NaNoWriMo 2022
Lifeline
American Kingdom: Day 23.2
Previous scene:
The two sergeants were waiting for us in the classroom. Still five minutes to go. We selected seats near the front — the room could seat fifty, each with their own swing-up writing table — and waited.
“No Oscar and Annie,” Nathan said, winking at me. I rolled my eyes.
“I’m sure that they are just tidying up their rooms.”
“And folding the sheets,” Hazel added.
Humph.
Every eye was on the pair when they entered a minute later, and found chairs together.
“Glad you could join us,” growled Sergeant Hart. “Right, listen in. There’s only five of you so I’m not going to do any of that rollcall crap. It will help things go smoothly if you work together, make sure everybody’s here on time. If we have to, I’ll appoint a daily class leader who will hustle everybody up and make a nuisance of themselves, but I’m sure we can avoid that. You’re old enough to know how things work in the service. I’m an old softy but Sergeant Payne here can really live up to her name if she needs to.”
“Damn straight,” she said. “Payne by name, Pain by nature.”
“In a minute,” Hart said, “glancing at the wall clock. Sir Duane will be here to give you a rundown on how the rest of the course will work. I’ll call everybody to attention. You stand up and be nice and straight and tall according to whatever drill you were taught, and he’ll tell you to sit down. You will sit square and straight in your chairs, pay attention, stick your mitt in the air if you want to ask a question, and everything will go like clockwork. Is that clear?”
We nodded, murmured assent, smiled to show everything was crystal.
Hart sighed dramatically, thumped his fist down on the lectern, and snarled, “Is that clear?”
“Yes, Sergeant Hart!” we dutifully chorused.
“Damn straight.”
Sergeant Payne, standing by the door, opened it and stood stiff and tall.
“Attention!” rumbled Sergeant Hart, and we all jumped smartly to our feet as Sir Duane walked in. They exchanged salutes.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Duane said. “Please, everyone be seated.”
The two sergeants exchanged glances. Payne quietly left the room while Hart sat in a chair near the door.
Up to no good, I thought. Perhaps there will be some surprises coming up in this lecture. I remembered one class on dealing with insurgents where the instructor had randomly thrown flash charges and smoke grenades into the room to underline the message that we had to always be alert. Get one of those landing on your lap and you woke up in a hurry.
“Welcome to Entry Course Twenty-Two C. Five students, three instructors, and the occasional guest lecturer. We’ll be here for a maximum of four weeks but we may end early if circumstances permit.
“Sergeant Hart has a book that you are to fill in your name and sign. We’ll pretty it up with some photographs later. During classroom breaks you may care to look through it and see those who have preceded you here at Camp Whiffie. We have a couple of Princes amongst our graduates going back over the years and of course the current Regent sat where you are sitting back in 1995.
“Sergeant Hart has already stressed the importance of working together. If you have any administration matters, see one of the sergeants; they will be your immediate superiors for this course. Any medical issues, Recruit Damson” — he indicated Annie — “is in charge of the first aid room and is expected to be there daily between morning quiet and breakfast. If you want to be sick, you’ll have to be healthy enough to get out of bed and drag yourselves along to her for a bandaid and a magic capsule.”
He paused, looked through a folder and extracted a sheet, which he held out to Hart, who took it and pinned it on the noticeboard by the door.
“We’ll be taking the course one day at a time. The schedule for today and tomorrow will always be posted here and in the barracks. There will certainly be changes made, so keep up to date. We have a protocol lesson scheduled for the period immediately after lunch today, for example, but that may change depending on how the lecturer’s transport arrangements go; he has a fair way to travel. From Charleston, as it happens, Recruit Freytag.”
He paused, looked at his notes, looked at us.
“We’ll be spending the rest of the morning with a Chinese gentleman, who has some excellent advice to give us on resolving conflict so that the good guys — that’s us, in case anybody didn’t get the memo — come out on top. For now, though, I usually find that a new class has some questions, and we’ll spend about twenty minutes on those. Unless we’re all full bottle on how the Kingdom handles its recruits?”
I put my hand up.
“Recruit Freytag?”
“I’m told that this course has a competitive aspect to it. I’m wondering if we could get some information on that?”
“You’ll be assessed on any sessions with a practical aspect, such as the range scores yesterday. We have a navigation exercise scheduled for tomorrow afternoon after spending the morning brushing up on how to find your way with map and compass for when the satellites go down; anybody getting lost can expect a failing grade.
“In addition, each course always supplies one graduate for the Regent’s Palace. There’s a squad of military members on establishment there, handling security, counter-terrorism, intelligence and so on. This is a plum posting, good for career development. We have our own selection criteria for this position and I’m afraid that I can’t say too much about how we handle this aspect of the course.”
Oscar raised his hand.
“Yes?”
“Can you give us any information on career development? All of us are specialized in some way; I imagine that I won’t be posted to anything but legal duties.”
“As indicated,” Duane said, “the squad at the Palace requires ex-service personnel. All we ask there is the ability to fire weapons, work as directed, and follow certain standards of decorum. There are certain other positions in the Kingdom where general military skills are required — here at Camp Whiffie, for example — and you might be selected for one of these positions.
“If so, this would be a short-term assignment only, nothing longer than a year. Your legal experience pretty much demands that we don’t — well, I won’t use the word ‘waste’ — squander or downplay your expertise. Having said that, we find that our experts serve the Lord better when they have some knowledge of the big picture rather than a narrow focus on law, medicine, comms or whatever.”
Annie had been waving her hand for a while.
“Recruit Dansom?”
“I’ve already protested to you about the bear pit hazing ritual, and you’ve told me that it’s out of your hands. I’d like to speak to the Prince of Missouri about my concerns. Perhaps I could take a day off to visit him if he is too busy to come here?”
Sergeant Payne had slipped back into the room, nodding to Sergeant Hart as she did so. Duane glanced at her and she flashed him a hand signal of some sort - fastball, bunt to left field, I couldn’t tell — and nodded.
“The Prince will be here for the graduation ceremony, and I am told that will likely be sooner rather than later. We aren’t going to have another intake class until then anyway, so I think that if you save it up until then, I’ll make sure you have an opportunity for an audience.
“No more questions? Good. I’ll hand you back to Sergeant Hart who wants you to autograph his big black book.”
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