Here I sit, writing on my bed (I really must buy some paper). How well I recall those events of over 10 months past, almost as if it were only last year. All around me I can still see the faces of those brave chaps involved in that terrible mission ("What are you all doing in my bedroom? Go on, get out.") How can I ever forget their names? I suppose I must just have a bad memory. The recollection of those fateful days comes flooding back when .........
(Cue, misting out of picture. In the background Vera Lynn sings "We'll meet again" as the mist slowly clears to reveal...........)
"Look out, there's three Fokkers on our tail!" cried Ginger, causing Algy to snigger.
"A Fokker is a type of aeroplane," explained Biggles, patiently.
"Yes, but these Fokkers are Messerschmidts!" screamed a frightened Ginger from the rear. A machine gun chattered as he let one go.
"Pooh" said Algy.
"Look out Algernon," quavered Biggles as a Messerschmidt ME109 howled past the wing tip of the battered old bi-plane and loosed off another deadly stream of red hot lead.
"I think I need to go wee," yelled Biggles. He put the biplane into a steep dive. About 100 feet above the ground he pulled the stick back, making the plane perform a graceful `U'.
"Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!" cried Biggles.
"I don't think I can hold it Biggles," cried Algy, his voice now coming in short gasps.
"Well, perhaps if you started off by just touching it ..." suggested Biggles, "... and maybe the occasional stroke. You can always graduate onto a full fledged hold a little bit later on."
"He's cracked," thought Algy. How do I know he was thinking that? Easy. He said it to Ginger.
"What's going on up here?" growled Ginger as he brusquely barged into the bi-planes cramped cockpit.
"Its Biggles Ginger ..." replied Algy. "... I ... I think he's cracking."
"I think you're pretty spiffing yourself," quipped Biggles.
Meanwhile, and this is where the adventure really opens, James threw the screaming Aston Martin into the notorious St. Moritz hair-pin bend as he lit another of his hand blended, Turkish cigarettes with a monogrammed Dunhill lighter. He glanced quickly into the mirror but could now hardly discern the gold Mercedes of the evil Bloefelt that had been following him since he left Printz Albert Strasse early that morning. He had been glad to get rid of the Printz, whose habitual "Royal Wave" at pedestrians had attracted unwanted attention. He relaxed and looked idly away from the French coast to the still blue waters of the Mediterranean.
Coincidentally, at that precise moment, our story begins as a 2 Alien UFO was orbiting the Earth high above the South of France. Inside, a perplexed Alien was studying a purloined instrument. Even more confusing, he was perplexed in an Alien Language. He shrugged all three of his shoulders and turned to his companion, making a series of high-pitched squeaks and whistles. What he actually meant was "What IS an ISDN anyway?" His companion shrugged one shoulder and then another. The first alien interpreted his silent companion's gesture as ignorance of the intricate nature of an ISDN (and therefore knowing nothing of S/T interfaces). In fact the second alien had picked up a flea during their surreptitious visit to the planet Earth. The first alien lifted the ISDN telephone and once more turned it over. A small pile of grit fell from the handset to make its tortuous path through the spacecraft and out into the stratosphere above the Earth.
At that precise moment (and this is where the story really starts), a small single engined Cessna aeroplane emerged from a passing cloud. What was the cloud passing? Water of course. The anagrammed pilot, John "when-I-was-in-the-RAF" Fhigfirst, looked out of the cockpit with surprise. Air traffic control had not informed him of any other traffic in the vicinity. A closer view of the four planes startled him even further.
"I didn't expect to see a dogfight between 3 Messerschmidt ME109's and a single seater Sopwith Camel (with a crew of 3)," he mused. "Still, at least I know what an ISDN is," was his significant thought.
Meanwhile, far away, the story starts at the precise moment that Boris Adidoff got out of bed and languidly skipped through the morning newspaper. A strange habit but the printers ink was so good for the feet. He picked the pieces up off the floor, an item about a freak localised meteorite storm in the South of France catching his eye. Thanking the item about a freak localised meteorite storm in the South of France, Boris placed his eye back in its socket and resolved to buy a stronger eyeball fixative.
Even further away, across the Atlantic, the story at last gets started. Professor Nathaniel B. Rubentreipp the second entered the Ronald MacDonald University of Catering, in Michigan, USA. All his life Nathaniel had wanted to be a University Professor. He had been frustrated by his inability to meet any of the three requirements; he did not have the intellectual capability, he could not afford the bribes, and lastly he had been unable to cultivate an Eastern European accent. Nobody had told him that this was the reason for his failure, so he had assumed it was due to a stutter. He didn't have one. He had attempted to remedy the situation by introducing long and difficult to pronounce words into any conversation. This, too, had been a failure. He stumbled over the words giving the impression, not of a man with a stutter, but of a man stumbling over the pronunciation of an unpronouncable word. He had ended up cooking hamburgers rather badly, which was quickly spotted by the Ronald MacDonald University Elders and he found himself, at last, offered a Professorship.
As he entered his office, that fate ridden morning, the sight that greeted his eyes almost reduced his speech to the stuttering he had spent so long trying to achieve. On his desk there should have been a brand new ISDN telephone. It had been ordered, specified, haggled, negotiated, bartered, bargained and paid for over the last three months. Yesterday it had been delivered, installed, wired, tested, trialled, calibrated, positioned, answered, used and dropped. Today it was gone.
"If the students have c-c-cooked it, I'll hang every mother's son of 'em," he muttered through gritted teeth. It was an unusual eccentricity of his, gritting his teeth. Every morning he would gather the ingredients: selected grade A ballast, a fine mixture of sea salt, rock salt and cooking salt; coarse grinding them in his electric coffee grinder to produce a fine grit. He admitted it did not add to the flavour of his food, and guests at his home never partook of coffee, but in the 26 years of this quirk, his teeth had never once frozen. During a strange upbringing, his mother had first encouraged him to participate in the eccentricity.
"Grit your teeth and bear it," she had wisely told her son. And so he had. He preferred not to think of the second part of her advice, and his resulting police record in five states for indecent exposure. His relatives were unconcerned with his vice, having plenty of their own. His aunt freely admitted to being a thespian, and had once told a disbelieving American Networked audience so, during an appearance on "The Johnny Carson Show". His father, a silent hulk of a man, masticated deliberately throughout every meal.
Little did Nathaniel know that the ISDN phone was not the only missing item from his office on the morning in question. After his departure the previous evening, three fun-loving students had released a flea into the depths of his luxurious office chair. If only they had realised the far reaching implications that their practical joke would have, they might of thought twice. And then done it anyway. The Professor, however was ignorant of this prank, and was to remain so. In fact he was just plain ignorant.
Half obscured in the tangled undergrowth of a Suffolk hedge, we begin our simple tale with the hero of the day, Martin Blojobski. With his binoculars clamped to his eyes he swept the field. It had been a difficult task, he had fallen over twice and briefly lingered on the folly of single-handedly sweeping a field with binoculars strapped to his head. He abandoned his efforts when he fell into the hedge. A bemused farmer, later that week, was unappreciative of the three tons of loose soil and straw stubble piled obtrusively in the north-eastern corner.
Tits. An almost fatal obsession of the lightly tanned Martin. He had explored many of the hedgerows, watching the antics of the Great Tits, always on the look-out for a Crested Tit. It was a cold morning and so far all he had seen was a pair of Blue Tits, a camel and a lot of aerial activity. He smoked the surprised camel and watched as the planes circled each other in a tense dogfight.
"I wonder why the dogs are fighting in a tent," he mused, narrowing his eyes. It was trick he had learnt from a Chinaman.
Meanwhile, the tale commences with James Bond squinting out of the car windscreen at what appeared to be a meteorite storm. Swiftly, he manoeuvred the car into a free parking spot and strode across the narrow street to a café. Selecting an empty table on the pavement he sat down, attracting the stares of several patrons. Instantly realising his mistake, he got off the table and sat on a chair. After lighting another of his Turkish cigarettes, he flipped open the Dunhill monogrammed lighter, pressed the hidden button and turned a screw. Instantly it unfolded into a powerful long-range telescope and James pressed it to his eye. Suddenly everything seemed so much further away. Sheepishly he turned it round and peered through the other end at the heart of the meteorite storm.
"Hmmm," he mused, thoughtfully. "A two-alien UFO, carrying, unless I am mistaken, ...... two Aliens."
Quickly he snapped the telescope shut as the waitress approached him. She handed him a card containing the menu and aperitifs. He returned the pair of teeth. Before he had a chance to study the menu, the waitress spoke.
"Arrrrre you rrrrrready to orrrrderrrr, Misterrrr Bond," she rolled her R's in a gravely acute eastern European accent.
"How do you know my name?" queried 007.
"I just guessed," she replied.
"Well then, just guess what I would like to drink."
"A drrrry Marrrrtini; shaken, but not stirrrrred," she correctly guessed as she wiggled seductively back into the café. James watched appreciatively, noting her long, perfect legs. They were perfect for her. They went all they way down from her R's to the ground. If they had been any longer she would have had to stand in a pit. James re-applied the thinly disguised telescope to his eye, accidentally singeing his left eyebrow, as he turned his attention back to the meteorite storm. If he had only pointed the telescope into the café, he would have seen the waitress drop her false eyeball down her false bosom as she replaced her false teeth!
And there we must leave Biggles, Algy, Ginger and the other chums. Did Algy ever bring himself to graduate to a fully fledged hold, or did Biggles loose his flimsy grasp on the top secret experimental sea gull allowing it to return to its home on Aldeburgh Island? Our mission (should we choose to accept it!) is to finally uncover the truth about the legendary top secret experimental sea gull, and to do so before Boris Adidoff. Will the Aliens discover what an ISDN is? Why do the Police Force always appear as incompetent buffoons? What is the significance of the dog wearing brown boots? All these questions, and many more, will remain unanswered in the next gripping instalment of