Accidental Merlin

Part 5

Mark thanked the staff sergeant, and then took us to one of the larger tents in the camp. There was another old and grizzled veteran inside. He was even older than the staff sergeant, in his mid-50s grey haired. He was hunched over his desk with a quill in his hand. Mark seemed scared of the man. "Sergeant Bernard, Corporal Mark reporting with the recruits from the Border Creek hamlet." Mark said in a loud and clear voice.

"Stop shouting corporal" he said without looking up. "How many, corporal?"

"uh, 6 men between the ages of 16 and 30, but two of them had 10 years of prior service and were exempted, sergeant" Mark replied, slightly less loudly

"So four new soldiers, names of the exempted." Still without looking up

"Ian and Mathew, from border creek village, sergeant"

The sergeant finally looked up, obviously recognising the names. "Good men, even better soldiers" he nodded with approval and then opened up a new bound book. "Names of the new recruits."

Mark pointed at each of us, and we each said our names to the sergeant

"Isiah"

"Josiah"

"Emris"

We waited for Fred to say his name, about 5 seconds passed, nothing, by this point everyone including the sergeant was looking at Fred. Nothing, the gormless braindead idiot was looking at the tent wall behind the sergeant, a vacant look in his eyes

Mark finally got fed up and walked behind Fred. He smacked him on the back of the head (careful there is already not much there) then said directly into Fred's ear "say your name to the sergeant"

It still took him another 3 seconds to process that "huh, umm, Fred"

The sergeant sighed, shook his head and made a note. He then looked up at us and said "My name is Sergeant Bernard, I am the quartermaster at this camp, I will be letting you BORROW MY equipment, if you return my equipment and I find that it has been damaged in any way, you will answer to me. Is that clear?"

Isiah and Josiah gulped. I didn't care. Fred, Fred was back to looking at the tent walls. Fred, wasn't stupid or mentally challenged, he just didn't pay any attention to anything not farming related. Talk to him about something like weather affecting crop yield and Fred could wax lyrical about the effect that year's rainfall had had on the wheat farming for hours. But talk to him about anything else, he was vacant to the point of driving anyone around him crazy.

The sergeant gave each of us two sets of uniforms, a tent and pack to carry our equipment. He looked at us and said "you will be given your practice weapons tomorrow; you will not get your real weapons until I know that you will be able to look after my weapons"

Mark took us to one of the clear areas around the edge of the camp and told us to put up our tents and settle in. "Be sure to get your rest, tomorrow is going to be the longest day of your lives."

Isiah and I decided to check out the town after putting up our tents and stowing our stuff. Jo followed behind; the town was full of the old Roman buildings. Isiah and I ended up at a pub enjoying drinks with people who were also joining up tomorrow, border creek being one of the villages on the outskirts of Mercia we were one of the last batches of recruits to arrive. Josiah had disappeared into the local whorehouse. Isiah and I got to know some of the new recruits and even some of the veteran soldiers here to instruct us. We spent the evening drinking honey mead, and funnily Ian's beer which I had helped to create. We called it a night pretty early heeding Mark's warning about tomorrow being a very long day.