This piece was set by two anonymous students with their independent statements . "That time I broke my friends plastic sword after attacking them on their bike"......."Overdramatic ambush."
If you are wondering what I am doing standing on the edge of the village green with a large opened sack of potatoes beside me, then you are not alone. I am cold and damp and I should be warm and dry. I was warm and dry an hour ago. Warm and dry and sipping a nutty, Sunday pint beside a spitting open fire with five friends. An hour ago calm reigned, now this is war, “real war“; this is a fight to the death.
I am puzzled by the speed of events and how one minute the warm frothy bitter was being savoured in the company of great and the good of the village. These are the same great and good that you can now see spread out along the village green, four of them armed, like me, with a bag of potatoes opened and ready; ready for the fight. A fearless, confused quartet: Hugo; Piers; Cameron and Rupert. Not exactly names to send icy fear into the heart of our target, Big Stevie-Boy, but they are my allies.
That’s Big Stevie-Boy beside the hedge at the far side of the village green. He is the guy sitting on the red mountain bike. He is the reason we are here in the October dampness and not sitting in a warm comfortable pub. Big Stevie Boy and his big, forty year-old boastful mouth; “If I’d been at Balaclava I’d definitely made it through the Russian guns.” Now that was a proper boast. A boast that caused one tremendous argument and there is only one way to prove it. I am the Russian guns; Hugo and Piers are the Russians on the left hill; Cameron and Rupert on the right: our very own valley of death.
His is not to reason why,
ours is just to do and shy,
into the valley of spuds
rides the one Pillock.
Look at Big Stevie-Boy go, legs pumping, head down, sword pushed as far out in front of him as he dodges volley after volley of potatoes. He’s made it past Hugo and Cameron and now is in range of Rupert and Cameron. I should be able to reach him with my smaller potatoes.
Spuds to the right of him
spuds to the left of him
spuds in front of him.
Into the mouth of veg
rides the one Pillock.
I’ve hit him, he’s going down. Bike and Big Stevie-Boy tumble over and over. My fellow Russians and I run towards him. Big Stevie-Boy, bike and broken sword lay in an entangled mess. Hugo catches my eye; I smile at Piers, Rupert and Cameron. We were right; he’d never have made it at Balaclava.
