Still more sat in the quartermaster shop, unneeded as of yet; more Lewis guns, extra 37mm jobs, a couple of the extra heavy machine guns, plus four sniper rifles the Huns had also been willing to pass over.
“Ammunition for all this?” Kostyshakov asked Romeyko.
“It’s not infinite,” Romeyko replied, “but it’s surprisingly generous. The Huns may not be able to produce enough food, but they seem to be able to produce more than enough ammunition.
“Of course, since what they’re giving us was mostly captured from us in the first place—well, us, the British, and the French—‘generosity’ may not be the precise word.”
“What have we got?” Kostyshakov asked. “Roughly, I mean; I don’t need to know down to the round.”
Romeyko pointed to a large angular, tarp-covered pile outside the camp, saying, “About a million, three hundred thousand rounds of our own rifle and machine gun ammunition. More should be coming. There’s also four thousand rounds of the German stuff, for the sniper rifles they gave me.”
“How many of those?”
“Four, but I figured we’ll wear out two in training and want to take two with us.”
“Okay,” Daniil agreed. “Go on.”
“We’ve got a bit over eleven hundred rounds of the 37mm. I could have gotten more but some looked a little iffy… well, no, worse than a little iffy. Again, I’d say ‘generous’ except that it’s captured French stuff and not compatible with their own 37mm infantry guns.”
“Horses and mules?” Daniil asked.
“‘Tomorrow,’ the Huns say, but I am cautioned not to expect too much.”
“How about grenades?”
“Hand grenades? Just over twenty-one hundred of theirs and a like number of our own. There’s also a drum of the photographer’s flash powder you wanted. That’s got to be enough, based on comparative sizes, for a few hundred grenades, at least.”
“Shotguns?” Daniil asked.
“Two, no spares, few hundred rounds of birdshot. Apparently, the Huns don’t issue them to their army, nor generally capture any. The two I was able to get were taken from civilians in the occupied zones.”
“The machine pistols?”
“Not yet,” Romeyko said. “My German counterpart has a request in, but it hasn’t been filled.”
“We really need those,” Kostyshakov said. “I don’t even want to think about trying this with just rifles.”
“Well, we’ve got the pistols,” the quartermaster pointed out.
“Think you can get another few hundred thousand rounds of the Amerikanski ammunition to practice with?”
Romeyko shook his head, doubtfully. “Maybe, but they probably wouldn’t have let me have the pistols at all if they’d had enough ammunition to justify issuing them to their own.”
“Nag about those machine pistols, then; we have to have them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How about the dynamo lights?”
“Those, at least,” Romeyko said, “the Germans have come through with.”
“How many?”
“Sixty-two, but three of them don’t work. And we don’t have anyone with a clue to how to fix them.”
“Have we asked…”
“Yes, sir; the Huns don’t know either.”
Something about the two rows of nine Lewis guns each bothered Kostyshakov, but he couldn’t put his finger on just what it was. He stared at them a long time, thinking hard. It mattered. He knew it mattered but…
“Crap,” he said aloud. Then he told Romeyko, “We’re going to be pulling the Fourth Company’s personnel out of Second and Third. That means one of two things, either Second and Third will get shorted one of their Lewis guns, or Fourth Company will have to train people—and it won’t have the time for this, starting so late—on light machine guns they know little or nothing about.”
“Put out two more, one for each rifle company?” Romeyko asked.
“Yes, and quickly.”
Mokrenko, Kaledin, and Panfil signed for and took their mess kits, mugs, and eating utensils from Romeyko’s clerk, opened the mess kits and examined them, then dipped them in the hot water by their wire bales. They swished their utensils around in the water, poured the water out into the kettle, then got in line under the overhang. Ahead of them the canvas “door” barely ever closed, and never fully.
The mess line ran almost the full length of the kitchen, with only a two-foot gap to allow passage between the cooking area and the space where the men to be fed passed.
First up, Mokrenko saw, was an enormous pile of bread, three pound loaves, he guessed, one half per man. He followed the men ahead of him by sticking his half loaf under his left arm.
Next came a thick stew, ladled into the lower half of his mess tin by an indifferent cook. What it was thickened with, he couldn’t tell. Neither, looking down into his steaming mess tin, could he see any meat in it, though he thought it would at least have some much-missed fat.
There wasn’t any butter for the bread, but as each man got to that point in the line, a German cook took his mess kit and knifed onto it a few tablespoons of what looked to be some kind of fat.
Kaledin sniffed at it, warily. “Smells like… chicken… maybe.”
Seeing the doubtful look on the Russian’s face, the German cook dishing out the Schmaltz beckoned for him to stand closer. The cook then broke off a piece from the bread under Kaledin’s arm. On this he spread a little of the Schmaltz before offering the piece back to the Russian.
Doubtfully, Kaledin took the proffered bread and popped it into his mouth. “It’s not bad, actually, though we’ll probably have to find happiness elsewhere. I’d prefer salo.” That latter was basically pork fat, cooked or raw, sliced or diced, and something of a delicacy to the Russian palate.
“What is it, though?” Panfil asked.
“Chicken fat, I think, purified or rendered. Strong tasting, but one can certainly eat it.”
“We’re all skin and bones,” Mokrenko said. “Anything to put on a little meat and fat would be to the good.”
“Yes, but eat slowly,” Kaledin counseled, “if you don’t want to lose everything you’ll have eaten.”
Unsurprisingly, nary a scrap or crumb of the food was wasted. Men used to long semi-starvation will rarely turn up their noses at the unfamiliar. Outside each mess tent were three more kettles of water, two to wash and rinse out the mess kits, in succession, and one boiling kettle to sterilize them.
Sergeant Major Blagov stood there, a glaring, fearsome presence, inspecting at random to make sure the men cleaned their kits before leaving the area.
“From here, go to the area by the main gate,” Blagov bellowed. “One of the personnel clerks will give you your company area. Go there and wait. From there your companies will take you to equipment issue.”
Kaledin was sent to Strategic Recon, First Company, while Panfil went to the infantry gun section, and Mokrenko likewise to the strategic reconnaissance section of the same company. The clerk also told them where their company billets stood and directed them to report to the company sergeant major, forthwith.
While every man selected by the committees could read and write, few of them had watches. The company first sergeant for First Company, Mayevsky, fiercely mustached, with a patch over one eye, directed them to go to different tents, make themselves at home as best they could, telling them to assemble at noon to go draw personal equipment and uniforms.
At noon First Company formed ranks, in a single mass of just under two hundred and four men, plus the two sergeants major and First Sergeant Mayevsky standing outside the formation. At the latter’s command the company faced right and marched to the issue area.