NaNoWriMo 2022

Close call

American Kingdom Day 24

Previous scene:

Sergeant Hart’s big black book was an antique, dating back to the Eighties. And it was marked “Volume III” on the front. Inside, each page documented an Entry course at Camp Whiffie. Course 05E, for example, had seven students.

“Hey, I know that guy,” I said, looking at a photo of a younger Brian standing outside the barracks. Big bushy moustache and more hair, but the same man who had married Lady Marion and been helpful in an hour of need.

“You can rubberneck later,” Hart said, turning to a page near the back of the book, where our course number — 22C — headed the page. “Stick your name and other details here and be part of history. You first.” He pointed at Oscar.

Evidently, we were entering history’s page in order of seniority, which put me, less than 48 hours since making my pledge, last on the page.

Name, place and date of birth, service and rank, and finally a signature.

“We’ll take photographs after lunch,” Hart said, “Assuming I can find the camera.”

“Just use your phone,” I said. “Nowadays phone cameras are pretty good.”

“We’ll see. This book lives in the bookshelf here. Our reference collection, which you are highly encouraged to read, so long as they don’t leave the room.”

Books on philosophy, history, theology. Pretty dry reading, I thought. Oscar was already thumbing through one, an expression of keen interest lighting up his face.

I found one that looked interesting. The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Just how relevant to modern conflict were armies mounted in chariots, fighting with bows and arrows, I wondered.

I guessed that we were about to find out. Payne and Hart ceased their chat, stood to attention, and indicated that we should take our seats directly.

We went through the same routine of Sir Duane taking over the class, asking us to be seated and commencing a PowerPoint presentation on, wait for it, The Art of War.

First, he gave us some background. The book had been composed in China around five hundred years before Christ during a period of ongoing warfare. Ever since, it had been recognized as a classic instruction manual on how to conduct warfare, not from the perspective of counting men and guns and horses and arranging them in battle array, but from aiming to win in ways that didn’t involve fighting.

If fighting was required, it should be swift and decisive, forces deployed with care and thought and knowledge so as to be most effective.

Using spies to gain knowledge of the enemy, avoiding conflict where the result would be defeat, and seeking it where the result would be victory.

“This may all sound confusing, especially to we who have been part of the greatest military force on the face of the planet, but this is a book that has stood the test of time. I won’t say that it is your new Bible, but it is a text that you should study and work to understand. The student who comprehends these lessons will find themselves successful in all they do, the student who dismisses it as ancient claptrap will fail every time.”

We looked at the slides of small forces sidestepping larger ones, sagacious generals using binoculars to observe the unwary enemy, spies sent behind enemy lines to report on the opposition…

Suddenly I knew what this was all about. I stuck my hand up.

“Recruit Freytag?”

“Not a question so much as an observation. This Sun Tzu fellow was writing a manual on Special Operations. This is the sort of warfare we train for. And the SEALs too.” I nodded at Nathan beside me. “We say that God isn’t on the side of the big battalions, he’s on the side of the cunning fighter and the thinking leader.”

“It’s like fighting a boxer outside your weight class,” Nathan added. “You don’t attack him directly because you’ll never win that way; he has the advantage. You let him wear himself out while you dodge his punches and when he’s run out of steam, you trip him up and kick him below the belt.”

“Exactly right, you two,” Sir Duane said. “you don’t play by the rules. You play to win. The Army of the Lord doesn’t have armored divisions and aircraft carriers, but we have ways to win despite that.

“If and when you make progress within the Kingdom you will see Sun Tzu everywhere. The things we do are not just random actions on an ideological agenda. Our leaders are not necessarily those who were born in the right place and time, or have friends in high places.

“Our best leaders have two characteristics in common. They are creative, clever, unorthodox. They are lucky — because they make their own luck by applying the lessons taught in this book — and they keep their eyes open, swimming with the flow, in harmony with their time, place, and people. And — question for the class here — what is their other characteristic?

“Graduate of Camp Whiffie,” Nathan declared.

“Good answer, and I like it, but no.”

“Blind obedience,” said Oscar.

“Is that how you got to be a colonel in the Legal Corps?”

“It’s part of it. I did what I was told, and if I thought that it was a mistake I had to have very good reasons to say or do otherwise. Perhaps a better description would be to say ‘unwavering loyalty’.”

“Close, but no carrot,” Duane said. “Anyone else?”

Suddenly I knew but Hazel beat me.

“Unshakeable faith in the Lord,” she said.

“Bing-bing-bing! Correct! Our best leaders keep their eye on the ultimate aim. They never forget that they are not working for themselves but for our King in Heaven. They are the People of the Books: this one and the Bible.”

“Does this mean,” Annie said slowly, “that we can go against what is said in the Bible? If we have very good reasons to say or do otherwise, I mean.”

“I won’t say that you can throw the whole book away,” Duane said. “But it isn’t a legal text. For example, the Bible tells us several times that we are not to kill, but as members of the armed services we would have been required to do so from time to time. To protect those in our care from enemies who would do them harm, for example. To remove a major threat to our activities; a sentry who might give warning of our attack, say.”

“Or we could lie and cheat to deceive the enemy,” Nathan said. “Sun Tzu puts a high value on falsehoods.”

“Absolutely correct. If we deceive an enemy leader into sending their forces elsewhere, then there may be no need to attack them, possibly taking lives and causing great harm.

“An example. General Patton did not lead troops in the actual D-Day invasion in the Second World War but he played a vital part by pretending that he controlled vast forces deployed against the narrowest part of the English Channel. He had inflatable tanks that looked like the real thing from a German reconnaissance plane. He had radio operators who sent messages of the right type and amount to make it seem like there was a whole army just waiting to attack. Hitler was fooled and even after the real invasion was launched in Normandy, he kept his best forces out of the battle there because he was convinced that Patton’s phantom army was ready to invade and that that was the real threat.

“A month after D-Day, some high-ranking German officers made an assassination attempt on Hitler because they were convinced that he was incompetent and that Germany should seek to end the war. Imagine how many lives could have been saved and how much destruction could have been avoided if they had succeeded.”

“So we kill to save lives, and we lie to protect the truth?” I said.

“Exactly right.”

Next chapter:

The whole story:

Notes

What a total stinker of a day!

I woke up with my second cold in two weeks attaining new heights of awfulness and my eye glued shut with conjunctivitis. Instead of having a solid day of writing, I had to go seek medical treatment and spend six hours waiting around while my phone and tablet gradually ran down. Not to mention my interest in actually writing anything.

Expensive, too.

So I’m calling it a day. Tomorrow will have to be the day I fight through the medication and pump out three or four thousand words. Luckily I’ve set myself up here. I know what’s coming, more or less.

This is a crucial part of the story. Right here we have the ideological framework of an organisation that breaks every Commandment in pursuit of a greater good. Or a greater God.

Molly