The Bereny Bugle welcomes back its favourite old military duffer....
AN OLD SOLDIER CARRIES ON
(Part One)
Well, the little Glacier Barbarian civil war came to an end and left a number of
spare warriors dangerously wandering around, so Duke Malcolm gave General Gruff permission
to recruit some into the Army of Bereny. He got two full battalions! These lads were
good fighters, but not what we'd call soldiers, so a load of us regulars were transferred
in as cadre. It was good that I was made up to Sergeant-Major but now I had to wear
a skirt! This will now be called a kilt.
Part of the deal was that the deal was that the General took this new brigade as
far as possible from the glaciers and this he did - all the way up to the Kyrian
border in the North West! We took it easy; training on the way, but it was still
a long walk. Anyway, when we got there one battalion was sent to Jobollah, the other
(mine) was designated the 3rd Foot and Mouth and sent to the province of Khalabar
at the Bereny end of the Trade Pass (known locally as the Khyber). Well, our business
there was mainly dealing with border raiders and bandits and over the next year we
built up quite a reputation with the locals. They called us the Devils in Skirts
- I wish they had called them kilts. They believed we didn't wear anything under
them no matter what the weather.
This led to a major problem as one of the guards at the pass - a Private Widdle -
was knocked over the head by a bandit chief from over the border called Bungdit Din.
He found that Widdle was wearing thick woollen drawers and took them away with him.
I gave that Widdle a good dressing down for that! Din stuck the aforementioned knickers
onto a pike-staff and took to waving them round the border country saying the Devils
weren't so tough after all.
Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond, the Governor of Khalabar, decided that he'd prove that wasn't
true by holding a parade and have the lads show what they'd really got under their
kilts. On the count of three the order came and everybody lifted up. This proved
to be a mistake as everybody was wearing underwear! Mostly Y-fronts or ones for surgical
support, like mine (I have an old injury, honest), but General Gruff's red silk thong
was especially embarrassing. Even worse the Governors missus captured the scene in
a magic crystal! It seems Lady Joan was at the outs with hubby and wanted to exchange
bodily fluids with the local bigwig, the Khasi. She thought that if she gave Randy
Lal (the Khasi) the image, she'd get a bit of nookie, but the Khasi had quite different
ideas. For one thing he didn't fancy her. This Randy's ancestors had been the bosses
in these parts before Bereny took control and as they say, he chaffed under the Kings
rule. He wanted the image, but she had it hidden deep within her corsage, a place
he didn't want to delve into. However, he managed to persuade her to go over the
border with him to the fortress of Bungdit Din.
News of these occurrences reached the General, who put together a small party under
a daft young officer called Captain Keene to go after Lady and image. Needless to
say Muggins got volunteered for this. It looked like a daft idea to me, the lad in
charge couldn't tell his arse from his elbow, we had a dodgy Priest named Brother
Belcher as a guide and even that Widdle was with us!
Well, we went over the border and sneaked into Bungdit Din's town. That was fairly
easy to do as there was a load of people coming and going. It seemed that the Khasi
had got Din to assemble the chiefs of the local people, the Burpas, with the idea
of forming a huge army and then going to Khalabar and wiping out all the Berenians.
All he needed was the image to prove that the Devils' were softies.
The Captain then came up with the idea of mugging a tribal delegation and pretending
to be locals. I told the daft Captain it would never work, but he wouldn't listen.
Well, we knocked some beardies on the head and took their stuff; this got us into
the fortress, but it soon went pear shaped and the Burpas captured us. Told you so,
I said to the Captain - he said it was our fault for messing about with the harem
girls; a comment not without basis in fact.
They threw us into durance vile and we all thought we were so far up the creek we
couldn't even see where we'd dropped the paddle.
To be continued
