All Hands to the Pumps

Liberté, Égalité and Fraternité

A postwar cabinet was planned to be held at the site where the first sparks of Armageddon had been struck, Angel Alley.   An upstairs room above the Freedom Press was procured and all interested parties were invited.
All the -ists were there, the various anarchist and communist sub sects and every shade of socialist, they all wore different hats and button-hole badges shaped like flags and all the flags were different and it did not matter, and no-one got upset.   They were also all noticeably subdued after what they perceived as their poor performance during the incident in Cable Street.   There were ships' cats and dock cats and ratters and The Kittens of Chaos and sailors and stevedores and tagareen men and thespians and jugglers and a man who pretended to be a statue and an ex- Lord Mayor of London called Dick.   Billy Bragg came along to provided the musical entertainment.
Larry spoke, "Around us today we have a traumatised, demoralised nation and it is up to us to step up and restore its spiritual health.   Limehousesailortown, the Land of Green Ginger, all the sailortowns in all the ports in all the world will be a beacon of hope.   Spreading their concepts of freedom, equality and co-operation to all.   The people will see that whenever they are not giving orders or taking orders they are like the sailors and cats and entertainers and crimps of sailortown.   You do not have to be told what to do or have rules about doing what you want when you want.   You work together tirelessly and unconsciously for a society where everyone in sailortown, resident or visitor, consumer or supplier can have the time of their lives.   And we outsiders can have it too, by embracing co-operation and liberty, minimizing constraints, nurturing the vulnerable, setting  happiness and fun on the highest of pedestals and nailing the wizened hearts and brains of the bullies to the doors of their banks and institutions.   Now, let's go out and spread the word.   A new day has dawned."
For the hydrophobic townspeople Sailortown had always been dangerous and scary and perhaps it still was, a little bit.   But winkles were spreading into the suburbs and no-one had the will to stop them.   Limehousesailortown did not change, of course, but the world about did - and people were constantly surprised and pleased and sometimes amazed.   People cooked or hammered or painted or brewed because that was what they enjoyed and were good at and there was always someone who needed a cook or a hammerer.   And if someone did not pull his weight no one minded, much; though they were often much too busy when he wanted something and he had to get used to being introduced as, "This is Tom/Dick/Harry, he's neither use nor ornament."
Larry kept on the policeman at the door of Number 10; the tourists liked him and he could live at Number 11 with his wife and children, which was handy for work.
Phoebles was made editor in chief of the independent, Limehousesailortown based broadsheet 'International Catnip Times' which, drifting away only minimally  from it's 1960's underground roots, promoted the etiquette and socio-political efficacy of catnip consumption -  and, less popularly, the music of the sitar.
Bozzy's catnip franchise spread out of dockland and into a grateful and receptive world at large.
Ginsbergbear won the Man Booker Prize for his writing, because all the other nominees let him.
Ferdy took the Dragon Rapide home to Surrey and gave aerobatic displays at country fairs.
Googleberry got his ice-cream.
And everyone could have lived happily ever after.   Except that the Merovingian Lizard Kings were still in their mountain stronghold, Les Chats Souterrains still occupied the tunnel system that honeycombs the earth's crust and Mr Fluffy still harboured a plan.

Revelations

Conquest 

Next morning the papers trumpeted the government's successes.   Hundreds, nay thousands, of arrests had been made and the courts put on special alert to take the vast number of arrestees.   The Loyalist marchers had liberated the docks, though the media did not dwell on the fact that they found the gates to the various docks lying open with the pickets gone and braziers cold - and the ships cats curled up asleep aboard their respective vessels.   

The PM arrived at Lime Grove Studios to deliver his victory speech live to the nation.   He had elected to sit at a heavy oak desk, solid and reliable.   What he got was cobbled together from chipboard and lengths of 4x2, but it looked impressive on camera.   Behind him union flags, quite a lot of union flags, flanked a gilt framed portrait of the sainted Lady Thatcher in sky blue twinset, displaying a winning smile and clutching the legendary handbag.   He had on the dress uniform of a Major-General in the Grenadier Guards with slightly too many medal ribbons - to signify the conquest of the rebellious East End, victory over subversive socialism.   Mr Fluffy sat on his lap, purring and receiving an occasional limp wristed stroke to the head.  

He had read through his speech on the Autocue and supervised the correction of a couple of typographical errors, but would never be comfortable with the mechanics of seeing the words scrolling upwards in front of him.   Make-up had given him a last primp and powdered Mr Fluffy's nose, the cat had sneezed a smallish glob of nasal fluid onto the PM's trousers.   The floor manager was standing next to the camera, counting down with his fingers... 3 - 2 - 1.   

A  red light comes on above the Autocue and the Prime Minister begins to read.

"Yesterday saw a...

Total victory for strong governance;

Triumph for patriotic zeal;

Vindication of righteous indignation,

Forged in the white heat of battle;

Glorious manifestation of the Big Society at work..."

TV crews waited outside the courts for the arrival of the van loads of criminal anarchists... all morning.   No-one came.

It was lunchtime when the first information appeared on Twitter and the first images of arrested anarchists in ski masks flashing their warrant cards and being released were aired on Youtube.   It transpired that all those arrested had been working undercover as agents provocateurs for one agency or another - with the exception of the three Kronstadt sailors, all of whom claimed diplomatic immunity and were escorted to an Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-114 flying out of RAF Northolt for a free trip home and a hero's welcome.  

War 

Ferdy was a long time in the tiny yellow inflatable life raft, paddling furiously for the shore.   Not that it was far, but a breeze was blowing his little boat all over the dock, his plastic paddle was swivelly and badly designed and mostly he was downhearted about his best present ever just sinking like that.   He'd watched the bubbles where it went down, rising and popping, for quite a while.   Then he got cold and decided to be philosophical about the whole day.   Once ashore he managed to catch an omnibus that was not only going onto the Isle of Dogs, but all the way down to Island Gardens.   In fact he alighted at the North Pole... Really.   It is a common alehouse on the corner of Manilla Street.   From here he crossed Millwall Dock at Pepper Street and then struck out cross country.   There was little indication of the fog that was bedevilling the East End and as he approached Mud Chute Farm Ferdy could see the Dragon Rapide, a magnificent scarlet Dragon Rapide, sitting at the end of a rough, grass airstrip. 

The pilot was tinkering with one of the two Gypsy Queen inline engines, but as soon as she spotted Ferdy's flying helmet and goggles she waved and rushed towards him.   She wiped some of the oil off her palm and onto her boiler suit and shook his right wing stub, vigourously.

"Beryl, Beryl Clutterbuck.   And you, I am sure, are Mr Ferdinand Desai."   Beryl was a tall and imposing presence, but Ferdy could not take his eyes of the little red Dragon Rapide.

"Come and have a good look over her.   She's an ex-millitary DH89A Dominie.   Those Gypsy engines produce 200 horse power each and she can fly at 157 miles an hour, on a good day.   I've got a thermos flask of lapsang souchong and a packet of Duchy Originals ginger biscuits in the cockpit.   Do you like ginger biscuits?"

Ferdy wondered if he had died in the crash and gone to dodo heaven. 

Near to the aircraft was a canvas ridge tent with a pair of Lloyd Loom chairs ourside, one pink and the other painted blue.   There was also an ambitious Dutch dove cote on a pole, with a brass bell hanging beneath it.

"It's the communications centre," explained Beryl, "The pigeons are for long range messaging and the bell is to scramble the air crew - that's you and me.   We'll wizz up to The Gun for supper," she was ushering him into a shiny black Morgan V-Twin Super Sport as she chattered.   The little three wheeler shot off towards the inn, situated close by the Poplar dock and West India lock gates, famed as a venue for one or two of Nelson's trysts with young Emma.   Ferdy found the journey to be exhilarating, a bit like flying, but with your bum only twelve inches off the deck.  

Much later they returned to the tent and settled down for the night.   Soon after dawn Ferdy was woken by the brass alarm bell and the smell of cooking.   The breakfast fry-ups were magnificent, rustled up on a primus and washed down by billy-can tea.   But soon it was time for their mission.   Ms Clutterbuck settled herself in the pilot's seat.   In the back with Ferdy were bundles of pamphlets tied up with binding twine.   With a roar and a whirr the Dominie bumped and bounded along the makeshift runway, lifted lightly into the air and headed for West London.   Once in the air Beryl started to laugh, a light hearted tinkling laugh that persisted almost all the time she was airborne.   She had the side windows open and her long blonde hair writhed in the draught.   Once off the ground she was a goddess. 

"We'll start over Hyde Park and the festival and then spiral outwards, make sure we cover as much territory as possible.   Ferdy, you open up the bundles and begin shoving the pamphlets out as soon as were in place."   The young  bird unhinged the cabin door and placed it carefully to one side, then he cut through the twine on the first bundle with the larger of the two blades on his Victorinox Explorer.   As soon as he saw the big wheel and the Steam Fair below he started scattering the flyers.   "Haha, fliers eh?" he shouted to the pilot.

These were not Slasher McGoogs' usual rants.   These were factual and detailed.   The first few bundles revealed the contents of Mr Fluffy's archive, information on the misdeads and indiscretions of the rich, the famous, politicians, law enforcement chiefs and judges.   Anyone who might one day be persuaded to do him a favour, or be suseptible to blackmail or intimmidation.   Next came the photographs - telephoto images of peccadilloes and parties, liaisons, meetings and luxury holidays at exotic resorts, politicians, policemen, spies, media oligarchs, bikini clad Chattes Souterraines, flaumige kätzchen.   Then there were bank statements, payments made and received, false and exaggerated claims, frauds and embezzlements.   Finally the e-mails, so many e-mails - threats and cajolings, cover-ups and conspiracies, self seeking fawnings, advancements, promises and threats.     

Nor were civil servants exempt, nor bank managers, local councillors, traffic wardens, nor swimming pool attendants, anyone who's lust for power had compromised his integrity, smothered any vestige of compassion; all were named and shamed.   There was Mr Fluffy himself - the fantasies and lies, the threats and bribes, and his dealings with Les Chats Souterrains, so tied in with their machinations that he was no more in control of his destiny than any of his victims.   And... evidence against Slasher McGoogs, the catnip scam and so much more; was this his final joke?

At the bottom of each page was the web address where every revelation could be reread, cross referenced, provenances were detailed, sources revealed; all available on line with a link on Facebook.

As the last leaves fluttered down Ferdy fell back, physically exhausted, but also stunned by what he had read.   Was there not one honest man, good and true, anywhere in this blighted world?

Famine 

Whilst gestating the culmination of his machinations the Grey Pimpernel had absorbed William Morris' more radical tracts avidly and with careful attention - When preplanning the revolution, he had read, look first to the needs of the people.   There will be no support if your actions result in famine and deprivation.   Well before contemplating the inauguration of strife, plan for the peace.

In the blackest streets  of Bethnal Green, Poplar, Whitechapel, Canning Town, soup kitchens sprang up - veggie soup, vegan soup, carnivore soup - every conceivable flavour for those who love soup.   And there was crusty bread.   The fish fags and tagareen wives and pleasure kittens had been baking all night and day, every variety of bread that multicultural, multinational sailortown could devise.   It fell biblically from the heavens.   Their aerial propaganda mission done, Ferdy and Beryl took it in turns to pilot the scarlet Dominie over London's East End, laden with bakery produce, tied to little parachutes with string.

For those who craved more than soup and cobs, Brick Lane became a street market of curry stalls and the rival baigel shops threw open their doors.   In Salmon Lane  trestles down the length of the street were laden with decorative bowls of sweet and sour pork, skewered chicken satay, sticky rice, Singapore noodles.   Kelly's Eel and Pie shop in Bow had extra tables, borrowed from neighbouring households, out on the pavement.   M. Bloom (Kosher) and Son Ltd set up a take away stall next to Aldgate station giving out salt beef sandwiches with kosher mustard.   And all over town humble British chippies were frying flat out to keep up with demand.

Absolutely not prearranged was the arrival of a Frisbee shaped aircraft in Victoria Park, the occupants of which set up a marquee advertising Vegan food.   The resulting riot led to the visitors' hasty departure.   It would appear that they eat some very strange things on the planet Vega.

In time Co-operative stores sprang up, general stores, clothing stores, chandlers, butchers and grocers, owned and run by the people, for the people.   Local neighbourhood Co-operative banks became established to oversee a system of IOU chits received for labour and favours which slowly evolved as cash became worthless and mutual aid and support grew to be the norm.   The lending libraries were reopened.

Death

Thus began the slow death of the establishment.   As the only person left in No10 not compromised, hiding, or attempting to flee the country disguised as a washer woman, Larry took charge.

The City, refusing all attempts at reassurance or consolation, collapsed, imploded and disappeared from the socio-political scene.   The pallid, grey streets of the square mile were deserted and silent, traffic lights cycling through their colours without an audience, the regular stomp of the City of London bobby, the only sound.   The only activity, the fluttering of pigeons evading the stooping kestrel.
An Extended Royal family departed from St James' Park in two customised X Class Super-Zeppelins, almost 700 feet of raw airpower bound for Canada and accompanied by a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III laden with a Roles-Royce Silver Ghost 40/50, two 4887cc Silver Wraiths, a Toyota Land Cruiser, an Austin Mini Moke and an extensive collection of hat boxes and suit cases filled to bursting with fine jewellery and state regalia.   They were closely followed by the entire Cabinet and Mr Fluffy in a commandeered Douglas DC3 Dakota.

Les Chats Souterrains melted back into their tunnels after first pillaging 430 Kings Road for its punk and leather gear.

A 40W bare bulb hangs above the oilcloth-covered table.

Phoebles is rolling catnip spliffs, deftly, with one paw and depositing them in an old bacci tin.

Ferdy waits for a kettle to boil, a  pot of Russian Caravan tea ready to receive the water.   He has piled a large number of ginger biscuits precariously onto a plate

Ginsbergbear is composing an epic poem about their latest adventure and desperately trying to rhyme 'Tory Prime Minister' with a synonym for 'Capitalist Running Cur'.

Boz is slobbing in a worn and scuffed leather armchair, tufts of horse-hair poking through tears in the cushion.   He has been reading Fields and Factories, flicking through the tedious sections and seeing if it will fall open at the racier bits.

The end credits for Apocalypse Now run through on the old black and white telly, forests burn, music clangs.

Consuella Starcluster comes to the door

“There’s a phone call.   Who’s gonna take it?”

Boz clambers out from the belly of his armchair and goes down to the pay-phone on the lower landing.

“Hello.   It’s Strawberry.   Googleberry’s back.   Says he got locked in someone’s shed.  He has a bit of a limp, but otherwise he’s fine.   Working his way through his third portion of smoked salmon and some funny fish egg things he had in a tin.” 

A Second Battle in Cable Street

The front ranks of the Nationalist marchers were staring into Hell.   Ahead smoke curled and flames crackled.   Shadowy wraith-like figures scurried across the crimson haze.   A roar of defiance filled the air and chilled the blood.
Boz was on the barricade waiting for the exact moment to signal to Phoebles.   He was proudly wearing his best telnyashka under a flamboyant Makhnovist Cossack, bum-freezer jacket and his little Kronstadt sailor hat was perched on his head.   He felt that he looked pretty good.
Michael Winner was at the head of the advancing column, waving  a large flag of St George,  when the first salvo of bombs hit.   He was floored by a wobbly, water-filled condom and stepped on by a Royal Marine Trombonist.   A wavy, jiggling line of riot police rushed forward, making chuff chuff train noises, and formed a defensive barrier between those who had fallen and the looming presence of the barricade, they banged their shields in time to each other and muttered a deep throated, tuneful 'Whoa-whoooooooo, whooooooooa-ha!   
And then pandemonium errupted.   There was yelling and screaming and clattering and clashing.   Everyone opened up with every weapon they had, at anything they could see.   Firing short accurate bursts with the X Ranger 1075 from the Town Hall roof Ginsbergbear was having a devastating effect on the Nationalists, but down below in the thick of the melée water was flying everywhere, there was the steady pop, pop, pop of Burp® guns and flour and water were combining into a dreadful paste.   Some tear gas had been deployed in the early stages of the conflict, but it had clung to the fog, refusing to spread and lingering in intense isolated pockets.   Hurling their bombs over the heads of the front line combatants the Kronstadt sailors could have no idea of the havoc they wrought, every so often Boz gave them a reassuring thumbs up from his vantage point on the defences. 
For the moment the Women's Institute Anarcha-Feminists were manning (a term that I am sure they would object to) the field hospitals. but they were armed to the teeth and eager to join the fray on the flimsiest of excuses .   The essential tea urns had been set up  on a conveniently located trestle table by two pacifist Quakers and a jewish transvestite named Manny who had not wanted to endanger her expensively manicured nails in battle.   They also serve who only serve the tea.
La Columna were engaging Metropolitan Snatch Squads and a detachment of Eton school boys in nearby side streets.   The boys' Saturator SIG SAUER 556’s and La Columna's STR80-AK47 Aquafires were pretty much equally matched, but experience was to win out and the toffs were soon routed.   One snatch squad was captured and, with no provision for restraining prisoners, was released on a promise that they would go straight home.   Elsewhere the conflict was confused and messy.

Locked in a stale mate at the barricade the Nationalists deployed their secret weapon, two mounted police vans.   The  vans were lashed howdah-like to the backs of elephants, blue lights flashing and sirens 'nee-nawing', but the elephants proved as ineffectual as they were ridiculous.   They quickly faltered under the Kronstadt sailors' artillery bombardment and were rendered skittish by tear gas stinging their eyes and trunks.   At this opportune moment Ferdy arrived on the scene in the Cierva C.19, screaming out of the sky, bonksie-like in a steep dive, to unleash a stick of flour bombs with devastating accuracy.   Jumbo ran amuck, charging back through scattering ranks of riot police.
Sadly, autogyros do not do dive bombing, or if they do, they do it but the once.   Trailing smoke and oil and popping rivets all the way, Ferdy just managed to hold it together long enough to ditch in the chill waters of Shadwell Basin.

Meanwhile, back in Cable Street, the cobbles were drenched and slippery, gutters running with those fluid residues that are the byproduct of armed conflict.   The Anarcho-Surrealists had regrouped and united with the Situationist and were holding their own.   Scary clowns were recklessly hurling pails of confetti.   Boz was just checking the last few magazines for his AK47 Aquafire, water was running low, when Phoebles pointed to a young lad with a severe limp approaching them urgently from the rear.   He was being held up by one of the Anarcha-Feminists.

"Talk to him.   He's gone to a lot of trouble getting here."   She left the lad with Phoebles, picked up an abandoned Burp® gun and clambered onto the barricade.
The youngster had come up from the sewers and was the son of one of the Yorkshire miners.   His Kier Hardie cap was awry and dried blood stained his left cheek.   
"T' Cats Sootrins 'as been guidin' t' Met Snatch Squads through 'tunnels.   We'n bin overrun int' sewers.   Thou's gonna be cut off an' surrounded.   Me da' says I gorra warn yer."
"Good lad." said Boz, "Phoebles, take him to the rear and get him a cupper... make it a mug, strong and sweet.   And tell everyone back there it's time to go; we'll hold on here for a bit longer."  
Phoebles returned just as the howling Snatch Squads and Chats Souterrains emerged from the sewers.   Once on the the surface they assumed a cuneum formation, several wedges in fact, so probably cuneii or something like that... and charged. 
Boz raised one eyebrow. "I meant you to go too."
"I know, but..."
Heavily out numbered now the defenders battled on, periodically releasing small groups from their number to escape through the surrounding, winding alleys and passages.   One catapult crew remained with a fast dwindling supply of bombs.   Whilst unsuccessfully urging others to follow, a ski-masked mob of Anarcho-Syndicalists rushed on to the barricade crying "No retreat - stand firm!"   They planted a Confederación Nacional del Trabajo banner securely into the rubble, "Rally to the flag!"
Ginsbergbear could see the circle of Nationalists tightening on his comrades.   Riot Police were hammering on the doors of the Town Hall.   It was time to go.   He picked up the X Ranger 1075 and headed for the stairs.
Phoebles and Boz were standing back to back, one magazine left in Bozzy's AK47 Aquafire and the last two ping pong balls in Phoebles' Burp® gun.
"Not exactly going to plan, eh, y'old bugger." muttered Phoebles.
"Ah, but you've not heard my Plan B yet, pal." 
Softly the distant, tinkling notes of Die Walküre drifted on the gentle breeze that was just beginning to clear the day long fog.
"That'll be the Plan B where we're unexpectedly rescued at the eleventh hour?"
Headlamps and ice-cream cones flashed as the Vicecream van, with a newly fitted Audi turbocharged V12 diesel engine grumbling under its bonnet, careered westwards along Cable Street and burst in on the scene.
"That's the one!" replied Boz.
With the Kittens of Chaos balanced precariously on the roof-rack lobbing a fusillade of smoking baked potatoes down onto their hapless victims Aunty Stella gunned the Vicecream van through the rear ranks of besiegers and slewed round to halt within inches of the lucky pair.

"More spuds, more spuds We're running low on ammo up here!"
"Get in... Now!"
They piled through the open serving hatch.
Nationalists were all round the van and advancing up the lower levels of the barricade.
"We'll never reach anyone else."


Consuella Starcluster dominated the highest point on the pile.   With bodice bursting to reveal her ample and heaving  breasts and waving a republican flag with a single red star centred on its golden stripe, she was totally surrounded by warring Anarcho-Syndicalists and Metropolitan Riot Police.   And she was screeching defiance...

 "¡Vare a la mierda!"  

"¡A hacer puñetas!"   

"¡A tomar por el culo!"   

"¡Descojonarse, mearse de risa!"   

Turning to look down at the euphonically wagnerian vehicle she produced a fully loaded Saturator STR100 Lightning Strike super hand cannon from under her full skirts and proceeded to carve a swathe thro her would be captors.   Springing gazelle-like down the rubble she reached the vicecream van, vaulted through the hatch and spun round to continue firing on anyone who had been stupid enough to pursue her.   Aunty Stella jabbed the accelerator pedal, wheelied the van through a tyre smoking handbrake turn and was gone.   
For a while the remaining defenders atop the barricade fought on, but they were quickly subdued and bundled into waiting black marias.   

The Barricade

That evening the Prime Minister appeared in a simultaneous transmission on all major television channels.   He was flanked by union flags, and Mr Fluffy stood behind him, one paw on his shoulder.   There was, he announced, to be a rally in Parliament Square the following morning.   He urged all right minded patriots to be there as it was to be followed by a march to Tower Hill.   There they would regroup before  proceeding down Royal Mint Street, along Cable Street and on into Limehouse and Poplar.   They would retake the docks, by force if absolutely necessary, restoring normality and stability to the nation.   The broadcast ended with him standing, hand on heart whilst the National Anthem played out under slow mixes to old footage of Battle of Britain Spitfires and selected clips from Sink the Bismark.


A council of war was convened in an upstairs room in Charlie Brown's.   This legendary dockland public house, legendary at least amongst the world wide maritime community, is  more properly named the Railway Tavern, it sits on the corner of Garford Street close to the gates of the West India Dock and is always referred to by the name of its renowned, broken nosed, ex-pugilist landlord, the self proclaimed 'uncrowned king of Limehouse'.   The building had been commissioned by Charrington and Company, it is some five storeys high, over a basement, is crowned by a copper-covered cupola and aspires to a bastardised Baroque style.   The interior is a museum of curiosities gathered from all parts of the world, gifted by seaman sailing into the docks of East London. The majority of the souvenirs and nick-nacks in the collection, hanging from ceilings, nailed to walls, crowded on shelves, are from the Far East and Polynesia.      
Boz was (sort of) chairing the meeting, which was degenerating into something of a buffet; cheese sandwiches and beer had been provided, on the house, by the proprietor, Charlie Brown.   Ginsbergbear coughed and Phoebles banged a beer mug, freshly drained, on the table.   The ships' cats and a small contingent of Kronstadt sailors, being more inclined to action than the rest, shushed the disparate anarchist and communist factions and eventually gained their attention.   Boz recounted what he could remember of his one sided conversation with Slasher McGoogs.   Much of his concentration had been taken up at the time by the ugly automatic pistol that was being pointed his way and he was still a bit shaky. 
It was agreed that the march must be stopped and that it would be halted in Cable Street near to St George's Town Hall.
The Brick Lane Zapatistas were put in charge of constructing and manning a series of sturdy barricades, whilst La Columna  would help to secure the side streets and alleys.
Those Marxist-Leninists, Trots and Maoists present put aside their doctrinal differences and, declaring that the time was not yet right  for action, retired to The Prospect of Whitby on Wapping Wall to wait out the coming events.
With time of the essence the company then downed their beers, polished off the sandwiches, made use of the tavern's urinals and litter trays and proceeded down Cable Street to make their preparations.


Fuelled by strikers’ braziers and the smoke from burning police cars an old fashioned London fog had descended on the East End.   A red glow from bonfires and torches coloured the smog and suffused the shadowy buildings that lined the street with a crimson light.   Curling smoke constructed sinuous dragons which twisted through the air above the scene.
The anarcho-surrealists in panto costumes were dispatched to form a redoubt at the junction of Cable Street with Dock Street.   Much in evidence, as with most of the irregulars, was their weapon of choice, the Classic Burp® Gun manufactured by Ack-Ack Inc of East Detroit Michigan.   They had strict instructions that theirs was to be a delaying action only, there was to be no last ditch stand.   When overrun they were to fall back and melt away, their job then would be to harry and slow the marchers.   They were joined at the redoubt by Snowdrop in ballet tutu and Red Army budionovka pixy hat, on her unicycle, juggling flaming brands and assuming tenuous command. 


In Parliament square the Royal Marines' Regimental Brass Band played a medley of Elgar's more stirring tunes before a high podium and lectern that bristled with microphones.   From here the Prime Minister gave yet another rousing speech,  though it transpired that he would not himself be on the march - prevented by an unfortunate prior engagement.
Rank upon rank of black clad riot policemen in visored helmets, already rhythmically tapping their truncheons against their shields, formed up behind the band; then came paramilitary cadre units of fundamentalist Young Conservatives and public school boy volunteer brigades, uniformly equiped with Saturator SIG SAUER 556’s; finally the massed irregulars with Burp® guns and assorted cheap water pistols bought, en route, from a branch of Lidl Stiftung and Co. KG.
On arriving at Tower Hill, their ranks swollen by thousands of patriotic peasants with pitchforks, flaming torches and of course, Burp® guns, they encountered the East End fog.   The column was also joined by the dark shape of a Metropolitan Police medium range pursuit airship which, forced to fly too high above the fog bank, was to play no significant part in the day's events.   The band struck up once more and the advance into the alien maze of streets that lay beyond the walls of the great city began.


The primary barricade spanning Cable Street, constructed from iron bedsteads, pallets, up turned carts, assorted furniture and the occasional shell of a motor vehicle, being completed and topped with red flags, black flags, red and black flags, the Brick Lane Zapatistas took up their positions.   Silhouetted figures armed with STR80-AK47 Aquafire combat water weapons mounted the barricades and presented clenched fisted salutes to the featureless mist.   They shall not pass!  ¡No pasaran!   Consuella Starcluster with the republican flag draped across her bodice and wearing a profondo rosso frigian cap with the blood, puss and scab rosette of her spiritual homeland, topped the highest pinnacle.   

Kronstadt Sailors under the command of Phoebles, who was wearing a saucepan on his head and which he feared may well be stuck, manned giant rubber catapults (three man bomb launchers), in a line behind the barricade, with a plentiful supply of water bombs and flour bombs.
Track had been removed for some distance north and south of Shadwell station to prevent the Government  from deploying its armoured trains.   Ex-miners from Wales and Yorkshire had come in via the backroads to avoid police road blocks and they were to guard the sewers and underground tunnels against surprise attack.
Slates were removed from the roof of the Italianate Vestry Hall so that  Ginsbergbear could take up a commanding position above the cornice with his powerful Exploderz X Ranger 1075 water machine gun.   The defences were ready.


There followed a nervous pause in the proceedings until, far in the distance, could be heard a marching band playing Colonel Bogey.   It faltered and was drowned out by the cries and clamour of conflict.   The anarcho-surrealists had gone into action.
To the rear, amidst the reserve troops and baggage an ex-colliery brass band responded with the Marseilles and Internationale and a small Welsh choir sang out a baritone rendition of Lloyd George Knew My Father.

Kanal

The manhole was dingy and deep.   Boz went first, then Phoebles, then Ferdy  and Ginsbergbear brought up the rear, replacing the cover above his head in the interest of health and safety.   Clambering down a corroded iron ladder they descended, gingerly into the wondrous construct that is the subterranean world created by Joseph Bazalgette.   They were in a sewer, and Ferdy was wearing his best Rupertbear tartan trousers!   He produced a Penlite torch and flashed it along the tunnel.   It just about picked out a running shadowy figure.   "Got him!"
And thus began such an epic pursuit that it was recounted around the winter fires to kittens' kittens and their kittens and their kittens and their kittens and their kittens and their kittens and...
The victorian brickwork  enclosed vast vaulted chambers, wide tunnels, cramped oval culverts, described elegant arches, steps and pavements, water channels and weirs. there were iron stairs, ladders, walkways and pipes.   Ahead they would hear the clatter of heals on stone, the clank of soles on grating the splash of shoes in water; sometimes close, sometimes far away.   They ran alongside fast flowing streams, splashed through sluggish shallows, waded as water in the narrower passages deepened.
Eyes watched them from almost every side tunnel.   The rats down here were the size of Gloucester Old Spots, but remained aloof, neither helping McGoogs nor hindering our heroes.   Sometimes eyes on stalks, emerald or mauve or both at once, popped up out of the liquor, looked around and sank again followed by a stream of bubbles.

Often they thought they had lost him amongst the maze of passageways and interconnecting tunnels, but each time someone would hear a splash or scrape ahead and off they would go again.   When, eventually, the battery in Ferdy's flash-light died they found that many of the strange shapes floating on the liquid in which they paddled glowed a feint and unearthly green, casting just enough of a glimmer to see by once their eyes had adjusted.
A regular metallic ringing ahead hinted that someone was climbing an iron ladder and, half swimming, half wading under a low archway the quartet found themselves in a high chamber at the foot of a long vertical shaft.   The ladder ascending one side was new and galvanised there was a tiny circle of light at the top.   Within the chamber a noisome, gaseous vapour was writhing sluggishly across the surface of the sludge.   The climb began.
They emerged into the mind blowingly awe inspiring Pump Hall of the The Cathedral of the Sewers.   The great beam engines hissed, nodded and clunked to a slow rhythm, cast-iron pillars, arches and galleries soared in a dazzle of red lead, sky blue and gilt.   They were within the Abbey Mills Pumping Station whose architectural wizardry had eclipsed the Taj Mahal, the Brighton Pavilion and all but rivalled the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras Station.
A door banged.   The great outer double-doors had been flung back and were rebounding.   The gang rushed through and out into the blighted wastelands that straddle the margins between middle earth and the world ocean.   Ahead of them scrambling and lurching across the marshes ran Slasher, coat tails flapping around his bent form like a wounded bat.
"Come on!" cried Boz between rasping breaths and they resumed their chase onto the hinterland that is the Lea Delta.   Mist clung languidly in the canals and channels between tussocks of coarse, grey grasses.   A sullen sky loomed, a dense, wide mass over the land of doom, pressing fortitude and vigour down into the very boots of the pursuers.
Ginsbergbear was winded and beginning to split along his seams; Phoebles was germinating the hint of a possibility that his love of food was in the early stages of compromising his waistline and stamina;   Ferdy was failing to understand why evolution had deprived dodos of the more useful parts of their wings without making their legs longer; and the dank, sodden salt-marsh, after so many hours wading through Mr Bazalgette's slurry, was not helping with Boz's rheumatics.   They were thrashing and gasping through the mud and bog plants as Slasher McGoogs struggled onto a long and weather beaten wooden jetty - at its far end the low, rusting form of a battered old Bovril boat, belching black smoke from its stack.   This was the final destination of London's night soil.   Liquid and solids were separated and the purified water bottled and lightly effervesced by a process known as methanisation, for sale to the Savoy Hotel as a palate freshener for those who had been tempted towards the famed civet poo coffee.   The lumpy bits were loaded onto the Bovril boats and taken into the North Sea where an artificial and highly fertile reef was being built up for the benefit of the native marine life.
As his pursuers closed, a rotten plank cracked beneath Slasher and he fell forwards twisting a trapped foot.   He got up, limped a few paces and collapsed again.   Phoebles was jubilant and Ferdy managed a merry, "Ahaa!"   They would be able to surround him at last.
But then Slasher was on his unsteady feet, splay-legged and swaying.   Something cold, black and threatening sat in the hand that he waved towards them.   Ferdy and Phoebles, Ginsbergbear and Boz each had the unpleasant and highly personal experience of staring down the dangerous end of a Mauser Red Nine.
"Stand still!  Stay where you are!   Hands where I can see them!"
No one was arguing.
"This has gone far enough.   Now listen.   I am going away; something of a cruise.   You won't hear of me for a while.   But you lot have work to do.   Boz, there's a battle coming.   Let it - you couldn't stop it anyway.   Put up a good fight, but no heroics.   Don't let anyone get seriously hurt and when you loose - and you will lose - no fighting to the last man.   Disperse - and definitely, DON'T LET ANYONE BE CAPTURED.   That last bit's really important.
"Now, Ferdinand, soon as it's all done get down to the Isle of Dogs.   We've got the Dragon Rapide at a temporary air strip on Mud Chute Farm, the pilot will have a little job for you.   All of you... Don't screw up."   He turned and began a long slow limp down the jetty.
Several figures appeared on the Bovril boat.   They had wrinkled walnut hides, faded, moth-eaten guernseys, bandanas, stubs of clay pipe.   Some cast off the mooring lines, some helped Slasher over the rail.   The black funnel-smoke intensified, a shrill steam whistle sent plovers and sandpipers soaring skyward, and the bronze screw churned water beneath the stern.   The unassuming vessel left the jetty, rippled the mirror surface of a Thames at slack water and turned for the open sea.

Ferris Wheel

It was carnival night and most of the crowd were masked.   There were twenty Captain Jack Sparrows, three Marie Antoinettes with shepherdess' crooks, carrying their lambs, Captain Ahab stumping along on narwhale tusk peg leg and Ginsbergbear hurrying through the press of revellers.   And then... there was a figure standing at the foot of the big wheel, in shadow but for a slash of pulsing neon light cast across his lower face and breast.   He was wearing a red and black striped polo neck jumper beneath his drape jacket, a Lone Ranger mask and, of course, the grey homburg.   There were wide wooden steps up to a ticket office and then a turnstile, the ferris wheel looked considerably more impressive close too - in fact it was massive.   Slasher McGoogs paid for the two of them at the kiosk and ushered Ginsbergbear into one of the cars.   They  had the space to themselves.
The wheel began to turn slowly, but when their car reached its zenith it stopped abruptly.   The flimsy car swayed and Slasher McGoogs, his legs spread and a psycotic glint in his eyes, slid open the door.   The lonely, haunting, plunking tones of a distant zither drifted in.
"You should come over here and look down.   It's very spectacular."
Ginsbergbear was in the far corner, as far from the open door as possible, white knuckles gripping the rail.   He could see the lights of Park Lane and Oxford Street from where he was and had no intention of moving.
"What's going on?   Why have we stopped?"
"I bribed the operator.   I feel that an atmosphere of uncertainty and intimidation will enhance the conversation that we are about to have.
"Now... your friends.   Their activities are getting in my way and attracting undue attention.
"I want you to tell them to stop looking.   I need a little space... and time."
Ginsbergbear gabbled, "What the...?   Why me?   What ARE you up to?   Why aren't you dead?   What on earth gives you the idea they will listen to me?" 
"Make them!"
"...No, you make them.   Tell them yourself.   If we're causing you so much inconvenience then you're going to have to trust us with some answers.   No-one is fooled by this accident story.   Meet us somewhere safe-ish and explain yourself."
Slasher did not appear enthusiastic.   Eventually, "Limehousesailortown is an Establishment no go area.   The Den, tomorrow morning."
The wheel started to turn again, on a waved signal from McGoogs, and the instant their cab reached the ground Slasher sprang from the car, vaulted the barrier and disappeared into the crowd. Ginsbergbear spent a few minutes with his head between his knees and then pulled a large meerschaum bowled calabash from a pocket in his baggy corduroy trousers, packed it with a charge of Black-Alamout Catnip Shag and sucked in several deep breaths, holding them until the world around him started to appear less unfriendly.   He pulled out his i-phone and called Boz.

"...Je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait
Ni le mal tout ça m'est bien égal
Non, Rien de rien
Non, Je ne regrette rien
Car ma vie, car mes joies Aujourd'hui, ça commence avec toi~oi!!!"
Sam was practicing Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien with The Kittens of Chaos before the evening's performance and like Piaf they intended to announce their dedication of the song to the Hunky French Foreign Legion.   Following the final rasping, gargled stanza the Kittens were all coughing and retching uncontrollably.
Our quartet were having a breakfast of buttered croissants and kipper fish cakes in the front bar of the den, sat at a round marble topped table in the gentle morning light of the bay window.   
"Aunty Stella's been in touch," reported Ferdy, "There's still no sign of Googleberry, but he's not turned up in any of the local vets' so everyone is optimistic."   They all jumped and spun round at the sound of a distant bump, as if a Chris-Craft Cadet had just come alongside the ladder out at the back.   Two shade-like white cats clambered over the balcony and entered through the French windows.   They were wearing steam punk brass and leather goggles with deep purple lenses and identical broad lapelled black leather, ankle length coats.   They were followed by Slasher McGoogs.
At this most unfortunate of moments a figure chose to emerge from the gents dressed in a dark trilby and a stiff trench coat with an ominous bulge under the left armpit.   Les deux Chats Souterrains instantly legged it back over the balcony rail and into their boat.   Nearby sirens could be heard and the throaty gunning of the triple Packard 12M engines that would power the River Police Fast Pursuit craft waiting in the next-door boatyard creek.

Slasher launched himself forward, barging through the customers, toppling tables and rushed out through the street door cat-flap.

"Don't lose him!" Shouted Boz - and the four of them dashed out into the morning chill of Narrow Street, just in time to see Slasher lift the cover off a man-hole and drop into its depths.

The Search for Slasher

Under instruction from Strawberry Aunty Stella's large and diverse family of cats split into small groups and fanned out across Surrey, sniffing under bushes, peering into windows and enquiring at fishmongers and dairies.   Ferdy made a daringly low level aerial survey of London in the vague hope of spotting the infamous signature grey homburg of McGoogs.   Boz had found YouTube footage of the Angel Alley address along with snippets showing someone very like Slasher McGoogs sharing a catnip spliff with pickets around a brazier outside the gates of St Katherine's Dock, ascending the steps between jet black monolithic guardians into the dread quarters of the omniscient Fluffy Media Corp, and sneaking round the back of Number Ten.   In the snug of the Town of Ramsgate, a trawlermen's riverside tavern in Wapping, Phoebles discovered that not only was the pub, originally the Red Cow, named after a particularly popular copper haired and deeply freckled barmaid from a time before juke boxes when executed pirates hung from gibbets above the London River mud, but that Slasher was to be seen regularly, in the company of les Chats Souterrains, disembarking from a Chris-Craft Cadet,  finished in richly varnished walnut, at the neighbouring Wapping Old Stairs, invariably after dark.   The trio of amateur sleuths was also repeatedly made aware that they were not alone in pursuing the spectral grey moggy.   Where-ever Boz and Phoebles went it seemed detectives or journalists had just left.

Montgomery  Manlove McGoogs died in the early hours of this morning in a random and bizarrely incongruous collision with a runaway milk float.

www.guardian.co.uk.   

Later in the day Radio 4 ran an obituary  for Slasher McGoogs.   It was brief and short on hard detail.   He had no traceable early life, arriving in the East End with a preformed reputation for dodgy dealing and a shadowy, ephemeral persona.

The KGB, it transpired, believed him to be a double agent who had been turned by British Intelligence.

MI5 reluctantly admitted to his indeed being a double agent, but suspected his allegiance to lie with the KGB.

The CIA thought he was a minor film actor with Mafia connections who had died of a drugs overdose in the late 1960’s.

Various East End Underworld snouts reported that he was definitely in the employ of Special Branch.

Whilst a police file, withheld despite the Freedom of Information Act, but obtained through Wikileaks, listed him as a criminal mastermind.


"And now he's dead."
"Hmm, very conveniently... with no witnesses to the accident and his body identified by two white cats with thick Occitan accents.   Perhaps we'll keep looking for a bit."
"But if the BBC..." Phoebles was by nature a little too trusting.
Phoebles, Boz and Ferdy met in the Town of Ramsgate to prepare for yet another nocturnal vigil, sipping milk-pale green fairies and surrounded by society’s jetsam.   At closing time they purchased a large bottle of ginger-beer, emerged onto the cobbled street and melted into the shadows.   Soon they were alone and as the night wore on the ever resourceful Ferdy took out his pack of sandwiches and thermos flask of Earl Grey.   There had been the gentle slap as tide mounted the worn stone stairs and, now, the splash and trickle of the waters receding.   The air was thick with the scent of cinnamon from the spice warehouses nearby, the sky was starless and overcast, there were distant rumbles of thunder.   With dawn approaching and the gloom around beginning to lift, a thin mist crept in from the river.   Twice during the night they had heard the gentle knock and creak of rowlocks, the drip of oars, but no-one had landed.

Phoebles knocked back the last of the ginger-beer. "Home then... again?"

Boz was just considering the possibility that he might have been wrong about Slasher's survival and wondering if this was the time to admit it to the others when a rope ladder landed in their midst.

"If you could pop up here for a moment, please, Mr Boz.   You will be able to rejoin your companions later."

They looked up and, hovering above them, saw a small, cigar shaped, bronze coloured airship; the canopy was banded with aluminium straps, it had a single broad-bladed propeller and a compact gondola from which dangled the precarious ladder.   In the open hatchway stood an impossibly tall, slender tortoise-shell in bottle green chauffeur's uniform.   She had huge dark eyes, possibly made up to enhance them even further.
"Please... It will be alright."
"I'll see you back at the pad." said Boz, beginning to climb.   Dangly pilot ladders are not the easiest things to negotiate for anyone but the most practiced of pilots and Boz didn't really do climbing.   However the dirigible had descended as low as it dare and eventually, somewhat puffed, he was allowing himself to be helped aboard by the torti chauffeur.    The cabin was fitted out in midnight blue velvet plush edged in gold cording, a large chandelier hung from the deck-head, a panel door with brass fittings led through to the bridge.
"Good morning, so at last I get to meet the famous Mr Boz."   A tabby cat wearing a red white and blue rosette sat in a deep tub chair holding a large brandy glass,   "I'm sorry, do sit down" he indicated towards a similar, but vacant seat.   "I am Larry from Number 10."
Boz sat.
"Barrymore, see to a drink for Mr Boz, would you."   The airship had ascended, turned west-nor'westward and was flying above the City.
"Is she driving AND waitressing?   Is that safe?"
"Let's not worry about Barrymore, very competent young lady.   Let's talk about you.   You're still looking for the recently deceased Mr McGoogs."   It was not a question and Larry did not seem to be expecting any form of answer.   "You appear to suspect that Mr McGoogs is some sort of secret force for good, with a plan.   He is not.   He is a despicable profiteer and we are better off with him dead."
Boz was feeling very uncomfortable.   The cabin was warm, he had not slept, the brandy gently burned in his stomach and this cat was terrifyingly confident.   "How do you know all this?   Did you have him killed?"
"People tell me things, Mr Boz.   And I don't kill... as a rule.
"We are on our way to make a hospital visit.   There's something I want you to see.   Do agree to come along."
They were crossing above the seeming random tangle of railway lines into Euston Station and soon began a descent into a tight courtyard outside the entrance to an apparently abandoned hospital.   Larry took Boz by the arm and led him into the building whilst Barrymore tethered the craft, above the entrance decorative brickwork spelled out 'London Temperance Hospital'.  The entrance hall was deserted, fallen plaster littered the marble floor, but along a corridor things began to bustle.   Nurses came out of doors striding efficiently in starched pinafores and black stockings, hurried past or plunged through other portals.   There was businesslike chatter.
Larry opened a door and encouraged Boz into a long Nightingale ward with two rows of identical, cream, iron beds.   On the edge of almost every bed sat, motionless, a cat in striped winsiette pyjamas; most stared vacantly beyond their inner space into the vacuum of eternity, some shook.   In the centre of one bed was a bulge under the bedclothes which twitched uncontrolably.   Another cat stood to attention at the bottom of his bed.   Larry ushered Boz towards him, but they were waylaid by a ward sister.   Boz could not take his eyes off her chest, where she had pinned a wonderful little upside down watch.
"Best leave him.  He will settle eventually."
Larry turned to Boz, "These are all here because of your Mr McGoogs.   All they needed to help them cope with the stresses of catlife was a little catnip at the right moment, something to layback the troubled soul, hush the cacophony.   And what did they get?   Krapola.   Honestly, that's what it sells as, Krapola Katnip, and it's rubbish.   It's force grown under artificial lights in vast sheds in Milton Keynes, it's thin and weedy with virtually no psychedelic properties, and it's not even cheap   He's flooded supermarkets and pet shop chains with the stuff and it affords no relief.   All these cats needed was a little break from reality and McGoogs denied it to them - for profit."
The nurse kissed Boz lightly on the forehead, "The monster is dead, and good riddance.   Go home and forget about him."

"A LITTERATE IRON

All Along An Algerian Alley…

Boisterous Blue Birds Bury Bulbs.

Cats Can Cry, '¡Caramba!' ‘Cos…

Dogs Do Dirty Deeds Down Drainpipes."

Ginsbergbear’s i-phone vibrated silently in his pocket.   He finished his recitation, but cut short the Question-and-Answer session.   Back in his bell tent he read the text message.

"Ferris wheel In half hour"

Mr Fluffy

Although Donald Pleasence shamelessly tried to steal every scene that he shared with Mr Fluffy, and despite  the incredible decision of the film company not to dignify such a central character as Blofeld's white cat with a name nor the feline thespian with a credit, he became a legend.   What no-one knew was that Mr Fluffy was not acting.   He was not, of course, CEO within SPECTRE - SPECTRE is after all a fictional organisation, but he was, even at this early stage, Lotte Lenya's Controller and an embryonic megalomaniac.

Emerging from Pinewood Studios sadder, wiser, yet with pockets filled with sovereigns, Mr Fluffy (He was still known as Young Fluffy back then, but not for long.) bought into the Cleethorpes Gazette which was on the brink of closure.   Specialising in lurid tales of the seedier activities on Cleethorpse's sea-front and searching exposés of corruption amongst local councillors the Gazette was soon outselling every local newspaper in Lincolnshire and, at least in Grimsby, outselling some of the less popular nationals too.   The time was ripe for expansion.

Buying newspapers had merely been a matter of flashing enough cash, television companies could be absorbed or broken with ease, but radio proved a tougher nut to crack.   Even today there were, he suspected, subversive elements operating within the bowels of Broadcasting House.

With practically the whole of the British news media in his hands Mr Fluffy acquired the defunct Black Cat Factory, which was lying derelict amidst the overgrown and neglected communal gardens of Mornington Crescent and, in one dark and thundery night, the air crackling with static and pavements wet with typesetters' tears, abandoned Fleet Street and moved his entire operation under one roof.   The magnificent Art Deco Egyptian Revivalist edifice, temple in equal parts to the cat goddess Bastet and the capitalist god Profit in his most concrete of forms, dominates surrounding Camden and surreptitiously stretches predatory claws out into the neighbouring landscape.   From the camera obscura on the rooftop terrace Mr Fluffy can look out onto the teeming mass of humanity below and know that he owns them all; bought or cowed they all dance when he plucks on their strings.

...over the pathetic corpses of your newborn!   These insufferable strikes and the economic crisis they have wrought, have forced the Government, against its will, to close Libraries, Hospitals and Old Peoples' Homes!   Un-affordable fire-engines and ambulances have had to be offered on e-bay!   This insurgency must not be allowed to continue - who are these unelected enemies of commerce, these self proclaimed assassins of Statehood?   Sign up for action today - crush the subversive pandemic before it overwhelms us all!

"I found this in the Press Tent, next to the Guinness counter." 

The gang were all gathered in Ginsbergbear's bell tent behind the Literary Yurt, observing yet another broadside.   They were seated in campaign chairs at a green baize topped campaign table, intense sunlight through the fabric of the tent cast red stripes across the scene, mugs of half drunk tea cooled neglectedly.   The Great Patriotic Festival was drawing smaller crowds since the strikes had begun to spread out from the East End, though the Steam Fair was still popular and Ginsbergbear's poetry readings had a small, but faithful following.

"And it is being reproduced in all the national newspaper and on the television; I know it is Slasher again.   The lefty stuff he was aiming at the workers has tailed of since the strikes began though."   Phoebles was frowning as his mind wrestled with complex and conflicting thoughts.   

"Word on the street is that he was pivotal in triggering the ship's cat strikes and has been seen in the company of several of Les Chats Souterrains."   Boz had been doing some serious investigating.

Ferdy appeared distracted, "But the Chats Souterrains are real wronguns, he can't be in with them." and Ginsbergbear leaned over to him with a sympathetic gesture, stroking the tip of one wing. 

"What's the matter, old pall?"

"Oh, it's nothing to do with all this.   Aunty Stella is upset.   No-one has seen Googleberry since we left him sunbathing on the lawn and that was a couple of days ago.   It's not like him to miss meal times."

Everyone agreed that Googleberry was not the type to get into any trouble and assured Ferdy that he would soon turn up, but the gentle dodo was not to be comforted.

"Les Chats have also been seen directing rats in the looting of the docks.   There's too much double dealing for my liking.   I can't get my head round what's going on." chipped in Phoebles, returning to the problem in hand.

Strawberry was frowning.   “Is Aunty Stella really worried?   Googleberry’s my friend…”

“OK.” from Boz, “Ferdy, whiz Strawberry home in the Cierva and come straight back.   Strawberry, organize search parties for Googleberry, there’s enough cats back there to be thorough.   But no one goes off alone and try not to lose anyone else.   The rest of us are going to have to corner Slasher and ask him straight out what he’s up to.   The whole situation is getting out of hand.”

“Does anyone else think contacting McGoogs might be a bit dangerous?”

Meanwhile strikes were spreading out from dockland.   The Clarkenwell printers were out over the arrest of one of their own; there was a lock out at Billingsgate which was depriving the local chippies of supplies just when there was a flood of idle, hungry cats into the neighbourhood; and now there was pressure on long dormant socialists and trades' unionists around the country to support the industrial action.   For the baying Press the flying pickets were the last straw.   Not that, for the most part, they did much flying.    One group did have the use, where appropriate, of a Dragon Rapide loaned by a sympathetic pilot from Duxford, but mostly they were utilising a small fleet of  ex- YANKEE COACH LINES INC. GAR WOOD  Model EFI motor coaches, liberated from a stranded container ship in Tilbury Dock and reinforced against police truncheons.