(A novel about Slugs falling in love and killing each other but not necessarily in that order) By Mike Batt

Chapter 13 : Looking For Little Else

Ergo's wheels were now faster than ever, thanks to Nigel Farnsbarnes' internal combustion thingey. He and Sodge could go quite quickly over the rough ground, and even Arthur Monkberry had to trot alongside to keep up. But the search was not proving fruitful. Elsie was nowhere to be seen.

"What an appalling situation" offered Monkberry in his Prince Charles voice.
"I'm not giving up, Arthur", said Ergo, defiantly. "She could always be just around the next corner". As they turned the next corner, and Elsie wasn't there, Ergo looked at Sodge and Arthur as if to say "But then again..."

It began to snow, - just light, wet snow that didn't settle on the ground. Ergo and the others had forgotten that it was nearly Christmas because their thoughts were with Little Else, wherever she was. They continued up the trail, higher up into the foothills of everywhere Else. Arthur tried to raise their spirits with some folk and farming songs from the Avocado Basin, but as they had titles like "Death And Disease To Him Who Raids My Trees" they didn't raise Ergo's spirits very much.

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If there had been music accompanying Moundrot's advance down towards the Slug headquarters, it would have been loud kettle drums and dark, low trombone notes. He had death on his mind as he stomped along at the head of his army, and he dribbled at the thought of all the thousands of slugs who would soon be reduced to slug pate under his weight and that of his troops. He grunted with satisfaction as he dragged his trail of goo down the wide mountain trail, and he silently wished himself a Merry Christmas. As the army reached a plateau on a cliff face half way down the mountain, and on a gradual bend to the left, Moundrot had a good view of the ground ahead of him for about a mile or so. There was something out there. A figure of somebody, perhaps carrying firewood or something. Moundrot stopped and his army shuffled to a shambolic halt behind him. He raised his field glasses and peered through them. Magnified by the strong lenses, he could clearly see a pigfrog pushing his way through a light snowfall, carrying a bundle on his back. Quirkhardt! Moundrot's heart skipped a beat. So Quirkhardt had fallen for it! This was going to be good! He was probably on his way back to plead for mercy - and with any luck, spill the beans about all sorts of slug secrets. Moundrot would listen, - pretend to forgive, and then when it was all over,- when the slugs were defeated and everybody was back at Pigfrog Command, - he would gleefully mince Quirkhardt from the feet up, even more slowly than he had previously threatened!

The distant Quirkhardt got less and less distant; nearer and nearer, bigger and bigger. Moundrot waited. He fixed his face into his best fatherly smile, and waited. It wasn't long before Quirkhardt had arrived, quivering with fear and dread, at the feet of his commander.

"Quirkhardt ,- my dear fellow, how , er...nice to see you" said Moundrot. If Quirkhardt had been even five percent less terrified and about eight percent more intelligent he might have realised that this could not possibly have been the real Moundrot speaking, and he might have smelled a rat; but the rat went unsmelled. Quirkhardt was so relieved not to be shouted at or killed that he dropped Elsie in an undignified heap on the floor and fell to his knees.

"General, how can you forgive me?", he grovelled, "but I only escaped from the jail with that slug because I was sure he was up to no good and I wanted to find out more about his plans, and I had to shout those rude words through the door at you to make him think I was really on his side, and I don't really think you are a fat scumbag, er, well, what I mean is, not any sort of scumbag at all, fat, thin, or...well, anyway, and so I escaped, and by the way, thanks for making me a Lance Corporal, I really appreciate that, and..oh...yes, I've got some information for you, as well as... I've got the nasty little slug chief's...er, girlfriend here, all tied up and everything...Sir". He then pulled out a box of chocolate cigars he had bought for this very purpose at the Woodland Candy Shop on the morning of his escape, and handed it triumphantly to the general.

("That ought to do it", thought Quirkhardt.)

"Hmmm...well, jolly good,- ", began Moundrot, who of course didn't believe a word of it, but wanted to relish and prolong Quirkhardt's plight. "I now promote you to the rank of Major. Well, done!".

Quirkhardt's fear sipped away and was replaced by a warm glow of delight, pride and relief.

"And the information you have for me?" asked Moundrot, sweetly.

"Oh, yes, Sir. I have managed, at great personal risk and with utmost use of my Officer Material qualities, to discover that the slug army helicopter is powered, believe it or not, by tea! Normal, ordinary tea, with two sugars to the Woodland Litre!".
Moundrot's face went a sort of grey colour. His cheeks puffed out and his eyes looked as if they were about to pop out. But he restrained himself from knocking Quirkhardt off the nearby cliff face because he wanted to keep him alive for longer, - sudden death would have been too kind. He composed himself, and resumed his sweet smile.
"How...er, interesting, Major. Thank you. Thank you so much".

At least now he could get he helicopter going one day, even if he looked an idiot in Gritwart's eyes; but Gritwart's opinion of him did not figure in Moundrot's concerns.
"Now about this- er, fairy person. I think we should push her off the cliff. I'll let you do it, because you deserve it after all you've been through".

Quirkhardt swallowed hard. He didn't want Elsie to die, but he liked being a major, and this was the very first time Moundrot had ever been nice to him. What a dilemma. Well, actually no dilemma at all, but a pity that she should have to die.

"Ooh, thanks, Sir!" he exclaimed, with fake enthusiasm. He lifted Elsie to her feet. Her arms were tied behind her. She had that look on her face that people have when they are about to be thrown off cliffs. Quirkhardt, watched by the entire pigfrog army, led her to the edge of the cliff, but as they reached the edge, he leaned over, unseen by Moundrot, and loosened the knot tying her arms.

"Goodbye forever you nasty horrible little fairy effort!" he shouted, giving her a shove, and a great cheer went up through the pigfrog ranks. Elsie plummeted downwards and out of sight. Moundrot took out two chocolate cigars, put one in his mouth and offered the other to Quirkhardt.

Elsie plunged down and down, struggling with the rope around her. If you have to be thrown off a cliff, it's best to be thrown off a very high one, philosophised Elsie, as she tried desperately to get free of her bonds before hitting the hard ground at the bottom of the cliff. She couldn't work out whether it was her life flashing before her, or a load of old rocks, but something was making her feel decidedly dizzy; possibly the thought of imminent death. She knew if she could just...free herself...she could use her wings to save her. It seemed like about three woodland minutes but was actually only twenty-five woodland seconds before she looked down to see the ground almost dead ahead of her, and rising quickly towards her, as it seemed. Just at this moment, she broke out of her bonds, her wings popped out and she was suddenly able once again to fly, - upwards and sideways out of view of the pigfrogs, and to safety! Being a fairy had its advantages, as she had discovered before. Stupid old General Moundrot wouldn't have thought of it, but Quirkhardt had. He was a cowardly, selfish pigfrog, but he had a heart somewhere underneath all that nastiness. Quite a long way under it, as it happened, but somewhere deep down in there. Deep, deep down.

Moundrot marched on. His army dutifully followed. This was going to be his moment of glory. The destruction of Slug HQ and all who lived there. Lovely, lovely, lovely! It would only be another six hours or so before they would arrive at The Bit Near Don't Be So Ridiculous Valley, whereupon they would do a lot of jumping upon a lot of slugs, fairies, squirreloids and trolls. The Christmas spirit wasn't dead. Life wasn't too bad after all, really.

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Ergo was frantic. He radioed back to HQ, where Dotty and the others had now returned after their fruitless search to the South West.

"We are heading towards Pigfrog Command, following the old Woodland Railway line and then skirting around the back of the mountain to observe Pigfrog Command from behind" he told Elsie. This was because he didn't want to be observed by any pigfrog scouts as he approached. He was also worried in case there might be pigfrog girl guides, cubs or brownies around, to watch his approach and alert Moundrot. Ergo had no idea that the pigfrog army had been mobilised, - and his chosen route meant, quite accidentally, that he and his party did not run into them or them into him. As Moundrot and his forces were heading down the front of the mountain, Ergo, Sodge, Arthur Monkberry and Nigel Farnsbarnes were making their way up the back of it. Monkberry had thoughtfully brought along a large bag of mint humbugs and all four were sucking away happily. The sucking was in fact the only happy thing about them, as they plodded sadly up the snowy hill, pushing against the prevailing wind. While he trudged and sucked, Ergo reflected on the fact that it is actually possible for your mouth to be happy and your feet to be sad, both at the same time. It also struck him that a prevailing wind was the only wind one could ever push against, since if a wind wasn't prevailing it wasn't blowing, and so you could hardly push against it, could you? These thoughts occupied his mind for a short time, but he was mostly thinking about Little Else. Where was she? What had Quirkhardt done to her? How could he manage without her? She, with her lovely tweed two-piece and cute smile, kept popping into his thoughts and he began to lose interest in his mint humbug, which was nearly finished anyway.

As they reached the top of the back of the mountain - where Ergo had once emerged from Moundrot's ventilation shaft, all four of them dropped down into a lying position, except Ergo and Sodge who were already lying down, what with being slugs and everything.

"The bigger shaft comes out over here", pointed out Monkberry, from his lying down position. "That's the one where the light shines down in front of the prison cells. If Quirkhardt has brought her back, that's where she'll be".

The four of them crawled towards the large shaft, and peered carefully over the top and down into the shaft, or crater. It was quite wide, being the central area around which Pigfrog Command was built, and was a little like the hole that goes down through the middle of a volcano, with windows cut into it all the way down. By now, Ergo knew that Moundrot's accommodation was fairly high up in the shaft, and the other accommodation was situated below it, down and down until the prison cells would be quite a long way below. At the bottom of the shaft it was quite dark. The place seemed strangely empty. There was definitely some activity, - some sounds coming from the various pigfrog rooms, but nowhere near the amount of activity he would have expected. Peering deep into the cavity, he could just make out a light shining. It was just enough light to allow him to see, after squinting for some time down the shaft, that there were two pigfrog legs sticking out from underneath something... and that the something from under which the legs were sticking out was...the helicopter! Rigstay was lying underneath Nigel's flying machine, tinkering with it while the rest of the army was at that very moment marching towards Slug HQ.

Ergo immediately decided to try to rescue the helicopter. He knew that Elsie was a priority, but this was too good an opportunity to miss, and it might even lead to finding Elsie, particularly if she was back in the pigfrog jail. Monkberry would secure ropes which would lower them all over the edge. Once they were at the bottom, they would creep up, empty Ergo's thermos flask of tea into the fuel tank, and then Arthur would take the controls while they would take off, leaving the pigfrog mechanic lying there tinkering with a helicopter that suddenly wouldn't be there any more. Monkberry pulled ropes from his backpack and started to secure them to a tree stump, which had it not been there, would have spoiled everything.

As they all peered over the edge of the crater, something not too clever happened. Nigel's mint humbug fell out of his mouth, and to his horror, fell down, down, downwards until, far below they heard it bounce off one Rigstay's legs and into his open toolbox.

"Nigel, for such a genius you really are a flipping idiot!" scolded Ergo, as they heard the sound of the mint humbug landing just where they didn't need it to.

Rigstay jumped up and looked around. Finding the humbug in his toolbox, he did two things. Firstly, he popped it into his mouth so as not to waste it, and secondly he looked up the shaft to see where it had come from. He remembered the time when it had rained jelly babies, and this didn't seem much sillier. In fact, it was slightly less silly. Let's say that the jelly babies raining would be, on a silliness scale of one to ten, about nine, then a mint humbug dropping out of the sky would be about a six. However, just as a precaution, Rigstay looked up the shaft. He couldn't really see what was happening up there but he knew something was wrong. He reach out and pressed a small purple button at the doorway of the workshop area, and a loud alarm bell began to ring.

"That's torn it!" yelled Ergo. But instead of hurrying away from the area, Ergo's leadership qualities and bravery took over, and he shouted instructions to the others to hurry up and lower themselves down the shaft even more quickly.

"Maybe we can take them by surprise" he said.

"But they've been warned already" protested Sodge.

"Exactly!- so they'll hardly be expecting anyone to come dangling down on a bit of rope while the alarm is ringing. People don't do that sort of thing."

"I wonder why" muttered Nigel as he obediently slipped over the edge with Ergo, Sodge and Monkberry and descended into the crater and towards the ringing bell.

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After ringing the alarm bell, Rigstay waited for the guards to arrive, and sucked on his mint humbug, which had formerly been Nigel's. He thought it was strange that it was taking a long time for anyone to react to the alarm, and then of course he realised that most of the army was out squashing slugs. This left a few domestic pigfrog attendants, gardeners, females and youngsters, all of whom would expect somebody other than themselves to react to an alarm. There were one or two main door guards on duty, but they would not be allowed to leave their posts. Usually there would have been plenty of other soldiers around to attend to an alarm.

"Anyway", thought Rigstay, "nothing's happened. I'll switch the alarm off".

Looking up to check that all was fine up through the crater, he was surprised to see a very close-up view of Arthur Monkberry's boots descending rapidly down a rope into his face.

"Ouuffh!" said Rigstay, as he fell to the floor and went into a deep dream, in which General Moundrot and he were having tea together, and young lady ballerina pigfrogs danced around them in a cloud of soft, blue smoke.

"Right! Get that mechanic chappie out of the way, Arthur!" ordered Ergo, unstrapping the flask of tea and moving round to the back of the helicopter to find the fuel tank.
"Nige, you jump in and start her up, please, Mate!" said Ergo to Nigel.

He said "please" to Nigel because to Ergo, Nigel was more of a civilian than a troop.
"Aye, Aye! O, Great Sluggy Leader!" answered Nigel, suddenly feeling more like a troop than a civilian. He was wishing his dear, sweet wife, Dotty, could see him being such a hero, - absailing into the enemy headquarters and piloting the lost helicopter home. He kicked the starter and revved on the throttle. It coughed into action and the rotor blades began to turn. Yes!

"Jump in, then!" he called to Ergo, Sodge and Monkberry, who were already doing so.
The little pink helicopter (for it was a Thursday afternoon) rose slowly up through the crater and past each window of pigfrog command. If anybody was there, they must have just thought that Gritwart had got the thing going at last. Some domestic pigfrogs even looked out and waved as they went past.

As they drew level with the jail windows, Monkberry beamed his very strong troll standard issue torch into the cells which circled the crater at that height. There was no-one there. No Elsie. No-one.

"I didn't dare hope she'd really be here" said Ergo, sadly, "but we'll keep looking for Quirkhardt on the way back, - I'm sure we'll find them".

Just as the helicopter was level with the top windows inside the crater, and just as Nigel was about to throttle up and away, Ergo shouted, "What's that sound?".

"The rotor blades, of course!" answered technically-minded Nigel.

"No, no, listen!" urged Ergo. "It sounds like music...piano music". And of course, sure enough it was. Well, it was the sound of a piano anyway. Whether it was music was really a matter for each individual listener to decide. To Ursula Moundrot's ears it was music, for it was once again she who was playing. Ergo had heard the distant strains of the instrument as they had hovered up past Ursula's window. Looking in, he could now see her looking out at him and the others in the helicopter with an expression of horror on her ugly, greeny-pink face.

Ergo looked over to Monkberry with one of those "are you thinking what I'm thinking?" looks.

"Let's rescue the piano!" shouted Ergo. Nige steadied the helicopter and Sodge acted as winch man, fixing and holding the ropes while Monkberry and Ergo swung into the open window and landed on the floor right in front of the terrified Ursula Moundrot.
"Stand aside, Mrs M!" was all Ergo could think of, but it seemed appropriate. Ursula scuttled out of the way while Monkberry grabbed the piano in his long, muscular troll-type arms. Ergo steadied it and tied the ropes around it. Jumping onto the top of the piano, Monkberry and Ergo gave the signal and the helicopter rose slowly and the piano swung out of the window, dangling like...well, like a piano dangling from a helicopter - with Monkberry and Ergo sitting on it.

Then, to their utmost surprise, - and shock, - Ursula called out of the window.
"I'm coming too! Don't leave me behind!" with which she launched her fat body off the window sill into mid-air, landing on the top of the piano next to Monkberry, for whom there was already little enough room.

"What?" shouted Monkberry.

"Don't leave me here. Let me come too, - please, please, ever so pretty, pretty please!".

Ergo couldn't work it out. Was it that she couldn't bear to be parted from the piano, or was it that she wanted to get away from Moundrot and start a new life, or something? Anyway, he didn't have time to spend thinking about it. By now he had climbed almost into the helicopter and was waiting for Monkberry to join him, leaving the piano dangling.

"There isn't room!" he shouted down to Ursula. But she looked so frantic and pathetic and...vulnerable... that he took pity on her.

"Well, just this once!" he relented, - as if there would ever be another time!
"Oh, thank you, thank you, and double..."

"Just get in!" yelled Monkberry, giving her a hefty shove so that she landed with a thud, face down in the back of the flying machine, with her large scaly pigfrog legs sticking out through the open window hatch. Moundrot hauled himself up and into the helicopter after her. Nigel pulled back on something, stepped on something, and switched something else, and the helicopter was up and out of the crater, with all five occupants struggling hard not to fall out, and the piano swinging underneath.
"Good job I brought that flask of tea!" said Ergo.

Turn to Slugs Chapter 14