Northwest Cabbage!

For Colonel Richter Fuhrporer, events in this battle take a turn for the worse: indeed, not just a turn, but something approximating a vigorous double twist with a passable tuck and pike. His platoon of light troops are suddenly submerged by a mass of hacking, whooping natives. There is nothing the natives like more than a chance to give sallow-faced Europeans some well-deserved payback for all of the diseased blankets, 'unbreakable' treaties, and poorly manufactured glass baubles. The European troops evince no such enthusiasm. Indeed, the performance of the colonel's troops might be described as 'mediocre' except that, really, there is no 'medi' about it: the light troops are lamentably 'fullyocre', inflicting no casualties at all upon the Indians. The morale of the light troops is tested by this situation and naturally is found wanting. With all of the enthusiastic energy of a family-sized basket of leafy green winter vegetables, they fall back further into the woods. However, this leaves Colonel Fuhrpurer not just as the point-man in the Gelderland fighting line, but actually the only man (below).

Heavily outnumbered, success in such circumstances  would require the efforts of a man of the heroic stamp. Fuhrpurer, however, has more of the character of an actual stamp - small, thin, and odd-tasting when licked. He has barely enough time to finish his warcry of "Ah, I'm sure we could just sit down and talk this through: I've got a nice blanket and some beads in my baggage", before he is struck unconscious by the butt of an enemy musket (below). Carried of as a prisoner of the Vulgarians, he surely faces a fate worse than death.*

Seeing the success of his native auxiliaries, Sea Captain Blofeldt, grizzled and hard-bitten (a result, amongst other things of having been in his early career bitten hard by a grizzly) is quick to understand the need to sustain the momentum of his attack. Or, he is just very, very angry. Either way, his marines are ordered to advance from their cover, the captain shouting wildly from behind. Or about behinds. In truth it is difficult to discern his actual meaning, what with all the roaring, spitting, and eye-watering maritime-themed swearing (the latter featuring imaginative combinations of mermaids, pilchards, and whale blubber). (Below) His marines, considerably more frightened of Blofeldt than they are of the enemy, advance towards the Gelderland trading post. Sadly, no matter how fast they move, Blofeldt remains right behind them, gesticulating and gurgling like a drunkard drowning in treacle.

(Above) The marines begin trading volleys with Major Schwim und der Vasser's small Nabstrian force of natives indians and rangers. With the Nabstrians safely ensconced in cover, it turns out to be a poor trade: like, say, trading beads for large chunks of eastern continental America. Several of the marines become casualties. Then, siezing their moment, one of the ranger platoons gives a blood-curdling cry and charges Blofeldt's marines (below).

(Above) There is a bloody melee, with much cutting, thrusting, and flicking of tender bits. Within a little time, however, the rangers are driven off and run back into the woods. However, as the marines redeploy, someone notices that Captain Blofeldt has disappeared!

Further across the battlefield, a Vulgarian messenger soon rushes into the presence of Colonel Freud und Slepp, commander of the Fenwickian allied contingent.
'Sir! Sir!' cries the messenger, 'calamitous news!'
'What is it?' says the colonel, adjusting the position of his provincial troops to provide himself with even more effective cover from enemy fire. 'What is the matter?'
'Sir, Captain Blofeldt has been involved in a melee and is now missing! Possibly dead, even!'
'Missing?' muses the colonel. 'Dead? Well, did it look like a dangerous melee? Or was it just, say, something of a disagreement?'
The messenger for a moment considers this. 'It was definitely a melee, sir, with weapons, shouting,  upsetting altercations and such.'
'Are you sure?' says the colonel, looking sternly at the messenger. 'because you know how things can get exaggerated in military reports. Perhaps it wasn't actually a melee. It might just have been a  fracas. Or a brouhaha. Either of which, I have to say, are eminently survivable.'
The messenger frowns in confusion. 'I'm not entirely certain of the difference, sir'.
'A fracas is like a melee, but with more Italians'.
'And a brouhaha, sir?'
'Fewer Italians and more soft furnishings'.
'No sir!' says the messenger determinedly, 'it was a properly dangerous melee, sir! The captain was in the thick of it: his blood was up and, dare I say it, the red mist had descended! He was uncontrollable.!' He pauses. 'More uncontrollable, that is!'
Colonel Freud und Slepp, whose nearest encounter with a red mist is having once fallen unconscious face first into a bowl of tomato soup, looks on with alarm.
'Blofeldt had his blood up!' the colonel notes disapprovingly. 'Hmmm, this is all beginning to look rather risky!' With that, his gives orders to deploy his provincial troops 'even more firmly in support' of his Vulgarian ally, an action that seems to involve them retreating again and placing themselves even more resolutely between Freud und Slepp and the enemy.

Though Blofeldt is missing, presumed mad, his troops continue with their attack. (Above) The remaining marines are now covering the advance of another of the groups of Vulgarian allied natives. The Indians have got hold hold of some flints and tinder, and are now moving purposely towards the delightfully ignitable Gelderland trading post. Excited natives, a source of fire, and a proliferation of flammable material - what could possibly go wrong?


* Actually, though, Death would admit to really rather enjoying is lot in unlife, so perhaps that sort of fate isn't so bad. Cheese, on the other hand, is really very disatisfied with things. So perhaps the fate worse than the fate worse than Death would be a fate worse than Cheese.