Captain Walker wasn’t a happy camper once Young and I explained the situation to him and the other two lieutenants.
“Before we proceed I have just one thing to ask of you Young, is there any chance that if I were to give you another day or even two, you could possibly figure out another way to get the information we need?”
“Only the slimmest of chances sir.”
“That’s what I thought but I had to ask, now can you show me on this crude map the best spot for you to get a view of their camp and just how high off-ground level will you need to be to do the job properly?”
“Well, there are I think a number of possible vantage points from which I think I can get a good view of the camp but the best one remaining is this one here.” Stated Young as he pointed at a location on the map to the southeast of the bandit camp just up against the cliff face.
“Sorry to interrupt but what did you mean by remaining?”
“Well while I was scouting the area I spotted about half a dozen fresh tree stumps. Now it’s possible they just cut them down for firewood or to improve the camp and that’s likely to have been the case for most of them but the possibility exists that one or more of them were once tall enough to have provided me with the vantage point I need.”
“So you're saying they had the foresight and expertise to anticipate the possibility that their camp would be discovered and take the necessary countermeasures to prevent someone like you from having an easy job of scouting it?”
“Well, either that or they are really paranoid.”
“That’s not good.”
“We just can’t catch a break.”
“Well if that’s the case they probably just are as aware as you of the possible vantage points.”
“Unfortunately theirs not much we can do about it and if their that good they might have already spotted one of my men and that the element of surprise lost.”
“Things aren’t looking good and that supposes their still even occupying the camp never mind the elephant in the room, if they're not here where the hell are they and what are they planning.”
“We’re in a bit of a dilemma then captain and time is not on our side,” I added.
“You can say that again, there exist two possibilities either the camp has been abandoned or not. If it’s the former then for all we know they could be far away from here or holed up somewhere else nearby ready to attack our employer or one of his neighbours if they haven’t already made their move that is.
The other is that their still there and we have three options on how to proceed. Firstly attack them without any real idea of their numbers or disposition knowing full well they might already have spotted us or will do so long before we in turn spot them and further that they have prepared a welcoming committee for us.
Secondly, we take the risk that they haven’t spotted us yet and somehow get you into position to rectify our lack of intelligence on the enemy, hopefully without them, in turn, spotting us doing so. Thirdly and provided we have the time, which if we’re wrong about them still being there I doubt we do, we can make them come to us. All three of these options have their ups and downs but I know which I would prefer, what about you lot”
“After what happened last time I’m reluctant to engage an unknown enemy head on but at the same time, I’d rather be on the defence than the alternative. Alas as you say I don’t think we have enough time to do so thus reluctantly I say let’s just get it over and done with.” Replied Lieutenant Berger.
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“I’m rather new to all this but I say why not do all three. We alert them to our presence if they aren’t aware of it already, we built some temporary fortifications out of sight of the camp, leaving two of the platoons behind, possibly hidden somehow while the rest of us lead towards the camp, stopping outside of arrow range and provoke them into attacking us. When they do so we retreat back to the fortifications, hope they are foolish enough to follow and if they are deal with them then. At the same time in case we cannot provoke them the scouts will attempt to uncover the enemy's disposition.” Was Lieutenant Bracton responce.
As for me, “I think the whole situation stinks to high heaven and I’m ninety percent sure they're long gone. Thus I say let’s send one of the platoons preferably just before dawn to within bow range of the camp and pepper it with fire arrows and see if that gets a response. If as expected there isn’t one they can just storm the abandoned camp and all they’ll have to be worried about is any traps the bandits might have left behind. If there is then they can just withdraw and we’ll be no worse off than we are already.”
“Alright after hearing your suggestions and taking into account my own thoughts on the subject, here’s what we’re going to do. I’ve already informed the manor about our suspicions that the bandits really have abandoned the camp and what that might mean but another message can’t hurt. Tomorrow we will further fortify our position here while at the same time just after midday we will openly start sending out small groups all over the mountain as if we suspect theirs a bandit camp in the area but don’t know exactly where it is.
I don’t imagine for a second we’ll fool anyone that might still be about but hopefully they’ll only suspect not know for sure. Then about two hours before sunset the separate search groups will come together in full view of the bandit camp but well away from it and set up camp for the night. They’ll expect us to be up to something but not know what and have no intention of attacking us. If that turns out to not be the case then they’ll retreat back here and do as Bracton suggested.
While all that is going on Young you’ll have the majority of your scouts clumsily attempt to climb the cliff near the second-best possible vantage point. At the same time, you and Lieutenant Ryder will try for the best vantage point. If you succeed we will plan accordingly, if not then we have no choice but to try fire arrows and hope for the best.”
With our course of action decided upon and considering we had a busy day ahead of us tomorrow, it was soon time to head to bed. I awoke refreshed the following morning and immediately approached Sergeant Young to begin planning for our climb. We decided to start off by building the tallest ladder we could and from there see about using a grappling hook to hopefully get even higher. Unfortunately, if that didn’t work then we were out of options.
The ladder proved harder to build than we expected but eventually, we managed to cobble one together though we did have to request some help to do so.
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We didn’t imagine it would be easy to transport it to where we needed to use it but it turned out to be a bigger headache than we could have ever imagined. In hindsight perhaps we should have built it in place but somehow we eventually got it to where we needed to use it well before we planned to do so.
When it was time I was responsible for steadying the ladder while Young climbed up it and he tried to use the grappling hook several times in succession. He finally managed to snag it on some kind of root protruding from the cliff. Thankfully he climbed down the ladder before doing one final test to see if it could bear his weight. If he hadn’t I don’t imagine he would have survived what followed, not that either of us escaped unscathed.
The hook stayed attached to the root alright but the same couldn’t be said where the root and cliff face were concerned. The resulting mini landslide couldn’t have gone unnoticed even by the most inept of lookouts so we scarpered post-haste. When even this didn’t elicit a response from the bandits I became even more convinced they were no longer about, at least not in any great number. Half an hour after our lucky escape we returned to the sight of the landslide in the faint hope that the cliff thereabout might now be more accessible and we were right.n Still we waited another hour just in case before daring to climb up the pile of rubble left behind in the wake of the landslide. It didn’t quite reach high enough for us to have a perfect view of the bandit camp but I was willing after some persuasion on his part to risk Ian climbing on my back to get a better view.
Once we had established the facts of the matter I had Ian return to inform Captain Walker of the situation while I proceeded to the camp of the distraction force to speak to them.