Dave Danger in Yes Sir, Yes Sir, Three Bags Full   

by Jeff Baker

The building dated back to the sixteen-hundreds, but my boyfriend dated back to the nineteen-nineties so it was appropriate. It was a Hotellery now, what Andrew said they called a bed-and-breakfast back in the twenty-first century, but the English countryside was still the English countryside, right down to the grazing sheep, and we had a nice week of privacy away from the things that got Andrew his nickname “Dave Danger.” But he signed the Hotellery register with his given name: Andrew David Llewellyn Ethan Piltzer.

            “After putting the bags in the room, how about we take in the sights?

            “’Berto,” he said with a grin,” “what sights?”

            “Oh, come on!” I laughed. “There’s a clock tower from 1603 in the village, to say nothing of the ruins of the old monastery. All within walking distance.”

            For a moment, he looked like he was going to sneer, then he brightened.

            “Well, the glorious English countryside is still the glorious English countryside,” he said. “Be a pity not to take it all in…”

            About a half-hour later we were walking down the road, Andrew lost in thought.

            “We might want to pop in at the local pub for a pint,” he said. “See if they have an old-fashioned phone.”

            Our savers were out of range, so I couldn’t check my messages or visit any of a dozen commentary sites I was on to say nothing of use the phone. We ordered a couple of pints in the darkened pub and I started explaining how they had to bring back wire-connected telephones in some locations due to the inaccessibility of some locations as well as excess band usage rendering some savers useless. I’d gotten into that bad habit of explaining things that happened while Andrew was in suspended animation for about a hundred-and-thirty years. Andrew found the phone and he was away for about five minutes.  I ordered some crisps.

            “So, what’s up?” I asked when he sat down and started helping himself to the crisps. “Anything you can talk about?”

            I’d become used to the fact that there was a lot of his work he couldn’t tell me about, but when I’d been jumped by robot spiders and shadowed by a radium drone, to say nothing of finding myself working for a genuine mad scientist with a genuine death ray, I was usually pretty involved.

            “Just needed to have something picked up,” he said. “Ah, these sandwiches look good!”

            It was late afternoon when we walked back to our Hotellery and I saw several small vans and a copter, both unmarked and saw what looked like an armed team loading the herd of sheep into the vans. One of the sheep was swearing in perfect English.

            “All the luscious grass around and those sheep didn’t give it a glance,” Andrew said. “Genetically altered agents, for one of the other sides I’m sure. Probably not after me but surely up to no good. Best to have them removed and the grounds and building scanned.” One of the armed team saw Andrew and gave him a thumbs-up.

            “An ancient gesture that still means something,” Andrew said. “Now, we can get on with our vacation. This gesture means something too.”

            We stood and kissed as the shadows grew long.

                                                —end—

            A sequel to my homage to 60s British adventure TV series like “Adam Adamant Lives.” The first appeared June 2019. Here’s the link: https://authorjeffbaker.com/2019/06/27/out-of-the-freezer-for-friday-flash-fics-june-28-2019-by-jeff-baker/