AN Abergavenny man has made the outlandish claim that Hollywood royalty Tom Cruise saved him and his friends from “being eaten alive by an army of wild pigs in the Forest of Dean.”

Semi-professional long-distance runner Johnny Turnip claims that after an illegal boar hunt went wrong the “Top Gun” star came to their rescue.

“We were naked and alone and had pretty much resigned ourselves to being ripped limb from limb in an orgy of savagery,” explained Turnip. “We were lost and exhausted and it was only a matter of time before the hordes of hungry trotters sniffed us out and made their play.”

Turnip added, “We heard their hooves thundering against the ground before we saw them. There must have been about five hundred of the porkers all heading our way. Everything seemed hopeless, but just as Puerto Rico Paul began reciting the Lord’s Prayer and Big Tony began bellowing, beating his chest and preparing himself to go out in a blaze of glory, the stampede of pigs was drowned out by the noise of helicopter blades!”

Turnip explained that as they looked up, they saw a Black Hawk helicopter and the familiar figure of Tom Cruise throwing down a rope ladder and shouting, “Come on JT! Climb on up and let’s get the hell out of Dodge! You got some mean and hungry pigs on your tail boys!”

Turnip told the Chronicle, “To give your readers a bit of context, it’s only fair I explain that me and Tom go way back. I call him Tyke on behalf of his diminutive stature and we first met in 2004 when Johnny Depp was filming scenes for “The Libertine” movie at Tretower Court just outside of Crickhowell.

“Tyke was suffering a mid-life crisis at the time and had developed an unhealthy obsession with Depp and used to follow him around the world. He was in disguise when I bumped into him in a local pub but I recognised him, and after a few ales we became firm friends.

“Over the years, Tyke has often stayed with me for long weekends when he needs a steady dose of realism to counter all the nonsense he has to deal with in La La Land. I once nearly persuaded him to buy Mardy FC but Ryan Reynolds did something similar in Wrexham and ruined that idea.”

Turnip added, “Anyhow, after our rescue, I later learned that he had made one of his surprise visits to Abergavenny only to find me and the boys had gone AWOl.

“He later called on Nanny Annie ‘horror show’ Turnip to find out where me and the boys were. After she had thrown a pint of rum and shrub over Tyke because she thought he was a cold caller selling life insurance, she told him we were probably dead in the Forest of Dean somewhere.

“Horror-show’s got a great sense of humour but it was lost on Tyke who took her quite literally and decided to charter a chopper to recover our bodies. In hindsight, it’s a good job he did, or me and the boys would have been eaten up by the pigs and spat out as fertiliser!”

Turnip explained that after they boarded the chopper, piloted by Cruise and “a fella called Cornelius Clyde,” they were given army jumpsuits to cover their nakedness.

(On wings of speed! Jakub Hałun: Wikipedia Commons )

They then told the Hollywood star their tale of white deer, LSD, psychics, necromancers, immorality, and mythological pig creatures. Cruise just nodded his head solemnly and said, “You fellas seen some crazy sh*t! and maybe one day it’ll make a great movie, but for now, my job is to get you goddamned heroes back to civilisation!”

Turnip recalled, “As we left the combat zone, Tyke issued us with these fantastic cigars to smoke, but before we could light up and forget, and maybe forgive the world and the demands it had made of us, I heard Puerto Rico Paul scream, ‘Look! down there! It’s Indiana Jenkins! We’ve got to save him!’”

Turnip added, “Below there was a clearing in the forest, and in this field, we could see Indy bravely running for his life as hundreds of pigs chased him. It was a bit like that scene in Platoon when Sgt Elias is chased and fired at by NVA troops. How Indy had survived to this point I had no idea but I screamed at Tyke, ‘There’s a man left behind. Take the chopper down now!’

“Tyke, cooly replied in a no-nonsense military style, ‘Roger that JT. Black Hawk down’ and maneuvered the chopper into a better angle to land. Before grinning cheekily and saying, ‘I’ll take you right into the danger zone!’

“Meanwhile, Big Tony had manned the helicopter’s machine gun, and with a cigar in his mouth began bellowing as he let rip into the pigs, ‘Eat lead you motherless sons of bitches!’”

Turnip said, “Tone was like a man possessed, but for every pig he felled, five others would appear in its place. As the swine slowly caught up with Indy, the poor sod just fell to his knees and held his arms skywards in a futile plea for help. There was a terrible cacophony of squealing and grunting as Indy’s final adventure came to an end.

“Puerto Rico screamed, ‘No!’ And none of us could look as Indy was eaten alive by the pigs. I just sighed, ‘Abort Tyke abort!’”

Turnip revealed that as Tom Cruise flew the helicopter back to Abergavenny, the three friends sat in silence as they tried to come to grips with the events of the last few days.

Turnip said, “We all just gazed moodily out of the chopper like men who have seen some serious action tend to. Puerto Rico Paul tried to give voice to our emotions when he solemnly quoted the main guy in ‘Platoon’ and said, ‘I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy, we fought ourselves, and the enemy was in us. The war is over for me now.’

“I could see Big Tony’s nostrils flaring before he slapped Puerto Rico Paul around the head and warned, ‘Behave you pathetic ponce!’

“And at the same time I had a sudden moment of clarity. I was no longer a semi-professional long-distance runner. I was a semi-professional paranormal investigator and my true trials had yet to begin!”