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Searle's Sack of St. Augustine, FL, March 2010
(Photo: Jess Bagley)
Chapter 7th - The aftermath of the previous two battle chapters.
Including a sword fight, info about attacking the redoubt (which is English for
"to doubt again") and some other post-battle stuff. Also
including commentary on the two photographs that were taken at the
Saturday night feast. What can I say? Your ship's surgeon wasn't feeling
all that good. He didn't even get a decent shot of Shay in her raccoon coat and
that is a damned shame. Seriously.
Left: Sergeant Jeff explaining what happened in the last two chapters to Captain Searle in his own inimitable style. (See beginning of the last chapter.)
At some point during the battle festivities, the pikesmen were dispatched to the sidelines partially so that they wouldn't get shot and partially to ward off the frothing crowds (below left). The crowds were frothing mostly because Diosa was continuing to get them to holler " ¡Viva España!" Of course, Alex the Graze would then have us respond to this insult by shouting our little poem. I'm not sure why, but it always seemed to me that we were louder than the crowd, despite the fact that they outnumbered us 10 to 1.
(Photo: Jess Bagley)
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(Photo: Jess Bagley)
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(Photo: Jess Bagley)
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There were also some keen sword battles going on (above center and right ). They were actually the same battles that were going on two pages ago in the Plaza, but this was a new group of people and so I'm sure they found the battles to be "really keen." Like the riflemen, I don't know the names of the folks involved, except Carlos (in black) and that wasn't even his real name.
(Photo: Jess Bagley)
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(Photo: Jess Bagley)
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(Photo: Jess Bagley)
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Not having any instruction from the Battle Plan, I guess the sword fighters decided to stage their own dramatic sequences. (This kind of stuff is always fun to watch as well as being interesting to report on when I can find good photo documentation such as what Kate has provided for us.) On the crowd side of the Field, Carlos was fighting a Spanish opponent (I called him 'Will' before, but let's change that to 'Cannon Fodder.') Meanwhile, the English swordsman (in the brown hat above center whom we'll call 'Bill') beat his Spanish opponent (let's call him 'Crow's Food') with the help of Sergeant Jeff (we'll call him 'Uncle Bob') and a pike ('Steve.'). So 'Bill' came over to assist Carlos. Unfortunately while 'Bill' was approaching dramatically, 'Cannon Fodder' beat Carlos, who went down in a heap, so 'Bill' vanquished him by killing 'Cannon Fodder.'
(Photo: Jess Bagley)
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(Photo: Jess Bagley)
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(Photo: Jess Bagley)
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(Photo: Callenish)
Everything else was in confusion. People were standing around in disorganized
clots. Three quarters of the swordsmen had been defeated and bodies littered
the battlefield. Chaos reigned supreme. (Pretty neat descriptive turn, wasn't
that?) As you can see at the photo to the right, they even winged the camera-woman,
Salty. It was a lot like that scene in Animal House where Delta sabotaged
the parade by chaining floats to telephone poles, misdirecting marching bands and
launching colored smoke bombs out of ash cans. OK, it wasn't totally like that.
There was lots of smoke, but there were no parade floats or marching
bands that I noticed. Of course, I was sort of busy guarding the crowd from
the battle or vice versa, so I may not have noticed them. I was also watching
for an opportunity to practice surgery on the wounded. (As opposed to the dead. At
Pirates in
Paradise in 2009 , I learned that some wounded thought they were, in fact,
dead, and didn't want the surgeon's help) Anyhow, it was mass confusion as you
can see.
(Photo: Jess Bagley)
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(Photo:Callenish)
Man down! But is he dead or wounded? What to do... |
(Photo: DB Couper)
Mission and Roy-Keith join forces to defeat the enemy! (No, not Conrad; battle wounds.) |
(Photo: DB Couper)
Doug performing a different kind of surgery... |
(Photo: Jess Bagley)
A young pirate mourns his
fallen
companion...
(Photo: What photo?)
...an audience mourns the fact that this
battle
didn't occur on Kashyyyk like it should have.
In a weird way, scenes of re-enacted carnage delight the re-enactor surgeon's
soul. This is because it means there's a lot of opportunity to pretend you're
being useful! Fortunately, My pre-selected victim, Conrad, had gone down
as required. Unfortunately, my fellow surgeon (who was supposed to be on the
Spanish side) Roy-Keith was also looking for victims, so we had to share
Conrad. Worse for me, Roy-Keith had been an Army battle surgeon at some point in
his career and actually knew what he was doing. (I shudder to think what he
thought about my battlefield "technique.") At least we both got
to play surgeon for a bit, which was cool.
(Photo: DB Couper)
The guns stop for the surgeons. |
(Photo: DB Couper)
You can always tell a good surgery by the audience reaction. |
(Photo: Mission)
Unfortunately the Battle Plan has failed your author again, requiring
him to actually try and remember what happened and write something about
it. (Seriously, why do I even use the Battle Plan?) It was decided that the
pikers should attack the redoubt. No dou- Ah, that's enough word play
round-about 'redoubt.' Most of you are tired of the redoubt pun
retreads, no doubt.) Anyhow, the pikers formed out of the chaos and
started Swedish Stepping toward the redoubt, ("Athwart your
pike!") The Spanish pikers, not finding direction in the Battle
Plan, decided to wing it and defend the redoubt. Alas, this was wrong,
and someone had to tell them to retreat to the redoubt. We English
pikesmen ran in comical style to whack our pikes into the
Spanish pikes. Then the Battle Plan took over again.
Left: Insert your own Holy Grail joke here. I can't do it, it's just too easy...
(Photo: Jess Bagley)
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(Photo: Jess Bagley)
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"At a predetermined time the Spanish leaders will ask for a parley under a flag of truce. The buccaneer and Spanish officers will meet outside of the redoubt (...no, I won't!) to discuss terms of surrender. Terms are agreed upon, captives are released and the town is surrendered to the buccaneers." And there was much rejoicing. We all hollered a lot, including some new variation on the Piker's Poem that Alex the Grain invented for us. Michelle was still inciting the crowd, but we pretty well drowned them out. "HUZZAH!" We were victorious! Thus saith the almighty Battle Plan. Wait...this just in! I've just learned that the President's National Council on Humorous Plot Devices has declared that Battle Plan has received a citation for "Meeting and Surpassing All Humorous Expectations." So its jersey number is hereby retired and you will hear no more about it for the duration of this web page. 'Huzzah!' indeed!
(Photo: Jess Bagley)
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The battle being completed, everyone milled about, waiting for the buses to arrive. It was a very interesting battle, truly unlike any other I have yet participated in. That made it worth seeing. (I only hope I managed to convey some of that to you in the last three chapters. I had originally planned to put this all in one chapter!) After all the excitement of battling, running and shouting, it was kind of weird to just wander the streets in period garb. Some people were lost (below left) and others were dejected (below center, Wes Walker with a bit of your surgeon's handiwork on his arm). Still others were ebullient, especially now that the battle was over and the Plan had been given official recognition by the President's National Council on Humorous Plot Devices.
Kidding aside, cheers to members of Searle's Buccaneers, without whom this wouldn't have happened. (Below right, from top left: William "Searle" Kunze, Flagmaster Willie Wobble, Sergeant Jeff Johnson and (seated) Doug Pummel.) Huzzah to them and thanks for receiving the Mercury's Ship Surgeon so well.
(Photo: DB Couper)
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 (Photo: Mission) |
(Photo: DB Couper)
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(Photo: Michelle Murillo)
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(Photo: Mission)
Saturday night featured a grand feast which outdid every previous meal
(if that's possible). Kudos were again in order for the food volunteers
(some of whom are above - from left, woman I don't know,
Katherine, Melissa, Jill-Handed Red aka. Wendy, Alicia and Gretchen).
Unfortunately, either last night's festivities were too much fun or your
surgeon may have gotten a bit of meat somewhere along the way and was
feeling a bit under the weather. So was was enjoying a nice stomach
ache for the duration of this wonderful meal. Alas.
I still tried as much of the yummy food as I could handle. Mostly I sat by the fire and absorbed heat and watched potatoes. They had tried to cook a huge pot of red potatoes on the fire, but they failed to keep up with the rest of the food. Since they were sitting right in front of me, I watched them. If there was a food race, the potatoes would have come in dead last, lagging far behind all the other foods. It's too bad because they looked really delicious. While I was gazing at the potatoes, Shay appeared in her raccoon fur coat and sat beside me. Jessi - in her pirate fleece pants - was sitting on the other side. Ms. Fleece Pants, Vegetarian Boy & Mme. Raccoon Coat. It's like the villain roster for a bad comic book.
(Photo: Mission)
Speaking of comic books, Red Jessi got talking to someone about them.
I used to buy comic books here and there, but I quickly realized that
I was a lightweight compared to Jess and this guy. They both agreed that
it wasn't the hero that was important, it was the writer. They then
proceeded to discuss comic authors in great detail. I was outclassed
from the outset. I started collecting comics when Star Wars
came out and gradually drifted over to the DC stable because they were
more fantastic than realistic. This is apparently the wrong way to
impress a modern comic collector. So I just sat there and listened.
I learned one thing before getting pinned to the comic canvas. Jessi's
favorite mainstream character was Beast from the X-Men…with the caveat,
"When's he's well written." Her real favorite character was someone I
had never heard of before in a comic that was an offshoot of something
I didn't even know about. As I said, heady stuff.
Not being up for further adventures of an alcoholic nature after last night's performance, I wandered around and talked to different people on Saturday night. I eventually wound up sitting with Ivan Henry under their very warm blanket by the fire and discussing PiP and our mutual friend Boo. Ivan and Kelly really like Boo. He's so quiet and unassuming, people figure he's not interesting. But, like Shay, he has a new story to tell you about his life every time you talk with him.
(Photo: Ivan Henry)
Michael Bagley, Kelly Elizabeth and Ivan Henry on Sat. night. (Ivan is hogging the blanket.) |
(Photo: Ivan Henry)
Kate and Michael Bagley Souris, Saturday night. This has nothing to do with the text. (Sorry.) |
You'll note that your ship's surgeon completely failed in the picture-taking department. This is why we have to rely on photos taken of Michael with Ivan Henry's camera. (Michael doesn't even appear in the text. Well, he didn't before now.) Even I am disappointed that I didn't get a pic of Shay's raccoon coat or the huge pot of not-really-boiling potatoes.) Eventually, despite the fact that it still seemed pretty early, I decided to head back to the hotel. Shay generously said she'd drive me there, so I got back and turned in early.