Monday 14 January 2008

But where are we?

From the diaries of Captain Hoehmann.

This evening Surgeon extracted the bullet from my leg, luckily nothing vital was hit, but I was told to spend at least a week without putting any weight on it. Also the bruising on my upper chest means I can only take liquid sustenance at the moment.

To return to earlier today

After the battle our forces rapidly occupied the redoubt and pursued the redcoats beyond the port. My company and the rifles were left on the cliff to hold the position and secure any wounded redcoats. We collected up quite a number of the redcoats and as the only officer available I tried to interrogate them. At first most seemed to talk some sort of gibberish, nothing like English or even French or German, eventually we found one who could speak English. He revealed that we were in Ireland and that our opponents were the local militia called the Omagh Fencibles. This was quite a revelation to us as they had fought like regulars. This unit is under the command of Lord Omagh and most of the regiment had been positioned near the main beach expecting us to land there rather than attack the cliff which is called Haugheys Point.

Looking at the carnage my estimates of the militia losses were that they had lost 15% killed, and 15% seriously wounded and left behind, probably plus another 30% lightly wounded. The rifles had suffered as severely and Major Lowes's and my company had lost 5% killed, 5% seriously wounded and 10% lightly wounded.

Finally late afternoon Sargeant Schmidt returned from the port and reported that it has been secured. Even better he has brought a dog cart, which will enable me to travel more comfortably. Also he brought some of the local schnapps for the wounded. The rest of the day was spent moving the wounded down to the port.

(Note I am using my AWI campaign rules to track the strength, etc of the forces, for the next stage of the campaign I will need to produce a model of Captain Hoehmann on his dog cart)

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