The Dogs Of War

Cat crouched low to the ground, peered around the corner, and loosed off a burst. The butt of the rifle slapped his shoulder in recoil, and spent cartridge cases went flying into the street. Smoke from the burning buildings made his eyes water despite the goggles.

“Cover me,” he called over his shoulder. “I’m going to try to make the other side.”

Something smacked into the wall just above his head. Chips of brick and plaster bounced off his Kevlar body armour. Cursing, he threw himself back, almost falling over in his haste.

“Damn bastards don’t know when they’re beaten,” he said.

Tiny Marc laughed, his huge frame shaking so hard that the rocket propelled grenades in his backpack clanked against each other. “It’s just this last building,” he said. “Fighting on isn’t going to do them any good.”

Very cautiously, Cat edged a mirror past the corner to get another look at last remaining enemy stronghold. The tall, cylindrical building was burning in three or four places, but he could still see the enemy’s flag flying on top, its white and yellow emblem clearly visible. His throat tightened with anger.

“What are they still fighting for?” he asked. “Don’t they know they haven’t got a hope now?”

“Money,” Jean-Baptiste said. “As long as the money flows through the taps, they’ll fight, even if it’s just one building.”

“Shut up,” Cat told him sourly. “Last building or not, we still have to beat them.” A machine gun rattled and tracers streaked down the street at head height. “They aren’t going out of their way to make things easy for us, either.”

“Look,” Jean-Baptiste said, pointing. A small figure was hurrying past on the other side of the street in a shambling trot, dodging shell holes. It ducked behind the charred remains of the truck Tiny Marc had destroyed earlier. The truck had been carrying food, and might have been able to supply the enemy. It had therefore, they’d decided, been a legitimate target, and Marc had wrecked it with one well-placed rocket. The hurrying figure emerged again, clutching two dusty loaves of bread to its chest.

“Civilian,” Cat said. “Not worth a bullet.” They watched the woman run down the narrow alley opposite, still clutching her bread.

“Civilians,” Marc said. “I hate ‘em. Useless people.”

“Without them we’d be out of a job,” Jean-Baptiste reminded him.

“Here comes the artillery,” Semmler said, from his position further back. “Dupree must have got through after all.”

 A pickup truck mounting a light cannon wheeled into position at the end of the street. Its shells slammed into the blue-and-white concrete of the enemy building. The machine-gun fell silent. The pickup truck kept firing, hosing the lower floors of the building with metal-jacketed death.

“Let’s go,” Cat snapped, and signalled a frontal charge. Tiny Marc stepped into the street, the RPG launcher at his shoulder, and his rocket propelled grenade streaked to the sandbagged entrance of the building. With a colossal explosion, part of the doorway fell in.

They charged, running through the smoke, stopping momentarily to fire and then charging again, past the wrecked truck and over the scattered sandbags, into the building. Scrambling up the stairs, shooting past every corner, hurling grenades into rooms as they passed. The walls trembled from the explosions.

And then, quite suddenly, it was over. The remnants of the enemy, who had fought so hard for so long, surrendered. Their last troops descended the stairs, hands held high.

“Set them to putting out the fire,” Semmler suggested.

“Not unless you pay us,” the leader of the prisoners snapped. “We’re security contractors, hired to fight, not put out fires.”

“Never mind.” Cat said. “Next campaign, we might be on the same side. What’s your outfit?”

“Argus. And yours?”

“Blockwater, of course,” Cat said proudly. “The best of the best. But you put up a great fight.”

“Here come your employers,” the Argus man said, peering over Cat’s shoulder. He turned to see a retinue of men in suits climbing up the stairs. One was carrying a flag.

“Gentlemen,” he said on seeing Cat and the others. “I must congratulate you. It was a hard campaign, and expensive, but you fulfilled all expectations.”

“We always do.” Cat glanced at the Argus man and back. “Blockwater always delivers results. That’s why your firm hired us, sir.”

“Yes.” Triumphantly, the man in the suit shook out the flag with the twin golden arches and posed so that one of the others could take a photograph.

“Once again,” he declared exultantly, “McRonalds has beaten Sunway to control the burger market of the free world!”

(With no apologies whatsoever to Frederick Forsythe, for whom my disdain is unfathomable)

Copyright B Purkayastha 2012

Faerie Story

There was once a fairy who wanted very much to meet a child.

The fairy lived at the bottom of the garden behind the Big House, where the child lived, too. And every afternoon when the boy came out to play, the fairy would watch him from the safety of a flower, and wish with all her little heart that he would come to her. But he was never alone, because he was what his mother called a “delicate child”, and was always accompanied by one adult or another. So even if he came close on occasion, the fairy couldn’t do anything but hide, and she found this intensely frustrating.

Months passed in this way, until the fairy had almost given up hope. And yet the boy grew more and more rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed, and scampered across the grass with such energy that the fairy’s eyes grew misty just to look at him.  He looked, she thought, utterly delicious.

Meanwhile, the fairy began to overhear talk among the adults when they came to the garden; talk which led her to understand that the family would soon be moving, and she was stricken to the heart at the thought that she would never get to come into contact with the boy. She grew so depressed that she began to wilt a little, and her wings began to droop and lose their lustre.

At last the day arrived when the house was filled with bustle, and the moving men came with their big van and began to take out furniture. The fairy, tears dripping from her large and expressive eyes, perched on top of her flower and watched the activity, thinking now that she would never be able to meet the boy again.

Suddenly, the back door eased open and the boy came into the garden, alone for once since his parents and everyone else was busy directing the packing and moving. He stood looking around, the set of his shoulders so forlorn that the fairy wanted to rush to him. But all she could do was sit on her flower and wait for him to wander her way.

At first it looked like she would be disappointed once again. The boy walked listlessly here and there, touching a tree here, plucking a blade of grass there, and once or twice he made as if to go back inside, only to turn back again. At last, with almost incredulous joy, she saw that he was moving in her direction, and she pushed herself up on her flower to make sure he’d see her.

He did.

It was with an amazingly delicate touch that he picked her off the flower, and held her cradled in his hands, peering at her with his wonderful limpid eyes, which she had so long admired from a distance. Then, wordlessly, he lowered his cheek to her mouth, so she could kiss him.

It was the chance she’d been waiting for.

Her proboscis darted out, propelled by its extensor muscles, the knife-like styluses at its end slicing through his skin like paper. She poured her digestive juices into him, quickly reducing his insides to a liquid soup which she sucked up until there was nothing left. Leaving the husk to fall on the grass, she climbed down the flower stalk and began burying herself in the ground, to have some peace and quiet while she digested her meal.

Just as she was drifting off to sleep, she heard voices in the distance, calling the boy.

When the screaming started, she burped contentedly, listening.

"Such a sweet little boy," she murmured to herself.

Copyright B Purkayastha 2012

Wabberjocky

‘Twas brillig, and Jabberwock was cleaning, polishing and arranging his skull collection.

He did this compulsively at least once a month, arranging the hollow lumps of bone and teeth in order of size and beauty, for he had a keen aesthetic sense and could go into raptures over the mathematical curve of a zygomatic arch or the delicate line of an occipital suture. And, after all the skulls were cleaned and set up, he’d sit back and gaze upon them for hours on end, almost catatonic with ecstasy at the beauty of their serried ranks.

The skull collection had grown over the years. Jabberwock himself was surprised at just how large it had grown. He tallied them again, keeping score on a piece of man-skin parchment so that he wouldn’t lose count.

One thousand and thirty-three. He blinked and recounted them, and still came to the same figure. One thousand and thirty-three skulls! If his jaws could have been adapted to whistle instead of merely bite, he would have whistled. That was some collection. Even his rival the Frumious Bandersnatch couldn’t dream of such a haul, though, of course, the Bandersnatch did not possess claws and therefore did not collect skulls of those she vanquished, let alone arrange and polish them as a work of art.

He’d just settled back with a contented burble to gaze upon his collection when a shrill cry came from outside his cave.

“Jabber!” a familiar, but far from welcome, voice screeched. “It’s brillig, Jabber!”

Jabberwock sighed with annoyance. “What do you mean by disturbing me, Jubjub?” he asked crossly. “Every day, you come and annoy me. Can’t you leave me in peace for once?”

“It’s brillig, Jabber!” the Jubjub Bird repeated, its harsh voice echoing from the dim recesses of Jabberwock’s cavernous dwelling. “And you know what that means.”

Jabberwock sat up straight. “Don’t tell me it’s that time come round again.”

“Yes, Jabber,” the Jubjub Bird screeched. “Yes, yes, yes.”

“The slithy toves?” Jabberwock asked, hoping against hope. “Are they gyring and gimbling in the wabe?”

“They’ve pretty much torn up the wabe already with their gyring,” the Jubjub Bird affirmed. “And the borogoves have gone all mimsy, too. You wouldn’t believe how mimsy they look, it’s enough to make anyone ill.”

“What about the mome raths?” Jabberwock asked desperately. “I haven’t heard them outgrabing.”

“Like nobody’s business,” the Jubjub Bird responded enthusiastically. “Just listen and you can hear them.”

Faintly, in the distance, they heard a sound not unlike a pig which had swallowed a foghorn trying to squeal and breaking into a cough halfway through. Even Jabberwock couldn’t pretend he didn’t know what it was.

“Then,” he said, sighing forlornly. “I guess I’d better get ready.”

“What ho!” the Jubjub Bird exclaimed. “I’ll be toddling off to have a bite of supper and then to the old vantage point. Wouldn’t want to miss the show, old boy.”

“I’ll toddle all over you,” Jabberwock said sourly, “if you don’t stop spouting PG Wodehouse at me. I wish I’d never given you the Bertie Wooster collection on your last birthday.”  

“You’ll have to catch me first.” With a triumphant screech, the Jubjub Bird flapped away. Shaking his head in annoyance, Jabberwock finished his preparations and stepped out into the tulgey wood.

At this hour the tulgey wood was darkening fast, the shadows lengthening between the trees, and Jabberwock had no desire to stumble and twist an ankle or, even worse, lose his way. So he lit up his eyes, their flames showing the way clearly. It was an excellent, environmentally sound lighting system, but he could never understand why his flaming eyes gained him a bad reputation amongst the other creatures. He shrugged. What they thought was their problem. He had problems of his own.

Lowering his nose to the ground, he whiffled experimentally. The quarry’s smell was clear, wafted along the ground, and it brought information flooding his manxome sense. It was standing by the Tumtum Tree, and seemed to be in an uffish trance. In other words, it was just where he wanted it.

Burbling happily, he galloped through the tulgey wood, whiffling all the way.

**********************

Beamish Boy leaned on his vorpal sword, looking up at the Tumtum tree. It was a very peculiar tree, with large round fruit like human heads with eyes which followed one around, and leaves like the flags of vanished nations. Up past the flags and fruit he thought he could see something else, a shape vaguely like a bird, but it was too dark to make it out. He shrugged. It didn’t matter, anyway.

Beamish Boy was thinking. It wasn’t something he did much, so he’d had to put a lot of effort into it, and it made his head ache. But he was thinking anyway.

He wasn’t thinking of the Jabberwock he was hunting, or of what his father had said about bewaring its claws and jaws. He wasn’t thinking of the fact that a vorpal sword really wasn’t that much of a weapon against a Jabberwock, and that a steel sword would have been a much better option, if not a general-purpose machine-gun. He was in uffish thought, which meant that he was fishing in his mind for compliments to bestow on himself after he killed the monster and went galumphing back with its head.

He had taken a course in galumphing, of course, since it was the traditional mode of locomotion after taking Jabberwock heads, and it was as much part of the training process as wielding vorpal swords. He had managed the swordplay class quite well, if he did say so himself; it certainly hadn’t been his fault that the instructor had been reduced to frustrated tears. “One-two,” the man had screamed. “One-two, one-two. Four strokes in all. Get that through your thick head, you mindless grinning moron!” In the end he’d almost been tempted to take the sword to the instructor, and it was only the fact that a vorpal sword could scarcely cut a sheet of paper which had stopped him.

Oh yes, he was quite confident of his prowess with the vorpal sword. But he’d never been that good at galumphing, and he began to go over the steps, trying to remember just how high to lift his knees and where to put his feet.

Suddenly he woke from his uffish reverie. There was a burbling and whiffling, coming swiftly closer; and then he saw the twin beams of fiery light coming through the tulgey wood. The Jabberwock was here.

And, when it finally came to it, his training didn’t fail him, of course. Hefting the vorpal sword, he stepped forward, and swung it with such rhythm that even his instructor might have approved. One-two, one-two, back and forth, and though the vorpal sword could be defeated by a sheet of cardboard, it cleaved the Jabberwock’s head from his body like a hot knife through butter. Like a tree falling to earth, the colossal carcass collapsed, just as it was supposed to.

Beamish Boy didn’t waste time admiring his handiwork. Hefting the monstrous head on his shoulders, he began slowly and clumsily galumphing back homewards, stumbling frequently and cursing every step of the way.

He’d just arrived in sight of the roofs of the town when the Jabberwock’s head opened its eyes.

“Callooh,” it burbled conversationally. “Callooh, you murderous cretin. Callay, you dolt.”

Beamish Boy opened his mouth, but by then it was already far too late to scream.

                                                                ********************

“Oh frabjous day,” Jabberwock said with relief. “At least that’s over for another year or two.”

“Until the next one comes,” the Jubjub Bird reminded him from outside the cave. “Don’t forget that there will be more coming along. You might think they’ll leave you alone, but they never will.”

Jabberwock refused to let the bird spoil his mood. “Let them come,” he said. “I’ll be ready.” He stretched his neck experimentally. “Yes, with my patented unique detachable head with its self-enclosed life-support system, I’ll always be ready for them.” He snorted. “Them and their vorpal blades! They never learn.”

“Well, I’ll be off then,” the Jubjub Bird said, disgruntled at not having been able to rain on Jabberwock’s parade. “See you in a few days.” With a screech, it flapped away, wondering if it could find better success with the Bandersnatch.

Alone at last, Jabberwock could relax with his skull collection. He’d polished and cleaned them all over again, and tried a new way of arranging them. Tilting his reattached head, he lit up his eyes and considered the effect. Yes, the contrast of a pyramid of brilliantly lit frontal domes and shadowed eye sockets was pleasing. Burbling happily, he set about counting them.

There were, of course, one thousand and thirty four.

 Copyright B Purkayastha 2012