This is a missive from our colonial chums. Best stiffen the sinews since it contains some pretty earthy language!
Goldarn, I knew it was a trap. “To the shores of Tripoli” was the instruction from the boss. Don’t they know nothin’? Don’t they read? Like the US hadn’t been there before and worked up some grievances? I told Beaumont Judd that we were headin’ into a whole heap of trouble but he just said that orders were orders, Kate, and we just had to go see for ourselves. See what? A pile of ruins? What’s the point of that? And why don’t them Arabs just build somethin’ modern? Ain’t they got no pride? No sense of history?
So, we landed and made a bee line South. It didn’t take long because they were waiting for us. The Turks own this joint at this particular moment in time and they were holed up in some of them there ruins which are, apparently, important. Jeez, what as? Outdoor johns? Well, they were welcome to it. I voted for the beach and then home. Hell, those ruins don’t even have no aircon. Beaumont was having none of it. We was hired and if I didn’t want to be fired then I was going in.
And then those goddam Turkish critters opened fire on us. And, being natural born Americans, we blazed back. At least those of us with rifles and carbines did. The others, preferring to settle their beefs at point blank with a sawn-off scattergun, circled around the back of the ruins, letting ‘em have it as they came. Casualties came thick and fast. I counted three Turks down for four of ours. Though Miss Blue Pants was only knocked down and then faking it, if you ask me. I got a good look at her and she didn’t look dead; only dead scared. A third of us floored and the action had only just started. If this was looking good, then I was the First Lady. We needed a hand here. Where were the seventh?
And then the Turks were mostly not interested in us. Instead they were shooting the c**p out of someone out of our sight. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, we tried shooting them in the back. Frank Dimaio reached the ruins and attempted to stuff an Ottoman but instead stabbed the window sill. Which was kind of clumsy there, Frank. And then the reason for the fez wearer’s fright came into view. Jumping Jehoshaphat, the Yellow Peril! What in blazes were they doing here? Well, we never knew whether they were coming for us, for the Turks or they was the Democratic Front of China with a grudge against every imperialist paper tiger they could put a cleaver into. They was using some sort of smokescreen, the mother of all mystic murks, in order to give themselves some cover while rushing the soldier boys. They wasn’t Indians, but they were close to being as bad.
With the Anatolians attention elsewhere, we rushed the gang’s hideout. It didn’t take too long to turn their brown coats red. Them sawn-offs is pretty cool at point-blank. Pretty soon, the Turks were skedaddling it away from the pair of us. Which was kinda good news and kinda bad. Because the Orientals suddenly decided that we were looking tastier than your plain donna kebab and headed as a heap for some good old American beef. Miss Blue Pants suddenly discovered she weren’t dead after all and got smartly up to take a crack at the critter coming in. We showed them the American way and shot down as many as we could before they reached us. And then they were amongst us.
There was a whole bunch of ‘em. Some broad in fancy dress, Fu Manchu, a lot of cleaver waving Democrats and … some demons. Now, it’s only plain sense that there ain’t no such thing as a demon. Certainly, ain’t no blue ones sporting long knives that could carve a buffalo in half. Not outside of a good sermonising anyways. It sort of makes me think the inscrutables had some kind of mind melter messin’ us up. It certainly fits in with the “Dragon’s Breath” Fu Manchu let loose when we were least expecting it. Jeez, it stank worse than a skunk and knocked almost half of us flat. We were in a bad place here people; on main street at noon facing the Dooley gang with no citizens with enough belly to help the law out. Well, nuts to that. It didn’t matter none.
Beaumont kept their leader busy while we tried to buy time for the operatives in the ruins to make it back to us. Darn it! That plan went West. Miss Sky Blue broke out of the shack, blasting a Tong to pieces as she came but was knocked to the floor along with Miss White by that darned skunk stink. Meanwhile the brave Turks found enough guts to stop running and shoot from far aways. Mostly at our people on the floor. Good old Miss Blue Pants stepped up to the plate and shot one in the back before they took her out. I misjudged that gal. Beaumont then took a poison knife to the ribs. Not a good time to find a vacancy in the boss’s chair. But Frankie filled it. Stepping smartly up, he filled Fu Manchu full of lead. Hell’s bells, finally that stink was gone. We’d been backing aways to avoid making a tight target for the skunk. Maybe now we could turn the tables.
It was so nearly so. Frankie “Demon Destroyer” Dimaio went mad and drilled one demon while disembowelling another with his Bowie. It was the third one’s poison sword which was too much. So long Frankie. And so long Miss Blue Sky and Miss White who were shot up by the twisted Turks while still on the floor. That got me mad. This guy in front of me had been trying to slice me with blade big enough to gut a grizzly so I smacked the fargin icehole over the head with my carbine. I kept smacking him on the floor but he looked to be still breathing as night fell. It don’t matter. I can remember what the little that’s left of his face looks like. We’ll meet again.
Which is more than can be said for most of our troop. The Yellow Peril won the game with a whole four people standing (if you can call a demon “people”). That don’t matter none. It was a fair fight and we can always bomb the b*******s later. The Turks came second with a whole three men left. We don’t take this so well given their habit of shooting guys who are already down. That Turk commander may be smiling now but he ain’t gonna be smiling while choking on his own salami. We Pinkertons ain’t supposed to take it personal but, you count on it, that’s jack s**t. Only me and Miss Orange came through for our side. Still that makes me the newly appointed second in command of the “Special Crimes Unit” owing to the previous incumbent retiring from life. Given that stinky skunk and magic mist the Easterners were using, I reckon I’m gonna read me up some on this c**p and chuck it back at ‘em.
Kate Flynne,
Lieutenant of the “Special Crimes Unit”,
Pinkerton’s Detective Agency.
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April 19, 2024, 12:03:44 AM
March 11, 2010, 08:38:44 PM
