The Oncoming End

It began many years ago when I was newly made at an unknown date, hand crafted in Berlin by the royal German blacksmith. I was said to be the highest standard of quality that has ever been made of my kind. Forged in the German flames and constructed with the highest precision, I was to be one of the many weapons used by the King of Germany and yet he thought that I was the best. I was being prepared to be used in the war. The oncoming end…

As the many armies prepared to do battle, I was placed into my holster, ammunition pouch full beside me ready to fight. When I was fired for the first time, the armies began to charge and chaos was unleashed. For one hundred years, the battle ripped apart the many armies, still without a victor until there was a sudden gunshot and my owner, the King of Germany, had fallen.

A cry ripped through the air - it was the King’s son, the Prince of Germany, and he came running over to his fallen and dying father. In his dying breath, the King said to his son, “Take my weapon and end this never-ending war.” His father had passed me over to his son and I had a new owner. As the new King fired me for the first time, I felt a connection with his hand and began to work one hundred times better than I ever had done for anyone before.

The new King charged into battle and shot after shot he made, battering through the enemy ranks. Finally, he captured their base and arrested their leader, King Arthur of England and his father, Uther. The war was over!

The defeated English were taken to the kingdom city of Neuburg-Schrobenhausen and thrown into the dungeons of the castle to await trial for their crimes…

The trial was held on the day of the 14^th April 1674 and King Arthur was sentenced to life imprisonment but escaped! His father Uther, meanwhile, was sentenced to death for the murder of the old King of Germany. 

The new King of Germany took me out of my box, for I was old now and not for battle, loaded me and shot. The old King Uther of England fell dead where he stood.

As for the new King Arthur of England, German soldiers were sent out to catch him but they were unsuccessful. He had evaded them.

Here ends my tale of the oncoming end, which has now ended. 

As for me, I never tasted lead again as the new King Arthur of England came back to Neuburg-Schrobenhausen and stole me from the castle vaults, took me to England and placed me in a glass case with a card next to me. 

Many years later, after more than a hundred years of sleep, I was transported to Oxford and the Pitt Rivers Museum, and there forgotten. Yet sometimes, children look at me and read my card and perhaps even sketch me, and write stories about me.

by Joseph Wakefield