Chapter 21 in the serialisation of the book 'Insurrection' 4th book in the 'Corpalism' series

21

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead

He ran towards Captain Younghusband, holding his rifle aloft and shouting vigorously, but the movement only served to exacerbate his need to pee, "Where are the latrines?"

"Come on, men!" yelled Younghusband, waving his sword, "We can still fight our way out of this. Maintain tight formation and let's make a move to the ridge."

"Over there, Alb," said a soldier, looking remarkably like Gerry, "but the bloody Zulus are everywhere, hold onto it, man."

"I can't," answered Alb, "I really have to go."

"Come on men!" Younghusband urged them on up the slope; tightly packed, bayonets out and holding the black swarm at bay.

Slowly the small red pocket of troops made its way across the Isandhlwana slopes, passing mutilated bodies of their fallen comrades; all around them buzzed Zulus. Alb found himself in the centre of the formation, with the walking wounded. "I really need to go," he muttered to a man with a savage wound in his chest.

He stopped at a huge rock that had appeared in front of him, and clambered on to it. Off to the right he saw a small cluster of men, "Lt. Pope!" he shouted, "Lt. Pope, are the latrines over there?" but no-one answered.

"Get down from there!" yelled Younghusband, "Stop messing around, if you need to piss then piss where you stand."

Suddenly the whole battle stopped and everyone stared menacingly at Alb, "Ugh, But I really do need to go," moaned Alb to thirty thousand heads, all shaking in disapproval.

"What do we do, Albert?" asked Younghusband.

"I don't know," said Alb, "if only I could find somewhere to pee then I could think straight."

"Go where you are and that's an order!" yelled Younghusband, "ready men, CHARGE!"

Alb struggled to free himself from wet and cold entanglements, realising with a sense of miserable humiliation that he'd wet the bed.

∞

"Thing is," said Pete, taking the opportunity of a lull in the game's flow to air his irritation, "I heard that one in four kids are born to foreigners, now that really annoys me."

They'd got together over a game of bridge - Bill and Pete partnering up against Ron and Johnno, with Wilf interrupting and generally being a nuisance. Unusual for Bill and Ron to be at the same table but thus far it was working quite well.

"Good point," mused Johnno, "although of course, in the old days we had big families. My mum was one of seven and her mum was one of thirteen, would you believe. But nowadays we just have the 2 .6 we're supposed to have whereas....”

“…the Catholics and Muslims have loads," Pete finished his sentence for him.

"Not all Catholics are foreigners," said Bill, stiffly, eying Pete sternly over his cards, "I'm a Catholic."

"I mean East European Catholics," said Johnno, "you know, Poles and Irish and that."

"The Irish aren't East European," said Bill, scathingly.

"Might as well be," said Wilf, "they hate this country."

"Yeah, the enemy within, waiting over the border," said Ron, never one to pass up the opportunity to annoy Bill.

"There's nothing wrong with Catholics," said Bill, rising to the bait, "my family has always served this country well."

"That's as maybe," said Pete, "but you can't deny that Catholics have always wanted to take over, the Gunpowder Plot and all that. Somewhere there's always a Catholic plotting."

"Apparently Mohammed has replaced Jack as the most popular English name," said Wilf inconsequentially.

"I think Alb's right," said Johnno, laying a card, "our parents and grandparents defended this country against foreign invasion but somehow we've let the politicians mess things up."

"I agree," said Bill, "and dare I say it, Enoch Powell seems to have got it right."

"Exactly," said Johnno, "he might’ve been a bit ahead on the timing but in the long run …."

"Did he put timing on it?" asked Wilf, shuffling round the table looking at all their cards.

Pete frowned, “He said there’d be rivers of blood, didn’t he?"

"For which they called him a racist," said Johnno.

"I think he said other stuff," offered Ron, "like black faces and stuff."

"So?" said Bill, "he was still right, wasn't he? We've had the recent riots that started over some black kid.
And we had the rioting back in the 80's, you know Toxteth and that... what about when they hacked that copper up?"

"Yep," said Pete, "bloody savages, would never have happened if they hadn't been let in here in the first place." His voice had risen and the hand holding his cards was shaking. The next stage would be acute breathlessness if he didn't calm down and they were all aware of it.

"See your point, Pete, but don't let it get to you...” Johnno was the only one allowed to allude to Pete's affliction, suffering as he did from a long established 'dicky' heart.

“We started it off letting Sikhs get away without wearing helmets ‘cause of their turbans,” said Ron, idly fiddling with his cards.

"Now we have to pander to their every whim,”
Pete’s breathing was growing ragged, but he had a point to make, “Like, what can we call them these days? Are they black or are they coloured?"

"Well, if they weren't here, it wouldn't be an issue, would it?" said Bill.

"Exactly," said Johnno, "so Enoch was right after all."

"Course he was," said Wilf, stoutly, "I've seen ‘em in action, don't forget, in the Congo."

Johnno continued, his own temper rising, “And then there's the Muslims - if they're not blowing us up, then they're despoiling white girls - once they get to doing their Sharia law thing god alone knows where we'll be."

"But what can we do about it?" Pete’s voice had lost the vigour that outrage had bestowed, "I mean, look at us, I can barely breathe, and Bill...there's your gout and your piles," he took a quick breath whilst Bill looked to the ceiling, "Johnno's got his heart and....."

“Exactly," said Ron, cutting him off before he could enlighten the others as to his own ailments, "so what does Alb think we're going to do? We're hardly in any fit condition, any of us, are we?"

"Yeah," agreed Johnno, "anyone of us could drop dead at any time."

They paused and checked each other out, to see if they could identify which of them was most likely to drop dead in the next few minutes.

"But that's the whole point," said Bill, stiffening his spine and ignoring the pain in his foot, "it won't matter if we're killed 'cause we're all pretty close to our maker as it is."

"That bit makes sense," said Pete, "but I can barely walk across the room without needing to sit down."

"If we could come up with an idea that didn't require anything too physically demanding then maybe we could do something." Bill’s voice was wistful; his eyes had taken on a far-away glaze.

They sat in silence for a few contemplative moments, thinking of better days.

Wilf made a throat clearing noise and muttered, "Jonesey was a sniper with the Paras, and
I'm not a bad shot."

Ron looked up from his cards, "Eh? What’s that?"

"We'd just need to set up a hide somewhere and we could pick 'em off all day."

"Pick who off?" Ron’s tone was shrill and argumentative, “an’ what’s a hide, when it’s at home?”

Bill had caught on, "If you were in the back of a van or something, then we could move you around, you wouldn't get caught and we could increase the number of targets."

"Sounds good to me," said Wilf, his glance at Bill showed new respect.

"Sorry, have I missed something?" Ron looked quickly round the room; they still had it to themselves. "I know Alb's been on about us killing people but I thought it was just talk..."

"You think we could do something then?" Pete said, hope rising.

"Hey, sorry to be a party pooper an' all that but where’d we get a van let alone a bloody rifle?"

“Getting a gun is easy,” Wilf brushed Ron's objections aside, “It's getting away with killing people that’s the hard bit."

Ron fell silent, looking from face to face, weighing what he thought he knew about them with the strangers who now sat in front of him.

Wilf had been damaged by his Congo experience so he wasn’t surprised by his comments. He knew Johnno had reactionary ideas but not like this. He'd never liked Bill but liked him even less now that his expression had hardened. Pete had always seemed a bit bland but it seemed now that it might have been simply self-preservation around his breathing problems.

"We could get them from an arms dealer," Wilf said calmly into the silence.

They lifted their heads from quasi contemplation of their cards to stare at him, Ron’s voice rose, "An arms dealer? And I suppose you’re going to tell us you know an arms dealer?"

"Let's just say I know people, from the old days,”
Wilf’s face had assumed a stony look, his blue eyes now unnervingly cold. "Won't be cheap though, kit like the stuff we need always comes with a high price tag."

"Well, we’ve got money," said Bill, a wry smile on his face, "That's about all we've got left, isn't it."

"I was going to leave mine for the kids," said Ron, his voice bitter.

"Are they the same kids who let you move in here instead of offering you a room with them?" asked Wilf.

"I didn't want to move in with them," he lied, "I like my freedom."

"The kids don't need our money," said Johnno, placidly, "besides there won't be much left by the time we die, will there? What with the price of this place."

"I could put some feelers out," Wilf seemed keen, his mind already on the task.

"Shouldn't we check with Alb and Gerry first?" asked Ron, stalling.

"Why?" asked Wilf, "they might have brought it up but that doesn't necessarily mean they're in charge, they've not got my military background."

"Infantry, both of them," said Bill, conscious of his own, hitherto unspoken, field promotion.

Pete and Johnno lifted their shoulders, neither of them willing to get into an argument with Wilf.

"Let me find some prices first, and then we'll take it back to the group. They’ll soon see who’s really in charge."

"I'm not sure we need to worry about that," said Johnno, when push came to shove they’d both known Alb and Gerry for years, and Alb had always been the leader.

"Rubbish," said Wilf, deliberately misunderstanding his meaning, "you'll get people wandering off doing their own thing, it'll be bedlam."

"Like us you mean," blurted Ron.

"Not at all," said Wilf, "'cause clearly we know what we're doing."

Cheers

Arun






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