“Now before we go on, let me make something clear. I know diddly about sailing. But I am a product of, and have been an instructor at, the only professional military school in Norau. And the basics are the same. You have to take kids who don’t know jack and who have never had to obey an order and teach them to obey first and ask questions later. You do that by stripping away everything that they knew of civilian life. At the same time you build a new structure around them, a structure of honor and discipline. You test them as hard as you possibly can so that when they’re out with the fleet and their ship gets dragoned or a kraken comes to visit they obey their orders instinctively.
“At the same time, you want to encourage initiative. It’s a fine line. Some of the kids, and you’ve all known them, come up with a wild idea that is just flat wrong. Some of them, on the other hand, do the right thing almost instinctively. One of the things we’re going to be looking for is kids to fast-track. So there will have to be honest individual evaluations that are as objective as possible.
“The bottom line is that when they go out to the fleet, they’re not going to have to be shown the simplest tasks; they’re already going to have learned those.
“Right now I’m looking at the following pattern. First week will be basic in-process and familiarization. Then four weeks of basic seamanship training and rigorous physical training. Then the last week they’ll sail with a skeleton crew of trained personnel and specialists. By then they need to have been taught all the basic skills of a seaman, how to climb ropes, how to tie knots, how to raise and lower sails, what have you.
“You are going to come up with the list,” he said, looking around the room. “We need a comprehensive training schedule by the end of the week. Everything that you have to teach the newcomers when they come onboard. After that they’ll go to an advanced training course for four to six weeks. Some of you will be assisting in setting that up as well.”
“Question?” one of the lieutenants said.
“Go.”
“You said ‘physical training,’ ” the lieutenant said uneasily. “I know something about the Blood Lords…”
“We’re not training Blood Lords,” Herzer said with a feral grin. “We’re training sailors. If we were training Blood Lords we’d be having ruck marches and ruck runs every day. Since we’re training sailors… One of the first tasks of the first class will be to raise ‘The Mast.’ And, yes, that’s capital letters. They’ll assemble and raise a complete mainmast from stores. Crosstrees, sails, rigging, the whole bit. Then each morning, they will run The Mast. I think that will do for physical exercise, don’t you?”
There were chuckles in the room and Herzer noticed that Brooks looked grim.
“And, yes, we’re going to have to go up it, too,” Herzer said. “At least to prove we can. The point here is to have every graduate of this training program know that, at bottom, they are a sailor. They’ll have at least a brief cruise and learn to handle seasickness and to work while they’re sick as a dog. They’ll act as deck apes for the cruise so that whatever they end up as, deck apes, cooks, clerks or the band, they’ll know the basics of being a sailor. The point here is to establish a unifying bond in the Navy.”
He looked around at the sea of faces and shook his head.
“Last point, and I wish I didn’t have cover it but I do. Units like this, since females were permitted in the force and probably before, have had a problem with sexual harassment. They have ranged the gamut from male on female to female on female. The problem is that the trainers will be in complete control of the trainees’ lives and that will make some of the trainers tend to… use that power. It will also cause some of the trainees to attempt to mitigate the power by using sex as a bribe.” He looked around again and saw the expressions of surprise and even contempt.
“Deal with it. Those are the facts of life. And don’t tell me that it hasn’t happened on shipboard, either. I’ve read the reports. The short and sweet is that if it happens under my watch, I will make whoever is the one in the position of power regret the day that they were born,” he continued, his scarred face hard and cold. “With power comes responsibility. I’ve had the displeasure of dealing with that sort of thing before and believe me, there is no justification for the empowered. None. Zero. Zip. Keep your dick in your pants. By the same token, an accusation is not proof. Investigations into accusations, though, are time consuming and leave nothing but shit in their wake. Bottom line: don’t put yourself into a position to be accused. If you’re counseling a person, make sure that there is a witness present. Ensign Van Krief and I will be writing that portion of the orders. That’s all I’ve got. Any questions, comments, concerns?”
“This isn’t going to help with the upcoming battle,” Chief Brooks said.
“No, but you’re assuming that we’re going to seize control of the sea-lanes in one battle,” Herzer said. “Let’s just say that Duke Edmund takes a longer view of things. Training is one of the fundamentals of any military force. The more you train, the less you bleed. So we are going to train them as hard as they can stand. Because when it comes to actually doing the job, it just gets harder.”
Chapter Twelve
“Good lord, I thought training was hard,” Tao said as Van Krief walked in the room. The ensign was just shrugging out of his undress uniform.
“I suppose I should have knocked,” Van Krief said, grinning.
“What? You have time to knock?” Tao said.
“I haven’t seen you in a week,” Van Krief said, stripping off her own tunic. “What have they got you doing?”
“Edmund set me loose on the marines,” Tao admitted. “We’ve been practicing boarding and repelling techniques. Herzer was right, they’re woefully undertrained. They march pretty, but they don’t have a frigging clue what to do with their pigstickers. What about you?”
“Pretty much the same, but training trainers.” Van Krief chuckled. “You should have seen their faces when I used the term ‘lesson plan.’ ‘Wass thet?’ ”
Tao belly laughed and nodded his head. “Training schedule? What’s a training schedule? Plan our training? You’re joking, right? They’ve got a manual of instruction, I’ll give them that. I finally convinced the company commanders to use Gunny’s technique.”
“Oooh, they must think you’re a right bastard,” Van Krief said, pulling on a fresh uniform.
“Training’s sergeant’s work,” Tao said, grinning evilly. “So each Friday we have a test. We tell them what the test will be. And we set aside sergeant’s time for them to train their troops.”
“Has it worked?” Van Krief asked.
“Getting there,” Tao admitted, finally dressed. “Last week was the first time we’d tried it. Only one squad took me seriously. They got released to go down to town; the rest of them kept testing and training and training and testing until nearly midnight. Better than a GI party, I tell ya. This week I notice they’re spending a lot more time training and less time sitting on their ass in the barracks. We’ll see on Friday.”
“Why are you getting all spiffy?” Van Krief asked.
“Oh, gotta look spiffy,” Tao said, blousing his boots and tugging them into position. “Part of the Blood Lord tradition. Bastards in combat and the best dressed troops around if they’re not actively training. I just got done proving to the whole NCO group of the marines that even together they couldn’t take me down. Now I’m going to look better than all of them for the rest of the day. Give ’em something to think about.”