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More military memoirs from the Bugle’s favourite old military duffer

 

A soldier knows that besides all the horrible things that can happen to you, the biggest problem is boredom. I recall a really tedious campaign to restore a ruling Barbarian Chieftain in the Glaciers (he called himself a King but you know how the Powers That Be are about things like that). Anyway a usurper had killed the old Chief Duncan (a gentle soul - useless as a ruler in a hard world) some years ago and taken over his territory. Apparently he'd been an OK ruler at first, but later had become so paranoid that he was turning the country against him. This gave Malcolm, Duncan's son a chance to get his own back. Barbarian exiles had been gathered into an army and Malcolm had allied with a big time Bereny noble named Earl Siward. Also the Crown had sent a Brigade of us regulars under General Gruff to make sure things went right.

 

The General was the only one of us to be really pleased with the situation, because the Southerners all wore skirts! Although they called them kilts the General still insisted on following local custom. They seem pleased with the gesture - but they made him remove the bustle.

 

We'd see the leadership bustling about the camp, getting in the way. General Gruff, Malcolm, Earl Siward and his son Young Siward (a likely lad - I liked him) and this big Barbarian called McDuff. He had face full of spiky ginger whiskers and was always shouting the odds; a complete pillock.

 

Anyway, we marched south and entered the duchy with no opposition. The only thing that seemed at all unusual was that there seemed to be three old women watching the army wherever we went. Some local custom us Berenians thought, though the skirt wearers seemed to be making the Sign of the Six at the three hags.

 

Then we came to this forest, Birnham Wood it was called and the order came down for everybody to chop off a tree branch and hold it in front as camouflage. This shows you what idiots officers are - the enemy might not see any soldiers but they'd be bound to be a bit suspicious of a walking wood!

 

We arrived at the main stronghold - a big castle on a hill called Dunsinane and started setting up for a siege. Another tedious operation, the only thing that happened of any note was some daft bint jumped of the battlements one evening. The usurper decided not to wait and brought his men out to fight us in the open, only he hadn't got so many by then what with desertions and such, so nobody came near where I was (I was just as pleased with that). I guess he attacked where our leadership was in order to kill Malcolm. Anyway there was some hand to hand scuffling on the other wing and we won. Afterwards we all gathered at the camp and heard the news. Young Siward had been killed - I was sorry about that - and that McDuff was roaring about carrying the usurpers head and bragging about killing him mano-a-mano. McDuff said something like, "he didn't know I was not of woman born," whatever that means.

 

And that was that, a really boring war. Absolutely nothing dramatic happened at all.