Spring Offensive - Tufty's first strike

Attrition

----Delayed release due to security ---

Over the winter Shadowfax and I noted how quiet the squirrels were. Many seemed to have retired but others reconnoitred surreptitiously from the boughs over head; we knew because high trucks sometimes rocked their craniums out the branches and into the path of the impatiently queuing traffic. Their flat remains picked upon by the crows and magpies as example to all bushy-tailed vermin.

The squirrels were made furryous in February after the claimed massacre of a whole section of the elite Invisible Ghosts Forces based in Privett. There were no witnesses to the slaughter but tensions rose on the uncovering of photographs at a recent Easter Bunny Parade of their forces laid out as trophies. Diplomatic efforts have kept a cap on the situation claiming a rogue sniper was to blame and squirrel activities have remained unseasonally quiet.



Now, comes the Spring Offensive. But unlike those of previous years - although high in intensity low in impact - this year's first attack demonstrates a worrying turn toward the tactics of modern terror-lead insurgency.

At 0830hr, Friday 30 April Shadowfax and I were targeted by a lone martyr. He mistimed his tarmac-level run at first; or lost his nutty nerve; and needed a moment to readjust his head-over-feet pace and realign his trajectory by several degrees. This gave Shadowfax and I just time enough to see the attack unfold but our own pace was such evasive action was futile to implement - for we should surely have been deflected into the woodlands on our near side and into the oblivion of those scurvy dogs' lockers.

On second thrust, the squirrel launched at Shadowfax's front tyre and with his teeth borne drove home to cut his wheel from beneath us. It's the first witnessed use of a roadside suicide tom and previously restricted analysis has been released to show the tactic may have some consequences for the future security of our passage through the woods but for one immediate flaw: the squirrels had not counted for the power of Shadowfax's wheel's centrifugal momentum.

As the squirrel connected and penetrated its rabid incisors within the Michelin's rubber, it's believed inertia drew the fuzzy rat up around the wheel's cycle, through the mudguard (front fender) and back into the path of the 80mph, 700lb rampage of Shadowfax at cruise.

The Ministry is quick to point out that no reprisal sorties are planned but the frequency of patrols will not let up.

InterPol is charged with determining where the squirrels received their terror training; whether in a domestic or overseas camp and whether their armoury has been substantially increased over traditional levels of pine cones and nuts. There has been alarm at the growing number of previously believed propaganda images surfacing on the Internet clearly showing heavily armed squirrels.



The local council's representative on crime today released details of the armed squirrels that raided the Post Office in near by Alton. Thankfully the owners were not awoken in the raid although security camera footage easily identified the interlopers as a section of squirrels from local tribes' militias. The thieves escaped with a pair of in-line roller-skates and a box of Star-Thunder rocket fireworks. The Alton Police Sergeant said of the situation, "I'm worried this needs only a spark to get things rolling really fast".



Riders are urged to be vigilant for squirrels operating in the area of the A32 and A339. The public are urged not to approach squirrels until their current threat has been fully assessed.