A tale of two worlds

The Battle of Horst’s Ferry.

Part One.

Semaphore 21 stood beside the Mars Grand Trunk Canal at the town of Horst’s Ferry. Rearing almost 200 feet into the air its vast bulk was covered with gears, lamps, cables and signalling devices, making it look a little like a Christmas tree during the day and a strange and ominous giant at night. The Drune called the Semaphore of the Royal Signal Corps ‘Om – Nagi’, which translates to ‘silent watchers’.

The pre-dawn wind was blowing in chill across the plains from the low line of the Mephisto Hills to the west, making the tower creak and sway. Not that this troubled Signaller ‘Java’ Thwaites in the slightest as he sipped at his fourteenth cup of tea that evening as he stood watch. What did trouble him was that with the exception of the Trunk Canal stations 20 and 22 to either side of him there were now no lights to be seen from the west. Well, signal lights that were. Every few minutes the horizon would light up as guns rumbled many miles away. They grew louder as the wind picked up.

He heard the heavy footsteps on the ladder of signaller Toby. He’d just been despatched from central and was unused to the climb. He was puffed by the time he got to the top. “Sir, we’ve lost the last relay. Kitchener has fallen. That’s as well as White Plains and Derby Canyon. There’s nothing left between us and them now sir…”

“Sir…what now sir?”

His voice trailed off a bit as the fullness of this news sunk into his own brain. They stood in the darkness for a moment, the only sounds the rumble of artillery, the creaking of the tower and the sharp clink of bone china as signaller Thwaites set his cup onto his saucer.

“Corporal, there’s always time for a cup of tea.”

The first refugees started arriving just as the sun was rising. Firstly they came in steam driven vehicles….cars, lorries… wheelbarrows. The settlers, wide eyes and frightened children, wounded soldiers strapped to limbers and groaning whenever they hit a bump. Horsemen pulled carts and carriages loaded with worldly possessions. The ferry had been running to the far shore on half hourly intervals. Now it was down to ten minutes. The docks were a mess of soldiers without officers, children trying to find loved ones, noise, smoke and confusion.

There was the sudden and deafening sound of a Gatling gun being fired. Corporal Wellard of the Guards surveyed the scene from atop the roof of the ‘Painted Lady’ wharf inn and wondered what strange crime he had committed to be put in charge of this lot. Not being a man of a great many words, the Corporal stood atop the sandbag pile and at the two hundred faces looking up at him who were suddenly all attention. Heroic speeches failed him.

“Right you lot!” he yelled in his ‘special occasions’ voice.  “I know you are tired and I know you want to get on that boat but by crikey I can ‘it every one of your God fearin’ bonces from up ‘ere with my mate Mr Gatlin…so get in line!!”

Finally the mob became a queue of some description, thanks mainly to a squadron of well-disciplined lancers who gently but forcefully herded the people.

Meanwhile Torvald Horst surveyed his domain. The float tree plantation had been built with the blood and sweat of his family for two generations and no-one was to take it from him. He loaded his 12 bore shotgun with pig-shot and looked at his men. “They don’t take our land. You fight them for it boys. You fight them dirty. You fight them hard. And when they bear down on you, you look them in the eyes and you fight them some more”. The float trees were glowing now as if on fire in the low rays of the sun. His men positioned themselves around the farm, raised the sights on their Mauser rifles and waited.

The last boatload departing, Captain Shamrock and his Drune crew have landed one last time to pick up the last defending soldiers.

But wait! Another large refugee convoy is approaching from the west! And hot on their tails seems to be the entire Prussian aerial Navy who are bombing them as they flee! Shall we leave them to their fate?  No sir..that is just not the done thing!

The lancers line up, the sunlight glinting on their steel tipped bamboo spears. And somewhere high up in Semaphore tower 21 was the sound of a kettle boiling…

The Prussians are carrying out lightning swift strikes all along the western edges of the British Martian Protectorate and have sent Queen Victoria’s forces reeling back towards the capital, New Brighton. The Grand Martian Canal stands as a line of defence in the way of the Prussian advance but also threatens to cut off a great many refugees and retreating men as they desperately try and make their way back to new defensive positions. One ferry crossing point is at the hamlet of Horst’s Ferry, a modest collection of buildings serving the ferry passengers and acting as a trading post, plus of course the two dozen or so floatwood plantation workers.

We chose to play on a 12 ft by 6ft table to allow the aerial component of the game a bit more freedom of movement…plus it was great fun to get so much terrain on one table!

The Forces;

British

20 of 1st Battalion Berkshires

20 of 35th Bombay Infantry

1 unit of 10 Bengal Lancers

12 Settlers led by the famous ‘Horst’ himself

3 Signallers manning the semaphore

22 non-combatant refugees

1 Gatling gun manned by 3 naval brigade crew

1 Small steam artillery piece

1 Large walker ‘HMMS Elgar’ with crew of 6 Navy

8 Crew aboard the paddle steamer ‘Donegal Lady’

Prussians

3 Light to medium aerial navy attack craft, each containing Clanks with grenade launchers

1 Medium bomber aeronef

12 Prussian attack marines

60 ish (?) Infantry including regulars and Sea-battalion

2 Attack spider walkers with heavy Gatling Cannons.

The Prussian objective was primarily to destroy the ferry to cut off the escape route and secondly to try to destroy the semaphore tower to cut communications.  Their third objective was to create terror and panic by bombing the refugees.  For the British the objective was to hold the crossing until all refugees and troops could be evacuated.

The game began with the refugees coming onto the table and fleeing along the plantation road with all three aerial navy craft in hot pursuit. On the other table edge the first spider tank appeared with two formations of infantry.

The defenders were pretty well dug in behind barricades and sandbag defences, with several platoons broken down into smaller formations atop roofs, on terraces etc).   The settlers and Indian infantry held the right flank, the British regulars the centre and crossing point and the lancers had the left. The town was also partly defended from ground attack by a dry gully that ran down to the canal.

The aerial navy came on at a good rate of knots and the Bengal lancers rode out to meet them, perhaps hoping to do some damage by prodding their armoured hulls with their lances…. As they swept under the first craft they were met with grenades from above which instantly killed the leader! But leaderless they still rode on to where a unit of Sea-battalion were threatening to overtake the civilians, who had also taken casualties that turn from the bombing.

The next turn saw most of our ground forces biding their time as they closed to within range. The Lancers began to close with the Sea-battalion but alas took another pasting from above, this time losing three more horsemen.  However, they passed their morale and continued.  Hurrah!  Even better, one of the air navy failed it’s sustain role and began to lose altitude alarmingly.

The refugees rolled well on their charges but took another four casualties to bombs before reaching the sandbag barricades which they started to leap over, disrupting the troops behind. HMMS Elgar finally managed to get a shot off at the first spider tank but missed the first of four times.  The Gatling guns finally opened up however and if doing little damage at least made the spider tank captain consider pausing just outside of short range until his supporting infantry caught up…a move that allowed me precious time to try to get those refugees on that boat!  The lancers at last clashed with the Sea-battalion; a mutually destructive move that saw three casualties a side and both units break.  The last two lancers didn’t stop running until they were on the ferry!

A second failed sustain saw the first air navy ship plummet to the ground, decapitating a row of float trees whose tops strangely floated off into the ether.   However, the grenade launching clank and ‘wind up’ man survived and continues their pursuit of the refugees.

Things were finally hotting up with the ground troops, with two waves of Prussians attacking the farmhouse complex, where they found the natives very stubborn.

One sole rifleman took down four of the Prussians in hand to hand before finally being bludgeoned. Twice units of settlers broke but rallied and returned to the fight, even with the first spider tank bearing down and squashing a few.  One unit of Bombay infantry had moved up to assist them and just about managed to hold them off…until spider tank number 2 arrived!

Meanwhile back in the town the Berkshires atop the semaphore had a good clear shot at the second air navy ship as it came into range.

It was hit with small arms fire, Gatling gun and small cannon which caused it to lose steering control and crash into the ground, with most of the crew perishing in the ensuing fireball.