Ka-boom

Ka-Boom!

MM requested this by text. My first request. The night I got blown up.

The conspirators: J: in charge that night, he arrived at our station with a degree, a reputation as a geek with friends in high places and a fast track promotion agenda. He left a lot longer after his arrival than his career graph and friends in high places predicted, because, actually, he quite liked station life and we liked him. R: self-styled explosives expert. Had a criminal record of leaping out on people from inside their lockers and planting various incendiary devices. G: the Gopher. Not the brains of the outfit.

The victims: Me and P.

The buildup: we had a specialist firework, theatrical maroon and so forth manufacturer on the station's ground and each watch paid an annual visit. Just in case it caught fire and we were all blown to bits because we thought “Danger – Risk of Explosion” meant “Come on in boys, nothing to worry about.” Now the bloke running the place should have known better, given us a quick one-round and packed us off just as soon as possible. Instead he got talking to R and J. Unbeknown to us, they came away with a sample. Enough of a sample to need battery pack to set it off.

Evens unfolded like this: P and me were the two oldest, and hence by definition grumpiest buggers on duty one night. Maybe Chelsea and Arsenal had both lost, having to work Saturday night, suffering Gopher (not brightest star in the sky), probably a combination of factors. We'd fairly recently put in a fish pond on the flat roof, and there were some teething problems, and P had a pond that he had become bit of a martyr to. They must have crept around because there were no noises off to suggest foul play.

“Have a look at this, the water's all murky again” said J, and mumbling we got up and went out to the pond. P was leaning over looking in and I was opening the container with the chemicals in.

On the parapet wall, about two feet to our right was an upside-down metal wastepaper bin with the maroon hidden under it. At the end of the wire was R with the battery.

BANG!

Blinding flash, and something like a wasp sting on my arm.

R didn't know how incapacitated we were, and fearing the worst jumped down into the car park and legged it off into the distance. The other two disappeared, too.

P was deaf for days. He kept asking “what the **** was that” but couldn't hear the answer. When I gathered enough sense to look at my arm, it was streaked with little streams of blood and I picked out some bits of smoking metal.

The bin came off worst. The bottom was completely blown out, it looked like Popeye's spinach tin after he crushes it.

The cuts were minor and P's hearing returned, eventually R stopped running and came back.

“Jesus” they said “we didn't realise it was going to go off with that much of a bang”. We had a stand by at Croydon in the wee small hours. We nicked one of their bins while we were there.