the moment he tries to get down from his oaken throne, the military turns nasty and shoves him up again. “You stay there, ref. You’d better. Till close of play.”
So the teams are nominated for the great Breast Match in The Duke of Wellington, and Gog feels he’s wandered into the pages of the favourite reading of the wartime troops, Lilliput, where the girlies bare their all and the jokes are spicy and sporting enough to keep a tommy warm o’ nights in his foxhole.
And for the Gorblimeys it’s Gloria with the frigid face and lank blonde hair, Gertie the stick all willowy and willing, plump Gilda fresh from the churn, and Glenys the Magnificent, all curds and copper curls. For the Yankees, it’s Mildred the hairless gorilla girl, Mirabelle the mincing and oh-my-dear-really, trim Maisie tight as a trivet in her twin-set, and black Mayhem from Martinique who came for the Free French and found the Yankees much freer with their lolly.
“Seconds out of the ring,” Gog calls. “Strike one. Bails on. Gorblimeys to drive, and she’s off.” Behind him, he hears the pub-keeper desperately shout, “Time, please,” but there’s the thud of a bottle on flesh and no more sound from the voice of law and order.
So the great Breast Match begins. And Gloria opens for the Gorblimeys and she comes out of the pavilion and takes her stance at the crease and examines the placing of the Yankee fielders, who are ready to swoop on her every stroke. She fiddles around in front of the crease and, as the eyes come up to bowl out of everybody’s sockets, she lifts her blouse and plays forward with a nice neat pair of low-slung breasts, shaped like white cricket boots tipped with red pompoms. The Yanks try to barrack her, shouting, “Keep it closed,” but the Gorblimeys cheer her all the way back to the pavilion, because she stonewalls and keeps a straight face and puts the shutters up until Gog the umpire closes play and she can drop her blouse. Gog scores her five for a decent show and none for her stiff upper tit.
And second into the ring is Mildred for the Yankees. She peels off her scarlet shirt to show a pair of desperate pink reinforced silk cups trying to hold back the deluge. When she looses the support at the back, the deluge plunges down to her navel, making two short slack extra arms sprouting from her chest which end in soft fists sporting red gloves on their knuckles. While the Yanks howl, “Ten, ten count it again,” the Gorblimeys groan, “Nowt, nowt, she’s knocked out,” and Gog yells, “Two for the milk round.” But Mildred is equal to the insult. She walks over to the bar where Gog is sitting, hops onto it, puts a hand under each breast, and slugs him with the old one-two, hitting his left eye with her right pap and slamming him as he bounces with an uppercut from her left pap. “Nine, ten, out,” the Yankees shriek, and Gog has to score her so, while she struts up and down the bar, her left forearm pushing up her breasts in triumph, her right hand clenched above her head in a fist of victory, and her voice screaming, “Tit for bloody tat.”
And next into the arena, facing up to a deficit of five points to twelve, is Gertie for the Gorblimeys. She does several knee-bends, then a somersault out of her mauve sheath, which falls onto the floor, leaving her only in her orange track pants. She shows nearly all, only the Olympics would close if that was all there was to show. The two slight bumps beneath her nipples might pass for promise on a ten-year-old boy. The Yanks howl, “We was robbed,” while even the Gorblimeys can’t defend the theft. And though Gertie gallantly beats her bare chest and hallooes, “Me Tarzan, you Jane,” pointing at a blue-bearded, red-blooded, black-souled and lilywhite Marine sergeant, Gog can only score her two for audacity.
And next Mirabelle is off the Yankee bench and ready to swing on the plate. When her white shirt peels open, and two firm mounds palpitate above the lucky black catching mitts of her brassière, the Yanks yell, “Strike two,” and she looks as if she’s going to hit twin homers. But come the unhooking, when the moun
ds dissolve into two tiny baseballs with all the stuffing knocked out, the sass all turned to sag, the Gorblimeys shout, “A pair of ducks.” In a breast as in the rest, nothing is further from achievement than potential. Gog scores her three for not being offensive, then adds on another seven for sauce, when she puts on a great goofy toothy grin over her inadequacies and pats them from palm to palm, saying solemnly, “Ping . . . pong . . . ping . . . pong!”
And she’s off for Milord Gorblimey, Gilda in the chocolate and cerise . . . and my, o my, she’s whipping off her racing colours, because the stewards want to weigh her in . . . and it’s a two horse race all the way . . . on the right on the rails, Titillation, a lovely filly, one hand tall and what a shape, a bit soft in the withers but bred for staying, by Pectoral out of Sensuosity, made for soft going . . . and on the left on the outside, Corsage, another lovely mare, one hand tall and who would want more, curved for the saddle and bred for stud, by Cleft out of Easy Come, doesn’t mind a fast pace . . . and with three furlongs to go, it’s Titillation, by half a length from Corsage . . . and with two furlongs to go, it’s Titillation, Titillation and Corsage . . . there’s not a gap between them . . . and it’s Titillation and Corsage, Corsage and Titillation . . . and at the post, it’s Titillation and Corsage, nipple to nipple, a dead heat, and the prize is shared between them, eight thousand guineas if it’s eight points . . . but the race is too much for them and they’re stabled at once and Gilda just stands there, proud of nature’s bounties and doing nothing with them, when their natural gyrations have settled to rest. So the Gorblimeys win nothing for performance.
Next onto the golf course is Maisie for the Yankees, with the score standing at twenty-two points to fifteen. She swings a useful niblick with her left palm into the right-hand bunker of her twin-set and the ball is blasted out into sight, a lovely orb though a little on the small side. And again Maisie swings a mashie shot with her right palm into the rough and another little ball pops out onto the fairway in full view. Each of the balls is dotted with a large red spot for instant recognition; what there is of them is nice and the make is good. So Gog scores her two holes in a par five, giving her ten in all, when she gives a terrific swing with her hips and follows through by a jerk of her shoulders so that the two breastikins pop back into their bunkers without using a blaster.
So it’s a desperate situation on the Centre Court, as Glenys goes into the final for the Gorblimeys, with seventeen match points to save in the last two sets. But there’s guts in the fighting lassie, and with her first serve, she throws up a beauty out of her blouse, as firm as rubber and as round as perfection, and the second serve’s the same, so that even the Yankees whistle, and it’s game and set for the magnificent missie, who never says die and knows there’ll always be an English rose, or a pair of them. And in a tight corner, still seven match points down in the last set, inspiration strikes our Glenys and she takes out her lipstick and quickly strings her breasts with a web of crossed red lines so that they look like rackets. Then she shimmies her titties so fast that the rackets seem to be batting the nipples from one to the other, while her head tocks from side to side watching the play, until with a mighty final effort, she lobs one breast upright while doing a savage overhand smash with the other. The spectators break forward onto the Court and carry her off on their shoulders, shouting that she’s won every point going and handing her up the twin cups of victory that house her remarkable genius for tennis.
So it’s thirty-six points to the Gorblimeys and thirty-three to the Yankees. And Mayhem from Martinique comes in to wind up the affair by a bull’s eye from thirty paces. And she strings the cupid’s bow of her lips and she notches the first black arrow of flesh between the buttons of her dress and aims and lets fly. And the right breast scores an outer, a bit ridgy and odd and hard as a shield. She doesn’t seem eager to try a second shot and she says, “Score me on that. We only need four to win.” And Gog scores her two and a half. And she still won’t try a second shot, though all the Yankees are yelling, “Shoot, sister, shoot.” And, in the end, very carefully, she takes aim and fires a second breast of such ebony beauty that the very spheres would fall silent in worship. But there is one thing wrong; the second breast doesn’t match the first and also seems a little rough at the edges, so that, while the Yankees are yowling, “Ray, ray, the USA,” a lank Lancashire Gorblimey creeps up behind Mayhem and snatches off her second breast and throws the falsie in the eye of the blue-bearded Marine sergeant, while amazon Mayhem pleads, “Give it back. Anyway, I won’t need it. I’ve saved up enough to have the other one paraffinned.” But no one listens. For the blue-bearded Marine sergeant is about to lay out the lank Gorblimey and start the biggest free-for-all ever seen by the Iron Duke since Waterloo.
But Gog tries to pour oil on troubled soldiers. “I score her half,” he shouts, “for artifice. That makes a tie. Thirty-six each. You share the Duke of Wellington.”
There is a mutter and a moan. Then Maurice’s voice croons again from the rear of the crowd, where he has slipped back to collect more loot. “When it’s a tie, lads, I say, knot it round the ref’s throat and string ’im up.” There is a roar of approval. “But we’re a sportin’ lot, so why not give ’im a small chance? Let ’im be the target, and let the ’ores (God bless their darlin’ ’ides) ’ave another game, the Tarts’ Darts Match. Strap a dart-board on each ’and of that dirty old ref, and one over ’is cock, in case any of you ladies wants to make ’im sing soprano for the rest of ’is life. Then the ’ores will ’url their darts at Goggie, an’ ’e will try not to get ’it by puttin’ a dart-board in the way. The ’ores score what the dart-board says if they ’it one. But if they ’it Goggie, why, they score thirty for a limb, forty for a body, fifty for an ’ead, an’ an ’undred if it’s a man’s eye.” A great hurrah shakes the room at this prospect of slaughter without tears by the slow puncture of a helpless man.
Gog tries to leap down and run for it, but he’s caught by a score of willing hands, and a dart-board is tied onto each palm and a round cork codpiece over his crutch, and he is left exposed and alone on the range of the bar counter.
“Elevation thirty,” Gog hears a voice call. “Armour piercing. One round, prepare to fire.”
So the great Tarts’ Darts Match begins, with Gloria stepping up to the mark and pushing off a slow feathered shaft on a high arc. Gog finds it easy to intercept with his left platter, and he can feel the dart thump home into the cork. “Thirteen,” a voice calls, “unlucky for some.” But Gloria’s quicker off the mark with the second dart, which whizzes straight for Gog’s front teeth. More by instinct than thought, Gog ducks and puts up his right platter horizontally, so that the dart sticks without scoring in its side. “Zero,” the voice shouts, and the furious Gloria hurls her last dart low, driving its point home into Gog’s calf. He howls and tries to pluck it out, forgetting the platters on his hands. But all he can do is to increase the pain by pressing the end of the dart sideways with the edge of the board, so he has to give up trying to remove the missile, which stays stuck in his leg.
Gog concentrates on the enemy in front just in time, for Mildred has already launched her dart and Gog has to duck and let it whistle by his left ear to smash a bottle on the bar shelf behind him. Mildred is so enraged by his evading action that she throws her other two darts simultaneously, so that both home in on Gog at once. He fends one off with his right platter, and by the grace of feather, the other dart plunks home in the circle round his vitals. “Eight plus seventeen,” the voice calls, “making twenty-five to forty-three for the Gorblimeys.”
Next on the throwing mark, Gertie the stick favours an underarm lob which sets Gog highstepping along the mahogany bar like a bucking cart-horse. One dart he stops with his left platter, one impales his trouser-leg and the third nicks the skin on his jawbone as it flies by, its feathers whisking Gog’s bristles. “Three,” the voice calls. “Nowt for near misses.”
Then it’s Mirabelle with a high roundarm swing that brin
gs the darts out of the blind spot level with the lights so that she notches one in Gog’s thigh and one on his rib that is turned back by the bone, yet sticks long enough in his clothes to score. Her third dart homes in on his cork crutch, making a score of thirty plus forty plus eighteen. “Yankees one hundred and thirteen. Gorblimeys forty-six,” the voice calls amid a barrage of boos and cheers, while Gog hops up and down, swearing at the iron points pricking his flesh.
So it’s Gilda, the plucky wee lassie with loads of British guts, throwing the javelins from the mark. And with her first she’s pierced Gog through the skin of his left arm and with her second she’s skewered him in the nape of his neck, and her third would open a hole straight between his eyes, only he gets up his right shield just in time to swipe the dart away, so that all true Britons cry, “Foul,” and the referee scores sixty for the Gorblimeys.
Maisie, alas, has not had a sporting education, so she releases her first dart on the backswing, piercing a lanky Gorblimey sergeant through the earlobe. With a howl, he wrenches out the dart and slings it straight into the bicep of the blue-stubbled Marine sergeant. And then the darts begin to fly in all directions. The two surviving players empty their quivers at the opposing uniforms, Glenys and Mayhem both scoring three flesh-wounds on the enemy. And the whole air is suddenly full of flying bottles and mugs and fists and heads, so that Gog is battering down a fusillade of objects that would have kept a German division penned in its trenches on the Marne. He is horribly cut and bruised, the real Aunt Sally of the pub, with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune making him the martyr that Maurice intended.
Gog Page 30