Parno's Gift by N C Reed

Author:N C Reed [Reed, N C]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Creative Texts Publishers, LLC
Published: 2020-07-24T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

-

“Well, Enri?” Parno leaned back in his chair. “How was your afternoon?” The remains of their evening meal sat before them on the small table in Parno's 'office' tent.

“Very informative, milord,” Enri Willard replied. His tone indicated how he viewed said information.

“Let’s have it, then,” Parno leaned forward again, placing his elbows on the table and resting his chin on folded hands.

“The rank and file are very well trained, and well disciplined,” Enri began. “They very honestly are excellent troops, sir. I doubt you will find fault with them or their performance in any way.”

“Their officers?” Parno asked.

“The Company officers I spoke with are sharp, milord, and know their business well,” Enri assured him. “Regimental commanders are equally well suited for their roles. The regiments are not broken into battalions, but rather have a Colonel as commander and a Lieutenant Colonel as second-in-command. There are perhaps three other officers in the command staff, but then it falls to company level commanders. The entire Corps is designed to deploy at the regimental level. While I'm not certain that will be an improvement over our current organization tables, the regimental commanders seem satisfied that it will work. Dory Leman is also happy with it, I should add.” He paused a moment, considering how he wanted to present his next observation.

“The Brigadiers,” he said finally, “are a bit on the angry and arrogant side, I fear, though I am not at all certain what the source of their dissatisfaction might be. I do sense an underlying tension of sorts between them and General Hyde.”

“And the division commanders?” Parno asked. “7th Corps has six full divisions if I remember correctly?”

“They do, sir,” Enri nodded. Each division has ten regiments, nine of which are divided into three brigades. The final regiment consists of support personnel. Two of the division commanders are Major Generals, as is customary. The remaining four are still brigadiers themselves, though no reason for that was made known to me.”

“What did Dory say about it?” Parno inquired.

“That was the situation he found when he arrived at Red Rock,” Enri answered. “The strain was immediately apparent. While it has had an adverse effect on the men's attitudes, it has not impacted their training or overall performance, thus he has remained silent until now. I will say that the two Major Generals commanding divisions are not at all pleased to be effectively outranked by someone who is actually lower in rank than they are. I'm afraid it has placed Dory in a tough spot at times.”

“Your opinion of how Dory has handled that?”

“Excellently, sir,” Enri answered at once. “Professionally might be the better word for it, even. He has taken their lippy attitude in stride and mostly ignored it, concentrating on the assignment you gave him.”

“How do the rank and file view Dory, Enri?” Parno asked, liking what he was hearing so far.

“They respect him very much and have a very high opinion of him,” Enri informed the Marshal. “He learned from you how to make an impression; it seems.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.