Supply and reinforcement trains were mostly commanded by a sergeant, an ensign, a lieutenant, perhaps larger or more important ones by as much as a captain, but Colonel Potter was a colonel and a regimental commander, as well as a blood relation of the earl. The soldier gossip was that his present assignment was a form of punishment for some misdeed or other. Erica could well believe that rumor, for from her first meeting with the pompous, bandy-legged little officer, she had found him possessed of all the charm and human warmth of a bull alligator combined with the patience of a rattlesnake with a toothache.
This dusk, she found him dining with the only other two officers in this column, a junior surgeon—his rank roughly the equivalent of a captain—from the glen reserves, and the boy ensign “commanding” the three hundred reserve pikemen being marched up to fill out the ranks.
An orderly at first halted Erica, but a snarled word and a wave of one of Potter’s greasy hands saw her passed to stop before his improvised dining table. There was a wicker-covered demijohn beside the colonel’s stool, and his ill-coordinated movements and slightly slurred speech told the woman what that demijohn likely contained.
“Well,” he smiled coldly, “gentlemen, we are honored with a visit from our female-sawbones prisoner, with her overbig mouth and her loose, flapping tongue.”
Then, to Erica, “What sort of outrageous demands and stipulations did you come to present me this time, woman? Chilled wine and rare roast beef, is it? Or perhaps feather beds for you and your unsavory crew for the night?” He laughed humorlessly, but Erica noticed that neither of the other two officers joined him—the teenaged ensign industriously applied all of his efforts and attention to his dish of boiled pork and potatoes, while the surgeon fiddled with his cup and looked embarrassed.
“No, colonel, the rations are adequate of quality and ample of quantity,” Erica answered quietly and seriously. “But I must inform you, I fear, that none of my men will be capable of marching for at least a week. So badly are their feet injured that they will certainly be too swollen in the morning for them to get into their boots.”
“Oh, really? How truly dreadful,” said Potter mockingly.
Realizing in advance that appeal to this sarcastic little man was pointless, Erica still felt that she must go on the record with her objections. She had told it all to Potter, alone, earlier in the past day, but now these other officers could bear witness.
“Yes, colonel, as I mentioned this midday, the boots of my men were fashioned for riding, not for extensive walking. Moreover, they are unaccustomed to marching, having spent most of their lives in a saddle. Besides, Brigadier Maklarin’s message said that we were to be ‘conveyed’ to him, as I recall.”
His narrow, pockmarked face twisted in anger, a feral gleam in his beady eyes, the colonel leaned across the table, heedless of the cup he overturned. “Can’t march, hey? Can’t get their poxy boots on, you say? Well, by God they can march without boots, barefoot, damn them! And any one of them not on his feet when I pass through in the morning will never need to worry about marching or anything else again, not in this life! D’you get my meaning, you insufferable sow? Conveyed, indeed! It’s more than enough that a wain had to be put to carrying your ratty gear and a tent. I’m damned if I’ll waste more wheeled transport on so scurvy a lot as yours!
“Now, get out of my sight and leave us to eat our dinner in peace. Female or no female, if you intrude on me again, come to me without my summons, I’ll have you stripped and well striped, woman!”
Much later, well after darkness had closed about the camp, the junior surgeon appeared with two other Skohshuns outside the tent into which Erica and all the rest were crowded. One of the Skohshuns bore a lantern, and by its dim and flaring light the young man cursorily examined the feet of the Ganiks. In his wake came the third Skohshun, bearing a wooden tub from which he scooped large handsful of some strong-smelling, greasy unguent with which he liberally coated the Ganiks’ feet. Then the surgeon took the lantern while the first man swathed each foot carefully in a square of clean linen cloth.
Beckoning Erica outside, the surgeon said, “Doctor, back in the glen, I never had the time to come and meet you, but I have heard much good of you, of the unsolicited medical work you did for our people, the new and most successful techniques you introduced. For this, if for no other reason, I deeply regret the shabby way in which Colonel Potter is misusing you and your followers. But, alas, nothing that I can say will in any way sway the man, now. When once we reach the siege camp, well, that will be another pot of beans.
“He ...” The Skohshun surgeon looked about before going on in a lower-pitched, conspiratorial voice. “Three large wagons and one wain were assigned to transport all you prisoners and your effects, as well as supplies for you for the trip, to include two tents of this size and a smaller one for you alone. I know this order for fact because my own orders followed on that same sheet, all signed by the brigadier’s adjutant.
“Now the proper numbers of vehicles are in this column, so I can but assume that the colonel found some other loads to fill those wagonbeds that were to convey you and the men. Whatever those loads, they’re obviously something he’s damned edgy over. Hell, maybe it’s all whiskey, for the man’s been drinking steadily all the day long, and he’s still at it this night.
“But drunk or sober, Potter is no whit less dangerous, doctor. Those pikemen and that child officer will obey him blindly, will maim or kill all of you, if he says the word. That’s the inbred discipline of our people and our army, for he’s a colonel and his mother was a Devernee. So please do nothing to provoke Colonel Potter, I beseech you.
“I agree with you, with your prognosis. Those men will not be able to don their boots tomorrow. My assistants have gone back to the main camp, and when they return they will have a quantity of rawhides and leather lacings with which to fashion rough brogans for your followers. Tomorrow night, I’ll have them bring enough woolen foot wrappings for all of your men. Their boots can be carried in the wain. But they must march, doctor, one way or the other, for now that that evil little man has publicly stated the intention, he will kill or have others kill every one of your men who is not on his feet on the road at dawn.
“But he will suffer soon enough for these misdeeds, doctor. You have the sworn word of a Devernee on that.”
Then he disappeared into the surrounding darkness.
Jay Corbett found the Dr. Harry Braun who was coptered up to join him with the special weapons and his replacement military commander, Colonel MacBride, a Broomtown man of late middle age, a far cry from the arrogant elitist he once had been. The body was different, naturally, but Corbett and all the other original Center people had long since grown accustomed to seeing their colleagues in new bodies. Under the best of circumstances, they had to transfer into new, young bodies on an average of every twenty-five years.
No, it was not the new body; Braun’s entire bearing and personality seemed to have altered quite perceptibly. For all of the muscular grace, the youth and radiant health of that handsome new body, Braun’s eyes seemed to hold fear, terror, really, and the memory of long-drawn-out agony. His arrogance was become courtesy to the point of diffidence, and this courtesy seemed to extend to everyone, even the Broomtown men and old Johnny, whom he formerly had patronized in even his best moods.