Part 1

Chapter 3

The Long Ride to Sargasso

Three Months Ago

The lamp flickered in and out of life as the train car lurched to and fro. Beneath, the hot stench of packed men throttled the air as the soldiers hacked and coughed for breath.

It was cold. Early dawn. The men were recruits from distant parts of Dacia brought together to serve as a single fighting force. It was about less than a division packed in the freight, this train having over several hundred cars and being one of a hundred hurtling from the rear to the front lines. This car was carrying a company of fifty, and the bleak, rolling mass stitting shoulder to shoulder amidst the rotted wood and the rusted bolts shuddered for life within the gloom.

A youngish man in a ratty uniform--the sort of man a bit too loose for his boots--was staring at his neighbor, a bearded man apparently deep into his business. He was reading some sheafs, letters apparently, with frayed edges and blotted ink, and smiling to himself. His bemused expression struck him as singlular amidst the brooding company corralled in the freight. Amidst the pitch and yaw of the rumbling train, the gloom of the dim bulb was playing across his face. Moved by the bleak silence of his station, they youth was eager for talk. He was about to venture on a topic when he was caught by surprise.

"May I help you?" The older man inquired.

The youth was caught off guard. He did not seem put off, he told himself, grinned, and asked, "What are you reading?"

"Letters from home." the older man replied, "I did not have time to bid my friends farewell so I keep letters," he said, bending closer to help the youth see the writing, "fortunately, the Quartermaster was kind enough to keep or letters before departing to the front."

Not quite sure how to continue but eager to speak, he ventured, "do you get many?"

"Oh, plenty. The missus wrote me every week while we were still in drill," he fetched a battered piece of stationary from his pocket and read a passage. Pausing for breath, he explained, "the children are attending school this summer and we're hoping the war's short enough I'd see them in their robes. We were fortunate that the schoolmaster accepted our son's tuition. A washerwoman's income and a soldier's half-pay don't make much for educating the young ones."

Heartened by his new friend's confidence, the young man continued, "your family, what's it like?"

"It's the best family one could ask for. There's my wife, the most lovely woman imaginable and my two sons. They used to visit during drill, you know. She'd fight the patrols when they refused to hand over her presents." The older man was laughing slightly while thumbing his letters.

The bearded man drifted off slightly, staring into the air.

He had thought about home almost every day after he enlisted. It felt like a distant dream. There would be his mother there and a brindle cow. He remembered how every day he would boast to his mother about how he would be a soldier, just like his late father. Then there would be a thousand strictures piled upon him, that there were bad men in the army, not to drink a lick, to always give grace and to know he was the better man--that there was a world for him outside the Army. He didn't want to be a farmer so he enlisted.

He was 18 when he enlisted. His mother cried the day they came for him to send him to the District. Then for a month, it was drills, drills, drills, and more drills and the dirty swaggering Sargeant who beat the life out of those who didn't keep time. It was to be discipline for him rather than the soft bed and the warm fire of home. Everyday, he dreamt the same dream and he dreamt while he was awake. He dreamt that the great sweep and fire written in bloody ink would draw him from his fatigue and prop him on a pedestal. He imagined himself eagle-eyed and commanding leading with great vim the great demonstration and with a sweeping gesture bring his foes to his knees. He didn't dream for a second of the suckling mud or the dirty seargeant and the ratty clothes--always the great horde standing before him.

He was now on a train toward the front, the mobilization order having been given three weeks ago, toward Sagasso and an unknown fate. He had not regretted leaving the Drill Camp. He had not regretted leaving the mud. But rifle on his lap he thought that for a moment as some small recompense that he would one day be part of that great demonstration that he had lost himself to dreams in, that the drudgery and boredom of waiting would find release in some distant engagement.

He had wanted to say this--somehow--when the older man asked him a question.

"What's your name, son?"

"Tercio Salerno, sir, you?"

"I'm Serrault, lieutenant in the Dragoons, at your service." He offered him his hand. "What's your unit, son?"

"I'm from the Dragoons too," replied Tercio, taking it, "they got me in the month before the mobilization."

"Hey, boys," crieid Serrault, addressing the freight, "this here's Salerno, he's new."

They all replied lazily.

The young man was beginning to feel welcome when from the back of the car a man bellowed, "Hey kid, was it you what passed wind? I swear I'll gut you if it was you."

Tercio looked up and saw a pink ogre of a man stare out from underneath a scar. He was sitting at the back between another group of men playing cards. He was leering at Salerno, and glowering with a vicious look when one of the men he was playing with spoke, "Oh yeah? And if it was me, what would you do?"

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"Then I'd gut you! Merde!"

"Don't bully the kid, Oscar." said Serrault "Gods knows you pass wind, too."

"Can you people shut it?" a young man in a shako said, "there's only so much air to go around, your breath's clogging up my nostrils."

"If you didn't drink so much maybe it'd smell better," replied Oscar.

"Quit it, you fool, you'll get into fistcuffs again," his friend said.

"Salerno, that there's Mincio, he's new, too, but he's been with us for a couple."

"A pleasure." Mincio said.

The train was waking up, so to speak, to its own scent with the car bursting all at once into idle chatter. Heartened by the new ambience Salerno began to inquire.

"So, guys, what's the General's plan? Any idea? Were you briefed? Do we get to see the enemy when we land?"

"Careful, kid. Keep asking questions like that and I'd start to think you're a spy." A man on the far end of the car was lounging lazily against the wall, his cap slouched over his head, one arm resting on his stomach, the other rubbing lazily the holster of his pistol. "Causing a public disturbance, asking suspicious questions; so, kid, are you a spy?"

"Very funny, Danilo, don't scare the kid." said Serrault to the man. Turning to Salerno he said, "he's the Captain, and the leader of the Dragoons."

"Can't say that the pleasure's mine but you can have it all the same." said the Captain to Salerno.

The young man replied shakily, "Likewise."

"So, how'd you get into the Dragoons, kid?" Oscar asked, "your mother get you in?"

There were evil grins all around when the Mincio interrupted, "Oscar! Not even your mother would get you in."

Laughter.

"My father was a veteran. The gentleman at the lists asked for my name and made me pick. He said he knew my father and that he'd let me pick so I picked the Cavalry."

"So it was your father that got you in," Serrault said, "I know a couple of Guards who had their uncles get them in. Not very easy."

"So you're special I take it?" the Captain said.

"No, we own a farm. My dad was a lieutenant in the old war."

The Captain leaned in, "Mutineer?"

"My father would have been offended."

There was some scoffing around the group at this while Oscar on the far side was grinning.

"You see this?" pointing to his scar, "I got it from the mutiny. Officer slashed at me right up to my cheek. Said they'd kill me if I wasn't so brave."

"They'd allow you back into the army, even for that?" asked Serrault.

"Conscription, of course," Mincio replied, "Mission command needs all hands and is willing to take dissidents."

"You have this on good knowledge?" said the Captain

"Oh, you bet. The mates in the staff were hobnobbing with us in the mess, said they'd offer a pardon if they enlist."

"Bloody nuisance." Oscar spat.

"Right, and if they didn't offer that to you you'd be hanging from the gallows."

"Enough, enough," the Serrault replied, "did the staff say anything about orders."

"Not a wink. We'd be all guns but they're keeping a tight lip."

"But we'd be meeting the enemy when we land, right? There'd be a battle straight away, right?" Tercio asked.

"Why, kid, you scared?" Oscar asked.

There was a commotion at the back as one of the men took a pile of cigarettes for winning a hand.

"Think he'd run?" One of the men in the back said, barely audible. Tercio kept an eye on them as they've been playing. Oscar was beating them fair. Tercio had waited a bit to see some hand pull out an ace out of his sleeve but there was none forthcoming. He'd lose--he lost frequently--but he never lost his cool, unlike his mates. By the end of the game he had the biggest pile of the four and raked in his winnings "show's over boys." Oscar called out.

"Everyone runs." one of the players said.

"Think he'd shit his pants?"

"Probably." said the other, yawning.

The four shuffled again for another game.

Tercio leaned back. Would he run? Everyone runs. He saw himself stumbling off a hill into the woods bloody and beaten. For a moment he was offended. Real men don't run. They stay in line even with their fists blasted in and he saw himself standing mightily in line pouring volley after volley into the enemy line before charging in with his bayonet. He saw himself ensconcend in light and leading the charge, firearm in hand screaming mightily with no fear or regret into a vague enemy line and then that line would cower and run and he'd stab at them and then be pleased. He didn't imagine it'd take much and swam dreamily into his vision. He was brave. The war was just. They would win.

"So, guys, what do you think the plan is, any guesses?" Tercio mused.

A couple of men looked at each other and laughed, shaking their heads.

"We'll likely be deposited in Sargasso to await further orders," Mincio said.

"More bloody waiting," Oscar interjected.

"I have it on good word that a sizeable Silmerian Army is waiting to invade the Western Gate," Mincio said, "we might see some action very soon."

"Rumors," the Captain interjected.

"The Empire won't do that, they have treaties," Serrault said.

"You know what the Empire would do?" Bellowed Oscar, throwing his hand down. "They'd break them. They'd put them all up and take them all down."

"That's not how it works."

"That's not how Diplomacy works. That's not how it works." some of the men began to mutter.

"Think they'd turn coat?" said the man at the back.

"Probably." said the other.

"Think they'd turn tail?"

The man sneered pointedly.

Mincio began again, "They're saying that the Duke of Montferrat's going to cross the floor. There's an army waiting for us at the end of the trip and we'd all be up in arms, fighting." as he said this, Mincio was rubbing his hands together maliciously.

"You wanna know what the plan is, kid?" Asked the Captain. "Alright. This is how it works. We fight, you obey. You're given an order, you obey. The higher ups will tell us what to do. If you were infantry, you'd be packed into a square, see? And this square is led by a Colonel. You'll hear trumpets, you'll remember your drill and you'll run. You'll run for your life and then you'll stop. You won't know why you stop but you'll stop. And then you'll push. You'll push like your life depended on it and then you'll see the enemy. What you do at that point is your business.

"Now, you're in the Dragoons we answer to the Generalissimo directly since we're his eyes and ears on the front but that don't mean your special. You've picked the meanest, dirtiest of the jobs the General wants us to do. We'll throw pickets, camp at the edge of the enemy's line, and follow them for weeks. You won't get a wink of sleep for days on end. You won't get good food. You remember those boots your ma gave you? You'll run them through and then you'll want some. I don't know how you got here, maybe your ma pulled some strings, maybe she didn't. It ain't hell, but it ain't heaven either and I expect you shut the hell up. We're recon and we fight light. If you don't keep up we'll have to leave you behind and I do not want to be responsible for that. You get it, kid? Welcome to the Cavalry. Now get some rest, you'll need it."