The Thousand Names

by Django Wexler

  There wasn’t enough extra powder to practice loading, so the company was going through the steps in mime. Once the ramrods had rattled back into their rings, each man again brought his musket to the ready position, held at his side with the left hand curled around the butt. Some took longer than others. Winter, counting heartbeats, estimated it was half a minute or more before the whole company was ready. She clicked her tongue.

  “Level!” she shouted, walking aside to clear the theoretical line of fire. Every man raised his musket to his shoulder and pulled back the hammer. Here and there she heard a quiet curse as someone fumbled the maneuver or a musket barrel whacked against the side of a neighbor’s head. Only the front two ranks readied their weapons, while the third waited. The barrels protruded like bristles on a porcupine, all along the company line.

  Winter waited a few more heartbeats, then raised her voice again. “Fire!”

  Eighty fingers tightened on triggers. On each weapon, the lock slid open and the flint snapped down, raising sparks where it scraped against the steel. Without powder, there was no sound but the rapid series of clicks. Winter strode back in front of them.

  “Load!” And they began again.

  They’d been at it for an hour already. The march had ended at noon, and with Winter’s encouragement the Seventh Company had hurried through the business of setting up tents and making camp and then rushed out to the drill field well before Lieutenant d’Vries had arrived. They’d been the first ones there. Winter had gone over what she expected of them, some basics from the Manual of Arms and a few things that weren’t in the drillbook at all. If they were going to have to drill, it might as well be useful drill.

  Some of the men groaned when she’d explained her approach, but she saw relief on a great many faces. Bobby had said some of them hadn’t even made it to the depot before they’d been summoned up, and others had had only a few days or weeks of what was supposed to be a month and half of basic training. Even the grumblers had to admit it made a nice change from endless failures at esoteric skills like double-pace oblique marching.

  Midway through the loading, while they were fumbling with their rammers, Winter turned to face them and shouted, “Square!”

  This had been new to even those who had had their full time in depot, since the drillbook never mentioned company squares, but she’d coached them through it and they’d gotten the idea after a few repetitions. The whole company immediately broke off loading, and the edges of the line—ten files from either side—about-faced and stepped toward the rear. They filed in behind the first three ranks, so that the line had been halved in length and doubled in width.

  Once they were in place, each man drew his bayonet from its leather sheath. These blades, ten inches of wickedly pointed steel, locked onto a lug beside the barrel of the musket with a twist, converting the weapon into something approximating a spear. This done, the first rank knelt, and the second rank leveled their muskets over the heads of the first at an angle. The three files on the edges of the line turned through ninety degrees to face outward instead of forward and back.

  It was smartly done, at least this time. The result wasn’t a proper square—more of a rectangle, Winter noted pedantically—but it was easy to form, and the hedgehog of gleaming bayonets looked like a formidable obstacle. The third rank kept at their loading, awkwardly now as they tried to avoid cutting themselves on their own bayonets, and when they had finished they leveled their weapons. The hope was that the combination of fire and steel would prove an impregnable barrier to enemy cavalry.

  Winter let them hold it for a few moments, then called, “Re-form!” The square melted back into a line, with considerably more confusion and disorder than it had shown going the other way. She made a mental note to work through that a few more times.

  By now the drill field was filling up, and Winter’s men had gotten a few curious looks from other officers. She’d ignored them, reserving her attention for her men, but she’d positioned them so that she’d have a good view of the path back to camp. When she saw Lieutenant d’Vries approaching, with his powdered hair and his walking stick, she stopped and leaned close to Bobby.

  “Take them up to the end of the field and back, would you?” Winter said. “I’ll have a word with the lieutenant.”

  “Right,” the corporal said, practically glowing with the joy of responsibility. He stepped out of the ranks and gestured to the drummers, who had been squatting in the dirt, unneeded until now. “Company, guide center, ordinary pace, forward march!”

  The drums took up the funeral thump of the standard walking pace, and the Seventh Company set off in reasonably good order. Winter remained behind, waiting at attention for d’Vries. The young officer watched bemusedly as his soldiers marched away, then gave Winter his full attention.

  “What,” he said, “is going on here?”

  Winter saluted. “Remedial drill, sir!”

  D’Vries’ lips moved silently as he worked that out. “Remedial drill?”

  “Yessir.”

  “I received a report from Lieutenant Anders,” d’Vries said. “He was most displeased—”

  “Yessir!” Winter cut him off. “Disgraceful behavior, sir! I take full responsibility, sir!”

  “You’d damn well better,” the lieutenant said, rallying a little. “And now—”

  “The men were clearly in need of a little discipline, sir!”

  “Yes,” d’Vries said suspiciously. “Discipline is important. But my drills—”

  “They’re not worthy of your attention, sir!” Winter barked. “Bunch of shirkers, sir. But I’ll soon have them whipped into shape!”

  “Whipped into shape,” d’Vries repeated. He obviously liked the sound of that. He glanced up the field, where Bobby had just reversed the line and started marching it back toward them. “They certainly deserve a little whipping.”

  “As I said, sir, I take full responsibility. Discipline will be restored, sir!”

  There was a moment of silence. D’Vries ran his hand along his mustache a few times and decided that, on the balance, he approved.

  “Right,” he said, his voice regaining confidence. “Remedial drill. Well done, Sergeant. I expect to see good results.”

  “You’ll get them, sir!”

  “Keep them at it, keep them at it.” He knocked a dirt clod about with his walking stick. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

  “Sir! You may rely on me, sir!”

  “Indeed.”

  D’Vries turned away, looking a little lost but not altogether unhappy. Bobby arrived beside Winter, signaling the drummers to halt, and Winter favored the corporal with a smile.

  “You got rid of him?”

  “For the moment,” Winter said. “Nothing confuses an officer like violently agreeing with him.”

  She’d learned that from Davis, whose barked affirmations had brought more than one superior nearly to tears. The big sergeant had nearly always gotten his own way, orders or no orders. It pained Winter to think that she’d actually learned something useful from the man, but she supposed she was in no place to complain.

  She sighed. “At some point we’re going to have to practice the damned oblique marching. D’Vries will want to see that we can do it properly. We’ve probably got a few days’ grace, though, and I’d rather spend the time on something worthwhile.”

  Winter said this with more confidence than she actually felt. For all that she’d been with the Colonials for two years, she had never participated in an actual battle. Her combat experience was limited to marching, parading, and exchanging a few shots with bandits or raiders who invariably fled or surrendered rather than fight it out. For the most part, she was marching blind, but she didn’t dare let on to Bobby.

  “Yessir,” the corporal said. Then, a bit diffidently, “I wasn’t aware that forming company square was a standard evolution, sir.”

  “It’s not,” Winter said. Normally squares were formed by battalion, a thousand men at a time.
“But the old colonel once told me that as long as you’ve got four men left, you ought to be able to form square. Given what happened the other day, I thought we would practice it a bit.”

  “Fair enough, sir.” Bobby looked at the men behind her, who were taking advantage of the brief respite to drink from their canteens or fan themselves against the heat. “Shall we get them back to it, sir?”

  Winter nodded.

  • • •

  That evening, Bobby and Graff taught Winter to play cards. It was a traditional soldier’s entertainment, but due to her self-enforced isolation Winter had never learned. When she’d mentioned this, the others had responded with disbelief, and then nothing would do but that they get together a game immediately.

  Graff dragged the other two corporals and a couple of soldiers together, while dinner bubbled in the pots, and launched at once into an explanation so complicated that Winter didn’t understand more than one word in three. It didn’t help that Graff mixed his exposition of the rules with lengthy asides about strategy, or that the game he’d chosen apparently had more exceptions and special cases than army regulations did.

  “Right, so say he shows a three,” Graff said, oblivious to his audience’s puzzlement. “Or two threes, or two fours, but not two fives, because then he might be working on a turtle. Now you’ve got to either challenge, double, play, or pass. You’re not going to want to challenge, because even if you win all you get is his buy, and with threes against nines you’ve got no better than sixty-forty. If you double, then you both draw another card, and he’s hoping for at least a king so he can threaten an axe, while you want to see more like a six or seven, but not a five, because of the turtle. So say you do. You both throw in another buy—”

  He tossed a coin from his own pile into the pot, then took one from the small pile in front of Winter and did likewise. Winter caught Bobby’s eye across the circle. The boy shrugged and gave a wry smile.

  “Oh, ho!” said a booming voice from over her shoulder. “Gambling, is it? The Holy Karis isn’t going to like that, Saint. He’s not going to like that at all! See, I let you out of my sight for half a minute and you’re already sliding down the dark path.”

  Winter’s heart froze in her chest, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. The others around the circle were all looking at her, and she forced herself to turn and confront the shadow looming up behind her.

  “Sergeant Davis,” Winter said stiffly.

  The huge man laughed. “Good evening, Sergeant Ihernglass.”

  He rounded the little circle, dark eyes never leaving her face. Buck and Peg stood behind him, trailing the big sergeant like dogs. When he was across from her, he pushed his way forward and sat down cross-legged. The soldiers on either side spread out hurriedly to make room.

  “I just thought I’d come by,” he announced, “to see how our Saint is getting on. I’m sure he’s told you all about me. Good old Sergeant Davis, and all that. Taught him everything he knows.”

  “Welcome to the Seventh, Sergeant Davis!” Bobby said eagerly.

  Davis ignored him. “So how are you getting on, Saint?”

  The past week seemed to roll away. Davis, flanked by Buck and Peg with their nasty grins, filled the world. He had been a constant in her life for more than a year. Without him pushing down on her, the past few days, she’d felt safe enough to unfold a little. Now here he was again, to mash her flat.

  “Fine,” she muttered. “Good.”

  “You should have seen what he did yesterday!” Bobby burbled, oblivious to the tension. “Lieutenant d’Vries had told us—”

  “Oh, we’ve got all kinds of funny stories about our Saint,” Davis said softly. “Remember that time we all went to the inn, and we all clubbed together to buy him a whore?”

  “I remember,” Buck said. “God, that was a beautiful girl. Standing there wearing not a stitch when we opened the door to his room, and he looks at me, and I said, ‘Go on, friend, all for you!’”

  “Then he sends her away,” Peg said. “What a damned waste. And Buck says, ‘Bloody martyrs, Saint, have you even got a cock?’”

  Davis just smiled. Winter could well remember what had happened next. Buck, so drunk he could barely stand, had followed his words with a grab for her crotch, presumably to check. When she’d stepped out of the way, Peg had grabbed her from behind. In the ensuing scuffle, she’d kicked Buck in the face and bitten the back of Peg’s hand.

  The sergeant had administered “justice.” He couldn’t sanction fighting amongst the company, he said, and ruled that Winter had to stand and receive two blows for the ones that she’d given. In the interest of fairness, he himself would deliver them. The first punch, to her face, had nearly broken her nose; the second, in the gut, had left her curled and retching on the floor. The rest of them had looked on, laughing.

  Involuntarily, Winter’s hand went to her cheek, where the massive bruise had blossomed. Davis saw the movement, and his smile twitched wider.

  “D’you think, Sergeant, that we could have a word in private?” Davis said. “Man to man. For old times’ sake?”

  Winter, anxious to get away from the curious looks of her new company, nodded jerkily. The three Old Colonials rose. She led them back toward her tent, away from the pots and the fires, and into the narrow alley between two canvas walls.

  “Sergeant,” Davis said. “You, a sergeant. Fucking martyrs, this army is really gone to shit, isn’t it?”

  “I didn’t want it,” Winter said. “I told the captain—”

  “I thought I was sending you out for a suicide mission,” Davis interrupted, “and the captain makes you a sergeant. How the hell did you pull that one off?”

  “Prob’ly sucked his cock,” Peg said.

  “Saint does have a pretty little mouth,” Buck mused. “Practically like a girl’s.”

  “Was that it, Saint?” Davis said. “You engage in a little persuasion? Thought you could put one over on old Sergeant Davis? Hell, that’s not so bad, a little cock-sucking for a double promotion. Should have let him fuck your arse—then you might have made lieutenant, and I’d have to salute you. Wouldn’t that be a hell of a thing?”

  “What do you want?” Winter managed.

  “What do I want?” Davis echoed. “God, I’m not sure. I suppose I want an army where little pieces of shit like you aren’t promoted over the heads of better men, to where you can get people killed. But I’m not likely to get it, am I?” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “How about this? You go to the captain and tell him you’re done being a sergeant. It’s too much for you. You can’t handle it. Suck him off again if you have to. Then you can come on back to old Sergeant Davis. Won’t you like that?”

  “He wouldn’t let me.” Winter felt her hands curl into fists. “I tried to tell him no, but he wouldn’t—”

  “What, because you were too good to be a sergeant?” Davis leaned close to her, until she could smell the foul rotted-meat stink of his breath. “Fucking Saint. You’re just too good for this world, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe we ought to, you know, help him along,” Buck prompted.

  Davis smiled. Winter saw, suddenly, that he was going to hit her. She tensed, ready to dodge, but Buck and Peg were on either side of her, boxing her in.

  “Sergeant?”

  It was Bobby’s voice. Davis froze. Winter looked cautiously over her shoulder. The boy stood at the end of the little alley, framed by the firelight.

  “We’re still talking,” Davis rumbled. “Piss off.”

  “The thing is,” Bobby said, advancing, “we were in the middle of a game, and we can’t go on without the sergeant. So if you wouldn’t mind having your chat in the morning?”

  Buck stepped in front of Bobby. The Old Colonial had at least a foot and fifty pounds on the boy. He loomed.

  “Sarge said piss off,” he growled. “We’re busy.”

  “But—”

  Buck put one hand on each of Bobby’s shoulders, pressing hard. The bo
y’s legs buckled, and he fell involuntarily to his knees.

  “Listen, kid,” Buck said. “Just crawl back out of here, and you won’t get hurt.”

  Winter caught Bobby’s eye. Go! She tried to communicate the message, but apparently it didn’t get across. The boy smiled and flicked his eyes upward.

  “’Scuse me,” said a deep voice, behind Davis. Corporal Folsom stepped forward and smiled at Winter.

  Davis half turned, his face twisted in rage, and then paused as he reassessed the situation. He was a big man, used to commanding respect by physical presence alone, but Folsom was nearly as tall as he was. Moreover, Davis’ bulk was layered with fat, the product of years of soft living in Ashe-Katarion. The corporal had a laborer’s build, corded with muscle. There was something in his stance that spoke of a familiarity with violence—he stood on the balls of his feet, ready to move.

  Peg turned to face him, too, and there was a moment of dangerous silence. Winter wanted to scream, or run, or do something. She wanted Corporal Folsom to push Davis’ fat face through the back of his skull, but at the same time the thought terrified her. Standing up to Davis led to pain: that lesson had sunk into her very bones. Better to avoid notice. But there was no avoiding notice now.

  A clatter of boots behind Bobby broke the pause. Corporal Graff turned the corner, puffing a little, and behind him came a half dozen brawny soldiers. Davis reached a decision. He straightened up, and his face twisted into a parody of a smile.

  “My, you do take your games seriously,” he said, slapping Peg jovially on the shoulder. “Well, I suppose the sergeant and I had more or less finished our business.” He grinned down at Winter, eyes flashing murderous fire. “Now you take care, Saint. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, would we? Don’t go stepping on any scorpions.”

  “Stepping on a scorpion” was the standard cover story for any intra-regimental violence. When some poor bastard was so bruised and bleeding he couldn’t make roll call, his fellows would report that he’d stepped on a scorpion.