Building The Borsetshire Brigade

Truth in Advertising Statement: This won’t be a brigade, more like a reinforced platoon or at most, a weak company. I just liked the alliteration.

Following on from the Field Trial where Sir Rufus Pitt-Bulstrode commanded a scratch platoon against elements of the Wiltshire Police Flying Column, it was obvious that there was an urgent need for a bigger, better organised and trained force to protect the county from external threats. After the exercise, the support troops that Sir Gilbert Hill had seconded to Pitt-Bulstrode returned to Herefordshire, leaving Sir Rufus with two sections, one made up of tenants and staff and the other mainly petty criminals from Felpersham. These units desperately needed proper training and his first thought was to put his wife, Lady Ferocity Pitt-Bulstrode, in charge of that task but on reflection decided against on the grounds that any training régime she set up would certainly be too harsh for the city boys in the Felpersham section. He settled for putting his son Freddie in charge. Freddie had recently returned from Spain where he had been fighting in the International Brigade and was a battle-hardened veteran.

Next, Sir Rufus had a brainwave. He contacted Colonel (Retd.), MFH of the Little Wynkey Hunt. He’d remembered that before the Great War, the MFH of the time had organised a volunteer troop of cavalry to serve as a honorary guard to the Lord Lieutenant at official functions. Being a very rich man, he’d equipped them in imitation of the Life Guards. It was well known that all that equipment was stored in the cellar of County Hall in Borchester. Sir Rufus asked Colonel Pringle if he thought it likely that a troop of ten could be formed from volunteers from amongst the best riders in the hunt. The colonel was delighted by the idea and the thing was done in record time. Sir Rufus had acquired a valuable support weapon – a troop of heavy cavalry. 

The Lord Lieutenant’s Guard

Sir Rufus, in the scarlet tunic of his Lord-Lieutenant’s ceremonial uniform, and accompanied by his house-guest, Grand-Duke Ivor Nastikoff, exiled ruler of Bulimia. Nastikoff is Colonel of his own regiment of infantry (now disbanded) and called (confusingly) the Nastikoff Hussars, for reasons long forgotten. He is a distant relative of another of Sir Rufus’ house-guests, Baron Dietrich von Strepsil. The event was captured by a film crew from British Movietone News

This was a good start but more was needed. He began to look round for additions. One appeared almost immediately…………