what would you do in this situation?

The city is under siege. The gate is opened and is jammed in this position. Enemy infantry is advancing toward the city. Defending the city is a combination of civilians and militia, woefully outnumbered and under-trained with mostly makeshift weapons - they're mostly fighting in order to give the women and children a chance to flee to safety and pretty much expect to die.

So that's the background. Now, there's a bunch of men buried under thick gooey mud. Do you:

1. dig out as many as you can and retreat
2. retreat and leave them behind, as you don't know how many are alive or even where exactly in the mud they are
3. dig out as many as you can and stand your ground at the gate and fight

Further dilemma: if you did dig those men out, at least a handful of them will probably be unconscious - what do you do with them? How do you move all these men and retreat quickly??

Note: this is a fantasy novel, medieval setting. No specific century.

 

Depends on what is happening immediately around me. If I have time to spare enough to notice men trapped in mud, and there are no immediate threats to my safety, I'd dig the conscious ones out. Do my best to get those conscious ones to help me get the others.

In a time of panic, though, it really boils down to your instincts. If there were enemy soldiers directly in front of me, I don't think even the best person would risk it.

 

I would personally pee myself and there would be a lot of snot on my face.

I would leave them, and if I managed to get out alive it would probably haunt me that my scaredy ass saved no one.

 

What I was going to say.

 

Get the hell out of there. Ever try moving in thick peanut butter mud?
It would be a pain in the ass to run in, let alone try and drag someone
in the muck.

 

I would put them all out of their misery so they don't drown in a pool of mud.

 

If I'm expecting to die anyway, they're gonna be low on my priority list. If I can pull some out without tiring my sword-arm too much, I might. My main concern, though, is buying the women and children as much time to flee as possible.

 

There are already archers on the wall. Somehow I hadn't thought of barricading the gate... oops. This is why I had to start this thread haha

I was thinking the women and children were gonna flee through a different gate on the other side of the city? I mean, the enemy is coming from only one direction, attacking the main gate. Is that unrealistic??

So I guess I'll write that they abandon the men beneath the mud as dead. The ones trapped in mud are all buried - basically the scene is that the mud was mud monsters animated by magic (the enemy has mages in their number. The city people do not) and these mud monsters had just flooded in and ate a couple dozen people. The gate has been pushed open by the mud and the mages have now stopped their magic. Mud monsters are now ordinary mud, but still gooey. There is always the risk the mages could just wave their arms about and bring the mud back to life, so if you happened to be standing on it if/when that happens, you're kinda screwed...

 

Surely these men buried in the mud would be dead before anyone could dig them out? They wouldn't be able to breathe.
I guess it also depends on how far away the army is, how many people are there to dig them out, how many are buried, how far down they are... if it would only take a few minutes and the army's far enough away, I would have thought people could help. I would also say that these buried men would be incapable of fighting if they were dug out - they would need emergency medical assistance!

 

You've gotta remember this isn't just a strategic or utilitarian dilemma, but a logistical problem of morale. When the situation is this grim, even men fighting to save their families will probably run and do whatever they think they still can to save themselves and their loved ones directly rather somehow coordinate for the sake of what looks like a lost cause. Is there someone in command, and is (presumably he) respected enough to convince these men not to break ranks, and clear-headed enough unite them with a plan (despite the fact that he probably knows how many of the men in his command are now as good as dead)? In a situation like this you can't expect civilians and militiamen to spontaneously cooperate like a disciplined unit.

 

I'm actually a little muddles regarding who would be in command. Currently, the way the men were trying to defend the city was like this: archers on the wall, pikemen a little way away from the gate in the main street between buildings, and between the gate and the actual buildings is bundled clothing that they set alight once the mudsuckers get there (fire is the only way to kill these things without magic). Some of the men are rushing up the walls to get oil for the archers so they can fire flaming arrows at the oncoming mudsuckers.

Instead, the mudsuckers kinda oozed through the walls, bypassed much of the established fire, and went round the back and engulfed most of the men waiting in the street.

Does any of this make sense? I seriously suck at imagining battle scenes.

The enemy is after total control of the country. The militia want to overthrow the current ruler (Shadow Walker, my main antag) and SW obviously want to get rid of them. He doesn't care so much for loot - he already owns the country. He would kill anyone who will not submit to his rule because he's obsessed with power. Does it still make sense for the women and children to flee? SW probably wouldn't bother sending people round the back of the city - he's pretty much just pushing forward and forward and forward. This place where the battle is is basically the edge of rebel territory that SW has just invaded. (I called this the frontline? Is that right?)

So just to get this straight - would they retreat and try to take the enemy within the city ('cause they can hide in buildings and ambush them and such) or would they stand at the gate??

 

If I understand what you're asking, only you can really know, based on the exact details of the situation, what they should do at that point. You can probably work that out and change it to your liking by adjusting the degree of the damage they've taken and of the threat they're facing -- how many men are incapacitated, how heavily outmatched they are (if they are), what risks they're taking on, etc.

But you have at least two other questions to consider. The first is what they would do both individually and collectively, again based on things like morale and command structure, whether panic or confusion has set in, and how well their commander is directing them. You need to consider things like what the battle looks like to the different men on the ground, what they can see, how well they're communicating, etc.

The second question is whether they or (more likely) their commander, someone with an overview of the whole situation whose job it is to organise them, can figure out what it is that they should do (which you as the author should know, and which you might be able to make clear for the reader, but which the characters themselves might not be able to work out). And then, obviously, whether he can get the men to do that. But is the commander misled in some way, or likely to make a bad decision because he doesn't want to admit defeat?

Only you can find/create the answers to these questions, but I think these are the ones you need to ask yourself to sort it out. Do you have in mind whether you want them to win or lose the battle, and in either case, by how much? Because you create all these details, and they should be serving the story you want to tell.

 

Ok so basically, barricade the gate and retreat as quickly as possible. Try to attack the things the enemy needs rather than the enemy directly. Attacks should consist of ambushes rather than an open fight.

I have two more questions.

1. Does my battle scene sound like it makes sense?

2. Somehow i have it in my head that being on the wall is safer than being on the ground. Right now that's where I've kept my MC. He ran up to give oil to the archers and one of the archers told him to stay up there because on the ground it's gonna be slaughter. Does this make sense? But now thinking about retreating, you can't retreat if you're stuck on the wall with an enemy that's certainly going to breach the city.

Thoughts? Is it safe to keep my MC on the wall or is that a really dumb strategy?

 

You have a barricaded gate, and you are getting out of dodge.
That means everyone. You find a safe location for the civilians,
and have the militia split up in to small teams have them
use Gunilla warfare tactics instead of staying behind and
hitting the enemy head on. Making attacks on supply depots,
weapons caches, and where possible killing off high ranking
units at a distance. The more brutal the attacks are in steady
succession, the enemy will reconsider sticking around.

Or you could wait until they break in, then lock them in
and burn them in the city risking much less man power
and resources.

A small milita going head to head with fully trained soldiers
would do little but delay the inevitable. Since you have such
a small amount of men to hold the line, they would be massacred
in a matter of hours.

 

There are so so many questions to be answered here.
If you are in a 'medieval' setting the advancing enemy could start with Mongols and end Vikings with everything from Saxons to Moors in between. You say that you have mud? Has it rained? Is the city on a flood plain? Did the defenders damn a river and flood the grounds for defense? There are many historic scenarios similar to yours that has gone both ways for the defenders.
Now, taking a fortified city was something very few armies could do...well. The two examples that come to mind is the Romans and Mongols. Both excelled at siege warfare.
'City gate is jammed' Now, that sounds like sabotaged. The Vikings excelled at infiltration and surprise.
The more important question is what is important to your story and your reader? Are you writing a hard core military style book that readers who have every episode of 'Deadliest Warrior' and 'Fight Science' on dvd are going to want to read?
Or is the main focus on drama, intrigue or romance? If so, while a reader will appreciate a well written action sequence that gets the characters on the run so Character X doesn't have a chance to confess his/her love for Character D, they probably do not want to read page after page of fighting.
After saying all of that, research some history. Someone has already done the fighting so we don't have too.

 

@big soft moose - well, guess I will have to rewrite the latest page or so of my scene this is all good for me though. It's why I am stuck in this scene because I just didn't trust what I envisioned was realistic lol. I have in the past written entire chapters like this just to have someone tell me it's all nonsense so...

@Stormburn - nah this is more of a fantasy drama. The core of it is about relationships, not necessarily romance but it will be there. I don't find battle scenes interesting and have no interest in battle strategy games either. I know i don't need every detail - I just quite literally do not know what people would do and what is actually realistic in this scenario. If the actions of my characters are horribly dumb (for example, I made it that there is a wall and yet in my head there was no gate - and i wrote it that way until 1000 words later I realised my stupid error) then it will affect reader experience even if military fiction wasn't what you wanted lol.

 

I think you need a clear separation between should and would. Also, don't be too deflated - only you are authoritative, so we'll all have different views on it. But here's my 2c

Firstly, about the barricading the gate thing - if you don't want to rewrite 1000 words and having the gates open is necessary to the plot, you can get around it by inventing some reason why they can't barricade the entrance. Time would be the obvious one - the entrance is too big to barricade in the time they have available.

Also, it's not all that dumb that people would want to go up the walls. Sure, it IS the most dangerous place to be, but if FEELS safer, and so having that separation of being above the carnage might lure your MC into that bad decision. It depends how much war your MC has seen. Your MC can do whatever you think they would do, be confident with it. They can do dumb things if you want them to, it is a chaotic situation after all.

Retreating, guerrilla warfare, hitting the supply lines etc is to me the 'should'. That's the course of action that would be best for the defenders. It doesn't mean that that's what will happen, it depends on their resolve and the ability of their commander. But that's stuff you can control!

It's easy to get bogged down in all this stuff. Let's take a step back for a moment and consider what YOU want from your story. What environment do you want your characters to be operating in three chapters later? You have two main options:

1. The rebels are fighting a heroic guerrilla war. They may be outnumbered, but they will never surrender the cause. There is an atmosphere of intrigue and hope, of resolve and resistance. It is very much open as to whether the rebels will win, the enemy will win and occupy, or there will be a long-term civil war.

2. There is desperation and despair. The rebel lands have been overrun and survival is the order of the day. The rebels are no longer a thing - they are just a scattered mish mash of individuals and families fleeing for shelter to escape whatever wrath or punishment might be in store for them. After that we're into occupation and potentially dystopia.

Do these two scenarios make sense? Which one would you like as a background for your characters? It might be easier for you to answer that question first.
Then you can come back to the battle.

To achieve outcome 1.:
Your rebels have a competent and charismatic leader. Your soldiers respect and trust him. He directs the retreat. Maybe he selflessly stays behind with some archers to fend off the enemy for a while before making a dangerous last-minute flee. I think it's likely that the enemy would go 'round the back, not so much to grab the women but to surround the city and cut it off. So you don't want to hang around. Some defenders stay behind to lure the enemy into the city and distract them, maybe they poison some of the water supplies if you want to go into detail. Most (including your charismatic leader) escape after the women and children and they make it to shelter (by shelter, I mean a place to disappear - forest, mountains, whatever. Put something there for them to escape to.) It your city's built of wood, it would be a nice touch to see the flames behind you in the distance as the abandoned city burns. Maybe the last defenders had set it alight.

To achieve outcome 2.:
Your commander is either poor or is killed early on. Your rebels are isolated from each other and confused - nobody can see the big picture and each group of soldiers acts only on what is in front of them. They make barricades in the streets from upturned carts and bits of junk. The archers on the walls and the pikemen fight valiantly but are overrun. There is a gritty street-by-street battle as the enemy overpowers everything. Again, the enemy forces encircle the city on the outside for strategic reasons. Perhaps some of them give chase to the women and children (it's up to you), and they escape into the [whatever your shelter is], seeing the flames and hearing the screams of the ruined city behind them. They may have escaped, but they are still being hunted. Fear and dystopia ensue.

If SW is looking to wipe out those who would oppose him, he would definitely surround the city. (side note: a siege is when you cut off a city and trap the defenders inside. Often in history, this meant starving them out, but not always. If the enemy just comes to the front door and breaks in, you can't really call it a siege. It's a plain attack, or you could say they are sacking the city if they burn it or otherwise destroy it.) The only reason he would not surround the city is if he's after the city as a strategic position and is not bothered about the rebels (which seems unlikely).

I hope that helps a little!

 

I'm guessing a bit here, as the context is still a bit unclear. Men are trapped in the mud, where? Outside the city, or inside, how far away from the walls? All of that would matter in the judgment of the defenders whether it is worth risking everything to rescue them. I'm also not quite sure what you mean when you say the gate is jammed. Jammed with what? And it doesn't seem to make much sense that an aggressor would want to jam a gate, since that is actually advantageous to the defenders. Jamming a gate actually makes it more defensible than just, say, blasting the gate off its hinges, because whatever is obstructing the gate (a fallen ram, or some other obstacle) can be used as a makeshift barrier to fend off anyone sallying forth anyway.

If you wanted something a bit more heroic, rash but not in a dumb way, and yet still believable: the militia sally out to rescue the men in the mud. A large, reliable contingent of men act as a rearguard, shielding the escape of the men who have been trapped and injured so they can get away inside the walls. And a collected and measured retreat by the rearguard. Rearguards used to screen a retreat is not uncommon historically.

 

Honestly? I'd dig out as many as I can and retreat. If they're unconscious I'd just assume there's nothing I can do for them and hope for the best. Maybe they'd be confused for dead and be left alone? Either way, I'd assume that I've done as much as I can with my own limited powers.

 

That's a good point - deciding how the battle would go is one thing, but what would your mc do? If he goes out to try and save some of them, it would be really cool if he was hurt in the process, and maybe someone he to rescues plays a role later in the plot. I'm getting carried away!

What way are you going with it? You've got me interested!

 

@Silent Lion - well, the scene goes like this: those already buried in the mud can't be seen, so there's no telling where in the mud these people are. For those, I'm leaving them as dead or assumed dead. No one tries to rescue them. However, there were five men who sank in the silt after the whole thing happens. These men are obviously alive but trapped. Morale is shaken and the entire militia is on the retreat. And as for what my MC does with these trapped men... shall I send you the scene? I've been curious about whether it's any good