The Portable Colonial Wargame book: A campaign 'taster'!

I finished writing the scenario for the campaign that will be featured in the book, and as a 'taster' I thought that my regular blog readers might like to have sight of it.

The southern part of Zubia had always been problematic. It was economically unproductive, and its people lived by subsistence farming, herding cattle and camels, trading slaves taken from tribes living further south, and mounting occasional raids on some of the more prosperous areas of Zubia to the north.

The Zubian government had attempted to rule the area, but over the years its grip had weakened considerably, and in the end the garrison at Wadi Halfwa was abandoned and left to fend for itself. Most of the soldiers were recruited by the local Emir of Wadi Halfwa to become the backbone of his army, which he used to oppress the tribes living in the surrounding area and to protect his slaving activities from interference from other slavers.

The Zubians managed to maintain a small garrison in Abou Nasir, and the town was used as a base for the irregular tax collections that were levied on the hill tribes of Dendara, Adydos, and Dakla. Tax collectors set out on expeditions into the hills, but often either disappeared (presumably killed by the tribesmen or members of the Emir of Wadi Halfwa’s army) or returned barely alive with little or nothing to show for their efforts.

Matters would have continued like this had it not been for the impetuousness of SPOG (the London-based Society for the Propagation Of the Gospels) in sending the Reverend Noel Deedes to southern Zubia to ‘spread the word of Christianity amongst the heathens therein’. Accompanied by his sister – Miss Charity Deedes – he had set off down the River Zub to Abou Nasir, and thence by mule train to Dendara.

No sooner had he arrived there but he was seized and placed in chains, and then transported in an iron cage to Wadi Halfwa, where he was handed over to the Emir. Miss Deedes was also taken, and sent with her brother to Wadi Halfwa, where the tribesman hoped to sell her into concubinage. On seeing her, the Emir paid the tribesmen the price they wanted in Maria Theresa thalers, and she was swiftly incarcerated in the Emir’s seraglio.

Once news of this outrage reached the commander of the Britannic garrison in Zubia, he immediately communicated with his superiors. An outcry in the newspapers gave the government little alternative other than to mount a punitive expedition against the Emir of Wadi Halfwa in order to secure the release of the good Reverend and his sister.

I intend to play through and record the events of the campaign until it reaches the first battle between two sides.