The RAZZ - chapter 17

© surmon 2009

We all live in a Red Submarine

The darkness wasn’t all that eternal. It wasn’t all that dark either – sort of a murky half-light filled with strange voices and stifling smells. As I became aware of my surroundings I also became aware that I was responsible for one of those smells. I desperately needed to change my nappy.

Now, I haven’t been inside many sharks – probably less than the average person, such is my inexperience in these things – but this was most definitely the strangest shark’s guts I’d ever been in.   It was mostly made of metal, for a start, and it seemed to be full of solid, ugly-looking men who looked like they were cast in concrete but smelled like the zoo on a warm, humid day.  I sat up from the hard, flat bunk I was lying on and one of the slabs of concrete called loudly, in seriously fractured English that was heavy with a thick Ukraine sauce:

“Ha! Ivanovitch, your new political captive is alive, but he’s not wery vell, he smells like he’s dead!”

“You can talk,” I thought to myself, “…you smell like a burger-cook’s armpit.”

As I looked around me I started to have some doubts as to whether I was actually in a shark. It certainly smelled a bit like I’d imagine the inside of a shark would but it looked more like what I imagined a submarine would look like from the inside.

Of course, I could have been inside a whale and these people could be the greatest collection of un-regurgitated and therefore unpublicised Jonahs existing.

The idea that I had died and gone to heaven was unthinkable. I knew I had been a bit misguided throughout my short life but to wind up here would be far too unjust a punishment for my kind of misdemeanors.

The submarine idea was starting to congeal in my mind when someone who looked like a brick of muscle wearing a cap appeared. He grinned at me, revealing a gobful of yellowed teeth.

“And vot iss yooer namink, eh? And vot vere you doink vay out dere in the ocean like that?” he breathed loudly at me.

His breath was hit me like a kick in the face. I thought perhaps I’d found Piggy Sullivan’s father or at least one of his close relatives.

“My name.......er.......Nige..er.....the Razz,” I replied, trying to keep out of range of his breath. “What’s all this about? Gobbling up innocent surf heroes like me...?”

“Gobblink? Gobblink? Who iss gobblink here? I would like to meet this person vot is gobblink...Ha! Ha! Ha! No, mister Nigertherazz, ve iss not gobblink. Ve is collectink great political statesmen from your country to train for our intelligence operations.”

I was about to tell him what I thought of his intelligence when I noticed, hanging about in the shadows, the same familiar face I’d recognised before.

“Who’s that,” I demanded. “I’ve seen him somewhere before.”

“Who’s vot? Dere iss no one there but old Harry. Ve found him a lonk time ago juss like we fine you. He iss nearly ready to finishink his training and ve hope he vill be able to infiltrate your old people’s home and discover great political secrets for his new mother country.

“But you are a young vellow. Ven ve vinisch with you training you will still be 50 years young and giff us at least 60 years of good information.”

What a great idea!!! These blokes had been breathing bad air for too long. I had to get off that tub and fast, before I started to think it was a good idea.

I don’t know how I get mixed up in these things. Those mongrels back on the beach are probably tucking into hot tea and buttered crumpets while I have to entertain a bunch of Cossack Costeaus with a spy complex. I chose to meet the challenge head-on and look for an escape route at the earliest opportunity.

“Right,” I said, “If this is going to be home for the next 50 years how about turning the lights on so I can see who I’m talking to!”

“Ho, ho,ho! You iss talkink to me, Nigertherazz. You haff juss been out in the sun for too lonk. You vill get use to the light in here. Harry did.”

“Yes, well I’d like to meet this Harry, or at least get a good look at him. How about showing me around this sardine tin.”

“Ziss iss no sardine tin! By Kruschev’s Krack, ziss iss one of the finest submarines in the Soviet Navy. You muss come look at it – see for yournself.”

There was no doubt that the sub was a long and sleek machine, but my tour through the vessel was memorable for some other things.

One: it was so dark you could hardly see any thing; two: I always felt that the Harold character was never far away, peering at me from behind a bulkhead or a stack of pipes; and three: the Russians had discovered a method of generating power in a sub in a way that only the Russians could do.

The ‘executive’ recreation room – an idea suggested to them by their resident Australian political envoy – had two static exercise cycles – hooked up to electrical generators! The crew had to take turns at exercising, two by two.  At least that explained why there was only a gloomy half-light inside the flaming thing.  I was too scared to ask what they used for fuel to actually power the sub in case I was told to do something specific with my bodily wastes.

“Come, Nigertherazz,” rumbled the captain, “ We muss eat the breakvast now.”

This would be good.

The crew took breakfast in shifts, cramming about a dozen men into a small dining room.

Breakfast seemed to consist of hard dry and mainly dark brown cakes, and a thick dark liquid that passed as coffee. One sip of that stuff and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. It was awful.   I was dying for a drink of plain water so I got up to look for water fountain. I ended up in the galley which was attended by the hairiest smelliest cook in the world — possibly even further afield than that.

“Water’” I asked of him, “water? Vater”

He pointed to a tap over a greasy sink but when I turned it on the stuff that came out of it looked like mud and a smelled suspiciously like effluent. Maybe it was a better idea to drink the coffee.  But while I was there I noticed they had, up on some roll-proof shelves, huge flagons of clear liquid.

“Distilled water! That’s what I want – cup of tea made with distilled water.

I motioned to the guy with the inbuilt fur coat if I could have some of the contents of the big containers. He gave me a big grin and nodded. He grinned even more as I tipped some into a large saucepan. All I needed now was to find a teabag and a clean cup – as soon as I could light he gas ring.

“Got a light?” I asked of the human rug. He pointed to the dull, yellow light bulb on the wall.

“No, I mean matches, oh...captain! Glad to see you. Have you got a match?” I asked of the brick that had appeared in the doorway...”Ta!”

“Vot do you intendink vit my match?” he asked.

“I just want to make a cup of tea with this water.”

“Tea vit Wodka?” he queried.

“Wa - ter...” I explained as I struck the match to light the gas flame.

The captains eyes widened with terror.....”No, No!” he roared, “Iss pure WODKA! Go Boom!”

BOOOOOM!!!

He was right. It went Boom. And it was a hell of a BOOM! After what seemed an eternity I came to my senses and saw a thick cloud of smoke that obscured everything. There was rubbish and stuff everywhere and I couldn’t seem to find the floor – or at least a flat surface to stand on. The activity level reminded me of an ant’s nest, broken open by some sadistic kid. Also, I was damn near deaf.

As I scrambled to get a footing I came face-to-face with the captain. He was glowing red with anger – the colour of a red house brick. He looked mad.   It was time to leave, if I could, so I started crawling on my hands and knees as fast as I could over the warped and trash-littered surfaces with the captain and a growing number of the Russkies in hot pursuit. I had no idea what sort of door or window I was looking for but I was off.

It seemed the great hot vodka explosion had turned the sub from a sleek, stealthy, sea-worthy craft into a jolly, giant black beach ball that was now rolling in the water as the weight of the people inside it shifted, just like that big Coke ball on the TV some time ago.

I was finding it difficult to keep ahead of my pursuers when all of a sudden I ran into “young ‘Arry”. He looked bewildered.

“Follow me,” I said, “We’re getting out of here!” Just like the movies! But I did think it was my chance to lead the poor old bugger to freedom; so he can swim in the surf again, fun-loving and free.

“Just wait a second or two for me,” Harry said and disappeared through the gloom.

The crowd was almost on top of me when Harry returned with a pair of flippers, a snorkel and face mask, slightly perished but good enough for a hasty escape.

“This way,” Harry said, “I know a way out.”

We took off at a remarkable rate of knots, on our knees. The growing group of pursuers was making our going uphill because they were keeping their part of the sub-ball lower than ours so I was pretty relieved when Harry said:  “Here we are.  Get in and we’ll close the hatch behind us.”

Whatever we were in actually smelled worse than the inside of the sub. It came as no surprise to learn that it was the garbage ejector chute. As it filled up with compressed air Harry said take a deep breath, we’re going to shoot out in the water.

Shoot out in the water my foot! The sub-ball was floating on the top of the water and the garbage ejector chute shot us up in the air like cannon balls. Not like real fast cannon balls but up we went in the daylight and splashed down in the ocean about 20 metres from the sub-ball.

A hatch on the sub-ball opened and some Russkies appeared, waving and shouting at us but they were having a bit of trouble keeping the window up the right way. The crew inside the sub-ball must have been moving around inside causing the bears at the hatch to yell at us and the crew below alternatively.

I looked around for Harry but couldn’t find him for a second or two. Suddenly he surfaced, half way between me and the sub-ball, spitting water, gasping and floundering. He’d tried to put on his swimming gear but it wasn’t doing him any good. I called to him but he went under again.

It seemed pretty obvious that the old bugger couldn’t swim; or he’d forgotten how. I struck out towards him hoping to do a lifesaver act on him but in the meantime the russkies had thrown him a rope which he immediately latched on to. Before I could reach him the bears had towed him back to the sub-ball and  - I supposed - the security he was used to. Sad, really, I was looking forward to a little acknowledgement for the longest surf rescue in history.

The headlines faded from my mind as I watched the Russkies haul Harry back on board, shake their fist at me and slam shut the hatch. As I treaded water I heard them start up the motor and watched the propeller spin uselessly in the air. Then, as the captain became aware of the problem and ordered the crew to shift positions inside the great black ball, the prop slowly swung round to dip in the water and the sub-ball moved off.

It wasn’t as simple as that; it was quite comical. Every little movement the crew made inside the sub-ball caused the thing to roll and lift the prop out of the water, where it would spin wildly in the air before dipping back into the sea. Thus the black orb alternately buzzed and chugged a random zigzag path across the ocean, slowly, but ever further out to sea.

I found myself alone, treading water almost a kilometre out from the beach. It was a long swim in but I made it easier by imagining there were sharks chasing me – something that wasn’t too difficult out there in the murky depths.

It was with some relief that I saw the welcoming party waiting on the beach; the loyal and anxious Ronnie, a couple of desperate journalists and a cop.

It was with some disappointment that I actually met them. The journalists pounced on me before I touched dry land, falling over each other to hear the story first. But their faces blanked when I told them the gist of it. They insisted they weren’t tabloid journalists, slowly closing their ears and notebooks, and wandered off, looking for pieces of erotically shaped driftwood that might have an interesting story attached.

The cop started to get anxious to look into to a ‘big’ robbery. Someone had knocked off the Blind dog collection box outside a chemist shop.

Ronnie believed my story because she had seen something behind me in the water. She even checked me out for teeth marks after greeting me like something in a movie scene, running down the beach, arms reaching out, but it wasn’t long before she shifted the accent of her concern, just like a mother who, once she knows you’ve returned safely, belts you round the earholes for causing her trouble and then goes back to the ironing.

“What made you think you had to prove something, Razz? We were all worried. We were on the news with the TV cameras and all;  it was awful. Some of the kids got into trouble, they hadn’t told their parents it was a mixed weekend away.

“Damien’s copped hell from his folks because of you. They’re going to take his car allowance away.  And he won’t be allowed to drive the convertible, and Ingrid’s Mum has phoned my mum and ....”

I started to go deaf. Not really deaf – I just didn’t hear anything much after that. My brain got locked in a test pattern and I could hardly think. I felt cheated out of everything. The Russians were disappearing over the horizon, soundly vanquished by me, and the only thing that will be remembered about the event is that I caused Damien to lose his right to play with one of his family’s toys.

It was a hard lesson I learned that day about being a hero : Only those who perform heroic deeds to an admiring or amazed audience get the fame and acclaim. Save the world in secret but try to tell someone later, and you’re just a liar.

I dragged my feet back to the house, packed my stuff in my bag and wandered off down the beach, in the direction of home. I could see myself as a tragic martyr, trudging wearily homeward after a great unsung crusade in a foreign land, leaving a solitary line of footprints in the sand, with the anguished words of my loved one echoing in my ears...”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? You can’t walk all the way home! Razz – Nigel, come back, you deadshit!”

o-0-o

To; Chapter 18 - Going Home