by Todd Shryock
“I hope not.”
“When the recruits arrive tomorrow, you will help me with drill,” he said flatly.
“Let us teach them the ways of our prince, and instruct them how to lick the boots of the French so that our blood wins their victories and our crown prince shares in the glory,” I said, anger welling up from within me.
“That’s enough,” he snapped. “There’s nothing we can do but make the best of things.”
I scowled but had nothing else to say. I was angry -- angry at Niklas, angry at the captain, angry at the battalion, at the men, at the peasants, at myself, at anyone who came within view. I just wanted to throttle them all.
“You need some sleep,” he muttered. “The battle has taken its toll on all of us.”
Sleep. Sleep was for people not in the army who had not seen the things I had seen. I remembered the dark solitude and rest that sleep used to bring. Last night, the ghost of a woman and baby kept asking me questions that I had no answers for. No, there would be no more sleep. I would stay as far away from that doorway to the underworld as I could.
“I’m not tired,” I replied.
“You look exhausted.”
“I am.”
His puzzled look created an unspoken question.
“Ghosts,” I said, poking at the fire with a small stick. “They come for me at night.”
He nodded knowingly. “They must come for you when they are done tormenting me. Fucking ghosts.”
I crossed my arms and moved closer to the fire. The evening was cooler than days past. “Hey, look,” I said with some surprise, examining my sleeve in the firelight. “There’s a hole in my sleeve the size of a musket ball.”
Niklas glanced over. “Lucky it didn’t hit your arm, or you would be permanently left-handed because your arm would be in a pile of limbs outside the surgeon's tent.”
I shuddered at the thought. I preferred to die outright than to be maimed, left to live out life as a beggar, unable to support myself.
I looked at the hole again, and noticed several other places where the sleeve was starting to deteriorate. “A few more holes like that and the entire coat will unravel,” I said.
“A few more days of rain will take care of that,” Niklas said, “No musket ball required.”
I put my finger through the hole but was unable to figure out where the ball had exited the sleeve.
Niklas retrieved our meager ration of coffee from the fire and poured us each a few sips into a small tin cup he had liberated from one of the kitchens in the village. “Here, drink up.”
There was hardly more than a couple mouthfuls, but it was the first coffee we had been allotted in some time. In less than a minute it was gone, but I savored the lingering taste in my mouth. Anything was better than the dirty stream water we normally drank.
“I need your help tomorrow,” Niklas said, tucking his empty cup back into his pack. “I cannot have a corporal who is sour and insubordinate, for the recruits will pick up on that. Do I have your word you will put on a good face for the new men?”
“Does that mean not telling the truth about what really goes on?” I asked.
“You know what it means,” he said. “I need your support to get them into shape, to understand what it takes to survive out here,” he hesitated, raising a finger in protest before I could say anything. “And I know what you are going to say -- that it didn’t work out so well for Simon and the others. But I’m seeing what Zorn was talking about. Discipline kept us together and kept us fighting and surviving. The men who weren’t disciplined were cut down by the cavalrymen, remember? We must teach them to work together and to understand the drill. We owe it to them to give them the chance to survive.”
I couldn’t argue with his point. Niklas had taken me in and showed me the right way to do things. Had he and the others kept me at arm’s length, I would not have survived my first encounter with the enemy.
“I will help you,” I said, not really liking the idea.
“And you will put on a good face?”
“I will put on the face of a tired soldier and teach them what I know.”
Niklas nodded. “That is all I can ask for.” He leaned back on his pack and closed his eyes. “Now let me go meet our ghosts soon so that they may move on to you and leave me in peace.”
***
I slept little, harassed by crowds of dead soldiers shouting for me to lead them, but I stood there, looking at their blank faces, unsure what to do.
I had a similar feeling when the recruits marched in and Niklas took them out to a field to drill them while we stayed in camp for a few days. Their uniforms were new and smart, but their faces were young and scared.
“How long have you been here?” one of the boys asked me.
“Shut up and get back in line,” I snapped. I resented all of them and didn’t care to be friends.
The youth moved back in line as Niklas inspected their uniforms and weapons, giving instructions to each one about what he was doing wrong.
“Six weeks of training and they don’t know how to hold a musket?” I wondered aloud.
Niklas shot me a look but said nothing.
After inspection, he began marching them up and down the field, his black cane in hand. I marched beside them, constantly telling them to dress their lines and to keep step. Niklas grew increasingly frustrated as most of them were getting worse, not better, and it was obvious some weren’t trying very hard, seeing the whole exercise as pointless.
Several boys near Niklas started lagging behind.
“Keep step!” he ordered.
“We’re tired. We want a drink,” one of them said.
Niklas stopped the column, his face growing angry. “Do you think the Austrians will stop during a battle to let you rest and get a drink?”
The boy shrugged, his innocent face not understanding the importance of the drill.
“Get back in line,” he shouted.
“We’re tired,” the boy said defiantly, his three mates standing near him for support.
I started toward the group, unsure what would happen next.
Niklas raised the black hickory walking stick up and slashed the boy on the side of the knee, dropping him to the ground. He screamed in pain, clutching his leg.
The cane came down across his chest and arms in a flurry. “When I tell you to do something, you do it!” he shouted between blows.
I reached the other three, their eyes wide in horror at the scene before them, and pushed them back. “Get into line, you!” I snapped, causing them to quickly take up position as Niklas beat the boy, who begged him to stop.
“Sergeant,” I said calmly, not wanting to show him up in front of the new men.
Niklas paused and looked at me with clenched teeth and a wild look in his eyes. The boy lie on the ground, curled up, sobbing in pain. Slowly, Niklas focused on me, straightened up and wiped the sweat from his brow. He looked up and down the column, the recruits quickly looking away when his eyes swept toward them.
“You,” he said, pointing to a random boy in the formation. “Take this laggard to the surgeon and tell him to be placed under guard until further notice.”
The boy rushed from the line and put the prone recruit’s arm around him, pulling him to his feet despite his cries of pain. I saw welts across his face and hands.
As the two shuffled away, Niklas addressed the troops. “Is there anyone else who would like to stop for a drink of water and a nap?” he yelled, daring anyone to defy him. A long pause ensued, then satisfied no one was going to speak up, he nodded. “Good. This is the light infantry. We are disciplined and stand when others run. We will not embarrass our commanding officer, the crown prince, with insolent behavior that leads to ill discipline on the field of battle.”
Niklas continued instilling the virtues of bravery in the recruits as I slowly walked down the column, reading their faces. Most were scared, but a few were angry, though they did their best to hide it when they saw me c
oming.
“Is he allowed to do that?” a boy whispered to me -- one I had not been looking at.
Taking a moment to locate him in the crowd, I stopped. He was one of the younger ones, probably fifteen or sixteen at most, his hat too big for his head, his eyes too big for his cherubic face. “What did you say?” I asked, knowing exactly what he had said.
“Can the sergeant do that?” he asked with wide-eyed wonder.
“Discipline a malcontent? Indeed.”
The boy leaned out to see down the column to catch a glimpse of Niklas, who was still talking, then leaned back. His hands began to tremble. “I don’t wish to be beaten.”
“Then do what you are told and don’t question your orders,” I said, trying to sound intimidating. “Doing so here gets you whipped. Doing so against the whitecoats gets you killed.”
I turned and slowly walked on, not wanting to continue my charade any longer. Who was I fooling? I wasn’t much older than the boy and didn’t agree with Niklas acting like Zorn any more than the recruit did. But I told Niklas I would put on a good face, so put it on I did. The sergeant finished his rousing speech and set the troops back in motion across the dusty field, this time with a little more effort. Apparently beating someone senseless got people’s attention. The recruits did well with keeping step, but struggled wheeling to either side when in line, nearly folding in half as men were unsure how quickly to march or which way to look.
We worked on that for an hour, with one end of the line anchored on a small, thorny bush while the rest of the line pivoted around it like the blade on a giant windmill. It wasn’t pretty, but it eventually looked good enough that Niklas decided to move on.
“Square!” he yelled, ordering them to form square as if cavalry were on the attack.
Some men appeared to know what they were doing and immediately began marching off, others thought they knew what to do but were wrong and the rest just stood there watching the spectacle. The line broke into multiple pieces, with some lancing through the others and fragments marching off on their own, forming a half-dozen subunits with no connection to the rest of them.
“What is going on?” Niklas asked me in disbelief as the men scrambled about like ants on a fresh picnic.
“Halt!” I screamed, “Halt!” trying to stop the chaos from getting any worse.
Niklas shook his head and pointed at a piece of ground near him. “Form here,” he said half-heartedly, disgusted by the whole showing. “Form here, form line.”
Men began to break from their subunits to reform on the men who formed a short line near their sergeant.
With much pushing and shoving -- and Niklas raising his cane in a threatening manner a few times -- we managed to get our training group reformed into a three-rank line. He stood in front of them, taking a moment to gather his thoughts as I waited patiently slightly behind him.
“I don’t know what you did during your training, but it was not enough,” Niklas said, most of the anger in his voice replaced with disappointment. “If the whitecoat cavalry charges you, the only way to prevent yourself from being cut down is to quickly form a square, presenting an unbroken hedgerow of bayonets. One small opening is all a horseman needs to get inside the square and start hacking all of your brothers to pieces. What you learn here is vital to the survival of not only yourself, but your battalion.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “Tomorrow, we will work on drill again. And the next day. .And the next.” He planted his cane in the ground, resting his right hand on it like an emperor. “We will work on drill until you have pounded this field to nothing but dust.”
A slight groan came from the men.
“Dismissed!”
The men broke ranks and began heading back to camp, some dragging their muskets behind them.
“Pick those guns up off the ground, by god!” I yelled, resulting in the offenders quickly yanking their weapons from the dirt.
Niklas stood beside me as we watched the last of the men file off to camp, where they would get little respite as they were put to work bringing in wood, going to picket duty or unloading supplies. “You are sounding more like a corporal,” he said, nudging me in the arm.
I didn’t particularly want to sound like a corporal, but I also didn’t want to be risking my life beside men whose muskets were fouled with dirt and wouldn’t fire. “I’m not sure some of these men had any training,” I said.
“The deeper into this war we get, the less time for training there will be,” he said as we started our own slow walk back to camp.
“What chance will the men have with little training?”
“The whitecoats will do the same as us, rushing boys into the army and through training, hurrying them to the main army,” he replied, using his cane as a walking stick. “Soon, it will not be the clash of professional armies, but mobs of untrained lads running about shooting at each other.”
We paused as a troop of our cavalry cantered by, their imposing helmets replaced with soft fatigue caps, their horses loaded with sacks of grain and large bundles of hay that stuck impossibly far out from their saddles.
“Based on what I’ve seen of battle, a bunch of lads running about shooting at each other is what a professional army looks like,” I said.
“Well then, I guess our new lads don’t have as much to learn as I thought.”
I laughed, but his face remained emotionless. Whatever thought was in his head, he kept it to himself.
Another horse approached, but this time it was the captain. We saluted as he reined his horse to a stop.
“Sergeant, are the new recruits ready for action?” he said hopefully.
“Uh, sorry captain, but apparently the men haven’t been trained as thoroughly as past groups. They still struggle with basic movements and I haven’t even gotten to musket training yet.”
“Mmm,” the captain said, looking past us. “I’m sure they will do fine under your guidance. Your company suffered the most, so we’ll bring you up to strength first and fill out the other companies with what’s left. Have them up and ready to march by 4 a.m.”
“Sir?”
The captain’s eyes moved to Niklas, a flash of anger crossing his face. “You heard me sergeant. Ready to march at 4 a.m.”
“For training?”
The captain chuckled. “The war is not going to wait for us to finish our work here. We have been ordered south and should be prepared to fight whitecoats moving up to threaten the lines of communication of the main army.”
“Yes, sir,” was all Niklas could manage.
“And sergeant? I’m holding you personally responsible for the conduct of those new men. I gave you those stripes, but if you let me down, I can just as easily take them away.”
Niklas started to acknowledge the challenge, but the captain snapped the reins and trotted off.
When he was sure he was out of earshot, Niklas said, “What an arrogant ass. We are little more than the dirt on the bottom of his boot.”
While we were marching in the dust in ragged uniforms on empty stomachs, they were riding on horses worrying about what kind of wine would be available for their dinner. “We are the dirt on their boots and the blood in their fields. Who will get the accolades for the victory? The captain, the general, the crown prince.”
“Anyone but us,” Niklas said with some disgust.
“When this war is over, men like him will attend balls and impress the ladies with tales of bravery.” He nodded to the picket guarding the camp as we headed past grumbling recruits. “There will be no such honor for us.”
“I’d be happy with a lady to talk to,” I said with a chuckle.
He snorted. “Wouldn’t we all.”
When we reached our campsite, several men -- veterans -- were waiting to address Niklas. They nodded with respect to me as we approached the small fire they had started for us. “Sergeant, a word please?” a man, whose name I did not remember, asked. He had been with the unit for longer than Niklas, and his coat was practicall
y just shreds of cloth united at the neck and sleeves.
“Werner,” Niklas said with some happiness. “I thought the whitecoats bagged you in the last battle.”
The man laughed. “No such luck. Just temporarily separated. Ended up fighting with a line unit.”
Niklas made a sour face. “So sorry to hear that. It must have been awful.”
He shrugged. “Not too bad. They are quite good at absorbing musketballs for me.”
The other men laughed. “Poor bastards.”
The joy died away as the man took a more serious tone. “Niklas, er, sergeant, is there anything to be done about our uniforms?” he asked, holding up his sleeve to show the large holes and rips in it. As Niklas looked at the others, they, too, held out bits of their coats that were equally as bad.
The sergeant frowned. “I know, lads,” he said. “New coats have been a long time coming.”
“I prefer not to fight naked,” he said. “And the officers appear to have plenty of fresh cloth.”
“They pay for it with their own money,” Niklas pointed out.
“If we would get the pay we are owed, perhaps we could procure our own cloth,” Werner said.
The sergeant frowned and kicked at the fire. “I have heard nothing of pay or new uniforms,” he said. “I can ask again.”
Werner wrung his hands, and acted as if he had more to say, but then stopped himself. “Of course, sergeant. Of course, please do what you can.” He motioned for the other men to follow, though they did little to hide their disappointment from Niklas, who looked at me when they were gone.
“What am I to do, Henri?” he said quietly, his tired eyes looking to me for answers. “The recruits we have don’t want to learn and the veterans are being ignored for basic wants.”
I had no more answers than he did. “We will do what has gotten us this far -- persist.”
He continued to stare at me, his shoulders slumped, his face looking far older than it did just a few months ago. We were all rapidly aging. “Persist?” saying it as if he didn’t know the meaning of the word. “You mean keep doing the same thing? Keep trying to beat the recruits into line? Keep making requests for uniforms and equipment that if the French don’t get first, our officers steal to sell?”
