Tostov!

We turn, dear reader, to the Vulgarian army as it wends it way from the newly captured town of Schwettinbad. The army intends to regroup in the territory of its ally, the Empire of Fenwick, and is now traversing the Duchy of Bahnsee-Kassel in a south easterly direction. The headquarters of its commander, General Hertz van Rentall, is interrupted by the arrival of a knot of horsemen. Who could they be?

'General, splendid to see you and compliments upon your latest victory!' cries one of the new arrivals. 

Why, it is Captain of Infantry, Duke Walter von Neucheim. Duke Neucheim has with him his close companion, Baron Tostov. Neucheim looks well, as he should since he has been on leave and so has avoided the boredom and disease attendant in serving during the recent siege. His compatriot, Baron Tostov, doesn't look quite as well due to some injuries sustained in a previous battle.

'I come bearing grave news!' says the Duke, leaping from his horse. Tostov also dismounts, although for him this involves more of a sort of falling off into a heap.
'Da Baron ish, ah, well?' asks Rentall, looking at the heap of Tostov in front of him.

'Gottle of geer!' says Tostov, as the Duke tries to reassemble him.

Neucheim balances Tostov's wooden head on his barrel-like body: barrel-like because it, in fact, a barrel.

'Duke', says the general wearily. 'Perhapsh itsh time to recognishe dat dish rushe wid da baron won't fool anyone anymore'.

'The baron is here!' shout the soldiers nearby. 'Hurrah for Tostov! Hurrah for Tostov!' The celebrations are taken up and down the line, and soon the whole Vulgarian army knows that their hero, Baron Tostov, is once again ready to fight!

Rentall sighs and shakes his head.

'And what ish da news dat you bring, good duke?' asks Rentall, as one of Tostov's fingers falls off.

'You are being pursued, my lord' says Neucheim excitedly. 'The Rotenburg army is close by and means to bring us to battle!'

Rentall nods philosophically.

'And dosh da Baron Tostov have any advish in dis situation dat we find ourshelves in?'

'Gottle of ...'

'No!' says Rentall holding up his hand. 'Duke, does da baron have any advish dat doshn't involve a bottle of beer?'

Neucheim considers this. 'Nope' he says, finally.

'Dat's what I tort' says Rentall. 'Luckily, I do. I have a plan! Let ush order da troopsh into battle formation!'

And so, near the small village of Schwimwehr, the Vulgarians prepare to test their mettle against the Rotenbergers. Rentall has plan. Of course, this is a Mittelheim plan; so, if the chances of the plan actually working aren't exactly zero, then they are so very nearly zero that it really isn't worth the effort of trying to put a decimal point in.

Doctor in the House!

'Is the message sent, chamberlain?' asks Prince Rupprecht, his voice full of unusual zeal.
'Indeed, yes, sire', replies Chamberlain Fecklenburg. 'I am sure that Landgrave Choldwig will bestir his army and move immediately upon the enemy'.

'Did you include my pictures?' asks Rupprecht.

Fecklenburg considers this. 'All of those that were fit to include in our letter, sire', he replies finally.

'So, all of them', says the prince firmly.

'Yes, sire: all of those that could be identified as small drawings of pigs, and not those that looked like they had been drawn in crayon by a syphilitic and wildly drunk monkey that had never actually seen a pig and whose best monkey friend had lied about the claws'.

'Are there many of those sorts of monkeys?' asks Rupprecht, who likes to think of himself as a man with an enquiring scientific mind.

'I think that Landgrave Choldwig is likely to think so sir. But, moving on swiftly, I am sorry to disturb you again but I have here Doctor Hans Klenser'.
Accompanying the good doctor is his assistant. The prince blanches, remembering their previous encounter.
'Ah, uh, lovely to see you again madame', panics Rupprecht, searching for a suitable greeting that might avoid a repeat of the terrible social faux pas that accompanied their last meeting. 'You, ah, really, uh, haven't got any uglier since the last time that we met'.

Klenser chokes. Fecklenburg steps in straight away. 'Come now doctor, the prince hardly has time for this exchange of pleasantries. 'Why are you disturbing his Princely Personage'.

'Well, my lord - it's your gout' stutters Klenser recovering. 'I am sorry to disturb your evening', he continues, gesturing to the pair of oars. 'But you have been suffering from said affliction since I can remember. And as your Chief Medical Officer, I thought that it was time that you set an example of health and wellbeing for your subjects'.

'You're not going to saw it off, are you?' asks Rupprecht worriedly, pointing at his foot. 'Because I've only got two. I think'.
'Oh, no, no, sire. Not yet'.
'Not yet?' gulps the prince.

'No sire - not whilst we have such a long list of alternative treatments to attempt first'.

Fecklenberg steps forward with concern. 'But it's not a long list, Doctor Klenser. I have some acquaintence with medical matters, and I know that that list has one item on it, and it begins with 'L' and ends in 'H'!'
'Lunch?' asks the prince hopefully. Then he frowns. 'And if that doesn't cure me then you saw my foot off?'

'"Leech", my lord', replies Fecklenburg. 'It's "leech" that comprises the entirety of the medical profession's long list of treatments'.

'In my defence, it's a really long leech', says the doctor. 'It's more of a snake, really'. He opens a pouch to show the chamberlain.

'That is a snake', says Fecklenburg', stepping back in alarm. 'That is very much a snake. How on earth did you intend to prescribe it to our prince?'

'Well, usually, I recommend placing one under the tongue with some water until it dissolves'.

'And do your patients say that they feel better after that'

'It's difficult to tell' replies the physician. 'what with their tongues swelling up from the bites. But I can say confidently from looking at the jerking of their limbs that their mobility improves and that that they stop complaining about their gout'.

'No, no, no!' replies the chamberlain firmly. 'There must be some other recommendation'.

Klenser thinks about this. 'Well, the prince could cut down on his drinking'.

Rupprecht frowns. 'Why would I do that? Only one of my feet has swollen up. I've got one left. I'd say that means I'm only drinking half of what I need to'.

'But your foot, my lord ...' Klenser tries continuing.

'It's fine. I'm used to it. It was like when I was bitten by that wild dog'.
Klenser nods. 'Bitten by a dog? Thank goodness, it could have been a small child'.
Rupprecht frowns. 'What? No, I could have fought off a small child. Anyway, my leg blew up, but I just ignored and it went away. Unlike my wife'.

'My lord, I must insist ...' begins Klenser.

'Be off!' cries the prince. 'On this issue, it's mind over matter: I don't mind, and you don't matter! So take yourself and your, ah, wife, away, and let me alone to contemplate serious matters of state'.

The physician is bundled out.

'Were you serious about considering significant matters of state, sire?' asks Fecklenburg.

'What? Oh no, I've got the whole evening if front of me. Now, chamberlain, help me with those oars: it would be a shame to waste them'.

Gloom and Doom!

'Gloom! Gloom! Darkness! Darkness!' wails Prince Rupprecht of Saukopf-Bachscuttel morosely. 'I just can't see a way out of this terrible situation!'
'Would this be better, my lord?' says Chamberlain Fecklenburg, lighting a lamp.
'Ooh, yes, that's much better!' replies the prince happily as the room moves from pitch black to a warm and rosy glow.
'My lord, can I ask you why you were sitting in the dark?'
'Yes, chamberlain, you can'.
There are a few moments of silence.
There is a barely audiable sigh from Fecklenburg. 'And why, my lord, were you sitting in the dark?'
'So, Fecklenburg, that I do not have contemplate the ruin of my evening - an evening that I was very much looking forwards to'.
'And what entertainment was lined up, sire?'
Rupprecht points to a pair of oars that are lying on the floor.
'You ordered the staff to procure you a pair of oars for the evening?' asks the chamberlain with some interest. 'What, my lord, did you intend to do? This isn't ...' he looks around concernedly '... this isn't some sort of English entertainment is it?'

The prince snorts derisively. 'Look around Fecklenburg - can you see any steak and kidney puddings?'

'There was that incident, sire, with the fried potatoes and the peas that were mushed up ...'

'No Fecklenburg, there was just an English actress who should have tested the temperature better before asking me "would you like gravy on that?" No, chamberlain, my evening has been ruined by cloth-eared servants that don't pay attention to what I'm saying'.

'It wasn't a pair of oars that you wanted, my lord?'

'Of course not: I wanted something altogether ... fruitier'.

'That, sire, would explain the large pair of melons that I saw in the hallway. You asked for a pair of oars with enormous melons?'

'That isn't at all what I asked for'.

'I see, my lord', says Fecklenburg, nodding at last. 'Oh, I see. You seem to have obtained wood of an entirely different kind. Well perhaps, sire, you need to enunciate more clearly'.

'Why, chamberlain? I can't see the relevance here of religion. But now my evening is all ruined. What am I going to do now? Where am I going to put those?' he points at the wooden implements.

'Certain suggestions leap to mind, sire - but let us leave such matters.' 

Fecklenburg continues. 'With your evening free, sire, would that not leave time to discuss the dreadful loss of the town of Schwettinbad?'

'Rupprecht considers this carefully. 'No'.

'But many of your citizens were slaughtered in the fight sire!'

'There's probably a bright side somewhere', says the prince resentfully. 'You can’t say "slaughter" without saying "laughter"'.

'My lord, the Vulgarians have made off with a great array of goods and chattels'.

'That's sad, obviously', says the prince giving his nose a thorough rummaging with his finger. 'But you know, on the bright side, it's not my stuff that they've taken'. 

'But in a way, sire it is: you have always been an advocate sire, I believe, that what is yours is yours; and what is your subjects is also yours, should you tell them to give it to you. So in a way, the Vulgarians are stealing from you. And of course, the things that they've done to the local pigs ...'

'The local pigs!' says Rupprecht horrified. 'What things?'

'Vulgarian things, my lord'.

'Well that just won't do! We must recapture the town! How can it be done?'

'The Vulgarians have left a garrison and have now, by all accounts, begun to withdraw to Fenwickian territory'.

'Shouldn't we stop them, Fecklenburg? I mean, think of the pigs!'

'I could send a message post-haste to the nearest of our allied forces, sire. The Rotenburgers are within striking distance of the enemy!'

'Do it, Fecklenburg! Think big: think pig!'

Capacious Exploding Orifices!

 'A sudden startling level of competence by the Bachscuttelers delivers an unexpected and quite remarkable victory!' said no one, ever, in the history of warfare. The attacking grenadiers of course are driven off by the defending Vulgarians. The Bachscuttel sappers, seeing this, drop their shovels and run as well.

To the distinct whiff of coal-dust, beer, and chips and gravy, the Vulgarian miners establish a mine head and begin digging towards the town's defences (below). Having run out of nuns, the defenders can only look on gloomily as barrows of earth are removed and barrels marked "Gunpowder: Do Not Snort" are wheeled in to replace them.

To add to the Bachscuttler's woes, a heavy siege mortar is dragged forwards and placed in the new artillery position (below). There's nothing that Vulgarians like more than handling large barrels, and this one is a whopper. So capacious is the capacity of the muzzle that it is named by the gunners "Wilhelm's Cake-Hole" 

As mortar rounds begin pounding the fabric of the town, Governor Zwöllenglantz decides it is time to end the battle before the attackers can breach the walls. His troops are out of morale; and food is running low - the prospect of hunger stalks the town like a stork with a scythe and a poor sense of humour. Only gunpowder remains plentiful: but that is because there is precious little left to fire it from except grenadiers' backsides.

The governor has done everything possible to fight off the attackers: if that is, the concept of 'everything' could be defined as the mindless repetition of trench raids and the working of nuns well beyond their regulation hours, and doing not much else.

Zwöllenglantz asks for the Honours of War. As this is Mittelheim, it takes quite a time to find some of them; but eventually the Bachscuttel garrison is permitted to quit the town unmolested. The troops are allowed to leave with their arms, which is handy because without them it would be difficult to make their hands work. 

The town of Schwettinbad has fallen to Vulgaria! General Rentall immediately begins implementing the Vulgarian form of martial law. The main element of this seems to comprise of a violent pogrom against purveyors of garlic, salt, and bedroom window locks. A new and progressive tax system is introduced to discourage sun-bathing and to encourage investment in larger cleavages. A strange explosion of love-bites and lassitude quickly begins to afflict the inhabitants of the town.

News of this defeat will surely not be well-received by Prince Rupprecht! 

Nun Shall Pass!

The battle begins to reach its final denouement; or, as it might be termed in Mittelheim, the end. As the defending Bachscuttlers look on, the Vulgarian sappers quickly raise a new artillery battery position right in front of them. If the Vulgarians get some guns into it, the fire from it is going to really, really hurt. From here, the attacking guns will be within breaching range of the walls and so able to begin the process of battering down the fabric of the fortress, just as they have already battered down the fabric of the Bachscuttel morale. The latter was never likely to be that challenging, given that if it were indeed a fabric, Bachscuttel morale would be a rather frayed pair of underpants, probably worn on alternate days by respective members of the platoons.

What to do? What to do? Governor Zwöllenglantz reviews his options. He can afford to do this quite a lot because it's not a very long list even if he writes it in very big letters. There are no doubt, a wide array of clever strategems that might be available in a siege to an enterprising defending force: tarring and lighting pigs; stuffing goats; smearing elephants in honey and chasing them with bees into the enemy positions; secrets forays to stuff comedically large pineapples into the barrels of the attacking artillery. Most in fact seem to involve variations on cruelty to animals and fruit; or cruelty to animals with fruit. But the governors options in both cases are limited given the lack of both: Bachscuttlers don't eat fruit; but they really do eat almost any animals, even if they seem oddly covered in bees and honey. So, the governor once again plays a collection of the Bachscuttel greatest siege hits.

Wearily Sister Molestus trudges the well-worn path to the Vulgarian lines. It is generally acknowledged in circles familiar with espionage that one of the important attributes of a spy is that they should be relatively unknown. It is somewhat worrying, then, for the sister that, as she approaches the enemy line, she is received with the words "Oh hello, it's you again, Sister".

Alas, there's only so many times a woman dressed as a nun can claim to be seeking a 'lovely bunch of strong men' to help her with her 'entirely naked fellow sisters who are in a nearby inn and have become trapped in the bath tub'. Alerted by the nun's suspiciously detailed knowledge of bathing, an activity that no one in Mittelheim is terribly well acquainted with, the Vulgarians apprehend her. Accusing her of being dirty Bachscuttel spy, which, to be fair, she actually is on both counts, the nun is beaten with musket butts until she passes out; although, in deference to the fact that she is nun, the troops apologise profusely while they are doing it and also skip their normal practice of rummaging around in her underclothes.

And then, of course, it's time for the Bachscuttel trench raid. This one is made slightly more interesting because the company of grenadiers are now leavened with a group of sappers.

If the grenadiers can storm the position, the sappers will then fill in the new battery. The sappers are notably well-rested given that they haven't done anything at all during the whole of the preceding fighting. This is it - the final act. It would hardly be a surprise to communicate, dear reader, that the Bachscuttel force has already run out of morale. This means that they cannot rally any troops and that they will automatically surrender if the walls are breached. Only if they can break the Vulgarian morale before the latter happens do they have any chance of preventing the fall of the town!

There Can be Only Pun!

Somewhat surprisingly, it does indeed seem that doing the same thing again as the Bachscuttelers have repeatedly done before has caught the Vulgarians napping. Who knew that the rapid approach of  enemy assault companies against one's trenches might indicate that the enemy was raiding one's trenches? Moreover, although Bachscuttel is a place where the phrase "getting back into the swing of things" usually just means hanging more people, the previous practice really does seem to have warmed up the attacking troops. The raid has some success, and with cries of "Chase me! Chase me!" the Vulgarian sappers scatter to the rear.

The Bachscuttlers decide to pile the pressure on the defending Vulgarians. It's not a great pile, to be sure: more the sort of small heap produced by a naughty puppy - but still, there is at least an attempt to multiply the confusion caused by the raid. It's time, once again, for the furtive shuffling of spies.

'It's time to commit the nun' has never really been a phrase that indicates a battle is going well. Nevertheless, Sister Molestus finds herself again ordered to betake herself to the Vulgarian lines in order to sew some mayhem (below).  

Alas, even the best of her needlework puns fails to move the Vulgarian troops. Taking stock of the situation, they've already moved onto some soup word play, and don't broth-er paying any attention to her.

'I've got to get out of this place', whispers Sister Molestus to herself. She kicks one of the Vulgarians in their bouillons and then sprints off.

In the first parallel, two companies of Vulgarian troops shift to some pudding-related fun and decide to desert (below). It is a sad fact that in this siege the most dangerous threats to the Vulgarian troops have been their lax hygiene and their own legs. More of them have either deserted and run off or shat themselves to death than have been laid low by Bachscuttel gunnery or muskets.

The remaining Bachscuttel infantry begin to gather in the covered way (below). With little artillery firepower left available it would seem that Governor Zwöllenglantz might be considering an all or nothing assault with his infantry to destroy the enemy's third parallel. In Bachscuttel, of course, the phrase "all or nothing" isn't really as balanced an option as one might suppose, since the "all" element is usually rather quite similar to the "nothing". Still, you have to admire the governor's sense of adventure.

Such an assault might be just in the nick of time. With a third parallel now undergoing construction, the Vulgarians begin to muster the makings of some new artillery positions. But in the trenches, one can also hear phrases such as 'Get thee whippet aht o' my beer' and 'It's grim up north, it is': firm evidence that miners have been ordered to the front!

Lip Balm Death!

(Below) The Vulgarian siege lines look unfeasibly like an actual military line of sieges. The usual characteristics of Vulgarian military activity - troublesome attitude, wheezing decreptitude, and perennial lassitude - seem strangely absent.

The architect of this sudden competence, Lady Timsbury of Somerton, surveys the developing engineering works in the company of General Hertz van Rentall.

'Dish ish mosht pleashing', says the general in his highly variable Dutch-accented German. 'I don't shink I could have imagined a better shet of sheige works after da lasht hash de troopsh made of tings'.

Lady Timsbury smiles serenely.

'That, sir, is the power of professional military education. The pen, you see, is mightier than the sword'.

'Datsh true, madam', nods Rentall. 'Eshpeshially when you threaten to shtab da chief engineer in da eye wid da pen if he doshn't do better'.

Lady Timsbury nods with satisfaction. She smears a small quantity of ointment on her lips drawn from an ornate tin in her bag. The smell of violets drifts out.

Lady Timsbury nods with delight. 'Can you smell that? Can you smell that, sir?'

'What, madam?' replies the general.

'Lip balm. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of lip balm in the morning. It smells like ... victory!'

Despite the positive effects of their regular siege operations, the Vulgarians still can't stop themselves dabbling in the nonsense that is espionage. (Above) A winsome Vulgarian spy insinuates herself into the town square which is currently the main rallying point for discomfitted Bachscuttel troops. At this rallying point, the shaken defenders fortify themselves with stirring tales of the Palatinate's military past. This really doesn't take very long, leaving them a lot of time to contemplate their very limited life expectancy if they move back up to the bastions.

The spy intends to try and reduce the Bachscuttel morale. She fails of course, because it can't really get any lower. Indeed, so depressing is it to be in the company of the remnants of the Bachscuttlers that the spy becomes rather weepy and flees. 

There's only one option left for the Bachsuttel defenders. Proving beyond doubt that they are a one-trick pony; a single-stringed violin; a jack of one trade; a single sausage breakfast, the defenders launch another trench raid in an attempt to see off the enemy sappers. After all, doing exactly what they did last time, and the time before that, is exactly what the Vulgarians won't expect. Right?