The Sleeping Army Awakes

Part 40 Goulash Cans

Greta and Stepa, Slepý Bobek and Bláznivý Marek prepared a place outside the boathouse to heat up their food. They were taking a chance having an exposed heat source in the open and possibly alerting the Skidges but it was certainly better than burning the boat house down with Fish-sub still in it.

Slepý Bobek had the same problem as Samuel had initially encountered with the thickness of the metal and couldn't get the can opener to breach the top. So he passed the cans to Bláznivý Marek, who had equal trouble in opening them despite his better vision despite working up a sweat in the process.

Stepa and Greta were giggling at the contortions on Bláznivý Marek's face.

"You look like you being tortured!" Greta commented.

"Here if you're so clever?" Bláznivý Marek said, handing the offending item to Greta in defeat.

Stepa pierced the first can, using leverage, rather than brute strength and methodically cut her way around the circumference... the boys looked on impressed. Stepa smiled in satisfaction to the others drew in a deep breath, to smell the contents and ensure that it was not past its shelf life, filling her nose with the sweet aroma of the meaty paprika rich stew.

"Well I've never smelled this before but it seems good!" Stepa pronounced and she passed it to Slepý Bobek for a second opinion. The smell was also unfamiliar to him but it seemed OK so he passed the can to Greta. They all agreed that it was good.

"Sorry Marku but if you sniff goulash then maybe you sneeze on it!" Greta proclaimed. "Then we will all catch what you have."

"No I won't!" Bláznivý Marek protested and sneezed gustily, calling him a liar. "Anyway is only allergy to grass pollen!"

Greta put the can on to heat in the bain marie.

"You must be very strong to open can!" Slepý Bobek told Stepa in awe. "Hence forth we will call you Sílná Stepa." It meant Strong Stepa in a similar vain to his own epithet Slepý meaning blind.

"No it is not strength, it is finding the right technique," Stepa advised, thinking that if she needed an epithet at all then it had to be something more feminine... like lahodná meaning lucious. "Finding the correct angle of incidence and using all the mechanical advantage available is essential!"

She was quoting Jitka their teacher word for word.

"See Stepa says it like true scientist. You bullock!" Bláznivý Marek said, thumping his fist down on the grass for emphasis, regarding Stepa with new respect.

"I just stay awake in the physics lessons and take notes!" Stepa laughed. "Here you try the next one"

She handed Bláznivý Marek the tin opener and a can, moved in to sit behind him and slipping her arms around his skinny body from behind. Ostensibly, this was so that she could guide his hands to the correct angle, to start the cut, but also it also gave her an excuse to be really close to him.

Greta watched her friend's sluttish audacity and she was simultaneously shocked and impressed by the strategy. Having newly classified her friend, as an incorrigible and brazen harlot, she was determined to use exactly the same tactics with Bobičku... if she ever got the chance. Why didn't she think of these things.

The target of her affections, Slepý Bobek, was far more interested in the exact angle of the bade and the placement of the opener, than the close proximity of Stepa to his brother's back and exclaimed in wonderment, "Ach jo takhle!" meaning 'Oh yes like that'.

Once pierced, there was a rush of air from the can, and the smell was overwhelming terrible. The contents were clearly spoilt.

"Fuj!" Bláznivý Marek exclaimed. "You bullock! That one has already been kepted indefinitely! I hope that the others aren't spoileded."

Bláznivý Marek passed the can and its foul smelling contents backwards to Stepa who released one of her arms from Marek and put the can as far away behind them as she could without parting company with him.

"You bullock!" Bláznivý Marek commented. "That smells worse than one of Old Kelp's best kept farts?"

"How you know this?" Stepa asked provocatively. "You in habit of sniffing him?"

"No!" Bláznivý Marek, "Simply his farts have a half life longer than Uranium. You bullock."

They all laughed at the crass obscenity of the remark, all of them making long wet noises to simulate his conjecture.

Bláznivý Marek cleaned the opener in some of the water that they had collected to act as a bain marie and passed the tool to Slepý Bobek, who took another can and opened it with surprising ease considering his former attempts.

"Look is easy!" Slepý Bobek shouted triumphantly, removing the whole lid and almost dipping his nose in the goulash to smell the sweet meaty goodness inside. "Is good!"

"Well simply pass the can around!" Stepa asserted

"Simply we must all smell contents..." Slepý Bobek said. "Apart from my diseased brother that is in case he contaminates everything!"

"It is allergy! Maybe I have allergic reaction to my brother!" Bláznivý Marek exclaimed shooting Bobek a warning look. "I am not having diseases."

Bláznivý Marek sneezed with such ferocity that he nearly blew the little stove out. The others fell into fits of laughter at this. They were all laughing so much in fact that nobody noticed the first pair of Skidges wheel around and home in on their stove. The Skidges sent a hail of ceramic pellets in the teenagers' direction and then sped off. Everyone dived for cover in the rushes knowing that the first pair had run out of ammunition again but would soon be followed by a second pair.

"When Auntie Sacha hears about this then there will be trouble for Kelp!" Slepý Bobek whispered.

"Sshh!" The other three hissed as they heard the buzz of drone rotors.

Slepý Bobek felt Greta's arm over his body pressing him even closer to the ground. They lay there together. Greta had one arm gently stroking his hair and the other over his back.

Slepý Bobek endured the sensations with fortitude, purely in the interests of science of course, but he found the experience strangely comforting and so he laid his own arm on top of Greta's body and stroked whatever came to hand.

Greta was not offended by his choice of target to stroke. Understanding that Bobičku merely wished to reciprocate her action, because she had read his unguarded mind, Greta endured the sensations, even though the only part of her that he could reach was her backside. A good girl would probably have been honour bound to chastise her beau for his selection of stroking area, but she felt that it was rather nice... as long as he didn't go too far... then she thought in a moment of devilment that was most un-Mík of her to do so that if he did so, then she would be one up on Stepa.

The second pair of Skidges mobbed them like gulls protecting their eggs, swooping down on them aggressively one after the other, over and over again. This time there were no pellets fired, it was obvious that the Skidges had no ammunition and merely wanted to intimidate them. Kelp had programmed this tactic when he had been suffering from a particularly nasty hangover. After several minutes the Skidges tired of their game, gave up and turned back for base, as if they had only been flying cats playing with their food.

Greta reluctantly released Bobek from her protective embrace and checked the food to find that she had rescued it just in time, the bain marie had only recently run out of water. She passed the can to Bobek. She refilled the pan with water that sizzled on its dry surface of the dry bottom.

Greta had enjoyed breathing in the aroma of the food, while the goulash had been cooking, even though she had been face down on top of Bobek, whose own particular aroma was not unpleasant, but could have definitely been improved by liberal application of soap and shampoo. She enjoyed watching Slepý Bobek serving it and passing around the first mess cans.

Stepa, the more tomboyish of the two, enjoyed being waited on for once, rather than being expected to be girlie and motherly and she sniffed the air expectantly as the smell of the goulash became all pervasive.