Horatio and Archie are
sitting on a grassy knoll under a large oak tree, enjoying a hot caramel
bunting.
“Oh Horatio” says Archie
gaily “This is the life, isn’t it? No wars to think about. No hunger, no work,
no wives, no debts-”
“No rat holes” intercedes
Horatio, and they both smile at the common terror they once shared.
Horatio finishes off his
caramel bunting, scrunches up his litter, and looks around for a bin to dispose
his garbage into, unlike Archie who casually tosses his litter behind a tree,
swallows his last piece, and rubs his hands to shake off the remaining crumbs.
Horatio stares at him in
disbelief.
“What?” says Archie.
“The way you just littered
like that…don’t you care about the environment?”
Archie rolls his eyes: “We’re
in SPAIN Horatio, we’re in ENEMY TERRITORY. Who CARES if we litter their land?”
Horatio is incredulous: “What
if everybody in England took such a carefree attitude? What do you think would
happen to the environment then?”
“If everybody cleaned up
their own rubbish, the cleaners would go out of business.”
“So that’s it then is it?
Just let somebody else clean up after you.”
They don’t stop arguing for a
while, and finally decide to head back to their cell, but not before Horatio
makes Archie retrieve his litter. “You’re going to pick up your rubbish, and
you’re going to put it in the bin” says Horatio with determination.
As they head back to their
cell, they keep an eye out for a bin, but none can be found. By the time they
reach their cell, they still have their litter in their hands.
“Well, Horatio” asks Archie
expectantly.
“Well, there MUST be a bin
round here somewhere” says Horatio “otherwise the place would be covered in
rubbish.”
“Maybe they stuff it in here”
says Archie, stuffing his food wrapping in the crack of a wall.
“Enough of that!” says
Horatio sharply, and snatches the wrapping out of the crack. “We’ll go and see
Don Alfredo and ask him where the disposal facilities are.”
*****************
“Dis-po-sal fa-ci-li-ties?”
says Don Alfredo, pronouncing each syllable carefully.
“Like a bin or a trash can”
elaborates Horatio.
“Or a crack in the wall”
mutters Archie, until Horatio nudges him to be sensible.
Don Alfredo looks at them
with amused suspicion. “In Spain we do not have gar-bage bins, Meestir
Hornblower. We just throw the rubbish onto the ground.”
Horatio pushes the point:
“What about pollution?”
Don Alfredo shrugs. “Somebody
else will come along and pick it up. Even-tually.”
“You mean like a garbage collector”
states Horatio.
“That is usually what I
understand garbage collectors to do” replies Don Alfredo gruffly.
Horatio doesn’t know what to
say. He stands there feeling embarrassed. Totally embarrassed. Then he finds
his tongue and manages to be bold: “In that case, Sir, may we be permitted to
leave our litter on your table?”
“If you wish” replies Don
Alfredo.
Horatio places the
scrunched-up litter on Don Alfredo’s desk, bows, and promptly leaves the office
along with Archie. When the pair leave, Don Alfredo tilts his head to one side,
takes his stick in his hand, and with one long sweeping movement, brushes the
litter aside until they fall onto the floor.
*********************
“I won’t say I told you so”
says Archie sympathetically “but you should learn to accept it. People these
days just don’t care about the environment.”
But Horatio is stubborn. “Why
don’t they care about the environment? Do you realise what future generations
will be left with if we don’t start taking care of the planet now?”
Archie is weary. “What do you
want us to do, Horatio?” he says rhetorically. “Go round and start planting
trees and flowers? Grow our own vegetables? Recycle??”
Horatio doesn’t answer, which
usually means his mind is ticking over an idea.
“Oh no” says Archie “No
Horatio, NO!”
*****************
Matthews, Styles and Oldroyd
aren’t so reluctant to the idea as Archie. They are used to heavy duty work and
haven’t got anything better to do. Besides, it would be nice to “freshen up the
place a bit with a few pansies and roses here and there” as suggested by
Styles.
“That’s the spirit!” enthuses
Horatio.
Horatio
delegates the tasks that must be completed, including building general waste
and recycling bins, turning and clearing the soil for a vegetable patch, and
information programmes to educate the locals about how to take care of the
environment. Styles is delegated the task of running these programmes.
“What about them Dons?” asks
Matthews. “Surely no governor’d be so willing to get free land used up without
permission first.”
******
“I am happy to accept” says
Don Alfredo cautiously, when Horatio asks him for his permission. “But you must
first promise me two zings. One, you must plant flowers that only I like; red
roses and carnations are my favourite. And two - you must not try to dig a long
tunnel under the ground from which to escape.”
“You have my word” promises
Horatio.
So the men get started on
completing the various projects as required. Styles, Matthews and Oldroyd
quickly build sixteen bins and spray paint labels on them; four bins for
aluminium cans, four for plastic PET bottles, four for glass and four for
general waste. These bins are then stationed around the village.
Then it comes time for Styles
to run the information programmes to show the locals how to use the bins
correctly. He is demonstrating in front of a large, attentive group.
“Now you see here this
tequila bottle” says Styles, holding up a bottle in his left hand, “you drink
it first to get the liquor out. Environmentalists don’t want any alcohol stuff
in their bottles.” He guzzles the tequila down quickly. “Then you toss it in
this bin marked with a picture of a bottle – this bin is for GLASS ONLY,
including liquor bottles, glass jars, soft drink bottles, milk bottles and anythin’
else made of glass. Here, I’ll show you another example.”
Styles takes a bottle of
vodka, guzzles that one down quickly, and tosses it in the recycling bin for
glass, giving the same instructions as before, although his diction is slightly
slurred: “An’ ya toss that’n the bin….the one with th’ picture.”
Styles repeats the process, a
third time, fourth time, using beer bottles and bottles of margaritas, each
time getting drunker and drunker. By his tenth demonstration, Styles is
practically legless: “An’….this ‘em whiskey bottle…’cos y’know, men needa drink
when no woman be’d around, an’ ye git it inter ya -” THUD. Here Styles passes
out with an almighty thud on the floor.
At this point Horatio walks
in to see how the session is going. When he sees Styles passed out on the
floor, he groans, and orders two men to “carry him away at once.” Horatio then
decides to complete the training himself.
At the end of the session,
Horatio conducts an exercise where all kinds of litter is strewn about the
floor, including drink bottles, cans, orange peels, hamburger wrappings, jars
and milk cartons. Horatio takes out his stop watch and gives the locals five
minutes to put all the rubbish in the correct bins. The exercise is completed
successfully in 3 ½ minutes.
“Well done!” announces
Horatio. “You are now ready to begin the recycling process.”
*****************
“Who put THIS IN HERE?!” cries Matthews, taking a banana peel out
of a recycling bin for glass.
“It was me” says Oldroyd
nonchalantly, then adds “sorry, I didn’t know.”
“Of course you bloody well
knew” rasps Matthews. “How many times do we have to tell ya? Red bins are fe
glass bins, green bins are fe PET plastic bottles, yellow bins fe aluminium
cans and brown bins fe general waste.”
But Oldroyd still doesn’t get
it.
“Mr Hornblower said you only
have to follow the chart” explains Matthews; “there’s pictures we put on them
bins to show you where to put the rubbish.”
“Oh, what difference does it
make!” says Oldroyd stubbornly. “So as long as there are bins!”
“I’ll tell you what
difference it makes Oldroyd, you bloody idiot” says Styles. “You can go through
every bin and sort out the mess you made yerself.” Then Styles and Matthews
walk off to attend to other activities, leaving Oldroyd to hunt through all
sixteen bins to reallocate the litter into their correct disposal units.
**************
From then on, Oldroyd
cooperates with all manner of environmental jobs he is allocated, including
collecting dung to add to a compost heap to fertilise new plants and trees
which are being planted around the village.
Horatio is thoroughly pleased
with the way things are going, and almost every day comes up with new ideas to
improve the environment. On one such occasion, Horatio wanders down to the
shore to see what kind of pollution is being washed up. He is on his hands and
knees collecting debris when he hears a fleet of horses behind him. He turns
around and sees it’s Don Alfredo. Don Alfredo announces that he is to be set at
liberty for “saving life at the peril of his own.”
After Don Alfredo leaves him,
Horatio turns back to the ocean and draws a long, deep breath of fresh salty
sea breeze into his lungs. It’s been six months since he returned to this land
in order to honour his parole; six months in which he transformed this barren,
arid land into a lush, fertile paradise. The place was almost beginning to feel
like home.