McCurdle's House and How Sergeant Burke Drove His Car Inside

"goddamn nazis!"

Burke stepped back, looked up at the attic window and, seeing faint light, walked back to the huge wooden door and pounded with two fists.

wham.

wham.

wham.

WHAM.

"Get yer arse down here, McCurdle!" he yelled.

Burke put his right ear against the peephole and listened. He could hear nothing moving inside the house at all. He waited for the thud of footsteps, the clatter of kitchen cupboards, anything to indicate a living being. He squinted his eyes and held his breath. He thought he might have heard, deep, deep in the shadowy recesses of the house, the ever so faint sound of a pencil -- being furiously scrawled over a tablet of yellow paper. Yes - he listened again - it was assuredly yellow.

Burke went back to his car, stuck his arm through the window and honked the horn and waited.

Nothing.

"Right," he said.

He got in the car, took a bottle of gin from the glove compartment and two quick slugs, wiping the sleeve of his woolen jacket accross his big wet mouth. He lit a Chesterfield and took three hard puffs, letting the fag hang on his lip. He kept staring at the house - at that wooden door.

He started the car and revved the engine. "Hard Driving? Yeah its time for some hard driving alright matey. . "

Burke squealed the car in reverse accross the road from McCurdle's house and shifted into drive, flooring the gas and aiming straight for the front door.

The impact was tremendous, tossing Burke forward against the dashboard, his cigarette teetering perilously close to his nose, then back again, while his face shook and blubbered, and before he was tossed back against the seat, he held a remarkable momentary resemblance to Winston Churchill.