Officer Corpse - Wrapture

His job was two fold, and two fold difficult.

Wrapture--Cadet Officer Wrapture to his subordinates who were smart enough to speak--was the mummy in charge of the militia.

It was a simple and yet thankless job, especially in these times.

In times of peace, his work would be easy. Ridiculously so. In the first days after his appointment as officer in charge of the Yu Xiang militia, he'd met with Captain Seventeen and outlined a manual dictating the needs of the militia.

It was to be an armed force of volunteers. Men and women both. They were to be trained and assessed and pushed into positions where they could assist the city. Some of these were military duties, such as manning and guarding the walls and watch towers around the city, but other parts were less militarised.

The militia included the city fire department. There were, at the moment, three private fire-fighting groups within the city, but the militia was meant to step in regardless. They wouldn't be as fast, or as well-equipped, but they were meant to be trained to carry buckets and save people in case of a fire.

There was more, of course. The militia paid its members, had simple but free housing, and included some community outreach. A homeless person wouldn't remain so in Yu Xiang, not when they could be put to work for the good of the city.

The militia was made up of the living and the undead. The undead being... less helpful sorts. Skeletal warriors that weren't good warriors and who were frequently missing some odds and ends. Undead animals that the army had no use for. Ghosts that weren't quite smart enough to serve as spies and scouts.

He had his pick, but only from the detritus pile.

He had imagined that this would be an honourable role, initially. He'd help young men and women find their place and help their community, and he'd put people's minds at ease about the undead by having some provide necessary and helpful services.

None of these things worked out as he'd imagined.

Well, not quite.

One initiative he took on early in his attempts to get something to work did function. Using undead to clean the streets was a clever idea, if he did say so himself, and the people of Yu Xiang appreciated streets with no litter and a twice daily garbage pick-up.

Otherwise, nothing worked.

The problem was that the people of Yu Xiang saw his skeletons and zombies and ghosts, and they saw monsters. They didn't see people. They didn't see his people.

No one volunteered, despite the benefits.

The people who did join his militia were people who weren't given the choice, which really put a strain on the 'Volunteer' part of his volunteer militia.

He had criminals, vagrants, a few rebellious youngsters, and some old retired soldiers who wanted to relive the glory days without doing any of the work.

The criminals he had weren't the hardened sort either. He had people who evaded taxes, a few petty thieves, one man who'd stabbed a neighbour (nonlethally) in a dispute, and a young woman who was a serial public urinator that the city guard had caught one time too many.

In an ideal world, putting all these people to work would help them sort themselves out. The money they earned could go towards buying amenities, and the lessons they learned would help them be productive, tax-paying, non-public urinating civilians.

Instead, it seemed like filling a pair of large bunkhouses full to the brim with lowly criminals had the reverseeffect.

They were encouraging each other. The tax evaders had formed a small clique and spent more time thinking and plotting ways to evade the taxman than actually doing any of the paperwork he had assigned them. The petty thieves kept nicking things out of the armoury. The neighbour-stabber got into a fist fight with another militiaman on his second day, and Wrapture had crossed at least one suspicious puddle so far.

He suspected that not only was he getting the defective undead, he was ending up with all of the defective humans too.

In any case, he had to do something about this. Or rather, do something with this, because there was an army marching on the city and the militia might very well be called upon to act.

So bright and early in the morning he had them all gathered outside. Half of them were late. More than half weren't wearing their uniforms.

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Wrapture almost considered turning around and returning to Captain Seventeen to announce that he was incapable of doing this work after all, but the humiliation of failure weighed too much for him.

He stood there, at the front of the assembly, his arms clasped behind his back, and waited.

And waited.

It was mid-morning before his subordinate officers had managed to assemble the militia and get them all in order. They were finally all in uniform (their uniform being a simple off-white dress shirt with a small sash around the waist over pocketed pants) they had their armour (little more than a cuirass made of thickly padded cloth with some hardened leather that covered the chest and a boiled leather cap) and every member had their weapons in hand (simple short spears with sharpened metal points).

The uniform and gear were utilitarian, simple, and very replaceable. Just like his troops.

He was going to have them practice drills, and then run them through their paces.

It would be simple and easy.

They were the militia. They didn't have to be good.

Just good enough.

It rankled and stung his pride to an impossible degree. He didn't want troops that were barely good enough, he wanted soldiers capable of doing their best.

It wasn't the sort of thing the militia could hope to achieve.

"Soldiers, we will now begin your training," Wrapture said, his voice deep and powerful. He wasn't a loud man, but he'd learned the art of commanding the attention of those around him. "I expect you to take this seriously. This is not a game. Your training may very well be the difference between life and death when the enemy comes."

There was no reply from the assembled troops. They were staring ahead, most of them blank faced. A few were looking around, clearly bored and distracted.

He cleared his throat and repeated himself. "This is not a game, soldiers. You are here to learn and to prepare. Spears up!"

They raised their spears. They weren't all the right way up. Fortunately, his militia was trained enough to know which end was supposed to be up, and so those who'd pointed the wrong end into the sky acted to correct themselves.

Unfortunately, they often did this by twisting their spears around.

He had to put the training to a slight halt when one militia man in the back row almost joined the undead part of the militia.

"Good, soldiers," he said, though he knew it was anything but. "We will now practice marching. Forward march!"

The first two ranks stepped forward, and then the third. Then the fourth. Then the fifth.

By the time the sixth had stepped forward, the first had fallen out of formation, and the others had started to fall apart.

It was a disaster.

He had to have the entire squad march up and down the parade ground five times before they stopped stepping on each other's feet, and another three before they stopped stepping on their own toes.

Once they could march without tripping or stumbling, they began marching in a straight line.

Or, rather, a curved line, as they couldn't quite keep the same distance from the soldier in front of them.

He didn't stop them. If they were marching in a curving line, at least they weren't walking into each other.

He'd give them this: they were trying.

He would try too. That was, he would try very hard to convince Captain Seventeen that the militia could help in the upcoming war in... other ways. Maybe they could dig a trench? It wouldn't be straight, or deep, but it would be a trench. Or they could carry things? Some of them would disappear an item or two, but most of it would get where it was meant to be.

Oh! They could stand still along the wall. Yes. That would work. The least his militia could do was stand still and not look incompetent from afar.

He watched as one of them tripped mid-turn. His spear flicked out, smacking another in the shin, and soon an entire line of militiamen collapsed in an undignified heap.

Wrapture held back the urge to go out there and start strangling some order into his troops.

"Pick yourselves up! We're training until each and every one of you has at least some amount of dignity!"

Maybe they could trade the spears for sticks? The enemy wouldn't be able to tell from afar, and it would be just as impressive looking.

***