The Catacomb I

Manuscript found in excavation of burial-mound.

20th of March 1849. I, Karl-Heinz Prinz, captain of the Royal Prussian Infantry, am penning this account of my last expedition, as an explanation of my failure to attain the much needed result of it as well as the opportunities for a succesfull second attempt. Where I am I cannot hope to understand, the blasted seamen took their secrets with them.

The problems began even before the docking of the ships to take us to the Danish isle, when I discovered that the mission was a tri-party one and that the general-commander would be major Moltke, who I had last parted with on no civilised manner. A further nuisance was the appointment of sergeant Grimm as the last member of the commanding unit. A man of no discernible faults, but with a strange pronunciation which seemed more like a Kieler than a Berliner dialect.
Due to the nature of the mission I made no mention of any kind as to the sobriety of my fellow-soldiers and no complaint was possible as the ships left that very evening.

The settings for a lightning-invasion were superb, as the harsh weather and the concentration of navalforces in these waters had isolated us from all living things.
Not a vessel was to be seen and no thing stirred as we passed the shoreline to the east.