Gold Bullion Robbery

As I suspected it has not taken long for Beaver Hateman to take his revenge for his incarceration. Over the weekend we decided to take a consignment of gold to Badgertown to help the King of the Badgers honour his rash promises regarding flexible working hours. The route took us directly past Badfort so I took along the strongmen Cloutman and Gubbins to provide security. On the way we came across a lady in distress. She told us she was a Marchioness and had been robbed of her jewels by some louts who ignored her non-domicile tax status and insisted on "redistributing wealth from fat cats like her". Typically outrageous behaviour from that gang of thugs. I told Cloutman and Gubbins to escort the distressed lady home. We steamed at full speed past Badfort. Suddenly - Whoosh - the roof of the traction engine disappeared. We gazed up to see it making a jerky progress towards the roof of Badfort, held by a large rusty hook. Sack-suited figures could be seen wildly turning a wheel at the bottom of a primitive crane on the top of a large tower. We were exposed to a crowd of sordid yelling figures who crowded the upper windows of Badfort. There was Beaver, with Filljug, Hitmouse, Nailrod, Sigismund, Flabskin, the Wooden-Legged Donkey and all the rest of the nasty crew. I told the Old Monkey to keep his head down but with a horrible raucous yell of "Take that, Unc!" Beaver threw a duck-bomb at us. Luckily it fell short, but the dangerous fluid splashed against the flywheel of the traction engine. It soon lost speed because of the clogging coat of leathery jelly. We were then assailed by egg-bombs and we were blinded by the loathsome mixture of ink, glue and tin tacks. The hook swung down again and this time grabbed hold of the chest of gold in the trailer. I tried to make a grab for it but found myself stuck fast. The crane whirred into action carrying the chest high into the air, then swinging round to deposit it on the ramparts of Badfort. I don't think that we could have stood the assault much longer, but at that point Cloutman and Gubbins returned. We have been tricked they cried - and breathlessly told us how, once they had reached a safe distance from Badfort, the 'lady' had revealed herself to be none other than Hitmouse in another fiendish disguise. They managed to push start the engine and we got near enough to Homeward to be out of range of further missiles from Badfort. Wickedness of this magnitude shall not go unpunished. I shall retrieve my gold.