that was not enough for Phicous, he also cut off the messenger’s right foot.
As the poor Persian crawled back toward the beach, Phicous called out to him.
"I say, one legged Persian chappy."
"Yes?" the Persian managed to gasp.
"Hop it."
The whole garrison erupted into laughter, which seemed to please Phicous who promptly declared a night of celebration.
As any soldier knows, a night of celebration normally needs two ingredients, booze, and women. There were neither in the fort, and anyway booze was out of the question with the Persian army camped outside.
Phicous summoned Zorba to his office.
“Zorba, I want you to organise a special celebration dance this evening to reward the men.”
“But Sir, we have no ladies to dance with and we can't have anything alcoholic to drink.”
“Don't worry about that Zorba, I'll order half of the garrison to dress up as ladies; but no drinking.”
Phicous called the garrison to line up on the parade ground.
"Now then lads, atten….shun!" He commanded. "All those who fancy dressing up as ladies for tonight’s dance one step forward."
"Now, now, you can't all dress up as ladies, sorry A Company, you'll have to stay dressed as men."
B Company spent the afternoon designing and sewing their ladies’ outfits ready for the dance that evening. The ‘ladies’ wore red hats, black waistcoats with white piping, extra short white skirts, white tights, and shoes with pom-poms on the toes. The dance was a great success, so much so that dressing up in similar costumes on special occasions became a Greek tradition.
The Persian siege of the fort went on and on, Zorba sent P-mail every day to Athens, keeping the military command up to date with the situation. Every day Athens would send a reply, and extra dive bomber pigeons from Plastikoktopous arrived regularly.
P-mail did not exist in Persia, so Thadoom could not understand why birds kept flying into the fort.
He asked his second in command, "Erik, why do all those birds keep flying to the fort?"
"I don't know Sir, but I expect the gods send them as gifts of food to the Greeks," Erik answered.
"Hmmm."
Another month passed and the Persians had now been camped on the beach for nine months. Thadoom was beginning to get worried, the beech was looking untidy, his men were getting sunburn, and, worst of all, someone was pinching the deckchairs so there was nowhere to sit.
Thadoom summoned Erik to his tent.
"Erik, what we need is a plan to get us into the fort."
"Ah, I know," Erik answered, "do you remember that business with the Trojans?"
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