Like a Mighty Army by David Weber

Author:David Weber [Weber, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Adult
ISBN: 9780765321565
Amazon: 1427235414
Barnesnoble: 1427235414
Goodreads: 17910043
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2014-02-18T06:00:00+00:00

.IX.

Cheryk-Kahrmaik High Road, The South March Lands, Republic of Siddarmark

The rain turned what would have been a miserable night into a wretched one. It was cold, heavy, and persistent, and it showed no sign of abating anytime soon. Nor did Sir Rainos Ahlverez expect it to. He’d grown up in the Duchy of Thorast. In fact, the estate on which he’d been born lay at almost precisely the same latitude as his present soggy position. Unlike the Army of Shiloh’s Desnairian commander, he was thoroughly familiar with the seasonal weather patterns, and this pounding rain had come out of the west which, at this time of year, strongly suggested more rain would follow close upon its heels.

He stood in his tent’s open fly, listening to water beat on its canvas, and tried not to think about how miserable his men must be. Each of his infantrymen had been issued a smallish tarpaulin which could be laced together with the ones issued to the other members of his sixteen-man section. In theory, if all sixteen were combined, they formed a tent large enough for the entire squad, and smaller numbers of men could combine their tarpaulins to provide nominally adequate cover.

In fact, it was often difficult to find something to use as tent poles, and even when that problem failed to present itself, the junction points had a nasty tendency to let wind—or rain—slip through. There were similar arrangements for the cavalry, and each man had also been issued an oilskin poncho, although quite a few had managed to “lose” their ponchos early on in the campaign. Before they realized just how miserable a good, drenching rain could be. Others had arranged to lash them to the sides of their attached supply wagons, usually after presenting a suitable bribe to the drovers. That was a better arrangement, although it still left the minor problem that unless the poncho’s owner realized it was going to rain before the army broke camp in the morning, the wagon—and his poncho—would be out of reach when the rain actually began falling.

Ahlverez knew all of that, and while he possessed in full an aristocrat’s ability to quash any softhearted feelings he might cherish for the men in the ranks—he was a general, not a Pasqualate!—he also knew their present misery would make them less efficient on the march, less effective in combat, and far more susceptible to coughs, colds, and all the other ills to which flesh was heir.

Yet for all their misery, his troops were far better off than the majority of the Duke of Harless’ men. Not all of them, of course. His cavalry regiments and the majority of his officers had both better tentage and an abundance of orderlies, batmen, and servants to tend to their needs. Ahlverez fully realized that he himself was provided with servants whose sole function was to see to his own comfort. He had very few of them, however, and there was a difference between the commander of an entire army and a captain in a cavalry regiment.

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