Folks,

Dux:

You certainly do deserve to be rewarded, however C51 bestowed that coveted award without so much as consulting the HWH Officer in charge of High Honors, Gardening, Custodial and or Janitorial duties... namely me. Unfortunately, due to an unconscionable oversight, we are completely out of autographed photos of the royal family and engraved brass spittoons.

As both these valuable items are clearly and precisely required on page 1533, paragraph 300, sentence 16, sub paragraph 72a of the HWH by-laws proscribing rewarding excellence in poetry, it may be some weeks yet before we are able to present you with your just deserts. Those hand wrought brass spittoons have to be special ordered from a small remote village in upper Spidonaya that is reachable only by mule train and only then in the 2 warmer months when the temperatures are a moderate 20 degrees below zero (-29 C.).

My abject apologies for this most unfortunate inconvenience. I have already dispatched my batman Lee-Roy to the Palace for more photos. He goes there with strictest instructions that, in the unlikely event they once again refuse him entry, he is to, at the very least, snap a few candid photos through the gilded black bars of the carefree royals cavorting about. Lee-Roy was assured that returning without same will be cause for a punishment so dire and so intensely severe that it is far too unpleasant even to relate here.

I chanced upon Ilsa just last evening. For 'chanced upon' you may substitute 'she saw me before I saw her'. Ilsa was just stepping out of Messieurs Woodrow, Swimm and Dunke, holders of the Monarch's warrant and purveyors of fine nautical attire since the year Dot. Demonstrating several blindingly fast and impressive Karate moves, Ilsa became somewhat out of breath and so she leaned against the dimly lit show window to light a fag. Who knew plate glass could bend so without breaking? After blowing a cloud of acrid smoke right into my face, which, by the way, gave me a terrific buzz until well after this morning's breakfast, she explained why she was so stylishly dressed as a WW1 British sailor.

It seems she is off to the colonies, booked upon one of the finest British tramp steamers still more or less afloat, the HMS Barnacle Bottom. Ilsa smiled enticingly at a stranger as he hurriedly passed and, getting no response, she turned a disappointed face back to me to brag that the Barnacle Bottom's keel was laid 50 years before she was. She claims that the captain personally showed her shell holes well below the waterline from the battle of Jutland that are still plugged with nothing but the crew's chewing gum. I stopped her and said I was not aware of any tramp steamers in Adm. Beaty’s flotilla. Before I could suggest that her ship might have been in that other fleet, Ilsa frowned and simply ignored me. We chatted on until the poor lass had a call of nature. This caused her to let go my wrist. As she turned her back to me and was squatting over a handy street drain, I quickly and quietly made my exit.

At any rate, the departing Ilsa, half sister of Olga, separated at birth by drunken Gypsies and raised in Germany by defrocked Mormon priests, sends her best regards to one and to all. She said that she was praying for you Dux. This startled me at first until she mentioned that she had just seen Olga waiting for a taxi. Olga, she said, was headed to our airfield toting a shotgun.

I heard no disturbance during the night Dux, no screams, no shotgun blasts, so I must assume that Olga and the taxi driver took a tiny detour. May God rest his soul. It must be getting a bit stinky by now but I'd stay under that bed for a few more days if I were you Dux. It is dark under there and thus hard to get a good sight picture over the glistening Damascus barrel of an old Cockke and Shootem 12 bore. Plus that genuine Anna Nicole brand "Blushingly Pink" fluffy bedding might stop at least some of the shot.

Where did you buy that stuff Dux? I only ask because I noticed C51's Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys comforter hanging on the line this morning and it is getting a bit threadbare.

Speaking of threadbare, here is a short story titled "To the Rescue" that is rather threadbare, in fact it is rather bare of most everything, especially talent. Read it if you must, there are masochists in every bunch, just don't say that I never warned you.

To the Rescue
By JRT
HWH cont.
Page One
1/5/02

Major Paul Gootennacht was the most recent issue of a long line of fine German soldiers. Paul had always considered himself to be an excellent military aviator and a Prussian-like stickler for discipline. To use an American term for it, he favored “spit and polish”. As a flight cadet the shine on his boots was said to rival that of the sun itself.
And yet, today, as he looks down at his boots he notices that they are dull and scorched. His usually pristine uniform hangs around him in tatters. Long strips of his powder blue flight suit billow out as the rushing air toys with them and tries to tear them away.

The Major’s keen blue eyes follow the burning hulk of his bullet riddled BF 109E as it leaves a oily smirch across the sky in a long, final arc that ends in a powerful splash and a plume of water a hundred feet high.

He too falls toward the waiting depths of the cold English Channel. Paul falls more slowly though, swinging to and fro under a snapping, popping, full canopy of smoothest silk.

Poor Paul feels every jerk, tug and every pop. The fresh sea air vibrates through the shroud lines and causes them to whistle and sing. Looking down, the decorated German flyer sees that he can make out individual white caps now. Soon he will feel the Channel’s icy grasp in a freezing spray of salty bubbles.

At 16,000 feet a battle still rages through the towering sun lined mountains and dark cumulus canyons of an August afternoon. It is a battle in which no quarter is asked or offered as pilots of fighter and bomber alike twist and turn to save their own lives or to purposely snuff out that of others.

Higher still, long threads of twisted, knotted contrails witness other layers of the deadly conflict. Hundreds risk their lives today for their country. Many will give their lives and all their tomorrows.

Here and there long, greasy, black streaks rip across puffy cloud and blue sky. These are the final scratches made on the canvas of a world at war by far too many fine men on both sides. These ugly streaks hang for a time and point, like the angry, accusing fingers of God toward the watery graves, newly filled, that will never be visited.

It is now, and unknown to me, that one of the greatest names in the illustrious history of the RAF is busy just trying to keep me alive. Not knowing that help is at hand, I find myself and my Spitfire Mk1 upside down and falling steeply toward a dense cloud.

That in itself is not bad. What is bad is that I am not alone. I am being followed all too closely by a pair of the generally unsociable Luftwaffe’s most grouchy members. They have already shot away much of my airplane, my confidence and my pride. Did I mention that I’d spotted two more yellow nosed devils rushing to the aid of their “outnumbered” comrades?
It is at this pregnant moment when life hangs by a thread of a thread and feverishly teeters in the balance that I am mentally checking off things like: Is my insurance paid up? Have I signed that last copy of the will? Who will feed my goldfish?

It is also at this moment that the stout fellow I've mentioned finally is able to even the odds somewhat by pinging a few unfriendly but well placed .303s into and around the cockpit area of my two pursuers.

The yellow-nosed boys are suddenly and inhospitably reminded of pressing engagements that require their immediate attention and return to mainland France. In a moment, I am free of all torment and safe within the dark bosom of a friendly cloud.

At last, I am streaking for home with another kill to my credit and my lovely Spit in tatters but still airworthy. As I break from the darkness of cloud into a low but blinding sun I am startled to see a shadow fall slowly between my glistening Perspex canopy and the sun. It is a jolly Spit and I instantly recognize the markings. So this was the brave fellow who dropped by in a timely fashion to save my goldfish from starving.

The blizzard of chatter on the R/T has quieted now and I hear the dulcet tones of Wing Leader Old Dux as he calmly reports the damage to my ride home. Into the setting sun we glide over the Channel while gradually losing altitude on a certain course toward home and a hot meal.

Below, on a course toward France a fast motor launch is swiftly thumping along through the spray and over the waves. Seated comfortably out of the wind and spray, wrapped in warm blankets, one large snapps already warming his gizzard, Major Paul Gootennacht bounces wearily along toward what passes for home these days. His eyes are closed and a smile warms his lips as he thinks of the hot bath and warm bed waiting for him.

The shivering man opens his heavy eyes to ask for another snapps. The major only glances up from the shadows momentarily to see the waning sunlight glint upon the wings of two British Spitfires as they pass high overhead and completely unnoticing.