Battle for the Pier

Yesterday we discovered that Beaver and his gang of miscreants had taken over the pier at Sunset Beach. Overnight we had formulated a plan. Cloutman and Gubbins did a recce of the pier to discover how well it was defended. They discovered that there was a lot of noise coming from beneath the pier. We decided that whilst Rudolph made a full frontal attack, with his group, at the pier entrance the rest of us would investigate the mysterious noises and make an unexpected attack from below. Whilst we hid, amongst the wooden piles, we saw Hitmouse come out holding a large drill. Although he put up a fight and tried to get his skewers out we soon overcame him. Goodman interrogated him using a large goose feather. Finally he could take it no longer. With tears of laughter streaming down his face he admitted the Badfort Gang's evil plan. Apparently they intended to float the pier away and declare it as an independent revolutionary state. Hitmouse claimed they would be freeing the tourists from the tyrannical yoke of capitalism and everyday would now be a holiday for them. They would just have to do some work, for the collective good, cooking, cleaning and helping them to run the enterprise in it's new use as an offshore tax haven. So they clearly hoped to bring down my empire by cutting my tax revenue...then Hitmouse admitted they would be running off with the loot and steering the pier to warmer climes. Cowgill took a quick look around and ordered Goodman to fetch as many volunteers as he could to carry out the necessary shoring up work. In the meantime he declared that the pier would be safe for our rescue operation. We soon had the grappling irons out and had started to scale the pier. The Badfort Crowd put up a determined resistance but were out-flanked by our pincer movement. Cloutman was singling out individuals and stunning them with one blow of his fists, while Old Walrus laid about him with belaying-pins and marlinspikes in true sea-dog fashion. The twang of Rudolph's crossbow seemed to be everywhere at once. Finally we cornered Beaver and his band of rogues at the end of the pier. "We will live to fight another day! Long live the revolution" cried Beaver and suddenly they all jumped over the side! For a moment we all thought they had gone mad....until the Old Monkey spotted a fleet of ramshackle rafts below. I decided that in celebration of this victory, and my last day at Sunset Beach, that tomorrow we would put on a show at the end of the pier!