'Ten Four'

...Not entirely sure the meaning of the police call-sign 'ten-four' - and neither are, it seems, the American police who apparently have different meanings for the lingo dependent on the State in which they operate. Bit awkward if you take a call sign to mean "All back to the station lads, Henry's got the beers and the DVDs", when in fact the caller is wanting to say "For Heaven's sake get down here ASAP - this is 'Precinct 13' with nobs on."

But anyways, there I was late this evening standing in the queue at one of the more - if not the most - safe mini-supermarkets in Christendom waiting patiently to top-up on the cigars. Why so safe you reasonably enquire? Because, I answer, it is bang next-door to the local and not tiny Police station. Foolish in the extreme the robber who would seek to harass the place when there are normally at least three or four Police officers on hand waiting to buy their late-night refreshments.

In recent years at least I have yet to see one not wearing their regulation stab-jacket. This may be just professional bravado such as medics who are never seen without a stethoscope, or newscasters whose make-up is never entirely absent. Somehow, sadly one doubts it is. I am persuaded that the Elven Safety mob insist they wear the thing even on visiting the lavatory, let alone appearing in public.

So tonight I was aware of the police radio crackling behind me as we queued. Loads of indecipherable stuff about '10-4's or '16-2's and so forth. Then suddenly as clear as a bell a quiet female voice urging urgent assistance at an address not far from where we stood. Then the blood-chilling addendum..."All officers approach with extreme caution. Suspect believed to be armed with a rifle."

There was something about the precision of the warning - not a 'firearm' or even shotgun, but a kill-at-a-thousand-yards rifle - that was especially scarifying. One could just picture some hapless Constable caught in the cross-hair night-sight and clipped through the heart at a hundred or more paces.

Couldn't help but turn and comment to the officer behind me "That sounds a bit scary" to which came the hardened reply "All too common I'm afraid mate."

And unlike such ordinary work-related banter about the hard lot of the working man or woman - usually uttered with cheery if resigned pessimism - he literally and really meant what he said: cometh the shout, cometh the knife or the pistol.

I wanted to add "You're all bloody heroes for doing this." But somehow you don't - not in a Tesco queue. I did though that moment appreciate and understand just how much danger each police officer can be called upon to face at the drop of helmet.

This can of course - though you may doubt it - apply to clerics as well. We do not on the whole bolt out of a night to commit acts of daring-do whenever some heinous crime is afoot. But in our fragmented society, where often the mad or the bad or both have nowhere to go for refuge but the rectory door, not a small number of stab-jacketless clergy have met their end answering the nocturnal bell.