Spare a fort!

In the gloom, at the very furthest extent of visibility from the bastion, Gelderland jagers take careful aim at the foremost of the Fenwickian cannons. This process, in accordance with normal Mittelheim drill manuals, involves pointing their weapons in the direction of the enemy; closing their eyes in case of any nasty sparks and flashes; and then flinching heavily at the upsetting "bang!" sound that happens when they pull the trigger. Red-orange flames ripple in the darkness. With choking screams, partly of pain, but also mixed with some understandable surprise, both of the artillery crew fall to the ground dead. Such accuracy is remarkable: indeed so remarkable, that in explaining their death at that very moment one couldn't rule out of the equation the possibility of a lucky suicide pact on the part of the cannon crew or the effects of a sudden attack by angry, and somewhat larger the normal, killer badgers; the latter two instances being at least as likely as being hit by Gelderland jager - perhaps more so.

Colonel Ernst Leopold von Rheinfunkt, commander of the assaulting forces, would no doubt be pleased at the result - if, that is, he could see the effect of this early fire. Which he can't. So he isn't. Instead the colonel, having been, as a result of a nasty head wound received at the Battle of Wobbling Dog, relieved of much of his skull, and therefore also his hair, brain, cognitive capacity, one eyebrow, and all of his self-doubt (but having gained, as some recompense, the militarily useful qualities of single-mindedness and an ability to speak in a quite passable Welsh accent), orders forward his Pandurs.


Rheinfunkt is not, it is fair to say, terribly optimistic at the chances of this assault. The conditions are not propitious: it is dark; the bastion is high; and the garrison already is laying fire down upon the attackers. Besides, the colonel was never convinced that Pandurs were the best troops to have included in Gelderland's initial attack, it being clear at least to him that monochrome bears,  although endearing, would not necessarily be better at storming enemy defences than, say, grenadiers equipped with muskets and grenadoes. Still, Rheinfunkt was willing to give it a try, his head wound having made him, in a quite literal way, extraordinarily open-minded.

In the confusion occasioned by the darkness, the Pandurs rush forwards. They are keen to get this all over with, take their pay, and return to their Balkan homelands as quickly as is practicable. Like many outsiders, the Pandurs have found Mittleheim to be an unsettling place. They are used to living in places where things are rather more certain than they are here: places where men are men; women are women; and men who look like women are clearly labelled in order to avoid any embarrassing social faux pas. There are shouts of 'Ladders forward! Up the wall!' followed soon after by such plaintive cries as 'I can't get it off my head!' and 'This looks rather dangerous - wouldn't it be safer to do it when the light's better?'

Atop the bastion, Dreihumpe realises that the key to a successful defence is getting the main part of the garrison out of their comfy billets and onto the walls. This he achieves in the nick of time partly by appealing to their patriotism and partly by stealing their skittles. Bullets from the enemy jager whizz past out of the darkness. To either side, groups of Pandurs carrying, or in most cases wearing, ladders are rushing forward out of the gloom. With all of his troops now manning the defences, the chances of resisting the initial enemy attack now seem much better. But these are Fenwickian garrison troops. Above the smell of gunpowder Dreihumpe can also smell the disturbing stink of fear. Actually, Dreihumpe reflects, it might just be the whiff of armpits. But in the deeper notes of the choking reek he can detect terror, and also fruit notes, with a cheeky tannin finish.

'Remember men!' shouts Dreihumpe above the crackle of musketry. 'Always, always, always, hold your fire until the enemy is at the closest possible range!'
The captain then pauses.
'On the other hand, perhaps it's "never, never, never hold your fire until the enemy is at the closest possible range": I cannot recollect. Still, whatever, I think that what we all need to consider when the enemy are in the vicinity is the possibility of firing.'

xXx

On the walls of Pippin Fort, Captain-Governor Schroedinger-Skatt leans dangerously over the battlements, peeering into the distance. In the dark, in the distance one can see muzzle falshes and the faint echo of shouts. 

'What's going on?' asks the Governor, in frustration. 'Are we winning?'

'No sir,' replies a nearby ensign. 'We are being roundly defeated. Our men are huddled weeping, like children, and the enemy are already victorious, having overrun our positions with little difficulty at all.'

The Governor looks aghast. 'But how can you tell in darkeness? Have you seen these things?'

The ensign shakes his head. 'Oh no sir - I can't see a thing. I just thought that, extrapolating from the past, that that was probably the most likely outcome.'

'So you can't be sure!'

'I could add some heroics, sir - if it would make you feel better. You know, in the general rout one of our men finds a small child, lost and separated from his mother, and fearlessly pushes him in the way of an enemy bayonet attack, holding up the enemy for a short while.'

'So, you don't think that actual heroics are a likely possibility and that we might succeed in holding the bastion?'

The ensign frowns. 'This is a report sir - not a fairy tale.'

Any Fort in a Storm!

Captain Dreihumpe peers into the chilled gloom of night. It is sometime before dawn. Far off, twinkling glows mark the campfires of the forces of the Spasmodic Sanction. Though the enemy have arrived at Fort Pippin in numbers, as yet they have made no immediate attempt at investment. In a brief Fenwickian council of war, Captain-Governor Schroedinger-Skatt and his senior officers have considered sallying forth and attempting to drive off the enemy. After a short discussion, however, this option has been rejected: the garrison forces are considered too weak; in addition, it is likely that most of them anyway once out of the gates of the fortress would interpret the meaning of 'sallying forth' as just 'sodding off' and that they in consequence they would never actually return. Various methods have been discussed to keep the soldiers at their posts, including bribes, threats, and certain kinds of glue. In the end, having the fortress invested as soon as possible by the enemy seemed to be, it was agreed,  the surest way of forcing the garrison infantry to defend their positions.

Dreihumpe, though absolutely not legally being formally in command of the defenders of this bastion, is nevertheless still out on its battlements. The captain cannot sleep. This is lucky given that most of the sentries, worn out by extended games of skittles, seem already in a metaphorical sense to have passed through the customs checks to the Land of Nod.
Dreihumpe listens intently. Though the night is still, save for the snores of the sentries, the captain is worried, a worry that is clearly unsettling to the soldier next to him.
'I just can't sleep, sir.' he says.
'Strangely, my good fellow, as you are posted here as a sentry I find that I am less sympathetic than you might wish.' replies Dreihumpe. 'An enemy attack is imminent. No investment of the fortress can commence until they have seized this position first.'
'I can't see anything, sir. It's so dark.'
'Nevertheless, soldier: I feel the enemy's presence.'
'You feel their presents? Is it Christmas? What have they got?'
Dreihumpe sighs. If it were not for the fact that they lacked opposable thumbs, he has a strong feeling that a flock of ducks might make better guardians of this bastion than the musketeers absolutely not under his command here. Also, of course, the ducks would have to be paid more.
'No,' replies the captain. 'What I mean is that the enemy are near. They will attack soon.'
Dreihumpe can't actually see the soldier pull a face, but he senses it.
'But sir, they won't be coming for a while yet. It's night. They can't see.'
'Indeed, soldier - they can't see: which means also that?'
There is a pause. Dreihumpe also senses, rather than sees, the sentry pull his 'thinking' face, an expression probably quite similar to the one that he uses when he is sleeping. 'Well, sir - it means that ... that ... they can't easily play billiards?'
'No,' replies Dreinhumpe patiently, 'if they can't see because it's dark, it means that we ... ?'
'Can't easily play billiards either?'
'No,' says Dreihumpe, 'no. It means that we will not be able to see them advance towards ... Wait!' The captain holds his breath and listens. There is nothing. Then, just out of sight, in the gloom can be heard a hissed exchange of words. 'This is strangling me! This is no way to carry a ladder.'
'Alarm!' shouts Dreihumpe. 'Alarm! To arms! To arms! Or rather, I mean that if I were in command of this position I would highly recommend that any garrison that was in this vicinity should man the walls!'
The enemy are attempting to storm the bastion!

Colonel Ernst Leopold von Rheinfunkt, victor of the storming of Fort Gertrude, is once again in command of the attackers. Using the dark to his advantage, he has advanced his force to a position just out of sight of the defenders, and so just out of range especially of any defending cannon. The Gelderland assault force consists of two companies of pandurs, equipped with ladders, a company of jager, and six companies of musketeers. (Above) One company of the irregulars approaches from the left. The other will advance from the right, with the jagers in the centre to provide support. The pandurs, recruited by Gelderland from those balkan mercenaries not competent enough to find employment in the European armies of the Seven Years War, struggle forwards with their ladders. Rheinfunkt does not have high hopes for this portion of his assault. The qualifications required to be a balkan pandur in the armies of Austria or Prussia are not high - a basic competence with a knife; the ability to set fire to things; and the capacity to put on one's own britches. Actually, even the last of these generally is marked down as 'desirable' rather than 'essential'. The Gelderland irregulars thus are not perhaps the most competent or experienced troops. Most have struggled to come to terms with the concept of ladders, or, indeed, how they should best be operated.

Still, they might occupy the attentions of the defending garrison whilst the main element of the attacking force deploys. (Above) On the extreme left, three companies of musketeers in close column hurry through the dark, staying  out of sight of the defending cannon. (Below) on the Gelderland right, another column comprised of the balance of the regular infantry also advance as swiftly as they can. The task of both columns is to sweep behind the bastion and then form a firing line. Rheinfunkt hopes that his force from this position will be able to sweep with fire the unprotected rear of the Imperial Fenwick defences.

xXx

In Fort Pippin, Captain-Governor Schroedinger-Skatt is woken with an urgent message.
'My lord Captain-Governor - the enemy are trying to storm our outer bastion!'
'What?' replies Schroedinger blearily, taking off his night cap.
'Sentries report the sounds of fighting! The enemy are attacking using ladders and small arms!'
'Small arms?' says the Governor, climbing out of his bed. 'Well - that'll certainly make it more difficult for them to get up the ladders.'
'A night attack sir - they are relying on surprise.'
The governor grunts. 'The fools - it'll never work.'
'Well, it might work, sir.'
'Well of course it might work. That's a given.'

Nothing to Refort!

Captain Stefan Andreas von Dreihumpe checks his pocket watch and then gazes eastwards into the fading light. The captain stands atop the bastion newly constructed by Fenwickian engineers to protect the approaches to Fort Pippin itself. Dreihumpe is very generally, and not in any legally provable way, in command of the garrison. To the untrained eye, this might seem to be a terrible choice by Imperial Fenwick on at least two counts. First, of course, Dreihumpe's recent performance in command of the defence of Fort Gertrude and the crossings of the River Strudel has proved to be one for which, in its skill and professionalism, even the word 'limp' would seem to be an enthusiastic over-exaggeration. Second is the small matter that Dreihumpe, captured in this fight, was only released on parole having given his word not to serve against the forces of the Spasmodic Sanction for the remainder of this war.

But needs must. Experience seems to have shown that though in the open field the Fenwickian troops might indeed be the 'spartans of Mittleheim', for the very particular demands of the kleine krieg they are to military effectiveness what a snake might be to the skilled execution of a night of vigorous Irish dancing. Dreihumpe, though he might be ill-educated, opinionated, brutal, judgemental, and vegetarian, is still the most experienced officer available for this sort of task. Of course, this leaves the not inconsequential matter of the captain's parole. Luckily for Fenwick, like all Mittleheim officers Dreihumpe is a man of his word: and that word is 'shifty'. If asked on oath, he could certainly avow to a hazy recollection of having promised in some way not to fight again against the forces of the Spasmodic Sanction; but he also 'could have sworn' that the phrase 'promise not fight against'  might actually have been 'promised not to do any cleaning for' - it was an emotional time, what with the shock of defeat, the slaughter of his command, and the soiling of his britches. In any case, Dreihumpe is clear in his own mind that he is not breaking any real promises. If pressed, say between two quite heavy weights, he no doubt would argue he just happens to be in the vicinity of the bastion and that, if an observer heard him 'giving orders' then this is just Dreihumpe musing out loud: if the soldiers around him decided to act on those deliberations then he certainly couldn't be held responsible.

Dreihumpe is certainly not, in any way that one could find written evidence for, in charge of three guns and two companies of infantry. Most of his troops are within the bastion. Their morale is high, a fact which Dreihumpe has put down to the surprising ease with which they seem to have found a supply of beer and skittles. A small force is on watch on the battlements. Drehumpe chews his lip and then says 'Damn and blast.'
'Never mind sir,' says a cheery sentry. 'The enemy are still far from this position, sir. Nothing to worry about at all.'
'Are you sure of that, soldier' asks the captain. 'Is there news from our outposts?'
'Yes, sir. Nothing at all to report.'
'Nothing, soldier?'
'No sir. We've been checking all of the wagons passing by, sir. You know - in case the enemy try for the old "dress up as peasants, hide in the hay wagon, seize the fort" routine.'
'Very enterprising' replies Dreihumpe.
'Thank you sir. And we've also been frisking peasant crones.'
'Ah yes,' nods Dreihumpe. 'To thwart the classic "dress up as old crones, pass the gate guards, seize the fort" gambit.'
'Yes sir. And we've been on the lookout for the arrival of any wooden horses.'
'And?' asks the captain with interest.
'None yet, sir. but we're still looking.'
'Hmmm' says Dreihumpe. 'And you're sure that the enemy aren't advancing upon us?'
'Yes sir. Not even if they cut branches, hid behind them and then approached our position like a strange moving forest.'
'Yet, I think soldier that, despite your best efforts, I can discern the arrival of the enemy.'
'What! What!' the troops on the bastion look alarmed.
'Well.' says Dreihumpe, drawing his sword and signalling back to the ramparts of Fort Pippin in the distance. 'I could claim that this intelligence I have divined from reading the movement of the forest animals; or from discerning the drumming of the ground; or, that because of a special gift from the mountain pixies I am able to communicate with animals and that a squirrel, named Roger, whom I befriended during my childhood, was willing to exchange intelligence of the enemy for his body weight in nuts. But actually,' he points, ' I can see them over there.'
'The squirrels sir, or the nuts?'
'No,' says the captain pointing. 'I should say that that line of figures in the distance would probably be the enemy.'
'Are they the enemy?' asks the sentry, wrinkling his brow. 'We challenged them earlier and then left them alone.'
'And you didn't think,' says Dreihumpe in a surprisingly phlegmatic tone, 'that they might be the an enemy force, whose devilish purpose might be to fall upon this fortification and wrest it from us?'
'Well, sir, they were quite rude when I asked them who they were. And they certainly had the look of an approaching enemy army, what with their musketeers, cavalry, artillery and siege train. It's just that we couldn't escape the feeling that it might be a trick.'
'A trick?'
'Yes sir - approaching us with Gelderland flags, an army and a siege train - it's a bit obvious.'

Dreihumpe sighs.
The soldier peers at the long column of enemy troops that begins to deploy in the far distance, well out of cannon shot.
'No wooden horses,' he whispers to himself. 'Who'd have believed it?'

It's the Fort that Counts!

'Well, well, well, laddie,' says major Dougal Entendre. 'Who'd have thought it?'
The major looks down from his position high upon a freshly constructed bastion. He takes a bite from his lunch, which he holds in his hand. 'Sanitaire, my fine loon, what do yer think?'
'I have to say, it looks delicious,' replies major Gordon Sanitaire. 'Cheese, smoked ham, mustard between two slices of bread: I can't understand why anyone hasn't yet invented a name for it.'
'No, no, no - not my lunch. Yev to look at this!' He points to the enormous artillery fortification upon which they are both standing. 'I am, truth to be telt, a little surprised.'
'Yes,' replies Sanitaire, kicking the bastion gingerly. 'I'm also surprised. And a little concerned.' He pushes one of the stone crenellations. 'It feels like that meeting with had with Emperor George's aged mother: I'm worried about putting my hands anywhere in case something falls off.'
'No, no,' says Entendre. 'It all seems to be very much in order.' He turns to his nephew, lieutenant Peter Pois. 'Nephew, I must congratulate yer on the surprising alacrity with which yev constructed this defensive bastion.'

Pois nods, thoughtfully. 'Well, we were, I suppose, well motivated.'
Sanitaire chuckles. 'Och, yes - the wheelbarrow.'
Pois shakes his head. 'No, not so much. It was when we broke the wheelbarrow and realised that all that was left was a hay wagon that I think that we really began to focus our efforts.'
'Well, laddie,' replies Entendre. 'Yev made a good fist of things after all.'
'It took a lot of rulers, uncle,' says Pois. 'Also, luckily, it turned out that these workmen had a general familiarity with work of this sort and were able to improvise on those areas in which I was hazy.'
Sanitaire smiles. 'Which areas were those?'
'Well,' replies Pois. 'The building bits. And those involving construction with stone. The work fellows were full of good ideas about the ways in which the traditional plans for building an artillery bastion might be improved.'
Entendre sucks his teeth. 'Improvements - actually, yes, on reflection I think that a ditch and perhaps some chevaux de frise might improve substantially the strength of these fortifications.'
'A ditch? Chevaux de frise,' nods Pois. 'Now you mention it, they certainly would have been useful additions. But no, I rather fancy that I meant other improvements.'
'Other improvements?' asks Entendre, the rising timbre of his voice indicating quite strongly to any who might be listening that he might not view such a use of Pois' initiative as a wholly good thing.
'Indeed, yes uncle. I for one would never have thought, for example, of adding a tap room and a small bar.'
'This bastion has its own ... tavern?' says Entendre, his tone similar to that of replying to the question of whether he would like to snort anchovies.
'Yes. And facilities for the playing of skittles.'
Entendre sighs. 'Nephew, you are dismissed. I need to talk to your workmen.' As Pois salutes smartly and departs, Sanitaire shrugs as if to say 'Engineer subalterns today, eh?'

'You fellows,' says Entendre, engaging some nearby workmen. 'You will immediately remove the tavern facilities from this bastion.'
The workmen look at one another. 'No sir, there ent no tavern wotsits here, sir.'

Another interjects. 'No sir, no need for it. Just joshing the lieutenant, we was.'
Entendre looks relieved. 'Excellent. We don't need additions to this position that don't add value.'
'Right, sir. But I thinks we has added some real value, what with our other additions.'
'Other additions?' asks the major suspiciously.
'We did some work on that Sans Souci house in Prussia.'
Entendre nods. 'Ah, then yer fellows with some skills in rococo decorative work?'
The workmen look confused. 'No, sir - least ways, there weren't no rocks or cocoa. We was mainly hired to work on the privies. But then it turned out there weren't any. So we came here looking for work.'
Entendre's eyes narrow. 'No skittle park, laddie?'.
'No, sir, no. Only fools would do that, sir. But we did add a small water closet though - that always adds to the re-sale value of any property. And we added some off-road parking for carriages. That's much in demand, that is.'.
'But we won't be selling this bastion.' says Entendre with rising ire.
'I thinks the lieutenant thinks he is, sir. Prime location; easy reach of the town; good schools - any gentleman with a family would be pleased to buy this place.'
'What? What!' stutters Entendre. 'What!'
The workmen chuckle.
'Just joshing you sir. No water closets or parking.' The men nod smiling. 'Anyway sir, we best be off.' They point into the interior of the fort.
'Where are you going?' asks Entendre.
'Knocking off, sir. Time for a quick pint or two.'