That looks great! Can't wait to see how it turns out.
Wot she said!!
I'm reminded of a tale told me by an
old Marine when I was kid in the 60's.
He'd retired after WWII, volunteered for Korea, retired again, then was quietly told he was too old for Viet Nam.
Well before Guadalcanal he'd gone straight from boot camp to Nicaragua, "green as grass'.
After endless slogging through jungles & mountains, the patrol he was on was ambushed by sandinistas.
Separated from their mule train, and it's ammunition, they fought their way to the outskirts of a village,
Outnumbered, surrounded & cut off the Marines hunkered down in a mud hut/house. The rebels called on them to surrender, saying they couldn't resist much longer without cartridges, and those were all on the captured mules. The sergeant in charge of the patrol, a Great War veteran, asked what made them think the Marines were short of ammo, raised his '03 Springfield, and pinged a round off the bell in the church tower across the village, about 700 yards or so away. The envoy hastily departed, and the sandanistas settled in to see which gave out first, water or ammo. To keep up the fiction the sergeant "rang" that bell every hour, on the hour, day & night, until a Marine aviator happened on the scene. That worthy had his gunner drop a coupla canteens & some machine gun belts to the beleaguered patrol, than dashed away to get more aircraft. The sandanistas declined to remain for the balance of the festivities, though they did keep the mules. The Marines suffered only from thirst, cuts n'bruises, not even a real wound. Sandino's men lost more than pride, but nobody counted the corpses. That bell however, took a helluva beatin'. The priest was neither pleased nor amused, while my friend thought it was the most remarkable shooting he'd even seen, 2 BIG wars failed to change that opinion.
I've never found documentation for his anecdote, & suspect it's a "sea story", but I've been told stranger truths.
YMMV
Valerik
EDIT:my miserable spelling
09 April 2012, 09:02:43 PM