As always, the story began with an introductory caption:
‘Because of his legendary caning skills, the War Office recruited schoolmaster Victor Grabham to be – THE CANING COMMANDO.’
Barnes Door, the eccentric inventor of the bouncing bum cane and a cane that thrashed around corners, had an urgent meeting with Victor Grabham at the Golden Hind Academy in the village of Lower Belting Bottom. He brought grim news.
‘Thrashley Park inform me they’ve intercepted news of German plans to make an advanced, heavy vinegar cane capable of striping our Russian allies with impunity. They call it …”The Arsenripper”.’
‘Those fiends!’ exclaimed the Commando.
A new chapter of Serial Killer drops every week – sign up for free so you don’t miss it!
If you’re new to Serial Killer, start here at Chapter 1.
‘It’s vital you get hold of the plans, Grabham,’ the boffin continued. ‘The Arsenripper could change the whole course of the war.’
‘You … you don’t mean …’
‘I’m afraid so, if it succeeds there’ll be no stopping the Boche. Next stop: the Atomic Bum!’
The Commando and Alf Mast were sent into Hamburg that very night to steal the top secret plans.
‘Well,’ said Grabham, as he and Alf emerged from a fish and shop in Hamburg, ‘you may be as thick as a plank, but you certainly know your way around Hamburg. You tracked down that fish and chip shop, all right.’
Alf was too busy noisily noshing to reply.
Victor Grabham looked at him disdainfully, ‘Yes, we waste valuable time looking for a fish and chip shop, because otherwise you can’t fight the Germans properly.’ He scowled back at the shop. ‘Fritz’s Fishgeschäft’.
‘So what happens now, sir?’ asked Alf, his hunger satisfied.
‘Now, lad, we find the inventor of the Arsenripper, Werner Von Vroom, who is known to frequent Hamburg’s Reeperbahn, and has a preference for peroxide blondes.’
‘Ah! So that’s why I’m dressed as a blonde ‘bumpy man’, to lure the scientist to his doom?’
‘Correct, lad. So come along. You’ve had your slap-up meal, now it’s “slap and tickle time.” We’re ready to begin… “Operation Inside Top”.’
‘Will I do, sir? Do I look like a saucy bint, sir?’
Grabham briefly evaluated his companion for sauciness. A heavily made-up Alf was wearing a blonde wig with pigtails, a white blouse, a tight skirt, fishnet stockings and stilettos.
‘Yes, straighten those seams, adjust your coconuts, and give just a hint more cleavage to entice Von Vroom.’
Corporal Punishment did as he was ordered. ‘Would I entice you, sir?’
Grabham looked coldly down at him. ‘No, Mast, you would not.’
‘I always meant to ask, sir. Is there a Mrs Sir, sir?’
‘I have no time for bumpy men, Mast,’ Grabham said disdainfully. ‘I am wedded to my cane.’
The Commando, vampire-like in his sinister black cloak, together with his ‘female’ companion, did not seem out of place as they proceeded along the Reeperbahn. Similar mortarboards and cloaks were also worn by German teachers, such as his great enemy the Oberspankerfuhrer.
They entered ‘Brunhilda’s Bierhaus’ and ordered two steins of beer. Hardly had they sat down, when they were joined by Von Vroom. He was wearing a heavy winter coat with a fur collar and stared short-sightedly at them through thick pebble glasses. Given the unlovely appearance of Alf Mast, his short-sightedness was useful.
‘Allow me to introduce myself. I am Werner Von Vroom. May I join you?’
The Commando nodded his assent and Von Vroom turned his attention to Alf. ‘My, you are a foxy young tease.’
‘Call me Mimi, Mr Vroom, sir. I’m a bad girl, I am. I bang like an outhouse door in an air raid. Would you care to sample my wares, sir?’
‘I would indeed, Mimi. You see, we are starved of ladies here in Hamburg. They have all been sent to comfort our brave boys on the Russian Front. There is an embargo on girls working in the Reeperbahn.’
‘Ooh, me nan suffers from embargo somefink fierce, Mr Vroom, sir.’
‘Ach, so?’
‘Indeed,’ interjected the Commando. ‘Your nan would appear to be mostly ailments held together by bile and vinegar.’
‘Thank you very much sir. Nan always said you were a perfect gentlemens.’
‘Come, strumpet,’ leered Von Vroom. ‘I have hired a room upstairs for just the two of us.’
‘All right, big boy,’ said Alf, ‘show me your knockwurst and I’ll show you me drawers.’
‘Ha! I think not!’ said Von Vroom, suddenly pulling away Mast’s empty coconuts. ‘You think you two fooled me even for a moment?”
‘Oi!’ said an indignant Alf. ‘Get your sausage fingers off me thrupenny bits.’
‘I knew you were the Caning Commando and Corporal Punishment the moment you entered the beer hall. I recognised you from the recruiting posters, Grabham.’
The Commando’s heart sank. He had recently agreed to a poster campaign to encourage boys to join the Junior Home Guard. The posters depicted a masked Commando waving a cane with a Union Jack attached to it, exhorting kids to ‘Fight the Hun for Dear Old Mum.’ Somehow, Von Vroom had seen through his disguise.
Von Vroom produced secret blueprint plans from an inside pocket. ‘This is what you came for, Grabham, but you shall never have them.’ He flung back his coat. ‘But here is the prototype I will enjoy testing on you … the Arsenripper!’
The Commando looked aghast at the awesome cane: a serrated edge ran down its entire length and there was a silver death’s head on the end of its shepherd’s crook.
‘It is indeed an Arsenripper,’ gasped Grabham. ‘Not even my canemakers, Mafeking and Jones of St. James’s, or the boffin Barnes Door, could devise such an ignoble rod.’
‘It is years ahead of its time,’ agreed Von Vroom.
‘And undoubtedly against the Geneva Convention,’ scowled the Commando.
Von Vroom flung Alf Mast to one side, ordering him to, ‘Hande hoche, you dirty little bag.’
He then proceeded to lay into the Commando with the Arsenripper. ‘When I’ve finished with you, Grabham, you’ll be standing up from now to doomsday. I will redden your arse like the devil’s cheeks.’
‘Old Striper’, the Commando’s favourite cane, was no match for the secret weapon. The punishment Von Vroom inflicted upon him with the Arsenripper was unbearable. He cowered beneath its furious fusillade. Again and again the cane ripped down on his rear end.
Then Grabham remembered all those school-capped boys who had joined the Junior Home Guard and followed his example, marching around with their little canes, singing, ‘Thrash em all, Thrash em all, the Hun, the Kraut and the Strude-all’. He owed it to them to win. It was what England expected.
His proud heart surged with patriotism. It was time, once again, to Carpet Bum the Hun. Seething with righteous rage he laid into the Nazi as Alf Mast looked on, encouraging him. ‘That’s it, stripe him, sir! Stripe him!’
‘Take that, you Boche baboon. I’m going to bum you back to the Stone Age. It’s arsekrieg for you.’
‘Nicht! Nicht!’
‘Yes, you’re nicked all right and you’re going down.’
‘Donnerwetter!’
‘Donnerwetter your pants, Von Vroom!’
After receiving a first rate thrashing from Old Striper, the scientist was left a blubbering, snivelling heap on the ground. Grabham pocketed the blueprints of the Arsenripper. It had all the information the scientists needed.
But he would make it look like they departed in haste and left the prototype behind. He examined the skull-end of the secret weapon.
‘He done me wrong, sir,’ complained Alf Mast. ‘I think I might have a Hun in the oven, like me sister, sir.’
Ignoring Alf, Grabham unscrewed the skull.
‘Just as I suspected, Mast. Look… A tiny flask of schnapps. You see, it is common for teachers if they are caning a whole class, or even the entire school, to have a little snifter to keep their energy up and ensure the last pupil is given as thorough a beating as the first.’
‘That’s very sensible, sir.’
‘Yes, isn’t it? My own canemakers, Mafeking and Jones, also conceal such containers in the ends of their canes. They even make variants with a pipe or a corkscrew in the end, so we can have a break for a smoke or a glass of wine in mid-caning.’
But Grabham was going to make sure that this evil scientist could never again break the Geneva convention and he replaced the schnapps with thallium, a colourless, odourless, tasteless and lethal poison.
Back in Blighty, Grabham passed on the secret German caning plans to Barnes Door, then he and Alf returned to the Golden Hind Academy in the tranquil village of Lower Belting Bottom.
The first priority was a wash for Alf Mast. ‘Get those perfumed rags off, lad, before you go blonde-happy.’
‘But I’m not allowed to shower with the other boys ’cos I’m so common, sir,’ protested Alf, ‘and Matron complained about me being too big to have a bath in the sink anymore. Cook said the washing up was coming out filthier than it went in, sir.’
‘Then it’s a sluice-down in the horse-trough for you. Now be off with you, or it’s a six stretch in the arse house, lad. Tell no one of our secret mission. The world must never know we are the Caning Commando and Corporal Punishment.’
Serial Killer by Pat Mills & Kevin O’Neill is the first book in the Read Em And Weep series and is on sale digitally or as paperback.