Esther Chilton

I’m pleased to welcome back Nest Madden to my Guest Writer Spot. Nest was one of my talented Writers Bureau students. He completed the course a while ago (well done!) and it’s good to read his writing again.

The Suprise

By

Nest Madden

George, hated night duty. It was a boring twelve hours, stuck in a small room, trying to stay awake. It wasn’t as though he, or any of the others, could leave the control room. Except to go to the toilet, or make a brew. Working every shift with four other blokes was okay, but after a while things began to irritate. If George had been more aware he would have realised he probably irritated the rest of the team as much as they irritated him.

Every night was the same. They came on duty at 7.00 pm sharp. Actually, a little earlier to get the day shift blokes away. That made sure whoever was relief shift in the morning was in before 7.00 am.

Alan, who was the senior officer in charge, didn’t tolerate lateness. In the same way he wouldn’t allow the dress standards to drop just because they were on night duty. Boots still had to be polished, uniforms had to be clean and pressed; he even made them wear their ties. No other senior officer insisted on that, but for all that George thought Alan was a good boss.

So they settled down to, hopefully, a quiet night monitoring the CCTV cameras and radio transmissions at a large high security prison. While it was a busy shift during the day, with vehicle movements to monitor and prisoners moving around the gaol, escorts coming and going, all having to be monitored and checked by the officers in the control room, at night things were different. It was just a case of surveillance of the perimeter and reacting to any emergency. That meant telling the right people and acting as the command centre for the prison. So George understood why Alan was punctilious about how they carried out their duties.

There was a certain amount of joking and prank playing that went with service life and Alan usually turned a blind eye to it. He might say something if it went too far, but for the most part he joined in with the rest in the continual banter.

They had begun the shift quietly enough and at about 11.00pm the orderly officer had come up to the control room and after a brief chat about nothing really, he went down stairs into gate lodge and checked that all the keys to the prison we accounted for. Once he was satisfied he locked the gates up and so the wait until morning began.

The five of them whiled away the time reading, chatting and doing crosswords. Always keeping an eye on the CCTV monitors. The highlight of the shift was the meal break. Theoretically, they could go out into the small kitchen and cook something. Some guys did and sometimes whole shifts cooked meals, but for the most part they brought in sandwiches, crisps and snacks.

Debbie, George’s wife, always did him proud with the contents of his sandwich box. There was, of course, a couple of sandwiches, a bag of crisps, sausage rolls and always a hard-boiled egg. Every night without fail George opened his bait box, as he called it, at midnight and made some fatuous remark about how much better his food was than that of the other blokes who, for the most part, had to make their own arrangements about their food.

It really ticked Paul off to hear George going on every night about how great his grub was. Another thing that irritated Paul was George’s habit of breaking the shell of his hard-boiled egg on his own forehead. So Paul plotted his revenge. When George went out to the toilet he fished around in his own bag and extracted the raw egg he had brought in from home. Quickly, going across the control room, he opened George’s bag, took out his bait box, opened it and made the switch. Paul darted back to his seat and resumed his crossword. Alan and the other guys realised what Paul had done and there were knowing looks between the team, including Alan.

George, returned from his ablutions and sat down. Reaching under the desk he extracted his sandwich box. Opening it he peered in.

“I’ll give Debs her due, she always does me proud with the scran she gives me,” George said with his usual smirk. He took a huge bite out of one of his sandwiches.

“I bet you blokes would give a lot for a bait box like this?” George looked around questioningly.

Alan stood, “I’m going to the loo and to make a brew. Anyone want one?” he asked. There were a couple of grunted yeses and nods. Everyone seemed transfixed in watching George. As Alan stepped from behind his desk and walked toward the kitchen, George selected his hardboiled egg from his sandwich box.

Alan had just got into the kitchen when he heard a stangled curse from the control room. Going back in he saw George with egg dripping from his nose, looking at the broken egg shells, in his hands, it a most befuddled way.

“Egg a little soft boiled, George?” Alan asked mildly.

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If you’d like your writing to be featured in my Guest Writer Spot, please contact me here or by e-mail: esthernewton@virginmedia.com. I accept stories, poems, articles – in fact, anything and everything. All you have to do is make sure your prose is no longer than 2000 words and your poems no more than 40 lines.

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