A red coated, Hanoverian Major enters the Rhine Tavern carrying a shoe box under his arm. The tavern is crowded today as many veterans, recently returned from their battles, are enjoying a brief repast before their next engagements. Good, thinks the Major to himself, I might as well tell them all at the same time. With a confident stride, the Major approaches the bar and carefully sets the shoe box upon it. Picking up a nearby glass, the Major turns to the assembly and gently taps the glass for attention. “Gentlemen, if you would be so kind as to briefly give me your undivided attention, I have a very important announcement to make.” He pauses for a moment until most of the officers are looking at him. “The Hanoverian Brigade has captured Nappy B!”
The Allied officers break out in amused grins. A Frenchman near the fire mutters, “Yeah, right” while yet another masks an excretory explicative beneath a contrived cough. “As hard as it is to believe”, continues the Major, “it is in fact true.” Now the French officers begin to grin as this stupid Hanoverian excuse for leadership actually seems to be serious. “Something Oberst Peters said the other day started me thinking. Now I believe we would all agree that the French Emperor is well known for his leadership on the field of battle. Despite the fact that my brigade has captured thousands of Frenchmen to date, and I have always diligently searched the lot of them, Bonaparte has somehow always seemed to elude capture. Expand this action to the hundreds of thousands of French prisoners captured by our senior Allied officers in the course of this war, and it becomes almost a mathematical impossibility that Bonaparte was never among them. This led me to the conclusion that the wily French Emperor must at some time have indeed been taken, and then subsequently escaped utilizing some sort of clever disguise. To be truly effective, the disguise would have to be something so common in the French encampments that it would be easily overlooked by his Allied captors, which brings me back to the subject at hand.” Reaching into his coat pocket, the Major produces a matchbox. He carefully opens the matchbox and holds it so that the assembled officers can view its contents. “Behold, gentlemen, the Emperor of France.” Contained inside is a small, solitary cockroach clad in a green coat and wearing a tricorne.
The French officers in the tavern burst out in laughter. Sure this fool of a Hanoverian is poking fun at our beloved Emperor once again, but he seems to seriously believe the drivel he is espousing. Perhaps the recent pounding of his head upon the oaken table has taken its toll. The Allied officers, thinking much along the same lines, begin to look a little worried. Smiling, the Hanoverian Major raises his hand, “Laugh while you can good Frenchmen. I knew that you would be skeptical of the facts laid before you. That is why I brought additional proof.” The Major carefully closes the matchbox and places it on the bar. He then picks up the shoe box and turns back to the assembly of officers. “The contents of this shoe box were accompanying your Emperor at the time of his capture.” The Major removes the lid of the shoe box and again holds it so that the assembled officers can view its contents. Inside the box are an uncountable number of very large cockroaches scurrying in all different directions. Each of these large specimens is clad in a green dolman with yellow cords and sporting a bearskin busby with a red tipped, green plume. At the sight of this scuttling mass, the Frenchmen in the tavern break into hysterical laughter. Some of the French officers are laughing so hard that they fall out of their chairs and start rolling on the tavern floor. What a fine Hanoverian this one is! We could not have embarrassed the Anglo-Allied Army more if we had tried. Now fully convinced that the Hanoverian Major had indeed suffered brain damage in his recent encounter with the tavern’s oaken table, some of the Allied officers rise from their seats determined to gently escort the Major outside before he causes any further loss of face to the Anglo-Allied Army. The poor man is definitely in need of some serious medical attention.
Unperturbed by the chaos unfolding around him, the Hanoverian Major carefully reaches behind him on the bar, locates the matchbox and places the smaller cockroach in the shoe box with his larger companions. The smaller cockroach immediately scuttles to the center of the longest side of the box and turns to face the seething mass of insects. The large cockroaches quickly sort themselves out and form five neat rows of twenty facing their smaller brother. In unison, all one hundred of the large cockroaches bring their right foreleg up to touch their busby in salute. A salute which is returned by the smaller cockroach as it begins to scuttle back and forth along the front line as if on inspection.
The boisterous laughter immediately stops. The tavern becomes deathly silent in an instant. You could have heard a pin drop!
The Major raises his gaze to see the Allied officers frozen in their tracks, smiles beginning to once again form at the corners of their mouths. In contrast, the French officers are transfixed in disbelieving horror. One particularly large Grenadier of the Vielle Garde catches the Major’s attention. The horrified look on his face is classic as his eyes begin to well with tears. Uh-oh, thinks the Major as the Guardsmen’s tears begin to freely flow. “Le Tondu!”, cries the French Guardsmen in anguish as he outstretches his huge arms and lunges at the shoe box. Fortunately for the Hanoverian, indecision is not a malady from which he suffers. The Major immediately slaps the lid back on the shoe box and bolts for the tavern door. His heart sinks as he realizes that another French officer is closer and swiftly racing to bar the Major’s only means of egress from the tavern.
The French officer has clearly outmaneuvered the Hanoverian Major. It is evident by the satisfied look on his face that he is also aware of this fact, but things have a way of quickly changing in war. As he is running past the next to last table before reaching the door, his feet suddenly slip from under him and he crashes to the floor with a painful thud. “Ooops! Careful now lad, I seem to have accidentally spilled my drink and the floor and this area is quite slippery. Here, allow me to help you up”, says the red coated Field Marshall as he grasps the dazed Frenchman by the right hand while firmly planting a muddy cavalry boot on the hapless officer’s left.
Never one to fail to seize an opportunity, and making a quick mental note to thank the British Field Marshall when there is more time to properly do so, the Hanoverian Major races out the door leaving a tangled mess of French and Allied officers behind. “To horse, Ensign Reed! To horse!”, frantically yells the Major as he disappears into the tavern stables. As the leading French officers emerge from the tavern, they are nearly trampled as two horses burst from the stables and race at a full gallop along the North road. The lead horse is furiously ridden by a red coated Hanoverian officer and is closely followed by a second horse bearing a green coated Hanoverian Jager. Several angry French officers quickly mount their own horses and charge off in pursuit. Many more are left milling around outside the tavern. Slowly, the fervor dies down and the many officers return inside the tavern to contemplate the events of this seemingly momentous day.
Unnoticed in all of the excitement, two green coated Hanoverian Jagers , a Sergeant-Major and a Private, emerge from the stables and start down the South road. Both seem lost in thought, no doubt contemplating the rough handling their commanding officer is bound to receive once the French overtake him. The Private seems particularly bothered by these heavy thoughts as he diligently stares at the ground while walking. Both walk in silence for about a mile before the Sergeant-Major turns to the Private and says, “Sir, we have cleared the tavern and are not being followed.” “Well, in that case, it is probably best that we separate them again”, says the Private as he drops his backpack to the ground and pulls out a shoe box. “Leaving Nappy B with his men for too long can only lead to trouble. Do you happen to have an extra matchbox I can use? In my haste, I seem to have left mine in the tavern.” “Yes, sir”, says the Sergeant-Major as he relinquishes his matchbox. The Jager Private carefully opens the shoe box, extracts the smallest of the cockroaches contained therein, places it securely into the matchbox and returns the matchbox to his coat pocket. “What do you think the French will do with General Dobson if they catch him, sir?”, asks the Sergeant-Major. “General Dobson is a most resourceful officer with a lot of powerful connections”, replies the Private, “I am sure he will talk his way out of any trouble. Besides, those were two of the fastest horses in the army. It is very likely that he and Ensign Reed will not be apprehended at all. Now, Sergeant, I think it is time we abandon this road for more familiar terrain.” The Private replaces the lid on the shoe box and securely returns it to his pack. Shouldering the pack, he then leads the Sergeant-Major off the road into the surrounding woods. “It’s good to have you back in the ranks, sir. Even if only for a short time”, says the Sergeant-Major. “It’s good to be here”, replies the Jager Private, “reminds me of the old days. Now let’s deliver our prisoner to Lieutenant-Generaal Bijl and see if we can end this war.” Silently and safely the Hanoverian Major and his trusty Sergeant slip into the surrounding woods and disappear.
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