Folks,
Dux:
As the date on my previous post indicates, I started celebrating the FF anniversary late last evening and continue to do so tonight. Truly it is a worthy excuse for sloshing down a pint.
It is also perfectly true that I do love to celebrate and that I have even been known to contrive something less worthy out of thin air when there was nothing official to salute.
I blurrily recall raising a dripping glass to proudly toast such dubious occasions such as National Dirt Week, the first rainy day of the week, and even the anniversary of prohibition.
Folks:
Speaking of celebrating. Here is an old story from our moldering archives that seems to clebrate the heroic exploits of none other than the creator of that incomperable character, Olga. Sorry Dux.
A BIPLANE NAMED DESTINY
Originally posted by : JRT
HWH (continued)
Pg.24
10-17-2002
Deep inside a frosty open cockpit the altimeter is spinning, outside, the ground is spinning, on the inside the steely-eyed pilot feels his head and stomach spinning. Just as the airspeed begins to slow the pilot reaches down deep in the freezing cockpit and feels around near his feet for something he so desperately needs. Not since he had flown Spitfires in the Battle of Britain had he needed anything so much as he needs this.
High in the air over Red Square flies a bright red Mark 16 Comrade Steermanski biplane. Emblazoned in two-inch high letters across the cowling is the single English word “Destiny”. The biplane flies directly over the reviewing stand manned by none other than that great and selfless paragon of virtue, the acknowledged killer of millions and proclaimed leader of world wide Communism, Comrade Stalin himself.
Smoke is pouring from the plane's engine due to a short blast of mineral oil squirted into a manifold by the intrepid pilot. Upward the little plane climbs until it can go no higher. Gradually it slows and begins to slip back into a flawless Hammerhead stall.
Comrade Stalin is watching closely, his head tilted back and his hand shielding his beady little eyes from the blinding sun. There is just a trace of a smile playing across his grandfatherly face. The eyes above the broad moustache remain hard as flint.
Gaining speed in the dive the biplane begins to climb again zooming right over the ducking heads in the reviewing stand. The brilliant pilot methodically executes just about every flight manoeuvre, every aerobatics trick in the book one after another.
The crowd is thrilled; the dignitaries including Stalin are captivated and enthralled. This pilot is unanimously acclaimed by the vast multitude below to be a genius in the air. He is a patriotic Russian hero daredevil, a magician, yes, a veritable Houdiniski in an airplane. He is certainly that and more. He is English.
Also unknown to the crowd, the pilot has just drained the last drop of Vodka from a large glass bottle. Great pilot that he is, he is also sincerely and completely blotto. There is another low pass over the stands which cleanly removes a few helmets, hats and caps. This also takes down a few flags and leaves a thin streak of red across the head of the big bronze statue of comrade Lenin.
That heroic manoeuvre is followed by a steep climbing turn. Before Comrade Stalin can pick up his cap and smooth all the Brillcreamski coated strands in his thick head of hair the red biplane roars over their heads once more, this time it is higher and upside down.
As the plane passes overhead the pilot's arm rises from the cockpit and something shiny detaches itself to fall swiftly toward the stands. Still busy with his mussed hair and stooping to replace his cap Comrade Stalin fails to take evasive action in time. Prompted by screams of warning he looks up. Commie numero uno has just enough time to focus his beady eyes and read the word V-O-D-K-A on the falling missile after which everything goes completely black.
Cap gone, his hair still mussed and sporting a newly grown “goose egg” the size of an eight ball on his right temple, Comrade Stalin is loaded on a stretcher and instantly rushed right around the corner to the “Our Comrade Lady of Dubious Virtues Clinic for the Expectant but Chronically Unwed Mother”. This happens to be the nearest medical facility at hand.
Here comrade Stalin receives the best medical attention possible for his bruised noggin if not his bruised dignity. Considering that he is now fully conscious and will not stop ranting and screaming epithets like “Heads will roll, I want that #&$##$@ pilot's throat in my hands at once! Or the ever popular “Bring that $%^^$$### to me this instant. I want his brains for breakfast!” he is well treated.
Finally comrade Stalin has to be sedated so that his personal physicians can get his blood pressure a few feet out of the ionosphere. This accomplished, quiet once more descends upon the wards and the busy medical facility. The hospital begins to function again in spite of the overwhelming presence of its VIP patient.
A VIP patient who due to a deviated septum is now at work snoring loudly, his bandaged head is cradled on a soft, frilly pillow with his bloody fists clutching a snow white "Lil' Tszarina" trademark Sweet Slumberski blanket. This is comrade Stalin's very own custom made nite, nite blankie with its big red stars hand embroidered under water by gypsy slaves in Siberia. The blankie is one of several cherished items that have been rushed to him from his opulent apartments overlooking the Kremlin.
On the crowded Frank Loyd Wrightski designed nightstand beside the sleeping dictator's bed there are several personal items. There is his comrade Hopalong Cassidiski night light with the revolving red beacon and hidden code compartment, there is also a genuine comrade Little Orphan Annieski secret decoder ring and next to that there is a silver framed, black draped but smiling portrait of several of his dearest friends, only recently purged.
Stalin's little Rat Terrier “Spyderski” sits at the foot of the powerful man's bed chewing on one of Stalin's smaller toes and urinating warmly against the wall. Little Spyderski is by fortune and by breeding a “Terrier” however he is a “Rat” entirely in his own right by virtue of his unctuous and hateful temperament. He spits out a greenish toenail, scratches behind his ear, and unlike Stalin's other cronies, he starts licking his own butt for a change.
Everyone but the newly appointed bodyguard (surprisingly after the accident, the old ones are nowhere to be found) leaves the hospital to help the anti aircraft crews shoot down the offending little biplane. That biplane is still circling brazenly right over Red Square using the mineral oil smoke to write “Stalin Sucks” right there over the golden domes and spires of the Kremlin. It executes an occasional acrobatic manoeuvre just in time to avoid an AAA shell, here, or the random fire from twenty or thirty angry Red Air Force fighters, there.
These fighters have only recently arrived on the scene. Try as they may, they simply are not able to get a favourable bead on this flying Dervish of a pilot. The ranks of the attacking Russian horde are thinning. Every now and then a stray shell from the ground takes out a wing or holes a fuselage of one of the Red Air Force's own planes.
Down it tumbles in flames accompanied by tremendous huzzahs from the hopeful but painfully stigmatised anti-aircraft crews. These cries will immediately be followed by stifled groans of disgust when the error is eventually pointed out.
The miserable groans are always followed by screams of pain and anguish as the angered commissars bring their whips to bear across quivering, naked flesh.
Still the Russian artillery pounds the skies although not one shell finds its intended mark. Many shells fail even to detonate. These go on to plunge into the unsuspecting countryside beyond the capital city where multitudes of peasants are now gathering to watch what they think is a show of fireworks.
The terrific rain of friendly fire reduces several wretched hovels to a much higher state of wretchedness, sets fire to an empty church, scatters the assembled unwashed multitudes and kills three mules, all without one scratch to the biplane or to its drunken pilot.
Faced with undergoing a lengthy retraining regime under thirty feet of new fallen snow at the Greater Siberian Political Reorientation and Patriotic Rejuvenation Facility every desperate man on those artillery pieces looks up at that red biplane with a hatred that is usually reserved for his own mother-in-law. If they could get their hands on that pilot his life would not be worth squatski.
High in the air over Moscow the heroic red biplane is flitting about from cloud to cloud still unscathed. Only when the engine begins to sputter and skip does the brave and resourceful pilot have to admit that the game is just about up. His biplane is now out of gas and he is probably also out of luck.
Ducking into a handy cloud the RAF pilot wishes he had never been lent to the Ruskies to train their fighter pilots on the new IL2 attack fighter. He wishes he had never accepted the invitation to fly the Moscow aerobatics exhibition. He wishes he had more gas or at least another bottle of booze, not necessarily in that order. Both he and the biplane can fly well on either.
The motor stutters, pops and then dies completely. All is quiet. The shelling has paused for another round of beatings. It is time to get out. Somewhere a mile or two outside Moscow the brave, completely intoxicated, somewhat absentminded pilot of the red biplane waves bye, bye and bails out. And this he bravely does without benefit of his parachute.
Oopski! Trust me, there is nothing whatsoever like finding oneself at 5,000 feet falling toward earth at terminal velocity without a parachute to bring an instant sobriety to even the most alcohol befuddled or the woefully addled minded.
As a sober Old Dux looks down at the part of Russia he is about to be joined with for all eternity, he notices the houses and trees are getting bigger and bigger just like they tell you in flight school.
He really needs a drink now thinks Dux. Just as the vaguely recognisable life passing swiftly before his eyes is getting close to the present date, Dux refocuses on the ground and notices something very unusual running around directly below him. He cannot quite make out what it is. Whatever it is it is very big and moves fast for something that size. Dux bites his lip and begins to scream something loud and profane.
There is a slam like a lorry filled with nitro glycerine has hit him. The breath is completely knocked from him and the very next thing Dux is conscious of are two huge, hairy arms clutched about him, holding him tightly. There is an awful stench that reminds him of the elephant paddock at the London zoo on enema day. Someone or something has caught him and broken his fall.
That Dux knows must be impossible, yet he is still alive and unable to argue the question much beyond that point. Then as two beady little eyes and a mouth the size of a lorry hubcap comes into his view a stench like a well used latrine in August strikes him square in the face and he retches so hard he forgets to be amazed.
A voice like broken fingernails scraping along a slate chalkboard combined with the voice of a braying donkey says something almost indecipherable in very poor Russian. The words sound to the shaken Dux like “Hello, I am Olga, you are my great patriotic English pilot allied hero, I saved you from certain death, now I will protect you and I will love you and I will squeeze you and keep you safe forever.”
There follows an hour of being carried, dragged and prodded over rough, frozen terrain before a crumbling shack comes into sight. Something is burning. Dux is dragged across a stinking, filthy yard inhabited by a skinny black dog with yellow teeth, two spindly-legged chickens and a painfully undernourished hog.
There is a dead mule afire and lying across the threshold. The AAA fire has apparently snuffed him out. The dazed pilot is then picked up and carried over the dead animal bumping his aching head just going through the low doorway. "Do nod vorry aboud de dad mule Poochkie, dot veel mak us zum goot, varm sanviches", Dux heard Olga say.
He is contemplating an agonising death strangled on mule meat as he is carried across a dark, ugly room and then unceremoniously dropped in a heap on a grimy cot. Dux is wondering how things could possibly get any worse when it does.
Dux hears a loud panting begin somewhere in the gloom and as rough hands began to remove his clothing, a viscous, stinking drool drips across his upturned face. Mercifully, Dux loses his hold on consciousness as his bruised mind slips deep into darkness.
Somewhere in the gloom of a filthy hovel just outside the gates of Moscow there is heard a grunting and panting like that usually reserved for the ears of those finding themselves on the broad Serengeti plains during the Cape Buffalo's mating season. An almost lifeless form is being pulled, twisted, poked, gouged, smooched, whipped and generally held in a smothering, vicelike embrace that lasts what seems to be an eternity.
Coming to after the worst of the lovemaking is over Old Dux groans in misery and slowly looks up to see what manner of beast has attacked him in the dark. With a squeal of delight, Olga is upon him once again like white is on rice.
Previous Topic
Index