The Gentleman Smuggler*

Miles was a middle aged ordinary gentleman. Though the fact alone that he was a gentleman, was , nothing ordinary, not in the modern world anyway. His grey hair that stood up like wire in places, was shoulder length and sometimes gave him that crazy Einstein look. His voice crackling, almost rough but always pleasant. Very polite Mr. Miles was, nothing that you would associate with a criminal or a smuggler.
In fact when one thinks of a smuggler, the image is more like of a youngish tall shaven headed tracksuit gorilla than this almost petite man, but this elegant man was in fact, a smuggler.

This simple gentleman, spent his time travelling to Switzerland spending a couple of weeks there and then travelling back to the United Kingdom nothing an every day business man wouldn't be doing, except for one thing he disliked flying, whether for the lack of elegance or fear of heights he disliked the metal birds and always travelled by train, the first class carriage of course. He was comfortably, and without much effort making a nice little profit on each trip, which made being a gentleman even easier. His hands never saw a hard days work, and his elegant smile decorated his face quite beautifully. He was not stupid, nor he was wise, in fact he was almost a typical middle age man.

It was the morning of the 11th of November. Nothing special, a day like any other, miserable, cloudy and rainy, like most days in that particular part of the world - the English Channel.

After boarding the ferry to Dover, he was now wasting his time on the ferry spending his hard earned money, getting perfume, cigarettes and other gifts for his wife, enjoying a late breakfast in restaurant, and generally occupying himself with other pleasantries to make the time go by.

Soon enough, as the time passes at gratifying pace when you are enjoying yourself, the boat was docking in Dover. Mr. Miles was extremely calm, in fact his kind looking face expressed very little emotion at all times, it must have been something he learned while doing his job. He has done this so many times, that there was nothing to worry about. Queue, passport, exit, train, home. Simple as that, nothing to worry about, just an ordinary procedure. Part of the job.

Shortly he was pacing through the tunnels towards the stable ground. The booze cruisers who couldn't afford a car were already on the bus with their bags full. But this elegant smuggler disliked being pushed around, and was hoping that another bus will turn up soon. Considering himself lucky a couple of minutes later he spotted another bus driving through the port, nearing the ferry he just arrived in. Only a couple of passengers more came out of the tunnel and the bus stopped with the doors opening right in front of Mr. Miles, once again he thought of himself as a lucky man.

The bus was slowly approaching the customs hall, where the whole Mile's effort to hide his goods would come to it's final check. He could see that the queue was passing the EU customs desks fluently, nothing to worry about, it's the beginning of the work day for the customs officers they were in a good mood and not looking at either the people or the passports twice. At once the bus came to a halt and, Mr. Miles stepped trough the sliding doors of the customs hall, it seemed like everything stopped abruptly. He could not work out what was going on, but then he looked at one of the custom's officers and saw the poppy pinned on his lapel, then disastrously slowly he raised his head, to acknowledge what he already realised. It was almost 11 AM the 11th of November - Remembrance Day. Now the time was coming for the two minute silence. One of the officers curtly announced the beginning of the two minutes silence - within moments the room was deadly silent, except for a rather loud ticking. Mr. Miles was standing absolutely still hoping no-one would notice, but he felt as if he was ticking as loud as Big Ben !
For the first time that day he felt like the time had stopped. By then as the first minute ended people around the room started staring directly at him, trying to understand, where did the noise come from. Now Mr. Miles was fearing that he may not get out of this little escapade dry, but he tried not to give up his hope. Just one more minute, passport control and he could be in the taxi heading towards the train station, but the seconds seemed like minutes, and the remaining sixty seconds felt like an hour for him.

As soon as the two minute silence was over, Miles, was asked by a couple of officers to go to the room on the side, and it is then he realised the trip was over for him, no train home, his wife won't get a bottle of perfume upon his return, as there will be no return in the foreseeable future.

Thought's were running through his head and soon enough he was asked to remove his quality coat. As he did so, he did not show any emotion or loss of dignity, it seemed like if the elegant smuggler felt anything that particular moment, it was disappointment. After he took his coat of, the custom's officers could not hide the look of curiosity on their faces. Mr. Miles arms were covered in expensive Swiss watches all ticking away...

* - The original title was The Ticking Smuggler, but I decided to rename the story as the title disclosed too much of the plot.