Monsoon over the Khyber.

Wed 20 th June

Garvald's twin town-just a bit drier!

                     Before I write these blogs I try to think of some witty title to start the piece off and as I was heading up to Colin Jacks on a nice sunny evening for an Indian North West Frontier game a few sprang to mind usually with some 'Carry on' connotation as the gist of the title.By the end of the evening that notion had been surpassed by the local weather which after having been a nice summer evening turned into a months rainfall in the space of an hour.The amazing thing is that when I eventually got home,a mere 15 miles away,there was not a touch of dampness in sight.Welcome to Scotland,4 seasons in one hour.Until I showed Lady Watson the evidence on facebook,I'm sure she believed I had been on the booze.

The 'Third Foot and Mouth'advance.

                                 As I said the evening had started off as a normal games night with a nice repast and general chit chat that gamers indulge in.

The Khazi of Kalabar awaits.

The game was a 1920's North West frontier game involving the stiff upper lipped Brits trying to civilise the locals.I was undemocratically chosen as British cinc so I divided up the forces between myself and my partner in crime Dave O'Brien giving him a multi bunch of Indian army forces the pick of the them being the Gurkhas.

                                       Colin Jack and Bill Gilchrist took charge of the local rabble and true to their dastardly selves ambushed our forces as soon as they entered the board causing minor casualties with the worst being my lewis gun.Fire was returned immediately making the ambushers keep their heads down.This fire was followed up with charges up the hill on both sides of the valley with different results.Dave's ghurkhas dealt with all the opposition on his flank in true ghurkha style whereas my British regulars first pondered halfway up the way up the hill before heading back down to their starting point due to some terrible dice rolls.These dice rolls on my part were going to be the norm for the rest of the evening.

'Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes!'

                         Dave's flank was dealt with quickly and he continued towards the town walls whereas my forces had to fight for every inch of my side.I tried to move some of my other forces up by lorry but they were caught in a cross fire between locals embedded behind a wall and an artillery piece situated high up on the village walls.This combination decimated one of my squads.

'Left a bit,right a bit -fire at will.Poor Will'

                         Dave's forces began a firefight with more locals who were hidden in a house just short of the village walls.To add insult to injury for Dave's squad,Bill opened up with his mortar and using his Falkirk wargames club dice to help him struck gold first time meaning that if Dave didn't move his squad tout suite he was going to be hit by the mortar every turn.Dave's squad duly advanced to the rear.

'They will die the death of a thousand cuts'

         

'Well the British are used to that'

    My armoured car decided to move forward to support our beleaguered forces.Bill changed the direction of his mortar fire towards this new threat and lo and behold hit it first time making it hunker down.I hastily sent a lorry load of infantry towards the village wall,coming under ineffectual sniper fire from the village wall.My lads got out of the lorry and duly attacked the village walls overrunning the sniper team in the process.

'We're British,we don't do anything-until it's too late!'

                           Whilst our forces were slowly making headway towards the village the weather outside the gaming room went from rain shower to monsoon in a matter of minutes actually causing a couple of minute power cuts.Obviously night comes quick in the Khyber pass.After about an hour of incessant rain Colin received a phone call informing him that the river was overflowing and a few of the houses in Garvald were in danger of being flooded and was asked to help with sandbagging.As I didn't even have a coat in the car I decided with Bill driving behind me to head for home.Dave eventually joined our convoy and after a while of driving through large puddles and a few detours eventually reached the A1 at East Linton where the road was bone dry.Home was eventually reached without further mishap,the only casualty being a missing hubcap from my Golf.That's what I get for hitting large puddles at a rapid rate of knots.
                                      See you when I see you.Back to the next Cornwall report shortly.