“Assign two-hour fire-guards among yourselves,” Jones said, sticking a torch up outside the barracks. “The fire-guard will ensure that there is always a fresh torch and that said torch does not catch the barracks on fire.” He held up an hourglass that was passed to him by Corporal Wilson. “This is a thirty-minute hourglass. The fire-guard will turn it each time the sand runs out. Four turns and you’re done. Twelve turns to first call. One turn after first call to inspection. Good night, yardbirds.” With that he was gone.
“Holy LU!” Cruz said. “What the fisk have I gotten myself into?”
“A world of hurt,” Herzer said. “Now whose got that damn needle and thread? We’ve still got work to do.”
“What the fisk do you mean?” one of the faces in the dimness said. “Fisk that. I’m getting some sleep.”
There was an unhappy mutter at that and Herzer glared around angrily.
“You want to be running around singing about your shitty-ass uniform?” he asked. “There’s more than that. We’re getting up one turn before first call and getting the barracks straight. When they come through the door everything is going to be shipshape, understand.”
“Fisk you,” one of the recruits said, turning around. “Who made you God?”
Herzer grabbed him by the back of the collar and tossed him more-or-less effortlessly against the nearest wall. “Sergeant Jeffcoat did. And I’m not going to get my ass reamed because your shit isn’t squared away.”
He glared around at the group as Cruz closed up on his left side. “Are there any more questions?”
“Yeah, who’s got first guard?” one of the group said.
“What’s your name?” he asked the recruit who was slowly getting up off the floor.
“Bryan,” the guy said, shaking his head muzzily.
“You’ve got first watch, but none of us are going to sleep any time soon. Watch the hourglass and turn it when the sand runs out.”
In the next hour he detailed the fire-guards, got the uniforms resewn, hopefully to the sergeant’s satisfaction, and got the triari laid out in lines on the floor instead of scattered everywhere. He wasn’t sure about going to sleep himself; some of the troops were looking at him pretty blackly. But he figured he had to sleep some time.
“Remember, thirty minutes before first call,” he said to the troop that was supposed to be the last fire-guard.
“Got it,” the recruit said sleepily.
He shook his head and looked around. Most of the triari was already asleep but Stahl was nodding as well, seated on the floor by the door where he could keep an eye on the torch.
“Stand up,” he said.
“Why?” the recruit said, but struggled to his feet anyway.
“You’ll fall asleep. Pass it on to the fire-guard; I want to be awakened by each change of watch. If any of you fall asleep or sit down on watch I’ll give you a pasting that makes getting thrown against the wall look like a love-tap.”
“Think you’re a big guy,” Bryan muttered, but he leaned up against the wall as if he intended to stay that way.
“Damn straight, and a light sleeper,” Herzer muttered and headed to his bundle on the floor. All there was was a blanket but he’d slept with worse and he was asleep practically before he lay down.
He vaguely remembered the rest of the night, as the fire-guards woke him in turn. And it was way too early when the last shook his shoulder.
“One turn to first call,” the guard said. “A little before, really. The guard before me told me he missed by a few minutes.”
“Another great day in the legions,” Herzer muttered, standing up. “On your feet!”
The triari got moving around, straightening out their gear and putting away their blankets. Some of them started to put on their uniforms but he waved that away and had them straighten out their footlockers instead. By the time the fire-guard waved that the sergeants were coming the room was as straightened up as he could make it.
“Attention!” the fire-guard called and the triari stood at attention by their footlockers.
The first sergeant through the door was Jeffcoat, carrying a lantern. He looked around the room and grunted in dissatisfaction, walking down the lines of recruits, opening a footlocker here and there until he got to Herzer. He frowned at the recruit and then yelled, “Get your uniforms on and fall out you yardbirds.” As Herzer bent to his footlocker he grabbed his arm. “Not you.”
He led the recruit outside and pushed him up against the wall. “How long have you been up?”
“Sergeant, I had them get up thirty minutes before first call, Sergeant,” Herzer admitted.
The sergeant stared at him in the light of the lantern, then shook his head. “Where’d you run across that trick?”
“I’ve read some books,” Herzer said.
“You planning on doing this every morning?”
“As long as I’m the recruit triari,” Herzer said then shrugged. “Or until somebody shoves a knife in my ribs.”
The sergeant stared at him for a moment longer, then nodded. “Go get your shitty uniform on, Herzer.”
The morning inspection was anything but a success, but Herzer could tell that it would have gone far worse if they’d waited until the “official” time to get ready. As soon as they had reassembled their gear the sergeants took them on a morning run that had half the unit falling out and the rest gasping for air by the time they got back. They were given thirty minutes to take a “bath” in rain barrels then had a fast breakfast. As they were coming out and getting in formation Herzer tapped Cruz on the arm.
“So, would you rather be here, or back in the apprentice program?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Cruz said then chuckled. “At least we’re not cutting trees.”
When they were in formation, Jeffcoat looked them over and shook his head.
“You are, without a doubt, the sorriest group of individuals I’ve ever seen. But we will make men of you, oh, yes, we will. And the first thing you have to learn is what it means to be a soldier. Everyone thinks that it’s all swinging a sword, but that is the last thing you learn. The first thing you learn is all the stuff that comes before swinging the sword. Now, who knows how to use a crosscut saw?”
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.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
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.”