Chapter 38

By the time the Wessexian armed forces had been paid off, my son Bill was shocked. Would you believe it? There was only a single platoon from the former army kept in service. But it was good, and its commanding officer, a young lieutenant named Henderson, was outstanding. In the face of the most brutal conduct imaginable on the part of the rest of the Slobovian troops, he had maintained discipline and behavior in his small unit. And was Bill ever grateful that he did!

You see, this relates to the geography of the country. Incidentally, at the time of the invasion, negotiations were already in train to create the Empire of Eastland. In preliminary conversations, we talked about enlarging the kingdom of Essex to include Wessex, Cumberland, Sussex, Lancaster, and so on. They would revert from kingdoms to duchies. But that didn’t seem to fit our needs. Moreover, it would have required changing dozens of crowns, letterheads, and all the rest. Too much bother. So the Empire came into existence.

What the empire did was to handle defense. For this, the emperor, Bill, received one-half a percentage point of the other kingdoms’ tax collections. They kept the remaining 1.5 points for themselves to cover all their other national needs. Oh, yeah ... We had previously harmonized our tax rates among all the component nations at 2 percent. And, of course, for backup we still had the royal interest in The Angel, our private gold mountain. As a result, the Empire of Eastland operated financially fully on gold.

Incidentally, to add to Kate’s pain, the Wallaces and the Martins had signed over most of their ownership in the Angel goldmine, keeping only five percentage points each. This gave the Empire an additional 40 percent to use however might be seen fit. I thought it was handy; Kate was in tears.

But back to geography, or more specifically, topography. As was said before, Wessex is west of Essex, as are Sussex and Cumberland. But there’s a big difference. Sussex, south of Wessex, is bounded on the west by an impassable mountain range. Cumberland, to the north of Wessex, is bounded on the west by a very deep and fast-flowing river that had never been bridged. The result was that neither could be directly attacked from the west. This leaves Wessex. Our western border is the same river that borders Cumberland, but at Wessex it’s much narrower and had been bridged. East of the bridge, there is a mile or so of open land and then a very dense forest through which a single road had been cut.

But I said that Bill was grateful for the one remaining Wessex military unit. Like his own, it was a unit of mounted infantry, but only a platoon in size. It was under the command of Lieutenant Kenneth Henderson. The reason for Bill’s gratitude had to do with the western forest. I said there was a road through it, but the forest was about 20 miles across. The reality was that it was honeycombed with narrow trails, but the trails were only known to lifelong Wessexians ... like Henderson and his men. The importance of these trails rested on the fact that a force moving on the forest road was subject to attack from the woods for virtually the entire 20 miles. But from the point of view of an army advancing on the road, the forest appeared to be impenetrable, so an effective counterattack was essentially impossible.

This brings me to that fateful day. First of all, a large delegation of ambassadors plenipotentiary from more than a dozen Western European nations was visiting Wessex. The purpose of their visit was to try to persuade us to harmonize our tax rates with theirs ... at 70 percent. (Isn’t that nice? Prior to our arrival, the harmonization would have cut Slobovia’s tax rate by 10 percentage points.) Bill and I were sitting on our thrones. We were not impressed with their arguments.

Then a page came to the throne and whispered to Bill. He looked at me and just shook his head, then left with the page. It was a satellite call from the platoon sergeant of Henderson’s platoon. A powerful force of Western troops had forced a crossing of the river at the bridge and were taking up positions on our eastern bank. Further, he reported with his voice cracking, Lt. Henderson had stayed to cover the withdrawal of his men to the protection of the forest, but had sacrificed his life to save theirs. There were tears in Bill’s eyes when he told me the tale.

When confronted with this information, the ambassadors temporized. Two things were very clear. First, they were astounded that we already knew about the river crossing. How could this be? they wondered, knowing from the schedule established before their visit that it had just happened. Second, they tried to dismiss it as just some military exercise that meant nothing. They wanted to continue our talks, so we did.

What they did not know, though, was that, prior to returning to the throne room, Bill had given orders for full mobilization of all Wessex troops and ordered his battalion of mounted infantry to move at their best possible speed to the eastern edge of the forest. There they were to meet Henderson’s platoon who would serve as guides for them through the woodland labyrinth. The second thing he did was immediately to call King Bill in Essex in his capacity as William, Emperor of Eastland and Commander in Chief of the Empire’s armed forces.

This created a problem. As I said before, Essex — and hence, the Empire of Eastland — had a very small standing army. On active duty, there was Bill’s battalion of the Queen’s Own Mounted Infantry Regiment. Beyond that, there were cadre for three full divisions, plus the remaining battalions of the Queen’s Own, but it required mobilization, and mobilization took time. Bill told young Bill that the rest of his regiment would be leaving for the front in Wessex quickly — it had top-priority mobilization status — and he would follow with the main body as soon as possible.

It wasn’t great, but it was the best that could be done. And two things I knew: Bill would be moving as fast as humanly possible, and the main body, when it arrived, would be composed of highly-trained, highly-motivated troops. They were the very best in Europe.

So we talked. And we talked. And we talked some more. Meanwhile, the western forces had remained at their bridgehead; they had made no attempt to move inland. On the other hand, additional troops and supplies kept pouring across the bridge.

Finally, the invading troops made their move. They began their march east on the forest road. At that point our talks ended.

Moreover, as Queen Regent, I announced: “Gentlemen, you are now persona non grata in Wessex. This means that if you are still within our borders 48 hours from now, we cannot be responsible for your safety.”

Something else transpired as the ambassadorial contingent prepared to leave. Three young women were brought before me accused of spying and consorting with the enemy. I knew for a fact that all three had been increasingly familiar with the foreign delegation. The leader of the three was named Kathy. Like Kate, she was auburn haired, but with green eyes rather than Kate’s blue. The other two were blue-eyed blondes. All were quite tall at about five feet nine.

I ordered them taken out and branded. Julia, Bill and I went out to the courtyard to witness the punishment. All three were branded with the seal of Wessex. None made a sound as the iron seared their flesh. Their only concession to pain was to arch their backs. When that was concluded, the leader, Kathy, was pierced and ringed in her nipples, navel and clit, and then she was given 20 lashes with a whip. Throughout the whole process, the girl never uttered a sound.

Finally, it was over. While still naked, they were thrust at the departing ambassadors with the admonition, “Take these sluts with you!” Before they rode out, though, three cloaks were thrown in their direction. “Cover your nakedness, sluts!”

The women did, and without a word, the party rode out of the castle.

There’s another element of topography I failed to mention before: The 20-mile forest road discharged onto a plain shaped like a very shallow roof-edge gutter. It ran east-west and rose gently to ridge lines on both the north and south sides. No army commander in his right mind wants to have low ridges on his flanks. Heavy cavalry could really build up a head of steam charging down those shallow slopes into troops massed in the center. But that’s the lay of the land, and there’s nothing anyone can do to change that reality.

What followed over the ensuing week was very funny for us, but not at all funny to the invading army. Bill’s battalion had quickly joined up with Henderson’s men who had been divided among Bill’s companies. Using the hidden forest trails, time after time, they attacked the invading column on its flanks. When the enemy brought up reinforcements, Bill’s people just melted away. It was brutal and bloody ... for them. For our part, we didn’t lose a man. When it was all over, Bill received a battlefield promotion to lieutenant colonel and was named second-in-command of the full regiment of the Queen’s Own. Bill of Essex commented that whether it was the War College training or his own innate common sense, Bill could not have handled the fighting retreat any better than he did.

One thing Bill’s forces concentrated on were supply wagons. I’m not sure if the Western commander ever figured it out. The fact was that was where Bill concentrated his attacks. And I guess it was funny. There would be a group of four supply wagons, then there would be an attack, and then the wagons would simply disappear. When the invaders looked closely, it appeared the wagons had been driven right through giant trees. It was wonderful!