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

Chapter Four: The Sound Of Music

General Moundrot rolled over in the darkness. An incessant drip of slimy goo was landing on and oozing across his face, causing him to snore more loudly and then drop back into a light sleep every few minutes. There was something irritating him. It wasn't the slime - he liked that. Couldn't sleep without it. No, it was something else. Something wasn't normal. He opened one eye, and rolled his eyeball around as far as he could so as to see across the dark pothole without having to move his head. A small red light was flashing. It was the phone-answering machine. It had clicked in to intercept a call and was now silently announcing the fact that it was ready to communicate. Moundrot went back to sleep. He slept for another twelve days, - the goo constantly dripping down onto the fat, scaly expanse of his left cheek, across his jowl and lower lip, into his mouth and out again through a gap in his front teeth. It wound its way across his forearm and formed little rivulets as it flowed away across the sloping floor. He had chosen to sleep on the upper part of the sloping floor, so that the goo, on leaving his own area would then benefit the next sleeping pigfrog, which in this case happened to be his wife, Ursula. It had always been Ursula, - from the very first moment they had met, when he and she had both been young pigpoles. Nobody else but Ursula. They had always been known as Ursula and Jim, until he had started to cut a more authoritative figure, and his fast rise through the ranks of the pigfrog military had made it necessary for others to address him as first Captain, then Major, then Colonel, Brigadier and now General Moundrot. He was not, by any stretch of the imagination, "nice". He had always said it wasn't his job to be liked, - even though he could easily have tried it in his spare time. It hadn't occurred to him. To Ursula he was big, warm, sexy, lovable Jim. She never called him Jim in front of the minions, though.

On the thirteenth day, Moundrot's eyes opened. Both together. It was like turning on a light. Switching off a dream. Except he never dreamed. Waste of Time. The red light was still flashing. The drip was still dripping, still oozing. He spat. He could hear music. Good, he liked music. Had it been the music that had woken him, he wondered? No, because he'd had a jolly good lie down, - about three weeks, as he guessed. It was time to wake up anyway. Ursula was already awake, lying on one side, letting the river of goo ooze reassuringly across the back of her left knee and over her big, muscular thighs.

"Morning, Darling" offered Ursula.

"Achhthteupp!" came the sound of Moundrot spitting again, to clear the goo from his jowls and teeth. He always liked to clean his teeth.

"Looks like a lovely day" said Ursula.

How the hell did she work that out, thought Moundrot, knowing that Ursula had no way of knowing whether it was pouring with rain or hailing jelly babies.

"Is it?" he said. He felt tolerant.

"Yes", said Ursula, "and I'm sure we'll have lots of fun".

Moundrot had to admit that the music sounded interesting. There was a knock on the door.

"Who is it?"

"Quirkhardt, Sir"

"Yes, Quirkhardt?"

"There's been a shower of jelly babies overnight, Sir. Can't understand it. Sentries haven't got a clue, either".

Moundrot opened the door.

"Come in, Captain".

The other warrior lurched sheepishly into the room.

"Good Morning, Mrs Moundrot; good morning, General", began Quirkhardt.

He knew the old boy's moods. Maybe he should not have disturbed him for such a triviality, - but it was quite an interesting phenomenon, to say the least.

"We're sweeping them away from the great entrance, Sir, but they appear to be clogging up many of the smaller pothole outlets".

"Don't be so ridiculous!", shouted Moundrot, confident that his inferior officer would not choose that moment to start giving him directions to the well-known valley of that name.

"What sort of jelly babies are they?" he demanded.

"Well, mostly girls sir, and all different flavours" stuttered Quirkhardt

"No, you idiot! I mean are they real ones? Where did they come from?"

"And what's that music, by the way?"

"We're not sure, Sir, but it sounds like carol singers". He knew this would not go down well.

"What? Let me listen. Keep quiet!"

Quirkhardt kept quiet. Moundrot strained himself to listen. There was indeed a distinctly choral sound to it. He could only hear it, very muffled, in the distance, so couldn't be sure.

"It's not Christmas, is it?"

"No, Sir, it's September the twenty-third".

Moundrot felt foolish for mentioning it. This was his September Awakening. There would be food and games, and work, and then more sleep until the November Awakening, and only then would it be time to get ready for the December Season. Of course it wasn't Christmas.

"Get two sentries out to it immediately" he barked.

Quirkhardt saluted, turned and leapt down the passageway. He wasn't keen on all this. It wasn't his fault that it had hailed jelly babies, and it wasn't his fault that there were carol singers outside. If there were. He was just doing his job - but he was sure that Moundrot would blame him for it. He did not relish the consequences.

Quirkhardt arrived in the main guardroom, pulling himself together and remembering what it was that made him officer-material.

"Corporal Flighnever, double outside with one inferior of your choice and arrest anybody who might be carol singing" he shouted.

"Yes, Sir". The corporal detailed his chosen helper and made for the main tunnel.

"Oh, and corporal.."

"Yes, Sir?"

"Don't have any fun at all, do you understand?"

"Yes, Sir".

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

Squinting through his field glasses, Quirkhardt had a good view of the ground that sloped away from the front entrance of Pigfrog Command. It was uninterrupted for about two hundred yards, and then fell away around the side of a small mountain peak. This obscured his view, - but he watched the patrol until they disappeared down into the low area. The sound of the carol singing was fairly constant, coming from that direction. Quirkhardt fancied he also smelled something strange. Cigars, - the smell of cigars, and if he wasn't mistaken, tangerines! Yes, it was certainly cigars and tangerines. Christmas smells! It threw him a little. If it hadn't been for the fact that he was Officer Material it might have thrown him a lot, he thought to himself.

Five minutes after the patrol had entered the low ground area, Captain Quirkhardt heard a soft, muffled 'whump', like a loud, unmuffled 'whump' but soft and muffled. A spray of little fragments rose above the ridge and descended like a beautiful firework.
Very pretty, thought Quirkhardt, but if Corporal Flighnever is enjoying himself I'll give him a right good shouting-at.

Quirkhardt need not have worried. Flighnever was not enjoying himself. Indeed, he was at that moment floating off to the pigfrog version of the afterlife, wondering what the hell had hit him. What had hit him was a Slug depth charge, which had been activated by the saliva-sensitive hat of one Fudgebrother the Younger. The corporal, on seeing Carol Singing Squad Number One, had, contrary to orders, crept up behind them and allowed his deadly sense of duty to get the better of him. Instead of arresting them or calling for reinforcements he had unilaterally launched himself, almost instinctively, at the first carol singer in the line, - Fudgebrother. As he had come whistling down out of the sky, screaming the pigfrog death-cry, the hat, stimulated by the spray of saliva coming from Flighnever's horrible gob, had triggered the launch of a depth charge and it had all been over in a jiffy. Flighnever, or bits of him, had been the pretty firework which Quirkhardt had seen from Pigfrog Command.

The 'one inferior' of Flighnever's choice had escaped and run hell-for-leather back to Pigfrog Command, to the strains of 'Hark The Herald Angels Sing' and was now skidding up to an alarmed Captain Quirkhardt.

"Captain, they carol singers be nasty little slugs and gnomes and they done in the poor old Corp!" panted the minion.

Meanwhile, several hundred yards from the mouth of Pigfrog Command, an exhilarated slug army was savouring the first blood of the campaign. From his field Headquarters, Ergo was regrouping and positioning his forces for maximum effect in an attack on Pigfrog Command. He was, however, hoping to draw his enemy away from the protection of its underground barracks, and to this end was briefing his senior commanders.

"Phase one of Operation Snowflake has begun, Gentlemen!", he announced. "Under Sodge's command, the special effects unit has started the process of disorientating the enemy and making them question the validity of their own calendars. Some of them must be thinking it is Christmas by now - or at least thinking about Christmas - a dangerous act for a pigfrog, whose instinctive, unconscious reflexes will react to our deception before even the conscious mind is aware of what is going on. This is indicated by the uncontrollable urge which led to the first pigfrog casualty. The sound of carol-singing combined with the natural urge to destroy slugs obviously proved too much for it. We must capitalise on this urge. As we speak, the Farnsbarnes aerial division has completed its jelly baby drop and is creating a snowstorm around the entrances to Pigfrog Command. The Aroma Unit is pumping the cigar and tangerine gas into their ventilation shafts, and our intelligence suggests that they are beginning to be nicer to each other than usual, - a sure sign that they think it must be Christmas."

"Phase two will commence as soon as they appear out in the open. We believe they will come out, because they will by now have heard from the escaping patrol member. Their military ethic is such that they will almost certainly send more forces out to deal with the carol singers. At this point CSS No 1 must retreat far enough for the first pursuing pigfrog patrol to be lured away from and cut off from Pigfrog Command. We would hope that a larger pigfrog army would then be sent after the first. Only then will we attack, as soon as the army reaches the open ground to the front of, but out of sight of Pigfrog Command". He paused for dramatic effect. So much did he enjoy the dramatic effect that he paused a little longer. Then a little longer. So long did he pause that he forgot what else it was he had been going to say.

"Well, that's about it, gentlemen", he said, "any questions?"

"Yes, Sir", said Froon, the Library Monitor. "how are you intending to defeat the army once it is in the open?"

"Aha!" said Ergo, - "Gather round, Men, here's my plan...".

As they huddled together his voice began to fade away and the lights dimmed to black.

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Now go to Slugs Chapter 5