Seven volumes on in this disposable series, The Benton Files, given away with the latest UNIT books but also available separately, and upon finishing this latest edition, what I was left with was actually quite intriguing. The two stories within stayed with me for several days, which isn’t me saying they are ground-breaking in any way, but, against the considerable restrictions of being so short on page-count, what the two short stories managed was to deliver some surprising seeds within. That may be a sign that Candy Jar Books is listening to the criticisms and is aware of the various problems with the setting and format to ex-Sergeant John Benton’s adventures in a post-UNIT career (given that it’s set on a used car dealership in quiet Wiltshire suburbia… somewhere close to the M4 motorway). As is standard now, the stories are told from a more or less modern-day perspective as Benton runs a pub in his old age, and recounts ‘tall’ stories to friend and regular drinker Ted, usually after closing time. It’s quite an effective device, and leaves both Ted and the reader to wonder how much of Benton’s tales are embellished, whether slightly, or even completely made up! The inference is that these are actual events from Benton’s time with UNIT, however.
“Their ways of life, their chosen vocations, just didn’t match. Benton had committed his life to the army, to UNIT. that was all he knew. He couldn’t give that up.” – The Vaughn Supremacy
So writes Tim Gambrell, director of much of Candy Jar Publishing’s UNIT output. It’s a little unfortunate that The Vaughn Supremacy is published simultaneously with the latest 66-page Benton Files offering, as both books come at the character of John Benton from what seem to be opposing understandings.
Gambrell is the established writer for UNIT, and therefore Benton. While The Benton Files is just a very small publication given over to semi-new writers, and this latest edition with a very limiting 30 pages each to cover two separate stories, this is not an easy brief to hand out; yet Gambrell himself routinely characterises Benton as a wholly committed career soldier, whom the Brigadier even calls aloud one of his best men in The Vaughn Supremacy. The latest Benton Files outing delivers its first story showcasing a very doubting and introspective Benton who seems at odds with whether his life is with the army, or whether to break away sometime and seek out the quiet life… It’s not that James Middleditch’s story is in any poor — just that it is unfortunately timed given the consistent characterisation regularly seen in the UNIT series, and the fact that Middleditch only has 31 pages in order to deliver what is in effect a character-piece, sprinkled with a veneer of plot in the form of a tense hostage situation — Benton being the hostage!
The two stories in this volume are examples that stand as both typical of the series, but also containing some surprising elements that show how aware Candy Jar is of how implausible the set-up with Benton’s move into the used car market is proving to be!
Is there an effort to start addressing these issues now underway, and perhaps a will to finally start delving into the actual reasons as to why Benton even left UNIT? Because as the second story strongly hints, it may well be that things are not as they seem with Benton’s apparent sudden desire to leave the army and UNIT completely behind him, and embrace that quiet life out there on ‘Civvy Street’…
CAIN ENABLED
By James Middleditch
While James Middleditch’s entry suffers a little from some holes in logic, these are only due to the writer being so very constrained by his page count. It means his plot and character work is condensed, and as is common with these short stories, there are events left unexplained and characters not quite followed up on.
The plot is, in one sense, simple, and in another has potentially far-reaching consequences. Concerning Benton feeling he needs some space away from UNIT’s army barracks, and a place he can escape to for some occasional solitude and interface with ordinary people, he responds to an advertisement for a room, and from there becomes snared into what appears to be a well-orchestrated sequence of events set by an old face named Charlie Cain. Cain was Benton’s rival for the Corporal’s role under Lethbridge-Stewart’s new UNIT organisation; it was Benton who won the role, while Cain ends up posted to Northern Ireland and being involved in the political violence over there… Now, Cain is back to settle his grudges, and Benton has entered into the trap.
This is a character-piece. Benton versus a world-weary and corrupted Cain. But on a broader scope, there is the suggestion that Benton has been targeted by a secretive cabal called Halycon, who seem to work within the army, and whom Cain says he is working for… all in order to ruin Benton.
It’s all interesting in its implications, but as the story closes, we, Benton, and Lethbridge-Stewart, are none the wiser as to whether Halycon does exist, or whether it was some creation of Cain’s to shake Benton’s confidence in the system. It makes for an intriguing and open-ended close.
Out of the various Benton stories I have read in this series, this is the one that calls out for the full novel treatment. There is enough going on, or things implied, in these 31 pages that Middleditch would have little difficulty in being able to expand on, and also be able to fully develop the themes of Benton’s commitment to UNIT and his Brigadier, versus his possible suppressed doubts over whether he is really committed to a future facing alien incursions and things he can barely comprehend…
WILTSHIRE DRIFT
By Kara Dennison
Carrying on from the first story, this one is a return to the standard Benton Files formula. Imagine the absurdity of the Men In Black storylines, but done without any of the humour or irony.
If the story above was set around 1973, then this one shifts to somewhere around 1983 — which is when Benton apparently left UNIT, according to Tim Gambrell in the Operation: Wildcat short story collection, and settled to the sleepy Wiltshire setting of JB Motors. This particular story involves a mysterious car disappearing from Benton’s forecourt, a missing extra-terrestrial refugee mechanic ‘Hippy’ named Tak Mywar, and the arrival of ex-Major Cliff Branwell on the forecourt.
Branwell is a regular in the UNIT series from Candy Jar, and we learn that by the early 1980s, he is in a very grand position at the United Nations. So, what is he doing here, in the back-end of Wiltshire, visiting some ex-Corporal who worked under him several years ago? Indeed, it stretches credibility. But while the idea of mystery cars being left at JB Motors is a recurring one in this series, we unexpectedly learn that under the floor of JB Motors’ office is… a secret UNIT control room!?
This is remarkable, I had completely forgotten that this was first mentioned in Tim Gambrell’s closing story in Operation: Wildcat; there, we are given some details as to why Benton leaves UNIT in 1983 that vaguely tell us he had felt UNIT had moved past him, and so he took advantage of a financial grant being offered that hinged on him keeping this obscure UNIT station, set on what used to be a petrol station! I haven’t read of this detail in the Benton Files series, so is this its first reveal since Operation: Wildcat?
The implications are interesting, as Benton suggests he is operating JB Motors as a partial cover for this UNIT station, but… what exactly is its purpose? Even though Benton will move to run a pub in later life, he believes this UNIT station is probably still in situ, with a new cover and caretaker keeping it.
A three-wheeled bright yellow Reliant Regal forms the crux of the problem that Branwell and Benton are seeking out, and as Benton takes Branwell into the local nighttime car-racing scene and discovers that the mysterious phantom car that has elbowed itself into the races is a Reliant Regal, a souped-car so fast and fluid that it leaves even Lotus’ behind! The premise has echoes of the old Herbie films, but The Benton Files robustly declines any indulgences into humour or irony, and everything is approached very seriously. Which is what makes this series so very hard to really classify.
Nevertheless, a pair of short stories that had the rather impressive legacy of staying with me, long after reading them both in about just an hour or so! With a series now seven volumes old, this release offers some potential seeds in how the premise of the series might just evolve… but it will take some exploring of that UNIT station Benton is keeping secret watch over to enable it to happen.
UNIT: The Benton Files VII is available now from Candy Jar Books.
