A four-hour full-output operational limit does not immediately seem like a matter of especial concern; few things can withstand a battalion for half that long. Those few generally succumb to brigades.
‘Succumb’ supposes the opposition can be found. It further supposes the opposition is a single entity or organization, that it can move no more quickly than the battalion, and that no component of it can get past the battalion’s front into the Commonweal. We say “Peace behind us” but it is easier to say it than it is to do.
D-Day Minus 1321
Year of Peace 543, Frimaire, Second Day (Late Fall)
Duckling
The First built the barracks roomy, enough for two battalions. Not because we were expecting to spend a lot of time in it; because when we are in it, everything gets spread out to dry or be counted. Mended, once it’s dry.
A file is eight, because eight is just enough for a focus and bigger than you really wish it was because that’s eight people who must get on better than sibs and cousins. Better than sibs and cousins when you’re hurt and terrified and dying. The Line counts everything by files. We march by files; columns eight wide, ranks eight deep.
An Old Line platoon is eight files; five platoons and four files of Colour Party is a company. Five companies and eight files of Colour Party is a battalion. It’s meant to be sure to stay over a thousand and twenty-four effective, so the multiplier on the battalion focus output is sure to be ten.
Wapentake platoons are ten files; five platoons and five files is a company. Five companies and twenty-four files is a battalion. The Colour Party has more signallers and pipers and it needs to be big enough to move the standard between separately deployed banners. We don’t count the full-captain, the part-captains, the sergeant-major, or the signaller in those files. Beside an Old Line battalion, it’s another seventy-two files, three hundred instead of two-twenty-eight. Our multiplier’s eleven. Have a moment of remembering persons and it’s twenty-four hundreds without supports. Twenty-four hundreds stand on a bigger chunk of ground than you expect.
Old Line consensus was that this is too much; you can’t get the focus to articulate reliably. Battalions traditionally tend to work better a little understrength. The Battle Below the Edge proves the First can do it, which the Second needs prove again. The First got suitable recruits. Whether those as suitable remain in the population is an open question.
The barracks has something close to four thousand would-be recruits in it. Feels close with awkwardness.
Everybody’s being quiet, out in the practice field. The veterans latch; the focus pushes Slow’s voice.
“The Line requires that you prefer victory to your friends’ survival. An understanding of victory requires study and experience.”
There’s a pause. Slow saying ‘Good morning’ sounds like doubt is running the other way. Slow being formal would make anybody listen.
“Sergeant-Major.”
Slow hates talking.
Meek doesn’t say “Sir”, Meek just steps up on to the podium, and Slow gets down off it.
“Line oaths are permanent.” Meek don’t sound like Slow. You’d think arguing with Meek would be easier, but you can’t. Takes skill and practice to start an argument with Meek.
“So we don’t take them right at the start. Some of you will go home.” Meek smiles. The closer few hundred can tell Meek’s ears don’t match exact for colour. See the scars above and below Meek’s left eye. Not a lot of people have visible scars these days. “Half of you have done some weeding. Everybody’s aware. The Line’s an assumption that the weed’s smart, and arrives by surprise.”
Any transitioned talent is smarter than you are. A battalion must keep things simple, or be out-thought. Knowing someone’s coming doesn’t tell you just when. We don’t know someone’s coming, most times.
“The Line’s also an assumption you’re in no kind of shape for fighting.” Meek grins at the recruits, and now they’re getting started on knowing the difference. If people are dying, Meek’s generally grinning. “Me, Slow, all the veterans, and certainly you. So we’re going to work on it.”
‘Working on it’ means running with sacks of damp sand over your shoulders. The sand’s half again what armour weighs. If the run’s toward the Folded Hills, it’s uphill. Get there, up a pretty horrid road to Bleak House and a pit mine for alum, relatively low risk; the pit will hold four thousand on bare rock. It’ll hold field rations and a bunch of old rope. The rope gets turned into net carriers for two-hundred-and-forty-kilogramme rocks, just to start with. Then you run with the rocks, one file to a net. You keep your sack of damp sand.
Not how the mine usually gets rocks back down to the Creek.
People go home before the uphill run involves supplies for the mine.
After the first décade, everybody with armour starts wearing it. It’s not lighter than the sand, not with full kit, but you abrade your neck less. The new won’t be in armour until they can sustain a steady latch by multiple files. Not this season; not this year. Develops neck callous. Good for not freezing; ‘warm as armour’ would be a lie.
Puddle, who was a file-closer in the Old Line and a sergeant in the First and is likely for a part-captain in the Second, gets the basics; calisthenics, rope-climbs, weighted ball exercises. Meek starts everyone in on sword drills — iron bars; the shield-hand bar’s much thicker — and Slow starts in on javelins. Nobody does adci drills without armour. Getting taught javelin throwing by someone who does it all by demonstration ain’t notable unusual. Slow’s got the kind of form you assume someone drew, nobody ever moves that purely in their purpose. Then the javelins go in the target in patterns; triangles, vertical lines, horizontal lines. Hexagons, with six. You watch everybody who’d done time with a critter team get determined first, but everybody gets determined.
Determined’s no help to most of them. Hands-breath patterns at a hundred metres asks more skill than sinew holds. Focus’ll do what you can’t, once you have it.
If they can learn, I’ll get them. Colour Party needs to start throwing, the sticks need to hit.
In the midst of all this, I try to find some signallers. Signallers and at least one piper.
Pipers are easy; who brought pipes with them? Those pipes go home; the Line has pipes. A stand with local history not surviving a battle’s not wanted. Or just Slow’s notion of march readiness; you can cuddle by files to keep from freezing, but the pipes won’t be in the pile.
Once I get agreement on which stand of issue pipes is the least bad — pipers won’t praise pipes — I took the lot aside one evening, back of the barracks, and had everyone play Squinting Ariston. The which is an old tune of the old music a polite person won’t admit to knowing among strangers. Not all the recruits who can play know any of the old music. Out of those who know the old music, not all know the tune. Not everyone who can play it knows the story, embarrassingly savage to recount before the Commonweal’s Peace.
I don’t care if they know the story. I do care which of them is agreed to play the most expressively. Agreement on that point settles who’s the Piper, should they stick.
Ariston themself only died; the tune’s about the vengeance taken for them. It’s recounted artistic, as the Line ought not. Regular efficient Line responses ain’t kind, and’d’ve awed them all when the old music were regular music.
There’s a strong consensus. The plausible-piper don’t know the story, as may help their expression. It’s a fine tune. You wouldn’t play it for a civil audience if you knew the story, not and be thought polite.
“Sir, why that tune?” This one knows the story; it constrains their expression. They’re quiet even to ask.
“For when there’s someone bent on conquest on Commonweal land.” My questioner and the plausible-piper both nod.
Which saves trying to explain Meek addressing the suggestion the piper should know Squinting Ariston to me as the signaller. The recruits call me Duckling or Signaller or sir and I don’
t worry about it. The veterans convey the rules as they get the chance. A few of the quick ones are figuring out when to use orders-formal, or who can address Slow as Slow when. Which of Meek’s tactful hints are orders from Slow, whether or not Slow knows about them, is not something I care to explain. We’ve got a piper because the Captain noticed what singing did to the Seventieth’s output and decided a five-hundred-year-old Line tradition of being silent in the advance could be disposed. Explain that, have to explain the tradition, which don’t, far as I can find out, have a reason beyond tradition, or why the Old Line gets uneasy. Whatever reason the Old Line’s got, they ain’t seen fit to state it.
The Line’s dangerous. An independent, they’re not human. They didn’t make it past the Shape with unconstrained passions. Standard-captains, part-captains with a detached banner, they’re human. Just as prone to wrath as anybody else, and it’s a full-rare sorcerer who could straight-up fight the First. The Old Line’s been careful for centuries. We can’t be that careful and beat the Sea People. But maybe we have to be that careful for the Peace.
Everybody’s got their pipes put away. Shuttle pipes pack small, even sets with a bass/baritone drone cylinder. Why they became the style once we had twist drills.
“Pipers are there to get the mood up in the focus. Doesn’t matter today. Will matter.” I get a bunch of nods. “Sort out who wants which stand, go by Gauge and get the number next your name, start carrying with. Practice when you can.” A hand on the shoulder, to make it unambiguous. “This is the probationary Piper. They settle the musical arguments.” The maybe-Piper looks startled. Nobody else looks like they’ve got a problem. Twelve, when I’m permitted sixteen.
Gauge is the quartermaster’s whole responsibility, not just the person. Person’s not settled, but three of the pipers think they know who can assign pipes today. Has to do. Not like they’d walk off with their stand, any of them.
“Drums, sir?” The question comes with a speculative look.
“Focus node. Preferably a small one.” I get some doubtful, ‘how would that work?’ sorts of looks.
Get the whole focus going ‘thump’ rhythmically and terrain goes unstable. They’ll figure it out.
Pipers ain’t complicated. Signallers, less so.
The trick with signallers is you’re doing three jobs. First job is talking between units. If we’re close enough for the focus, you manage what moves around. Shouting about problems that aren’t your problem ain’t helpful. If we’re not that close, there’s actual signals. That’s the easy job.
Second job’s figuring out what you know that the captain must. You get a feel; we do drills.
Third job’s keeping track of what’s happening so you can do the second part of the job. It’s not especial practical with your head. Stuff in the standard helps. Made by sorcerers, or maybe the job’s hard. No wits in the focus; never yet got a sensible explanation if it borrows yours or copies them. Either way, feels like thinking five thoughts at once, and most’re unwilling.
It’ll be months before the new are doing anything with the standard. No shred of an idea how Slow spotted me.
Ain’t correct. I know what; Slow trusted their hunches. How you have useful hunches, I don’t know that.
Practice is how you find out. With no latch, there’s nothing to spot.
D-Day Minus 1288
Year of Peace 543, Nivôse, Fifth Day (Early Winter)
Duckling
The Colour Party has no appointed sergeants. I teach drill.
Teaching drill’s hard.
Doing drill’s easy. Once the unit’s formed, stupid-easy.
Formed’s not something that fits in the Peace. The Shape’s not like the binding of the standards, and we use the short word and never explain the focus, not if we can help it. The difference? A standard has push. The Shape listens; the Shape can’t tell if you’re dead or just unconscious, not by itself. You don’t get anything from the Shape without someone specific sends it, someone with a sworn office empowered by laws. Never a sorcerer; a sorcerer with the Shape could learn anything and do most things.
A civil focus won’t likely have push; there are weeding focuses that do, there’s a few really big focuses that have to have push to be usable, but generally you’re there with whatever number of people on the team and you talk out loud to communicate. No reason to make it more complex and a lot of reason not to; get the push part of a focus wrong and it’ll hurt people.
A standard lets you know what your node is doing. A standard can tell if you’re dead or unconscious or what specific degree of hurt. It’s not especially an individual thing, being a file. Maybe not a platoon; the focus forms as a mind, and because it has push, it can talk back, you participate in it but it’s not you and it might not be a whole lot like you. ‘Dominant personality’ is a rude thing to say, mostly for being wrong. You still know who’s informing the file or the platoon. Or larger; there’s determined people in the First, and the Captain’s will’s this narrow thing. Narrow like the line of keenness forming a cutting edge, and you get to recognizing it for what you do not wisely push against.
Slow’s a whole lot of your mistakes. Slow isn’t amiable or relaxed or calm or tactful or kind. Slow isn’t even-tempered. Slow has this strong preference for being effective. There’s something wrong with Knives, sure; Knives wants victory above life. Peace don’t get into it. Knives makes a conscious effort.
Slow says victory is being effective. Most of us figure effective means ‘they’re destroyed, hardly any of us are dead.’ Slow means something much wider; they’re destroyed, and we haven’t incorporated any mistakes in doctrine that will give us trouble in fifty years, or cost the Commonweal too much, or leaked knowledge to hostile observers. Slow worries continuous. Slow might worry sleeping.
I’m gaining sufficient enjoyment from ‘form left’ and ‘form right’. No focus, so I’m shouting. They’re learning; pay attention to your file, keep spacing, keep dressing, move together. It’ll help them latch. It’ll help latched.
D-Day Minus 1184
Year of Peace 543, Germinal, Nineteenth Day (Early Spring)
Duckling
Surprise Slow with a need to talk, you get terse conclusions. You had best trust them. If Slow knows they’ll have to talk, you get what the recruits are getting.
“First of the First received its standard seven years ago. It has been of necessity accounted serviceable since that time. It is not today what the Old Commonweal Line would muster as ready for service, for all our battle proved victorious Below the Edge. Second of the First is not fit to stand; we are new-begun with few veterans. I have not been as the Captain has been fifty years under arms. More than fifty; in my case the number is more than five and further I do not find it productive to consider. The March and Below the Edge shall by their necessity answer for a count of years.”
The standard makes sure everyone can hear. Not why you get it with more voice than Slow looks like they ought to have. Talking like the spirits of your ancestors, and never mind how the language of the Commonweal and the tongue of the Old Creeks ain’t much alike, that’s entirely Slow.
“It is not by the manual prudent to drill company against company. The manual cautions against excess movement. It expects the first year to be spent in barracks and working on physical conditioning before a potential recruit is presented to an active formation.”
That gets Slow some looks, and a mutter with “wheelbarrow” in it several places.
“Frequent movement answers for physical condition and the inculcation of a certain flexibility of mind. A soldier’s life is one of routine, if their commanders permit it. Someone easy within a routine is not always best able to respond to events they did not expect. Training against routine — as we have done, with march destinations selected by random means — becomes its own routine, with its own broader bounds. The complex balance between those whose conception of the world is most comfortable outside the Peace in an expectation of wrath a
nd slaughter and those whose duty compels them to endure such circumstance is constructed of individuals, who change. A battalion to live must have its banners live. Banners are built from platoons, and platoons from files; the file must be an agreement between those who remember to coil the tent guy-lines and oil the boots, and those who have the spear in the air before another has made recognition of the strangeness of the noise.”
None of them have had hands on a sharp spear in the Line. Three thousands and some hundreds remain, and this is the first talk of fighting.
“Custom expects a year to build strength before martial skill may be profitably cultivated. I do not entirely agree with custom but do agree that the focus can answer for other deficiencies and if the focus will not answer nothing may amend it.”
Catch myself nodding along. Custom says I should be standing still and impassive.
“In the first season, files were by assignment. Four wheelbarrows to a file with all the file’s food and bedding and sole prospect of dry socks renders the file a real thing as pushing wheelbarrows might not otherwise become. The second season’s files were matters of agreement. Those files become with your oath and the focus not as they are now an agreement concerning with whom you shall eat and who sleep beside, but an agreement that these are those with whom you shall die.”
Silence. Slow don’t put emphasis on stuff like that. Gets into your mind anyway.
A Mist of Grit and Splinters Page 14