Border Princes

Something that felt as big and heavy as a speeding bus slammed into her from behind without any warning at all.

‘Down here!’ James yelled. Gwen made a scrambling descent of the embankment after him towards the murky riverside. Wet cow-grass and rhododendrons slapped at her face. They came out on a cinder path along the dirty flood wall. A little way along, the body of a young man lay twisted against the fence.

‘James!’ she cried.

‘Never mind him!’ he shouted back, still running. ‘Fighter Command!’

Fighter Command. Thank you so much, Captain bloody Analogy, she thought, struggling through the headache to form any kind of coherent thought at all. Fighter Command meant ‘Scramble and drop everything’. Spitfire pilots sprinting in their flying jackets and Mae Wests the moment the field telephone started to jangle, cups of tea and faithful dogs and card schools left behind. The urgent call to action.

‘Sodding well wait up!’ Gwen yelled, and then shut up.

Twenty yards ahead of them, two figures were struggling violently on the path. One was Toshiko. The other was a big man in jeans and a lumberjack shirt. He had Toshiko by the throat, and was shaking her to and fro as if he wanted to work her head off. Toshiko was flailing helplessly. Nearby, an old, filthy tramp was crawling around on the ground, mewling to himself pitifully. Gwen could hear the horrible barks of pain being forced out of Toshiko.

James flew past the tramp and threw himself at the big man. Gwen was right behind him.

‘Oi! Bloody leave her be!’ she yelled.

The big man in the lumberjack shirt obliged, tossing Toshiko aside. But only, it turned out, so he could jerk around to get James off his broad back. The big man was six six, his neck as thick as his shaved head. He smelled of a beer-sweat that was showing no mercy to industrial-strength applications of Lynx. He roared something, and rotated so wildly that James’s feet left the ground altogether. A beefy, jabbing elbow did the rest. James yelped and fell off him onto the path, clutching his face.

Grinning, the big man was about to place-kick James in the ribs when Gwen tackled him like a full-back.

He went down on his face, felled like a tree, and cracked his teeth on the ground, biting the tip off his tongue into the bargain. Gwen struggled onto his back, and bent one of his meaty arms up behind his shoulder-blades.

‘That’s enough!’ she ordered. ‘Stop fighting me, or I’ll break your bloody arm off, so help me!’

The man beneath her hollered something through broken teeth.

‘Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before!’ Gwen snapped. She cinched the twisted limb up beyond ‘pinned’ to ‘painful’ to make him shut up.

Running footsteps approached from the opposite direction. Jack and Owen appeared out of the rain, racing down the riverside path. Jack’s greatcoat was flying out behind him like wings.

He skidded to a halt, looking at Toshiko and James writhing on the ground, and Gwen straddling a blood- spitting thug.

‘Going well, I see,’ he remarked.

‘As bloody usual,’ snapped Gwen. ‘Give me a hand with this one, for Christ’s sake!’

More than a hand was needed. The big man bucked and unseated Gwen. She flew off him and landed on her backside. The big man got up on his feet, blinking and looking around, spoiling for more. He found himself face to face with Jack Harkness’s perfect white smile.

‘Rough night?’ Jack asked.

‘Fwuk yoh!’ the big man spat, his words mangled by his cracked front teeth and swollen tongue. ‘Iss mihhn! Mhhy ttuhhn!’

‘Your turn?’ asked Jack. ‘OK, fellah.’

Jack threw a perfect, Marquis of Queensbury right hook that slapped the big man’s head to the right. Drops of blood sprayed out, like Raging Bull.

‘’ahstard!’ the big man snorted, and swung a punch back that was so telegraphed, it might as well have been announced by a butler. ‘Big big big!’ he yelled, his slurred emphasis resting on the middle ‘big’.

‘Yes, you are,’ Jack replied, ‘but you know what they say…’ A jab to the gut folded the big man over. An upper cut finished the job.

The big man curled up on his side on the ground, groaning and dazed. Jack stepped back, rubbing the knuckles of his right hand, and smiled again.

‘And the winner is,’ Owen remarked snidely, helping Toshiko up. She was bruised around the throat and having trouble breathing.

‘All right?’ James asked Gwen. She nodded and held out her hand to let him pull her to her feet.

‘You’re bleeding,’ she said, pointing.

‘Just a split lip,’ he replied.

‘Tea, cakes and Band-Aids later,’ said Jack. ‘Were we all just brawling for fun, or-?’

‘Those bags,’ coughed Toshiko, pointing down the path to the two, forlorn Sainsbury’s carriers. ‘It’s called the Amok.’

‘Is it, indeed?’ asked Jack, cocking his head in curiosity and stepping forwards.

‘It’s mine!’ the old tramp moaned. He was cowering by the fence. ‘It’s mine! It’s my go!’

‘Not any more, I’m afraid,’ Jack told him. ‘Stay there.’

Jack approached the bags. The rain pattered off the bulging plastic. He could smell the contents, and the experience wasn’t pleasant. He crouched down. Gwen and James appeared on either side of him.

Jack glanced at them with a rueful grin. ‘Lucky dip,’ he said. He put his hand into one of the bags.

Behind them, the tramp wailed out a deep, anguished howl. It almost obscured Toshiko’s call of ‘Be careful!’

Jack pulled out a few objects that made him, Gwen and James grimace. ‘Oh, joy,’ Jack said. ‘This is why I love the job so.’

‘Just tip them out, I would,’ suggested Gwen.

‘And if it’s something volatile?’ asked James. ‘Something delicate or sensitive or, you know, explosive?’

‘Just tip them out anyway,’ said Gwen. ‘That’s got to be better than having to stick your hand in shit.’

Jack turned both carrier bags out onto the path and began to sift. The rain rinsed the exposed contents: pieces of clothing, matted with black dirt; a crushed Marlboro packet filled with a collection of stubbed-out cigarette butts; part of a Rubik’s cube; the fashion cover for a mobile phone; something furry and mauve that had once been a motorway services sandwich; the tail of a kite; a toothless comb; more bits of torn, stinking clothing; a single, scuffed Adidas trainer in a child’s size; eight disposable plastic forks and spoons held together by a red Post Office elastic band; a Happy Meal toy; part of an electric toothbrush; another clip frame, smaller than the first, holding a photo of a mother and father proudly displaying a small baby on a windy beach somewhere; a safety pin; an out- of-date copy of Exchange amp; Mart with several pages torn out; a Bic pen with no innards…

‘There!’ James said, excitedly. ‘What’s that by the phone cover? Is that it?’

Jack held the object up. ‘It’s a Pikachu-head Pez dispenser,’ he said solemnly. He checked. ‘It’s OK, though. It’s not loaded.’

‘Oh,’ said James. ‘It looked like-’

‘Like what?’ Jack inquired.

‘A Pikachu-head Pez dispenser, now I see it, obviously,’ scowled James.

‘My head really hurts,’ said Gwen, ‘otherwise I’d be laughing and taking the piss right now.’

‘All right!’ James snapped. ‘It looked like…’

‘What?’

James muttered something.

‘Say again?’

‘A piece of exotic technology,’ James said slightly louder and reluctantly.

Gwen pursed her lips. ‘Even though my head does hurt, that’s fantastically funny. Should I alert the rest of the team James just made a tit of himself?’

‘No need,’ said Owen. He and Toshiko had joined them. He looked at James. ‘End of the World, huh?’ he asked. ‘If it hadn’t been for us pesky kids?’

‘Shut up!’ Toshiko growled. She was still rubbing her throat and the colour had not yet returned to her rain-