An out of order snippet: Significant spoiler

Iorwerth wrote:Joke as told me by my father who served with Gurkhas in WWII

An enemy soldier and a Gurkha met in the jungle. The enemy soldier goes for his rifle, but the Gurkha leaps at him and takes a mighty swing with his Kukri.

"Ha!"says the enemy soldier, "you missed!"

"Try nodding your head." replies the Gurkha.

Samurai contest (legend); #1 slices fly in half, #2 slices fly into quarters, #3 swings sword but fly continues flying. When questioned, #3 states fly will not reproduce! Top cymbal tap!

Iorwerth wrote:Joke as told me by my father who served with Gurkhas in WWII

An enemy soldier and a Gurkha met in the jungle. The enemy soldier goes for his rifle, but the Gurkha leaps at him and takes a mighty swing with his Kukri.

"Ha!"says the enemy soldier, "you missed!"

"Try nodding your head." replies the Gurkha.

Very true with the Gurkas. Scary as hell to run into. I remember reading about a former Gurka soldier who stopped a train hijacking in northern India. He wasn't going to get involved until the bandits started going beyond just robbing the passengers, when the bandits started raping the women. IIRC He killed 23 of 27 bandits by decapitation or removal of major limbs, the four survivors were alive but in really rough shape. Oh and the fun part he was completely unarmed at the start of the encounter.

saber964 wrote:
Very true with the Gurkas. Scary as hell to run into. I remember reading about a former Gurka soldier who stopped a train hijacking in northern India. He wasn't going to get involved until the bandits started going beyond just robbing the passengers, when the bandits started raping the women. IIRC He killed 23 of 27 bandits by decapitation or removal of major limbs, the four survivors were alive but in really rough shape. Oh and the fun part he was completely unarmed at the start of the encounter.

How right you are. A pal of mine (now sadly no longer with us ) served with the Army in Cyprus during the time of the Eoka insurgency, with a Gurka regiment. He was in a fairly ill-lit camp one night, crossing between two huts when, without any warning at all, there was suddenly a knee in his back and an arm round his throat. He felt fingers run over the Regimental insignia at the top of his left sleeve. There was a whispered "Sorry, Sahib!" in his ear, and he was placed back on his feet. He looked around behind him – nobody there, and not a sound. And my father-in-law served in Burma with the Gurkas during World War 2. It wasn't that unusual in the morning for a Gurka to come in carrying a basket, tip 3 or 4 Japanese heads out of it on to the floor, and then make breakfast with the fish that filled the rest of the basket.

Scary is absolutely right. And an utterly honourable people for whom I have the greatest possible respect.
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Since Nimue is appearing in her role as an official representative of the Emperor and the Empress, I expect that she's in the full uniform of a member of the Royal Guard of the House of Ahrmahk. The traitor she's facing is going to be much more amenable to cutting the best deal he can when he knows that he's not only facing a seijin, but she's a member of the Royal Guard and is indeed empowered to speak directly for the Empress, this being Chisholm. Oops!

I wonder how many of the obnoxious nobles who haven't noted which way the wind is blowing are going to be implicated in this little plot they're hatching in the absence of the ICA.

Haven't those nobles noticed that tens of thousands of volunteers are being put through the equivalent of boot camp at the army base north of Port Royal? Idiots...

McGuiness wrote:Since Nimue is appearing in her role as an official representative of the Emperor and the Empress, I expect that she's in the full uniform of a member of the Royal Guard of the House of Ahrmahk. The traitor she's facing is going to be much more amenable to cutting the best deal he can when he knows that he's not only facing a seijin, but she's a member of the Royal Guard and is indeed empowered to speak directly for the Empress, this being Chisholm. Oops!

I wonder how many of the obnoxious nobles who haven't noted which way the wind is blowing are going to be implicated in this little plot they're hatching in the absence of the ICA.

Haven't those nobles noticed that tens of thousands of volunteers are being put through the equivalent of boot camp at the army base north of Port Royal? Idiots...

I suspect that this particular traitor is going to have his head disconnected from his circulatory system eventually, having been on Sharley's s**t list for a long time now that they have the goods on him... Probably one or two others on the same list waiting the same fate.

I think that for the others, she intends to use evidence of their periphial involvement to extort better behavior and a more cooperative attitude out of them in the future...

Don

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McGuiness wrote:Haven't those nobles noticed that tens of thousands of volunteers are being put through the equivalent of boot camp at the army base north of Port Royal? Idiots...

They have. It's been noted in previous books that these nobles aren't going to start anything while all those volunteers are still in Chisholm. But once they get shipped off to the front, they MIGHT see their chance and start a rebellion while the Army is overseas.