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Captain Wozzo and the UFO
The first Captain Wozzo story, discovered on a dusty shelf
by D.A.

 

 

Captain Wozzo stirred.

“Cursed row”, he mumbled half asleep “must be the ray guns of the Molunsavory tribe, I shall take cover”.

So mumbling, he dived nimbly to the left, floated majestically through the air and landed, not in the least bit majestically on the floor beside his bunk.

Mrs Captain Wozzo, who was used to this sort of thing, arrived with his morning cup of tea as he was getting up.

“Blast that clock. Why does it have to whistle like that? It should have a bell like any other alarm clock”.

“Yes dear” said Mrs Captain Wozzo, thinking it better not to mention the fact that the Captain had only had it changed last week because he used to think that the old bell was a fire engine and tried to jump out of the way.

“Here’s the post, there’s one marked ‘Top Secret Confidential and for the personal attention of Captain Wozzo, Inter-Galactic Crime Fighter’. I think it’s for you.”

“Aha, no doubt another mission of Earth-shattering import” cried the Captain tearing at the envelope with his bare teeth, or at least he would have if he’d remembered to put them in. As it was, they were still in a mug in the bathroom.

Eventually, with the aid of various unsuitable tools the all important envelope was opened and the contents extracted. The Captain read the message:

“To my dearest little boy on his 5th birthday” it said, with a picture of a 1926 Rolls-Royce on the front.

“I don’t understand” said the Captain scratching his head with a bradawl.

“Ah! Isn’t that nice, it must be from your dad!” Exclaimed Mrs Captain Wozzo.

The Captain wasn’t impressed. “My dad wouldn’t have sent me a picture of a 1926 Rolls-Royce, he knows I prefer old Citroens. Anyway we’re forgetting one important point.”

“What’s that dear?” Asked Mrs Captain Wozzo (I-G C F) as she poured the milk on the Captain’s Space Oatie Galactic Scrunchies (SOGS for short).

“This card is 40 years out of date!”

“Dear dear, the post has really gone to pot since you computerised the pillar-boxes.”

“No.. I see what’s happened, the card says ‘With love from uncle Wodger Wobinson’ on the back. It’s from the prime-minister, he must have got his envelopes mixed up.

“It’s easily done you know. Remember when I sent some of my patent hair remover to the bearded lady at Fozzlewerts Circus and my hair restorer to Yul Brynner when I was on that unfortunate Hair-Salon case?”

“No”

“Caused no end of fuss you know, I remember a similar problem when the Artwinkle of Splat ran over the foot of the ..”

At that moment the Captain’s international hot line warning alarm sounded (that means his telephone rang, which is probably just as well as things were getting a bit boring).

“Hello Spozzo weaking.. err.. no I mean Wozzo spea..”

“Oh belt-up Wozzo, look, it’s the P.M. here, did you get my message?”

“Yes sir, but it’s not my birthday ‘till next month”.

“Eh what? What are you bumbling about?”.

“I think you must’ve sent me the wrong message sir, and could I have a vintage Citroen next time please?”

The P.M. sputtered, “Good grief Wozzo, this is tewibble, it means that my top secwet confidential message has been sent off into the blue, pwobably to fall into the unscwupulous hands of enemy agents who would stop at nothing to… oh. Half a mo, I’ve just found it in the waste-paper bin. Now look Wozzo, the gist of the thing is this. Our chappies at the observatowy have obsewved a suspicious looking UFO heading towards Austwalia and New Zealand. I think they’re up to no good, and you wealise what that could mean?.. No more New Zealand butter and Austwalian wine! So get out there Wozzo and do your duty!”

“I am at you service sir” said our brave hero as he clicked his heels and saluted, thus treading on the cat and dropping the telephone all at once.

“Good man” came the P.M.s voice from the floor and he rang off.

“This is a great challenge Jemimah” the Captain said as he pulled on his Captain Wozzo cape and his Captain Wozzo go-faster winged boots.

“I shall once again rescue the human race from a fate worse than death, just as I did when I closed down Radio 1”.

“Will you be back for tea dear?” Enquired Mrs Captain Wozzo.

“No my dear, I am off to save the world!”

So saying, the brave Captain picked up his electronic briefcase, rushed into the broom cupboard and fell over the cat who was hiding in there.

“Bother!” he muttered “wrong door again”, untangled himself from the vacuum cleaner hose pipe, left the cupboard and went out of the back door to the Wozzo-mobile.

He leaped on board and pedalled like mad towards the railway station.     

Ten minutes later and the Captain was still in overdrive on the Wozzomobile, aided by his winged boots, when he heard a strange noise from behind.

He was worried, “Have the rotters in their terrible UFO tracked me down already?” He bent low over the handlebars and accelerated.

“I’ll show them what Captain W. is made of!” he cried, and almost did by heading straight for the clock tower at 60mph. If he hit it his innards would surely be splattered all over the place.

Luckily his Wozzocape chose just that moment to become caught in the chain which caused the Wozzomobile to veer sharply to the left.

“Crumbobs! That was a close one” he gasped.

Looking ahead he noticed that the road was full of people just walking about. “Stand aside you jaywalkers!” he yelled “I’m off to save the human race!”

“Look more like ‘e’s trying to kill us.” Said Mrs Lidya Dusbin nipping smartly into Marks & Spark’s doorway “This is a pedestrianised retail area!” she shouted after the Captain as he careered wildly through the crowds.

And so it was; no cars, lorries buses or bikes were allowed there between the hours of ever so early and extremely late, and there was Captain Wozzo causing panic and mayhem by hurtling through at elevenses time.

The Captain was worried, not by his likely arrest for various road-traffic offences, but by the continuing strange sounds that seemed to fill the air around him. “Sounds like an electronic donkey” he thought “must be produced by square-waves passed though a series of passive filters thus producing.. “ at that instant his thoughts were interrupted by Police cars converging on him as he emerged onto the public road once more.

“Ah good, the police are on to them, but what they can do without my help I don’t know. I’ll stop and give them instructions”

The Captain pulled up sharply, utilising his retro-rockets to decelerate from 60 to zero in 2 seconds, and also to set fire to the trousers of a bus driver on his tea break – quite by accident of course..

“Ullo ullo ullo” said a policeman “well if it isn’t Batman, what do you think your playin’ at? Lost Robin have ya?”

“No no no! Good gracious!” stammered the distraught Captain. “Batman indeed? What an insult. I am the nation’s saviour – Captain Wozzo!”

He looked around, waiting for expressions of awe and respect to cross the policemen’s faces. All he actually saw were expressions of hostility and amusement in almost equal quantities.

“Ooh-err” he thought “this is the problem with operating in a top-secret environment, nobody recognises me.”

“Now then mi-lad” said one of the policemen “amongst other offences, you have been exceeding the speed limit by a considerable amount, driving without due care and attention and you are now on a one-way street.”

“But I was only going one way” protested our hero.

“Didn’t you see the arrows?” asked the policeman.

“Arrows? I didn’t even see the archers!” quipped the Captain, thinking (wrongly) that perhaps he could lighten the mood with a joke.

“Now I think you’d better come along with us to the station” the policeman announced, approaching the Captain in a determined fashion.

“Ah yes” he said “that’s where I was going.”

So saying, he started the Wozzomobile and shot off backwards having forgotten to disengage his retro-rockets.

“Get after him men!” commanded a larger than standard issue policeman with bits of ribbon stuck to his jacket.

“He’s obviously a dangerous lunatic and he’s set fire to constable Wallace’s trousers!”

With a great clumping of boots, screeching of tyres and snuffling of dogs, the entire Police force set off in pursuit of Captain Wozzo, leaving the local criminals with an excellent opportunity to get up to no good.

 

Several hours later Captain Wozzo arrived at the railway station. The several hours had been used partly to disentangle himself from a bedstead in the ornamental pond in the municipal park (this was due traveling backwards at a rather-too-fast-to-be-going-at-all-let-alone-backwards sort of a speed) and partly to go home and get a change of socks.

The Captain had decided to travel incognito, and if you think that that’s a special sort of train then you’re very silly. He had removed his Wozzo-cape and spats and was now regaled in his all-purpose inconspicuous-in-every-possible-situation outfit.

This consisted of a bowler hat, in order to be inconspicuous amongst M.P.s and business men; a clerical collar, in order to be inconspicuous amongst vicars; a flowery shirt and beads which wouldn’t arouse the suspicion of hippies; an old-Etonian tie for meetings with the upper crust; an army greatcoat for sneaking into top-secret sort of places in; a kilt to endear himself to Scotsmen; and a pair of Doctor Scholl’s sandals on account of his bunions.

 

He had often mused upon how terribly embarrassing it would be if one lost one’s train ticket on the train, so it was not surprising that he was once more lost in thought on the subject when the man who comes to punch the corner out of tickets came to punch the corner out of his ticket. The Captain handed him a piece of cardboard which turned out to be an old railway sandwich and then remembered that he hadn’t actually bought a ticket because he knew a man at the station who would let him through the barrier for nothing.

“Oh dear, how embarrassing” muttered our hero rummaging in his sporran “I appear to have, err, um, come without it.”

“Come without it have you?” said the man who comes to punch the corner out of tickets “well you’ll just have to pay double fare or get off at the next station.”

The Captain decided that he’d have to pay and pulled out a wad of notes from a secret compartment in his bowler hat.

The man who comes to punch the corner out of tickets stared in disbelief as was handed three small octagonal notes with a picture of the Nadir of Wollabazee on each one.

“I err..” began the Captain as the man who comes to punch the corner out of tickets gave him a stern look.

He embarked upon a long explanation about the current rate of exchange of Wollabazee drakmas which he didn’t quite finish due to a certain amount of unpleasantness culminating in him being left hanging on one of the special things that used to catch mail bags beside the railway line.

 

At UFO detector control General Arthur Fotheringay Wilberforce-Bertwistle (Bertie for short) was frantically twiddling the controls next to the vast screen in front of him. Little green dots went up and down and from side to side for no apparent reason, red, green and yellow lights flashed so you wouldn’t have known whether to stop go or hesitate if they’d been traffic lights, which they weren’t. Strange bleeping noises came from somewhere, just like on Star Trek.

Suddenly a voice boomed out, the General started to start and then stopped. “This is BBC One, in a few minutes another boring documentary about lemmings, but now it’s time for the Wombles.”

“At last” said the General with satisfaction. He settled himself in front of the screen with a glass of pop. It had been a hard day.

He had just about dozed off when the Wombles went all fuzzy and drifted out of the top left hand corner of the picture. There was silence for a moment.

“Blast, I’ll have to get the man in” thought the General and reached to adjust the phase-cancelling clarifier in case that might do something useful.

“Do not touch that Earth man!” came a sinister voice.

“Which earth man? And why shouldn’t I touch him?” wondered the General.

“Don’t talk back! This is the voice of the Miserons. Listen carefully, we have come to destroy your planet in the most complex manner imaginable – rather than just blowing it to bits like anyone else would.”

“You bounders!” shouted Bertie, getting all indignant, “You shall never succeed, we have Captain Wozzo on our side!”

“Ha!” said the sinister voice and the room became silent once more.

 

The Captain had no idea where he was. It was dark and misty and, having lost his clerical collar and beads in his involuntary exit from the train, he was hoping he wouldn’t meet a colony of hippy vicars. But worse was to befall him.

He rounded a corner (which should have been square) and after extracting himself from the clutches of a rather prickly hawthorn bush he emerged onto an open plain. In the centre of which was a large dome which pulsed with orange light.

“Aha! A pop festival” he thought, and rushed towards the dome, hoping that there’d be a telephone that he could use.

Now then; anyone who has been out on an open plain on a dark and misty night would be able to tell you that rushing about is not really advisable.

The Captain hadn’t the benefit of this knowledge and quickly discovered the fact. After picking himself up and retrieving his sandal from the rabbit-hole he’d tripped over he wiped off the cow pat from his greatcoat and proceeded with more caution.

The dome was only a few metres away when the Captain came to a shuddering realisation: There was no music! He didn’t particularly like music, but if this were a pop festival then there should certainly have been music, very loud music probably, and there was just a faint hum. Worrying. It might actually be a hippy vicar’s convention!

He crept closer, above him he could make out a small hole above which was a plaque reading “Rastern Miseron and family. Terrorists of the Universe” and below that a note which read “Two pints on Tuesday and a strawberry yoghurt then none on Wednesday.”

This was our Inter-Galactic-Crime-Fighter’s big moment. In a flash he had the situation summed up. This was the UFO! The mother ship of the fleet! But why was it here in a deserted part of Wiltshire, rather than hurtling towards the antipodes at super-sonic speed?

Then he heard something, and as he turned to see what it was he saw a weird figure approaching. In one hand it carried a battered petrol can, in another a bumper sized bag of Super-Oatie-Glactic-Scrunchies (SOGS for short) and in the third hand a Cost-A-Lot coffee. They must have run out of fuel and stopped for supplies.

The Captain had to act! He wasted no time in twiddling the knobs on his Galactic Blaster which he kept inside his vest. Its deadly ray shot out sideways and demolished Little Widdlington war memorial, seven and three-quarter miles away.

His second shot hit home, the Miseron doubled up and fell onto a hedgehog who didn’t notice due to the fact that he was asleep.

A voice from above rang out: “Drop that weapon Earth man!”

The captain did as he was commanded, but as he did so he activated the Self-Homing-Baddie-Basher concealed in his underpants.

The SHBB zoomed off leaving the captain with a severe lack of pants, not a nice thing when you’re out on a cold and misty plain and wearing a kilt.

Simultaneously and at the same time, a paralysing gas started spraying from our hero’s bowler hat. Unfortunately this didn’t have a great deal of effect as the hat was still in a cow-pat a few hundred yards away.

The SHBB found its target and the chief Miseron fell from his ship. One small plummet for a baddie and one giant leap for Captain Wozzo. Hooray!

 

Wodger was rather pleased at the way things had gone, he was two under par at his golf, the MCC looked as if they were going to win the cricket match and the UFO menace had been neutralised.

“It’s certainly a hard job keeping the country safe” he said to General Arthur Fotheringay Wilberforce-Bertwistle as they tucked into a celebratory feast at the golf club.

“I wonder where old Wozzo is though? It’s not like him to miss a slap-up meal is it?”

“Mo indeed” came the muffled response from behind a large chicken leg which the General was trying to disengage from his ample moustaches.

 

P.C. 3572 of the Little Widdlington constabulary knew where Captain Wozzo was and he was writing out a charge sheet for him.  

“Further to a pre-existing warrant for arrest in connection with various serious traffic offences, assaulting officers of the law in the pursuance of their duty, causing a public nuisance, damage to trousers and bathing in a park pond, we have the following: defrauding the railway company, trespassing on a private plain, defacing our war memorial, indecent exposure, unlicensed use of a firearm and the dumping of litter – namely two space creatures, an evil smelling bowler hat and a large dome.”

“But..” began Captain Wozzo I-G C F but he got no further. As the police station clock struck midnight P.C. 3572 looked up from his papers and was surprised to see that where the Captain had been standing, there was nothing but a glass Doctor Scholl sandal.

 

 

 

 

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