From an embattled Sir Howard Elston, embedded with the SAS overlooking Gretna Green.
Soldiers around me are cleaning their weapons, writing letters home and solemnly singing patriotic songs as they wait for the go ahead to roll North towards the Scottish border.
“We were down in Aldershot when we got the call,” quipped a corporal who did not want to give his name but spoke with a soft Lincolnshire accent. “We were told to head to Command Post DR5 which is code for Operation Hadrian’s Wall.”
These men will be the shock troops that will wrest back Wedtminster authority should Scotland vote to go it alone.
Quietly and with a firm but steady eye, Prime Minister David Cameron walks anonymously among the troops, praying with them, lightly laughing at their combat humour, listening to their stories of family, hearth and flatscreen….spreading a bit of Our Davey in the night.
Tanks are massed near Berwick on Tweed, I am told, and all known fishing trawlers from Hull and Fleetwood harbours have been commandeered to sequester the nuclear base at Faslane base on the Clyde estuary.
In addition bus drivers from Newcastle have been dragooned to take over all municipal transport systems and encircle all local Irn Bru bottling plants in and around the Edinburgh and Glasgow conurbations.
Overhead, a pair of Drones silently whisper as they prepare for bombing runs over Alloa and Leshmahagow.
And in local villages near this encampment, men point to the pilotless planes and tell their sons how these airborne weapons saved mankind over Iraq and Afghanistan. And how they will spread freedom to the folk North of the border
(A Ministry of Defence ‘Black Pen’ censorship order has excised the following four paragraphs about population control, the arrest of Alec Salmond and restoration of authorised media.)
Meanwhile, as I squat in the mud of North Cumbria, eating my black pudding and chips take away, I watch as the initial warning flares erupt from nearby hills. With me is Phil, a second had clear dealer from Leeds, who has volunteered for the attack. “It is a matter of Queen and country,” he chirped as he gripped his claymore and fondled his MCC tie.
A military aide de camp has given me a chemical warfare protection suit and copies of both the Scottish Sun and a book of Rabbie Burns poetry as cover before I tentatively follow a small squad of Marines into foreign territory.
I wait for dawn and the lieutenant’s whistle the to go over the top.
SIR HOWARD WILL BE FILING REPORTS FROM INVASION HQ IF AND WHEN HE CAN