Girvan Crisis (3)

The most militant of the Gallowegians in the RSA departed Wigtown the day I arrived in town. They moved onto the node that first day (a 'node' is the travel 'spot' which lies in between each of the towns in RK, sometimes there can be more than one 'node' between towns). The next night they would bypass Girvan to the node to its north, the following day they'd arrive at the city of Ayr. There they hoped to join up with one of the Northern Regiments of the RSA (who would have to march through Ayr to get to Girvan).

Meanwhile, in Wigtown, the regular rank and file of the regiment was gathering, as well as those citizens who though not in the army had decided to march with us anyway. The situation we were faced with was roughly as follows...

To our North, the mayor of Girvan had let the Gallowegian Ducal Guard inside the town walls. To our West, the larger and more powerful army of the Ducal Navy ('the marines'), had gathered a who's who of Scotland's miscreants and marched onto one of the two nodes that lay between Drummore and Wigtown. The intentions of the marines was not known. To our East lay Kirk and beyond that Dumfries, the County Capital and stronghold of all the Campbells who hadn't gone off with the Ducal Guard into Ayr. The county elections were in a week or so's time, and the smart money was on those who opposition to the present county council.

In the pubs of wigtown the RSA and loyal Gallowegians gathered, talked through the various permutations of what might now occur. We were concerned that, if we'd go marching off to the north, that would leave the county exposed to the depredations of the ducal marines. In two days time they could appear in four of galloway's five towns, with all the best fighters caught to the north of the Ducal Guard. On the other hand, we were concerned that if we didn't head off north immediately the ducal guard in Girvan would institute a 'kill list' (it appeared that, to that moment, they hadn't as they had not interfered with the infilitration that had occurred the night before when various RSA soldiers had crept past Girvan to the free north).

A third and equally unsavory possibility was that the ducal marines would march all the way through to Dumfries and prepare to mount a coup as soon as the likely to be elected council took office post election. With their hands on our treasury the mind boggled at what might then happen.

Just to make our pub talks in Wigtown even more depressing, there were strong rumours that isolationists in Glasgow were growing louder in their calls to not get involved in Ayr's troubles (Girvan being an Ayrish town), which would mean that Ayr on its own would have to potentially fight two ducal armies (the guard and the marines), that Girvan would be annexed to Galloway, that the rampant forces that had taken Girvan would roll north and take the next town down the road before Glasgow awoke to the threat (once they had taken Ayr, any invasion from the South becomes much harder to deal with due the choice of routes it can take from there). It seemed that these Glaswegian isolationists were using the fact that Galloway RSA wouldn't even be fielding a regiment of its own to insinuate that we would sit on our hands while they did the fighting and we would later reap the benefits.

Needless to say, we in Wigtown had some interesting conversations about what we could or should do.

Meanwhile, the clock kept ticking....