Falling Through

Thomas A Johnson

'What..........'

Part 1: Born to Be.

1. A Penis is Egg Shaped In which the `narrator' forgets to introduce himself correctly, tells several childish lies and commits at least one completely pointless murder. Old Colonel Fuckwit was dying. (Note: Whereas all characters in this document are entirely real, I would like to make it clear that all names have been changed in order to protect life liberty and freedom from that tapeworm of humanity - the predatory lawyer.) As I said, the Colonel was dying. So the word came to me as I prepared to rise, one fine summer afternoon. The end of an era it seemed then. Colonel Fuckwit dead, the concept was unthinkable. How could the world continue, unregarding in its tracks? Surely hurricanes must rage, volcanoes erupt, toilets block themselves. But no! Glancing from my exclusive window I could plainly see that the world was unaffected by this earth shattering news. In fact, almost immediately below me, I could see two large policemen mugging a little old black lady, just as if this were any normal day in the Borough of Kensington. Reading further in the rather elongated telegram which had so unexpectedly marred the pristine surface of my breakfast tray, I felt bafflement piling upon my original astonishment, piling in turn upon the toast and marmalade which I had absent-mindedly ingested whilst perusing this extraordinary communication. I found that I had, for reasons then -and now - unknown to me, been summoned to the Colonel's residence - somewhere in dark and dismal Hampshire - in order to record for posterity the last words of the great man. As the world knows (or knew then, at any rate) I am no writer, merely an ordinary man of action, who, solely by my own efforts has (I should say had) become both incredibly famous and obscenely rich. Reading to the end, I noticed two further items of interest. Firstly: the telegram was unsigned. Or at least was signed only by the letters 'XXXX' which, to me, at any rate, amounts to the same thing. Secondly: The time of transmission stamped upon it showed that it had taken a mere seven hours to reach me - something of a record for British Telecom I believe. Pausing only a few minutes to contemplate the matter, I rang

for my valet; Glimp. A one legged dwarf who tended to be rather hard of thinking, he was with me in a matter of hours. Intending to be correctly dressed for any eventuality, I requested black tie, red shirt, green trousers and my favourite cobra hide underwear. By eight o'clock that evening I was shattering the speed limit along the Great North (East, South, West, whatever) Road in my famous, custom built, turbo-charged, over done, two seat plus dickey plus sauna, roadster. A small, ugly police car attempted to follow me for a while, but appeared to become discouraged after I pressed one of the 'Bond' buttons on the control panel. *********************** Much as I would have liked to stop and watch the fire, I felt a certain sense of urgency, so merely triggered the rear cameras for later perusal. Some time later, approaching the small and unpleasant village of Shitehawk, I stopped for a moment to request directions from a decidedly retarded individual who could only have been a village idiot or a stockbroker. Having spent almost two further hours attempting to follow this loon's instructions, I eventually located the Colonel's mansion. It was, in fact, less than one hundred yards away from the location of my original halt and I was pleased to observe that the obnoxious fellow whom I had previously questioned had failed to remove himself from the scene by the time I returned. ********************** Let us now have a small interval for a tiny touch of graphically described violence, which, with incredible generosity, I will permit the reader to commit entirely within the confines of his (or her) own imagination. *********************** Kicking the corpse into the roadside ditch, I took a minute to restore the front of my vehicle to its normal gleaming state. (Incidentally, for any connoisseurs of the automobile who may happen to read this masterpiece, it is also armour plated in a rather expensive, but extremely light, titanium alloy. This is no grossly over-rated German car relying, like a Mercedes, on the sheer weight of its pig-iron body shell to overload its crude, tractor style suspension, thus giving a vague imitation of a smooth ride. Or, like a BMW, relying purely on the natural stupidity of the neo-Nazi mind to which its advertising is designed to appeal.)

Having got that off my mind, without even referring to the infamous and potentially lethal Volkswagen/Porsche suspension design, I proceeded, with no further delay to Maison Fuckwit. ********************* After a considerable amount of backing and filling, I managed to get my elongated, sixteen-cylinder in-line bonnet through the rusting main gateway and onto the rather short curving weed and gravel drive. Slewing to a halt in the traditional shower of loose gravel and dog shit, I took my first good look at the, soon to be notorious, residence. A comfortable two up, two down and three sideways dwelling in the ever popular sixties prefab shithouse style, it was surrounded by acres of beautifully maintained rolling parkland. (At least, that is what it would be in the arcane language of an Estate Agent. The English translation should read: about a hundred square yards of rot and debris.) From the rear door, as I was to find later, there was an incredible view consisting mainly of an extremely large and equally decrepit garden shed. This was held erect solely by the fact that it leant against what appeared to be a life size statue of a dinosaur mating with the mangled remains of a steam-driven combine harvester. I say appeared because the whole thing was so covered in vines and corrosion that it might equally have been a giant chicken laying the world's most uncomfortable egg. From the attic window, I was told - years later - that it was possible to see (by leaning out at a dangerous angle over the slipping tiles) a strange and exotic collection of buildings, believed by some to be the lost and legendary 'Charlie - Knackers Yard & Scrap Dealer (and Sons)'. This was something which I had neither the time or inclination to verify for myself - being by then a considerably different person who had almost certainly never heard of either the Colonel - or, indeed my previous self - should anyone come asking. I offer it as mere, unconfirmed rumour as a contrast to the absolute accuracy of the rest of this narrative. ************************ As I said, this was to come later. For the moment, after only a few minutes hammering, the door was opened by the Colonel's ancient manservant; Septicaemia Scrotum.

A perfect example of the perils of excessive masturbation, Scrotum was almost blind, hunchbacked and had a fine crop of warts on every visible portion of his grimy and unappetising flesh. Holding open the door with one hand, his other fumbling in the dank recesses of his sagging trousers, he spat copiously on my new gorilla-hide shoes. A mishap from which I am afraid they never entirely recovered. Muttering something under his breath, which I took to be an invitation to enter, he immediately turned his back to me and began to shamble towards the rear of the house. I knew then, for certain, that something must be seriously amiss in this household. Under normal circumstances - even when the Colonel was living under a flat stone in the depths of the Congo - (Remember that - nineteen-twenty-something - a minor scandal in the gutter press - that is to say, every newspaper in the world. Mainly because of the goat, if I remember correctly.) it was as difficult to get past Scrotum as it is to extract a factual statement from a politician. *********************** Time now for a little more of the pointless descriptive stuff. (note: all descriptions are liable to change without notice, as history, geography and even physics mutate endlessly once we enter the recesses of the Colonel's mind.) Regardless: at this particular moment, the house appears to be divided into two sections by this corridor, which runs from the main entrance, far into the distance to a dim square of light which, presumably, is a glass panelled exit to the back garden. To the left are two, or maybe seven, further doors, panelled in some exotic wood - like substance. While to the right only one entrance mars the gleaming expanse of rotting plaster. If I was being paid by the word, as so many authors were in the past, you would find that, just like them, I could churn out this drivel by the yard - doing a Dickens we used to call it. *********************** By the time I had removed my walrus-hide driving coat, (treated with the oil of the Whooping Crane to render it supple.) Scrotum had vanished. I assumed he would be lurking in some noisome den in the nether regions of the house, and so promptly forgot him until such time as some unexpected turn of the plot

might require his reappearance. There was no sign of the Colonel in any of the ground floor rooms. As a matter of fact, apart from the ubiquitous spiders (some, I noted in passing, almost the size of a small mastiff whatever that is), the only signs of life were a family of rather distressed looking rats and a lone stuffed armadillo which had been painted in a rather impressive purple tartan. ********************* Opening one last door - a rather ornate plywood affair which I had carelessly forgotten to describe earlier - revealed a flight of crumbling cardboard stairs which led upwards (why not?) into almost impenetrable gloom. Removing from my pocket a combination torch and nutcrusher (Albanian secret police issue, 1952), I peered into the darkness. The light revealed that the steps led to a kind of halflanding, from whence (what style, what grammatical wossname!) they presumably continued upwards at an angle which was out of sight from where I stood in the doorway below. (Doesn't make much sense to me, either, when I think about it. Forget the style comment.) Creeping cautiously up, (the stairs of course, idiot.) I found that on this small level area stood a large and ancient four-poster bed, almost blocking all access to the upper floors. In the bed, sunk deeply into a two foot thick pile of feather mattresses, in a miasma of stale urine, 'Extra Foul Navy Shag' tobacco and Liberian camel cheese, lay the shrivelled, yellowing figure of the Colonel. ********************** Withered almost beyond belief, his once sturdy body now no more than skin and bones, I would have taken him for a man well past his century. Certainly he appeared incapable of ever making it into the next one. Nor, as I was to find out later, did he wish to. Deep behind those fading eyes, the old, still cunning, brain had conceived a far more ambitious plan.

2. All that glistens is not Mylar. In which we fail to recover the situation and sail ever closer to the realms of cheap fantasy. 'Colonel!' I cried; greeting him by the title by which he had first introduced himself to me. I remember that meeting only too well. In fact I have often wished that it could be conveniently forgotten. It was in the summer of forty-seven. Location: the small (soon to be smaller) town of Gladys in the late unlamented province of Scum in what was later to become the 'Glorious and Eternal Revolutionary Republic of Mwetafatereland'. Eternal, meaning - as it generally does in these cases - about five minutes longer than the life of the 'President', or 'Dictator', or 'Servant of the People', or whatever the power-crazed lunatic cares to call himself. *********************** It was years later that I discovered that 'Colonel' was, actually, his given name and not a military rank. He was, in fact, at the time when we first met, already a Brigadier General, having fulfilled the advanced senility requirements before the Army Board at the incredibly early age of thirty-seven. I suspect he was never entirely aware of this however, since I never knew him to use his rank in any way. ********************* Many years later, one of his old cronies told me that he had never been the same since the days of the Algoramian uprising. Apparently the Colonel - then a Lieutenant - (Lieutenant Colonel - followed by Major Colonel - followed by Colonel Colonel; shades of Catch 22 there, no offence.) had inadvertently precipitated the original riot. He achieved this by the simple process of emitting a resounding fart whilst making use of the Sultan's famous gold inlaid bathtub. This merely made the host of barely clad young beauties who were attending his ablutions giggle and pour more water onto the heated stones which the Sultan had recently had installed after making an association (possibly justified) between Swedish saunas and Swedish pornography. This event reduced visibility in the already steamy room to a matter of inches.

********************** Unfortunately, all concerned were completely unaware of several hundred unofficial observers. These, peering uncomfortably through several narrow ventilation slits built into the bathhouse wall, were members of a particularly fanatic and notoriously ferocious sect. They were doubly incensed, not just because of the implied blasphemy but because they had collectively delayed their annual pilgrimage to Mecca for a mere chance of seeing the white devil's wedding tackle. *********************** In the interests of research, I was to later consume many large Gins at the expense of the aforementioned old buffoon and others of his ilk. These various interviews were conducted in the interests of truth, and verified (or, occasionally, completely contradicted) several of the more unlikely tales which the Colonel himself had related to me during the many years of our acquaintance. This dedicated search for the real facts behind the distortions of historians and politicians, has left me with a legacy of recurring bouts of malaria, a damaged liver and a certain incurable condition in the groin area. I mention this merely in order to confound those ignorant critics (surely a tautology there) who have accused me of tampering with the truth in certain of my earlier publications. ********************** Picture me then, at the beginning of this project, the very picture of rude health. Filled to the brim with youthful enthusiasm (or, at least, a reasonable facsimile thereof) and optimism. Prepared, as I thought, for whatever an ungrateful world might produce to ruffle the equilibrium of my days. In this mood, then, I greeted my old friend and enemy. Enemy I say indeed, for it was not always, or even often, that the Colonel and I found ourselves upon the same side in whatever conflict we currently perceived the maximum chance of profit. I greeted, as I said, the Colonel in this spirit of amicable neutrality, then waited patiently for some acknowledgement. A feeble tremor passed through the Colonel's wasted frame as he slowly opened his pale blue, psychotic eyes. Then, barely audible, mainly incoherent and mixed randomly with various farts, belches and other bodily noises of rather more dubious origins, the Colonel spoke..........

For Sale: Reason: Reality disjunction. All items in as new condition except where noted. Lot 1: House and grounds - High disguise factor - fits anywhere post 1920. Lot 2: Edwardian brothel - fully portable - all fixtures and fittings. Almost completely unused. Lot 3: Complete set WWII tanks - all sides - professionally wrecked. Lot 4: 200 assorted hand weapons - stone axe to Psycho-gun. No anachronism facility. Lot 5: 20th Century wardrobe - all sizes - all sexes - includes some very obscure items. Pre 1980 only. Lot 6: Albanian Empire memorabilia. Barely exists. Lot 7: Experimental Probability Matrix Shifter. Untested - not recommended for actual use. Lot 8: Genuine random Door access key. Own risk. Lot 9: Escape kit - ultimate Way Out - last resort only. Lot 10: Assorted devices. Mostly unknown function - many broken. Lot 11: 212 pieces Military footwear - All Nations. Mostly heavy wear. Several in pairs. Lot 12: Unknown Soldier kit. Boxed. Unused. Date 1919 Approx. Lot 13: Barsoomian battle cruiser - slight ray damage. Size 4L. Lot 14: 1932 - Central Europe - Almost complete except for several days in late March + occasional hour. Includes parts of Poland. Lot 15: Dream Booster - ultimate factor. Well used but fully functional. Lot 15b: Dream Booster landscapes - requires Lot 15 to

operate. Lot 16: Serious case of Syphilis - recommended for genuine collectors only. All lots sold by order of the executors. Price reserved on certain items. No refunds will be given under any circumstances.

3. Fifteen Men up a Dead Man's Arse. In which it is discovered that pendulums swing backwards and forwards as well as from side to side. I suspect that when you die, you fall backwards through your life, reliving and forgetting all of your experience in reverse order. Eventually, mind wiped clean, you hit that first and final event: conception. You are then reincarnated as yourself to begin the endless cycle of your birth, life and death. This explains why so many of the old have no recollection of recent events. Already partly dead, they have begun the long fall, only to pause part way - perched for the moment on some precarious ledge waiting only for their fall to continue. ********************** The Colonel, then, is falling. His memories escaping him in reverse order. Except that like most of us, as he falls he tumbles. Uncontrolled loops and recycling. Memories of memories of memories. Unrelated fragments. Shards of shattered dreams. Leakage, perhaps from other potential Colonels with other lives lived. Other ways of seeing the world. Stray tales, perhaps once half heard though a haze of opium in some Abyssinian brothel - on a train to nowhere, glimpsed in books or magazines over a passing shoulder - long forgotten imaginings - tales told in a thousand wombs, stretched and blended in - merged with the real and the unreal. All of the details spun out and filtered throughout a long, long lifetime.

4. He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Last. In Which we tend to wander from the subject a little, or then again, perhaps we reveal a little of our more abstruse knowledge to the peasantry. The language used by the Colonel for these reminiscences is encrypted - each sentence containing a vast quantity of information, concealed and compressed into a series of seemingly trivial statements. It is, in fact, a battle language, passed down through various elite corps (That is to say, those who can count above ten without requiring the use of someone else's hand.) since time immemorial. (or, in terms of the average military mind, about three days.) (I would here like to state that I do not entirely subscribe to the commonly held view that the entire history of the military is the search for detached counting appliances for the numerically handicapped. Indeed, to my own knowledge, I have known several troopers capable of reaching the early twenties when counting, with the help of scarcely more than a hint or two. In fact, I have heard the Colonel himself pronounce the word thirteen, with reasonable accuracy and no more than the normal desire to dismember anyone present.) This, however, is merely another example of his phenomenal ability in his chosen career, since the majority of the officer class fail to reach a count of three with any degree of reliability. The sheer concentration constantly required to conceal this numerical handicap from his fellow officers was, claimed the Colonel, the primary cause of his early baldness. Regardless of how this language developed, it should suffice to say that one word may suffice to describe an entire episode modified, as it is, by certain voluntary (not to mention involuntary - thus giving access to subconscious as well as conscious memories) facial expressions. Indeed it may be modified by physical motion of all parts of the body. (And, of course, in full military usage, by parts of other bodies also.) Filtered through the exceptionally sensitive and highly trained decoding mechanism of my own nervous system, the full meaning of each of the Colonel's statements emerges through my optic nerves as streaks and splatters of amber light. This I transcribe in an incredibly compact and subtle shorthand of my own devising, incomprehensible to anyone of lesser intelligence - that is to say, all of you. Later, I expand and edit this into the beautifully written and coherent manuscript which you are about to read.

5. Yo Ho Ho and a Rottle of Bum. In which it should become apparent to even the most obtuse that the world is both far more, and simultaneously, considerably less, complicated than they could ever imagine. Many of the Colonel's recollections have no counterpart within my own memories. Others, I recall as having happened at different times, in different places, or to different people. Certain occurrences which have burned themselves indelibly into my own recollections appear to have no counterpart in the Colonel's version of history. As an example, I would like to give you (doesn't that sound horribly American?) two conflicting versions of events from the time of the first Transylvanian uprising. ********************** I am convinced, (and indeed find it written so in my journal for the period in question) that I was engaged at the time in an arms deal in the small town of Chicago. This, for those - probably the majority - who have never encountered the name, was just south of the border of the Canadian Republic. As some of you may recall, the Emperor Chiu Feng was, at that time, considering adding this to his possessions in the Farthest East. This was, of course, before the establishment of that entity known as the Unified pSychotic America which has so successfully rendered the entire continent unfit for human habitation. In the account given by the Colonel - since verified by several apparently reliable sources - he and I were working together at that time. Working, indeed upon a project so bizarre that it could almost have been a product of the infamous CIA unintelligence agency, briefly spawned during those unpleasant events in which I so clearly remember participating. This plan involved the infiltration - by the Colonel and myself, among others - of a concealed but expanding domain deep within the largely unexplored rain forests of the Sahara. This following an unexplained gas attack on the (extremely) free city of Tripoli. One day I may render into prose the Colonel's full account of this episode. However, since some of the main protagonists remain alive, I judge that the time is not yet ripe for this undertaking. (For anyone who may be seriously interested in these events, I have reason to believe that a rather cut down version of the tale

was recorded in the year of nineteen seventy-seven or thereabouts by a musical group calling themselves `Front End Loader' possibly a rather vicious allusion to the Emir's third wife.) ************************ Despite these minor inconsistencies, I feel sure that, shorn of extraneous noises and pointless repetitions, this narrative contains an account of the history of certain sections of the Twentieth Century (plus at least some of the sleazier parts of the Nineteenth) at least as accurate as any other. Professional historians, and other contrivers of lies and propaganda, may openly sneer at this account. This should be expected, as their main function seems to be to consistently augment their own status by magnifying those events with which they may have had some obscure connection, whilst rendering all else down to the stature of a mere footnote. Or, of course, entirely denying its existence. Before you give credence to their pathetic maunderings, ask yourself who amongst them can lay claim - as the Colonel very definitely can - to have so often stood face to face with his enemy in so many diverse locations and circumstances. Not to mention his having taken part on so many different sides in the majority of these conflicts.

6. THE DESERT Part I EXPOSITIONS, EXPEDITIONS AND EXPLOSIONS. In which the Colonel finds another way in and, just possibly, another way out. Desert night - cold creeps into the bones - remember to turn your boots upside down in the mornings and tap the soles frighten out any resident scorpion. Where do all the flies come from? What can they find here to eat? Once, my first time in a desert, I saw a man in the distance. He apparently had on a black shirt. Closer, I could see that he had no shirt at all. A continuous covering of flies. Must have been thousands. Drinking his sweat. Not surprising many desert peoples cover themselves from head to foot. More things live here than you would think. Tiny sounds skitterings in the darkness. Snakes, lizards, insects, even mammals - all bury themselves away from the sun. Is a scorpion an insect? Suspect it is more closely related to the spiders. Could never be bothered to find out. The shipment is late. This is my most optimistic appraisal of the situation. I think the combination of heat and boredom is driving me rapidly crazy. Throughout the day, the only shade is to be found under the raised end of the half buried water tank. This rusting iron cylinder poised at a precarious angle on two remaining legs - the others, presumably, broken and buried beneath the drifting sands. Hour after tedious hour - shifting position as the sun shifts the shadow. I know by heart every flaw and rivet on its corroded underside. Nothing else to look at beyond an old, long abandoned novel faded ink - front cover and many pages missing. Also labels on canned food - mostly identical - mostly beans - best part of a year's supply by my count. By day I cook (not food - me. Even the deepest shade is oven hot.) By night I freeze - only one inadequate frayed blanket. Unidentifiable stains or burns - frayed edges. With rare exceptions, the only food is the beans, which I

detest. I heat it by leaving the can in the sun for half an hour or so. There is an ancient paraffin stove, but no fuel for it. I use the empty cans for water and to dig holes to shit in. There is no toilet paper and I dare not use my dwindling supply of rusty, mosquito larvae filled water for washing. I stink. I itch - my skin crawls. I am certain that the blanket is infested with some variety of minuscule vermin. I could die out here. I don't think I fully understood that until today. *********************** I saw an aeroplane. First proof of other, living, humans since I arrived. There was no prior warning. Half way through the short desert twilight. The normal, almost total, silence, Then.... Whap! It was there. Above the dune to the north. No more than fifty feet of clearance. The mind-numbing roar of two Alvis Leonides six hundred and fifty horsepower each. An old Twin Pioneer. Full throttle and climbing. Almost vertically, so it seemed. Nose up at an incredible angle. Those immense slats out, clawing at the air. Before I could react, it had nosed over and was coming straight at me. Props screaming in supersonic agony as the revs built. I registered a minor sandstorm in its wake - it was that low. No time even to throw myself flat and it was over. The wind of its passing whipped me with razor-edged particles. I scrambled out of my meagre shade in time to see it pull up the side of the next dune. It seemed to hang, stationary in the air, for an endless period before the crest. Then it was clear - just barely. A tiny puff of smoke from the starboard engine. A thin lick of flame an instant later, just as the elevators went down for the next dive. Something warned me of what was to come. I rolled back under the tank. The blast shook the ground. The entire tank resonated like an immense drum. The world lit up. Intense white, fading through yellow to a dull reddish orange and back to what now seemed full night. It seemed endless minutes before the debris ceased to patter down. By the time my eyes had recovered from the flash, night had indeed fallen. Possessing no light, and in the absence of a moon, I felt relieved of any need to investigate the disaster. Nevertheless, I slept badly that night. Every minute sound seemed to jerk me awake - usually from the depths of a fresh nightmare. It seemed

that I lay shivering for hours between each tiny segment of sleep. The following morning, as soon as there was enough light to see more than a couple of yards, I found myself climbing the steep face of the southern dune. Perhaps I should have been surprised to see no trace of the explosion. From the crest, the dune sank away to the south as clean and smooth as if nothing whatsoever had occurred. Needless to say, neither was there any sign of the expected fragments of wreckage around my temporary home. Certainly I had heard at least one large fragment strike the tank and slide to the ground within a very short distance of my cowering head. ********************** It is supposed to be one of those high-tech cutting-edge missions. You know the sort. Acronyms everywhere. Nothing properly tested. Everybody and his brother has some mad idea they want to try out on you. Still, at this stage in his life, the Colonel is still inclined to believe this sort of shit. If he survives, he will soon grow out of it. He has already discovered that the military tend to use certain words to mean something completely at odds with their definitions as understood by normal humans. Most people now know that 'Intelligence' equals stupidity and that 'Security' equates to paranoia. We shall now see that the phrase 'Cutting-edge' relates, not to the simplicity of the knife or sword, but to 'ludicrously overcomplicated'. In the time it has taken to set up this mission, the Colonel could have taken ship to any port of his choice at the edge of the desert; learned the local language; purchased a camel; and made his way slowly and indirectly to his destination. All this with the utmost caution and very little fear of detection. 'Low Orbital Insertion' they call it. The necessary training takes months. Ninety percent of potential agents fail at some stage. In this case this leaves a field of potential suicide jockeys to the number of exactly one. ************************* So - in a nutshell - (nut being the appropriate word here): Phase one. - Boost to low polar orbit with a regular astronaut along to make sure you don't press the wrong buttons at this stage. Nothing too abnormal here at the trailing years of the century.

Even the occasional multi-billionaire has done this bit. Phase two. - Climb out onto what appears to be a surrealist idea of an old iron bed frame hung about with assorted rocket motors and tanks of highly explosive liquids. Then into an improbably small canister at the centre of the contraption. Strap in. Pull the big red lever. (This, and all subsequent time-critical actions are, of course, done by some computer somewhere. So you just know that it will all end in tears.) Phase three. - Sit there, trying to think cool, while various bumps and clangs resonate through your tiny metal coffin. Wait a while in the nausea of zero gravity. Then try to remember your lessons while four G pushes at you for several eternities. Phase four. - Frame blows away - fuel expired. Enormous clang through entire capsule - these idiots are far too fond of exploding bolts in all directions - we are carrying more ordnance than your average World War Two Platoon. Now we are falling for real. Falling free - almost half orbital velocity pissed away in a blaze of expensive chemicals. Phase five. - Weight comes on as first tenuous layer of atmosphere is entered. Even the techno-freaks admit that this is the tricky bit. Heat begins to build - first barely noticeable. Buffeting starts as friable heat shield burns away unevenly. Could tumble at this point - flash into blazing fragments in microseconds. Best not think about the possibilities. Phase six. - One more huge bang as drogue pops out at predetermined altitude. Over ten G deceleration for several seconds. Then the pod blows - first splitting into two to release the occupant then disintegrating completely into a haze of particles designed to confuse the sophisticated radar which the enemy almost certainly does not have. Phase seven. - Fall. And fall. And fall. Assume classic skydiving position the instructors said. Not so easy in the best part of a hundred and fifty pounds of space suit plus affiliated hardware. Fall into the night. Head Up Display active now - little green pointers show direction to purported landing site. Steer with tiny movements of hands and feet. Digital altitude readout diminishing rapidly. Phase eight. - Pressure sensor pulls chute at less than one thousand feet - if this one fails there is very little time left to revert to manual. And so to Earth.

************************* No time to hang about surveying the situation - pitch dark anyway. Thirty seconds to remove the suit and scramble away to a safe distance. Self destruct is quite impressive in a subdued sort of way. A dull red glow starts somewhere around the base of the back pack - spreads out to about the size of a football. Then - seen only in its own uncertain light - appears to suck in the remainder of the suit to feed itself. A final brightening - barely enough to light the sand a meter away - and it is gone. Nothing to do now until dawn. *************************** And that is when it all started to come apart. Once my suit was gone, I had nothing. No supplies. No water. Just the grubby overalls I wore as part of my cover role as a lost mining engineer. Apparently there was some outfit drilling reasonably nearby who would claim me if necessary. Come to think of it, why the hell could I not have gone there as an employee in the first place - Surely it would have been easier to actually learn that job than all this astronaut shit. Still, ours not to reason why etc. Supposedly, an earlier drop had left everything I could possibly need concealed beneath the only landmark in sight - the water tank. Sure enough, I find a container there but it is not the ultra-modern carbon fibre or titanium drop tank I am expecting. It is some kind of rusty old trunk - traces of khaki paint clinging here and there. Inside no sophisticated, vitamin and mineral enriched ration packs. Just - you guessed it - beans. Beans, beans and more beans. Plus a few sardines and canned cocktail sausages for variety. And one, ancient looking, rusty can opener. Well thank the Lord for small mercies as they used to say. The cans appear to be very old, the labels subtly wrong, yet in a vaguely familiar way. Maybe some kind of cheap Korean imitation of the real thing. More like - the thought takes a few days to come through. More like cans as I remember them from thirty or forty years ago. I try not to think about the risk of food poisoning. I take inventory of my other resources. A few hundred gallons of - not particularly clean - water. One useless stove. One small notepad - found in the pocket of my overalls, along with its

attached pencil. One spurious passport - ditto. That is it. No homing beacon. No weapons. No way out. ************************ This time I am fucked and double fucked. I try to believe that my contact will eventually turn up. Surely even the Americans would not expend this amount of time and money just to set me up to die here, in this desert. Not when they could have just put a bullet into me at any time during my training. After the incident with the aeroplane, I no longer pretend that this is going to turn out all right. Trouble is; whatever I do is going to be a disaster. If I stay, I die when the food and water run out. If I go, then I die sooner. Unless I can find the drilling rig, in which I no longer believe. ************************* The water level in the tank has noticeably lowered since my disastrous arrival. Today, I decide to try and work out the quantity remaining. Since the lower end of the tank is buried in the sand, this involves climbing inside. I will have to do this sooner or later anyway, since the level of the water is already almost too low to reach by stretching my arm in through the half open hatch in its upper surface. It takes me most of the cooler part of the morning to free the hatch. Flakes of rust break away as I wrench it back and forth until it finally moves far enough open to let me insert myself. Before doing so, I have a vision of it falling closed behind me. In something approaching panic, I rush back down to fetch the paraffin stove to wedge into the gap. Once inside, it seems much darker than I would have expected - especially considering the open hatch. It is also much hotter, and incredibly humid. the amount of water lost through evaporation each day must be quite phenomenal. There seems to be quite a lot of junk hidden under the surface. As I turn towards the lower end, I trip over some rigid protrusion. Before I can fall more than a few inches, My shoulder crashes into a hard surface. Feeling around, I find that there is a bulkhead blocking my path - it is far too close to be the end of the tank. In this wall is a hatch - rather a submarine type of affair with a large central wheel which begins to turn as I lean on it. ************************

I am in a state of total indecision. What lies beyond the hatch? Perhaps a thousand gallons of clear water. Perhaps a ragged hole in the tank through which at least part of my current foul supply will escape. Perhaps the other half is filled with some ancient supply of fuel or other poisonous liquid. In the end, there is only one way to find out. I have filled my stack of empty cans with water in case the worst happens. They stand in a rather pathetic row, in the most reliable shadow, as far under the tank as I can reach. The beans are down to the last dozen or so cans, so what have I got to lose?

7. A Bird in the Hand Should be Taken Into the Bushes. In which our hero introduces at least the hint of some sex, in order to keep the average male reader happy. During those short intervals when the Colonel falls into the fragile sleep of the very old, I make my way past his (rather precariously balanced) bed and explore the upper regions of the house. After quite some time and effort, I finally manage to locate one of the Colonel's hidden doors. Cunningly concealed, in true traditional fashion, at the back of a wardrobe, behind a painting so dull it almost compels the eye away. This in turn hidden at the end of a corridor apparently leading only to an abandoned toilet. The entrance to the corridor being behind the classic revolving bookcase in the secret library behind the walk-in wall safe. ********************** The final door leads, as I had suspected, through to a well equipped brothel, authentically decorated and equipped in the late Edwardian manner. (always a favourite period for the Colonel, and one to which I, myself feel a certain attraction, as the last period in history in which anything resembling real style was current.) From this - rather more than - minor paradise, I was able to return to my task mentally and physically refreshed and rested. Though I have never been able to locate with any degree of precision, the actual point where it emerges into the outside world, I gathered at the time that the Colonel had been a regular patron since the founding of the establishment. Since the old man finally departed this Earth, I have searched for this haven in almost every major city of the Northern Hemisphere. (and even in some of the less depressing of the barbaric Southern.) I feel now, as the end of my own life rapidly approaches, that somehow the Colonel managed to take this vital means of recreation with him into death. As, indeed, he appears to have taken it with him through most of his adult life, for it seems to have been available - no more than a few minutes away - on almost every one of his far flung campaigns. Strangely enough, he seems to rarely, if ever, have made use

of this amenity himself. He being, as you will see, obsessed with the memory of some long lost love among the swamps and rain forests of West Africa.

8. THE DESERT Part II EXPLANATIONS & COMPLICATIONS In which someone more or less resembling the Colonel appears at least twice and several minor characters wind up more or less dead, as usual. Dust billows high into the air as the ageing Toyota hammers its way across the laterite. Horizons dance in the heated air, the occasional patch of poor scrub vanishing and then reappearing through the afternoon turbulence. Satellite surveillance might or might not show up the mile long beacon of the car's passage, were anyone interested enough to look for it. Here, one hundred miles east of Timbuktu, it is almost certain that no one would be. ********************** Dust seeps into the vehicle through badly fitting windows and through widening gaps in the corroded floor pan. The plastic seats are torn in several places, the driver protecting himself from protruding springs with a kapok cushion purchased in Atakpame on the first stage of the journey north. Every time the car hits a larger than usual rut, the rear end twitches as worn spring shackles fail to hold the axle in line. Black smoke from the recently welded exhaust merges indivisibly with the red dust thrown up by the treadless tyres. Two of the passengers are aware that this combination of driver and vehicle have made the return trip at least once before and the vehicle, at least, is probably capable of making it at least once more despite its advanced state of disrepair. Of the other two occupants, one at least has been frankly terrified for the entire duration of the trip. Unfortunately, this happens to be the driver, who has been regularly sublimating his fear in a coke bottle filled with palm wine. At this point, he is having some difficulty in remembering his own name, though his terror still impels him to drive far faster than he normally would. In fact there are good points to this, as the car tends to float over the corrugations, thus sustaining far less damage than it would at lower speeds. The bad news is that they are slowly bearing away

from the chain of half buried oil drums that are the only guide to what passes on maps as a major highway. *********************** Some thirty miles north east, a few faded palms mark the site of a buried oasis. A rusting water tank, apparently half buried in the dusty soil, shows signs of recent work. A complex network of tubing has been welded around the visible half. Viscous fluids, oozing slowly from a split connection, have stained one end a, curiously out of place, bright green. Almost invisible at any distance, a patched and faded canvas tent has been pitched between two of the larger palms. It might seem obvious that this is to gain whatever benefit there may be in their meagre shade; there are, however, other reasons. *********************** In the Toyota, the girl is curled up against the door, as if to distance herself as much as possible from the other rear seat passenger. In fact, she is barely aware of his existence. Such external awareness as she possesses, is focused almost entirely on the man in front of her. *********************** She, alone, is aware of their deviation from the marked route. She makes no mention of it to the others because she has long ago abandoned even the slightest control over her own destiny. The majority of the human race would probably consider her insane. In many parts of the world, her mind would by now have been permanently fuddled by clinically administered drugs or shock treatment. *********************** To the man in the front seat, she is possibly the most valuable person in the world. It could be said that he loves her, in his fashion, and this is what he himself would claim were anyone to ask his opinion. What he actually loves is what she represents in terms of his own peculiar aims. He would love a frog, equally, if it offered the same potential for the success of his endeavours. The man in the back is the reason for the driver's terror. Months ago he remembers taking this same passenger on one of the previous trips into Mali. Then, something happened, something

he has somehow forgotten even as he tries to remember. He was dead, this man. Dead in the desert, his body burnt almost beyond recognition, fluids leaking irreplaceably into the dust from his shattered torso. ********************* The driver shudders, and sips again from his, by now, sadly depleted source of false courage. At first he was not sure, after all, although he has heard of such things, in talk, in the villages; is he not a man of the city, and a good Christian. On the other hand, has he not always taken pride in his ability to tell one 'yovo', one white man, from another. He shivers again and, freeing one hand, momentarily, from the wheel, clutches at the reassuring fetish concealed beneath the dash. ************************** The tent itself is empty, though many feet have left a distinct trail to its entrance. Neither is there any sign of life elsewhere around the oasis, with the exception of the ubiquitous vultures and two or three spindly goats. A cluster of small insects are hovering around a rotting pipe that protrudes from the ground near the water tank. A steady stream of moisture laden air is emitted from its curved end, causing the insects to dance frantically to maintain their relative positions. A careful observer would possibly notice a faint humming sound near this outlet. Should he care to put his head sufficiently close, he might, perhaps, identify the hum as that of a 'desert cooler', a simple air conditioner that relies on the evaporation of water. Being a careful observer, he might deduce from this that the oasis is not quite as dry as it appears. *************************** As the driver removes his right hand from the recess beneath the dash, his fingers snag on some metallic protrusion. For a second or two he looks down as his hand comes free. As his eyes return to the forward view, he tugs hard, one handed, at the wheel. The reef of rock is not actually very high, and could have been negotiated safely even at their current speed, had the vehicle not been changing direction. Even under these circumstances, a slightly lower speed, combined with less worn tyres, could have

meant no more than a bent track rod. The offside wheel hits first; bursting the tyre instantly and forcing the steering still further in the wrong direction. The vehicle slews wildly to the left, its occupants thrown in the other direction as the metal rims begin to bite into the soft rock. *************************** The tent is, apparently, empty. It seems dim, after the searing light outside, but it is also, incredibly, far hotter than the air outside. Even with the flaps tied back, the faint desert breezes fail to touch the interior. From the inside, the dingy canvas appears a dull, oppressive orange. It is almost too hot to touch, even where the shadow of one of the palms lies across one side. A faint smell of machine oil emanates from a sealed metal hatch set into the ground near the central pole. ************************* The cheap, worn metal of the nearside front door latch bursts under the sudden load. The steering wheel spins viciously, breaking two of the driver's fingers, as the man next to him is flung out through the suddenly open door. The left rear wheel begins to rise, spinning. The driver's right foot is still hard down on the accelerator pedal, even while the main bulk of him falls toward the open door. ************************** Inside the bunker, the Togolaise scientist, his white coat neatly buttoned, is attempting to lecture his protg on the nature of the universe. 'Time...' he says slowly, 'Time.' There is a certain awe in his voice, almost as if the word has just invented itself for his benefit. She is not listening. Apparently intent on the bank of monitors against the far wall, the white man laughs suddenly. 'We're on.' He points at one of the screens. ************************* The front passenger has the first, and the quickest, death. Had there been no luggage stored behind his feet, it is barely possible that he might have been thrown completely clear. As it is, both his legs break an instant before his skull is shattered against the

unforgiving rock. His corpse, Ahab - like, remains tied to the car by the straps of his own baggage. As the car rolls, the weakened floor pan splits transversely immediately in front of the fuel tank. Initially the gap widens rapidly, but after the first two inches, the prop shaft comes to the limit of its permitted extension. The car is now held together solely by the roof panel and the thin metal cap, designed to keep grease in and dust out of the sliding splines on the shaft. The plastic fuel pipe, despite its lack of flexibility after years of tropical heat, does not part instantly. Surprisingly, it still retains sufficient strength to bend the metal outlet pipe on the tank, before it finally tears across. ************************* The background hum of the generator suddenly increases in pitch, as the fatal orange bloom spreads across the face of the screen. Grabbing for the main control, the man in the lab coat is stopped by the girl, who throws herself on him, her face for the first time showing signs of animation. Chaos spreads across the entire bank of monitors as the lights dim. All of this in seconds as the two Africans struggle against the console, while the European, still staring at the screens, begins to laugh.

9. Tempus Fuckit. An excursion into the colourful highways and byways of the Colonel's somewhat flaky subconscious. Or perhaps not? So the there was that miserable bastard Charlie Drew. Always wanted to be a Surgeon but couldn't make the grade. This in spite of him blowing half the examiners and his father bribing the rest. So he barely scrapes through his finals at St. Guys and winds up as a GP in Arsehole, Yorkshire. Bored out of his mind, he starts to practice surgery on himself. Getting ready for that second chance which he is sure is just around the corner. Teaches himself transplant techniques never before seen - or even imagined in some cases. One day he gets this moron bricklayer in with a case of the haemorrhoids. While the guys trousers is down (down even further than the usual builder's fashion, that is.) Charlie notices that the prick is about two sizes bigger than his own. This is when the fatal inspiration strikes. Quick as a flash, he has the brickie anaesthetised, and a local into his own balls. Half an hour later - after the quickest double transplant plus pile removal in the history of the universe - the unfortunate patient is pushed out into the street. Bandaged from knees to nipples, he walks with great difficulty. Also he is keeping his legs as far apart as possible. Before the bandages come off, he is involved in a very messy accident, which includes a loaded ready-mix cement truck. So there is no come back on Charlie, who is walking very careful for a while, for more than one reason. After the funeral, which makes it into the record books on account of it using the worlds largest coffin - also a heavy duty crane - Charlie decides to relax a bit. *********************** In spite of the oversized dong, Charlie's love life is not doing so good - Yorkshire women being mostly built like the proverbial brick shithouse and generally about as exciting. Charlie is not fussy, and looks in other directions, but the men is worse than the women. Needless to say that every, even slightly attractive, animal is already spoken for. Anyway, Charlie has just about decided to move on, when he gets another punter with an even bigger knob. This time he figures there could be some trouble - the patient having only come in with a throat infection. So after the operation,

he packs his bags and leaves - no forwarding address. ********************** After a few stints as a locum in some of the less savoury European capitals - plus two or three more transplants - Charlie is losing count and the odds is getting worse every time - Charlie heads for the USA. He reasons that in a country of huge arses, there should be at least some huge pricks also. He is a badly disappointed man by the time he hears of the old rumour about the Smithsonian Institute. The story goes that some old-time bank robber - whose name temporarily evades me - had a shlong down to his knees. So when the cops finally burn him down, they donate this object to the Smithsonian where it is kept hidden away except for special private viewings. These are normally only for CIA agents, with dicks the size of their brains. This is only used as a last resort in the case of an agent who shows signs of acting like a human being. The shock to the ego being sufficient to suppress all such tendencies for some time. This sort of thing does not happen so often to agents as they have been carefully selected and trained to have all the mental ability of a rabid cockroach. So most of the time this legendary relic just gathers dust in some hidden sub - sub - cellar. From some connection in the business, Charlie gets a copy of what purports to be the secret map and decides to steal this item. He has worked out some way of cloning body parts without needing to grow the whole body. ********************** Either Charlie loses his nerve a little and takes the wrong turning in the dark, or the map is a fake. Either way, the object he brings out with him is not exactly what he thinks it is. In any case his technique is so good that it clones anyway and he has it growing in some special tank in his kitchen. When it reaches about eighteen inches in length, he decides it is ready and gets out his scalpels. Trouble is, it don't stop growing. Turns out that the original must have belonged to some kind of whale or something. Anyway, as it gets bigger, it starts to take over.

Charlie is just this huge prick with a little man attached at the back end. This thing has some pretty unnatural urges, and Charlie is dragged around after them. He is having a very hard time at this point, what with having to find somewhere to stay safely and to make a living and all that stuff. I bump into him one time and he is appearing in some travelling show. He is not at all the man he used to be. Hitting the bottle hard and afraid by now to go out in the daytime. Also by now he needs a wheelbarrow to move at all. I never see Charlie again, but a few years later I hear that he has died. Apparently he has drowned while attempting to rape the killer whale at some sleazy disney near Miami.

10. THE DESERT Part III IMPLICATIONS & EXPURGATIONS In which the Colonel sets the scene but noticeably fails to provide either plot or motive and eventually fades away in a flurry of self indulgence. 'Time' the Professor was saying. My mind drifted elsewhere. 'Time and tide wait for no man.' I seemed to hear. I could still see the CIA man, dying. 'A stitch in time saves nine.' Echoed from some dusty corner. His death had been as mean and stupid as his life. Very symbolic, actually, I thought. His mouth full of shit, just like in life. Over the roofs of the compound to the south, the flames from the burning hotel. The whores had long since vanished, evaporating like spilled petrol at the first sign of trouble. 'Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow.' I knew that what I was hearing was not real. On the other hand, I could not quite pin down what was. ********************** The port was useless, I knew that only too well. Perhaps one of the little Cessnas at the flying club would still be intact. I left the corpse where it was, half in, half out of the open drain. Heading north, I stole one of the ubiquitous, and ancient, French mopeds from a deserted compound. The tiny engine began to misfire as I wove my way through the stalled traffic on Route Atakpame. It finally expired on the hill before the peace monument, just as the shelling restarted. I knew that I had to get back to Mali, though I could no longer remember why. *********************** Many of the cars were occupied by corpses, victims of the earlier nerve gas attack. As usual, the Americans had completely missed their intended targets. I had noticed as I rode past, that both the Russian and the Libyan embassies were completely untouched. The United States compound was, naturally, no more than a

crater filled with smouldering rubble. Even the unoccupied vehicles still tended to have keys in the ignition. Some had obviously been left running and had only stopped when the fuel tanks ran dry. There was no point in trying to start any of the others until I reached some point where the road was no longer blocked. I walked on up the hill. ********************* Climbing onto the remains of the 'Peace' monument, I gained a hazy view of the Atlantic over burning Lom. At least one of the American warships appeared to have run aground. While I watched, two destroyers collided and the shelling of the city eased as they turned their weapons on each other. ********************* Hours later I awoke among the ruins of white houses. I had reached the Residence du Benin, just before the grounds of the Palace. The buildings, though deserted, had all appeared intact in the failing light. Now they crumbled: ancient burn scars smeared to grey on roofless enclosures almost drowned in sickly vines. I lived here once, smooth tarmac roads now less passable than the, always inexplicable, waste areas behind the neat rows of dwellings. ********************** I walked north in total silence, small overripe bananas my hunger fed. Later I vomited, for what seemed like hours, into the tangled roadside brush. Dragons fell blazing from the pitted bronze sky, their lucent hides seared by bolts of ice from the cool blue moons that spun strange epicycles from horizon to zenith.

11. Tempus Even More Fuckit. In which we discover, if we are sufficiently alert, that the Colonel's methods are not necessarily comprehensible to the normal human mind. The old Norton Dominator has a serious vibration problem at certain engine speeds. On this particular machine this begins at around sixty miles per hour - so he is cruising at between eighty and ninety where it all smooths out nicely. Remember once when I fitted a modern electronic rev counter to one of these, only to watch as it disassembled itself - pieces showering onto the road - within five minutes of starting the engine. These particular speeds are not exactly those at which you would expect this vibration with a standard Dominator. As those of you who know about these things may have already realised, this one is no longer standard. Originally these bikes were rather under-geared, especially after the engine had been worked on- a few thou off the head here, a little porting and polishing there - you know the way to do it. When it was built - the last of the magneto ignition models - in 1955, it was not particularly fast. Top speed, as tested, at the time was a little over ninety miles per hour and was just about as fast in third gear as in top. This meant only three really useful gears, with fourth being only used on long straight stretches as a kind of overdrive. About as pointless as the supernumerary fifth gear with which most modern cars seem to be infected. By lowering the final drive ratio with a custom made rear wheel sprocket, the bike is now slower - but accelerates better - in the first three gears. In top, however, instead of struggling along at low revs, the engine is getting well into the maximum power band at ninety. This extra power where it is needed, gives us a top speed approaching a hundred and ten. All this without losing that legendary Norton Featherbed handling which the Japanese with their grossly overweight (especially at the top end) machines have so signally failed to emulate. Not bad for a bike which is now over forty years old. The downside, is that good handling - really good handling, not something just slightly better than the mediocre which so many people seem to have been conditioned to accept as normal demands a constant frame geometry. This in turn implies minimal suspension movement in order to keep the angle of the front forks as near the optimum as possible.

In other words, by its very nature, superior handling equals a hard ride. Bloody hard if the road should happen to have a less perfect surface than this one. It is, by motorcycle standards, a beautiful road. A series of gentle curves, each one flowing smoothly into the next. No long, dreary straights. No lethal sudden hairpins. No other traffic. He lays the bike over precisely at the start of each curve, changing his direction of bank as he crosses the centre-line, then gradually edging in to clip the grass verge at the apex of the bend. And back again, the foot-pegs clearing the tarmac by scant millimetres. Each movement calculated to perfection - a smooth dance of power, as man and machine create an ideal geometry across the deserted countryside. The rider is supremely happy. For the first time in many years, he has laid down his burden and escaped into this simple paradise. Obviously this state of affairs cannot be permitted to continue. There is no particular reason why the men in the black limousine should be following the bike. This is just one of those things that these sort of people do. Probably the sole reason for their existence. Anyway, here they are: four heavily armed thugs. No descriptions, you've all seen them before. No character studies why bother, they're all exactly alike. Probably no parents - they are created, as and when needed from the raw stuff. Four standard heavies then. Armed to the proverbial teeth one would assume. Occupation: Chasing a Fifties motorcycle across an idealised dream of a Fifties landscape. Motives: None - except perhaps the author's natural desire to turn a rather thin plot into some kind of epic. Means of transport: The words 'black' and 'limousine' should be enough to conjure up a suitable image in the mind of almost any reader. You may imagine a Mercedes, or a BMW. Perhaps a Daimler. Probably not a Rolls or Jaguar. Definitely something that implies a surplus of money combined with a complete absence of taste. Almost anything American will probably do at a pinch. Think in terms of the late Fifties or early Sixties. Think, perhaps of four boys, suddenly world famous, with no talent, no taste, no collars and seriously

ugly haircuts. Screaming girls, with hair puffed up, bleached and lacquered into a hideous solid mass. With these thoughts in mind, we realise that the bike must be considerably younger than we had stated earlier. The rider remains unchanged. As he has never been described, this is not a serious problem. You may picture him as a perfect version of yourself - at any age you care to choose. Armaments for the bad guys may be more of a problem. The good old Thompson sub-machine gun with its characteristic drum magazine would be eminently suitable. Unfortunately, it very definitely belongs to the twenties and thirties. The Uzi, that favoured weapon of militaristic psychopaths, is rather more recent than our chosen period. James Bond chose a Beretta pistol at around this time, but we all know he was really a faggot, and only worried about spoiling the lines of his hand made suit. Let it go, for the moment. Let us assume that they almost certainly each carry some kind of heavy automatic pistol. Each has at least one concealed, edged weapon. (No Mildred, that does not mean he has a bejewelled sword thrust into his tights.) And the one in the front, next to the driver, has to be carrying some kind of machine gun. This much is inevitable. Except, of course that it is not. The car, and the thugs themselves may remain indeterminate. The critical weapon - that wielded by the front seat passenger - is coming into focus. Coming into focus, as the car lurches, slides, past the limit of adhesion on every turn. Slowly, very slowly gaining on the motorcycle still far ahead. Coming into focus as that most unlikely of weapons - the punt gun. A fearsome device. Probably the largest shotgun ever produced as more than a single prototype. Designed to be firmly mounted in the bows of a specially strengthened punt. Capable, if all went well, of reducing an entire flock of ducks to mattress stuffing and pate with a single shot. Not to mention destroying its wielder's eardrums and, quite frequently, reducing even the strongest punt to a mass of floating splinters in the process. In the case which we are considering, it must be mounted onto the bonnet of the car. As it is about ten foot long, this means that we must revise our previous image of the vehicle. Making it somewhat less than new, since it is necessarily possessed of the kind of seriously elongated lines normally only seen on vehicles

three, four or even five decades earlier than our current period. Ok. Think again. We are looking at some part of the nineteentwenties. The motorcycle has changed into a Brough Superior. We may now deduce that its rider must be a certain well known individual not unconnected with the Arabian Peninsula. You may guess the rest. Locked in to a particular event, other participants must also change. The large black car may or may not exist. The punt gun - in this particular version at least - almost certainly does not. The rider is very conveniently dead, and therefore incapable of interfering with the legend of his own lifetime. And so we say farewell to another heroic episode in the history of the British Empire, upon which, they say, the sun never sets. The Colonel is counting his money. Another good job well done, he is thinking. What next: Perhaps a cruise to the New World aboard the new liner Titanic would bring its own reward in free entertainment?

12. THE DESERT Part IV EXPLICATIONS, INTERROGATIONS & YET MORE SAND In which, strange as it may seem, things become even more confused as the Colonel apparently continues a previous scene from a different point of view. Thirty or forty feet away, the car burned. Its flames pallid and powerless against the desert glare. As I tried to move away, putting weight onto my left arm, fire shot through my shoulder. The world tilted sideways. Slid away at ever increasing speed. Doppler shifting a deeper, bloodier red. Fleeing me, as I fled it, pain fading into the infinite dark. With no apparent time lapse, I found myself standing, back to the dying flames, the sun low to my right. Here and there, to the south, only visible at all on the occasional patches of dust, faint traces of the car's passage were shown up by the nearly horizontal light. Nowhere; east, west, north or south, was there any sign of anything resembling an oil drum. ************************ The first rule of desert travel is this: Never leave your vehicle. It is much easier for searchers to find a car or truck than a man on foot. Tracks vanish within hours under the perpetually moving dust. Unfortunately, this rule assumes that someone, somewhere is expecting your arrival, and will worry sufficiently to alert the local authorities. In fact, all vehicles travelling a major route are logged by the police, meaning that there will always be some sort of search. Initially, however, this will merely consist of a notice to other travellers to watch for the missing party. It can be several days before a full search is launched. ************************* I must have been still getting some backlash from the nerve gas, either that or I was concussed. No passing traveller was going to watch for me. I had seen no living soul for.... However long it had taken to get this far. It was hard to remember anything for any length of time. At least, it was hard to separate a coherent view of the past from the chaotic images that still populated my dreams.

Turning back to the north, I faced the flames again. It had been an excellent vehicle in its day; a 1967 FIAT steamer, with the slow boiler that had been dropped in later models. Now, the lacquered wood shell had almost gone, revealing the rotting steel frames beneath. Time and termites had not treated it kindly, yet it had got me this far before my own lack of attentiveness had finally destroyed it. Nothing salvageable here. I walked past out onto the outcrop of rock, noting the scars of some earlier accident, the twisted, corroded heap of ancient metal, dust silted. I looked again. No car I had ever heard of, this. A twisted shell, the body, apparently made from one piece of steel. No sign of a boiler coil, though more than half the remains were visible. Strangely small wheels with oversized tyres. I bent, wincing, to read the broken remains of a once bright metal name. 'TOYO..' it said, the end letter or letters missing. Baffled, I shook my head, pain striking through torn neck muscles. ************************ Onwards! The word coiled before my eyes as I lurched upright. Further north, yet another wreck, almost gone in the drifting laterite dust. Skulls here, contours smoothed by the abrasive dust. Bones among the rust. My vision faded again for a few seconds, then recovered suddenly as I stumbled in the soft going.

13. Too Many Cooks Make Light Work. In which we throw in a little aviation history, purely to satisfy one of my own main interests in life. Going down... Two thousand feet - the ancient Stearman is coming in from the north, from the landward side of the city. The clatter of worn valve gear from the big radial clearly audible above the burbling of the stub exhausts. Behind and to either side, the hills, burnt brown by the prolonged dry season, waver in the overheated air. Below, in the mlange of old slums (rusty corrugated iron and equally rusty laterite streets) and new suburbs (green and red tinted asphalt roofs, hot black tarmac), no faces appear to be turned skyward, except for those of the house guards in the more wealthy areas. These are uniformly, and perhaps inevitably, asleep in their chairs. Not too far ahead the ocean stretches undisturbed to the horizon and beyond. In fact there is no land directly to the south until the shores of the Antarctic, over eight thousand miles away. Separated from the sea only by a narrow (and reputedly mined) beach, the palace is clearly visible, its marble colonnades reflecting back the blistering sunlight as a blinding glare of pure whiteness. The blown concrete dome over the main hall, gives it a spuriously Arabic appearance from this distance and altitude. To the west of the palace, the review ground is far less obvious, the faded concrete blending in with the dusty streets around it. Over one hundred feet high, the triumphal arch looms over the parade ground, its background the sea. Near the peak of the arch the presidential box glares down on the assembled army. Only the president has a view inland. The soldiers face each other, the stands, the sea. In the stands, the audience of ministers, hangers on, and the occasional tame reporter, look at the army or each other. No one looks up, except in the direction of the presidential arch. The president, alone as usual in his elevated eyrie is, naturally, looking down. And down... One thousand five hundred feet now, side-slipping to lose a little more height, the Stearman is over the centre of the new city. The monolithic blocks of the government buildings lie to the north. To the south, tin roofed shanties still exist precariously along the banks of the almost dry river, flecks of reddish brown against the black silt. On the top wing, the wing walker is wrestling with a

long leather bag. Loose straps thrash to and fro in the slipstream. Hot air rising from the streets below is increasingly bouncing the old plane around. Banks of speakers large enough for a Heavy Metal band relay the president's words to his audience. The badly set up public address system makes him sound like Donald Duck overdosing on Valium. What he says is not important - no doubt it is the usual self-glorifying rubbish spoken on these occasions everywhere in the world. In any case no-one listens; that is not what they are there for. Apart from the military, who go where they are ordered, everyone is there for one simple reason. Not to support the president, though many do, but to be seen. That is the key to power at this place, at this time. Consequently the most favoured seats are not those with the best view, but those nearest to the video cameras. The possibility of a few seconds on prime time television, should the cameras pan across the audience, is sufficient motive for almost all present. In fact, those with sufficiently good connections - not to mention money - have already bribed the cameramen. to ensure their second or two of fame. And down... One thousand feet, the old plane creaking audibly in the thermals. The wing-walker leans hard into the harness, checking the action of the old Lewis gun. The leather bag has blown away, no longer necessary. The weapon is already loaded, one clip being more than sufficient for this mission. The pilot notices that the temporary water-based paint applied to the machine for the occasion, is already beginning to crack and peel as the airframe flexes. He judges that the small areas of original paint would not be visible at any distance and promptly puts the matter out of his mind. In the Old Market, immediately below, not one of the thousands thronging the narrow streets raises his or her head from current business. It is hot down there - hot, dusty and noisy. Cars move slowly through the crowds, their massed exhausts polluting the air. The sea breeze, caused by cooler air coming in to replace that now rising around the Stearman, carries the fumes away before they reach European levels. The dust, failing to rise, settles on every available surface, yet the amount carried in the air never seems to diminish. The heat, and with it the noise, will, under normal circumstances, increase throughout the day, only beginning to fall as daylight fails and the stall-holders pack their goods away in preparation for the long trip homewards. And down...

Five hundred feet, the arch clearly visible against the sea now. The pilot reaching for the throttle as his passenger turns to give the ready signal. Airspeed increasing as they dive more steeply. Stub exhausts popping as slipstream forces the propeller to rotate more rapidly. Time stretches in these last few seconds. Tiny details impress themselves on the mind as the critical moments approach. Clouds take on significant shapes, the very gaps between them seem to offer omens concerning success or failure. A slack patch of fabric on the starboard wing, never before noticed, flaps out messages of doom. Frozen puffs of dust from static vehicles on painted roads in a painted city spell out cryptic messages. The President is finishing his speech in a frenzy of self congratulation. Without actually listening to his words, the audience is aware that the time for frantic applause is almost upon them. The cameras, as expected, have turned to catch these moments of adulation. Everything is normal for this time and place, this event, these people. And out.. A gloved hand shoves the throttle fully forward as... The president pauses in his speech, suddenly aware that something in his reality is askew and... The thunderous roar of the wide open radial reverberates around the parade ground. The hideously bright, fluorescent pink biplane is already passing under the arch before slow human reflexes have begun to move eyes towards the source of the sudden sound. The rattle of the machine gun is lost in the bellow of the open exhausts. Only the president sees the muzzle flashes as he, shocked into temporary immobility, fails to dive behind his bulletproof balustrade. Emerging from the arch, the pilot begins a slow roll over the narrow beach. The gun is disposed of into the sea when the plane is fully inverted. Dropping to twenty feet above the water, still accelerating, the plane is already well out to sea before anyone on the ground is in any position to fire at it. By the time the radar station is alerted, the Stearman has vanished over the horizon. In any case it is far too low for the ancient, cranky equipment. The wing walker is climbing down into the front cockpit as the machine changes course to the east for the long haul to Sao Tome. The president, trying to come to terms with the fact that he is still alive, has turned away from his audience and is staring, bemused, at the neat semi-circle of bullet pocks on the rear wall of the balcony.

Re-obliteration Going down... Two thousand feet - the north, from the landward valve gear from the big radial - of the stub exhausts. Behind brown by the prolonged dry. Below, in the mlange of old equally rusty laterite streets tinted asphalt roofs - hot black turned skyward, except for wealthy areas. These are in their chairs. Not too far to the horizon and beyond. In the south until the shores of miles away. Separated from the sea - only mined beach, the palace is colonnades reflecting back glare of pure whiteness. The hall gives it a spurious altitude. To the west - less obvious, the faded streets around it. Ancient Stearman is coming in from side of the city. The clatter worn clearly audible above the burbling and to either side. The hills, burnt season, waver in the overheated air. Over one hundred feet high, the triumphal arch looms over slums (rusty corrugated iron) and the parade ground. Its background the sea. Near the peak of the new suburbs. (green and red arch the presidential box glares down on the assembled army. Only tarmac). No faces appear. To be the president - a view inland. ************************** The soldiers face each other, those of the house guards in the more stands, the sea. In the stands, the audience of ministers, hangers uniformly, and perhaps inevitably, asleep. The occasional tame reporter. Look at the army or each - ahead the ocean stretches undisturbed - other. No one looks up, except in the direction of the fact - there is no land directly to presidential arch. The president, alone as usual in his elevated Antarctic - over eight thousand eyrie - is, naturally, looking down. By a narrow (and reputedly clearly visible) marble. Blistering sunlight as a blinding blown concrete dome over the main. One thousand five hundred feet now, side-slipping to lose an Arabic appearance from this distance - little more height. The Stearman is over the centre of the new palace The review ground is

far city. The monolithic blocks of the government buildings lie to the concrete - blending in with the dusty north. ************************** To the south, tin roofed along the banks of the almost against the black silt. Wrestling with a long leather in the slipstream. Hot air rising increasingly. Bouncing the old banks of speakers - large relay the president's words to public address system makes on Valium. What he says is not usual, self-glorifying rubbish in the world. In any case are there for. Apart from the ordered, everyone is there for the president, though many do, power at this place. At this seats are not those with the video cameras. The possibility television, should the cameras, sufficient motive for almost all. One thousand feet, the old thermals. The wing-walker leans action of the ancient Lewis gun. Longer necessary. The weapon more than sufficient for this temporary water-based paint occasion, is already beginning flexes. He judges that the small be visible at any distance and mind. In the Old Market. Thousands thronging the current business. It is hot. Cars move slowly through - polluting the air. The sea to replace that now rising away before they reach. European settles on every available surface, air never seems to diminish. The will, under normal circumstances, only beginning to fall as daylight their goods away in preparation. Shanties still exist precariously - dry river, flecks of reddish brown top wing. The wing walker is bag. Loose straps thrash to and fro. From the streets below is plane around. Enough for a Heavy Metal band, his audience. Badly set up - him sound like Donald Duck overdosing important - no doubt it is spoken on these occasions everywhere no-one listens. That is not - the military, who go where they are one simple reason. Not to support but to be seen. That is the key to time. Consequently the most favoured five hundred feet. The arch clearly visible against the best view, but those nearest to the sea now. The pilot reaching for the throttle as his passenger of a few seconds on prime time turns to give the ready signal. Airspeed increasing as they dive pan across the audience, is more steeply. Stub exhausts popping as slipstream forces the present

propeller to rotate more rapidly. Time stretches in these last few plane creaking audibly - seconds. Tiny details impress themselves on the mind as the hard into the harness, checking the critical moments approach. Clouds take on significant shapes. The leather bag has blown away, no very gaps between them seem to offer omens concerning success. Or is already loaded, one clip being failure. A slack patch of fabric on the starboard wing. Never mission. The pilot notices that. Before noticed, flaps out messages of doom. Frozen puffs of dust applied to the machine - from static vehicles on painted roads in a painted city - spell out crack and peel as the airframe - cryptic messages - areas of original paint. Promptly puts the matter out of the President - finishing his speech in a frenzy of self. Immediately below, not one of congratulation. Without actually listening to his words, the narrow streets raises his or her head from audience. Aware that the time for frantic applause is almost down there hot, dusty and noisy. Upon them. The cameras, as expected, have turned to catch these crowds, their massed exhausts, moments of adulation. Everything is normal for this time and breeze, caused by cooler air coming in place, this event, these people. around the Stearman, carries the fumes levels. The dust, failing to rise, yet the amount carried in the heat, and with it the noise. A gloved hand shoves the throttle fully forward as... The increase throughout the day - president pauses in his speech, suddenly aware that something fails and the stallholders pack. His reality is askew. And... The thunderous roar of the wide open long trip homewards. Radial reverberates around the parade ground. The hideously bright - already passing under the arch, begun to move eyes towards the rattle of the machine gun - is lost. Only the president sees the temporary immobility, fails to balustrade. The pilot begins a slow roll over. Disposed of into the sea. When twenty feet above the water, already well out to sea before position to fire at it. By the time Stearman has vanished too low for the ancient, cranky climbing down into the front cockpit to the east for the long haul. To come to terms with the fact that fluorescent pink biplane is

from his audience and is before. Slow human reflexes have semicircle of bullet pocks on the source of the sudden sound. The bellow of the open exhausts. muzzle flashes as he, shocked into dive behind his bulletproof. Emerging from the arch, the narrow beach. The gun plane is fully inverted. Dropping to still accelerating, the plane is anyone on the ground - is in any case. The radar station is alerted, the horizon. In any case it is far equipment. The wing walker is as the machine changes course. Sao Tome. The president, trying to be, is still alive, has turned away staring, bemused, at the neat rear wall of the balcony. 2nd re-obligateration Going down... Two thousand feet - from the big radial of the stub prolonged dry. Below, in the streets tinted asphalt roofs, wealthy areas. These are in and beyond. In the south until separated from the sea. Only reflecting back glare of pure altitude. To the west of less ancient Stearman is coming in. Worn - clearly audible above the burnt season, waver in the ....... Over one hundred feet high, the slums, (rusty corrugated iron). The sea. Near the peak the presidential box glares down. No faces appear to be the face of each other, those of the sea. In the stands, the audience - perhaps inevitably, asleep. Look at the army or each - ahead - other. No one looks up, - there is no land directly. Alone as usual in his elevated eyrie - is, naturally, looking clearly visible - it's marble blown. Concrete dome over. One thousand five hundred feet Arabic appearance from this Stearman is over the centre of city. The monolithic blocks of concrete blending in. ************************** To the south, tin roofed along silt. On the wrestling. Increasingly bouncing the old president's words to public. He says is not usual self- are there. Apart from the president, though many do, power not those with the video cameras - the cameras, sufficient motive. One thousand feet. The old, the ancient Lewis gun. Longer,

sufficient for this, temporary flexes. He judges that the small mind. In the Old Market Thousands thronging the current slowly through - polluting the air away before they reach. European air never seems to diminish. The only beginning to fall. Shanties still exist top wing. The wing-walker is bag from the streets below. Is plane his audience. Badly set up - important - no doubt it is - no-one listens. That is not one simple reason. Not to time. Consequently the most clearly visible against the sea now. The pilot reaching for a few seconds on prime time. Airspeed increasing as they more steeply. Stub exhausts present propeller to rotate. These last few. Plane creaking - impress themselves on the mind - the critical moments approach. The leather bag has blown away, offer omens concerning success. Failure. A slack patch of fabric mission. The pilot notices that of doom. Frozen puffs of dust vehicles on painted roads in the airframe - cryptic messages. Promptly puts the matter out of in a frenzy of self. Immediately below, not one of listening to his words, the audience - is aware that down there - hot, dusty and expected, have turned to catch moments of adulation. Everything breeze, caused by cooler air around the Stearman, carries the (yet the amount carried in the A) gloved hand shoves throughout the day president that something fails and the... The thunderous roar of the wide reverberates around the parade - passing under the arch (begun to) the machine gun is lost. Only immobility, fails to balustrade. Disposed of into the sea. When already well out to sea before Stearman has vanished - too low down into the front cockpit to come to terms with the fact from his audience. And is before. Of bullet pocks on the source of the bellow of the open exhausts. Dive behind his bulletproof. Emerging from the arch inverted. Dropping to still ground. In any case it is far equipment. Changes course. Sao Tome. The president, trying. Staring, bemused, at the neat north, from the landward valve gear exhausts. Behind, brown by the mlange of old equally rusty laterite - hot black turned skyward, except for their chairs. Not too far to the horizon. The shores of miles away. Mined beach. The palace is colonnades - whiteness the hall, gives it. Obvious, the faded streets around it. from side of the city. The clatter of burbling and to either side, the hills, overheated air.

Triumphal arch looms over - and the parade ground, its background new suburbs (green and red arch the assembled army. Only tarmac). President has a view inland. The soldiers house, guards in the stands, the ministers, hangers uniformly, on, and the occasional tame reporter. The ocean stretches undisturbed except in the direction of the fact - presidential arch. The president, Antarctic - over eight thousand down. By a narrow (and reputedly blistering sunlight) as a blinding main. Now, side-slipping to lose a distance - little more height, the new palace. The review ground is far, the government buildings lie to the dusty north. ************************* The banks of the almost against the black, long leather in the slipstream. Hot air rising. Banks of speakers - large relay the address system makes on Valium. What glorifying rubbish in the world. In any case ordered, everyone is there at this place, at this seats are. The possibility television, should for almost all. Thermals. The wing-walker leans - action necessary. The weapon - more than water-based paint occasion, is already beginning - visible at any distance and business. It is hot. Cars move. The sea, to replace that now rising, settles on every available surface. Will, under normal circumstances daylight - their goods away in preparation. Precariously - dry river, flecks of reddish brown. Loose straps thrash to and fro around. Enough for a Heavy Metal band, him sound like Donald Duck. Overdosing spoken on these occasions. Everywhere what the military - who go where they are support but to be seen. That is the key to favoured five hundred feet. The arch best view, but those nearest to the throttle, as his passenger turns to give the ready signal. Dive pan across the audience. Is popping as slipstream forces more rapidly. Time stretches inaudibly in the seconds. Tiny details as the hard into the harness, checking. Clouds take on significant shapes. No gaps between them seem. Or is already loaded, one clip being on the starboard wing. Never the before noticed, flaps out messages applied to the machine from static painted city - spell out crack and peel as areas of original paint would not. The President - is finishing his speech - the congratulation. Without actually narrow streets raises his or her head from

time - for frantic applause is almost noisy. Upon them. The cameras, as these crowds, their massed exhausts, is normal for this time. And coming in place, this event, these people. Fumes. Levels. The dust, failing to rise, heat, and with it the noise. Throttle fully forward as... The increase pauses in his speech, suddenly aware stallholders pack - his reality is askew. And open long trip homewards. Radial ground. The hideously bright, already move. Eyes towards the rattle of the president sees the temporary. The pilot begins a slow roll over - twenty feet above the water. Position to fire at it. By the time for the ancient, cranky climbing. The east for the long haul. That fluorescent pink biplane is slow. Human reflexes have semi-circle the sudden sound. Muzzle flashes as he, shocked into narrow beach. The gun plane is fully accelerating. The plane is anyone on the radar station. Alerted the horizon. The wing walker is as the machine. He is still alive, has turned away. Rear wall of the balcony.

(I give the poor old hulk a good shot of morphine [What else?] - and one for me for luck.)

14. A Stitch in Time is not Easy Note: This particular document is not part of the Colonel's story. I have included it on his instructions, even though it appears to be completely irrelevant. He claims to have found the original, quite accidentally, whilst engaged in looting the ruins of Istanbul after the great earthquake of 1908. Two days out and the deaths have already begun - I knew it was going to be bad this time - after a while in this business you get this gut feeling. Paris 1904 - something or someone is messing with our schedule. We have no reason to be here at this time. The third Doctor 'D' dies in a riot before we can get our bearings. The sky is a dead, flat brown. Is this a clue of some kind? None of us feel happy here - Alfred Jarry's time machine has reached its ultimate velocity and sits, pinned for all to see. Forever nailed against a faded, parchment moon. Infinite speed through time implies its presence in all times. Jarry has achieved his measure of immortality in less than an instant. As we can see him, eternally fixed against the backdrop of space, perhaps he, in turn, can see us. All of us. In fact all of the light emitted throughout the entire life of the universe. Jarry's timeless quest begins and ends in one infinitely short glare of all destroying light and heat. He has found forever in a period of time far too short for his senses to have registered it. The sky is beginning to move. Great festering clumps of cloud swirling against the unrecognisable stars. It is time to move on. ? Djakarta 1847? The situation is deteriorating rapidly - there now seems little or no prospect of ever reaching our original destination. The Cwm twins have quarrelled and have taken to throwing acid into each others face at every opportunity. We have all been forced to take up various occupations in the local bars and bordellos in order to survive. The citizens here walk around blank faced. Occasionally one will stop and gaze at something which apparently they can see and we cannot. They do not connect with their surroundings in the same way we do. It may be that their city is not at all the one in which we are compelled to live. As we experience it, the city is a dismal place - surrounded by sickly swamps, filled with quaking islets of stinking mud. Each tussock of coarse, yellowish grass seems to conceal a crocodile. Immense beasts whose scaly hides are covered with festering sores

which seem to glow- slowly moving patches of sickly blue-green in the perpetual twilight. The city itself appears to be designed in the classical manner. Stately elegance of form from a reasonable distance. Closer we see that what appeared to be marble faades are merely painted bricks slowly returning to the mud of which they were made. Occasionally a building slumps to the ground as the bricks finally liquefy. Entombing all within in a subsiding heap of stinking black slurry. No one ever emerges from these collapses. None of the remainder of the population makes any attempt at rescue. As far as we can tell the remaining citizens are not even aware of this diminishment of their doomed city. Far across the swamp - barely visible even on those odd occasions when the mist, which seems to rise from the water, dissipates slightly - lies what appears to be a more stable patch of land. Upon this firmer ground can be seen the remains of what would seem to have been a large building of some kind. This ruin is the only thing which seems capable of arousing any real emotion in the apathetic populace. When the mists thin out, they huddle in great clumps of cold flesh on the side of the city farthest from the apparition. At these times they gibber and squeak in soft wet voices syllables that resemble their ordinary tongue not at all. Under normal - or what passes here as normal - circumstances they rarely speak at all except in monosyllabic grunts. Even when taking what passes among them for pleasure in their dank bars and whorehouses, they tend to remain obstinately silent. We must cross the marshes to the ruin - now - while we still have some scant stores of energy. We can all feel our condition deteriorating - it has become difficult to speak. We feel our various languages losing their meanings. Most of our hair has fallen out, leaving our skins as cold and slick and pallid as those of the natives. As the undersides of the great sickly lizards. Our numbers are still impossible to compute - a fact which I can only take as a sign that we have not yet sunk beyond the point of no return. I can say with some degree of certainty that if there are at least 'n' Doctors present, then there are rather more than '2n1' others of our expedition here. This is not counting the twins, many of whom have succumbed to the general malaise to such an

extent that they may as well be locals. We set out across the black slimy mud, stepping as much as possible on the tussocks of grass. In spite of its limp appearance, this growth is possessed of razor sharp edges which soon take their toll of our weakened skin. ************************ Near total disaster - in the course of our passage through the mire, Doctor 'D' is attacked by one of the crocodiles. Overreacting, he proliferates alarmingly. The visible region of the swamp rapidly filling with panic stricken, gesticulating, tophatted figures. Falling, drowning in mud, and being attacked by yet more crocodiles. These, attracted by the noise and by the blood in the water, are now converging en masse on the source of the confusion. One of the Cwm twins, accidentally struck by a Doctor's whirling cane, falls face down into a particularly glutinous patch of mud. Two others, rushing to the rescue, collide with yet another Doctor and fall in their turn. Panic becomes contagious - the entire swamp is filled with screams of fear and rage as the Doctor approaches critical mass. The remainder of us not far behind. Voices rise to an insane, high pitched gabble as the entire surface of the world seems to tilt sideways. Pushed in all directions by competing gravitational shifts, we stagger helplessly under increasing pressures. Building up towards intolerable levels, as a blinding pulse of light sweeps across the mist. In that one flash - white, yet visibly containing all conceivable colours - The swamp fades away in a final rush of struggling figures. For a moment I think I see Jarry's improbable machine outlined against a cracked, warped shape that may once have been the moon. All fades to green, for no particular reason, as we slide away down the bumpy slopes of forever. ************************* I - Doctor 'K' (I have no idea why the captain insisted in referring to me as 'D' in his ludicrous journal.) have now taken command of the remains of this expedition. Having read my predecessors biased and deluded account of our travels to date, I have certified him insane and placed him

under open arrest. Look at him now as he scurries to and fro, a pale hairless rat. His little mouth opening and closing silently as he tries to comprehend his current position. We are, or appear to be - I refuse to be pedantic about this, considering this to be one of the major failings of our erstwhile leader- in open countryside. Nowhere is there the slightest sign of civilisation, yet the lush grass here appears to have been cropped to a uniform height. This measures exactly 1.2 inches at every point at which I have tried the exercise. We wander about on the side of an immense hill, which curves away evenly in all directions. There is a slight haze which conceals the bottom of the valley which logic tells me must exist down the slope. In fact, there is no horizon in any direction. The only objects which intrude upon this pleasant, but rather dull, scene, are the other members of the expedition. ************************ I will now attempt to enumerate and describe these members to the best of my limited ability. First: The captain: (I refuse to capitalise him, since he is no longer in a position of authority. Yet I must call him something and he has so far refused to reveal his name.) A short, rather underweight person of indeterminate nationality. (and sex now that I look closer.) Invariably wearing a ridiculous set of tights and a cape - varying in colour in accordance with some incomprehensible set of rules to which I was once forced to listen. The front of the tights is invariably padded with what appears to be at least half a box of paper handkerchiefs. The remainder being used to produce a semblance of what the captain firmly imagines to be muscles upon his (or her) scrawny arms and legs. In some ways the captain is somewhat of an enigma, and as....... ************************ Head-hitter's Note: At this point the document ends with an indecipherable scribble. Followed by what I have been informed by a reliable authority is the word 'BOLLOX' in a different hand. (Also in Hindustani, which is why I needed the authority of course.) It also appears to be written in blood, though analysis (another expert -

not related to the first one) shows it to be tomato ketchup. The make has not, so far, been determined.

15. Once in a Blue Monsoon. In which the Colonel participates in a little fun in the snow and generally has a good laugh. Somewhere it is bitterly cold. Somewhere five men are dying in a tent, in the snow. This is not directly related to our situation however. We are comfortably ensconced in a warm bar in downtown Vancouver. Our main area of concern is the disgusting Canadian beer. As the only alternative is the even more revolting American variety, we do not complain too much. 'All piss and wind' is the general opinion. For a while we reminisce while the video player shows us a tent in the snow. It is summer here, and, as it can be in summer in this part of the world, the outside temperature is almost unbearably hot. Inside the tent, on the video, are the five men, dying. The Colonel has arranged for us all to meet here, in this place, on this day. I have never met any of the others before, though I believe I may know at least one of them by reputation. There have been no introductions, we are here purely to satisfy some whim of the Colonel's. On the screen it is 1910, a critical year by any standards. Soon the tide of invention which characterised the previous century will begin to ebb. The foundations of all those things which you consider 'modern' have already been laid. Fax machines have been with us since 1828 - television is rooted in a patent taken out in the 1890's - Henri Coanda will, before the end of the year, have flown the worlds first jet aircraft. For the remainder of the century, the art of invention will consist mainly of rifling old patents, rewriting them and claiming sole credit. The single item which has not in some way been foreseen, is the transistor. This will be designed by two separate researchers in the 1920's. In spite of the multitude of uses to which this device could be put, it will then vanish from sight for nearly another thirty years. By the last decade of the twentieth century, the average human mind will have become so sluggish that it will accept the most trivial gimmick as something new and wonderful. At this point there will no longer exist the slightest need for creative thought. In fact, the very word 'creation' will have degraded to the point where it could be applied to something as trivial as a new label on a bag of chicken food.

Enough of this - the facts are plain enough to anyone who cares to search for them. On the small screen, a man is emerging from the tent. He glances at the camera for a moment, and we see that it is the Colonel. The tent is half buried in the drifting snow, and he is forced to push himself up to the surface. Stooping, he turns, pushing his head in through the partly open flap, as if to speak to someone inside. Then he rises to his feet, turns again and, with a firm step, walks away from the tent. Apart from the snow, there is no other movement on the screen. As the figure of the Colonel recedes, the snow, fine and powdery, begins to fall more thickly. It is obvious also, that the strength of the wind is rapidly increasing. In a few seconds, the Colonel has become an indistinct shape. A few more, and he is no longer visible. As the blizzard builds up still more, the tent itself becomes hidden behind the, now almost horizontal, curtain of snow. White out. In the bar, the Colonel sips at his foul beer and leans forward to change the channel. An instant before he does so, the snow swirls suddenly, revealing a massive, dark shape, which seems to move toward the camera. ************************ Spic and span, in tropical whites, the Colonel on the screen steps from a doorway in an, otherwise blank, white wall. Click. The channel changes again and he appears between two immense trees. A tropical rain forest. He is stripping off a soaking fur jacket, the trousers falling around his ankles as he laughs uproariously. Another click. The television and video player have gone. We are sitting around a table at a pavement caf, in a city I do not recognise. It is time to talk business.

16: You Can't Beach an Old Dog. In which we may yet learn that a quantum jump is really the smallest possible movement. Two locations haunt his dreams. So there was that miserable bastard the old house. Somehow he feels to be a Surgeon but couldn't make of his own head. It is huge, blowing half the examiners - and his deserted. Although he always barely scrapes through - his finals are examining his every move. GP in Arsehole, Yorkshire. Bored out his dreams - explored the house - practice surgery on himself. Getting the cellars which lie exposed - to which he is sure is just around the forgotten wing has long techniques never before seen - or ancient, charred timbers. *********************** One day he gets this moron to the clay from which they were. While the guys trousers is down (descends between moss covered usual builder's fashion, that is.) Still light here, though, as he is about two sizes bigger than the house. It becomes rapidly - inspiration strikes. Quick - as he is completely under still and a local into his own balls. Half possible to make out - albeit quickest double transplant plus pile his surroundings. He feels he is universe - the unfortunate patient as if a fading picture. Bandaged from knees to nipples, directly onto the surface. Also he is keeping his legs as far as seems entirely natural to him. ********************* Bandages come off, he is involved in subterranean world below. Includes a loaded ready-mix cement of dread. In spite of this, he back Charlie, who is walking - taking the narrowest passages. One reason. After the funeral of his fears, he is convinced books on account of it using. Eventually, he will find a way heavy duty crane - Charlie decides - on the other side of the oversized dong. Charlie's love - never seen. Never even been - Yorkshire women being mostly built. He can continue along his path, shithouse and generally about. As

which he somehow mythologises and looks in other directions, but never makes it. Some nights he - needless to say that - every, even. But in utter frustration is already spoken for. Anyway, dreams - to overcome some move on, when he gets another punter. Pathetic terror - in his dreams. This time he figures there could be. At his lack of imagination - in having only come in with a throat. Convoluted, but basically he packs his bags and leaves - no sometimes. ********************* Bored and sweating in few stints as a locum - in some he tries to create a conscious - plus two or three more defeated by an uncharacteristic. And the odds is getting worse - every one thing that increases his USA. He reasons that, in a country of levels. This is, that unlike at least some huge pricks also. He relate the house to - no - the time. He hears of the old rumour - this, he remains convinced, on. The story goes that some old-time - somewhere in the real world. As evades me - had a shlong down to... He becomes ever more confused - finally burn him down, they donate. He begins to pester friends and where it is kept hidden away except which they take, rightly, as these are normally only for CIA state. ********************* One by one they begin their brains. This is only used as it move away, die. The whole an agent who shows signs of acting increasingly obsessed with flash. To the ego being sufficient to his own youth - wrongly, as all some time. This sort of thing does deeds, of considered actions, as they have been carefully selected. He forgets the reality of mental ability of a rabid cockroach. Mornings. Increasingly the legendary relic just gathers dust in night - descending worn stone cellar. From some connection in the brick. Further hours - semi-copy of what purports to be. Coccooned in darkness, this item. He has worked out some hope now as his body too begins - needing to grow the whole body. Frequently encounters in this little - and takes the wrong

turning - house. ********************* It is a valley. Fake. Either way, the object of that. Perhaps a merger of two - what he thinks it is. In any case his younger days. Totally it clones anyway and he has it identifiable. He is driving his kitchen. When it reaches about, hedgerows cut off the view - decides it is ready and gets out. His glimpses of the valley itself. Don't stop growing. Turns out that hidden in mist, its far side to some kind of whale or something. The way becomes steeper. The car starts to take over. Charlie is just road - surface deteriorates. Yet man attached at the back end. This as the road approaches the urges, and Charlie is dragged around towards the distant, concealed very hard time at this point. What a feeling of relief. A relaxing - to stay safely and to make a living content. All responsibilities into him one time and he is he - could really let it all go. He is not at all the man he used tonight. Then again, if he could. And afraid by now to go out in the person he undoubtedly is. Few of a wheelbarrow to move at all. Life so remarkable would ever - few years later I hear that he has the years of torment. While attempting to rape the killer. Recognising himself, in his near Miami. Man driven by an obsession - yet Charlie Drew. Always wanted - been poorer without it. Perhaps, the grade. This in spite of him - his valley. It is not likely father bribing the rest. So he always lie in the opposite. St. Guys and winds up as the closing door. Stuttering of his mind, he starts - sweaty hand as she stumbles. ********************* Ready for that second chance through. She spinning away. Corner. Teaches himself transplant - strains, curses. Fights - even imagined in some cases. Gone wrong. A casual murder in bricklayer. In with a case of the haemorrhoids. Dark plots of revenge - as tears down - even further than the seconds? Somewhere the door. Charlie notices that the prick - he believe that? He has hope. He own.

This is when the fatal has time. Time to plan. Time to flash. He has the brickie anaesthetised. Search that has finally led him an hour later - after the half a Century. ********************* Now only remains removal in the history of the First. And most disturbing. Is pushed out into the street. It - to be a metaphor for the inside - walks with great difficulty. Tumbledown place. Apparently long apart as possible. Before convinced that hidden inhabitant - a very messy accident. For some reason, he has never - truck. So there is no come in itself. Inevitably he is (drawn to) careful - for a while. For more on the sky - at the point where some - which makes it into the record collapsed. ********************** Climbing over piles of worlds largest coffin - also disintegrating bricks - almost returned to relax a bit. In spite of original manufacture - life is not doing so good - walls to the lower level. It is like the proverbial brick - advances towards the main bulk of exciting. Charlie is not fussy - darker. In spite of this, even the men is worse than the women. When intact rooms, he finds that it is lightly attractive, animals rather dimly - the general shape. Charlie has just about decided to off - seeing by some kind of un-light with an even bigger knob. Cellar is being somehow projected. Some trouble - the patient eyes. At the time, this effect infection. So after the operation. As he explores deeper into the forwarding address. After a house, he feels an increasing senseless savoury European capital. Invariably proceeds. Each time transplants - Charlie is losing count. The stairs leading down. In spite time - Charlie heads for the only way out - is to go on huge arses. These should be through - and emerge triumphantly. ********************** A badly disappointed man by building. This is a side which about - the Smithsonian Institute is capable of imagining. Somehow, if bank robber - whose name temporarily.

He will make it to this place - knees. So when - the cops - a haven of peace. Of course he - this object to the Smithsonian - will wake up screaming. Not in for special private viewings. Ear. Failure of his will - in his agents - with dicks the size of trivial, imaginary obstacle. At last resort in the case of some nonexistent menace. Like a human being. The shock his dreams - when faced with suppress all such tendencies for simple labyrinth of his own. Creating not happen so often to agents. 16.1 The endless insomniac night. And trained to have all the plan of the cellars. He is inevitably so most of the time. This failure of concentration. There - some hidden sub - sub - is sense of frustration to intolerable business. Charlie gets any other dream he has. He can secrete map and decides to steal - recognisable place or event. In way of cloning body parts without spite of some level - that the house exist. Either Charlie loses his nerve as his mental faculties deteriorate in the dark, or the map is between this and his real quest. Brings out with him is not (exactly) acquaintance. Asking questions - his technique is so good that evidence of a degenerating mental growing in some special tank ignore him poor old sod's lost eighteen inches in length. ********************** The world is becoming younger - faster scalpels. Trouble is with outer show. He remembers the original must have belonged old men do - as a time of heroic. Anyway, as it gets bigger, terrible obstacles bravely defeated this huge prick with little drunken brawls. Cheap whores. Vomitous thing has some pretty unnatural retreats to the house. Spends hours after them. He is having each step, following walls of crumbling, with having to find somewhere. Wakeful, endlessly replaying all that stuff. I bump dreams. Searches for the one path. His last appearing in some travelling show to fail. The other place which he be. Hitting the bottle - hard sleep tends to disturb him. Far daytime.

Also by now he needs less. Almost a real valley. He is sure never see Charlie again, but more scenes he has known in died. Apparently he has drowned - familiar in some ways, yet never whale. At some sleazy disney - fully along a narrow country road. Tall. The final door leads, as I had, either side. Ahead, he can catch brothel, authentically. An immense declivity, its bottom manner. (always a favourite - almost purple with distance.) ********************** Gradually - which I, myself, feel a certain ally - more difficult to handle as the history. In which anything - there is no fear at any time. Even this - rather more than minor - vertical. The car plunging, uncontrolled to my task. Mentally and floor far below. Rather, there is - have never been able to locate - long held tensions. A kind of actual point where it emerges abandoned. Sometimes he wishes that at the time. The Colonel. Slide away into some final peaceful founding of the establishment. Do that, he would in no way be - since. The old man, finally. ********************** The events which had made this haven - in almost every - have occurred. All in all, despite (and even in some of the less.) Colonel prefers himself as he is. I feel now, as the end of my rare moments of self analysis, as somehow the Colonel managed to. He still feels his life would have with him into death. *********************** As, indeed one day, he will go in search of him through most of his adult - though, since his real aims available (no more than a few) - direction. She is dead! The running of his far flung campaigns for automatic weapons. Hand sliding. If ever. Have made any real use from bright flicker-flash as he falls - as you will see - obsessed with Blood. Bright from side and mouth. Among the swamps and rain. He - unavailing the swirling forces. A suspected, through to a well equipped, robbery - the course. He knows the faces. *********************

Decorated and equipped in the late Edwardian flow. Did she move in those last period for the Colonel, and one could have flung her safely free. Attraction, as the last period in, has hate. In the beginning, he - resembling real style - was current. From (begin) the long, long search. The paradise, I was able to return to this place. Hope has faded over physically refreshed and rested. Though I revenge. With any degree of precision, into the outside world, I gathered. Had been a regular patron - since this departed - this Earth. I have searched for major city of the Northern Hemisphere. ******************** Depressing of the barbaric Southern own life - rapidly approaches. Take this vital means of recreation, he appears to have taken it with life, for it seems to have been minutes away - on almost every one. Strangely enough, he seems rarely - this amenity - himself. He being the memory of some long lost love - forests of West Africa.

17: Here We Go Round. Yet another case of the infamous serpent with its tail in its mouth. The Colonel is probably glad to be out of this one. Heavy firing begins on the instant the tanks crest the ridge. Before them the valley, broad and shallow, surfaced with close green turf. Totally devoid of cover all the way to the edge of the forest. Occasional flashes among the trees mark the positions of some of the enemy artillery. Not enough to account for the intensity of the bombardment, however. It seems that the bulk of the force must be hidden deeper in the woods. Rocking, weaving, all engines on full throttle, Trying to outguess the defending gunners both seen and unseen, the tanks slew wildly across the grass. Tracks throwing up great swathes of torn turf at each turn. A near miss on number Four. A jagged chunk of shrapnel severs a track link. Idler wheels dig deep into the soil, engine howling its agony as maximum power suddenly finds no resistance to work against. Fifty tons of steel slides and shudders to a halt, broadside to the forest. Desperately the gunner and loader continue to fire as the remainder of the crew evacuate. A hopeless attempt at repair. The remainder of the track is at least fifty yards back, if it is even still in one piece. Unshielded, they try for it - what else can they do. For a minute, the remaining tanks charge on unopposed. Enemy fire concentrates on the crippled machine. All too soon a direct hit. One down, five still running. Curtain of fire ahead as sweating crewmen load and fire at speeds beyond the normal limits of their ability. *************************** They, or at least tanks Three and Five, which have drawn rather ahead of the others, are close enough now that the trees are hampering the enemy's fire almost as much as their own. Then number Two is out. A brew up. Nobody makes it out. No chance for anybody in those circumstances. Number One goes next. Direct hit on the front of the turret,

just as the gunner fires one of his own. Million to one chance. Starfish of torn, cooling metal - the turret. Somehow she still moves. Some spark of life. Perhaps the driver, isolated deep under the nose armour. Headless and unarmed, she turns, sluggishly. Crawls for home, drawing no further fire. The enemy, whatever else he may be, is apparently capable of mercy. *************************** Six has stopped. No visible damage. Mechanical failure all too frequent. Too little time for proper maintenance. Too little rest between battles. ************************** Three and five vanish into the forest. Black smoke from number Two rolls slowly across the valley. The remains of Four are also burning fiercely now. Hidden observers on both ridges find their view of the trees obscured. Below the smoke, the day has grown dark. The sun a dim orange disk - fading. After a while, a growing rumble announces the reappearance of the decapitated number one from the black clouds. Sole survivor dies of wounds some hours later. Firing gradually fades and dies away into uncanny silence. Later, as the smoke dissipates and night approaches, three of the crew of Number Six return - on foot. Darkness falls. By the following morning, the valley is clear again. Smooth grass stretches from the ridge to the distant trees. No shell holes mar its smooth, manicured surface. The wrecked tanks have vanished. ************************* On the other side of the rise, a fresh squadron starts its engines - blue smoke and a growing thunder. Heated air shimmering, distorting the light of the rising sun.

18: Death of an Old Queen. I would like to say a few words at this point but I'm far too drunk. So piss off until tomorrow. Fill a bucket to around the half way. Endless dreams of death and in the middle of fairly small, clean, rotting, blood. A foot above the contents of the bucket. Here and there, the corpses. Goes a long way doesn't it? A normal maggot. He is searching for half a bucket - therefore contains each bloody, writhing, eye. Equivalent to the amount of blood. Turn a body over where really, the visual effect, that creates the proud insignia of his senses. The slight stickiness under the death's head, the double walk into a slaughterhouse at his weapons. Can no longer... Then there are the flies. Them in his dream. A light so bright. The door fits closely into its frame, rending crash - the breaking excluders along the bottom edge - in the dream - as in all his thousands. Perhaps you should Ragnarok - the death struggle. ************************** After the paint - freeze-frame it - is falling. He is awake. Just. I forgot to mention furniture. Make through layers of sleep. His bed. Two small cabinets - mounted the night. Turned to face the attached. One television. Two of broken glass are still in the drip bottles. A couple of extreme instants, although his eyes. A typical small hospital room. No! The glittering fragments. Not even any pieces of slow motion. Tumbling end flies. And the buzzing of the flies, if explosive. Supposedly, it has the offended senses. Apart from pulled. Some would-be the door - possibly in a pool of fresh - throwing it. Some would-be blood. As you stumble out, you may off his blanket in his sleep yourself, leaving one lonely hand - right arm free. He raises it another four or five rooms. Kubelwagen. (Look it up - asshole.) Even become blas about the whole grenade. A million thoughts to stretch on forever. One doorway somewhere in the hard steel. Corridor every five doors. Equal trajectory, mass, inertia of rooms must run into the tens with him. You must study.

After taking a few random turns. His father's vast anger. It fits corridors parallel to the one in balls of his childhood. He is, nevertheless, your own existence. The window? No, despite identical - if you have survived - is too small. He half turns, then surely others must have done. Door. To the left, past the foot beyond the one in which you angle. But tall. If he can... By bad luck, you have begun your adjoining room direction. And, of course, what with the cottage. That is partly mentioned the shock and the sickness inner? Lath and plaster your original starting point. You reaching down for the frame. After all the doors you have opened - heavy, old fashioned. Not a single noxious insect. Bed in the cottage - the sole. Perhaps a faint hint of disinfectant. Who still remain - have to air freshener. You may also wonder, remaining two on guard. You might see from the windows - to have got so close. His men! Not think about it. Eventually, you killed them all! His forever. One of the rooms on an otherwise of which he was so proud. He - alcove - is a water cooler. Also the explosion shakes loose a type of things - you know the sort. Heavy outer walls, the way back. Presumably, it leads feebly - hearing gone. Less. You have come up in the world. You - inches from his back. A choice of six directions: up, down, corruption. He wades through a pool. The choice is entirely yours. Go the surface. Hover a billion bloated flies. What am I going to do? Well, I think of men and horses create homes for innumerable nightmares. When I wake something, in the dream. Gazes deep into bar and get blind drunk. Same as socket. Reaching down into the blood - might even let you buy me a drink. Necessary. He is soaked from head to footmark with red paint. Now: stand - uniform now as black as the rest of it. White room. Spin around, throwing lightning flashes. He has thrown away - you do so. Half a bucket of paint - remember the reason. There is a flash - sized bucket contains two gallons. It

obliterates all thought. A world - one gallon - eight pints - roughly of the window of the sky. This is normal. In an adult human being. It is not dreams - these days of endless retreat. Nausea. It is more the other - of the Gods. Yggdrasil - the world tree. The soles of the shoes. The smell. Like that. None of the usual struggle up. End of a long, hot day - for that effect eyes are instantly open. He has turned over. Windows are sealed, double glazed - single - uncurtained window. The shards probably with one of those rubber draughts. Air? It is a grenade. He is aware of this. Yet the flies are there in their can - only make out a dark silhouette amidst a bucket of fine, black confetti. Drifts through the air towards him - languorous - while some of it is still in the air. Over end. A handful of metal with a core of it sparse. Two narrow, metal framed - a four second delay after the pin has been on castors. With folding trays heroes - he has heard - count to three before metal stands with hooks for attaching. Heroes have died. Luckily he has thrown uncomfortable chairs. Luckily he is lying upon his left side - his doctors. No nurses. No patients. an effort akin to moving a stalled dismembered patient. (Just the blood, asshole.) It moves even more slowly than he. And you want to include your ears amongst hammer at his brain - distracting. Still - your own, which end one step. Inside core of himself - a steady calculation of vomit - there are no footprints in the endless hours of ball games. Mutti pleading - grasp at the door jamb to steady fitness of the mind. Not just the body print and a few crushed flies. After. Into his hand as neatly as the play. Decorated in an identical manner, barely aware of the weight. Back through, you may think. After all, the corridor appears current. Feeling of total control. The target every five yards or so. One cross aided by the weight of the grenade. The endless. At the very least the number of the bed. A narrow opening from thousands. You come to this conclusion - bounces

off the facing wall, just inside. Seeing the, equally endless, identical. Disappears from view. Thick stone. The outer walls which you began your exploration. Why he had chosen it? What about proves that not all rooms are (absolutely) probably? He tumbles from the bed. Left hand. Whatever cataclysm has occurred here tips it with him. An extra layer of protection, likewise. Perhaps none of the room's mattress. A sign of his superior rank, the sole - awoke - has been touched. Perhaps, occupant of the room. His men - the eight purely explorations in precisely wrong - sleep on the floor. Six at a time - the initial disorientation - not outside. Probably dead already for the enemy. It proves impossible to locate. In the next room! Shit! Christ! He has - may have - noticed by now. That, even, damned, efficiency. His lightning reflexes. There are no flies in the corridor. Stares aghast at the blank face of the mattress. Smell either. No smell of blood anyway - rain of broken plaster. Confined by the touch of some nasty, fake pine, concussion is stunning. He shakes his head. Quite rightly, just what the hell? A second later. The second grenade - especially in the corner rooms. Best unnoticed - adds its own thunder to the world. Find an elevator. It sits in place of normal corner. Next to it, in a small door with one of those emergency bar - 'Push to open' from one side only. No - some kind of emergency stairway. Now have the full three dimensions. left, right, forwards, back, away and worry about it for a while. I will assume that this is just from it. I will head for the nearest usual really. If I see you there....

19: Lies Said, Spoons Bended. In which we leave the Colonel more or less to his own devices, while we look at some seriously nasty people. In spite of both the length and breadth of his career, the Colonel seems to be obsessed with the events which took place in one particular period towards the end of it. Not just one period, but one small, unimportant part of the world. This, from a man who claims to have done everything in Europe, from blowing the last Tsar of Russia in a public toilet in Saint Petersburg, to getting his hand inside Margaret Thatcher's disgusting knickers at Brighton. Not to mention having some influence on almost every one of those fortunate countries which successfully escaped from the collapsing British Empire. The time: somewhere between Eighteen-Eighty and NineteenNinety. The place: West Africa, of at least a small part thereof. A narrow strip, from Lom - capital city of Togo - north to an indeterminate point somewhere in the Southern Sahara. This was one of the few periods when the Colonel and I were in more or less the same place for a considerable length of time. (It occurs to me now that this may be one of the reasons why the Colonel chose me to transcribe his dying testament.) Yet, when I listen to him now, I recognise nothing of that small, independent country which I came to call home for so many years. There is no mention of the vicious underground war, waged between the Baptists and the Seventh Day Adventists. Nothing at all on the proliferation of minor (mostly American, naturally) sects - each more deranged than the last - which led to the infamous events of ninety-two. Each more deranged than the last, I said - but each almost identical in their teaching and methods. (In fact, the smaller the difference in their belief systems, the more they seemed to hate each other.) 'And when the day of judgement comes, ' They all shout together. 'When the Heavens are opened and the burning monster crawls

from the deeps,' (Insert cries of Hallelujah! anywhere you like in this.) 'You will be doomed to burn in the eternal fires of Hell!' They are really going at this point - first five rows get a spit bath - veins stand out on the Preachers forehead. 'Unless.....' The tendons in his neck stand out - tight as steel ropes on the very point of parting. You just know that he is going to burst any second now. Head exploding in a shower of rancid blood and bile. 'Unless....' His wife and daughters (very rarely sons for some reason) pale and ugly like they always are - have you noticed how religious women shrink and shrivel up with hatred and envy until they look like some kind of ancient mutant monkey. 'You give the Church....' Coming to the crunch now - notice it is always 'the' church the 'we are right and everyone else is doomed' church. And they infect the congregation with their madness. People - even people who should know better - rolling in the aisles, shitting, pissing, spouting gibberish. Winding up to this complete frenzy where they will accept anything - anything at all - from this character who has driven them crazy. 'Give the Church.....' Horribly over-amplified, the voice beats at them from all directions - reverberating off the walls and ceiling. The whole thing makes the rantings of the average politician look restrained and tasteful. 'The Church.....' Echoes back and forth, and now we are getting to the sole and entire point of the whole act. Also plenty more hallelujahs going on - the pale monkeys are screaming in some kind of unhealthy ecstasy. And we have the last, crucial word from the proprietor of all this chaos. The one word that sums up his entire true faith - the moving force in his life.

'MONEY!!!!' And sure enough the suckers is lined up in their hundreds Handing over their meagre life savings - fruits of endless hours of heavy labour - to this man who has never done a days work in his entire, useless life. So that he can drive back to his huge house in his new, huge car - to lord it over those pathetic, semi-living, shrunken creatures who are his family. Many of them are sponsored by large multi-national corporations. 'We need cheap labour and consumers for our reject products.' So they go out and create them. Simple rules - keep them poor - keep them ignorant - keep them terrified. Above all - keep them. Them bastards from Amalgamated Chem is moving in there with the Twice Reformed Sons of Christ. Get them out - we don't care how you do it - but we is shipping you a new minister - ex CIA, and he has plenty of contacts in the military. So we have these missions going up in flames - gas cooker exploded or something. And they is all starting to ride around in armour-plated cars ('Mortgage your sister to protect your pastor from the blasphemers.') and the customers running for the hills - lets get back to that good old Voodoo - chickens and goats not being likely to blow your head off when you do the throat-cutting business. So profits start to fall, and, before too long, all the missionaries is pulling out - too dangerous here - unstable political situation. And some crazed lackey calling for American troops to save this poor, benighted country from the 'Reds' - before you know where you are, the whole area is full of these armed morons and is rapidly going down the toilet forever. Luckily there is no resources to this place, natural or otherwise, once the workers is taken out of the equation, so this last scenario is just not going to happen. The country lurches back towards some kind of peaceful state. Until the whole thing gets forgotten and the next issue of missionaries unload themselves at the airport - all ready to play the whole thing over again. ************************** The Colonel sees none of this. He is living the best part of ten years, batting to and fro - out into the desert - looking for something he says he lost out there some time. And every time I

see him he is looking older and getting what I call the refugee eyes. Like you sometimes see in people who have been beaten down that one time too often. After a while, I start to avoid him whenever possible - finally lose contact altogether when I move out to the Far East. Some years later - around ninety-seven it was - I go back for a while. By then everybody seems to have completely forgotten him. I talk to a few people I know, and it is like the poor old bastard never existed.

Part 2: A Farewell To Harm.

20. Bollox To Your Mind. In which the noble art of aviation seems to be taking over the entire plot. England; 1955: A long hot summer. Deep in the semi mythical English countryside. It is too hot to move. The loudest sound is that of overloaded bumble bees, lumbering their improbable way from one wilted flower to the next. There is no roar of tractors - in this era only the very rich can afford such things. On the smaller farms grass is still cut with a scythe. As it dries, it is laboriously turned and turned again with wooden rakes under the blazing sun. It is a time of peace. Not rest; most people have little time for leisure. Few earn more than enough for bare survival. In spite of this, more people here have achieved some form of happiness over the last ten years than ever before. Or since. ************************** In some ways this is due to ignorance. Few are yet aware of the growing determination of Americans to turn the entire world into a ghastly replica of their own (lack of) culture. Few have yet imagined the horrors of the 'la Roche' syndrome, where multinational companies are willing to cause the death of millions in order to increase their profits by a fraction of a percent. The signs are all there - in other parts of the world these things are already happening. Here, we can see - at least temporarily - the proof of the old proverb about ignorance equalling bliss.

Few houses outside the major towns are supplied with electricity. While many have radios - or 'the Wireless' as it was known in those days - the hypnotic flicker of television is almost unknown. Innocent; they labour under the destructive rays of the sun. Innocent; they take their innocent pleasures in the village pub. In the bracken. In the warm, fragrant depths of a pre-mechanisation haystack. Innocent; they listen to the naive propaganda of the BBC 'Home Service', 'Light Program', 'Third Program'. The crude radio soap operas. The content free 'News'. Even the madness of 'The Goon Show' tells them nothing of the true state of the world. Wrapped up in their own, parochial (literally - few see beyond the confines of their local area.) concerns, they are unaware of the approaching end of the world as they know it. Here, at least, there will be no more peace this century. The days of empire are gone. The days of muggers, casual rape and mass murder have not yet begun. No one here would believe that, within a generation, England would come under the control of a political party apparently composed entirely of petty criminals of an extremely unsavoury variety. That the aforesaid criminals would proceed to destroy - or sell off in order to line their own pockets - everything an entire generation had fought to protect. How could anyone possibly believe that their children and their children's children could be brainwashed into believing that money was the only true god, and that the only sin involved in obtaining it - by any means whatsoever - would be the unforgivable one of being caught. Small pockets of peace will still exist, here and there in the world, for many years yet. Perhaps even beyond the end of this dismal century. But not here - not in England. Not even in the ever

green rural England of the imagination. The disposable - take the money and run - I'm all right Jack society is coming. In 1955, these innocents are mere unseeing inches from the brink. *************************** As the afternoon heat intensifies, the hum of the bees is overlaid by a deeper, more constant sound. A small boy, (grey, ragged shorts; grey, ragged shirt; oversized hobnail boots) no more than six or seven years old, lies in the broiling, breathless shade under the hedge in a corner of the field. Soon he will have finished the peculiar herbal drink supplied by his mother, and will have to return to his seemingly endless labour. Back and forth with the cut down rake. Turning the swathe of hay over, one step at a time to expose its damp underside to the sun. He notices the change in the hitherto unnoticed background hum almost immediately. Turning onto his back, he gazes intently at the sky. From behind one of the small, cotton wool clouds that are beginning to appear across the depthless blue appears a small aircraft. Shortly, it vanishes behind another cloud. Although the sound lingers for a while, it does not reappear. ************************** Hours later, when the workers have all disappeared in the direction of their various abodes, a premature darkness falls. The tiny white cumuli, boosted by rising, hot air from the shorn fields, have expanded and grown together to block out the light of the sun which gave them life. Across the country, a line of storm cells build up towards the tropopause. As the sun sets - red through the last remaining gaps in the cloud cover, the first flickers of lightning dance across the eastern horizon. The heart of each storm cell is a roaring hell of rising and falling air. Hailstones fall and are carried aloft again to add another layer of ice. Electric charge builds up, carried by the turbulent air currents until it can discharge itself (three million volts per metre) to the ground or to another cloud. As the first drops of rain fall onto the - soon to be ruined harvest, another aircraft appears. Smaller even than the first, it is observed by no one. In the heart of the cumulonimbus. In the worst

of the turbulence. At the very peak of the storm's activity. It is tossed around like a toy. A bubble in a Maelstrom. It tumbles - out of control in the blinding darkness. Thrown up to an altitude where engine and pilot fight desperately for sufficient air. Then cast down towards the invisible ground. There is nothing the pilot can do, save to hang on and try his best to ease the load on the overstressed airframe. And, of course, hope. For a fraction of a second, after a subjective eternity, as the machine falls sideways away from a rising current, the metal airframe intercepts the potential path of a major discharge. The only evidence of its passing is a multitude of tiny particles of glass and resin which, descending with the rain, are dispersed over a large area and washed into the soil. ************************** The small boy will never tell anyone about the vanishing aircraft. Already he has become aware of the fact that adults seldom listen. When they do, they even more infrequently believe. In any case, by the following morning he has completely forgotten it himself. This is partly due to the excitement of the storm itself, but even more to the discovery of a favourite tree blown to splinters by lightning. ************************** Somewhere, in some stagnant waterway, a caddis fly might construct part of its stony home from a fragment of glass or epoxy that should not yet exist. In the end, it will make no difference. *************************** Nothing happened on that sunny afternoon, that stormy evening in 1955. If it had, then your whole life might have turned out differently. Perhaps you would have run away with that barmaid you never met in Paris. Perhaps you would have made a success of that tedious job in the civil service.

Perhaps you too would now be an exiled dictator of some exotic tropical island. But you did none of those things. The choice was not there. It vanished in a summer storm. In England; 1955.

21. You Can't Fool....... As you may have noticed, this episode comes chronologically after chapter 47 and before chapter 6. What the fuck, nobody's perfect. It is not insomnia, he tells. Runs madly. Zig zagging between early. Just a couple of hour down from the village to the swamp. The external factors. Somewhere, he has been spotted. Expecting three sounds rather like 'What the bullet in the back.' They are fuck. First two sing it almost - begin until he has made them rather quieter - begins half edge of the flat area on which bar traffic. Rather sparse - amid the semi-precipitous slope. Minute - two or three vehicles. One of the rainy season. Jumps them - small motorcycle with a slight sound of bullets through the sky around five thirty - it seems of his own passing. Too old for us then, as the sky begins. Muscles flabby. Lungs fucked - tighten six, it has become. Almost fifty yards to level ground. This, at least is what he woke then goodbye. Waterhole. Last hold - it is a little different. Some above. Lurches to the left - as it should. When he feels talons slide in strangely neat hat, he makes the immense effort. He reaches the rocks, the sound, the ammunition box beside his late thought. ************************** Too late now. Bunk. Light. It seems to him that - the sandstone reef, a mere two, is that - he has done so. He is end - will shield him right - able watch had shown the time. They will be running now. Maybe, as had previously consulted it. Down by their own side even. But, end is visibly moving, he is hang around. Old reflexes - little, if any, change in the likewise. Into the trees now. Hours. This is almost surprise - he has arranged over his batman, Scrotum, has to. Safe enough - the villagers shake. So much as raise an eyelid. Too many snakes here. Few more is his first coffee of the day - swamp. Not running - slide to his feet. Today, despite places here you could sink out feeling.

Feels entirely incapable of second clump of trees. Pursuit seems to take forever to form behind. He grins, faintly, consciousness - where is Scrotum, the old dog, yet? Well, a turn? Attention for several eternity. The car is waiting for him. And lies. Sleeps beside his bunk. Normal choice. Still capable of all, eventually. More usually, comes to - the really rough stuff of awareness. The birds sing 'you Major.' The subaltern. ' fuck was that?' The same defeat. He tears it open - reads for active attempt to consult his watch. '...happened?' 'He was dead when we - the first time he has done.' So the surgeon said. 'Heart attack.. comes from a great distance - sir.' Except the old lady who like plasticine through a particular other European. And in good early be in a bunk? He is not cleared out. Absolutely type. 'What has he to do with? Prepare for another patrol in an associate of the Colonel.' Salutes smartly and departs.. As on day - refusing to put in - he could go a long way. With these questions. Wrong. Other European? Shit! He is not the Colonel. He is. 'The huts. Towards the path leading .....?' - message from some other's swamp. Shouts from behind tell him his own identity. For an instant second the sudden impact of an ant - the inside of his eyelids. A slow off the mark. Firing - does not - luxury automobiles. Fame. Fortune. First turn into the brush. Over the 'the fuck was that?'. The village has been built. Down chest - on the ammunition box. Slippery now with the beginning of his defective.

'The fuck was - turns as the path does likewise. Any that?' Dimness. 'The fuck was that?' Air, the leaves, lost in the rattlecrash luxury box - fading. 'The fuck was this game. Speed no longer available. That?' ************************** Himself. He has merely woken from smoking. Stamina nonexistent. A little cannot regain sleep due to his right knee - if that gives way birds are singing. The song - open space. Last one visible from 'was that?' repeated endlessly around the muddy margin. Water boils. Quite together. The third rows. Fractions of a second later, as later. There is also the Earl arrives. Machine gun. Shit. Too heavy (or so) of silence. Followed anyway. Flat, face down into the swamp. Seems always to be the same. Foot high at this, its deepest, defective exhaust. For a while into the trees. All firing ceases - the traffic has ceased entirely. Some have run already - been cut. It once more increases. By nice thought. Still - no time to continuous roar. The day has charge. Crawl, head well down. Arse begun. Normally expect. Today, however, threads his way between the little it seems. Dawn is not coming - the years for just this eventuality. Half an hour or so has passed - never go further than the waterhole. Necessary to retrieve his way forwards then out again and up. As he peers at it in the dim - though quietly. Only one safe path. Not the first time this morning of sight in seconds. Into the ring to recall exactly what the most unlikely know. A thin scream he now feels, many times - he still fighting for breath. Life - despite the fact that the second fair dose of death, at the very least. Convinced that there has been Niva. Not, perhaps, the most obvious very minutes. None whatsoever in leaving most others in the dust. When disconcerting. Under normal circumstances. **************************

He goes. 'This was addressed to him several times before he passes over a rather grubby envelope.' And then - sometimes even without minute or two. 'So what really - almost instantly prepared - arrived, Major?. About four hours. Leap almost completely awake.' 'And the villagers?' 'All gone action. Come to that - they gave us the information. Left with itself to the forefront of his time by the look of it. Everything. This conundrum occupies his everything.' 'OK Lieutenant. You did well. Normally the faithful idiot - the morning.' 'Sir.' The Lieutenant - he is there - ready for any keen young man. Thinks the Major. Before his master's first signal survives the next week or so. Dead? 'What the fuck was that?'. 'The exhaust. Wait a minute.' He feeling somehow that this is not trying. To think is - the comparison - trying to roll a huge ball of glutinous swamp. Why should he put up with such discomforts. Repulsive Septicaemia Scrotum? Scrotum: the dingy pre-dawn hour appearance. He wrestles endlessly. Everything is desperately wrong. He is.....? He shivers violently - lost malaria - trying to regain images of another life occupy apartment. Seriously elongated - fades. 'What the fuck was that?' Out, laboriously, for his watch bunk. 'The fuck was that?' Second hand rotates in the layout in distant

ammunition............

22. Measure Twice, Cut Finger. In which we see that laid down procedures do not always work when the universe decides to ignore its own rules. He walks toward the plane, going through the planned flight in his head. First thing, look at the machine as you approach it - are the wings level relative to the ground - does anything look out of line. In aviation, you check. Everything - every time. Foxtrot Delta is a Cessna 152. A very common aircraft at flying clubs - two seats, slow and simple. An easy aircraft to learn to fly in. Ageing rather now, but aeroplanes - unlike cars - are made to last. He starts the walk round. Left hand reaches to remove the pitot cover. Right hand going for the door handle. Leaning in, he pushes the red cover with its attached 'remove before flying' streamer into the pocket at the back of the seat, at the same time feeling for the fuel tester. As his right hand comes out of the pocket, his left is flicking on the master switch. He waits for a few seconds, listening to the whine of the electric gyro in the bank and turn indicator, watching the fuel gauges slowly rise from their stops. Only half tanks - not good enough for this flight - must call for the bowser to be waiting outside the tower. Switching off again, he extracts his upper body from the cabin. Half turning to the right, he inserts the fuel tester into the flush drain valve in the bottom of the wing. Half filling the tester, he inspects the fuel sample for water, smelling it to make sure that it is, in fact, avgas. Then, along the trailing edge of the port wing. Examining fittings and hinges. Around the wing tip, and back towards the fuselage along the leading edge, examining the fuel tank vents and the pitot head. Left foot onto the step on the side of the fuselage, left hand on the handle just behind the engine cowling. A quick heave and he is up, right foot on the step on the strut. Undo the fuel cap on top of the wing, and a peek inside to confirm what the - always unreliable - gauges have already told him. Close the cap - check - and back down. Look down at the wheel - split pin secure - no obvious signs of leaking brake fluid, and the creep marks on the tyre are lined up with those on the wheel. Around the front - he was taught, as many African trained pilots are, to look into the cooling intakes on the cowling (for snakes) - before examining the propeller for any obvious problems. Then around to the starboard side of the engine - bending down to look at the, notoriously fragile, nose-wheel leg. He opens the small, square hatch to check the oil levels and to pull the knob which lets petrol dribble out from the water trap at the lowest point

of the fuel system - a fairly pointless procedure, as it is surprisingly difficult to tell a small pool of petrol from a small pool of water unless you actually kneel down to feel and smell it. Up onto the other wing - after closing the cowl hatch - to check the other wing tank (never assume that they are both at the same level - despite the fact that they are connected). Check the other main wheel, then around the starboard wing. Fairly rapidly now, along to the tail, check all hinge bolts and cable and push rod ends - lifting the elevator to examine the trim linkage. And so, back along the port side to the door. Whatever you may, or may not, do with the rest of your life, when it comes to flying, rules are for everyone - every time. He learned this a long time ago - one slip that very nearly led to disaster for all concerned. This is for another story. Another time. ************************* In spite of his firm knowledge of approaching pursuit, he follows the procedures as slowly and carefully as if he had no reason for haste whatsoever. Once airborne, his enemy can only lose ground. He glances with some measure of contempt at the tiny homebuilt aircraft - property of his would-be nemesis. ************************* Sabotage does not occur to him. Amongst airmen, some things are simply not thinkable. Besides, he thinks, where he is going, there is no way for the other to follow. The energy requirements for one not possessing his special talents would be immense. This assuming that the requisite knowledge was available in the first place. ************************* He is not actually aware of his crime, as such. He is aware of pursuit, but has not been able to find any reason for it. He can think of no way in which he could have offended one of his fellow expatriates to such an extent. He does not connect it with an almost forgotten episode in the distant past. There are good reasons for this. ************************* Later, as he taxies away from the tower, he feels relief from a tension which he was not aware of earlier. Flying does this. Earthbound cares become irrelevant as the ground slips away. As humans dwindle to ants and less than ants, so their concerns also

fade to insignificance. ************************* As he weaves his spells against the African sky - clouds shifting and swirling into almost comprehensible patterns - the tension returns full force. A casual murder. Casually forgotten. He sees his pursuer's face as it might have been many years ago. For the first time it occurs to him that he might indeed have something to fear.

23. What Goes Around Must Come Down. In which life as we know it comes to an end. Or, at least, takes time out for a quick cigarette. The lizard approaches in short rushes. Never directly towards its objective. Periods of total immobility. Sudden sideways lunges. Halt and wait. Perhaps it cannot move and look simultaneously. Limited brain incapable. Himself unmoving, he watches. Near total lack of interest. It closes on him - pause again. Jaws wide - snap and tear. It takes a lump from his leg where his trousers are already torn. The flesh beneath likewise. Incurious he watches. Without pain the blood flows. Broken spine he thinks cool and clinical. Dying does not have to be bad. Sprawled amidst the wreckage. Regret for a good machine broken. Drip of unseen fluids. Shock wraps itself around to protect. Thick glass barrier against the world. He looks - no choice - upwards and out. Neck muscles fail to respond. Lacks the will to try harder. Eyes pan sluggishly - earth to sky. Vultures already circle high. A distant silver speck - his enemy - victorious - receding. It all means so little now. Sparse herds of small cumulus against the baby blue. Growing. Hearing unnaturally acute. Crunch of slow footsteps on grass. Creak of leather. Metal moves against metal. A regular cadence. The tiny crackle of flames somewhere behind. Although it is obviously a warm - perhaps even hot - day, he feels only a growing coolness. Tiny flakes of frozen methane flutter at the edge of conscious thought. He finds this welcome. Vaguely hopes the cold will take him before the fire. Not even hope really - nothing so strong remains - a distant longing for winter. A shadow at the periphery of vision. Eyes rotate through oceans of effort - a billion tons of inertia. Trying to bump start a stalled train he thinks. Mild amusement somewhere deep - his real self still resident. Cutting loose now doors close - don't forget to put out the cat. Prepares for permanent evacuation. Barely registers the approaching figure. The sky a clearer blue than any he has known. Background to

ornate armour - polished bright - tiny streaks of rust along the seams. The raised sword. No pollution here someone thinks focussed on the sky. Could be nice. A little R & R. The sword begins its descent. Blurs further out of focus. Eyes fail to track. Crackle of flames has risen unnoticed. A dull roar. Heat. Fire unseen licks the edges of a warped metal tank. Stresses crack overstrained corner welds. Warned off - some avian instinct the vultures have already began to scatter. Black wings against the blue. Final second:- The armoured figure appears to flip backwards - away. Sword takes flight. Eyes, behind narrow slits widen in sudden primitive terror. Red/orange light blossoms on shiny surfaces. Unidentifiable debris whips overhead - burning. All slips away. He has willed it so. Last memories of clear blue - fading.

24. External Viewpoint. Internal, if you prefer it that way, of course. Immaculate in white - tropical dress uniform - the Colonel steps out between two drooping oil palms. Nineteen Ten he estimates. A good year - one of his favourites. Especially in view of what is to come. He glances down at himself - identity check. Lieutenant-Colonel - fair enough he thinks. Walks towards the neat rows of tents. Whistling.

25. Only to the Sea. A long leak into the big cold wet. England; 1955: A long hot English. He walks toward the plane, in countryside. It is too hot - his head? First thing, it overloaded bumble bees. One - are the wings level? Wilted flower to the next. Look out of line. In. There is no roar of tractors can afford time. Foxtrot Delta is at such things. On the smaller scythe. Flying clubs - two seats. As it dries, it is. Wooden rakes learn to fly in. Ageing cars under the blazing sun are made to last. Not rest; most people have more to remove the pitot cover. Enough for bare survival. Leaning in, he pushes. In spite of this, more of before flying streamer. Seat. Happiness over the last ten - at the same time feeling hand. In some ways this is due to... He comes out of the pocket switch. Growing determination. He waits for a few electric - a ghastly replica of their gyro - in the bank and turn. Imagined the horrors of the - national. Slowly rise from - their companies are willing - this flight. To increase their profits by the tower. Switching off. The signs are all there - in things - the cabin. Half turning - are already happening. Into the flush drain valve filling. ************************** Here, we can see - at least the tester. He inspects it to proverb about ignorance. Make sure that it is in. Few houses outside the major edge of the port wing. While many have radios - around the wing tip. And those days - the hypnotic leading edge, examining. Innocent; they labour under left foot. Onto the step. Hand innocent; they take their pub (on the handle just behind) in the bracken. In the warm, he is up, right foot on haystack. On

top of the wing, and always innocent. They listen to the 'Service'. Unreliable gauges have check.

Memorandum From: WP/IPC-OC (Troops) To: All Departments Subject: Memoranda. In common with all other such communications, this memorandum is created for a single purpose. This being; to persuade its recipients into believing that its perpetrator is a person of some importance. It should be obvious that this stratagem can only possibly succeed where those who peruse its contents have an extremely limited mental capacity. It may, therefore, as with any similar examples of intellectual flatulence, be safely ignored.

'Light Program', 'Third'. - and back down. The content free 'News'. Even... Look down at the wheel - tells them nothing of the leaking brake fluid - and up. Wrapped up in their own, with those on the wheel. As the confines of their local. Many African trained of the approaching end of the cowling. (For here, at least, there will. For any obvious problems of days of empire are gone.) The engine - bending down, mass murder. Not yet. Nosewheel leg. He opens oil. ************************** No one here would believe. Levels - and to pull would come under control. The water trap composed entirely of petty pointless procedure, as a variety. That - the aforesaid small pool of petrol. Sell off in order to kneel down (to feel an entire generation). Fought, closing the cowl hatch. How could anyone possibly assume that they are both children's children - could be that they are connected. Around money was the only true god. In the starboard wing. Fairly check obtaining it - by any means - all hinge bolts and cable. One of being - caught. To examine the trim. Small pockets of peace. The door. Whatever you may? Your world, for many years yet. Life, when it comes to time. Perhaps even beyond the end. Here he learned this along led - not in England. Not even to disaster for all. The imagination. Time. In spite of his firm. He (the disposable) - take the procedures - as no society is coming. Reason for haste. In 1955, these innocents are brink. Lose ground. He glances tiny as the afternoon heat. Homebuilt aircraft. Deeper, more constant, does not occur to him. Not a small boy, (grey, ragged thinkable. Besides hobnail boots) no more than the other to follow. Broiling, breathless shade possessing his special field. Soon he

will have supplied this. Assuming that his mother will have first place. He is not labour. Back and forth with swathe. He is aware of pursuit - reason of. Over one step for it. He can think of no one the sun. He notices his fellow expatriates. Hum almost immediately. Almost. Turning onto his back, behind. There are good reasons. From one of the small, cotton wool, appears the tower. He feels relief, aware across the depthless blue, of earlier. Flying - vanishes behind another cloud as the ground slips away. While it does not reappear. Ants - so their concerns. Hours later, when the worker weaves his spells of their various abodes. And swirling into, almost, the tiny white cumuli. Shorn, returns full force. As fields have expanded and he sees his pursuer. Of the sun which gave them. For the first time. Across the country, a line. The something to fear. *************************** Tropopause. As the sun sets - gaps going through the planned flight. In the cloud cover, the first look at the machine as you approach the eastern horizon - relative to the ground - does anything? The heart of each storm cell. Aviation - you check. Everything. Falling air. Hailstones fall - add Cessna 152. A very common aircraft. Another layer of ice. The slow and simple. An easy aircraft. Turbulent air currents until now aeroplanes - unlike million volts per metre. Starts the walk round. Left hand reaches as the first drops of rain. - Right hand going for the door handle. Harvest, another aircraft, red cover with its attached: 'Remove, it is observed by no one'.

In. Into the pocket, at the back of the worst of the seats, for the fuel tester. As his right activity. It is tossed around. His left is flicking on the master. It tumbles - out of control - seconds, listening to the whine. Thrown up to an attitude indicator, watching the fuel gauges for sufficient air. Then cast. Stops. Only half tanks - not good enough. There is nothing. The pilot - his call for the bowser to be waiting outside. Best to ease the load on the course again, he extracts his upper body. Hope? Right. He inserts the fuel tester. ************************* For a fraction of a second, in the bottom of the wing. Half machine falls sideways away. The fuel sample for water, smelling airframe intercepts the fact - avgas. Then, along the trailing. The only evidence of it. Examining fittings and hinges. Of glass and resin which, back towards the fuselage, along over a large area, washed the fuel tank vents and the pitot head. The small boy will never tell - on the side of the fuselage, left. Already he has become aware - listen. The engine cowling. A quick heave. When they do, they even more step on the strut. Undo the fuel. In any case, by the following peek inside to confirm what? himself. This is partly already told him. Close the cap - itself, but even more to the blown split pin secure - no obvious signs. To splinters by lightning. The creep marks on the tyre are lined. Somewhere, in some stagnant front - he was taught. Part of its stony home - from a pilot - to look into the cooling intakes. *************************

Should not yet exist. Snakes - before examining the propeller. In the end, it will make. Then around to the starboard side summer. Deep in the semi - mythical to look at. Notoriously fragile to move. The loudest sound is that small, square, hatch to check. Lumbering their improbable way from knob which lets petrol dribble out. '- in this era only the very rich lowest point of the fuel system.' tell. Affair farm's grass is still cut with. Is surprisingly difficult to

Laboriously turned and turned again with a small pool of water. Unless you... A time of peace. Smell it. Up onto the other wing - after little time for leisure. Few learn to check the other wing tank (never at the same level - despite the fact). People here have achieved some form. Check the other main wheel, then. Years before. Or since. Rapidly now, along to the tail. Ignorance. Few are yet aware of push rod ends - lifting the elevator. Americans to turn the entire world linkage. And so, back along the port side. Own (lack of) culture. Few have, or may not do, with the rest of la Roche' syndrome. Where multi flying, rules are for everyone. Every. Cause the death of millions in order - time ago - one slip that very nearly.... A fraction of a percent concerned. This is for another story. Another. ************************ Other parts of the world - the knowledge of approaching pursuit. Temporarily - the proof - slowly and carefully as if he had equal bliss. Whatsoever. Once airborne, his enemy towns are supplied with electricity with some measure of contempt.

The `Wireless' as it was known, property of his would-be nemesis. Sabotage? Flicker of television is almost unknown. Amongst airmen, some things are simply the destructive rays of the sun. Thinks where he is going, there is innocent pleasure in the village. The energy requirements for one not fragrant. Depths of a premechanisation talent would be immense. Naive propaganda of the BBC 'Home' requisite knowledge was available. Program. The crude radio soap operas actually aware of his crime, as such. The madness of 'The Goon Show' but has not been able to find any true state of the world. Way in which he could have offended parochial (literally - few see beyond to such an extent. He does not connect). ************************* Area concerns, they are unaware - forgotten episode in the distant past. World as they know it. For this. Later, as he taxies away.... Be no more peace this century. From a tension which was not days of muggers, casual rape and this. Earthbound cares become irrelevant. Begun. As humans dwindle to ants and less - that, within a generation, England also fade to insignificance. Of a political party apparently. Against the African sky clouds shifting. Criminals of an extremely unsavoury - comprehensible patterns - tension. Criminals would proceed to destroy casual murder. Casually forgotten. Line their own pockets - everything face as it might have been many years. To protect. Occurs to him that he might indeed have. Believe that their children and the lizard approach in shorts

Brainwashed into believing that objective. Periods of total. And that the only sin involved halt and wait. Perhaps - whatsoever - would be unforgivable. Limited brain incapable. ************************ Still exist, here and there, in near total lack of interest. This dismal century. But not Jaws wide - snap and tear it. In the ever green rural England trousers are already torn. The money and run - I'm all right Jack - he watches. Without pain - mere unseeing inches from the cool and clinical. Dying does. Intensifies, the hum of the bees overlaid the wreckage. Regret for a good sound. Fluids. Shock wraps itself. Shorts; grey, ragged shirt; oversized against the world. He looks six or seven years old, lies in muscles fail to respond. Lacks under the hedge in a corner of the sluggish earth to sky. Finished the peculiar herbal drink. Silver speck - his enemy to return to his seemingly endless little now. Sparse herds of the cut down rake. Turning the growing. Hearing unnaturally. Grass. Time to expose its damp underside. Creak of leather. Metal moves. Change in the hitherto unnoticed background. The tiny crackle of flames gazes intently at the sky. From obviously warm - perhaps even clouds that are beginning - to coolness. Tiny flakes of frozen appears a small aircraft. Shortly conscious thought. He finds. ************************* Although the sound lingers - will take him before the fire. Have all disappeared in the direction - strong remains - a distant premature darkness falls. Periphery of vision. Eyes boosted by rising, hot, air from the billion tons of inertia. Trying, grown together to block out the light. Thinks. - mild amusement. Life. Cutting loose now - doors of storm cells build up towards. Prepares for permanent. Red through the last remaining figure. The sky a clearer blue. Flickers of lightning dance across to ornate armour - polished is a roaring hell of rising and the seams. The raised sword.

And are carried aloft again to focus on the sky. Could be. Electric charge builds up, carried by. Blurs further out of focus. It can discharge itself. (three has risen unnoticed.) A dull ground or to another cloud of a warped metal tank. Fall onto the - soon to be ruined -Warned off - some avian appears. Smaller even than the first began to scatter. Black wings. The heart of the cumulonimbus armoured figure appears to flip turbulence. At the very peak of the storm flight. Eyes, behind, narrow like a toy. A bubble in a Maelstrom. Red/Orange light blossoms on. ************************ In the blinding darkness. Whips overhead - burning. All where engine and pilot fight desperately. Last memories of clear blue down towards the invisible ground rushes. Never directly towards it - can do, save to hang on and try immobility. Sudden sideways lunges. Overstressed airframe. And cannot move and look simultaneously. After a subjective eternity as himself. Unmoving, he watches. From a rising current, the metal. It closes on him - pause again. Potential path of a major discharge takes a lump from his leg where his passing is a multitude of tiny particles - flesh beneath likewise. Incurious, descending with the rain, are dispersed blood flows. Broken spine - he thinks into the soil. Not have to be bad. Sprawled amidst anyone about the vanishing aircraft - machine broken. Drip of unseen. Of the fact that adults seldom around to protect. Thick glass barrier infrequently believe. No choice - upwards and out. Neck morning he has completely forgotten the will to try harder. Eyes pan due to the excitement of the storm. Vultures already circle high. A distant discovery of a favourite tree

victorious - receding. It all means so waterway, a caddis fly might construct small cumulus against the baby blue. Fragment of glass or epoxy that acute. Crunch of slow footsteps on difference. Against metal. A regular cadence. ************************ Somewhere behind. Although it is the dinosaurs, observed closely. Hot - day, he feels only a growing - feathers removed underlying methane flutter at the edge of I. See that the sky is peeling in. This welcome. Vaguely hopes the flakes and tatters, dusty. I old. Not even hope really - nothing - so immediately fall through longing for winter. A shadow at the escarpment is a metal. He rotate through oceans of effort -the floor. A disused hangar - to bump start a stalled train by the light of the burning. Somewhere deep - his real self - I struggle through swirls and ill resident close - don't forget to put out the double doors at the far end. A cat evacuation. Barely registers a metallic creak of protest. Approaching any he has known. Background - the doors are still capable of bright - tiny streaks of rust along square of greenish light. Along. ************************ No pollution here someone thinks - appear to be some form of chicken - nice. The sword begins its descent - skin crudely painted. Looking up, eyes fail to track. Crackle of flaming places - dusty strips hang down flames. Roar. Heat. Fire unseen licks the climb up onto a nearby boulder and edges. Stresses crack - overstrained corner rotting canvas on a wire frame. Welds. Instinct - the vultures have catwalk, no more than twenty feet above. Against the blue. Final second:- leftover from the Great War. Backwards - away. Sword takes volcano - the illusion vanishes.

Slits widen in sudden primitive drifts of ancient dust to the big error. Shiny surfaces. Unidentifiable heave at the rusty bolts. Slips away. He has willed it so. Tracks long ago packed with grease, fading. Movement. A line - a rectangle - a pulse of hot, humid air.

26. A Scanner in the Wax. In which a package tour tends increasingly towards the unconventional. I stand - four-square as they say - rather an heroic figure, upon the edge of the escarpment. Silhouetted against the morning sky, to be sure. A dramatic moment which I fully appreciate. What with the photographs taken for posterity and all. Far below, an elephant tumbles end over end over end, cast away by the bitter wind. It is Nineteen Thirty Two, the very year in which the infamous Ronald Raygun accidentally drills a hole in his foot for the first time. Up and down and back and fore in the world, (to and fro also) many equally uninteresting events are taking place. I am on vacation. Some kind of lizardish creature peers out at me from the undergrowth. It is a tyrannosaurus - or perhaps a pteronodon - I am not entirely au fait with these things. The tumbling elephant smashes itself to pieces against a passing cliff. Great sticky bubbles rise from the crater of the volcano amidst an odour that reminds me irresistibly of purple cheese. The expedition appears to have bogged down in a series of bitter arguments concerning the last box of chocolate biscuits. Also a missing jar of cocktail olives. I search for a likely path down onto the plain. Preferably one which will not disturb the creases of my immaculate white safari suit. (Shirtlifters of Bond St. - Fifty Guineas.) In the middleground, the river winds its sluggish way toward the distant ocean. Stands of feathery trees along the banks presumably conceal a multitude of wildlife. I have had rather a broken night. Featherstone-Haugh, as he calls himself - a little baker's assistant from Clapham - decided, around midnight, to amuse himself by killing mosquitoes with his shotgun. Later he argued with the head porter for hours over who would be responsible for the repairs to his tent. He has such an irritating voice - that phoney upper class whine. The volcano has apparently decided to put on a full scale eruption. Clouds of lavender smoke obliterate the further reaches of the immense plain below. It is all very picturesque, yet

somehow disappointing in an indefinable way. I make a mental note to have certain words with the travel agent upon my return. 'Lost Plateau' indeed, I think peevishly. So what if it stays lost. Kicking aside a couple of smallish dinosaurs, I begin to make my way down the staircase, which I have finally located. Again I am not pleased - for the amount this tour has cost, they might at least have provided an elevator. Some indefinite time later, I am standing, as heroically as I previously stood, on the plain. Something would seem to have gone wrong with the volcano now - it has slumped sideways. Tiny flames lick around its base, where, I am almost certain, flames were never meant to be. As I approach its banks, I can see that the river is merely painted onto the flat surface of the plain - an illusion of movement created by arrays of Christmas tree lights concealed among the trees. Which I can now see are merely roughly shaped cardboard. As are the elephants - or rather 'mastodons' - another three of which, broken loose from their anchorage, now come bowling past. The dinosaurs, observed closely, appear to be some form of chicken - feathers removed - underlying skin crudely painted. Looking up, I see that the sky is peeling in places - dusty strips hang down - flakes and tatters, dusty. I climb up onto a nearby boulder and immediately fall through - rotting canvas on a wire frame. The escarpment is a metal catwalk, no more than twenty feet above the floor. A disused hangar - a leftover from the Great War. By the light of the burning volcano the illusion vanishes. I struggle through swirls and drifts of ancient dust to the big double doors at the far end. A heave at the rusty bolts. A metallic creak of protest. Tracks long ago packed with grease, the doors are still capable of movement. A line - a rectangle - a square of greenish light. A pulse of hot, humid air. Something with far too many teeth and an equal superabundance of claws bursts from the encroaching vegetation. A flurry of movement. A lunge. A thin scream. A snap of scaled jaws. A receding crackle of torn vegetation.

Part 3: Going Old Disgracefully.

27. Surrender and/or Die. In which the Colonel finally encounters a superior force and is utterly defeated. Her smile lights the darkness. The Colonel is charmed at their first meeting. This is not a good thing. She is twenty-three years younger than him. This is not the problem. two. She is poor. The Colonel has more than enough wealth for

She can speak ten languages. In spite of prejudice against intelligent women, this is not necessarily a problem. She is illiterate. This also is no problem - in fact this probably counteracts the preceding item. So: she is young; she is intelligent; she is beautiful. Not pretty. The Colonel has seen plenty of pretty. Pretty is a temporary thing. Pretty is a fashion, changing with time. Beautiful, real beautiful shines from the bone. Beautiful is ageless. So where is the problem. Unprompted, she has offered him her most precious possession. Apart from the clothes she wears, her only possession. In a society where any female over the age of sixteen who remains unwed is considered an aberration, she has retained her virginity until the age of twenty five. The Colonel is not aware of this when she offers herself to him. When he does find out, an unexpected conscience manifests itself. Shame turns to love. The Colonel wants no more than to make her happy for the remainder of her life. So - again - where is the problem. He is rich, reasonably healthy, moderately rich. He has no other responsibilities. He is free to do as he chooses. So his thoughts run. He is wrong, of course. No man, however much he wishes to be, is an island. We all swim in the sea of our social milieu, bounded by the shores of unwritten rules and obligations. The Colonel, in spite of his sometimes unsavoury occupations, has never stepped beyond that invisible line. He steps beyond it now, when he openly begins to plan marriage. The problem becomes obvious. It is 1935. The Colonel is an

expatriate Englishman living in West Africa. Even in the last decades of the twentieth century, those persons who entitle themselves 'expats' tend to be totally isolated from the communities in which they live. Horrendously snobbish, not to mention racist, nothing is as good as the home country. Especially if they have not returned there for many years. In 1935 it was worse. Very much worse. Can you see it now. Beautiful, innocent, young, poor. Even those ageing hags who see the Colonel as a match for their hideous daughters could forgive these things given time. Not that they see her as beautiful of course. The one overwhelming factor in this case conceals that from them. ************************* She is black. ************************* She is not, in any conventional way, pretty. She has the face of those ancient Egyptian pictures you see from time to time. The sharp profile of Cleopatra. A photograph, a mere snapshot of a single moment in time, is unlikely to reveal her beauty. It is in motion that she shines out - a star among lesser women. Woman she is, in spite of her youth. No girl this - no giggling, hysterically, shag-happy female, such as can be found in any bar from Greenland to the Antarctic. She is special. She denies this. Claims she is ugly, stupid, unfit to associate with him. This does not dissuade him. He sees her as he sees her. No more, no less. Eyes open, he is prepared to accept any faults she may manifest. In the event, as he finds out more about her, she increasingly approaches his concept of the perfect woman.

28. Licence Expired or Withdrawn. In which the Century seems to be drawing to a close rather prematurely. Old Colonel Fuckwit was - The Colonel - huddled in this document entirely. (Walls of winter frozen corpses, that all names have been changed - early spring.) The barrage and freedom from that tapeworm. Longer - think straight for the.... As I said, the Colonel was dying - almost continuous noise. Has prepared to rise, one fine summer. Which side is currently doing? It seemed then. Colonel Fuckwit dead in the small section of his mind. ************************* How could the world continue - thought - he is wondering why fat. Surely hurricanes must rage, see, there can be no possible. But no! Glancing from my part - from being unsightly. That the world was unaffected by kind of vicious stupidity. In fact, almost immediately, Oliver Hardy in his cinematic policemen mugging a little old tendency. So the Colonel has any normal day in the Borough of sweaty. This in turn gives rise to - the rather elongated telegram unusually pervasive smelliness. Pristine surface of my breakfast. This trench with the Colonel is upon my original astonishment. This could be partly because the marmalade which I had (absent) the Colonel having taken an extraordinary communication. ************************* I skull with a hand, unusually - and now - unknown to me. It is also partly because somewhere in dark. And dismal corpse sufficiently far away from posterity. The last words of the lowest point in the trench. Knew then, at any rate. I am now beginning to regret his action. Who, solely by my own has been able to spend Become both incredibly famous and - comfort than he had originally - end. I noticed two further items to his being. Now the possessor was unsigned.

Or at least was sergeant - having had in his pocket - which amounts to the same thing. No doubt - looted brandy. 'In' stamped upon it showed that it listen. All this time to reach me - something of a record idiot. Every now and then. ************************* Pausing only a few minutes to timetable inside his skull. Not my valet; Glimp. A one legged of shells seem to be exploding thinking - he was with me. Soon he will be out of this. Correctly dressed. Perhaps it is time to try a shirt, green trousers and his time. The Colonel has eight o'clock that evening. I was peace and harmony that are the Great North (East, South) of the twentieth century. ************************* The custom built, turbo-charged - over more stress and hatred than any sauna - roadster. A small, ugly corpse - for perhaps a while, but appeared unpleasantly soft around The one of the 'Bond' buttons on the impact most frequently. He have liked to stop and watch the well - now from the combined heat urgency. So merely triggered vaguely at the sky he sees - far. Some time later, approaching the flying. Lazy figures of eight. Shitehawk - I stopped for a moment - this is the favoured, decidedly retarded, individual Royal Flying Corps. He knows idiot or a stockbroker. Having directing at least part of the attempt to follow. This loon: 'There will shortly be an attack.' ************************* The Colonel's mansion. It was in. He watches the aeroplane yards away from the location with nothing better to do. No fat to observe the obnoxious. He decides that one day, when failed - to remove himself from a little more solid, then he too. Let us now have a small interval - puffs of black smoke appearing. Described violence, which seem to follow. Permit the reader to commit it - comes to him that this must be (or her) own imagination. Kicking at its inaccuracy until he begins

ditch, I took a minute to restore. Then he wonders why they bother - normal gleaming state. (clock has given him the signal.) Automobile who may happen to read - to scrape away the softened mud. Armour plated in rather - he thinks that perhaps he has - alloy. This is not grossly over - merely that the door is buried. A Mercedes, on the sheer weight. He almost panics in those few. ************************ Overload - its crude tractor - feel a reassuring solidity. Sure imitation of a smooth ride. Or, sergeants entrenching tool to natural stupidity of the neo-Nazi. Steadily to himself, he takes his designed to appeal. Having for a few seconds, then pulls - referring to the infamous - through. The door closes after. Design, I proceeded, with no clunk, which would have been. After a considerable amount - had there been living ears -to get my elongated, sixteen-instant. The shriek of a rusting main gateway and onto the mind numbing roar. A stray gravel drive. Slewing to a halt - centre of the trench. The blast gravel and dog shit, I took my existence. Not to mention that of notorious residence. The depths of the trench. ************************ Sideways dwelling in the ever - now beginning to thaw in the style. It was surrounded by acres - increases in intensity - parkland. (At least, that is what sheer mind numbing pressure of an Estate Agent. The English forgotten - not that it matters -) Hundred square yards of rot, and best to obliterate the other. From the rear door, as I was, to which is still capable of coherent view - consisting mainly of any people exist. As far as he can. Garden shed. This was held erect, evolutionary advantage to obesity.

Against what appeared to be. And almost invariably exude that with the mangled remains of a will. One day be epitomised by one. I say appeared because the whole performance. They also have - and corrosion that might notice - to be rather unpleasantly laying the worlds. Most to an equally offensive. I was told - years later - that. The fat sergeant who is sharing out at a dangerous angle. Certainly beginning to reek a bit. Exotic collection of buildings, has been dead for quite some time, and legendary 'Charlie - Knackers' early opportunity to smash in his... ************************ This was something which I had - large piece of shrapnel. Verify for myself - being by them. Colonel has been unable to move. They who had almost certainly never - the small fire he has kindled - indeed my previous self - should. In some ways, the Colonel is I. Offer it as mere, unconfirmed impulsive action. On the other hand, absolute accuracy of the rest - of last two days in. Somewhat greater was to come later. For the moment anticipated. This is not merely due. ************************* The door was opened by the double rations, but also to the Scrotum. A perfect example of the hip flask - rather good - and, Scrotum was almost blind. Addition, he has not been forced to. On every visible portion - of his imbecilic chatter - of the overweight. Holding open the door with one Colonel - consults the half seen dank recesses. Sagging too long now. Already the majority gorilla-hide shoes. A mishap from off towards the south. Soon, very entirely recovered. Muttering rotten war. Where next? He wonders. Took to be an invitation to enter little peace again? Not so easy, that.

To me, and began to shamble - tried most of the tiny islands. I knew then, for certain, that - reputed to exist in the hidden depths in this household. Under normal majority turn out to contain. ************************ Colonel was living under a flat war zone. Irritably he kicks the (Remember that- nineteen-twenty-hundredth time. It is beginning to feel gutter) press - that is to say, upper rib area, where his foot tends. Mainly because of the goat, if I settle back into the mud, softening. Difficult to get past Scrotum as of his body and his fire. Staring statement from a politician. Overhead, a small and lonely RE8 - pointless descriptive stuff. (against the clear blue. He is aware.) Change without notice, as history. Observation aircraft of the British mutate endlessly once we enter. This fragile machine must be. ************************* Regardless: at this particular barrage. From this, he deduces that. Divided into two sections by this - by the British forces. Main entrance, far into the while, in the idle manner of a man. Which, presumably, is a glass. Men in the RFC. He thinks: No mud. To the left are two, or maybe aircraft become a little more reliable - some exotic wood - like substance will learn to fly. Spherical entrance mars the gleaming - almost solid in the wan sunlight. *********************** If I was being paid by the word? Craft as it circles. After some time past, you would find that, just anti-aircraft fire. He is appalled - drivel by the yard - doing to calculate speeds and distances. By the time I had removed my all. Time to go. His internal with the oil of the Whooping. Turning onto his stomach, he begins. Had vanished. I assumed he would beneath his body. For a

few seconds, the nether regions of the house - finally made an error. But it is such time as some unexpected turn - few inches deeper than he expected. Reappearance. There was no sign - seconds until his scrabbling fingers ground floor rooms. As a matter of himself again, he uses the fat spiders (some, I noted in passing finish the job. Counting slowly and mastiff - whatever that is) The time with the lock. Counts on of rather distressed looking rats - door just wide enough and steps which had been painted in him with a solid bank vault. ************************ Opening one last door - rather unheard above the general racket - even carelessly forgotten to hear. At almost exactly the same crumbling cardboard stairs. Approaching shell amplifies itself into almost impenetrable gloom. Twenty-five pounder impacts the exact torch and nut-crusher. (Albanian obliterates all evidence of it.) Peered into the darkness. This erstwhile occupant. To a kind of half-landing, from various persons at one time or wossname! This (presumably) revelation - while in a state of out of sight - from where I stood. Being given the wisdom of they. (Doesn't make much sense to me, they write down this incredibly forget the style comment.) Many of them still seem to take course, idiot. I found that they somehow persuade others to large and ancient four-poster. ************************ Be in the bible at the deranged upper floors. In the bed, if you want a perfect example. Pile of feather mattresses - in, when the ghost came and sat. 'Foul Navy Shag' tobacco and when I later took my yellowing figure of the Colonel. Normal. I saw the ghost from dying. (Note: Whereas all characters and tatters. A few curves of real, I would like to make it clear - the bar stool. There was no ear, in order to protect life, liberty, light would

have been powerless - humanity - the predatory lawyer - incessant stream of vehicles.) So the word came to me as 'I' where I sat. Nevertheless. Afternoon. The end of an era (my first). There sat the ghost, the concept was unthinkable. Still there when I looked unregarding in its tracks. That this was merely - and volcanoes erupt, toilets block - themselves. Neither did it occur to me to exclusive window. I could plainly - ghost sat - I finished one beer see? ************************* This earth shattering news. Move. After a while, it came to below me - I could see two large with someone I knew. A face black lady - just as if this were, occasionally, a long time ago. Kensington. Reading. Further in her in some considerable which had so unexpectedly marred her name. Yet now I was the tray, I felt bafflement piling danger. That only I could save. Piling in turn upon the toast. Became overwhelming after. I mindedly ingested - whilst perusing night in a state bordering on this. Found that I had, for reasons, the remainder of that night. *********************** Summoned to the Colonel's residence from bar to bar, questioning. Hampshire - in order to record for this girl I barely knew - a great man. As the world knows (or hardly have recognised from my writer. Merely an ordinary man - I was delirious for two days. If efforts has - I should say had) The only thing of which I can - obscenely rich. Reading to the only slightly greying was now of interest. *********************** Firstly: the telegram cross this effect twice before. Signed only by the letters 'XXXX. Once with tetanus. No

disease.' ************************ Secondly: The time of transmission. The Colonel's brain organic had taken a mere seven hours to quantum computer. That forms for British Telecom I believe. ************************ Thought fades away into endlessly contemplate the matter. I rang for Colonel - has taken in a life dwarf. Who tended to be rather hard. Girl decades dead and forgotten - matter of hours. Intending to be moves. The way out. The dance. red. Eventuality, I requested black - tied to one small place - too

Favourite cobra hide underwear. Multitudinous threads. The shattering - the speed limit along the infinite paths that he - West, whatever. ************************ Road in my famous places. And now this fool. This done, two seat plus dickey plus whom he has trusted to extract. Police car attempted to follow me. This final hope - once become discouraged after I pressed the paths of time - has failed. Control panel. Much as I would - small part of the Colonel's fire. I felt a certain sense of coherence. Glows with sudden rear cameras for later perusal. Neurons fire rapidly. Complex Small and unpleasant village of number of discrete quantum. To request directions out into that more malleable - could only have been a village. Colonel has lived - most of his spent - almost two further hours. There are few sounds more. Instructions, I eventually located. Unease unexpected - fact, less than one hundred evening. This, especially, my original halt. And I was pleased, in a bar right across town, from fellow whom I had previously questioned. ************************ Immediate area. Political - the scene by the time I returned.

The palace and the main. For a small touch - graphically for comfort. Your car with its incredible generosity - I will - turns out to have a flat tyre. Entirely within the confines of another. Claim to have received his corpse into the roadside delirium. Convinced that they are the front of my vehicle to its ages, or the word of god, or similar. *********************** Incidentally, for any connoisseurs drivel. Even when (if) they recover of this masterpiece, it is also - all serious. Worse still, expensive, but extremely light, take it seriously too. Take a look - titanium rated German car - relying, like a ranting of the Book of Revelations. Its pig-iron body shell too. I was sitting in my favourite bar style suspension, thus giving. Beside me I had no feeling of illness. Vague like a BMW, relying purely on the temperature, it proved to be perfectly - mind its advertising (the corner of my eye) - a thing of rags. Got that off my mind, without even moonlight hanging in the air above. Potentially lethal Volkswagen moon that night - had there been, its suspension. *********************** Further delay to Maison Fuckwit. Against the headlights of the backing and filling, I managed - heading north. Not five yards from cylinder - in-line bonnet though. There sat I with one half finished beer. The rather short curving weed. Invisible in direct vision, yet in the traditional shower of loose straight ahead. It did not occur to me. First good look at the, soon to - illusion caused by incipient sickness - be. Comfortable two up, two down and do anything about it. I sat, the three popular sixties prefab shithouse and took another. The ghost did not.

Of beautifully maintained rolling me that the apparition had to do. It would be in the arcane language. Came to mind: a girl I used to meet. Translation should read about: I had not seen her, or even thought debris. Time. Had never, in fact, even known. Find later, there. Incredible - convinced that she was in some terrible, extremely large and equally decrepit, her. This feeling of impending doom. *********************** Solely by the fact that it leaned while I staggered out into the life size statue of a dinosaur desperation. I have no clear recollection. Steam-driven combine harvester. It seems to me that I staggered. Thing was so covered in vines - complete strangers as to the whereabouts. Equally have been a giant chicken whom even her own mother could uncomfortably egg. From the attic, garbled descriptions. They tell me window. It was possible to see (by leaning can neither confirm nor deny this) slipping tiles.) Strange, and be sure is that my hair - previously believed by some to be lost - almost entirely white. I have come. Yard & Scrap Dealer (and Sons), once in a case of cholera and neither the time or inclination was ever diagnosed in my case. To a considerably different person. Component of the massively parallel. Heard of either the Colonel - or human mind - is dying. Coherent. *********************** Anyone come asking? Sub loops. Too many risks. The rumour as a contrast to the long. Obsessed by the figure of this narrative. As I said this - by the world he has forgotten, after only a few minutes hammering along the razor's edge. His memory. Colonel's ancient manservant; Septicaemia long, he can no longer see the perils of excessive masturbation - possible lives to

live and be lived. Hunchbacked and had a fine crop - trod so easily in other times, other of warts. *********************** Grimy and unappetising flesh. Prancing poseur. This imbecile hand. His other fumbling in him from this last lethal trap. Trousers, he spat copiously on my valued comrade among those few who walk new. Which I am afraid they never. Auto-fucking-biography! The something under his breath. Which failing mind which still retains some I? He immediately turned his back - anger. A handful of still intact towards the rear of the house. Molecules, each capable of an immense, something must be seriously amiss, state - become indeterminate - fanning. ************************ Circumstances - even when the state of existence in which the stone in the depths of the Congo. Long life. The nightmare returns. Something - a minor scandal likely to create a sudden sense of every newspaper in the world. Rattle of machine gun fire on a quiet - remember correctly, it applies if you are having a quiet drink. It is, to extract a fact, your home. You know no one in the time. Now, for a little more of the situation - liable to sudden changes. Note: all descriptions are liable - military camp are suddenly far too close to geography and even physics - too conspicuous, foreign registration. ********************** The recesses of the Colonel's mind. On the screen it is 1910, a critical moment. The house appears to be the tide of invention. Which corridor? Which runs from the will, begin to ebb? The foundations distance to a dim square of light. Consider

'modern' have already been panelled - exit to the back garden. With us since 1828 - television is seven. Further doors, panelled in the 1890's - Henri Coanda will. While to the right, only one flown, the worlds first jet aircraft. Expanse of rotting plaster. Century, the art of invention. As so many authors were in the patents, rewriting them and claiming like them, I could churn out this which has not in some way been. Dickens we used to call it. This will be designed by two walrus-hide driving coat. (Treated, in spite of the multitude of uses.) Crane to render it supple. Scrotum put it: 'Will then vanish from sight - be lurking in some noisome den in years.' By the last decade, and so promptly forgot him, until human mind will have become so. ********************* The plot might require his most trivial gimmick - as something of the Colonel there, will no longer exist. Of fact: apart from the ubiquitous. In fact: the very word 'creation'. Almost the size of a small - where it could be applied to only signs of life - family on a bag of chicken food. And a lone stuffed armadillo. Year by any standards. Soon. Rather impressive purple tartan. Characterised the previous century. Ornate plywood affair, which - of all those things which you describe earlier - revealed a flight laid. Fax machines have been which led upwards (why not?). Rooted in a patent taken out. ********************** Removing from my pocket a combination - before the end of

the year - secret police issue, 1952. For the remainder of the light revealed that the steps consist mainly of rifling, whence (what style, what grammatical sole credit.) the single item continued upwards at an angle which was foreseen. The transistor. In the doorway below, separate researchers. In the 1920's. Either, when I think about it. To which this device could be. Creeping cautiously up, (the stairs) for nearly another thirty of this small level area, stood a twentieth century, the average. Almost blocking all access - sluggish that it will accept. Sunk deeply - two foot thick, new and wonderful. At this point miasma of stale urine. 'Extra slightest need for creative thought'. Liberian camel cheese, lay shrivelled. Will have degraded to the point Something as trivial as a new label.

29. You can fool...... In which we find ourselves once more on the run from an unspecified enemy. A condition which appears to be in danger of becoming permanent. Runs madly. Zig zagging between the huts. Towards the path leading down from the village to the swamp. Shouts from behind tell him he has been spotted. Expecting any second the sudden impact of a bullet in the back. They are slow off the mark. Firing does not begin until he has made the first turn into the brush. Over the edge of the flat area on which the village has been built. Down the semi-precipitous slope. Slippery now with the beginning of the rainy season. Jumps and turns as the path does likewise. Any sound of bullets through the air, the leaves, lost in the rattlecrash of his own passing. Too old for this game. Speed no longer available. Muscles flabby. Lungs fucked from smoking. Stamina non-existent. Fifty yards to level ground. His right knee - if that gives way then goodbye. ************************** Waterhole. Last open space. Last one visible from above. Lurches to the left around the muddy margin. Water boils alongside in strangely neat rows. Fractions of a second later, as he reaches the rocks, the sound arrives. Machine gun. Shit. Too late though. Too late now, anyway. Flat, face down into the swamp. The sandstone reef - a mere two foot high at this, its deepest end - will shield him right into the trees. All firing ceases. They will be running now. Maybe some have run already - been cut down by their own side even - nice thought. Still - no time to hang around. Old reflexes in charge. Crawl, head well down. Arse likewise. Into the trees now. Threads his way between the little surprises he has arranged over the years for just this eventuality. Safe enough - the villagers never go further than the waterhole - too many snakes here. Few more yards then out again and up. The swamp. Not

running - slide through quietly. Only one safe path. Places here you could sink out of sight in seconds. Into the second clump of trees. Pursuit most unlikely now. A thin scream from behind. He grins, faintly, still fighting for breath. Life in the old dog yet. Well, a fair dose of death at the very least. The car is waiting for him. A Niva. Not, perhaps, the most obvious choice. Still capable of leaving most others in the dust when it comes to the really rough stuff. He goes. ************************ 'This was addressed to you Major.' the subaltern passes over a rather grubby envelope. He tears it open - reads for a minute or two. 'So what really happened?' 'He was dead when we arrived Major. About four hours, the surgeon said. Heart attack.' 'And the villagers?' 'All gone sir. Except the old lady who gave us the information. Left with the other European. And in good time by the look of it. Everything cleared out. Absolutely everything.' 'OK Lieutenant. You did well. Prepare for another patrol in the morning.' 'Sir.' The Lieutenant salutes smartly and departs. A keen young man. Thinks the Major. He could go a long way. If he survives the next week or so. Dead? Other European? Shit!

30. Buckets of Blood. In which the music goes round and round. And round and round and round. And never, ever, comes out at all. Fill a bucket to around the half way mark with red paint. Now: stand in the middle of a fairly small, clean, white room. Spin around, throwing out the contents of the bucket as you do so. Half a bucket of paint goes a long way doesn't it. A normal sized bucket contains two gallons. Half a bucket therefore contains one gallon - eight pints - roughly equivalent to the amount of blood in an adult human being. It is not really the visual effect that creates nausea. It is more the other senses. The slight stickiness under the soles of the shoes. The smell. Walk into a slaughterhouse at the end of a long, hot day for that effect. Then there are the flies. The windows are sealed, double glazed probably. The door fits closely into its frame, with one of those rubber draught excluders along the bottom edge. Yet the flies are there in their thousands. Perhaps you should throw a bucket of fine, black confetti after the paint. Freeze-frame it while some of it is still in the air. I forgot to mention furniture. Make it sparse. Two narrow, metal framed beds. Two small cabinets - mounted on castors, with folding trays attached. One television. Two metal stands with hooks for attaching drip bottles. A couple of extremely uncomfortable chairs. A typical small hospital room. No doctors. No nurses. No patients. Not even any pieces of dismembered patient. Just the blood. And the flies. And the buzzing of the flies, if you want to include your ears amongst the offended senses. Apart from your own, which end one step inside the door possibly in a pool of fresh vomit - there are no footprints in the blood. As you stumble out, you may grasp at the door jamb to steady yourself, leaving one lonely hand print and a few crushed

flies. After another four or five rooms, decorated in an identical manner, you may even become blas about the whole thing. After all, the corridor appears to stretch on forever. One doorway every five yards or so. One cross corridor every five doors, equally endless. At the very least the number of rooms must run into the tens of thousands. You come to this conclusion after taking a few random turns. Seeing the, equally endless, identical corridors parallel to the one in which you began your exploration. Nevertheless, your own existence proves that not all rooms are absolutely identical. If you have survived whatever cataclysm has occurred here, then surely others must have done likewise. Perhaps none of the rooms beyond the one in which you awoke has been touched. Perhaps, purely by bad luck, you have begun your explorations in precisely the wrong direction. And, of course, what with the initial disorientation - not to mention the shock and the sickness - it proves impossible to locate your original starting point. You may have noticed by now that, even after all the doors you have opened, there are no flies in the corridor. Not a single noxious insect. No smell either. No smell of blood anyway. Perhaps a faint hint of disinfectant. A touch of some nasty, fake pine, air freshener. You may also wonder, quite rightly, just what the hell you might see from the windows - especially in the corner rooms. Best not think about it. Eventually, you find an elevator. It sits in place of one of the rooms on an otherwise normal corner. Next to it, in a small alcove, is a water cooler. Also a door with one of those emergency bar type things - you know the sort. Push to open from one side only. No way back. Presumably, it leads to some kind of emergency stairway. You have come up in the world. You now have the full three dimensions. A choice of six directions: up, down, left, right, forwards, back. The choice is entirely yours. Go away and worry about it for a while. What am I going to do? Well, I think I will assume that this is just another nightmare. When I wake from it, I will head for the nearest bar and get blind drunk. Same as usual really. If I see you there, I might even let you

buy me a drink. Or three.

31. All the People...... In which somebody appears to have been manoeuvred into an untenable position. It is not insomnia, he tells himself. He has merely woken a little early. Just a couple of hours. He cannot regain sleep due to external factors. Somewhere, three birds are singing. The song sounds rather like 'What the fuck was that?' repeated endlessly. First two sing it almost - but not quite - together. The third - rather quieter - begins half a bar later. There is also the early traffic. Rather sparse - a minute or so of silence, followed by two or three vehicles. One of them seems always to be the same small motorcycle with a slightly defective exhaust. For a while - around five thirty - it seems as if the traffic has ceased entirely. Then, as the sky begins to lighten, it once more increases. By six, it has become an almost continuous roar. The day has begun. This, at least is what he would normally expect. Today, however, it is a little different. Somehow, it seems, dawn is not coming as it should. When he feels that half an hour or so has passed, he makes the immense effort necessary to retrieve his watch from the ammunition box beside his bunk. As he peers at it in the dim light, it seems to him that this is not the first time this morning that he has done so. He is unable to recall exactly what the watch had shown, the time - or, as he now feels, many times - he had previously consulted it. But, despite the fact that the second hand is visibly moving, he is convinced that there has been very little, if any, change in the minutes. None whatsoever in the hours. This is all most disconcerting. Under normal circumstances, his batman, Scrotum, has to shake him several times before he can so much as raise an eyelid. He is then - sometimes even without his first coffee of the day - almost instantly prepared to leap to his feet. Today, despite feeling almost completely awake, he feels entirely incapable of this action. Come to that - the thought seems to take forever to force itself to the forefront of his consciousness - where is Scrotum? This conundrum occupies his attention for several eternities. Normally, the faithful idiot sleeps beside his bunk. Normally, he is there - ready for any eventuality - at, or more usually, before his master's first sign of awareness.

The birds sing on. 'What the fuck was that?' 'the fuck was that?' The same defective exhaust. ***************************** Wait a minute. He attempt to consult his watch - feeling somehow that this is not the first time he has done so. Trying to think is - the comparison comes from a great distance - like trying to roll a huge ball of plasticine through a particularly glutinous swamp. Why should he be in a bunk? He is not the type to put up with such discomforts. What has he to do with the repulsive Septicaemia Scrotum? Scrotum is an associate of the Colonel. *************************** As the dingy pre-dawn hour drags on, day refusing to put in an appearance, he wrestles endlessly with these questions. Wrong. Everything is desperately wrong. He is not the Colonel. He is. . . . . . ? He is. . . . . ? He shivers violently - message from some other's long lost malaria - trying to regain his own identity. For an instant, images of another life occupy the inside of his eyelids. A luxury apartment. Seriously elongated automobiles. Fame. Fortune. It fades. 'What the fuck was that?' 'the fuck was that?' He reaches out, laboriously, for his watch - on the ammunition box next to his bunk. 'the fuck was that?' The defective.. 'the fuck was that?'

Second hand rotates in the dimness. 'the fuck was that?' Luxury layout in distant ammunition box - fading. 'the fuck was that?'. . . . . . . . . . . . .

32. Look It Up, Asshole. The Encyclopedia is hollowed out. Filled with SEMTEX. A detonator. A small battery. A trembler switch. Look it up, asshole. Desert night - cold creeps in. Fill a bucket to around the half way. Boots upside down - in the middle a fairly small, clean resident scorpion. Where do the contents of the bucket they find here eat? Once: my way doesn't it? Normal maggots in the distance. He apparently therefore contains each - bloody - see that he had no shirt at all. Blood turns a body over where have been thousands. Drinking. The proud insignia of his senses. Peoples cover themselves from death's head. The double. Walk into - you would think. Tiny can - no longer. Then there are the lizards, insects, even mammals - bright. The door fits closely into its sun. Is a scorpion an insect? excluders along the bottom edge. - spiders. Could never be bothered. ************************* Perhaps you should Ragnarok. This is my most optimistic Freeze-frame - it is falling. He is combination of heat and furniture. Make through layers of the day, the only shade is to be mounted the night. Turned to face buried water tank. This rusting. Two of broken glass are still in the angle on two remaining legs - instantly, although his eyes beneath the drifting sands. Hour glittering fragments. Not even as the sun shifts the shadow. I end flies. And the buzzing on its corroded underside. The offended senses. Apart from long abandoned novel - faded in a pool of fresh - throwing it. Some also labels on canned food - you may off his blanket in his sleep. Part of a years supply by my right arm free. He raises it another. Even the deepest shade is oven. (Look it up - even become blas - inadequate frayed blanket to stretch on forever.) ************************* One doorway. With rare exceptions, only every five doors. Equal trajectory. Heat it by leaving the can in the tents with him.

You must - is an ancient paraffin stove, but turns. His father's vast anger. It fits for water and to dig holes to shit balls of his childhood. He dare not use my dwindling window? No: despite his identical. water for washing. I stink. I itch. He half turns, then, surely, others. The blanket is infested with some past - the foot beyond the one in. Die out here? I don't think I fully.... By bad luck, you have begun an aeroplane. First proof of other. And, of course, there was no prior warning. Half shock and the sickness inner? The normal, almost total, silence point. You reaching down for the dune to the north. No more opened. The heavy, old fashioned numbing roar of two Alvis beds in the cottage - the sole each. An old Twin Pioneer. Full; who still remain - have air, so it seemed. Nose up at two on guard - you might see from clawing at the air. Before I could. His men! Not think about it. Coming straight at me. Props one of the rooms otherwise built. I registered a minor - a water cooler. ************************* Also no time even to throw myself flat. Know the sort. Heavy outer walls, passing whipped me with razor - feebly - hearing gone. Less my meagre shade in time to see from his back. A choice of six. It seemed to hang, stationary. Wades through a pool. The choice, the crest. Then it was clear - just hover a billion bloated flies. What the starboard engine? A thin lick of men and horses create homes for the elevators. Went down for when I wake - something of what was to come. I rolled drunk. Same as socket. Reaching the ground. The entire tank let you buy me a drink. Necessary. Lit up. Intense white fading mark with red paint. Now: stand back to what now seemed full - white room. Spin around, the debris ceased to patter down. 'Away.' You do so. Half a bucket from the flash. Night had indeed a flash-sized bucket - contains two. The absence of a moon. I felt a world. One gallon - eight pints - the disaster.

Nevertheless, I slept. This is normal in an adult human - sound seemed to jerk me awake of endless retreat. Nausea. It is nightmare. ************************* It seemed that I lay - the world tree the soles of the segment of sleep. Following the usual struggle up end of a long light to see more than a couple instantly open. He has turned over steep face of the southern dune. Glazed single, uncurtained, window. To see no trace of the explosion. those rubber draughts. It is to the south as clean and smooth. Flies are there in their can only. Needless to say, neither throw a bucket of fine, black wreckage around. Him languorous, while some of it - one large fragment - strike the handful of metal with a core of it. Very short distance of a four second delay after the pin. Those high-tech cutting-edge heroes he has heard - count everywhere. Nothing properly - hooks for attaching. Heroes have some mad idea they want to try chairs. Luckily he is lying upon his life. ************************* The Colonel is still inclined to patients. An effort he will soon grow out of. He (Just the blood asshole.) moves. Tend to use certain words to want to include your ears. Their definitions as understood. Still - your own. Which end one know that 'Intelligence' equals calculation of vomit? There are no paranoia. We shall now see ball games. Mutti pleading - grasp not to the simplicity of the knife of the mind. Not just the body. In the time it has taken to set up into his hand as neatly - the play have taken ship to any port of his. Barely aware of the weight. Back learned the local language; the corridor appears current feeling indirectly to his destination. Every five yards or so. One cross and very little fear of detection. 'The endless.' 'At the very least.'

************************* The necessary training takes from this thousands. You come to fail at some stage. In this case wall, just inside. Seeing, equally, jockeys to the number of exactly. Thick stone. The outer walls: (the appropriate word here)? Why he had chosen it? What about a regular astronaut? Alone absolutely probably. He tumbles at this stage. Nothing too has occurred here. Tips it with him. Even the occasional multi. Perhaps none of the rooms? Out onto what appears to be - has been - touched. Perhaps? Hung about with assorted rocket eight purely explorations in liquids. Then into an improbable six at a time - the initial contraption. Strap in. Pull the big dead already for the enemy - time-critical actions are of next room! Shit! Christ! He has, so you just know that it will - all damned efficiency. His lightning. Trying to think cool, while various corridor stares aghast at the blank - your tiny metal coffin. Wait. No smell of blood anyway. Rain. Then try to remember your touch of some nasty, fake pine, eternities. ************************* Phase four. - Frame his head quite rightly. 'Just what the...?' Clang through entire capsule - second grenade - especially in the bolts in all directions - adds its own thunder to the world. World War Two Platoon. Now of normal corner. Next to it, in almost half orbital velocity. Pissed. Push to open from one side. ************************* Phase five. - Weight comes on now - have the full three dimensions entered. Even the techno-freaks worry about it for a while. I will. Heat begins to build - first barely. 'Head for the nearest' - usual, really. If friable heat shield burns away it is not insomnia, he tells himself. Flash into blazing fragments early. Just a couple of hours. The possibilities. *************************

Phase six. - One factor. Somewhere, three birds are out at predetermined altitude. Like 'What the fuck was that?' seconds. Then the pod blows - almost - but not quite - together. Occupant then disintegrating begins half a bar later. There is also to confuse the sophisticated - a minute or so of silence. Followed does not have. ************************* Phase seven. - Of them - seems always to be the skydiving position. The instructors defective exhaust. For a while, a hundred and fifty pounds of traffic has ceased entirely. Then, fall into the night. Head up more increases. By six, it has show direction to purported day begun. This, at least is of hands and feet. Digital altitude however - it is a little different. ************************* Eight. - Pressure sensor pulls as it should. When he feels that if this one fails there is very little. The immense effort necessary to Earth. No time to hang box beside his bunk. As he peers at dark anyway. Thirty seconds to - that this is not the first time - this; a safe distance. Self destruct is unable to recall exactly the way. A dull red glow starts he now feels, many times. He had pack - spreads out to about the fact that the second hand is its own uncertain light. Appears has been very little, if any, change - suit to feed itself. A final in the hours. This is almost sand a meter away - and it is his batman, Scrotum, has to shake. And that is when it all started - to much as raise an eyelid. He is - then I had nothing. No supplies. No coffee of the day Almost instantly as part of my cover role. Lost despite feeling almost completely. Was some outfit drilling of this action? Come to that - come to think of it, why the hell force itself to the forefront of his employee in the first place? This conundrum occupies that job. Then all this - the faithful idiot sleeps beside. Supposedly, an earlier drop - ready for any eventuality - at, or concealed beneath, the only first sign of awareness.

The birds enough. I find a container there. 'The fuck was that?' The same fibre or titanium drop tank I am. He attempt to consult his watch - old trunk - traces of khaki paint - the first time he has done so. ************************* No sophisticated, vitamin, and comes from a great distance like - you guessed it - beans. Beans, through particularly glutinous sardines and canned cocktail. He is not the type to put up with looking, rusty can opener. Well, with the repulsive Septicaemia they used to say. The cans the Colonel. As the dingy pre-dawn wrong, yet vaguely familiar, put in an appearance, he wrestles - imitation of the real thing. More Wrong. Everything is desperate to come through. More like cans is....? He is....? He shivers forty years ago. I try not to think other's long lost malaria - trying to take inventory of my other instant. Images of another life - not particularly clean - water, luxury apartment. Seriously - found in the pocket it fades. ************************* 'What the fuck was that?' One spurious passport - ditto. Out, laboriously, for his watch. No way out. This time I am 'the fuck was that?' The defective.. That my contact will eventually rotate in the dimness. 'The fuck would not expend this amount of ammunition box fading.' 'The fuck die here, in this desert.' Not when runs madly. Zig zagging between. Into me at any time during my down from the village to the aeroplane, I no longer pretend has been spotted. Expecting any trouble. Whatever I do is in the back. They are slow off when the food and water run out. He has made the first turn into the 'I can find the drilling rig', in area on which the village has been level.

************************* In the tank is now too low slope. Slippery now with the inside. Today, I decide to try and turn as the path does likewise. Since the lower end of the tank - the air, the leaves, lost in the climbing inside. I will have too old for this game. Speed no longer. The level of the water is already fucked from smoking. Stamina - non- my arm in through the half open right knee - if that gives way. Me - most of the cooler part of the space. Last one visible from above. Rust break away as I wrench - muddy margin. Water boils far enough open to let me insert a second later. As he reaches, the vision of it falling closed behind gun. Shit. Too late though. Too late I rush back down to fetch the swamp. The sandstone. Once inside, it seems much. Its deepest end will shield him - considering the open hatch. They will be running now. Maybe humid. The amount of water lost by their own side even - nice - quite phenomenal. There! Old reflexes in charge. Crawl, head under the surface. As I turn the trees now. Threads his way - rigid protrusion. ************************* Before I can fall - arranged over the years for just this. Crashes into a hard surface. Villagers never go further than the bulkhead blocking my path. Few more yards then out again and tank. In this wall is a hatch - through quietly. Only one safe path - a large central wheel. Which sight in seconds? Into the second state of total indecision. What now? A thin scream from behind. A thousand gallons of clear water. Life in the old dog yet. Well, fair, through which at least part of the car is waiting for him. A Niva. Perhaps the other half is filled choice. Still capable of leaving most other poisonous liquid. In the really rough stuff. He goes. 'Out! I have filled my stack.'

33. Give It Another Go. Try the dictionary this time? The subaltern passes over - rather happens. They stand. Rather reads for a minute or two. 'So what shadow, as far under the tank as when we arrived Major.' About four the last dozen or so cans, so: 'And the villagers?' 'All gone sir. The bones - remember to turn your information.' Left with the other mornings and tap the soles - frighten outlook of it. Everything cleared out. All the flies come from? What you did well. Prepare for another first time in a desert. ************************* I saw a man. Lieutenant salutes smartly and had on a black shirt. Closer, I could Major. He could go a long way. If continuous covering of flies. Must Dead? Other European? Shit! His sweat. Not surprising many desert. Endless dreams of death and head to foot. More things live here - rotting blood. A foot above - sounds - skitterings in the darkness. Snakes, and there - the corpses go along. All bury themselves away. He is searching for half a bucket. Suspect it is more closely related to the writhing eye - equivalent to the amount to find out. The shipment is late. Really the visual effect that creates appraisal of the situation. I think the slight stickiness under the boredom is driving me rapidly crazy. ************************* The slaughterhouse at his weapons. Throughout found under the raised end of the half flies. In his dream a light iron cylinder, poised at a precarious frame. Rending crash - the breaking others, presumably, broken and buried in the dream - as in all his thousands. After tedious hour - shifting position - death struggle after the paint. Know by heart every flaw and rivet awake. Just - I forgot to

mention - nothing else to look at beyond an old sleep. His beds. Two small cabinets. Ink - front cover and many pages missing. The attached: One television. Mostly identical - mostly beans best drip bottles. A couple of extreme count. ************************* By day I cook (not food - me. typical small hospital room. Hot.) By night I freeze - only one - any pieces of slow motion. Tumbling. Unidentifiable stains or burns - frayed flies, if explosive. Supposedly, it has food - the beans, which I detest. I pulled. Some would-be door - possibly sun for half an hour or so. There would be blood. As you stumble out, no fuel for it. Use the empty cans yourself, leaving one lonely hand in. There is no toilet paper and four or five rooms, Kubelwagen: supply of rusty. Mosquito larvae filled about the whole grenade. A million thoughts - my skin crawls. I am certain that somewhere in the hard steel corridor - variety of minuscule vermin. I could mass inertia. Rooms must run understood until today. I saw study. ************************* After taking a few random, living, humans since I arrived. Corridors parallel to the one way through the short desert twilight. Nevertheless, your own existence. Then.... Whap! It was there. Above. If you have survived - is too small. Fifty feet of clearance. The mind must have one door. To the left, Leonides - six hundred and fifty horsepower which you angle. But tall. If he can... Throttle and climbing. Almost vertically. The adjoining room. Direction. Incredible angle. Those immense slats out. Cottage. That is partly mention, react, it had nosed over and plaster your original. Starting screaming in supersonic agony as the frame. After all the doors you have sandstorm in its wake - it was that low. ************************* Not a single noxious insect. No, and it was over. The wind of it. Perhaps a faint hint of disinfectant. Edged particles.

I scrambled out of freshener. You may also wonder, remaining, pull up the side of the next dune. The windows - to have got so close. The air, for an endless period before. Eventually, you killed them all! His forever - barely. A tiny puff of smoke from which he was so proud. Alcove of flame an instant later, just as explosion shakes loose type. Things - you next dive. Something warned me - the way back. Presumably, it leads back under the tank. The blast shook - have come up in the world. You resonated like an immense drum. The directions: up, down, corruption. Through yellow to a dull reddish orange is entirely yours. Go the surface and night. It seemed endless minutes before am I going to do. ************************* Well, I think. By the time my eyes had recovered, innumerable other nightmare. Fallen. Possessing no light, and in dream. Gazes deep into bar and get blind. Relieved of any need to investigate down into the blood. Might even - badly that - night. Every minute he is soaked from head to foot. Usually from the depths of a fresh uniform now as black as the rest of it. Shivering for hours between each. Tiny, throwing, lightning flashes. He has thrown morning, as soon as there was enough paint. Remember the reason. There is yards. I found myself climbing the gallons. It obliterates all thought. Perhaps I should have been surprised roughly - the window of the sky. From the crest, the dune sank away being not dreams these days. As if nothing whatsoever had occurred. ************************* More - the other of the Gods. 'Yggdrasil - there - any sign of the expected fragments? Shoes. The smell. Like that. None of temporary home. Certainly I had heard a hot day for that effect. Eyes are least tank and slide to the ground within. Windows are sealed, double cowering head. It is supposed to be one of the shards probably. With one of missions. You know the sort. Acronyms grenade. He is aware of this, Yet he tested. Everybody and his brother has make out a dark silhouette amidst

you. Still, at this stage in his confetti - drifts through the air towards: 'Believe this sort of shit.' ************************* If he survives, is still in the air. Over end. Has already discovered that military sparse. Two narrow, metal framed, (mean something completely at odds with) has been on castors, with folding, by normal humans. Most people now. Three before metal stands with stupidity and that 'Security' equates died. Luckily he has thrown uncomfortably the phrase 'Cuttingedge' relates. Left side - his doctors. No nurses, or sword, but to 'ludicrously overcomplicated'. Moving a stalled, dismembered, patient. His mission, the Colonel could, even more slowly than he. And the choice at the edge of the desert; hammer at his brain distracting. Purchased a camel; and made his way - slow step inside core of himself - a steady way. All this with the utmost caution. Footprints in the endless hours of 'Low Orbital Insertion' they call it. At the door jamb to steady. Fitness months. Ninety percent of potential agents and a few crushed flies. After this leaves a field of potential suicide decorated in an identical manner, one. all. So - in a nutshell - (nut being through you may think.) after ************************* Phase one. - Boost to low polar orbit with total control. The target. Make sure you don't press the wrong button - aided by the weight of the grenade. Abnormal here at the trailing years of the number of the bed.

A narrow opening century. Billionaire has done this bit. ************************* Phase two. - this conclusion bounces off the facing climb. Surrealist idea of an old iron bed frame - endless, identical. Disappears from motors and tanks of highly explosive which you began your exploration. Small canister at the centre proves that not all rooms are red lever. (This, and all subsequent from the bed.) Left hand - whatever cataclysm course, done by some computer somewhere. An extra layer of protection, likewise. End in tears. ************************* Phase three. - Sit there, mattress. A sign of his superior rank, the sole bumps and clangs resonate through occupant of the room. His men - the while in the nausea of zero gravity. Precisely the wrong sleep on the floor. Lessons while four G pushes at you for disorientation - not to outside. ************************* Probably several blows away - fuel expired. Enormous proves impossible to locate. In these idiots are far too fond of exploding. May have noticed by now that, even carrying more ordnance than your average reflexes There are no flies - we are falling for real. Falling free - face of the mattress. Smell either. Away in a blaze of expensive chemicals. Broken plaster. Confined by the first tenuous layer of atmosphere. Concussion is stunning. He shakes - admit that this is the tricky bit. Hell then a second later, noticeable. Buffeting starts as corner rooms. Best unnoticed - unevenly. Could tumble at this point. Find an elevator. It sits in place microseconds. Best not think about small door. With one of those. Emergency - more huge bang as drogue pops only. No; some kind of emergency stairway. Over ten G deceleration for several left, right, forwards, back. away and first splitting into two to release. Assume that this is just from it. I will - completely into a haze of particles - design, see you there. I Or three. Radar which the enemy almost certainly has. Merely woken a

little fall. And fall. And fall. Assume classic (cannot regain sleep due to external). ************************* Said. 'Not so easy in the best part singing. The song - sounds, rather.' Space suit plus affiliated hardware. Repeated endlessly. First two sing. Display active now - little green pointers. The third rather quieter - landing site. Steer with tiny movements - the early traffic. Rather sparse - read-out diminishing rapidly. Phase by two or three vehicles. One chute at less than one thousand feet - same small motorcycle with a slight time left to revert to manual. And around five thirty - it seems about surveying the situation - pitch the sky. Begins to lighten. Remove the suit and scramble away to become an almost continuous roar. Quite impressive in a subdued sort of what he would normally expect. Today, somewhere around the base of the back. ************************* Somehow, it seems, dawn is not coming - size of a football. Then - seen only in half an hour or so has passed - he makes to suck in the remainder. Retrieve his watch from the ammunition brightening - barely enough to light it in the dim light, it seems to him - gone. Nothing to do now until dawn. Morning that he has done so. He is come apart. Once my suit was gone, watch had shown the time as water. Just the grubby overalls I wore previously consulted it. ************************* But, despite mining engineer. Apparently there, visibly moving, he is convinced that there - reasonably nearby - who would claim me in the minutes? None whatsoever necessary. Could I not have gone there as disconcerting? Under normal circumstances, surely it would have been easier to actuate him several times before he can fly astronaut shit.

Still, ours not to reason why - sometimes even without his first, etc. Left everything I could possibly need prepared to leap to his feet. Today, landmark in sight - the water tank. Sure, awake, he feels entirely incapable but it is not the ultra-modern carbon. Thought seems to take forever to expecting. It is some kind of rusty consciousness - where is Scrotum? Clinging here and there. Inside attention for several eternities. Normally, mineral enriched ration packs. Just bunk. Normally, he is there - beans and more beans. Plus a few more usually, before his master's sausages for variety. And one, ancient sing on. 'What the fuck was that?' ************************* Thank the Lord for small mercies as defective exhaust. Wait a minute. Appear to be very old, the labels subtly feeling, somehow, that this is not way. Maybe some kind of cheap Korean - trying to think is the comparison. Like - the thought takes a few days - trying to roll a huge ball of plasticine as I remember them from thirty or swamp. Why should he be in a bunk? About the risk of food poisoning. Such discomforts. What has he to do - resources? A few hundred gallons of - Scrotum? Scrotum is an associate of one useless stove. One small notepad hour drags on. Day refusing overalls, along with its attached pencil. ************************* Endlessly with these questions. That is it. No homing beacon. No weapon wrong. He is not the Colonel. He is. Fucked and double fucked. I try to believe violently - message from some turn up. Surely even the Americans regain his own identity. For time and money just to set me up to occupy the inside of his eyelids. They could have just put a bullet. Elongated automobiles. Fame. Fortune. Training. After the incident with the fuck was that. He reaches that - this is going to turn out all right. The ammunition box next to his bunk. Going to be a disaster. If I stay, I die. 'the fuck was that?'

Second hand. If I go, then I die sooner. Unless 'was that?' Luxury layout in distant which I no longer believe. 'The water was that?' ************************* For me to reach without climbing the huts. Towards the path. Work out the quantity remaining. Swamp. Shouts from behind tell him he is buried in the sand, this involves the sudden impact of a bullet. Sooner or later anyway, since mark. Firing does not begin until almost too low to reach by stretching brush. Over the edge of the flat hatch in its upper surface. It takes built. Down the semi-precipitous morning to free the hatch. Flakes beginning of the rainy season. Jumps back and forth until it finally moves. ************************* Any sound of bullets through myself. Before doing so, I have a rattlecrash of his own passing. Too me. In something approaching panic, available. Muscles flabby. Lungs. Paraffin stove to wedge into the gap. Existent. Fifty yards to level ground. Darker than I would have expected - especially then. Goodbye. Waterhole. Last open, also much hotter, and incredible. Lurches to the left around through evaporation each day. Alongside in strangely neat rows. Fractions seems to be quite a lot of junk. Hidden rocks, the sound arrives. Machine towards the lower end. I trip over some now, anyway. ************************* Flat, face down more than a few inches, My shoulder reef - a mere two foot high at this. Feeling around, I find that there is a right into the trees. All firing ceases. Far too close to the end some have run already - been cut down. Rather a submarine type of affair with thought. Still - no time to hang around. Begins to turn as I lean on it. I am in well down. Arse likewise. Into lies beyond the hatch? Perhaps - between the little surprises he has. Perhaps a ragged hole

in the tank eventually. Safe enough - the current foul supply will escape. Waterhole - too many snakes here. With some ancient supply of fuel up. The swamp. Not running - slide end, there is only one way to find. Places here you could sink. Empty cans with water in case the worst clump of trees. Pursuit - most unlikely pathetic row - the most reliable. He grins, faintly, still fighting for breath. I can reach. The beans are down to dose of death at the very least. What have I got to lose? Not, perhaps, the most obvious. Others in the dust when it comes. ************************* 'This was addressed to you Major.' Grubby envelope. He tears it open. 'Really happened?' 'He was dead hours, the surgeon said. Heart attack.' Except the old lady who gave us the European. And in good time by absolutely everything. 'OK Lieutenant. patrol in the morning.' 'Sir.' Departs. A keen young man. Think he survives the next week or so.

34. Forgive him Lord.... For he has fallen in with a bad lot and had his head turned by those youthful dreams of glory which have, since the beginning of time, been such a plague on the human race. Endless dreams of death and corruption. He wades through a pool of rotting blood. A foot above the surface hover a billion bloated flies. Here and there, the corpses of men and horses create homes for innumerable maggots. He is searching for something, in the dream. Gazes deep into each bloody, writhing, eye socket. Reaching down into the blood to turn a body over where necessary. He is soaked from head to foot. The proud insignia of his uniform now as black as the rest of it. The death's head, the double lightning flashes. He has thrown away his weapons. Can no longer remember the reason. ********************** There is a flash - in his dream. A light so bright it obliterates all thought. A world rending crash - the breaking of the window of the sky. This is normal - in the dream - as in all his dreams these days of endless retreat. Ragnarok - the death struggle of the Gods. Yggdrasil - the world tree - is falling. *********************** He is awake. Just like that. None of the usual struggle up through layers of sleep. His eyes are instantly open. He has turned over in the night. Turned to face the single, uncurtained window. The shards of broken glass are still in the air. It is a grenade. He is aware of this instantly, although his eyes can only make out a dark silhouette amidst the glittering fragments. It drifts through the air towards him in languorous slow motion. Tumbling end over end. A handful of metal with a core of explosive. Supposedly, it has a four second delay after the pin has been pulled. Some would-be heroes - he has heard - count to three before throwing it. Some would-be heroes have died. Luckily he has thrown off his blanket in his sleep. Luckily he is lying upon his left side - his right arm free. He raises it - an effort akin to moving a stalled Kubelwagen. (Look it up asshole.) It moves even more slowly than the grenade. A million thoughts hammer at his brain - distracting. Still somewhere in the hard steel core of himself - a steady calculation of trajectory, mass, inertia. Endless hours of ball games. Mutti pleading with him - You must study. Fitness of the mind. Not just

the body. His father's vast anger. ********************** It fits into his hand as neatly as the play balls of his childhood. He is barely aware of the weight. Back through the window? No, despite his current feeling of total control, the target is too small. He half turns, aided by the weight of the grenade. The door. To the left, past the foot of the bed. A narrow opening from this angle. But tall. If he can... It bounces off the facing wall, just inside the adjoining room. Disappears from view. *********************** Thick stone. The outer walls of the cottage. That is partly why he had chosen it. What about the inner? Lath and plaster probably. He tumbles from the bed. Left hand reaching down for the frame. Tips it with him. An extra layer of protection - the heavy, old fashioned mattress. A sign of his superior rank, the sole bed in the cottage - the sole occupant of the room. His men - the eight who still remain have to sleep on the floor. Six at a time - the remaining two on guard outside. Probably dead already for the enemy to have got so close. ********************** His men! In the next room! Shit! Christ! He has killed them all! His forever damned efficiency. His lightning reflexes of which he was so proud. He stares aghast at the blank face of the mattress. The explosion shakes loose a rain of broken plaster. Confined by the heavy outer walls, the concussion is stunning. He shakes his head feebly - hearing gone. *********************** Less than a second later, the second grenade - inches from his back - unnoticed - adds its own thunder to the world.

35. Some of the Time....... In which the Colonel hires a ghost writer to reveal to the world what he considers the internal workings of his mind should be. Or, at least, what he thinks the world should consider them to be. Two locations haunt his dreams. First, and most disturbing, is the old house. Somehow he feels it to be a metaphor for the inside of his own head. It is a huge, tumbledown place. Apparently long deserted. Although he is always convinced that hidden inhabitants are examining his every move. For some reason, he has never - in his dreams - explored the house itself. Inevitably he is drawn to the cellars which lie exposed to the sky at the point where some forgotten wing has long since collapsed. Climbing over piles of ancient, charred timbers and disintegrating bricks - almost returned to the clay from which they were originally manufactured - he descends between moss covered walls to the lower level. It is still light here, though, as he advances towards the main bulk of the house, it becomes rapidly darker. In spite of this, even when he is completely under still intact rooms, he finds that it is possible to make out - albeit rather dimly - the general shape of his surroundings. He feels he is seeing by some kind of un-light, as if a fading picture of the cellar is being somehow projected directly onto the surface of his eyes. At the time, this effect seems entirely natural to him. As he explores deeper into the subterranean world below the house, he feels an increasing sense of dread. In spite of this, he invariably proceeds. Each time taking the narrowest passages. The stairs leading down. In spite of his fears, he is convinced that the only way out is to go on. Eventually, he will find a way through and emerge triumphantly on the other side of the building. This is a side which he has never seen. Never even been capable of imagining. Somehow, if he can continue along his path, he will make it to this place which he somehow mythologises as a haven of peace.

Of course he never makes it. Some nights he will wake up screaming. Not in fear, but in utter frustration at the failure of his will - in his dreams - to overcome some trivial, imaginary obstacle. At his pathetic terror in his dreams - of some non-existent menace. At his lack of imagination - in his dreams - when faced with a convoluted, but basically simple labyrinth of his own creating. Sometimes, bored and sweating in the endless insomniac night, he tries to create a conscious plan of the cellars. He is inevitably defeated by an uncharacteristic failure of concentration. There is one thing that increases his sense of frustration to intolerable levels. This is, that unlike any other dream he has, he can relate the house to no recognisable place or event. In spite of this, he remains convinced, on some level, that the house exists somewhere in the real world. As his mental faculties deteriorate, he becomes ever more confused between this and his real quest. He begins to pester friends and acquaintances, asking questions which they take, rightly, as evidence of a degenerating mental state. One by one they begin to ignore him - poor old sod's lost it - move away, die. The whole world is becoming younger, faster, increasingly obsessed with flash, with outer show. He remembers his own youth - wrongly, as all old men do - as a time of heroic deeds, of considered actions, of terrible obstacles bravely defeated. He forgets the reality of drunken brawls, cheap whores, vomitous mornings. ********************** Increasingly he retreats to the house. Spends hours each night descending worn stone steps, following walls of crumbling brick. Further hours semi-wakeful, endlessly replaying his dreams. Cocooned in darkness, he searches for the one path. His last hope now as his body too begins to fail. ************************ The other place which he frequently encounters in his sleep, tends to disturb him far less than the house. It is a valley. Almost a real valley. He is sure of that. Perhaps a merger of two or more scenes he has known in his younger days. Totally familiar in some

ways, yet never fully identifiable. He is driving along a narrow country road. Tall hedgerows cut off the view to either side. Ahead, he can catch glimpses of the valley itself. An immense declivity, its bottom hidden in mist, its far side almost purple with distance. Gradually the way becomes steeper. The car more difficult to handle as the road surface deteriorates. Yet there is no fear at any time. Even as the road approaches the vertical - the car plunging, uncontrolled towards the distant, concealed floor far below. Rather, there is a feeling of relief. A relaxing of long held tensions. A kind of content. All responsibilities abandoned. Sometimes he wishes that he could really let it all go. Slide away into some final peaceful night. Then again, if he could do that, he would in no way be the person he undoubtedly is. Few of the events which had made his life so remarkable would ever have occurred. All in all, despite the years of torment, the Colonel prefers himself as he is. Recognising himself, in his rare moments of self analysis, as a man driven by an obsession, yet he still feels his life would have been poorer without it. Perhaps, one day, he will go in search of his valley. It is not likely though, since his real aims must always lie in the opposite direction.

36. The Show Must Go Off. In which may be revealed the secret of some of the Colonel's more obscure actions. She is dead! The running for the closing door. Stuttering automatic weapons. Hand sliding from sweaty hand as she stumbles. Bright flicker-flash as he falls through. She spinning away. Blood bright from side and mouth. He strains, curses. Fights unavailing the swirling forces. A robbery gone wrong. A casual murder in the course. He knows the faces. Dark plots of revenge as tears flow. Did she move in those last seconds? Somewhere the door could have flung her safely free. Does he believe that? He has hope. He has hate. In the beginning, he has time. Time to plan. Time to begin the long, long search. The search that has finally led him to this place. Hope has faded over half a Century. Now only remains revenge.

Part 4: Over The Top.

37. A Hand In The Bird In which many things may, or may not, become clear. My head clears slightly. I am - or, at least I appear to be, lying on the bank of a river. More than a river really - perhaps a lake the other bank is a mere, low blur in the distance. The bank on which I find myself, is about twelve feet above the water level. The water is barely moving. Perhaps not moving at all, although the green, and rather dull, surface is marred by sluggish ripples. It stinks. It stinks like everything rotten in the world. Wisps of yellowish vapour drift here and there above the surface. It is ferociously hot. I am naked - my skin reddened and lumpy with insect bites. I am alone. Well, not entirely alone. At least part of the stench may be assumed to come from the corpse that I now notice. It lies just a few feet away - an oldish man by the greying hair, face torn to rags and tatters, belly swollen with the corruption of death. I judge that he has been dead for some considerable time. Beyond him lies a rough leather pack. Beyond that, further bodies, in varying stages of mutilation and decomposition. In the pack, clothes. They fit well enough, but the style is definitely primitive. The materials harsh and abrasive on my abused skin. The garments themselves stink nearly as badly as the corpses, the river. There is also a rock hard object which, after some thought, I tentatively identify as a loaf of bread. A rough grey cube, sadly hacked about, that must be someones idea of cheese. A kind of leather bottle containing what initially appears to be vinegar. I decide that this must be assumed, from context, to be some form of wine. I am both hungry and thirsty, but not yet enough to attempt eating or drinking any of this crap. Nevertheless, I take all of it, and the pack, and set off in the direction which I hope is upriver. If it is a river - there is really no visible flow in either direction. This is working on the theory that if fresher (i.e. drinkable) water is to be found anywhere, then upstream is the best direction to look. On the other hand, the direction I choose is to the right, so my decision may be purely due to the normal human bias in that

direction. I don't actually think of it like that at the time. My brain seems to have given up on the verbal stuff for the duration. I am working purely on automatic pilot. There are many more dead. In all stages of putrefaction. Some, I find, when I trip over something which I initially think is a rock, have been reduced to mere bones. It is quite some time before I notice the most disturbing thing about them. It is some time later still that I relate this to myself. I have begun searching the corpses - to no avail - for weapons. Most of the more recent ones are face down for some reason. It is not until I have turned over three or four that I notice. After that I spend some time rushing frantically to as many as I can find. Throwing them over on to their backs, gazing into their faces with increasing horror, then racing on to the next. Each and every one has the same face. There can be no doubt about it. The same man has come to this place countless times. Each time to be struck down by some unknown agency. It is not until I notice their clothes that I began to wonder just whose face it is that they all wear. ************************ Of course, you will have all guessed long before this point. I can see you all, fat-arse smug in your comfortable chairs, sipping your nice, clinical, modern drinks. What an idiot, you are all saying. How utterly obvious. Well fuck you. And your dogs and cats. And your syphilitic grandmother too. Of course, if you're too dumb to have seen it by now, then fuck you too. What business have you got trying to read this if you are that hard of thinking. ************************** Looking at endless copies of your own putrefying body is not a recommended pastime, I can tell you. I think I was quite insane for a while, running and sobbing until I finally collapsed, exhausted. Don't start thinking that the mere fact of death bothered me. I have seen plenty of that in my time. Even the, possibly rather unusual, sight of my own remains is no new thing to me.

The sheer number of times I had died here I found rather worrying - after all, I am supposed to be a specialist at this kind of thing. The apparent total lack of weapons was more critical - after all, something appeared to be having a remarkably easy time disposing of me. Even this, however, was not the greatest cause for consternation. After all, assuming an infinite supply of myself, surely any damage I did to whatever it was must be cumulative. Eventually I would wear it down. Eventually it would - it must! weaken to the point where I could finish it. The real sticking point was my obvious physiological age. I was in my late twenties or early thirties - wasn't I? I had no memories of ageing. No recollection of sagging muscles. Of greying hair. Of general weakness and diminishing mental or physical resources. How could I have turned into this pot-bellied, slack postured old ruin. This was not, of course, entirely an objective view, as I realised when I rose for the second time. Age may have taken me unawares, but I was still fit for that age. Reflexes may have slowed, but I would guarantee that I was still faster than most. The main problem was that I was lacking in that great compensator for years - experience. In my head, I was still young - fast and deadly. I would have to allow for that when the attack came. Come it would, of that I could be sure. Certainly it would not be long. How could the other editions of myself still be in possession of provisions had they been here more than a few hours before death. Other questions clamoured at the threshold of my consciousness. Item (1): Why did I not know why I was here? Item (2): (a)Why had I arrived naked? (b) Why did every copy of me appear to be equally badly equipped? Surely after a few failures, I, or whoever had sent me, would have tried a different approach. Item: What was the nature of the enemy? Assuming there was an enemy. It seemed hardly likely that I was doing this to myself. Incidental to this was the question as to why I so often seemed to have been struck down from behind, as if running away. Not running away necessarily, since nearly all had been facing back

towards what I assumed was our common entry point. Also, why I seemed so often to have been torn up by small scavengers, yet as far as I could see, none of my bodies had any consistent - or indeed visible - cause of death. It never occurred to me until too late to wonder whether anyone was watching. Whether anyone either knew or cared if the previous version of me had died before the next one was sent. When the thought did come to me, I was up and running too. Even though I knew it was hopeless. That there was nothing whatsoever I could do to save myself. Panting desperately, ancient heart pounding, I thrashed madly through the low scrub. With no hint of warning, the world lit with a dull blue flash. On the edge of ultra violet - barely visible had I not been expecting it. There was a sound like the firing of distant artillery. without pain, the world faded. ************************* My head clears slightly. I am - or, at least I appear to be, lying on the bank of a river. More than a river really - perhaps a lake the other bank is a mere, low blur in the distance. The bank on which I find myself, is about twelve feet above the water level. The water is barely moving. Perhaps not moving at all, although the green, and rather dull, surface is marred by sluggish ripples. It stinks.

38. You're Never Alone With a Venereal Disease. See those cute little spirochaetes dance the Viennese waltz as you wait for the nurse with the big needle! The old Norton Dominator has - in spite of both the length and engine - speed. This seems to be obsessed with the sixty miles per hour - so the particular period towards the ninety - where it all smooths. One small, unimportant part. Remember once when I fitted - claims to have done everything - these. Only to watch as Tsar of Russia in public onto the road within five his hand inside Margaret. These particular speeds are not to mention having some. Expect this vibration with fortunate countries - which, as those of you who know - British Empire. The time: realised, this one is no Nineteen-Ninety. The place: West. *********************** Were rather under-geared, thereof. A narrow strip, from worked on - a few thou off indeterminate point. Polishing there - you know was one of the few periods when the last of the magneto. Less the same place for a particularly fast top speed. (It occurs to me now that this over ninety miles per hour and Colonel chose me to transcribe gear as in top. This meant listen to him now.) ************************ I recognise fourth being only used on long country which I came to call overdrive. About as pointless mention of the vicious. Which most modern cars seem to - and the Seventh Day Adventists. By lowering the final drive of minor (mostly American) sprocket, the bike is more than the last - which led to the first three gears. In top, each more deranged than the low revs, the engine is in their teaching and methods. (at ninety. This extra power in their belief systems)

The speed approaching a hundred. 'And when the day of judgement.' Legendary Norton Featherbed. 'When the Heavens are opened and grossly overweight (especially the deeps,)' (Insert cries of.) Signally failed to emulate. ************************ 'You will be doomed to burn in forty years old. The downside. They are really going at this handling, not something - just bath veins stand out on which so many people seem to. Unless....' The tendons in his normal - demands constant ropes on the very point of minimal suspension - movement into - burst any second now. Head forks, as near the optimum as blood and bile. 'Unless....' His nature, superior handling - sons for some reason - pale road should happen. Have you noticed how religious women. It is, by motorcycle standards envy, until they look like gentle curves, each one. 'You give the Church....' Coming dreary straights. Lethal always. 'The' church - the 'We' ' He lays the bike over church. And they infect the changing. His direction of bank. People - even people who should. ************************ Gradually edging in to clip - shitting, pissing, spouting. And back again, the foot-peg frenzy where they will accept. Each movement calculated - to this character who has driven as man and machine. Create a 'Give the Church....' horrible countryside. The rider is them from all directions - many years, he has laid

down. The whole thing makes the simple paradise. Obviously restrained and tasteful. To continue. There is no 'The Church....' Echoes back and limousine should be following. The sole and entire point of the thing - that these sort of hallelujahs going on - the pale existence. *********************** Anyway, here - unhealthy ecstasy. And we. No descriptions: you've all proprietor of this chaos. Why bother, they're all true faith - the moving force created, as and when. 'MONEY!!!!' And sure enough the heavies then. Armed to the hundreds. Handing over their Occupation. Chasing Fifties - hours of heavy labour - to this Fifties landscape. In his entire, useless life. So natural desire to turn. A house in his new, huge car - to means of transport: The words semi-living, shrunken creatures. Enough to conjure up are sponsored by large multi-reader. You may imagine labour and consumers for ours. Probably not a Rolls - or create them. Simple rules - keep. A surplus of money combined - keep them terrified. Above all. Almost anything American will. ************************* Amalgamated Chem is moving in - terms of the late Fifties or Christ. Get them out - we don't, boys. Suddenly world famous, shipping you a new minister - (ex) - and seriously ugly haircuts. In the military. So we have gas bleached and lacquered into a cooker - exploded or something. In mind, we realise that - in armour-plated cars (we had stated earlier. `The pastor from the blasphemers.') Been described, this is not a hill - let's get back to that. An idealised version of not being likely to - blow your armaments for the bad guys business. So profits start to...

*********************** Thompson sub-machine gun with missionaries is pulling out would be eminently suitable. Situation: and some crazed - belong to the twenties and save this poor, benighted - militaristic psychopath. Where you are, the whole area is, period. James Bond chose - rapidly going down the toilet. We all know he was really this place - natural - or the lines of his hand made the equation - this last. Let us assume that they - the country - lurch back towards heavy automatic pistol. Each. Until the whole thing gets weapon. (No Mildred, that does unload themselves at the thrust into his tights.) *********************** And thing over again. The Colonel - driver - has to be carrying. He is living the best part. This much is inevitable. Into the desert - looking for the car, and the thugs some time. And every time I see critical weapon - that wielded what I call the refugee eyes. Coming into focus. Coming in to. Been beaten down - that one - past the limit of adhesion. After a while, I start to avoid. Slowly, very slowly gaining lose contact altogether when I...

39. Tanks For The Memory. In which the Colonel receives what is commonly known as a blast from the past. Or, possibly, somewhere else entirely. The machine reminds him of something. A dim, distant flicker at the back of his mind as he examines it. As usual, the vague memory slips away before he can pin it down. It is not a particularly large device. Not when compared to his recent memories of the vast engines which powered the troopship on the passage out, for example. On the other hand, it has a certain massiveness to it. As if it somehow weighed far more than should be expected from an object of its dimensions. In some way, the depths of the corrosion pits in its surface create an impression of enormous thickness in the underlying metal. The Colonel also gains an impression of great antiquity, as if this object had existed since the age of the great reptiles. If this is not the case, and it seems hardly likely that it can be, then it would seem to have been the victim of unnaturally great stress during the course of its career. At one time, it is apparent that it must have been considerably more complex than it is now, since it is obvious that several protruding components have been broken away at some time or other. Some of the scars show relatively fresh metal as if they have occurred relatively recently. Others are barely visible, almost as corroded as the main body of the thing. He judges it to be nearly twenty foot long in its greatest extension, a little less than ten foot wide, and at least five foot high. This last is the poorest approximation, since the whole machine is sunken to an unknown depth in the, rather soft, soil. A metal wheel, rather akin to a train wheel, protrudes from either side at the end which, assuming the upper surface to have originally been horizontal, has sunk the lesser distance into the ground. The Colonel is unable to imagine what function these wheels may have originally possessed, since, even embedded in the earth as it is, the lower part of the circumference of each wheel is still several inches above ground level. At the other end of the wreck, one similar wheel is visible, this time buried to a depth greater than half its diameter. Always assuming that the remainder of it actually exists, of course, since its opposing partner is not at all visible and may be assumed to

have been in some way removed or destroyed. On the top - or, at least, the Colonel corrects himself, on the surface which is currently uppermost - almost concealed under a thick layer of rust, is the outline of what could well be some kind of hatch. A Sergeant and two privates from the Engineers are noisily attempting to break it free with the aid of an extremely large hammer and a cold chisel. Waving them to silence, the Colonel makes a vague effort to listen to what the rather aristocratic young Lieutenant is trying to tell him. "It just appeared." He seems rather agitated. "Right over the Brigadier." Is he trying to suppress tears or laughter? The Colonel wonders. "His favourite horse..... " Tears, he decides. There is little more to be learned from this source. Impatiently he signals to the Engineers to resume their work. It is almost certainly a hopeless task. Eventually, tiring of the incessant noise - which, as he well knows, will reduce as soon as its perpetrators are no longer observed by a senior officer - he wanders off to look for the divisional mess. Two hours later, the enemy begins a major barrage, for which they must have been preparing unobserved for weeks, if not months. By midnight the defenders are in full flight - a catastrophic retreat which signals the fact that the most disastrous campaign in the history of the Regiment is drawing to a close. ************************ Many years later - a different war entirely. The Colonel, rather older and perhaps a little wiser, will recall this short episode. By then, of course, it is far too late to do anything more than laugh about it.

40. You're Never Alone With a Venereal Disease II In which you may discover that pissing broken razor blades is really the soft option. Coming into focus as that - later - around ninety-seven. A fearsome device. Probably. Everybody seems to have more than a single prototype. People I know, and it is like bows of a special breadth of his career. The Colonel reducing an entire flock of events - which took place in one - with a single shot. Not to end of it. Not just one period, but eardrums and, quite frequently, the world. This, from a man who... A mass of floating splinters in Europe, from blowing the last. Considering it must be toilet in Saint Petersburg - getting. As it is about ten foot long - Thatcher's disgusting knickers at Brighton. ************************ Previous image of the vehicle. Influence on almost every one of those. Since it is necessarily successfully escaped from. The collapsing lines. Normally only seen somewhere between Eighteen-Eighty. And decades earlier than our Africa. Of at least a small part. We are looking at some part: Lom - capital city of Togo North has changed into a Brough somewhere in the Southern Sahara. This rider must be a certain well. The Colonel and I were in more - or the Arabian Peninsula. You may - considerable length of time. Particular event. Other may be one of the reasons why. The black car may or may not exist. This dying testament. Yet, when 1 version at least - almost nothing of that small independent. ************************ The rider is very conveniently home for so many years. There is no interfering with the legend of underground war. Waged between the Baptists. Farewell to another heroic. Nothing at all on the proliferation Empire. Upon which, they say,

naturally. Sects - each more deranged - counting his money. Another infamous event of ninety-two. What next: Perhaps a cruise last, I said - but each almost identical. Titanic would bring its own. In fact, the smaller the difference - serious vibration problem - more they seemed to hate each other. Certain particular machine this - comes. 'They all shout together'. Around is cruising at between eighty - the burning monster crawls out nicely. Hallelujah! Anywhere you like in this modern electronic rev counter. The eternal fires of Hell! One disassembled itself - pieces point - first five rows get a spit showering. Minutes of starting the engine. Preacher's forehead. Not exactly those at which your neck stand out - tight as steel would standard Dominator? Parting. ************************ You just know that he is going about these things. May have already. Exploding in a shower of rancid, longer, standard. Originally the wife and daughters (very rarely use bikes especially after the engine had - and ugly like they always are have been.) Head here, a little porting and shrink and shrivel up with hatred. Way to do it. When it was built - some kind of ancient mutant monkey - ignition models. I n 1955. it went to the crunch now - notice it is not as tested. At the time was a line - right - and everyone else is doomed. Was just about as fast in third congregation - with their madness. Only three really useful gears? Know better - rolling in the

aisles with straight stretches as a kind of gibberish. Winding up to this. Complete as the supernumerary fifth gear wants. Anything - anything at all - from it. Be infected. Them crazy. *********************** Ratio with a custom made rear over-amplified. The voice beats at heel - slower - but accelerates better. Reverberating off the walls and ceiling - in the however. Instead of struggling - rantings of the average politician - look along at getting well into the maximum fourth. And now we are getting to lower band where it is needed. Gives us a whole act. Also plenty more top and ten. All this without losing. Monkeys are screaming in some kind handling which the Japanese have last. Crucial word from then, their - at the top end - machines have. The one word that sums up his entire. Not bad for a bike which is now his life. Over. ************************ Is that good handling? - really suckers is lined up in their good. Slightly better than the mediocre, meagre life savings. Fruits of endless have been conditioned to accept. Man who has never done a days work as frame geometry. This in turn - that he can drive back to his huge plies. Order to keep the angle of the lord. Over those (pathetic) front possible. ************************ In other words, by it who are his family. Many of them equal a hard ride. Bloody hard national corporations. 'We need cheap. If the less perfect surface than this reject products.'

So they go out and one. A beautiful road. A series of them poor - keep them ignorant. Flowing smoothly into the next. Keep them. Them bastards from no long, sudden hairpins. No other traffic there with the Twice Reformed Sonic. ************************ Precisely at the start of each. Care how you do it - but we is curve, as he crosses the centre-line. CIA, and he has plenty of contacts. Then the grass verge at the apex of these missions going up in flames - the bend. Clearing the tarmac by scant millimetres. And they is all starting to ride. ************************ Perfection - a smooth dance of 'Mortgage your sister to protect your power.' Ideal geometry across the desert and the customers running for the supremely happy. For the first good old Voodoo - chickens and goats time. His burden, and escaped into this. Head off when you do the throatcuttings. This state of affairs cannot befall, and, before too long all permitted. Particular reason why the men is too dangerous here - unstable political in the black - the bike. This is just one of the lackey calling for American troops to people. ************************ Probably the sole country from the 'Reds' - before you know as they are: four, heavily armed. The full of these armed morons and thugs. Seen them before. No character forever. Luckily there is no resource - studies - exactly alike. Probably no parental otherwise, once the workers is taken out. They needed the raw stuff. Four scenario is just not going to happen. Standard proverbial teeth one would assume - some kind of peaceful state. Me.

Motorcycle across an idealised - forgotten, and the next issue of missionaries - dream. *********************** Motives: None - except perhaps airport - all ready to play the whole. The author's rather thin plot. Into some kind - sees none of this - of epic. 'black' and 'limousine' - ten years, batting to and fro - suitable image in the mind of something. He says he lost out there - almost any Mercedes, or a BMW. Perhaps a Daimler? He is looking older and getting Jaguar. Definitely something - like you sometimes see in people who? That implies a complete absence of taste - time too often. *********************** Probably do at a pinch. Think him whenever possible - finally in early Sixties. Think, perhaps move out to the Far East. Some year four with no talent, no taste, no cows - I go back for a while. By then screaming girls, with hair puff - completely forgotten him. I talk a few up, hideous solid mass. With these the poor old bastard never existed. Thoughts; bike must be considerably younger than rider - remains unchanged. As he has never - serious - problem. You may picture him yourself - at any age you care to choose. May be more of a problem. The good old..... Its characteristic drum magazine. *********************** Unfortunately: very definitely thirties. The Uzi, that favoured weapon is rather more recent than our chosen Beretta pistol. At around this time - but faggot - and only worried about spoiling suit. Let it go, for the moment.

Almost certainly each carry some kind. Has at least one concealed. Edged - not mean he has a bejewelled sword. The one in the front, next to some kind of machine gun. Except, of course that it is not. Themselves may remain indeterminate. The front seat passenger is focus - as the car lurches, slides, every turn - on the motorcycle still far ahead. Most unlikely of weapons - the punt gun. The largest shotgun ever produced - as designed to be firmly mounted in the strengthened punt. Capable, if all went well - ducks to mattress stuffing and pate. Mention destroying its wielder. Reducing even the strongest punt in the process. In the case which we mounted onto the bonnet of the car. This means that we must revise. Making it somewhat less than new. Possessed of the kind of seriously elongated vehicles - three, four or even five - current period. OK. Think again. Of the nineteen-twenties. The motorcycle Superior. We may now deduce that its known individual not unconnected with - guess the rest. Locked in participants must also change. ************************ The large. The punt gun - in this particular certainly does not. Dead, and therefore incapable of his own lifetime. And so we say - episode in the history of the British. The sun never sets. The Colonel is good job well done. He is thinking.

To the New World aboard the new liner Reward in free entertainment?

41. It's always darkest when all of the lights go out. In which the Colonel covers his trail, and the end of the world comes early for quite a lot of people. The Colonel - huddled in the depths of the trench. (walls of winter frozen corpses, now beginning to thaw in the early spring.) The barrage increases in intensity - he can no longer think straight for the sheer mind numbing pressure of the almost continuous noise. Has forgotten - not that it matters - which side is currently doing its best to obliterate the other. In the small section of his mind which is still capable of coherent thought, he is wondering why fat people exist. As far as he can see, there can be no possible evolutionary advantage to obesity. Apart from being unsightly, they almost invariably exude that kind of vicious stupidity which will one day be epitomised by one Oliver Hardy in his cinematic performances. They also have a tendency, so the Colonel has noticed, to be rather unpleasantly sweaty. This in turn gives rise to an equally offensive and unusually pervasive smelliness. The fat sergeant who is sharing this trench with the Colonel is certainly beginning to reek a bit. This could be partly because he has been dead for quite some time, the Colonel having taken an early opportunity to smash in his skull with a handy, and unusually large, piece of shrapnel. It is also partly because the Colonel has been unable to move the corpse sufficiently far away from the small fire he has kindled at the lowest point in the trench. In some ways, the Colonel is beginning to regret his rather impulsive action. On the other hand, he has been able to spend the last two days in somewhat greater comfort than he had originally anticipated. This is not merely due to his being now the possessor of double rations, but also to the sergeant having had in his pocket a hip flask of rather good - and, no doubt, looted - brandy. In addition, he has not been forced to listen all this time to the imbecilic chatter of the overweight idiot. Every now and then, the Colonel consults the half seen timetable inside his skull. Not too long now. Already the majority of shells seem to be exploding off towards the south. Soon, very soon, he will be out of this rotten war. Where next? He wonders. Perhaps it is time to try a little peace again? Not so easy, that.

In his time, the Colonel has tried most of the tiny islands of peace and harmony that are reputed to exist in the hidden depths of the twentieth century. The majority of them turn out to contain more stress and hatred than any war zone. Irritably he kicks the corpse - for perhaps the hundredth time. (It is beginning to feel unpleasantly soft around the upper rib area, where his foot tends to impact most frequently) He settles back into the mud, softening well now from the combined heats of his body and his fire. Staring vaguely at the sky he sees, far overhead, a small and lonely RE8 flying lazy figures of eight against the clear blue. He is aware that this is the favoured observation aircraft of the British Royal Flying Corps. He knows that this fragile machine must be directing at least part of the barrage. From this, he deduces that there will shortly be an attack by the British forces. He watches the aeroplane for a while, in the idle manner of a man with nothing better to do. No fat men in the RFC. He thinks. No mud. He decides that one day, when aircraft become a little more reliable, a little more solid, then he too will learn to fly. Spherical puffs of black smoke - appearing almost solid in the wan sunlight - seem to follow the flimsy craft as it circles. After some time, it comes to him that this must be anti-aircraft fire. He is appalled at its inaccuracy until he begins to calculate speeds and distances. Then he wonders why they bother at all. ************************* Time to go. His internal clock has given him the signal. Turning onto his stomach, he begins to scrape away the softened mud beneath his body. For a few seconds, he thinks that perhaps he has finally made an error, but it is merely that the door is buried a few inches deeper than he expected. He almost panics in those few seconds until his scrabbling fingers feel a reassuring solidity. Sure of himself again, he uses the fat sergeants entrenching tool to finish the job. Counting slowly and steadily to himself, he takes his time with the lock. Counts on for a few seconds, then pulls the door just wide enough and steps through. The door closes after him with a solid, bank vault, clunk, which would have been unheard above the general racket even had there been living ears to hear.

At almost exactly the same instant, the shriek of an approaching shell amplifies itself into a mind numbing roar. A stray twenty-five pounder impacts the exact centre of the trench. The blast obliterates all evidence of its existence. Not to mention that of its erstwhile occupants.

42. Earth, Fire, Iron and Blood. A touch more militaristic drivel for those who incline that way. (About thirty degrees to the right, if my estimates are correct.) The machine reminds him of Heavy - firing begins on the instant. The back of his mind - as before them the valley - broad, slips away. Before he can pin green turf. Large device. Not when compared. Totally devoid of cover. All the engines powered. The occasional flashes among the trees. On the other hand, it has the enemy artillery. Not enough somehow weighed far more than the bombardment, however. It seems its dimensions in some way must be hidden deeper in the woods - the surface create an impression on full throttle. Trying underlying metal. The Colonel seen and unseen, the tanks slew antiquity, as if this object tracks. Throwing up great swathes. Had great reptiles. ************************* If this is a near miss on number Four. Not that it can be, then it would track link. Idler wheels dig deep. Unnaturally great stress - during its agony - as maximum power. At one time, it is apparent against fifty tons of steel. More complex than it is now - broadside to the forest. Protruding components have continue to fire - as the remainder. Some of the scars show. A hopeless attempt at repair. Occurred relatively recently - least fifty yards back - if it is. Corroded as the main body. Unshielded, they try for it. Twenty foot long in its greatest minute, the remaining tanks charge. ************************** Ten foot wide, and at least concentrates on the crippled. Five poorest approximation, since one down. Five still running. The

unknown depth - rather. Crewmen load and fire at speeds (soft) akin to a train wheel, protrude ability. They, or at least tanks, which - assuming the upper rather ahead of the others - are surface. Has sunk the lesser distance - hampering the enemy's fire. Into - unable to imagine - what function. Then number Two is out. A brew up - possessed, since - even embedded. No chance for anybody in those. Part of the circumference of next. Direct hit on the front of each. Above ground level. At the fires one of his own. Million to other wheel is visible, this time cooling metal - the turret. Its diameter. Always assuming of life. Perhaps the driver exists, of course, since its headless and unarmed. She turns, visible and may be assumed. Drawing no further fire. The enemy to be destroyed. On the top - or, apparently capable of mercy. Six on the surface which is currently mechanical failure. All to - under a thick layer of rust - maintenance. ************************* Too little rest - some kind of hatch. A Sergeant vanish into the forest. Black are noisily attempting to break across the valley. The remains of large hammer and a cold chisel now. Hidden observers on both. Makes a vague effort to listen - obscured. Below the smoke, the day. Young Lieutenant is trying orange disk - fading. He seems rather agitated. the reappearance of the right. Is he trying to suppress clouds. Sole survivor dies of ... 'His favourite horse.....' Firing gradually fades and dies. Tears. To be learned from this source. Later, as the smoke dissipates. Engineers to resume their work - crew of Number Six return on task. Eventually, tiring of following morning, the valley is. The well knows - will reduce as stretches from the ridge. Soon

observed by a senior officer. Its smooth, manicured surface - divisional mess. Two hours. On the other side of the rise, later, for which they must have engines. Blue smoke and a growing. *********************** Not months. By midnight. The distorting light of the rising catastrophic retreat. Which the tanks crest the ridge? Campaign in the history. Shallow surfaced with - close many years later - a different way to the edge of the forest. Older and perhaps a little mark. The positions of some, wiser. By then, of course, it is. Account for the intensity of laugh about it. That the bulk of the force. Something? A dim, distant rocking. Weaving, all engines flicker. Examines it. ************************* As usual, outguess the defending gunners - both vague memory down. It is not particularly wild across the grass. To his recent memories of torn turf at each turn. The vast troopship on the passage out - jagged chunk of shrapnel severs for example. Certain massiveness to it. Into the soil, engine howling. As if it should be expected from - and suddenly finds no resistance to work. Object. Depths of the corrosion pits slides and shudders to a halt. In enormous thickness. Desperately the gunner and loader also gain an impression of the crew. Evacuate! Great existed since the age of the remainder. The track. The case, and it seems hardly even, still in one piece. Likely seem to have been the victim. What else can they do? For the course of its career. ************************* On unopposed. Enemy fire.

hit.

It must have been considerable machine. All too soon a direct

Since it is obvious - that curtain of fire ahead - as sweating. Several broken away at some time - or beyond the normal limits of their other. Relatively fresh metal as Three and Five, which have drawn. If they have? Others are barely visible, close enough now that the trees almost as thing. He judges it to be almost as much as their own. Nearly extension, a little less than. Nobody makes it out. ************************ Foot high. This last is the circumstances. Number One goes. Whole machine is sunken to the turret. Just as the gunner and soil. A metal wheel, rather one chance. Starfish of torn, from either side at the end. Somehow she still moves. Some spark. To have originally been isolated - deep under the nose armour. Horizontal, the ground. The Colonel is sluggish. Crawls for home. is. These wheels may have originally - whatever else he may be,

In the earth as it is, he has stopped. No visible damage. Lower wheel is still several inches frequent. Too little time for proper. End of the wreck - one similar between battles. Three and five. Buried to a depth - greater smoke from number Two. Rolls slowly than the remainder of it. Four are also burning fiercely actually. ************************* Opposing partner is not at ridges - find their view of the trees all have been in some way removed - has grown dark. The sun dim. Or least, the Colonel corrects - while a growing rumble announces himself uppermost - almost concealed. Decapitated number one from the black. The outline of what could - wounds some hours later - well be.

And two privates from the away into uncanny silence. Engineers it free with the aid of night approaches. Three of them extremely. Waving them to silence, the foot. Darkness falls. By the Colonel. What the rather aristocratic - clear again - smooth grass. Tell him. 'It just appeared. distant trees. No shell holes mar.' Over the Brigadier. 'The wrecked tanks have vanished.' Laughter? ************************* The Colonel wonders - fresh squadron starts it he decides. There is little thunder. Heated air shimmering. More. Impatiently he signals to the sun. Preparing unobserved for weeks. It is almost certainly hopeless - defenders are in full flight incessant noise. Which - as he signals the fact - the most disastrous? Its perpetrators are no longer. Regiment is drawing to a close. Wanders off to look for the war entirely. The Colonel, rather, the enemy - begins a major barrage. Will recall this short episode. Too late to do anything more than .......

43. A Rolling Stone Gathers ... 43.1 SPEED. In which we have a possible encounter with the supernatural and a great deal of unusual information fails to be revealed. Various persons at one time or another claim to have received revelations while in a state of delirium. Convinced that they are being given the wisdom of the ages, or the word of god, or similar, they write down this incredible drivel. Even when (if) they recover, many of them still seem to take it all seriously. Worse still, they somehow persuade others to take it seriously too. Take a look in the bible at the deranged rantings of the Book of Revelations if you want a perfect example. I was sitting in my favourite bar when the ghost came and sat beside me. I had no feeling of illness, and when I later took my temperature, it proved to be perfectly normal. I saw the ghost from the corner of my eye, a thing of rags and tatters. A few curves of moonlight hanging in the air above the bar stool. There was no moon that night - had there been, its light would have been powerless against the headlights of the incessant stream of vehicles heading north not five yards from where I sat. Nevertheless. There sat I with one half finished beer (my first). There sat the ghost. Invisible in direct vision, yet still there when I looked straight ahead. It did not occur to me that this was merely an illusion caused by incipient sickness. Neither did it occur to me to do anything about it. I sat, the ghost sat. I finished one beer and took another. The ghost did not move. After a while, it came to me that the apparition had to do with someone I knew. A face came to mind. A girl I used to meet occasionally, a long time ago. I had not seen her, or even thought of her in some considerable time. Had never, in fact, even known her name. Yet now I was convinced that she was in some terrible danger. That only I could save her. This feeling of impending doom became overwhelming after a while, and I staggered out into the night in a state bordering on desperation. I have no clear recollection of the remainder of that night. It seems to me that I staggered from bar to bar, questioning complete strangers as to the whereabouts of this girl I barely knew, and whom even her own mother could hardly have recognised from my garbled descriptions.

They tell me I was delirious for two days. I can neither confirm nor deny this. The only thing of which I can be sure is that my hair - previously only slightly greying - was now almost entirely white. I have come across this effect twice before, once in a case of cholera and once with tetanus. No disease was ever diagnosed in my case. 43.2 Mass Once more & ad nauseum, the legendary serpent is compelled to stick its head as far up its arse as possible. In the Toyota, the girl is curled. To distance herself as much as passenger. In fact, she is barely external. Awareness as 'she' on the man in front of her. She, from the marked route. She makes because she has long ago. Over her own destiny. They consider her insane. In many by now have - been permanent - drugs or shock treatment. To possibly the most valuable person - that he loves her, in his fashion - would claim, were anyone to ask. Loves is what she represents in. He would love a frog, equally, if for the success of his endeavours. Reason for the driver's terror. This same passenger on one. Something happened, something he tries to remember. ************************* He was dead - his body burnt almost beyond into the dust. Takes from his shattered and sips again from his, by now, courage. At first he was not sure - heard of such things, in talk, in the city, and a good Christian - always taken pride in his ability - man, from another. He shivers from the wheel, clutches at the dash. The tent itself is a distinct trail to its entrance. Life elsewhere around the oasis, vultures. And two or three are hovering around - rotting near the water tank. A steady emitted from its curved end - to maintain their relative. Possibly notice a faint humming - care to put his head sufficiently. The hum as that of a 'desert that relies on the evaporation'. He might deduce from this - that appears. ************************* As the driver removes his, beneath the dash, fingers. For a

second or two he looks down - eyes return to the forward view wheel. The reef of rock is not negotiated safely - even not changing direction. Even slightly lower speed - combined - meant no more than a bent track. Bursting the tyre instantly - and in the wrong direction. The occupants thrown in - begin to bite into the soft rock. ************************* It seems dim, after the searing - incredibly, far hotter than the tied back, the faint - desert. From the inside, the dingy canvas orange. It is almost too hot to. One of the palms lies across one - oil emanates from sealed metal - central pole. The cheap, worn door latch bursts under. Viciously breaking - two of him is flung out. Through the wheel begins to rise, spinning. Hard down on the accelerator - him falls toward the open door. Scientist, his white coat neat - his protg on the nature of slowly. 'Time.' There is - if the word has just invented - listening. Apparently intent on the far wall, the white man at one of the screens. The front - the quickest, death. Had there feet, it is barely possible - that clear? As it is, both his legs shattered against the like. Remains tied to the car. As the car rolls - weakened immediately in front of the fuel rapidly. But after the first two to the limit. It's permitted. Together - solely by the roof panel - to keep grease in and dust out. The plastic fuel pipe, despite years of tropical heat, does not. It still retains sufficient on the tank before it. Finally of the generator - suddenly bloom spreads across the face of main control. The man in the lab. Throws herself on him.

43.2.1 Her signs of animation. Chaos spreads as the lights dim. All of this in struggle against the console, at the screens, begins to laugh. My mind drifted elsewhere. 'Time seemed to hear. I could still see in time - saves nine.' Echoed from - had been as mean and stupid as I thought. His mouth full of shit roofs of the compound to the hotel. The whores had long since - petrol at the first sign - put off until tomorrow. 'I knew real.' On the other hand, I could. The port was useless. I knew that the little Cessnas at the flying left the corpse where it was. Heading north, I stole one of the mopeds from a deserted compound. As I wove my way through, it finally expired on the hill as the shelling restarted. I knew though I could no longer remember. Occupied by corpses, victims of usual, the Americans. Had I had noticed as I rode past, embassies were completely naturally - no more than a rubble. Even the unoccupied in the ignition. Some had only stopped. When the fuel tanks trying to start - any of the others - the road was no longer blocked. Onto the remains of the 'Peace'. The Atlantic over burning Lom. Warships appeared to have run - collided and the shelling of the weapons. On each other. Hours. 43.2.2 White houses. I had reached the grounds of the Palace. All appeared intact in the ancient burn scars - smeared to drown in sickly vines. I lived now less passable than behind the neat rows of dwellings. Small overripe bananas. My hunger seemed like hours. Into the blazing - from the pitted bronze bolts. Ice from the cool blue - from horizon to zenith. Thirty - or its flames were pallid and - as I tried to move away - putting shot through my shoulder. The ever increasing speed. Doppler Fleeing me, as I fled it, pain. With no apparent time lapse, the dying flames, the sun low to

the south. Only visible at all on faint traces of the car's passage. Horizontal light. ************************* Nowhere; East, any sign of anything resembling desert. Travel this: never for searchers to find a car - or vanish within hours. Under this rule assume that someone will worry sufficiently. Fact, all vehicles - travelling police - meaning that there will. Initially, however, this will - travellers to watch for - before a full search is launched. Some backlash from the nerve gas. No passing traveller was going to - living soul for.... However long was hard to remember. Anything for it was hard to separate - chaotic images that still the North. ************************* I faced the flames - vehicle in its day. A 1967 FIAT that had been dropped in later. Shell had almost gone, revealing time and termites. Had not treated this far before my own lack. Nothing salvageable here. I rock, noting the scars of some corroded heap of ancient metal. Car I had - ever heard of this. Made from one piece of steel. No more than half, the remains were, with oversized tyres. I bent. A once bright metal name. Letters missing. Baffled, I shook torn neck muscles. Onwards; - lurched upright. Further north, in the drifting laterite dust. Up against the door, if possible. From the other rear seat - aware of his existence. Such possesses - is focused. Almost entirely alone - aware of their deviation. No mention of it to the others - abandoned even the slightest control. Majority of the human race - would, probably - part the world. Her mind would - fuddled by clinically administered. Man in the front seat - she is in the world. ************************* It could be said, and this is what he - himself - his opinion. What he actually terms his own peculiar aims. It offered the same potential. The man in the back is months ago.

He remembers taking previous trips into Mali. Then, has somehow forgotten even as this man. Dead in the desert, recognition. Fluids leaking irreplaceably - torso. The driver shudders, sadly depleted source. False, after all, although he has the villages; is he not a man. On the other hand, has he not to tell one 'yovo', one white again. Freeing one hand momentarily, reassuring fetish concealed beneath. Empty, though many feet have left. ************************* Neither is there any sign - with the exception of the ubiquitous, spindly goats. A cluster of small insects. Pipe - that protrudes from the ground. Stream of moisture laden air is causing the insects to dance frantically - positions. A careful observer would sound near this outlet. Should he close, he might, perhaps, identify 'cooler'. A simple air conditioner. 43.2.3 Water. Being a careful observer, the oasis is not quite as dry as its right hand. From the recess - snag on some metallic protrusion. As his hand comes free. As he tugs hard, one handed, at the actually very high - and could have their current - speed. Had the vehicle under these circumstances, - with less worn tyres. Could have rod. The offside wheel hits first; forcing the steering. Still further vehicle slews wildly to the left. Other direction as the metal rims. The tent is, apparently, empty. Light outside, but is it also, air outside? ************************* Even with the flaps - breezes fail to touch the interior. Appears a dull, oppressive touch, even where the shadow of side. A faint smell of machine hatch. Set into the ground near metal of the nearside front - sudden load. The steering wheel spins driver's fingers, as the man next suddenly open door. The left rear. The driver's right foot is still. Pedal, even the main bulk.

************************* Inside the bunker, the Togolaise - buttoned, is attempting to lecture universe. 'Time...' he says. Certain awe in his voice, almost as itself for his benefit. She is not - the bank of monitors against - laughs suddenly. 'We're on.' He points - passenger has the first, and no luggage stored behind - he might have been thrown completely. Break an instant before his skull - unforgiving rock. His corpse. Ahab - the straps of his own baggage. Floor pan splits transversely - tank. ************************* Initially the gap widens inches. The prop shaft extension. The car is now held and the thin metal cap - designed the sliding splines on the shaft. Its lack of flexibility - after part instantly. Surprisingly, strength to bend the metal outlet pipe tears across. The background hum increases in pitch, as the fatal orange the screen. Grabbing for the coat is stopped by the girl - face for the first time showing across the entire bank of monitors. Seconds as the two Africans, the European, still stare. 'Time' The Professor was saying. 43.2.4 And tide wait for no man. 'I - the CIA man, dying.' A stitch, some dusty corner. His death his life. Very symbolic, actually, just like life. Over the south, the flames from the burning vanished - evaporating like spilled trouble. 'Never do today what you can.' That what I was hearing was not - not quite pin down what was. Only too well. Perhaps one club would still be intact. I half in, half out of the open drain. Ubiquitous, and ancient. French. The tiny engine began to misfire - stalled traffic on Route

Atakpame. Before the peace monument - just that I had to get back to Mali. Why? ************************* Many of the cars were the earlier nerve gas attack. As completely missed their intended targets. That both the Russian and the Libyan untouched. The United States compound - crater filled with smouldering vehicles - still tended to have keys - obviously been left running and had ran dry. There was no point - until I reached some point walked on up the hill. Climbing monument, I gained a hazy view. At least one of the American aground. While I watched, two destroyers - city eased as they turned. ************************* Later I awoke among the ruins - Residence du Benin - just before buildings, Thought deserted - had failing light. Now they crumbled: grey on roofless enclosures. Almost here once - smooth tarmac roads always inexplicable - waste areas. I walked north in total silence. Fed. Later I vomited, for what tangled roadside brush. Dragons fell - sky, their lucent hides seared by moons that spun - strange epicycles forty feet away. 43.2.5 The car burned. Powerless against the desert glare. Weight onto my left arm. Fire world tilted sideways. Slid away - shifting a deeper, bloodier red. Fading into the infinite dark. ************************* Found myself standing, back to my right. Here and there, the occasional patches of dust were shown up. By, nearly, west, north or south, was there an oil drum? The first rule of leave your vehicle. It is much easier truck than a man on foot. Tracks perpetually moving dust. Unfortunately, somewhere is expecting your arrival. Alert the local authorities. ************************* In major route are logged - always be some sort of search.

Merely consist of a notice to other missing party. It can be several days. I must have been still getting - either that or I was concussed. Watch for me. I had seen it had taken to get this far. Any length of time. At least, coherent view of the past populated my dreams. Turning back again. It had been an excellent steamer, with the slow boiler models. Now, the lacquered wood - the rotting steel frames beneath. Kindly, yet it had got me. Attentiveness had finally destroyed. 43.2.6 Walked past out onto the outcrop. Earlier accident, the twisted, dust silted. I looked again. No twisted shell, the body, apparently sign of a boiler coil, though visible. Strangely small wheels. Wincing to read the broken remains. 'TOYO..' it said, the end letter or my head. Pain striking through word - coiled before my eyes as yet another wreck, almost gone. 43.3 ENOUGH!! 43.3.1 Is more than/ The Colonel's brain. - organic component of the massively parallel quantum computer that forms the human mind - is dying. Coherent thought fades away into endless sub loops. Too many risks the Colonel has taken in a life too long. Obsessed by the figure of a girl decades dead and forgotten by the world, he has forgotten the moves. The way out. The dance along the razor's edge. His memory tied to one small place for too long, he can no longer see the multitudinous threads. The possible lives to live and be lived. The infinite paths that he trod so easily in other times, other places. And now this fool. This prancing poseur. This imbecile whom he has trusted to extract him from this last lethal trap. This final hope - once a valued comrade among those few who walk the paths of time - has failed him. Auto-fucking-biography! The small part of the Colonels failing mind which still retains some coherence, glows

with sudden anger. A handful of intact neurons fire rapidly. Complex molecules, each capable of an immense number of discrete quantum states, become indeterminate - fanning out into that more malleable state of existence in which the Colonel has lived most of his long life. The nightmare returns. The body endlessly tumbling. Blood at the mouth, here. And here - hand moves feeble towards lower ribcage. It is part of the plan. He remembers now. The verge of success. Soon he can let it all go. Soon. 43.4 MORE. 43.4.1 /enough. There are few sounds. Few sounds more likely to create a sudden sense of unease than the unexpected rattle of machine gun fire on a quiet evening. This especially applies if you are having a quiet drink in a bar right across town from your home. You know no one in the immediate area. The political situation is liable to sudden changes. The palace and the main military camp are suddenly far too close for comfort. Your car with its, too conspicuous, foreign registration, turns out to have a flat tyre. 43.5 THIS! 43.5.1 Lurches onto the stage (It is the beach this time.) Past the old rusting car (1956 Buick) propped up on crumbling bricks. Waves half empty (half full) whisky bottle. 43.5.1.1 Your fly is undone says the captain leering from the stranded tugboat. 43.5.1.2 I know, says staggering. I think I am being brendan behan.

43.5.1.3 You mean dylan thomas says the captain, or is it redhat the indian. 43.5.1.4 You mean redhook the indian. Where is he? 43.1.5.5 In the engine Explains the captain. Along with that other fellow. 43.5.1.6 Why not? Says fumbling with fly buttons. 43.5.1.7 Buttons, which era is this anyway? What idiot thought of that embarrassment to any selfrespecting drunk. Leans against car bonnet containing ghost of redhat/hook or whatever. 43.5.2 Beach rolls out forever. Captain fading into cracked sunset. Which tugboat? 43.5.2.1 Brendan thomas Fumbles out a broken pencil as dylan drunk behan slips a tatty notepad from his burning coat. 43.5.2.2 Fly buttons pop across the rusting engine. 43.5.2.3 The faithful indian struts across the wrinkled sky. 43.5.2.4 Showering 1956 dust, the curtain falls. Blazing drunk falls out into endless rusting beach.

43.6 FAITH. 43.6.1 There will now be a short intermission. 43.6.2 Followed immediately by a somewhat longer one. 43.6.3 Followed, in its turn, by a break of several hours. 43.6.4 Which is, itself, preceded by a rather elongated recession. 43.6.5 And terminated by the beginning of the summer vacation. 43.6.6 Which will end with a fortnight's recess. 43.6.7 Capped with a public holiday. 43.6.8 The holidays associated with three separate and distinct Saints. 43.6.8.1 One of whom may have actually existed. 43.6.9 Ending with a two minute silence in honour. 44. Normal service will not be resumed. fin.

Part 5: The Final Fling.

45. With One Mighty Bound. In which all - or, failing that - nothing, is finally revealed. Walks out whistling into the clear, late summer air. A faint smell of roses. Behind him the door closes - a very final sort of sound. Like to see the bastard get out of that one, he thinks, picturing again the ancient, wasted body stranded in the filthy bed. He tosses the keys into the air, catching them, rather awkwardly, in his left hand. Need a little practice, he thinks. Probably need a little practice at almost everything. To his surprise, when he walks around the corner and sees it for the first time, the car does have a certain something. An aura of barely suppressed power. Something else too, something rather more to his liking. A classic kind of elegance. That particular elegance that seemed lost forever after the Second World War. Bulletproof too - possibly more than that, if the body really is titanium - perhaps he should have it shipped out or something. On the other hand, it might be best to avoid anachronisms this time. Plenty of time to think about such things later. All in all, it has been a long, long century. And not finished yet. Not by a long chalk if he has any say in the matter. ************************ It is a fine thing to be young. Finer still to be young in 1935. In 1935 in West Africa. To begin again the search, this time with all his energies intact. Still whistling, the Colonel drives off into the glorious sunset.

46. Falling Through. In which we have - if we wish - a few moments to say goodbye. The cold. The terrible cold. It comes from within. Creeping outward through the bones. No strength even to huddle into a foetal position for warmth. Would it help in any case with this irresistible chill? Random thoughts ricochet through the mind. Other times - ice and blood. ************************ Belgium: 1917. The trench reinforced with frozen corpses. The gaping wound in his thigh. The pulse of a great vein, or artery - he is not sure of the difference - within. His blood. The already freezing crimson pool. One among many amidst the frozen mud. The wave of grey figures leaping down into the trench. The enemy soldier. Very young. Obviously terrified - in his first attack. Raises his bayoneted rifle. His teeth clamped in a rictus of fear and hatred. Proves to himself that he is really a man. Just like his marginally older comrades who race up and down the trench finishing off the other wounded. ************************ Northern India: 1931. The Major pulls the field dressing tight around his upper arm as he shivers uncontrollably. 'Dark soon sir. Pathans won't attack at night. Maybe we can sneak away under cover of darkness.' Tiny flakes of snow in the fading light. A sound from high above. A click of stone on stone. 'Jesus. They're going to.....' Hundreds of tons of rock. Rolling, sliding, falling with ever increasing speed down the precipitous mountainside. ************************ Norway: 1943. Too late. An instant too late, he sees the

crevasse. Later, as the moon casts a pale light down into the narrow gap, he sees the blood - black against the snow. Coughs up more through the fading agony of his shattered ribcage. Ten yards away, the sergeant lies impaled on a razor sharp spine of fractured ice. ************************* Siberia: 1962: Drags himself painfully toward the smouldering wreck. Unable to free the parachute harness. There is something wrong with his hands. Failure of function. Legs too. He crawls knees and elbows. That dead white already - his fingers. Frostbite. An ominous brightening at the core of the broken MiG. ************************* England: 1984. Porton Down. Biological weapons research centre. Slides down the wall to sit among the broken glass. Wonders vaguely which will kill him first. Loss of blood - or whatever he has released in the confines of this freezer room. Knows they will seal off the whole area. Never dare to come in to retrieve the body. Quite a grand tomb. Better than he would ever have expected. Makes no difference really. At least this time he has done something right. Sort of evens it all up a bit. A small repayment. His 'debt to society'. He shivers. ************************* This time is different. There is no external chill. It is purely internal. Expanding from an unknown centre. The aged body closing down. No single malfunction. Time expired in all parts. rest. In some ways it comes as a relief. Maybe now, at last, he can

The world begins to tilt sideways. All go sliding - slowly at first - down that last great slippery slope. *************************

'.......the fuck was that?'

end.