C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre. Captain Chris ‘Hunter-Killer’ Philp had been on patrol since first light in the English Channel. While the rest of the country was still asleep, the Philpster was scanning the horizon for rubber dinghies full of illegal immigrants. Something he had never done in his previous life as immigration minister. Back then he had sought to rehouse new arrivals in hotels. Now he wanted to send them to a watery grave.
It had been a quiet morning. Too quiet. Just the one sighting of a child with a rubber ring paddling off the beach in Boulogne. But Hunter-Killer was taking no chances. All it takes is one child and before long there will be hundreds of thousands making the crossing with swimming aids bought from the local Carrefour. So the Philpster had called in the RAF. Minutes later, a Typhoon FGR4 had blasted the kid out of the water. Job done. Pour encourager les autres.
Half an hour later, all hell broke loose. A French warship had appeared to starboard. The next thing Hunter-Killer heard was the sound of 17 indistinct pops in the distance. “Get down,” he shouted to his crew. “We’re under attack.” Weirdly, no one on board the Philpster’s MTB disguised as a fishing vessel seemed remotely worried. How come they were so slow to sense danger? There again, few had the finely tuned antennae of the Philpster. Those years of training with the Special Boat Service had paid off.
Hunter-Killer threw himself on the floor of the wheelhouse, waiting for the gunshots to stop. “I think it’s safe now,” a deckhand said. “It was just some French sailor firing some shots from a handgun away from us into the sea. It wasn’t as if he was aiming at us or anything. He was probably just test-firing. It’s no big deal.”
“You don’t understand,” squeaked Captain Philpster. “This was a definite attempt by the French to intimidate me. Typical of Johnny Foreigner to send out a warship to track the shadow home secretary. They don’t like it up ’em. They’ve probably got special guns that fire round corners. So you think they’re shooting in a harmless direction but the bullets turn 90 degrees in flight. I came within a whisker of being hit. Not that anyone gets to intimidate Hunter-Killer. Help! Help!”
The crew looked rather nonplussed. Most of them hadn’t even heard the shots – “he was probably using a silencer,” said the Philpster – let alone had any idea they had come under serious attack. But Hunter-Killer was adamant. The Frenchies had been out to eliminate him. He had got too close to stopping the small boat crossings and Macron would never stand for that. So he was prepared to stop at nothing. Even risk starting a global conflict. Well, it had ended badly for Napoleon and it would end badly for Macron. Nor should the French forget that it had been the English who saved them in the second world war. Well, we wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“Sacré bleu!” said one member of Border Force. “There are often exercises at sea involving the Royal or the French navy, and shots are occasionally fired, usually using blanks. This may be nothing at all.”
The Philpster ordered him to keep quiet. The last thing he wanted was any collaborators speaking in French. Careless talk costs vies. He pulled the burner phone out of his pocket and speed-dialled Kemi. “I’m under attack,” he gasped. “Even though the French aren’t shooting at me, they are definitely shooting at me. They don’t want me to stop any small boats crossing the Channel, even though I haven’t yet seen any small boats. We need to be on our guard. The smuggling gangs must now be using invisible dinghies.”
Kemi’s eyes lit up. If only she was prime minister, she would be able to launch a tactical first nuclear strike on Calais. OK, there might be some collateral damage in Kent but it would still be worth it. Instead, she had to order the Philpster to disengage with the enemy.
“I can’t do that,” said Hunter-Killer. “While most politicians run from danger, I am trained to run towards it. So what I will do is film a clip of me being extraordinarily brave by doing nothing and then phone the French embassy to complain. If only they put as much effort into intimidating the people smugglers as they put into intimidating me. Not that I was intimidated. But it would be good to see the French navy also firing shots in the opposite direction to the dinghies.”
