No pictures yet, as I am still painting, but this thread will keep track of my progress as I try to assemble a British Silver Bayonet unit. Whilst, painting, I came up with a rather wild back-story, which I post here. I have had to fiddle around with several important dates by a matter of years, so anything that does not sound right is either my intention or my error.
I will probably be playing solo but am still reading through the rule book at present.
So, without further ado...
Major Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
In ‘The Silver Bayonet’
(An acknowledgement that some of this text is taken directly from ‘The Silver Bayonet’ by Joseph A. McCullough). I do hope that is not a problem.
Major Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley is ostensibly the second in command of the Much-Piddling Hussars, a Yeomanry regiment raised by the Earl of Snapcase in 1797. Sometimes referred to as ‘The Earl of Snapcase’s Own’. The regiment was comprised of local famers and officered by the landed gentry and nobility. The threat of invasion by Bonaparte and his armies, was considered high and many flocked to the standard raised by Lord Snapcase at Snapcase Hall.
Mary’s mother Mary Wollstonecraft was a feminist activist and had persuaded her husband, William Godwin to buy a commission for the young Mary in the Much-Piddling Hussars. Therefore, Cornet M. W. Godwin was duly entered into the regimental books at the tender age of thirteen, in 1800. She did not, obviously, take up her commission at that point.
As a teenager, Mary’s father encouraged her to undertake an education in many diverse subjects, medicine, politics, archaeology and even the supernatural. She fell in love with Percy Bysshe Shelley and travelled with him in Europe during the early 1800’s. This culminated in a summer spent with her stepsister, Shelley, Lord Byron and John Polidori (who had recorded his study and knowledge of vampires in novelistic form in a book entitled ‘The Vampyre’) on the shores of Lake Geneva.
Their earlier travels in Europe had taken them on a journey along the River Rhine. The party spent some time at Gernsheim and from there visited Castle Frankenstein in the Odenwald. It was reported that Mary and Percy had met and conversed with Doctor Victor Frankenstein at his castle. What they discussed has never been revealed.
A tragedy then occurred in young Mary’s life. Percy Shelley was drowned when a storm sank his sailing boat, whilst he was sailing near Viareggio in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Overcome with sorrow, Mary Shelley returned to England in 1807 and resided with her relatives at Snapcase Hall, Much-Piddling.
Reminded of her commission with the Much-Piddling Hussars, Mary decided to become an active member of the regiment. There was great consternation at first when it was discovered that Cornet M. W. Godwin was, in fact a woman. However, her uncle being the commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Lord Bertram Wilberforce Snapcase, these objections were soon quashed. Mary turned out to be a superb horsewoman, a natural markswoman and very talented with the sabre. As a natural soldier and with the influence of Uncle Bertie, she soon rose to the rank of Major.
Our story begins in 1808, when the Prime Minister, William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland sojourned at Snapcase Hall for an extended visit. Cavendish-Bentinck was fascinated to learn of Major Shelley’s time with Victor Frankenstein and John Polidori and of her own studies in the occult and the supernatural.
After dinner one night, Cavendish-Bentinck reveals to Mary and Lord Snapcase that he has commissioned a secret society called ‘The Silver Bayonet’. He recounts that as the wars of Napoleon ravage Europe, chaos and fear reign and the darkness that once clung to the shadows has been emboldened. Supernatural creatures - vampires, werewolves, ghouls, and worse take advantage of the havoc, striking out at isolated farms, villages, and even military units. Whether they are pursuing some master plan or simply revelling in their newfound freedom is unknown. Most people dismiss reports of these slaughters as the rantings of madmen or the lies of deserters, but a few (including Cavendish-Bentinck) know better…
The Silver Bayonet society is formed of soldiers who have faced and defeated these other-worldly evils. They are divided into small, specialist units and are usually led by a veteran Exploring Officer. These small units search for secret knowledge and weapons that can be used against the forces of evil and fight to eliminate these creatures, wherever they are found. Riflemen, swordsmen, and engineers fight side-by-side with mystics, occultists, and even those few supernatural creatures that can be controlled or reasoned with enough, to make common cause.
Cavendish-Bentinck went on to explain that the other great powers, France, Russia, Spain, Austria and Prussia also have their own, similar units. Sometimes these units work together, but more often than not, they battle with one another, hoping to secure some ancient knowledge or lost treasure that will give their homeland the upper hand in the war that is being fought in the shadows.
In conclusion, over large bumpers of vintage port (delivered by the shaky hand of Old Scrotum, the aged and wrinkled Snapcase family retainer) the prime Minister reveals that he wants Mary to form and lead one of these small units of the Silver Bayonet. The Prime Minister believes that supernatural agencies are abroad in the vicinity and with Mary’s natural military prowess and her associations with Frankenstein and Polidori, she is the ideal candidate to form an elite group of this nature. Mary accepts with alacrity and the three of them toast to her success in the future.
Thus, is the Much-Piddling Silver Bayonet Troop formed and Mary’s head whirls with ideas, but initially she must recruit some like-minded and courageous individuals, as she cannot work alone. Immediately, she thinks of her old friend and sometime lover, the disaffected French noblewoman, Countess Marie Antoinette du Bedandboard. The daughter of a Royalist cuirassier officer, the Countess is virulently opposed to Napoleon, whom she refers to as that ‘stunted and odious little Crapaud’. The Countess is exiled from France and resides in some style at her home in Felpersham in Borsetshire. Mary prepares an invitation to the Countess to come and stay at Snapcase Hall…and so it begins!
To be continued…
