John Ringo - There Will Be Dragons

Herzer stifled a chuckle as he raised a hand then saw Cruz do so after a moment’s hesitation.

“Well, we’re not going to be staying in these fine barracks forever. The first thing that a soldier learns is how to set up camp. And that is what we are going to do today.”

The group was marched down the line of hills to a flat spot not far from the pathway up the Hill where they started building a “camp,” really a small fort. There were piles of leather, and one decuri was put to work, under Decurion Jones’ supervision, cutting them and forming them into tents. In the meantime the rest of the triari started clearing the ground.

It was similar to working for Jody and different at the same time. There were no oxen to haul the logs away so they were cut and split until a five-man maniple could get the resulting chunk up on their shoulders to be carried away. “In a soldierly fashion,” which meant at a trot to a cadence of “ooga-chucka-ooga-chucka.” Once the area was cleared, which took most of the first day, they started on stumping and digging a trench around the area. Tents were assembled in lines, latrines were dug and the camp was in every way made to be a permanent structure.

In their munificent free time there were regular inspections and intensive classes on field hygiene when, inevitably, somebody decided that a few minutes of free time was worth skipping their skimpy “baths.”

But, finally, the camp was complete. The tents didn’t leak, the gates could be gotten open and closed, the stump-holes were filled, the parapets and parade ground were to the sergeant’s satisfaction and everything was shipshape. Small but functional. At which point more leather appeared.

Over the next few days the sergeants and a few artisans from the camp showed them how to cut and form the leather into rucksacks, jerkins and kilts. The boiled leather, when oiled, was nearly immune to the rain. At the same time they got their new issue of boots. The boots were heavy leather with hobnails on the soles and fit, in Herzer’s opinion, poorly. The calluses that the triari had developed were in the wrong spots and there was a new round of blisters. These eventually passed and more equipment showed up for the maniples. Small mortars and pestles, kettles, axes and shovels.

When the full kit was issued to the triari the sergeants held classes on setting up field camps. How to cook for the maniple using nothing but field rations, parched corn, cornmeal, beans and a pressed and smoked meat compound that someone dredged up the name “monkey” for. Boiled until it was soft in the beans it wasn’t bad. Added to a bannock in the “dutch ovens” that were part of the kit, it was survivable. Eaten straight, with the lightly salted parched corn, it was bloody awful. But they learned to choke it down, sometimes on the move. And once they did, the packs came out and drill began in earnest.

They marched and countermarched, learning complex opening drills and marching by squads and triari, all of it with the packs, filled with all their gear, three days’ rations and, most of the time, filled sandbags for “good training.” Every night they fell asleep with the sounds of orders in their ears, woke up before first call, got their shit straight and did it all over again. And when they didn’t perform to the sergeant’s satisfaction, they kept at it by the light of torches until it practically was first call.

Once they were marginally capable of maneuvering on the reasonably “flat” area of the parade ground, they headed out to the field and did it all over again. They marched up hills and down, up the Via Apallia as far as the edge of the Iron Hills and back. Generally they slept out two days and came back the third night but once they were gone for nearly a week, the last two days on half rations. They learned to cook their rations as a decuri and dig a new camp every night, with a full palisade and trench around it. They learned to choke down their monkey and parched corn while still moving. They learned the trick of using pegs and lines to lay out the camp and were instructed on how to expand it, how many latrines per however many men, where the different parts of the camp should be, how to set watches and how many to be on under what conditions, where the officers’ tents would be set up.

They marched in rain and sun, through the tail end of the spring when a cold front came through with just above freezing temperatures and through the blazing heat that followed it. They learned to ford rivers and build temporary bridges. They slept out in the wet with nothing but their cloaks and woke before dawn to another day of marching.

The life was brutal and there was plenty of attrition. For the time being the positions were all voluntary and almost every morning there would be one or two who held up their hands and said: “Sorry, no more for me.” The sergeants didn’t berate them, just nodded and sent them over to be outprocessed. And there were plenty of days that Herzer considered it.

To his amazement he had managed to hold on to his position. He suspected that there were a few times that it should have been pulled, but he kept the triari’s nose to the grindstone and it was pretty clear that at least half of the reason the group was doing as well as it was was his example. He was always the first one up and the last to bed. He dug into any unpleasant job and refused to quit until it was done right . There was some muttering about “brownnose” but it was pretty evident that he just was doing what needed to be done. And he never rubbed anyone’s nose in it. When somebody was having trouble, and some of the jobs were more cerebral than it seemed from the outside, he was always there with a suggestion to make it easier. When a decuri was flagging at whatever physical feat was required of them, he was always there with a shoulder.

Occasionally he caught a glimpse of The Gunny. Generally it was a surprise. They’d be ten miles from camp, marching down another track and come around a corner to see him leaning against a tree. Or they’d be setting up a palisade and suddenly realize they’d just thrown dirt on somebody’s shoes, only to have it be The Gunny.

He never said anything to the recruits; he just watched then wandered over to speak to the sergeants. Which generally meant some hellfire dropped on someone. Herzer began to wonder, after a while, what his function was.

Then they found out.

They came into camp from another long route march, lustily singing some song about “The Grand Trunk” road and saw The Gunny and Mayor Talbot in waiting on the far side of the parade ground. The sergeants dismissed them to barracks and told them to prepare for a retreat inspection. They piled into the barracks and began pulling out uniforms, looking for a clean one or at least one that wasn’t awful; they hadn’t had a wash day in nearly a week.

Nobody knew what was up so Herzer was pelted with questions.

“No idea,” he said, grabbing one of the recruits and pulling at his uniform. “What the fisk did you do, put it away in a wad?”

The sergeants had shown them a method of ironing out the uniforms by heating up a steel rod, but there wasn’t time and the best he could do with the recruit was pull the uniform tight and hope that the creases wouldn’t be terribly evident.

“FALL OUT!”

He pounded out the door with the rest and fell in at the head of the formation, checking to see that everyone was in place. When they were he did a precise about face and saluted the drill sergeant, clenched right hand to left breast, the only time that sergeants were saluted.

“Triari Sergeant, all present or accounted for.”

“Post.”

Herzer did a precise right face and marched around the back of the triari. When he reached his position the sergeant called “OPEN RANKS, MARCH!”