Pirates and Smugglers - The Beach Landing.

Arghh Jim Lad and Pieces of Eight, errr - sorry that’s about the best Pirate accent I can do, so moving swiftly on to a shortish AAR.

Imagine the South Coast of England in the early 1700’s, full moon and a high tide.

A single cart approaches a small hamlet somewhere in the Romney Marches. Then imagine something a little bigger.

A sandy beach and a few small boats pulled up on that beach, the village in the distance has been involved in the smuggling trade with Iberia for quite a few years. They import Port from Porto in Portugal and Sherry from Jerez in south west Spain, wines from the Rioja region of northern Spain and dried hams from all over Iberia.

The Squire of the village is married to Juanita del Escobar and her blood kin Jose Ramirez is up to his neck in the smuggling trade, so are most of the villagers of Snuggling next to Sea, and who wouldn’t be involved in bringing in these luxury goods in exchange for sheep, lamb and mutton, the only thing they can produce in the desolate salt marches of Romney.

As always on my table there are equal opportunities for both men and women to star in the big parts. Of course they also have to share the heavy lifting as well. The barrels look pretty heavy, especially as they are filled with some of the finest wines available in Europe and they are going to take some moving but the smugglers are well equipped with carts, pack animals and even a wheelbarrow.

Of course in every paradise there are serpents that will attempt to sour your pleasure and so beyond this field are the Revenue Men, BOO HISS! They are led by a couple of sea Captains too old for the sea and they have to hand a mixed bag of youthful eagerness and ancient knowledge, the men and women of the Revenue, BOO HISS.

Someone has snitched and they are here to take the contraband goods and imprison as many of the Smugglers as they can arrest. Well good luck with that because these boys won’t come quietly.

Captain “Old” Ben Avery is in charge and has decided to split his command, leading half of the men against the pack horses and carts transferring the barrels from the beach to Snuggling next to Sea. He has taken his two best men with him, Eduardo d’Orsay and Comfort Weeks, the last man in line is a new recruit Tempest Abercrombie. She was conceived in the big storm of 26, the one that both her parents remember well, now if only she knew who her parents were she might not have had to join the Revenue BOO HISS.

Avery didn’t consult me before deciding on his plan of action and I might have pointed out that he is outnumbered by the smugglers and if the villagers decide to join in, he is going to be in big trouble. Maybe he’s from Yorkshire. They say you can always tell a Yorkshireman, but you can’t tell him much. Being from Yorkshire there’s more than a grain of truth in the joke.

The other half are led by Captain John Leadstone, known behind his back as Captain Crackers, they are charged with intercepting the boats on the beach and stopping them putting to sea and returning to the Santa Maria anchored off, in the bay. You can possibly see why Avery sent Crackers against the beach party, he’s not expecting them to have too much resistance and two of the party are old sailors, both missing legs, but those heavy crutches could prove valuable in close combat, unless the

inevitable happens and they lose their balance. However Scudder and Fish Bait have had quite a few years ashore and the only time they usually have wobbly legs is after a night in the Wicked Lamb in Romney town centre, they have been friends for many years and brag that they have a fine pair of legs - between them.

The last man is Modesty Higginbottom, she comes from up north in Lancashire but we won’t hold that against her. Maybe.

Crackers with his usual meticulous planning and forethought shouts come on men lets get them and lumbers off at a slow lumber, his men are a gutsy bunch and set off after him, Modesty keeps up very well but Scudder and Fish Bait with only one pair of legs between them are not so fleet of foot and fall behind a little.

They’ve caught the men unloading the boats on the hop, on the right Mercy Petite Mort to give her, her full name decides that maybe she should hang back a little and see how things go before she commits herself. Captain Black Jack Teach pulls both of his cutlasses from their scabbards and yells his battle cry, Blue Peter or something similarly warlike and there’s a clash of steel as he engages Crackers who is supported stoutly by Modesty Higginbottom. The fight is drawn out, Modesty is a better swordsman than Crackers but Crackers is - well - Crackers and refuses to let a woman – a mere stripling of a girl take his place in the fight.

Brigstock Jenkins climbs over the barrels in the belly of the boat and jumps ashore but this takes too long for him to join in the fight and besides he has 3 pistols and a knife, no sword, why would someone sculpt a pirate without a sword? He’s going to be very wary about getting into a close quarters fight.

James Worrier pulls his cutlery out but decides that’s as far as he needs to go, and Thropett on the boat, draws both her pistols, then cocks and aims one at Fish Bait.

Boom - She fires, it’s a slow burn, and misses, but it doesn’t stop his mad, head long, hop towards the boats on the beach. (Bit like after lockdown in Bournemouth)

Over by the convoy the men were no more lively, Old Bill Avery shouted charge and his men matched his pace which was a slow stumble, a little faster than a walk. This gives Vanity Dobbs time to pull her pistol as well as her sword and fire at Eduardo d’Orsay, fortunately for Eduardo the heavy ball misses him. In the ensuing sword fight he is outmatched and the bold Revenue man is pushed back.

On the left, Avery is up against Mary Brazier, Mary is a wild and deadly woman from Essex way, she was the Fence for the Gregory Gang and the infamous Dick Turpin was a member of that gang so Avery has probably bitten off more than he can chew. She doesn’t have time to pull her pistol and goes for her razor sharp sword, but it’s barely out of the scabbard before Avery is on her. The fight flows back and forth, then back and forth again, Avery may be old but he is well versed in the art of foul play and uses his hook like a second weapon putting Mary on the back foot.

Comfort Weeks runs in to attack Ann Duck, in the red bandana, Ann pulls her pistol, fires but misses, however Ann is a veteran street and bar room fighter, she was arrested 19 times before her final reckoning and is more than a match for Weeks, even if she only has a long knife against Week’s long sword, their deadly dance continues for a while though.

Back to the fight by the boats and Thropett fires her 2nd and last pistol at Fish Bait and this time hitting the poor man and he falls, as a pool of blood flows from his veins and soaks into the dry sand. Scudder fires at the stationary figure of Worrier and misses but Brigstock in the red pants fires one of his many pistols at Scudder and does not miss. Another Revenue Man is on the ground in a pool of his own blood, this is getting a bit repetitive.

Mary to the left is quite good at stabbing people in the back but doesn’t like to see their faces, she has still not moved forward to help Black Jack, although it’s a little late now. Modesty aids Crackers in the fight with Black Jack and as they push him back she jumps forward, elbowing Crackers out of the way and has sunk her cutlass between Jack’s 4th and 5th rib and he’s also gone down in a pool of blood.

What more can I say, apart from, I’m pleased I made quite a few pools of blood for this fight.

It’s not looking good for the Revenue men by the boats, they are now facing odds of 2 to 1, this situation might call for a tactical withdrawal, that is, if your name isn’t Captain Crackers.

Modesty looks down on her fallen foe and thinks “that felt good but we should run now”

Crackers strikes a manly pose and thinks “Crackers thoughts, that don’t include running”

Back to the convoy and things have gone badly for Eduardo, in spite of forcing Vanity back and back again, he became distracted (don’t know why) and with a reverse cut, parry and lunge she sinks the point of her Sheffield steel sword into d’Orsay’s softer parts and he lies bleeding on the ground.

This is only turn 4 and Avery is using every trick in his book in the fight with Mary Brazier, it must be a fairly thick book because he’s holding off the ferocious attacks from Mary, but only just.

Ann Duck in the red Bandana has got Comfort Weeks on the run and going backwards and with all her experience of fighting dirty it’s only a question of time before she sticks her short fighting knife into Weeks.

Tempest Abercrombie is appalled by the noise and ferocity in this her first fight, so much so that when Jose Ramirez runs to attack her, she fails to react and doesn’t fire the Blunderbuss she holds in her left hand. Fortunately the Spanish Smuggler has a long way to run and doesn’t make contact, so she has a little more time before the inevitable happens.

On turn 5, things take a turn for the better if you are supporting the forces of Law and Order in the form of the Revenue Men - BOO HISS. All the smugglers fail to activate.

McLeish has been inactive for most of the action and this turn is no different and she fails to charge into the fight.

Activated or not the fight finally goes against Avery and Weeks and they are both floating in a small lake of blood. This has been a re-occurring theme for the Revenue BOO HISS in this game so far.

Abercrombie does finally fire the huge blunderbuss as Ramirez run to contact but – nerves – nerves - nerves, she misses him, however she does survives his mad flurry of sword strokes and remains on her feet, the last of Avery’s men to be still standing.

However Tempest Abercrombie is now alone and surrounded by five of the band of cutthroats she surrenders and hopes she will see the sun rise in the morning.

Back by the sea, with their Captain down, the 4 remaining Smugglers pass their guts tests.

Crackers considerers the first course of action that comes to mind and pulls his pistol and calls out for the Smugglers to stand and surrender. When he sees that’s not going to work he turns to his second course of action, which is to run like hell.

With the agility of youth Modesty easily out distances him and here she can be seen a few yards ahead, this lead will continue to increase until they are safely away from the Smugglers, then she can consider her future with the Revenue Men, BOO HISS.

So ends the tale of the Revenue Men of Romney BOO HISS.

My corner of the Bloggersphere seems very quiet at the moment. Is that because Blogger has gone from bad to worse? I tried the new version on my previous 2 posts, the second one froze and I couldn't upload any pictures, so went back to the classic version and that didn't hold a bunch of pictures on the palette as it used to and so I had to trawl through all my pics on Blogger before getting to the one I wanted, with a slow internet that's hopeless. With this post I loaded the pics individually from my computer, not as slow as yesterday but blinking useless for something that's supposed to be state of the art.

I do think it's becoming more trouble than it's worth. Any ideas on what I might be doing wrong?