Erich Woikin is eleven again, sprinting through an orchard with a satchel of scrumped cherries bumping against his sweat-soaked back and a baying hound snapping at his heels. He’s a few strides from the spot in the barbed wire fence where the broken strand makes for easy vaulting when something grabs his satchel straps, pulling him off his feet. “How odd” he thinks to himself as he struggles unsuccessfully to get up “that I should fall on my back yet wind up with so much cherry juice staining my shirt front. How very odd.”

Will the easterners manage to cross the canal before the Allied tanks show up in around seven turns’ time? Your guess is as good as mine, but if they don’t they will at least be able to console themselves with the knowledge that most of their ammunition made the crossing. A prodigious quantity of lead and High Explosive flies west across columns red v, w, and x in unlucky-for-some turn 13.

Tally-Ho Corner’s first play-by-comment Combat Mission game is approaching its halfway point, and no-one – not even the scenario designer – can tell you which side has the upper hand. East of the canal, the Comment Commanders have fought their way to a north-south railway line, KOing a jeep, de-snipering a windmill, spotting a shy AT gun, and eliminating several British teams on the way. West of the canal, German losses have been higher – largely due to a halftrack ambush in turn 7 – and progress less pronounced, but, bolstered by reinforcements, the players are now pushing forward determinedly.