Well, fans, as you may have noticed, I’ve been out of touch for many weeks now, and apart from another adventure that I can’t talk about here, there is excellent news to report. I’m pleased to say that I recently returned from my first tour of duty in the Army Reserves at the Port of Dover, and by all accounts I performed this service with distinction. Of course I’m sure that this is nothing less than you’d expect, but given the nature of what transpired during that military operation, it’s fair to say that I truly surpassed myself. Indeed, the part which I played in it was so remarkable that in the end even the local Press turned up to film me in action!

It all kicked off when I reported for duty at the barracks down at the Eastern Docks, only to be told to get my kit on directly and join the unit, which was about to set out on its way to a major incident. These orders resulted from intelligence passed to our commanding officer by the seagull division of the A.R., which indicated that a large group of foreign rats was in the process of illegally entering the U.K. According to that intelligence, it seemed that these unwelcome aliens had boarded the ferry at Calais, and were now attempting to enter the country by one of the oldest tricks in the book – namely, clinging to the underside of a continental lorry, where they could easily evade human detection. The fact that they had made it off the ferry by means of this conveyance was nothing unusual. The real surprise was that they’d done it in such numbers, and were now looking forward to a free ride into Dover!

As a result this called for all available reservists to take part in a master plan, which had been agreed by the commanding officers of two affiliated companies – the local unit of the Angry Rodent Brigade, and the Seagull Squadron. These would now need to work seamlessly together to intercept the aliens before they could jump off the truck and escape into town, where they could then lose themselves in their surroundings and avoid capture… and from the get-go it was very clear they were going to make our job as hard as possible!

Thus it was that after my initial briefing I hastily got into uniform and reported to my senior officer, a bright little field mouse with a supersize personality called Lance Corporal Clout, who passed me my weapon with some salutary words of caution…

‘This is your tranquilizer gun,’ he told me as he handed it over. ‘I strongly suggest that you keep the safety catch on till you’re ready to fire, and treat it with respect at all times. Now to go with that you’ve got a standard pack of twenty darts, see? I’ll be heading up your team during this operation, so don’t worry, if you need more ammo just ask me. Right then, Private G, any questions before we leave?’

Private G?

I mean, the cheek of it!  Is that any way to address ME, Lord Grumpkin of Grumblemore? ME the Acrobatic Aristoc-Rat, famed throughout the world? Well, I can tell you, fans, I was livid! But in light of the urgency of our mission I thought the better of an angry retort, and so instead constrained myself to answer him with a simple ‘No, Sir.’

‘Very well,’ said Lance Corporal Clout, ‘go and stand with Fireteam Fifteen and we’ll be off momentarily.’

With that I found myself awaiting further orders with my other two team members. The first of these was an eager young weasel called Jaws, who, as her name suggests, was as quick with her teeth as she was with her gun. The second – her temperamental opposite – was a slow, methodical brown rat with a kindly nature and a lot of patience. This rat, named McAcker (or ‘Mac the Hacker’ on account of his superior IT skills), soon made a reputation for himself thanks to his diligent work and unflappable self-confidence, and proved to be an asset to the team in many ways.

Well, before I go on, it occurs to me that I ought to explain the dazzling military strategy that was about to be deployed. Our troops consisted of eighteen teams of rodents that were setting out to pursue the large continental truck carrying the illegal immigrants – twenty three brown rats in all – and to do that, we too had to hitch rides on lorries.

The idea was, that because it couldn’t be known where that truck was headed, or whether or not our own lorries would go the same way, by sending out as many fireteams as possible we would increase the chances that at least one of them would be able to stick on its trail till the job was complete.

And now for the clever bit. Once a team got close enough to the truck (for example at red traffic lights) they had instructions to board it immediately with their guns loaded and ready for action. Next they would shoot tranquilizing darts at the foreign rats, causing them to fall off the lorry and onto the road, whereupon the Seagull Squadron would dive swiftly down to pick them up and convey them to the sea. The birds were then ordered to drop them onto the deck of one of the many outward bound ferries, by means of which transport the peacefully sleeping aliens would be returned to Europe before they had time to wake up.

This was a daring and brilliant plan, much deserving of praise. But more than that, the ingenious stratagem was, as it turned out, the brainchild of none other than our own mini but mighty Lance Corporal Clout, which he had proffered in hopes of an early promotion. But alas, as we all know, there’s a proverb that speaks of ‘the best laid plans’. And so it was that by and by, while expected happenings failed to unfold, unexpected happenings began to abound.

In the event it all got off to a most promising start, which only served to magnify our faith in this mission. That’s because Fire Team Fifteen’s lorry was moving so rapidly up the traffic queue that, to our delight, it soon came to a halt behind the very truck that bore the illegal immigrants. This was it, it was game on!  So with great excitement we cocked our guns and transferred across to the offending truck. But as we would soon find out, things were about to take a rather strange turn…

Now that I look back, I clearly recall a moment when out of nowhere my gun made a startling noise. Alerted by the sound, I glanced down and noticed that my tranquilizing dart was no longer in place. Could it have dropped out? As unlikely as that seemed, I bent forwards and scanned the road surface below to see if it was there – but in vain. I was just raising my eyes again, when without warning or explanation, Lance Corporal Clout suddenly tipped off his perch and plopped down to the ground. Well, for goodness’ sake, what was he playing at? But worse was to come. As the lights changed and we pulled away from our fallen comrade, a short sighted member of the Seagull Squadron, who apparently mistook the officer for an alien, swooped down and carried him off to a ferry bound for Calais. And that was the last we saw of him till two weeks later, when the Army obtained his release from custody by sending his passport over to France so he could finally leave the country.

In the meantime, of course, we three remaining members of his team were left without a leader. And thus it came about, that accustomed as I was to giving orders, it naturally fell to me to take command of our operation.

‘Well, don’t just sit there, get after them!’ I barked to Jaws and McAcker, as spying our guns, the foreign rats fled as fast as they could towards the front of the lorry. And straightaway we gave chase, clambering speedily over the intervening wires and metalwork in hot pursuit of the aliens. But this feat of gymnastics turned out to be very tricky, made harder still by the bumping and swaying of the vehicle. Now we needed all four limbs to keep us aboard the truck, and since we had no hands free to shoot them with tranquilizing darts, the fugitives soon increased their lead. We watched them get within jumping distance of the lorry ahead of us, then were astonished to note that during the very short time it took for the lights to switch back to green, no less than twenty one of them had successfully made it across to safety! This said, with grim determination we homed in on the remaining two, only to notice that strangely, each of these rascals grasped bunches of coloured wires between their teeth. Undaunted, however, we were just closing in on them when to our dismay they made yet another surprise move and dived off the side of the truck!

At that selfsame instant the vehicle swerved abruptly, shooting off the road and onto the verge where it promptly overturned. And now that the force of the impact had thrown the three of us clear of the truck, I hurriedly shouted to McAcker and Jaws to go after the runaways, who had dodged our flurry of darts and were now dashing into the long grass. I, in the meantime, went to check on the driver, whose head was tilted sideways and whose arm dangled limply out of the window.

As I approached the cabin it was clear that the man was injured and unconscious, so quick as a flash I climbed inside. There I tried to revive him by pinching and smacking his face, but after some moments passed and that didn’t work, I knew I had to call for help… and so the question was, how?

My mind was a complete blank, till out of the deep recesses of my memory came recollections of an SOS message I had once learned to tap out in Morse Code. It was a long shot, but it might just work! So with that inspiration I scanned the dashboard and the steering wheel, and quickly located the truck’s horn. Then without further ado I blasted out repeated cycles of the following sounds:

‘Bip-bip-bip, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, bip-bip-bip!’

And at long last, after what seemed like eons of passing time, I finally heard the siren of an approaching ambulance.

Well, fans, quite naturally I was then hailed as the hero of the hour! Newspaper journalists and TV crews were all over me, eager to see how a creature such as myself could possibly use a truck’s horn to broadcast an SOS distress signal in Morse Code. Of course I was more than happy to demonstrate my skills, and even happier to be filmed and photographed for their news reports. But best of all, I later found out that as a result of my prompt actions, the driver got to hospital just in time to have the surgery he needed to survive the crash.

Meanwhile, back at the base I received yet more acclaim. The commanding officer praised my creativity and quick thinking under pressure. He said I had brought honour and distinction to the Angry Rodent Brigade, and if I were to continue as I had begun then I would go far in my military career. In celebration of my success he then ordered the kitchen to lay on a special festive meal for the troops – and following this, due to the liquid refreshment we also consumed at this time, he graciously granted us an added bonus by declaring the next day a holiday!

To top it off, that evening I made the headlines in all the local and national papers. And of course this news story should have been the icing on the cake, providing, as it did, so many tributes to my inspiring heroism and ingenuity!

But my delight was rather short lived after I read an article by one stupid, ignorant reporter who wrote this caption next to my picture:

MORSE CODE RATTY SAVES MAN’S LIFE

What – he calls me ‘RATTY’?

You mean, he really doesn’t know who I am?

Honestly, now, how long would it take him to ask someone? And failing that, surely with a bit of initiative and just three more letters he could have written a much more suitable title, like this one which I’ve just composed myself:

MORSE CODE SUPER-RAT SAVES MAN’S LIFE

Well, for heaven’s sake! Isn’t it enough that I’m saving the planet one human at a time, do I really have to write my own eulogies as well?