Upon our return from the Guild Captain Walker after having a short talk with them had all the new recruits that had accompanied Lieutenant Bracton to the Guild shown to their new barracks to settle in.
“Welcome men to the Ebony Hyenas Mercenary Company, your training and that of the rest of the company will begin in earnest in three days at which time I hope to have us recruited up to full strength. You have the rest of today and tomorrow to acclimatise yourself to your new lives as mercenaries, to get to know your new comrades and otherwise settle in.
On the second day, you will be thoroughly assessed to see what you are made of, what you are good at and where you are lacking so that if needed we can provide you with remedial training to bring you up to the standards expected of an Ebony Hyena.
From this moment to the end of your training in over a months time you can at any time quit the company without any foul but if you ever wish to do so after that time you will either owe us three months' service or have to pay the buyout fee. To indicate your intention to do so during training all you have to do is ring the bell currently located in the centre of the trading field.
My hope is of course that none of you do so but if you do I will not think anything less of you. After all, until you prove yourselves worthy in the field of battle I try not to think of you at all. I leave that to others, now the man standing behind me is Sergeant Quant and he will escort you to our barracks where a bed will hopefully be assigned to you, see to that sergeant, you are dismissed ”.
With the new recruits being taken care of for the time being the captain had an hour-long private meeting with the new lieutenant before inviting myself and Lieutenant Berger to join them.
“Alright, you three now that the introductions have been made I must first indicate that unlike I stated earlier I am not all that confident that under normal conditions the company will be up to full strength by the end of the week never mind three days. To do so will involve us having to hire more people without any form of prior military service that I am comfortable with, but needs must. However of the fifty-two places we still have to fill, or possibly more if everyone who is expected to return this season doesn’t, not all of them are for privates.
I assume that you judge all those you temporarily promoted to corporal and sergeant in the squads that we were forced to temporarily merge last season fit to continue at their new rank and Lieutenant Bracton I spoke to the former temporary commander of your new platoon and he thought all the ones he promoted did a fine job. If in the coming days, you think otherwise then please inform me, the rest of you what are your thoughts?”
As he was the senior I let Lieutenant Berger speak first.
“Well, Captain I believe they all settled down into their new roles and can find no reason for them not to continue on in them. That said I have a suspicion or rather a feeling that unlike he indicated when he left Corporal Randal MebDugal may not be returning this season. Hopefully, this proves not to be the case but I felt you should be made aware of the possibility.”
“Well we’ll have to wait and see about that I suppose Berger but for now we’ll not count him out yet. Ryder, what about your platoon?”
“Well, sir while initially I only promote them on the recommendation of Sergeant Tucker I can find no fault with any of them.”
“In that case and provided MebDougal returns we require the services of a further five Corporals and three sergeants. If at all and considering that doing otherwise may not be possible I would like to promote within. Thus I would like you to provide me with your recommendations by this time tomorrow. I will then have a word with them and take it from there. With that out of the way, I would like to discuss with you our training schedule.”
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When the meeting with the captain finally ended two hours later I got together with Sergeant Tucker to determine if anyone in the Platoon could be recommended to the captain for promotion.
“Well, sir to get our Platoon up to full strength we require an extra ten privates, a corporal and a sergeant. As you know of the four corporals in the platoon at the end of last season only Colter Pritvic had been one at the start of the last contract.
We won’t learn until tomorrow or the day after if he is fit enough to return to the company but even if he does, while I think he will make a fine enough sergeant one day that day is not yet today. However, while Corporal Leon Howey is new to his position I feel he would make a far better sergeant today than Pritvic ever will. As for the other two they still need a lot of seasoning in their current roles before we should even consider their further prospects.
That would however mean we need an extra corporal but of all the privates in the platoon I can only think of one of them who would make even a half decent corporal. That would be Kobi Omana sir but to tell you the truth I’m unsure if he would be willing to accept the position. While he would no doubt be up to it I’m not sure he would be of the same opinion but perhaps if you were to suggest otherwise he might come around.
By the way two of the new recruits from earlier were assigned to our platoon. I had a quick talk with them when you were in with the captain, they seem competent though perhaps more suited to defence than attack but give us a month and we should be able to change that.”
“Well at least they have some experience until most that we are likely to recruit his time around, are you sure their no one else I could recommend as corporal material.”
“Unfortunately not sir, we lost a lot of good people that will be sorely missed.”
“In that case, I’ll just recommend the two of them to the captain and hope that he doesn’t end up transferring someone we can’t work with into the Platoon or something even worse, whatever that might be.”
After I finished talking to the sergeant I met first with the other sergeants in the platoon and then the corporals to see what they thought about the promotional prospects of those under them and they were to a man of the same opinion as Tucker. I of course didn’t ask them about their own prospects though I did take the opportunity to question Corporal Howey to see if I find in him the same qualities the others did and I wasn’t disappointed.
Not being as familiar with those under me as I would perhaps have liked, besides Sergeant Tucker that is I could only trust in his judgement and that of the others plus of course resolve to remedy the situation as soon as possible. After all that I wrote up my recommendations to the captain and then delivered it to him.
“Are you sure theirs no one else you’d like to recommend.”
“As Sergeant Tucker said to me earlier unfortunately not sir.”
“In that case let's hope the other Platoons have greater depths to plunder or we might end up with a more lopsided organisation than I would prefer or worse still people not up to the job we place them in.”
With that taken care of, I met with Sergeant Young to ask him how the two new scouts I had sent to him the day before were doing.
“Well I’ll say this, they are passable enough horsemen but it takes more than that to make a good scout. To tell you the truth it might be easier to find good trackers that we could turn into passable horsemen than the opposite”
After that, I arranged for him and me to head to the Guild the following day to try and fill the remaining two scout positions.
Before heading off to bed that night I spent an hour or two with the captain and my fellow lieutenants, welcoming our new addition to the company. Myself and Berger took it as a chance to get to know Lieutenant Bracton and while he was a bit standoffish at first he soon opened up.
My search with Sergeant Young the following morning took longer than we had planned but we were able to find one tracker that could also ride well and another who was more used to draught horses but had at least ridden before.
When we returned to camp I left Young and his two new scouts to their own devices and then sought out Sergeant Tucker for an update on who had returned from their break while I was away and who was still outstanding. Corporal Pritvic hadn’t returned but he had sent a message ahead informing us he would be arriving the following day, which was good news.