Apres Moi, Le Deluge!

The Wurstburp defenders watch their Vulgarian adversaries paddle disconsolately around in their muddy trenches. Sickness spreads through the latter's army. Trench foot, trench nose, and trench belly button lay many of the besiegers low. Morale plummets: appalling weather, dysentery, misery - this isn't warfare; it's an English bank holiday.

(Above) There is sally port in the defences of the town. Ruminating on the exposed state of the Vulgarians, there are signs that a sortie might be being considered by the defenders: these signs include the movement of troops; the shifting of supplies; and the uttering of airy and utterly non-specific enquiries such as 'Where's the section in the rules on sorties?'

In the meantime, the Vulgarians try once again to infiltrate a spy into the fortress. Having failed in her designs the first time, the spy re-enters the town in the form of a bat: a form that looks quite a lot like a middle-aged woman with a beehive hairdo, leaping up and down and flapping her arms. Equipped with nothing more than a cup,a tall hair-do, and a cleavage that would past muster as an impressive toast rack, she moves rapidly through the streets, intent upon reaching the Wurstburp granary.

There are many words that might be used to describe this means of ingress into a enemy fortress: 'unorthodox' might be one; 'unwise' would be another; 'unhinged', might also suit.

Sadly for her, the spy runs into a patrol who have been ordered to be on the look out for anything unusual. Even by the poor cognitive standards of Mittelheim sentries, tall women flapping their arms, crying "I fly! I fly!" are generally recognised as being somewhat out of the ordinary.

'That's, ah, somewhat out of the ordinary', says one sentry to his comrade as he watches.

'But, is "somewhat out of the ordinary" the same as "unusual"?'replies his comrade. 'Because we've only been told to look out for the unusual'.
'Is that too narrow a remit for a patrol in a town under siege?'

'Hmmm, well, I suppose we could have a chat with her and see what she's doing out at night'.

'Madame, upon what business are you about the town at such a late hour of the evening?' 

The spy turns. 'Away! Away!' she cries. 'I shall mesmorrrrrize you! Brrrrrrrrr!' she waves her hands around in front of the sentry's face. 'These are not the bats you're looking for'.

The two soldiers look at one another. No enemy spy could surely be as rubbish as this? On the other hand, this is Mittelheim ...

'Madame, I think you should come with us ...' they say. And so, another great Mittelheim exercise in skulduggery comes unstuck! 

In Mittelheim, once in a lifetime events can be relied upon to happen weekly. And so it is again. As Lackwitz strips off his coat and shirt in preparation for another heatwave, the heavens open again and another unprecedented storm engulfs the battlefield. Almost all of the Vulgarian positions are plunged nose-deep in muddy water, driving the defending troops out of their trenches.

There's only so many times that Lady Luck can kick the Vulgarians in their dangly bits before they conclude that she isn't just playing hard to get. After a month of siege operations, the Vulgarians have nothing to show except a dead enemy spy and a lot of fungal foot infections. The besiegers have had enough.

Defeated by the weather, which, let's face it, was always likely to be a more wily adversary than any Mittelheim army, the Vulgarian troops are forced to retreat. The Wurstburp ranks are then left to deal with a strange and disorientating feeling: the feeling of victory. Suspicious of this feeling, and worried that the warm glow might simply be a temperature brought about by the early stages of typhoid fever, the troops of the Margravate revert to a mind-set with which they are more comfortable: bitter recriminations, finger-pointing, and morale-boosting beatings.