Volavérunt

We made it. Everything had been stacked against us: physics, gravity, reality, Switzerland, and most of all ourselves. But here we are, present for duty and ready to comment.

I assembled a crack squad of Guardian commentators to lead the assault on Mrs Boyo's bank vault via the west face of Lake Geneva:

• Francis Wheen - my captain, the calm voice of measured liberalism and informed Marxisant critique, equipped with the patrician ability to cow the trolls.
• Charlie Brooker - the acerbic sergeant-major, with his thumb pressed firmly on the jugular of the Zeitgeist.
• Neil Clark - well, he had a compass in the heel of his shoe and a torch that lit up Wheen's dome like Venus rising. Plus he said he could speak Swiss.
  

The trolls divided into two main groups.

• The first lot wanted to know why we were "keeping silent about aparthied Isreal's role" in our kidnapping. They deployed sarcasm and texting acronyms.
  
• The second crew insisted that our escape plan was a false flag operation by the "Bush junta to justefy its genecidal war ag. Iran".

Fringe groups claimed we'd not been kidnapped at all, and produced photographs that allegedly showed missiles attached to Brooker's undercarriage.

Some simply called for our escape committee to declare solidarity with Venezuela and wear orange Gitmo jump suits. Three followers of David Icke said I was a lizard but tagged along anyway, casually offering me insects from time to time.

Everyone felt we ought to understand Russia's position more.

It took a while, but Queen's Regulations, invocation of "Che!" and Clark's recital of his favourite parts of Dad's Army licked this rabble into the finest body of fighting men ever to have littered the website of a left-liberal newspaper with misspelled anti-Semitic rants and random comments about "AmeriKKKa".

Years of monomania, pathetic delusions and crouching over their computers in darkened rooms had adapted many of the trolls to burrowing work - their moleish tunnel vision, incisors enlarged by tearing open packs of durritos, and ample supplies of self-belief and body fat had them gnawing through the subterranean walls of Creditgewalt Ruthenien AG in no time.

They were helped along by Capt Wheen's stirring speech, in which he mentioned that Mrs Boyo had backstage passes to the Geneva 2009 UN World Conference against Racism stacked in the vault.

What we saw when we finally broke through was almost more than human sanity can bear. Squatting on a throne of miners' helmets was the bejewelled, henna'ed, deranged majesty of Seamus Milne.

He rose slowly, and we fell back in horror against a tide of cowering trolls. He raised his bangled glove and all fell silent. Then he spoke.

"Howl ye, mortals, for the day of the Milne is at hand! First, we shall ask Osama in as guest editor again, and all you trolls shall dance and laugh and comment and agree with one another! Vorwärts!"

At this he rushed towards the hole in the floor of the Earth, the trolls swarming around his habit.

But then, as he was about to launch himself into the inky ether, the three Ickeans seized his wings:

"O Dark Hero, it's a trap! Bush, the Queen and the Rothschilds will make you their scaly minion. We shan't let you go!"

They dragged Milne down into the depths of the lake. The last light of Wheen's pate glanced off his cheekbones as he sank back into the murk from which he had never fully emerged. His last cry was "Curse you, Blair!" It's what he would have wanted.

We survivors parted in the bank lobby, where an understanding under-manager said he would be speaking to Mrs Boyo about keeping "vilde chayos" in their vaults.

I will always remember these brave men - Wheen, Brooker, Clark, Benjy, LaRoucher, zionhater18, 911truthgrrl, cocoen, usslibertyfacts67, gummiknabe - all of them played their part.

We know we can never tell our story, but rest content that he saved both sides of the Earth from a loathsomeness that would have put every teachers' staff room in the land at its decayed command.