Chapter 5 – Page 018
Oh don’t worry, I’m sure this guy was excellent at cricket.
↓ Transcript
Panel 1:
Nancy looks over Si’s shoulder at the display.
NANCY: I thought that sort of thing was like Tuesday for you lot.
SI: Oh, it is, and my dad’s got a story ‘bout his baby uncle that’d turn yer hair white, so you get real familiar with the different kinds’a ways it happens.
SI: This one felt exact, like he’d walked through the village I was from.
SI: I haven’t walked through the village I was from. I was, like, two.
Panel 2:
Closeup of the display. It’s an oil painting of Shaw.
SI: But the only “Mordecai” who fought in Afghanistan I can find is this crazy butcher from hundreds of yonks ago…
NANCY: “Mordecai Shaw.” 44th Regiment, Captain of the First Light Company…
Panel 3:
In flashback, Mordecai Shaw, covered in frost and blood, smirks alone in a mountain pass.
NANCY (off-panel): ...forming the advance guard of the retreat from Kabul during the First Anglo-Afghan War in 1842, he broke from the convoy against orders and led his men on a westward feint.
NANCY (off-panel): Apparently intending to draw Akbar Khan’s forces away from the main British column, the First Light Company was instead isolated in a valley and died to the last man.
Panel 4:
We see a statue of Shaw that looks too flattering by half, being shat on by a pigeon.
NANCY (off-panel): A statue of him stands outside the town hall in Chelmsford in honour of his sacrifice.
NANCY (off-panel): Because of course there is.
NANCY (off-panel): Historical sidenote: only one man survived the retreat from Kabul. Nineteen thousand died, mostly women and children.
Panel 5:
Si pauses mid-strumming to put the world to rights.
SI: Y’know, the way people say that never sat right wif me. “Even the women and children!”
SI: We’re women and children! Pretty sure we could’ve kicked their arses.
NANCY: Ever been ambushed by thousands of men in an Afghan winter?
SI: No…?
Panel 6:
Nancy has her arms crossed in thought.
NANCY: Me neither but it probably ain’t fun…
NANCY: …
NANCY: ...which valley was the First Light Company destroyed in?
Nancy looks over Si’s shoulder at the display.
NANCY: I thought that sort of thing was like Tuesday for you lot.
SI: Oh, it is, and my dad’s got a story ‘bout his baby uncle that’d turn yer hair white, so you get real familiar with the different kinds’a ways it happens.
SI: This one felt exact, like he’d walked through the village I was from.
SI: I haven’t walked through the village I was from. I was, like, two.
Panel 2:
Closeup of the display. It’s an oil painting of Shaw.
SI: But the only “Mordecai” who fought in Afghanistan I can find is this crazy butcher from hundreds of yonks ago…
NANCY: “Mordecai Shaw.” 44th Regiment, Captain of the First Light Company…
Panel 3:
In flashback, Mordecai Shaw, covered in frost and blood, smirks alone in a mountain pass.
NANCY (off-panel): ...forming the advance guard of the retreat from Kabul during the First Anglo-Afghan War in 1842, he broke from the convoy against orders and led his men on a westward feint.
NANCY (off-panel): Apparently intending to draw Akbar Khan’s forces away from the main British column, the First Light Company was instead isolated in a valley and died to the last man.
Panel 4:
We see a statue of Shaw that looks too flattering by half, being shat on by a pigeon.
NANCY (off-panel): A statue of him stands outside the town hall in Chelmsford in honour of his sacrifice.
NANCY (off-panel): Because of course there is.
NANCY (off-panel): Historical sidenote: only one man survived the retreat from Kabul. Nineteen thousand died, mostly women and children.
Panel 5:
Si pauses mid-strumming to put the world to rights.
SI: Y’know, the way people say that never sat right wif me. “Even the women and children!”
SI: We’re women and children! Pretty sure we could’ve kicked their arses.
NANCY: Ever been ambushed by thousands of men in an Afghan winter?
SI: No…?
Panel 6:
Nancy has her arms crossed in thought.
NANCY: Me neither but it probably ain’t fun…
NANCY: …
NANCY: ...which valley was the First Light Company destroyed in?