The Sleeping Army Awakes

Part 92 Culinary Conflagration

Predictably, not all the guests wished to go down for the ceremony itself, and this meant that there was a large gathering outside the entrance, all at a loose end.  For the older guests, the haunting memory of the mine flooding, still prevented them from daring to cross the threshold of the mine and venturing down below. Those that were too young to remember the disaster themselves had heard the ghost stories concerning the mine.  In fact, for some of them, even being on the hills at all, in the proximity of the naval land, outside the mine was stretching a point, and if they hadn't been promised such a cornucopia of fine foods for the wedding feast, then they would not have been there in the first place.  But there was no drink flowing and no food yet so this meant that nobody was really even mingling yet.

There was a brief altercation between Albert Gusset, the Manager of the Zeli Corporation's marquee staff, and a small group of hungry teenagers from a neighbouring village, who had tried to sneak in through the back of the tent, before the staff had finished putting out all the tables and the food preparation had barely started.

"Clear off you cheeky beggars!" Gusset shouted at the tallest one in English. "Nothing's ready yet and those maniac security guards have taken all our metal knives away and we're having to use plastic ones so we're not in a good mood! Come back in couple of hours when we are ready."

The teenagers didn't understand the finer points of what Gusset was shouting, because they didn't speak English, nevertheless they did get the message that they weren't welcome and were unlikely to get any food for some time. They slunk off to the other tent where they got precisely the same reaction from Bill Marchant, the manager of the Scrivener marquee, whose staff had also had all of their knives removed.

Marchant had just had a shouting match with the head chef Marcel Alouette who asked quite reasonably how he was expected to carve a spit roasted whole moose with a plastic knife.

"Come on please!" Alouette repeated for the third time. "Is not possible to curve meat wizout proper knife!"

"Carve!" Marchant corrected.

"But I cannot curve without knife!" Alouette asserted with a Gallic shrug.

Marchant was losing the will to live.

Grooms down the mine

Once everyone in the marshalling yard had been frisked, at least once, and nobody else had exploded, or had shown any signs of high explosives or weapons, apart from the confiscated kitchen knives, the security team could relax a little and Malik could go down to check the actual wedding venue.

Ivo finally drove Pawel back out of the mine and drew the Corniche around in a semi circle until it was level with Spencer and Samuel, leaving it pointed back towards the mine.

"Is good news Lord Admiral sir!" Pawel said with a broad smile. "Ladies and Mr Horník is finally ready now!"

"So can we go down now?" Spencer asked.

"As long as you promise not to peek at ladies on way down Mr Butler!" Pawel replied and then he shrugged in a resigned manner. "Is very important for them! I don't know why... but simply their attitude makes me hungry again... is exhausting work negotiating to womens and robots."

"I think that you have done very well." Samuel said. "Perhaps they could find you a sausage or two and some bread in the kitchen."

Pawel looked dubious because he had already eaten several breakfasts, so Samuel added. "tell them that Lord Admiral Samuel Wellington said that it must be so!"

"Fakt?" Pawel asked.

"Fakt!" Samuel confirmed.

"Come on you two!" Ivo shouted to Samuel and Spencer. "Hop in and I'll drive you there in style!" Then he leant over to Pawel and whispered, "That way they can't escape and run away or sneak into changing room of girls!"