Thr Russians are coming

 

NATO Army Chiefs warn

Russia’s expansionist policy

may attack the West

‘sooner than expected’. 

It has been reported. 

By Pugh R. Whimsey

“It’s bad business Jeremy,” lamented the Admiral of the Fleet and Joint Chief of Staff, sinking the last of a large tumbler of G&T. Slowly and sadly he shook his balding pate, are you really sure about all of this Jeremy? Information sound is it?”

“Straight from Vladimir in intelligence I’m afraid Admiral.”

“Is it by god, is it. Then you do realise what this means don’t you,” continued the Admiral pouring himself another large Gin bracer “the implications of all this? End of civilisation as we know it; could be Vodka Martinis only in the Ward Room from now on.”

“Only too aware Admiral.”

“You say Jeremy, but are you? You Pongos often don’t fully appreciate the finer aspects of these things; whisky and water, and ‘pass the Port Hector’ may be all very well for you chaps swilling in the Mess, but it doesn’t cut it with the Senior Service in the Ward Room you know. There’ll be the devil to pay there I can assure you. Damn it Jeremy, they’ve already scuppered the Rum ration; Nelson’ll be turning in his celestial hammock. So much for tradition.”

“Quite Admiral.”

“Well, I hope you’ve got some damn clever wheeze up your sleeve as to how we thwart this ghastly fiasco.”

“We have been working on it Admiral. Had some of our top chaps looking at the problem.”

“By god I hope so Jeremy, I blasted well hope so, or it will be Gulags for the lot of us. Right then, best get on with it. Are they all assembled?”

“PM’s just being seated now Admiral.”

“Right, let’s go then, never let it be said Jeremy that I funked facing the enemy.”

“Prime Minister, Minister of Defence, gentlemen.” Began Brigadier Jeremy Fortisque-Smythe. “Not for the first time in our country’s illustrious history do we face a challenge of titanic proportions. The Red Bear stands at our gates; the very fabric of our existence, as we have come to know it, is under threat.”

“Oh for God’s sake Jeremy do get on with it will you, at this rate the pubs’ll be shut by the time you get round to sayin’ whatever it is you’re going to say.”

“Of course Admiral.”

Around the room heads nodded in agreement, murmurs of ‘here, here’ from two Rear Admirals and a Vice Admiral could be heard. An aged General snorted awake requesting they make his a double; realising his faux pas he coughed quietly to cover his slumber. An Air Vice Marshall stared at the pale blue ceiling, dreaming contentedly.

“It is in the light of this threat from Ivan then, that we must decide upon a co-ordinated response.

It is to that end, that the Joint Chiefs’ commissioned Lieutenant General Sir Omdurman Farquharson-Farquharson MC, DSO to evaluate our position and propose a solution. I hand you over now to him to outline his findings. Sir Omdurman.”

“Thank you Genewal. Pwime Minister, Minister, gentlemen. It is with gweat sadness and deep wegwet that my team and I have come to the following conclusions. But, in our considered opinion, it wepwesents the best hope for us all. We pwopose a major reshuffle of our armed forces and its pwactises, to be enacted immediately and as follows.

As, I think we are all aware, Wussian gwound force tactics in these events, are to Blitzkwieg into countwies of occupation. Our first objective therefore must be to slow down this advance and webuff Wussian twoops cwossing into western Euwope. To achieve this, we pwopose the use of a newly formed 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd Battalion of the King’s Own Suwendewers, who, in a mass capitulation, along all borders, suwender. This agwesive tactic will automatically cause a widespwead weduction in Ivan’s twoops attacking capabilities, their forces becoming depleated as they seek to impound, feed and securely confine, the vast numbers of our gallant chaps of the Suwendawing Battalions. This will be followed by a cunning assault by the German Bratworst, Schnitzel, Sauerkraut and Black Forest Gateaux Divisions, along with the Fwoggies Pate de Frois Grass, Confit de Canard, Tarte Tatin and Camembert de Normandie Squadrons.

Our own chaps, the Northern and Scottish Detachment of the Catering Corps shall also offer double helpings of Beef Wellington with full lard Dumlings, Haggis, Black Pudding, Plum Duff, Spotted Dick, Custard and Pwunes, believe me Pwime Minister, Minister, gentlemen, these combined forces are guawanteed to slow even the most zealous of Wussias advancing twoops. At this point we will then unleash our cwack and highly twained supwise twoops, the 1^st Battalion of the POW Tunnelers and Vaulters. These elite twoops, when captured and deployed in four man teams, will add gweatly to the confusion behind enemy lines; making numerwous futile escapes, they will thus absorb yet more of the Wussian forces, giving us the chance to deploy our shock teams of weserves. These weserves, adopting the pwincipal ‘of hearts and minds’ and consisting, in the main, of Ticket touts fwom the stweets of the capital, will be offewing cut pwice block bookings for the hot shows of the day, and will be backed up by a Bwigade of Oxford Stweet Wide Boys selling genuine souvenirs of Ye Olde England with fwee entry to The London Eye, Madam Tussaud’s, the Shard and various Soho night spots with evwy hundwed Woubles spent. Finally, we pwopose that His Majesty, may God pweserve him, extend an offer of personally conducted tours of Buck House and assorted Woyal Palaces. Obviously shaking hands with said Woyals will come at an extra cost, so negating the detwimental costs of wear and tear on fixtures and fittings. Minister, you have a question?”

“Yes. General, tell me, where in this approach do our conventional armed forces come into the equation? Should our armoured divisions and infantry not, along with our NATO allies, be pressing the Russians back along our European borders?”

The room inhaled deeply. An elderly Brigadier clutched his chest. Even the Lieutenant General recoiled, steadying himself against the table. He regarded the Minister, aghast.

“Good god Minister, you suwerly don’t mean… attack?”

“Well isn’t that the general idea of having an armed force General; isn’t that why we have them? For their ability to react, retaliate and defend our nation?”

Around the room faces drained of colour; hip flasks were felt for and gulped. Brigadiers and Vice Admirals steadied themselves, the Air Marshall sucked his thumb. Pulling himself together the General continued.

“I fear Minister you may be labouwing under certain misappwehensions. As far as my colleagues and I are aware it has not been Government policy, or intention for that matter, that our militwy should attack anyone. Not for, for… for… that has never been a considewation.

PC, Minister, demands that our chaps just can’t be seen as agwesors! Jolly bad form in this day and age.”

Again heads nodded in agreement.

“As a wesult, well, I’m afwaid we’re now somewhat beweft of stwength in depth in that department, and of course there’s the costs to be considwered. Have you seen the pwice of petwol and diesel today?

Then there’s the wisk of bwakedowns. I have spoken to both the AA and the RAC and indeed to Gween Flag, at some length I might add, concerning just this scenawio. All are quite adamant they would not be able to cope with the volume of bweak downs, that our tanks, genewal armaments and vehicles would genewate during the time span and distances anticipated, were we to wish to defend our Euwopean borders. Indeed they weren’t confident they could even manage just our UK borders, particularly at weekends or in the winter, what with adverse weather we are encownterwing these days plus holidays and sickness. Nor would the insuwance companies cover such a Euwopean deployment for more than a pewiod of 90 days, and the pwemiums even for that were pwohibative. No Minister, any form of attack would be utter madness and out of the question.”

“Good grief General, do we not have engineers within our services?”

“The effect of the cuts I’m afwaid Minister.”

Silent until now, the Prime Minister interjected.

“Excuse me gentlemen but might I raise an issue here?”

“But of course Pwime Minister.”

“Admiral, apart from the build up of troops on our euro borders that is causing such grave concern, there appears to have been an increasing number of Russian ships and planes passing through and over our English Chanel and North Sea waters, what response exactly have we adopted here?”

“I can happily report Prime Minister, that we in the Senior Service have been most diligent in our efforts to maintain both good relations with our Soviet cousins and protect the sovereignty and integrity of our shores.”

“But it is my understanding that you have not left port Admiral.”

Amongst the naval contingent again gasps were clearly audible. The Admiral glanced at his fellow officers and then at his watch. There was still a while to go before it was officially ‘Up spirits’ but events dictated…

“Excuse me Prime Minister, a salute to Lord Nelson.”

“A salute to Lord Nelson gentlemen, and the King.”

Gratefully they raised their ‘Tots’.

“Lord Nelson and the King.” Chorused the Admirals to a man, albeit somewhat mutedly. One could never be sure these days who might be listening.

They downed their ‘Tots’.

The Admiral grateful for both in the warm approval of his fellow Admirals and the warm feeling of confidence his ‘Tot’ was now beginning to give him continued.

“I’m sorry Prime Minister, but have you any conception of the fall out that could ensue should one of our vessels accidently bump into and damage one of their submarines trailing those ships. Young Henderson does the best he can with what available radar gubbins he has been able to scrounge from his brother-in-law’s TV repair shop and the Xbox thing he got for Christmas, but an accident like that could well mean curtains for Bridlington, Cromer, Dymchurch or Brighton. Weymouth would be a sitting duck; the Dawlish sea wall a goner. And were they to chose Portsmouth, well that would be it for the ‘Victory’. Too dire to contemplate Prime Minister.”

“I see, and Air Marshall, how do you perceive defending our air space, are we sending our fighters up to combat Russian over-flying?”

The Air Marshall stopped sucking his thumb and blanched. Certainly not Prime Minister, have you any idea as to the cost of our planes these days? It’s astronomic. We can’t just go sending them up into the wide blue yonder willy-nilly. They’ve got to last us until 2035, consider the wear and tear, servicing bills, and you can’t get the original parts anymore you know, we’re waiting on deliveries of orders of spares from China and you know what they’re like. Oh no, Prime Minister, sending them up is quite out of the question.”

“Then of course there’s the question of ammunition.” Muted a Brigadier.

“Ammunition Brigadier?”

“Yes Prime Minister. Firstly we don’t have a lot of it and secondly, most of it’s pretty old now so it’s anybody’s guess as to whether it still works. Could do more damage to our chaps than the Reds Prime Minister.”

“If I might intervene at this point Prime Minister,” put in the Chief of Staff bravely, “there is an interesting upside to all of this. The Ruskies have vastly more equipment than ourselves, considerably more of it. Were they to invade and take over we would of course, as an occupied country, come under their protection; be up to them to foot the bills. They also have vastly more oil and gas than us and that too would be available. Tourism should not be overlooked either Prime Minister. Overall their economy is looking pretty healthy compared to ours these days. On the up side, the oligarchs are already here and spending…”

Around the table heads nodded in agreement. The Prime Minister, head in hands asked…

“And what gentlemen am I to tell Parliament; the People?”

“The truth Prime Minister,” they chorused “after all, I think you’ll agree, it’s a pretty infallible plan.”