Mwynwen - The Camel Corps rides again By Diana the Valkyrie I try to imagine a fluffer porn star in a schoolgirl uniform She arrives in my office the day after I calls her, looking bright eyed and bushy tailed, breezy and cheerful like she just recently got shagged, which is more that I can say about me. "Camel Corps reporting SAH!" she shouts, saluting. "Shut up Min, and sit down. Have a cup of coffee." She pretends to sit down, but I can see she's a couple of inches above the chair. I swear she only does that because she knows it gets my goat. Bloody showoff. And that frilly little skirt she wears, I don't know what it's for, it sure ain't for modesty, covering nothing, but drawing attention to everything. and that skinny little cashmere sweater. Stop it, my lad, you're thinking evil thoughts about a junior officer. How the fuck did I get lumbered with this, anyway? Why couldn't I have a nice quiet life in the Sweeney doing blaggers, or with the Terrorist Squad? Or with those nice lads and ladies of the Vice Department? And who dreamed up the idea of calling it the "Dog Patrol" anyway, like it's going to fool anyone into thinking we had something to do with fur on four legs? All the blokes down the canteen call it "Weirds and Queers" no matter what the brass says. And here's me, Detective Inspector if you please, and all I've got is one, count 'em, one constable. And she's the weird, so what does that make me? And if I make waves, what would I get? Transferred to Traffic, most likely. Get run over by a pissed-off car driver before I reach my next birthday. So I try to keep my nose clean, and count the days to retirement. It would make sense if there really were a bunch of them. I bet that was the idea when the brass set it up. I can hear it now. "We'll get Superman, and Batman, and Wonder Woman, and we'll make then into a team ..." Compare and contrast with the balls-up that I get lumbered with. One girl, thinks she's a camel. Yeah, sure she can fly. Big deal. She can't fly very fast, she can't fly very high, she can't fly very far. OK, she got lucky with the Telecom fraud, that's looking like a collar for sure. Trouble is, the brass cream their panties at the thought of the bunch of superheroes they think they've got, and anything that's pearshaped gets dropped on me from a great height. Nice tits, though. And budget? Don't make me laugh. How much do you suppose they pay Batman? What does Superman's income tax return look like? So they think they can do it on peanuts, and if you pay peanuts, you get camels. Or something like that. And I tell them, look, chum, she can't fly around London, she has to take taxis, and taxis cost a bob or two. I mean, what. You want me to tell her to take the bus? Yes, I know buses are a lot cheaper than taxis, and yes, I know about these being financially stringent times, but get real. A camel on a bus? And we have to keep the sodding wages bill down, so she's a sodding constable, the only sodding superhero on the payroll and she's a sodding constable, now you explain that to her because I sodding can't. I get so pissed off about this. She looks at me with those big green eyes and I call her "Constable" for Christ's sake. And I know she's even more pissed off about it that I am, but she don't complain, she does the job. And then they get on my back about uniform. Look, I say. She ain't Uniform Branch, so she ain't gonna wear the Girl Guide outfit. She's Dog Patrol, so the gear is different, see? And she's not indecent, she's completely covered up. Yes, sure it's skin-tight shiny lycra, but that's not because she's trying to look like a porn star, it's to reduce air resistance. What you got to understand, is that Wonder Woman she is not, she's just a girl who happens to be able to fly, and a good slinky bodystocking makes it a whole lot easier for her to slip through the sodding air, and if you got on your sodding bike and pedalled round a sodding racetrack you'd sodding well soon find out why that is, instead of poncing around in your official cars like Lord High Muck-a-muck all day long, and ... Yessir. Sorry sir. I got a bit carried away there sir, won't happen again sir. And she carries civvies so that when she does land she can make herself look like everyone else. Well, ok, maybe not quite like everyone else, but it's hardly her fault that she's six foot three, is it? Yes, they are rather big, no, they ain't fake, no, I don't know for sure, I'm taking her word for it. No, she don't have bracelets that deflect bullets, someone fires a gun at her, she goes down and stays down same as you and me. Yes sir, same with a knife, if you cut her, does she not bleed? Yes sir, she sodding well does. Gordon Bennett, be nice to have a real squad. Like them nuns down by Borchester, they take names and kick ass, Borchester is a nice quiet little town. Or maybe a team of Valkyries; fight all day and fuck all night and be ready for the same again next day. But what am I lumbered with? One sodding Camel. One loony dame who thinks she's the Red Baron. And when it comes to action, buckets of blood and rivers of gore, she's not even got the guts to be a vegetarian, she's a sodding vegan. Jesus. But she's what I got, and we do a good team. She fights for Truth, Justice and the British Way of Life and I do my best to keep the higher sodding management in the funny farm we call Scotland Yard from stabbing us both in the sodding back. Sometimes I think, one false move and I'm in Traffic faster than you can say "Jack Robinson", and what would they do with her? Air Traffic Control, I bet you. Or chasing the pigeons off Lord Nelson, most likely. "Oh, and by the way, word's come down from the top brass. Stop taking taxis, you gotta take the bus." "You're kidding" "No, Min, times is hard, budgets is tight, no more black cabs, you gotta hop on a bus." "Aw, c'mon, chief." "Don't call me chief". "I'm not sure they'd even let me on a bus wearing my Camel outfit, there's never a bus when you want one, and I can't even stand up straight inside them." "Bus". "OK, so let me get this straight. I'm chasing some bank robber, he dives into a getaway car, zooms off, I find the nearest bus stop." "Min, you don't chase bank robbers." "Well, if I did." "But you don't" "Or a mugger" "You don't do muggers." "Well." "Right." She stands up and puts her hands on her hips, and starts to look angry. God, I love it when she looks like that. Down, boy. Down. "Here's what you can do with your sodding bus ..." "Min ... " " ... and here's what you can do with your sodding job ..." and she throws her library ticket at me. "That's your library ticket" " ... and you can shut your sodding cake hole too." She throws herself back down into the chair, heavily. The chair tips over backwards and dumps her on the floor. She's not very good at that sort of thing. Sometimes I forget; things that I can do without thinking, she just isn't much good at. Of course, there's things she can do that no-one else I know of can. She lays there winded, looking like she's about to burst into tears. " ... Min ... look ... you're really good at what you're doing, if it weren't for you International Telecom would still be ripping everyone off rotten. And it sucks dead bears that they treat you like this, but I can tell you they treat me just as bad." I walk around the desk and offer her a hand to help her up. Not that I think she needs a hand, obviously. It's more a gesture of support. Of course, what I really want to do was give her a big hug and wipe her eyes and blow her nose, but you do that with the junior officers these days and you're out the door sharpish. She stands up, and before I can do anything about it, she kisses me. On the cheek, worse luck. "Oh, Cameron, I know it's not your fault, but I get so pissed off sometimes about their attitude, I could spit." "That's Inspector Cameron" I say, gruffly. "Look, Min, I'm gonna leave this to your discretion. You need to take a taxi, you take that cab. You're not in a hurry, you go by bus. OK?" "Deal", she says. "OK, listen up, constable. This is a personnel protection mission." "A what?" "Bodyguard, Min". "What, me?" "Right. Throw yourself into the path of the bullets, that sort of thing." "Er, you do know, don't you?" "What?" "I'm not exactly Superman, you know. Bullets don't bounce off me." "No?" "No. They sort of more like go straight through me, killing me and whatever happens to be behind me." "Yeah, well. You'll get a standard issue Kevlar bullet-resistant vest." "You mean bullet-proof." "No, I mean bullet-resistant. If anyone's using a popgun, you'll be fine." "If they aim at my vest" "Right". "What about my head?" "Use your skull." "Aw, c'mon chief." "Don't call me chief." "Inspector. This is crazy." "Listen up now" I got that from John Wayne, it sounds good. "The idea is, you don't get shot at in the first place, and if you do, then you just leg it as fast as you can and call in for backup. Heroes is fine, dead heroes ain't." "And you'll send .. ?" "The entire department" "I am the entire department." "No you aren't, there's two of us." "Oh. Right. So when someone starts pounding on me, I call up some fifty year old overweight slightly bent copper who hasn't been on the beat for twenty years and he gets to me some time next week. I see." I throw a mobile phone at her. Our budget don't stretch to radios. "Carry this, report in every day, if you need backup dial 999 and ask for 'Police Emergency' just like everyone else does" "So what's the job?" "Listen up now". Oops, I already said that. "Here's the pukka gen." See, I know the RAF slang too. "It's all about Ruristan. The state ain't exactly stable, and right now, it's a bleeding parliamentary monarchy, but the fundamentalists are pushing for a sodding theocracy, and the whole thing would be run by the bloody priests. The bleeding king is keeping the whole thing together, but he's not exactly a young fish any more." "You want me to bodyguard a king?" She smiles. She does look nice when she smiles. Nice tits, too. "No, shut up and listen for a change. It's his stupid daughter. Princess May. She'll inherit when he pops his clogs ..." "Queen of the May?" "Ha ha very funny. But if she ain't around to inherit, then when the bleeding king kicks the bleeding bucket, the bloody priests will try to take over, and there'll be blood in the streets." "So why is this our problem? Surely that's for the James Bond department?" I sigh. Chance'd be a fine thing. "Trouble is, Min, she ain't there, she's here." "What?" "She ain't in Ruristan, she's at Greyfriars." "Greyfriars school?" "Right. She's Upper Sixth there, doing her A levels" "What's she doing?" "How the fuck do I know. Advanced Queening, I s'pose. Anyway, the whisper is that there's a firm been paid to knock her off." "Which firm?" "If anyone knows, they didn't tell me, so we can't go at it that way round. All we can do is put someone in place to foil the dastardly plot." I always wanted to say that. Min frowns. "In place?" I grin. "Yes, Min. You're going back to school." Very nice tits. I explain the deal. "You'll be joining the Upper Sixth as a boarder. Buy some togs for a school uniform, you're gonna be eighteen." "What am I studying?" "How the fuck do I know, sort that out when you get there." "I'm not doing this all by myself" "I'm the only other possibility, and I'm not going to pretend to be a green kid of eighteen. They'd wonder about the sodding bald patch for a start." "I didn't mean you. I was thinking of ..." "Of who?" "Er." "You know someone?" "Well. Yes." "Who." "Well. Er. She calls herself the Duchess." I close my eyes. Oh gawd. A camel and a duchess. Give me strength. "Her real name's Linda Daventry" I open one eye. "Linda Daventry?" She nods. I open the other eye, giving a total of two eyes open, in case you haven't been keeping count. "The Linda Daventry?" "Er." "The fluffer porn star?" "Yes." Blimey. At this point it would be dramatically right to open a third eye; sadly drama is over-ruled by insufficient eye-count. "Gordon Bennett. You know Linda Daventry?" She winces and sighs. "Yes." I try to imagine a fluffer porn star in a schoolgirl uniform. Unnnhh. Then I try to imagine Min dressed up as a schoolgirl. This case is beginning to look better already. "Sure, get the Duchess if you think that'll help. I'll get a place at the school sorted, take care of her school fees and such. When it's all over, you can both come back here and give me your report." Wow. Linda Daventry. I heard she can ... with both ... followed by ... I'll think about that later. "Uh, what about pay, chief?" "Don't call me chief" "We can't ask her to do this for free." I thought about that. How much do you pay a top fluffer? She must be rolling in it. Well paid, too. Jeez, a fluffer like her, the world's in her hands. Well, various parts of it would be quite eager to get into her hands. "How much will we have to pay her?" "She should get at least what I'm getting." Constable's wages. Sounds fine to me. Only the dogs get paid less, and that's only because they haven't unionised. "OK, you can tell her she'll get constable payscale." "Thanks chief" "DON'T CALL ME CHIEF" "Yes boss." Sigh. "OK, then. Carry on, Constable!" "Yes SAH!!!" Extremely nice tits.