To Use The Vernacular
I might have called this "The Tale Of A Tunic", except that has about 0% of the vim of today's title, which is going to take a bit of explaining. As per usual.
Okay! In days of old, cavalry units were equipped with lances, which you can characterise as a light spear. This gave cavalry units, even those mounted on smaller horses, considerable 'punch' in the attack, being able to outreach anyone wielding a sword in defence. Art!
Here you see a British cavalryman of our subject regiment, wielding a pig-sticker as of August 1914. You can tell because he's wearing the peaked cap and a cross-the-chest ammunition bandolier. And yes, their charge that day did kebab many unfortunate dismounted Teuton cavalrymen. Art!
Today we feature the 12th Royal Lancers, whose cap badge you see above. Their distant origins begin in 1715, when certain nations who speak the same language (albeit with peculiar spellings) didn't even exist.
Why this particular regiment? For two reasons: 1) Conrad's skip-like mind and 2) The following news article from the BBC. Art!
New Queenie is their Colonel-in-Chief
You see, Queenie's dad, Major Bruce Shand, had served with the 12th Lancers, motto "Ich Dien" and nickname "The Delhi Spearmen" after exploits abroad in India. She was present at the garrison because they had managed to purchase her late father's tunic from the Second Unpleasantness. What caught my eye were the following lines:
"Queen Camilla presented five Buchan Medals to Royal Lancers at Catterick Garrison in North Yorkshire on Monday.
There was an homage to her late father, Maj Bruce Shand, who served with the 12th Lancers.
Soldiers in the Royal Lancers are often known as being the "eyes and ears" of the British Army."
"Hmmm the 12th Lancers?" I mused. "Weren't they a reconnaissance regiment mounted in armoured cars?"
Yes, they were. Although retaining their cavalry title, their job in the Second Unpleasantness was to swan about the battlefield, ahead of the main army, and sneak around to discover where the enemy were, where they weren't, what they were doing, what they were doing it with, what they weren't doing and so on. Reconnaissance; the eyes and ears of the army indeed.
Backing up my recognition was a later sentence or two:
"Maj Shand had served in the regiment and won the Military Cross during the retreat to Dunkirk in 1940 and again at El Alamein in North Africa in 1942.
He was captured on 6 November 1942, during a battle in which the crew of his armoured car were both killed and he was seriously injured."
Since I checked the "History of the Second World War: The Mediterranean and Middle East Volume III" I can tell you that the Delhi Spearmen arrived in North Africa a year earlier, as part of the 1st Armoured Division. Art!
This is a 12th Lancer's Humber Mark II armoured car on patrol in the desert circa 1942. Note the typical 'clutter' that has accumulated on the vehicle, and the jaunty cavalry caps both commander and gunner wear - none of that style-free helmet nonsense here! This is the type of chariot Major Shand would have been in; you can't see the third crew member because he's the driver, ensconced behind that elevated vision block to port.
The next time we hear of the Delhi Spearmen is on 22nd December 1941, about a month after arriving in Egypt, when they were at the front line in Cyrenaica, probing forward after the retreating Axis forces and being held up by rearguards north of Sceleidima, which sounds like a nasty eye disease. Art!
Hmmm a bit of Google Mapping and here we are. So, it does have a new name.
We appear to have gotten as far off-track as the Delhi Spearmen did.
Bricking It
Yesteryon I introduced you to "Brick Technology" and their Youtube channel, where they were attempting to sink Lego ships. Don't knock it, everyone deserves a hobby. Ol' BT moved on from targetting a mere rowboat and onto bigger things. Art!
Spelled 'v-i-c-t-i-m'
This one proved too robust and it shrugged off multiple hits, even with the plastic missiles lying at the bottom of the boat. BT decided a bigger gun was needed. Art!
I have no idea what hell-machine this will be Mysteriouser and mysteriouser MORE POWER! Now it makes sense
So, the first motor burnt out, and BT revised his design with more motors and a larger power supply, all the better to create a whirlpool thanks to the spinning rotors. Will this suffice? Art!
Yep
And the next hapless victim, too. Well done BT!
"Siege"
You remember, the hex-and-counter boardgame that mimics medieval siege warfare in the pre-gunpowder era. The basic rules have additional parts that match with new scenarios, and Conrad has now added 'Scaling Ladders' and now 'Siege Tower' to the ruleset and board. 'Filled Moat' terrain counters can now be used to literally fill in the moat surrounding the castle, making it much easier to approach. "Rubble" counters can be used to show where the castle walls have been breached. Art!
It's rather concealed by the crossbowmen standing upon it, but that's the Siege Tower heading for the castle walls.
This is more a kind of suck-it-and-see game, finding out how the new terrain and units affect play.
"City In The Sky"
How do you de-orbit a ten-thousand ton space station?
Carefully!
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE: Remake/Re-Model
If time aboard Arc One was in short supply, then labour was not. Two thousand people at any one time could be deployed to carry out whatever manual tasks were deemed essential, and thanks to the Doctor’s insisting to the Founder’s scions that his current plans were all-or-nothing, those two thousand were currently working, hard.
First, the girders retreived
by MEV needed to get up to sphere temperature or risk deformation, even shattering, when they were worked over by the
crew. This depended upon how thick the
girder was as they came in three different sizes. Metal sheeting took relatively little time to
adjust and the relay team working on the sphere’s exterior had already covered
a handful of the transparent panels.
It seemed that wherever an
observer stood, a team of volunteers were hard at work within eyeshot. Those busy welding carefully-curved support struts
onto the sphere’s original support beams could be smelt from a distance, too,
thanks to the bitter metallic fumes generated.
I think the author has been using song titles occasionally as Chapter Headings, the poseur.
That Shrinking Feeling
Data has only just been released by the Swiss financial authorities about the value of their frozen Ruffian assets. Before I inform you of the value of said holdings for December 2023, let me point out that the value for these very same icy assets in December 2022 was $8,100,000,000. Art!
If you can make sense of this, do let me know
Hmmm. The value of these assets had declined to $6,400,000,000, a drop of $1.7 billion, thanks to the Ruffian securities being held losing value due to sanctions. Oooops. In less than four years all this might get to $0, at which point Your Humble Scribe will be pointing and laughing.
Finally -
Right, time to venture forth to Darling Daughter's new domicile, which has finally been approved, paid for, gone through and keys given. I hope. It's a long way to Orford if it all fell through at the last second.
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