Sample

There was nothing sinister about the front of Ted’s house. It was just like all the others on the street with its flaky paintwork on the front door and windowsills. The same applied to most of the back garden which was full of overgrown weeds and a few sad and neglected rose bushes still clinging feebly to life in the chill air of winter. There were a few broken plastic clothes pegs scattered on the ground and a badly chewed tennis ball that his dog Rusty used to play with. Near the fence at the bottom of the garden was a large mound, with some of the covering of earth removed.

No one was in any doubt about what lay before them. The object had the rusty orange brown of old metal like a large sea mine near the pier in Milton on Sea. The shape of it was very different though. It was bigger, like a fat bullet and almost six feet in length. The end was tapered and had fins sticking out that remarkably were still intact with the name Heidi scratched on the metal.

It wasn’t a smooth object, but it had been made in layers and then welded and riveted. Most of its bulk had been long submerged in the ground, with about three feet pushing through to the surface. Ted’s hammer lay on the ground after the rivets had been smashed and a plate measuring roughly two feet long and eight inches in height had been prised open. Men gathered around it in respectful silence like worshippers before a particularly capricious deity. It was caked in oil inside and emitted a sickly sweet odour. They didn’t need an army textbook or a military expert to tell them what was only inches away from their staring faces. In the silence of their held breath, the sound of the ticking was menacingly loud.

A solitary green wire jutted out and dangled against the rusty metal, with a tangled array of wires lying just behind it. Nestling between the wires were a number of dials of different sizes. Eddie pushed Roger to one side and turned his ear towards the large dial. ‘I can hear a dull clicking sound. This means that we haven’t got long before this blows up.’

A little apart from the group stood Max, the stuffed dog. Before the night of the Blitz in Saltfleet in 1942 and the bodged work of a taxidermist he may have been an attractive small black mongrel. Now he had pencil thin legs and a badly twisted mouth. The eyes had a glassy stare and looked as though they had been plucked from a child’s collection of marbles. One eye was green and the other was blue. Max had been placed there not for laughter or amusement, but as a source of inspiration and strength after its brave exploits made him both a hero and a legend.

Bert brought out warming mugs of tea on a tray, though with each step his nervous hands managed to spill most of the contents as he proceeded towards them. As Eddie’s shaking hands on the cutter tried to reach for the exposed wire, they held their breath anticipating an imminent massive explosion. No matter how hard Eddie and the others tried it seemed impossible to cut the wire as the sweat pored down their faces, knowing that the odds were so heavily stacked against them, with every limb in their bodies paralysed by fear.

Nervously sipping their tea, a noise distracted them. They looked up in the swirling mist and in the darkness could make out the cloak and cane of a familiar figure approaching them.

‘You’re the only man in Britain capable of defusing this bomb. Thank goodness that you have arrived, Oscar. In a few more minutes we may all have be blown up,’ said a grateful Roger.

‘How many sugars? ’ Bert asked carrying the tray towards him.

‘I’ll have three sugars in mine,’ Oscar replied. ‘And don’t forget to bring me some digestive biscuits.’

‘If we cut all the bloody wires at once, this may defuse the bomb,’ Eddie stated.

‘You’re joking,’ Trevor shouted. ‘Don’t cut!’

‘You don’t need to shout!’ Eddie replied.

‘Do you have any suggestions, Oscar?’ Roger asked.

‘Yes. Let’s have another cup of this excellent tea.’

Bert stroked his empty belly and said, ‘ I wish I were back at my butcher’s shop now. I could go back and make us some meat sandwiches.’

‘That’s such a sweet and noble idea,’ said Oscar.

‘It’s nothing of the sort. The bomb seems to have three trigger mechanisms that all need to be neutralised. Its hopeless, but I’m not walking away from this and being branded a coward like Bert,’ said Ted.

‘I’m no coward!’ muttered Bert.

‘Where’s Trevor going?’ Roger asked.

‘Trevor would never desert us,’ Ted commented.

‘That’s true. He is a 1940s man,’ said Oscar. Trevor returned moments later carrying a record player attached to an extension cable and proceeded to play an old and scratched record. They all joined in singing with Vera Lynn’s recording of We’ll meet Again.

As soon as the song finished Trevor nervously cleared his throat. ‘ I needed to hear Vera just one more time before...’

‘ Me too,’ Oscar agreed.

‘And me,’ Ted said.

‘Don’t forget me,’ Bert and Roger said together.

‘Let’s do it lads,’ Bert said with conviction. ‘The first hurdle is the wires and dial on this side. We need to cut one of the nine wires. If we cut the wrong one it will blow up. I’ve no idea which one we should cut.’

‘Cut the third wire from the left,’ Oscar said pointing to the wire with his cane just before yawning.

‘But you might be wrong.’

‘Cut it!’ Oscar said with assurance.

Eddie’s hand on the cutter shook badly. Oscar casually dipped his digestive biscuit in the mug of tea.

‘Damn!’ Oscar shouted as his digestive prematurely dissolved in the tea.

‘Is it hopeless, Oscar?’

‘Are we as good as dead?’

‘Pass me the cutter, Eddie,’ Oscar said placing half a new digestive biscuit in his mouth. Nonchalantly he cut the wire. He placed the cutters down and proceeded to consume more of his tea with his right hand, while resting his left hand on his cane.

‘Well done Oscar,’ said Roger. ‘ You’re a hero.’

‘You’re wonderful,’ said Bert.

‘Could you repeat that, Bert,’ said Oscar

‘You’re the most wonderful man in the world,’ said Bert.

‘Are we still alive or in heaven?’ Ted commented.

Oscar yawned. ‘Since the Germans prided themselves on being a super-race I expected more of a challenge than that. That wire was slightly thicker than all the others were so that had to be the wire to cut. It was tediously easy.’

‘The second stage involves these two dials and nine wires. We must cut the right one or we will be dead,’ Eddie said.

‘Germans are predictable. Cut the third one from the left again,’ Oscar said firmly.

‘Why should the Germans repeat the same sequence?’ Roger asked.

Oscar gently tapped Roger on the shoulder with his cane and smiled. ‘Trust me, dear boy.‘

Eddie picked up the cutters. They trembled in his hand. Trevor took the cutters from his hand and placed them on the muddy ground. ‘What’s that noise like the beating of a drum?’ Trevor asked.

‘It’s your heart beating, that’s all,’ said Roger.

‘Perhaps Oscar’s tapping his cane on the ground,’ Trevor responded.

‘There’s a rumble of thunder in the distance. It could be an ominous sign,’ added Ted.

‘Oh God. The bombs ticking very loud. We’ve dead men now!’

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