by K. J. Parker
“But what if we’re—?”
“Next,” the quartermaster said.
“Is there an officer I can talk to?”
The quartermaster looked as if he’d been asked for a unicorn. “There’s one around somewhere,” he said. “What you want an officer for?”
“Well,” Pilad said, “I just want to—”
“Now you listen.” The quartermaster took a deep breath, as though about to perform an act of charity for an unworthy recipient. “You boys aren’t soldiers, right? You’re levy. You need to be able to do three things, no, sorry, four. You need to shoot your bows. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“You need to walk.”
“Yes.”
“You need to do what you’re told. You boys all right with that?”
“Oh yes.”
“And you need to be able to run,” the quartermaster said. “Because when you’ve walked to where they tell you to go, and you shot off all your arrows, and them Western bastards are coming to get you, you want to be able to run like the fucking wind. You got that? Grand. All right, who’s next?”
There was no one outside the tent to tell them where to go next. After they’d been standing around for a minute or so, Pilad said, “This way,” and walked off.
Teucer trotted to catch up with him. “Where are we going?”
“Get a tent.”
“But we’re supposed to—”
Pilad smiled and shook his head. “Over there,” he said.
They found a tent with nobody in it. There were no blankets or anything like that. They piled up their gear, and Pilad told Anser to go and look for the latrines. “Won’t be hard,” he said. “Just follow your nose.”
The others were digging their provisions out of their packs. “I think I see what you mean,” Teucer said.
Pilad nodded. He didn’t seem to be hungry, so Teucer decided he wasn’t either. “It’s not good,” Pilad said. “Still, we’re country boys, we can fend for ourselves. Main thing is to stick together. If we do that, we’ll be all right.”
“We should go home,” Musen said, sitting down on the ground next to them.
“We can’t do that,” Teucer said.
Pilad said nothing. “I don’t see why not,” Musen replied. “Nobody gives a shit about us. We might as well not be here.”
“We’d get in trouble.”
Musen laughed. “Nah,” he said, “they’d just think we wandered off somewhere, got given the wrong orders, something like that. We should just turn round and go back home now, while we got the chance.”
Teucer looked at Pilad, who was thinking. “Well?” he prompted.
“I don’t know,” Pilad said. “I don’t think much to staying here. I mean, you heard the quartermaster. Doesn’t look like they’re going to make us into soldiers any time soon, and I reckon, if you’re in a war, you need to be a soldier, or you won’t last very long.”
“That’s right,” Musen said. “So, let’s get out of it while we still can.”
“I don’t know,” Pilad repeated. “It’s a mess all right, but they’ve got us down on a bit of paper somewhere, so if we just clear off, they’ll know, and that won’t be good either. I reckon the best thing is if we stick together, look out for each other, and think about what we’re doing, instead of just doing what they say regardless. We’re not stupid, we can look after ourselves, we should be all right. Just don’t expect those buggers out there to do anything for us, because they won’t.”
Musen gave a loud sigh of annoyance, got up and walked away. Pilad didn’t seem to mind. He lay back on the ground, his head propped up on his pack, and closed his eyes. Pilad slept where and when he could, like a dog, and always woke up instantly, fresh and ready for anything.
Six days’ march. It’s walking, Pilad told them; we can do that, we’ve been walking all our lives.
The first day was fine. The weather was good and so was the road. March had conjured up in Teucer’s mind a vision of coordinated footfalls and relentless pace, but in fact it was more of a heavily armed stroll, since they weren’t supposed to go faster than the ox carts. They stopped half a dozen times, always by water. Pilad got talking to men from some of the other contingents; he had family in the North and West Ridings, so the problem wasn’t so much getting the strangers to talk as inducing them to stop without giving offence. In the evening, they set up a few caps on sticks and had an impromptu archery match between five villages; Merebarton came second, mostly because Musen flogged an easy one at fifty yards. There was still some cider left, though not for long.
The second day seemed to have rather more hours in it than the first, or else time passed more slowly west of the Blackwater. The road at this point was much used by carts, so they were walking in deep ruts, often flooded by the recent heavy rains; they got a sample of those around midday, and had to walk sodden until they dried out mid-afternoon. By the end of the third day Teucer’s feet were beginning to hurt, and on the fourth day the ground started to rise as they tackled the foothills of the Hog’s Back, a range he’d heard about but never seen before. At this point, the carts turned off and left them; apparently, they weren’t their supply wagons after all, just a small convoy that had happened to be going in the same direction. On Pilad’s advice, Teucer had kept some food back, but most of the others had long since finished theirs, and lack of food was the dominant subject of conversation on the fourth and fifth days. There must be a supply wagon somewhere, obviously; someone must’ve arranged for it to meet them at some point, but nobody seemed to know where or when. This raised the question of who exactly was in charge. Everyone Pilad spoke to seemed convinced that there was an officer with the column, but nobody had actually seen him; each village assumed he must be with one of the other contingents. On the fifth morning, before they started out, Pilad got up early and went round the camp. When he came back, he looked worried, which was never a good sign.
“No officer,” he said.
“That can’t be right,” Musen objected. “If there’s no officer, how do we know when to start and stop?”
Pilad sat down on the ground, took his boot off and examined the sole. “Good question,” he said. “The sergeant of the Conegar lot reckons there was an officer to start with, but he sort of vanished after the first day. Nobody else figures to have seen him. I think whoever’s in front starts walking when the sun gets up.” He put his boot back on and smiled. “There’s a fair chance we’re on the wrong road, as well. I think when we crossed that river day before yesterday we should’ve taken the left fork, not the right.”
Notker looked up sharply. “You what?”
“Sergeant of the Conegars was told we’re headed for Spire Cross,” Pilad said. “Spire Cross is on the Mere, and the Mere runs from the Hog’s Back to the sea.” He turned his head and nodded sort of north-east. “That’s over there,” he said. “Still, he could be wrong. He was only going by what he reckons this officer told him, and nobody else but him ever saw this bloody officer. For all I know, he might’ve been walking too long in the sun without his hat on.”
There was a brief, quiet moment while everyone thought the same thing.
“So the supply cart—” Musen said.
Pilad shook his head. “Don’t hold your breath for any supply cart,” he said. “I reckon what we fetched from home was meant to last us as far as Spire Cross. So, if we get there tomorrow sometime, no real harm done.”
“And if we’re on the wrong road—”
“Well,” Pilad said.
Anser from Middle Town said, “You don’t actually know this is the wrong road.”
Pilad grinned at him. “Course not,” he said. “I don’t actually know we’re supposed to be going to Spire Cross, that’s just what the sergeant of the Conegars told me, and he could be daft in the head for all I know.”
Calo from Lopenhead said, “How can they send us off without an officer? That’s crazy.”
Pilad yawned. The sun was
just starting to come up, and his face was blood-red. “Maybe there weren’t enough to go round. I don’t know, do I?”
“But if we’re on the wrong road, we got to turn back, right now. We keep going, we could starve to death.”
Teucer looked all around him, at the grey dry heather and the granite outcrops. “We’re five days from the camp,” he said. “All that time, we didn’t pass anywhere where we could get anything to eat.”
“Teucer’s right,” Pilad said. “God knows if this is the right road or not, but if we keep going we may well starve, if we turn back, we definitely will. Meanwhile, any of you see so much as a mouse, shoot the bugger.”
No mice. The only living things apart from themselves in those hills seemed to be buzzards and crows, which stayed just out of range at all times, the way they do. By the end of the sixth day, it was clear that Pilad wasn’t alone in his doubts. The pace of the column fluctuated wildly, from a slow trudge to a frantic quick-march whenever there was a horizon to cross beyond which there might be something to see, such as a town, or a line of carts, or even a plume of distant smoke. “Somebody’s got to live here,” Notker said, just after noon on the sixth day; apparently not. They realised they hadn’t seen a living soul since before the Hog’s Back.
“Figures,” Pilad said. “This war’s been going on a long time. When they call up a village, that’s all the men gone. You think what happens when they don’t come back, or just one or two. It means sooner or later everybody that’s left packs up and heads for the city; that or stay put and starve to death. I reckon that’s what we’re looking at here.”
Teucer thought of Merebarton, of who was left at home to do the work. His father, uncles, a few hired men; if something happened, how long could they carry on before it all got too much? They’d cope to begin with, but it wouldn’t be like making shift while someone was away on a drove or off work with a broken arm. Gradually, the things left undone would begin to creep in: the fences not mended, the docks and thistles not grubbed out, the muck not spread so that the land lost heart, never quite enough hands to bring in all the harvest or the hay. Each year there’d be more left to spoil, less in the barn, another three or four pastures run to waste, another shed roofless or fallen down for want of time and stone to fix it; and all the time the men working harder, getting older, wearing out with use until in the end they were blunt and no good. It could happen so easily, while your back was turned.
On the seventh day, there was a horseman.
The column stopped dead and watched him, from a faint suggestion of moving dust into a man on a horse, in a grey cloak and a red felt pillbox hat, like the ones they’d been given. He galloped up the last rise towards them in fine style, his cloak floating in the slipstream; drew up, looked at them and yelled, “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”
They had, it turned out, taken the wrong road; they should’ve been in Spire Cross the day before yesterday, so the rider, a sergeant-at-arms from the Fifteenth cavalry, a regular, had been sent to find them. Being well versed in the stupidity of civilians, he’d glanced at a map, guessed what had happened and here he was. He looked at the desperate faces crowded round him and said, “Who’s in charge of you lot, anyway?”
Dead silence; then Pilad said, “You are. What do we do?”
He’d brought his map with him. Teucer had never seen one before; he looked at it over Pilad’s shoulder, but it made no sense. The cavalryman, however, seemed to understand it just fine. He had a little metal tool, like the carpenter’s callipers but tiny and fine; he walked them across the map, measuring distances. “You cut across country here,” he said, jabbing at the map with a long forefinger. “You’ll be all right. Can any of you monkeys read a map?” Silence. “Can any of you read?” More silence. “Shit,” the cavalryman said.
“You’ll have to come with us,” Pilad said.
“No chance,” the cavalryman replied, “I got other things to do. Look,” he went on – he was talking to Pilad as though he was the only person there – “all you got to do is, keep the sun on your left in the morning, keep looking at that slight rise – there, you see it? That’s Stonecap, here, look.” He prodded the map with the steel measuring tool. “Head straight for that till you come to this belt of trees, then head sharp north. That’s an extra half a day, but that way you won’t get lost. There’s a village here, look, ask them nicely and they’ll give you something to eat and point you to Spire Cross. You got that?”
Pilad frowned, then nodded. “If you’re going back to the camp, can you get them to send a cart to meet us on the way? We haven’t eaten since—”
“Sorry, no carts,” the cavalryman said. “Nothing due in, so nothing to send out. You’re country boys, you can look after yourselves.”
“Not in this.”
“Do the best you can,” the cavalryman said. “You’ve only got to get as far as the village, and then you’ll be just fine. Try and think about something else.”
Easier said than done. Nobody said anything the whole of the second day after the cavalryman left them. From time to time, as they crossed small combes and valleys, inevitably they lost sight of the small bump on the skyline on which all their hopes depended; it was a terrifying feeling, and in spite of their sore feet and aching calves they quickened their pace until they were back where they could see it again and feel safe.
There was no belt of trees. They were a few degrees off complete panic when someone pointed out a line of nettles and briars. On investigation, these proved to mask tree stumps, and the ash of burned lumber, which had sweetened the ground and made the briars grow. “That’s all right, then,” Pilad said. “So now we head north, and there we are.”
“I’m not sure I like being a soldier,” Teucer said later, as they climbed the long hill towards where the village was supposed to be. “We’ve been in the army seven days, we’ll be lucky if we survive another two, and we haven’t come anywhere near the enemy yet.”
“The enemy’s not the problem, far as I can see,” Pilad replied. “It’s the daft buggers on our side we want to worry about.”
They reached the village just before dark. They were in no hurry. They knew it was deserted from miles off; no smoke from the houses, no livestock in the fields. They kicked down a few doors, but all the houses were bare, stripped to the walls, the floorboards taken up, because nobody would abandon good sawn lumber. They found one barn with half a loft of damp, black hay. The Sticklepath boys shot and ate a stray dog. Nobody else had the energy to go looking.
Six miles or so outside Spire Cross, they were met by five cavalrymen in red cloaks, who arrested them for desertion.
Pilad dealt with all that, and got them tents, and made the quartermaster-sergeant keep the kitchen open an extra hour so everyone got enough food. Then he ate something himself, went back to the tent, lay down on the floor with his boots on and went to sleep.
Some bloody fool blowing a trumpet in the pitch dark woke them up. That, apparently, meant morning parade. Teucer was stunned. He’d never seen so many people in one place before in his life. He tried counting – so many rows, so many men in each row – but it was hard to see from where he was. Over two thousand, at any rate; and he thought, well, at least if it comes to actual fighting we should be all right, because two thousand of us, all shooting at once, what could possibly survive that?
They stood in their long lines, and a small group of men in red cloaks and red felt hats stood on the other side of the parade square and looked at them. That was all. Then someone yelled something Teucer didn’t quite catch, and everybody started to walk away.
He looked round for Pilad and saw, to his horror, that he was headed straight at the men in the red cloaks. He hurried after him, and was in time to hear him clear his throat politely and say, “Excuse me.”
Oh hell, Teucer thought. A redcloak turned round, looked at Pilad for a moment and said, “What?”
“Excuse me,” Pilad repeated, “I’m Pilad, I’m the
sergeant of the Merebartons.”
“Good for you,” another redcloak said.
“Could you please tell me,” Pilad said. “Sir,” he added. “What sort of training do we get?”
Brief silence, then one of the redcloaks laughed. Another one, an old bald man with white hair round his ears, like sheep on a hilltop, said; “Merebarton. That’s South Riding, isn’t it?” He had what Teucer had always thought of as a government voice, like the surveyors who came by every five years or so.
“West, sir.”
“West Riding, thank you. Do you boys go to archery practice, like you’re supposed to?”
“Yes, sir. It’s very popular.”
The man nodded. “I’m guessing you’re all farm boys, shepherds, stockmen, foresters.”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Fine.” The man looked at Pilad’s bow. “Made in the village, was it?”
“Yes, sir. Got our own bowyer.”
“Listen,” the man said. “You can shoot, you can get to places, you can look after yourselves, that’s fine. You’re levy, not regular soldiers, so we don’t ask very much of you. Go where you’re sent, stand where you’re told, shoot three volleys, that’s it. Run away if you like, we don’t care. Rest of the day’s your own. We simply don’t have time or resources to train you, we definitely can’t feed you or pay you while you’re being trained, so we take a realistic view. Stand, shoot, run like hell. That’s all. Savvy?”
“Sir,” Pilad said, and walked away. The men looked at him for a moment, then resumed their conversation.
“Musen was right,” Pilad said, as they stopped for the midday rest. They’d been walking for three days. The boots they’d been given didn’t fit. “We should’ve gone home when we had the chance.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that,” Teucer said.
“Don’t worry, I won’t. But we should’ve.” Pilad opened his knapsack and took out two cloth parcels, tied up with tarred string. “Here,” he said, “one for you. Don’t know why I’ve been carrying it for you all this time.”