Bookworld Online: Marsh Man

I came out of the office and saw that Alex, Donna, Gillis, and Gary were there.

“There you are. I was worried that you were going to get in trouble by not coming back this morning.” Donna said.

“I was back long before first bugle.” I said and their eyes went to the piles of papers in my hands.

“What's all that?” Gary asked.

“It's something I need you, First Lieutenant Smith and Staff Sergeant Simms to help me with.” I said and Donna sighed.

“David, are you really going to continue to...” Donna started to say.

“It's the Colonel's idiotic plan to bring a brigade of troops across the marsh.” I said.

Donna and Gillis gasped.

“You're only a private.” Alex said and looked into the office. “You shouldn't have been shown those classified plans, let alone be ordered to work on them.”

“He's going to fix them, since he believes that he is the only expert we have.” The Colonel said, a note of satisfaction in her voice.

“I refused to help when she asked as the princess, so she ordered me to do it as the Colonel.” I said and they all looked surprised.

“COUSIN!” Gillis yelled and had an angry face. “How dare you do that to him!” She spat. “He's been through enough in his life that...”

“Quiet!” The Colonel ordered and Gillis snapped her mouth shut. “I am in command here, Private Gillis. If you don't like how I run things, you can request a transfer.”

Gillis' eyes flashed and she scowled. “You know I can't do that.” She growled out. “Sir.”

The Colonel's eyes flashed back at the insult. “I believe that could be considered insubordination.”

“No, sir.” I said and she shifted her eyes to me. “Saying Ma'am is only an honorific and isn't in the army regulations. Sir is the proper address to a superior officer.”

The Colonel gave me a glare and then schooled her face. “If Private Gillis thinks this situation is so unfair to you, perhaps assigning her to help you will ease her conscience.”

“Ma'am, assigning two unqualified people won't make it any better.” Gary said. “Neither of them know anything about logistics or proper army outfitting.”

“Then I'll take the marsh expert's advice and assign the three of you to it as well.” The Colonel said. “I want this plan fixed and ready to implement in a month.”

Even the secretary gasped this time.

“I told her that she was crazy.” I said.

“That's enough.” The Colonel growled. “Get out of my sight.”

I opened my mouth to tell her to close her eyes and Gillis took my arm.

“Not now.” Gillis whispered and moved me towards the front door. The others followed and we passed the CO as she came in. Her eyes widened at what I had in my arms and she went into her office with the Colonel.

I walked around the building and sat down beside the wall and started to arrange the papers on my lap. The others came with me and saw what I was doing. Gillis sat down right beside me and touched my shoulder with hers.

“We're screwed.” Gary said and sat down on the ground on my other side, without touching me. “There's no way we can implement that plan in a month, let alone fix it first.” He gave me an admiring look. “You sure have some balls to tell her it was idiotic to her face.”

“It's the truth.” I said. “Even if we do fix it, a lot of people are going to die. There's no getting around that.”

“I know.” Gary said and rubbed his face. “The boatbuilder's whole family are making flat bottomed boats as quickly as they can and there's no way they can finish enough of them in a month to take even a third of a brigade.”

“Even if we had enough boats, it will take over three weeks to get there and that's just one trip and only one way.” I said.

“What? Why?” Donna asked. “I thought you could get them to move fast with your magic?”

I chuckled. “I can get one boat to move fast. One. I might be able to tie one or maybe two of them behind mine. Then I can't go as fast because I'll only be controlling the first boat. One sharp turn...”

“...they'll tip or roll over.” Gary finished for me. “There's also not enough space on a boat for three weeks of supplies and also for supplies for when they get there, not if it has to carry troops as well.” He shook his head. “It's not like they can forage in the marsh for eatable food, either.”

“If David trained them...” Donna started to say.

“It took me years to learn what was good to eat and what wasn't.” I said. “Also, I only really know what's safe for me to eat. I have a high tolerance for toxins, remember?”

Donna sighed and nodded.

“Why are we just sitting here, anyway?” Gillis asked.

“I'm listening to the Colonel's conversation with the CO.” I said and the four of them stared at me.

“You're what?” Donna asked.

“She's complaining that this is her last desperate attempt to prove herself to her father.” I said and Gillis caught her breath. “She only has a short window to act, with her older brother forcing her younger brother to push the offensive in the mountains.”

“Oh, no.” Gillis whispered, her voice full of sadness.

“She advised them against it and was ignored. She got word from Sandra about the marsh and jumped at the chance. She rushed out here, scrambled to get enough forces to make an under-strength brigade, and now she's running out of both money and resources.” I repeated.

“By the Son's Light.” Donna said and turned away from us.

“When she spoke out against the war, her funding was cut down to a fraction of what it was. She has...” I paused and listened. “...what's rabble mean?”

“Oh, god.” Gillis said. “She can't really...” She sighed. “It's a mean term for ordinary people of low social standing with bad behavior.”

“It also means an unruly and disorderly crowd.” Alex said and looked at Donna. “You know what that means.”

“They only gave her all of the troublemakers and people that are ostracized by the other soldiers.” Donna said. “I'm sure going to have my work cut out for me when they start showing up.”

“They'll start arriving in two weeks.” I said. “A schooner is dropping off a hundred of them and enough supplies for a month. Most of the rest are coming by smaller boat or by land.”

“The garrison can only hold a thousand people comfortably.” Gary said. “I designed it that way.”

“There's not enough land around to expand, unless you start cutting the trees down and clear out some of the forest nearby.” Alex said.

“You can just claim the rest of the Addams farm.” I suggested. “It's useless anyway.”

Alex, Donna, and Gary gave me pointed stares.

“Do you know what's happened to them since you left?” Gary asked.

“No, and I don't care.” I said. “They deserve whatever hardship they brought upon themselves.”

“David, you can't just...” Donna started to say.

“...what? They sold me when I was a baby. Why should I care about what happens to them?” I asked.

“They are your only family.” Gary said. “You should at least give them a chance to apologize.”

“They've known I was around without the Hag for over a year now and they haven't apologized yet.” I said. “I even went to meet them before I went to basic training and none of them apologized.”

“You did attack them.” Donna said. “Maybe if you apologized first...”

“They would have been dead if I attacked them.” I said and she sighed as she turned her head away. “I have nothing to apologize for and I don't expect an apology from them.” I stood up and held the papers to my chest again. “Gary, I'll need to borrow a workbench for a while. There's no room in my place for all of this and the five of us at the same time.”

“It's just you an me in that big building, so use whatever you want.” Gary said and stood up. “I've been ordered to help, so that's what I'm going to do.”

“The CO and Colonel are talking about me now.” I said. “You can interrupt them with my idea for the garrison expansion by taking the rest of the farm. If you limit it to just barracks, you can get a lot of people in there.”

“That won't work because it won't be attached.” Gary said.

“Why? We just need to extend the walls over the road.”

“That will block off travel to the village and the dock.”

“No, I said over the road, not on it.” I clarified. “We just need to make a bridge from one side to the other.”

Gary looked surprised for a second, then he laughed. “We can even enclose it and add ranged fire ports on the sides to help defend the road!” He pat me on the back and started to walk away. “I'll ask the CO about it right away!”

“Let's go.” I said and walked away from the main building. I led Gillis, Alex, and Donna to the maintenance building at the back of the garrison and Gillis looked around at everything she could see. “We can use this spot over here.”

I motioned to a workbench over by the wall and they followed me over to it. It was perfect for us, because it was out of sight of the front door, unless you came all the way inside and turned around.

“Gillis, run to the PX and grab some tacks for the wall, a stack of paper, several pencils, and measuring instruments and straight rulers.” I handed her a silver coin and told her where the building was.

“I'll be right back!” Gillis said and took off at a jog.

I put the papers down and cleaned off the bench. I had waterproofed the benches in the building and made them smooth a long time ago. I handed the stack of maps and things to Donna and she started sorting them out in priority and Alex helped me divide up the others into the parts of the plans that would need to be handled first. Boy, oh boy, it was a mess.

Gillis came back with a box filled with things. We quickly divided them out and Donna started putting up the maps in the right order. I grabbed a ladder for her to use more of the wall and she thanked me.

“I'll get some chairs.” Gillis said.

“Stools!” I said and she waved as she ran out of the building again.

“Why didn't you tell her that you can make them?” Alex asked. “We're in the maintenance department.”

“She wants to be useful.” I said with a shrug.

Alex and Donna exchanged looks for a second and didn't comment. We waited for Gillis to come back with four tall stools, two carried on each arm. She had an arm through the legs of one and her hand holding the leg of the second one, which meant that she didn't struggle with them at all. She put them down and we sat down to go over everything. We had to familiarize ourselves with the whole thing in order to pick out the glaring errors.

Gary was right, though. Alex picked out a few things I had missed, since he had different knowledge than I did with organizational structure. That meant Donna would be able to pick out the personnel problems better than I could and Gary would be able to pick out the mechanical problems better than me, too. Alex and Donna had filled out several pages with writing and calculations that were different from what was in the plans already.

I wasn't sure what Gillis was going to help us with until she spoke.

“The soldiers are not going to be happy being squeezed into the boats like fish in a barrel.” Gillis said and tapped a finger on the estimated boat load capacity. “That's for a regular flat bottomed boat and not for David's expanded boat.”

“Oh, damn. I completely missed that.” Alex said and looked down at his calculations. “That changes a few things.”

“For me, too.” Donna said. “We can't have them like that for three whole weeks, especially if they have to have a crew to pole the boats along as well.”

“Gillis, what else did you notice?” I asked and she raised her eyebrows at me. “You're a fresh set of eyes. I see what I see, Alex sees what he sees, and Donna sees what she sees. All different parts of a whole.” I explained. “What do you see?”

Gillis was quiet for a second and then she smiled. “I can see how the people are going to react.”

I nodded. “So, don't just sit there looking all regal with your sad face. Give us a hand with all of this garbage your cousin dumped on us.”

Gillis laughed softly. “All right, David. I'll do my best.”

We all got back to work and actually discussed with each other what we were doing.