Thuglyffe

9


"I have quite a lot of experience in mysterious white stains, and white fluids generally, for mysterious white stains almost always start out - in my experience - as mysterious white fluids." This is what the rather handsome woman of indiscriminae age was saying in her Art Restoration Barn and Villa in the quaint Tuscan village of Spaghetti Lodge, Pizzapalazzo, Tuscany. "This is an awesome painting by the way, Captain Thuglyffe," she added turning an appreciative eye on that budding young artist. "Wherever did you find such an ugly repellant ghastly Scoshobbit as your model? He is indeed a horror among horrors, even as Scotshobbits go. I knew one once, and this one must be his vile and despicable twin surely."

Orwell studied the painting carefully - as he always did - and said, "Repugnant, yes, but a strange beauty resonates. Though now I wonder if that strange beauty lies in the model himself, repulsively beautiful, or purely in the hand of the artist?"

"It's a strange gangrel beast hobbit on a ship's cabin bed by the looks of it," said the Artwork Restorer.

"That's almost what I titled it," Thuglyffe gasped. "You have a fine eye for Artwork, Mrs Julia Figg."

"Mrs Julia Figg!" Orwell exclaimed and frowned in thought. "Do i know you?"

Mrs Julia Figg gave him an enigmatic look, possibly Mona Lisan and - even as I write - Orwell had a sudden thrill course right through his body which he usually reserved for handsome young men.

"And you, Sir, whose bearing might be Regal but for the flabbiness of your face and midriff, and the lined and rutted wrinkliness about your eyes, do I know you? Or have I known you, Biblically perhaps?" And with that, 'Have I known you, Biblically perhaps', Orwell felt a strange stirring in his loins (artistically speaking), which he usually reserved for handsome young men.

Orwell blushed, "The way you say 'known' almost has a suggestive quality, Mrs Julia Figg." And he blushed again, embarrassed to have burst out with such an impetuous statement on his first encounter (apparently) with such a voluptuous and attractive Artwork Restorer in her Barn and Villa! I mean, he hoped Mrs Julia Figg didn't think he was being forward.

"Let's return to the contemplation of this mysterious white stain upon the painting," Mrs Julia Figg said smoothly, her tone like honey, but her eyes moved not one inch from their keen attending on Orwell's own.

Orwell felt even hotter in the face. "I think it must be mayonaise, Mrs Julia Figg. Or tartare sauce..."

"Or something else, perhaps," Mrs Julia Figg breathed. "Something, perhaps, far more elemental and vital." And not for one moment did her eyes remove themselves from his.

"Who the fuck's tale is this anyway?" Thuglyffe interupted their moment petulantly. "Can you just tell us what the mysterious white stain is and we'll be off."

"Well, in that case, it seems I must attend to the solving of this stainy puzzle," Mrs Julia Figg breathed succulently, sounding very much like Marilyn Monroe in the Seven Year Itch.  

Mrs Julia Figg now leaned over her restorer's bench where she had laid Thuglyffe's "Horrible Beast Hobbit on a Cabin Bed." And Orwell could not help noticing the very fine old fashioned feminine roundness of her buttocks through her sumptuously flowing white gown, which gown he couldn't help thinking was slightly impractical for a professional Art Restorer if using solvents and paint, but this was Romantic Tuscany, wasn't it?

"How will you learn what that mysterious white stain is?" he asked, both unaccountably thrilled by her comely shapes and proportions, and distressed that she may find out what that mysterious white substance actually was and, worse still, who's it was.

"I use the tongue for this kind of work," Mrs Julia Figg breathed. And Orwell caught a swift glance she directed at him. "Everything has it's own set of flavours," she added breathily. "Whether Greek, or Italian, French, Nordic, South Sea Islander or..." and here she paused a pivotal moment before adding, "Australian."

Orwell blushed a deep beetroot, though part of him felt sudden recognition and reassurance.

"Girlie Orwell loves melons now and bananas are for girlies," Allygator said suddenly.

Orwell blinked. Was Allygator making some kind of sense for a change?

"Enough!" Thuglyffe yelled. "This is My tale, not Orwell's." And she snatched up her painting and stormed out of Mrs Julia Figg's Restorers Barn and Villa.

Allygator followed her like a Whelsh puppy dog. Once the two girls were out in that rustic Tuscan street with the autumn sun smiling benignly on the turning leaves, Thuglyffe yelled. "Well, are you coming, Girlie Orwell?""

"Some may well be speculating that that is exactly the situation, Captain Thuglyffe," Allygator said. "They have locked the door, I see!"

"You are esoteric beyond belief!" Thuglyffe shouted at her. And she took Allygator's hand and dragged her off in the direction of South East Asia.


to be continued...

   



     


 

"

10


It was 1838 according to the Forumshire Reckoning, and Historians - with the power of hindsight - now see it for a particularly bad year for young unaccompanied women attempting to travel to South East Asia. For all roads (it's said) in that Bleak and Disturbing Year lead to Australia, and that country has always been known - except by young unaccompanied females - as a veritable cesspool of pirates, blackguards, ravishers, looters, rooters, convicts and highwaymen, called Bushrangers locally. The worst of these was that dissolute law-defying criminals was Orwell Blackdog Morgan, the fiercest rip-snortingest young-unaccompanied-women waylayedest Bushranger of them all, or so it's said.

Captain Thuglyffe and Allygator took ship from the steaming Malays and found themselves in Port Phillip Bay and the Fabulous Town of Melbourne which had been founded by Batman - but not the one you're thinking of - in 1835.

On disembarking, the young unaccompanied women sought lodging in a grand looking hotel called, "The Family Jewells of Melbourne", an elite place (it seemed) if ever there was (by Colonial standards).

Little did the young unaccomapanied women know it - as wearied by their long journeyings on foot and by boat they trudged into the Grand Foyer - but none other than Orwell Blackdog Morgan himself, in his guise as Lord Flouncypants, was the Publican. Yes, that cunning devil played  that upstanding Melbourne character whenever he wasn't out-and-about doing evil deeds. (As Orwell Blackdog Morgan, he pretended to be a horrid bloodthirsty Scotshobbit. It is, incidentally, why most folk now have an inherent distrust of Scotshobbits).

"Well I'll have me testicles for an entre, stone the crows," Lord Flouncypants cried as the Captain Thuglyffe and Allygator approached the desk. "What a couple of bonzer bitches as has come into me 'otel. I bet you've got some sweet apple danishes beneath those Nordic boy's blouses, Blue!"

"What the fuck did he say?" Captain Thuglyffe asked Allygator.

Fortunately, Allygator had a gift for foreign languages, which are all esoteric (apparently). "He's saying we've probably got great breasts and he'd like to confirm his hypothesis and would we would be kind enough as to remove our upper garments."

"How crude. This gets worse and worse."

"No, it's been far worse than this, for sure, Captain. Much worse. As recently as Chapter 9, in fact..."

"Well, I'm not showing the dirty old bandicoot my Nordic gems. I'm saving them up for my handsome Scandavian Prince."

"Would that be Prince Rudy Reindeernose, perchance?"

"How did you know that?"

"It's in all the girly magazines. We Whelsh are not as backward as some people think."

"You are, you know, but never mind." Captain Thuglyffe now addressed the tall devilshly handsome Publican. "Lord Flouncypants, I believe - if you are indeed the Publican whose name I saw on the Licensee Plaque above the door as I came in - I require no more sauce from you - no, not today - just a room for the night, thank you very much."

A queer gleam twinkled in the Publican's eye.

"Would that be a two-bedder or a one-bedder?" A little dribble escaped out the sides of his mouth just then and trickled down his double chin. "For I do suppose it possible that you two - to judge from your travelling pants and men's shirts - are, indeed, mare's hoofs as opposed to horses hoofs, if I may put it so aptly?"

"What the fuck is he saying now?"

Allygator smiled wisely. "He's asking if you and I are an item, and if so, he'll be peeping through the peephole tonight."

"I sometimes wonder if ever I might be placed in a tale that's not sordid, peurile, and downright infantile," Captain Thuglyffe groaned. "I mean, it's been a long voyage and I really couldn't be bothered just now."

"Stone the crows," Lord Flouncypants cried. "I think she's got a goanna up her porticus."    

"What?"

"He means, you've got a plum up your porticus - except he's exchanged the plum for a goanna."

"I still don't know what that means."

"Nor do I - but it sounds painful."

"Look here, you disgusting Southlander!" Captain Thuglyffe barked. "Enough of your crap. Give us a room. And I want a large bed so there can be no suggestion of Allygator touching my naked body with her naked body accientally in the night."

"Did you really just say what I thought you just said?" Allygator asked.

"I did," Captain Thuglyffe complained, more than a bit annoyed. "And I'm telling you, Allygator, I better not say something like that again or else I'll not be responsible for my actions."

"What a strange but feisty stringybark you are, me little numbat," Lord Flouncypants said, sratching his wobbling chin. "Boil the billy, I say! Boil it hot! I warn you, pretty things like you should beware of creepy people tonight. Some as say old and flaccid Australian men are quite partial to a bit of Nordic."

"He means...."

"I know what he fucking means, Allygator! Hey you old bandicoot, you keep away from us tonight. All right! If I hear anyone creeping around my room tonight, I'll disembowell them with a paintbrush. And that hurts a lot more than it sounds. Now, give us a key to our room."

Lord Flouncypants watched them as they climbed the Grand Stairway of his 'otel. Comely lasses they were. Sweet like cherries. Plump like peaches. Salty like sardines. Annoying like all young women. Scrumptious.

"Pluck the galahs, Blue," said he malevolently to a red headed chap who walked in from the street just then, by name Ned. "Ol' Orwell Blackdog Morgan will be up to no good tonight if I know anything."

And he laughed a quiet evil laugh - a bit like Dick Dastardly when he ties up that Penelope lass in the Wacky Races.  



to be continued...

11


Lord Flouncypant's body was found on the cobblestones below the Hotel next morning. The Coroner found a tattoo on his buttocks - in red and blue - which said, "I'm Blackdog O Morgan but nobody knows that." Well, they did now.

"That blackguard probably got his due," the Coroner said. "But none the less, he has been murdered and his body likely thrown out the third story window of the Hotel, his every bone is smashed to bits by the impact. Murder is murder, even of blackguards like Orwell Blackdog Morgan alias Lord Flouncypants. And it looks like he has been disembowelled with a paint brush before he was thrown out the window. Half of it's still stuck inside his porticus."

"And the other half I found in Captain Thuglyffe's paint well," said Lance Corporal Rodney Rabbit of the Rum Corp.

Captain David Cranberry, Chief Trooper, agreed. "I was there when we found it, and the two suspects fully clothed in the bed they shared. Nothing of a sexual nature occurred between them - they assure me - but a lot of Lord Flouncypant's blood was spilled on the floor. Captain Thuglyffe is the chief instigator we believe, and Allygator is her rather comely accomplice."

"They were in bed together - that's the two girls - but nothing untoward happened between them during the night, is that right, Captain David?" the Coroner had asked.

"No. Nothing (apparently)."

"Just as well," the Coroner sighed. "As we folk Down Under don't like that kind of thing."

The Court Hearing began the same afternoon.

"Before we begin proceedings proper, are we sure the two girls aren't Lesbians?" said Judge Odo McCordy.

"We don't believe so," answered Captin David.

"Good. As we won't have those kind of people in my court," said Judge Odo McCordy. "It's damn unrespectable in my learned opinion. Now, tell me, who is representing the two accused in this case?"

"Ock the noo," said Petty Kiltybugger, the local drunk. "It is I an no one else, your 'onhour!"

"And the Police Prosecutor?"

"Eldorion Adminbasstid, Sir."

"Bring in the accused."

Into the courtroom they brought Thuglyffe and Allygator. They looked a bit annoyed.

"Why are we wearing these clothes with arrows on?" Thuglyffe wanted to know. "We're not convicts yet, we haven't been tried."

"You are so convicts," Odo McCordy told them sternly.

"We're innocent until proven guilty," Allygator proclaimed.

"Not in my jurisdiction you're not," Odo McCordy cried, getting very red in the face at the impertinence of the girl. "You'll need to prove your innocence Down Here before we unconvict you. Bring in the first witness."

Eldorion called out in a shrill self-important tone: "Bring in Edward Kelly, known affectinately as 'Ned'. A reputable witness."

Ned strolled in looking laconic. He climbed into the dock.

"Do you swear to tell the truth, Edward Kelly?" asked Judge Odo.

"Pretty much," said he.

"Aye oobject!" cried Petty.

"For what reason?" Judge Odo wanted to know.

"Eees a bloomin 'orse thieve, un Trooper kuller, un an fookin liar!"

"Overuled," cried Odo. "Eldorion, proceed."

"Now, Mister Kelly, did you, or did you not, just yesterday saunter into the Family Jewells of Melbourne Hotel at nine past four in the afternoon?"

"I dont know exactly the time, but it was about then."

"And did you hear Lord Flouncypants say he planned to clean Room 302 on the third floor later that night?"

"I did."

"And do you know if he did?"

"All I know, Sir, is that Lord Flouncypants entered Room 302 and the next thing there was a hideous scream and a loud thud on the cobblestones outside soon after."

"Anything else?"

"Yes. I seem to remember a fell female voice saying, 'Well that'll teach the dirty bastard.'"

"And whose voice did that belong to?"

Edward Kelly turned and pointed directly at Captain Thuglyffe.

"No further questions," Eldorion said glibly. "Open and shut case," he said to his Legal Assistant Amarie Fruitenloopen, formerly of Spitzenburger, Fjordiablandia, as he sat down full of himself.

"Have you any questions?" Judge Odo asked Petty.

"Ock! Of corse I doo, yor 'onhour! Noo, Muster Ned Kooley. Are u shor it waz Cuppin Thuglyffe's vooyce?" And Petty gave the man a most fierce accusative stare.  

"I am, Sir," said Ned, a little uncertainly, his eyes looking at the floor suddenly, and his face going white, and his hands becoming suddenly fidgetty as he began to step nervously from foot to foot.

"Ock tha noo. Noo farther kwestshons," Petty said and sat down looking a bit crestfallen.

"Any more questions?" Odo asked Eldorion.

"I have one or two, Sir," Eldorion said with an ingratiaing smile for the Judge. "Now Ned - if I may address you so familiarly - did Lord Flouncypants go into the room at three a.m in the morning and get murdered by the Fjordianlandian Murderess and her Murdering Whelsh accomplice?"

"Aye. He did."

"And did he enter that room purely with the intent of cleaning the room?"

"Aye. He did."

"And he meant to do nothing unnatural or vicious or anything at all of a sexually motivated sort to the young unaccompanied women."

"Of course not. He was a Gentleman was Lord Flouncypants."

"No further questions, your Honour."

"Are there any more witnesses?" asked Judge Odo from the bench.

"I want to give witness," Captain Thuglyffe from where she sat.

"Oh very well," Judge Odo said and rolled his eyes.


to be continued...

jeeesus.. these parts come fast.. how am i to keep up

12


Judge Odo McCordy appraised Captain Thuglyffe sternly. "Here is your opportunity to clear your name, Foul Murderess. Speak! Or forever hold your peace. What say you of the depraved and vicious murder you performed at 3 am this very morning in Room 302. What say you? Speak I say!"

"I didn't do it."

A dreadful hush fell upon the courtroom. It was like the very courtroom itself had sucked in it's breath. All folk, the Officials and every Gossipy Inhabitant of the town, gazed at each other in shock. They had come seeking Foreign Blood, but what now? They seemed disappointed in their shock. Only Petty Kiltybugger looked hopeful, him being a drunk due partly to his senitivity to life and him convinced - for no good reason than softness of the heart - that the two girls were far too perty to have killed anyone, least of all Lord Flouncypants and Orwell Blackdog Morgan. (In truth, Petty, in his drunken haze, was still unsure if the girls had killed one or two people).

At last Judge Odo McCordy found voice. "You'll need to tell me more to convince me," were his game-as-Ned Kelly words. Though his face had gone pale. Could it be that the foreign strumpets hadn't murdered Lord Flouncypants after all? Gor blimey!

"To prove my innocence, I must return to 4pm yesterday when my totally innocent Whelsh platonic girlfriend Allygator and I entered that salubrious hotel being named The Family Jewells of Melbourne. I was wearing a lovely chiffon gown with embroidered bodice which cleavage weft showed off my unaccompanied young womanly attributes to wonderful effect."

The predominantly male audience looked at each other with raised interested eyes, eyebrows arched in impressedness, especially when Thuglyffe undid the two top buttons of her convict suit to demonstrate.  

Amarie Fruitenloopen leaned across to Eldorion Adminbasstid and whispered, 'Sweet Eru. They look pretty conclusive." Eldorion glowered, his mind racing. 'Perhaps I should have planned my case with less arrogance and more diligence," he thought. 'It's like that Maths Exam all over again! But where is this all leading I'm wonderin'?'

"Of course," Thuglyffe proclaimed. "Allygator was wearing a very short skirt that showed off her slightly masculine thighs to good effect. So you see, we couldn't have killed Lord Flouncypants. We're girly girls, you see, not vicious Sally Bordens. Clearly we're not!"

Allygator looked rather pleased at that, for no one had ever complimented her slightly masculine thighs before, even though she herself had always been rather vain about them.

("I thought they were wearing boyish clothes when they entered the 'otel yesterday, Sir..." Lance Corpporal Rodney whispered to Captain David.

"Shush up, Roddy," David hissed as one of his eyes studied Thuglyffe's splendid cleavage distractedly and the other, Allygator's thighs. "This is a Court of Law, and we Troopers may only speak when we're instructed to.")

Judge Odo McCordy glared, as he preferred open and shut cases and loved nothing less than short court days and long afternoons and evenings of port drinking at his Masonic Lodge. "You have failed to totally convince me yet. If you didn't do it, then who did?"

"Ock tha noo," Pety sighed, looking crestfallen again.

"It was none other than Eldorion Adminbastid and his evil accomplice, Amarie Fruitenloopen," Thuglyffe said accusingly after a short theatrical pause.

Another hush fell over the courtroom. Eldorion and Amarie looked down at suddenly fidgetty hands.

"But why would they?" Judge Odo McCordy wanted to know, more shocked than ever at the amazing turn the case had taken.

"It's because Eldorion is Amarie's Toyboy, that's why. And Lord Flouncypants knew too much. They conveniently framed me to hide their nauseas behaviour."

"But Ned Kelly's testimony..."Judge Odo stuttered.

"He was mistaken," Allygator piped up. "How could he not be? What with Eldorion's clever questioning."

"Aye," Thuglyffe said solemnly. "His questions - in the end - were too clever by half."  

Eldorion was glowering now, clear proof he was guilty as charged.

"I noo it!" Petty cheered.

"But Amarie Fruitenloopen's old enough to be his Grandmother (apparently)!" Judge Odo gasped.

"Strange things happen when you're in love," Allygator called out.

Judge Odo glowered.  "Take them out and hang them immediately!"

And Captain David and Lance Corporal Rodney did so at the nonce. When those evil lovers were removed, soon to be seen through the courtroom window hanging from a nearby tree, Judge Odo McCordy gave Thuglyffe and Allygator an affectionate glance. "Deep in my heart, I always knew you were innocent."

"Oh we're not that innocent," Thuglyffe smiled demurely as she took Allygator's hand in a rather friendly fashion.




THE END  

  that was strangely disturbing.


((((( )))))

 Brilliant from start to finish. And I actually won a court case, all those times in the dock for drunkness and crabbit behaviour payed off after all!

It's always a good tale when Eldorion Adminbasstid types and their Cougar girlfriends get what's coming to them, methinks.

We'll meet in the afterlife, my lovely kitty cub man toy!  
Look at the bright side though, at least we finally get to hang out in public together...

I knew we couldn't trust these supposed "free spirits" to accept our love.

STOP TALKING IN SPOILERS!

THUGLYFFE AND THE EXPLORERS


1


Thuglyffe and her baggage handler-girlfriend, Allygator, found themselves at a loose end sitting in the Town Square outside the courthouse.

"I should like to encounter new and fresh experiences," Thuglyffe said thoughtfully as she sat under a sombrero pine watching Eldorion Adminbasstid and Amarie Fruitenlooopen swinging serenely in the gentle southern breeze and jealous that they appeared to swing there without a care in the world. "I want to go to places where no human has ever been. Somewhere to juice up my creativity with new sights and experiences. Perhaps even go and explore the very heart of this vast unexplored dry continent. Go to places that have never known the footstep of Man."

"I hear there is a native people here, Aboriginal folk, wise in the lay of the land." Allygator said. "They would already have been to the centre of this vast dry place, and if we treat them respectfully I'm sure they would tell us all about theis amazing continent, even show us how to travel in it without starving to death, or dying of thirst."  

"I really have no idea what you're talking about, Allygator. It's a well known fact that the Australian continent (New Holland if you like) was totally uninhabited by Man before Man got here."

"But I've seen them. Dark skinned folk. Very polite I've found since being here, and quite bemused that no one but me seems to see them."

"See who? You Whelsh see all sorts of things no one else sees. You're mad, Allygator. Mad! Gone troppo - as the local saying goes. Dark skinned folk?"  And Thuglyffe scowled in amusement.

"But there. Over by that river bank. That dark skinned chap with his spear. Even the river is named after an Aboriginal word. Yarra."

"You do have some strange fancies, Allygator," Thuglyffe scoffed. "Please make no mention of these mysterious 'people' of yours again. People Down ere will think you've gone bonkers."

Just then, a small group of men clothed in heavy European clothes in the hot Australian summer heat, came past with their horses.

"Where are you chaps going may I ask?" Thuglyffe called out to them.

The 'chaps' as it turned out were intrepid explorers. David Cranberry Bourke, Halfy Wills, Petty King and Eldo Primly Green, and they were setting out on a dangerous adventure attempting to traverse Australia from the Southern Parts to the Northern Tip. It would be all the more dangerous because they had absolutely no idea what they were doing. They immediately agreed to take the two young unaccompanied females with them, and without much ado, Thuglyffe and Allygator were invited along.

"I think we should maintain a northerly route and thus come to the Northern Tip in a few days time," David Cranberry Bourke proclaimed as they led their horses out of the Melbourne built-up area. "Follow closely lads and keep a sharp eye out for bunyips."

A few days later, Halfy Wills stopped and scratched his chin. "David Bourke, Sir! I think it time we use our compases to divine where True North lies. For I think we are approaching the Township of Geelong, which, if my reckoning is correct, is south of Melbourne."

And before long, after studying their compasses, they agreed to turn around 180 degrees and were soon (actually) heading north. Luckilly, they had lost only three days and only eaten half their food.

(Thuglyffe and Allygator, who had been placed on a packhorse at the rear with their paints and easels and Allygator's Poetry Writing Journal, looked at each other, wondering perhaps if it had been wise to jump on board with such clearly incompetent Men, nothwithstanding how impressive were their weatherworn handsome long bearded faces, their piercing blue eyes, and their muscly bronze skinned arms and legs and their ample groin bulges).

"Ock tha noo," said Petty Green. "I would giv me left tustikkle for uh bookie jus noo. We've gone stone oota it."

Little did they know then, but it was the first sign that their foodstuffs were not in large supply to get to the Northern Tip of Australia and back, as it was a little further away than they had estimated.  


to be continued...  

Yeah, I just clicked quote to read that, Norclet.

that's just way more .. nevermind.

fake edits sux.


imma gonna try to catch up soon :)but i write so freaking fast

Just read the newest installment, Anon. I seem to be multiplying. But I'm eager to see where this goes, and also if you're broaching a brave new world of political and social commentary.

 Political Commentary and a Lack of Genuine Humour can soon become dull bedfellows. I must take care! But I like a challenge.

2


They soon passed out of all Eurpopean habitation and entered the low Hills of North Victoria where the Mythological Aboriginals had caused the land to look like English Parks with the wise use of firestick and long term planning. And if our band of intrepid explorers and their two young now accompanied women had only known it, there was food everywhere. A wide selection, in fact. Purple budgies, green emus, lavender kangaroos, puce scorpions, bluetongue lizards, redback spiders, blueback spiders, yellowback pythons, pink ockerconstrictors, three headed trousersnakes (highly poisonous), dingospaniels, silver-grey koalas (which fascinated David especially), black and white wombats (something like Pandas except Australian) and a host of other cute or deadly or cute and deadly  creatures I can't be bothered making up just now, though not all of them - admittedly, now as I come to think on it - were suitable foodstuffs for human consumption, not even Scotshobbits (believe it or not) could eat all of them, though birds could eat some of them. There was lots of fauna too - which will no doubt come into the story here and there as we get to it. It was called the Great Australian Bush by some and English Park-like Lands, by others, and full of strange and exotic creatures (i.e. not Brittish), and there were still quite a lot of Aboriginals about too, except only Allygator could see them. And there were Bushrangers too, as you would expect. And the worst of them - now that Orwell Blackdog Morgan was dead - was Orwell Flouncypants Banks.

As chance would have have it, Orwell and his gang soon waylaid the Explorers and the two now accompanied young women at a place called Orwell's Ambushes, which lay in a shallow valley between two deep valleys.  Orwell's Ambushes was full of ambushes, which bore life sustaining fruit, but not in high summer.

"Stand and deliver!" Orwell cried as he drove his big chestnut steed out of the ambushes.

David reached for his pistolero, but Orwell shot it out of his hand with his Smith and Wesson Ramrod Silver-grey Revolver (which he had got custmonized, in case you thought I was making that up too). Orwell shot David's pistlero out of his hand as easy as if he did it every day, though he only did it every second day.

He was a fine looking chap, Orwell Flouncypants McBanks, and he sat tall in the saddle and had a gorgeous Buhranger suit on. But not gorgeous in any kind of gay way, but in a very manly masculine hetereosexual way, because in this particular story Orwell wasn't gay at all.  

"Ouch!"  David said as he watched his pistolero doing somersaults through the air and disappear into some ambushes.

"Ock tha noo! It bee that turrublee hundsoom Booshringer, Horwell Bonks!" cried Petty.

"Bonks?" Orwell exclaimed in high pitched (manly) delight. "Darn right there, me Tassie Tiger, mate. I bonk 'em right and I bonk 'em left, and I bonk 'em every which way."

"Oooh," Thuglyffe whispered to Allygator. "I've heard of this Bushranger. Apparently he and his Gang have the biggest penises found anywhere from the Black Stump to the Back of Beyond."

"Penises?"  Allygator frowned, trying to think. "I heard they were concertinas..."

"Oh," Thuglyffe blushed. "That could be right. The two words are quite similar in Fjordianlandian (apparently)."

More horses burst out of the ambushes just then.

The Explorers and the two now accompanied young women jumped in startlement. But then: "They're only women," Eldo cried out - not knowing comments like that could get you killed, even in Australia. "And there's just two of them."

"These are my two Bushranging accomplices," Orwell drawled menacingly. "Let me introduce, Julia Slit-ya-guts Giggs." That Buhranger, who was dressed in a long voluptuous gown - but suitable for riding - with a shotgun on her hip, dipped her akubra hat in a gesture that was both delicate and threatening.

"And this other," Orwell added with a sneer, "is Amarie Bitchofabushranger." And the second Bushranger, who was dressed in very short shorts and had long tanned legs, dipped her akubra hat too, and she gave a smile that looked both 'come-ye-hither' and 'I'll cut off your baubles if you try anything' at the same time. They made a fierce erotic duo, and, when with Orwell, a hot and sweaty trio.

"What do you want of us?" Halfy asked timidly. "We have only our camping equipment and the clothes we wear. And also a tiny bit of food left over to get us to the Northern Tip of this vast continent, for we are intrepid Explorers but not very bright."

Orwell frowned. "So you are not on your way to the Goldfields of Bendigo then?"

"No. We're just intrepid explorers as Halfy said," Eldo put in.

"Well, I still want something from you," Orwell said petulantly. "Or else I've fully wasted a good bullet shooting the pistlero out of Old Beardy's hand!"

"How about we abduct those two young women?" Bushranger Griggs suggested.

"Ahh! You know just the kind of thing I like," cried Orwell. "They can join my Gang and take some of the sexual pressure off you and Amarie while giving me a bit more variety."

"We'd all be winners then," Julia appauded (gently).

"We don't mind sharing," Amarie grimaced fetchingly. "As we know you're more than man enough to satisfy all of us - and probaly five more women if it comes to that - whether in our hideout or on horseback."

"Ahh! This is just my kind of tale," Orwell grinned.

But suddenly Petty jumped into action, and before you could say, 'Petty is a Baboon', he had whipped out his Scottinghobbit Sling-rifle and shot Orwell's hat off.

"Ouch!" Orwell squealed (masculinely). "Hey you idiot! That bullet grazed my head."

"Git ye oof thoze horsies, Sir and Madims," Petty ordered them with a fierce and ugly Scotshobbit glare.

Once the Bushrangers had dismounted, Halfy said, "Great work, Petty, and quite surprising, really." Halfy turned then to the leader of the expedition. "But what do we do with them, Davey?"

"I don't know," David said thoughfully, as he stroked his fabulous beard. "I think it best we wait until next Chapter. That should give us enough time to think of something, I hope."



to be continued...




NB In case you didn't know, most English-sprung Bushrangers were called Orwell, and most Irish, Ned. Not sure how this came about, but it's the Truth, as I wouldn't make things up, you know.

3


As it turned out they couldn't think of anything to do with them. But as David Bourke did not want to waste any time - or share any of their dwindling food supplies with them come lunch time - they decided to set the Bushrangers free, but this was only after David got them to make a serious and binding oath not to do anything he wouldn't do ever again.

After that, the Explorers and the two young women set off again and three days later the food ran out. They had just reached the Murray River on the border of two Colonies,  these being New South Wales and Victoria, and approximately three thousand miles short of their proposed destination.

"Well, this is  a pretty peckle of piccadillees," Eldo moaned, he being of a young and moaning sort. "I suppose we'll have to starve to death now."

Thuglyffe grated. "To think I should have come half way across the world seeking an Artistic Experience only to die a horrid death on the Oldest Continent on Earth."

"We could always ask the Aboriginals for help," Allygator suggested. "I mean, there's a group of them fishing for cod just over there, and they're picking yams along the banks."

"That may be Politically Correct of you to say," Rodney snarled at her, "But you know very well we can't see them."

"But if you would just open up your hearts and your minds..."

"Stop being Politically Correct!" Thuglyffe growled at her. "You know that kind of thing is not funny and this is meant to be an amusing Tale - no matter what folk like Eldo back home in Needlehole might think."

"I don't think he thinks anything," Halfy yelled back, he being an erstwhile defender of that bossy young Man.

"But we might be saved," Allygator said, a bit annoyed now. "Look, one of he Aboriginals is coming over."

"Oh I can see him," Thuglyffe said in surprise.

"That's because he's actually a White Man," Halfy said scientifically.

"William Buckley's me name," said the White Man. "And I've been living with the Natives for thirty two years. Would you like some food? You look hungry."

"What Natives are they, pray tell?" David and Petty and Halfy and Eldo and Thuglyffe wanted to know, looking left, right and everywhere without success. "We can't see any of the Mythological Aboriginals to which you allude."  

"If that's your attitude, starve then!" William Buckley said fatalisically, as he was used to this kind of thing by now, and he turned to walk away, but Allygator caught him by the sleeve of his possum skin coat. "I can see the natives," she begged him. "I can see them! Can you save my life, please?"

And William Buckley said kindly, "Yes, I will save you."

And so Allygator went and lived with William Buckley and the Aborginals for a few months, and that's how Allygator was saved and lived to tell Ol' Anon this Tale.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint), the others died slowly in the heat and dust from slow starvation, though proud in the knowledge they had not given into delusions about Mythological Aboriginals like that simpleton, Allygator, had.



THE END