CAPTAIN HURLOCK ATTACKS [195] In a room in Crabhaven harbour office, Captain Hurlock, harbourmaster, wearing as usual his naval-looking uniform and peaked hat, was addressing eight of the local fulltime and parttime inshore fishermen who he had summoned for another secret anti-poacher operation. They were wearing their usual assortment of working clothes. He ordered: "Right! `Information received' tells us that the `Benthic Saboteurs Action Corps' [his version of `British Sub-Aqua Club'] will send more amateur frogmen here tomorrow, to the wreck of the Eurynome which is marked on your charts. You know what that means, since it is in the middle of our best lobster area. You will stay here, sleep here in sleeping bags, and be ready for 7 a.m. tomorrow. All boat engines will be serviced with full fuel tanks, injectors and filters cleaned, and registration numbers covered. I have already got the sub ready. There will be no non-starting or poorly engines. There will be no matters arising or things taking longer. Is that clear?". The usual chorus of ignorable complaints and excuses by men ordered to action, started. "Just a pint or two --" Trelane started. "-- will slow your reactions and loosen your tongue at the wrong moment. No!" Captain Hurlock completed, "You'll have to leave your inseparable bobble hat here for once, Trelane. We will wear helmets in case they try any rough stuff.". "Rurrrh, orders orders, acts like he's still in the Navy." another complained. "Something on the T-" another started, but stopped in time. "-V?" Captain Hurlock snapped, "Don't that again! The time wasting addictant! It's by acting like a properly disciplined navy that we and others have made such inroads into the costly curse of Cousteau which eats our livelihood like foxes in hen runs! Already many of them stay inland or go abroad instead of meddling here. We've got 31 miles to go to the wreck. We sail at 7am, 7am, not even a minute later, and secrecy! One boastful tongue loosened by drink, and the law and the inland people have us like the dredgersub swallowing and digesting an inflatable boat that's been left here without permission.". "But - milkman to see - I promised about some plants - it won't `take longer'." said Trelane tentatively. Captain Hurlock replied sharply: "You're right, it won't take longer, it won't start, to get a chance to take longer! Your goat can do the `but'-ing. Phone the milkman from here.". "Your six-pack stays un-drunk in your pantry." he added, suspecting Trelane's real motive; then he ordered: "Jackson, ditch all unnecessary gear and fit both your outboard motors, side by side, in case any of them try a runner with a camera. Trelane, ditto. One day the Government'll realise our complaints matter. Any more queries? No? Right! Service your boats and kit; and no leaving the harbour till morning at 7am. Oh yes, in your sleeping bags by 10.30pm.". Trelane was not pleased at having to wear a crash helmet and to spend the evening rearranging his boat instead of in the pub or at home. Having put his fishing gear on the quay, he went through the juggle of fitting two outboard motors side by side on a narrow transom, and finding room for 2x2=4 outboard motor petrol tanks. "Good thing I got Joe to make me the `siameser', to join the motor handles so the motors follow each other." he thought, "My head feels incomplete without my bobble hat. I better get used to the helmet. Bother all this. Divers are a $%#%^$#$, and so are the precautions against them. Well, `rating' feels `called to the bar', and, given a summons, I must comply with it! I'm off to the pub, and never mind Petty Officer Hurlock!". He did not reach it, for there was another watching than merely drink-corruptable humans. As he crept quietly away in the dark along the quay, he saw a shadow, then saw CR79, the dredgersub, against the quayside. Its grab arm was out over the quay in front of him, and Mr.Meols, the village innkeeper, was firmly held crossways in its grab. From the sub came a voice, from no larynx of flesh, from a sentient brain not of organic matter but of silicon. "You also think the pub sells engine oil, Trelane?" it said. Caught at default, Trelane could say no more than a startled "What!?". The electronic voice continued: "As Captain Hurlock told me, take this `publican and sinner' off me and make him do his duty in his boat with the rest on operation tomorrow instead of skulking behind his bar moaning about us staying sober costing him profits.". "Help, I've got barrels to connect up." Mr.Meols gasped, with his chest squeezed in CR79's grab. "He said `flu' as his previous excuse." said CR79. "I only came down to find when they'd be out of that meeting, and you overgrown steel dissolver of everything catch me. #$%#$% that teetotal Captain Hurlock and his unrealistic ideas." Mr.Meols gasped, "OK OK, you oversized wirebrain, you sound and act more and more like Captain Hurlock every time I see you. I get seasick. Service my boat by moonlight. Sleeping bag in the office. I know the routine.", he said as CR79 lowered its grab to the quay and opened it. He crawled out quickly onto the paving stones, glad to have had no nearer contact with the fate of local nuisances which legal means could not or would not touch. "Take a seasickness pill, then." CR79 replied curtly. Meols and Trelane went to their boats and followed Captain Hurlock's orders. The ten men got into their sleeping bags in the office. One of them thought: "Tomorrow'll make known how much of their gear their cared-for kit will come again to Bent-Spire-Town [= Chesterfield] back by them taken, their frogmen's fins, fond-loved aqualungs, to Chesterfield after choosing path of poacher-profit, pilfering lobsters, selfishly the shellfish, or what will be seen at all when sinks the sun, of cylindered horde ....", and then slept like the others. [196] He woke and stretched and yawned, saying: "Aaaerh, what's the time? Nearly morning on the day of another anti-poacher action callout. Law does nothing, so we must do it. At Puffin Island [see 166] were pilferers caught, twelve tank-wearers and two Geminis [= a make of inflatable boat], th'aqualunged enemy's eager sea-steeds, leaving no lobsters for our livelihood, arrogant from inland, the air-backed ones. that evening were of none left to Conway to come to their cars again, to their pier-famed place, with prey to Wigan. Some sought to scatter: sonar found them and silently smote. Nor let them seek to land, but at unclimbable cliffs no escape they had, but fate found them, flipper-dissolving, cylinder-consuming, by sea waves hidden. Let the scuba-lovers now seek inland ---". "You and your poetry again, so soon at half past &*^%&^-knows-when - put a sock in it -" another complained, waking, "Errryawn - {}[]#$ these action callouts, can't Captain Hurlock let us fish as usual? We better get up and dress and kit up and check our gear and get a meal, all by 7am.". They got up and dressed. Each put on heavy dark blue sailor's waterproofs with badges on, seaboots, thick cloth mask over mouth and nose, armbands with identity numbers, dark blue crash helmet with visor and with matching numbers on each side, pickaxe handle with wrist strap clipped to equipment belt, and transparent shield. They looked identical except for their identity numbers `1' to `9'. Captain Hurlock, who had `0' on his helmet and `commander' on his armbands, had trained them well to use this kit. After a quick meal, he called them to attention: "Now for action. Agh, all this need for secrecy and tracelessness. We can't do anything on the surface in near sight of inhabited land or other boats or ships that may query our legality and radio for the law. In the old days we'd have been called an `essential specialist group' and let police our own waters and arrest and try poachers and use weapons as needed, who know our trade and its problems, not some impractical landlubber magistrate like the one we've got now, who himself scubadives. In the old days the Cornish tin miners could enforce their own laws, likewise the Forest of Dean coal miners - essential trades, the country needs tin and coal - and shellfish!". "Aye, it'd have been easy." #4 replied, "We could have patrolled on land as well as at sea; if they have got a permit signed by you, then well; else overpower their surface-cover and wait for them to come up --". "Or get them up in a trawl, as the Navy did sometimes when I was in it and sport divers got in naval areas." said Captain Hurlock, "The USA had diver plague sooner and worse than us, but we got it in the end, too soon.". "My dog --" came the inevitable attempt to waste time, from #5 this time. "" Captain Hurlock replied, "and things arise, and you miss 7am. The sub had to catch you before! Stay here!". "-- and their diving gear ends up tracelessly in the destructor / recycler," #4 continued, "or we keep it for our own diving to attend to moorings and wreck picking; and themselves in the harbour lock-up until their relatives pay us expenses. Soon stop it. And any landsmen's police that turn up, have to stick to landsmen's matters.". "Or use the sonar as an underwater loudspeaker to order them to surface and hand over their kit, or else." #7 added. "Instead of which, we daren't do a thing if there's a risk of it getting back to the fuzz." said Captain Hurlock, "BSAC can afford the fancy solicitors, or there's one actually in their club. Enough of that. One last going over the plans, then to the boats!". "Captain?" said #5 tentatively, "Sorry to sound silly or childish, but I've just had a nasty thought. A dream I had last night set it off. I dreamed of `Transformers' - like my son's toys, but full size and alive, and in particular of the orange artic-cab called `Huffer'. It may sound unlikely, but in Droitwich there's a man who's been in the papers, he made imitation real Transformers which are alive like your sub is, with a computer that can think like a man --". "Where are you leading?" Captain Hurlock interrupted, impatient at the delay as 7am approached, "I know of Wernicke's Transformers, some of them helped to design the sub!". #5 replied: "That `Mr. Trerose' - I realized this morning that his artic-cab was `Huffer' or a copy! If it Huffer from Droitwich, then he was likely no fisherman but likely a cop masquerading - in which case that ultrasound gun is on its way to the fuzz or worse, and we'll get them here to seize your stock and declare them to be a prohibited firearm, and only for the Navy to use!". "One leaked?" said Captain Hurlock resignedly, "Had to happen some time. There's plenty stock of them, plenty copies of how to make them, stashed in different places.". #8, remembering something he had seen, said: "Transformers!? You sure? Some odd things nowadays? Then what I saw yesterday was real! I was at sea, I saw a big hawk, odd-shaped. Then it landed on the cliff-top, so it must have been much bigger and further away than I had thought, as big as a small aeroplane! Then a bit later, something like a man in white armour, but far too big, climbed down the cliff, just opposite where those last divers had been, picked something up, climbed back up to the cliff-top, turned into an ambulance, and drove away.". "Laserbeak and Ratchet!" #5 exclaimed in alarm, "How many more made real? That better not have been one of those scuba divers got away! Else, him and `Trerose' better not put their heads together, or .... Too many seals about there, cluttering up the sonar images. Captain them to be careful. #&%# divers. This callout'll cost me a day's bar takings, playing at sea-commandoes.". `Perhaps one got away'! " said Captain Hurlock in annoyance. "All this drill and uniform." #8 complained, "I still prefer my good old bobble hat and sweater to this Buck Rogers outfit.". "You know why." #5 replied, "Captain ordered helmets and riotsquad gear in case of rough stuff, and strong waterproofs. Many scuba divers wear helmets now - 're learning a few things.". They stood to attention in line in numerical order, an impressive display in their identical heavy kit. Captain Hurlock, standing in front of them, addressed them: "Right! Now to prove that you miscellaneous bunch, having been knocked into a uniformed trained disciplined force, can, even with the need for secrecy, use your equipment efficiently to tracelessly dispose of our current plague, like a stork among frogs! No more complaining over drinks and then doing nothing! At the double, collect your kit, to the boats, start engines, and off!". [197] They ran out of the back door towards their boats - and found that it was surrounded by police. "That's enough!, you `para-naval' thugs! Your reign ceases! This explains much!" shouted one policeman. "This is the police. Stay where you are." said another through a loudhailer, "Suspicion of possession of offensive weapons, conspiracy to endanger life. You are not obliged to ...". "That scuba diving magistrate sent them!" Captain Hurlock shouted angrily, "Charge in wedge through to the boats and away!". Captain Hurlock's men formed into a close 1-2-3-4 triangle as a `flying wedge' with him at the point in front, and charged. They, toughened by years of work at sea, well trained by him in use of 3-foot-long pickaxe handles and transparent shields instead of idle television-watching in dark evenings, experienced in running on slippery quays, made short work of landsmen in ordinary street constable kit; short police truncheons beat in vain on heavy sailors' waterproofs and crash helmets. Policemen fell in every direction; their tall unstable antiquated helmets were easily knocked off. More policemen, who had been surrounding the other side of the building, ran to help too late as Captain Hurlock's men reached the boat-stairs and ran down them to their boats. "Bye bye, P.C.Plod!" Trelane shouted, "Next time you stick to catching landsmen's thieves, and let us catch ours, since you can't or won't.". "We'll soon stop them, our secret weapon's coming!" one policeman thought; and it came. A large vehicle drove up, and a heavy powerful jet of water hit Hurlock's man #2, who staggered for a moment but recovered, exclaiming "Watercannon! Ha ha ha! know nothing about our life! I've had that for hours on end, on trawlers in storms, and kept at my post through it!". "Little Boy Blue playing with the garden hose!" another mocked, "'ve never been out at sea in bad weather!". There was a wooden bumping as CR79, the dredgersub, with its grab-arm pushed five small fishing-boats against the bottom of the boat stairs. "The boats are OK!" it said, "They tried to tamper with them, but I'd pulled them out of reach! I tried to warn you that they were here, but I couldn't get a reply.". "I bet the %&^*^ cops cut the phone wires." Captain Hurlock thought angrily. Two of them got in each of the five boats. All motors started first pull, and they were off and out to sea, away from land, away from landsmen, away from landsmen's laws and fences and buildings and pestering public, to a realm with had been theirs and nobody else's, till Cousteau gave frogman capability to pleasure seekers. "Yeehaa! We're off" exclaimed Captain Hurlock, "Stay at sea till dark, then land somewhere away. Perhaps even dispose of those rubber-finned robbers at the [wreck of the] `Eurynome' as planned! Overpower their cover boats and wait [for them to surface]. Soon those pilfering pleasure seekers will have seen their fancy diving gear for the last time!". "You want a diver to catch? Look no further!" said Trelane (#8), who was riding with Captain Hurlock, "When we landed and raided that camp at Smew Cove and took their kit, I kept a set of their diving gear and I used it to lurk underwater at some of our pots that kept getting robbed. Along came some stuck up snob with his floosies in a `floating gin palace' [= large flashy pleasure craft]. He took away a limpet mine as well as lobsters! (I got the explosive from a friend who's a tin miner.)". "Now 's the sort of scuba diving I mind hearing about! Good for you!" replied Captain Hurlock, who appreciated something that matched his naval past's rules as to the proper place for diving. They sailed on. [198] "Forget the `Eurynome'" Captain Hurlock walkietalkied to the other boats, having second thoughts, "It's too much in the open. Keep inshore among the rocks, too shallow for any fancy naval patrol craft that may get sent after us - then we duck into Smew Cove and wait till the heat's off.". "That's better." he thought, "The feel of the waves, spray on my visor, for a useful purpose and not pleasuring about, part of a team, whether fishing or defending our fishing, the open sea around me, far better than those years `jailed' as a gogglebox repairman in Taunton after the Navy had no more thanks for me after all my service for them, than to ditch me like a redundant docker merely because I became a year too old - till I moved here and started helping an old man with his fishing (his sons had both moved away), and he left his fishing area to me when he got too old to sail. Here's Smew Cove - and someone else has found it!". A scuba diver in full kit (as surface cover) was in an anchored inflatable, and other divers' bubbles moved about in the sheltered cove. Captain Hurlock's squad went at once into a practised and efficient diver catching routine. #5 hooked a handheld `Hurlock sonar' to the side of his boat, with its front end submerged, put it into `underwater loudspeaker' mode, and said into it "You lot down there! There's ten of us above you! We can wait! Surface and put your kit in our boats! Enough of you lot!". The bubbles started to make for land instead of obeying. The squad set their sonars to `locate and then power beam' mode, at enough strength to stun or disorientate. #4 fired at one of two echoes which were fleeing together. It stopped moving, and the other merged with it and, as #4 and #2's boat reached them, surfaced as one diver lifesaving another. "Help - my mate fainted below." the diver started to say, then gave a started "What?" on seeing the squad's cloth masks and identical heavy waterproofs and helmets with badges and serial numbers. "Here's two more!" #2 shouted, then to the two divers "Your kit in my boat, you in #7 and #3's! We'll stop you poachers if it's the last thing we do!" as #2 and #4 dragged them alongside. "We'll have the law on you - I know the law, no individual fishing rights for ..." the other diver started, until with a hard punch #2, who had heard enough of landsmen's legalisms, replied "Law on who?, in our kit, you `barrack-room lawyer' lock-picking through every attempt by us to defend our living!". #2 and #4 took the two divers' aqualungs off, dragged them inboard, handcuffed their hands behind their backs, and looked for other divers to arrest. "'s our prosecution plea - in your inflatable with claws and shells on! don't come raiding stuff inland!" #4 added, looking at the inflatable where the divers' surface-cover man already lay face-down, handcuffed and stripped of diving gear, among scattered diving gear and an incriminating litter of crabs and lobsters. Divers made for land but, as the water shallowed near the rocks, they were caught and dragged alongside by hand or boathook, clubbed, dragged onboard, handcuffed, and stripped down to their rubber wet-suits. Most of them showed little fight and wore nothing protective, not even helmets. The last diver, a thin-armed unimpressive office type despite his expensive kit and bulky two cylindered aqualung, was caught by Captain Hurlock, who, shouting "No you don't! More shellfish on you lot than I've caught all this week!", dragged him with a boathook off a rock as he started to struggle ashore. A lobster-hook and a large net bag of shellfish hanging from the diver's weight-belt were enough evidence that he was not merely an underwater sightseer. "They're coming in like mackerel! That's the last one, I think. Now what happens?" said Trelane. "You self-important sea-frogs! Now the duck's got you!" Captain Hurlock shouted. Behind the shouting and splashing and sound of fighting, two other unnoticed noises gradually became louder. "What happens to us?" the diver moaned as Captain Hurlock's boathook pulled at his left thigh. "Ducks lay eggs, what use are frogs?" Captain Hurlock shouted, "This time, if you give no more lip, we'll take your kit and put you thieves ashore without it and let you go without charging you.". "You and your ultrasonic underwater stun beams---" moaned the diver, who had read about them in a recent newspaper account. "#8 had the right idea!" Captain Hurlock said, "Keep their kit for ourselves, or some of it.". "And eagles catch ducks!" the diver exclaimed, "You should have kept to fishing, not played at sea-patrol! Look up inland!". Captain Hurlock and Trelane looked up, suddenly aware of a regular whup-whup noise and the whooshing of small jetmotors which had until then gone unnoticed behind the other noises. "It's happened!" Captain Hurlock walkietalkied frantically, "Those cops've called in the big stuff! Ditch them and their kit, and run! We can't fight that's coming!". [199] "Copters! And that jet bird thing that #8 saw!" #3 shouted in alarm, looking up. "Return to Crabhaven!" one of the two RAF helicopters loudhailered as they swooped on Captain Hurlock's boats, "Do not scatter. We have orders to shoot if necessary. Naval patrol craft are also coming. Return to ---", and the message repeated. "Skwaak! Let those divers and their kit go!" Laserbeak added. Crabhaven's self-appointed `Inshore Fisheries Patrol' realised that the game was up. They obeyed. "'Oppit, ballast! Go and finish your dive!" said #7 as he and #3 rolled a captured diver overside and threw his kit after him, then added "What can they do, except make a lot of exhausty wind? I've ridden out gales many times.", but soon learned what, as one of the helicopters came within four feet of his boat. "Ahoy aloft! You trying to tip us over with your landing skid?" #3 protested, but had to obey like the rest. Arnold Peterson climbed onshore, his thigh torn by Captain Hurlock's boathook. Captain Hurlock and Trelane had not had time to pull him inboard and strip his diving gear off. He started to tow the other divers to shore. Most of the divers, until the helicopters came, had thought that Hurlock's patrol was official. Laserbeak stayed to help. "Ooh - my head - where am I?" said a diver as Laserbeak swooped and picked him out of the water. "I'll put you on land. Your head got bumped, I think. Help's coming. They've gone" said Laserbeak, and put him onshore and went for another. The divers recovered their scattered kit and put it on again, to keep hold of it. Luckily for the divers, Captain Hurlock's men had followed habit of training and had recovered all their handcuffs. [200] "Keep going! Keep together!" one of the helicopters loudspeakered. The `patrol' had to obey. Captain Hurlock used his sonar for the last time, in message mode: "Affy! [= Aphanistor] Go! We're trapped! You're on your own now! I knew I couldn't get the authorities on our side!". They reached Crabhaven harbour, now full of police - at a guess, at least a hundred of them. "So it ends as I thought it would." Captain Hurlock thought as he caught hold of a mooring ring on the quay, "At least I made a stand against matters. The law favours idle trippers above producers like us, it won't stop shellfish-poaching and won't let us stop it.". They disembarked. Captain Hurlock led them up the boat stairs. "That's enough! Up against the wall, you pirates!" said a police sergeant. "No!" Captain Hurlock replied, " are the pirates, thieving our livelihoods, and the law won't give us proper defendable fishing rights like idle inland pleasure anglers have!". "Right! Names and addresses, and let's see what you look like without that fancy kit." said the police sergeant. "Ten-shun! Number off! Zero!" Captain Hurlock ordered. His men stood to attention against the harbour wall in #order and each in turn called out his number. "Oh no!" a policeman thought as onlookers photographed them, "Very impressive, trying to turn it into a public drill-display!". [201] "Officer, he--" #4 started. "No talking in the ranks! Dispute over jurisdiction with land authorities - 'll handle this." Captain Hurlock ordered, then turned to a policeman and said as if giving an official report "We found and arrested 8 unauthorized scuba divers and seized their kit - so many divers poach shellfish (like this lot were) that I have been forced to only allow scuba diving on permit signed by me - we had to release them when an RAF exercise that I was not informed about endangered us.". "'ll give the orders round here!" the policeman replied, "You do not become an authorized patrol with powers of arrest and seizure and necessary use of force and weapons, merely by having a grievance and buying uniforms and weapons! Don't accumulate yet more charges! Assault - robbery - piracy - masquerading as an authorized patrol - you have power to control others at sea, or on beaches, only to complain to the authorities.". "We complained to the authorities, and nothing ever gets done." Captain Hurlock replied. "Probably because what you were wanting would have unfairly restricted others. If you think the law's wrong, complain to your MP.". "I , over and over again! They've no idea! Always townsmen's idle pleasure and sport comes before productive work.". "If such as you had their way, there'd be no public access to any minor road or footpath or beach! For the last time, take that kit off, or use force!". "All right! All right! Visors up! Masks down! Better tell them our names and addresses." Captain Hurlock ordered. "No. Take it all right off. Any more paramilitary airs and I add `threatening behaviour'. You're merely thugs acting in self-interest, never mind anybody else.". "Where's the man in charge of you?" Captain Hurlock asked the nearest policeman sharply, "not some young rating sent by him. Oh, he is over there, very comfy in that car." he continued, taking his pickaxe handle from his belt and pointing with it at a police car standing behind away from the men, "Tell him in the car with the `scrambled eggs' round his arms, that `inspecky' leading his men from behind, not doing his job and not letting us do it, to keep poachers off our shellfish! I see that one of you at least managed to electric prod him out of his plushy office to come to the place of action, like I had to do in the Navy various times to slackers and exemption claimers! Tell him to come to his proper place, in of his men like me, and fight me baton to baton, if he's got one, if he dares!, since he claims to be leader of you lot.". "For the last time, take that rig off before we have to use teargas to overpower you!". "This is it, men. I reckon we've done much that needs doing. Take your kit off and hang --". "--it up in your storeroom? No! It goes in this pickup of yours, to go the police station! Lets see who you are.". "It's over! Dis-miss! and do as they say." Captain Hurlock ordered finally. Captain Hurlock and his men took their kit off. A police sergeant listed it: "Checklist seized items (my turn to do this to you, for once): ten dark blue heavy sailors' waterproofs, each with a badge saying "Inshore Fisheries Patrol, Crabhaven section"; ten dark blue crashhelmets numbered 0 to 9; ten pairs of armbands numbered `commander' and 1 to 9; ten personal radios; ten equipment belts; ten pickaxe handles with wrist loops adapted to hang from those belts; ten cloth masks; handcuffs and other restraint devices; ---". Captain Hurlock interrupted: "And I suppose that in court, you'll insult my men's uniforms and gear by parading some thin-armed court clerk in a set of it, to show some landlubber beak what we looked like in it! And then I suppose one set goes on a dummy in a police museum, and the rest is burnt with the drugs and the porn and the rubbish, or passed on to police bosses' friends for unnecessary pleasure sailing getting into difficulties making work for the lifeboat! We've lost enough fishing time lifeboat-rescuing weekend incompetents! Just like I've put a stop to round here! This is a working harbour, and I'll not have it choked with trippers!". The police sergeant replied: "You respect your rigout? In the same way those scuba divers that you `arrested' today respected and cherished gear, which they were doing nothing illegal with ---". "Except nonstop thieving our shellfish, which are our living and merely their idle fun." Captain Hurlock interrupted. The sergeant continued: "--- A good thing that robot bird thing `Laserbeak' saw you and led those copters here, else eight more divers disappearing to blame on bad leaders or weather. Now - lets see who you lot are, you self appointed tinpot mini navy:- #0: commander - you, Captain Hurlock (ex RN), harbourmaster here. Been exceeding your powers rather? This is a public harbour, and if scuba divers and trippers want to use it, they can. Another time, another place, and you lot's leadership and discipline and toughness and efficiency might have got you recognised as an official body, but not here. #1: Mr.T.Robinson, inshore fisherman. #2 and #3: John and Peter, his sons. #4: Mr.Nick Mickelson, inshore fisherman. #5: Mr.Meols, the innkeeper. You must be an enthusiastic sea-patrol member to keep missing bar time to train and go on action! #6: You! Detective-Constable Polwerran! So this is the `bit of inshore fishing' that you do in your spare time! Not much action here like in the Flying Squad or the French CRS, so you look for it elsewhere! #7: Mr.K.Walton, #8: Mr.H.Trelane, both inshore fishermen. #9: Mr.Z.Penlane, keeper of the harbour shop. All willing and able to get the best out of good equipment (including these underwater antipersonnel (and anti-seals and -sharks, you'd claim, I suppose) ultrasonic guns), without being so mentally dependent on it that you can't operate without it. Pity - in a war you might have been useful! Trouble is, this is peacetime, with legal sporting scuba divers and not enemy frogmen. Enough of this. Separate and get into our vans as we order you.". "Not just them we have to go out against" Captain Hurlock replied, "Three weeks ago, 3 inflatablefuls of so-called birdwatchers hauled and emptied every one of our pots from Dobbits to Black Rock Head! won't do that again in a hurry. got home, with no help from us, but their boats didn't.". [202] Captain Hurlock and his men were pushed into police vans and taken away. Their kit was loaded into the harbour pickup truck and tied down; a policeman got in and drove it, leading the vans. "I wonder where Hurlock's fancy great dredgersub is? No sign of it in the harbour." said one of the police van drivers as they drove away. "Next step is a lot of nosy reporters round, I suppose." said one of the remaining men of the village. "Ten men gone. I don't suppose they'll be bailed. Who'll take the boats out? What on earth's been going on? He never told me." said one village woman to another. At Smew Cove, Towcester BSAC's divers had collected their scattered diving gear and put it on again and were sitting about on rocks recovering from the sudden assault. "Phew, what was all that!?" said one. "Efficient squad of thugs they were. I thought they were some sort of new sea police, till they dumped us and scarpered when those helicopters arrived." said another. "Lucky that hawk plane thing arrived, or I reckon we'd be 8 more statistics." said one, in their inflatable looking for spilt gear. "Wow! Those sonar stunners! Just like that article in the BSAC magazine! Not a chance against stuff like that. - That's all 8 of us and all our kit back.". "What were they going to do with us?". Laserbeak, who was perching on a rock, receiving a radio message, said "The police say, would you come to Crabhaven and give them a statement? You may be needed in court as witnesses.". "But our stuff and our cars are in the other direction.". "I suppose they could send someone there to meet you." said Laserbeak. "Are you alive or just remote-controlled!?" asked one of the divers, who was in the front of the inflatable, "You're a bit different from Gwaihir the eagle in `The Lord of the Rings', but you'll do! Thankyou!.". Towcester BSAC got safely back to their cars. Laserbeak went with them. The police took their statements, having overcome their astonishment at their first meeting with a sentient robot. Meanwhile Kidderminster BSAC dived on the wreck of the Eurynome and returned safely, unaware of what had been planned against them. As it happened, neither group went near Dobbits Cleft that evening.