Django Wexler - The Thousand Names

At the sound of the drums, the men at the head of the column halted. Those behind took some time to react, so the whole column closed up a little, but the regiment was still dreadfully strung out. There were no neatly dressed ranks on the march. Men walked in little clusters, vaguely divided by company, with their sergeants and lieutenants more concerned with chivying slackers than keeping order. They were expecting the command to halt for rest, and some few even took the opportunity to sit down in the road.

It was a few moments before the battalion drums picked up the signal, but once they did, it echoed up and down the whole column. The effect was everything that Marcus had hoped for-or, more precisely, dreaded. The Old Colonials knew what the signal meant, but had only a foggy idea of what they were supposed to do; the recruits mostly didn’t understand, but they knew something was up by the panicky looks. Their officers, the lieutenants Janus had brought with him, were split about evenly between the two camps. Marcus heard a few shouts of “Square! Form square!” but for the most part these were submerged in the babble.

The long march column contracted as the men instinctively bunched up, forming a blob around the battalion color bearers and the drums. From where he was sitting, Marcus had a good view of the First and Second Battalions, and he was pleased to see that the First, at least, was slowly coming into some kind of shape. That was Fitz at work-he had a brief glimpse of the lieutenant grabbing an officer several years his senior by the arm and shoving him in the right direction. The blob gradually opened out in the center and became a ring, whose sides straightened as sweating lieutenants and sergeants shouted their men into something like a line. Bayonets came out of their sheaths, and there was a chorus of swearing as the recruits tried to fit theirs with suddenly awkward fingers.

The Manual of Arms said that a battalion in column of companies should be able to form square within two minutes of the order being given. A battalion on the march was allotted a bit more time, five minutes considered the standard. It was at least fifteen before the First Battalion emerged into something recognizable as a formation-a hollow rectangular block, each side three ranks deep, with fixed bayonets bristling like a hedge of steel points from every face.

Nor was the First the worst offender. Val had screamed the Second into shape, and Marcus didn’t have a good view of the Third, but before long a stream of running, shouting men came up the road from the rear. Marcus thought they were from the supply train, fleeing a supposed enemy attack, until he saw the uniforms and the desperate, shouting officers and realized they were the men of the Fourth Battalion. Apparently all attempts to bring order there had failed, and the men had decided their only chance was to seek shelter in the steadier squares. A few shoving matches resulted, and Marcus winced, hoping that no bayonets would come into it. The last thing he needed was for his demonstration to cause actual casualties.

Next up the road came a dozen guns, pulled at a brisk trot by sturdy Khandarai horses, and accompanied by a double column of gawking artillerymen. Marcus had to grin at that. At least the Preacher knows how to keep his men in order. An infantryman of the Fourth, seeing the approaching cannon, decided he would be safer in amongst them, while a sword-waving lieutenant ran after him to a volley of curses and protests from the gunners.

All it needs is a fat captain with his pants around his ankles chasing a skinny blonde with a tuba going oompah-oompah , and we’d have a perfect music-hall farce. Marcus jerked Meadow’s reins and turned back toward Janus, steeling himself for the colonel’s reaction.

Janus was staring at the disorderly scene below. It took Marcus a moment to realize he was laughing , inaudible in the din. When he saw Marcus approaching, he turned on him with a faint but unmistakable smile.

“Sir!” Marcus barked, trying to make himself heard. Janus brought his horse alongside and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Point taken, Captain,” he said. “Your point is very much taken.” He shook his head ruefully. “Once everyone gets sorted out, you may order a halt for the day. We start drill in the morning.”

• • •

A halt was inevitable in any event, as it took most of the rest of the day to get the troops back into something approximating order and untangle the panicked supply trains. Marcus winced when Fitz presented him with the final bill-forty-six men with scrapes and bruises, four horses so badly injured they’d had to be put down, and one wagon that had cracked an axle when its driver had driven it into a ditch. It could have been worse, though. The losses of matériel could be replaced or repaired, and he was relieved to hear that no one had been seriously hurt. And who knows how many lives saved, down the road. As the sun was setting, Marcus headed back to his tent with a cautious sense of optimism.

He was nearly there when a meaty hand descended on his shoulder. He started, spun to face his assailant, and found himself staring into a wild tangle of hair that failed to conceal a mocking smile.

“What’s the matter, Senior Captain? You seem a little jumpy.”

Captain Morwen Kaanos, of the Third Battalion, was a tall, heavyset man with weathered, tanned skin that spoke of years in Khandar. Between a thick goatee, bristly muttonchops, and an unkempt mustache, his face was almost invisible. His eyebrows were bushy as well, giving him the look of a wild man, hermit, or possibly the scruffier class of saint. The hand he’d clapped on Marcus’ shoulder was big enough to be called a paw, and the hair on the back of it was practically fur.

“It’s been a long day,” Marcus said, irritated by his own reaction. “And I was hoping to get off my feet for a minute.”

“Don’t let me stop you,” Mor said, in his heavy mountain accent. “Mind if I poke my head in, though? We wants a word.”

Marcus gave an inward sigh, but nodded. The two of them practically filled the little tent. Marcus sat heavily on his bedroll and started unlacing his boots, while Mor stood by the flap, arms folded across his chest.

“I hear,” he said, “that we got you to thank for the mess this afternoon.”

“Where did you hear that?”

Mor tapped his nose, then shrugged. “Ain’t no big secret. Polt’s been telling the story since he put down his drum. Prob’ly ’cause half the Old Colonials seemed inclined to blame it on him.”

“They’re angry, are they?” Marcus worried at a knot that seemed to have become inextricably glued tight with sweat and Khandarai dust.

“Some are. You didn’t make them look good back there.”

“ I didn’t make them look bad, either. I’ve seen a pack of wild dogs form a better square.”

“Hell, your boys in the First weren’t too quick about it,” Mor snapped. “Don’t try to pin this-”

“It’s on no one,” Marcus said. The knot came free, and he slid his foot out of the boot with a sigh of relief. “It’s a gang of half-trained recruits and a bunch of old grumblers who’ve had it too soft for too long. What do you expect?”

“What did you expect? Why’d you do it? Don’t tell me you saw some old goatherd on a pony and shat your pants.”

“I did it,” Marcus said grimly, “because I knew what would happen, but His Lordship didn’t believe me.”

“Ah.” Mor uncrossed his arms. “Suddenly it all makes sense.”

Marcus frowned. Mor was always happy to suspect the worst of senior officers, particularly noble officers. As a general rule, the Colonials didn’t dwell on the stories of how they’d ended up in exile, or ask about the disgraces of others, but Mor’s tale was well-known: he’d illegally dueled a nobleman, he said, over the attentions of a young woman, and had accidentally killed the man. Whether that was true or not, he certainly harbored an inveterate hatred of nobility and privilege.