General Wellesley's Command III

“99^th regiment huh?” asked Wellesley, looking both of us up and down. I knew the look of old. All you had to do was say the number of our regiment and people connected with the inner workings of the army got curious and uncomfortable. I had to give Wellesley credit; if we made him uncomfortable he hid it well.

“Yes sir,” I said, standing at attention. No matter what regiment you were in you still had to pay your respects to a general. My regiment was relaxed about most things, and lower ranking officers knew to step around us, but a general was a different matter. While he was inspecting us I took the chance to inspect him back. He seemed young for a general, dour, and serious. He looked like he had smiled about twice in his life at most.

“I was told you were coming but I didn’t expect you for another day,” the General said at last, as if this was somehow our fault. Our orders had had nothing in them about when we were supposed to report. I was going to ignore the comment but Alice jumped in.

“Sorry sir, we thought it better to report the moment we were in the area so as not to waste time.”

“Well since you are here I might as well tell you what is expected of you. You are to wait here until your captain arrives and gives you your true mission. Until then you will be under my direct orders, to use you as I see fit. I am told that you are worth ten soldiers each, I have my doubts, but I have no intention of leaving you idle.”

“Yes sir,” both Alice and I said in unison.

“I will be sending your orders with a sergeant as soon as I can. I can lend you each a tent and he will come to you there.” The general called in an aide to lead us to our tents and then we were left to our own devices.

“I wonder if the general will actually know what to do with us, or if he even really understands what we do,” commented Alice, from where she sat on my cot. I was sitting on the floor, a small amount of the gentleman I had once been had prompted me to surrender the only soft place to sit to my female guest.

“He seemed pretty sure of himself,” I said, shrugging.

“Being sure of oneself isn’t a guarantee of actual wisdom,” Alice pointed out.

“I am wondering more about the idea of seeing the captain again,” I said. “How many years has it been? Two or three at least, this must be really big.”

There was the sound of a cleared throat at the flap of my tent. It wasn’t the sound of someone who actually needed to get something from their throat; it was the sound of someone trying to announce his presence. I went and let the extremely nervous sergeant in. He looked around my tent like it might be hiding some sort of dark secrets even though I had only been in possession for an hour.

“Are you here with our orders, sir?” asked Alice, prompting him. As usual she was more merciful then I was. I was enjoying watching the man squirm.

“You are both put under my nominal command, though it is understood that your regiment does things in its own way. I have a lot of experience with the area around here so I am mostly to be your expert advisor,” said the nervous man, still glancing around franticly. I was starting to think it was more of him looking for an escape route more then anything else.

To be continued...