“So what exactly are we going to be doing?” I asked. I could only assume that it was in his nervousness that the sergeant had forgotten to tell us.
“Bothering the enemy in any way that we can. Stealing or destroying food supplies, freeing horses, spiking cannons if we can get them, you get the idea.” I did and it seemed like far too large of a job for just the three of us, especially under a strange officer. If we had been under our own captain I would have felt slightly more confident about our survival rate.
It was a big job and our sergeant didn't actually seem to know what he was doing, or if he did he was scared to death of it. If the sergeant was scared of us, I couldn't wait to see how he would react to the enemy. Still orders were orders and there was no way that it would be possible to refuse them, and even more impossible to go to the General and ask for a new commanding officer. We were stuck with the one that we had so I had best make the best of it.
We met with the sergeant on the edge of camp the next day. I had been up late the night before making sure that my rifle and sword were in good condition. Most infantry men were restricted to bayonets but like in most other things my regiment was considered a little special. I suspected that we were the only non-officer foot soldiers that had real swords. The only thing that made me look all that different from the officers was the lack of a red sash.
“Find a dead soldier from the other side and get yourselves a uniform,” the sergeant ordered Alice and I. I didn't actually have any problem with that order, it struck me as surprisingly practical from the impression I had received from the sergeant the night before. I had thought that he was going to be the uptight sort but his first order was to rob corpses, my respect for him grew. These were the realisms of wars.
When we were all assembled again, both the sergeant and I had carefully looked the other way as Alice changed, we headed in the direction of the enemy camp. There was the matter of language but we all figured we just wouldn't speak and we would be fine. The only time language would be a problem was if someone tried to give our group an order. Then we would be shot and killed as spies but that seemed unlikely somehow. That was always something that would only happen to someone else, or at least I liked to think so.
The enemy pickets were spread apart far enough that we were able to slip behind the lines, not that anyone was going to stop people in their own uniform. It was well known what happened to spies who were caught, few people tried it. The ones who did never did any real damage so the enemy had grown complacent it seemed, not that we didn't have to use a certain amount of stealth just the same.
Our group had agreed that we were not going to talk once we got into the camp. Nothing would make us more noticeable then if we were to start speaking English in the middle of the camp. The sergeant therefore only gestured to us to follow him as we sneaked towards the mess tent. There was no way that we could sabotage the actually cooking, to many cooks would notice us and stop us if we tried anything funny, but the supply tent was close. Now was where Alice and I earned our pay, I motioned the sergeant to get down and was happy to see that he actually obeyed. Sometimes officers got the wrong idea about the power relationship we had with them.
The sentry in front of the supply tent watched me with boredom as I got close. I had been on food duty once, only once, back before I had joined my new regiment. It had been one of the most mind numbingly dull experiences of my otherwise exciting life. The entire idea was to stop people from stealing the food, and it worked, but that didn't make it any more interesting. Behind him I could see Alice creeping, her knife already out, all I had to do was distract the guard long enough for her to get in place. There couldn't be any noise, if there was we were as good as dead, the best case scenario at that point would be that the sergeant wouldn't be connected with us and would get away. Not a great comfort when it got down to it.
To be continued...
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