Oath Of Iron And Fire

Chapter 8 Night Duty

The fencing lessons at the Army Officer Academy are held twice a week, starting after lunch. The duration of the lessons depends on when the sun sets.

In the summer, it gets dark later, so the swordsmanship class lasts longer. In the winter, it gets dark earlier, so the swordsmanship class lasts shorter. In principle, students are given an hour to eat dinner before dusk.

This led to a problem: the days were long in the summer, and the sun would not set until eight or nine o'clock. After lunch, the students would practice long swords, and it would be very late before they could have dinner. So in the summer, when it came to the last hour of swordsmanship class, everyone was starving.

After returning the training armor in the equipment room, Winters and Ike ran all the way to the school cafeteria with swords and armor in hand, without even having time to change into their regular student uniforms, and began to wolf down their food.

After they finished their meal and took a shower, it was almost eight o'clock when they returned to the student dormitory and the sun was about to set.

Oil lamps were lit in the student dormitories. Winters could see that those students whose homes were not in the United Provinces - that is, those from the Sea Blue Republic, the Highland Republic, the Monta Republic, and the Vane Republic - had already started packing their luggage, preparing to go home tomorrow.

Ike was a native of Guitu City and could walk home, so he was not in a hurry. He took a wash basin and prepared to wash his armor, and saw Winters lying on the bed without moving.

So he slapped Winters hard on the back and reminded him, "Are you going to bed so early? Aren't you going to pack your luggage?"

"It's okay. I can pack it tomorrow. I don't have much stuff anyway." Winters, who was feeling sleepy after a full meal, answered weakly.

Fatigue, pain and sleepiness attacked Winters' heart one after another. He didn't want to move even a finger now. He just wanted to sleep.

"What are you going to do with your armor? Are you not going to wash it? It's all sweaty, and it will go bad tomorrow, right?" Ike looked at the armor thrown in the wooden basin beside Winters' bed and asked with a frown.

Winters weighed the options of "getting up and washing clothes" and "going to sleep" and chose "going to sleep" without any suspense. He buried his face in the pillow and said, "No, throw it away. I won't wear it anymore anyway."

"Didn't you say you would practice sword skills more when you returned to Hailan? But you don't even want the armored suit anymore? Besides, you just throw away this nice set of clothes. Aren't you such a spendthrift?" This mentality of not even giving up clothes just for sleeping made Ike laugh.

But Winters could no longer hear what Ike said. The sound Ike made went in his left ear and out of his right ear. But suddenly, Winters remembered something very important. He remembered that he couldn't sleep yet.

He stood up suddenly, startling Ike and making him take a step back. Winters frowned and said, "I remember that I have to stand guard tonight."

He took a deep breath and uttered a wail from the deepest part of his chest: "Ah..."

"You scared me to death. Don't you just sleep when you're on duty?" Ike looked helpless.

Winters quickly got up and put on his clothes. Ike followed him and asked, "What about your clothes?"

"That can't be helped. I don't have time to wash it. If you want it, I'll give it to you. If you don't want it, I'll give it to whoever wants it. If no one wants it, just throw it away." Winters answered casually while he was busy putting on his pants. Then he grabbed his shirt, put it on while walking, and hurried out of the dormitory.

There are three gates in total at the Army Officers School, and each gate has two shifts a day. Each shift has six people, two from each of the first, second, and third grades.

The Army Officers School has three departments: Cavalry, Infantry and Artillery, and the number of students in each department and grade fluctuates between 55 and 60. So almost every month, each officer cadet has to stand a day shift and a night shift.

Winters trotted all the way to the north gate of the school. The guards on the day post had not left yet, and the first- and second-year students who came to relieve the guard were already waiting in advance.

"Hello, squad leader." The junior students saluted him when they saw him. This was a small tradition in the Army Officer School. Because during the freshmen's training, the second-year students would serve as their deputy squad leaders, and the third-year students would serve as their squad leaders to lead them in training.

Therefore, in military academies, junior students, regardless of whether they know him or not, will call anyone with more bars on his arms than themselves the squad leader.

Winters returned the greeting and hurried into the cadet duty room, where he met another third-year officer who was on night duty tonight. He was a sturdy young man about 1.7 meters tall, with thick shoulders, big hands, a wide mouth and nose, thick eyebrows and big eyes.

In Winters's opinion, all the physical features of the young man showed that he was a gentle, simple and tolerant person. When the young man saw Winters coming, he punched Winters' shoulder with his fist, grinned and showed his upper and lower rows of teeth, and said with a smile: "You are here."

Winters gasped in pain as he touched the bruise left from today's fencing match.

"What's wrong?" The young man didn't understand how a light punch from him could cause Winters to react so strongly.

"I got hit hard on the shoulder during fencing class today, but it's no big deal." Winters said with a smile.

"It was the master who did it, right?" The young man understood immediately and said with a smile.

Ventes came over and grabbed a chair, sat on it, and said proudly: "You didn't see it today, I scored 17 points against Ike, and Ike was so anxious. If I wasn't too tired later, Ike's undefeated record would have been broken by me."

"Is this true? Are you bragging?" The young man was very surprised, because getting seventeen points from a master was only slightly less difficult than beating the master.

"How could I possibly brag? There are so many people watching me in class, you'll know the answer if you just ask," Winters said confidently.

The young man punched Winters' other shoulder and laughed, "Seventeen points! Awesome! Unfortunately, if you win, we will have avenged all the beatings we received from the master for so many years.

At this time, a head popped in from the door. It was a first-year student. The student saluted and said, "Squad leader, the instructor on duty is here."

Winters and the other two hurriedly tidied up their appearance and walked out of the student duty room. The night shift was different from the day shift. The day shift had no patrol missions. Six people worked the whole day, and a group of people worked four hours. They arrived before the shift and could leave after the shift.

But the night shift is more complicated, and there are also patrol tasks. So the night shift duty process is that each group of people stands guard for four hours, patrols for four hours, and sleeps for four hours. This ensures that at the same time there is one group patrolling, one group standing guard, and the remaining group sleeping.

The night shift guards cannot go back to the dormitory to sleep, so two small brick houses were built beside the gate and inside the wall, which serve as the trainee duty room and the instructor duty room respectively for the night shift guards to rest. The guards resting in the duty room can also play the role of "providing support at any time in case of emergencies".

Why is there a teacher's lounge? Because teachers also have to take turns to work the night shift. The school believes that the night shift is complicated and it is not enough to have only cadets. In case of an emergency, an active-duty officer must be present to ensure safety.

In theory, all teachers, from the principal to the lecturer, are obliged to work the night shift. But in reality, only the poor young teachers have to work the night shift. Their common characteristics are: "new recruits, low ranks, living in staff dormitories, and single men."

However, the teachers do not have to stand guard, they can just sleep in the teachers' lounge.

The one who came was a short weapons instructor with a red face and his shirt unbuttoned to the collar. The third one was obviously drunk. The two people who had not left the day shift and the six people on the night shift, a total of eight people, stood in a horizontal line under the leadership of Winters.

Everyone straightened up and stood up. The instructor on duty nodded expressionlessly - people on night shift would never be in a good mood - and picked up the duty roster and began to call the roll.

"Winters Montagne!"

"Here!" Winters replied.

"Gerald's Bud!"

"Here!" answered the sturdy young man who was familiar with Winters. That was his name.

Bud's name is strange because Bud has no last name. Gerald is his hometown, and calling him "Gerald's Bud" is to distinguish him from other people named Bud.

The surnames of this era are the product of pragmatism. Unlike the Chinese of this era who have their "name, surname, clan name, courtesy name and pseudonym" in good order, even the emperors and kings a few hundred years ago did not have "real surnames".

Maybe one day in the future Bud will use Gerald as his last name, but now he is just Bud, and formally he is called Gerald's Bud.

Then the teacher called out the names of the remaining people, dipped the quill pen on his tongue, and ticked the names one by one in the sign-in book.

Then he asked, "Have you ordered the weapon?" Winters was so busy chatting with Bud that he didn't order the weapon at all. But Bud poked him lightly, and Winters understood that Bud had ordered it.

Winters then felt confident and answered loudly: "Six halberds, six muskets, counted correctly."

"Okay, dismiss! Call me if you need anything." The teacher on duty nodded, then went into the teacher's duty room to sleep.

The two junior students who were on the day shift said goodbye and hurried back to the dormitory. Winters and Bud started their last night shift.