The Toastmaster General (1)

They say you hit 49 bullseyes out of 50,” Oakshott said.  

“I did,” I say.   

“Yet they still let you in.”

I acknowledge his point with a smile.

“I’m a fighter, not a marksman,” I said. “Hand to hand, pistol to pistol, army to army. I was never really one for the ducks in the fairground bollocks.  What about you, what’s your background?”

“I worked the duck shooting range at the fairground.”

We both laughed.

“No, ex Delta Force. After ten years I realised I was risking my life for peanuts. There is serious money to be made for people with our skill-sets.”

The Great Leader only has the very best in his personal guard. To even qualify for interview, you have to have worked in one of the world’s elite military units, SAS, Delta Force, Special Forces Brigade, Commando Hubert or SASR. You have a three-day interview, physical challenges, shooting ranges, assault courses, logical tests. Only one in every hundred qualify, the Great Leader’s personal guard are the very best of the very best, and paid accordingly. 

“Right, this is it. This door leads to the Great Leader’s personal quarters. Only the Great Leader himself and his personal guard, are allowed through. It’s finger-print and iris -can protected, and you’ll need to memorise the password.  Oh, and you’ll need a key.”

He showed me how to scan my iris and fingers, and the password for the keypad. Reluctantly he passed me my own key.

“Seriously, don’t lose it, they cost of fortune. It’s a special lock, unpickable, only this key can open it.”

“And we live here with the Great Leader?”

“Yes, his Personal Guard are the only people allowed in, bar the Great Leader himself.  I’ll give you the grand tour; we’ll start in the kitchen.”

He led me through to a large kitchen, where there were three men hard at work.

“This is Harris,” he said, nodding in the direction of a burly man chopping vegetables.  “Harris, this is the new guy, Bamber.”

“Hi,” he said.

“You’re the chef?” I said.

“Amongst other things.”

“Harris is an expert in hand-to-hand combat. He spent twelve years in the Australian Army, was in charge of an ADS unit before being approached by the Great Leader.”

“And he’s chopping vegetables. Is this some form of punishment?”

“No, we all have a domestic duty in addition to our protection roles. The Great Leader can’t trust anyone outside his private force. The easiest way to kill someone like the Great Leader is to install a hitman amongst their support staff, their cleaners, their butlers, their handymen. There’s usually a high turnover of domestic staff, so it’s really easy to sneak in a killer. So the Personal Guard is also tasked with carrying out one of these tasks each. I’m the Director of Dishwashing.”

Another man was ironing underpants.

“This is O’Connor,” Oakshott said. 

“Hi,” said O’Connor, his hand reaching out for mine. “You must be Bamber, I heard about your record. Glad to have you on board.”

“And what do you do?”

“I’m the Pantmaster. I’m responsible for all elements of underpant care, washing, drying, ironing, darning, dealing with emergencies.”

“I see,” I said. “And who does the rest of the ironing?”

“Nobody.  The rest of the Great Leader’s clothing is managed by Watkins, and Watkins doesn’t do ironing.”

“Not even his shirts?”

“Watkins thinks shirts should be left in their natural, shaggy state, he refused to iron them.”

“Does the Great Leader mind?”

“He’d probably rather have neat, well-ironed shirts and trousers, but Watkins has saved the Great Leader’s life on at least three occasions.”

“It seems a waste of everyone’s talent to have use us for domestic tasks.”

“The Great Leader has a lot of enemies, he has to be extremely careful,” Oakshott explained. “You can’t vet domestic staff the same way, military men have a checkable history.  You can read through ten years of military record, you know where they served, who they killed, when they bottled it and when they didn’t. Heck, this is the military we’re talking about, everything is on record somewhere, every meal they ate, everyone they spoke to, details of every time they took a dump. Even their bookshelves are carefully checked to make sure they don’t have any Jeffrey Archer novels.”

“Are Jeffrey Archer fans a security risk?”

“You’d hardly want to place your hands in the life of someone who reads Jeffrey Archer.”

“So what’s my role?”

“You’re to be the Toastmaster.”

“Toastmaster? You want me to make speeches?”

“No, we want you to make the toast.”

“That doesn’t sound much of a job.”

“It’s not just toast, you’ll also have responsibility for crumpets, English muffins, toasted bagels.”

“The Great Leader sure eats a lot of toast.”

“It’s not just the Great Leader, you’ll be making toast for the whole of the Personal Guard. That’s a whole lot of toast, let me tell you.  You’ll work directly with the Breadmaker.”

“The Breadmaker?”

“Mansfied,” he called out. A man in a white baker’s outfit appeared from the corner of the kitchen.

“Yes?” he said. “I’m just doing me baps.”

“Just introducing you to the new Toastmaster.”

“I hope you’re not planning to burn my lovely bread,” Mansfield said. “The previous Toastmaster was forever setting off the fire alarm.”

“I’ll try not to,“ I said. I take my work seriously.

Having met three of the team, Oakshott gave me a tour of the rest of the house.

“We’ll start with the Personal Guards’ rooms. Everyone has to share I’m afraid,” he said, opening one of the doors. Inside, on one of the two twin beds, sat a man in his underpants reading Kafka.

“This is Tweedle,” Oakshott said.  “Tweedle, this is your new roommate.”

“Glad to meet you,” said Tweedle. “I’ve just come off a 48-hour shift so I’m taking a break. There won’t be any flowers in the house for a couple of days,” I’m afraid.

“How many Guard Members are there altogether?” I asked Oakshott.

“There are 64 of us. We take turns to be his personal bodyguard, except when he’s making a high-profile public appearance and he needs the whole gang. You’re not on the rota until Wednesday week, you probably won’t meet the Great Leader before then. It’ll give you a chance to get to know the place.”

Oakshott continued the tour of the Great Leader’s residence. There were training facilities, gym, swimming pool, bathrooms, lounge areas and a large dining hall.

As we’d finished, and I was returning to the kitchen to get to know my toasters, I was surprised to see a woman enter the Great Leader’s residence. She was young, blonde and was carrying a pile of towels, and was surrounded by two members of the Personal Guard, Atkins and Dann, both of whom I’d met earlier.

“This is Kelly,” said Oakshott. “She’s the Towelmaster.”

“I didn’t realise there were women in the Personal Guard.”

“There aren’t, Kelly is an outsider.”

“But I thought you said that the guard does everything, there are no outsiders at all.”

“Kelly is the exception. She doesn’t have a military background, but boy does she know how to get the towels soft and fluffy.”

“Hi,” Kelly said. “You must be the new guy.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Where did you work before? Secret service?”

“I don’t like to say,” I said. I don’t like to say.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Kelly said with a smile. “We must chat properly next time I come round.”

“When will that be?” I ask, interested as I am, in cataloguing all relevant information.

“Oh you are a flirt,” she said, a statement I deemed inaccurate. “I’m here the same time every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. You can make me a slice of toast if you like.”

“How did you know my role?”

“I know all the gossip,” Kelly said. “Besides, the Toastmaster is the only vacancy. She smiled at me. “Well, I look forward to seeing you around, Toastmaster. It’s nice to have a spook about the place.

Kelly left, marched out of the door by Atkins and Dann.

“Isn’t she a security risk?” I said. “As you said, civilian backgrounds are easy to fake.”

“Oh, there’s no way she could kill the Great Leader. She never sees him, she is under observation all the while she is here, is walked in and walked out, two guards all the way.”

“Still, it seems strange that the Great Leader would make an exception after all these cautions.”

“You’ve not tried the towels, they’re super-fluffy. The Great Leader thinks it’s worth taking the risk.”

“I don’t trust her,” I said. “She is overly friendly to someone she’s just met. There are only two reasons to be overly friendly to a stranger. Firstly, if you want to kill someone.”

“And the second reason?”

“I lied. There is only one reason.”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” said Oakshott. “The towels are tested before the great leader uses them, like everything else in the house. . All the food we eat, even the toast, is tasted on the Guard before the Great Leader eats it, that way he can never be poisoned. It’s the same with the towels, We take in turns to bath and use the towels first. Every conceivable precaution is taken.  Anyway, that’s the tour. I’m off to have a bath.”

“Are those towels for all of us?” Oakshott was holding the towels Kelly had given him. “There don’t seem many for 64 of us.”

“No, these are just for the Great Leader. We have to use horrible, rough old towels for our showers. That’s what makes the bath such a treat, we get to use the Great Leader’s towels and bath water before he uses them. You’re not scheduled to have a bath until next week I’m afraid.”