Chapter 22

Considering the size of Sid’s army, and the technology of Chaos, it was amazing that it hadn’t turned into a horde that swept across the countryside in a disorganized manner. For every soldier that saw battle, there were four support people who made it possible for the soldier to fight. Drovers, cooks, butchers, armorers, smiths, carters, and carpenters made up a force far larger than soldiers. Like soldiers, each needed food, water, camp goods, and rest.

A substantial number of wagons were in use. Supplies had to be brought from rear positions to where the men and women of the army were located. The typical supply wagon, with good weather, could manage twenty miles per day. There was a continuous stream of wagon trains moving goods from rear positions to forward positions. Since one could not count on good weather, it was necessary to have seven days worth of supplies within easy access. The entire area occupied by the army was dotted with depots where supplies were cached.

Each wagon required two horses to pull it with a spare pair of horses for every three wagons. Each mounted soldier had a string of three horses that would allow them to ride full time and be ready for battle at a moment’s notice. While each soldier and carter had to care for his own horses, veterinarians and horse handlers were required to assure the continued health of the animals. Each horse needed to have its diet supplemented by grain, thereby adding to the logistics problem.

With an army spread over a front that was nearly two hundred miles across, communications was a major problem. It could take a critical message almost two days to go from one end of the front to the other and that required running horses to the point of exhaustion. More mundane communications required seven days to make the trip. The time required to exchange messages forced each division to operate, more or less independently.

With the number of troops, it was unavoidable that there would be problematic individuals. Rape, murder, theft, and battlefield excesses occasionally occurred. It was often necessary for individual commanders to stand in judgment of someone accused of criminal activity. Trials were short, often less than five minutes in duration, and punishments were severe. With so many of the people former slaves, the one punishment that could bring a camp to the point of riot was whipping. As a result, executions were the common form of punishment for major crimes and hard labor the punishment for minor crimes.

A highly visible trial often set back morale, but that was nothing to three days of bad weather. This was particularly true in forward positions. A long rain turned the ground to mud and left men wet and dirty. Poorly placed tents filled with water leaving men unable to sleep. It seemed impossible to keep hot food hot long enough for a man to enjoy his meal. Even worse, improperly placed latrines often filled with runoff water and human waste ended up floating through camp. Diseases would start to become pandemic.

Considering the size of Sid’s army, it was amazing that it was holding together. While it might be small compared to the forces fielded by ancient Rome, Persia, and Egypt, it had to be remembered that it had taken hundreds of years for those armies to reach their largest sizes. Sid had taken a small cadre of untrained men and built it up to its current size in less than fourteen months. That was the most amazing accomplishment of Sid’s command.

Three days of driving rain followed by an additional two days of constant drizzle was pushing his army to the breaking point. Sid stood at the door of his tent and looked out at the miserable weather. Disgusted, he turned to Fred and said, “This weather is killing us.”

“We’ll survive the weather,” Fred said looking up from his sewing. He was using the time to repair some of his clothes. At the moment, he was sewing up a small tear in his pants.

“The men need a chance to get out of the weather,” Sid said looking in the direction of the guards who were standing out in the rain. They were shivering and looked absolutely miserable.

“Or you need to get them into the weather,” Fred said returning to patching his pants.

“Pardon?” Sid asked surprised by the suggestion.

“Sure. Get the men out to build a couple of buildings. Use some of the canvas to provide roofs. Make sure that you have rough flooring to get them above the water. That would allow them to get out of the rain,” Fred said. He gestured towards the door of the tent and said, “A project like that would get them up and moving rather than concentrating on their miserable situation, and the end result would improve their living conditions.”

“That’s a good idea,” Sid said staring out the door.

“What are you doing standing there?” Fred asked with a grin.

“I’m not looking forward to getting wet,” Sid answered invoking a laugh from Fred. He knew that he was going to have to get out in the weather. Sighing, he reached over and put on his oiled leather poncho.

Stepping out of the tent, Sid headed over to the supply wagons. Once there, it took him a minute to locate an axe. Grabbing one, he turned towards the rows of tents in which wet miserable men were huddled. Striding down the lane between tents, he shouted, “I’m looking for some volunteers.”

Men looked out of their tents at their General. All of them groaned, but a few stepped out to find out what Sid needed. It was a testament to his leadership that the men gathered around him. When he had several dozen men, he shouted, “We’re going to build some temporary structures so that we can get dry. We need a bunch of trees cut down and split lengthwise to form floors. Some of the smaller trees can be used for corners. We’ll cover the tops and two sides with canvas. We’ll set up some clay fire pots to get some warmth in the area.”

The men looked around trying to decide if they really wanted to be out in the rain for the amount of time it would require to accomplish the tasks identified by Sid. Sid didn’t wait for them to make up their minds. A minute later, the sound of a solitary ax biting into a tree carried through the camp. As one, the men turned to watch Sid cutting down a tree.

One of the men complained, “It is damned near impossible to complain about that man. You want to grumble, but you just can’t.”

“You know he’s going to do the entire job by himself if we don’t help.”

“You’ve got that right. He won’t ever say a bad word about those who don’t join in, either,” another man said watching Sid swing the ax. He sighed at the thought of spending hours out in the rain and said, “Okay. Some of you get axes and join our fearless leader in felling trees. We’ll need some ropes to pull the trees out to where we can work on them. Someone is going to have to find the wedges to split the trees.”

“Where do you think he plans on putting the buildings?” one of the men asked looking around the campsite. Sid hadn’t been too forthcoming with instructions.

“I guess someone ought to go ask Connor. He’s in charge of laying out camp,” one of the men answered with a shrug of his shoulders.

In ten minutes the entire camp was a beehive of activity as men left the relative comfort of their wet tents to work in the rain. The cooks roused themselves to prepare hot soup over smoky fires of damp wood. Sid was everywhere giving a helping hand where necessary.

It took six hours, but a row of fifteen buildings appeared out of the rain. The floors were made of rough cut wood that would give a person who wasn’t careful horrible splinters. The roofs sagged with water and required men to occasionally lift the canvas so that the water could run off. The air was smoky from damp wood struggling to burn despite the assistance from ground seep oil taken from the supply wagons.

As horrible as the buildings were, they served their purpose. The men dried out and got warm. Morale rose and the people gathered in the buildings turned to more social activities such as dice, cards, and story telling.

Sid stood next to one of the clay fire pits holding his hands over the fire trying to get warm. He was the last of the men working to construct the buildings to enter the shelter. The men had moved aside respectfully to make room for him. He smiled at the men around him and said, “Well, that was a perfectly miserable afternoon.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this wet,” another man agreed. He had taken his shirt off and hung it over the fire to dry. His hair was plastered to his head and his pants were leaving puddles of water where he stood. His boots squished when he walked.

Another man came over and said, “They’ve set up hot showers in one of the buildings.”

Sid turned and looked at the man in surprise. He definitely hadn’t suggested that. Despite being soaked to the bone, the idea of a hot shower was amazingly seductive. He asked, “Whose idea was that?”

“Your man, Fred, suggested it,” the man answered. He gestured towards one end of the camp and said, “There are men standing in line out in the rain to take a shower.”

“I don’t blame them,” Sid said. He shivered when the draft in the room shifted and drove some of the heat reaching him in another direction.

The men around Sid exchanged glances. As one, they moved in and picked him up. The next thing Sid knew was that he was being carried to the building with the showers. The men waiting in line laughed when his escorts carried him past and into the building. To a man they knew that Sid wouldn’t cut in front of the line despite the fact that it was his right as General.

Sid was set down just inside the building. Like all of the rest of the buildings, it only had two walls. The walls were intended to keep out the rain rather than provide privacy. It was far warmer than the other buildings since it was lined with clay fire pots.

He looked around at what the men had done. Buckets of water were being heated over fires. There were lines on which clothes were hung over the fires to dry. The rough wood floors were covered with canvas so that one could walk on the floor barefoot without ripping the soles of their feet to shreds. There were four shower stalls rigged so that one could pour a bucket of hot water and have it drain in a soft fall. Sid was impressed with the effort the men had put into it.

A woman behind him said, “Well, get out of those wet clothes General. You’re holding up the line.”

Surprised, Sid turned and looked at the woman. She was wearing a short sword and he knew that she could use it. She laughed and said, “You haven’t got anything that I haven’t seen already. Get undressed and I’ll hang your clothes. You get two buckets of water. Use one to soap up and the other rinse off.”

Rather than argue, Sid shed his wet clothes and went over to one of the shower stalls. Another woman filled the shower head with a bucket of hot water. Sid washed with a bar of soap luxuriating in the hot water. A bucket of hot water didn’t last long, but it felt great. He was almost disappointed to have to rinse off. He stepped out and a woman entered to take a shower.