Started painting the boys at last though I still need more bod's so im Just going re-post the fluff I did for them so I can keep track of it.
Essentially my attempt at a back-story for my VBCW force of escaped criminals, murderers thieves, rapists and grave-robbers with little alligence to anyone but themselves.
Mortimer adjusted his torn and stained waistcoat as the light of the campfire danced upon his humorless face, he'd seen war before... King and Country could go hang. He'd seen conflict, men bolstered by the "honour" of serving a man they called king marching to their deaths blindly as their officers questionable judgement... and he was fine with that so long as they allowed him to make a few quid on the side. Soldiers die, why let the valuables they'd no doubt either toiled long hours to buy, or treasured deeply molder in the ground with them? Whether it was in sand, soil, or swamp, to let those precious keepsakes be lost or forgotten was disrespect of the greatest magnitude. Both to the dead and to those who went without not far away.
That's what he'd told the court marshal anyway, not that they believed him, his gimlet eyes glaring at them remorselessly as they squirmed as they listened to recounts of the trail of of mutilated corpses he'd left behind, fingers hacked off or broken to remove rings, jaws snapped and broken to get the gold teeth out... he'd avoided the rope back then, "Dishonorable Discharge" they called it. Sent him back to blighty without a button.
But that was years past, and he'd made do... over time he'd realised there was good beer money to be made if you were willing to do things other people found distasteful... bit of digging, usually on commission... some daft git who really REALLY wanted to get something back that another family member had wanted to bury with their darling with and to protest had just seemed so RUDE... Well this was England and all that... Manners first.
But churchyards were so peaceful and serine in the inky depths of the night... best part of the job, moonlight and fresh earth, it was beautiful.
'Course it changed the ambience a bit when it was time to crack the pine box, dependent on how many pints the embalmer had supped that lunchtime but it never seemed to bother him, no gag reflex or something, so long as he tidied up real nice the client was usually loathe to ask questions.
It was freelancing that had done for him in the end, he couldn't have been caught shovel in hand of course, that would have been too perfect, too cliché... nope he'd tried to pass off some trinket or another at a market and some daft little bint had started squealing that it had belonged to her dead brother... he gritted his teeth as he remembered the self righteous indignation in her face, gripping his rifle harder as the fire spat on the stones, all frippery and lace she was... for the first time since the Court Marshall he wanted to kill another human being... he didn't even try to run as she kept squawking her head off like a demented canary as the bobbies grabbed his shoulders and hauled him off, he just stared at her face, wishing for his old saber, she'd even come down the station and stared at him through the bars with her nose in the air, him imagining plunging a length of steel through her belly over and over the entire time...
A wry smile twisted its way across his face and he ran his fingers across his scruffy chin, it was there he'd met some of the others lil' jason the young pick pocket, "Lil' bit" they called him seeing as he always seemed to have a lil' bit of what was needed in his pockets, no doubt lifted from anyone who'd strayed close enough, Toby was in for murder... he was only tiny fella, he seemed more like a bank manager than a killer, quiet too, but nervy like a watch wound too tight, paranoid lil bugger, liked his ale though but his local was a bit rough and the local toughs always liked to pick on the little ones, so old Toby took to carrying a knife... too small to fight so he stabbed his way out of trouble. It was always the quiet ones.
They'd all been in the coppers van for a transfer, on their way to be judged and locked up or hanged respectively, when the van got hit... they never found out who did it, one group or another thinking the van had held weapons or supplys of some sort had laid some kind of explosive in the road, TNT or mine he couldn't tell but it had over turned had knocked the locked rear doors open, the concussed prisoners stumbling out on to the moors as the surviving bobbies traided shots with whoever was trying follow through on their muck up...
They'd managed to smash the links on their cuffs to free their hands for the meantime and set about finding a place to lay low, stumbling into this old stone ruin and shivering their way through the night. They'd argued for a few days about what to do hunger finally winning out as they tried to see what they could scavenge from nearby. They hit upon an a disused corrugated building eventually, it looked like an old factory but all the machines had been ripped out long ago, thick dust coating most of the surfaces but someone had been here recently... and where people had been they left things behind... they tried to move quietly but hobnailed boots on metal flooring still managed to make a racket despite their best efforts...
"Sound like bloomin' red caps we do..." muttered Lil' bit... "what thy on about?" another had questioned another and Bit had started telling them in hushed breaths about his nan who came from the scottish borders going on about Redcaps, nasty little Goblin type things in red hats and Iron Boots that hung around old battlefields... aside from bits lesson in mythology the building had yielded little but some bottles of port stashed behind a loose panel, probably by a piss head foreman they surmised... They headed back for the night, building a fire in middle of the ruins watch tower, the warmth at least was welcome, though their empty stomachs found little solace in the port.
The next day they struck out in a new direction next day but before finding a building they found somthing else... laid out on the lower side of a hill were the bodies of men, all clad alike... sprawled across the ground as if puppets whose strings had been cut mid performance. Warily they'd scouted the edge of the area and found not a soul. Mort inspected a fallen man with a practiced eye, he had been shot, most likely taken by surprise, the uniform unfamiliar he disregarded the others confusion as he stripped off his kit a and parceled it off to whoever seemed most in need of it, his shirt to one, boots to another replacing the the most threadbare and ragged of the bands kit first and moving on to the next corpse, pausing only to give a cold clipped lecture about necessity to those who muttered about "dead mans shoes" "If its not your size princess, then pass it on, im sure there's another one of us that'll be glad of bit of extra clothing when night draws in again..." they found nothing else the second day... nothing on the third, the fourth more bodies, still clutching rifles, he'd told the men to arm themselves with them, no ammo but bayonets were better than nothing, on the fifth day they found a farm house.
Their hopes were not high but they did find some food in the house, not much but it was enough for a belly full each! Excitedly jammed into their pockets and bags. Bit finding a box of rifle rounds underneath a floorboard and Mort had patted him on the back proudly, he was almost developing a fondness for the sticky fingered scamp, he almost smiled before the shots rang out...
Through the window he saw Old Bills head jolt to the side as the round hit it, slumping to the ground. He heard a single voice shout out something from outside as a second shot hit Bit in the shoulder, Toby threw himself down, his eyes on fire as he gripped his bayonet, but Mort put his hand on his collar pulling him back and motioning for him to help him carry the screaming youngster out the back door and the rest of the band to scurry for the cover of the woods as the more voices joined the shouts... they disappeared into the woods, losing their pursuers quickly by sheers luck.
Limping back to the ruin they sorted out what they'd scavanged, enough to stop the growl in every mans belly, and they cracked open the port to toast old Bill, bittlerly cursing the "pricks in uniform" that had done for him, "bad as any Bobby" they were it was agreed. The patched up lil' Bit Sat by the crackling camp fire, draped in a pillaged coat made for a man twice his size, the port flushing his young face as he spun tales of his grandmothers strange red caps for several of the curious men. Smirking they jostled each oher in the fire light in the response to the stories...
Mortimer too listened in, noticing sespite themselves these men, many of themselves harded lags, twiched away from the lengthening shadows cast by the fire, a primitive fear of the dark skirting the edges of their minds as Bit continued to tell them of the cruel, talon fingered, goblin like creatures that lurked in the darkness... how they loved old battlefields, relishing the atmosphere of viloence and slaughter, able to move at frightening speed because of their cursed iron shod boots, how they liked nothing better than to slaughter some helpless traveller, draining his blood to dye their caps a fresh red, for if the blood ever dried and the colour faded from his cap, the creature should surely die...
The men shivvered, Mortimer lept to his feet, snatching up one of the looted rifles as he did...
"Thats it!" he snarled brandishing it above his head, though not a man of imposing stature, lit from below by the fire and sillouetted against the yellowed crescent moon that hung in the sky like a bad tooth, he looked a particular sort of frightening, he looked sinister, he looked like man with a brillianiant and terrible idea...and every set of eyes where glued on him.
"I've had enough of these fancy little queens poncing about in their matching outfits, leaving stuff to rot in the fields, and putting bullets in any poor sod just trying to survive, trying to fill their hunger... who do they think they are?" he spat and paced, "What are we gonna do about 'em eh lads? What are we gonna do with the bastards who killed bill... the shit stains who put a round in Bit...?" the congrigation grumbled and shouted in leery agreement, he sneered, bolstered by the fortified wine as he shook the weapon at the sky "I say we use these! I say we TAKE what we want, food, weapons, women, blankets... and anyone who stands against us gets a belly full of steel!" " his teeth bared as he mimed a bayonette thrust, the men cheered , raising their bottles high "They want leave good stuff to rot we'll dig it up and useit against them, we'll be their worst nightmare, we'll be the evil bastards they used to ask mummy to check under their bed for.. " his face contorted in mock fear "they'll hear we're coming for 'em, piss their pants and say their prayers, they'll see us... and they'll just have time to scream before we cut their throats, just have time to hope missis is miles away and wished they'd stuck daddys pocket watch up their arse for safe keeping..." the men laughed and cheered one nondiscript grubby individual spoke up "Who's "we anyway? what are we gonna call ourselves? How ae they gonna know who we are?" Mortimer stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets looking up at the moon, over his shoulder his face split into a crooked smile "Isn't it obvious lad? We're the nasty little things that wait in the night for 'em, we're that shiver down their backbone when they've already blown out the lamp... We're Red Caps!"
Throughout the night boots stomped and hands beat a tattoo that echoed throughout the erie night, port was poured into an old pan, each man cutting his hand letting a trickle of blood join the rest in the pot, spitting into it and swearing feilty to the band and one another. Each man dyed his hat red in the pot, swearing to that he would never shy away from dirty work and that he would never "Let his cap dry".
Throughout the night the chant continued to ring out... "red caps... Red Caps... RED CAPS!"
