WAR MACHINE

A machine, like a cross between a wooden tank and a battleship, appears at Glen Hartwell

Dennis DuBeck, at a hundred and fifty-five centimetres tall, as its founder and leader, was a giant of a man at the LePage and Elroy Battle Re-Enactment Society. The society have recently re-enacted many famous battles, but today, May 12, 2025, dressed as knights of old, some in papier-mâché suits of armour, some in more realistic chain mail, and some in Sherwood Forest green for some reason, were planning to they were going to defend Camelot against invading hordes of Bretons (French).
Marcus Youngblood (Marconius) was the leader of the Breton army, a tall, lanky man with long red hair, which, like Marsha's, he tied in a long ponytail, in defiance of historic accuracy.
"How come we have to be the froggies?" demanded Marconius.
"Because I'm the leader of the LePage and Elroy Battle Re-Enactment Society," replied Dennis (Sir Lancelot) DuBeck, "and I say so."
"Yeah, so take it or leave," said Dennis's loyal second in command, Kenneth Maudsley (Sir Galahad). "Besides, it was my family who built the Camelot set."
He pointed to a rickety-looking two-storey wooden fort.
"Are you sure that's safe to go inside?" asked Kenneth's wife, Marsha (Sir Kay), a tall, thirty-something, Amazonian brunette wearing her long hair in a ponytail.
"Of course, my love," said Sir Galahad. "Don't forget, my family are builders going back generations."
"I don't know,' said Sir Galahad, "it looks to me as though Jenny has gone insane overbuilding again."
"Sire, when we're role-playing, she likes to be called Genevieve, not Jenny."
"I don't care if she likes to be called King Kong, she has the habit of going mad when she's building."
"But, sire, my brothers and uncles helped out. It's as sound as the Aussie dollar."
"Which is worth about fifty-five cents American at the moment," said Marcus Youngblood, unable to miss a chance to cause trouble.
"Shut up!" said Marsha, feeling the need to defend her husband, even though she secretly agreed with Dennis's concerns.
"Have you decided what name you're using today as leader of the Breton forces?" asked Sir Lancelot.
"Charlemagne, King of the Bretons, naturally."
"Trust you to pick the most famous Breton night," accused Galahad.
"And from completely the wrong period," accused Lancelot. "Camelot was from the fifth or sixth century AD. Charlemagne was in the eighth century."
"So what?" demanded Charlemagne (Marcus). "You said yourself, the re-enactments don't have to be one hundred percent accurate."
"Oh, come on!" demanded Galahad (Kenneth).
"Oh come on, yourself!" replied Marcus, never one to back down in an argument. His strongest suit, as a re-enactment gamer.
"Very well, you can be Charlemagne," conceded Lancelot (Dennis).
"What about the castle, Sire?" asked Sir Kay (Marsha).
"We'll defend it ... from the outside."
"Yes," said Sir Kay, throwing her right arm into the air as a victory salute.
"But, sire," pleaded Galahad, "Genevieve and my family worked so hard on it."
"Which is why we shall still use it," said Sir Lancelot. "But I'm damned if I'll risk setting foot inside it. And a good commander never sends his troops where he himself refuses to go."
"Here, here!" said Charlemagne, who hoped to drive a wedge between Lancelot and Galahad.
"Very well, sire," said Galahad sadly.
Now, Sir Kay, call your Chivalry to attention!"
"My chivalry to attention!" called Marsha-Kay. "Stand to attention, you worthless knight-wannabees!"
Which had the desired effect of bringing them to order!
"Excellent, Sir Kay. Now, Sir Galahad!"
"My chivalry to attention!" shrieked Kenneth-Galahad, terrifying his 'troops' into line.
"Excellent. My chivalry!" shouted Dennis Lancelot.
As the most experienced of the re-enactment gamers, they snapped to attention briskly.
"Excellent," pointing at the wooden 'castle', he said. "We shall defend Camelot ... from the outside."
"Thank God!" said a few of the Britons.
"Now, Charlemagne, take your troops out into the forest and try taking Camelot."
"Or destroying it," encouraged Sir Kay.
"Marsha! I mean, Sir Kay, my family spent weeks building that, don't encourage the Breton swine to destroy it."
Ignoring her husband, Sir Kay shouted to Charlemagne's retreating Breton army, "Remember they had fire arrows in those days."
"Honey!" called a dismayed Sir Galahad.
"Galahad," cautioned Sir Lancelot as their chivalries were sent around the rickety fortress to guard it, "don't refer to Sir Kay as Honey. Such things were frowned upon in the days of yore."
"Sorry, Sire," said Sir Galahad, running to catch up with his chivalry who had been sent to guard the rear of Camelot.
After half an hour or so, Charlemagne's Bretons tried a sneak attack around the rear of the castle, surprised to find Kenneth (Sir Galahad)'s chivalry waiting for them.
"Looks like Sir Lancelot is smarter than he acts," said Charlemagne, attacking Galahad's chivalry with his own.
"Lancelot is the smartest knight of the realm," said Galahad.
"Maybe in the British realm," said Charlemagne, "but not in the French realm, haw, haw, haw."
"That is the worst French accent I have ever heard," said Kenneth, slipping out of character. "I'm fairly certain a great knight like Charlemagne would not have said, 'haw, haw, haw'."
"What do yew knew, British pig dog," said Charlemagne (Marcus), deciding to camp it up Monty Python style.
"At least try to stay in character," pleaded Galahad, "I know you're not very skilled at this."
"Haw, haw, haw, that's what you say, British swine," said Charlemagne.
Hearing the skirmish from the front of the fortress, Sir Lancelot (Dennis) said to Sir Kay, "Take your chivalry around to help out Galahad. My chivalry shall stay here, in case this is just a feint to get us to leave the front of the castle undefended."
"Sire!" said Kay (Marsha), before leading her troops around to the rear of the Jerry-built castle.
After twenty minutes or so of fighting, Sir Lancelot was considering sending his chivalry around to help defeat the Breton hordes. When, from out of the forest, on the left of Camelot, he heard a sound like loud machinery, then a crash of trees.
"There's not supposed to be any logging in this area, Sire," said one of Lancelot's troops, a tall, gangly, brown-haired man of forty-something, Tony a.k.a. Sir Gawain.
"No, there isn't," agreed Lancelot, "it's an old-growth forest!"
He started to swagger across toward the forest on the left, when suddenly, with great Lemon-Scented, Blue, and Red gums flying around like matchsticks, out of the forest came the war machine: Thirty metres long, eight metres high, ten metres wide, it looked like a huge wooden battleship, apart from having massive tank-style wooden tracks with wooden cog wheels working the tracks.
"What the Hell?" asked Sir Gawain, as his leader came charging back, shouting:
"Run for your lives, Charlemagne is a bloody cheat! He should have had this thing approved first by the re-enactment society council before using it in a battle."
Around the rear of Camelot, the Britons and the Bretons stopped fighting to stare in amazement as the War Machine suddenly shattered its way out of the old-growth forest.
"Lancelot is a bloody cheat!" shouted Charlemagne (Marcus). "He should have had this thing approved first by the re-enactment society council before using it in a battle."
As both sides retreated, the War Machine wheeled its way up to, then straight through the Jerry-built castle. Then, spinning on its tracks, it finished reducing Camelot to kindling.
"I told you it was Jerry-built!" cried Sir Kay (Marsha).
"In fairness, Honey ... Sir Kay, Buck Palace wouldn't have lasted long against that thing!" said Galahad (Kenneth). "You're a bloody cheat, Marcus ... Charlemagne! You should have had this thing approved by the re-enactment society council first, before using it in a battle."
"This isn't my doing!" insisted the Breton leader. "It's that bloody cheat, Lancelot, who had it built!"
"No way!" said Sir Kay. "Lancelot sticks to the rules."
"Besides, he would have had it built by my family, so I would have known about it," insisted Galahad.
"And it would have fallen apart long before now," teased Sir Kay.
"Honey!" said an embarrassed Kenneth Maudsley. "Not in front of the Breton swine."
As they were talking, one of three turrets atop the war machine swung toward them.
"What the Hell can a wooden battleship fire?" demanded Marcus Youngblood.
"Wooden bombs?" guessed Marsha Maudsley correctly.
And, on cue, the War machine started to fire a procession of bowling ball-sized wooden orbs toward the re-enactment gamers.
"Take cover!" cried Kenneth. They're big enough to kill you!"
As was proven, when one of the wooden spheres landed amongst the unchivalrous chivalries, which had started to run away. The sphere exploded, killing three of the gamers and sending six or seven others flying through the air.
"Run for your lives!" shouted Dennis DuBeck as one of the three wooden turrets on the War machine spun around to start firing wooden bombs at his chivalry.

Over at the Mitchell Street Police Station in Glen Hartwell, the five cops were sitting around the huge blackwood desk that took up half of the front room, getting stuck into tea or coffee and cheese croissants.
"Mrs. M. sure spoils you lot rotten," said Suzette Cummings, an eighteen-year-old trainee with long raven hair.
"Yeah, she's a great cook," said Colin Klein. At forty-nine, Colin, a tall redheaded Englishman, had only worked for the police force for a year or so, and had been dating Terri for most of that time.
"The best between here and Melbourne," agreed Terri Scott. A tall, ash blonde of thirty-six, Terri was the top cop of the area.
"And you can thank me," said her second in command, Sheila Bennett. Also thirty-six, Sheila was a Goth chick with orange-and-black striped hair. "I'm Mrs. M.'s favourite, so she makes certain we're all well fed."
"We bow to you, Oh Great One!" said Paul Bell, a tall, dark-haired sergeant close to retirement age. He stood and did an exaggerated bow.
"I choose to take that as a genuine compliment," said Sheila. "And not the crass sarcasm that it sounded like."
"Actually, I'm gonna miss this haute cuisine when I retire at the end of the year."
"Can't we convince you to stay another year or so?" pleaded Terri.
"Sorry, but as much fun as it's been fighting monsters and maniacs, over the last forty-five years or so in Glen Hartwell, I am looking forward to retiring to Bondi Beach to have fun and sun."
"Bondi?" cried Sheila, shocked. "That's in New South Wanker."
"She means New South Wales," explained Colin.
"That's where my family originally came from, and my brothers and sisters all live."
"You traitor," teased Sheila.
"Settle down, Sheils," said Terri, just as her mobile phone blared.
"Saved by the screeching," said Colin.
Terri opened her mobile and started to talk for a few minutes. before saying, "That was Kenneth Maudsley over at LePage, The LePage and Elroy Battle Re-Enactment Society has been attacked by some kind of wooden monster."
"Wooden monster?" said Suzette. "Can I come with?"
"Sure, I'll man the phones," offered Paul Bell.
"I've been telling them for two years," said Sheila, grabbing a couple of cheese croissants as they stood to leave, "they should give up battle re-enacting and stick to draughts or Chinese checkers."
"It'd be much safer," agreed Suzette as they headed out into Mitchell Street.
When Terri's police-blue Lexus GX reached the war site, they found all of Glen Hartwell's six ambulances plus a plethora of medics and paramedics on site.
"As always the last on site," said Julia Prescott, a tall, muscular, twenty-eight-year-old redheaded paramedic.
"That's it, I'm swinging for her," said Sheila, advancing upon Julia.
"You can't, there's no death penalty in Australia," said Terri, as she and Colin tried to get between the two warring females.
"Even better, I can do twenty years, for justifiable homicide, standing on my head."
"Wouldn't you get dizzy long before twenty years?" asked Julia, backing out of range of the enraged Goth chick.
"Sarky bitch!" cried Sheila, only just being held back by Terri and Colin.
"Calm down, Sheils," said Tilly Lombstrom, a tall, attractive, fifty-something brunette, and a top surgeon at the Glen Hartwell and Daley Community Hospital. "We've got enough war victims here already, without you and Jules starting another one."
"So, what happened?" asked Terri Scott, following Tilly across to the patient she was treating.
"According to the survivors, exploding wooden bowling balls."
"Say what now?" asked Sheila, having allowed herself to be dragged after them by Colin.
"Fired by a giant wooden battleship, but with tank-like wooden tracks," said Kenneth Maudsley.
"A giant wooden battleship?" demanded Colin.
"That's what everybody is saying," said Stanlee Dempsey, a tall forty-something sergeant with raven hair.
"There are track prints over here," said Drew Braidwood, a tall, gangly blond constable, leading them across to the kindling that had been a Jerry-built Camelot.
"There's also a tunnel, for want of a better word, over there," said Suzette Cummings, pointing behind them. "As though something massive has ploughed through the old-growth trees to get here."
"Has anyone investigated it?" asked Terri.
"Jessie Baker and Don Esk went that way twenty minutes ago, and haven't returned yet," said Drew.
"Which suggests it goes for kilometres," said Colin.
Eventually, Jessie Baker and Don Esk returned.
"How'd you go?" asked Sheila.
"To misquote The Who," said Jessie, a tall ox of a man with flame red hair, "we could see for kilometres and kilometres!"
"Whatever did the damage did not come from nearby," affirmed Don, a tall, strong man with shoulder-length dark brown hair.
"It was a gigantic wooden battleship, with wooden tank tracks, which fired exploding wooden bowling balls!" insisted Kenneth Maudsley.
"Calm down, Honey," said Marsha, holding him still as Tilly gave him a knockout injection.
The police stayed there until late in the afternoon, helping to transport the injured and dying to the hospital, then Terri asked, "So who wants to go on a wooden battleship hunt?"
She stuck her right hand up in the air, then, after a few seconds' moaning, all of the other cops did the same.
"Good," said Terri, grinning, "that way I don't have to nominate volunteers."
"How can you nominate volunteers against their will?" asked Drew Braidwood as they headed toward three cars: Terri's Lexus, Don Esk's rusty blue Land Rover and Stanlee's white Range Rover.
"I don't know," said Don, but the Chief manages it.
"CentreLink orders people to volunteer," said Terri, "so why can't I?"
"CentreLink orders the unemployed to help age pensioners," said Drew.
"Who are living in the lap of luxury, compared to the unemployed," pointed out Terri.
"She's got you by the happy sacks there, Drew," said Sheila with a laugh.
After they had been driving through the sweet-smelling pine and eucalyptus forest for ten minutes or so, Sheila said:
"This is quite a convenient shortcut from LePage to Lenoak actually."
"Apart from the devastation to the hundreds of old-growth trees that have been ravaged by the wooden battleship, or whatever it is," said Terri.
"You can't please everyone," said the Goth chick under her breath.

Nearly seventy Aborigines of the Werrawerra Tribe, outside BeauLarkin, were taking part in a special corroboree to celebrate the approach of winter a couple of weeks away, to beseech the Dream-Time gods to give them a bountiful winter with plenty of good food, but not enough rain to drench them and make them sick.
"I like the idea of good tucker," said Tommy Muttaburra, a seventeen-year-old buck, unable to take his eyes away from the opulent breasts of the elder women in the tribe. Usually, corroborees were single sex; both the importance of this meant that women and men both attended.
"Unfortunately, Neptune's Fish and Chipatorium in Blackland Glen Hartwell no longer makes decent tucker," said Devon Djawan. "Not since poor Lino DiPucci got murdered, and his widow sold up and moved away."
Smiling broadly at the two youths, Sally Mudbra, a sixty-something lubra with enormous naked breasts, swivelled her torso slight side to side, to make them sway, enjoying they way Tommy's eyes went side to side to watch them, like a spectator at a tennis match.
"Stop teasing him," said Toni Mudbra, her younger sister.
"Why?" demanded Sally. "He enjoys watching my big tits, and I enjoy him watching them. Especially in the cold weather."
"Jesus, look at the nipples on her," said Devon, "they're like thumbs."
"Now, they're what I call good eatin' tonight," said Tommy, and the two youths laughed into their hands.
"You can say that again."
"I would," said Tommy, "but I'm still tittering from the first time."
At the word titter, both youths almost wet themselves laughing.
"Well, they seem to be enjoying themselves," said Sally with a broad grin.
"Enjoying your chest, you mean," said Toni, unamused.
"You think so," teased the older lubra. She swivelled her upper half again, making her enormous breasts sway seductively from side to side.
"Jesus, look at that!" said Devon. Then, when Tommy didn't answer, he looked at him and asked, "What's the matter?"
"Looking down at his crossed legs, where he sat on the ground, Tommy said, "I think I just came from excitement."
At that, Devon fell over onto his back from laughter.
"Well, you've made their day!" said Toni sarcastically.
"I wouldn't mind making their night as well," said Sally. Her nipples no longer hardened merely from the cold weather.
"You pervo! You're three times their age!" said Toni.
"Not if I have them together," insisted Sally. "Then I'm only fifty percent older than the two of them."
"You really are a lecherous old bag!" said Toni, turning to walk away.
"I'm only sixty-two," pointed out Sally. "Since sixty is the new forty, I am barely middle-aged."


, and spears hurled by unseen soldiers inside!!!

THE END
© Copyright 2025 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia