No Face’s UK Assassination Tour thread.

N-F, on arrival, was invited for "a few beers" by the boys, and naturally much was consumed.. anyway the upshot being that he ended up being lashed securely to the front of the CO's motor.. Now, the Guv tends to "cane about" a bit, obviously out here he's not going to run into a no19 bus or anything, so he puts his foot down... Clearly he was oblivious of his unofficial "passenger" who doubtless had a bit of a white knuckle ride thru the bush, and no doubt swallowed a few flies in the process....



He doesn't look happy...



The question at evening inspection...



It gets dark suddenly out here..!

Could've been worse.. At least they didn't pull his trousers down first..

Porky wrote:

Could've been worse.. At least they didn't pull his trousers down first..

Mission pt.1  The Pig of Pog

The CO asked Capt. O'Connor into his office...
" Sorry to drop this in your lap Mick, but I'm going to get you to brief our "guest" on this Pig business.. I'll be honest with you, I really haven't the patience to listen to his whining and moaning about some prank the chaps played on him, it's just a bit of high spirits...and as any officer knows, soldiers need to let off steam occasionally, particularly in a place like this..
.. Oh, and by the way don't let him give you a hard time, he's a nasty piece of work, and you're all aware of my special instructions in the, erm.. worst case !.. "
"No problem Sir... to be sure, he won't be getting the better of an Irishman ! "
"Good man.. Carry on.."
Both men gave a crisp salute, and O'Connor left with a folder and few maps under his arm...

About half an hour later, N-F was summoned to the CO's office but found just O'Connor waiting for him
Capt. O'Connor spread a map in front of N-F and began..
" Before your 'main event' so to speak, we have a bit of a challenging task for you, if you have a look at this  map.. and they're a bit sketchy I'm afraid.. you'll see in the middle of the densely forested area some building remains indicated, these are in fact some ancient temple ruins.. this is where you will be heading for...
and without any further ado, what you will be seeking is an enormous Pig ! "

"What !! .. You're seriously expecting me to go and kill a pig ?  " cried an astonished N-F..

"Not at all.." replied O'Connor  "You're not going to kill it, or indeed harm it in any way "..

"Are you people out of your minds ? "

"Again, not at all, this is a piece of very important scientific work, which will require great courage and resourcefulness, and total discretion subsequently. Your task is to locate the Pig and recover, without injury to it, some samples for analysis, the boffins have been working on some stuff called DNA apparently and we've been asked to get some from the Pig, it's as simple as that, though hardly a simple task.
I'll backtrack a little and tell you something of the Pig.  This has often been thought of as just legend or folklore, but has ancient roots, the original population worshipped the Pig and the temple is thought to be the centre of it's cult. It has nevertheless been sighted many times over the centuries, it was written up, and illustrated in a rather fanciful style, in the 17th century as 'Gargantuatus Porcus Pogiosis'   the 'Giant Pig of Pog', a rough translation of it's original native name, the sources are now lost unfortunately."



O'Connor continued, to a wide eyed but silent N-F,  ( Capt. O'Connor was I think, rather enjoying the story telling aspect of the briefing ! )


"The Pig has actually been spotted very recently by our local scouts, and we've found them to be thoroughly reliable when they've done recon work for us in the past.  obviously sightings are of a fleeting nature but we have no doubt it's there.
We want you to find the pig and bring back some hair or bristles that have been pulled out rather than cut off, the boffins need the root tissue for their research. Other than drawing some hair, the Pig is not to be harmed. You will not be taking any firearms with you, you may take  a knife as a survival tool, but this is strictly NOT to be used as a weapon against the Pig.. there's no danger of enemy activity as the area is far too dense for any kind of combat operations.
You will be taken as close as possible in a Jeep, but once you arrive at the tree canopy, you're on your own.. Any Questions ? ".....

N-F somewhat lost for words said nothing..

"Well then, that'll be grand ! "  said O'Connor cheerfully,  "You'll kick off at 07.00 tomorrow morning ! "

Overnight it had rained in the bush, pretty torrential stuff, it's surprising how a bit of rain can start to turn a dry parched landscape green again..  The Jeep was ready to take N-F and his kit at 07.00 as arranged..
O'Connor had decided he'd drive the transport personally, and take a soldier from a different section to "ride shotgun"  it was felt that getting Ed and the lads to do the delivery run might lead to a very tense journey at best, if not actual fisticuffs, as N-F was clearly still narked about the prank the boys played on him...
The rain had left the air a little fresher, but the sun was up and getting hotter, best crack on then...

It took the estimated 2 hours, give or take, to arrive at the point that the Jeep could go no further... time for N-F to get out and TAB the rest !
Capt. O'Connor made the arrangement that the transport would return in 3 days and be at the RV point at 15.00 hrs it would remain for two hours, if N-F was no-show they'd leave and return at the same time the next day, and so on each day.. if he didn't make the RV after seven days they'd assume him lost in action.
N-F shouldered his kit bag and wielding his trusty knife started on thorough the dense foliage..



They weren't kidding about it being impossible to conduct combat ops in here, N-F had to back track a number of times, a chainsaw would've been handy !
the only way to navigate was by compass bearing there was no visible clue at all, plus as O'Connor had said, the maps are pretty sketchy at best..





After several hours however a lucky spot was the remains of some massive, and clearly very old, stone built structure.. Bingo!.. this must be part of the temple ruins !   N-F stashed his kit bag, well hidden, and went forward to recce the area...




Don't Miss The Next Exciting Episode... N-F Comes Face To Face With The Pig.. !!!

NF found the rest of the temple ruins fairly easily..
The stones of it's construction were very unusual for this part of the world, when it was written of in the 17th century, it was remarked upon how it was entirely unknown where the stones came from, how they got there, and even how the temple was built "truly they must have been giants" according to Ricardus Van Sluys in his book of 1645.
As the day, and time, was marching on, NF decided to discreetly get an idea of the layout of the place and then retire to a safe distance, make camp, and return in the morning to seek the Pig with a whole day to devote to the task.
Camp was somewhat improvised and uncomfortable, cooking or fires were out of the question as this would give away his presence immediately, so cold field rations it was, and a lumpy night's rest.

The following morning among the usual forest noises you'd expect were some deep, gruff, grumbling sounds and quite a bit of crashing about in the undergrowth... This sounds promising..
NF waited for this to abate then quietly advanced towards the temple ruins, no particular signs of life so he thought he'd play the "trump card"  straight away...the catering boys at brigade had provided a huge lump of freshly baked fruit cake, this was to be bait for the pig ( any self respecting pig loves a bit of cake)
The cake had been the main bulk in the kit bag he was obliged to lug around with him, and it'd be good to get rid of it anyway, a small corner did naturally supplement his field rations the night before !
He strode into the central area of the ruins, which  formed a dry dusty clearing, surprisingly not overgrown,  bearing the huge slab of cake..

"Here Piggy... Piggy Piggy Piggyyy...." he cried enthusiastically...
"Piggy..Piggy Pigeee.."



The ironic thought ran through his head..
"Here I am, one if the top contract killers in the world, and they've got me piggy calling, seriously?... "

Even NF wasn't prepared for what appeared from the ruins.. It was the Pig !
He was utterly astonished.. the creature was at least 15 feet high at the shoulder and greyish black, it was somehow even more terrifying looking than the bizarre antique illustrations..
The Pig stood there for what seemed an eternity, just looking at him, and his cake... Surprisingly the Pig didn't show either aggression or fear, he held the cake out enticingly.... "Piggy.." He repeated ( rather half heartedly ! )     The Pig slowly ambled across the clearing and stopped just a couple of feet in front of him, the Pig gazed at him balefully, sniffing the air, and presumably the cake! ....It's snout was now inches from the cake.. Would it snatch it from him, would it grab both cake and NF, and eat the lot ?.

Rather than making a fatal lunge at NF and cake, the Pig, quite incredibly, took the cake very gently, backed off a little and began munching...
Pigs are messy eaters it has to be said, and this one was no exception.. bits of cake were strewn around and the Pig was focussed on hoovering up as many fragments as possible..




NF saw an opportunity here, bearing in mind the point was to obtain some hair or bristle, as the Pig was entirely distracted, NF using the Pig's ear as a step, scrambled up onto the Pig and in an impressively athletic fashion was up on the Pig's back !!

If you'd have told NF a few days ago he'd be bareback bronco riding on a giant Pig.. He'd have laughed at you, funny old world eh...
Anyway, mounted atop the Pig he was struck by the lack of "pullable" hair or bristle, this one seemed to have very short stubbly coat, if you could even call it that, he'd have to perhaps brave the back end and see if the tail was more promising.. Just then a scrabbling and loud snorting ruckus was heard from the ruins..
Taking no chances NF leapt off the Pig and faced the ruins..
Here was another Pig !



This one had a very different look and demeanor, this was perhaps "the Daddy"  it stood snorting in front of NF it was a scene reminiscent of the Roman arena !
He noticed however it had a fine crest along it's back, of bristles !
As luck would have it there were quite a few crumbs of cake lying about.. after sniffing the air, the new Pig homed in on these, and forgetting about the prospect of pulverising NF,  began grazing....

Seizing the opportunity, hoping that the lure of cake crumbs would suffice to hold the Pig's attention



NF was "in like Flynn" and boldly grabbed a handful of the coarse bristles.. and promptly fled with his prize..



Another case of "job well done" ... Now NF was thinking... "I've got a good  bunch of these, and I'm certainly not handing them all over, I'll keep half back for myself, I reckon there's a very lucrative market out there, I bet both the Yanks and the Chinese would pay a small fortune for the rights to a 30 ft. Pig !!"
The thing now of course was to get the hell out of there and re-trace his steps thru the forest to await pick up..
NF had the sense to leave markers on his journey in, so the return journey should be far more straightforward, and be back in plenty of time for the RV

NF got back to the RV point with hours to spare, he used the time to make some notes and write down compass bearings so he could find the temple ruins again easily if needs be, he figured that the precise location of the Pigs might well be a piece of bankable info in the future.
With that and the hairs he was keeping back, it may be possible to turn this "damn fool mission" as he thought it, into some hard cash !
The Jeep, with O'Connor driving, rolled up at 15.00 as promised, he hopped in, merely saying  "all good" and the Jeep rumbled off on the 2 hour trek back to camp...

The Hit...

When NF had returned from the Pig mission he was obliged to hand over the bristles ( only about half of them as per his scheme) and write a report. This he did but omitting many of the details, basically the minimum of information he felt he could plausibly get away with providing.
Next on to the alleged "actual mission"...
This was a straight forward " kill"  with the proviso that he would verify the threat status of the target before proceeding.
He had been given a photo of the "intended" and informed that this was some kind of infiltrator or "plant" and was very much not what he appeared..



The target had been inserted into the unit claiming to be "on attachment from the Royal Navy",  much about this character just didn't add up aparrently, but according to reports he seemed too clumsy and gauche to be an effective agent.. It was difficult to know what he was up to, why, and for whom..

This character had acquired the nick name " Lurch" which when you saw him seemed very appropriate!
Lurch was easy enough to find around camp, and not too difficult to get on his own, well away from prying eyes or ears.
NF went up to him in a cheery fashion..  "Ahoy there shipmate" and gave a very nautical salute..



Lurch returned the salute and replied "Arrr.." !  he then added  "My name's Staines..Seaman Staines.."
"Seriously ? " thought an astonished NF.. who could think of nothing immediately in reply other than to  repeat "Arrr.." back at him !



Now NF had to establish whether Lurch was a fake, or just an idiot abroad, he hit on an idea..
"Well then me hearty, it's nice to meet another old time Matelot" said NF  " let's play a game, you remember the old TV jingles don't yer ?  We'll I'll sing the first line and you sing what comes next eh ? "
"Ohh, er OK then" said Lurch....
NF piped up with the classic..  "Who's the Bravest Fighting Soldier... Fearless.... "
Lurch hesitated a moment and came back with   "Fearless..er Action Man "




NF thought " hmm anyone knows it's Tommy Gunn... this bloke looks fishy.."
"Arr well it's a long time ago.."  said NF not to alert Lurch.

He immediately thought of another "test" and surreptitiously droped a five pound note on the floor...
"Looky there matey.. a fiver on the deck in front of ye..." cried NF  "finders keepers, go on pick it up.! "



Lurch bent right down to pick up the fiver...at the same time NF looked behind him, where his shirt and trousers parted.. there clearly revealed.. Blue Panties !!



Well thought NF that's it, he's a phoney for sure, all proper Action Men are 100% commando...
Improvising brilliantly NF palmed another fiver...
"Look, Look, it's your lucky day matey, another fiver ! Go on, grab it quick afore anyone else sees it !.."



The hapless Lurch bent down again to secure his find.. at the same time NF pulled out his trusty bush knife.. When Lurch's head was at 90 degrees to the vertical... BOSH.....!



One swinging chop brought Lurch's head off in one hit !!
"Blimey " thought NF "that came off easily.."



The headless Lurch was still standing, bent over.. "You can fall down now !! " said NF with wicked glee.... The body obliged and fell flat in front of him.
"I'll have me fivers back for sure" he thought and retrieved them from the ground, a certain amount of "Claret" was coming forth and no one wants blood stained fivers now, do they?

That's another job very nicely done he thought to himself..  now to get rid of the body.
By chance NF spied Ed and Sid walking between some of the buildings..

"Hey lads !.. Got a minute ? "  they looked round somewhat bemused.. "It's OK lads, there's no hard feelings about the prank the other day "
Ed and Sid walked over and saw what had occurred, however they were well aware that NF was there "on business" and drew the obvious conclusion.. everyone thought Lurch was a wrong 'un anyway.
"Boys, do you want to earn an easy tenner a piece, in your hand right now ?... I need " him" got out of the way.. any ideas ? "
Sid was first with the solution.. "We'll take him down to the river in the Jeep and chuck him in.. The Crocs will make very short work of him, nothing left.. job done ! "
"I like the way you're thinking lads, can I leave it with you?.. needs doing right now though ..."
"No worries" replied Sid.. NF handed a crisp Ten Pound note to each of them and scuttled off.



Ed went off at a brisk pace to get the Jeep and Sid threw a large sack over the remains in case anyone passed by.
The Jeep was there in a few minutes and was loaded..


..and off they went..
The river is only about half an hour's drive... The big splash made by the "ex-Lurch" had the Crocs on the scene within seconds... in the words of Sid, Job done !

It had been a couple of days since the lurch incident, NF was still hanging around the camp like a bad smell !
No one knew what was the reason for his delayed departure, you'd think after the job was done he'd be off immediately, maybe his transport out was problematic.
It's generally a case of a small aircraft, usually a Lysander, putting down in the bush, an area had been cleared just about big enough.
The other way in or out was the river, a US Navy patrol boat was based not too far off, some supplies and personnel came by that route.
NF doubtless wanted to be out of here ASAP too.
Anyway, he was idly hanging about round the general area where S.P. 1 was located, as a classified section he'd no business anywhere near there.
Miss Valentinova  was coming from that direction as she's been doing a bit of work for Special Projects.. she was stopped in her tracks by NF who stepped out in front of her blocking her way through..
He edged her towards the wall and said...  "Give us a kiss then love"...



She looked at him with contempt... "Take your hands off me, now" she said..
"Aww don't be like that " sneered NF ... "If it's a case of money then no problem, I'm loaded ! "   With astonishing cheek he waved a couple of five pound notes at her...



"Get out of my way you loathsome pig ! " replied Miss V. pushing him away...

This was not going to end well...

The last clear image NF had before the first blow fell was this....

What followed can only be described as as a ferocious onslaught, NF had been in a few punch ups naturally but never been subject to such a repeated sledge-hammering as this...







NF now semi-conscious slid down the wall, only to now be subject to a savage kicking, (ironically Miss V. had just been issued with a new pair of  British Army ammo boots)



She had also now armed herself with a large spanner a few of which she had been about to return to SP workshops.. the beating continued...

Luckily at this point Ed, hearing the commotion, came rushing in... he'd grabbed a rifle, as whatever was occurring sounded like it'd come in handy !
.."Anya..! "  "Stop.. you'll kill him..! "
She looked at Ed for a moment with blank staring eyes... then returned to herself again, and stepped back, still clutching the large spanner that fortunately she hadn't yet applied to NF's head !



Ed had a shrewd idea that NF would've started this.. Ed's automatic rifle was kept trained on NF
"You.. Don't move, or I'll put five rounds in your head.."

"Right.." snapped Ed to the stunned NF  "Very slowly, turn face down on the floor, hands above your head.. Any funny business and you're dead.. Do It ! "
the groaning NF did as ordered, slowly and painfully...



Ed could hear someone else approaching.. "Is that you Ginger ? " he called..

"Yep, what the hell's goin' on ? " replied Ginger.

Better get the CO right now mate.. it's all kicked off here...

"the CO's over with the Yanks on the Patrol boat, Mr. O'Connor might be about.. are you secure for a bit ? "
"Yeah I've got a gun on old Faceache, Anya's given him a proper hiding too, he's not goin' anywhere! "

Ginger went off, at the double to find Capt. O'Connor

It seemed like hours until Ginger returned, in fact it was about ten minutes..

"Mr. O'Connor is with the CO on the Yank patrol boat unfortunately.." said Ginger
" I was able to speak to the Guv on that radio telephone thing though, bit of luck the batteries held out ! "

"So what's the score then? " asked Ed..

NF was face down on the deck of course and could hear, but not see what was going on, Ginger made a silent 'Shhh' sign, index finger to lips type thing.. He was holding a nasty looking, rather large hypodermic syringe, that contained about 20ml of clear liquid...
Ginger pointed to NF and 'mimed' sticking it in his arm... Ed got the idea.. Ginger was going to administer this before the 'patient' had a chance to object !



Ginger knelt down and in one quick action unceremoniously stuck the needle through NF's sleeve, and "gave him his medicine"  the still stunned NF yelped momentarily at the surprise of being stuck with something sharp, but within a couple of seconds went totally limp, deeply unconscious..

"Ok " said Ginger "Here's the story... the CO said go to his desk, get the syringe, and stick it in Faceache any old way you can, give him the whole lot, it'll knock him out immediately.."
"It's been made up in advance by the Medical Officer at Brigade and came with his Dossier according to the Guv..
They were expecting trouble from this one, hence our instruction to shoot him if he tries anything iffy.. obviously they'd rather have him in custody alive if poss, so the K.O. shot was provided. It supposedly will put him in a kind of coma until he's given the antidote by the MO wherever he's being sent "
"This brings me to the next part" Ginger continued.. "We've got to crate him up, in a very stout box, nailed up tight, and wait for it.. He's going to be shipped back to London, in the box ! "
"We've to take him to the Yank patrol boat, and they'll take the crate to one of their airstrips, a big 'un that flies B29s, they'll fly him straight to London ! "

Ed and Miss V. were astonished at Ginger's account, but time marches on, so Ed and Ginger picked up the inert NF and lugged him over to one of the buildings where the Jeeps get serviced etc.. hopefully they'll find a big enough crate lying about somewhere !

Rooting round the 'garage' area turned up a big old wooden crate lined with thick card.. it'd probably been for an engine and gearbox unit or something.. anyway it was just the job...



The limp rag-doll like NF was tipped in the crate with a bit of the grease proof brown paper they line the ammo boxes with.. after all his kit was chucked in with him ( any firearms had the ammunition removed of course) and the box nailed up as per instructions.. it was covered in thick paper, tied up, and addressed, rather mysteriously..

Dept B
19 Museum St
London WC

Unfortunately the crate was much too big to fit in the Jeep ( with a driver! )  so the only option was to give the Yanks a call and ask them to send a truck for it...



Luckily the river is only half an hour's drive through the bush and the truck arrived a bit later that afternoon.. one of the Yank Navy boys was a bit surprised by the weight of the box, it's always good to see them though as they invariably have a few cartons of Lucky Strikes to give away !...




The truck lumbered off back towards the river, and all breathed a big sigh of relief to see the back of old Faceache, hopefully for good !

Postscript / Epilogue

About a week later the CO asked Capt. O'Connor to come to his office..

"Close the door please Mick.... Don't want any eavesdroppers !.."
The CO continued.. "I've had a rather cryptic message from London..

'Your communiqué has been received as expected.. '
...and it's just signed  ' Brigadier Carver - dept.B '.."

"So I'm assuming our, erm..'Package' got to London without issue.."
"Interesting Sir, and thank you for taking me into your confidence."  replied O'Connor.
"Well I sort of press-ganged you into taking the operation on, so thought you'd like to know ! " the CO chuckled.

"What do you suppose they're going to do with him ? " said O'Connor.

"I dread to think" said the CO... "it's in the hands of the serious Cloak and Dagger boys now "... " knowing how these intelligence types think they might well just let him go, follow him and keep a close eye on him.... Of course they might equally shoot him in the head and dump him in the Thames ! "

"The MO who prepared the knock out drug seems to think that even if revived by antidote, he'll have little or no recollection of his time with us, or what occurred here.."
The CO continued.. "By the way, how's our Miss Valentinova after what happened ? "
"Well Sir " said O'Connor, "she seems to be fine in herself, though I'm concerned about the effects these experiments she's doing in S.P. might be having on her.. according to Private Edwards, who was first on the scene, she was fighting like a demon, with the strength of ten, so to speak.. but in a stone-cold fashion, like some Killing Machine !  I hope that's not too fanciful a description Sir !.."

"Interesting.." replied the CO. "She was a rather determined young lady to begin with.. I'm certainly glad she's on our side ! "

Both officers laughed in agreement..

"Anyway Mick, fancy a Scotch ? "..

"... Unless you've got anything Irish Sir !..."

"The best I can do is a 12 year old single malt, so you'll have to slum it I'm afraid !.."

Both men then settled down to an evening of entertaining conversation and to demolish the CO's last bottle of the real pre-war "good stuff".....

Dreadnought wrote:

Brilliant !!

Agreed! KDM's post wss both brilliant and funny.