The dawn came and we recited our vows. Then we were bid to continue our vigil, this time lined up and facing the foggy valley below. We prayed for a sign from God, to know that he blessed our efforts.
The sun rose slowly at our backs and the shadows came toward us from the hill beyond. Looking down, I saw my own shadow among the others on the fog below. But mine was different from the others.
Mine was surrounded by a holy halo! I stared, unable to believe what my eyes were seeing. I raised my hand and waved it to prove to myself that it was my own head that was so mystically adorned, and it was true!
Beyond all possible doubt, I had been personally, individually and radiantly blessed by God!
* * *
FROM THE DIARY OF CONRAD SCHWARTZ
Conditions were right. I looked down and saw beams of light radiating from the shadow of my own head. I waited a bit to be sure that the others had time to discover their own halos.
"Yes, brothers, it is real," I said. "Each of you has been given a halo that only you can see. When Moses went to the mountain and was given by God the Ten Commandments, he saw 'horns of light' coming from his head. What was given to him then is given to you now. Each of you has been blessed by God. Each of you has been made radiant. Our mission and our duty is clear. As a band of brothers, we must train the army that will rid God's world of the plague of Mongols that infests it.
"Will you stand with me, brothers? Will you join me in this great work? Shall we form the Invincible Order of Radiant Knights to accomplish this God-given task?"
They were stunned, shocked. Miracles were something that happened to someone else, long ago and far away. But these men had seen themselves walk through fire unharmed, and now they saw halos about their own heads.
Sir Vladimir was the first to recover.
"I will stand by you, my lord," he said, taking his place at my left side.
"And I," said Sir Piotr, his face streaked with tears.
All the others were soon with us, and there wasn't a dry eye among us, for even I was overwhelmed by the emotion of this thing that I myself had conjured up.
"Then so it shall be, brothers," I said. "On this holy ground, we shall form our order, and I shall knight you all on this spot."
I knighted the thirty-five students who had not been knighted before, and then Sir Piotr came up.
"My lord, I think it would be fitting if you knighted me this day."
"Perhaps it would be, Sir Piotr." I performed the simple ceremony on him. Sir Vladimir and the Banki brothers came up as well, with the same request. They, too, were reknighted.
Prince Henryk was standing back, undecided. Then suddenly he was on his knees before me.
"Is it possible, Baron Conrad? Am I worthy to join your order?" he asked as the tears streaked his face.
"Worthy, my lord? But it is I who serve you!"
"In status, yes, and that may not change. But you have been blessed by God, and this day so have I. If you think me worthy, I too would join your order, though my duties will never permit me to go through your school. Tell me, am I worthy?"
"My lord, you are the most worthy man I have ever met," I said, and I meant it. And so it was that I knighted my own prince.
"Would that I could join you, too," said Abbot Ignacy, "but my duties and my oath to the Church must forbid it. Yet I would do all in my power to aid you in God's work."
"This army will need chaplains, Father. Ordained priests who would go through our school, fight at our sides and pray for our souls. If you wished, you could find us such men."
"I will do so, my son and my lord. Somehow, I will do so."
Chapter Twenty-four
We were silent as we headed back, but as we got to the barracks, I called them together and said, "Brothers, our order need not always be a solemn one. Tonight, we will be celebrating your graduation and quite a number of young ladies have accepted my invitation to help us do it. Get some rest now, and fall back in at six o'clock in full-dress uniform. Dismissed!"
We only had a few spare dress uniforms, but one of them was the right size to fit the prince, and he generally wore one from that time on, as did I. These were a lot like the uniform worn by the boys at Eagle Nest, except that the colors were reversed. The boys wore white pants and shirt, with a red jacket; we wore red pants and shirt with a white jacket. The brass buttons and epaulets were the same.
At six, I said, "Brothers! There are a few matters of business to be attended to before we can join the ladies.
"You have each almost a year's back pay coming. Those of you who were students were paid at a rate of a penny a day, so you will each draw over three hundred pence. As knights, your pay from this day on will be eight pence a day, paid monthly. The instructors will draw their back pay at this rate. From this day on, the Banki brothers will be promoted to knight bannerett, at sixteen pence per day, and Sir Vladimir will be your captain at thirty-two.
"After the festivities, you will have three weeks leave. I've arranged for each of you to have a horse during your vacation. Please take good care of it. Go home and enjoy yourselves! And when you come back, try to bring a dozen new recruits with you! We'll need them for the next class.
"One last item! You are all invited to Sir Piotr's wedding tomorrow at Okoitz, so don't get too drunk tonight! Fall out!"
It was a good party, and I had the feeling that most of my new knights would be married in the near future, or they would if the girls had anything to say about it, and they generally do.
* * *
FROM THE DIARY OF PIOTR KULCZYNSKI
My love was at my side as the party got under way. I was introducing her to my classmates and in the process saying good-bye to them. Baron Conrad was assigning me to head up a section of mapmakers while they would be back here training new troops. We would meet again, but not soon and not often. It was hard, for we had gone through Hell and Heaven together, and in the doing of it, we had become close.
I had attended to half of them when a surprise occurred. Coming toward us through the crowd was the lady I had had on the night of my knighting! Suddenly, I felt very awkward, for how does one introduce a lady that one has taken in pleasure to another lady that one is about to marry? Worse yet, I couldn't introduce them, for I still did not know the first lady's name!
Yet again, she saved me, for she was a gem of courtesy.
"Piotr Kulczynski, surely you remember little Mary Ponanski that used to live four doors from your father in Okoitz!"
So at last I knew her name! "Of course I remember the little girl that we used to chase away from the big boys' games! But can it be that that skinny little girl is the charming lady I see before me? Oh ho! A duckling has turned into a swan! But then you must know Krystyana, my bride to be," I said, introducing them.
We chatted for a while and Mary pouted a bit because she had recognized me and I had not returned the favor.
"But you are not fair," I said. "Girls change more than boys do, and more pleasantly. But why are you wasting your time with someone who is almost an old married man, when there are so many eligible young knights around?"
"To find out which one I should be chasing, of course! You know all of these men, Piotr. Tell me, which one is the best?"
"The best? Well, that's a complicated question! If you mean 'Who is the best mathematician?' you are out of luck, because that's me and I'm already taken. If you mean 'Who has the best taste in women?' well, that's me, too, since I'm getting Krystyana and they are not! But the best man for you? Let me think. Maybe August Poinowski over there. What do you think, Krystyana? Is August handsome enough for our little Mary? I can testify to his character, but it takes a woman to tell if he is good to look at."
My love said that he was a fine-looking man, so we made the introductions. And you know? Not three weeks went by before Mary and August posted banns to marry in the church!
It was in this manner that I returned to Mary Ponanski the great favor that she had done for me!
* * *
FROM THE DIARY OF CONRAD SCHWARTZ
Sir Piotr's wedding was well attended, and the weather was so fine that they held the reception outside. While talking to Count Lambert, he suggested that I look up at the sky. I looked. A large, two-place sailplane was circling overhead. The pilot must have found a good thermal above the town, because he kept on circling for hours. So now, in addition to everything else, I had to build an aircraft engine!
* * *
FROM THE DIARY OF PIOTR KULCZYNSKI
And so it was that on a beautiful spring day in the year 1237 I married my love Krystyana, and we lived happily ever after, or reasonably so.
Interlude Four
The tape wound to a stop.
"Good God, what a training program!" I said. "Conrad should have been a practical psychologist instead of being an engineer! And that graduation ceremony! I can't help wondering why armies in the twentieth century didn't use the same techniques."
"It wouldn't have worked," Tom said. "You must bear in mind that Conrad was working with some very uneducated and naive troops. With a modern education, it takes a pretty weak mind to fall for things like that fire-walking stunt. A good modern soldier is a very well educated and superbly well-trained specialist. You don't want stupid troops, not when they have to operate some remarkably sophisticated equipment. But given his situation, cousin Conrad did the right thing. I'm proud of the boy."
"Another thing is that weights and measures system he came up with. I got to working it out during some of the slow parts on the tape."
"Yeah, I saw you playing with the calculator. Did it myself, the first time I sat through the thing."
"Well, it's flat amazing how many numbers work out right! The way his mile works out at 1728 of his yards, and his pound comes out at one 1728th of a ton, and even his volt and his pint come out right! All at accuracies better than could be measured with medieval instruments! That's almost too many 'gosh numbers' to believe."
"Well, it wasn't all luck. Conrad was using a base twelve numbering system. It's one of the three natural systems, along with base eight and base sixteen. The ancient Indo-Europeans, our ancestors, used that same base twelve system for many thousands of years, and used it for their own systems of measurements, until some dull person started to count on his fingers and invented the decimal system in the process. A lot of what Conrad was doing was just setting things back to the old, sensible way of doing things.
"But enough of this. Supper is getting cold, and the girls tell me that they have something special planned for tonight's entertainment. Let's close it up!"
Weights and Measures
ARMY ARITHMETIC IS BASED ON A
DUODECIMAL SYSTEM,
I.E., BASE 12.
ALL ARMY WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
ARE BASE 12.
CONVENTIONAL UNITS ARE IN BASE 10.
TIME
ARMY UNITS
CONVENTIONAL UNITS
Day
Day
Hour
120 minutes
Dozminute
10 minutes
Minute
50 seconds
Twelminute
4.167 seconds
Dozsecond
0.347 seconds
Second
0.0289 seconds
Twelsecond
2.41 milliseconds
Notes
Local time starts at day break, zero being when the sun is a half circle on the horizon.
Navigation time is set with the third hour Minute 50 seconds happening at high noon at Three Walls.
If the clock below were set to navigational time, the time would be 6:23:33 a.m.
Army Clock
THE TIME IS: 0248
* * *
Weights and Measures
DISTANCE
ARMY UNIT
ENGLISH EQUIV — METRIC EQUIV.
Mile
Mile — 1.61 kilometers
Twelmile
440 ft. — 134.0 meters
Dozyard
36.7 ft. — 11.2 meters
Yard
36.7 in. — 931 meter
Twelyard
3.06 in. — 7.76 cm.
Dozmil
0.255 in. — 6.47 mm.
Mil
0.0212 in. — .539 mm.
Notes
Purely by accident, 1728 army yards is almost exactly equal to the English (or ancient Roman) mile.
When larger or meters smaller units than those listed were required, a series of prefixes was used identical to those of the metric system, except that kilo- meant 1728 rather than 1000, etc.
Weights and Measures
AREA
ARMY UNIT
ENGLISH EQUIV — METRIC EQUIV.
Sq. Mile
Sq. mile — 2.59 sq. km.
Sq. Twelmile
4.44 acres — 1.80 hectares
Sq. Dozyard
1344 sq. ft. — 124.9 sq. meters
Sq. Yard
9.34 sq. ft. .867 sq. — meters
Sq. Twelyard
9.34 sq. in. — 60.2 sq. cm.
Sq. Dozmil
.065 sq. in. — .418 sq. cm.
Sq. Mil
.0005 sq. in. — .290 sq.mm.
Notes
Rarely used.
Weights and Measures
WEIGHTS
ARMY UNIT
ENGLISH EQUIV — METRIC EQUIV.
Ton
1780.9 pounds — 807.8 kilograms
Twelton
148.4 pounds — 67.3 kilograms
Dozpound
12.37 pounds — 5.61 kilograms
Pound
1.031 pounds — 0.467 kilograms
Twelpound
1.37 ounces — 38.96 grams
Dozcarat
0.115 ounces — 3.25 grams
Carat
0.0095 ounces — 0.2705 grams
Notes
The "ton" is a cubic yard of cold (4°C.) water. It should be noted that these "weights" are units of mass (as in the metric system) and not units of force (as in the English system). It should also be noted that everyone except scientists and engineers uses units of force and mass interchangeably, and that even the above two groups confuse them more often than not.
Weights and Measures
VOLUMES
ARMY UNIT
ENGLISH EQUIV — METRIC EQUIV.
Volton
1.057 cu. yd. — .808 cu. meters
Twelvolton
17.78 gallons — 67.32 liters
Dozpint
1.48 gallons — 5.61 liters
Pint
0.988 pint — .467 liters
Twelpint
1.317 fl. Oz. — 38.96 cu. cm.
Dozdram
0.1098 fl. oz. — 3.25 cu. cm.
Dram
0.0091 fl. oz. — .271 cu. cm.
Weights and Measures
ANGULAR MEASUREMENT
ARMY UNIT
CONVENTIONAL UNIT
Angday
360°
Anghour
30°
Angdozmin
2.5°
Angmin
12.5 min.
Angtwelmin
1.04 min.
Notes
Angular measurements are based on the army-clock shown on the "time" chart. Angles are read clockwise from the horizontal as opposed to the conventional counterclockwise. In practice, the names of angular units are rarely used. An army engineer would read an angle of 45 degrees as "ang one six oh oh."
NAVIGATION
Army navigators state their longitude in accordance with the time of day (Three Walls time) that the sun is at high noon. The longitude of Three Walls is therefore 3000.
Latitude is also based on the army clock. The latitude of the equator is 6000. The south pole is at 3000; the north pole at 9000. The left side of the clock is not used.
South, of course, is at the top of an army map.
&n
bsp; Weights and Measures
TEMPERATURE
The army thermometer was an absolute scale, like the modern kelvin and rankine scales. Zero was at absolute zero, 459.67 degrees below zero fahrenheit. The melting point of water was set at 1000 (base 12, or 1728 base 10). Thus, the degree used was about a quarter of the size of the fahrenheit degree and a sixth that of the celsius degree. In practice, though, most people ignored the thousand numbers it took to get to the freezing point of water and would call a pleasant room temperature "eleventy one degrees."
Listed below are some commonly encountered temperatures for comparison.
ARMY
FAHRENHEIT — CELSIUS — NOTES
6753°
2795° — 1535° — Melting point of iron
196Ø°
425° — 218° — Baking point of pizza
1449°
212° — 100° — Boiling point of water
10Ø1°
70° — 21° — Pleasant room temperature
1000°
32° — 0° — Freezing point of water
24Δ°
-361° — -218° — Boiling point of oxygen
0°
-459.67° — -273.15° — Absolute zero
N.B. In the duodecimal numbers listed, Δ is used for ten and Ø is used for eleven.
Weights and Measures
ELECTRICAL UNITS
ARMY UNIT
CONVENTIONAL UNIT
Woman- power
147.9 watts or .198 hp
Defined as that power required to raise one pound one yard in one second, all in army units, of course. Used in rating motors, etc.
Conrad Starguard-The Radiant Warrior Page 76