Thunderbollocks

Donald Findlay sat impassively behind his desk, drumming his fingers and sighing as the seconds ticked past four o’clock which was when Souness was supposed to arrive.  I shuffled awkwardly in my seat and worried about having to clear my throat again because the first dozen times had obviously irked Findlay and he was now beginning to draw me looks whenever I coughed, spluttered or choked – anyone would think I was on Radio Scotland and someone had asked me an awkward question about Celtic fans the way I was behaving.  Suddenly the door opened and a trilby hat flew in and landed perfectly on Findlay’s coat stand.  “Yes, yes, Souness, do cut out the games and sit down, you’re eighteen seconds late” snapped Findlay and Souness walked past me, knocking his elbow off my head as he passed, and took a seat.

“As both of you know, I have had my concerns about the Lord Advocate for quite some time” said Findlay, leaning forward and pointing his pipe at the picture of a furrow browed ape that lay inside an open file on his desk.  “This is him here, taken at a function at Celtic Park not all that long ago.”

“You mean that’s not a furrow browed ape?” I asked.

“No, that’s Frank Mulholland...  Hold on, dammit Spiers, you’re right, it’s a furrow browed ape.  Now where the deuce is the Mulholland file?”

“Not so fast, Donald” said Souness.  “That is Frank Mulholland.”

“Oh, so it is – ha!” roared Findlay, amused.  “Imagine that, Spiers, eh?  Imagine mistaking Frank Mulholland for a furrow browed ape!  The Lord Advocate too...  Now, where were we?”

“You were about to tell me that Mulholland is using the recent tragedy in Glasgow to make another assault on civil liberties and you’re about to send me to Jamaica to do something about it” said Souness.

“Jamaica, ye say?  Ho ho, Souness, always Jamaica, isn’t it?  Okay then, off you pop and take Spiers here with you, I’m sure he’ll come in useful at some point – won’t you Spiers, come in useful at some point, eh?”

And that’s how I fetched up in a power boat off the coast of Jamaica, suiting up while Souness held her steady and gazed at the horizon.  “In you get Spiers, you’re first,” he said as he slipped a knife into a sheath on his thigh.

“Wait.  Wait, wait!  Are there any sharks down there?” I asked, gaping in horror at the shapes that flitted in and out of the shadows in the deep beneath our boat.

“Of course there are no sharks down there,” sneered Souness, kicking me overboard.  “It’s the barracuda you need to worry about!”

 

The sea was a maelstrom of bubbles and roaring as I kicked and flailed, not knowing which way was up and worried that some demon of the deep would bite a leg off before I’d even got the hang of this diving lark but just as I feared I was going to have a full blown panic attack I felt a chapping on my head and it was Souness, hand-signalling for me to follow him towards a light which was blinking below us and in a twinkling we were holding onto a mini-submarine as it propelled us three miles along the coast to Port Morant.

 

We left the mini-subs on a signal from Souness and swam the final mile and I must say that I was bloody glad to see the shadow of a great ship straight ahead of us as this was our mission and it meant I could take a breather holding onto the anchor chain where we hid up and watched the hull for any sign of movement.  It wasn’t long before a squadron of frogmen came swimming up to the hull and started working on it – what they were up to, I didn’t know – and Souness’s nodding head let me know that this is what we were here for.  I didn’t like the look of these odds one little bit: two of us against around two dozen enemy but from the glint in Souness’s eyes, he was rather excited about the whole thing.

 

We peered through the dark of the sea, waiting for the occasional shafts of sunlight which briefly illuminated what the frogmen were up to and just as I was wondering if they were planting limpet mines I caught a glimpse of the reality of the situation: it was the Green Brigade!  They were indeed priming mines to sink the ship and it was definitely the Green Brigade because for every one man laying mines there were another five covering the hull in stickers.  Then it all made sense: Frank Mulholland, a self-confessed big fan of the Green Brigade had sent them here to sink this ship but why?  And then I remembered the ship's name; I’d seen it sitting here as Souness flew us past on a recce mission in his bi-plane – it was the HMS Freedom of Speech and Frank Mulholland wanted it sunk.  The Green Brigade as usual, were unwitting accomplices in his dastardly plan.  I was just letting this all sink in when my attention returned to the hull of the HMS Freedom of Speech and the Green Brigade were all sinking like stones, leaving behind great clouds of blood and swimming towards me with a satisfied grin and bloody knife was Souness; he winked, motioned for me to follow him and just to annoy me, made a wanker gesture and I could just tell from the bubbles rising from his breathing apparatus that he was laughing at me.

 

Later as we had sundowners in the piano bar of the Sandals Whitehouse, Souness’s mobile phone rang, he excused himself and took the call without getting up from his chair.  “Are you sure?” he asked, incredulously at something he’d just been told.  “I don’t believe it, has it been confirmed?  Okay, I’m getting on the first flight.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“You’ll never fucking believe this in a million years, Spiers but Celtic have just banned supporters for their antics at Fir Park on Friday.”

“Hold on,” I stammered.  “Celtic?  Are you sure he said Celtic?  Celtic don’t ban fans for misbehaviour, they practically encourage it.”

“Definitely Celtic,” he confirmed, his moustache bristling.  “Come on, we’re going home, this is something we can’t miss, especially you – you’ll be reporting on this of course, yes?”

“Oh Graeme,” I laughed.  “You do have an odd sense of humour.”