The Wake of Britannia: Part Two
“Hang on” whispered Lady Mika as she crept towards the wretched din. Sir Lee and Admiral Smith shadowed her. The Admiral, unbeknownst to the Lady, had already decided that they wouldn’t be turning back, and his fingers had closed over the handle of his blade, his jaw set in a grim and determined line.
“Butcher Butcher, Bitch Bitch, Murder Murder, Party Party. Phil-lies Phil-lies, time to get violent…”
Lady Mika could see something, no, someone, crushed between the thrashing legs of the sexually engaged Phillies. It was a woman, screaming with her arms folded over her head. Through the pale flesh of the Phillies, Lady Mika could see the woman’s dark skin as well as vibrant streaks of red.
“M’ Lady” said Sir Lee in an even tone “you know we’re outnumbered, like, ten to one? If we start something, they could fuck us up badly”.
“Butcher Butcher, Bitch Bitch, Phillie Phillie, Party Party, Green- Snake, Let’s- Shake, time to get violent…”
Green Snakes?
“Green snakes!” yelled Admiral Smith, drawing his knife and surging forward “You hear that? Green snakes! That’s a soldier down there!”
“Smithy, wait!” shouted Lady Mika but there was no stopping him. The Lady didn’t blame her favourite Admiral. His grandfather had been in the army. There was no way he would let the Phillies attack something so valued by his family.
Lady Mika wished she had gone Sir Lee’s route. She swore and drew her own knife. Sir Lee mimicked this action and the two of them charged after the Admiral, silent and deadly.
The Phillies didn’t notice the Royalists until it was too late for them. Lady Mika saw one of them: a tall, naked and pot-bellied individual with greasy hair look up from the slide he was taking a shit on with alarm before she launched herself over the fence and dived at the mob of sadists, the tip of her blade gagging for blood. She drove her knife into the flank of the nearest Phillie-an overweight and pink skinned fellow with a blonde goatee-who squealed wetly and stumbled away from her. The sound of his flab sliding off her steel was sickening. Blood gushed from underneath the fellow’s pink fingers as he galloped to safety. The Phillies scattered, howling and hurling abuse as they retreated. A girl with the word: CUNT tattooed from the bottom of her stomach to the dip in between her breasts hesitated to glare at Lady Mika. The female Phillie was crying and her molten eyeshadow ran down her face in red, purple and black streaks.
Admiral Smith fell upon a naked man with glasses, his knife-arm rising and falling mechanically and his face ablaze with spittle and sweat. Sir Lee charged at two shirtless gentlemen, slashing at the air in between the dark-skinned female soldier and the Phillies. One of the shirtless gentlemen burst into tears and fled. The other hesitated and then followed his artless comrade.
The commotion was over as soon as it had begun. The Phillies had all fled, except for the one that the Admiral was still plunging his knife into, even though the short-sighted bastard had long since stopped twitching. Lady Mika licked her lips and edged towards the Admiral who was rambling as he continued to kill the Phillie corpse.
“Fucking bastards after all they done for us all they done for our country my fucking granddad fought and fucking lost his leg for you pieces of- “
“Hey” barked Lady Mika, doing her best to hide the tremor from his voice. Admiral Smith didn’t seem to hear her, so she repeated the call: “Hey!”
Admiral Smith snapped his head up to look at her. His eyes were bloodshot and leaking tears and his white pallor had been tainted by a fine spray of blood. Slowly, he pulled his knife from a gaping hole in the Phillie’s chest and wiped it on the corpse’s ragged face.
“I think you got him” said Lady Mika quietly. Admiral Smith nodded dumbly, shivering and stood up to admire his handiwork with an ashen face. Lady Mika wanted to hug him. She also wanted to slit his stupid fucking throat. How had things gotten so fucked up? One second, they had been on their way to the Dame’s Bookshop to enjoy a decent cup of tea-Earl Grey for her-and some Class A contraband literature and now she and Sir Lee were accessories to murder. Admiral Smith’s murder. She tightened her grip on her knife. The urge to stab Smithy was so consuming it was almost orgasmic. If only he’d listened to her. If he hadn’t suggested this stupid fucking route-
“M’ Lady, can you help me?” called Sir Lee in a tone of voice that begged her not to refuse. Lady Mika put away her dark thoughts for another time and turned to her fellow Royalist. Sir Lee was crouched on his haunches next to the dark-skinned woman, trying to soothe her. She was too young to be a soldier, but the Green Beret and bloodied training vest indicated that she was a cadet. Scattered and stamped into the tarmac around the girl were dozens of leaflets baring the British flag with the caption: BORN IN THE ARMY, confirming Lady Mika’s suspicion. Now it made sense. Phillies despised soldiers, politicians, authors and Oinkers-although that didn’t stop them doing everything to vie for their protection. The chant: “Butcher Butcher, Bitch Bitch” was part of a ritualistic torture that the Phillies liked to carry out against anyone and anything they viewed as part of the “Establishment”.
