The Puffin Crusher

    The inhabitants of Amnesia and Myopia have loathed each other for generations, but this has never led to war. Neither country has an army with combat experience or is willing to acquire one owing to the risks involved. At times, however, each has tried to gain an advantage over the other through more subtle economic means.

    One such notorious case began when the Myopian Aerial Polyp Commander, Skymarshal Dodoriguez, hatched a bold plan to starve the Amnesians into submission. His reasoning was simple: no seabirds would mean no guano and with no guano to use as fertiliser the enemy’s agriculture would fail. His superiors approved and gave him the funds to pursue his grand scheme. Six weeks later he took to the skies on a seat slung beneath the Polyprolapsid, the most terrifying bio-weapon Myopia had ever seen.

    At first all seemed to go as planned. The Polyprolapsid’s pheromones attracted flocks of puffins which it strangled with its tentacles. But one thing had been overlooked. The Skymarshal had trained his creation to hunt using Myopian puffins, which it now attacked exclusively, while Amnesian puffins stayed well away.

    Dodoriguez knew nothing of this and prided himself on his seeming success. He ventured further out to sea and boasted, on his rare returns, that he would soon defeat the Amnesians singlehandedly. His mistake was noted only when Myopian birdwatchers recorded lower than average numbers of puffins and proportionately smaller guano deposits. At first they blamed Amnesian agents, but when no such villains could be found they looked for culprits closer to home.

    While Dodoriguez continued his war against the dwindling puffin flocks his fellow Myopian officers frantically searched the skies for him. It was no easy task, as none of their other aerial polyps could keep up with the Polyprolapsid and none of their naval vessels could venture very far from land. When the crew of one patrol boat finally found and signalled him, ordering him to cease operations, he dismissed it as an Amnesian trick. More vessels soon arrived on the scene, including the pride of the Myopian fleet, the six-ton steamer Thunderfish, which carried lots of fireworks. When further attempts to reason with the Skymarshal failed the Myopians reluctantly realised they would have to stop him by force.

    A rocket from the Thunderfish scored a direct hit on the Polyprolapsid, which exploded like a garbage bag filled with putrefying cream. Skymarshal Dodoriguez was miraculously pulled unharmed from the shark-infested sea, though his elaborate uniform was ruined. That year’s harvest was smaller than average due to a shortage of fertiliser, but the deficit was covered with produce bought in secret from a sympathetic Amnesian source. The Myopian puffin population soon recovered from the incident, but Skymarshal Dodoriguez was retired to a villa where he drives ghostwriters to near despair with his greatly embellished and as yet unfinished memoirs.